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

----Mark: I am not sure if I agree without a bit of context. [a thing cannot be and not be at the same time] Is Schrodinger’s cat dead or not? Here is something to think over. Is death the same thing as annihilation?StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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-----David: "Question: How do we know that the universe itself is contingent?" Now that, as they say, is a very, very good question. I'll ask you to think that one over as well.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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----hazel: "One can say that God can not be and not be at the same time........." Think that one over for a while without my intervention.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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Question: How do we know that the universe itself is contingent? I don't think the Big Bang closes this question. (My dim memory of Hawking's Brief History of Time suggests that other answers are possible.)David Kellogg_{April 10, 2009
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More explicitly: agree that those are rules of logic. Specific "things" and propositions have to be examined to see if they are meaningful in the real world. One can say that God can not be and not be at the same time, but that says nothing about whether this something - God - actually exists or not. Similarly, "all wangles are snuffles" cannot be both true or false, but whether it is meaningful, and whether its truth or falsity can be determined, is another question.hazel_{April 10, 2009
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Ah. I thought you were using "right reason" in some standard sense.David Kellogg_{April 10, 2009
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#343 [A] A thing cannot be and not be at the same time [B] A proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. I am not sure if I agree without a bit of context. Is Schrodinger's cat dead or not? However, I am interested to know where you would take the argument if I agreed.Mark Frank_{April 10, 2009
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David, it will likely not be possible to google information about the "principles of right reason" inasmuch as that is my phrase for describing the necessary conditions for reasoning in the abstract.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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Agree. What's next.hazel_{April 10, 2009
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Mark, vector arithmatic or, for that matter, quantum mechanics has nothing at all to do with the principle that something cannot come from nothing. Where something comes from is of a different texture than what it can do. That is like saying that the uncertainly principle or quantum mechanics invalidate causation. They don't. In any case, forget about that one. Let's try two more: [A] A thing cannot be and not be at the same time [B] A proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. Agree--Disagree.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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Nakashima [341], I too was struck by the term "right reason." I believe it's a term used in ethics and moral philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not have an entry for "right reason" but mentions it in discussions of medieval philosophers such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Ockham seems to associate "right reason" with moral decision-making.David Kellogg_{April 10, 2009
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Mr StephenB, Several times you have mentioned the principles of right reason. Without asking you (and others) to always be my kind schoolmaster in the area of Western Philosophy, can you explain briefly what these are, or where I can find a list of them? I have tried to Google and search for this phrase. I am led to a book by Thomas Hobbes, and another by Henry Leonard. Your help would be appreciated, in order to follow and perhaps participate further. ps - Happy Easter to those so inclined!Nakashima_{April 10, 2009
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StephenB @ 336
Just to recap, both of hazel’s arguments have been completely refuted:
Let us take a closer look:
[A] The cosmological argument, unlike the ontological argument, does not simply appeal to “brute logic,” so that one has been done away with.
Hazel wrote @ 264:
So, to summarize, brute logic, without any evidence that God is as we conceive him, cannot prove anything about God.
That, to me, is an unexceptionable argument. All Hazel is saying is that, while we can speculate about the existence and nature of God and construct rationales to support various concepts of such a deity, it is only evidence that can actually decide between them. I see nothing to refute that position.
[B] The discovery of the big bang led scientists (and everyone else) to understand that creation began in time and implied a creator, which refutes the objection that logic stops at creation’s door.
My impression is that, while some scientists commented on the fact that the Big Bang theory allowed believers to claim that it was evidence for their belief in a special creation event, it was a matter of casual concern for them rather than a serious scientific objection. The fact is the Big Bang theory allows the possibility of a Creator it does not compel us to accept it. The cosmological argument is just that, an argument. It rests on the observation that everything in the known world has a beginning and infers that the Universe as a whole must therefore have had a beginning. But this is an inductive rather than a deductive argument. We have no reason to believe that what we can observe is everything that there is. The conclusion is suggested but not compelled by the premises. The argument also rests on dissatisfaction with the concept of an infinite causal chain. The problem with that is that we have no reason to think that the Universe was arranged to be aesthetically pleasing to us. It may just be the way it is whether we like it or not.Seversky_{April 10, 2009
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Good points, Mark. For instance, where do virtual particles come from? Do they come from nothing and go back into nothing, or is there a different kind of something from which they come that appears like nothing to us? I don’t want this discussion to veer off into quantum physics - I just want to highlight that a statement that “something cannot come from nothing”, if it is to have any empirical force as opposed to just tautological truth, depends on whatever referents we attach to the words “something”, “nothing” and “comes”, and as we explore the world we find those words aren’t as clearcut as we might think. We have to make some decisions about what they mean, and those decisions, and those meanings, involve more than pure logic itself.hazel_{April 10, 2009
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So, in the defense of the current explanation of life, something did indeed come from nothing.Upright BiPed_{April 10, 2009
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It is a basic fact of logic that something cannot come from nothing. I am not aware that this is in any logic text books. If there is one lesson we should learn from the physics of the last 150 years it is that what appears to be obviously true may not be. I imagine that in 1800 many people would say that these are obviously true (they might even describe them as basic facts of logic): If two objects are moving with velocity v1 and v2 relative to an observer then their velocity relative to each other is v1 - v2 (using vector arithmetic). Nothing can be two places at the same time. The sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees. All of these are now known only to be true under certain conditions.Mark Frank_{April 10, 2009
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to vjtorley at 327: You write,
In response to your first point: the alternative which you posit, that “no matter how deep you go there is always more” in the universe, relies on a spatial metaphor for its plausibility, as well as the fact that as finite beings living in a universe which (for all we know) may be infinite in size, there could always be more to discover. However, explanations don’t go “down.” We talk about “digging deeper,” but the real question is: does the explanation answer the question, without begging a further one? And during the 48 years in which I have inhabited this world, I have yet to find a physicalistic explanation of any event which was not question-begging in precisely this fashion.
Just because I used a physical metaphor (I am assuming you are referring to a fractal set) doesn’t mean I am saying that all levels of explanation are necessarily physicalistic. I am saying, as Mark Frank says, that there will always be limits to our understanding because, as you said, no matter what we learn, there will always be the question - why are thing like that? And I don’t see how believing in a God of whatever conception solves the problem, because the same questions remains - why is it like that? I know all these arguments that attempt to logically show that there is a way out of this (first cause arguments, etc.), but as I am discussing with Stephen, I don’t think they are compelling. You also write, “Only an Intelligence can guarantee intelligibility.” I also agree with Mark Frank that this is not necessarily true. We obviously live in a universe where the type of intelligence we have (which is limited) is possible, and we have discovered that this is an orderly universe: its elements and forces have fundamental properties which make things happen, including human beings. But it begs the question - assumes the conclusion - to believe that because the universe can produce a creature with human intelligence that the universe must have intelligence. to Stephen: Thanks Stephen, both for the complement and the remarks about conduct at 322. I try (and sometimes fail) to maintain a congenial tone because I think that leads to better discussion, which I think is what people find most satisfying and useful. And, as to my atheism, it is definitely one of my goals to be upfront about that (at least here on the anonymous internet) because I don’t think atheism is an inferior position to other belief systems and I want to learn how to advocate for that view with the public. When I wrote, “You believe that we can indeed “observe the metaphysical,” you replied,
Well no, I wouldn’t say we can observe them, [since they are non-material] but we can know them, or in some cases we can accept them as given [law of non-contradiction etc] ... I speak only of the foundations, but yes, we can access objectively certain truths if, and only if, we accept the foundational principles.
I understand the distinction between observing and knowing, but I don’t think that changes our fundamental disagreement about the nature of that knowing of what you call objective certain truths. Then, at 335, you write,
Just to recap, both of hazel’s arguments have been completely refuted: [A] The cosmological argument, unlike the ontological argument, does not simply appeal to “brute logic,” so that one has been done away with. [B] The discovery of the big bang led scientists (and everyone else) to understand that creation began in time and implied a creator, which refutes the objection that logic stops at creation’s door.
First, I don’t see how B is relevant. Saying that the fact that our universe had a beginning implies a creator makes exactly the mistake we are discussing - we can’t know what is beyond our universe, and we have no way of knowing what brought our universe into existence. Stephen repeated invokes “something can’t come from nothing,” but we have no idea what kind of “something” might be the cause of our universe - the hypothesis that it is a personal, willful intelligent creator is just one possible hypothesis, none of which are testable. Also, explain to me how the cosmological argument appeals to more than just brute logic? If the Big Bang is the observable fact that it references, then I think I have answered that objection above.hazel_{April 10, 2009
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StephenB @ 335
It is a basic fact of logic that something cannot come from nothing. Two corollaries follow: [A] One cannot give what one does not have and [B] One cannot receive something that was not given.
"Something" and "nothing" are two conceptual categories defined to be mutually exclusive. Anything that is anything is included in "something". What remains, which must logically be not-something, is assigned to the "nothing" category. But it is far from clear that "nothing" can exist as such in reality. Outer space, for example, used to be thought of as empty but we now know that, although it is relatively thinly populated with matter and energy, it is far from being a complete void. Perhaps "something" may appear to to emerge from "nothing" because the "nothing" is a domain whose properties are as yet undetectable or even unimaginable by us. This does not get us out of the Infinite Causal Chain/First Cause impasse, I agree, but I would again refer to Nakashima's suggestion that the problem may arise because we are not thinking outside the conceptual box, that there are solutions like closed timelike curves (CTCs) which get around rather than break the deadlock.Seversky_{April 10, 2009
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Yes, of course: but the data of transformative religious experiences is often opposed to common sense. Usually it isn't. Very few involve voices and blindness. And if one should, say, find oneself subject to something a bit miraculous, it would take stubborn and hard-hearted opposition to reason to deny the miraculous nature of such an event.tribune7_{April 10, 2009
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Just to recap, both of hazel's arguments have been completely refuted: [A] The cosmological argument, unlike the ontological argument, does not simply appeal to “brute logic,” so that one has been done away with. [B] The discovery of the big bang led scientists (and everyone else) to understand that creation began in time and implied a creator, which refutes the objection that logic stops at creation's door.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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-----Mark: “ [1) It is not clear to me that only an intelligence can guarantee intelligibility. That just seems to be an assertion. It is a basic fact of logic that something cannot come from nothing. Two corollaries follow: [A] One cannot give what one does not have and [B] One cannot receive something that was not given.StephenB_{April 10, 2009
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"we should just be careful as to what data we choose to input into ourselves." Yes, of course: but the data of transformative religious experiences is often opposed to common sense. How is the person who has a spiritual vision able to determine whether it's not chemically produced? The body produces its own hallucinogens.David Kellogg_{April 10, 2009
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I don’t think dismissing drug takers as “self-indulgent young people” (is that always true?) The Magic Mushroom Trip Reporters certainly seem to be. self-indulgent young people may have highly developed intellects, and less sophisticated intellects may have transformative religious experiences. After which, they will stop taking recreational drugs :-) I thought we were getting toward an interesting possibility: that transformative religious experiences and drug-induced hallucinations may be biochemically (that is, materially) similar. What seems to be overlooked is the rational aspect of a religious conversion i.e. "hey, this is true". I won't argue that data input can't create biochemical changes -- perhaps even the thoughts you choose to think can change the physical makeup of your brain and body -- but I think that means we should just be careful as to what data we choose to input into ourselves.tribune7_{April 10, 2009
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tribune7, I don't think dismissing drug takers as "self-indulgent young people" (is that always true?) and praising Paul's intellect (not at issue) is really relevant. Apples and oranges: self-indulgent young people may have highly developed intellects, and less sophisticated intellects may have transformative religious experiences. (Anyone who has visited a charismatic church knows such experiences are possible among a wide range of folks.) I thought we were getting toward an interesting possibility: that transformative religious experiences and drug-induced hallucinations may be biochemically (that is, materially) similar. If so, the question of what to trust remains.David Kellogg_{April 10, 2009
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Apparently the evolutionary biologists forgot to tell him that NS was a weak force that had almost nothing to do with the evolution debate. We get the same tired arguments here. I subscribe to the John Davison assessment that they are prescribed. That's right. NS is a conservative force that only removes extremities and has nothing to do with creative evolution. There is also no doubt that professor Davison is a profound opponent of darwinism. I appreciate his Evolutionary manifesto more than Behe's Black box. John Davison has been banned from several forums and is often criticised for his crude words. But that's the only way you can sometimes deal with your fanatical opponents. Call to remebrance crude words of Martin Luther against medieval church or those words of great Giordano Bruno where he called Oxford's ptolemaist doctors as pigs. It is not good idea letting neodarwinists poisoning us with their polite sleek words. Sometimes it is necessary to use such crude words like in the reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks As a supporter of professor John Davison I agree with his uncompromising stance against darwinists and their helpers.VMartin_{April 10, 2009
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Let me add my thanks to vjtorley for the time and effort he has clearly invested in composing the essays in this thread. I would also like to reply but my submissions are now being held in the moderation queue and, in some cases, being rejected so there is little point in entering a lengthy comment if there is no reasonable expectation of it being allowed through.Seversky_{April 9, 2009
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Vjtorley On explanation I like what Hazel wrote about explanation so I will pick on your response to her (#327). You write: “Only an Intelligence can guarantee intelligibility” and later “The alternative, of course, is to say that nothing holds our cosmos up, metaphysically”. I am not sure what you mean by “guarantee” and “hold up” – they are metaphors for something else which is not defined – but let’s leave that for the moment. I want to point out 1) It is not clear to me that only an intelligence can guarantee intelligibility. That just seems to be an assertion. 2) There is at least one other alternative – simply that there are limits to what we can understand, just as there are limits to what a dog can understand. By definition we can never describe what it is we can’t understand. But when we find we have no satisfactory explanation for something it may well be a sign that we have reached those limits. Just as my dog will never get a satisfactory explanation of why we throw perfectly good food into a plastic bin (to avoid him getting fat). On necessity In #319 You wrote: "If God is necessary, He must be necessary relative to the contexts of the operations that he necessarily performs: knowing and loving." When I talked about necessity being relative to a context I tried to explain that this context was the laws which would need to be broken if the necessary event did not happen. So the context for a necessary chess move is the rules of chess. The context for every action necessarily having a reaction is the laws of physics. I don’t see how “knowing and loving” provide a set of laws. What is it that prevents God from not existing? You have said it is not the laws of logic or maths. So what is it?Mark Frank_{April 9, 2009
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On metaphysical observations: I can induce REM activity. I shut off sensory input. Yet I am still conscious. I am still aware. I can remember the experience. Question: Can I say the description of that experience is my observation of that experience? If so, then if more than one person can experience REM consciously, and the descriptions are the same, can we not say the comparisons are a test of those observations>? Further, can we not formulate conclusions based on the comparative analysis results?Oramus_{April 9, 2009
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Just to add to the compliments here... Vjtorley, your gift of explaining aristotilean and thomistic thought is considerable, and I'm glad to see more and more people as of late making reference to the classic theistic arguments. StephenB as well has been really providing some great posts here. I'm sure I've missed others.nullasalus_{April 9, 2009
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Hazel: Thank you for your response. You write:
It would one thing, to me, for you to profess that for you, belief in a personal loving God as the ultimate explanation is your resolution to the problem. It is quite another thing to claim that there must be "an ultimate and fully adequate explanation for every event," and it is an even further step to claim that God, as a knowing and loving agent, is necessary.
In response to your first point: the alternative which you posit, that "no matter how deep you go there is always more" in the universe, relies on a spatial metaphor for its plausibility, as well as the fact that as finite beings living in a universe which (for all we know) may be infinite in size, there could always be more to discover. However, explanations don't go "down." We talk about "digging deeper," but the real question is: does the explanation answer the question, without begging a further one? And during the 48 years in which I have inhabited this world, I have yet to find a physicalistic explanation of any event which was not question-begging in precisely this fashion. The "huge leap" I make to a God whose nature it is to know and love perfectly is actually a bit of mental "reverse engineering," so to speak. Suppose there were a satisfactory answer to our demand for explanations. What would it be like? In particular, what could it possibly do, that could serve to explain occurrences in the world? No physical action of any sort fits the bill: as we have seen, physical actions assume the existence of seemingly arbitary background laws. More to the point, no physical action could serve to guarantee that the universe will always remain intelligible to the human mind, and not dissolve into a buzzing, blooming mess. Only an Intelligence can guarantee intelligibility. That's the crux of my argument for a Mind behind the cosmos. And it must be a pretty stable mind, too, not the mind of a whimsical Zeus, but of a Being who cannot fail to know perfectly, to love what it knows, and to act in accordance with its perfect knowledge. The alternative, of course, is to say that nothing holds our cosmos up, metaphysically: it rests upon nothing, and for all we know, its interactions may fall apart at any moment. That's a lonely but courageous view, and I suppose Jean-Paul Sartre would have applauded it. One can suppose that the universe has no ultimate explanation. My only question is: why would you want to look a gift horse in the mouth? Theists have an explanation which could make sense of the world: why would anyone want to reject it? Finally, I should add that accepting God does not mean that there are no more questions to answer. It just means that there is a solid, coherent metaphysical framework in which to ground one's questions. A theist may also look forward to an never-ending scientific quest, if that is what she wants.vjtorley_{April 9, 2009
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