"Is Evidence Always Necessary?" & "The Limitations of Science" by Asadullah Ali al-Andalusi

Is Evidence Always Necessary?
The inevitable trump card of many atheists reads like this: “I won’t believe anything you say unless a peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal supports your conclusions!”. Apparently, after having said these magic words, the discussion ceases to be and the victor graduates from Hogwarts. In other words, the mere mention of something not having scientific evidence waives away any possibility of it being a reasonable explanation at all. And while it is tempting to assume that a consensus among the scientific community – or research output from supposedly objective donors (i.e. Monsanto)[1] – is all that is needed to prove a point, such reasoning is invalid if not shallow at best.

However, the qualification that scientific evidence is a necessary condition for any belief rests on a more foundational premise: the assumption that everything requires evidence to begin with. As such, prior to discussing the limitations of science, it is pertinent to make clear when evidence is necessary by focusing on the very thing that triggers that need: doubt.

In the philosophical community there is a sharp distinction between what is typically considered the activity of ‘doubting’ and the ideology of Skepticism. The former is a common phenomenon which every normal human being experiences countless times throughout their life. The essence of being doubtful is not an extraordinary gift endowed to a select few (i.e. atheists, scientists, etc.) conjured up after every experience, like some super power endlessly tapped into for the mere pleasure of it. Rather, it is an automated response triggered by an unexpected or contradictory intake of data (anomalies). For instance, when I walk outside and see a tree I don’t have much reason to be doubtful of what I’m seeing. However, if for some reason the tree begins to ‘behave’ or appear in a way contrary to what would otherwise be considered ‘normal’, then and only then would I have sufficient reason to doubt. In other words, human beings do not begin their journey of discovery by willing themselves to doubt[2], rather this is the natural response to confusion. As philosopher Peter Klein rightly notes:

The point here is that…in all ordinary cases of incredulity, the grounds for the doubt can, in principle, be removed. As Wittgenstein would say, doubt occurs within the context of things undoubted. If something is doubted, something else must be held fast because doubt presupposes that there are means of removing the doubt…That is, we think our general picture of the world is right—or right enough—so that it does provide us with both the grounds for doubt and the means for potentially removing the doubt. Thus, ordinary incredulity about some feature of the world occurs against a background of sequestered beliefs about the world. We are not doubting that we have any knowledge of the world. Far from it, we are presupposing that we do know some things about the world. To quote Wittgenstein, “A doubt without an end is not even a doubt”.[3]

The “doubt without an end” mentioned by the famous philosopher of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein, refers to that which is distinguished from normal doubt: the ideology of Skepticism. Unlike doubt, which assumes reality and then works through a trial and error process to reach a coherent understanding, Skepticism is an assumption of unreality which seeks to find truth by requiring validation for every experience and claim. The skeptic believes that they are doing a service to knowledge and their own integrity by implicitly asserting that everything is illusionary. However, by doing so, they unintentionally undermine any means towards comprehension by forgetting to include their own foundational assumption into the equation! In other words, by assuming that everything is illusionary, they must also logically conclude that their means towards finding truth (evidence) is also an illusion – thus rendering their own methodology self-refuting.

Perhaps the best example of Skepticism may be found in the movie The Matrix. The story behind this pop-culture classic revolves around the idea that ‘reality’ is a computer program which projects false images into the collective mind of humanity so as to distract us. All of this is generated by a malevolent species of machines for the sake of harvesting us for energy. The few humans that know the truth of this are only capable of doing so because the program isn’t perfect and can be hacked by others born in the “real world”, briefly allowing those imprisoned to see behind the façade. However, while the overall environment of the movie is representative of Skepticism, the actions of the people who have freed themselves from the matrix reflect the proper understanding of what it means ‘to doubt’ – they were only able to become free because of perceived anomalies.

On the other hand, a good example of normal doubt are the court justice systems across the globe. The belief that people normatively desire good is manifested in the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” (right before wrong/reality before unreality) and is itself a paradigm. Anomalies which disrupt this are acts of crime, which must be determined whether or not fit within the paradigm’s boundaries. For example, if a person is suspected of committing murder (causing doubt regarding their ethical behavior), the courts are triggered to find evidence as to whether the individual has violated ethical norms or has a valid excuse (i.e. self-defense). In the event that it is proven that a murder has indeed been committed, the presumption of the individual’s innocence is overturned. Whereas, if we were to follow the skeptic’s understanding of doubt and evidence, the presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” would itself be suspect and ultimately invalidated.

So when is evidence necessary? Following the aforementioned discussion, it is clear that evidence is predicated on doubt, which in turn is predicated on the existence of anomalies. When evidence is called for, the supposed anomaly is either incorporated into the paradigm or forces it to change. In other words, evidence is ultimately a response to data that challenges what we think we know; it is not the way we know. There is no need for evidence in every instance of data intake, because the reason we construct our worldviews (paradigms) is entirely for the sake of making our collective experiences coherent. Our understanding of the world does not present itself like a story-book progressing from the first chapter to the last. On the contrary, we have to make up the story as we go along, and it is the intuition (fitrah) that allows us to do this.

The Limitations of Science
Most atheists who believe that everything requires evidence are blissfully unaware that their own criteria cannot be validated – there is no evidence for the claim that “everything requires evidence”, much less that scientific evidence is superior to all others. Neither is the retort that “science works” a fail-safe since it is not immune to the context of ‘everything’. To play on the words of Wittgenstein: “evidence without an end is not even evidence”. Likewise, the concept of ‘falsifiability’ suffers the same fate, which is why most philosophers of science abandoned it long ago, including its most loyal proponent, Sir Karl Popper.[4]

Commenting on the true nature of scientific theories, the philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, had this to say:

Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e., with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science. It then continues with a more or less extended exploration of the area of anomaly. And it closes only when the paradigm theory has been adjusted so that the anomalous has become the expected. Assimilating a new sort of fact demands a more than additive adjustment of theory, and until that adjustment is completed-until the scientist has learned to see nature in a different way — the new fact is not quite a scientific fact at all.[5]

In other words, science operates on the basis of normal doubt, not Skepticism. Theories are produced so as to make coherent all the available data. When something is encountered that does not fit within a theory, the latter is restructured so as to accommodate for it. As anomalies become more problematic, the theory eventually begins to ‘swell’ and becomes unreasonably convoluted. At this point, a ‘shift’ begins to occur and an alternative theory is constructed that better explains the data at hand.

Perhaps the best example of how this works may be found in the shift from Geocentricism to Heliocentricism. When the latter was eventually adopted over the former, it was not due to the fact that someone had directly experienced the sun being at the center of our galaxy; rather, the idea was formulated as a result of the Earth-centric model not being able to adequately accommodate anomalous information. That said, unlike most atheists’ perceptions of science – where theories are “discovered” after a progressive accumulation of data due to some arbitrary initiating of doubt – irregularities trigger a natural tendency to doubt which then lead us to construct more coherent narratives. As the philosopher of science, Willard Quine, explained:

Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries – not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise…The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.[6]

Quine’s input sheds light on another matter as well: the scope of science. While many atheists are busying themselves asking for scientific evidence for every claim and experience known to man, they forget to entertain the possibility of their method’s limitations. Science can only deal with the realm of the physical. As such, discussions regarding metaphysical or supernatural entities are outside of its purview. Despite the obviousness of this however, many atheists have insisted otherwise, claiming that nothing can escape the assessment of scientific inquiry. The late Victor Stenger was one such atheist who went so far as to say that ‘God’ was a “scientific hypothesis” meant to “explain the natural world”.[7] Although perhaps an attempt to counter young Earth creationists, nevertheless Stenger’s reasoning is theologically and scientifically naïve.

Atheists may retort by suggesting that because God intervenes in creation – through miracles, revelation, etc. – He then becomes part of the natural realm and can be “discovered”; much like the footprints of an animal prove the existence of said animal. And although this may be a tempting argument to accept, it suffers from one glaring flaw: signs are no indication that something exists, rather their existence is predicated on the very thing they’re pointing to. In other words, footprints presuppose the existence of the feet that put them there to begin with. Street signs pointing towards a city presuppose the existence of that city, and so on. Thus, it is fallacious to claim that God is a “scientific hypothesis” that can be tested simply by virtue of supposed signs of intervention.[8]

Regardless of the above, it is difficult to believe that many atheists aren’t already aware of these limitations given their commitment to Naturalism, or the view that “an accurate, adequate conception of the world does not…include reference to supernatural entities or agencies.”[9] As a logical consequence of this, the only way we can truly understand reality is through contemporary scientific reasoning. Taken even further, the only way that a conception of reality can have any meaning at all is by reference to the natural world. In fact, this is the very argument proposed by atheist philosopher George Smith:

Naturalism has the priority over supernaturalism, not because it is the more economical of two explanations, but because it is the only framework in which explanation is possible…the contest between naturalism and supernaturalism is not a battle between two rival modes of explanation…Naturalism is the only context in which the concept of explanation has meaning.[10]

These sort of conclusions are perhaps why many atheists commit the category error of comparing the concept of God with mythological creatures such as fairies, unicorns, and the like. For an atheist, it is difficult to understand that scientifically unverified phenomena are any different from each other. Thus, atheists struggle to differentiate between imagination and conception. The former is simply being able to meaningfully picture something in your mind, whereas the latter is understood in a purely abstract manner. It’s like the difference between viewing a painting and interpreting what it means – understanding its form is not the same as understanding its significance.

Take for example the myth of “fairies”. Fairies are not complicated things to imagine, because they’re just a composite of shrunken human forms with insect wings; all we need to do is combine two naturally experienced phenomena to construct these storybook creatures. And why are they mythological? Simply put: we expect things that can be imagined to be empirically verifiable. However, conceptions like ‘love’, ‘ethics’, ‘loyalty’, and ‘truth’ are not possible to imagine, much less experience in full – but we know that it’s rational to believe in their existence in that they ultimately define our humanity.[11] The things that we can’t imagine are just as real as those we can. However, atheists fail to understand the rationality of believing in God or anything else comparable because they’re too busy only believing in things that can be reduced to their perverse understanding of scientific inquiry. This might also explain why every atheist I’ve ever accompanied to an art gallery had such poor tastes – but I suppose that’s for another essay.

However, it is not only a limitation of Naturalism that it must reduce meaning to the cold barren existence of the physical — it is also the reason that it is incorrect. If Naturalism is true, then it should be impossible to conceive of anything meaningful beyond its context. In other words, the very fact that we can even think of things like ‘God’ and believe in them proves Naturalism to be false – whether advocated dogmatically or by methodology:

1) Given Naturalism, explanations can only have meaning within the context of Naturalism.

2) As such, no amount of experience of the natural world should allow for the possibility of conceiving meaningful explanations beyond the context of Naturalism.

3) However, our experiences do allow for the conception of meaningful explanations beyond the context of Naturalism (i.e. God).

C) Therefore, Naturalism is false.

The Rationality of Believing in God Without Evidence
The famous atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins once wrote, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”.[12] He would confess the same later in a debate with the Christian mathematician, John Lennox:

We all of us share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life, for the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it is tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing; a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator. What science has now achieved is an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator and it’s a major emancipation because humans have an almost overwhelming desire to think that they’ve explained something by attributing it to a maker.[13]

Likewise, Michael Shermer, the popular atheist and editor of Skeptic magazine, claims the following based on his own personal experience and contemporary scientific research:

We believe in the supernatural because we believe in the natural and we cannot discriminate between the two. We create gods because we are natural-born supernaturalists, driven by our tendency to find meaningful patterns and impart to them intentional agency. The gods will always be with us because they are hard-wired into our brains.[14]

Similarly, there are many atheists who have given accounts of not being able to rid themselves of the ever-present interpretation that God actually exist.[15] And while this inability to remove such a notion is not evidence for God’s existence, naturalistic explanations for why it is there to begin with are neither evidence for His non-existence. To make an argument either way is simply a genetic fallacy, or an invalid form of reasoning which seeks to support a conclusion on the basis of where it came from.[16]

However, what such a notion does prove is that theism is more rational than atheism. How is this the case? Given the aforementioned discussion, the intuition is the very means by which knowledge is acquired and interpreted. As such, there can be no such knowledge or interpretation that undermines it, because it would be undermining itself. Impressions of reality are ultimately derived from the mind’s in-built commentary of the external and internal world. In other words, the reason we understand reality the way we do is because the mind is projecting how it sees itself on to everything else; a mirror image. And because the mind is the only way by which we comprehend, it is impossible for us to seek any alternatives to this projection.

The concept of God is not some innate belief, but is inferred from the mind’s own inner workings, which are not bound by the constraints of natural laws – that is why we are able to ‘see’ beyond direct observations and conceive of abstract notions (theories) which make them coherent. The very enterprise of science is predicated on the mind’s ability to project its own coherent structure on to the external world, otherwise known as ‘cognitive translation’.

When we perform introspection, we see certain attributes like ‘love’, ‘morality’, ‘intelligence’, ‘agency’ etc. We then project these same attributes on to our collective experience and then further infer a holistic understanding of reality, which then interprets these attributes as being superseded by something greater than our minds can possibly imagine. In other words, we naturally and meaningfully conceive of something greater than ourselves without limits (i.e. God) which makes coherent the very projection in question; it runs full circle and offers us validation that our minds are reliable interpreters of reality. On the other hand, the worldview of Naturalism creates an unnecessary dichotomy between the mental and the physical, reducing the former to the latter. The avowed atheist does this without even realizing that the inner realm of the mind is the only source by how reality should be perceived and not the external world which is received by it!

Now atheists the world over may cheer in victory that their belief “God is man-made” has been validated, thus proving theism “irrational”. However, this would be a naïve conclusion to reach. Not only is God not “man-made”, but the very fact that God is a projection of the intuitive experience actually runs counter to accusations of irrationality. Firstly, no human being wills the projection of God – it is simply a natural exercise of the mind. Secondly, as noted earlier, the fact that such a conception is even possible – under the supposed constraints of a purely natural world – undermines the atheistic narrative. And thirdly, considering the rational nature of doubt, theism is more justified than atheism. This is made evident in the following two arguments:

1) Impressions are rational if and only if they cohere to the intuitive experience.

2) Evidence is only necessary to validate impressions if anomalies appear to disrupt their coherency.

3) Anomalies do not appear to disrupt the coherency of the impression ‘God’.

C) Therefore, the impression ‘God’ is rational and evidence is not necessary for its validation.



1) Impressions are rational if and only if they cohere to intuitive experience.

2) Evidence is only necessary to validate impressions if anomalies appear to disrupt their coherency.

3) The impression ‘God’ is an anomaly which appears to disrupt the coherency of the impression ‘No God’.

4) No evidence has been provided to validate the impression ‘No God’.

C) Therefore, the impression ‘No God’ is irrational.

And it is with this understanding that belief in God is rationally grounded and in no need of evidence to support it. And while there may be disagreements as to the true nature of the unseen realm, these are issues for which the atheist is excluded on the basis that they defy the rational grounds for such a discussion to begin with. Hence, it is unnecessary to go further than the points mentioned here.

[1] Monsanto is a controversial pesticide and bioengineering firm which has caused harm to the environment and public health. It is well known that they provide a substantial amount of funding towards research grants – and the scientists behind them – to manufacture studies and conclusions that relieve them of any responsibility from the damages their products cause.

[2] It may be proposed that people do in fact will themselves to doubt when trying to overcome their biases. However, I argue that people are only able to suppress doubt – through cognitive dissonance – and must cease doing so for their natural tendencies to take effect. In other words, when someone “wills doubt” they are simply allowing their mind (intuition) to perform as it typically would if uninhibited.

[3] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/#PhiSkeVsOrdInc

[4] Popper, K. (1972) Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 40, n. 9.

[5] Kuhn, T. (1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd Ed., Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp. 52-53.

[6] Quine, W. (1961). “The Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” From A Logical Point of View: Logico-Philosophical Essays, Harper & Row, New York, p. 44.

[7] Refer to Stenger, V. (2007) God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist, Prometheus Books, New York.

[8] As a controversial addition to this discussion, this is likewise a problem for theists who think they can prove the existence of God based on scientific reasoning, which is frankly why using the Teleological Argument (Design Argument) alone is a weak persuasive method for other than the already initiated. This is especially the case for Muslims given that the Islamic perspective substantiates that signs are merely guides, not proofs of existence (Al-Qur’an, 41:52-53). Further, Allah states that He is the Creator and Facilitator of all things (Al-Qur’an, 39:62), thus making it clear that it is impossible to differentiate between what can and cannot be evidence for design.

[9] http://www.iep.utm.edu/naturali/#H2

[10] Smith, G. (1979) Atheism: The Case Against God, Prometheus Books, New York, pp. 233-234.

[11] A contention may be raised that we can imagine things like ‘love’, etc. by referring to instances where such concepts manifest themselves in human action. However, this is fallacious because such actions are merely signs of these conceptions and are not fully understood. Further, there are other examples that can be given which support this point, such as the idea of a ‘thousand sided shape’. It is rational to believe in this idea, despite not being able to imagine or experience it in full.

[12] Dawkins, R. (1986) The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, p. 1.

[13] http://www.protorah.com/god-delusion-debate-dawkins-lennox-transcript/

[14] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304198004575172233981688208

[15] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-atheist-god-lingering-religion-20160205-story.html

[16] http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Genetic