Intelligent Design and Falsifiability

Hugh Hewitt apparently kicked off a discussion in the blogosphere concerning Intelligent Design. One selection of Rand Simberg's response to Hugh, in particular, is getting coverage over at the Volokh Conspiracy:

How science works is by putting forth theories that are disprovable, not ones that are provable. When all other theories have been disproven, those still standing are the ones adopted by most scientists. ID is not a scientific theory, because it fails the test of being disprovable (or to be more precise, non-falsifiable), right out of the box. If Hugh [Hewitt] doesn't believe this, then let him postulate an experiment that one could perform, even in thought, that would show it to be false.

Arguments like this make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, for a number of reasons.

Consider falsifiability as a general principle of securing knowledge, or, more modestly, some condition of epistemic benefit (Popperians may not like the use of ‘knowledge’). Call this modest condition EB. Suppose someone (not Mr. Simberg) put forth the following propostion, F: “Theories must be falsifiable to secure EB.” The difficulty with F is that it appears to be self-defeating. F is a theory of knowledge or epistemic benefit itself, so F applies to itself; i.e. “F must be falsifiable to secure EB.” And just how is F falsifiable? Is it falsifiable by empirical means? It doesn’t seem so. What test would falsify F?

Not only does it seem difficult to falsify F, but whatever test we come up with, when stated in relation to F, would also have to be falsifiable. In other words, it looks like we’re in for an infinite regress that can never secure EB, if F is true.

So falsifiability is not a general test for knowledge (or epistemic benefit). We can have knowledge of things without falsification. I bring this up because pretty much what I’ve outlined above was posited for verification as a criterion of meaning on par with scientific claims. Similarly, Popper was trying to firm up the demarcation between science and "pseudoscience" -- but even on its own terms, the discipline of science cannot be the sole beacon of truth or knowledge.

To be clear, I’m not claiming that Mr. Simberg was asserting something like proposition F above. However, I think a lot of the demarcation arguments which survive today -- even when framed more modestly -- still get a lot of unfounded authority from throwing about terms like falsification. Scientists and science enthusiasts need to remember the lesson of fatally flawed movements like logical positivism so that various claims outside of the typical purview of science are not marginalized. We have, for example, a tremendous need to recognize the possibility of ethical (and perhaps even religious) knowledge, if science is to be properly directed toward doing good (e.g. curing cancer) rather than evil (e.g. the Tuskegee or Nazi experiments).

*Further posts on this subject: ID & Falsifiability #2, #3, #4.