Abduction and the no-miracles argument

The Cheshire cat,
famous invisible cat

In an earlier post in this blog, I explained with an example the mode of reasoning based on abduction. Although not as strong as deduction and induction, abduction reaches high degrees of confidence in fields such as history, art criticism and others, less scientific than mathematics or natural science.

In another post published in March 2016, I described the fallacy of the invisible cat, which confuses a sufficient condition with a necessary condition for something to happen. This situation occurs when there are several possible causes that may have given rise to the same phenomenon.

In some cases, if we apply abduction to a situation where the fallacy of the invisible cat could occur, a conclusion can be reached. Think of the example I proposed to describe this fallacy:

What would be an undeniable miracle?

In 1972, sci-fi writer and publisher Lester del Rey launched a challenge to three well-known authors of the genre: Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg and Gordon R. Dickson. All three should write a novella on a specific topic: the effect of an undeniable miracle (the sun standing still) on human society. The three authors responded to the challenge, and the three stories were published jointly in a book entitled The day the sun stood still. In this post we shall consider the first of the three, written by Poul Anderson, whose title is A chapter of Revelation.

In a post in his blog, Pablo (a.k.a. sinopinionespropias) specifies which, in his opinion, should be the characteristics of an undeniable miracle:

1.      It must be a prophecy.

2.      Its materialization should not depend on people.

3.      Your probability must be negligible and calculable.

4.      It must be as concrete as possible.

5.      It must maintain the same demonstrative force with the passage of time.

6.      It must make sense at all times.

What does science say about miracles?

Victor Hugo

In his work Quatrevingt-Treize, a title usually translated as “Ninety-three” (it refers to 1793, the year of the Reign of Terror and the Vendée), Victor Hugo introduces a character named Cimourdain, a former priest who has lost his faith because of science:

Science had demolished his faith; the dogma had vanished in him... He knew everything about science and he knew nothing about life.

Apart from the fact that the second sentence is quite debatable (no one can know everything about science), the first raises the confrontation between science and faith, which began with the Enlightenment and reached its maximum philosophical effect in the nineteenth century, Victor Hugo‘s time. He is probably projecting his prejudices into a historical anachronism.