Sometimes, one of UD’s frequent objectors makes an inadvertently telling objection that deserves highlighting in order to publicly document what we are up against. In this case, AK has provided us with TWO, as headlined. Accordingly, over the past several days, I responded in the Skeptical Review thread. This morning, on seeing doubling down, I have further responded and I now highlight for all to see:
KF, 125: >> . . . let us go back to your context from 64 above: “the ID technique [–> that’s already a Big Lie agit prop tactic and slander] that you excel at called the Gish Gallop [–> diagnostic, terrible sign], made famous by Duane Gish and others [–> root-slander]” and again at 100 above: “evil is a concept fabricated by religion.”
Before anything else, I note this is an attempt to relativise and dismiss the reality of evil and to side-step two significant developments. First, that while up to the 50’s – 70’s the appeal to the problem of evils was a favourite tactic of atheists to try to dismiss the reality of God. But after Plantinga’s highly successful free will defense [–> cf. PS below] was put on the table the deductive form collapsed and the inductive one was broken in its impact. But of course, some of us are old enough to remember and to bear witness.
The second matter turns on recognising what evil is, as a secondary phenomenon:
EVIL: the frustration, twisting, perversion or privation of what is good in itself that prevents or hampers it from attaining its proper end. A proper end that is often naturally evident. Such as, that our minds are properly aimed at and governed by truth and linked correct, cogent reasoning and duties to the just, the good, the prudent, the wise, etc.
As WmAD famously highlighted from Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, that issue is the problem of good:
In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” . . .
I doubt that you would as cavalierly assert through the confident manner fallacy: evil [–> GOOD] is a concept fabricated by religion . . .
But the two are inextricably intertwined, indeed evil parasites off the good and much of its repugnance when its destructive effects are manifest for all to see comes from its patent violation and frustration of what is a manifest proper end.
And so, we can hardly but observe that you are forced to appeal to our sense of duty to truth, justice and more, even as you work as a saw-tooth cutting away at our connexion to the root of such things.
Now, Rational Wiki (and no I will not link the source, do your own search):
The Gish Gallop, named after creationist Duane Gish, is the debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. Sam Harris describes the technique as “starting 10 fires in 10 minutes.” [U/D May 16: Subsequently RW updated their definition to speak of “weak arguments.” This is itself problematic (as, in inductive contexts arguments may mutually reinforce as a cumulative case and “weakness” is often a matter of opinion, especially when tendentious charges of “half truth” and out of context or distorted quotes or the notion that you cannot use an expert’s admission against interest are in play) and it turns out that Ms Scott suggested misleading citation and used “half truth” — a half truth being a whole lie — right from the beginning. As at May 15, 2018, Wikipedia used: “During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate.” The term is clearly tainted with invidious insinuations and attacks to the man. It should not be used, especially as it is already a case of attacking a man, by its very name.]
Each tooth of a saw cuts a tiny curlicue of sawdust, but with many teeth going zip-zip-zip, soon a pile of sawdust tells how much of a cut has been given. (That is how mass-mobilisation agit prop activism cumulatively wreaks havoc.)
Now, too, before I speak more specifically, remember my metaphor just above on the cumulative impact of corrosive polarising slander and cutting off the roots of our civilisation — noting, the dismissive genetic fallacy on evil also made by you, AK: one tooth of a zipping saw does not do much, it seems, from how tiny a sawdust shaving is. But once we see many teeth in action, the cumulative effect is huge as the sawdust pile grows and grows and grows zip-zip-zip, especially if the branch we are sitting on is under strain and has to bear all of us.
Then, beyond a certain unpredictable point, a critical threshold is hit and CRAACK, SNAP, COLLAPSE.
Too late, bitterly too late.
Where, we are dealing with a civilisation that — having nukes — is far too dangerous to fail safely.
In that light, AK’s strawman tactic of twisting my words into:
Civilization is going to come crashing down because I used the term “Gish gallop” . . .
. . . only manages to show the sort of destructive blindness caused by evil and in accumulation, the zipping saw at suicidal work in our civilisation may well precipitate the unthinkable.
FYI, AK, you sheared off one little curlicue of sawdust from the branch on which we are all sitting. You did this by a doubly slanderous reference. Which, I called you on, and which you show no signs of due responsiveness and responsibility over. And indeed, making that particular reference is a serious sign of how far the rot has progressed in a particular case.
I don’t know if we can wake up from the stupor of a Plato’s Cave suicidal horror show already in progress, but that will take a miracle of mass repentance.
This I do know, our civilisation is in self-induced mortal peril, and the saws are busily zipping away with destructive agit prop cutting us off from the root and support that are vital for our civilisation to thrive.
Not that the blinded, benumbed and polarised will be particularly inclined to wake up to, face and do something about our common peril.
Now, here is my longstanding response to the Gish-smear slander, here at UD (and no it is not a threat to ban, in answer to yet another twister of facts and issues out there):
In short, this term [= Gish gallop] is an accusation of lying, distorting and the like on a wholesale basis, further allegedly in order to overwhelm an opponent and thus prevent answering the flood of falsehoods.
Something is very wrong here, however, even after taking the questionable list of sources cited at face value for the moment, for the sake of discussion.
For, it is well known that to select several examples of actual falsehood or gross error and to expose them normally suffices to ground the conclusion that the party who has actually indulged such a flood of false assertions, is not responsible or credible and should be dismissed.
One slice of such a spoiled cake has in it all the ingredients, and all that.
In short, if the accusation were TRUE, it would be quite easy to overturn such an argument.
It would fail so spectacularly, that it would be rhetorically suicidal.
Provided, the other side of the debate or discussion were in command of the actual facts, not mere ideological talking points and disputable opinions.
So, it is quite plain that there is no real need for such a named fallacy.
And, in the case of Mr Gish, it is well known that he consistently won debates on origins science by focussing on the problem that the fossil record is full of gaps that lead to a want of on-the-ground evidence for body-plan level macroevolution. [Kindly, see the linked discussion of the real facts, — let me now use the unlimited number of links capacity of an OP: “here is Ken Ham’s summary of the relevant history, and here and here we may see John Morris of ICR on debates. It is to be noted that Creationist spokesmen, for forty years, have actively sought debates, and have had such a long-running pattern of success, that it is the advocates of body-plan level Macro-Evolution by blind chance and necessity who have counselled their colleagues not to participate in debates. As a result, while Gish seems to have taken part in some 300 – 400 debates and Henry Morris some 100, such are reportedly rare today.”]
Nobody wins 300+:0 public debates, inducing opponents to find excuses to dodge further debates and to smear the debater unless he stands on solid facts and cogent reasoning. In this case, were [neo-] darwinist evolutionary theory even roughly true, 250+k fossil species in museums and the billions of further readily seen fossils in the field [e.g. Barbados, where I have lived, is literally built out of layers of fossil limestone, often in the form of corals] would overwhelm us with gradualism of body form transformation as a dominant, obvious pattern. Instead, as Gould et al inadvertently highlighted by championing Punctuated Equilibria, the actual pattern is one of systematic gaps and persistent absence of the roots of the tree of life icon — OoL by blind watchmaker mechanisms. That’s why we see so many evolutionary just so stories in the textbooks, the museums, the documentaries and the literature.
By utter contrast, we may answer the slanders against ID simply and directly.
On a trillion directly observed cases [including your objecting comments above, which are meaningful text strings], functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information — FSCO/I for handy short — is a highly reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration [= design] as relevant cause. This is backed up by the search challenge posed by blind chance and mechanical necessity driven needle in haystack search for configuration spaces that start at the 500 to 1,000 bit threshold of complexity. That is, such a search challenge overwhelms sol system or observed cosmos scale resources, given 3.27*10-150 to 1.07*10^301 and sharply up possibilities, overwhemingly non-functional gibberish.
The only empirically warranted, analytically plausible cause of FSCO/I is design.
PS: Let me excerpt here a short summary [scroll down here] of Plantinga’s reply to the problem of evil:
>>Leading design theorist and philosopher-theologian William Dembski helps us put the intellectual forms of the problem of evil in context, by citing the sixth century Christian philosopher, Boethius:
In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” Boethius contrasts the problem that evil poses for theism with the problem that good poses for atheism. The problem of good does not receive nearly as much attention as the problem evil, but it is the more basic problem. That’s because evil always presupposes a good that has been subverted. All our words for evil make this plain: the New Testament word for sin (Greek hamartia) presupposes a target that’s been missed; deviation presupposes a way (Latin via) from which we’ve departed; injustice presupposes justice; etc. So let’s ask, who’s got the worse problem, the theist or the atheist? Start with the theist. God is the source of all being and purpose. Given God’s existence, what sense does it make to deny God’s goodness? None . . . . The problem of evil still confronts theists, though not as a logical or philosophical problem, but instead as a psychological and existential one [as was addressed above] . . . .
The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: nature, which is nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. As nineteenth century freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll used to say, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments. There are consequences.” More recently, Richard Dawkins made the same point: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.” [“Prepared Remarks for the Dembski-Hitchens Debate,” Uncommon Descent Blog, Nov 22, 2010]
In short, when we come to core worldview problems, we should address the comparative difficulties of the main alternatives, and make our choice on which difficulties it is better to live with.
Plantinga’s free-will defense, in a skeletal form, allows us to effectively address the problem. For, it is claimed that the following set of theistic beliefs embed an unresolvable contradiction:
1. God exists
2. God is omnipotent – all powerful
3. God is omniscient – all-knowing
4. God is omni-benevolent – all-good
5. God created the world
6. The world contains evil
To do so, there is an implicit claim that, (2a) if he exists, God is omnipotent and so capable of — but obviously does not eliminate — evil. So, at least one of 2 – 5 should be surrendered. But all of these claims are central to the notion of God, so it is held that the problem is actually 1.
Therefore, NOT-1: God does not exist.
However, it has been pointed out by Plantinga and others that:
2a is not consistent with what theists actually believe: if the elimination of some evil would lead to a worse evil, or prevent the emergence of a greater good, then God might have a good reason to permit some evil in the cosmos.
Specifically, what if “many evils result from human free will or from the fact that our universe operates under natural laws or from the fact that humans exist in a setting that fosters soul-making . . . [and that such a world] contains more good than a world that does not” ?
In this case, Theists propose that 2a should be revised: 2b: “A good, omnipotent God will eliminate evil as far as he can without either losing a greater good or bringing about a greater evil.” But, once this is done, the alleged contradiction collapses.
Further, Alvin Plantinga – through his free will defense — was able to show that the theistic set is actually consistent. He did this by augmenting the set with a further proposition that is logically possible (as opposed to seeming plausible to one who may be committed to another worldview) and which makes the consistency clear. That proposition, skeletally, is 5a: “God created a world (potentially) containing evil; and has a good reason for doing so.” Propositions 1, 2b, 3, 4, and 5a are plainly consistent, and entail 6.
The essence of that defense is:
“A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures . . . God can create free creatures, but he can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For . . . then they aren’t significantly free after all . . . He could only have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.” [NB: This assumes that moral good reflects the power of choice: if we are merely robots carrying out programs, then we cannot actually love, be truthful, etc.] [From: Clark, Kelley James. Return to Reason. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 69 – 70, citing Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil, (Eerdmans, 1974), p. 30.]
Nor is the possible world known as heaven a good counter-example. For, heaven would exist as a world in which the results of choices made to live by the truth in love across a lifetime have culminated in their eternal reward. This we may see from an argument made by the apostle Paul:
Rom 2:6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” 78 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. [NIV]
Anticipating the onward response that in at least some possible worlds, there are free creatures, all of whom freely do what is right, Plantinga asserts a further possibility: trans-world depravity. That is, in all worlds God could create in which a certain person, say Gordon, exists; then that person would have freely gone wrong at least once. And, what if it is further possible that this holds for every class of created, morally capable being? (Then, there would be no possible worlds in which moral good is possible but in which moral evil would not in fact occur. So the benefit of moral good would entail that the world would contain transworld depraved creatures.)
Moreover, Plantinga proposes that there is a possible state of affairs in which God and natural evil can exist. For instance, if all natural evils are the result of the actions of significantly free creatures such as Satan and his minions, then since it is logically possible that God could not have created a world with a greater balance of good over evil if it did not contain such creatures, God and natural evil are compatible.
At this point, albeit grudgingly, leading atheologians (Such as Mackie and Williams) concede that the deductive form of the problem of evil stands overturned. Thus, a new question is put on the table.
It is: But what if the world seems to contain too much evil, and evil that is apparently pointless, i.e. gratuitous? First, the greater good “absorbs” at least some of the evils. To this, the Christian Theist further responds that there are goods in the world that are left out of the account so far; especially, that the fall of mankind led to the greatest good of all: that God loved the world and gave his Son, setting in motion the programme of redemption as a supreme good that absorbs all evils. That is, it is rational for a Christian to believe there are no un-absorbed evils, even though the a-theologian may beg to differ with the Christian’s beliefs.
However, it should be noted that there is an existential or pastoral form of the problem of evil (as we saw above): where the overwhelming force of evil and pain brings us to doubt God. To that, no mere rational argument will suffice; for it is a life-challenge we face, as did Job. And, as a perusal of Job 23:1 – 7, 38:1 – 7, 40:1 – 8, 42:1 – 6, God may be more interested in exposing our underlying motives and calling for willingness to trust him even where we cannot trace him, than in satisfying our queries and rebutting our pained accusations. That is, it is at least possible that God is primarily in the business of soul-making.
Where then does the problem of evil stand today?
On balance, it is rational to believe that God exists, but obviously there are many deep, even painful questions to which we have no answers. And, those who choose to believe in God will have a radically different evaluation of evil than those who reject him. >>
PPS: For reference, the seven mountains model:
. . . also, the window of change/change challenge model:
. . . and the Overton Window, double-BATNA model:
H’mm, I feel prompted to add this, on the SWOT-BAU vs. ALT solution strategy (which ideally works by bringing a cross-section of stakeholders . . . including hitherto marginalised ones . . . to the table to ponder together a wall-sized version of the chart and use ZOPP-style contributions to collaboratively synthesise a solution-strategy):
PPPS: I tracked down the source and confirm the slander. I clip for record from another thread (on somebody’s review of Darwin’s Doubt):
KF, 151:>>I took time out to track down the essay where the ideas are introduced by Ms Scott. The taint [of slander] I pointed out is there from the outset. Ms Scott complains on citing Gould on the trade secret of paleontology, then says:
Creationist debaters (at least the nationally-prominent ones) are masters at presenting these half-truth non-sequiturs that the audience misunderstands as relevant points. These can be very difficult to counter in a debate situation, unless you have a lot of time.
[–> she later contradicts herself on this point, arguing for a tight time debate format that locks out substantiating the big picture problem that is at stake; surely, 45 minutes and what a 20 – 30 minute rebuttal is a lot of time, especially after hundreds of debates have been done and books have been published so the substance is no surprise. BTW, Creation Scientists Answer their critics is a key part of that literature, as well as Gish’s Fossils say no series]
And you never have enough time to deal with even a fraction of the half-truths or plain erroneous statements that creationists can come out with. Even if you deal with a handful of the unscientific nonsense spewed out by your opponent, your audience is left with the , “Yeah, but…” syndrome: well, maybe there are intermediate forms and the creationist was wrong about radiometric dating, YEAH, BUT why didn’t that evolutionist answer the question about polonium halos?” (or some other argument.)
[–> Thin gruel. If one has solidly broken several key cases AND has laid out the positive evidence that actually shows by clear observed case the pattern of body-plan level macroevo that surely is there all across the fossil record, the other side should be shattered. Oh, maybe, the point is, that from molecular machines in the cell to major body plans, there is a systematic pattern of gaps and islands of function isolated by gaps without functional forms . . . in which case Gish and co clearly have a point, one the public has a RIGHT to hear.]
The evolutionist debater is never going to be able to counter all of the misinformation that a creationist can put out in a lengthy debate format. And the way these things work is that suspicion is sowed in the minds of the audience no matter what . . . .
[–> suspicion that a case has not been made on the empirical merits, substantiating the arguments by icon?]
Now, there are ways to have a formal debate that actually teaches the audience something about science, or evolution, and that has the potential to expose creation science for the junk it is. This is to have a narrowly-focused exchange in which the debaters deal with a limited number of topics. Instead of the “Gish Gallop” format of most debates where the creationist is allowed to run on for 45 minutes or an hour, spewing forth torrents of error
[–> see the contradiction? What about the cross-complaint that YEARS of schooling, hundreds of hours of TV time, acres of museum space and more are used to indoctrinate and it is complained that there should never be a forum where both sides can make the case they have in summary at feature article length or book chapter length?]
that the evolutionist hasn’t a prayer of refuting in the format of a debate, the debaters have limited topics and limited time.
There is much that is utterly wrong with this essay, for reasons already highlighted and in part noted in-quote.
In particular, a torrent of half-truths is a thinly veiled way of saying reams of lies. For, a half-truth is a whole lie.Including twisted quotation — as I was accused of above. I here substantiate that my concern was there from the beginning, though Ms Scott is a bit more genteel than the raw statement in Rational Wiki which I found years ago on first encountering this pseudo-fallacy.
Where spewing reams of half-truths, lies, distorted dishonest quotes etc is an actual problem, any half-decent lawyer knows that if you pick out several points of error, and properly expose falsity and deceit or even just incompetence, the credibility of the other side is shattered.
So, the rhetorical premise Scott offers is fundamentally false.
Her claims about Creationists dodging narrow formats is also misleading, as in fact the claimed gradualism is a matter of a wide array of evidence relative to 150 years of fossils, with a broad pattern that should be there but is not. That’s Gould’s famous trade secret. And no it’s not just rates, the rates issue [as is suggested in Punctuated Equilibria] was put up to explain the gaps. The systematic gaps.
So, the core point is there, right from the beginning. The term is tainted, it insinuates deceitful insincerity and manipulation of the public. Even, going so far as to suggest that a format that gives time to make the case is calculated to get away with in effect public education fraud.
I am reminded of the what, six year old offer here at UD that we would publish an up to 6,000 word or so (the limit is generous and flexible, where at 120 WPM that is 50 minutes of speech, about the times in question) essay that would outline and substantiate the core blind watchmaker thesis case for ooL and tree of life. Links can go elsewhere but the case as a summary must be made in the essay. After a year of pursuing it, no satisfactory submission was received from the penumbra of objector sites.
That is relevant to the credibility of the argument Ms Scott made. No, I do not buy the claim, for cause.
Coming back to the core point, it is clear that “Gish gallop” is loaded to the point of slander and should not be used. it boils down to saying that if one puts up a sustained, lecture length or magazine feature article length argument with many sources, using expert testimony against interest one is a liar and misquoter, pretty automatically.
That is patently false and unjustifiably accusatory.
It is time this was set aside.
And, web searches show the term is now being migrated into making even more loaded political points in what is in effect a policy opinion verbal war that is deeply poisoning the atmosphere for discussion.
Something is wrong here, seriously wrong.
Something connected to the obvious ongoing suicide of our civilisation.
It is time to turn back before the crumbling cliff’s edge collapses underfoot.>>
Comments
Bornagain77: ,,, if you truly believe that your free will choices were ‘superdetermined’ all the way back at the big bang, then I say welcome to Christianity since ultra-strict Calvinists have, for centuries, held to a ‘superdeterminism’ view of reality.
Isn't it ironic? If Bob holds that his thoughts are produced by an entity (or entities) beyond his control and are rational, then the only explanation for both these facts is that this 'entity', at the beginning of the chain of physical events which constitute the universe, is rational.
Welcome to theism Bob!Origenes
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And Seversky, you were trying to make a coherent argument how exactly?
Your supposed rebuttal is a, citation free, rambling on of your own personal opinions in no particular order. Try again, with specific references in a specific order.
Moreover, If you are just going to cite your own personal opinion, instead of scientific evidence, that you have no free will, then the claim itself pretty much refutes your personal opinion! :)
Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012
Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause.
By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html
bornagain77
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bornagain77 @ 217
But the neuronal illusion of Bob has no free will. Under materialism, Bob is a deterministic automaton. Moreover, under materialism, objective morality itself is an illusion. With no persons with free will and objective morality, under materialism the entire concept a person having a motive, (i.e. moral culpability), for anything is pure nonsense.
Depending on how you define it, objective morality is absurd on its face. Why should the universe care one jot how we behave towards one another? The only beings it does concern are ourselves because we are the ones affected.
As far as free will is concerned, again depending on how you define it, there is nothing in materialism that excludes the possibility since it does not necessarily entail strict determinism.
Of course, an omniscient God would preclude the possibility of free will and, indeed, the Bible provides evidence for that in the account of Peter denying three times any acquaintanceship with Jesus. And that was after being warned by Jesus that he was going to do just that. Which strongly suggests Peter had no choice in the matter and, by implication, neither do we.
For example, under materialism, Jeffrey Dahmer had no real motive, (i.e. moral culpability,) for all the murders he committed since he had no free will. Dahmer was merely a helpless deterministic automaton. Moreover, even if he could have somehow prevented himself from committing all those murders, there is nothing inherent within materialism that would deem those murders as being objectively morally evil. Materialism is completely amoral. Dahmer was no more guilty of murder than a boulder falling on someone would be guilty of murder.
Yes, materialism is amoral in the sense that you cannot derive any notion of how we ought to behave from any description of what is, not without committing the naturalistic fallacy. That does not prevent us from agreeing amongst ourselves on a moral code, in fact it almost mandates it if there is no one else to do it for us.
In other words Bob, according to his materialism, has no motives for anything he does nor is there any real justice to be had for Bob’s sense of being morally offended
Is Bob a materialist in your sense of the word? Only he can say. But even if he is that does not prevent him arriving at views on how people should behave towards one another in society or on reaching an agreement with others on what these moral guidelines should be. For example, I suspect the overwhelming majority of people would prefer that they and their loved ones and friends did not become victims of a Bundy or a Dahmer so such behavior would be prohibited. They don't need someone else to tell them such behavior is bad. Unlike some Christians who, apparently, would stand around scratching their heads when faced with the acts of a Dahmer until their God told them that they were bad.Seversky
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Origenes as to the determistic/materialistic claim that "My choices,,, happen as they do because of earlier events—events even before my birth"
1. Everything in the universe happens because of earlier events in accordance with causal law.
My choices and decisions are events in the universe.
They therefore happen as they do because of earlier events—events even before my birth—in accordance with causal law.
I therefore have no free choice. I cannot act freely and cannot be held ethically responsible for my actions.”
— Patrick Grim, Philosophy of Mind (The Great Courses)
That claim has now been experimentally falsified: The "setting independence" or "free will" loophole in quantum mechanics has now been closed to 600 years before the present.
Closing the 'free will' loophole: Using distant quasars to test Bell's theorem - February 20, 2014
Excerpt: Though two major loopholes have since been closed, a third remains; physicists refer to it as "setting independence," or more provocatively, "free will." This loophole proposes that a particle detector's settings may "conspire" with events in the shared causal past of the detectors themselves to determine which properties of the particle to measure -- a scenario that, however far-fetched, implies that a physicist running the experiment does not have complete free will in choosing each detector's setting. Such a scenario would result in biased measurements, suggesting that two particles are correlated more than they actually are, and giving more weight to quantum mechanics than classical physics.
"It sounds creepy, but people realized that's a logical possibility that hasn't been closed yet," says MIT's David Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and senior lecturer in the Department of Physics. "Before we make the leap to say the equations of quantum theory tell us the world is inescapably crazy and bizarre, have we closed every conceivable logical loophole, even if they may not seem plausible in the world we know today?"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112515.htm
Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness - 2017
Excerpt: In the first of a planned series of “cosmic Bell test” experiments, the team sent pairs of photons from the roof of Zeilinger’s lab in Vienna through the open windows of two other buildings and into optical modulators, tallying coincident detections as usual. But this time, they attempted to lower the chance that the modulator settings might somehow become correlated with the states of the photons in the moments before each measurement. They pointed a telescope out of each window, trained each telescope on a bright and conveniently located (but otherwise random) star, and, before each measurement, used the color of an incoming photon from each star to set the angle of the associated modulator. The colors of these photons were decided hundreds of years ago, when they left their stars, increasing the chance that they (and therefore the measurement settings) were independent of the states of the photons being measured.
And yet, the scientists found that the measurement outcomes still violated Bell’s upper limit, boosting their confidence that the polarized photons in the experiment exhibit spooky action at a distance after all.
Nature could still exploit the freedom-of-choice loophole, but the universe would have had to delete items from the menu of possible measurement settings at least 600 years before the measurements occurred (when the closer of the two stars sent its light toward Earth). “Now one needs the correlations to have been established even before Shakespeare wrote, ‘Until I know this sure uncertainty, I’ll entertain the offered fallacy,’” Hall said.
Next, the team plans to use light from increasingly distant quasars to control their measurement settings, probing further back in time and giving the universe an even smaller window to cook up correlations between future device settings and restrict freedoms.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20170207-bell-test-quantum-loophole/
Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars – 2017
Abstract:
Bell’s theorem states that some predictions of quantum mechanics cannot be reproduced by a local-realist theory. That conflict is expressed by Bell’s inequality, which is usually derived under the assumption that there are no statistical correlations between the choices of measurement settings and anything else that can causally affect the measurement outcomes. In previous experiments, this “freedom of choice” was addressed by ensuring that selection of measurement settings via conventional “quantum random number generators” was spacelike separated from the entangled particle creation. This, however, left open the possibility that an unknown cause affected both the setting choices and measurement outcomes as recently as mere microseconds before each experimental trial. Here we report on a new experimental test of Bell’s inequality that, for the first time, uses distant astronomical sources as “cosmic setting generators.” In our tests with polarization-entangled photons, measurement settings were chosen using real-time observations of Milky Way stars while simultaneously ensuring locality. Assuming fair sampling for all detected photons, and that each stellar photon’s color was set at emission, we observe statistically significant ?7.31? and ?11.93? violations of Bell’s inequality with estimated p values of ?1.8×10?13 and ?4.0×10?33, respectively, thereby pushing back by ?600 years the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have engineered the observed Bell violation.
http://vcq.quantum.at/publications/all-publications/details/2036.html
Quantum Entanglement & the Cosmic Bell Test - video (February 2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPJKJWY-7o
Of related note to the preceding articles:
But why is the quantum world thought spooky anyway? - September 1, 2015
Excerpt: Zeilinger also notes that there remains one last, somewhat philosophical loophole, first identified by Bell himself: the possibility that hidden variables could somehow manipulate the experimenters’ choices of what properties to measure, tricking them into thinking quantum theory is correct.,,,
Leifer is less troubled by this ‘freedom-of-choice loophole’, however. “It could be that there is some kind of superdeterminism, so that the choice of measurement settings was determined at the Big Bang,” he says. “We can never prove that is not the case, so I think it’s fair to say that most physicists don’t worry too much about this.”
https://uncommondescent.com/physics/but-why-is-the-quantum-world-thought-spooky-anyway/
,,, if you truly believe that your free will choices were ‘superdetermined’ all the way back at the big bang, then I say welcome to Christianity since ultra-strict Calvinists have, for centuries, held to a ‘superdeterminism’ view of reality.
Does God Control Everything? – Tim Keller – (God’s sovereignty, evil, and our free will, how do they mesh? Short answer? God’s Omniscience!) – video (12:00 minute mark)
https://youtu.be/MDbKCZodtZI?t=727
Quote, video and verse:
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo
Matthew 10:28
"Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."
bornagain77
May 20, 2018
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Bornagain77 @
Thank you for the following quote:
1. Everything in the universe happens because of earlier events in accordance with causal law.
My choices and decisions are events in the universe.
They therefore happen as they do because of earlier events—events even before my birth—in accordance with causal law.
I therefore have no free choice. I cannot act freely and cannot be held ethically responsible for my actions.”
— Patrick Grim, Philosophy of Mind (The Great Courses)
This argument, on its own, is a refutation of materialism.
Let‘s consider the materialistic scenario where Bob’s thoughts and actions are consequences of physical events and laws of nature in the remote past before Bob was born.
IF, indeed, the course of Bob’s thoughts and actions are produced by entities beyond his causal reach — physical events and laws of nature in the remote past before he was born —, then Bob is not the author of ‘his’ thoughts. Even ‘his’ understanding would not be ‘his’. Even his will to understanding would not be his.
If Bob must hold belief ‘X’ due to entities beyond his causal control, whether he wants it or not, then it cannot be said that Bob believes ‘X’ on a rational basis. And, also, if Bob does not belief ‘X’, he would do so because it was settled by entities beyond his causal reach.
Neither would Bob be involved in the coming into existence of his posts on this forum nor would he be able to make sense of them.
I stick to my claim that Bob cannot seriously hold that materialism is true.Origenes
May 20, 2018
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BO'H: In another territory, access not the easiest, little time, will briefly comment on one issue. I have not equated ID to FSCO/I or even the design inference to FSCO/I. What I have said is that ID is the science that studies signs of intelligence, and as GP points out -- also echoing WmAD -- the design inference on signs is the key to ID as a scietnific enterprise. What I argued is that FSCO/I as already explained, is a good generic sign, tested on a trillion examples, which indicates design in several cases relevant to the world of life. Were it to be credibly shown per observation that FSCO/I comes about by blind chance and mechanical necessity, it would shatter ID as this is directly connected to CSI (it is the functional subset) and IC is a subset. Find a case like that, and ID would be falsified. Of course, that has not been done and is not in prospect. An example of such an actual test is random document generation, which has maxed out at about 20 or so ASCII characters, a factor of 10^100 short of the complexity of the threshold given already. KF
PS: Dembski in an article for an encyclopedia: >>intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? . . . Proponents of intelligent design, known as design theorists, purport to study such signs formally, rigorously, and scientifically. Intelligent design may therefore be defined as the science that studies signs of intelligence.>>kairosfocus
May 19, 2018
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Bob (and weave) is (morally) offended that his 'motives' would be questioned.
But the neuronal illusion of Bob has no free will. Under materialism, Bob is a deterministic automaton. Moreover, under materialism, objective morality itself is an illusion. With no persons with free will and objective morality, under materialism the entire concept a person having a motive, (i.e. moral culpability), for anything is pure nonsense.
Moral culpability is loosely tied to mens rea, meaning that there is an explanation for the intent of the actor.,,,
https://opentextbc.ca/ethicsinlawenforcement/chapter/8-4-moral-culpability-verses-legal-culpability/
For example, under materialism, Jeffrey Dahmer had no real motive, (i.e. moral culpability,) for all the murders he committed since he had no free will. Dahmer was merely a helpless deterministic automaton. Moreover, even if he could have somehow prevented himself from committing all those murders, there is nothing inherent within materialism that would deem those murders as being objectively morally evil. Materialism is completely amoral. Dahmer was no more guilty of murder than a boulder falling on someone would be guilty of murder.
Free WIll, Determinism, and the Criminal Justice System - JANUARY 17, 2016
Excerpt: To understand how determinism eliminates free will, and sets my prisoners free, let’s take a look at Professor Patrick Grim’s explanation:
“ 1. Everything in the universe happens because of earlier events in accordance with causal law.
My choices and decisions are events in the universe.
They therefore happen as they do because of earlier events—events even before my birth—in accordance with causal law.
I therefore have no free choice. I cannot act freely and cannot be held ethically responsible for my actions.” — Patrick Grim, Philosophy of Mind (The Great Courses)
https://www.orlandocriminaldefenseattorneyblog.com/2016/01/free-will-determinism-criminal-justice-system.html
i.e. No Free will plus No Morality equals No possible Murders. i.e. No real motives with real moral culpability
As Richard Dawkins stated: "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
- Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
In other words Bob, according to his materialism, has no motives for anything he does nor is there any real justice to be had for Bob's sense of being morally offended!
Yet, unfortunately for materialists who want to forsake God, and fortunately for the rest of us who want to live in a sane world, the materialist's belief that he has no free will nor moral culpability is undermined by science itself:
Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxFFtZ301j4
Determinism vs Free Will - video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwPER4m2axI
Morality: Objective and Real or Subjective and Illusory? - video
https://youtu.be/BnrrIvz8mSE
Verse:
Romans 4:25
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
bornagain77
May 19, 2018
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Bob O'H:
May I suggest, then, that you should acknowledge that you don’t understand my point of view, rather than impugning my motives.
OK Bob, you're up-> tell us your point of view so we don't have to guess.
I know that you once said that you disagree with the claim that evolution proceeds via blind and mindless processes- is that still true and if so do you realize that blind and mindless processes is what Darwin and the modern synthesis posits and you are then going against evolutionary biology?ET
May 19, 2018
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"rather than impugning my motives."
mo·tive
?m?div/Submit
noun
plural noun: motives
1.
a reason for doing something,
Under materialism, like everything else, motives are illusory.bornagain77
May 19, 2018
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Bob O'H @213
Origenes: ... logic informs us that there is no place for rationality in a purely physical world.
Bob: Really? Why?
In #207 GPuccio offers you good advice. He said:
... try to understand the things that are said to you, and not to evade the arguments that are clear and undeniable.
It seems that, WRT #212, you have ignored his advice. In this post I have listed 10 reasons why there is no place for rationality in a purely physical world. Somehow you have managed to overlook all of them.Origenes
May 19, 2018
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Origenes -
I really want to believe you Bob, but how anyone can seriously hold that materialism is true is beyond my understanding.
May I suggest, then, that you should acknowledge that you don't understand my point of view, rather than impugning my motives.
One reason, at the basic level, as to why materialism is wrong, is that, if materialism is true, our rational discussion could not even take place, since logic informs us that there is no place for rationality in a purely physical world.
Really? Why?Bob O'H
May 19, 2018
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Bob O’H: I can assure you that I don’t believe I am on the wrong side of truth, and that I very much care about truth.
I really want to believe you Bob, but how anyone can seriously hold that materialism is true is beyond my understanding. It is painfully wrong, at all levels, for so many reasons. And, at this forum, those reasons have been presented to you in abundance.
One reason, at the basic level, as to why materialism is wrong, is that, if materialism is true, our rational discussion could not even take place, since logic informs us that there is no place for rationality in a purely physical world. How you, or anyone else, can even seriously consider the possibility that matter is behind the steering wheel of reason, so to speak, is far beyond my grasp, since …
(1) By its very nature matter is not about rationality, so, why?
(2) There is no concept of a physical thing with the overview, intent and/or power to coordinate events in the brain, which consists of quadrillions of particles separated by relatively vast amounts of space, into coherent reason.
(3) No one knows how laws of reason reduce to physical laws.
(4) All material events, including our thoughts, trace back to past events long before we were born. We have no control over these events, so, we have no control over our thoughts — or anything else for that matter. So, we are not rational.
(5) Reason is the collective result of quadrillions of particles not of one rational person. So, we, as persons, are not rational.
(6) There is no person in the material brain — quadrillions of tiny particles separated by relatively vast amounts of space. So, we are not rational.
(7) Matter acts according to the laws of nature and no one controls the laws of nature. So, we are not the authors of ‘our’ thoughts, and, therefore, we are not rational.
(8) Physical events, of the determined and undetermined kind, are not rationally motivated events. So, we are not rational.
(9) Reason is an unintended by-product of physical events which are intrinsically not about reason. So, we cannot trust our reason.
Bob O’H: ... I very much care about truth.
(10) We cannot judge between truth and falsity, because any such judgment would be just as suspect as what we seek to adjudicate. At no point can we step out of the circle of uncontrollable physical processes to a transcendent standpoint that would allow us to reject some beliefs as tainted while remaining untainted ourselves. So, we cannot trust reason.Origenes
May 19, 2018
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as to: "and that I very much care about truth."
Really?
And since you hold the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be true, then can you tell us exactly how much does truth weigh? No? Well perhaps you can tell us the length of truth? No again? Is it closer to your left ear or to your right ear? Oh well, since truth is obviously an immaterial entity then you cannot possibly really care about truth, or else you would have abandoned the insanity that is inherent in your Darwinian materialism long ago since it denies the reality of all immaterial entities (like for instance the materialistic conclusion that you exist as a neuronal illusion instead of as a real person).
Naturalism and Self-Refutation - Michael Egnor - January 31, 2018
Excerpt: Furthermore, the very framework of Clark’s argument — logic — is neither material nor natural. Logic, after all, doesn’t exist “in the space-time continuum” and isn’t described by physics. What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? Ironically the very logic that Clark employs to argue for naturalism is outside of any naturalistic frame.
The strength of Clark’s defense of naturalism is that it is an attempt to present naturalism’s tenets clearly and logically. That is its weakness as well, because it exposes naturalism to scrutiny, and naturalism cannot withstand even minimal scrutiny. Even to define naturalism is to refute it.
https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
bornagain77
May 18, 2018
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Bob O'H:
I can assure you that I don’t believe I am on the wrong side of truth,
Well you are
and that I very much care about truth.
All evidence to the contrary, of courseET
May 18, 2018
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as to this claim:
"the flagellum could have evolved naturally, whilst malaria might have been intelligently designed. This would be entirely consistent with ID."
Okie Dokie, let's see if that claim holds water. Any bets?
Well Malaria, like the rest of the pathogens I have looked at, is not the result of a gain in functional information but is the result of Genetic Entropy:
Setting a Molecular Clock for Malaria Parasites - July 8, 2010
Excerpt: "Malaria parasites undoubtedly were relatively benign for most of that history (in humans), becoming a major disease only after the origins of agriculture and dense human populations," said Ricklefs.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=117259
Genome sequencing of chimpanzee malaria parasites reveals possible pathways of adaptation to human hosts - 18 July 2014
In summary,,, homologues are found in all Plasmodium species, implying a universal and ancient role in the relationship between Plasmodium parasites and their vertebrate hosts.
There are 568 rif genes in P. reichenowi and only 185 in P. falciparum, with the number of pseudogenes differing by a similar ratio (49 and 27, respectively; Table 2 and Fig. 2b). The number of stevor genes is also higher in P. reichenowi (66) than in P. falciparum (42). Successful colonization of humans is therefore clearly possible with a much reduced repertoire of these two important multigene families.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140909/ncomms5754/full/ncomms5754.html
Also of interest is the extreme difficulty that the Malaria parasite has in developing chloroquine resistance
Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe
Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that 'for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years' (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans).,,,
http://www.discovery.org/a/9461
Moreover, as hard as it is for Darwinian processes to account for chloroquine resistance in the malaria parasite, the adaptation still came at a loss of fitness for the parasite, not a gain.
Metabolic QTL Analysis Links Chloroquine Resistance in Plasmodium falciparum to Impaired Hemoglobin Catabolism - January, 2014
Summary: Chloroquine was formerly a front line drug in the treatment of malaria. However, drug resistant strains of the malaria parasite have made this drug ineffective in many malaria endemic regions. Surprisingly, the discontinuation of chloroquine therapy has led to the reappearance of drug-sensitive parasites. In this study, we use metabolite quantitative trait locus analysis, parasite genetics, and peptidomics to demonstrate that chloroquine resistance is inherently linked to a defect in the parasite's ability to digest hemoglobin, which is an essential metabolic activity for malaria parasites. This metabolic impairment makes it harder for the drug-resistant parasites to reproduce than genetically-equivalent drug-sensitive parasites, and thus favors selection for drug-sensitive lines when parasites are in direct competition. Given these results, we attribute the re-emergence of chloroquine sensitive parasites in the wild to more efficient hemoglobin digestion.
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004085
Whereas, on the other hand, the Bacterial Flagellum is an engineering marvel:
Amazing Flagellum - Scott Minnich & Stephen Meyer – 2016 video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNR48hUd-Hw
The Bacterial Flagellum: A Paradigm for Design - Jonathan M. - Sept. 2012
Excerpt: Indeed, so striking is the appearance of intelligent design that researchers have modeled the assembly process (of the bacterial flagellum) in view of finding inspiration for enhancing industrial operations (McAuley et al.). Not only does the flagellum manifestly exhibit engineering principles, but the engineering involved is far superior to humanity’s best achievements. The flagellum exhibits irreducible complexity in spades. In all of our experience of cause-and-effect, we know that phenomena of this kind are uniformly associated with only one type of cause – one category of explanation – and that is intelligent mind. Intelligent design succeeds at precisely the point at which evolutionary explanations break down.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/106728402/The-Bacterial-Flagellum
Michael Behe's Challenge -- Past, Present, and Future - September 22, 2016
Excerpt: Did the Western nations solve Michael Behe's challenge? If so, they have a strange way of claiming success:
“The proteins that form the bacterial flagellar system have no known homologs in eukaryotic cells. The eukaryotic flagellar [sic], based on a microtubule-containing axoneme, is vastly more complicated. In fact, the current estimate for the number of different proteins in the axoneme is ?425. In contrast, the archaeal flagellar system appears simpler than the bacterial one and can contain as few as 13 different proteins. As with the eukaryotic flagellar system, the archaeal one does not have homology with the bacterial one and must have arisen by means of convergent evolution.”
Ah yes, convergent evolution again. But think about what they say here. The "vastly more complicated" eukaryotic flagellum has no known commonalities with the bacterial flagellum, and the bacterial flagellum has no homolog in the archaeal flagellum: "In archaeal flagellins, however, no homology has yet been found outside of the N-terminal domain with any bacterial or eukaryotic proteins." Do they show any common ancestry between these motors? None. Are we to believe, then, that blind processes happened upon three naturalistic miracles independently?
- per ENV
Structural diversity of bacterial flagellar motors - 2011
Excerpt: Figure 3 - Manual segmentation of conserved (solid colours) and unconserved (dotted lines) motor components based on visual inspection.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160247/figure/f3/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160247/
Flagellar Diversity Challenges Darwinian Evolution, Not Intelligent Design - Casey Luskin - July 22, 2015
Excerpt: flagella are distributed in a polyphyletic manner that doesn't fit what we'd expect from common ancestry,,,
- per ENV
Souped-Up Hyper-Drive Flagellum Discovered - December 3, 2012
Excerpt: Get a load of this -- a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli.
If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1,,,
Harvard's mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella.
"Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath.... the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle."
To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action.
- per ENV
Comparing Malaria to the Flagellum, I certainly have no problem seeing which one is the result of natural processes and which one is the result of elegant Design.
It is also easy to see why Bob (and weave) is a Darwinist. He falsely imagines, without one shred of evidence, that natural processes can create elegant machines, whereas he also falsely imagines that God purposely created the malaria parasite to kill humans. (rather than God simply "allowing", via his permissive will, natural processes to run their course, i.e. Genetic Entropy,).
I don't think I would be a terribly enthusiastic Christian either if I also falsely imagined, as Bob apparently does, that God was out to get me.
As to this 'argument from evil' that Atheists, such as Bob, constantly try to use
This Theologian Has An Answer To Atheists’ Claims That Evil Disproves God - Jan, 2018
Excerpt: In “The Last Superstition: A Refutation Of The New Atheism,” Feser, echoing Thomas Aquinas, notes that the first premise of the problem of evil is “simply false, or at least unjustifiable.” According to Feser, there is no reason to believe that the Christian God, being all-good and all-powerful, would prevent suffering on this earth if out of suffering he could bring about a good that is far greater than any that would have existed otherwise. If God is infinite in power, knowledge, goodness, etc., then of course he could bring about such a good.
Feser demonstrates his reasoning with an analogy. A parent may allow his child a small amount of suffering in frustration, sacrifice of time, and minor pain when learning to play the violin, in order to bring about the good of establishing proficiency. This is not to say that such minimal suffering is in any way comparable to the horrors that have gone on in this world. But the joy of establishing proficiency with a violin is not in any way comparable to the good that God promises to bring to the world.
In Christian theology, this good is referred to as the Beatific Vision: the ultimate, direct self-communication of God to the individual. In other words, perfect salvation or Heaven. Feser describes the Beatific Vision as a joy so great that even the most terrible horror imaginable “pales in insignificance before the beatific vision.” As Saint Paul once said, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
Your Argument Assumes Its Conclusion
I can already see the disciples of the Four Horsemen readying their keyboards, opening a copy of Dawkins’ “The God Delusion,” and preparing their response. An atheist may claim that he cannot possibly imagine anything in the next life that could possibly outweigh the Holocaust, children’s suffering, or any other instance of significant suffering in this world. According to Feser, this response is precisely the reason he states that the problem of evil is “worthless” as an objection to arguments in favor of the existence of the Christian God.
The problem is that the only way the atheist can claim that nothing could outweigh the most significant suffering on earth is if he supposes that God does not exist and therefore there is no Beatific Vision. But he cannot presume that God does not exist in the premise of an argument that aims to prove the conclusion that God does not exist. By doing so, he is begging the question, or arguing in a circle, and therefore does not prove anything at all.
As Feser goes on to demonstrate, the atheist is essentially stating: “There is no God, because look at all this suffering that no good could possibly outweigh. How do I know there’s no good that could outweigh it? Oh, because there is no God.”
http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/03/theologian-answer-new-atheists-claims-existence-evil-disproves-gods/
bornagain77
May 18, 2018
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Bob O’H:
By the way, don't be confused because Behe speaks of IC and I speak of complex functional information. They are two aspects of the same thing. We can discuss that, if you like.gpuccio
May 18, 2018
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Bob O'H at #204:
"Origenes – I can assure you that I don’t believe I am on the wrong side of truth, and that I very much care about truth."
And I believe you.
But then, try to understand the things that are said to you, and not to evade the arguments that are clear and undeniable.
I am available to discuss any aspect of this issue, but you must understand and really consider the things that are being said.gpuccio
May 18, 2018
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Bob O'H at #202:
"For a start, how do you define “complex functional information”?"
Well, that's moving the goalposts!
Pressed about ID falsifiability, you ask me how I define complex functional information?
Have you never followed any of my many OPs here?
However, here is one of my first OPs, dedicated exactly to that definition:
Functional information defined
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/functional-information-defined/
In brief, functional information is a continuous variable, –log2 of the ratio between the target space and the search space for an explicitly defined function.
Complex functional information is a binary variable derived from the continuous variable above defined, using an appropriate threshold. 500 bits is appropriate in the general case.
"Yes, yes! This is one of the points I’ve been trying to make!"
So, we agree at least about that!
"No, not necessarily. As Behe pointed out, multiple mechanisms could be operating. So (say) the flagellum could have evolved naturally, whilst malaria might have been intelligently designed. This would be entirely consistent with ID."
What do you mean? That makes no sense at all!
To what statements by Behe are you referring?
The problem is simple: if an object, or a system of objects (in the case of IC), exhibits complex functional information, we infer design.
It it does not exhibit complex functional information, we do not infer design.
This, and only this, is consistent with ID theory.
What do you mean by:
"the flagellum could have evolved naturally"?
If it exhibits more than 500 bits of functional information (I believe it does, even if I have never analyzed that system in detail), then we can infer design. From the point of view of ID, it cannot have come into existence without an explicit design intervention. If you can demontsrate the opposite, you will have falsified ID.
As Behe says very clearly (see comment #150):
In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum–or any equally complex system–was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven.
And what do you mean by:
"malaria might have been intelligently designed"?
If you refer to chloroquine resistance, the only issue about malaria discussed by Behe, of course nobody has ever even proposed a design inference for that. It is a two AAs variation, well in the range of RV. I have debated that issue in some detail in this OP:
What are the limits of Natural Selection? An interesting open discussion with Gordon Davisson
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/what-are-the-limits-of-natural-selection-an-interesting-open-discussion-with-gordon-davisson/
Point 7.
The problem is not that "multiple mechanisms could be operating". Of course non design mechanisms are always operating, even when design is the main factor. I suppèose that when a great painter paints a masterpiece, non design mechanisms are always acting: the way the paint dries, possible factors due to the environmental situation, maybe an earthquake, you tell it. But the painting is, just the same, the product of design.
The point is that complex functional information is always the product of intelligent design. All the rest can be attributed to other mechanisms, but not complex functional information.
ID theory is perfectly falsifiable, and your "objections" make no sense.gpuccio
May 18, 2018
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Bob O'H:
As Behe pointed out, multiple mechanisms could be operating.
And clearly you don't understand what that means. Dr Behe makes it clear that non-telic processes cannot produce irreducibly complex systems and structures.
So (say) the flagellum could have evolved naturally, whilst malaria might have been intelligently designed.
No one even knows how to test the claim that any flagella evolved via blind and mindless processes. And if that complexity is greater than that of the parasitic part of malaria, which could have evolved naturally, then malaria is taken out of the equation also.ET
May 18, 2018
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Origenes - I can assure you that I don't believe I am on the wrong side of truth, and that I very much care about truth.Bob O'H
May 18, 2018
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I am convinced that Bob O'H, Alan Keith and many other a/mats who visit or have visited this forum, know that they are on the wrong side of truth. They know it, but carry on regardless. They just don't care.
1) People ought, in areas of religion, to form beliefs in accordance with truth only if there are objectively correct moral values.
2) If naturalism is true, there are no objectively correct moral values.
3) Therefore, if naturalism is true, then we have no moral obligations to form beliefs in accordance with truth.
Victor Reppert
Origenes
May 18, 2018
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gpuccio @ 199 - For a start, how do you define "complex functional information"?
But that, in itself, would not be enough to infer design from complex functional information, because, as anyone can understand, if non conscious systems can also generate complex functional information, then complex functional information cannot be used as a safe indicator of design, especially not one with no false positives. Can you agree about that?
Yes, yes! This is one of the points I've been trying to make!
That’s why the “prediction” that no non design system can generate complex functional information is of course crucial for the theory to work.
No, not necessarily. As Behe pointed out, multiple mechanisms could be operating. So (say) the flagellum could have evolved naturally, whilst malaria might have been intelligently designed. This would be entirely consistent with ID.Bob O'H
May 18, 2018
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Allan:
Given that there have been several cultures throughout history which participated in child sacrifice, I must conclude that it has not always been evil.
That doesn't follow. Also child sacrifice and torturing babies for fun are not the same. So you need to try again and answer the question.ET
May 18, 2018
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Mike,
Is it always evil to torture babies for fun?
Given that there have been several cultures throughout history which participated in child sacrifice, I must conclude that it has not always been evil.
If I lived in one of these cultures would I consider it "evil" (i.e. very wrong)? I would like to say that I would, but I will never know.Allan Keith
May 18, 2018
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Bob O'H:
It seems that I must change my mind. What a pity.
You say:
"Yes, but that’s done by invoking a system where the theory is relevant. Invoking a system that explicitly excludes the theory is just silly."
OK, it's very easy to make a prediction about a system that includes the theory. It's something like that:
Conscious intelligent beings can generate rather easily complex functional information.
This comment of mine is, in itself, proof that the prediction is satisfied.
But that, in itself, would not be enough to infer design from complex functional information, because, as anyone can understand, if non conscious systems can also generate complex functional information, then complex functional information cannot be used as a safe indicator of design, especially not one with no false positives. Can you agree about that?
That's why the "prediction" that no non design system can generate complex functional information is of course crucial for the theory to work.
And that prediction, as explained many times, can be easily falsified. But never has been.
Therefore, as said many times, ID theory is perfectly good as a scientific theory according to Popper’s ideas.
It's really disappointing that you must recur to such false arguments and reasonings to deny something that is perfectly clear, simple, obvious and true.gpuccio
May 18, 2018
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Allan Keith,
Is it always evil to torture babies for fun?mike1962
May 18, 2018
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AK, and other than the fact you do not like being pointed out as a liar, your proof that you are not a liar is what exactly?
Reading over your posts, and the great lengths many UD regulars have gone to to point out what is blatantly obvious about falsification, you either must be, as Mr. Arrington once put, either really, really, really, stupid or else a liar.
You may be offended by both conclusions, but you leave us no other option. Hurt feelings do not negate valid conclusions!
Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
–Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
“Charles Darwin said (paraphrase) “If anyone could find anything that could not be had through a number of slight, successive, modifications my theory would absolutely breakdown.” Well, that condition has been met time and time again now. Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.”
– Douglas Axe – 200 Years After Darwin – What Didn’t Darwin Know? – (5:30 minute mark) video – Part 2 of 2
https://youtu.be/VKIgNroTj54?t=329
bornagain77
May 18, 2018
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Wow, Allan Keith is clearly a desperate loser- yes you can add that to your list, Allan.
Neither you nor Bob have an argument, Allan. Both you and Bob have all of the appearances of being scientifically illiterate trolls.
And given what I was responding to all of those responses are spot on. It isn't my fault that you are an ignorant troll, Allan. I am just pointing out the obvious.
So what was Allan's point? To prove that he and Bob are ignorant trolls or what?
With bluffing liars like Bob and Allan it is a wonder why anyone would accept evolutionism as anything more than the spewage of pathological liars.ET
May 18, 2018
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I thought that it would be informative to summarize some of ET's more insiteful and constructive criticisms of his opponents:
Allan is either deluded or a pathological liar.
Your shameless and cowardly equivocation is duly noted. As is your inability to assess the evidence.
Or perhaps you should stop being such a cowardly jerk.
Only a desperate punk would say that in response to:
ou don’t know anything about being civil or respectful. And you definitely don’t understand science
Your willful ignorance is not an argument.
ID is not beholden to your asinine and unscientific agenda.
Allan Keith is totally clueless and bordering on being a pathological liar.
Only scientifically illiterate punks on an agenda of complete nonsense would have you thinks so.
It is beyond the pale and bordering on the psychotic.
Your problem is your ignorance.
Clearly you are lying, Bob.
The problem is you and your ignorance, Bob
Get an education and stop being such a little crybaby.
Clearly you have reading comprehension issues.
You are totally clueless, Bob.
That is completely false and borders on the moronic.
It definitely sounds like you cannot follow along because you are scientifically illiterate.
With watertight arguments like this, it is a mystery why ID has not been accepted by the scientific community.Allan Keith
May 18, 2018
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Mung,
I’m trying to pin down exactly which law of physics you think wold be violated if an object in an orbit were to have its orbit reversed. So far I haven’t heard one.
. . . and the Overton Window, double-BATNA model:
PPPS: I tracked down the source and confirm the slander. I clip for record from another thread (on somebody’s review of Darwin’s Doubt):