An Ad Essay from Dr. Fred Bauer: #5 Psychology: Confusion?
Dr. Fred Bauer
Issue date: 11/11/09 Section: Viewpoint
The linchpin for those who argue that science has made belief in God obsolete is seeing. When Judge John Jones III of Dover, Pa., handed down his judgement against Intelligent Design, he did so because science bases itself on "empirical, observable and ultimately testable data." Observable data are seen data. Astronomers use telescopes to see. Biologists use microscopes to see. Economists and sociologists who claim the mantle of science do unaided, everyday seeing. This view is often referred to as naive realism.
Previous essays assumed naive realism. They claimed that paper, metal, plastic (but not money), as well as individual persons (but not groups), can be seen. They assumed what astronomers assume who believe they've seen supernovas and what biologists assume who think they can observe finches, barnacles, or DNA. No one has ever observed such physical things, not even telescopes or microscopes.
Einstein, following Kant, who relied on psychological investigations by Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, argued that our views of the external, physical world consist of internal models - pragmatic fictions - based on subjective sensory clues. He called naive realism "a bourgeois illusion." In other words, the essays leading up to this one took the argument against atheism only part way.
To complete the argument, it is necessary to learn the scientific discoveries about seeing (and what is seen) that show why naive realism is a bourgeois illusion. The full details occupy more than three hundred pages in William James on the Stream of Consciousness.
Many of those details can be found in general psychology textbooks. Begin with a specific case of seeing. Astronomers assure us that, approximately 163,000 years ago, a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud exploded, sending light outward in every direction. On the night of February 23, 1987, some of that light finally reached the eyes of Ian Shelton, was focused into two retinal images that triggered afferent nerve impulses that reached his brain, at which point he saw... What?
Previous essays assumed naive realism. They claimed that paper, metal, plastic (but not money), as well as individual persons (but not groups), can be seen. They assumed what astronomers assume who believe they've seen supernovas and what biologists assume who think they can observe finches, barnacles, or DNA. No one has ever observed such physical things, not even telescopes or microscopes.
Einstein, following Kant, who relied on psychological investigations by Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, argued that our views of the external, physical world consist of internal models - pragmatic fictions - based on subjective sensory clues. He called naive realism "a bourgeois illusion." In other words, the essays leading up to this one took the argument against atheism only part way.
To complete the argument, it is necessary to learn the scientific discoveries about seeing (and what is seen) that show why naive realism is a bourgeois illusion. The full details occupy more than three hundred pages in William James on the Stream of Consciousness.
Many of those details can be found in general psychology textbooks. Begin with a specific case of seeing. Astronomers assure us that, approximately 163,000 years ago, a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud exploded, sending light outward in every direction. On the night of February 23, 1987, some of that light finally reached the eyes of Ian Shelton, was focused into two retinal images that triggered afferent nerve impulses that reached his brain, at which point he saw... What?
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Paul Burnett
posted 11/11/09 @ 9:52 PM EST
Judge Jones handed down his judgement against Intelligent Design Creationism in the 2005 Dover Trial based on his observations of the two sides in the controversy. (Continued…)
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