This seems like an awfully general argument against interpreting anyone’s words.
Well, I am not saying we should not try to interpret what people say or write. But:
(a) This is hard to do for tone (Poe’s law, principle of charity, etc.)
(b) Meaning is a binary relation between text and interpreter, and isn’t always so simple (author is dead)
(c) Effective communication depends on shared cultural context and gets progressively harder as context gets less and less shared. In the limit, you get “communication is impossible” (a lot of Stanislav Lem stories are about this).
and the relevant documents are few and ambiguous and vague
Why not be charitable, then? From the CC point of view, there is no profit in making falsifiable claims, so they will probably retreat from making them. They don’t want to look stupid, and at any rate, science isn’t their business.
In the limit, you get “communication is impossible”
Sure. But I don’t see any reason to think we’re near the limit in this case. Pius XII was pope and I’m not, true enough. But we’re reasonably close in time (he was born a little less than 100 years before me), from reasonably similar cultures (both Western European), of at least overlapping religious backgrounds (my family was RC and I was a Christian although not an RC for something like 30 years) -- this all seems to me like the sort of situation in which interpretation should be less problematic than usual.
Why not be charitable, then?
I really don’t see that I’m being uncharitable. If you insist that I am and ask why, I suppose the answer is that in cases of conflict I’d rather be accurate than charitable; I see the PoC as (inter alia) a tool for avoiding wrongness that comes from assuming people who disagree with you are evil or stupid. But I’m not (I promise) assuming that either Pius XII or John Paul II were evil or stupid, and my real answer to your question is that I don’t see how I’m failing to be charitable.
there is no profit in making falsifiable claims
There is profit (if we must put it that way) in making correct claims, and if a pope thinks that theological considerations lead to a particular empirical claim then I don’t expect him to refuse to state it on those grounds. (It seems to me that expecting otherwise is the less charitable position.) And there is profit (again, if we must put it that way) in making claims that sound confident and informative rather than vague.
But, as it happens, I am not (I think) claiming that the RCC’s official documents make a falsifiable claim that is incompatible with naturalistic evolution. I am claiming that the position they state is deliberately less specific than naturalistic evolution; in particular, you will search in vain for any statement that evolution proceeds as if there were no god guiding it. Or that it probably does. Or, I think, even that it might do. And that the official documents give the impression (to me, at least) that their authors think it probably doesn’t.
I repeat that none of that seems to me uncharitable. I am saying that the RCC has declined to make official statements that would likely be interpreted as endorsements of godlessness and as incompatible with their past positions, and that the RCC’s position on aspects of evolution that are hard to get clear empirical evidence about is probably shaped by the religious doctrines that it endorses. All of which is as it should be, conditional on its being the sort of organization it is.
The closest you can get to an “official” statement on that would be in the document of the International Theological Commission “Communion and Stewerdship”. That is not technically considered a teaching document but it had to be approved by Ratzinger as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which at least means that he considered it acceptable.
Here is #69:
The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles....It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
Notice what they are saying: “An unguided evolutionary process” cannot exist because nothing is unguided (according to the understanding of providence.) But this means that a falling rock is also not unguided, in that sense. So being “guided” in this sense is empirically indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution.
So they are recognizing pretty explicitly that the process of evolution might be indistinguishable from completely naturalistic evolution. And I suspect they are aware that it probably is, even if they didn’t make this particular statement, probably because they wish that it weren’t, and consequently don’t object if people believe that it isn’t.
You are failing to be charitable when you use fnords like “grudgingly.” It’s not emotionally neutral language, it conjures in the mind stupid old men blocking scientific progress for silly reasons, and getting Galileo in trouble, etc., being dragged forward, kicking and screaming by our side, the hero scientists.
The CC is not playing that game. They are not very interested in empirical falsifiabilty, and I think when you say:
There is profit (if we must put it that way) in making correct claims, and if a pope thinks that theological considerations
lead to a particular empirical claim then I don’t expect him to refuse to state it on those grounds. [...] And there is profit
(again, if we must put it that way) in making claims that sound confident and informative rather than vague.
you are misreading their culture. The CC has long ago evolved away from their doctrine getting them in trouble with science. Science will always beat them in a debate about falsifiable claims, and losing will make them lose prestige. This is what I mean by “profit.” The easiest thing for the CC to do is massage doctrine to make this not happen. This is precisely what had happened.
“Confident and informative” is language culture, and involves tone. How do we read confidence in text? What is informative in text? it’s all based on allusions and references in the end. Would you find my papers informative? Probably not, because you don’t share mathematical background with me. Do you share enough theological background with the Pope to peer review the Pope?
You are failing to be charitable [...] It’s not emotionally neutral language, it conjures in the mind stupid old men [...]
Have you noticed that you are doing to me exactly what you accuse me of doing to the Popes P12 and JP2?
I did not (so far as I can tell by introspection) write “grudgingly” in order to make people think of popes as stupid old men, or to summon up the spectre of the RCC blocking science for silly reasons, or to call Galileo to mind. I wrote it because CCC was saying that the RCC’s official position on evolution is indistinguishable from that of naturalistic scientists, and I don’t think it is, and the fact that the RCC’s official documents talk about evolution as they do is one reason why I think so.
The easiest thing for the CC to do is massage doctrine to make this [sc. having doctrine found incompatible with findings of science] not happen.
I have to ask: Did you read what I wrote above, explaining that I am not claiming that the RCC’s position on evolution makes empirical claims incompatible with the findings of science? Because you appear to me to be writing exactly as if I hadn’t written that.
Would you find my papers informative? Probably not, because you don’t share mathematical background with me.
I wonder on what basis you say that. (I work in industry as a mathematician; I have a PhD in pure mathematics from a top-rank university; reading mathematical papers that don’t lie right within one’s own areas of special expertise is hard work, but yes, I would expect to find your papers informative.)
Do you share enough theological background with the Pope to peer review the Pope?
I’m not attempting to peer review the Pope. But yes, I think I am sufficiently familiar with Christian thinking generally and RC thinking in particular to distinguish grudging from enthusiastic acceptance of an idea in a papal encyclical.
I am puzzled by what is happening in this thread. You are normally an outstandingly intelligent and sensible fellow, but here you have
adopted what seems to me an exceptionally combative approach
apparently failed to read what I wrote (not, I think, too obscurely)
accused me of a particular kind of uncharitable reading while simultaneously applying exactly that kind of uncharity to me
confidently stated things about me (“you don’t share mathematical background”) for which you have no good evidence, and which are in fact probably false
and I’m wondering what’s going on to make you (as it seems to me) behave in so uncharacteristic a manner. May I ask you to consider carefully whether there is anything that might possibly be pushing you to be more adversarial than usual? (I’d ask: are you in fact Catholic? but am fairly sure the answer to that one is no.)
I am not Catholic. I find LW attitudes about religion (and certain other things) kind of annoying, though, if you want to try to reverse engineer where I am coming from.
reading mathematical papers that don’t lie right within one’s own areas of special expertise is hard work
That’s mostly what I meant, I am not trying to pull math rank (I don’t think there is such a thing as math rank), merely that informativeness is a function of shared context. I am pretty happy to double down on “we don’t share math background.” I don’t study much pure math, I doubt you study causal inference. I could study pure math, and you could study causal inference, but that’s not the same thing.
I wrote it because CCC was saying that the RCC’s official position on evolution is indistinguishable from that of
naturalistic scientists, and I don’t think it is
explaining that I am not claiming that the RCC’s position on evolution makes empirical claims incompatible
with the findings of science
Sorry, getting lost. You think RCC does make empirically distinguishable claims or not? If the former, we have a factual disagreement. If the latter, I still think it is uncharitable to inject tone reading.
while simultaneously applying exactly that kind of uncharity to me
I think it is bad practice to read tone. First of all, it’s easy to be wrong, and second of all, it just increases room for misinterpretation of your own text.
Your word grudging conjured these things in my mind. Now you could say nothing could be further from the truth as far as your intentions were concerned. But that’s the thing with texts and authors. How texts come across to others (independently of what the author wanted) matter, and this is why I think injecting tone reading is so dangerous, and why academic papers are generally written in an emotionally neutral tone (to avoid these types of issues).
I favor bilateral disarmament as far as tone in texts (this is probably utopian thinking on my part, as humans are all about status and social dominance when it comes to communication, and playing with tone is a big part of this, and further it is really hard to coordinate to not do that).
I am pretty happy to double down on “we don’t share math background”
OK, fair enough. Maybe I have too optimistic a view of how deeply I need to understand something for it to be informative to me. Would you like to point me at one of your more interesting papers so we can try the experiment? :-)
Sorry, getting lost.
I think
the RCC surely does sometimes make empirically distinguishable claims, but
I am not claiming in this discussion that it does; rather
I am saying that its position on evolution differs from that of someone who accepts a naturalistic account of evolution, because
such a person would endorse propositions that the RCC conspicuously avoids endorsing
such as “evolution proceeds in a manner that shows no sign of divine intervention or guidance”.
I think it is bad practice to read tone. [...] Your word grudging conjured these things in my mind.
Yeah, but you demonstrably weren’t only talking about your mind; otherwise you wouldn’t have said ‘You are failing to be charitable when you use fnord words like “grudgingly”’. (And, y’know, you could have said “it conjures in my mind …” rather than “it conjures in the mind”, if you were really only intending to say what effect those words have on you. But you weren’t, really, were you?)
I favor bilateral disarmament as far as tone in texts
Pardon me if I am being dim, but are you now saying that you engaged in uncharitable misreading of the tone of my writing in retaliation for my allegedly doing likewise to two popes? If not, what exactly is your point about “bilateral disarmament”? (It can’t be that you did it to me because I did it to you first, because I’m pretty sure I made no comment on your tone until the grandparent of this comment, which came after your accusations against me.)
you demonstrably weren’t only talking about your mind
If I was speaking for someone else, I would be vulnerable to the charge of speaking for others. I am not that cognitively weird though: if this happened with me and your text, I am sure it will happen with people similar to me and texts similar to yours.
OK, fair enough.
My CV is online. I will mention some more things that should be done soon. But also: I would hate for you to read my stuff to prove a point, read if you are interested!
such a person would endorse propositions that the RCC conspicuously avoids endorsing
But that stuff is argument about taste. RCC’s insistence on “divine guidance” does not, as locals like to say, “pay rent in anticipated experience.” So they can say whatever they want, it boils down to their taste about how they phrase things, not an alternative empirically testable theory. People who get angry about theism (e.g. the flying spaghetti monster sneer club) will argue with them or mock them, but they are kind of wasting their time—there is no empirical content to the argument. So it’s just a bit of culture war playing out.
accusations
This entire rabbit hole would have been avoided if you didn’t try to reverse engineer whether the Pope was grudging or not, and just stuck to factual reading. The point is, maybe sticking to factual reading of texts avoids a lot of time-wasting traps.
I promise that I have no intention of reading your papers just to prove a point. That would be silly. I think it’s eminently possible that some of them might be interesting to me.
(I just looked you up in Google Scholar and grabbed the first paper it found, which I suspect is a little tangential to your main research; it was about parsing citations of scientific papers using a generative model of (part of) the citation process, allowing for errors in names etc. I think it was informative to me, though of course I may be overestimating how well I understood it. (In particular, one key element seems to be a trick you use to make your Metropolis-Hastings sampling actually generate a reasonable number of usable candidates, which is borrowed from another paper I didn’t look at and where I accordingly got only a very hazy idea of what it’s doing.)
But that stuff is argument about taste.
I don’t think that’s quite right. The RCC’s position is carefully “unempirical” in the sense that it doesn’t make any definite predictions, and that suffices to keep it from getting too badly embarrassed by future scientific discoveries. But it seems to me that, e.g., the position Pius XII laid out in Humani Generis involves somewhat different probability assignments from the position that would have been adopted by naturalist biologists at the time, and that if you had asked faithful readers of H.G. and naturalistic biologists questions like “How likely is it that in the next 50 years or so scientific investigation will find something plainly inconsistent with a purely naturalistic view of evolution?” you would have got different answers.
In support of this view, here’s a little extract from Humani Generis:
Some however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.
I’m not concerned right now to argue that this is wrong (especially as it’s not the latest official statement of the RCC on evolution); only that Pius XII clearly thought that divine revelation ought to shift faithful Catholics’ assessment of the probability of purely naturalistic evolution—even as regards only “the human body”.
Do I need to repeat that I’m claiming not that the RCC has an alternative empirically testable theory? Only that its position on evolution differs from that of a naturalistic evolutionist, by (in LWese) assigning more probability to hypotheses incompatible with naturalism.
This entire rabbit hole would have been avoided [...]
Maybe so. It would also have been avoided if you hadn’t taken such exception at such length to my use of the word “grudging”. These facts do nothing to indicate whether the better diagnosis is “attempting to go beyond literal meanings leads down rabbit-holes” or “complaining over-vigorously about going beyond literal meanings leads down rabbit-holes”.
(Just out of curiosity, is it you or someone else who’s been downvoting everything I say in this subthread?)
(Just out of curiosity, is it you or someone else who’s been downvoting everything I say in this subthread?)
Not me. Would be pretty rude of me.
You can ignore that citation matching paper, I was an undergrad back then. I don’t work on that kind of stuff anymore. If you email me, I will send you some stuff that’s paywalled.
That was my guess, FWIW. (I don’t think it’s necessarily rude to downvote someone you’re also arguing with, if you think their arguments are really bad. But I can’t recall the last time I did it, if I ever did.)
I was an undergrad back then
Yeah, I thought the paper seemed a little far removed from the sort of thing I thought you did now (and rather tame). I’ll drop you an email. If you don’t get one within the next day or so, feel free to remind me; I’m very good at forgetting to do things.
Well, I am not saying we should not try to interpret what people say or write. But:
(a) This is hard to do for tone (Poe’s law, principle of charity, etc.)
(b) Meaning is a binary relation between text and interpreter, and isn’t always so simple (author is dead)
(c) Effective communication depends on shared cultural context and gets progressively harder as context gets less and less shared. In the limit, you get “communication is impossible” (a lot of Stanislav Lem stories are about this).
Why not be charitable, then? From the CC point of view, there is no profit in making falsifiable claims, so they will probably retreat from making them. They don’t want to look stupid, and at any rate, science isn’t their business.
Sure. But I don’t see any reason to think we’re near the limit in this case. Pius XII was pope and I’m not, true enough. But we’re reasonably close in time (he was born a little less than 100 years before me), from reasonably similar cultures (both Western European), of at least overlapping religious backgrounds (my family was RC and I was a Christian although not an RC for something like 30 years) -- this all seems to me like the sort of situation in which interpretation should be less problematic than usual.
I really don’t see that I’m being uncharitable. If you insist that I am and ask why, I suppose the answer is that in cases of conflict I’d rather be accurate than charitable; I see the PoC as (inter alia) a tool for avoiding wrongness that comes from assuming people who disagree with you are evil or stupid. But I’m not (I promise) assuming that either Pius XII or John Paul II were evil or stupid, and my real answer to your question is that I don’t see how I’m failing to be charitable.
There is profit (if we must put it that way) in making correct claims, and if a pope thinks that theological considerations lead to a particular empirical claim then I don’t expect him to refuse to state it on those grounds. (It seems to me that expecting otherwise is the less charitable position.) And there is profit (again, if we must put it that way) in making claims that sound confident and informative rather than vague.
But, as it happens, I am not (I think) claiming that the RCC’s official documents make a falsifiable claim that is incompatible with naturalistic evolution. I am claiming that the position they state is deliberately less specific than naturalistic evolution; in particular, you will search in vain for any statement that evolution proceeds as if there were no god guiding it. Or that it probably does. Or, I think, even that it might do. And that the official documents give the impression (to me, at least) that their authors think it probably doesn’t.
I repeat that none of that seems to me uncharitable. I am saying that the RCC has declined to make official statements that would likely be interpreted as endorsements of godlessness and as incompatible with their past positions, and that the RCC’s position on aspects of evolution that are hard to get clear empirical evidence about is probably shaped by the religious doctrines that it endorses. All of which is as it should be, conditional on its being the sort of organization it is.
The closest you can get to an “official” statement on that would be in the document of the International Theological Commission “Communion and Stewerdship”. That is not technically considered a teaching document but it had to be approved by Ratzinger as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which at least means that he considered it acceptable.
Here is #69:
The current scientific debate about the mechanisms at work in evolution requires theological comment insofar as it sometimes implies a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles....It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).
Notice what they are saying: “An unguided evolutionary process” cannot exist because nothing is unguided (according to the understanding of providence.) But this means that a falling rock is also not unguided, in that sense. So being “guided” in this sense is empirically indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution.
So they are recognizing pretty explicitly that the process of evolution might be indistinguishable from completely naturalistic evolution. And I suspect they are aware that it probably is, even if they didn’t make this particular statement, probably because they wish that it weren’t, and consequently don’t object if people believe that it isn’t.
You are failing to be charitable when you use fnords like “grudgingly.” It’s not emotionally neutral language, it conjures in the mind stupid old men blocking scientific progress for silly reasons, and getting Galileo in trouble, etc., being dragged forward, kicking and screaming by our side, the hero scientists.
The CC is not playing that game. They are not very interested in empirical falsifiabilty, and I think when you say:
you are misreading their culture. The CC has long ago evolved away from their doctrine getting them in trouble with science. Science will always beat them in a debate about falsifiable claims, and losing will make them lose prestige. This is what I mean by “profit.” The easiest thing for the CC to do is massage doctrine to make this not happen. This is precisely what had happened.
“Confident and informative” is language culture, and involves tone. How do we read confidence in text? What is informative in text? it’s all based on allusions and references in the end. Would you find my papers informative? Probably not, because you don’t share mathematical background with me. Do you share enough theological background with the Pope to peer review the Pope?
Have you noticed that you are doing to me exactly what you accuse me of doing to the Popes P12 and JP2?
I did not (so far as I can tell by introspection) write “grudgingly” in order to make people think of popes as stupid old men, or to summon up the spectre of the RCC blocking science for silly reasons, or to call Galileo to mind. I wrote it because CCC was saying that the RCC’s official position on evolution is indistinguishable from that of naturalistic scientists, and I don’t think it is, and the fact that the RCC’s official documents talk about evolution as they do is one reason why I think so.
I have to ask: Did you read what I wrote above, explaining that I am not claiming that the RCC’s position on evolution makes empirical claims incompatible with the findings of science? Because you appear to me to be writing exactly as if I hadn’t written that.
I wonder on what basis you say that. (I work in industry as a mathematician; I have a PhD in pure mathematics from a top-rank university; reading mathematical papers that don’t lie right within one’s own areas of special expertise is hard work, but yes, I would expect to find your papers informative.)
I’m not attempting to peer review the Pope. But yes, I think I am sufficiently familiar with Christian thinking generally and RC thinking in particular to distinguish grudging from enthusiastic acceptance of an idea in a papal encyclical.
I am puzzled by what is happening in this thread. You are normally an outstandingly intelligent and sensible fellow, but here you have
adopted what seems to me an exceptionally combative approach
apparently failed to read what I wrote (not, I think, too obscurely)
accused me of a particular kind of uncharitable reading while simultaneously applying exactly that kind of uncharity to me
confidently stated things about me (“you don’t share mathematical background”) for which you have no good evidence, and which are in fact probably false
and I’m wondering what’s going on to make you (as it seems to me) behave in so uncharacteristic a manner. May I ask you to consider carefully whether there is anything that might possibly be pushing you to be more adversarial than usual? (I’d ask: are you in fact Catholic? but am fairly sure the answer to that one is no.)
I am not Catholic. I find LW attitudes about religion (and certain other things) kind of annoying, though, if you want to try to reverse engineer where I am coming from.
That’s mostly what I meant, I am not trying to pull math rank (I don’t think there is such a thing as math rank), merely that informativeness is a function of shared context. I am pretty happy to double down on “we don’t share math background.” I don’t study much pure math, I doubt you study causal inference. I could study pure math, and you could study causal inference, but that’s not the same thing.
Sorry, getting lost. You think RCC does make empirically distinguishable claims or not? If the former, we have a factual disagreement. If the latter, I still think it is uncharitable to inject tone reading.
I think it is bad practice to read tone. First of all, it’s easy to be wrong, and second of all, it just increases room for misinterpretation of your own text.
Your word grudging conjured these things in my mind. Now you could say nothing could be further from the truth as far as your intentions were concerned. But that’s the thing with texts and authors. How texts come across to others (independently of what the author wanted) matter, and this is why I think injecting tone reading is so dangerous, and why academic papers are generally written in an emotionally neutral tone (to avoid these types of issues).
I favor bilateral disarmament as far as tone in texts (this is probably utopian thinking on my part, as humans are all about status and social dominance when it comes to communication, and playing with tone is a big part of this, and further it is really hard to coordinate to not do that).
OK, fair enough. Maybe I have too optimistic a view of how deeply I need to understand something for it to be informative to me. Would you like to point me at one of your more interesting papers so we can try the experiment? :-)
I think
the RCC surely does sometimes make empirically distinguishable claims, but
I am not claiming in this discussion that it does; rather
I am saying that its position on evolution differs from that of someone who accepts a naturalistic account of evolution, because
such a person would endorse propositions that the RCC conspicuously avoids endorsing
such as “evolution proceeds in a manner that shows no sign of divine intervention or guidance”.
Yeah, but you demonstrably weren’t only talking about your mind; otherwise you wouldn’t have said ‘You are failing to be charitable when you use fnord words like “grudgingly”’. (And, y’know, you could have said “it conjures in my mind …” rather than “it conjures in the mind”, if you were really only intending to say what effect those words have on you. But you weren’t, really, were you?)
Pardon me if I am being dim, but are you now saying that you engaged in uncharitable misreading of the tone of my writing in retaliation for my allegedly doing likewise to two popes? If not, what exactly is your point about “bilateral disarmament”? (It can’t be that you did it to me because I did it to you first, because I’m pretty sure I made no comment on your tone until the grandparent of this comment, which came after your accusations against me.)
If I was speaking for someone else, I would be vulnerable to the charge of speaking for others. I am not that cognitively weird though: if this happened with me and your text, I am sure it will happen with people similar to me and texts similar to yours.
My CV is online. I will mention some more things that should be done soon. But also: I would hate for you to read my stuff to prove a point, read if you are interested!
But that stuff is argument about taste. RCC’s insistence on “divine guidance” does not, as locals like to say, “pay rent in anticipated experience.” So they can say whatever they want, it boils down to their taste about how they phrase things, not an alternative empirically testable theory. People who get angry about theism (e.g. the flying spaghetti monster sneer club) will argue with them or mock them, but they are kind of wasting their time—there is no empirical content to the argument. So it’s just a bit of culture war playing out.
This entire rabbit hole would have been avoided if you didn’t try to reverse engineer whether the Pope was grudging or not, and just stuck to factual reading. The point is, maybe sticking to factual reading of texts avoids a lot of time-wasting traps.
I promise that I have no intention of reading your papers just to prove a point. That would be silly. I think it’s eminently possible that some of them might be interesting to me.
(I just looked you up in Google Scholar and grabbed the first paper it found, which I suspect is a little tangential to your main research; it was about parsing citations of scientific papers using a generative model of (part of) the citation process, allowing for errors in names etc. I think it was informative to me, though of course I may be overestimating how well I understood it. (In particular, one key element seems to be a trick you use to make your Metropolis-Hastings sampling actually generate a reasonable number of usable candidates, which is borrowed from another paper I didn’t look at and where I accordingly got only a very hazy idea of what it’s doing.)
I don’t think that’s quite right. The RCC’s position is carefully “unempirical” in the sense that it doesn’t make any definite predictions, and that suffices to keep it from getting too badly embarrassed by future scientific discoveries. But it seems to me that, e.g., the position Pius XII laid out in Humani Generis involves somewhat different probability assignments from the position that would have been adopted by naturalist biologists at the time, and that if you had asked faithful readers of H.G. and naturalistic biologists questions like “How likely is it that in the next 50 years or so scientific investigation will find something plainly inconsistent with a purely naturalistic view of evolution?” you would have got different answers.
In support of this view, here’s a little extract from Humani Generis:
I’m not concerned right now to argue that this is wrong (especially as it’s not the latest official statement of the RCC on evolution); only that Pius XII clearly thought that divine revelation ought to shift faithful Catholics’ assessment of the probability of purely naturalistic evolution—even as regards only “the human body”.
Do I need to repeat that I’m claiming not that the RCC has an alternative empirically testable theory? Only that its position on evolution differs from that of a naturalistic evolutionist, by (in LWese) assigning more probability to hypotheses incompatible with naturalism.
Maybe so. It would also have been avoided if you hadn’t taken such exception at such length to my use of the word “grudging”. These facts do nothing to indicate whether the better diagnosis is “attempting to go beyond literal meanings leads down rabbit-holes” or “complaining over-vigorously about going beyond literal meanings leads down rabbit-holes”.
(Just out of curiosity, is it you or someone else who’s been downvoting everything I say in this subthread?)
Not me. Would be pretty rude of me.
You can ignore that citation matching paper, I was an undergrad back then. I don’t work on that kind of stuff anymore. If you email me, I will send you some stuff that’s paywalled.
That was my guess, FWIW. (I don’t think it’s necessarily rude to downvote someone you’re also arguing with, if you think their arguments are really bad. But I can’t recall the last time I did it, if I ever did.)
Yeah, I thought the paper seemed a little far removed from the sort of thing I thought you did now (and rather tame). I’ll drop you an email. If you don’t get one within the next day or so, feel free to remind me; I’m very good at forgetting to do things.