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The brick wall

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I’ve had a very interesting night. After watching Dr. David Wood (a Christian apologist and former atheist) and skeptic John Loftus (an atheist and former Christian preacher) debate whether Jesus rose from the dead in a very lively exchange, I decided to have a look at David Wood’s fascinating but very disturbing conversion story (WARNING: Do NOT watch this with children in the room!) At one point in the video (20:38), David Wood describes how several things combined to destabilize his entire atheistic belief system. The first was the argument from design:

First, what’s called the design argument finally hit me. I was looking at a wall, and how the bricks were arranged, and I thought to myself: “You know, if someone told me that these bricks went into this order by some process that didn’t involve intelligence, I’d smack him in the mouth. And yet I believe that life formed without intelligence, when the most basic living cell is unimaginably more complicated than some bricks stacked on a wall.” Why did I blindly accept the extraordinary claim that life arose spontaneously from non-life without demanding some very good evidence?

David Wood’s argument is not directed at unguided evolution, but at abiogenesis, so the standard reply that an organism is not like a wall (or a watch, for that matter) because it can reproduce, is beside the point. What we are talking about here is the origin of the first living thing that could reproduce.

Now, if I were an atheist, I might respond to David Wood’s argument as follows: “Maybe even the most basic living cells today are far, far more complicated than the first self-replicating molecule was. And maybe the first self-replicator was simple enough to have originated spontaneously on the primordial Earth, by an unguided process, over a period of hundreds of millions of years. And once it originated, it could have evolved into bacteria and other living organisms.”

I might say that, but the problem is that:

(a) there’s not a smidgen of evidence for the existence of these primitive self-replicators;

(b) there’s also no evidence that even a primitive self-replicator could have evolved within the time available;

(c) peer-reviewed calculations by a senior evolutionary biologist suggest that the origin of the simplest possible life-form – a “a coupled replication-translation system” – on the primordial Earth would have been a fantastically improbable event, even over a period of billions of years;

(d) we have no evidence that such a primitive life-form could have evolved into the kinds of cells that we find on Earth today;

(e) while someone might invoke the multiverse to beat the overwhelming odds against abiogenesis, there are also universes out there in which brick walls form spontaneously, too – yet we don’t go around saying that design inferences for brick walls; and

(f) in any case, there are good scientific arguments against the existence of an infinite multiverse.

Finally, Dr. David Wood does not present his design argument as a knock-down demonstration. The question he posed was: “Why did I blindly accept the extraordinary claim that life arose spontaneously from non-life without demanding some very good evidence?” Right now, we have no evidence for abiogenesis, let alone very good evidence.

So my question for readers today is: what do you think of David Wood’s “brick wall” design argument?

NOTE: I realize that after viewing David Wood’s conversion story, many readers will want to weigh in with their opinions on the veracity of his story and the moral character of David Wood. Please don’t: if you have a look over at John Loftus’ blog, you’ll see that the subject has been thrashed out ad nauseam here (scroll down to view readers’ comments). Draw your own conclusions about David Wood and his story – and by all means, have a look at his debate with Loftus, too (it’s well worth viewing, and neither side pulls any punches). What I’d like this post to be about is David Wood’s design argument. What do you think of it?

Over to you.

Comments
Sev, Re: your data chrystal analogy: very clever, but aren't you misrepresenting the positions of most ID advocates by suggesting that all design should be detected? Surely there are different levels of design detection: the chrystal is hardly a watch, and hardly a brick wall.CannuckianYankee
January 4, 2016
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Sev, "The problem is that the same is also true for some converts to, say, Islam or Buddhism. In other words, it may not be one particular religion that is true but that any faith and its associated community that can offer these benefits. If that is true then what are we to make of their various origins stories?" That "problem" is solved by the historical narrative of the one, which the others lack. Wood is saying that it's the certainty of that narrative, upon which he believes, that had the power to change him. It's the "who" that rose, that saved him. Watch the other video; the debate, where he lays out the narrative and the historical evidence. Loftus' response was to state that Wood had given no evidence (or insufficient evidence). But rather than challenge the evidence, he proceded to invoke a rather elaborate genetic fallacy via "Yinianity." IOW, "you believe what you do because of where you were born." Well, no; we believe it because it's historically true. Your argument is only slightly different. "All religions accomplish essentially the same thing." Well, no they don't. Buddhism does not require belief in a historical event. It does not accomplish faith in a person who rose from the dead, and who we therefore, can trust to help us in our weakness.CannuckianYankee
January 4, 2016
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KF, I've watched several of his Acts 17 Apologetics videos before on Youtube, and didn't think much of them, other han a surface level apologetic value. This one was a whopper. Completed obviously in one take; not once did the camera deviate. That in itself makes a profound statement. Every day life on a subway even, does not escape the eyes of God. That's one deep subway!CannuckianYankee
January 4, 2016
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Seversky, You raised quite a profound question. What I can personally say is, that the truth is absolute and that it cannot be proven. It can only be witnessed. The truth is a 'Who', not a 'what'. The only way to get to the truth is try and find it. It cannot be done vicariously. This question no. 1 for human existence is not decided based on a majority vote because the majority may be in error. As a Russian saint once said, God is not an accountant.EugeneS
January 4, 2016
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CY, yes, there are many levels and layers in the DW video. I find it highly significant to see the dismissive tone of several of the comments in the face of a man willing to admit to nihilist atheism leading to attempted murder of father, criminal insanity and five years in gaol. KFkairosfocus
January 4, 2016
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John Loftus' argument seems to he one big genetic fallacy. If he studied under WL Craig, he didn't learn much.CannuckianYankee
January 4, 2016
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KF, "He is doing a current update on Plato’s parable of the cave. With a decidedly nihilistic twist." I noticed that too. I also noticed hints of Anselm's "being than which none greater can be conceived." A being so obviously greater than he: and it's in the very definition of God. I think that one smacks the "problem of evil" forcefully out of its socket. Boethius had a particular insight into this. It seems that by Anselm's definition, God is the only being from whom a paradox can be rationally invoked.CannuckianYankee
January 4, 2016
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Davem, Every particle or particle property in water has an opposite. And it's not just water. The same is true of the entire universe. Supersymmetry (Yin-Yang) is the law of the universe, the mother of all conservation principles. PS. Believe me. I have seen all the arguments against a Yin-Yang reality before. They are all lame.Mapou
January 3, 2016
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DM, without endorsing Mapou, fire is not the proper opposite of water, not water is. We here stand at the edge of one of the big questions, the one and the many. Unity and diversity, both of which must be kept in balance. Nor would I be so swift to lock down concepts or abstract entities to human action, which is likely to smack of extreme nominalism. KFkairosfocus
January 3, 2016
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Mapou: ...order does not come out of disorder. It’s an excellent argument, IMO. Neither comes from the other and yet neither can exist without the other. They form a yin-yang duality. Like everything else. Things need an opposite to exist? There is water in my sink. It doesn't need fire to exist. Aren't disorder and order human concepts anyway? A country or a room or factory may be in disorder, but in the grand scheme of things, doesn't everything in the universe have to follow the order of physics?Davem
January 3, 2016
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TJG (attn JS): There is a key point between some line of reasoning MIGHT in some abstract sense be error or delusional, and there is good reason to think it so. To use the first to smuggle in the second, for arguments one does not want to hear, is selective hyperskepticism by in effect attacking the man, or at least his mind. In this case, Wood makes expert use of Plato's parable of the cave and his argument in The laws Bk X on evolutionary materialism and its import. That needs to be addressed on the merits insead of being snidely sdismissed because the delusional tendencies of evolutionary materialism led Mr Wood in an earlier stage of life into nihilistic delusion. KF PS: Plato's warning:
Ath. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics and law: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin") . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them.
kairosfocus
January 3, 2016
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F/N: Dembski on 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]>> KFkairosfocus
January 3, 2016
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Jim Smith @3
I don’t think you can separate David Wood’s mental state from his arguments. He is a good example showing that logic is subjective. He reminds us that that any line of reasoning, no matter how logical it seems, might be a delusion. So I would have to say that his brick wall argument is not convincing because David Wood demonstrates why nothing should ever be convincing.
lol! So if someone else makes the same argument, you wouldn't have a problem with it? You only have a problem with it because it is Dave making the argument? You think your argument and conclusion here is a good example of sound atheistic reasoning? Please! Better take a course in Logic 101 and then try again! Or, maybe as Brent pointed out, you really think that no argument anywhere/anytime should ever be viewed as convincing? And that would include all the arguments against Christianity and all the arguments for Materialism, as well, right? And yet you are trying to make an argument here for your case, right? Or, is it only arguments against Materialism and/or for ID that should never be viewed as convincing? The mind of an atheist can be quite illogical at times.tjguy
January 3, 2016
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VJT: A brick wall with a structural pattern is an example of FSCO/I, not of simple forced mechanical ordering. Wood is applying the design inference on such empirically reliable signs of design as causal process. KF PS: He is doing a current update on Plato's parable of the cave. With a decidedly nihilistic twist.kairosfocus
January 2, 2016
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JMG I suggest that in fact Plantinga used a logically possible state of affairs to show that the atheistical objection that the existence of God and the reality of evil are fundamentally incompatible, fails as a logical matter. Thus, it is a dead argument. Second, the issue Boethius long since raised on the issue of the good, brings out a fatal conceptual flaw in atheistical reasoning, grounding morality. Indeed, arguably, evolutionary materialist scientism ends up implying that minds are riddled by grand delusion, undermining rationality as well as responsibility. So, if such are the strongest arguments, atheistical positions are in deep trouble. CF: http://nicenesystheol.blogspot.com/2010/11/unit-2-gospel-on-mars-hill-foundations.html#u2_gdvsevl for a 101. (And BTW, I would think it is a general Christian view -- and one with considerable biblical basis including that we are expected to reason, choose aright and respond appropriately to the truth we know or should acknowledge -- that we are significantly free and responsible beings, made that way by God.) KFkairosfocus
January 2, 2016
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BTW, the core of Paley's argument is in ch 2, the thought exercise of a self replicating, time keeping watch. That is what those who glibly dismiss Paley need to address. And for 150 years, consistently, they have not. That sounds like an entrenched strawman fallacy to me. KFkairosfocus
January 2, 2016
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Seversky: how it all happened – which is what is demanded of science – So I got my flu shot, this SEASON. Twice this SEASON we had a definite temperature drop in the weather, and I came down with annoying, energy robbing head colds within 2 days both times. This does not happen in summer to me. "how it all happened – which is what is demanded of science" is apparently non-functional here. Why there is a flu season is out of the reach of "science" apparently. Why people are more prone to flu-like symptoms from other diseases during cold weather is not settled science, even though I demand to know. The demands upon "science" do not make "science" give answers to everything. The difference is this: the validation of scientific materialism does not depend on spinning wild tales of what happens during the flu cycle, so "science" can get by with no consensus here. The spinning of wild tales about what happens in the generation of advanced life does depend on spinning wild tales of what has never been observed to happen, in order to validate scientific materialism. "Science" must generate a consensus here for support for its materialistic framework so that it can get by with the public. Darwinism is that consensus generator, and is presented to the public and to students as the consensus it is.groovamos
January 2, 2016
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gpuccio @10
If I want to explain a watch, I can just find that some human built it. I have no need to explain how humans came into existence to explain the watch. That is a completely separate problem.
You have explained this simple concept so many times, in so many flavors, and still your interlocutors don't understand it? Do they really read what you write? Hmm...Dionisio
January 2, 2016
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The brick wall argument applies not just to abiogenesis and to the evolution of living organisms but to everything else: photons, electrons, neutrons or what have you. Nothing in the physical universe makes sense without design.Mapou
January 2, 2016
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Barry, you just don't understand what it means to specify a who.Mung
January 2, 2016
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Sev:
My impression is that everyone agrees that we don’t have anything like an adequate account of how living things emerged form inanimate matter, if that is indeed what happened. But the fact remains that creationist or intelligent design speculations don’t have anything better to offer in terms of an explanation of how it all happened – which is what is demanded of science – they just offer some unidentified and largely unspecified who.
This is an interesting comment Sev. Set aside the creationists and focus on the ID. Who is the "who" to whom you allude? I've been studying ID since the 90's and every ID proponent I've ever read denies that ID identifies a who. Do you have some Gnostic knowledge that has eluded everyone who has actually worked in the field? I know you say that ID offers an "unidentified and unspecified who" but that sounds like an oxymoron to me. To offer a "who" necessarily means to specify a "who." What am I missing?Barry Arrington
January 2, 2016
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The Skeptical Zone is a brick wall- or perhaps granite as they are more dense than brick. Case in point a thread titled "Testing Intelligent Design and this response:
You don’t falsify a scientific theory by somehow proving its opposite.
And yet Darwin said that in order to falsify evolutionism if it could be shown that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have come about by numerous gradual changes then my theory would fail utterly’, ie the opposite of what his proposed hypothesis was. The TSZ ilk are scientifically illiterate and it shows. Of course they are all just upset because in order to falsify ID it means they actually have to support the claims of their position. Can't have that. BTW notice how Darwin's falsification requires us to prove a negative.Virgil Cain
January 2, 2016
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Seversky: First, I suppose that we do not typically observe biological objects occurring in nature outside of living beings – we do not see enzymes, genetic codes, transcription factors and regulation networks made of refined multiple interacting levels of control in the non living natural world. And second, I suppose that we do see things like proteins, arificial genes, regulation systems, both biological and not, etc, being designed and manufactured by human artesans (often called biologists or molecular engineers). OK, forgive us poor IDists if we try to infer design according to some metric, even if you consider it "dubious" (which is, I think, better than "wrong"). You yourself ask: "We infer design where an object looks enough like something we would design. But is that sufficient?" Probably not. That's why a metric is necessary. That's why ID provides it. You say: "My impression is that everyone agrees that we don’t have anything like an adequate account of how living things emerged form inanimate matter, if that is indeed what happened." Why the doubt? Do you think that living things first emerged from the Big Bang? However, I do agree, so you are right, at least about that. You say: "the fact remains that creationist or intelligent design speculations don’t have anything better to offer in terms of an explanation of how it all happened – which is what is demanded of science – they just offer some unidentified and largely unspecified who. " No. We offer a definite objective model: the input of functional information from conscious agents with conscious, purposeful representations. You say: "The obvious follow-up questions would always be “Who designed the designer?” or “Who created the creator?”" Not at all. If I want to explain a watch, I can just find that some human built it. I have no need to explain how humans came into existence to explain the watch. That is a completely separate problem.gpuccio
January 2, 2016
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Seversky, and before Shannon/Wiener we did not have a quantitative metric for the amount of information or information carrying capacity and no coding theory, but now we do. That is also how science works.Mung
January 2, 2016
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What is the difference, if any, between Wood's wall and Paley's watch? My position is that we don't recognize design according to some dubious metric for calculating information content. As in the case of Paley's watch, we infer it from two basic observations. First, we do not typically observe it occurring in nature - we do not see cogs, springs, glass lenses and cases made of refined metals growing on trees. Second, we do see things like cogs, springs, etc, being designed and manufactured by human artesans. We infer design where an object looks enough like something we would design. But is that sufficient? A counter-illustration to Paley's watch would be something like a "data crystal" featured in science-fiction series like Babylon 5. In the context of the show, these are small crystal-shaped data storage devices which hold an incredible amount of information. They are fictional now but it's not a stretch to imagine something like them in the not-too-distant future. Suppose a time-traveler from that future accidentally dropped one on a heath in nineteenth-century England. Our walker might think he had found a naturally-occurring crystal and wonder how it got there. He might think he had found a piece of costume jewelery but I seriously doubt he would immediately recognize it as some form of highly-advanced digital data storage device. My impression is that everyone agrees that we don't have anything like an adequate account of how living things emerged form inanimate matter, if that is indeed what happened. But the fact remains that creationist or intelligent design speculations don't have anything better to offer in terms of an explanation of how it all happened - which is what is demanded of science - they just offer some unidentified and largely unspecified who. The obvious follow-up questions would always be "Who designed the designer?" or "Who created the creator?". If belief in Christianity rescued David Wood from a very painful existence then that is great and I would not want to take that from him. I know that the same is true for other Christians. The problem is that the same is also true for some converts to, say, Islam or Buddhism. In other words, it may not be one particular religion that is true but that any faith and its associated community that can offer these benefits. If that is true then what are we to make of their various origins stories?Seversky
January 2, 2016
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Wouldn't a self-maintaining/self-reproducing brick wall be a better argument against abiogenesis? :)Dionisio
January 2, 2016
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Jim @3,
. . .nothing should ever be convincing.
Including this statement?Brent
January 2, 2016
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VJ: It's a very good argument, of course. And your a-f points are a very good summary of things as they are. :) (I would not have added the last two points, but that's just because I have always thought that the multiverse argument is really stupid as an argument against design).gpuccio
January 2, 2016
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I have found that the cases made for atheism are more inclined towards an emotional point of view than the so called "rational position from science, Stop and think about it. The best argument against Theism is the old problem of evil and how a good and loving God could allow it to exist. It was Einstein's problem because he knew that if there is an infinitely wise, powerful Being who created the Universe then THAT God was responsible for the Evil whether He did it directly or through secondary causes. So Albert settled on Martin Luther's idea of a God who created the whole kit and kaboodle and then went off "to an Ethiopian feast. He didn't buy the "free will" argument. It is the biggest objection to Theism. Unfortunately too many Christian apologist's use the "free will argument not realizing its flaws pertaining to what the Bible says. For a Jew or Christian they must accept what the Bible has to say on the issue and it isn't something that the "natural man" can accept so he makes up stories that seem more plausible.jimmontg
January 1, 2016
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I don't think you can separate David Wood's mental state from his arguments. He is a good example showing that logic is subjective. He reminds us that that any line of reasoning, no matter how logical it seems, might be a delusion. So I would have to say that his brick wall argument is not convincing because David Wood demonstrates why nothing should ever be convincing.Jim Smith
January 1, 2016
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