Testing a Hypothesis about the Supernatural

[Angrboda]

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

[snip]
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is by definition rationale (from my reasoning listed above). The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

Yet another example of a list of explanatory criterion and how Steve's natural theology arguments fail them, with an important final thought:

Jim then says that Christianity offers a better explanation for things than naturalism does [and offers a list of explanatory virtues].....

To give you an idea of what a list of “explanatory virtues” or “explanatory desiderata” usually looks like when philosophers attempt this form of inference to the best explanation, here’s a list of explanatory virtues I’ve compiled from some of the leading thinkers on the subject from the past half-century: Peter Lipton, Gilbert Harmann, Wesley Salmon, William Lycan, Paul Thagard, and others.

1. Testability: better explanations render specific predictions that can be falsified or corroborated.
   
2. Scope (aka “comprehensiveness” or “consilience”): better explanations explain more types of phenomena.
   
3. Precision: better explanations explain phenomena with greater precision.
   
4. Simplicity: better explanations make use of fewer claims, especially fewer as yet unsupported claims (“lack of ad-hoc-ness”).
   
5. Mechanism: better explanations provide more information about underlying mechanisms.
   
6. Unification: better explanations unify apparently disparate phenomena (also sometimes called “consilience”).
   
7. Predictive novelty: better explanations don’t just “retrodict” what we already know, but predict things we observe only after they are predicted.
   
8. Analogy (aka “fit with background knowledge”): better explanations generally fit with what we already know with some certainty.
   
9. Past explanatory success: better explanations fit within a tradition or trend with past explanatory success (e.g. astronomy, not astrology).
   

Even more surprising than Jim’s odd account of explanationism is the fact that he doesn’t give a single argument as to why Christianity is a better explanation for things, given his criteria, than naturalism!

In the second half of my lecture Why the New Atheists Failed and How to Defeat All Religious Arguments in One Easy Step, I considered a more standard list of explanatory virtues and explained why theism scores so poorly on all of them.

Indeed, theism as an explanation has much in common with what we know to be really bad explanations from pseudoscience and superstition, and almost nothing in common with what we know to be really good explanations from the physical sciences. So why should we think theism is a good explanation like those from science, rather than a really terrible explanation like those from pseudoscience and superstition?

Common Sense Atheism || ‘God Did It’ is a Terrible Explanation

This last sounds like a good rhetorical point, that natural theology arguments are explanations with much more in common with pseudoscience than science, but I don't offhand know whether that is necessarily true.  What do you think?  Does 'Goddidit' resemble the type of pseudo-scientific arguments we hear for astrology, ESP, vibrational healing, and so on, and if so, what specific features does it share in common with them?

[Angrboda]

More food for thought:
"The demarcation between science and pseudoscience is a fuzzy line. Science vs. pseudoscience is a false dichotomy, like religion vs. cult, where there is a spectrum between the two."

Here's a quick and dirty list of some traits of pseudoscience (I believe from Michael Shermer). It seems most attempts to describe pseudoscience focus on empirical claims and the behavior of their defendants, which may make the pseudoscience/goddidit analogy a hard fit. Perhaps it's a question better addressed by appealing to fundamentals regarding the philosophy of science (see Popper comment below).

• Hostility towards scientific criticism
  
• Make a virtue out of ignorance
  
• Reliance upon testimony or anecdotal evidence rather than research
  
• Fundamental principles are often based upon a single case
  
• Claims often promise easy and simplistic solutions to complex problems or questions
  
• Utilize scientific sounding, but ultimately meaningless, language.
  
• Use bold or absolute statements.
  
• Attempt to shift the burden of proof away from themselves
  
• Vague reference to data
  
• Failure to consider all hypotheses

Anatomy of Pseudoscience [For more detail, explanation, and examples, see the original article]

• Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims
  
• Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation
  
• Lack of openness to testing by other experts
  
• Absence of progress
  
• Personalization of issues
  
• Use of misleading language

Derived from: Wikipedia || Pseudoscience

...Popper proposed falsifiability as an important criterion in distinguishing science from pseudoscience.

To demonstrate this point, Popper gave two cases of human behavior and typical explanations from Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler's theories: "that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child." From Freud's perspective, the first man would have suffered from psychological repression, probably originating from an Oedipus complex, whereas the second man had attained sublimation. From Adler's perspective, the first and second man suffered from feelings of inferiority and had to prove himself, which drove him to commit the crime or, in the second case, drove him to rescue the child. Popper was not able to find any counterexamples of human behavior in which the behavior could not be explained in the terms of Adler's or Freud's theory. Popper argued it was that the observation always fitted or confirmed the theory which, rather than being its strength, was actually its weakness.

Wikipedia || Pseudoscience

[Angrboda]

It turns out there's a book on the very subject of whether theism is a good explanation in terms of explanatory virtues: Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion)

It happens to be a rather expensive little book. However, there is a podcast interview of the author for those of us in the cheap seats:

See Common Sense Atheism | Gregory Dawes – Theism and Explanation. (You can find less expensive copies of the text via https://www.bookfinder.com/)

[Mister Agenda]

Randi is a fraud that refuses pay-up. Just ask Sheldrake...

Sheldrake? Seriously? You seriously think he proved psychic powers under controlled conditions?

---

Regardless, I have hundreds of reasons to believe the NT is true. You have no evidence that my beliefs are not true.

If you believed in leprechauns we still couldn't provide evidence that your beliefs are not true. You can believe in all sorts of imaginary things if your bar is other people not being able to provide evidence that they're not real.

[Angrboda]

Regardless, I have hundreds of reasons to believe the NT is true. You have no evidence that my beliefs are not true.

If you believed in leprechauns we still couldn't provide evidence that your beliefs are not true. You can believe in all sorts of imaginary things if your bar is other people not being able to provide evidence that they're not real.

I couldn't help but notice that bit of Steve's in relation to the idea that pseudoscience can often be seen trying to reverse the burden of proof. Unfortunately, if I'm not mistaken, that way leads to logical explosion, and an incoherent worldview.

[SteveII]

The evidence that I believe that supports my belief (another opinion) is below:

[snip]
4. The natural theology arguments:
a. God is the best explanation why anything at all exists.
b. God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.
c. God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
d. God is the best explanation of intentional states of consciousness.
e. God is the best explanation of objective moral values and duties.

Since you cannot 'prove' that any of these are falsely held beliefs, my conclusion (opinion) that God exists is by definition rationale (from my reasoning listed above). The amount of evidence meets my personal threshold for proof that God exists.

Yet another example of a list of explanatory criterion and how Steve's natural theology arguments fail them, with an important final thought:

Jim then says that Christianity offers a better explanation for things than naturalism does [and offers a list of explanatory virtues].....

To give you an idea of what a list of “explanatory virtues” or “explanatory desiderata” usually looks like when philosophers attempt this form of inference to the best explanation, here’s a list of explanatory virtues I’ve compiled from some of the leading thinkers on the subject from the past half-century: Peter Lipton, Gilbert Harmann, Wesley Salmon, William Lycan, Paul Thagard, and others.

1. Testability: better explanations render specific predictions that can be falsified or corroborated.
   
2. Scope (aka “comprehensiveness” or “consilience”): better explanations explain more types of phenomena.
   
3. Precision: better explanations explain phenomena with greater precision.
   
4. Simplicity: better explanations make use of fewer claims, especially fewer as yet unsupported claims (“lack of ad-hoc-ness”).
   
5. Mechanism: better explanations provide more information about underlying mechanisms.
   
6. Unification: better explanations unify apparently disparate phenomena (also sometimes called “consilience”).
   
7. Predictive novelty: better explanations don’t just “retrodict” what we already know, but predict things we observe only after they are predicted.
   
8. Analogy (aka “fit with background knowledge”): better explanations generally fit with what we already know with some certainty.
   
9. Past explanatory success: better explanations fit within a tradition or trend with past explanatory success (e.g. astronomy, not astrology).
   

Even more surprising than Jim’s odd account of explanationism is the fact that he doesn’t give a single argument as to why Christianity is a better explanation for things, given his criteria, than naturalism!

In the second half of my lecture Why the New Atheists Failed and How to Defeat All Religious Arguments in One Easy Step, I considered a more standard list of explanatory virtues and explained why theism scores so poorly on all of them.

Indeed, theism as an explanation has much in common with what we know to be really bad explanations from pseudoscience and superstition, and almost nothing in common with what we know to be really good explanations from the physical sciences. So why should we think theism is a good explanation like those from science, rather than a really terrible explanation like those from pseudoscience and superstition?

Common Sense Atheism || ‘God Did It’ is a Terrible Explanation

This last sounds like a good rhetorical point, that natural theology arguments are explanations with much more in common with pseudoscience than science, but I don't offhand know whether that is necessarily true.  What do you think?  Does 'Goddidit' resemble the type of pseudo-scientific arguments we hear for astrology, ESP, vibrational healing, and so on, and if so, what specific features does it share in common with them?

What are the differences between natural theology arguments and pseudoscience? The arguments are just that: inductive premises usually set in a deductive syllogism. Some of the premises are backed by science, some are backed by reasoning, and some are backed by experiences. Pseudoscience are claims that have actual scientific reasons not to believe them. So it would seem that your "similarities" are that neither natural theology nor pseudoscience are purely scientific--which is correct but of little consequence because as we know, verificationism is all but dead.

---

Regardless, I have hundreds of reasons to believe the NT is true. You have no evidence that my beliefs are not true.

If you believed in leprechauns we still couldn't provide evidence that your beliefs are not true. You can believe in all sorts of imaginary things if your bar is other people not being able to provide evidence that they're not real.

Your analogy is severely lacking. People who believe in leprechauns do not have hundreds of independent reasons for their belief--all of which are available for scrutiny at any time.

[The Grand Nudger]

What are the differences between natural theology arguments and pseudoscience? The arguments are just that: inductive premises usually set in a deductive syllogism. Some of the premises are backed by science, some are backed by reasoning, and some are backed by experiences. Pseudoscience are claims that have actual scientific reasons not to believe them.

Like the notion that a god made mud men with a magic incantation and we can clearly see this in mans nature? Or the idea that all available natural evidence points to a grand fucking wizard?

[Angrboda]

What are the differences between natural theology arguments and pseudoscience? The arguments are just that: inductive premises usually set in a deductive syllogism. Some of the premises are backed by science, some are backed by reasoning, and some are backed by experiences. Pseudoscience are claims that have actual scientific reasons not to believe them. So it would seem that your "similarities" are that neither natural theology nor pseudoscience are purely scientific--which is correct but of little consequence because as we know, verificationism is all but dead.

Since the question was about the qualitative aspects of natural theology arguments as explanations and their similarity and substance on that axis, or lack thereof, you've talked around the question without actually engaging it.

[GUBU]

Randi is a fraud that refuses pay-up. Just ask Sheldrake...

Sheldrake? Seriously? You seriously think he proved psychic powers under controlled conditions?

---

Regardless, I have hundreds of reasons to believe the NT is true. You have no evidence that my beliefs are not true.

If you believed in leprechauns we still couldn't provide evidence that your beliefs are not true. You can believe in all sorts of imaginary things if your bar is other people not being able to provide evidence that they're not real.

It's worse for Steve. There's all sorts of stuff in the bible which proves yhwh's non existence.

[Mister Agenda]

Your analogy is severely lacking. People who believe in leprechauns do not have hundreds of independent reasons for their belief--all of which are available for scrutiny at any time.

Given that the 'hundreds of independent stories' weren't part of the statement of yours I was addressing at the time; my analogy was perfectly apt. And how do you know there aren't hundreds of independent reports of leprechauns?