I'm not as confident as Peter Fosl about the testability issue: perhaps we need to know a bit more about what counts as "the theistic hypothesis".

After all, a lot of theistic hypotheses look perfectly testable by ordinary scientific standards. Take, for example, the claim that Zeus exists. I take it that no one now reading this site believes that that claim is literally true! But why? Well the existence claim, taken literally, is bound up with a range of stories about how the world works; and we now know the world just doesn't work that way. Mount Olympus is not populated with gods; bolts of lightning are naturally caused discharges of electricity; clouds and rain are not gathered by supernatural agency; burnt sacrifices to Zeus do not increase the chances of better crops or victory in battle; and so it goes. Science -- in the broadest sense of our empirically disciplined enquiries into how things work -- has shown we have no need of the Olympian gods to explain anything. Of course, that doesn't mean that the Greek myths aren't full of insights into the secrets of the human heart! But in so far as they essentially embody creation stories and stories about the origin of natural phenomena like storms and tempests, science -- in the broad sense -- uncontroversially shows that they are literally false.

So if someone claims that the empirical testing methods characteristic of science can't in general impact on the questions about the existence of various gods, then that's surely wrong. Which raises a nice question: why should the question of the existence of the Judeo-Christian God (the theistic hypothesis, perhaps) be different in this respect from the question of the existence of Zeus?

Well, the questions won't have a different status if we take the God-story also to be essentially bound up with e.g. certain biblical creation stories. Science has more than adequately shown that those stories aren't literally true. And again, petitionary prayer to God is no more effective in bringing about worldly goods than sacrifice to Zeus (it does no better in helping you recover from illness, say, than can be explained as a placebo effect). In so far as claims about the existence of God are bound up with specific such claims about how the world works, science can impact. And indeed, does impact strongly negatively.

But of course, sophisticated, scientifically knowledgeable, believers can and do react to that point in (at least) two different ways. One way is to disentangle the theistic hypothesis from the creation myths, and other stories about how the world works: though you might well begin to wonder, as God becomes more and more abstract, more remote from the quotidian world in which we live our lives, why we should care. Another way (characteristic I think of one strand of English Anglicanism) is to agree that in so far as talk of God is bound up with stories about how the world works, it is encroaching on the province of science, and is mostly literally false. However, that doesn't mean that the Christian myths, say, aren't very good myths to live ones life by, or that sharing Christian ritual practice isn't a sustaining prop to living a good life in a community.

Yeah, I think that's right. The theistic hypothesis is not testable through the procedures of natural science. That in itself has led many, myself included, to a kind of agnosticism about theism. That's also one of the reasons why neither creationism nor much of what is described as intelligent design are scientific.

Do note, however, that testability may not be the only basis for rejecting (or accepting) theism. Some reject theism because they find theistic language itself intolerably confused and senseless. Others point to the political and moral problems associated with theisms (the violence, the intolerance, the blunting of norms of reason and critical thinking). (I frequently find that line of reasoning attractive.) Some object to the way theism fails to produce agreement and generates divisions and sects. (Often compelling to me, too.) Along similar lines, others have concluded that it's simply undesirable to commit to beliefs that are excessively complex or, alternatively not as simple as possible. (Think of how many, many logically possible theisms there are.) The scientist Laplace, for example, to a question from Napoleon as to why his book contained no reference to God responded with: "Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là" (I had no need of that hypothesis).

On the other hand, many people do seem to need that hypothesis and derive many benefits and satisfaction from belief in a deity. Who's to say for sure that they are wrong?

So far as testability goes, however, you're dead on.

I am happy to read Miriam's and Thomas's replies to this question, because it is one that I somewhat unexpectedly faced when I switched from being a professional philosopher to being a professional computer scientist (albeit one with a highly philosophical bent!).

The first time the issue came to light was when I gave a talk to computer and cognitive scientists at the University of Texas at Austin about 20 years ago. One of my hosts was Benjamin Kuipers, a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, who had done groundbreaking work, as a grad student supported by military funding, on "way finding": How to program computers to give and to follow geographic directions. He told me that after he got his Ph.D., he realized that, as a practicing Quaker, he could not in good conscience continue to take military funding, especially if that meant that he would have to fire grad students or postdocs who would be working under his direction if the military asked him to do something against his beliefs and thereby took away his funding. So he changed the entire line of his research to medical applications of AI, which were funded by such organizations as NIH. His full story and arguments in favor of not taking military funding can be found on his website in an article titled "Why Don't I Take Military Funding?" .

The second time the issue came to my attention was when a visitor to our computer science department at the University at Buffalo lectured about autonomous vehicles--automobiles, equipped with AI-programmed computers, that can drive themselves--a project funded by DARPA. During the question session after the presentation, one of my colleagues, Tony Ralston, asked this question: "How can you justify this research when obviously its main purpose is to develop autonomous military vehicles for warfare?" Of great interest to me was that during the reception afterwards, the conversation focused around two groups: students and faculty asking the visitor technical questions, and students and faculty asking Tony Ralston questions about the ethics of militarily-funded research. Another colleague, also a practicing Quaker, suggested that it was OK to take such funding on the grounds that the work she would do was not aimed at killing people--better that the military give their money to her than to someone with other ideas.

My personal decision has been to refuse military support. There have been some negative consequences (lack of funding, etc.), but I feel comfortable with my decision.

But read Kuipers's arguments--they're quite interesting.

Adding to Professor Solomon's good points: One question that you seem not to be raising, but should, is whether research is alright when it does more good than harm. This cannot be universally correct. Think of the Tuskegee experiments. Or think of the horrific experiments German and Japanese doctors conducted on prisoners. The latter experiements apparently yielded very useful results -- so useful that the US offered immunity to doctors willing to share their knowledge and know-how. Still, participation in such experiments is generally wrong even if, in the long run, the benefits outweigh the harms. Philosophers have discussed these issues -- often in the context of criticizing or defending utilitarianism (or, more broadly, consequentialism) -- under two headings (which will enable you to retrieve relevant literature). They have debated whether negative duties (not to harm) have greater weight than positive duties (to help or benefit). And they have debated whether harms that are intended (as a means or as an end) have greater moral significance than harms that are foreseen but not intended by the agent.

To understand these debates correctly, one must hold fixed what is at stake for all parties: the positive duty to rescue a drowning child obviously has greater weight than the negative duty not to steal a pencil. So a suitable example of negative/positive would be: killing a child for the sake of avoiding a two-month jail sentence versus failing to save a child's life for the sake of avoiding a two-month jail sentence. And a suitable example of intend/foresee: ruining your friend's competitor in order to help your friend versus helping your friend while you know that doing so will ruin your friend's competitor.

One way of specifying and defending the moral significance of these two distinctions is the doctrine of double effect (see e.g., http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/), which comes as close as philosophers get to a criterion that can support precise answers. Like most everything in philosophy, the DDE is much disputed.

On your final question of tainting, you might look at Bernard Williams' essay in Utilitarianism: For and Against (the story of George, the chemical scientist), which essay also interestingly illuminates the negative/positive duty distinction (the story of Jim). You might also look at some of the literature on (moral) integrity and on collective responsibility.

The ability (and perhaps inclination) to distort or propagandize is deeply human, and I see no reason to think that one is less likely to engage in such things from an "insider's" perspective than if one takes (or cannot help but be in) an "outsider's" position. Indeed, in some ways, I would expect these tendencies to be greater from "inside" than from "outside" perspectives, since those of the former group do, whereas the latter need not, have anything personal at stake. If I follow a certain religion, or have been raised to accept and engage in a certain cultural practice, or am a member of a certain ethnic group, it is natural for me to want to defend that religion, practice, or group--and to minimize or ignore the way(s) in which my religion, practice, or group may (even rightly) be seen as mistaken or wrong. Obviously, one's access to all the pertinent evidence for sound judgment may be more difficult, the further "outside" one is from the sources of such evidence, but at least one can be free of the biases inherent to one's sense of belonging to a religion, culture, or ethnic group.

These are terrific questions and I hope someone else on the panel can also respond to them. The philosophy of science literature, and even the literature on values in science (Hugh Lacey, Helen Longino, Lynn Hankinson Nelson and others) is rather general and not sufficiently applied to give quick answers. I think you are going to have to do a good deal of the thinking yourself. But here are some questions and considerations.

The agency acronym is, indeed, not an infallible guide to the nature of the research. However, it is a rough guide and perhaps more important, it is *perceived* as affecting the content of the research done. The funding agency will influence who chooses to work with you (science is after all not an individual enterprise) and how people evaluate your research. On the other hand, DARPA money is easier to come by than NSF money (or so I hear) and you might prefer to do research with DARPA money than not do it at all (that is a question to ask yourself). The issue here is whether or not the ends justify the means, and there is a large literature on this in philosophy (the classical place to look is the debate between Mill and Kuhn, the contemporary place is Rawls's rejection of utilitarianism).

I don't think anyone can completely control the reception and application of their scientific (or other creative work). It is an empirical matter whether or not a new technology can be developed for ill (or good). Perhaps the best you can do is try to make the initial applications good ones i.e. try to set the technology going on an ethically positive note. You could also join progressive scientific societies (e.g. Union of Concerned Scientists) to network and transmit your ideas.

Open peer-reviewed publication is good for science (good for knowledge) but I don't know whether it has anything to do with developing technologies that benefit rather than harm people.

A final thought--the new Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice (SPSP) is encouraging the kind of applied work that would be needed to explore your questions. You might like to find their website/go to their conferences/connect with their members. The next meeting is in Minneapolis, 18-20 June 2009. The program is already posted, and you could peruse the contents and contact speakers who seem to address your concerns.

I am no expert on these matters. (For an expert opinion, you might consult Philip Kitcher's recent work.) But I would like to point out that "the interests of free inquiry" is an ambiguous phrase. It is one thing to say that ethically, such a study should not be conducted. It is quite another thing to say that the government or some collection of private citizens should take action to prevent a scientist from conducting such a study. Just as "free speech" considerations prohibit the government from preventing certain kinds of speech but do not deem all speech to be ethically permissible, so "the interests of free inquiry" may prohibit the government from preventing certain kinds of studies but do not deem all studies to be ethically permissible.

An interesting question is whether a private grantmaking organization should fail to fund such a study. Considerations of "free inquiry" do not require it to be blind to the reasons why such a study might be unethical (just as the interests of "free speech" do not require that a private university or other private institution provide a forum for advocates of all sides in a dispute to speak). When the government is the grantmaking organization, matters get even more complicated.

So what I am trying to say is that there are several questions here: (i) is such a study ethical? (ii) If not, how should that fact be taken into account by governments, grantmaking organizations, scientific institutions (such as journals and universities), and individual scientists themselves (where the answer may be different for different members of this list)?

As for whether such a study is ethical, I would say (speaking nonprofessionally -- I am not an ethicist) that if it is reasonably believed that the outcome of such a study would likely be grossly misused by the public at large, then that fact constitutes a strong (though perhaps not decisive) reason to believe that it would be unethical to conduct such a study. (Other reasons would have to be weighed against this one, including whether any benefits might result from carrying out such a study.)

If you have a powerful theory about the smallest building blocks of the world, about what the laws governing them are, how they combine to generate more familiar entities, and this allows you to make more or less successful predictions about the world, then you are presumably giving a scientific account of the natural world. What else?

True, these building blocks may not be directly observable, and indeed your theory may explain why they can't be observed: but postulating their existence may still be the best explanatory game in town by standard scientific criteria. There's nothing 'supernatural' going on (although the quantum mechanical laws governing these micro things does make them pretty weird by everyday standards).

You jokingly call these ultimate building-blocks "elephants", I call them "quarks" (in fact a name that seems to have originated in another joke). But what's in a word?

This is an interesting question, in fact, so interesting that I am writing a whole book about it (Rediscovering Free Will). As Miriam says, much depends on how you define free will. Let's not begin with the problematic assumption that free will requires a non-natural power to transcend the causal interactions in the natural world, though I think we can begin with the idea that free will involves our powers to control our actions in light of our deliberations about what to do, such that we can be properly held responsible for our actions. In that case, we should not begin with the assumption made by some scientists writing about free will: that increasingly complete scientific (naturalistic) explanations of human decision-making thereby rule out any role for free will. Rather, it may be that neuroscientific and psychological explanations of human decision-making can help to explain--rather than explain away--our capacities to deliberate about our reasons and to control our actions accordingly. Here is a very brief summary of what I think science might say about human free will:

1. Scientific evidence for determinism would not prove that free will is an illusion. This is because determinism does not properly entail most of the things people take to be intuitively threatening to free will, including the things that scientists have recently been talking about when they say they are showing free will is an illusion, such as the idea that our "conscious will" plays no role in our actions (e.g., Libet, Wegner, etc.). Determinism, properly construed, is consistent with our conscious deliberations and intentions influencing our actions. And these purported scientific threats are also consistent with indeterminism. (By the way, neither neuroscience nor psychology is going to show determinism is true--i.e., that given certain causal antecedents, certain effects necessarily follow. Only fundamental physics has a hope of showing this to be true, and the current interpretation of quantum physics suggests determinism is false.)

2. The scientific evidence for epiphenomenalism--i.e., the causal irrelevance of conscious mental states--is not there. The claims that non-conscious processes are sufficient to cause our actions, while our conscious awareness of our intentions comes too late to play a causal role, are not supported by the evidence, especially if one considers conscious deliberation, planning, and intention formation that occurs well before action, which is the sort that seems most relevant for free will. It's more important that my thoughts today about what I want to do tomorrow (or with my life!) affect what I end up doing than that my thought about which finger to move in a second affects which finger I move.

3. However, this doesn't mean we are out of the woods yet. There is some worrying evidence from psychology that we often do not know why we do what we do and are influenced by factors we would not want to influence us if we knew about them (advertisers certainly know this!). To the extent that is true, it seems we have diminished free will, because we are unable to act on the reasons we have accepted in prior deliberation--or even that we would accept if we did deliberate about it. I don't think the evidence goes as far as some suggest, but I think it may suggest we have less free will than we tend to think (I take free will to be a set of capacities we possess and exercise to varying degrees, rather than an all-or-nothing thing).

So, in my view, once we work out a clear conception of free will--preferably one that is amenable to empirical investigation--then the sciences of the mind have the potential to inform us about how it works (e.g., how the brain subserves it) but also to show how it is limited.

Hope this helps!

Let me turn the tables on you and ask, "What is free will?" When people use this concept, they may have any of several different ideas in mind. Some people think of free will as freedom from external factors such as bribery or threats, some think of it as freedom from acting in accordance with one's own baser urges, some think of it as lack of determination (by the laws of nature/brain processes etc.) I think different sciences are relevant to each of these questions and that we can have evidence supporting or disconfirming claims about free will.

Another way for you to think about your question: if there is no free will, what would you have lost?