James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Sunday, June 28, 2009, 08:12 (5626 days ago) @ John Clinch

John Clinch has kindly offered us his critique of James Le Fanu's book Why Us? This made for very interesting reading, and thank you for putting it on the forum. Of course it's dangerous to judge a book by its reviews, but on the assumption that you have not misrepresented Le Fanu's arguments, I have to say that many of the views you express strike a chord with me too, particularly in relation to personal attacks on Darwin and on the so-called evils of "social Darwinism". There are, however, some points in the critique itself which I would like to follow up. - You write that Lefanu "makes the common, and profoundly misguided, error of supposing that because we have yet to explain an aspect of nature, it is unexplainable. He forgets that to base any conclusion on the gaps in our current knowledge is a foolish endeavour, almost certainly doomed to failure." If that is indeed what Le Fanu says, I agree with you. However, there is a kind of doublethink going on here. You have said categorically that you are a monist and a materialist. Monism and materialism together add up to a conclusion, i.e. the only substance is material. As a materialist, you have therefore concluded that the gaps in our current knowledge will eventually be filled by material explanations. What do you base this conclusion on? Is it not an equally common and equally misguided error to assume that one's conclusions will be borne out before the evidence has been provided? (I am not arguing for theism. I am arguing for agnosticism.) - You wrote: "Darwin's incredible insight instils in me a humility and awe by which I feel a profound connection with this fragile world, a feeling bordering on the religious." Dawkins expresses similar sentiments in The God Delusion, and for the first time ever I warmed to him. It is a source of immense irritation when some theists assume that they alone feel a sense of awe and wonderment at the world around us. No matter how life came into existence, one can only gasp in amazement at its richness, its interconnectedness, and its astonishing powers of self-renewal. It's good to find that we have some common ground! - However, you wrote: "The fact that the processes of speciation and abiogenesis are not yet fully understood does not displace evolution as really the basic architecture of our understanding of the living world." I agree that evolution is at least part of the basic architecture, but once again ... if you bear in mind the implications of abiogenesis (the theory that life can spontaneously come into being from non-life) ... you are loading the dice. We know that speciation took place, but we do not know that abiogenesis took place, and to say it is "not yet fully understood" suggests that it is a fact which merely awaits explanation. I suspect that you simply haven't understood the enormity of the coincidence you believe in, and in any case once again you are drawing premature conclusions in the same way as Le Fanu. - On the other hand, your comments on the mysteries of the mind show that you are aware of how difficult it is to link certain phenomena to their material frameworks. In this context, you even go so far as to say that the "hard problem of consciousness" may forever elude our grasp ... although you rightly qualify that by saying "it's way too early to call". The problem for me, both with consciousness and with abiogenesis, is that what you describe as the gaps in our knowledge are at present too profound to justify belief in any theory ... materialistic or otherwise. You do, however, offer an intriguing reference to "a self-organising creative metaphysical principle of the universe", which sits a little oddly with your materialism. And so I'm now going to do something very risky. I'm going to reproduce a magic formula which had pretty disastrous consequences three months ago. - During your previous comeback, you reminded me that you were an agnostic and not an atheist. On March 19, under "Science vs. Religion", I addressed the following to you:
"All beliefs (and many disbeliefs) entail filling in the gaps..., and it's only non-beliefs that leave the gaps open. So if future science fills some in, beliefs/disbeliefs/non-beliefs may have to change. Nothing wrong with that. Agnosticism...isn't something you fight to defend. Its whole essence is that it's open. The gaps for me are the origin and complexities of life and the universe, and the (apparent) inexplicableness of certain human experiences and faculties. Perhaps you will tell us what gaps have led to your own agnosticism..., thereby preventing your commitment to theism or atheism. 
P.S. In your response to David Turell, I see you describe yourself as a materialist and a monist. This suggests an unusual form of agnosticism. Please tell us more." - The result of this magic spell was that you disappeared for three months. I would hate to make you disappear again, but I will risk it. How about an answer?