Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole (7 page)

In fact, not only is McGrath's charge of scientism unwarranted, it is in any case irrelevant. For, suppose we can show that
scientism is false—that there are indeed certain questions science cannot answer. Does it follow that Dawkins's argument fails? Obviously not. Science might still be able to show there's no god. Perhaps Dawkins has.

McGrath then proceeds to attack Dawkins's argument against the god hypothesis, not by identifying any flaw in it, but by simply insisting we can't “prove there is no god.” Now, interestingly, Dawkins himself points out in
The God Delusion
that in McGrath's earlier attack on Dawkins, McGrath's point seemed to boil down to “the undeniable but ignominiously weak point that you cannot disprove the existence of God.”
¹³
Dawkins actually
agrees
that we can't conclusively prove the nonexistence of god, but he points out that that doesn't entail that belief in god is immune to scientific skepticism. For, Dawkins suggests, the god hypothesis has
observable consequences
: “A universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?”
¹⁴
Dawkins maintains that, in response to this question, McGrath previously offered no real answer. It's ironic, then, that in the
Times
article in which McGrath attacks Dawkins, McGrath still offers no answer.

In short,
McGrath entirely fails to engage with Dawkins's argument.
McGrath merely levels at Dawkins the inaccurate and irrelevant charge of scientism, and makes the inaccurate claim that Dawkins is trying conclusively to “prove” there's no God, which Dawkins explicitly is not.

Still, it's worth spending a moment to consider
why
McGrath supposes there can be no conclusive proof or disproof of the existence of god. In his book
The Dawkins Delusion—Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine
, McGrath presents an argument of sorts:

Any given set of observations can be explained by a number of theories. To use the jargon of the philosophy of science: theories are underdetermined by the evidence. The question then
arises: What criterion be used to decide between them, especially when they are “empirically equivalent.” Simplicity? Beauty? The debate rages, unresolved. And its outcome is entirely to be expected: the great questions remain unanswered. There can be no scientific “proof” of ultimate questions. Either we cannot answer them, or we must answer them on grounds other than the sciences.
¹⁵

McGrath's point seems to be that, when it comes to such worldviews as “god exists” and “god does not exist,” the two theories fit the observational evidence. They are, McGrath supposes, “empirically equivalent.” But then neither theory can be proved or disproved by appeals to the evidence.

But is it true that the two theories fit the observational evidence equally well? Actually, as we'll see later in “
But It Fits!” any
theory, no matter how nuts, can be made to “fit”—be
consistent with
—the evidence, given sufficient ingenuity. It doesn't follow that all theories are equally reasonable, or that we can never fairly conclusively settle the question of which among competing theories are true on the basis of observational evidence. In effect, McGrath here just
asserts
that the god question cannot be fairly conclusively settled on the basis of observational evidence. Again, he has no argument at all. But he does have insults. He peppers his responses to Dawkins with numerous ad hominem attacks, variously describing Dawkins's approach as “aggressive,” “embittered,” “fanatical,” and so on.

Say “Ah, but of course this is beyond the ability of science and reason to decide” often enough, and there's a good chance people will start to accept it without even thinking about it. It will become an immunizing “factoid” that can be conveniently wheeled out whenever any rational threat to the credibility of your belief crops up. Perhaps this is why, rather than respond to Dawkins's arguments, McGrath just starts chanting the “Ah, but of course this beyond the ability of reason/science to decide” mantra, recognizing that many readers, even if momentarily
stung by Dawkins into entertaining a serious doubt, can quickly be lulled back to sleep: “Oh, yes, I remember, it's beyond the ability of science … scientism … zzzzz.”

Despite its intellectual trappings, McGrath's response to Dawkins, in essence, has no more substance to it than does that of the commentator who defended his belief in the amazing powers of crystals by insisting, without any justification at all, that the scientific method is far too “narrow” to refute such beliefs.

“YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE”

Let's now turn to a variant of “it's beyond science/reason to decide.” One reason why some suppose science and reason are incapable of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that certain supernatural claims—for example, that fairies or angels or spirit beings exist—are false is that they assume
you can't prove a negative.
Indeed this is widely supposed to be some sort of “law of logic.”

For example, Georgia minister Dr. Nelson L. Price asserts on his website that “one of the laws of logic is that you can't prove a negative.”
¹⁶
If Price is correct and this is indeed a law of logic, then of course it immediately follows that we can't prove that there are no fairies, angels, or spirit beings, or, indeed, that there is no god. We will have established that the nonexistence of God
is
indeed beyond the ability of reason and/or science to establish!

The fact is, however, that this supposed “law of logic” is no such thing. As Steven D. Hales points in his paper “You
Can
Prove a Negative,”
¹⁷
“You can't prove a negative” is a principle of folk logic, not actual logic.

Notice, for a start, that “You cannot prove a negative”
is itself a negative.
So, if it were true, it would itself be unprovable. Notice that
any
claim can be transformed into a negative by a little rephrasing—most obviously, by negating the claim and then negating it again. “I exist” is logically equivalent to “I do not
not
exist,” which is a negative. Yet here is a negative it seems I might
perhaps be able to prove (in the style of Descartes—I think, therefore I do not
not
exist!).

Of course, those who say “You can't prove a negative” will insist that I have misunderstood their point. As Hales notes, when people say, “You can't prove a negative,” what they
really
mean is that you cannot prove that something does
not
exist. If this point were correct, it would apply not just to supernatural beings lying beyond the cosmic veil but also to things that might be supposed to exist on this side of the veil, such as unicorns, Martians, rabbits with twenty heads, and so on. We would not be able to prove the nonexistence of any of these things either.

But
is
the point correct? Is it true that we can never prove that something does not exist? Again, it depends. If John claims there's a unicorn in the tool shed, I can quickly establish he is mistaken by going and taking a look. We could similarly establish there's no Loch Ness monster by draining the loch. But what of the claim that unicorns
once existed?
We can't travel back in time and directly observe all of the past as we can every corner of the tool shed or Loch Ness. Does it follow that we can't prove unicorns never existed?

It depends in part on what you mean by “prove.” The word has a variety of meanings. By saying something is “proved,” I might mean that it is established beyond
all possible
doubt. Or I might mean it has been established beyond
reasonable
doubt (this is the kind of proof required in a court of law). Can we establish beyond reasonable doubt that unicorns have never inhabited the earth? True, the history of our planet has been and gone, so we can no longer directly inspect it. But surely, if unicorns did roam the earth, we would expect to find some evidence of their presence, such as fossils of unicorns or at least of closely related animals from which unicorns might plausibly have evolved. There is none. We also have plenty of evidence that unicorns are a fictional creation, in which case, it's surely reasonable for us to conclude that there never were any unicorns. Indeed, I'd suggest we can prove this beyond
reasonable
doubt.

In response, it might be said “But you can't prove
conclusively
, beyond all
possible
doubt, that unicorns never roamed the earth.” This is undeniably true. However,
this point is not peculiar to negatives.
It can be made about any claim about the unobserved, and thus
any scientific theory at all
, including scientific theories about what
does
exist. We
can
prove beyond reasonable doubt that dinosaurs existed, but not beyond all possible doubt. Despite the mountain of evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth, it's still possible that, say, all those dinosaur fossils are fakes placed there by alien pranksters long ago.

Let's sum up. If “you can't prove a negative” means you can't prove beyond
reasonable
doubt that certain things don't exist, then the claim is just false. We prove the nonexistence of things on a regular basis. If, on the other hand, “you can't prove a negative” means you cannot prove beyond all
possible
doubt that something does not exist, well, that may, arguably, be true. But so what? That point is irrelevant so far as defending beliefs in supernatural entities against the charge that science and/or reason have established beyond
reasonable
doubt that they don't exist.

PLAYING THE MYSTERY CARD IN RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

As we have seen, the evidential problem of evil constitutes one of the best-known and most powerful-looking threats to the rationality of Theism (that's to say, belief in God with a capital “G”). Theists respond in a variety of ways, by, for example, constructing theodicies. However, many Theists acknowledge that, while many such theodicies have been developed, the evidential problem of evil does still appear to constitute a significant problem. How else might they try to deal with it?

One popular response is to appeal to
mystery.
In some mysterious fashion, the suffering we and other creatures experience is all for the best. In some incomprehensible way, this is the kind of
world a good God would create, despite the fact that it contains enormous quantities of horrendous suffering.

Of course, as it stands, this is not terribly convincing. After all, we could deal with evidence against any belief by making a similar move. Suppose you are a juror at a murder trial. You are presented with abundant evidence that the accused is a serial killer—including independent eyewitness testimony, excellent forensic evidence, and so on. It appears to be an open-and-shut case. In response to this wealth of evidence, the defense simply says, “In some mysterious way we can't understand, all this evidence was concocted. The accused is, in fact, innocent.” If that's the best the defense can come up with, it's clearly still reasonable for you to find the accused guilty. In effect, the defense is admitting defeat—acknowledging that the evidence against the accused really is compelling. They're right, of course, that there remains the
possibility
of error—of some sort of elaborate conspiracy to frame the accused—but that possibility exists in every legal case. It doesn't prevent prosecutions establishing guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The philosopher Quentin Smith expresses his frustration with this kind of appeal to mystery:

So how do theists respond to arguments like [the problem of evil]? They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simple answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil.
¹⁸

Smith is surely right to condemn such crude and evasive appeals to mystery. However, it's worth taking a quick detour at this point to consider a rather more sophisticated and, I think, intellectually respectable way in which Theists sometimes appeal to mystery in order to deal with the problem of evil. For example, they also often say something like this:

God, let's not forget, is not only limitlessly benevolent and powerful, but also infinitely intelligent and wise. Just as a toddler cannot be expected to grasp the good reasons why its loving parents sometimes do things that cause the toddler to suffer (e.g., give them immunizing injections) so we should not expect to understand everything a loving God does. God's reasons for allowing suffering are often likely to be beyond our grasp. Yes, we cannot understand why such a being would produce hundreds of millions of years of animal suffering, or bury thousands of children alive, but that does not mean such suffering provides us with good evidence that there is no such God.

The philosopher Stephen Wykstra, for example, suggests that “if we think carefully about the sort of being theism proposes for our belief, it is entirely expectable—given what we know of our cognitive limits—that the goods by virtue of which this Being allows known suffering should very often be beyond our ken.”
¹⁹

Notice that Wykstra is
not
here making an entirely gratuitous and unjustified appeal to mystery, as in Quentin Smith's example. Wykstra's suggestion is that, if there is a God, then we should
expect
there to be many things we cannot understand. In particular, we should
expect
there to exist many evils for which God's reasons remain mysterious. In which case,
the fact that there exist such evils is not good evidence that there's no such God.