Sárospataki Füzetek 14. (2010)
2010 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Byl, John: Világnézetek háborúja: a keresztyénség és kihívói.
Byl, John Among those scientists who have thought things through deeply, some are forthright enough to admit that their materialism is grounded in faith, rather than evidence. Thus, for example, Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin, a materialist, acknowledges: Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to the understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science - in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in pite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in pite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.18 Lewontin is refreshingly candid about the weaknesses of (materialistic) science. He admits that it is primarily a question of presuppositions. Scientists are not neutral. They do not merely follow the evidence, regardless of where it might lead them. On the contrary, they interpret that evidence in terms of their adopted worldview. Yet, knowing the shortcomings of materialism, why does Lewontin not reconsider his commitment to materialism? If it is primarily a matter of faith, why do materialists not weigh other, more viable options? Why do they cling so tenaciously to materialism? Materialists often retort that, whatever weaknesses materialism may have, it is the best we can do. There is, allegedly, no rational alternative. In truth, however, any alternative is rejected from the start. This is clear from Lewontin when he adds: Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door...To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.19 In a similar vein, philosopher J ohn Searle intimates that some philosophers and scientists deny that our thoughts control our actions because they fear what they see as the only alternative: How is it that so many philosophers and cognitive scientists can say so many things that, to me at least, seem obviously false? ... I believe one of the unstated assumptions behind the current batch of views is that they represent the only scientifically acceptable alternatives to the anti-scientism that went along with traditional dualism, the belief in the immortality of the soul, spiritualism, and so on. Acceptance of the current views is motivated not so much by an independent conviction of their truth as by a terror of what are apparently the 18 Lewontin, Richard C.: “The Dream of the Human Genome”, New York Review of Books XXXIX, 28 May, 1992: 31. 19 Ibid 38 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK
