A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion

_{William Dembski

November 1, 2005

Religion, Science}

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Pam Winnick’s new book, A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion, is out in stores. It provides a nice counterblast to Chris Mooney’s diatribe about the Republican/conservative hijacking of science.

Comments

taciturnus and johnnyb, I appreciate your thorough treatment of what I posted. However, I guess we have reached an impasse. You maintain that a mechanistic explanation cannot exist for the things like meaning, dreams, and emotion. While meaning and abstract thought are most definitely not well defined in neuroscience, there has been some interesting work with dreams. In one experiment rats were given a task of going through a maze to locate a target. The rats were implanted with a microelectrode array that recorded from a part of the hippocampus where neurons fired depending on location. Thus, scientists could decode the location of rat based on the patterns of neural activity. Interestingly, when the rats went to sleep, these patterns were replayed over again. The study I link below looks at this in humans, using cerebral blood flow as a measure of neural activity (their correlation has been proven in previous studies beyond a reasonable doubt). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15504332&query_hl=1 So I think that there is evidence for these seemingly abstract concepts (such as place) having a neural basis. The reason I think we have reached an impasse is because neither of us can fully justify our positions that meaning or things like "I" have a neural basis. Until you show me peer reviewed published evidence that the brain can act as a transceiver or that there is no possible mechanistic explanation of thought we are stuck here. :(testerschoice_{November 2, 2005
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very true. i think the only way man will ever be able to make anything even 'close' to it is by using already present biological parts found in nature. even then, it wont equal the power and complexity of the human brain or get anywhere near it, and it would still leave us with the problem of being unable to make anything close to it from scratch.jboze3131_{November 2, 2005
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The brain is more complex than any computer ever made by the hand of man.Benjii_{November 2, 2005
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researching the subject- there are some critics who question if the brain scans at the time (the technology at the time) could show what lorber claimed...but lorber answered these questions. he said, surely there was no way to see if the one man (the high IQ math whiz) had 500grams or 1000 but he surely had nowhere near 1.5 kg of brain tissue. that, and his credentials seem to be solid- he wasnt on the fringe or anything. there have been other studies of this and related issues that have shown similar results to what lorber claimed. in humans and other animals (theyre doing study on cats one article mentioned).jboze3131_{November 2, 2005
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"So Lorber used the tongue-in-cheek hyperbole to shock the medical community. He didnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t intend it as a strict scientific claim.Ã¢â‚¬Â" Of course not. I'm sure *no one* took the title of the article as being literal.mtgcsharpguy_{November 2, 2005
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From the article posted by crandaddy: "Lorber himself acknowledges that the "Virtually no brain" claim was hyperbolic: "As to the question "Is your brain really necessary?"Lorber admits that it is only half serious. "You have to be dramatic in order to make people listen,"" So Lorber used the tongue-in-cheek hyperbole to shock the medical community. He didn't intend it as a strict scientific claim."Gumpngreen_{November 2, 2005
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re No Brain Incredible! And here neurosurgeons have been so careful in removing brain tumors and even describing some as inoperable when all along all they had to do was cut out the whole brain. This will revolutionize brain surgery! Or maybe not. Please tell me you guys don't really believe any of that crap.DaveScot_{November 2, 2005
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Besides choice, there is the more general problem that material processes are not in themselves meaningful, that is, they do not point beyond themselves. The flow of electrons in a computer's CPU means "2+2=4" because we say it does... absent a human interpreter, a flow of electrons is a flow of electrons and nothing more. You may have noticed that in all the neurological experiments cited by testerschoice, meaning is never at issue. "People have burst out laughing for no apparent reason and felt like a million bucks with the right stimulus" may have purely material explanations because they are not, in themselves, meaningful. It isn't news that such states can be artificially induced, anyway, as people have been doing it for many years with nitrous oxide and morphine. What neuroscientists have never done (as far as I know) is artificially stimulate essentially meaningful experiences, like artificially stimulating someone to think "2+2=4" or "a triangle is a three-sided polygon", or "force equals mass times acceleration." The reason is that "2+2=4" is a non-material meaning that can be signed by an infinite variety of material configurations. "2+2=4" can be signed by the written characters "2","+","=", and "4", or the flow of electrons in a computer, or by an abacus, or by using your fingers or wooden blocks, etc. When you think "2+2=4" and a scientist observes a particular electrical pattern in your head, what makes that electrical pattern and the written characters "2+2=4" both mean the same thing? Is it that very electrical pattern itself? It can't be... it has to be something that transcends both the electrical pattern, the written characters, the abacus, and everything other material thing that might mean "2+2=4"... a non-material "I". There is also the problem of the will, which also involes meaning. Neuroscientists can electrically stimulate the brain to move a limb against the will of the patient. This, again, is nothing new. Galvani was able to make frog's legs jump with electrical stimulation in the 18th century, leading many to conclude that life was nothing but electrified flesh, including Mary Shelley who used it as the basis for "Frankenstein". But if the materialist philosophy is correct, the will itself is nothing but electrified flesh, so scientists should be able to electrically manipulate the will. The result of the experiment should not be "You moved my leg against my will" but "I will to move my leg", the latter being the result of electrical stimulation which the patient mistakes for his own will. As far as I know, this never happens. There is always a separation between the will and intellect of the patient (the substance of the "I") and what scientists are able to manipulate. They can overpower the will and intellect with material stimulation, but not manipulate the will and intellect itself...taciturnus_{November 2, 2005
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testerschoice: "If you could show me evidence that demonstrates the brain by itself cannot support a sense of Ã¢â‚¬Å“IÃ¢â‚¬Â that would be most appreciated." If you could show me evidence that demonstrates _any_ mechanistic system can support a sense of _anything_ it would be most appreciated. As a computer programmer, I recognize that mechanistic properties are incapable in principle of supporting any notion of "sense" or "awareness", except perhaps unless you were to make an explicit choice for pantheism. If you want a good listen on the subject, here is Alvin Plantiga's "Against Materialism" lecture: http://maclaurin.org/mp3s/the_maclaurin_institute__copyright_2002.mp3 It doesn't have _my_ favorite argument against materialism (that "choice" is non-existent in a materialistic world, and therefore our thoughts would be meaningless, because they would be forced by the environment, and not made by choice), but it is a good listen nonetheless.johnnyb_{November 2, 2005
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I read her chapter on the Scopes trial. It did not have any startling revelations, however it was quite articulate.bevets_{November 1, 2005
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Dembski actually discusses this subject in his book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology starting with page 214. The original article that this other article probably referenced is "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?" by Roger Lewin; Science, 12/12/1980.Gumpngreen_{November 1, 2005
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That "No-Brainer" article is very interesting. I did a google search on John Lorber and found this: http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/science/is_the_brain_really_necessary.htm You may also want to visit the personal website of Dr. Sheldrake: www.sheldrake.org Davidcrandaddy_{November 1, 2005
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since memories, thoughts, desires, morals, etc. clearly take up no physical space- it seems theres little choice to the matter that mind isnt merely physical- that the brain is the car and the mind is the driver of sorts. like many have said- a doctor could tell you more about your brain than you could by studying it with instruments and such, but no one on earth could ever see your thoughts or dreams, desires, etc. because they hold no physical value- they weigh nothing, theyre not composed of matter in any sense that one could show, they dont take up any space, etc. its amazing in general, and this story and others ive read like it are just fascinating. i dont think well ever be able to convince most people that mind can be reduced to brain, because it just doesnt seem possible that matterless objects working in a physical realm (thoughts in the brain) would lend to this idea (the idea that mind is just matter and brain.)jboze3131_{November 1, 2005
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Charliecrs, that's a pretty amazing story. It makes you wonder if "matter" really is the home of the "mind"! The best part of that article IMO is, "But extensive investigation of the brain has turned up the surprising fact that memory is not located in any one area or in a specific substrate. As one eminent neurologist put it, 'memory is everywhere in the brain and nowhere.'"mtgcsharpguy_{November 1, 2005
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This is as weird as one previous post stating how one can emulate the cambrian explosion within one's own home.Benjii_{November 1, 2005
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Guys this reminds of something i read once about the brain or lack therof in this case and sure enough a qucik google search brought up alink. Check it out. Any thoughts on the matter while we're still talking about it ? http://www.rense.com/general42/brain.htm CharlieCharliecrs_{November 1, 2005
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Bombadill, Thank you for correcting me. I just looked up any publications J.P. Moreland has done that would show me he has done research on the brain, and I found none besides some philosophical papers. Also, you still have not justified your position that the brain is incapable unto itself of producing "I". If you could show me evidence that demonstrates the brain by itself cannot support a sense of "I" that would be most appreciated.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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tester, Lee Strobel serves simply as the interviewer in The Case For A Creator. Every chapter is an interview with an expert in a particular field of study (and Strobel approaches each interviewer as Devil's advocate - with objections). One of the chapters is an interview with J.P. Moreland (phD), whom most would not question as an authority on human consciousness. And he is very specific about the studies he mentions. Again, I will get you the information. And my position is not to deny that thoughts occur in the brain. My position is that the sum of human consciousness with it's panoply of emotion, reasoning, first-person perspective, altruism, etc... cannot be reduced to originating from a purely physical organ.Bombadill_{November 1, 2005
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Bombadill, Sorry for the double post, but "The Case for the Creator" was written by Lee Strobel. I have "The Case for Christ" sitting on my bookshelf, Strobel's research does not impress me. And from the cursury glance I took at who is mentioned in his book, I do not see any neuroscientists consulted.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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Bombadill, It is an extrapolation to say the brain is like a radio. Where are the signals it receives coming from? How does it act as a receiver? All neuroscience says is that the thoughts occur in our brain. So far, the evidence points directly towards that. You have no evidence that the brain is acting as a radio besides your assertion that it cannot account for metaphysical expressions like "I". What makes you think an immaterial thing can account for metaphysical expressions?testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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I will do that - it was detailed by J.P. Moreland in a book called "The Case For A Creator". I'll get the reference to the experiments and post it here when I do. The examples you cite reinforce the notion that the brain is simply the physical apparatus. There's no question that when regions are damaged or manipulated, there are lasting results in behavior, etc... Similarly, if a physical radio is manipulated, the output from the apparatus changes (albeit a limited analogy, but achieves the point). I contend that it can just as well be argued that the physical apparatus cannot account for the metaphysical expressions, even though the physical may be manipulated and thus channel the immaterial in different directions. It's an extrapolation to say that the immaterial originates or proceeds FROM the apparatus ultimately.Bombadill_{November 1, 2005
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MGD just made my day.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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"irritable and socially maladjusted." Must be a lot of brain damage on the internet.MGD_{November 1, 2005
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Bombadill, If you could provide me a citation for the death state study it would be much appreciated. As for the stimulation of specific regions, I have seen them performed many times and have witnessed the phenomna you describe. However, it does not prove your point. An example is somebody with Parkinsons or even Autism, where they may not want to do what their nervous system is doing, but it happens nonetheless. The separation of "I" from the observed the behavior is due in part to the fact that intention is compartmentalized (as much as compartementalization happens in the brain) from action. If you stimulate the motor cortex you can elicit movements from somebody that they would not be in control of (actually depending on degree they can resist). Likewise, you can stimulate areas that deal with intention (this happens with Autism) and the person will feel what you are doing. People have burst out laughing for no apparent reason and felt like a million bucks with the right stimulus. These kinds of things happen often in brain surgery, where the patient must be awake to provide feedback to the doctor. Lastly, you should check out the work done on HM and other patients with temporal lobectomies if you want to see the relationship between a "lump of flesh" and behavior. In the case of HM, he had anterograde amnesia and mild retrograde amnesia. His memories were clearly situated in some material body, since he has yet to regain those memories or learn new things. Another example of the correlation between "I" and the brain is the case of Phineas Gage, a man that recieved an accidental frontal lobectomy and lived. After the incident, he became irritable and socially maladjusted.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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http://boundless.org/features/a0000872.htmlBombadill_{November 1, 2005
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http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000901.htmlBombadill_{November 1, 2005
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http://www.radicalacademy.com/adlerintellect2.htmMGD_{November 1, 2005
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tester, neuroscientists have also demonstrated that physically deceased humans who were subsequently revived, recounted lucid detailed conscious experiences when there was zero brain activity during their death state. Further, neuroscientists have stimulated parts of the brain to produce a physical reaction, while the patient used his or her other physical faculties to prevent the reaction. The patients responded, "I didn't do that, you did that to me." Tell me, who or what is the "I" that patients are referring to here? Surely not something that can be reduced to the physical apparatus. Neurological stimulation just as much demonstrates that the brain is simply the physical apparatus for the "mind" or "person". Much like a radio is the physical apparatus for radio waves. The burden also lies with you to demonstrate the the panoply of human emotion and reasoning with all of it's subtlties is reducible to a lump of flesh in the skull.Bombadill_{November 1, 2005
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Jaredl, It only follows if you assume that the statement is true.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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Bombadill, What is immaterial and metaphysical about consciousness? Everyday neuroscientists correlate activity in the brain with thought processes. Tools such as EEG, fMRI, and intracranial recording electrode arrays have established very well that thoughts, perceptions, and emotions can be localized to physical structures. This is true not only in humans, experiments on rats, chimps, cats, and rabbits have verified this too. A cursury search of pubmed for this will turn up the evidence you need. The way I see it, the burden of proof is on you to show that thoughts have an immaterial basis. ps. My handle is testerschoice, not the coffee.testerschoice_{November 1, 2005
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