Re: 'Post-Truth Politics' - Collapse in Information Integrit

To add a little more.. (hope no one minds -- if they do, perhaps we can split into a new thread)
I objected earlier in the thread to a putative distinction drawn between facts and truth; it seems to me facts are, by the very definition of the term, true. As I said, there are no untrue facts; if it ain't true, it ain't really a fact. (The term "theory", of course, is not so truth-loaded.)
Serpent (sorry, I confused you for Mossling), first, and then Wolfhnd, responded in a somewhat similar fashion, if I understand them correctly: facts are indeed true, but facts are just "small truths" if you will -- Truth (with a capital T), on their construal, is the "bigger picture"; perhaps an explanatory theory constructed to accommodate and unify a set of facts which were previously not suspected to be related. Not an unreasonable response, at least at first blush, although some, maybe most, philosophers are bound to question any fact-theory dichotomy.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted. Please set me straight if I have. However, this is not what I want to focus on here.
One example of a similar distinction I would like to draw attention to here is that frequently adverted to by Richard Dawkins (yes, him again) and others between the (putative) fact of evolution and the theory of evolution. It's a distinction, I fear, that cannot be upheld; a difference that makes no difference -- to science, at least.
To speak of the "theory of evolution", or more correctly "theories of evolution", seems entirely uncontroversial. Many attempts have been made to explain the emergence and diversity of life of life we see around us. Scientists themselves enjoy no consensus on precisely how this came about. Healthy debate continues to flourish; Darwin, Dawkins and Gould, for example, may overlap to some extent, but diverge in other details. This all seems unproblematic.
But what could Dawkins possibly mean by the fact of evolution? As far as I can discern, he means nothing more than it all came about through naturalistic processes, the small print of which is still being hammered out (e.g., to what degree does natural selection play a role vs non-selective factors?). In other words, God didn't do it.
That said, assuming one adopts a position of methodological naturalism, as all contemporary scientists apparently do ("it's fine to believe in God, but check him in the locker room outside the lab"), then the "God did it" hypothesis is already ruled out a priori on methodological grounds. Therefore, it seems to me Dawkins' putative fact of evolution is entirely vacuous. The fact of evolution is only a fact in virtue of the fact (sorry!) that the traditional alternative explanation is not even entertained by science. To do so (i.e., to entertain hypotheses appealing to supernatural causation) would be, almost by definition, to cease doing science. Those who do entertain such hypotheses -- odious Creationists and similar vermin -- are almost invariably labelled pseudoscientists.
The "Professor God did it" hypothesis is not disproven by science; it is merely disregarded by science.
Any thoughts?
PS1: To repeat: I'm not religious, don't care much about God, just making (maybe *shrug* ) a logical point :)
PS2: To complicate matters, Dawkins is one of the few scientists who claims that he does consider "God did it" to be a scientific hypothesis. I'm never quite sure whether he's eschewing methodological naturalism... or just confused.
I objected earlier in the thread to a putative distinction drawn between facts and truth; it seems to me facts are, by the very definition of the term, true. As I said, there are no untrue facts; if it ain't true, it ain't really a fact. (The term "theory", of course, is not so truth-loaded.)
Serpent (sorry, I confused you for Mossling), first, and then Wolfhnd, responded in a somewhat similar fashion, if I understand them correctly: facts are indeed true, but facts are just "small truths" if you will -- Truth (with a capital T), on their construal, is the "bigger picture"; perhaps an explanatory theory constructed to accommodate and unify a set of facts which were previously not suspected to be related. Not an unreasonable response, at least at first blush, although some, maybe most, philosophers are bound to question any fact-theory dichotomy.
My apologies if I've misinterpreted. Please set me straight if I have. However, this is not what I want to focus on here.
One example of a similar distinction I would like to draw attention to here is that frequently adverted to by Richard Dawkins (yes, him again) and others between the (putative) fact of evolution and the theory of evolution. It's a distinction, I fear, that cannot be upheld; a difference that makes no difference -- to science, at least.
To speak of the "theory of evolution", or more correctly "theories of evolution", seems entirely uncontroversial. Many attempts have been made to explain the emergence and diversity of life of life we see around us. Scientists themselves enjoy no consensus on precisely how this came about. Healthy debate continues to flourish; Darwin, Dawkins and Gould, for example, may overlap to some extent, but diverge in other details. This all seems unproblematic.
But what could Dawkins possibly mean by the fact of evolution? As far as I can discern, he means nothing more than it all came about through naturalistic processes, the small print of which is still being hammered out (e.g., to what degree does natural selection play a role vs non-selective factors?). In other words, God didn't do it.
That said, assuming one adopts a position of methodological naturalism, as all contemporary scientists apparently do ("it's fine to believe in God, but check him in the locker room outside the lab"), then the "God did it" hypothesis is already ruled out a priori on methodological grounds. Therefore, it seems to me Dawkins' putative fact of evolution is entirely vacuous. The fact of evolution is only a fact in virtue of the fact (sorry!) that the traditional alternative explanation is not even entertained by science. To do so (i.e., to entertain hypotheses appealing to supernatural causation) would be, almost by definition, to cease doing science. Those who do entertain such hypotheses -- odious Creationists and similar vermin -- are almost invariably labelled pseudoscientists.
The "Professor God did it" hypothesis is not disproven by science; it is merely disregarded by science.
Any thoughts?
PS1: To repeat: I'm not religious, don't care much about God, just making (maybe *shrug* ) a logical point :)
PS2: To complicate matters, Dawkins is one of the few scientists who claims that he does consider "God did it" to be a scientific hypothesis. I'm never quite sure whether he's eschewing methodological naturalism... or just confused.