The Scientific Method Explained and Common Misunderstandings for the Religious and CAM Proponents

Introduction
My aim here is to talk about some popular misconceptions about what science is, what it does, and how to best interpret scientific findings.  First, I will speak in general terms, and finally I will look at how these principles apply to CAM (i.e. complementary and alternative medicine), anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, and pretty much any science denialist position. 

Before continuing, lets get the credibility part out of the way first.  Who dafuq does a philosopher think he is talkin' 'bout wut science is an' sh*t?  Well, without going too far into it, philosophical questions are by definition non-scientific questions.  So, if there are questions we can ask about science itself that can't be resolved scientifically (e.g., "what is science?"), then a philosopher is a least one of the people you'll want to talk to.  

"B.b.bbbb.b..bbut you aren't a scientist!" True.  But do you need to know how to ride a bike to understand how a bike works?  (That's a rhetorical philosophical question doubling as an argument by analogy for anyone keeping track).  Enough yakity yak, lets break this shit down.

Popular Misconception 1:  Science is just like a Religion
No.  No, it isn't.  Science is a method of seeking knowledge.  Science is not a body of facts.  The scientific method is (roughly) (a) postulate a hypothesis to account for a series of observed phenomena (b) perform controlled experiments that try to both confirm and falsify the hypothesis, (c) express, based on the available evidence, the degree of confidence in the hypothesis.  If after many confirmations, as well as rigorous attempts to falsify the hypothesis, the hypothesis still stands, the hypothesis is elevated to theory.  

If however, during the course of experiments and observations there is evidence to suggest a better explanation of the observed phenomena, then the old hypothesis is modified or rejected, and replaced by the new hypothesis.  The important point here is that scientific conclusions are provisional.  If a new batch of repeatable higher quality evidence falsifies the existing hypothesis, it is rejected and replaced/modified.

Consider some of the first giants of science: Boyle, Newton, Bore, Galileo, Darwin, and so on.  I don't think anyone could seriously disagree with the assertion that these guys were doing science.  But guess what? Their theories were all later shown to be wrong to varying degrees.  So what happened?  
Did scientists deny the new higher quality evidence because they wanted to "stick to the facts"?  Maybe this happened with some during the transition period between theories--before all the new evidence was available--but eventually what happened?  They changed their position based on the best available evidence.  

Some people point to this as a weakness of science.  "How we supposed to believe what science says is true if it keeps changing its mind?" they cry, tears streaming down their angelic faces.  But sensitivity to new and better evidence is precisely what makes science such a powerful tool.  If you don't adjust your beliefs to new and better evidence you are in the weak position.

This method of continual change and refutation of scientific hypotheses continues to this very day.  It is known as the self-correcting nature of science and it is at the heart of what science is.  If you follow any science website, podcast, or blog, revisions and rejections  of hypotheses based on new evidence is a large part of what you'll hear about.   Shit, after more than a century of wide acceptance, scientists rejected Newtonian physics!  Let me say that again so it sinks in:  they rejected Newtonian muther f*ckin' physics! Science is not committed to any body of facts (or theory, for that matter).  Now, lets contrast this with religion.

Religion is defined by a more-or-less rigorous adherence to a set of certain truths and/or a world view. These truths are typically not amenable to contradicting evidence.  There are no attempts to falsify the religion's dogmas.  There is no sensitivity to contravening evidence: it is either explicitly denied, ignored, trivialized, or met with charges of blasphemy or conspiracy.  At the heart of religion is a commitment to a set of truths.  This could be no more different than what defines science.  So, no.  Science is nothing like a religion.

Evaluating Evidence (For the Intelligent Lay-Person)
How many times a day do you get some post in your news feed about something curing cancer or ancient Tibetan ear therapy that cures autism?  Your first instinct is probably (hopefully) skepticism.  But then your friend posts a *study* done by real scientists in labcoats that supports the conclusion:  Now, you should believe! 

Aside on Cognitive Biases
Before going any further we need to talk a little bit about cognitive biases.  A cognitive bias is a mental shortcut or heuristic that is evolutionarily hardwired into your brain.  You don't do it consciously and it's hard to stop yourself from doing it.  It's automatic, like flinching when someone throws a ball at you. It takes training an conscious effort to overcome it.

Over the course of evolutionary history, these mental shortcuts led to more survival producing beliefs than non-survival producing beliefs.  That's how we ended up with them.  Unfortunately, the shortcuts don't always get it right.  (Arguably) they work best in the evolutionary conditions under which they were formed.  Maybe sometime in the future, we will evolve new heuristics for evaluating scientific studies posted in a facebook feed, but for now, we're stuck with the tools we've got.

The whole point of this spiel is to alert you to the most dominant cognitive bias: confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when we only look at or only remember the evidence that supports our prior beliefs but ignore or trivialize evidence that contracts our prior belief.   In pointing out the importance of being aware of confirmation bias it has been said, "man isn't the rational animal, he is the rationalizing animal." (multiple attributions)  In other words, rather than looking at all the available evidence, evaluating it, then forming a conclusion, we instead start with a conclusion then pick the evidence and arguments that support it--regardless of quality of evidence.  There is a wealth of literature supporting this.

Anecdotal Evidence Vs Sample Size
Suppose I'd never seen a bird before but I'd decided to become a bird scientist.  The first thing I choose to study is what color birds are.   So, I decide to make some observations.  In my first experiment, I look out my window to my back yard.  I notice a blue-grey bird.  I immediately call you on the phone with my results.  "Hey! You wanna know what color all birds are?"  "Sure" you reply.  "They are blue-grey" I reply confidently.  

Now, given my evidence, how strong is my inference from 1 bird is blue-grey to all birds are blue-grey?  Not very, right?  

Trying to be kind, you explain to me that I really don't have a large enough sample to infer a conclusion about all birds.  "Fine," I reply, in a little bit of a huff.  I'll show you!

I look out my window for a few more hours and I see not 1 but 3 more birds and they are all blue-grey! Ah! My hypothesis in confirmed 3 times!  Every bird I've ever seen is blue-grey.  What more evidence could you need for the conclusion that all birds are blue-grey?  My hypothesis even predicted it! 

So there are a couple of things you might notice.  (1) My sample is probably too small for my conclusion and (2) I've only encountered evidence that confirms my conclusion--a consequence (in this case) of my limited sample size (3) my prediction isn't very "novel". 

Application to CAM, Anti-GMO, Anti-Vaccine Proponents
Often I will encounter studies in my news feed that are purported to be evidence for one of the above anti-science positions.  Just recently, a friend of mine jubilantly sent a pro-CAM study as support for his treatment modality of choice.  Ah ha! look! Scientists wearing lab-coats did a study...now that scientifically proves I'm right!  What my friend failed to consider was that the study supporting his position had only a sample size of 12.  Do you think a sample size of 12 is enough to infer a general claim about the efficacy of a treatment?  

If you're a CAM supporter, consider this.  If I posted a study with a sample size of 12 showing the safety of GMOs or vaccines or some new drug from the world's biggest pharmaceutical company would you be like, "yep, this is some high quality evidence.  I totally recant my position."  (Hint: probably not).

So, what went wrong?  Why is it that for a conclusion that you support, a sample size of 12 "scientifically proves" the efficacy of the treatment while the same sample size doesn't prove anything if it's for a treatment you're ideologically opposed to?  Hint:  Cognitive bias.  

As mentioned in many of my posts (and implied in this one), unless we are very careful, we will inevitably make cognitive errors--we're hard-wired for it.  What's happened is that all we care about is whether something supports or disagrees with our pre-existing position.  We're not interested in evaluating the quality of that evidence.  We've all got mini George Dubya Bush's in us:  We only care about if it's with us or against us.  If it's with us, then it's ipso facto good evidence, if it's against us it's ipso facto bad or invisible evidence.

Bringing it Back to Science
Good science doesn't give a crap about who's right or who's wrong because science isn't committed to any position--it is merely a method of investigation.  Contrast this with CAM proponents.  There is an ideological commitment to a given modality regardless of quality of evidence.  

If you are a proponent of CAM, ask yourself honestly, how much and what kind of evidence would you need to see before you believed that vaccines and conventional medication are safe and effective? If you are truly committed to the method of science, rather than the religion of your favored modality, the answer should be the same for both CAM modalities and conventional...If you do that, now you can science too! 

The Problem of Evil and Replies: Van Inwagen

"If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things

most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should

pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They

have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that

purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it, and many of them seem

to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other

food. If a tenth part of the pains which have been expended in finding

benevolent adaptions in all nature, had been employed in collecting

evidence to blacken the character of the Creator, what scope for comment

would not have been found in the entire existence of the lower animals,

divided, with scarcely an exception, into devourers and devoured, and a

prey to a thousand ills from which they are denied the faculties necessary

for protecting themselves! If we are not obliged to believe the animal

creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need not suppose it to

have been made by a Being of infinite power."


John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and
Dyer, 1875), pp. 58-59

Introduction and Context
Up until now we've looked at arguments for the existence of God (gods?) including the Cosmological Argument and the Argument from Design (Aka Teleological Argument).   If the argument from design is the most intuitively compelling argument for the existence God(s), then the problem of evil is the most intuitively compelling argument against the existence of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic conception of God.

Lets take a look at the argument from evil in its most basic form:
(P1)  There's some seriously evil sh*t that happens in our world.
(P2)  If there is a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect he would not allow such evil to occur.
(C)  But since (P1), it follows (by modus tollens) that there is no God (or at least not one who is omnipotent and morally perfect).

Now lets explain how this argument works.  Think of an evil act.  If you're having trouble, pick up the nearest newspaper.  Now, suppose there is a God that is omnipotent and morally perfect.  Why does the God let this evil act happen?  Here are four possible replies:

Option 1:  He doesn't know.  Ok, but this response is implausible for major evil acts.  Surely, if we can learn about major evil events that occur around the world or in our communities, God can too.  And finally, God is also supposed to be all knowing, so this blocks off this reply.

Option 2:  He knows but was unable to stop it.  This would contradict the attribute of omnipotence. Omnipotence means God can do anything that doesn't entail a logical contradiction.  So, this reply isn't going to work.

Option 3:  He knows but was unwilling to stop it.  This seems to contract moral perfection.  If you had the power to stop a crime without any harm to yourself, but didn't, we'd say your actions were morally lacking--at the very least.

Option 4:  He knows about the evil but is unwilling to stop it because of some reason.  Maybe there is a good reason for which God allows evil to exist.  This is the option most replies to the problem of evil take.

Two Sub-Strategies to Replying to the Problem of Evil
Since option 4 is the only plausible choice which avoids overt contradiction, Van Inwagen begins his argument here.  God allows evil because he has some good reason(s) for allowing it to exist.  How are we going to explain these reasons?

Option A
Now here comes the tricky part...who needs the Quickee Mart?  The tricky part is going to be coming up with those reasons.  I mean, what mere mortal would have the audacity to claim to know the reasons of an omnipotent, infinite, morally perfect being.  And even if he does have the audacity, how could we possibly verify his claim?  History and modern times give us no shortage of people claiming to know the will of God.  On what grounds should we believe one over the other?  

Reply
One common reply is that we can look to the bible.  

Counter-Reply 
There are going to be quite a few problems with this.  First of all, which bible?  The torah? the new testament? the koran?  And each of those has their own version.  On what grounds do we choose between them.

Suppose we know which book, but there is some seriously objectionable stuff in those book, not to mention overt contradictions.  (1) God overtly sanctions genocide, yet forbids us to kill.  (2)  In what is suppose to be the moral guide for mankind, you'd think there'd a condemnation of slavery.  Nope.  Only instructions for how to be a good slave owner or a good slave. (3)  If a woman is raped she is to be either stoned to death or married for 50 pieces of silver to her rapist.  

Reply: 
Yes, there are some bad things in the bible, so we just shouldn't do those things.

Counter-reply:
By what standard are you picking and choosing what we should or should not follow?  If it is what aligns with our modern moral code, then what do we need the bible for? 

Option B
We can avoid the tricky part and abstain from making the claim that we can know God's reasons.  But this creates a problem: if we don't know God's reasons, with what reasons are we going to justify option 4?  That is, if we accept that God has reasons for evil in the world, it's not very satisfying to just throw our hands up (in the air and wave them like we just don't care) and say..."He's got reeeeeally good reasons--trust me! but we can't know those reasons."  This is an argument from faith which does not satisfactorily address the concerns raised in the problem of evil.  The response might work for some people who already believe in God, but it's not going to work with everyone. 

Further Criteria for an Adequate Response
Whichever of these two options are chosen, it is not sufficient to say that evil exists because God is able to bring about some good from the evils.  Recall that God is omnipotent.  If this is true then maybe he could have brought about the good without having the evil.  And allowing the evil when it wasn't necessary would conflict with the notion of God's moral perfection.  For this reason, any logically sufficient defense must show that there was no other logically possible way for God to bring about the greater good that was a consequence of the evil.  

Enter the freewill defense...

The Freewill Defense Version 1.0
Here's the freewill defense in its basic form:

God made the world and it was very good.  An indispensable part of the goodness he chose was the existence of rational beings:  self-aware beings capable of abstract thought and love and having the power of free choice between contemplated alternative courses of action.  This last feature of rational beings, free choice or freewill, is a good.  But even an omnipotent being is unable to control the exercise of free choice, for a choice that was controlled would ipso facto not be free.  In other words, if I have a free choice between x and y, even God cannot ensure that I choose x.  To ask God to give me a free choice between x and y and to see to it that I choose x instead of y is to ask God to bring about the intrinsically impossible; it is like asking him to create a round square, a material body that has no shape, or an invisible object that casts shadows.  Having this power of free choice, some or all humans misuse it and produce a certain amount of evil.  But freewill is a sufficiently great good that its existence outweighs the evils that result from its abuses.

In short, the argument goes something like this:  
(P1)  In order to make the "goodest" possible world, God included in it freewill.  That is, a world without freewill wouldn't be as good as a world without it.
(P2)  Freewill implies that God cannot directly influence what choices we make--that would entail a logical contradiction.  Freewill can only be freewill if it can't be messed with.
(P3)  Some people misuse their freewill and make decisions that cause evil or are evil.  And God can't do a (gosh-darn?) thing about it (i.e., because of (P2)).
(P4)  Even though (P3), the world is still a better place than it would be without freewill (i.e., (P1)).
(C)   Therefore, there is no contraction between evil in the world and God's omnipotence and moral perfection.

Objection 1:  Math
The math of good vs evil in the world we live in doesn't add up.  In our world, the quantity of evil that is a result of freewill is greater than the quantity of good that results from having freewill.  There'd be more good in the world if God just directed us make the right decisions instead of leaving it up to us.

Reply: Objection Assumes Consequentialism w/o argument.  
The objection assumes that what is good is the measure of what is right without providing a supporting argument.  But what is good and what is morally right are two different things.  By having freewill there are more morally right things about the world than morally wrong things. 

Counter Reply:  Ok, fine.  Net goodness and moral rightness are not the same, but the moral math still doesn't work out:  The total amount actions/events that have more wrong-making properties are greater than the total of events/actions that have right-making properties.

At this point the traditional freewill defender has to contract the fact that there's more moral evil than moral good in the world, which might be difficult to defend, especially when you take into account the objection 2.

Objection 2:  Natural Evil
Not all evil is the result of human decisions.  In fact, it could be argued, that a large portion of human suffering is a consequence of natural disasters (Recent tsunamis in Japan and Thailand, Volcanos, Droughts, Hurricane Katrina and others, etc..)  Also, natural disasters seem to strike and adversely affect those that are the worst off.  And it's not only humans that are affected by natural disasters.  It's thousands of animals all capable of suffering.  The given the total amount of needless suffering in the world, the traditional defense starts to look implausible.

Reply 1
The majority of human suffering caused by natural disasters is a consequence of poor exercise of freewill.  Most areas that are prone to natural disasters have been so for centuries.  Maybe God's like, "guys! how many freakin' hurricanes do I have to send through Oklahoma until you understand you shouldn't live there?  And all you fools in California.  Seriously?  You're going to voluntarily live on a major fault line?  How many more earthquakes do I have to make until you figure out not to live there?"

Counter-reply 1a:  Why doesn't God want us to live in Oklahoma?  That just seems kind of petty.  He knows we live there, why keep sending hurricanes and causing death and suffering?  How important could it be that we not live in Oklahoma?

Counter-reply 1b: There is a strong positive correlation between poverty and religiosity.  Also, globally, the poor tend to occupy areas most prone to natural disasters.  How does it make sense that the people that tend to be the most religious are being most affected by natural disasters.  Not only that, but it is the poor who suffer the most in natural disasters.

Counter-reply 1c:  Even if we grant that suffering caused by natural disasters is a consequence of not intelligently using freewill, this still doesn't explain non-human suffering caused by natural disasters.

Reply 2:  God doesn't cause natural disasters.

Counter-reply 2a:  Ok, but he couldn't stop them if he's omnipotent?

Counter-reply 2b:  Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Van Inwagen's Response to the Problem of Evil
Van Inwagen concedes that Freewill Defense Version 1.0 cannot address these objections when we weigh the total amount of evil in the world (man-made + natural disasters) vs the total amount of good. So, how best to respond? 

Van Inwagen formulates the following response:

(P1)  The tale of Genesis is loosely an historical tale.  God guided the course of evolution to create a special group of humans with rationality, abstract thought, and disinterested love. Also freewill.

(P2)*  God gave us freewill because it is the only way to have disinterested love.

(P3)  The first humans lived in some sort of union with God--a harmony of perfect love.  Because of this, we had something like paranormal powers which allowed us to avoid natural disaster, disease, and pretty much anything bad.

(P4)  Somehow this wasn't good enough for our ancestors and some dumbasses went and f*cked sh*t up.  The world became a place of horrors:  Our poor exercise of freewill led to our susceptibility to natural disasters, gruesome wars, random violence, torture, rape, and so on... 

(P5)  God "set in motion a rescue operation" to restore humanity to union with himself.  This rescue operation was to allow so much evil in the world that eventually people will realize what it means to be separated from God.  The only way for humanity to understand how bad it is without being in union with God is to make the world a really really evil place.

(P6)  From (P5) it follows that if God prevented evil, this would interfere with the ability of humanity to realize how much they need to be united in love with God.  And humanity would forever be condemned to a world of evil.  But God doesn't let all evil happen.  In fact he shields us (especially middle class white Americans) from evil.  If he did not "every human society would be on a moral level of Nazi Germany."

(C)   The only way to be unified with God is through disinterested love which requires freewill.  Therefore, God's moral perfection and omnipotence do not conflict with the existence of evil in the world because if there weren't the amount of evil there is in the world, humanity would never be forced recognize how horrible it is to be apart from God.

Needless to say, this response is going to be tough for an agnostic or atheist to accept.  However, supposing there is a God here are a few possible objections. 

Objection 1: Part of Van Iwagen's response is to say that living apart from God entails "being the playthings of chance."  That is, in our current state of affairs evil things happen to people who don't deserve it.  But it seems that this uncoupling of moral merit and reward and punishment runs counter to the idea that God is just.

Reply:  Van Iwagen's reply here will probably be that living in a world with no justice is a consequence of our separation with God:  it's one more evil thing about our world.  

Counter-reply:  Ok, but how is this fair to the devote person who is intent on unifying him/herself with God.  Why should they be randomly punished for the poor behavior of others.  Isn't this a tremendous disincentive to being good?

Objection 2: Doesn't God know how much evil is necessary to bring about reconciliation? By getting the levels wrong, there seems to be a lot of unnecessary suffering going on. Consider all the people that lived and died without reconciliation. Is this because they didn't experience enough evil in their lives? Because if it is the evil that brings about this realization, then God got the level wrong for that generation.

Objection 3 (same counter-reply 1b): Why is it the religious poor who suffer the most? These people are typically the most religious. Also, the regions in the US and in the world where there are the most natural disasters is where the more religious people live.

Objection 4: Is this really the only way? Why doesn't God appear before everyone and say “hey guys, I'm here and you're wrong about no god and you're wrong about what god is...now here's what I want you to do...”  And anytime you turn away from God, He brings a dead puppy to you and says "now look what you've done!"

One last note:  
It's important to point out that if we accept the problem of evil argument, it doesn't follow that there is no God period. What follows is that there is no God as traditionally conceived by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions...Maybe the Greeks had it right after all: the gods aren't perfect either!

Summa Theologica and The Five Ways: Proofs for the Existence of God, The Cosmological Argument

Introduction and Context:
Up until Aquinas in the 13th Century, the church's (where academia existed) doctrine was neo-Platonic.  That is, it followed the philosophy of Plato.  Why does this matter?  Recall that beginning with Plato and Aristotle, a major debate can be traced through the history of philosophy:  Is knowledge accessed internally through a priori introspection or is knowledge arrived at through empirical investigation of the world?

Aquinas is important because he revived the aristotelian tradition.  Prior to Aquinas, the most important Western proofs for God were a priori.  It was thought that to prove the existence of God, all one had to do was to rationally reflect on the concept, and through rational deduction you will arrive at a proof. Aquinas, although not an opponent of these proofs, thought you could also turn to the external world for a proof.

It should be noted that many of these proofs existed in various forms prior to Aquinas and can be found in early Islamic philosophy as well as in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.

The First Three of The Five Ways
The first 3 ways are all versions of what's known as the cosmological argument which I will focus on here:  The cosmological argument is an argument form that moves from empirical facts about the universe to the conclusion that a god/gods exist.  What sets cosmological arguments apart from many other arguments for the existence of a god/gods is that it attempts to draw on empirical evidence: this is in contrast to other argument types that are either a priori proofs (non-empirical) or proofs that rely on appeals to faith.  In the next post, I will discuss the fifth way which is known as the argument from design--but as presented by Paley.  Since the fourth way is generally not considered very important philosophically, we will overlook it.

The strength of the cosmological argument is still discussed in contemporary philosophy religion.  In this post, I will outline the specific argument made in each of the three ways, suggest some objections that are particular to each, then, by looking at Hume and others, I will discuss some objections that apply to all three versions.

The First Way:  The First Mover
This argument is essentially that, since things cannot move themselves, there must be a prime mover.   This argument is interpreted two ways.

Lay Interpretation
Imagine a long line of dominos.  The line cannot go back infinitely.  There has to be a first domino that initiates the first movement that causes the cascade of movement.

Formalized, the lay interpretation goes something like this:
(P1)  Nothing can move itself.
(P2)  Whatever is in motion, must have been put into motion by something else.
(P3)  The chain of causation implied in (P1) cannot go on for infinity.
(C1)  Therefore, there must be a prime mover that starts the initial cascade of events; we call the prime mover "God".

A problem (from a historical point of view) with the lay interpretation is that it ignores the technical meanings of the concept of motion that Aquinas employed.  When we impose our modern everyday use of "motion" onto Aquinas' argument, the argument is very easily defeated.  (P1) and (P2) are false. Animals and humans can put themselves into motion.  (P2) only works for inanimate objects--and even then, given modern theories of fundamental physics--it is dubious.

Also, on this interpretation of movement (as physical movement), there is a further reason that (P1) (and by inference (P2)) is false.  Aquinas was operating within the framework of a pre-Einsteinian model of physics in which movement is a property of objects.  But according to general relativity, movement is not a property of a thing but a relation between an object and an observer.  One of the key insights of Einsteinian physics--contra pre-Einsteinian physics--is that there is no "fixed point" in space in respect to which an object moves.  Since the argument relies on a theoretical notion of movement that is false, the whole argument fails (in this form).

The Historical/Philosophical interpretation
The stronger interpretation of the prime mover argument interprets it using the technical meaning of 'movement' that Aquinas intended.  To understand what this is, we need to make a quick detour into Aristotelian physics and metaphysics.

Detour
By motion Aristotle was referring to changes from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality.  This type of motion applies to animate and inanimate objects alike.  Consider that a lump of clay has the potential to become a clay pot (and a lot of other clay things).  In order for this potential to become actual, something (in this case, a potter) has to act on the lump of clay.  Similarly, for the universe to have moved from a state of high potential energy (pre-big bang) to one of actuality (being the universe we know of), the stuff that was the potential universe had to be acted on in order to become actual.

Another example is that someone can have the potential to be a great musician but things have to happen for that potentiality to be actualized.  And finally, in the case of human beings, the embryo is a potential human being and moves to the actualized state when it becomes a full human.

In sum, the idea of motion that Aquinas is referring to is one of movement from a potential state to an actual state--and not necessarily one of physical movement.  Also, in the argument, actualization is referring specifically to existance; that is, nothing that could potentially exist can come into actual existence without some other thing acting on that thing (in its potential state).  The key idea here is that things do not contain in themselves the power to move from potential existence to actual existence. 

Back to the 1st Way
Ok, so how does this other interpretation change things?  Well, now the argument will now go something like this:

(P1)  Nothing that potentially exists can actualize itself (i.e., move itself from a state of potentiality to actuality).
(P2)  Given (P1), it follows that whatever is actualized must have been actualized by something else.
(P3)  The regressive causal chain of actualization can't go back infinitely.
(C)   Therefore, there must be some thing that was the original actualizer; we know this thing as God.

(Request: can someone make me a T-shirt that says "original actualizer" on it?)

I'll talk about the objections after going through the other 2 ways since most of the same objections apply.

The Second Way:  The First Cause 
Ok, again, to really get a grasp on Aquinas' argument we need to go back to Aristotle.  Central to the second way is the notion of efficient cause.  Efficient cause refers to an external force whose effect is to bring something new into existence or to cause something to change into a new thing.

To make sense of this, lets consider some examples:  the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, the efficient cause(s) of my house is all the trades people who designed and built it, the efficient cause of you is your parents, the efficient cause of the internet is Al Gore, and the efficient cause of christmas gifts is a pack of elves in the north pole...Ok, maybe some of those aren't the best examples, but you get the point.

Formalized, this argument proceeds in a similar way to the first:
(P1)  Everything has an efficient cause.
(P2)  There does not exist any thing that is its own efficient cause.  This would be impossible because in order to bring itself into existence, it would have to exist before it existed.
(P3)  The chain of efficient causes cannot be infinite going back in time.
(C)  In order for there to be a chain of efficient causes and effects, there must have been a first efficient cause.  We call this cause God.

The Third Way:  Possibility and Necessity; Aka The Way of Contingency
To understand this argument we need to familiarize ourselves with the concept of contingency.  In the context of the third way, contingency means that for something that currently exists it's also possible that it might never have existed or that it may cease to exist.  In other words, the thing's existence isn't necessary but contingent.

We can sort of simply the argument like this:  Everything in the universe that exists at some point didn't exist, might not have existed, and could cease to exist.  So, for everything in the universe, their existence isn't necessary...But things do exist! Something had to create those things.  Therefore, in order for those things to exist something whose existence is necessary has to exist.  In short, something had to start the ball rolling...and that thing's existence is necessary.  We call it God.

With this in mind, we can formalize the contingency argument like this (from SEP):

(P1)  A contingent being exists (he's talking about YOU!).
(P2)*  There there must be a cause or explanation for the contingent being's existence. (Aka, the principle of sufficient reason)
(P3)  The cause of or explanation for the contingent being's existence cannot be itself.
(P4)  The cause of or explanation for the contingent being's existence must be either other contingent beings (he's talking about your momma and papa!) or a non-contingent (i.e., necessary) being.
(P5)  Other contingent beings are not a sufficient cause or explanation of another contingent being's existence.
(C1)  Therefore, whatever explains the existence of a contingent being must also include a necessary being (i.e., non-contingent).
(MC)  Therefore, a necessary being exists (such that it cannot not exist).  This is God.

*Quick note on the principle of sufficient reason (PSR).  This is a generally (but non unanimously) agreed upon philosophical principle that for every fact (in this case, "x exists") there must be an intelligible cause or explanation.

Analysis
(P1) is fairly uncontroversial but it's not clear that its truth gets us all the way to the conclusion because just because some things are contingent doesn't mean that everything, including the universe, is.  What some contemporary advocates of this argument suggest instead is that (P1) should refer to the universe; that is, it should say that the existence of the universe is contingent.

This sounds pretty good from the point of view of the contingency argument.  We can ask, why is there a universe rather than no universe?  That we can ask this question seems to support the idea that the universe is contingent (since it's possible that it might not have existed).  But making this premise acceptable is going to require further argument--a simple assertion is not enough.  In reply, someone can simply assert the contrary: that the universe is not contingent.  Since both positions can be seen as arguing from a positions of ignorance, there doesn't seem to be any good reason for which we should accept one position over the other.

There is another problem that arises if we use the universe as the contingent being in (P1).  Recall that the cosmological argument is supposed to be a naturalistic argument; that is, it appeals to the known laws of nature to argue for the existence of God.  But it doesn't seem like there are any natural laws that we could appeal to in order to explain how God created a universe out of nothing.

As far as science is concerned, there are scientific theories that explain what the universe was like about a second before the big bang, but not prior to that.  Any account of what happened before that is going to have to appeal to non-natural (i.e., probably supernatural) explanations.  The problem here is that this defeats the whole purpose of the cosmological argument.

General Objections To All 3 Ways
The main problems are (a) supposing we accept the sub-conclusions (that there must be a first mover/cause/necessary being) it doesn't seem to follow (without further argument) that this thing is a divine entity with divine properties.  Another problem is that (b) it's possible to reject the premise that there can be no infinite regress.  The third problem is that (c) these arguments all seem to be cases of special pleading.  If everything requires a prior cause, why doesn't God need one?  That the "buck" stops at God seems totally arbitrary.  A fourth problem, related to the third, is that (d) instead of saying God is the end of the causal chain, why not just say it's the universe?  Saying that the universe has always existed, in one form or another, seems to many to be just as plausible as saying God always existed then created the universe out of nothing.

Further Objections:
Sample Size of One
This objection is a further elaboration of (d).  If we apply the cosmological argument to the universe, rather than to individuals, several problems arise, in addition to those mentioned in the section on the third way.  Russell and Hume argue that our notion of causation comes from our experience with particular classes of things.  However, there is only one universe, so we cannot apply our notions of causation to things that are a set unto themselves:  we have no prior experiences from which to infer causal laws about universes, only about things in universes.  Because we are in a position of ignorance in terms of whether universes require a cause,  Russell's position is to simply say "the universe is 'just there', and that's all."

A possible reply is that just because we haven't experienced other universes doesn't mean we can't make the inferences that it needs a cause.  The universe is contingent and therefore requires an explanation for its existence or a cause for its existence.

However, the problem here is that the reply only works if we assume the universe is contingent.  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for this supposition.  Also, typically defenders of the "the universe is contingent camp" make this inference from the fact that objects in the universe are contingent.   But this is the fallacy of composition.  Just because the things that make up a whole have a particular property doesn't mean the "whole" has that property.

An example of the fallacy of composition would be: atoms are colorless, cats are made of atoms, therefore, cats are colorless.  So, just because things in the universe are contingent and necessarily caused, it doesn't follow that the universe itself is contingent and necessarily caused.

Necessity and Contingency:  It All Depends on your Point of View
Back in (P2) of the argument from necessity and contingency (the third way), we invoked the principle of sufficient reason to show why there had to be some necessary cause for things with contingent existence. The principle of sufficient reason is that if something is contingent then there must be an explanation of or cause of its existence.  Hume argues that the contingent things are sufficiently explained when we appeal to the fundamental parts that make them up.

Hume's argument is best understood through example.  Consider a table.  The table is made up of atoms.  The fact that we call that collection of atoms "table" is simply a psychological fact about how our mind works.  There's no real thing called "tables",  there are only different configurations of elementary particles, and our minds apply names to certain similar structures.   So, at its base, reality is just collections of fundamental particles.  We don't need to provide causal explanations for each fundamental particle.  They just exist.  So, the table exists because it's made of fundamental particles in a particular arrangement.

Notice how this is kind of like Russell's position except from the opposite point of view.  Russell said the universe just is a brute fact, not contingent, and doesn't require a causal explanation.  Hume's saying that contrary to the "contingent things" version of (P1), the parts of the universe are not contingent.  People are mistaken about what the parts are.  The parts of the universe are not people, tables, and chairs.  The parts of the universe are just fundamental particles and they don't require a causal explanation for their existence.  They just are!

The reply to this is that the principle of sufficient reason still requires an explanation for why the particles are arranged as they are and why they exist rather than don't exist.

A possible counter reply is that energy and the fundamental particles of matter don't require a causal explanation for their existence.  Sure, they change form from one to the other but the total combined amount of each never deviates from the laws of conservation of matter and energy.  Energy and matter transmutate but are never lost or destroyed.  Therefore, matter is contingent in regards to its form but necessary in regards to its existence.  And the contingent argument is all about existence, not about form, so the fact that there is no explanation for the form doesn't matter.

Chalmers' Zombies and The Hornswoggle Problem: Patricia Churchland

Context and Introduction
In this article Patricia Churchland is arguing against David Chalmers' assertion that the physical sciences, including contemporary disciplines like neuroscience, will never be able to explain consciousness.  More specifically, they will never be able to explain the hard problem of consciousness: how and why physical processes give rise to subjective experience.  Otherwise stated, how and why is it that subjective experience arises from physical processes?

We can contrast the hard problem of consciousness with the easy problems of consciousness.  Easy problems of consciousness involve explanations of how cognitive or behavioral functions are performed.  Examples include how our brains merge perception of different attributes (e.g., color and shape) which take place in different parts of the brain into a unified perception and how independent processes in the brain combine to produce coherent (behavioral) responses to perceived events, such as verbal reports.

The easy problems are all questions about how our brains discriminate stimuli, integrate information, produce reports, etc... these problems are all about identifying and explaining physical processes. Since these are all questions about how physical systems work, in principle, neuroscience will advance enough to give an explanation.

 However, none of these explanation give us any answer to how or why conscious experience arises from these processes.  If everything performed by the brain (inputs to outputs) is a closed physical system, why have conscious experience of anything?  To further bring out this problem, lets look at the zombie thought experiment...

Zombie!!!
To illustrate that consciousness might not be necessary for successfully navigating the world, consider the' famous Zombie thought-experiment (pre-dating Chalmers, but famously advocated by him).  Chalmers says that we can conceive of beings just like us in every way except they lack conscious experience.  They live lives just like ours: walking, talking, driving, eating (mostly brains), discussing philosophy of mind, etc..except they don't experience these things consciously.  There is no phenomenal aspect to their lives.  They have no qualia.

Consider motion detection and vision.  It seems loco to think we could decouple motion detection from phenomenal awareness of what we are seeing.  However, there is considerable evidence that we can detect motion without having conscious experience of it!  Crazy, I know, but this might be the case.  This condition is called "blindsight."  There are people who have brain damage in the part of the brain that produces conscious awareness of what we are seeing yet still behave as though they can see!  This seems to show that we could navigate through our world without walking into things without having the phenomenal experience of seeing.  If this sounds too crazy to be true, check out the video:


Start at 6:50 on this one then from the beginning of the second video.

The main point is this:  suppose there are processes/functions that we have which are accompanied by conscious phenomenal experience but that we could perform these same functions just as well without the consciousness (like someone with blindsight).  This means that consciousness is just "tacked on" to the process.  It doesn't help us perform the task any better or worse (maybe even worse, because there's one more thing to go wrong).  

If this is the case, then if we explained the process in physical terms, we'd be left with a "hard problem":  why the crap is consciousness added on to this process?  Also, since we'd know everything there is to know about the process from a physical point of view, there'd be information about the conscious experience of performing that process that'd be left unexplained by our physical account.   Therefore, a purely physical account of the mind is incomplete.

Conclusion
Anyhow, the upshot of Chalmers' position is that since the physical sciences will never be able to give us an answer to the Hard Questions of consciousness, we need to postulate consciousness as a separate fundamental feature of our world, not reducible to physical laws on any level.  Just as electro -magnetic forces can't be explained in terms of other physical laws and principles and and are thus considered fundamental forces of the world, so too should we consider the psychophysical laws and principles of consciousness--fundamental and irreducible.

The Hornswaggle Problem:  Churchland's Response to the Hard Problem
I think Churchland's article is as close to a rant as you can get in published academic writing.  She essentially takes a machine-gun approach to criticizing Charlmers' argument for a distinction between the easy problems and the Hard Problems.  Hold on to your hats, we're going on a critical thinking rampage! 

Conceptualization
Churchland's general approach to opposing the assertion that the is a Hard Problem is to cast doubt on whether this is the right way to conceptualize consciousness.  The idea here is that if you misconceptualize a problem, you will make it seem intractable while, in fact, it may not be.

Consider an analogy.  Medieval doctors, to explain animation, would ask of the heart, "in which part are the animal spirits concocted?". Of course, if you conceptualize animal spirits as being what causes animated life, asking this question about the heart will seem like an intractable problem.   If, however, you ask how much the blood the heart pumps/hour, the problem no longer seems intractable.  The point here is that how we conceptualize a problem has everything to do with how solvable it will appear.

Arbitrary Line-Drawing 
Another attack on the Hard Problem is to ask why it is that the line of what can and cannot be solved through the physical sciences is drawn at the particular place Chalmers suggests--rather than somewhere else.  Consciousness is a difficult problem, but difficult problems are nothing new to the scientific enterprise.  

Why not also include into the Hard Problem the neurological basis for autism and schizophrenia? why we dream when we sleep? how short-term and long-term memory work? how we develop skill acquisition, plan, and make decisions?  Why is the dividing line between the Hard and soft problems drawn exactly where it is?  There doesn't seem to be any good reason for drawing the line in the particular place it is.

The Left-Out Hypothesis
Chalmers argues that even if we were to solve all the easy problems, their answers wouldn't inform the Hard Problem.  But where is the evidence that if we eventually understood all the easy problems that we still wouldn't understand the Hard Problem? (why and how consciousness emerges from those processes).   The left-out hypothesis is why would the solution to the Hard problem be "left-out" from our cumulative understanding of all the easy problems?  Where's the evidence for this hypothesis?  And how many sentences can I end with question marks?

Another implication of the left-out hypothesis is that the Hard Problem frames the issue of consciousness such that current research on consciousness is presumed to fail even before the results are in.  But if we accept the demarkation line suggested by the Hard Problem, we must say, before the research runs its course that this line of research will not contribute anything to the problem of consciousness.  This conclusion runs counter to what the empirical results suggest.  We should be guided by empirical results, not a priori conclusions about what is or is not a solvable possible.  Let the science decide!!!

Furthermore, there is strong evidence in current research suggesting that attention, awareness, and short-term memory are very closely connected consciousness.  Why shouldn't we think that advances in these areas won't contribute valuable understanding to the problem of consciousness?   

Vs The Zombie Thought-Experiment
Recall that the Zombie thought experiment is supposed to show that we can't study consciousness by studying physical stuff:  All (or at least some) of our mental/brain functions can possibly work without the conscious experience, therefore, conscious experience and qualia are simply "tacked on" and are fundamentally different "stuff" from physical "stuff". (see Zombie discussion in the intro of this post)

Anyhow, assuming that we've rejected the left-out hypothesis, the only thing still supporting the Hard/easy distinction is the zombie thought experiment.  Since the zombie shares all of our behaviors and capacities (minus consciousness), using the physical sciences to explain how all these capacities work would not tell us anything about how and why we have conscious experience of these processes (since consciousness adds nothing to our ability to perform them and the contents of subjective consciousness can't be accessed by the physical sciences).

But accepting the conclusion of the zombie thought experiment relies on the possibility of zombies.  Zombies are merely a thought experiment!  It seems redonk to draw conclusions one way or another about the limits of science based on a thought experiment about zombies!

For example, imagine a possible world in which gasses do not get hot even though their constituent molecules are moving very quickly.  Does your ability to imagine this possibility function as an argument against the empirically verified relationship between temperature and mean molecular kinetic energy?  That's just silliness!

Just because we can imagine non-conscious zombies is no argument for the limits of brain science (mmm...brain science!).

Vs Scope of Qualia/Spectrum Argument
The Hard Problem seems to be directed at brain events that are accompanied by qualia.  But there doesn't seem to be any consensus as to which types of capacities or functions are accompanied by qualia and which aren't.  There are of course obvious cases like the pain you experience when you stub your toe or the blue you experience when you look up at the sky...or maybe even the overwhelming pleasure you feel when you know it's time for philosophy 101.

But there are also areas of dispute.  Some people say they have "limb-position" qualia; that is, they have a phenomenal experience of where there limbs are.  Others disagree.  Do we have quali associated with "what it's like" to move our head?  To know which way is up?  Do eye movements have qualia? Maybe some movements do and other's don't?  What about introspective qualia?  Or thoughts?...some seem auditory, others visual, others, like when I do logic problems, don't seem to have any qualia.

When it comes to capacities and functions, is there a continuum for the vividness of qualia that are associated with them?  Does it vary from individual to individual?  Do some have qualia for a capacity and and other's don't have it? All of these issues cast doubt on a clear demarkation line for the Hard Problem--if there is indeed such a problem.  The answer to where to draw the line between the processes that have qualia and those that don't might seem clear when we consider only the prototypical cases of qualia, but these cases represent only a small sub-set of the whole.   

The class processes accompanied by conscious experiences is not as well-defined as we might initially suppose.  To further confuse matters, there are fuzzy boundaries between attention, short-term memory, and awareness.

Are the Easy Problems Really Easy?
The easy problems are yet to be solved, so why should we suppose their solution is easy?  This is pure conjecture.  For example, the nature of motor representation is a mystery:  a signature is recognizable whether it is written with the dominant or non-dominant hand, the foot, or with a pencil strapped to the shoulder.  How can completely different sets of muscles do this when they weren't the muscle groups used to learn the task?

The solution to this problem lacks important--not just minor--details about the concepts of motor control, learning, and information retrieval.  On what grounds do we call it an Easy Problem?

The Danger of Drawing a Line
There is a danger of drawing a line at consciousness based on current ignorance.  If we rope an area off to certain methods of research before really giving it a good try, then we are writing a self-fulfilling prophesy and blocking off what might have been fruitful research.

Argument from Ignorance
The Hard Problem is an argument from ignorance.  That is, the argument moves from a claim that we are currently ignorant about/lack understanding of a phenomenon (consciousness) to the conclusion that the phenomenon will never be understood/explained (using current methods) etc...  Specifically, in the context of the problem of consciousness, Chalmers'  argument goes like this:

(P1)  We do not understand much about consciousness;
Therefore:
(C1)  Consciousness can never be explained;
(C2)  Nothing science could ever discover would deepen our understanding of consciousness;
(C3)  Consciousness can never be explained in terms of physical properties.

But the fact that we know little of a particular phenomenon only tells us that we know little about it! Consider an analogy.  Just because I don't know what a flying object is, it doesn't follow that it's an alien space craft.  I can only conclude that...I don't know what it is!   Not knowing isn't positive evidence for some positive conclusion.  We cannot draw substantive conclusion from our lack of knowledge...especially given that modern brain science is still in its infancy.

If brain science had progressed as far as molecular biology has on the transmission of evolutionary traits, we could make a substantive conclusion, but, again, given the pre-pubescent state of neuroscience, all we can reasonable conclude is, we don't know.

Metaphysical vs Epistemological "Mysteriousness"
The fact that a problem appears mysterious is not a fact about the problem or a fact about the metaphysical nature of the universe.  It is an epistemological and psychological fact about us!  The problem is mysterious to us given the current state of our science.  Perhaps, if the state of our scientific understanding of the brain were different, the problem wouldn't be so mysterious.

The history of science is littered with previously "mysterious" problems.  Consider the problem of life previously known as "the mysterious problem of life".   For millennia the best minds could not grasp how life could emerge from the inanimate matter of cells.  "Surely, the physical sciences can't solve this problem!" they said!  "There must be magical animal spirits...or something."

The mystery of how life emerges from proteins and sugars was a mystery to be sure, but the mystery was not a property of the problem, but a consequence of the epistemological state of the pre-cellular biology world.

The Argument from Personal Incredulity
The other informal fallacy Churchland accuses Chalmers of is the argument from personal incredulity.  It goes like this, "well, I simply cannot imagine how x will be able to explain y."  We've been hearing this argument for centuries in regards to everything from thunder to computers that can learn.  As far as I know, this type of argument has by and large been on the losing end.  I simply can't imagine it being right! ;)

Anyhow, Chalmers' argument seems to--in part--rely on an argument from personal incredulity.  He just cannot fathom how the physical sciences could explain consciousness.  But that's more a reflection of his epistemological state than it is an argument against the possibility of a scientific solution.  Why should we care two hoots about what someone can or cannot imagine when we consider what science may or may not be able to explain?

Again, the history of science give us plenty of examples which were imagined to be too difficult to solve, but ended up having fairly simple solutions, and also examples of problems that were thought easy to solve but turned out to be very difficult.

Summary
In short, Churchland argues that when you're in a position of ignorance concerning scientific matters, and the science is still young, we need to do the science and see how it plays out, not make pronouncements about what can a cannot be solved.