The Falsification Challenge

The philosopher Antony Flew adopted the scientific falsification principle in thinking about religious belief.  That principle asserts that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be disprovable (or falsifiable), before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.  According to Flew, the same line of reasoning should apply to religious beliefs.  For any given statement of faith, one should not be expected to accept its truth unless that statement has a level of credence that is afforded by the ability to verify that it is consistent with observed reality.  Flew used a parable to illustrate his point:

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, “Some gardener must tend this plot.” So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. “But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.” So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. “But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.” At last the Skeptic despairs, “But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?” - Antony Flew [Theology and Falsification]

Like the Believer in this parable, religionists refuse to be convinced of the futility of their faith by the lack of any meaningful way to verify those beliefs.  They even go so far as to turn the tables on skeptics, arguing that it is the skeptic who is stubbornly resistant to evidence.  We see this with Victor Reppert, who has made this accusation against scientist and professor Peter Atkins, who is renowned for his stance on the incompatibility of science and religion.  Reppert claims that he has failed Flew's falsification challenge in this post: Hey, whatever happened to the falsification challenge, which presents a short video clip wherein Atkins supposedly denies that any evidence could ever convince him that there is a God.  I urge readers to listen carefully to this video.  It is only about 3 minutes long.

At first glance, it might appear that Victor is correct.  But a more careful viewing reveals something different.  Atkins is being badgered by two religionists on the topic of what kind of evidence for God would he find convincing.  They insist on putting words in his mouth (to the effect that he could never be convinced by any evidence), and refuse to listen to what he's actually saying.  Atkins actually starts out by giving an example of a kind of evidence that might be persuasive to him - like a modern scientific equation appearing unequivocally in the bible - long before mankind had that kind of scientific knowledge.  But the interviewers ignore that example, and steer the discussion to what kind of evidence found in nature or in the universe would be convincing.  And since Atkins finds no convincing evidence in nature, they assert that he simply refuses to accept any evidence at all - even in principle.

The interviewers suggest a scenario where the stars change position in the sky to spell out "Peter, please believe in me".  And Atkins responds, "I'd put it down to madness."  This gives the interviewers the opening they're looking for.  They insist that he wouldn't accept any evidence of any kind, despite the fact that he already gave an example of evidence that he would accept.  At this point, they're talking about two different things.  Atkins is trying to respond to the question that was asked - about evidence found in nature, and the interviewers have shifted to the assertion that he would deny evidence at all, due to a supposed a-priori commitment in atheism.

It is important to understand just what Atkins is saying.  Why does he think the alignment of the stars would be chalked up to madness?  It's not because of an a-priori commitment to atheism.  Rather, it's because there could never be any such thing in a world where the laws of physics apply, and all the evidence he has ever seen tells him that those laws do apply.  It would turn his understanding of the natural world upside-down.  No such thing has ever happened before, and he has very good reason to predict that no such thing ever will happen, which is what he tells them, and they attempt to turn that into an unjustified ideological stance.  But that reason is based entirely on evidence.

The interviewers continue to insist that Atkins has this a-priori commitment, and that he would reject any and all evidence that might support belief in God.  But this is dishonest, particularly because he denies the position they are trying to pin on him - not once, but twice.  And all that comes after he already spoke about evidence that he would find convincing.  One must ask, why are they so keen on ignoring what he says, and putting their own words into his mouth?

It is also important to note that the scenario of stars aligning in the sky is purely hypothetical.  It has never happened before, and Atkins is on fairly solid ground in predicting that it never will.  The religionists can't point to any real evidence of that sort, because they don't have any.  All they can do is play a game of "but what if ..."  We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the evidence that we can see in our world doesn't provide justification for a skeptic to believe in anything supernatural, and it is the religionists, not Atkins, who have an a-priori commitment.  They are the ones who deny the actual observed evidence.

As for the falsification challenge posed by Flew, Atkins has certainly not failed it, as Reppert asserts.  He hasn't been shown anything that actually falsifies naturalism.  A hypothetical scenario that goes against everything we know about nature certainly doesn't fit the bill.  Would it make more sense to forget about all the evidence we have ever seen, and drop our understanding of how things work in the world, or to think that this one-time vision (should we ever encounter such a thing) would more probably be a delusion?  The religionists completely miss the point that Atkins is making.  Not that they were ever interested in hearing it in the first place.  Because in their case at least, there really is nothing that would ever sway them from their own a-priori commitment.