Dawkins on arguments pointing to God

_{kairosfocus

January 14, 2016

Atheism, Fine tuning, rhetoric, Sciences and Theology, worldview}

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Ran across this clip at Christian Post:

Atheist author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says the best argument for God he’s ever hard has to do with a deistic God as the fine-tuner of the universe . . . .

Dawkins prefaced his answer by making it clear that he is not “in any sense admitting that there is a good argument,” and insisted that “there is no decent argument for the existence of deities.” . . . .

“It’s still a very, very bad argument, but it’s the best one going,” he added, noting that a major problem with the argument is that it leaves unexplained where the fine tuner came from.

As for evolution, however, he said there is simply no argument at all that he can consider.

“There are reasons why people don’t get it, such as the time scale involved is so huge. People find it difficult to grasp how long a time has been available for the changes that are talked about,” the evolutionary biologist asserted . . .

What do we think, why? END

PS: Kindly cf the discussion below, and particularly 24 (also 42) and 64. What we see here is a rhetorical attempt to push ethical theism beyond the BATNA windows of the conventional wisdom on what is acceptable thinking by posing on confident manner as a celebrity intellectual (without having to account for the — on fair comment — puerile, strawmannish character of his own anti-theistical arguments):

Comments

KF, I just don't know that what Fred Hoyle & ilk find intriguing gets you very far. Surely Hoyle in particular demonstrates that very smart people can be utterly wrong, even in their own fields.daveS_{January 14, 2016
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JC, propose another IS that can ground ought at world foundation level and lets discuss on comparative difficulties, which is how phil works. I advise against flying spaghetti monsters and the like as they fail to be anywhere near to necessary being candidates. While you are at it find a non root reality basis for being a morally valuable being -- bonus points if it is evolutionary materialist. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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KF: "This points to the need for an IS that grounds OUGHT. The only level we will find such is the root of reality." Agreed. But why does this require an "inherently good god"? Do you know of any successful (long term) society that does not share a common moral stance (rules)? If we accept the fact that we are beings that can reason, why can't we derive these rules without a god?Jonas Crump_{January 14, 2016
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JC, the relevant point from human history is that we find ourselves unavoidably under moral government and that to preserve the life of the mind must implicitly acknowledge that we are responsibly and rationally free. (Or argument is pointless.) This points to the need for an IS that grounds OUGHT. The only level we will find such is the root of reality. And that connects to the issue of a necessary being root of reality. The only serious candidate to answer to the bill of particulars will be an inherently good creator God, a necessary and maximally great being. Which is what ethical theism has always discussed. It is also worth noting that the logical problem of evil has had much less force in the forty or so years since Plantinga's free will defense, cf here. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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DS: I presume you have taken time to read the linked 101. Try water and what goes into getting both water and organic chemistry based on C, as it struck Hoyle:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has “monkeyed” with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.[F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.]
This is rather modest fine tuning, but without it we would likely not be here. There are many more cases. Robin Collins remarks:
Suppose we went on a mission to Mars, and found a domed structure in which everything was set up just right for life to exist. The temperature, for example, was set around 70 °F and the humidity was at 50%; moreover, there was an oxygen recycling system, an energy gathering system, and a whole system for the production of food. Put simply, the domed structure appeared to be a fully functioning biosphere. What conclusion would we draw from finding this structure? Would we draw the conclusion that it just happened to form by chance? Certainly not. Instead, we would unanimously conclude that it was designed by some intelligent being. Why would we draw this conclusion? Because an intelligent designer appears to be the only plausible explanation for the existence of the structure. That is, the only alternative explanation we can think of–that the structure was formed by some natural process–seems extremely unlikely. Of course, it is possible that, for example, through some volcanic eruption various metals and other compounds could have formed, and then separated out in just the right way to produce the “biosphere,” but such a scenario strikes us as extraordinarily unlikely, thus making this alternative explanation unbelievable. The universe is analogous to such a “biosphere,” according to recent findings in physics . . . . Scientists call this extraordinary balancing of the parameters of physics and the initial conditions of the universe the “fine-tuning of the cosmos” . . . For example, theoretical physicist and popular science writer Paul Davies–whose early writings were not particularly sympathetic to theism–claims that with regard to basic structure of the universe, “the impression of design is overwhelming” (Davies, 1988, p. 203) . . . A few examples of this fine-tuning are listed below: 1. If the initial explosion of the big bang had differed in strength by as little as 1 part in 1060, the universe would have either quickly collapsed back on itself, or expanded too rapidly for stars to form. In either case, life would be impossible. [See Davies, 1982, pp. 90-91. (As John Jefferson Davis points out (p. 140), an accuracy of one part in 10^60 can be compared to firing a bullet at a one-inch target on the other side of the observable universe, twenty billion light years away, and hitting the target.) 2. Calculations indicate that if the strong nuclear force, the force that binds protons and neutrons together in an atom, had been stronger or weaker by as little as 5%, life would be impossible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 4, 35; Barrow and Tipler, p. 322.) 3. Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 10 to the 40th power, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.) 4. If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and thus life would not be possible. (Leslie, 1989, pp. 39-40 ) 5. If the electromagnetic force were slightly stronger or weaker, life would be impossible, for a variety of different reasons. (Leslie, 1988, p. 299.) . . .
The serious options generally on the table are multiverse with us being in the lucky corner, and design. For the former, the problem is, local isolation of our operating point. That cries out for explanation, and we are back at the lone fly on a stretch of wall swatted by a bullet vs being in a patch carpeted with the critters issue highlighted by John Leslie. And again, this pivots on sensitivity not distributions. Where it is exactly by playing with the equations that some of the most significant insights have come. So, yes, you may not be interested in this issue or linked ones such as the one and the many. But that does not mean the issue is not real or significant. What I have always said in any case is that we have multiple interlocking, supporting issues that point in the same convergent direction, and the cumulative effort and worldviews cost to deny them all is stiff indeed. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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KF: "PS: One hint, God, by definition would be the inherently good creator of the cosmos, a necessary — thus eternal and connected to the root of a cosmos existing — and maximally great being..." Maybe I am confused, but why must god be inherently good? Is that a requirement? Or just wishful thinking? What evidence do you have for his inherent goodness? Certainly not human historyJonas Crump_{January 14, 2016
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F/N: I suggest a glance at Luke Barnes, for the interested person: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1112/1112.4647v1.pdf Clipping a little: >>The ne-tuning of the universe for intelligent life has received much attention in recent times. Beginning with the classic papers of Carter (1974) and Carr & Rees (1979), and the extensive discussion of Barrow & Tipler (1986), a number of authors have noticed that very small changes in the laws, parameters and initial conditions of physics would result in a universe unable to evolve and support intelligent life . . . . The claim that the universe is ne-tuned can be formulated as: FT: In the set of possible physics, the subset that permit the evolution of life is very small. FT can be understood as a counterfactual claim, that is, a claim about what would have been. Such claims are not uncommon in everyday life. For example, we can formulate the claim that Roger Federer would almost certainly defeat me in a game of tennis as: \in the set of possible games of tennis between myself and Roger Federer, the set in which I win is extremely small". This claim is undoubtedly true, even though none of the innitely-many possible games has been played. Our formulation of FT, however, is in obvious need of renement. What determines the set of possible physics? Where exactly do we draw the line between \universes"? How is \smallness" being measured? Are we considering only cases where the evolution of life is physically impossible or just extremely improbable? What is life? We will press on with the our formulation of FT as it stands, pausing to note its inadequacies when appropriate. As it stands, FT is precise enough to distinguish itself from a number of other claims for which it is often mistaken. FT is not the claim that this universe is optimal for life, that it contains the maximum amount of life per unit volume or per baryon, that carbon-based life is the only possible type of life, or that the only kinds of universes that support life are minor variations on this universe. These claims, true or false, are simply beside the point. The reason why FT is an interesting claim is that it makes the existence of life in this universe appear to be something remarkable, something in need of explanation. The intuition here is that, if ours were the only universe, and if the causes that established the physics of our universe were indierent to whether it would evolve life, then the chances of hitting upon a life-permitting universe are very small. As Leslie (1989, pg. 121) notes, \[a] chief reason for thinking that something stands in special need of explanation is that we actually glimpse some tidy way in which it might be explained". Consider the following tidy explanations: This universe is one of a large number of variegated universes, produced by physical processes that randomly scan through (a subset of) the set of possible physics. Even- tually, a universe will be created that is a member of the life-permitting set. Only such universes can be observed, since only such universes contain observers. There exists a transcendent, personal creator of the universe. This entity desires to create a universe in which other minds will be able to form. Thus, the entity chooses from the set of possibilities a universe which is foreseen to evolve intelligent life 2 . These scenarios are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive, but if either or both were true then we would have a tidy explanation of why our universe, against the odds, supports the evolution of life . . . There are a great many scientists, of varying religious persuasions, who accept that the universe is fine-tuned for life, e.g. Barrow, Carr, Carter, Davies, Dawkins, Deutsch, Ellis, Greene, Guth, Harrison, Hawking, Linde, Page, Penrose, Polkinghorne, Rees, Sandage, Smolin, Susskind, Tegmark, Tipler, Vilenkin, Weinberg, Wheeler, Wilczek 5 . They differ, of course, on what conclusion we should draw from this fact . . . . >> In short, the matter is a serious question, not idle and empty speculation that can be dismissed with a talking point or two. (The clips come from a 70+ pp paper replying to Stenger's attempt to dismiss the fine tuning.) KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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KF, Yes, if you think that is a productive approach, by all means, go for it. I'm just saying that I would find clear evidence of design on a modest scale more convincing. Some example where you don't have to bring the entire cosmos into the picture.daveS_{January 14, 2016
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DS, the issue is the cluster of laws, parameters, constants, values and how they interact in our universe to yield an operating condition. And since Hoyle et al from the early 1950's [for the moment is getting closish to 70 years . . . a tad long to be waiting on promissory notes, and the trend has been the multiplication of the pattern across time so the trajectory is not what you seem to suggest], it has been a shock to discover just how many things have to be just so for the whole to work. Hence, fine tuning: a cluster of functionally organised, interacting components that are mutually extremely precisely co-adapted. In a context where (a) there is no credible mechanical necessity forcing the range of things in close match, and (b) if that were found, it would simply push the fine tuning up a notch. Of course, one may at will use dismissive remarks to set this aside, but it does not change the fundamental point. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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KF,
No, the issue does not go away so easily, which is why it has haunted cosmology for a full generation.
Well, it's your show, so you guys can focus your efforts on whatever you prefer. If it were me, I would be more interested in finding evidence of design in our own universe, under known physical constants, laws, etc. Just regular, "boring" science, in other words. Less speculation over intractable (at present) issues that have stumped the cosmologists already.daveS_{January 14, 2016
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F/N: The following argument, No. 8 from Kreeft's collection as was linked previously, has much food for thought in it in this context . . . and in the onward context of the living cell that is based on those oh so strangely most abundant elements, H, He, O, C (recall that resonance that caught Hoyle's eye) and with N close by, getting us to stars and galaxies, the periodic table as a whole through star actions, water, organic chemistry, proteins:
Norris Clarke, who taught metaphysics and philosophy of religion for many years at Fordham, has circulated privately an intriguing version of the design argument. We present it here, slightly abridged and revised; for your reflection. Starting point. This world is given to us as a dynamic, ordered system of many active component elements. Their natures (natural properties) are ordered to interact with each other in stable, reciprocal relationships which we call physical laws. For example, every hydrogen atom in our universe is ordered to combine with every oxygen atom in the proportion of 2:1 (which implies that every oxygen atom is reciprocally ordered to combine with every hydrogen atom in the proportion of 1:2). So it is with the chemical valences of all the basic elements. So too all particles with mass are ordered to move toward every other according to the fixed proportions of the law of gravity. In such an interconnected, interlocking, dynamic system, the active nature of each component is defined by its relation with others, and so presupposes the others for its own intelligibility and ability to act. Contemporary science reveals to us that our world-system is not merely an aggregate of many separate, unrelated laws, but rather a tightly interlocking whole, where relationship to the whole structures and determines the parts. The parts can no longer be understood apart from the whole; its influence permeates them all. Argument. In any such system as the above (like our world) no component part or active element can be self-sufficient or self-explanatory. For any part presupposes all the other parts—the whole system already in place—to match its own relational properties. It can't act unless the others are there to interact reciprocally with it. Any one part could be self-sufficient only if it were the cause of the whole rest of the system—which is impossible, since no part can act except in collaboration with the others. Nor can the system as a whole explain its own existence, since it is made up of the component parts and is not a separate being, on its own, independent of them. So neither the parts nor the whole are self-sufficient; neither can explain the actual existence of this dynamically interactive system. Three Conclusions Since the parts make sense only within the whole, and neither the whole nor the parts can explain their own existence, then such a system as our world requires a unifying efficient cause to posit it in existence as a unified whole. Any such cause must be an intelligent cause, one that brings the system into being according to a unifying idea. For the unity of the whole—and of each one of the overarching, cosmic-wide, physical laws uniting elements under themselves—is what determines and correlates the parts. Hence it must be somehow actually present as an effective organizing factor. But the unity, the wholeness, of the whole transcends any one part, and therefore cannot be contained in any one part. To be actually present all at once as a whole this unity can only be the unity of an organizing unifying idea. For only an idea can hold together many different elements at once without destroying or fusing their distinctness. That is almost the definition of an idea. Since the actual parts are spread out over space and time, the only way they can be together at once as an intelligible unity is within an idea. Hence the system of the world as a whole must live first within the unity of an idea. Now a real idea cannot actually exist and be effectively operative save in a real mind, which has the creative power to bring such a system into real existence. Hence the sufficient reason for our ordered world-system must ultimately be a creative ordering Mind. A cosmic-wide order requires a cosmic-wide Orderer, which can only be a Mind. Such an ordering Mind must be independent of the system itself, that is, transcendent; not dependent on the system for its own existence and operation. For if it were dependent on—or part of—the system, it would have to presuppose the latter as already existing in order to operate, and would thus have to both precede and follow itself. But this is absurd. Hence it must exist and be able to operate prior to and independent of the system. Thus our material universe necessarily requires, as the sufficient reason for its actual existence as an operating whole, a Transcendent Creative Mind.
KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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DS, Perhaps, you need to start here and in the onward linked. The fine tuning issue does not lie in any one particular constraint but in the overall interactive pattern of laws, constants, quantities etc. i/l/o sensitivity analysis . . . a standard procedure in doing mathematically tinged analyses of systems. Not least, because one is interested in the robustness and stability of solutions; something very familiar from various fields of praxis. There is no known reason why such an interacting system is constrained to take the cluster of observed values, but it is calculable that slight changes -- and one does not need distribution functions to carry out such a sensitivity analysis -- would derange the system taking it away from the operating point our observed cosmos lies at per observation. And, given the sensitivity analysis, the fixation at such a sharply defined, locally isolated operating point by a super forcing law would push the fine tuning issue up one more level. No, the issue does not go away so easily, which is why it has haunted cosmology for a full generation. More broadly, the same physics has suggested multiple [sub-]cosmi to some, and in so suggesting, that raises the issue of radical contingency. Pulling back a step, the sensitivity analysis on the system of laws etc raises one of the longstanding issues of thought: the one and the many in a unified whole. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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KF,
That is, a locally isolated system in laws and parameters that for all we can see are potentially variable ...
Ok, but I don't think you can you tell me the sample space and pdf for the fine-structure constant, or even if it is actually rather than just potentially variable. I'm not dismissing the fine-tuning argument altogether, I'm simply saying that given our current state of understanding, it rests on a lot of speculation about presumably nonexistent or at least nonobservable "alternate" universes.daveS_{January 14, 2016
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Mung,
Cells are fine-tuned.
Maybe so, but I'm referring to the fine-tuning of physical constants here.daveS_{January 14, 2016
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Folks: Thanks for thoughts, I think we need to discuss this one on fairly broad bases. (For instance, here is a 101 to think about: http://www.strangenotions.com/god-exists/ ) JS: That should give us pause indeed. DS: Fine tuning is not that easily removed. As John Leslie points out the issue is not whether at some remove there may be zones that are carpeted with flies on a wall, it is that in our vicinity, there is just one, and splat it is hit by a bullet. That is, a locally isolated system in laws and parameters that for all we can see are potentially variable -- and that is in fact a widely held view - gives us a locally isolated operating point should give us pause before dismissing fine tuning. But it does not stop there, if there are super laws that force the observed laws and parameters we see then that simply postpones the fine tuning to the next level. In effect a cosmos bakery has to have its machinery set right in order to produce well tempered "loaves" as opposed to half baked messes or blackened hockey pucks. beyond, as I will nte in a moment, Mung is right. Life forms are replete with finely balanced regulatory and control systems with communication sub systems. Notoriously, such have to be tuned to work right, and so biology based on C-Chemistry aqueous medium cells is fine tuned. And the cosmos that gets us to C, O,H, N etc and viable terrestrial planets in galactic habitable zones is also fine tuned from its core physics on up. But before we go into such, the point remains that we have to account for why a cosmos instead of nothing, where an utter non-being would -- once it exists -- forever obtain. That points to the issue of being, possible and contingent vs necessary being, with a necessary being at the root of reality. With our being under moral government pointing to a moral necessary being as reality's root. So, in the face of that do you know of a good reason to think that God is an impossible being even as a square circle is impossible? Mung: Cells are indeed fine tuned to work. Fine tuned, functionally specific, control system based, communication using, code using entities. Where do codes come from? Why? While by itself such points to design not designer or to God as specific designer, it does raise serious questions about the kind of world we live in, and about how such things as cells come to be. KFkairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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daveS: I think I actually would find down to Earth scientific evidence of design more convincing (that involving the structure of cells, DNA, and so on) than fine-tuning arguments. Cells are fine-tuned.Mung_{January 14, 2016
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KF, I think I actually would find down to Earth scientific evidence of design more convincing (that involving the structure of cells, DNA, and so on) than fine-tuning arguments. Are the fundamental constants truly independent, and can this be tested? Does the creation of a universe involve randomly choosing a tuple of these constants? If so, what is the sample space and probability distribution? And again, how can we test this?daveS_{January 14, 2016
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Who should I believe, Dawkins, or these Nobel Prize winners and other great scientists who believed the evidence that the universe was designed?: http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_cosmology
Many scientists believed the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and other scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, and Louis Pasteur. http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers
That's right, Charles Darwin believed the universe was designed.Jim Smith_{January 14, 2016
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PS: One hint, God, by definition would be the inherently good creator of the cosmos, a necessary -- thus eternal and connected to the root of a cosmos existing -- and maximally great being; where were there ever an utter nothing, there would forever be the same as non-being has no powers of cause, i.e. as a first issue, if something now is, something independent always was. In short, the issue is whether God is the best candidate to be that root reality, and God is either real or impossible as a square circle is impossible. Do atheists have any good arguments that show that God is as impossible as say a square circle? If not, have they met their epistemic responsibilities before asserting their view -- including, the version on which they claim to be without belief in God [in a context where they suggest they have good reason for such] -- and what it implies?kairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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Dawkins on arguments pointing to God.kairosfocus_{January 14, 2016
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