Michael Ruse is a Tiresome Embarrassment to Philosophy
Michael Ruse is tiresome, at least when it comes to talking about religion. Like Terry Eagleton, he seems to have a gene for silly religious thinking. In the end, you wonder whether they really mean it when they say they don’t really believe, or are they hedging their bets and cramming for the finals? I was put onto this by Jerry Coyne, whose response to Ruse, “Was the evolution of humans inevitable? Nonbeliever Michael Ruse still tries to help Christians reconcile evolution and faith“, is really decisive, but I still want to have my say, denn dieser Mann irritiert mich so viel.
Michael Ruse is using his soapbox over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, once again, though undoubtedly not for the last time, to try to make the world safe for Christianity — but why not safe for Islam, or safe for Judaism? (The article has the title “Does Darwinian Randomness make Christianity Impossible? “, and you know, just by the way he asks the question, that his answer is going to be no.) The trouble with Ruse is that he apparently thinks that Christianity is the only religion worth bothering about — that’s his silly gene kicking in — but there are all sorts of religions, and each one has its theologies, though, admittedly, Christianity has a lot more invested in theology than either Islam or Judaism. The reason for this is to be found in the history of Christianity, since it developed originally within the Greek-speaking regions of the Roman Empire, and simply could not escape questions and refutations that had been raised by thoughtful and rational pagans. Hence, Christianity was marked by its attempt to make rational arguments, not only for the existence of God, but for the more esoteric of its doctrines as well.
That doesn’t mean that Christians ever succeeded in providing rational justifications for such things as the Trinity, the incarnation, the atonement, or of the divine and human natures of Christ — which Monophysites, such as the Copts, still deny — and other esoterica of no more interest to us than these. However, once they had outlawed and persecuted paganism, it could pretend, at least, that arguments, which had never satisfied the most learned of the pagans, were enough to provide Christianity with its intellectual bona fides, even though most Christians were still really pagans at heart, and superstition ruled the Church for well over a thousand years, except in nooks and crannies where the appearance of rationality was preserved. What this really means is that Christianity, despite its superstitions, which continue unhindered within the church until our own day, had the illusion that theology provided a rational account of Christian beliefs. So, you could allow members of the Church to be as superstitious as you liked, just so long as you iced the cake with some form of apparently rational argumentation. The trouble is, despite all the systematic theology in the world, religion cannot be made into a rational pursuit. It just can’t. A glance at Pope Wojtyła’s encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) should be enough to disabuse you of any such conviction. It’s right there in the second paragraph:
2. The Church is no stranger to this journey of discovery, nor could she ever be. From the moment when, through the Paschal Mystery, she received the gift of the ultimate truth about human life [my emphasis], the Church has made her pilgrim way along the paths of the world to proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). It is her duty to serve humanity in different ways, but one way in particular imposes a responsibility of a quite special kind: the diakonia of the truth. (1) This mission on the one hand makes the believing community a partner in humanity’s shared struggle to arrive at truth; (2) and on the other hand it obliges the believing community to proclaim the certitudes arrived at, albeit with a sense that every truth attained is but a step towards that fullness of truth which will appear with the final Revelation of God: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully” (1 Cor 13:12).
The Greek word ‘diakonia’ — from which the church gets the name of its diaconal ministry (viz., deacons) — means service or mission. Notice how quickly Wojtyła moves to the claim that “the believing community [is] a partner in humanity’s shared struggle to arrive at truth.” This, despite the fact that theology can provide no methodology for determining theological conclusions as true. The pope can’t have it both ways. He can’t both say that the believing community is a partner in the search for truth, and then say, immediately, that the believing community is obliged “to proclaim the certitudes [already] arrived at [by revelation].” This is the well-known Magisterium of the Church, and it pertains to revealed truth, a truth which is at once certain and incomplete, as Wojtyła says. Certainly, for appearance’s sake, it pays to claim that theological and scientific truth are somehow related and coordinate; but this is just smoke and mirrors.
So why, one wonders, is Ruse trying to make the world safe for this kind of “truth”? The kind of truth that is really not truth at all, but at most opinion, and more likely self-deception. It cannot be permitted to allow an organisation to get away with simply proclaiming, as certitudes, beliefs for which there is no more foundation than the historical claim that these things, though intrinsically beyond understanding, have been revealed and entrusted to the Church for safe-keeping. This is a bit like allowing the prisoner in the dock to claim as true his assertion of innocence, and have this claim accepted, before any of the witnesses and forensic experts have testified. At the end of his essay Ruse says:
Do I believe any of this? Not really, but that is not the point. The real point is that New Atheists like Jerry Coyne have some good arguments but before they declare the case closed they should let the philosophers and theologians have their turn to fight back. That is what a doppelgänger is good for.
This is staggeringly silly! If Ruse doesn’t believe any of this — and, presumably, if he doesn’t, he withholds belief for what seem to him to be good reasons — what reason can he give for suggesting that, by denying that theologians can give good reasons, Jerry Coyne has not given theologians the chance to fight back? There is nothing stopping them. Jerry Coyne cannot put theological texts on the index, and forbid his “followers”, on pain of excommunication, to read them. If this is all that Ruse has to say about the matter of whether Christianity is or is not made impossible by Darwinian randomness, then he hasn’t said anything at all. He certainly hasn’t provided a good reason or argument, and it is very doubtful that Jerry Coyne would reject a good argument if provided with one. But Ruse obviously thinks there are no good arguments as well, or at least he pretends to.
The trouble is that for some unaccountable reason this is the point at which Ruse thinks the problem gets really interesting, but if he has a Socratic rejoinder, he doesn’t provide one, so the pretence of being a gadfly can get no traction here. After biologists have said all they need to say about randomness, and have shown that no necessity is built into evolutionary processes that necessitate the appearance of humans, and Coyne and others have closed the book on theology, then that’s when things get interesting, according to Ruse, and challenging! That all. He doesn’t even try to say why we should find it interesting and challenging. And he also doesn’t really produce an answer, not even a theological one. Here’s the sum and substance of Ruse’s counter to the claim that we are the product of Darwinian randomness:
I think, along with Augustine and Aquinas, at times like this, because it is a theological problem and not a science one, we need a theological solution not a scientific one. So if I invoke, as I will, the notion of multiverses – other universes either parallel to ours or sequential – I am doing so not on scientific grounds (although I know there are those who would defend them on scientific grounds) but on theological grounds. The God of Christianity can create these if He has a mind to.
Since we humans have evolved by Darwinian processes, then we could have evolved by Darwinian processes. Just keep creating universes until it happens! And don’t put any direction into the process.
You might think that this is an awful waste, but as God told Job, His ways are not our ways. In any case, as philosopher William Whewell pointed out in 1853 in his Plurality of Worlds, judged this way there is already an awful lot of waste in this universe. Think of the zillions of uninhabited globes out there.
You might think that God is going to get pretty bored waiting for us to come along. Well, he could try reading The Critique of Pure Reason. He might just get through it. More seriously, this is not a problem for the Christian God, because this being is outside time and space.
But is this not to admit a limitation on God’s powers? He cannot guarantee that we will appear the first time around? But no one – except possibly Descartes – has ever said that God can do the impossible, make 2+2=5 or Darwinian evolution guarantee a result first time around. So there is no real limitation.
And this, to go on with my prisoner in the dock analogy, is like saying that, if we allow the prisoner any presuppositions whatsoever, we can get to the point where his innocence deductively follows. There’s really no way to précis all that in such a way as to bring out its inanity. All theologians need to say, according to Ruse, is to say that God might have created universes until we turned up! His whole purpose in creating gazillions of universes was to produce us, and so he kept iterating universes until we appeared. There are some obvious problems here. The supposition here is that (i) we can put no limitation on God’s powers, and that (ii) God’s ways are not our ways: so, no matter how silly it looks, this is not a basis for saying that it is false.
Two strange things. First, Ruse’s goofy wit. If it got boring waiting for humans to appear, Ruse suggests, trying his damnedest to be funny, perhaps God could read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. “He might just get through it.” Well, coming from a philosopher that’s pretty tawdry. The Critique of Pure Reason is not a boring book, whatever else it may be. As philosophy, it’s one of the most exciting that I’ve ever read, and I read it straight through in about three days, the first time. Putting Kant and Hume and Strawson together was a fascinating exercise, and Ruse does philosophy no service by making such idiotic remarks. Second, though, is his misunderstanding of Job. “My ways are not your ways,” does not refer to what we might think of as the awesome mystery of the universe, but was really a deflection of Job’s question about human sufferng. Job wants to understand the problem of human suffering, and God comes back with irrelevant questions about creation, claiming, in a huff, that Job wasn’t there when he created the wild asses, and a few irrelevancies of this kind. The god revealed in Job is, as Herman Tønnessen says,
a ruler of grotesque primitivity, a cosmic cave dweller, a braggart a rumble-dumble, almost congenial in his complete ignorance about spiritual refinement. [8]
It does not show either the might or the majesty of God, but rather reveals his smallness and spiritual insensitivity and incompetence. If this is what Ruse means by fighting back, well, then, you know why Jerry Coyne has closed the book on this particular dispute.
But, here’s another thing. If no limitations can be placed on God, as Ruse assumes, then God should be able to know, by calculating the probablities, which one of the gazillion possible universes would come up with human beings, if that was his aim in the first place. Wouldn’t someone who knew everything, and could work out the probabilities from initial conditions, come within an ace of predicting which of the possible universes would include us? If so, we are necessitated after all. Why can’t Ruse see this? Because he wants to leave the world safe for religion, and any old argument, apparently, will do. This is not philosophy; it’s not even theology; it’s really opinionated posturing, and it does no good at all for Ruse’s reputation as a philosopher. He should stop this empty, posturing attempt to produce throw-away philosophy, and try to act like a reasonable human being.
Posted on 21 July 2012, in Christianity, Darwin, Evolution, Faith, Reason and Religion, Theology. Bookmark the permalink. 71 Comments.
The willingness to making modal claims as if they have some basis in fact is a bane of philosophy. It’s a complete waste of time since there is no evidence for modal claims, given that the actual world is our only source of evidence. People also get used to this odd notion that “modal intuitions” are anything other than making stuff up. We can use scientific models to say that if something were so-and-so and the laws of physics are the same, then such-and-such would be the case, but that’s just hypothetical reasoning with models, not a way of discovering modal facts. That’s ultimately what is so infuriating about this “debate”, because the claim that “human beings are contingent” is meaningless. Every time someone makes a modal claim, the appropriate response is “What is your evidence for that claim?”, and ultimately there is none.
“You might think that this is an awful waste, but as God told Job, His ways are not our ways.”
Not just a waste of time and materials (which I agree are nothing to an omnipotent being) but an immense waste of suffering. In each of those universes there must be many, many planets where sentient life comes to be, with all the associated pain and suffering, and then becomes extinct without even the doubtful recompense of having given rise to humanity.
One planetful of Darwinian evolution is enough to cast doubt on God’s goodness. But billions of them, in each of billions of universes, just to end up with us?
On the other hand, I think your last paragraph does God an injustice. Knowing the probabilities is not the same as knowing the outcome, as visitors to Las Vegas know all too well. If quantum mechanics is correct there may be way of knowing in advance which initial conditions will produce a given species 13 billion years later. This does not deny God’s omniscience. It could be that God can know all the facts there are to be known but that the detailed course of future evolution is simply not a fact in that sense.
Nuts! I’m sure I wrote “there may be no way of knowing”
The phrase “My ways are not your ways” comes from Isa. 55:8,9; not Job.
However, the basic idea can be found in Job. The gist of the argument there is that because God is infinite, and we are not, we cannot always understand why God does what He does. He is rational but incomprehensible at the same time.
“God’s ways are not mankind’s ways,” “His ways are mysterious,” and “He is rational but incomprehensible at the same time” are all slightly different ways in which apologists claim an unlimited and perpetual license to keep moving the goalposts, to keep making excuses when supporting evidence is absent or the opposing evidence is inconveniently clear and strong.
If he is incomprehensible, how do you know he is rational?
It is very difficult to know what imaginary beings do and why they do those things.
That said, Ruse has dabbled in philosophy of science and should know how it works. He is also writing for an education magazine. He could easily test his hypotheses about atheism, compatibility and evolution, but he doesn’t. Everything he says is idle speculation. Scientists advocating the incompatibility of science and religion could just as easily pull people from religion as push them away from science. Science could test this – religion can’t.
The question of randomness is key. Could God have predicted the world from its initial conditions? Sure, quantum events are individually unpredictable, but they’re uniformly probable and perhaps entirely deterministic at the macroscopic level. At larger scales events are chaotic, but perhaps in principle predictable given sufficient information.
For all practical purposes, however, they are random, and that’s how we generally regard them. Gould asserted that if we could rewind the tape of evolution and start over at any point we’d wind up with a different result. The question is, would we? Were the various planetary and interplanetary cataclysms that convulsed life’s progress on earth determinate at the instance of the big bang or at any time subsequently? We might argue from first principles that they must be, but how can we be sure?
We tend to treat evolution as random variation interacting with random environmental constraints (plate tectonics, asteroid impacts). The sources of variation almost certainly include quantum events (this atom of carbon, residing in the DNA of a germ cell, has an extra neutron and its time has come today) and theory demands their individual unpredictability. Can we take it for granted that larger-scale events are not? Even sociologists and psychologists treat humans as somewhat random. As a pragmatist I distrust arguments from first principles.
In any event, the problem of evil is not an objection to the idea that God envisioned the entire history of our universe from its initial conditions and set the billiard table into motion, unless you assume that we are the desired result. Haldane was wrong about beetles. Clearly, God best loves His first creation, bacteria. You may think you are a Master of the Universe, but God knows that you are merely a walking substrate, carrying ten bacteria for every cell you call your own.
@bad Jim
I suspect (but I Am Not A Physicist) that quantum events are as deterministic as anything else – it’s just that they are un-observable without interference and therefore unpredictable. I’ve read that radioactive decay occurs when the ‘electron shells’ align in an extreme way. If you could observe the ‘electron shells’ on an individual atom without affecting them you could know when the atom would decay. But we can’t, so we fall back to making statistical observations of a mass of atoms.
So if god could observe quantum states without disruption he could know the various states of the universe in advance. However this would be a fully deterministic universe and ‘Original Sin’ a predefined state. Unless, of course, god does interfere (“And then a miracle happens!”) so the universe is not naturally deterministic but god determined; in which case theologians have to explain why bad stuff happens.
God moves in a mysterious way – except we don’t know if god exists, if he moves, or what a mysterious way means.
Eric
Please excuse my interruption; however, I think you and your readers will be interested in this week’s Ask the Religion Experts question: http://tinyurl.com/blkyexu
To Jeff D (#6) and Mike (#7) I would want to say this: the Book of Job is the classic discussion of the problem of theodicy, the problem of how evil can exist in a world created by God. At the beginning of the book a series of disasters befalls Job. Job’s friends tried to argue that since God is just, Job must have done something terrible to occasion God’s displeasure. Job insisted that he had done nothing wrong — that God was just plain incomprehensible. At the end of the book God Himself addresses Job. He points to the wonders of nature and asks “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” (Job 40:2), and Job himself is led to say “I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (42:3).
The implication is that nature speaks eloquently of the wisdom and power of God. He is far more intelligent than we are. The problem we have in understanding God is not the absence of rationality on His part, but the sheer abundance of it. It far surpasses our ability to understand it. Thus from our perspective God is both rational and incomprehensible at the same time.
In a curious sort of way the Book of Job addresses the modern scientist directly. A scientist can earn a doctorate and devote his entire career to studying nature — and barely scratch the surface, as it were, and that within just a narrow specialty. To me this is eloquent testimony to the fact that the Creator is more intelligent than the scientist. The scientist should be able to appreciate better than anyone else the wisdom of God.
The evolutionist is in the position of arguing that a blind, impersonal process was able to accomplish what no amount of human engineering was ever able to achieve. How likely is that?
It is very strange to me that someone would go to such lengths to convince people of a position they admit they do not hold. The only other context I can think of for such a thing is trying to malign ideas in order to control people in some way. I have noticed some theists try to claim atheism in atheist web pages, perhaps because they think it gives them extra credibility. There is also the very similar “I used to be an atheist” gambit. The structure of their arguments quickly betrays them, however. Is Ruse invested in patting the poor believers on the head to help them continue believing in the magic of Santa Claus? Is he charlatan that is taking advantage of beliefs to sell books? I suspect he is an atheist pretender trying to sell books, but I have no way of knowing what motives his heart truly holds.
If one is going to allow an all-powerful being that can control everything, why dance around and try to align things with science? Such a god can make things look as though science is running the show until the need arises for all scientific laws to be discarded. Such a god can create the earth with the appearance of age as well as the appearance of common decent. Why invoke magic supernatural solutions so sparingly, if you are going to allow them at all? Anything can be justified if magic is allowed, but then again when anything can be justified, nothing is justified.
David (#3). Perhaps I should have spelled it out in greater detail. Ruse says that we should place no limitations on God. So far as we know, God should have a clear picture of what the probabilities are based on infinite intelligence and plenary knowledge. Once you say something such as that suggested by Bob Wheeler, that God is infinite rational intelligence, yet incomprehensible, how can we say that he could not have knowledge even of random occurrences? The problem here is that we have defined God in such a way that we cannot in fact know what his capabilities are. Therefore, there is no reason for supposing that he doesn’t have kinds of information that are inaccessible to us or any other finite being. We simply have no idea what capacities for predicting the future God might have. He might be able to run the numbers on every possible universe. Why not? He has infinite intelligence and rationality, after all. What does that mean at the level of infinity? Of course, I have no idea, but if we are going to suppose one idiotic possibility there is simply no reason not to suppose another. As John K says:
What is wrong with Job — and Bob does not need to tell me that Job does not utter a particular sequence of words — is that the intelligence revealed in the “great” theophany is laughably anthropomorphic. Take note of what else Bob says:
How likely is that Bob? Well, since it happened, the likelihood (probability) = 1.
The funny thing is, as Daniel points out in comment #1, is that modal claims such as are made by Ruse — the bane of philosophy indeed — are indeed a waste of time. All we have to go on is evidence available to us. Trying to claim possibility (or necessity) on the scale suggested (infinite possibility, infinite necessity) is simply running things through finite intelligence, which is, to finite appearances, magic. It cannot help us understand what really happened. That’s why religion’s answers to the questions — Why are we here? Why something rather than nothing? — are all of them quite empty.
Thank you Veronica, to the reference to the Ottawa Citizen rundown on religious reasons for prohibiting assisted dying. I see the Anglican learned well from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is no less stupid when he repeats it:
He also quotes from the Anglican Church of Canada study document:
Which shows how much these are personal opinions not thought through. The man quotes authorities, as though that settles the question. So much for Anglicans. Besides, it is not requests that amount of a failure of human community — he would get that wrong — but acceding to such requests, in the opinion of Eric Beresford and the committee that cobbled together as many arguments as they could think of without actually thinking about them. These people simply make me ill.
“The evolutionist is in the position of arguing that a blind, impersonal process was able to accomplish what no amount of human engineering was ever able to achieve. How likely is that?”
Very, because that is what happened.
Sorry, I didn’t read Eric’s comment first. You can delete these if you would like.
No, we’ll let them stand, Michael. No reason not to reinforce a rather obvious point that Bob should have recognised in the first place. Of course, not believing in unguided evolution (or in evolution at all?), he wouldn’t, would he?
“Do I believe any of this? Not really, but that is not the point.”
I particularly hate that kind of thing (and Ruse does it all the time) – that way of pretending that it’s just some kind of accident that they don’t “really” believe any of it.
Ophelia, precisely! As though they had no reason to take the stands they do. Ruse, as a philosopher, strikes me as pretty inept. I don’t know much about his professional work in the field, but what he has written lately is pretty bad.
Bob, which parts of evolution are you still unclear on? You claim to have read WEIT and several individuals on this site have calmly answered your questions and explained how new alleles, new genes, new traits and new species arise without any guidance. It is very easy to demonstrate all of the components needed for evolution by natural selection – variation, heredity and fitness differences in any population and it very easy to demonstrate the genetic and phenotypic connectiveness within and between species. What more do you need?
Greetings,
Ruse is approaching the issue in the wrong manner.
A few pointers:
a) If one looks at the reason why theists/creationists reject evolution in America, it’s because they believe that Man is made in God’s image, where God is a Supernatural Man.
b) Theists believe in the soul/body duality, and that the body is “clothing for the soul”.
What Ruse should be doing is pointing out that it doesn’t matter what the “clothing” is/looks like.
The soul is what counts – that is what’s made in God’s image: if God exists, it is as pure spirit, and the soul contains a spark of the Divine.
Looked at in this light, if there were a water world somewhere in the galaxy, for example, with human-sized cuttlefish – hence, self-aware like us – they may well believe that God is a Supernatural Cuttlefish, not a Supernatural Man; that they’re made in God’s image.
In reality, to a theist, it’s the soul that counts – not the body.
If Ruse argued from that perspective, then he’d actually help free US creationists from mistaking the “clothing” as the important part and, thus, help them accept evolution.
I don’t think that it’s a case of his being a “closet-theist”, rather that he’s not a Materialist.
His philosophical outlook leaves the door open for life-after-death – with or without God.
He’s just trying to “accommodate” American theists/creationists. That’s all.
Kindest regards,
James
Michael Fugate (#20). If you’re really interested you can read my review of WEIT at my own blog (The Berean Observer; blog post for 10/15/11). It is relatively short, as Eric complained, and not intended to be a point by point refutation. Very, very briefly, the case for evolution is based on circumstantial evidence. My main reasons for rejecting are: 1) the argument from the fossil record is based on unfounded assumption (geological uniformitarianism), 2) the problem of irreducible complexity, 3) the genetic problems involved in macroevolution from simpler forms of life to more complex.
I also think there is a certain amount of equivocation involved in the use of the word “science.” When a scientist demands evidence, he is thinking of the scientific method. But evolution doesn’t stand up to that criterion of evidence. When you are talking about events that allegedly took place hundreds of millions of years ago, they are events that can’t be observed directly and cannot be tested under controlled conditions. Even if you could somehow prove that evolution is possible, that still would not mean that it actually took place, How then can a scientist be so certain, then, that evolution took place? The answer, I think, is that “science” has taken on a different meaning: it is now a worldview, a philosophy of naturalistic materialism. Or to put it another way, we have passed almost imperceptively from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism, and it is precisely here where the conflict between “science” and Christianity takes place.
My answer to Ruse and Gould is that we need to recognize that the empirical method is not suited to answer certain types of questions, questions such as the origin of the universe, the existence of God, the nature of morality, and the immortality of the soul. For that you need another kind of epistemology.
You didn’t read a thing we said, did you?
No, no he didn’t. Reads a little like a random post generator.
Bob: Absolute nonsense.
The question of origins of the universe is a science question. Why do you think all those cosmologists go to work every morning? Why do think the Europeans spent a bazillion dollars on the Large Hadron Collider?
Science question, Bob. Science question.
The answers to your other questions are patently obvious.
1. Existence of god. Doesn’t.
2. “Nature” of morality. Communal standards born of our evolutionary history as social animals.
3. Immortality of the soul. Not a question, but nonsense nonetheless. There’s no such thing as a “soul”, and a nonexistent thing cannot be either immortal or mortal. The “soul”, like “god”, is an invention of human imaginations. Just the same as “fairies”, “demons”, “angels”, and “Harry Potter” are inventions of human imaginations.
It’s not that difficult once you get past your wearisome presuppositional error.
You’re simply making assertions based on naturalistic assumptions. I don’t accept the naturalistic assumptions.
Nothing to add except to remind readers of an old journalist’s rule which Ruse has apparently forgotten: if you’re about to write an article with a question in the title, and the answer to the question is ‘No’, then don’t.
Greetings,
Mr Wheeler, the three reasons for your rejection of evolution, which you raise, have all been addressed – or “debunked”, to use the vernacular.
1. Geological uniformitarianism: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD200.html
2. Irreducible complexity: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
You can also look on YouTube for videos from NCSE and Kenneth Miller’s Kitzmiller trial evidence addressing this;
3. Macro-evolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html
And your use of the term, like all creationists’, is wrong.
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNF_X5sjK4xRxXBEsQEMi1w7ddzVuA
Also, see this series of articles:
Part 1: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CAcQFjAB&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGWNVOsCKjhrhPgQNFHmMcLN3gPXg
Part 2: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CAkQFjAC&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGs8_Gq32BI8VRaZqjkIjZQI32wpQ
Part 3: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/phylo.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CAsQFjAD&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNE3G5hcTu9f7pKzmvWlCLtj9lUjOg
Part 4: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CA0QFjAE&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNHbCW7tG2Uy-RI-tJK7pDF6KiKc5Q
Part 5: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html&sa=U&ei=8TENUMCdKuiL0AWmzpDfCg&ved=0CA8QFjAF&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNGq_fV5IUnZQFyGbYqdw7GGyC_DzQ
Several cases of new species evolving have already been observed due to the pressures of global warming. And global warming isn’t the only driver…
Fish caught evolving into three new species: http://news.discovery.com/animals/fish-evolution-conservation.html
Malarial mosquitoes evolving into new species: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101020151324.htm
Birdfeeders found to cause evolution of new species: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/birdfeeders-found-to-cause-evolution-of-new-species.html
With all due respect, to claim that events occurring millions of years ago can’t be verified somehow implies that this proves creationism, is false. No book, regardless of how “holy” its followers claim it to be, tells us what happened.
Science is a way of filtering out superstitions, beliefs, etc, which are wrong. What’s left is valid.
Kindest regards,
James
Bob, this is really quite silly, you know. You can’t disprove something by saying, “I don’t accept naturalistic assumptions.” For goodness sakes, man, can you not see that physics, chemistry, biology, geology, cosmology, etc. etc., are theories (or, to use Dawkins’ word) theorums (once well established) regarding the natural world. To say that you don’t accept the naturalistic assumptions — which ones, by the way? — is like saying you only listen to angels. You have to meet science on its own ground. There is no reason to do otherwise — especially since it works.
So Bob, individuals break into your house and steal numerous items, leave behind, fingerprints, blood from a cut hand, footprints in the yard and tire tracks in the back alley, advertise your camera, watch and tv for sale on the internet and are found to have those items in their house, but no one saw them in your house or yard or caught them on tape driving to and from your house. As far as any knows they were at home the whole evening. If the police hand the evidence above over to the district attorney and he or she charges them with a crime, then you would show up at the trial and say, your honor, the evidence against them is all circumstantial and you must acquit; no one saw them do it and there are millions of other explanations for how the items could ended up in the defendants’s house. Right?
Irreducible complexity is a failure of imagination, a failure of understanding, a failure of study, a failure of experimentation. Behe has been shown to be a fool numerous times – first with his claim that a mouse trap was an example of IC, then with his complete lack of expertise on the immune system. Evolution by natural selection is not like human engineering; it works on completely different principles. In nature the winning design only needs to the very tiniest of bits better than the other designs available, not the best design possible. Think of it this way – you need to put two boards together and you have a Phillips head screw and a large pile of tools all mixed together. Your life depends on accomplishing the task before anyone else does and the clock is ticking. Do you spend your few remaining seconds searching for a Phillips screwdriver, either manual or a bit that will require a drill? What if the pile for some odd reason doesn’t have either of those tools? Or do you grab the first item that will get the boards together no matter how tenuously, a hammer, a pair of pliers – maybe you ignore the screw when you see a clamp. Once the boards are together, then you can do something else to keep them together, but you need to live today to get to tomorrow. If one studies biology, one finds that proteins have many uses and small changes in conformation due to mutations or environment can significantly alter the function – an interesting example is the crystallin proteins used in making the lens of the eye.
The subject of evolution has been debated almost continuously since Darwin first published his book in 1859. I have seen the website Talkorigins. If any is really interested in pursuing the argument for the other side in detail, some of the websites you might want to investigate are:
The Institute for Creation Research (www.icr.org), founded by Henry Morris, the founder of modern Creationsism
The Discovery Institute (www.discovery.org). When you go to their home page click on “Center for Science and Culture” They have a review of Jerry Coyne’s book by Jonathan Wells which is much longer and more detailed than the one I wrote.
Answers in Genesis (www.answersingenesis.org). Its founder, Ken Ham, was a former High School science teacher in Australia, so he doesn’t have the academic credentials that the people at the Discovery Institute have. But if you’re looking for a quick way to access the major arguments their website is helpful.
BioLogos (biologos.org) – this is Francis Collins’ website, and advocates his version of theistic evolution. But he does have a question and answer page which is helpful.
I noticed that some of the commentators of Eric’s blog expressed exasperation with presuppositional apologetics, but sometimes I think people get a little defensive when their fundamental assumptions are challenged. Conservative Christians, of course, have had to face squarely the question of whether or not evolution is actually true, and this inevitably leads to an examination of the philosophy science — what can science prove and what can’t it prove? Sometimes I become exasperated with evolutionists who seem to think that just because evolution is a widely accepted scientific theory that it is therefore a proven fact, when the evidence for evolution is very different than the evidence is, let’s say, for gravity. It becomes more of philosophical problem than a strictly scientific one.
And to touch briefly on Michael Fugate’s example (#30), unfortunately we have seen melancholy examples of the wrong person being convicted of the crime.
It is entirely possible to build a case on circumstantial evidence, but that isn’t science in the sense of a strict application of the scientific method. It is “science” only in the much broader sense of a naturalistic philosophy, which, of course, many scientists would insist underlies the scientific method. But “science” in this broader science doesn’t carry the same degree of certainty as the narrow sense.
So, Bob, you would acquit then? You really don’t think that was enough evidence to convict those individuals of a crime?
“It is entirely possible to build a case on circumstantial evidence, but that isn’t science in the sense of a strict application of the scientific method.”
This is just nonsense, pure and simple. The science behind evolution is no different than the science behind cell biology. It is based on observation, hypotheses, predictions, testing predictions experimentally and on an on. Cell biology is based on all kinds of indirect measures of variables – linking actions on a submicroscopic level to actions detectable by human senses.
Bob, this is straightforward nonsense:
Name me one reputable philosopher of biology who questions the matter-of-factness of evolution. Jerry Fodor doesn’t count. He makes such serious philosophical mistakes in his book about Darwinism, that it must be said that he has lost the thread of the story. Evolution is a fact. As Jerry Coyne says, evolution is true. It actually happened that way, and the various institutes and associations you point to are simply religious apologetic organisations. There is no reputable science which questions the fact of evolution. Evolution is not just widely accepted; there’s as much evidence for it as there is for gravity.
So Michael, how would you test an event that supposedly took place hundreds of millions of years ago experimentally?
Same way you test one that took place 10 seconds ago.
Bob, it seems to me that if you’re going to throw out so much of science because you mistakenly think it cannot study historical events, then I’m afraid you’re also going to have to throw out history – including the history which is claimed to support Christianity
That’s just it – - I was a history major in college and i am aware of the difficulties involved in trying to recreate the past. For example, a cardinal rule in historiography is that “post quam” does not mean “propter quam” — “after which” does not mean “because of which.” Just because event A occurred before event B does not mean that A caused B. Even if you could prove that species A lived before species B, that does not “prove” that species B evolved from A. And yet evolutionists routinely assume that it does. It is one of the logical non sequiturs of evolutionary theory.
Here’s a concrete example of the problem trying to draw a conclusion from just the bare, and oftentimes fragmentary physical evidence. In chapter 2 of his book WEIT Dr. Coyne discusses the fossil record, noting that the simpler organisms are found at the bottom of the geological column and the more complex ones at the top, and then he says “No theory of special creation, or any theory other than evolution can explain these patterns” (p.29). Unfortunately for Dr. Coyne Henry Morris did come up with an alternative explanation: in a flood of biblical proportiions marine creatures would be buried first, land animals and plants would be buried later. Such factors as mobility and elevation of natural habitat would determine the order in which they were buried. (Morris & Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, pp. 273-277). Just based on the physical evidence alone, without making any a priori assumptions at all, how could you possibly tell which hypothesis is correct? You can’t. The fossils themselves cannot speak and tell us it happened thus and so.
My point is this: the scientific method relies on observation and experiment. But in the case of evolution the alleged phenomena cannot be observed directly, and experimentation under controlled conditions is impossible. I realize that theoretical science doesn’t necessarily involve experiment, but its conclusions are far less certain. What the evolutionist has done is to accumulate a mass of circumstantial evidence, and Dr. Coyne says that the theory has predictive value and thus has been validated by subsequent discoveries (we could quibble about the details), but that is still a long way from being able to prove evolution the way one can prove the law of gravity.
Bob, since you’ve given up on historical evidence, you’ve got no reason to think that the bible has any historical content. You’re stuck with extreme “Last Thursdayism”
No reason to think Christianity is true, no reason to claim that the NT is 2,000 years ago, none of that.
You’re claims regarding geology and evolution indicate a massive ignorance of the topics. Perhaps you should investigate them a little further rather than relying upon wishful thinking?
Bob Wheeler #37
Everyone, including you, differentiates almost every hypothesis by the physical evidence alone. If you mean, well, only if you make the assumption that the more and better physical evidence leads to the preferred hypothesis, so that’s an a priori assumption, then of course no judgements are drifting aimlessly in a sea free of axioms.
But the point is which axioms; you use the axioms that evolutionary biologists use all the time, and so did Henry Morris – why else would he bother to develop an hypothesis to fit in with the physical evidence? That very action points to how wrong is the implication of your question.
In other words, if we can’t tell the difference between competing hypotheses based on physical evidence alone (as your question implies), why did Morris bother to form a hypothesis to fit in with the physical evidence?
Not to imply that Morris’s hypothesis does fit well with the physical evidence; just that his intention was that it should.
Really, Bob! This business of a flood of biblical proportions is really beneath contempt. You question the evidence presented by biologists for the order of fossils in strata from different periods, and then you suppose that a completely arbitrary theory, based on a supposed biblical flood, is enough to overturn the detailed analysis of paleontologists over the last couple centuries. History, you think, has problems with evidence, yet you are prepared to allow the Bible to guide you as to the history of the earth. This is not a reasonable procedure. Suggesting that Henry Morris has come up with an alternate explanation is a bit like saying that David Irving has come up with an alternate explanation of what happened to the Jews of Europe, and both are equally implausible. You need more than an alternate theory. You need evidence, and this you haven’t got, and neither did Henry Morris.
Besides, as I have said, and will continue to say, a flood of biblical proportions could be as local as the frequent floodings of the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh. To those in the middle of a storm, a flood, or a tsunami the whole world seems to be awry. So, the ancients could be excused for supposing that the whole world had been destroyed, but you can’t be. Nor can you be excused for misunderstanding the meaning of the biblical text, for that is what you are basing your “theories” on. The biblical text is not an account of a worldwide flood. It is a story, as I have said numerous times, of uncreation. The chaos at the beginning (see Gen. 1.1) threatens to return, for God was sorry that he had created man. This is not a normal flood, but a supernatural flood, and it cannot be used to prove theories of geology. Using the text in this way is a plain misunderstanding of the text, and, besides, goes clean against your rather juvenile philosophy of history.
But evolution is not based solely, or even primarily, on the fossil evidence. It is based as well on the mechanisms of inheritance, mutation, and detailed study of what you would call microevolution. But that microevolution has been shown, for example, in the Galapagos, to lead to speciation, that is, to macroevolution. The geographical distribution of species shows clearly how geographical isolation leads to completely different evolutionary consequences for species once related. It is hopeless to go on arguing as you do, as if you actually have some evidence that the biological consensus has no basis, and this you simply do not have. You have the Bible, and a resolute refusal to look at the evidence. Instead of working from what we know, you want to retreat to a position of ignorance, and a claim that nothing can be known. This is absurd behaviour, and even more tiresome than Ruse. He at least recognises that evolution occurs, and spends his spare time trying to make the world safe for people like you. Well, he says, it might have worked like this, knowing full well that it didn’t.
Greetings,
Bob Wheeler said:
“That’s just it – – I was a history major in college and i am aware of the difficulties involved in trying to recreate the past. For example, a cardinal rule in historiography is that “post quam” does not mean “propter quam” — “after which” does not mean “because of which.” Just because event A occurred before event B does not mean that A caused B. Even if you could prove that species A lived before species B, that does not “prove” that species B evolved from A. And yet evolutionists routinely assume that it does. It is one of the logical non sequiturs of evolutionary theory.”
For someone who claims to be a “history major”, the whole of your post shows a poor grasp of the principles involved.
With regard to your “post quam/proper quam” counter-argument – or, as it’s properly stated, the “post hoc, ipso propter hoc” fallacy – I refer you to Neil Shubin’s, “Your Inner Fish”, for an example, not only of a transitional fossil, but of HOW to predict/find a transitional fossil; something that creationism/creationists cannot do.
Also, read up on mitochondrial DNA, and how it’s used to put organisms in their correct chronological order of evolutionary development. And you’ll also learn just how far back in time it allows scientists to “see”.
With regard to humans, their cousins and their ancestors, may I suggest Chris Stringers’ “The Origin Of Our Species”?
Bob Wheeler said:
“Here’s a concrete example of the problem trying to draw a conclusion from just the bare, and oftentimes fragmentary physical evidence. In chapter 2 of his book WEIT Dr. Coyne discusses the fossil record, noting that the simpler organisms are found at the bottom of the geological column and the more complex ones at the top, and then he says “No theory of special creation, or any theory other than evolution can explain these patterns” (p.29). Unfortunately for Dr. Coyne Henry Morris did come up with an alternative explanation: in a flood of biblical proportiions marine creatures would be buried first, land animals and plants would be buried later. Such factors as mobility and elevation of natural habitat would determine the order in which they were buried. (Morris & Whitcomb, The Genesis Flood, pp. 273-277). Just based on the physical evidence alone, without making any a priori assumptions at all, how could you possibly tell which hypothesis is correct? You can’t. The fossils themselves cannot speak and tell us it happened thus and so.”
May I point out that Potholer54 did a couple of videos on how the geological layers would have turned out if there had been a biblical flood?
Noah’s Flood Debunked:
Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sD_7rxYoZY&list=PLC3BA46992F4A9C06&index=7&feature=plpp_video
Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfSvktyxVYA&list=PLC3BA46992F4A9C06&index=8&feature=plpp_video
In any flood, there would be no order to how things were buried, whether mineral, vegetable or animal. Everything gets lumped together, willy-nilly.
This is clearly not what happened – the geological evidence shows that various sedimentary layers occurred over time, with different fossils in different layers.
Indeed, that’s how the “geological column” got its name: early (Christian!) amateur geologists noted that certain fossils always occurred in specific types of rock, and also noted that certain layers occurred above or below others. Thus, simply by showing someone pieces of rock with certain types of fossils in them, the person could put the layers in their relative order of age, from top-to-bottom (or vice versa).
The problem with creationists is that they are guilty of the very fallacy of which you accuse evolutionists: post hoc, ipso propter hoc.
Creationists try to fit the evidence into their own a priori assumption that their “holy book” – whichever one it is – is “The Truth”. Or “history”, as you might think of it.
The theory of evolution doesn’t just stand on (transitional) fossils, as you’d learn if you read up on it. It is based on a synthesis of all the sciences, from A to Z.
You’re, if I may say so without causing offence, a example of, what James Downard called, a “Tortucan” – someone who’s fallen into a “Tortucan Trap”.
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/01/an-ill-wind-in.html
As I indicated earlier, your grasp of historical principles is being over-ridden by your belief in biblical creationism.
Kindest regards,
James
As it turns out, there is an additional bit of physical evidence that sheds some light on the situation. Dr. Coyne gives us a good description of how fossils are formed: “First, the remains of an animal or plant must find their way into water, sink to the bottom, and get quickly covered by sediment so that they don’t decay or get scattered by scavengers. Only rarely to dead plants and land-dwelling creatures find themselves on the bottom of a lake or ocean.” WEIT, pp. 21-22). Notice that it must be buried in water “quickly.” Unfortunately Dr. Coyne did not mention coal and oil deposits, which did require large amounts of plants and animals to form. So which hypothesis does this fact support — Coyne’s or Morris’? Is the business of a flood of biblical proportions still “beneath contempt”?
Greetings,
“Is the business of a flood of biblical proportions still “beneath contempt”?”
To be frank, Bob, yes.
What you appear to be blinded to is the following significant point:
If a biblical flood had occurred, we should have ALL the fossils.
The reality is, we don’t.
Only those that were preserved from decay – or being scattered through predators taking bits and pieces off to eat in seclusion – were fossilized.
That’s why we have “gaps” in the fossil record.
And why we have to then predict and find “transitional fossils” – like Shubin’s prediciton/finding Tiktaalik. (http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/)
Kindest regards,
James
But if we don’t have ALL the fossils, how do we know that the missing ones exist?
Everyone might be interested in this article by Carol Cleland on testing historical hypotheses in the sciences:
http://spot.colorado.edu/~cleland/articles/Cleland.Geology.pdf
Bob: Just because we don’t have photos of you every single day from the day you were born until today, how do we know you were a teen-ager?
Seriously, this lack of thinking on your part has to stop sometime. I would suggest you try to start now.
BTW: Coal deposits typically represent thousands to several thousands of years of deposits. Slow deposition over time. Year after year after year, layer after layer after layer after layer.
There’s way too much mass in coal deposits for it all to have been alive at the instant before the mythical flood.
Coal disproves the flood myth.
History never has been a creationist strong point. But since Bob dredged up the Institute of Creation “Research” and Henry Morris (will he tell us next that the “Left Behind” series is nonfiction?), I must relate my favorite (there are so many!) ICR silliness. In the February 1989 “Acts & Facts, John D. Morris, Ph.D. (Henry’s son and if anyone sticks PhD after their name he or she is no doubt talking out of their ass rather than their mouth) claims to tells us where the races come from. Did you know that racism started with Darwin? in 1859 (2 years before the start of the US Civil War!). Morris opines “From Darwin on down, evolutionists have preached that the Negro race (really in 1989, he said that?) was lower on the evolutionary scale…. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of race is evolutionary…. and … prejudice, persecution, and racial hatred follow directly from the application of evolutionary teaching,…”
No race and no racism before evolution, just people living in peace and harmony – almost like the Garden of Eden – but then Darwin ruined it all. And given how – as Bob keeps telling us – history is so bad at yielding knowledge, Morris could actually be right. I mean, if one hundred million years is equivalent to a biblical day, then 250 years of enslavement in the Americas could easily be two years for a Christian.
Greetings,
“Unfortunately Dr. Coyne did not mention coal and oil deposits, which did require large amounts of plants and animals to form.”
Yet another example of your lack of knowledge of the history of the Earth.
Coal is the result of the fossilization of plant matter; oil is the result of fossilized diatoms.
No “animals” – read, dinosaurs – are involved.
“But if we don’t have ALL the fossils, how do we know that the missing ones exist?”
Because if we DID have all the fossils, there’d be no gaps in the fossil record!
You probably haven’t seen my earlier post – #42 – nor have you read any of the books I mentioned, otherwise you wouldn’t be so uninformed.
Read Shubin’s book and you’ll understand.
I’d also recommend Donald Prothero’s “Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters”.
Kindest regards,
James
Valid inferences from the physical evidence.
To be consistent with your position Bob, you can’t claim to know anything about your beloved Bible – since we don’t have the original autographs, how do we know what they said?
Michael, thanks for the link to the paper from Cleland – interesting read
Greetings,
Not to mention the historicity of Jesus.
Kindest regards,
James
Well I did read Cleland’s article and found it very interesting, although I’m not so sure that she successfully proved her point. She noted that experimental science does not yield absolutely certain results, and shows how historical science has to rely on a different kind of evidence. She seems to be saying that historical science is not inferior to experimental science since experimental science isn’t certain either. But it seems to me that if a hypothesis can be tested in a laboratory that it has an advantage over one that can’t. I also note that she made this observation: “modeling past events is theoretical work, and while it may yield predictions, these predictions are only as secure as the assumptions upon which the model is based.” Which is my point exactly.
Charles Darwin certainly didn’t invent racial prejudice, and he wasn’t even the first to come up with a scientific basis for racism; that dubious honor probably belongs to Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau. But Darwin did devote an entire chapter in the Descent of Man to race, and even has one section in which he describes how “civilized” wipe our “savage” ones. Much of what Darwin said, of course, is a matter of common observation. The significant thing, however, is that Darwin attributed racial differences to evolution, and once you eliminate the idea of special creation you eliminate the idea of humanity as a special essence. The different races are simply at different stages of evolution, and some are obviously superior to others. At least that’s what the implication of Darwin’s argument seems to be.
Bob, this really is getting a bit insufferable. We understand, of course, that religious know-nothingness is a widespread problem, but to pretend — to pretend — to have read something with understanding, and then to dismiss that on specious grounds, is really to have reached the limit. Now I feel a tiny bit of the frustration that Richard Dawkins must have felt when confronted by the stony ignorance of Wendy Wright. You take what are the commonplaces of science ever since Hume’s critique of induction, and you use that to hold science itself as, essentially, of no account, ending with your perpetual litany of ‘not proven.’
No, not proven absolutely. Science never achieves that blessed state, which is reserved for the religious, in their ignorance, to occupy alone. There are no absolutes. We are finite beings in a world that, while it surpasses our complete understanding, has slowly been revealing its secrets to the patient and cautious use of the scientific method. To take that method, and to throw it back in science’s face as though you have achieved some sort new insight is to ignore scientific method entirely, and hold it, by comparison, to have fallen short of religion’s pretended achievements. However, knowing, as you do, that our cognitive abilities are limited, why do you think the primitive certainties of religion are more to be approved than the limited, but more successful discoveries of science? Certainly, the use of models does not provide us with absolute and final truth. There is no such thing. It is, you might say, the limit towards which science strives. However, not content with this, and wantonly dismissive of the achievements of science, you prefer the ancient certainties of the religious imagination. This truly does beggar imagination. And adding the remark, “Which is my point exactly,” is ridiculous. This is not the point you have been making, and it is not the point which you are making.
Your added animadversion regarding Darwin’s Victorian racism is irrelevant to the question of the truth of falsity of the biological theory that still often bears his name.
Now, Bob, you are without excuse. Here is a chance for you to learn about evolution, a real online course, which is free: Introduction to Genetics and Evolution. Workload — 5-6 hours a week. Jerry Coyne will be Skyping answers to students’ questions. Sign up here: https://www.coursera.org/#course/geneticsevolution
Greetings,
May I ask you, Bob, are you a creationist, and – if so – which type (YEC, OEC, etc)?
How old do you believe the Earth/Cosmos to be?
Kindest regards,
James
Eric (and others) please read the following document to understand the mindset of creationists:
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
Bob isn’t here to learn about evolution, he’s here to destroy the ideology of scientism and materialism.
Briefly, I think that the earth is old but the fossils are young. I think that radiometric dating and astronomical observations indicate that the universe began with a “Big Bang” billions of years ago. The dating of the fossils, however, rests on a false premise — geological uniformitarianism. I think we have previously discussed on this blog the work of Immanuel Velikovsky and Henry Morris, and I have heard them dismissed as cranks and eccentrics. It is interesting to note, however, that even mainstream scientists believe that the extinction of the dinosaurs was the result of a massive asteroid that hit the earth in Mexico — the very kind of geological event discussed by Velikovsky. That obviously doesn’t verify everything that he said, but not everything he said can be dismissed either.
And yes, I think that materialism is destroying Western Civilization. Not only did Darwin supposedly destroy the argument from design for the existence of God, he did it by denying the design itself, and that has profound implications. It implies that we live in a meaningless and irrational universe, that human beings have no special dignity, that there are no moral absolutes, that there is no life after death and no future rewards and punishments. And what my liberal friends don’t like to admit is that in a universe like that it is virtually impossible to talk about “human rights.” In short, there is a lot riding on the table.
I also hope that if Eric has been following our discussion here on his now ancient blog post that I have been responded to challenges from my interlocutors. Someone mentioned the article by Cleland, I read it , and responded. I gather from her comments that her colleagues in the experimental sciences were far more critical of her work than I was. I do try to remember, however, that this is Eric’s blog and that I am a guest, and try to behave accordingly.
I should proof read my work better! The one sentence should read: “Not only did Darwin supposedly destroy the argument from design . . .”
@Bob
Because you don’t like the consequences doesn’t mean to say that the beliefs are not worthy.
The universe is meaningless – but we can discover our own meanings.
The universe is irrational (do you mean chaotic?) – but we can bring our own rationality to it.
Humans have no special dignity – other than the dignity we choose to bestow.
There are no moral absolutes – but we can form our own social moralities.
There is no life after death – so lets make our short lives fulfilling.
No future rewards and punishments – good: I wish to live a considered life now, not be blackmailed by some absent landlord.
Bob:
It impllies some of these things, but not that life is either meaningless or irrational. But it is true. As Discovered Joys says: Humans have no special dignity, if you mean that we are ontologically distinct from other animals, and that only human beings are worthy of respect and kindness. But, also true, there are no moral absolutes, no life after death, no future rewards and punishments. Whether that follows from evolution or not is another issue altogether. Are you feeling frightfully small and alone. Join the human race!
Bob:
Really, don’t you pay attention? What Darwin denied was not design or order, but intelligent design and order, unless, as in the case of humans, it is designed intelligently. It is very hard, as you must know if you’ve read Darwin, simply to avoid words which imply design, order, telos, and all the rest. So the universe is not meaningless, for we fill it with meaning. Human beings, as I said above, have no special dignity, if you mean that we are somehow ontologically distinct. But we have dignity, not just as a particular species, but as sentient beings who can suffer, and mindful beings who can suffer more, as well as plan and project and make a universe of meaning from almost nothing. We even create gods and goddesses, and even — be it known! — find sense where there is none! As in astrology, religion and other misdirections from the youth of our species. And of course there are no moral absolutes, because life is complex, and does not accommodate single and simplistic readings that can be dealt with by some fiat from on high! As for human rights: that is precisely what we can talk about in such a world, for we reject the authoritarian rule of absolutes, and deny them jurisdiction over us, because we do have rights, and have created them to save us from the religious theocrats who would have us follow the ignis-fatui of their dreams.
Bob, for the record, you’re nuts! Your faith-based thinking revels in woo! Your Buy-bull is worthless.Too bad you cannot fathom the following as your level of thinking is low!
http://fathergriggs.wordpress.com
http://igmor.blogspot.com
http://ignosticmorgansblog.wordpress.com
Google the Coyne-Mayr-Lamberth teleonomic argument for more talk in favor of mechanism as opposed to teleology, that superstition in religion. Google also Lamberth’s reduced animism argument and his argument from pareidolia about how theists mistakenly see teleology which contradicts science rather than complementing it! Also Google lamberth’s naturalist arguments about God tell why God cannot exist!
Greetings,
With all due respect, Bob, this is similar to the complaint against Newton for robbing the rainbow of its poetry.
You might find Owen Flanagan’s book, “The Really Hard Problem: Meaning In A Material World” of help:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Really-Hard-Problem-Material-Bradford/dp/0262512483/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344095630&sr=1-1
So, you accept the “Big Bang”, and that the Earth is old (~4.55 billion years?) but that the fossils are “young” – despite the fact that the same radiometric dating, which you accept as evidence for the “Big Bang” and an old Earth, also is evidence for “old” fossils based on the dating of geological formations in which they’re found.
You also mention the Chixculub meteor impact, as support for your belief in Velikovsky/Morris, yet appear to ignore the fact that scientists date this at around 65 million years ago – which would be evidence for “really old” fossils.
I hope that your last line does not indicate that you feel I’ve been “over-assertive” – ie, aggressive – in my replies to you. If I’ve caused any offence, I apologise – none was intended.
Kindest regards,
James
Dragan Glas, at least I do not think you have been “over-assertive” or aggressive. Flanagan’s book The Really Hard Problem is a good recommendation. I would also commend his The Problem of the Soul, as well. As for Velikovsky and the 65 million years: what an apt response to some of Bob’s rather odd young earthism! I do not understand how someone so apparently intelligent can continue to self-deceive as Bob regularly does, just to hang on to the shreds of meaning which is all that is left of the religions. That’s the problem with religion nowadays. It has to be held onto with such perversity that, eventually, when they realise that the game is up, religion will, as AC Grayling suspects, go through a characteristically bloody fling, and human rights, then, be damned. Well, it’s already so. Consider how the religious continue to put so much pressure on democratic polities, determined to destroy democracy so that only their hard won “meaning” (held sternly against all the evidence) will reign.
Greetings,
Thank you, Eric, for reassuring me on that – I wouldn’t want to offend other guests here or become unwelcome to your excellent blog.
For myself, I found that he beat around the bush – as he admitted in that book – dealing with the low-hanging fruit, if you’ll pardon the mixing of metaphors.
Dennett’s Consciousness Explained (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Consciousness-Explained-Penguin-Science-Dennett/dp/0140128670/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120429&sr=1-1), and Damasio’s books – Descarte’s Error (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Descartes-Error-Emotion-Reason-Human/dp/0099501643/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120490&sr=1-1), and Self Comes To Mind (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Comes-Mind-Constructing-Conscious/dp/0099498022/ref=pd_sim_b_3) – dealt better (in my view) with the concept of consciousness being the result of our biology, rather than the dualism that people inferred from Descarte’s famous dictum.
As for finding meaning in life without God(s), there are several other books I could recommend to Bob and others.
The Greeks, a few thousand years ago, found such useful answers to this – and other – questions, that the early Church appropriated much of their philosophy, particularly Stoicism.
Keith Seddon’s, Stoic Serenity: A Practical Course on Finding Inner Peace (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stoic-Serenity-Practical-Course-Finding/dp/1847538177/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344119987&sr=1-1), is a useful guide to stoic philosophy. As he references – and, indeed, recommends that readers study – Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Meditations-Penguin-Classics-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0140449337/ref=sr_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120614&sr=1-2), and Seneca’s Letters From A Stoic (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-Stoic-Epistulae-Lucilium-Classics/dp/0140442103/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120663&sr=1-1), you’ll need both. I also added Epictetus’ Discourses and Selected Writings (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449469/ref=pd_sim_b_3), for good measure.
Tad Brennan’s, The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stoic-Life-Emotions-Duties-Fate/dp/019921705X/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120803&sr=1-1), is also worth reading.
A more recent book, not on Stoicism, is Ronald Aronson’s, Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Without-God-Directions-Secularists/dp/1582435308/ref=sr_1_2_title_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344120857&sr=1-2),
Although not on religion, Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Wisdom-The-Right-Thing/dp/1594485437/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1344120924&sr=1-1), is also a interesting read.
As for Velikovsky and the 65 million years: what an apt response to some of Bob’s rather odd young earthism! I do not understand how someone so apparently intelligent can continue to self-deceive as Bob regularly does, just to hang on to the shreds of meaning which is all that is left of the religions. That’s the problem with religion nowadays. It has to be held onto with such perversity that, eventually, when they realise that the game is up, religion will, as AC Grayling suspects, go through a characteristically bloody fling, and human rights, then, be damned. Well, it’s already so. Consider how the religious continue to put so much pressure on democratic polities, determined to destroy democracy so that only their hard won “meaning” (held sternly against all the evidence) will reign.
De-conversion is a long process. I was in my fifties before I reached my present state: I’m an Agnostic – note that I’m not saying “I’m agnostic”, implying “(a)theist”. I neither believe nor disbelieve (I’m sort of apatheic with regard to belief) – simply that I don’t know whether God(s) exist or not: I can argue either side of the argument. And, since the earliest point at which I can possibly know is when I die, I’ll be an Agnostic for the rest of my life.
I think that, in time, it will be more a case of individuals finding their own meaning- “spirituality” – in life, rather than being told what meaning to find in life by religious authorities.
Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo, in The Future of Religion (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Future-Religion-Richard-Vattimo/dp/0231134959/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1344041901&sr=1-1), deal with this issue. To me, it appears they come full circle to William James’ position in his 1902(!) book, The Varieties Of Religious Experience (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Varieties-Religious-Experience-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140390340/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344122009&sr=1-1): that “individual religious experience, rather than the precepts of organized religions, were the backbone of the world’s spiritual life”.
How ironic!
Kindest regards,
James
Greetings,
Oops! I can’t edit that post to correct my failing to block-quote the “As for Velikovsky….will reign” paragraph, before my comment “De-conversion is a long process”.
Kindest regards,
James
Greetings,
I also forgot to mention Cicero – On Living And Dying Well (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Dying-Penguin-Ancient-Classics/dp/0140455566/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344160260&sr=1-1) seems rather à propos – and even De Montaigne’s Complete Essays (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Essays-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140446044/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344160505&sr=1-1) might be useful.
Kindest regards,
James
Pingback: Was the evolution of humans inevitable? Nonbeliever Michael Ruse helps Christians reconcile evolution and faith « Why Evolution Is True