Disappointed with Shermer

_{Mark

April 6, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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From EXPELLED Dr Caroline Crocker.

“Recently I attended a lecture by Michael Shermer at the UCSD Biological Science Symposium (4/2/09). His title was, “Why Darwin Matters,” but his topic was mostly religion. He started by defining science as “looking for natural explanations for natural phenomena” and said that his purpose was to “debunk the junk and expose sloppy thinking.”

We were all subjected to an evening of slapstick comedy, cheap laughs, and the demolition of straw men.

His characterization of ID was that the theory says, 1) If something looks designed, 2) We can’t think how it was designed naturally, 3) Therefore we assert that it was designed supernaturally. (God of the gaps.) Okay everyone, laugh away at the stupid ID theorists.

I was astonished at how a convinced Darwinist, who complains about mixing science and religion, spent most of his time at the Biological Science Symposium talking about religion.”

Get the full text here.

Comments

----Hazel: "But you have no observational way to show that what you claim is true. Your hypothesis is an unsupported assertion whose truth can not be ascertained, and thus the rest of the conditional is meaningless." Not at all. Everyone knows that that which always was cannot begin. It is a coctradiction in terms, which is the point that makes the argument work. Do you deny that that which always was cannot begin in time?StephenB_{April 13, 2009
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A changeless, timeless, impersonal cause cannot exist without its effects. If a changeless, impersonal condition for the effects is timeless, then the effects must be timeless as well.
That's just talk. Reasoning of this kind is completely uninteresting to me, because it shows no promise of increasing our knowledge of the world. Nor do increases of relevant knowledge of the world (such as in advances in cosmology) seem to impinge in the least upon these scholastic exercises. Given that, you should be deeply suspicious that such assertions are in fact entirely devoid of real meaning.Diffaxial_{April 13, 2009
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You write, "A changeless, timeless, impersonal cause cannot exist without its effects." Please explain to me how you know this is true. The conclusion of a conditional is true only if the hypothesis is true. Your hypothesis makes a claim about the necessary nature of metaphysical reality. But you have no observational way to show that what you claim is true. Your hypothesis is an unsupported assertion whose truth can not be ascertained, and thus the rest of the conditional is meaningless. Furthermore, your example about water is not relevant, because you don't know that conclusions based on how this world work carry over to the metaphysical world. This is a point that you are not responding to. You can't prove that ""A changeless, timeless, impersonal cause cannot exist without its effects" by offering an analogy: analogies aren't proofs. An analogy can suggest a line of investigation, but until the investigation validates the correspondence we don't know whether it is a valid analogy or not.hazel_{April 13, 2009
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A logician would know that the way to engage a faulty argument is to expose the fault. My opening gambit was stated in this way: "A changeless, timeless, impersonal cause cannot exist without its effects. If a changeless, impersonal condition for the effects is timeless, then the effects must be timeless as well." That is a straight if/then proposition and the concrete example which follows, makes it crystal clear. The temperature of -O degrees C is the CAUSE of frozen water. If, therefore, the temperature [the changeless timeless cause] was present from all eternity, that is, if it was always -O degrees, then the water was ALWAYS FROZEN. Under the circumstances, it would be impossible for the water to BEGIN to freeze. We can, therefore, conclude that the only way the water could BEGIN to freeze a finite time ago, is if a personal agent chooses to create a new effect. That argument is both analyzable and logically compelling.StephenB_{April 13, 2009
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If your argument is faulty in general, I don't see how one could engage it specifically.hazel_{April 13, 2009
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No, it is not engaging the argumemt. You provided your general opinion about arguments in general. You did not engage the arguemt that was provided. A logician should know that the general is not synonymous with the specific. A logician should also know that any if/then proposition can be evaluated.StephenB_{April 13, 2009
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I gave engaged the argument. Logic based on observations in this universe do not necessarily carry over to whatever is outside this universe because we have no observations to use to test whether that carryover happens. That is engaging the argument.hazel_{April 13, 2009
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---Hazel: "The details of your answer at 408 are just unfounded assertions - there is no way that I can argue against them because you have defined all the terms to mean, and signify, what you want them to mean, and there is no observational evidence that we can look at to see if your definitions and meanings validly reference anything." That isn't true. Any competent logician could examine the last three paragraphs at 408, especially the point about ice beginning to freeze. You simply cannot or will not engage the argument. I have no way of knowing which is the case, but I do know that it is one or the other. Sorry, but that's the way it is.StephenB_{April 13, 2009
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Mr. Nakashima: No, I don't think that the principles I listed at 369 explain the universe at all. They have more to do with the foundational principles for logic, without which, one cannot reason properly. They tell us nothing at all about the universe, they simply provide the foundational principles for logic itself.StephenB_{April 13, 2009
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Mr StephenB, Wow, this discussion moves very fast sometimes! I wish I could adjust the width of the text field on this web page to reduce the scrolling up and down. I'm sorry to repeat myself, or ask you to repeat yourself, but did you answer my question earlier about the principles of right reason that you outlined for us? I was asking you if you thought this set of principles described the universe better than any other set of such principles. Thank you. I'm sorry I have not participated more regularly in this discussion. As I said much earlier, I'm very uninterested in word games. If you want to construct an argument from Motion, make sure it can handle multiple reference frames, and photons. "Common Sense" is helpless to explain the universe, which is "stranger than we can imagine."Nakashima_{April 13, 2009
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StephenB, Thanks for the synopsis. I stay away from philosophy because it takes too much effort to understand and has always been too squishy for me. Though I love Plato and Socrates. Let me know when anyone can explain first) why there is existence and second) why the existence is so exquisitely finely tuned. Would such a result be due to an impersonal force whatever that is or to an intelligence who can make choices. How does an impersonal force find the right combination of laws for our universe. I can understand how an intelligence could But an impersonal force?jerry_{April 12, 2009
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Hey, thanks, Stephen. You too.Diffaxial_{April 12, 2009
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Thanks - as I said to vj earlier, I hope you have had an enjoyable and meaningful day.hazel_{April 12, 2009
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Happy Easter, Hazel, frustrations and all. I offer the same wishes to Diffaxial and David.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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And your argument at 408 fails for the very reasons we have been discussing - you can't apply brute logic without observation to this uncaused cause, and you can't observe the uncaused cause. Analogies from within this universe don't give us any traction, because we don't know that what is outside this universe is like what is in it. That's my answer. The details of your answer at 408 are just unfounded assertions - there is no way that I can argue against them because you have defined all the terms to mean, and signify, what you want them to mean, and there is no observational evidence that we can look at to see if your definitions and meanings validly reference anything. Your argument is just all words - brute logic and definitions which contain their own conclusions. I think there is probably no need for me to say this again (although I understand that I've said that before, and still came back for another round.)hazel_{April 12, 2009
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If, after all this time, you do not accept the fact that logic plus observation yields more knowledge than brute logic, then I don’t believe that I can reach you in any way.
Of course I acknowledge this in the abstract. What I don't see is that your presentation of the cosmological theory accomplishes that. Your (non)responses go no distance to persuading me that it does. But I'm off to other things. Anon.Diffaxial_{April 12, 2009
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----Diffaxial: "Otherwise, I for one remain unconvinced that observation plays the role that you claim for it." If, after all this time, you do not accept the fact that logic plus observation yields more knowledge than brute logic, then I don't believe that I can reach you in any way.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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Do you have anything to say about the argument? ----Diffaxial: "Yes. Vis the cosmological argument, I continue to maintain that you equivocate on the definition of “contingent,” sometimes invoking ordinary contingency and sometimes invoking philosophical contingency> Which is why I designed a new argument that does not permit you to use that as a semantic dodge. "Contingency" has left the building due to popular demand. The question is, do you have anything to say about the specific argument at 408, not your perception of a generic cosmological argument?StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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----Hazel: "And how did that get into the argument - where did the “except” come from." It has always been there. We can argue from observation to the existence of a personal creator, not just an impersonal blob. But we cannot go beyond that. I have made that point several times. One blogger attempted to call "personhood" an "attribute," so the "except" was put in there for his sake. Anyway, that is old news because you have already acknowledged the causeless cause anyway, so the only thing left to show is that we can also prove the personhood, which is the point at 408.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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StephenB:
The observational component is in the apprehension of the physical universe and its qualities.
"The universe and its qualities" encompasses every possible observation, past present and future. Therefore it is fair to ask, "which observed qualities?" Another way to ask this would be to ask: can you suggest an observation of any universe in which observation (by any entity capable of observation) is possible at all, or of qualities of a universe in which observation is possible at all, from which your argument would NOT follow? Seems to me that, absent such potentially dispositive observations, observation plays no real role in your argument, and the cosmological argument boils down to, "We're here, so there must be a God." Further, what I am asking is, "what premise and/or assertion is established by means of this observation?"
Do you have anything to say about the argument on the table or are you going to keep evading it?
Yes. Vis the cosmological argument, I continue to maintain that you equivocate on the definition of "contingent," sometimes invoking ordinary contingency and sometimes invoking philosophical contingency. It appears to me that you invoke ordinary contingency when you want to claim "observation," and philosophical contingency when you wish to claim ironclad logical conclusions. Further, until you describe the observations and resulting assertions/premises that arise from them and undergird your argument, it appears to me that your cosmological argument doesn't differ in kind from the ontological one, and does no more than move logical furniture, your assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. This is because I suspect that your "observations" return only what would obtain in the instance of any entity in any universe giving consideration to any such question, and hence only give the appearance of contributing content while actually failing to do so. Subtracting that component, we are left with logical moves only. Perhaps I'm wrong: you can show that I am wrong by stating something like, "we observe _______, therefore...(the assertion/premise that arises from that observation)" Observation that would follow given any entity in any universe capable of asking a question need not apply. Otherwise, I for one remain unconvinced that observation plays the role that you claim for it.Diffaxial_{April 12, 2009
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Your argument in 408 is all ad hoc, and doesn't address the issue that you can't know that what you are saying is true because you have no observations upon which to ground your logic, which is an objection you are not trying to address and have not addressed. Let's just toss the ball off the court and go do something else.hazel_{April 12, 2009
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Hazel, over the last 20 or so posts, several of you have attempted to trip me up by hearkening back to old terms, hoping that I wouldn't have an answer. As I have made clear, I do have answers and I can explain and have explained any point I have been asked regarding any possible confusion over my terms. The time has come, however, when someone has to stop challenging me and start answering my challenges. That time has come. As it turns out, I have designed only one, and it was custom made for you at 408. I have even provided a concrete example of the abstract point being made. As far as I can tell, there is no potential for using semantic dodges, which may explain why no one wants to address it. The ball is in your court.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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"... except insofar as they are reflected as an intelligent creator." And how did that get into the argument - where did the "except" come from. You're just falling back on "brute logic" again. First we have "no attributes" and now we have "except this one attribute." I don't think this works, for all the reasons I've mentioned. Maybe it's time, once again, to stop.hazel_{April 12, 2009
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Hazel, We can reason our way to God's existence, but we cannot reason our way to his essence or his attributes, except insofar as they are reflected as an intelligent creator. By observing the universe and reasoning our way back, we cannot conclude that God is loving, caring, Christian-like, Muslim-like, Trinitarian, Jealous about false Gods, or any other such qualities. We can only infer his existence and his power to create. The point is that we can get to "existence" (including personhood) but we can't get beyond that. Now, do you have anything to say about the argument that is on the table which was designed especially for you and your assertion that the causeless cause can be impersonal.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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One argument on the table is that you have stated that
There is no way we can reason our way to the “attributes” of the causeless cause, we can only reason our way to its ”existence.” Existence is a totally different matter than essence,
and then you have tried to reason your way to attributes of the causeless cause. Can you explain this seeming contradiction?hazel_{April 12, 2009
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David, we are at precisely at that last step in one of the arguemts. We are at the point of distinguishing the impersonal first cause (Hazel's Tao) vs. the personal first cause (That which all men know as God[ in terms of existence, not essence]. That is the argument on the table. If you want to go back to 402, which deals with the preliminary steps, I will only answer points that refer to specifically numbered steps and claims about why they do not logically follow from the one before.) Beyond that, we are past the point of discussing cosmological arguments in gerneral, at least I am past that point.StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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----Diffaxial: "So what IS the observational component that compels us to distinguish it from exercises in pure logic?" The observational component is in the apprehension of the physical universe and its qualities. Pure logic is a function of trying to reason from a premise without benefit of an observed fact, as in the "ontological argument," which attempts to speculate how things must be as opposed to some versions of the cosmological argument which begin with an observation. Now, once again, do you have anything to say about the argument on the table or are you going to keep evading it?StephenB_{April 12, 2009
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StephenB
Diffaxil, your nonsense is starting to wear a little thin.
You stated:
There is no way we can reason our way to the “attributes” of the causeless cause, we can only reason our way to its ”existence.”
Your specialized sense of "attributes" not withstanding, your argument to a personal (versus impersonal) God - which you describe as "key" - clearly asserts surplus meaning beyond simple existence, and is in contradiction to the second clause of your statement above regardless of the meaning attached to "attribute" in first. You are now arguing to "key" predicates beyond the predicate of existence. (Unless you want to argue that "we can only reason our way to its 'existence'" is simultaneously true and not true, although I thought such reasoning had a bad reputation around here :) Other nonsense: You have repeatedly insisted that the cosmological argument you present differs from the use of brute logic because it has both observational and logical components. You have derided others for failing to observe that distinction:
When I informed her that the cosmological argument does not rely solely on brute logic, that it also takes observation into account, she continued to use the term “brute logic” anyway, indicating that she was not in any way following the argument.
So, where is the observational component? There aren't many candidates:
If there are contingent beings, then there must be a necessary (self existent) Being.
I don't see room for an observational component in the logical consequence that follows "then" in the statement above (either in this abbreviated or other more developed presentations of the argument.) Therefore it seemed natural to discover it in your assertion regarding contingent beings. But you say observation has nothing to do with contingency, either. So what IS the observational component that compels us to distinguish it from exercises in pure logic?Diffaxial_{April 12, 2009
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StephenB, at first blush, I'd say all of the arguments fail at the conclusion, because that conclusion ("this all men speak of as God" and variants thereof) is just flatly wrong. Second, all the arguments assume that the laws of the universe work the same way before the universe that they do now. However, to take (for example) the laws of motion, the universe creates the conditions under which those laws operate. There is also the Newtonian understanding that, within our universe, only changes in motion come from forces, not motion itself. Why begin with stillness? One could take the position of Lucretius that motion (what Lucretius calls "falling") is eternal. On the argument from cause, I go with the Humean objection that causation is inductive rather than logical, which I find compelling and which your own language implies ("We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world"). The reductio argument fails because it assumes that the universe itself is contingent.David Kellogg_{April 12, 2009
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Hi Stephen. Let me clear up a few asides before I address the main issue. First, back at 408, your saying that “I will trust you [Jerry] as arbiter” is a bit like having the fox guard the henhouse. Jerry has declared that atheism is intellectually bankrupt, and he hasn’t read this thread. He is already in your camp whether you provide a good argument, or any argument at all, so I, at least, am not very interested in what Jerry thinks about this discussion. Second, in reference to your three arguments at 402, in 415 you say, “Hazel is on board with every step except the last step, so that is where we are.” That’s probably a little strong, because all I have said in response so far is, at 404,
I can easily point to an error in the last step of each argument: not all people speak of the uncaused cause et al as God, because that implies all sort of attributes that go beyond merely pointing to an uncaused cause et al.
But I am accepting the argument that every contingent thing has a cause, that the universe came into existence at a point so it must have a cause, and that somewhere in the chain of causes reaching backward from the beginning of the universe there has been an uncaused cause. Now you have added an additional argument tacked on to the end of all the other arguments that you have summarized in 402: that the uncaused cause has to be personal. At this point you fall right back into the problem we had earlier: as you have agreed, brute logic without reference to observation is helpless. Since we have no observations of what is on the other side of the Big Bang, or of the uncaused cause wherever it might be in the series, saying things like “the uncaused cause must be changeless and timeless, since both time and space came into existence at the time of the big bang.” and “a changeless, timeless, impersonal cause cannot exist without its effects” are all just bald assertions. We really have no idea what space and time are in respect to the metaphysical world from which our universe came, or whether those concepts makes sense. Similarly, we really have no idea whether the concepts of personal and impersonal apply to that metaphysical world. The irony here, as Diffaxial pointed out in 409, is that even though you have stated,
There is no way we can reason our way to the “attributes” of the causeless cause, we can only reason our way to its ”existence.” Existence is a totally different matter than essence.
you are now trying to reason your way to the attributes of the causeless cause. And this can’t be done - brute logic (which includes making up concepts that include their conclusion within the premise) can create many different logical systems - of which God and the Tao are two - but without reference to some observations with which to test the validity of those system, they remain conceptual models only. So I don’t think you’ve added anything to your arguments at 402, and I think my objections at 404 stand: the uncaused cause argument does not lead to the conclusion that the universe must be the product of a personal uncaused cause. So as I wrote earlier and Diffaxial quoted, I still think this is true:
So logical arguments about entities that are in fact unknowable cannot be tested. You can play with words about such things as God and ultimate causes and contingent and necessary beings, but if we don’t know whether the concepts the words are meant to represent are in fact as we think they are, then our logical manipulations can’t be held to compel belief about the world.
hazel_{April 12, 2009
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