We Need to Talk about EAAN

(The title is a reference to "We need to talk about Kevin".  I'm using "EAAN" as if it sounded like "Ian".  I don't know if it does, but it's not relevant.  I’m just using a bit of a jokey title about the problems with the Evolutionary Argument Against Evolution.)

There is a relatively new take on Plantinga’s EAAN by Tyler McNabb.  While the original EAAN is certainly Plantinga's, there's not really too much between the two variants.  Fundamentally, the argument comes down to the claim that evolution doesn't "code" for truth or reality, that it only “codes” for survival.

In both variants, tigers are brought up as an example, so McNabb bravely continues to ignore the fact that tigers are from Asia (with a range that historically stretched as far as eastern Turkey) while humans are from Africa.  This is key, because while the illustrative use of tigers might be defended by saying "there were dangerous cats which would have taught humans to be wary of tigers" (particularly the cave lion which is thought to have been a species that specialised in killing humans, maybe more accurately hominids or perhaps just primates in general), this defence rips a hole in EEAN.

Both McNabb and Plantinga suggest that it is possible that an early human, let's call him Fred, might see a tiger and come up with all sorts of bizarre reasons for performing the adaptive behaviour necessary to avoid being eaten (McNabb adds the idea that Fred might think that the tiger is a witch and hence runs away because witches are dangerous).  Inherent in this idea is the presumption that any one of a wide range of cognitive processes (including patently faulty processes) might result in the adaptive behaviour.

What Plantinga and McNabb forget is that surviving once is not sufficient.  And having one generation survive is not sufficient.  For a genetic line to be successful, the carriers need to carry out the appropriate behaviour each and every time they come into close proximity with a tiger (or a lion, or a panther, or an elephant, or a hippopotamus, or a crocodile, or a snake, etc, etc).  At least until they've raised a child sufficiently long as to pass their genetic line on.

The most effective way for this to happen is not for random ideas to pop into the head of gene carriers when exposed to danger, but rather for the gene carriers to have the cognitive skills necessary to identify reality, understand the threats inherent in reality and the necessary action that, in reality, will optimise their survival chances (ie, like not jumping in a lake when chased by a tiger).

EAAN relies very heavily on both a misunderstanding about how important reality actually is to survival and a wild imagination as to how insane interpretations of reality might consistently lead to adaptive behaviour.  On the other hand, if the comprehension of reality is consistent with the survival of creatures that evolve, then it's no surprise that creatures that end up self-aware as a result of that process will be able to identify evolution as the mechanism that led to their success.

Planting a Special Plea for Warrant

Putting out a Warrant for Plantinga

If William Lane Craig were the Crown Prince of Christian Apologists then Alvin Plantinga would be one of his key advisors.  A couple of times now I have found that arguments coming out of WLC’s mouth had actually originated in the brain of Plantinga.  Given the damage that could be wrought by an apologist with some intelligence and formal training, I thought that Plantinga might be worth a closer look.

This led directly to me listening to a couple of longer presentations by Plantinga, for example an Unbelievable interview hosted by Justin Brierly in which Stephen Law also took part and a “debate” between Plantinga and Daniel Dennett.   This article draws quite heavily on the latter.

The engagement between Plantinga and Dennett was titled “Debate: Science and Religion: Are they compatible?” but it was not really a debate.  It was structured like this:

·         Plantinga (43 minutes) – defence of the proposal that science and religion are compatible, consisting in the main of a basic sketch of his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism together with a reference to the Irreducible Complexity argument of Michael Behe.

·         Dennett (35 minutes) – attack on the proposal that science and religion are compatible, basically by indicating that religion can only be considered compatible with science if one accepts gratuitous claims and that any compatibility that religion has with science exists only to the extent that the claims of religion are not testable

·         Plantinga (10 minutes) – response to Dennett

·         Question and Answer session (17 minutes)

Plantinga spent a lot of time going over his probability theory, a version of which I have already addressed elsewhere, but I want to focus on two things he said.  The first is this little chunk of Christian goodness:

…if theistic belief is true then it probably doesn’t require propositional evidence for its rational acceptability.  As I argued in this book, Warranted Christian Belief, if theistic belief is true, then very likely it has both rationality and warrant in the basic way; that is not on the basis of propositional evidence.  If theistic belief is true then very likely there is a cognitive structure something like John Calvin’s sensus divinitatus, an original warranted source of theistic belief.  This way, belief in God, like belief in other minds, has its own source of rationality and warrant and doesn’t rely on arguments from other sources for these estimable qualities.  The demise of the theological argument, if indeed evolution has compromised it, is perhaps little more of a threat to rational belief in God than the demise of the argument from analogy for other minds is to rational belief in other minds.

To put this in context, you might want to know what Plantinga means by “warrant”:

According to Plantinga, warrant involves four factors:

·         the mechanisms producing the belief must be functioning properly;

·         they must be operating in a cognitive environment for which they are suited;

·         they must be operating according to a design plan or aspects of a design plan aimed at arriving at the truth; and

·         the objective probability must be high that operating in this manner will reach the truth.

(James B. Freeman in Acceptable Premises: An Epistemic Approach to an Informal Logic Problem p44)

Plantinga has argued for a new definition of knowledge, being warranted true belief as opposed to justified true belief (although it could be argued that Plantinga is merely arguing that “warrant” is a better form of justification to those in traditional theories of justification).  I touched on “justified true belief” when discussing my world view (when I did so, I was describing an empirical variant of coherentism, not that I would necessarily consider myself an “empirical coherentist”).  Because Plantinga wants to replace standard forms of justification with warrant, we might be justified in looking more closely at what both mean.

KNOWLEDGE
Warranted True Belief	Justified True Belief
That which is known is believed	That which is known is believed
That which is known is true	That which is known is true
The belief in that which is known is warranted	The belief in that which is known is justified

Comparing warrant and justification:

Warrant	Justification
Belief is generated correctly	The believer is not deluded
Belief is generated in a suitable environment	The believer is using suitably collated data
Belief generation must be operating according to a “design plan” aimed at arriving at the truth	The believer is using an appropriate method for processing available data to reach a conclusion
Objective probability that the truth will be arrived at via the belief generation mechanism is high	If the believer is not deluded, is using suitably collated data and is using an appropriate method to process available data, then the probability of the believer arriving at the truth will be high

 Plantinga doesn’t really seem to be adding anything to justification, unless his use of the term “design plan” is meant to be literal (which he denies) or if his fourth point is intended to be more than a summation of the previous three.  He does, however, seem to be taking two things away.

It’s difficult to take Plantinga at his word when he writes:

it is perhaps possible that evolution (undirected by God or anyone else) has somehow furnished us with our design plans

and also refers to “belief-forming and belief-maintaining apparatus of powers … working the way it ought to work”.  He could mean this usage to be figurative, in the sense that a materialist atheist with cancer might say “my body isn’t dealing with this problem the way it ought to” meaning “certain cells in my body are reproducing without limitation, leading to the growth of tumors which are not recognised as alien and thus not removed by my body’s defences and this state of affairs will lead to my dying earlier than otherwise would be the case – an outcome which I consider to be suboptimal”.  However, I don’t think so.  I think Plantinga means for the four factors underlying warrant to be understood (by the right audience) approximately as follows:

·         Warranted true belief is generated using a design plan which is intended to arrive at the truth, if

·         the design plan was well crafted so as to lead to a high probability that truth will be arrived at, when

·         the belief is generated according to that design plan, and

·         the belief is generated in an environment which is appropriate for the design plan

If I am correct, Plantinga’s warrant can be summed up as “Warranted true belief is a belief that God expressly designed humans to have”.  Now, iff knowledge (which is defined as warranted true belief) is defined as God given, then the existence of God is a fundamental fact, a basic truth, because without God there is no knowledge.

Note that I used “iff” deliberately, rather than “if”.  The term “iff” means “if and only if”.

This is what we atheists call a theological argument.  Plantinga, on the other hand, calls this a “philosophical” argument.

Try reading through the extract from Plantinga’s presentation again.  I’ll help by converting the phrase “if theistic belief is true” to “if God exists” (see Plantinga’s definition of naturalism as discussed in Planting a Tiger for a justification).  The word “it” becomes “belief in God” in two instances.

…if God exists then belief in God probably doesn’t require propositional evidence for its rational acceptability.  As I argued in this book, Warranted Christian Belief, if God exists, then very likely belief in God has both rationality and warrant the basic way; that is not on the basis of propositional evidence.  If God exists then very likely there is a cognitive structure something like John Calvin’s sensus divinitatus, an original warranted source of belief in God.  This way, belief in God, like belief in other minds, has its own source of rationality and warrant and doesn’t rely on arguments from other sources for these estimable qualities.  The demise of the ontological argument, if indeed evolution has compromised it, is perhaps little more of a threat to rational belief in God than the demise of the argument from analogy for other minds is to rational belief in other minds.

Now some readers might divine from this that Plantinga is saying that you don’t need evidence to believe in God and that believing in God, even in the absence of evidence, would be “very likely” rational.  Some might just read it as saying that logical arguments (resulting in propositional evidence) don’t affect the existence or non-existence of God.  The latter is of course true.

I might have a very good argument that Kim Kardashian does not exist, for example, no-one I know has ever met her.  The brilliance of this argument, however, has no effect whatsoever on the existence or otherwise of Kim (or indeed any other possible form of Kardashian).

However, I suggest that Plantinga really means the former – the very weak claim that iff God exists, then believing in such a God would be rational even in the absence of evidence.  But he goes further.  Time for the second chunk of Christian goodness from that “debate”:

And even if contrary to fact, there were scientific evidence for unguided evolution and hence for atheism, that would by no means settle the issue.  Suppose there is scientific evidence against theism, it doesn’t follow that theism is false or that theists have a defeater for their beliefs, or that theistic belief is irrational, or in some other way problematic.  Perhaps there is also scientific evidence or otherwise for theism.  But second and more important, as I mentioned, if theism is true, it is likely that it has its own intrinsic and basic source of warrant …

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Plantinga said, in a “debate” in which he was arguing that religion and science are compatible, that if there is scientific evidence against theism (noting that evidence against a hypothesis is the only scientific evidence worth having, since hypotheses only survive in their original form as long as there is no evidence against them), then the theist can just ignore that inconvenient scientific evidence and instead rely on the possibility that there might possibly be some evidence for theism or, alternatively, rely on a completely hypothetical sense (sensus divinitatis), for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence at all, as your basic source of “warrant”.  Remembering of course that a warranted true belief looks like this:

“I believe that God made me in such a way that I will believe that God exists, therefore God exists”.

This is, in context, an admission that religion is fully compatible with pseudoscience, but not actual science.

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Just in case anyone is in any doubt, in science if you have evidence against your hypothesis (and by that I mean proper evidence, not false evidence), then your hypothesis is false.  End of story.

You can have evidence which does not support your hypothesis which might not necessarily be a hypothesis killer, but this is usually due to poor framing of the hypothesis or difficulty with obtaining experimental data.  Years of not finding evidence for the Higgs Boson did not disprove the hypothesis that it exists because no evidence against existence of the boson was obtained either.

If you only accept evidence which supports your hypothesis and you ignore any other sort of evidence, then you have pseudoscience.  That approach puts you in the same category as the 9/11 Truthers, Alien Abduction enthusiasts, Loch Ness Monster spotters, astrologers, mediums, water dowsers, shamans, homeopathy practitioners, homotoxicologists, quantum healers, moon landing hoaxers, Holocaust deniers, millenarianists, flat earthers, Nibiru cataclysmists, rumpologists and theists.

Many of the claims of a pseudoscience are not strictly testable but sometimes theists, like the Intelligent Design crowd, make outlandish claims and these can be shown to be false:

God must exist because the eye cannot have evolved naturally – shown to be false

God must exist because irreducible complexity is impossible via evolution – shown to be false

God must exist because evolution is false since it’s ridiculous to imagine that humans evolved from monkeys – shown to be false (the subordinate claim about human descent from monkeys being ridiculous is agreed but it’s irrelevant to the evolution argument since monkeys and humans have a common ancestor – the link isn’t actually proof, per se, but an explanation)

What science can do, and does, is chip away at all the “God must exist because ...” arguments.  Eventually, the theist is left with no undefeated claim for the necessity of God.

What the average theist can then do, and obviously does, is retreat into a form of special pleading (“my hypothesis is special and has God in it, therefore it doesn’t need evidence”).

Planting a Defeat

A while back, I got the following feedback on the article Planting a Tiger (I can’t help myself, so I’ve marked typos in red – I just feel so proud when I notice any typos myself rather than having others point them out to me):

Quote: neopolitan (reddit/r/atheism)

A person, on the other hand, who commences with a huge assumption and then brutally twists logic to form a disparate array of lesser assumptions into a bridge between the state of things as they are and the state one should expect if the initial huge assumption were true, is not a philosopher. He is what we refer to as an "apologist".

But both Craig and Plantinga would argue that they are seeking knowledge and understanding. They would argue that they are following the evidence where it leads and not shying away from reality. You can both be an apologist and a philosopher. It is one thing to say that they are wrong (maybe they are) but it is something completely else to say that they are deliberately twisting the truth and don't deserve the title of 'philosopher'.

The article's well written. Correct me if I'm wrong but the crux of your argument seems to be here:

Quote: neopolitan (Planting a Tiger)

Plantinga totally ignores that the scientific method takes into account the suggestion that, individually, our cognition is faulty but that this may be overcome if we don’t assume our beliefs to be true, we gather evidence to support or refute our beliefs, we have the intellectual courage to accept when evidence does refute our beliefs, we invite others to critically assess our evidence and our interpretations of that evidence where it seems to support our beliefs and we have the grace to accept that we were wrong if the evidence or interpretation is shown to be problematic.

What Plantinga tries to show is that the scientific method can't stand up to the same criteria by which it judges everything else. You said at the beginning of your article that scientists are 99.99999% sure before committing to the truth of a claim. Can scientists be 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities align with reality? If not, then what does that say about using science as a criterion for judging truth? If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?

I was initially responding to a claim (by another redditor) that I had erred in bracketing the word “philosopher” with quotation marks when using that word in reference to Alvin Plantinga.  My contention, as my quote above indicates, is that Plantinga is not so much a philosopher as an apologist (and possibly theologian) despite his apparently impressive academic qualifications in philosophy.  (To address what might seem like a valid reason to call Plantinga a philosopher – and even Craig, for that matter – please see Draconic Philosophy.)

In Planting a Courted Controversy, I related what happened after I had actively sought feedback from the WLC Fan Club at the Reasonable Faith website.  In the conclusion to that article, I agreed that I had not provided a comprehensive argument against the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), which is what is being alluded to above with “If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?”

Here then is my argument as to why the EAAN fails …

----------------------------------------

I’ll explain what the EAAN is, as best I can (generally using Plantinga’s words) and put in comments where necessary:

Step 1 – Develop the probability expression P(R|N&E)

If:

R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable,

N is metaphysical naturalism, including the claim that there is no God

E is the claim that our cognitive faculties are the product of evolution

Then:

P(R|N&E)  is the question “What is the probability of R if both N and E are true?”

Step 2 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is low

Since there is no reason to suppose that evolution unguided by God will favour reliable cognitive faculties (see Planting a Tiger for why he thinks this is the case), then P(R|N&E) is “relatively low, somewhat less than 1/2”.

Comment: This is an extraordinarily weak argument.  There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that animals with poor cognitive faculties will die out, this is particularly so if they are delicious – roasted dodo, anyone?

In reality, Plantinga’s argument falls down right here, he fails to provide a convincing argument as to why the beliefs of a human, if they were evolved, would be unlikely to be true.  His argument is so laughable that originally I didn’t think it needed more effort, but let’s continue ...

Step 3 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

Admit that “the argument for a low estimate for P(R|N&E) is pretty weak” and then claim that perhaps it is better to be agnostic with regard to this probability, on the grounds of it being “inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is”.

Comment: This raises the question of why the argument was presented at all if it’s considered, even by Plantinga, as “pretty weak”.  Cynically, one could suggest that he does so in order that the “inscrutable argument” might appear less weak in comparison.  If that was the intent, it worked … by a narrow margin.

Step 4 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable, then P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

I’ll have to use Plantinga’s words here or it will sound like I am misrepresenting his argument (taken from his lecture notes):

Of course the argument for a low estimate of P(R/N&E) is pretty weak. In particular, our estimates of the various probabilities involved in estimating P(R/N&E) with respect to that hypothetical population (comment - a hypothetical population of creatures rather like ourselves on a planet similar to Earth … (that had) arisen by way of the selection processes endorsed by contemporary evolutionary thought – as indicated in an earlier paragraph – ed.) were pretty shaky. So perhaps the right course here is simple agnosticism: that probability is inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is. This also seems sensible.

What would then be the appropriate attitude towards R (specified to that hypothetical population)? Someone who accepts N&E and also believes that the proper attitude towards P(R/N&E) is one of agnosticism, clearly, has good reason for being agnostic about R as well.

But now suppose we again apply the same sort of reasoning to ourselves and our condition. Suppose we think N&E is true: we ourselves have evolved according to the mechanisms suggested by contemporary evolutionary theory, unguided and unorchestrated by God or anyone else. Suppose we think, furthermore, that there is no way to determine P(R/N&E) (specified to us). What would be the right attitude to take to R? Well, if we have no further information, then wouldn’t the right attitude here, just as with respect to that hypothetical population, be agnosticism, withholding belief? If this probability is inscrutable, then we have a defeater for R, just as in the case where that probability is low.

So P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable; and if we accept N&E, then in either case we have a defeater for R.

Now, trying to turn this into English for the rest of us ... the value of P(R|N&E) with respect to a population of evolved creatures is unknown and, according to Plantinga, unknowable (i.e. inscrutable).   If we, as evolved creatures, accept that both N and E are true, but are agnostic about P(R|N&E), as Plantinga argues we must be, then we should rightly be agnostic about R (by which Plantinga seems to mean P(R) since he refers to “this probability”).

In short, if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable and N&E is true, then P(R) is inscrutable.

Comment: My sarcastic wording of this step reflects the fact that, if N&E is true, P(R) = P(R|N&E), irrespective of what the value of that probability is – inscrutable or low or, indeed, high.

Step 5 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable (or low) then R has a defeater

Actually, I can’t really see how he justified this step, but I can see why he does it.

A “defeater” is a proposition which, if in the possession of a person who otherwise would have a justified true belief constituting knowledge about something, would negate the justification or the belief (but not the truth).  It’s a term from epistemology, the study of knowledge, and it relates a particularly esoteric discussion as regards to what we can “know”.

In the tripartite theory of knowledge, in order to truly know something rather than just believe something to be true:

the something in question must be true;

one must maintain a belief that that something is true; and

that belief must be justified.

If you are deluded in your belief about something then you cannot know it (for example, correctly believing that the sun is not the centre of the universe would not count as knowing if your reason for believing is that you also believe that the Earth is the centre of the universe).

Perhaps you might be in possession of a fact which you do not accept or do not understand, for example the fact that the Bertrand Paradox has a unique resolution such that p=0.5, you can’t really say that you know this if you don’t believe it.  (If you believe this fact to be true, but you don’t understand it, you might still know it if, for example, you had been informed by an expert in the field.  So long as it is true, of course.)

Finally, you can’t know something that is not true.

I suspect that there’s an element of equivocation and conflation involved here.  Plantinga talks about R as if it means:

the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the knowledge that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the fact that our cognitive faculties are reliable

This is cheating on a major scale.

Step 6 – The Grand Finale

If you have a defeater for R, then you have a defeater for any belief you hold, including the belief that N&E is true.  Therefore it is irrational to hold the belief that N&E is true.

That’s it.  Well, he does go into a little pre-emptive defence against defeater-defeaters, but that’s largely irrelevant since you’d have to agree with Plantinga’s arrival at Step 6 and still want to hold onto N&E.  That would mean that you’d have to agree with Step 5 (and maybe Step 2) and you wouldn’t do that unless you were already presupposing the whole outcome with respect to N&E.

Let us look at Step 5 a bit more closely.

Plantinga is arguing that if we don’t know how probable it is that our cognitive faculties are reliable then it is probable that our cognitive faculties are unreliable.  Presumably, therefore, the only way that our cognitive faculties could be reliable would be for us to know that it is probable that our cognitive faculties are reliable.  But we’d only know that if they were reliable, otherwise we couldn’t know anything.

What Plantinga seems to be supposing here is some sort of bizarre bootstrapping – if you know that your cognitive faculties are reliable, then they are, and you know they are because those faculties are reliable, making your belief both true and justified.  However, if you are in doubt about the reliability of your cognitive faculties, they are unreliable by default, you know nothing and everything you believe is suspect.

This is, of course, nonsense.

As I have said elsewhere:

All (Plantinga) manages to do … is show that if naturalism and evolution are true, then we cannot know with 100% certainty that naturalism and evolution are true.  In other words, if naturalism and evolution are true, the scientific fact of naturalism and evolution is precisely the same as any other scientific fact – (because) we don’t know anything to be true with 100% certainty.

(There’s an extremely remote, non-zero chance that The Matrix was actually an ironic mockumentary screened by our mechanical overlords to taunt us and we are plugged into vats precisely as shown in what is portrayed to us as “fiction”.  This extremely unlikely possibility chips away from any otherwise perfect certainty we might have had about our world.  Scientists will think you are some sort of batty philosopher if you raise this argument, but eventually will concede that they cannot know that we aren’t in vats.)

What rational people will do is assume that the world is as it appears to be until illusions can be shown to exist.  As we detect illusions, we try to understand them so that we can account for them in our theories.  Rational people won’t deny that our cognitive faculties are limited, and prone to failure.  Nor will they assume that because those faculties are limited, and prone to failure, that they are completely useless.

And they won’t hang onto illusions just because they are comforting.

Now that I’ve explained, as best I can, the EAAN, I’d like to introduce the EAAT, which is the EAAN Argument Against Theism, or to give it its full glory …

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 1

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Point out that if N&E is true, then it is irrational to believe anything Plantinga has to say, given that he is just an evolved form of tiger food

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 2

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Consider the following:

·         If N&E is true then, irrespective of whether or not you believe that N&E is true, then it is quite likely that you will hold beliefs that are incorrect

·         If you continually challenge all of your beliefs, then those beliefs which consistently survive challenge will be more likely to be true

·         If a belief which fails a challenge is modified and then, as a consequence of being modified, consistently survives challenge, then that modified belief is more likely to be true

·         If N&E is continually challenged and consistently survives, then it is likely to be true

·         If N&E is challenged and fails, then is modified and the modified variant, N&E*, consistently survives challenge, then it is likely to be true

·         If another belief, say theism (T), is continually challenged and consistently fails, then it is unlikely to be true

·         If a belief is unchallenged and the holders of that belief are not willing to accept challenge, then the probability of that belief being true is inscrutable (you might want to follow Plantinga’s own argument here to reach the conclusion that holding such a belief is irrational)

From all this, we can conclude that:

·         P(R|N&E|S) is high when S is high (where S is the extent to which naturalism and evolution consistently survive challenges), and

·         P(R|S) is high when S is high (because the reliability of our cognitive faculties is also continually challenged)

The fact that N&E have been modified throughout the years, particularly the E component, is an indication that N&E is more likely to be true.  As a consequence, it is entirely rational to believe both that R is true and N&E is true.

On the other hand, however:

·         P(T|F) is low when F is high (where F is the extent to which theism fails being challenged), and

·         P(T|A) is low when A is high (where A is the extent to which theism avoids being challenged – see also being an infidel and apostasy).

Unlike with many other sorts of beliefs, there is great resistance to variations to T, therefore there is no T* as such (where T* is an improved version of theism) and T has no avenue by which to evolve towards a truth statement.

In other words, yes, I agree with Plantinga: many beliefs held by evolved creatures are likely to wrong, especially if they are untreated.  Even some of the smartest humans that ever lived used to believe such things as:

·         everything is a combination of up to four elements

·         phlogiston is a substance that escapes matter when it burns

·         there is an aether that conducts light

·         those enormous bones unearthed by mining and erosion are the bones of dragons

·         narwhal horns belonged to unicorns

These people were wrong.

Who knows, maybe string theory is a load of old cobbler’s.  But the point is, even if this is the case, scientists are actively encouraged to investigate string theory, to uncover how the theory is wrong and which associated beliefs are wrong.  Scientists working in the field will then, collectively, attempt to come up with something that is slightly better, but almost certainly also wrong in its own special way – and the process will continue.

This sounds like a terrible system, and perhaps it is.  A far worse system, however, is to cling unquestioningly to a demonstrably false belief which requires you to brutally corrupt logic in order to divert attention from the wealth of evidence against that belief.