Imagining Metaphysical-Epistemological Frameworks: Three Types of Responses to the Fossil Record

A fossil of Tiktaalik, one of the most famous examples of the transition between lobe-finned fish and four-legged animals, was found in the Canadian arctic in 2004. Photograph by Eduard Solà. Used unde the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The fossil evidence appears to support evolutionary theory. Different species appear in the record in exactly the order one would expect if descent with modification were true.

But what if that seemingly obvious evidence was, in fact, a clever ruse? This is one argument put forth by certain creationists, who believe the Earth was brought into being by a god who made life appear via some supernatural means alluded to in the Bible (or one of several other sacred religious texts). For these people, the fossil record evidence is merely another test of faith.

This proposal, often dismissed out of hand by scientists and rarely brought to its logical conclusion by those who espouse it, nevertheless is consistent with a particular metaphysically-derived epistemological argument that has been advocated by serious philosophers, including none other than Rene Descartes.

To understand the Cartesian metaphysical-epistemological framework, it is useful first to understand two other such frameworks from which different conclusions about the meaning of the fossil record can be drawn. Bertrand Russell and Galileo Galilei are illustrious representatives of these alternative camps.

Russell is a metaphysical naturalist (sometimes also called ontological naturalism). That is, he believes that both the means of discovering knowledge (epistemology) and the nature of the universe (metaphysics) are built on a material foundation. This is the de facto position of science, which does does not permit supernatural explanations.

Russell, in chapter V of his “Problems in Philosophy,” posits that all knowledge is derived from sensory-mediated perception of the physical world – what he calls “acquaintance.” This acquaintance accounts not only for all we can call truth; it is the very substrate on which all statements of any kind depend. We cannot even have language without this direct experience known as acquaintance: “Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted [Emphasis in original].”

Russell’s epistemology comes from a metaphysical position in which there is no room for faith, for faith is that in which one believes without being able to experience it. To him, the only reason a creationist could even propose the fossil record ruse is because of experience of the actual fossil record accompanied by past experiences of lies he had encountered. The notion of a god, far from being some transcendental true being, is merely a composite of experienced human attributes transferred to an imagined deity.

Galileo would likely agree with Russell that the fossil evidence supports evolution, for Galileo is a methodological naturalist. But their agreement would end where metaphysics begins. Although Galileo believes that the proper way of gaining knowledge about the world around us is by looking at material reality, he also maintains that the nature of the universe comprises more than the material; specifically, he believes the soul, the Catholic God, and other such Biblical notions are equally - if not in a superior sense - true.

Galileo draws this distinction between the realm of science and the realm of the soul in his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.” In the letter, Galileo attempts to show that one cannot take all passages in the Bible literally. He does not go as far as to say that the Bible is discordant with nature. Indeed, he thinks the Bible justifies the natural order of the world. However, he argues that new discoveries may lead to new interpretations of some verses, and that others which do not directly bear on matters of salvation may in fact be purposefully skewed so as to be understandable to the masses, even if the information is not, strictly speaking, accurate.

The distinction Galileo makes between nature and the heavenly is key to his conciliatory position. “I should judge,” he writes, “that the authority of the Bible was designed to persuade men of those articles and propositions which, surpassing all human reasoning could not be made credible by science, or by any other means than through the very mouth of the Holy Spirit.”

Here Galileo diverges from Russell, whose metaphysics do not admit of a means for obtaining knowledge outside that which is accessible to science and reasoning.

Galileo's methodological naturalism is perhaps the most popular of the three frameworks today. Most people accept the authority of the understanding that the scientific endeavor produces about the physical world, while continuing to believe in a realm of life after death that is separate and inscrutable from this side of the mortal veil. His argument, in fact, reflects the current official position of the Roman Catholic Church that once persecuted him.

Methodological naturalism is the de jure position of science, because while science does not permit the supernatural, it also does not refute the supernatural.

Methodological naturalism does, however, face some significant challenges. The instability it introduces into interpretations of sacred texts can (despite Galileo's assertions to the contrary) lead to questions about the soul, the nature of gods, and salvation. More importantly, though, as science has expanded into territories previously in the purview of scripture, the unknowable space open to the spiritual has shrunken. Increasingly this framework takes on a “god of the gaps” quality.

Descartes, in contrast with the other frameworks, rejects naturalism altogether. As a devout Christian, he cannot accept the metaphysical version, and as a sophisticated thinker he recognizes the incompleteness of the methodological version.

Descartes' method is quite ingenious. Rather than asserting belief based on evidence of any sort, he instead embraces an extreme form of doubt of which even the ancient Greek Skeptics would be envious. For Descartes, this extreme doubt allows him to withdraw from the natural world; he does not plan to seek confirmation of the supernatural there.

By avoiding material objects, Descartes can assert only that which he finds in his own mind, which he takes to be the starting point of “true” reality, making him an idealist in the Platonic sense. A few ideas, he decides after establishing that his mind must exist, have more certainty than empirical observations. One of these ideas is perfection, which he declares is the essence of God. Thus he writes in the synopsis of his "Meditations” that “the idea of being perfect, which is found in our minds, possesses so much objective reality...that it must be held to arise from a cause absolutely perfect.”

Descartes' doubtful idealism offers powerful support for the creationist argument of false evidence. His method cannot be waved away on account of the evidence precisely because the evidence is not considered a reliable source for knowledge claims. It admits no assault from the empirical world.

There are, of course, weaknesses to Descartes' approach. One is that he must arrive at the concept of self prior to establishing the concept of God. He also chooses the categories on which he will focus in an explicit effort to arrive at God: for instance, he assumes definitional relations in making doubt synonymous with imperfection and imperfection antonymous with perfection. Perfection is neither objective nor specific, nor is it necessarily the same as “good.” One can be perfectly evil. Russell would likely counter Descartes by pointing out that these definitions and relations are formed in the first place on the knowledge of acquaintance, thus undermining the very effort Descartes had made in escaping sensory information.

A second concern for Descartes' method is that it tells us nothing in particular about God, beyond it being a form of absolute perfection. It certainly does not give credence to any particular scripture or deity, as Galileo's framework does.

Once accepted, though, the Cartesian God works in creationists' favor in that it offers assurance that a God does exist, and that that God is more “real” than any physical object, including fossil evidence. Assured of the prevailing truth of God, one is free to adopt any faith tradition one prefers and to reject any countervailing evidence as merely a test of that more well-established faith.

The differences between the metaphysical-epistemological frameworks epitomized by Descartes, Russell, and Galileo are today playing out in the heated debates about the veracity of evolutionary theory. Each has subtle, but practical, consequences for major societal issues, from religious adherence to education policy. Understanding them is crucial to understanding the textures of these defining public and personal debates.