Evidence for materialism?

William Dembski has posted a note from Terry Mirll on Uncommon Descent in which Terry makes six predictions which would happen if ""materialism is true". The idea presumably being that these predictions are implausible and so this counts as evidence against materialism. It is kind of fun and I did attempt to post on UD about it - but it looks like my post has not made the cut. So I thought I would have another go here.

First off I wonder what "materialism is true" means? Consider these five statements:

1) There are phenomena yet to be discovered which we have not conceived - just as we have discovered microbiology, electromagnetism and quantum theory. It would be an arrogant person indeed who did not think this possible.

2) There are things in the Universe that we cannot conceive - just as a dog cannot conceive reading Proust.

2a) As a special case of this we may not be able to fully understand how our own minds work. Is has been argued that this is a consequence of Godel's theorem.

3) There is some thing we cannot conceive that has a mind, gives purpose to the Universe, should be worshipped and is the basis of morality.

4) This thing is omnipotent and is responsible for at least some aspects of reality including life.

Materialism might be interpeted as denying one or more of these statements. The consequences of materialism depend which ones are denied. I would guess that the most common interpretation would be that materialists accept 1 and 2 but reject 3 and 4. Even the likes of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett would probably accept that 2 is possible.

So now have refined the idea of materialism a bit - let's get on to the predictions. I have copied the 6 predictions from UD but not the justifications.

1. THEREFORE, I PREDICT that scientists will one day construct a device capable of transporting a human body across vast regions of space–a device comparable to the “teleporter” as portrayed in the “Star Trek” TV series. It will disassemble a living human body at a molecular or sub-molecular level, transport those small bits of living organic material at high speed across great distance, and reassemble them to their original macroscopic configuration, with no ill effects to the body it has transported.

IF, HOWEVER, after several hundred years of scientific advance no such a device will have been formulated, this fact should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

This may not be possible because of 2a above. In any case we can't even do it for a single atom at the moment much less the billions of billions of atoms in a person - so even if it is possible it is unreasonable to expect us to be able to do it after "several hundred years".

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that scientists will one day find unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial life. We will either be visited by members of some extraterrestrial race, or we will visit them, or at least detect their activity via radiometry or telemetry or some such means. If there is no intelligent life in the universe other than ours, there should at least be signs of the unintelligent kind: an alien hive or nest, an otherworldly forest, or an ocean filled with algae.

IF, HOWEVER, after several hundred years of searching for life on other planets no such evidence is found, this fact should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

This depends on the chances of abiogenesis. It is finite universe with billions of stars and an unknown number of planets (only a small proportion of the stars are contactable). We have no idea what the chances are of abiogenesis on a randomly selected planet (we can maybe estimate a minimum value based on it happening just once on earth in 4 billion years). So we have no way of knowing whether it is reasonable to expect intelligent life to contact us.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that an incident of active evolution will be observed in the field. Now that we know what we are looking for, we will be able to demonstrate what we claim the fossil record suggests. Scientists will be able to tag a species of plant or animal, and by meticulous tracking an tagging of its offspring by generations of scientists yet to come, will eventually identify an incident in which new speciation occurs. They will be able to point to the descendants of the original species and, by careful examination of their DNA, indicate at what point their genetic coding diverged. Further, they will be able to identify the conditions responsible for the divergence, whether via natural selection, random genetic mutation, or some combination of the two.

IF, HOWEVER, after hundreds of years of field observations, no incident of new speciation is ever identified, this should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

Jack Krebs deals with this on UD. This prediction has already been fulfilled.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that one day a nation will arise that will be a purely secular society with no notion of religion, spirituality, or morality. It should be a society which does far more than merely tolerate atheism, but has atheism at its core as its functioning principle. It will be a Nation Not Under God, and will be able to function without any appeals to religion. It will be a free society, curtailed only by law, the codified product of mutual consent. It will be truly tolerant of all viewpoints, regardless of how extreme, and will accept all modes of behavior without judgment or dissatisfaction. It will be not the product of mere wishful thinking, but an active, living, fully functional entity.

IF, HOWEVER, after hundreds of years of trying to build a wholly secular society, no such society is ever able to establish and sustain itself, this should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

This prediction has nothing to do with materialism. It is a statement about human pyschology and sociology. It might happen under an omnipotent deity who happened to want to let things develop that way and might not happen even if all the statements above are false. It may be that the way humans are made up they cannot form stable societies without having a religion - even if there is no God.

THEREFORE, I PREDICT that science will one day identify that area or areas of the brain which produce the mind, describing in precise detail the chemical basis for thought. It will demonstrate the biochemical processes from which the mind emerges and by which the mind operates.

IF, HOWEVER, after hundreds of years of research into the human brain, the mind is never established as a dependent construct of the brain, this should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

Well we have made some progress in fulfilling this prediction. Some aspects of mind such as vision and memory can be traced in quite a lot of detail in the brain. However, it may not be possible to completely fulfil the prediction if 2a is true.

HEREFORE, I PREDICT a Theory of Everything will be one day formulated and will be born out by repeated experimentation. It will accurately predict knowledge of things we do not yet know, and all future scientific discoveries will flow from it.

IF, HOWEVER, after hundreds of years of research in theoretical physics, in neurology, in psychology, and/or in related sciences no Theory of Everything is forthcoming and no experiment is ever devised to test it, this should be taken as an indication that naturalistic materialism is not true.

This may be impossible because of 2 above.

That was fun :-)