Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

They said it: “atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist” — a fatal worldview error of modern evolutionary materialist atheism

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email
Prof. Dawkins of the UK, a leading evolutionary materialist and atheist

It is an open secret that a major motivation for the commonly encountered, too often angry  rejection of  the design inference is a prior commitment to Lewontinian evolutionary materialistic atheism; a common thread that unites a Sagan, a Lewontin, many members of Science institutions and Faculties of Universities, and of course many leading anti-design advocates like those associated with the US-based National Center for Science Education [NCSE], as well as leading “science” [–> atheism] blogs and Internet forums and the like.

Such atheists also often imagine that they have cornered the market on scientific rationality, common-sense and intelligence, to the point where professor Dawkins of the UK has proposed a new name for atheists: “brights.”

By contrast, he and many others of like ilk view those who object to such views as “ignorant, stupid, insane or . . . wicked.” (Perhaps, that is why one of the atheistical objectors to UD feels free to publicly and falsely accuse me of being a demented child abuser and serial rapist. He clearly cannot see how unhinged, unreasonable, irrational, uncouth, vulgar and rage-blinded his outrageous behaviour is.)

For telling instance, in Lewontin’s notorious 1997  NYRB article, Billions and Billions of Demons, we may see:

. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . .   the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [[NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [[actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . ] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality . . . .

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [[another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [[i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [And, if you wish to try the now routine turnabout false accusation of quote mining, kindly cf. here at UD as well as the above linked.]

The ideologically motivated atheistical, evolutionary materialist a priori is plain.

No wonder Philip Johnson rebutted Lewontin thusly, in his November 1997 reply:

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.” And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”  . . . .   The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [[Emphasis added.] [[The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]

Consequently,  if we are to put the design inference issue on a level playing field so it can be objectively assessed as a valid scientific inference, we have to first address the fatal flaws of reasoning in the underlying thought that clothes materialistic atheism in the holy lab coat. (And of course,  given its sacrificial, protective purpose, it should be no surprise that I have never seen or owned an expensive lab coat.)

So, “scientific” atheism must now go under the microscope:

1 –> The first problem is to accurately define. For that, it is instructive to first cite the well known online Stanford Enc of Phil, in its article on Atheism and Agnosticism by J J C Smart of Monash University:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God. I shall here assume that the God in question is that of a sophisticated monotheism. The tribal gods of the early inhabitants of Palestine are of little or no philosophical interest. They were essentially finite beings, and the god of one tribe or collection of tribes was regarded as good in that it enabled victory in war against tribes with less powerful gods. Similarly the Greek and Roman gods were more like mythical heroes and heroines than like the omnipotent, omniscient and good God postulated in mediaeval and modern philosophy. As the Romans used the word, ‘atheist’ could be used to refer to theists of another religion, notably the Christians, and so merely to signify disbelief in their own mythical heroes. [First published Tue Mar 9, 2004; substantive revision Mon Aug 8, 2011. Acc: Nov 12, 2011.]

2 –> This is of course exactly what is traditionally understood, and it is what the etymology of the underlying Greek, “a + theos,” would suggest: the denial of the reality of God.  But, if one turns to the reliably evolutionary materialist Wikipedia, we will see that in its article on Atheism, there is now a commonly encountered evidently rhetorically loaded redefinition, as appears in the title for this post:

Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists . . . . Atheists tend to be skeptical of supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence.

3 –> The last statement, of course, strongly reflects the Lewontinian a priori assertion of materialism, and the underlying notion that to have a supernatural as a possibility would make our cosmos into a chaos. Indeed as Lewontin went on to say: “To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.”

4 –> Back of this, lies Hume’s basic hyper-skeptical error, in effect that there has been a uniform experience that firmly establishes the laws of nature and so we may dismiss any claimed supernatural exceptions as beyond reasonable belief. This boils down to begging the question in various ways, as first of all, we precisely do not and cannot have a global observational basis for the laws of science, they are inductive — thus fallible — generalisations. [Cf. Charles Babbage and Alfred Russel Wallace. (Yes, THAT Wallace, the co-founder of modern evolutionary theory and advocate of intelligent evolution.) Also cf a typical contemporary essay here.]

5 –> Similarly, for a miracle to stand out as being beyond the general course of the world, there must be just such a general course, i.e.  a world in which miracles are possible is one in which there will be general regularities amenable to scientific investigation. Informed theists will then tell us that, that the Author of that general course may, for His own good reasons, occasionally intervene at a higher level, in no wise detracts from the reliability of that general course. That is, Lewontin et al have erected and knocked over a ridicule-loaded strawman caricature of theism. (Newton knew better, 300 years ago in his General Scholium to Principia.)

6 –> Moreover, give that there are in fact millions who across centuries, testify to living encounter with God, and to being transformed thereby — including a generous slice of the leading lights of our civilisation across time [just try the likes of a Pascal, a Maxwell, a Kelvin or an Aquinas, for a quick list], to dismissively reject the possibility of miracles or the credibility of witnesses thereto inadvertently puts the human mind itself under suspicion.

7 –> For if so many millions are deluded, then the mind becomes highly questionable as an instrument of inquiry. That is, the atheist who imagines that those who oppose him are delusional, in the teeth of the numbers and quality of the people in question, saws off the cognitive branch on which he too must sit.

8 –> But, the very definition of atheism as “absence of belief in god or gods” that is now so commonly being pushed as the “real” definition, has deeper problems. For, it is usually offered as an argument that the atheist is simply taking a default view: YOU must prove your theism, I hold no position. (Cf. here too, just for fun.)

9 –> This is fallacious and misleading, indeed, a fatal worldview error. Why is that so?

a: It improperly shifts — and indeed ducks — the burden of warrant on comparative difficulties that any serious worldview must shoulder. If it is to be serious as a worldview.  (And, let me add {Nov14}: we all have worldviews— clusters of core beliefs, views and attitudes that define how we see the world; the question is whether we have thought them through to their idea-roots, connexions, degree of warrant, and forward to conclusions and consequences for us and our societies.)

b: An easy way to see all of this, is to notice how the very same atheists usually want to dress up their atheism in a lab coat.

c: For instance, as Lewontin tried to argue in his 1997 NYRB article, the a priori materialistic scientific elites want the general public to look up to them as the fountain of knowledge and wisdom, and to come to believe that science is “the only begetter of truth.”

d: But, this is NOT a scientific claim, it is a claim about the grounds that warrant knowledge, indeed an assertion of monopoly power over knowledge. Such is therefore properly a philosophical knowledge claim, i.e an epistemological claim.

e: Lewontin is trivially self-refuting.

f: But the claim is also illustrative of how claims at worldview level are inevitably linked to one another.

g: And, the denial or rejection of belief in God is plainly not an isolated claim, it sits in the centre of a cluster of evolutionary materialistic beliefs.

h: Indeed, Lewontin himself goes on to assert that the significant elites believe that “science” is the surest means to put us in touch with “physical reality” [= all of reality, for the materialist],  and that he and his ilk are committed to a priori, absolute materialism.

i: That is the context in which we see that science itself is being radically ideologised by question-begging redefinition. The declarations of the US National Science Teachers Association are particularly revealing on this, once we recognise that for “naturalistic” we can freely read “materialistic”:

The principal product of science is knowledge in the form of naturalistic concepts and the laws and theories related to those concepts . . . . Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science, a number of shared values and perspectives characterize a scientific approach to understanding nature. Among these are a demand for naturalistic explanations supported by empirical evidence that are, at least in principle, testable against the natural world. Other shared elements include observations, rational argument, inference, skepticism, peer review and replicability of work . . . .

Science, by definition, is limited to naturalistic methods and explanations and, as such, is precluded from using supernatural elements in the production of scientific knowledge. [[NSTA, Board of Directors, July 2000. Emphases added.]

j: This ideologises science and science education, tearing out of the heart of science any serious concern to seek the empirically warranted truth about our world, and to recognise the inescapable limitations of empirically based inductive methods in that pursuit which mean that science must be open-ended and provisional in its fact claims and explanations.

k: In short, the intellectual duty of care to critically assess the scientific materialism at the heart of the relevant form of atheism we face,  cannot be ducked so easily as by using the rhetorical tactic of putting up a question-begging redefinition of atheism.

l: This means that scientific atheists must warrant their evolutionary materialism,  they must warrant their redefinition of science based on imposition of so-called methodological naturalism, and they must warrant their commonly held view that science monopolises genuine, objective knowledge.

10 –> Evolutionary materialistic atheism, therefore, has a too often ducked challenge to warrant its worldview level claims, on (a) factual adequacy,  (b) logical coherence, and (c) explanatory balance and power [being elegantly simple, but not simplistic and certainly not ad hoc].

11 –> That means it needs to take seriously the implications of the empirically reliable principle that functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [especially digitally coded, symbolic information] — once we can directly observe the causal process — are inductively strong signs of design.

12 –> Similarly, it has to seriously address the issue of the best explanations for the credibly fine tuned cosmos we inhabit, which on evidence sits at a precise operating point that facilitates Carbon chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life that uses digital information to guide its self-replication and to synthesise the key nanomachines of metabolic life processes.

13 –> Likewise, it has to address the signs of design that are evident in the living cell, starting with the use of complex, functionally specific digital codes and algorithms to guide critical biochemical processes of life such as protein synthesis.

14 –> The need to account for the increments in complex functionally specific, integrated often irreducibly complex organisation and associated information to account for the dozens of body plans of multicellular life, including our own, is an extension of this challenge.

15 –> Similarly, such materialistic atheists need to credibly account for the reliability and trustworthiness of the human mind, in light of the Haldane challenge that has been on the table since the 1930’s (and of course modern extensions to that challenge):

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” [[“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. ]

16 –> Last but not least, given the force of the amorality confessed to and/or directly implied by leading materialistic atheists such as Dawkins and Provine,  atheistical, evolutionary materialists need to very carefully ponder the issues that were long since put on the table by Plato in The Laws, Bk X, 2350 years ago, in 360 BC:

[[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They 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, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and 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 . . . .

[[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and 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. (Cf. here for Locke’s views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic “every man does what is right in his own eyes” chaos leading to tyranny.)] 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 leads to the promotion of amorality], 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; cf. dramatisation here],  these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, “naturally” tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .

__________

It seems there are a few questions for scientific atheists to answer to, before we should take their attempt to monopolise science as anything beyond an ideological agenda.

It would be quite interesting to see their answers. END

Comments
SA: "Militant" has several levels of meaning, and it is applicable, have a read of Nash's survey the Gospel and the Greeks for an intro. Jesus and Paul, as well as John, specifically responded to currents of thought in the gentile culture, which for learning was Greek-dominated. The degree of Greek presence is reflected in things like of course Decapolis, the cluster of Greek cities in C1 Palestine that is mentioned in the Gospels. Similarly, when the leadership tried to trap Jesus, they often did so by posing a poisonous dilemma, e.g. with the woman captured in adultery or the question on paying taxes to Caesar; clear signs of the influence of gentile rhetors on Jewish patterns of discussion; I have already pointed out how Paul knew how to clip and use gentile sayings, and how in confronting him on the road to Damascus, Jesus used a clip from a play -- probably meant to serve as a symbolic hint of the critical synthesis of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome that Paul would lead. Jesus' saying that I have in mind is a saying about false enlightenment: if the light in you is darkness, how great is your darkness, which strikingly echoes and makes best sense in the context of knowing the deceptive half-light of Plato's cave of shadow shows. I suspect that this would have resonated on several levels with his audience in "Galilee of the gentiles" and onwards, among the circle of gentile God-fearers on the fringes of Judaism who played such a key role in the early growth of the church. KFkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
08:45 PM
8
08
45
PM
PDT
kf, Hebrews isn't militantly anything. Of course the writings are responsive to the culture. Paul warned against epicureanism. The cultural difference between the Jewish and Greek cultures were also occasional subjects. I don't have a problem with human wisdom. And I'm sure these mean weren't totally useless as they piled one tenuous conclusion regarding the nature of the world and humanity upon another. But when mentioned in the same sentence as Jesus or even the least prophet, Plato becomes a subject for contempt. "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces[a] of this world rather than on Christ." - Colossians 2:8 "Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ... For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." - 1 Corinthians 1 Paul knew how enamored men were of the great philosophers. But under inspiration he wrote of them with unmistakable disdain. Their combined wisdom is at best something to roll our eyes at and be thankful we know better than to impressed with it.ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
05:01 PM
5
05
01
PM
PDT
Actually, the context DID have greek influences. That Jesus would respond to a theme that is fundamental in our civilisation is unsurprising. Don't forget, Hebrews is both militantly hebraic and subtly responsive to a lot of hellenistic- jewish syncretism with ties to Alexandria.kairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
01:16 PM
1
01
16
PM
PDT
Actually I didn't mean that. What I meant to say is that the dust on the scales is made of many particles, and Plato is but one of them. :)ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
12:53 PM
12
12
53
PM
PDT
Yes. Paul on more than one occasion made reference to Greek literature. (Again in Titus.) But those instances fit the audience. There's no reason to think that Jesus' audience would be acquainted with Plato. Far importantly there are similar references to light and shining light way further back in the scriptures. To suggest that Jesus would be referencing Plato rather than the scriptures as he always did places way to much importance on Plato, as if Jesus needed to address him at all. Plato is dust on the scales.ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
12:43 PM
12
12
43
PM
PDT
SA: Are you aware that there had for centuries been Greek settlements in Palestine by C1 AD? That, the Maccabean revolt was against a pagan overlord who wanted to go several steps too far? My suggestion is that Jesus, like Paul, responded to that context, often by sophisticated allusions, e.g. it is hard to kick against the pricks (of the goad) was apparently an allusion to a play. In short responsive, not merely derivative, similar to the speech in Ac 17. KFkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
12:10 PM
12
12
10
PM
PDT
kf, Tell me you didn't just suggest that Jesus derived even a single teaching from Plato. Good grief, he's the son of God, wiser than Solomon, and he's taking notes from Plato?ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
11:33 AM
11
11
33
AM
PDT
Petrushka, This is where you move the goalposts without even realizing it.
We have strong evidence that our wheat and corn crops were derived from wild grasses. Teacup poodles from wolves. Cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and Brussels sprouts are all descended from the same wild cabbage, artificially selected by humans.
Notice the shift from "observed" mechanisms of evolution to evidence of descent, while simultaneously retreating to examples containing none of the innovation that separates lizards from birds, rats from bats, etc. You seem convinced that evidence of descent equals evidence of diversification by variation and [pick one or more.] Or at least it seems that you are, because when asked to explain one you revert to demonstrating the other.ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
11:30 AM
11
11
30
AM
PDT
Petrshka: variations of a wild cabbage etc are variations, not explanations of how you get TO the basic body plan that makes a cabbage. Micro is not to be simply extrapolated to macro evo, just as no computer scientist would suggest that a hello world can be elaborated by functional, small steps, into an operating system. KFkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
11:25 AM
11
11
25
AM
PDT
CY: When Jesus spoke his parable about eyes as the lamp of the body, this reflected specific concerns in that parable of the cave and may have contained a veiled allusion to it. KFkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
11:18 AM
11
11
18
AM
PDT
This is still begging the question. What’s lacking is evidence that a) observed diversity is the result of such mutations, or b) that such mutations can produce such diversity.
Sure there is. We have strong evidence that our wheat and corn crops were derived from wild grasses. Teacup poodles from wolves. Cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and Brussels sprouts are all descended from the same wild cabbage, artificially selected by humans. Some of our food plants are the result of genome doubling within human history. Ask yourself why Behe doesn't include the diversification of metazoans in his list of things beyond the Edge of evolution. Or why folks like Douglas Axe have confined themselves to problems like the origin of protein domains, which occurred billions of years in the past.Petrushka
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
10:26 AM
10
10
26
AM
PDT
Designs don't evolve. They are improved upon, quite often by additional designs. Can you name a single design that occurred without someone imagining an initial result, implementing it, and then designing and implementing additional improvements? What an odd statement. I'd love to know, literally, what you were thinking of when you made it.ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
08:54 AM
8
08
54
AM
PDT
Petrushka,
We have innumerable studies of mutation rates. We have evidence from domesticated plants and animals. We have lots of documented changes from wild varieties.
And on top of that, I have pictures of my family going back generations and none of look us exactly alike. Mutations are just mutations. This is still begging the question. What's lacking is evidence that a) observed diversity is the result of such mutations, or b) that such mutations can produce such diversity. Suppose you're testing the first car. The engine starts - check. It can roll on its tires - check. You've seen a video of it in motion, although you can't tell from the video if it's driving, rolling downhill, or someone pushed it. The car is in New York, but you've got pictures of it in California, Georgia, and Ohio. Is that enough to demonstrate that the car can drive from California to New York? Only if you want it to be. Please don't fall back on asking what the alternate explanation is. Yours must stand on its own, even if there is no other.ScottAndrews2
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
08:50 AM
8
08
50
AM
PDT
“ID does not require any intervention other than to set-up the initial conditions.”
When? First life, the big bang?
Dude, THAT is what SCIENCE is for- to help us make those determinations. Heck look at your position- no answers at all.
You’re punting deeper into the past, with vaguer stories about how it must be, because you say so.
That is YOUR position- relying on the untestable past. “ID is not anti-evolution”
Right.
Again your ignorance is showing.
And it can’t be because it fails utterly as a critique of evolution.
That is because it does BNOT critique evolution- are you really that dense? ID critiques the blind watchmaker and it does so very convincingly “and Newton’s First Rule mandates all design inferences must first eliminate stochastic processes.”
And you think you’ve exhaustively done so? How?
Yes and it is obvious that you have absolutely nothing.
ATP synthase is composed of subunits with homology to other proteins.
Similarity does NOT = homology.
Several pathways for the evolution of it and precursors have been proposed and are being tested.
Good- I bet they will never succeed.
The notion that “these two processes are totally unrelated” ignores that the processes are physically coupled.
Yes they were designed that way- physically coupled. There isn't any other way the two subunits will go together. “OTOH your position doesn’t have anything- not even a methodology for determining blind, undirected processes didit.”
We can and do observe randomization plus selection producing new functionalities.
Ecepot only ignorance sez it is randomization and your "selection" isn't anything of the kind. But yes by breaking things slight changes in functionality are possible.Joseph
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
04:47 AM
4
04
47
AM
PDT
Petrushka, please go read on the history of the idea roots of Fascism [try the lecture here in that page for starters and I think this reflection will help us all deal with the sense of outrage this is bound to stir up -- for, we dare not forget hard lessons of history . . . ], including the way Hitler reasoned in Mein Kampf, and the roots of those ideas. (Note also Weikart's responses to strawman criticisms here.) I clip from the just linked, Weikart's response in a nutshell:
What I demonstrated in detail in my book [From Darwin to Hitler] is that many leading Darwinists themselves argued overtly that Darwinism did indeed undermine the sanctity-of-life ethic, and they overtly appealed to Darwinism when they promoted infanticide, euthanasia, racial extermination, etc. I specifically noted that not all Darwinists took this position, but those who did were leading Darwinian biologists, medical professors, psychiatrists, etc. They were not some fringe group of ignorant fanatics; they were mainstream Darwinists. Also, I did not simply show that leading Darwinists supported eugenics, infanticide, euthanasia, and racial extermination; I showed that they appealed overtly to Darwinism to justify their position. So, it is not Weikart who is reading Darwinism into the record. Darwinists themselves made these arguments. Therefore, critics of the position that Darwinism devalues human life should not attack me, but rather should attack those Darwinists I exposed in my work.
In short, I am inviting you to move beyond the level of talking points, to a more balanced understanding of some very unpleasant facts about how science can go seriously wrong when it takes up views that undermine ethical responsibility. Inherently amoral views aptly fit that category, as say Provine documented all too clearly in his well known U Tenn 1998 Darwin Day keynote address:
Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . .
Without freedom to choose in morally significant contexts, moral responsibility cannot exist. Thus, the inescapable amorality of evolutionary materialism -- it has no worldview foundational IS that can ground OUGHT (as Hawthorne so aptly shows here) -- comes out in yet another significant form. Do this, please, for your own reflection/instruction on science and society issues, I will gavel such a red meat distractive sub-thread here. This thread has seen far too much of distractive polarisation that descended into atmosphere poisoning namecalling and false accusation already. Good day GEM of TKIkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
01:06 AM
1
01
06
AM
PDT
Dr Rec: Beavers build dams, which are inherently complex systems, including building arch dams when the flow rate warrants that. As -- onlookers -- can be seen in the illustrations in this UD post. Dam-building, where dams are up to 14 ft high, and up to thousands of feet long, with use of arched structures where stream flow rate warrants, is a considerable civil engineering achievement. And BTW, what your examples of instinctively moving to try to stop the sound of water rushing demonstrates, is that this is instinctive programming for dam maintenance, a different context from dam building (but one vital to the sustainability of the dam . . . as in no maintenance subroutine, and no viable water-protected lodge system); beavers were not programmed for loudspeakers. Joseph's apt challenge is, given the complexity of a dam, how do we get to a beaver from a generic rodent. Which remains unanswered, just distracted from. But the distraction highlights inadvertently that there is an additional complexity, beavers must build AND maintain dams. In addition, lab and observed cases to date all include only quite small genome changes, well within the limits of creation of novel genetic information, and in no cases include an empirical demonstration of origin of complex functional behaviour or major and functional body plan innovations. There is no credible reason to ind=fer that complex algorithmic outcomes can be achieved by small increments, each of which must be functional and diffuse through a population across a considerable number of generations. And the dam-building beaver is therefore rapidly joining the list of icons of design. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
12:23 AM
12
12
23
AM
PDT
Dr Rec: As a basic reminder, we scientifically observe and infer causal patterns in the present, and test and identify their reliable signs. On the strength of that, we reconstruct the past we did not observe on inference to best empirically anchored explanation. That is a commonplace, and how it relates to the specific case of biological information is -- yet again -- summarised above, here. (And BTW, genetic engineering techniques have been pioneered over the past 25 or so years, i.e over a generation. Venter has shown the feasibility of genome manipulation using known techniques, and organic synthesis of comparably complex chemicals is as common as our pharmaceutical industry.) It should be a well known and generally understood fact that we were not there to see the actual course of the origin of our cosmos, or of our solar system, or of our planet, or of life, or of the major clusters of life forms, or our own origin. All of this is theoretically reconstructed as a model of the past on experiment and observation in the present, leading to inference to best explanation of the remote past of origins on signs and traces in the present. But if evolutionary materialism is allowed to be a censoring a priori on that process, as is clearly happening, that breaks down the integrity of the inference. Similarly, once a bridge has been opened to another field of study, biology comes under scrutiny from that field. In this case, digitally coded, functionally specific, complex algorithmic information has been found in the heart of the living cell. The only known and analytically plausible source of such is intelligence, as the linked explores yet again. If biologists want to reverse the direction of challenge, the way to do so is simple: empirically demonstrate in a biological system or otherwise, within observation, that 500 - 1,000+ bits of information can and do originate by blind processes traceable to chance and necessity. the very existence of the failed project of using genetic Algorithms to try to do so, shows that the point is understood. Failed, because all such algorithms start well within a zone of functional specificity and proceed by generalised hill climbing on nicely chosen, finely tuned parameters and fitness functions or the equivalent. So, again and again, the trend of the evidence is clear: design. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
November 18, 2011
November
11
Nov
18
18
2011
12:10 AM
12
12
10
AM
PDT
Dr Rec: It is evident that you have again unfortunately overlooked the material relevance of another scientific context, as Joseph has pointed out. As the philosophers and historians of science will remind us, one of the most powerful empirical tests of scientific claims is when we discover that a bridge has opened to another hitherto unrelated domain of well-established study. For, at that point, ideas from each domain are forced to face empirically validated results from the other. For, the truth is going to be coherent across all contexts, whilst that which may be believed plausible in one field but which is not reasonable in light of well established findings for other areas of study, will come under serious scrutiny. Actually, this is trivially so when we see that if a finding is mathematically unsound or logically incoherent, it is disestablished. Similarly, the geocentric theory ran into insuperable difficulties once it was reliably seen, by use of the telescope, that Jupiter had at least four orbiting moons, constituting a model solar system in miniature. For, if the telescope was reliable enough to spot ships coming over the horizon into harbour and push the bidding on imported commodities even before they entered harbour, it was going to be ludicrous to selectively hyperskeptically reject the same when the power was boosted from about 8 times to about 30 times and the instrument was lifted to the heavens. Similarly, many ideas about disease origins fell before the onslaught of the microscope. For, the telescope and microscope were found to be sufficiently trustworthy instruments based on optics investigations and analyses. (Of course, early instruments did have significant chromatic aberration problems, which were a limit but that could be explained . . . and it is why Newton invented the reflecting telescope. And the consistency of observations from the two different types of instrument led to mutual reinforcement of their credibility.) In biology, no-one would dream of thinking today that cameras or microscopes are inapplicable as they come from outside the field. No-one would demand that specifically biological ideas must rule over the credibility of results, especially where it is known that we are reconstructing a remote, unobserved prehistoric past of life, we are not even dealing with biological observations. Similarly, biologists have to acknowledge the relevance of chemistry to biological systems, and so forth. The same holds for information theory, thermodynamics, digital electronics and computer science. In this case, well established findings of information theory and related analyses became relevant to biology once it was discovered in the 1950's and 60's that the living cell contained digitally coded, algorithmically functional, complex and specific information. The infinite monkeys type results long since tell us -- this is a bridge to a third domain, statistical thermodynamics, and a fourth one, mathematics (including sampling theory) -- that beyond rather specific limits, we cannot expect blind search to spontaneously create functionally specific, complex informational configurations of elements. As the just linked summarises on empirical tests:
One computer program run by Dan Oliver of Scottsdale, Arizona, according to an article in The New Yorker, came up with a result on August 4, 2004: After the group had worked for 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey-years, one of the "monkeys" typed, “VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8.t" The first 19 letters of this sequence can be found in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". Other teams have reproduced 18 characters from "Timon of Athens", 17 from "Troilus and Cressida", and 16 from "Richard II".[21] A website entitled The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, launched on July 1, 2003, contained a Java applet that simulates a large population of monkeys typing randomly, with the stated intention of seeing how long it takes the virtual monkeys to produce a complete Shakespearean play from beginning to end. For example, it produced this partial line from Henry IV, Part 2, reporting that it took "2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years" to reach 24 matching characters: RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r"5j5&?OWTY Z0d...
The reasons for this are actually quite easy to understand. On the scope of the solar system, we have some 10^57 atoms, which in 10^17 s will go collectively through about 10^102 possible Planck-time quantum states. Where about 10^30 such PTQS's are needed for even the fastest chemical reactions. So, we have an upper limit on search resources in the field of possibilities. For just 500 bits, we have some 3* 10^150 possibilities, 10^48 times the limit just described. A solar system scope blind search of the domain of possibilities would be comparable to a one-straw sized sample of a cubical hay bale 3 1/2 light days across [about ten times the distance to Pluto]. So, such a fractional sample would, per sampling theory, be overwhelmingly likely to pick up the bulk of the distribution, not narrow and unrepresentative zones, even if a whole solar system lurked within the bale. (Here we see atomic theory, sampling theory etc applied in yet other onward bridges.) It is plain that digitally [=discrete state] coded strings that function algorithmically in a particular context, here, the cell, are from rather special zones in the field of possibilities, comparable to the object code for a computer program. So, we have good reason to infer that the unobserved origin of the coded information in DNA is produced by the only empirically known force capable of such within the resources of the observed cosmos: intelligence. Yes, we use ourselves as a yardstick of intelligence, but we see that say beavers show that this is not confined to us. And if you wish to speculate that there are as yet undiscovered laws of physics and chemistry that force the emergence of life forms with such digital code, you run into the problem that information storage critically depends on contingency, not necessity; something which is exploited in the metrics for information. There are only two scientifically/empirically credible sources for highly contingent outcomes, chance or choice. Of these, chance is not a credible source for 100,000+ bits worth of digital code required for minimally complex cell based life. Similarly, the molecular nanotech we have in hand, through Venter et al over the past generation now, shows that one can intelligently and intentionally manipulate the informational macromolecules of life towards desired configurations. This is empirical proof of concept that design of such molecular nanotech systems is possible. (The strained attempts to try to object to this some weeks ago here at UD, were highly revealing about the unwillingness to face empirical evidence; similar to the equally strained objections to the existence of digital code in the DNA etc.) Worse, yet, even if life were written into the laws of the cosmos, that would be a highly suspicious result. That is, if it were a matter of necessity that under appropriate "warm little pond" or equivalent prebiotic conditions, life will inevitably emerge, by some sort of forced self-organisation, that would be a strong indicator of a designed cosmos with laws fine tuned for life. And, already there is abundant reason to infer to just that, e.g. the nuclear resonance that makes C and O the 3rd and 4th most abundant atoms in our observed cosmos, and the related astonishing set of properties of water. H, C, O are of course the first three molecules of life, and the other member of that top tier, He, is a nuclear component towards C and O etc. No wonder astrophysicists of the ilk of a Hoyle, have put forward the concept that it seems evident that someone has "monkeyed" with the laws of physics and so there are no truly blind forces worthy of the name in our world. If instead you wish to suggest a quasi-infinite multiverse that would have sufficient resources to overcome the probabilistic hurdles, that immediately is a crossing over into highly speculative metaphysics, with ZERO observational evidence. Other metaphysical constructs have an equal right to sit to the table of comparative difficulties on factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power, and bring to bear any relevant evidence. And as well, Occam's razor of factually adequate simplicity would begin to shave away such extravagances. Worse, since our observed cosmos sits at such a locally isolated zone, the multiverse has to have a "cosmos bakery" that would be just as much a fine tuned entity as our observed cosmos. All of this brings us full circle to a simple matter. Namely, we have excellent reason to see that digitally coded functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I] are -- in light of abundant experience -- only credibly accounted for on intelligent design in light of skill and knowledge. Especially, digitally coded FSCI [dFSCI]. So much so, that we routinely take this for granted, e.g. we explain posts in this thread on real posters, not lucky noise in the Internet's infrastructure. (Yet another bridge, to noise theory.) In short the challenge to account for origin of cell based life involving such digital code, in light of sound principles of causal explanation, is pivotal, and has been pivotal ever since Thaxton et al in TMLO in 1984. Design is definitely on the table, right from OOL. And, it continues to speak when we look at the origin of the 10+ million bits to account for dozens of novel body plans. Including the many cases where organisms have two body plans and undergo metamorphosis. In that context, it is the strained (and sometimes shrill) nature of the objections that we are seeing that so tellingly reveal the balance of the evidence on the merits. And the ongoing attempts to gerrymander the very definition of science to keep out unwelcome evidence and argument, are even more revealing. Especially when we also take on board the revelations about a priori materialism that Lewontin has so publicly documented. And, when we see the testimony of Wallace (co-founder of evolutionary theory) as to its historic roots in C17 - 18 skeptical philosophising, which dominated the mindset of the toffs by late C19, and which has now been exported into Science as a controlling, censoring a priori. The inference to design on the empirically reliable sign of FSCO/I is here to stay. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
11:52 PM
11
11
52
PM
PDT
"ID does not require any intervention other than to set-up the initial conditions." When? First life, the big bang? You're punting deeper into the past, with vaguer stories about how it must be, because you say so. "ID is not anti-evolution" Right. And it can't be because it fails utterly as a critique of evolution. A hunch about biogenesis is all it is now. "and Newton’s First Rule mandates all design inferences must first eliminate stochastic processes." And you think you've exhaustively done so? How? I think my summary and your link are identical. A weak hunch about origins. There is no logic in the statements-they lead with their conclusions. ATP synthase is composed of subunits with homology to other proteins. Several pathways for the evolution of it and precursors have been proposed and are being tested. The notion that "these two processes are totally unrelated" ignores that the processes are physically coupled. "OTOH your position doesn’t have anything- not even a methodology for determining blind, undirected processes didit." We can and do observe randomization plus selection producing new functionalities.DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
07:24 PM
7
07
24
PM
PDT
Having done so, I would like to see whether that person could still imagine an evolutionary pathway to a similar result.
Even more difficult imagining a design pathway that doesn't involve incremental evolution of the design.Petrushka
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
06:32 PM
6
06
32
PM
PDT
DrREC:
Remember: there are billions of humans with billions of cells. None require a design intervention, as none have fsci greater then the universal probability bound more than their parents.
ID does not require any intervention other than to set-up the initial conditions.
It is interesting to see the abandonment of ID as a critique of evolution.
ID is not anti-evolution and Newton's First Rule mandates all design inferences must first eliminate stochastic processes.
1) The genome has X 2) We have no idea how X came about, but humans do X-ish things 3) Design, until someone shows X through natural processes (which is getting closer to viable)
More like: (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92): 1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.Joseph
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
05:54 PM
5
05
54
PM
PDT
DrREC:
And with the thousands of genomes sequenced, all biology at your hand, you don’t have a single biological OBSERVATION to warrant your INFERENCE of design.
Of course we do. Start at the letter "A"- as in ATP synthase: The ATP Synthase is a system that consists of two subsystems-> one for the flow of protons down an electrochemical gradient from the exterior to the interior and the other (a rotary engine) that generates ATP from ADP using the energy liberated by proton flow. These two processes are totally unrelated from a purely physiochemical perspective- meaning there isn't any general principle of physics nor chemistry by which these two processes have anything to do with each other. Yet here they are. How is this evidence for Intelligent Design? Cause and effect relationships as in designers often take two totally unrelated systems and intergrate them into one. The ordering of separate subsystems to produce a specific effect that neither can do alone. And those subsystems are composed of the ordering of separate components to achieve a specified function. ATP synthase is not reducible to chance and necessity and also meets the criteria of design. OTOH your position doesn't have anything- not even a methodology for determining blind, undirected processes didit.Joseph
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
05:47 PM
5
05
47
PM
PDT
Not having observed it, one can hardly run ahead and begin calculating how long it takes.
Not having observed what? We have innumerable studies of mutation rates. We have evidence from domesticated plants and animals. We have lots of documented changes from wild varieties.Petrushka
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
05:34 PM
5
05
34
PM
PDT
"a billions of test cases observational basis" Billions? Of cases of fcsi arising over the universal probability bond? Billions of organisms? Or of nucleotides? Remember: there are billions of humans with billions of cells. None require a design intervention, as none have fsci greater then the universal probability bound more than their parents. So no observed design. And no organism I know of has more than the universal probability bound of fsci more than its predecessor. So this little critique of yours seems to have nothing to do with evolution. "backed up by the same fundamental analysis that grounds the statistical form of the second law of thermodynamics will prove in the end self-defeating." Why don't you provide that analysis for one of those cases? It is interesting to see the abandonment of ID as a critique of evolution. At best, If I granted the genome is what you claim it is (I don't really want to rehash that), you have a weak thought about abiogenesis that goes: 1) The genome has X 2) We have no idea how X came about, but humans do X-ish things 3) Design, until someone shows X through natural processes (which is getting closer to viable)DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
05:07 PM
5
05
07
PM
PDT
33.1.2.1.3 ScottAndrews2 Realize bever behavior isn't that complex. They react to the sound of rushing water by trying to use mud and sticks to silence that sound. They will even do it to a speaker. This is why if you ever have to drain a bever pond, you do it from the bottom! http://www.lrconline.com/Extension_Notes_English/pdf/bvr.pdf Suppose this response to running water evolved to stop drowning of beavers in lodges-in a time with apple watery swamps. Then, as a drier period emerged, beavers that were somewhat more pathological in damming streams found themselves with enriched habitats-more food etc. As adolescent beavers are forced out and build their own dams and lodges , those with the most abundant habitats-better food, better protection from predators experience greater reproductive success. Since bevers aren't genetic lab animals, this is hard to test. But, in other animals, genetic and biochemical investigations, coupled with evolutionary histories inferred from sequence comparisons are proving fruitful.DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:51 PM
4
04
51
PM
PDT
SA, "I can’t believe that God gave us the Bible so we could each read it and construct a worldview. That’s just aiming too low." Absolutely agreed, but I don't believe that's what KF is saying regarding for example, Plato. When one reads the Bible, a worldview comes forth that causes one to reject Plato's Demiurge, but does not necessarily cause one to reject his parable of the cave. I suppose there might be some staunch parable of the cave rejectors among Christians and/or Jews, but such a rejection is not necessarily supported in scripture. People form other traditions by scripture that might cause one to reject the parable of the cave. However, anyone reading and obeying scripture is going to reject a Demiurge, no matter what their tradition is. A Demiurge is not presented in the Bible on not just close examination, but on summary examination. So people choose what they want to believe from the Bible despite what the Bible says. That in no way indicates that the Bible does not manifest a particular worldview, but that the person reading into it contrary beliefs manifest a particular worldview; and quite often they desire to twist the Bible into agreeing with their particular worldview. Some even rewrite versions of the Bible to reflect their particular view. Others hold the Bible as the basis for their worldview to such an extent that upon closer examination of difficulties, are prepared to readjust their worldview to accommodate (and more importantly, obey) what the scriptures state. But there IS a particular worldview that is formed from reading, understanding and obeying according to scripture. Quite obviously it is not atheism, but it is not a lot of other things as well.CannuckianYankee
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:45 PM
4
04
45
PM
PDT
"Pardon, but in fixating on biology," Ha! Isn't that what we're talking about?DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:42 PM
4
04
42
PM
PDT
"Pardon, the matter at stake is an origins science one. Thus, we NEVER actually observe the past of origins." Strange, when you keep saying things like: "The real issue is empirical observability of reliable signs of a given causal force or factor at work." Are you equivocating between human design and biology again? "The task is to reasonably reconstruct on signs and the dynamics they point to. Across ALL domains of origins studies, so a selectively hyperskeptical objection is a red flag." Reconstruction? Based on what observation in nature? "And, the design of genomes is now something we have had proof of concept on for a generation, it is even a matter of public debate." For a generation? Reliable DNA sequencing, synthesis and PCR are in this generation. Venter's copying (NOT DESIGN) or a genome was not exactly last generation. No human has designed a genome. "We know the observed source of FSCI" In biology? What is it? "we see FSCI, we know on good analysis that complex specifically complex code is unlikely indeed to arise by blind processes, and the matter should rest there as a no brainer." No, no, no. The only calculations you've ever attempted say fsci over a certain threshold warrants a design inference. Smaller amounts have been observed to arise. And to be clear, these are estimates of fsci present, as no one has probed the entire sequence space of a protein. Your reference's estimates place whole proteins and enzymes below the threshold you set.DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:40 PM
4
04
40
PM
PDT
Dr Rec: Pardon, but in fixating on biology, you overlook the existence of discrete-state, thus digital, algorithmically functional, coded information in the systems. It is that information that needs to be causally explained, and it points to the only empirically known, credible cause for such. And, the strained, selectively hyperskeptical nature of the objections being made to a billions of test cases observational basis backed up by the same fundamental analysis that grounds the statistical form of the second law of thermodynamics will prove in the end self-defeating. For, the only credible scientific way to reconstruct a remote, unobserved past beyond record is to observe causally adequate processes in the present, and their characteristic signs. Symbolic text that implements algorithms is a classic product and sign of intelligent cause. And so, a comparison to Stonehenge is precisely apt on the challenge of scientific reconstruction of the remote and unobserved past. And so also, we can easily see that it is your strained objections to a base of billions of cases that, if anything, is "bloviating." Good night. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:37 PM
4
04
37
PM
PDT
Pathetic. "Archaeologists infer design because of the evidence left behind and their knowledge of cause and effect relationships. They did not observe Stonehenge being built" Right, they infer design, based on 1) evidence of left behind and 2) based on analogy to other human designs. Without those OBSERVATIONS they would not be able to draw that inference. And with the thousands of genomes sequenced, all biology at your hand, you don't have a single biological OBSERVATION to warrant your INFERENCE of design. Do we need to have a discussion of inductive reasoning? What we do observe is evolution producing small amounts of information at present. We observe genomic sequences and perform sequence comparisons. We infer the processes and changes that occurred. Pop quiz: what is statistical inference based on? Quantitative data or bloviating?DrREC
November 17, 2011
November
11
Nov
17
17
2011
04:22 PM
4
04
22
PM
PDT
1 2 3 7

Leave a Reply