Review of Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True

Jerry Coyne, biology professor at University of Chicago, is a vocal and popular advocate of neo-Darwinian evolution (what he himself often refers to as "Darwinism").  He is likewise severely critical of Darwinism's theoretical rival, intelligent design.  His 2009 book Why Evolution is True sets out to make a case for Darwinism and against intelligent design.  Coyne puts his thesis this way:

"This book lays out the main lines of evidence for evolution. For those who oppose Darwinism purely as a matter of faith, no amount of evidence will do--theirs is a belief not based on reason. But for the many who find themselves uncertain, or who accept evolution but are not sure how to argue their case, this volume gives a succinct summary of why modern science recognizes evolution as true" (p.xiv).

Coyne indeed accomplishes his goal of laying out lines of evidence in favor of evolution in his book.  In the first chapter, he lists six predictions of Darwinism.  The first three of these predictions are related to the fossil record and describe the features we should expect to see if organisms slowly changed over time from simpler forms to more complex forms.  For example, Coyne says we should find simpler organismal forms in older layers of rock; we should find cases of speciation in the fossil record; and we should find links (or transitional forms) between groups that diverged from common ancestors.  Unrelated to the fossil record, Coyne says we should observe a wide range of genetic variation in organisms (i.e. random mutations); we should find examples of "imperfect" biological systems, because evolution is blind or unguided; and we should see natural selection occurring in the present-day in the wild.

Review of The Rediscovery of the Mind by John Searle

John Searle--presently at Berkeley--wrote The Rediscovery of the Mind back in 1992. The book attempts to explain how the philosophy of mind has gone wrong in the last century or so and how Searle thinks it can be corrected. In this review, I'll argue that Searle's criticisms of popular forms of materialism are persuasive, that his criticisms of dualism are thinly developed, and that his own proposal--biological naturalism--is conceptually flawed.

I will begin with contemporary materialism. Searle levels a pretty serious offensive against materialist theories of mind in the first half of the book or so. Versions of materialism have been dominating the philosophy of mind (and much of academic philosophy generally) for the bulk of the 20th century and into the 21st, so Searle's going against the grain here was no way to guarantee popularity with his contemporaries. Searle is confident in his position though, and says with characteristic candor, "How is it that so many philosophers and cognitive scientists can say so many things that, to me at least, seem obviously false?" (p.3).

Analysis of William Lane Craig versus Sean Carroll February 2014 Debate

Philosopher William Lane Craig and Physicist Sean Carroll debated the subject of God and Cosmology on February 21 in New Orleans.  Out of all the debates of Dr. Craig's that I have seen (which are many), this one was definitely one of the best.  Both debaters carried themselves professionally, made a reasonable effort to respond to each other's arguments, and managed to keep the debate both informative and entertaining.

I will confess at the outset that I generally find Dr. Craig's arguments to be sharp and persuasive, though I do not sympathize with his Christianity.  Although I do end up mostly defending Dr. Craig's position and criticizing Dr. Carroll's position in this analysis, I attempted to do so fairly and with attention to arguments.  I believe this is in alignment with the spirit of debate and also makes for an enjoyable exercise of philosophy.

Given the debate structure and my interests in the topics discussed, I've divided this analysis into three main parts: Dr. Carroll's positive case, Dr. Craig's Positive Case, and Dr. Carroll's Negative Case.  The positive cases comprise each debater's arguments in favor of their preferred world views: naturalism and theism, respectively.  Those who are familiar with Dr. Craig's debates may wish to skip my discussion of his positive case because they are likely familiar with it.  Dr. Carroll's Negative Case comprises his arguments against Craig's theistic arguments.  I finish the article with a few concluding remarks.

Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis (Amazon Review)

In a 2012 debate entitled The Great Debate: Has Science Refuted Religion, physicist Sean Carroll made a rather bold claim in his opening remarks (at about the 12:30 mark):

"The argument is finished.  The debate is over.  We've come to a conclusion.  Naturalism has won. If you go to any university physics department, listen to the talks they give or the papers they write--go to any biology department, go to any neuroscience department, any philosophy department, people whose professional job it is to explain the world, to come up with explanatory frameworks that match what we see--no one mentions God.  There's never an appeal to a supernatural realm by people whose job it is to explain what happens in the world.  Everyone knows that the naturalist explanations are the ones that work."

Naturalism: A Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland is essentially a direct challenge to Carroll's claim.  The book is a collection of essays by academic philosophers in university departments that do not "know that naturalist explanations are the ones that work."  They instead level a host of ontological, epistemological, ethical, and theological arguments against the veracity of naturalist explanations.  In this review I will attempt to explain what some of those arguments are.

Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Part 5)

This is part 5 of my series of essays on Naturalism: A Critical Analysis. This essay will focus on Stuart Goetz's chapter, which discusses the implications of libertarian free will on naturalism.  You can follow the following links for the other essays in the series: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Chapter 7: Naturalism and Libertarian Agency
by Stuart Goetz 

Goetz's primary argument against naturalism is that libertarian free will falsifies naturalism.  If free will exists, then naturalism is false.  Formally, we can put the argument like this:

(1) If libertarian free will exists, then naturalism is false
(2) Libertarian free will exists
Therefore (3) Naturalism is false

I will clarify a few terms then discuss the argument.

Libertarian Free Will
 
Libertarian free will is the idea that choices are not predetermined or fully coerced by law-like forces.  Libertarian free will (or libertarianism for short) entails that those who have free will are agents--they are self-directing entities who make choices for reasons.  In Goetz's words, "According to libertarianism, a choice is an undetermined mental action which is explained teleologically in terms of a purpose or goal of its agent" (157).

Review of Naturalism: a Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Part 4)

This is part 4 in my series of essays on Naturalism: A Critical Analysis, edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland.

Chapter 6: Naturalism and the Mind
by Charles Taliaferro

Charles Taliaferro is tasked with stirring up trouble for naturalism with respect to mental states and events.  Insofar as one takes the existence of first-person mental states as evidence for an immaterial spirit or soul, naturalism is threatened because it depends on the rejection of all things "supernatural."  Surely, such entities as immaterial spirits or souls tread uncomfortably close to the supernatural; so, if Taliaferro's project is successful, it presents yet another deadly attack on the naturalist's stronghold.

For those familiar with the history of the philosophy of mind, Taliaferro's essay will not add anything terribly new to the field; however, in a book poking as many holes in naturalism as possible, the argument from the mind has an important place.  Taliaferro does a fine job summarizing the various naturalist strategies for avoiding the threats associated with "substantiating" the mind (i.e. awarding the mind the status of a "substance"--something that exists independently of the physical).  Taliaferro basically outlines three broad naturalist strategies for dealing with the mental, offers objections to each of them, then proposes that the mental fits much better within a theistic framework than within a naturalist framework.  I will discuss the three naturalist strategies and Talifierro's responses to them.

Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Part 3)

This is part three of a series of articles on the book Naturalism: A Critical Analysis.  You can find part one and part two in my blog archive.

Chapter 3: The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism
by Robert C. Koons

Robert Koons continues the book's assault on naturalism by arguing against the compatibility of naturalism and scientific realism.  Scientific realism is simply the position that the methods and findings of science uncover objective information about really existing entities in the world.  The reason a telescope displays a bright patch of light when pointed in a certain direction in space, for example, is because there's a ball of burning energy out there causing the telescope to display what it does.  Many naturalists, as far as I can tell, are strongly motivated toward naturalism precisely because they think scientific realism is the correct view of reality, and they think naturalism bears the strongest commitment to such realism out of all positions on offer.  Thus, Koons' thesis is extremely provocative as it targets one of naturalism's primary virtues.

Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Part 2)

This is part two in a series of essays exploring the 2000 book Naturalism: A Critical Analsysis by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland.  You can find part 1 here.  This essay will explore the second chapter of the book.

Chapter 2: Knowledge and Naturalism
by Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard's project is to argue that certain varieties of naturalism cannot accommodate knowledge or knowing in the world.  Given the limited physical resources of a naturalist world, too many ingredients of knowledge are missing from such a world to account for our coming to possess knowledge.  Willard states his thesis thus in his fourth paragraph:

"I will try to explain why narrower Naturalism or unqualified Physicalism cannot find a place for knowledge, and specifically for three of its essential components: truth, logical relations and noetic unity" (p.24).

Notice that he qualifies naturalism with "narrower."  He does this because naturalism has not historically been a unified position.  Willard distinguishes "narrower" naturalism from "generous" naturalism in the essay.  The former only permits physical entities into existence whereas the latter is not necessarily limited to only physical entities.  Narrower naturalism, therefore, is stronger (or bolder) than generous naturalism.  While Willard argues in the above quotation that narrower naturalism cannot find a place for knowledge, Willard argues elsewhere in the essay that generous naturalism also fails to accommodate knowledge because the position is imprecisely defined and winds up being vacuous.  We will look at this last claim first.

Review of Naturalism: A Critical Analysis edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland (Part 1)

William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland edited a volume in 2000 entitled Naturalism: A Critical Analysis.  The work is a collection of ten essays by different philosophers who each, in turn, criticizes different dimensions of the naturalist worldview.  I aim to do a short series of reviews of select essays from the book because, first of all, the book is extremely interesting.  Second, naturalism has maintained its popularity in the decade since this book's publication, but the criticisms leveled in this work remain, as best as I can tell, unresolved; I wish to discuss the arguments against naturalism that I find most compelling.  I will begin with chapter one.

Chapter 1: Farewell to Philosophical Naturalism
by Paul K. Moser and David Yandell

In their essay, Moser and Yandell argue that although the methods and resources of the empirical sciences reliably track the truth in certain domains, there is insufficient justification for extending those methods and resources to such a degree that the empirical sciences have a monopoly over all domains of inquiry.  Put another way, since some knowledge comes to us by way of physical sense experience of an externally existing material world, it does not follow that all knowledge comes to us by way of physical sense experience and that all existing entities are material.  Moser and Yandell write:

"A basic question is whether there is a legitimate form of philosophical procedure, often called 'first philosophy,' that has ontological authority but employs methods 'prior to' or at least not based on sense experience or the empirical sciences. In particular, can a philosopher operating without reliance on sensation or the empirical sciences legitimately engage in inquiry that posits real objects or at least yields genuine truths? Naturalists say no; antinaturalists, yes" (p.3-4).

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: A Response to Stephen Law

In my recent review of Alvin Plantinga's book Where the Conflict Really Lies, I sketched his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) and briefly considered a reply to the argument by Stephen Law.  Stephen Law published his reply to the EAAN called "Naturalism, Evolution, and True Belief" in Analysis in January 2012.  It is available on his blog here.  In this essay, I would like to examine Law's response in more detail and show why I think it fails to refute the EAAN.

The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN)

I will begin by summarizing the EAAN (those already familiar with the argument may skip to the next section).  The EAAN attempts to establish an internal inconsistency between belief in naturalism on the one hand, and belief in the reliability of human cognitive (or belief-forming) faculties on the other.  Specifically, the argument suggests that naturalism--which supposes humans are thoroughly material beings who came to be by a purposeless, unguided process of Darwinian evolution--provides no mechanism by which human belief-forming faculties could be calibrated to track "true" propositions.  This is so for the following two reasons.

Review of Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies

Alvin Plantinga, a seasoned philosopher of religion and critic of atheistic and naturalistic belief, develops the following thesis in his 2011 work Where the Conflict Really Lies: "there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and theistic religion, but superficial concord and deep conflict between science and naturalism."  In essence, Plantinga argues that the enterprise of science functions better given certain theistic assumptions than it does given certain natrualistic assumptions.  Such a claim is a direct assault on the naturalist's stronghold, for the core of naturalist doctrine is powered almost exclusively by the authority of science.  Plantinga, of course, is well-aware how close to the artery his argument cuts:  He colorfully writes, "Naturalists pledge allegiance to science; they nail their banner to the mast of science; they wrap themselves in the mantle of science like a politician in the flag" (p. 307).  Certainly, if naturalists are as wedded to science as Plantinga takes them to be, and if Plantinga's central thesis is remotely successful, then naturalists have something of a crisis on their hands.

Plantinga systematically develops each of the major claims in his thesis throughout the book.  He begins by discussing how the alleged conflict between science and theism is merely superficial, goes on to argue that science and theism are deeply concordant, then claims the concord often attributed to science and naturalism is actually superficial, then finally argues that science and naturalism are in deep conflict.  Although each of these discussions is substantive, interesting, and, in characteristic Plantinga style, entertaining, I will only discuss the argument I found most interesting--the argument that science and naturalism are in deep conflict--and encourage the reader to pick up the book him or herself to learn more about the others.

Review of Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions

Alex Rosenberg's 2011 book The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions attempts to boldly "tell it like it is" with respect to a rigorous metaphysical materialist's reality; what it accomplishes, however, is to boldly trip over its own feet.

Rosenberg defends what he calls "scientism": "This is the conviction that the methods of science are the only reliable ways to secure knowledge of anything; that science's description of the world is correct in its fundamentals; and that when 'complete,' what science tells us will not be surprisingly different from what it tells us today" (p.6).

As Rosenberg develops the implications of scientism throughout the book, it becomes evident that he builds into his definition of scientism the metaphysical commitment traditionally dubbed "eliminative materialism."  Eliminative materialism asserts a) that only physical objects and the deterministic laws pushing them around exist, and b) that whatever cannot be entirely reduced to physical objects must not exist (i.e. must be eliminated).   Rosenberg says flatly, "The basic things everything is made up of are fermions and bosons.  That's it....There is no third kind of subatomic particle.  And everything is made up of these two kinds of things....All the processes in the universe, from atomic to bodily to mental, are purely physical processes involving fermions and bosons interacting with one another" (p.21).

It is important to note that Rosenberg's project is not to defend scientism against competing worldviews--readers ought not open the book expecting systematic refutations of theism, deism, dualism, idealism, or any other non-materialist view:

[T]his book is written mainly for those of us who are already deniers [of theism], not just doubters and agnostics.  Although we will address the foibles and fallacies (as well as the wishful thinking) of theists, we won't treat theism as a serious alternative that stills [sic] needs to be refuted.  This book's intended readers have moved past that point.  We know the truth (p. xii).

Rosenberg instead aims to work out the implications of a world exclusively populated by fermions and bosons and only fermions and bosons.  Given that this is his project, it is odd that he used over 300 pages to work this out.  In a world populated by nothing but fermions and bosons, what more need be said other than, "the world is full of only fermions and bosons"?  Oddly, though, Rosenberg attempts to fill twelve chapters with discussion about all the ways we keep entertaining illusions about a world filled with more than fermions and bosons--for example, a world filled with meaning, purposes, desires, intentions, persons, choices, goodness, values, etc.  So, for twelve chapters, Rosenberg introduces these seemingly non-fermion/boson entities into the discussion only to repeat that each one is "just a configuration of fermions and bosons."  He even writes this of his own book, "This book isn't conveying statements.  It's rearranging neural circuits, removing inaccurate disinformation and replacing it with accurate information (p.193)."  Ignore for the moment that the sentence, "This book isn't conveying statements" is itself, of all things, a statement.  What he writes is still perhaps too friendly to non-boson/fermion thinking, as it introduces illusory concepts of "neural circuits," "accuracy," and "information" into the picture; I think it would be more accurate if Rosenberg were to say this instead: "This book isn't conveying statements.  It's a temporary configuration of fermions and bosons.  From moment to moment the fermions and bosons are moving around into different configurations of fermions and bosons."

The fact that Rosenberg attempts to say more than that the world is merely comprised of nothing but fermions and bosons is precisely the reason his project suffers from abject incoherency.  In writing anything, especially a 300 page book, one implicitly accepts a host of normative, meaningful, intentional features of consciousness--e.g. one accepts that a certain "person" exists who has certain thoughts "about" certain non-physical objects of "meaning" that "he" or "she" then translates into certain symbols that combine according to certain non-physical rules to form words that have certain non-physical "meanings" that combine with other words that have certain non-physical "meanings" into non-physical rules of grammar that convey further certain "meanings" to certain "persons" who decode those symbols back into certain non-physical "meanings" that those "persons" can then have thoughts "about."

Notice how many words in the foregoing sentence were neither "fermion" nor "boson."  Seriously, if there exists nothing other than fermions and bosons, how could any symbol ever refer to anything other than fermions and bosons?  What's more, all of the traditional referents of the words in quotes are specially targeted by Rosenberg as entities that do not fit the fermion/boson picture and thus must not exist:

"The physical facts fix all the facts.  It's because they do that thinking about stuff is impossible" (p.162).

"The fact that the mind is the brain guarantees that there is no free will.  It rules out any purposes or designs organizing our actions or our lives" (p.195).

"When it fixed the facts, physics ruled out the existence of selves, souls, persons, or nonphysical minds inhabiting our bodies" (p.220).

Any attempt to coherently put all the pieces of Rosenberg's position together simply smacks of contradiction.  He wants to assert that neither he nor the reader exists and that neither thoughts nor words are ever "about" anything, yet he also wants the nonexistent reader to entertain content-less thoughts derived from words written by a nonexistent author that could not possibly be about anything at all, much less about "scientism" in particular.  Frankly, this is just irritating.

Stepping back from the particulars for a moment, let us recall why one ever proposes or entertains a given theory in the first place.  In general, we are interested in explaining, describing, or understanding the world we happen to live in.  To satisfy these intentions, a theory must both be internally consistent (that is, not self-contradictory) and externally consistent (that is, it must faithfully "map-onto" or "match" events in the external world).  Presumably, there is only one way for a theory to be externally consistent (since we live in a single universe), but there are potentially infinite ways for a theory to be internally consistent (since there are an infinite number of possible worlds).  Thus, our ultimate aim when assessing theories is to find one that satisfies both internal and external tests of consistency.  The internal test may be dubbed the "rational test," whereas the external test may be dubbed the "empirical test."

At the risk of oversimplifying too much, let me suggest that the field of mathematics is a paradigm example of rational analysis, whereas the field of science is a paradigm example of empirical analysis.  The axioms, postulates, and theorems of mathematics beautifully embody internal consistency, but they don't, by themselves, tell us anything necessarily true about the external world.  For example, if geometrically perfect cubes existed in the world, then mathematical formulas would describe the features of that cube without error.  But, of course, that conditional does nothing to show that there ever did, or ever will, exist a geometrically perfect cube in this universe.  In order to know whether a geometrically perfect cube has ever, or will ever, exist in this world, one needs to step into the realm of empirical analysis--i.e., one needs to look at our world and see what's in it.  A great example of this is the story of Neptune's discovery.  Astronomers had used Newton's laws of gravitation to compute Uranus's orbital path on the assumption that no further celestial body existed beyond Uranus's orbit.  Observations of Uranus's orbit over time, however, revealed deviations from the path outlined by Newton's equations.  Thus, there was a conflict between theory (only seven planets) and observation (deviations from predicted orbit).  In these situations, one can either revise the theory or deny the observations.  Orthodoxy generally dictates that one do the former, and that indeed is what happened with Uranus--the observations were ultimately reconciled with the existence of an eighth planet pulling Uranus off its predicted path.

Now let's return to Rosenberg and his scientism thesis.  He claims to strictly be following the methods and findings of empirical science--indeed, he derives scientism from the word science itself.  The last thing Rosenberg should want to do, then, is allow detached theorizing to dictate what one actually finds in the world.  In other words, Rosenberg should never let what exists in the world be contingent on, derivative from, or beholden to what this or that theory says.  The direction should always be in the reverse: the theory should be contingent on, derivative from, or beholden to what is observed to exist in the empirical world.  Rosenberg quite explicitly maintains that scientism predicts the non-existence of intentional states (i.e. aboutness), subjective points of view, and enduring selves.  Furthermore, Rosenberg's scientism predicts that all anyone should ever find when looking at the world is fermions and bosons (afterall, that's all that supposedly exists).  The natural next step for one committed to the empirical nature of science would be, of course, to look at the world to see whether this theory checks out.  Depending on what one finds, the theory is either affirmed or denied.

So, when Rosenberg looks, what does he see?  He says, "Without scientism, we look at life from the inside, from the first-person POV [point of view].  The first person is the subject, the audience, the viewer of subjective experience, the self in the mind" (p.194).  This seems to suggest that when Rosenberg looks, he finds, just as his readers reliably find, a first person point of view, a subject, a self--that is, he finds what his theory says he shouldn't find (selves, etc.), and he doesn't find what his theory says he should find (only fermions and bosons).  Despite these observations, Rosenberg asserts, "Scientism shows that the first-person POV is an illusion" (p.194). Now, on first blush, this appears to be an instance of retroactively modifying an observation in order to fit a given theory.  This would be analogous to claiming Uranus's observed irregularities were merely "illusory" in order to preserve the seven-planet solar system model.  Such reasoning is the reverse of empirical honesty.  If Rosenberg's scientism were the correct model of our world, there should not even be "illusions" of first-person points of view, much less real points of view.  Again, all there should be are fermions and bosons--no selves, no meaning, no points of view, and certainly no illusions.  There shouldn't be any "experiences" of any kind.  But, remarkably, Rosenberg goes on to say this:

Since scientism admits that experiences exist, they will have to be physical for scientism to be true.  If the facts about experience can't be fixed by physics, scientism will be false.  More specifically, if the facts about my experiences can't be fixed, explained, accounted for by neuroscience, then scientism will be false (p.227).

Now, why in a world of just fermions and bosons would there be "experiences"?  Does physics tell us that fermions or bosons have "experience" properties in addition to mass, spin, or whatever?  Furthermore, why in a world barring first-person points of view would experiences nevertheless be permitted?  How is it even coherent to speak of "experiences" without points of view "having" the experiences?  To Rosenberg's credit, he does appear to recognize, to some extent, the gravity of this problem.  He admits that these "experiences" need to somehow be absorbed into the fermion/boson world if scientism is going to live.  In chapter ten, he (sort of) attempts to answer objections to the-mind-is-the-brain conjectures in the philosophy of mind.  He brings up three famous arguments (one each from Rene Descartes, Thomas Nagel, and Godfried Von Leibniz), each of which illustrating conceptual problems inherent in turning the mind into a physical thing.  I'll simply sketch Descartes' argument here as that will suffice.

Descartes simply argued that he can doubt everything about the world except his own conscious awareness.  He can be wrong about the fact that there's an independently existing world "out there"; he can be wrong that he has a physical body interacting with such a world; he can even be wrong about logical truths like addition.  What he cannot be wrong about, though, is that he is a perceiving thing.  Even if every perception he ever has deceives him in some way, it still must be true that he is a perceiving thing.  Rosenberg's persistent appeal to "illusions" in his book very clearly meets Descartes' argument head-on.  The appeal to illusions requires that there be a perceiving thing of whom the illusion deceives.  Here's Rosenberg's response:

Does Scientism actually have to take Descartes's argument and others like it seriously?  Does it actually have to diagnose each of their mistakes, or any of them?  No.  Even before you hear them, science provides a compelling reason that they must all be wrong.  One has only to weigh the evidence for scientism--500 years of scientific progress--and the evidence against it--including those cute conundrums.  It's clear which side has the weightier evidence.

Scientism isn't required to figure out what is wrong with these proofs that experience can't be physical, so minds can't be brains.  That's the job of science--neuroscience in particular.  Scientism can ignore the conundrums, dilemmas, and paradoxes that the arguments generate.  Science cannot.  These problems are signposts in the research program of the science of the brain.  Unraveling them will be some of its marks of progress.  Meanwhile scientism can already be confident that they will be unraveled (p.227-8).

To call this response underwhelming would be an understatement.  This move does not bear the marks of one following empirical observations.  This is theory telling us what exists rather than what exists telling us what theory to hold.  His strategy is to downplay Descartes et. al.'s arguments as "cute," tell his readers to ignore them, and redirect attention to the 500 years of scientific progress in fields unrelated to the mind.  It is worth mentioning that Descartes (who lived from 1596 to 1650) is himself credited as one of the founders of modern science.  By appealing to the "500 years of scientific progress" while simultaneously mentioning Descartes, Rosenberg inadvertently draws attention to the fact that science has failed to resolve Descartes' mind-body problem for basically all 500 of those years.  How much "weight" does this add to scientism's evidence base?  Furthermore, it is entirely circular to appeal to the future findings of science to demonstrate the physical nature of experiences; the point of Descartes et. al.'s arguments is to show that experiences are not physical.  To assert that future science will show experiences to be physical is simply to assume that experiences are physical.  If one assumes what needs to be proved, then one is just arguing in a circle.  I suppose scientism's devotees can follow Rosenberg's suggestion and just ignore these problems, fortunately the rest of us can just as easily ignore scientism.

Allow me to close by repeating something I said earlier.  Rosenberg's project took a turn for the worse the moment he tried to say something above and beyond "the world is filled with only fermions and bosons."  If this claim were really true, there would simply be nothing more to say.  There would be no book to write, no audience to educate, no scientism to define.  There would just be the damn fermions and bosons and nothing else.  Such a world would be internally consistent.  The fact that Rosenberg did not stop with that one statement undermines his entire project.  Word after word, he just digs scientism a deeper and deeper grave by reminding the reader that there are all kinds of words that are "about" concepts other than fermions and bosons.  He cannot say anything without presupposing the very entities and concepts he wants to say do not exist.  In doing so, all 300 pages of his book decisively show that his scientism is not externally consistent--it may describe a world, but it does not describe our world.  Insofar as readers are interested in understanding this world, the best this book will do is provide some insight into what some people in this world are prepared to believe.