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Faith and Reason

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The comment threads to several recent posts have contained spirited discussions of faith, reason and the relationship between the two. This issue comes up quite often on this blog, so I decided it was time to devote a post to it. Many of the comments assume a dichotomy, namely that materialists operate solely within the sphere of reason, and theists operate solely within the sphere of faith. In this post I will demonstrate that this dichotomy is not only false, but obviously false. I will show that everyone operates in varying degrees in both spheres. I will then show that far from being a bastion of pure reason, materialism actually requires greater faith commitments than theism.

Everyone Has Faith.

Materialists can be insufferably smug when it comes to the faith/reason debate. They claim their knowledge is superior because they refuse to believe anything that cannot be confirmed by evidence. Therefore, the claim goes, their beliefs are more reliable than the beliefs of theists, whom, they say, base their beliefs on “leap in the dark” faith that is not confirmed by the evidence or, even worse flies in the face of the evidence. Just a moment’s thought will show, however, that not only is the materialist’s smug self-satisfaction unwarranted, his claim of epistemological superiority is obviously false. Materialists make leaps of faith just like the rest of us.

Materialist believe that a real world exists outside of themselves and that they have trustworthy perceptions of this real world from their senses. Surprise. Those two beliefs are not based upon any evidence. Materialists hold the beliefs based on pure faith, a frequently unacknowledged faith to be sure, but faith nevertheless. You might say, “That’s crazy talk Barry. Everyone knows the outside world exists and that we can perceive it through our senses.” Do we?

Philosophers have known for hundreds of years that data provided to us by sense impressions cannot be the basis of absolute knowledge. Renee Descartes, for example, famously demonstrated this with his “evil demon” thought experiment. In this experiment Descartes posited an evil demon “as clever and deceitful as he is powerful, who has directed his entire effort to misleading me.” The evil demon is so powerful he is capable of presenting an illusion of the entire world, including Descartes’ sense impressions of his own body, to Descartes’ mind. If such an evil demon actually existed, Descartes’ sense impressions would be misleading him, and the outside world, including Descartes’ own body, would not in fact exist even though Descartes’ sense impressions confirmed unequivocally that they did.

Here’s the fascinating part of the experiment. How do we know the evil demon does not exist? Answer. By definition, the data presented to our minds by our senses cannot demonstrate his non-existence. In fact, we cannot know with absolute certainty he does not exist. We take his non-existence purely as a matter of faith.

Or consider the movie “The Matrix.” Early on in the movie we learn the vast majority of humans live in containers filled with clear viscous goo, and all of their sense impressions of the world are fed directly to their brains by a massively powerful computer program. How do we know we do not actually live in the Matrix? Answer, just as we cannot prove the non-existence of Descartes’ evil demon, we cannot prove we are not in the Matrix.

Then there is the concept of the “Boltzman Brain,” which is a hypothetical brain that randomly forms out of the chaos of the universe with false memories of a life and false impressions of the world. Again, as a matter of pure logic, I cannot prove that I am not at this moment a Boltzman Brain.

All of these concepts are closely related and are perhaps epitomized by Bishop Berkeley’s idealism. Berkeley argued that we cannot really “know” an object outside of our mind, that the only reality we can really experience is our perception of things. Boswell records Dr. Johnson’s response to Berkeley:

After we came out of the church, we stood and spoke some time together of Bishop Berkeley’ sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it – ‘I refute it thus.’

This is is an amusing anecdote. We can imagine Johnson kicking the rock outside the church so hard that he bounced off of it. But consider this. Johnson most certainly did NOT refute Berkeley as a matter of pure logic. Boswell was correct. It is impossible to refute Berkeley’s idealism, just as it is impossible to refute Descartes’ demon, or the existence of the Matrix, or that at this moment I am a Boltzman Brain. The internal logic of these systems is seamless and flawless.

But in another very important sense Johnson did refute Berkeley. He refuted him as a practical matter. The point of Johnson’s exercise is that our senses are all we have. We have nothing else with which to perceive the universe, and, as a practical matter, we must rely on our senses or give up all hope of having any knowledge, even knowledge as basic as whether the large stone in front of me (and the foot I’m kicking it with) exists. We all have faith that the data related to us by our senses corresponds to an outside world that really exists and that can be apprehended by our senses.

In short, we are all rock kickers. Every materialist believes that when he kicks a large rock he has an actual foot with which he is kicking an actual rock. But as we have seen, the materialist must accept this conclusion as a matter of faith, not as a matter of pure reason based upon evidence.

Materialists’ faith commitments do not stop there. Consider the following statement: “The universe is subject to rationale inquiry.” This statement is a “rock kicking” statement. All scientific inquiry is based on the assumption that it is true. Nevertheless, the truth of the statement cannot be established to a logical certainty or confirmed absolutely by examination of physical evidence.

Finally, consider the very definitional presupposition of materialism, which can be reduced to the following statement: “The universe consists of space, matter and energy and nothing else.” Has this assertion been proven true? Not only has it not been proven to be true; it is incapable of such proof. The statement is what Karl Popper called a “universal statement,” of which he wrote in The Logic of Scientific Inquiry:

This is the reason why strictly existential statements are not falsifiable. We cannot search the whole world in order to establish that something does not exist [in our case, a non-material phenomenon], has never existed, and will never exist. It is for precisely the same reason that strictly universal statements are not verifiable. Again, we cannot search the whole world in order to make sure that nothing exists which the law forbids.

Do you mean to tell me that materialism is not in fact physical but metaphysical at its very foundation, and that the entire materialist enterprise rests on a faith commitment? Yes, that’s exactly what I mean to tell you, and we thus conclude that the materialist conceit that all of materialist knowledge is confirmed by evidence is not only false, but obviously false.

Reason has a limit, and at the end of reason are first principles, and first principles must be accepted on faith; they cannot be demonstrated. This is what C.S. Lewis meant when he wrote in The Abolition of Man:

But you cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on seeing through things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.

Authentic Faith, For Both the Theist and the Materialist, is Consistent With Reason

Not only is the first materialist conceit – that they are immune to faith commitments –false, but their second conceit – that theists are immune to reason – is also false. Usually when a materialist argues against the epistemic status of faith, he does not argue against faith as most theists understand it and practice it. Instead, he erects the straw man of “fideism” and knocks it over, all the while pretending to have knocked over the real thing. “Fideism” is the blind leap in the dark even in the face of all of the evidence type of faith that the materialist so rightly deplores. But fideism is not the type of faith practiced by most theists. It is certainly not the faith of historic Christianity.

Authentic Christian faith is in fact faith; it is belief in something that cannot be proven absolutely by evidence. But it is not blind-leap-in-the-dark-in-the-face-of-the evidence fideism. Far from being a blind leap, authentic Christian faith is a reasoned faith. It does not fly in the face of the evidence; rather it goes one step further than the evidence. For example, Christians, by definition, believe in the existence of God. Is this belief a blind “the moon is made of green cheese” leap? Certainly not, because, in a manner of speaking, God’s existence has been proved.

Before I go on let me say a brief word about what it means to “prove” something. People mean many things when they use that word. There are many different “standards of proof.” One standard of proof is an “apodictic proof.” A is greater than B and B is greater than C. Therefore, A is greater than C. This conclusion is necessarily true as a matter of logical certainty. But there are other standards of proof, and unusually when we talk about something having been proved we mean some lesser standard than apodictic.

I am a lawyer, and when I take a case to trial my job is to “prove” my case to the jury. At the end of the evidence the judge will instruct the jury concerning the applicable burden of proof. In a civil case he will usually say I must have proved my case “by a preponderance of the evidence.” He will then tell the jury that to prove something by a preponderance of the evidence means to “prove that it is more probably true than not.” If it is a criminal case the judge will tell the jury the prosecution must have proved its case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” He will then explain that “reasonable doubt means a doubt based upon reason and common sense which arises from a fair and rational consideration of all of the evidence, or the lack of evidence, in the case. It is a doubt which is not a vague, speculative or imaginary doubt, but such a doubt as would cause reasonable people to hesitate to act in matters of importance to themselves.”

Certainly the existence of God has not been proven in the apodictic sense of the word, but it has been proven in every fair sense of the word “proven.” Wikipedia has a pretty good summary of the proofs of the existence of God (the cosmological proof, the ontological proof, the teleological proof, the moral proof, etc.) here.

Consider just one of these many proofs, the cosmological proof. We know that every finite thing has a cause. No finite thing can cause itself. The chain of cause and effect cannot be infinitely long. Therefore, an uncaused first cause must exist, and that uncaused first cause is God.

Is the cosmological proof an example of blind leap in the dark faith? Look at each step in the chain of reasoning.

1. Every effect has a cause. Who could argue with that?
2. No effect causes itself. This seems inarguable as a logical matter.
3. The chain of cause and effect is not infinite. This seems consistent with what we know about the universe; big bang theory especially supports this conclusion.
4. Therefore, there must have been an uncaused first cause. The conclusion follows inexorably from perfectly reasonable premises.

Remember, the cosmological proof is only one of many reasonable proofs of the existence of God. I encourage you to examine it and the others in more detail. If you do, I believe you will find that God’s existence has been proved. By this I mean that the existence of God has been proved beyond any “doubt based upon reason and common sense which arises from a fair and rational consideration of all of the evidence,” i.e., beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly the evidence preponderates toward the existence of God.

This is not to say that there is no room for some doubt. When I go to trial my opponent puts on his evidence to counter mine. Similarly, many people believe that such things as the existence of evil or the suffering of innocents counts as evidence against the existence of God. It is beyond the scope of this post to answer these objections, but they have been answered.

More to the point of this post, the fact that many people believe there is evidence that points away from the existence of God does not undermine my original conclusion. Authentic Christian faith is not a leap in the dark. It is a rational faith based upon a reasoned consideration of the evidence.

Materialists often make the mistake of engaging in what I call “selective evidentialism.” Selective evidentialism is the practice of saying “unless I can touch it, see it, taste it, hear it or smell it, it must be the product of faith (the evidentialism part), but if it suits me I will accept its existence on faith (the selective part). Consider dark matter. The standard cosmological model rests on the assumption that 90% of the matter in the universe is “dark matter.” Yet no scientist has ever directly observed a single iota of the stuff. The existence of dark matter is rather inferred from certain gravitational effects on visible matter.

Isn’t this astounding! Scientists have so much faith (I use that word advisedly) in their observations, calculations and assumptions that they say that, for now at least, the existence of 90% of the matter in the universe must be accepted as a matter of faith based upon inferences. This is a reasoned faith, probably even a reasonable faith, but it is faith nevertheless. Moreover, there are competing explanations for the data that do not require dark matter. If these explanations turn out to be true, dark matter, like the ether of nineteenth century cosmology, will vanish in an instant.

What is so different about the materialist’s faith in the existence of dark matter and the Christian’s faith in the existence of God? Both beliefs are based upon a reasoned analysis of the evidence. Both beliefs are extensions from the known to the unknown. Both may be true or false.

The Materialists’ Faith Commitments Are More of a Leap in the Dark than the Theists’

In one of his debates with William Provine, Phil Johnson said, “I would love to be a Darwinist. I just can’t manage the faith commitments.”

Consider two instances of the materialist faith dilemma. First, how does the materialist answer the question: “Why is there something instead of nothing?” For the theist this is an easy question. God, the uncaused first cause, created all things that exist. But the materialist finds himself between the Scylla of an eternal universe and the Charybdis of a self-created universe. The eternal universe flies in the face of all we now know about the cosmos. There is practically universal agreement among cosmologists that the universe had a beginning. The self-created universe is a logical absurdity.

Secondly, consider biological origins. By definition the materialist must believe that particles of matter, starting as the detritus of the nuclear furnaces at the center of long burned out stars, organized themselves with absolutely no plan or guidance into first elements and then planets and then organic compounds and then into animals and plants and humans and computers and space stations. The phrase “mud to mind” does not even begin to encompass the absurdity of the proposition.

I call materialists’ belief in these two propositions “materialist fideism.” It really is amusing to listen to materialists blast leap-in-the-dark faith, when their faith commitments dwarf those of even the most fundamentalist believer.

Comments
-----Atticus Finch: “A prime mover stands outside nature, and therefore is a fundamentally different sort of cause than what science addresses.” That is very true, and there is a good reason for it. It hearkens back to the problem of infinite regress. Sooner or later, the uncaused cause is inevitable. A chain of movement cannot go on forever. Only a necessary, uncreated, self existent being can be at the end of that chain. To cause something from outside of time and to cause time itself, is indeed different from causing something in time. -----“Note that people “created in the image of God” are essentially secondary movers. In the context of ID, they are intelligent agents creating information out of nothing. The problem here, scientifically, is that no one has explained how to observe the cause, intelligence, and not just the effects.” This is a very good observation. We don’t know what makes intelligence tick. On the other hand, we know it exists and we can detect its effects. -----“My personal belief that science should treat “intelligence” as an abstraction, and not a physical entity, predates my first encounter with ID by several decades. The question is not what is real, but what advances scientific explanation of empirical observations. This is not materialism, but pragmatism.” I submit that it matters a great deal what is real. Why reduce intelligence to an abstraction when it really does do something. As you pointed out earlier, “intelligent agents create information out of nothing.” -----“Yet the reality of Creation is for me a higher truth than any of the instrumental truths that come from science. No shift in scientific explanation can shake me personally.” Again, I celebrate another of your very good points. That we can detect the presence of a creator through the use of unaided reason surpasses in importance anything science can offer us. St. Paul points out that God’s handiwork has been made manifest and points to the creator. Science can confirm that, but it can never top it. On the other hand, we cannot detect the Truth of Christianity or Jesus Christ through the use of unaided reason. If science could prove that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, it would be a blow to Christianity but not theism. We demonstrate the truth of Christianity through history, fulfilled prophecy, and eyewitness testimony. We demonstrate the existence of God through philosophy and logic. They are separate but related arguments. -----“A key aspect of my opposition to ID is that it seems an attempt to return us to the days when scientists mistook instrumental truths for The Truth. (Again, see William James’ Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Instrumental Truth.)It is ironic that ID proponents jump to the conclusion that I’m a materialist, when my concern is actually that they haplessly make too much of observations of material.” You are quite right to object to those who would mistake instrumental truths for the truth. ID’s claims are quite modest. It simply points to the “effects” of intelligent agency. It doesn’t presume to lower ultimate truth to its own level. Pragmatism, on the other hand, really does cheapen truth by defining it not as that which “is” but as that which “works,” which is, of course, your point. ID doesn’t do that. It merely insists that one can infer intelligence from observing data. One can detect design in an ancient hunters’ spear. There is nothing remarkable or presumptuous about detecting patterns in nature. The hard part is establishing and defining the scientific constructs.StephenB
July 20, 2008
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BarryA: "God has revealed Himself to every person through His creation. Theologians call this the “general revelation.” The general revelation alone is sufficient to compel a belief in God." I must emphasize that there is much more to personal experience than empirical observations. The notion that communal science is discovery of the general revelation does not wash with me. Science misses the most revealing aspects of experience. Jesus taught that each person is a child of God; that if one seeks, one will find; and that the kingdom of God is within each of us. The distinction of revelation and discovery is merely linguistic, and (to apparently contradict myself, because I rely on language here) what we find is revealed in our selves. One's knowledge of, and relation to, God is ultimately individual. BarryA: "I believe the God the practitioners of these other religions believe in is the God revealed in the Bible, the “specific revelation” of the Christian faith." In context, "Christian faith" apparently means "Christian religion." I must say that there are many putative "specific revelations," and that which of them a person encounters first is almost always an accident of birth. I can conclude only that as children of God, we must use what comes to us by way of general revelation / discovery to assess what is presented to us as "specific revelation." If you want, for instance, Muslims to convert to Christianity, you must admit that this is so. But then you must admit that people raised Christian should assess the "specific revelations" of various religions.Atticus Finch
July 20, 2008
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StephenB: "Even if we abandon the idea of order altogether (not a good idea) we can still know that a prime mover is needed to set things in motion. Things don’t cause themselves. Things don’t cause themselves." Order and causation are ASSUMPTIONS of science. People who believe that science is the way to truth have essentially adopted them as articles of faith. The successes of science justify its assumptions no more than the successes in life of traditionally religious people justify their faith. It is important to avoid equivocal use of "causation." For a scientist, causation is a relation on empirical phenomena -- stuff he or she can observe, at least in principle, with the (perhaps aided) senses. A prime mover stands outside nature, and therefore is a fundamentally different sort of cause than what science addresses. Note that people "created in the image of God" are essentially secondary movers. In the context of ID, they are intelligent agents creating information out of nothing. The problem here, scientifically, is that no one has explained how to observe the cause, intelligence, and not just the effects. My personal belief that science should treat "intelligence" as an abstraction, and not a physical entity, predates my first encounter with ID by several decades. The question is not what is real, but what advances scientific explanation of empirical observations. This is not materialism, but pragmatism. By the way, I use the term "Creation" to refer to the very fact that existence manifests itself against nothingness. This is my choice, not something I can justify rationally. Yet the reality of Creation is for me a higher truth than any of the instrumental truths that come from science. No shift in scientific explanation can shake me personally. A key aspect of my opposition to ID is that it seems an attempt to return us to the days when scientists mistook instrumental truths for The Truth. (Again, see William James' Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Instrumental Truth.)It is ironic that ID proponents jump to the conclusion that I'm a materialist, when my concern is actually that they haplessly make too much of observations of material.Atticus Finch
July 20, 2008
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There is a sentence in (104) that was butchered and should reasd In what other field of science could one say, "I am struck by how provisional and tentative they [theories of some kind, in this case abiogenesis] seem.Paul Giem
July 20, 2008
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Tom MH, (81) Thank you for your reply. And thank you for the background information, including that you are not a scientist, let alone a biologist. It helps me to understand better where you are coming from. It appears rather that you get your information largely from websites. That explains why the arguments you advanced sounded so familiar to me. They are standard spin. And they are, quite frankly, ludicrous to one who is familiar with the biochemistry involved. But not being able to form independent judgments, you might easily not have noticed. So I'll try to spell it out for you. The first spin it the attempt to change "in all probability no" into "we don't know yet." You say, [BLOCKQUOTE--Take that, blockquote monster] Neither yes nor no, but “don’t know”. Certainly HUMAN intelligence has so far failed to accomplish abiogenesis. If and when we do, that success would presumably hold important clues for how it might (or might not) occur in nature. [/BLOCKQUOTE] Again, you say, [BLOCKQUOTE] No theory, nothing to prove or falsify. We’re still stuck at “don’t know”. [/BLOCKQUOTE] Then, finally, you ask, [BLOCKQUOTE] What is wrong with “we don’t know”? Or the more hopeful “we don’t know yet”? [/BLOCKQUOTE] This kind of reasoning, if carried on consistently, would destroy science. What it does is take the principle of doubt, turn it inflexible, and apply it with no sense of nuance whatsoever. It is true that philosophy cannot determine the structure of the universe. Socrates and his friends, as recorded by Plato, tried and came up with four elements, and in medicine, this worked out to four humors. We all know how well *that* worked out. It is also true that induction is not absolute, and that we can misunderstand the nature of natural law. Even falsification is not absolute, as the later Popper, and more modern philosophy of science, recognized. The principle of doubt thus has a theoretical basis. But that is not the same thing as saying that all theories have the same base of evidence behind them, and thus can be considered equally probable. The oxygen theory of combustion has vastly more evidence compatible with it than the phlogiston theory. It's still theoretically possible for the phlogiston theory to be correct, but it is fair to say that believing the phlogiston theory requires faith in the teeth of the evidence. Let me ask you, what would be your reaction if a young earth creationist were to say, without giving any evidence whatsoever, "The only way to show that a scientific theory is valid (or not) is to form the theory, make predictions contingent on the theory, and conduct experiments to confirm or deny the predictions. No such tests of short-age theory of radiometric dating have been performed because AFAIK no such theory exists!" Suppose he went on to say, "What is wrong with 'we don’t know'? Or the more hopeful 'we don’t know yet'?" Would he really convince you that you should be effectively agnostic on the question? Wouldn't you say that there should be at least some evidence before the theory is taken seriously? And yet, with only the change in subject from "short-age theory of radiometric dating" to "natural abiogenesis", that is exactly the way you have argued. To be fair, the argument has been used before, and it is understandable that you tend to trust scientific websites. But rather than just repeat it, look at the argument critically. I think you'll agree that it falls apart. It's important to realize that it doesn't fall apart just because of faulty philosophical premises. It could be true, and in 1800 it was true, that we didn't know much about the subject. But it isn't any more. That's why I made the list of obstacles in the way of abiogenesis. The argument against abiogenesis is not a philosophical one; it is a scientific one. You have to understand, at least somewhat, the science before you can appreciate its force. Another example of spin is the claim that there is no theory to test. You refer to "RNA World" and "Lipid World" (and you might have referred to "Protein World"). Those are theories. When you say, [BLOCKQUOTE] "No such tests of natural abiogenesis have been performed because AFAIK no such theory exists! " [/BLOCKQUOTE] and again, [BLOCKQUOTE] Nor do I see “belief against all evidence”. Lacking a coherent theory of natural abiogenesis, there is precious little to believe IN, or pose evidences against. [/BLOCKQUOTE] this is simply incorrect. The theories exist. They just aren't supported by the evidence. To take just one example from the RNA World theory (mentioned in my previous post 63), RNA is supposed to polymerize with greater and greater complexity and function as time goes on according to the theory. Yet when RNA and the raw materials for RNA were put into a solution with RNA polymerase, the RNA sequences consistently shortened to the smallest fragments that would be reliably duplicated by the enzyme. That is, instead of evolution, we have devolution. This is actually understandable as survival of the fittest (who says the fittest has to be the biggest? If the only relevant function is reproduction, then smaller reproduces faster). But it doesn't help the RNA to develop new functions, which it will need if it is to be a steppingstone to life. This idea that there is no theory to test is pure, unadulterated spin, meant to insulate OOL theories from reality. I'm sorry you got sucked in. You make an observation but miss its significance. [BLOCKQUOTE} Certainly HUMAN intelligence has so far failed to accomplish abiogenesis. If and when we do, that success would presumably hold important clues for how it might (or might not) occur in nature. [/BLOCKQUOTE} Try substituting "natural production of a quantum computer" for "abiogenesis". Would you really suspend all judgment if you found a quantum computer as to whether it was designed by someone with intelligence, if you found one somewhere, simply because we haven't been able to produce one yet? If We find a functional airplane on a previously unexplored planet, we could be reasonably certain that an intelligence had created it. Wouldn't the case be more, rather than less, certain if we found a quantum computer? The argument that since humans have not created life, nature is more likely to have done so on its own, is a complete non-sequitur. You say regarding the spontaneous generation of life being at least difficult and rare, [BLOCKQUOTE} It certainly is now, but the pre-biotic world was necessarily different then the world we live in today. The ubiquity of bacteria alone is probably enough to doom any natural abiogenesis today, by turning the requisite pre-biotic materials into dinner. [BLOCKQUOTE} The websites you visited do not give you the information that you need to make the appropriate judgments, and have thus kept you ignorant. But it has been calculated how thick the "primordial soup" was, and it turns out to be something like 10^-7 molar, more dilute than modern seawater. That is because the same processes that make amino acids, adenine, and so forth, also destroy them. Ultraviolet light in particular breaks down the prebiotic compounds. It isn't just bacteria that destroy those compounds. The fact that the websites you have visited have not mentioned this reveals their bias and/or ignorance. Since you are not really familiar with the evidence, and what familiarity you have is apparently gleaned from one-sided sources, it is perhaps understandable that you say, [BLOCKQUOTE} "Perhaps the only faith I can see involved is the postulate of the rational universe: that natural events are governed by discoverable rules of regularity. But as I said in an earlier post (in paragraphs presumably not eaten by the blockquote monster), the entire scientific enterprise hangs off that postulate. It’s worked pretty good – why stop now? [/BLOCKQUOTE} Would one of those rules of regularity be that life only comes from life? If so, does that not turn your reasoning on its head? The logic behind this statement is baffling on first reading: [BLOCKQUOTE} Lists of ways that abiogenesis could not happen do not reduce the likelihood that it DID or COULD happen. [/BLOCKQUOTE} In what other area of science does the elimination of the most promising ways for something to happen make no difference in the probability of something happening? Since we are talking about historical science, let me offer a parallel from forensics. Suppose we gain access to a house to find a body in the living room, missing its head, and when we proceed to the basement, we find the head in a freezer. DNA matches the two, and the person is known not to have a twin, by historical records and his parents' memory. It seems pretty evident that this is homicide. Further examination of the body establishes that the heart was beating when the head was severed. Let's suppose further that the house was inspected just before the deceased went in last night and that nobody was in the house, and the deceased was told not to let anyone in, and that he seemed frightened enough not to do so. Now if the door shows no evidence of forced entry, and the windows are all locked from the inside and not broken, and inspection of the walls shows now holes, and the basement walls and floor show no evidence of tunneling, ordinarily this would count as evidence against forced entry. But here is where it gets sticky. If one is sure that nobody but the deceased had a key, then all of these circumstances do not rule out forced entry, or even make it less likely. Someone had to get in somehow, and all we have done is rule out certain ways of getting in. Maybe there was some passage forced from under the eaves into the attic or something. But if we know that the deceased had a brother who had a key, suspicion has to increasingly fall on the brother. Of course, the brother's lawyer will insist that our inspection hasn't made forced entry any less likely. But this is true only for the lawyer, who "knows" that his client is not guilty and that somehow someone else must have forced entry into the house. Something analogous is happening here. The websites you have read "know" that supernatural intervention does not happen, and therefore abiogenesis must have happened spontaneously, and therefore since its probability is 1 be definition, closing of possible avenues for abiogenesis to have happened just means that we have not discovered the correct one yet. But for one who entertains the possibility that God created life, in whatever way He did, closing off those avenues increases the chances that in fact God did it. This person can easily see that an atheist perspective is being allowed to dictate the interpretation of the data for those who insist that failed theories of the origin of life do not make (unguided) abiogenesis any less likely. One can do that. But let's call it what it is. It is philosophy trumping scientific evidence. In fact, the stance you have outlined strains logic when you think about it. In what other field of science could one say, "I am struck by how provisional and tentative they [theories of seem. Perhaps a good start, but not yet a real theory." and claim that we are in a state of relative equipoise (as in "No theory, nothing to prove or falsify. We’re still stuck at 'don’t know'.")? You were uncomfortable with what you called my using "singularity" to describe abiogenesis. I am not stating that as a premise , but suggesting that as a possible conclusion. The term "singularity" seems to fit IMO because (1) it happens only once, thus making it a singular event, and (2) at that point one of the apparent laws of nature breaks down, namely, that life only comes from life. I don't have a big problem not using the word if it makes you uncomfortable, but the concepts that support that use would still be valid even if we no longer called the event a singularity. Now if you can demonstrate the spontaneous generation of life, or show that there is a reasonable theoretical pathway from non-life to life, then the conditions that caused me to suggest that the origin of life is a singularity would vanish, and it would no longer be appropriate for me to use the term. But to quote Sir Charles, "I can find out no such case." Finally, you seem to have misunderstood a part of what I said. and countered it with an irrelevancy. The original context of what I said was describing an option for explaining the origin of life: [BLOCKQUOTE] There are laws of which we are totally ignorant that can produce life from non-living material, without the intervention of intelligence. [/BLOCKQUOTE] This is obviously an option that leaves God out of the picture, at least for the origin of life, except for the possibility that He set up the laws. After criticizing this option for being belief against the experimental and theoretical evidence, I said (and you quoted): [BLOCKQUOTE] And it is even worse; there is no appeal to a God Who could reasonably do the feat that needs explaining. It is a miracle without God. [/BLOCKQUOTE] You then wrote two paragraphs. Taking the second one first. [BLOCKQUOTE] And if you believe that nature – the universe, this world – and the laws that govern it are God’s miracles, then how could abiogenesis be a miracle without God? [/BLOCKQUOTE] The way this is stated, if I believe that nature and the laws that govern it are God's miracles, then how could abioegnesis be a miracle without God? My answer would be that I don't think that abiogenesis happened, or at least that if you define abiogenesis as previously non-living matter becoming alive, that God did it. and that therefore for me it is a miracle with God. But perhaps when you used the word "you", you really meant it is the generic, and it is analogous to "someone'. So what you really meant was "If someone believes that nature and nature's laws were God's miracles, that person could not properly say that abiogenesis was a miracle without God." In that case I would agree, at least in a technical sense. There would be a God, in that case. If life resulted at some point as the result of nature and nature's laws, it would no longer be a miracle, although if nature and nature's laws had to be arranged in a very special way in order to make this happen, and it was not reproducible by us at will, then it would still qualify as a miracle, and if we insisted that God could not influence the event, in a sense it would be without God. The other paragraph was, [BLOCKQUOTE] We didn’t understand the motion of the planets for a very long time. Fifteen centuries stand between Ptolemy and Newton. At what point during that time would it have been reasonable to declare the problem hopeless for natural law and hand it to a God Who could reasonably do the feat that needs explaining? [/BLOCKQUOTE] Presumably the argument was meant to compare Ptolemy to believers in God's intervention and Newton to believers in abiogenesis (without God). There are two problems with this assumed parallel and therefore with the argument. First, there is no evidence that Ptolemy believed that God moved the spheres that carried the sun, moon, and planets along, and that in contrast Newton had impersonal laws. Newton did believe in laws, but had no mechanism for gravity, and he certainly believed in God. On the other hand, correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that Ptolemy explicitly said what propelled the moving spheres that he envisioned. Ptolemy's planetary system is every bit as mechanistic as Newton's, and perhaps more so. Second, in contrast to the case you cite, where Ptolemy's theory was supplanted by Newton's, in science, belief in widespread abiogenesis has been supplanted by a belief that abiogenesis is impossible, except for some areligious believers and their religious imitators who are trying desperately for carve-out so as to keep God's activity out of the universe, at least after it started. There is the insistence that history is going their way, when it is actually going in the opposite direction. That is a faith-based rewriting of history, and at present qualifies as a distortion. I would still make the point: All the experimental evidence we have points to life only arising from other life. All the theoretical models for how abiogenesis could have happened are presently foundering on the evidence. One can believe in abiogenesis anyway, But that is a faith-based position, against the weight of the evidence. That evidence points to an intelligent designer, and if we discount space aliens as you suggest, it points to a supernatural designer (or Designer).Paul Giem
July 20, 2008
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It is interesting that so many responded to Barry A’s frank comments with raised eyebrows. Political correctness has become so imbedded in our culture, that even in a forum such as this, polite company mandates that no one should even hint at the prospect that one religion could possibly offer more than another. It is a very strange thing when you think about it. What could be more important than the choice of one’s defining world view? Such a commitment would seem to merit thoughtfulness at the highest level. But that is not the way we think about things. Indeed, the very idea that someone could choose his religion based on rational criteria offends our egalitarian impulses. In like fashion, the notion that someone could fall into despair over the loss of his religion evokes the same kinds of response. It implies that all religions may not be equal or even equally rational, meaning, of course, that an alternative would view would not suffice for the one that was lost. Our cultural zeitgeist demands that we use irrational criteria to make such choices. It’s perfectly fine, for example, to accept without question the faith of your parents, or to join a religious community for economic reasons, or to convert in order to marry. As long as we do it that way, no one seems to mind. I often ask folks to explain why they converted from one faith to another, and, more often that not the answer is, “It just seemed right for me.” At other times, I have heard people say, “because the group made me feel so welcome.” For others, it is simply a matter of proximity. Someone once asked Mahatma Ghandi, for example, to explain why he was a Hindu, to which he answered, “Because I was born in India, of course.” Given that expectation, it is only natural, I suppose, that several people were taken aback by Barry A’s answer. As novel as it sounds, he seems to accept his religion for the most politically incorrect reason imaginable. He thinks it’s true. What a novel idea. No wonder everyone feels so put out.StephenB
July 19, 2008
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I thank BarryA (@99) for his answer. If I understand him correctly now, he is saying that even non-Christians do not need to “despair” about the existence of God, because there is sufficient evidence for his existence even without the Bible. And if believing in God means that one does not accept materialism, then one does not need the Bible in order to reject materialism. If I understand another part of his answer, he is also saying that he also believes, for independent reasons, that the God accessible to Christians and non-Christians alike (through the observation of nature) is the Biblical God, and that he believes this in no small part because of the resurrection of Jesus. If it could be shown that Jesus’s body is still cold in the grave, then this identification (of the Christian God with the God revealed in nature) would no longer be possible, and Christians would “despair” over the hopes they had placed in Jesus specifically. Yet, I think Barry is conceding, they would not be forced to give up God, so their despair would be a relative despair, so to speak, rather than an absolute despair. Finally, he appears to be saying that the possibility of separating the Christian God from the God known through reason and nature, while a theoretical possibility, is not an existential possibility for him personally. For him, the two are inextricably intertwined. In light of this, Barry’s comment, which sounded extreme in its original compressed form, does not seem to be asserting anything out of the ordinary. In its original form, however, it sounded as if the discovery of the body of Jesus would necessarily turn Barry into an atheist and materialist, and hence, presumably, into someone opposed to intelligent design. I think that the other posters were right to note that such an extreme reaction would not be logically required, and it sounds as if Barry agrees with them.Thomas Cudworth
July 19, 2008
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Thank you, Barry, for that very beautiful confession. I know the rules of the game here, but still it is sweet to see that, unlike me, some of us are not afraid to be "fools for Christ"; to be "known and yet unknown." Your courage lends courage to others.allanius
July 19, 2008
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-----Atticus Finch: "Actually, all we can do is attempt to explain what we perceive. And we know we don’t perceive all that is or has been. Random configurations have orderly regions. That is, the complete absence of order is unlikely to arise randomly.? Even if we abandon the idea of order altogether (not a good idea) we can still know that a prime mover is needed to set things in motion. Things don’t cause themselves. -----“No one can rule out multiverses. The number of them does not have to be infinite for the probability that one of the “universes” is orderly to be high. Please do not jump to the conclusion that I am pinning hopes on large numbers. My point is purely that we don’t know.” To resort to multiverse theory is to give up on rationality altogether. No one could ever hope to analyze such an entity. If we don’t live in one universe, and unless it is a rational place, science, reason, and all rational discourse are lost forever. -----“You seem to accept standard “Big Bang” cosmology, which cosmologists acknowledge has some Big Problems. The fact is that a space probe is collecting data that should permit testing of the standard model and two models of a cyclic universe (i.e., a universe going through a succession of bangs and crunches) against one another. You and I don’t need to speculate on the results.” Big bang cosmology is so compelling that the atheist scientists who didn’t want it to be true were dragged in kicking and screaming. -----“The universe is cyclic in Hindu cosmology. If a cyclic scientific model were to replace the Big Bang model, would you treat it as evidence that the religious beliefs of Hindus are true and those of Jews, Christians, and Muslims are false?” If the cyclical model accurately reflected the evidence, and that evidence indicated that the universe had no beginning, then yes, I would say such a finding should encourage Hindus and discourage Jews, Christians, and Muslims. It would challenge all of the ideas that make Christianity plausible, such as “design,” “fine tuning,” “dark matter,” and of course, “ExNihilo creation”. Of course, it is also the case that the big bang theory, the current model, challenges Hinduism right now. Still, science is one way but not the only way to test the reasonableness of a religion. -----“Should scientific modeling be constrained by belief on faith that only some things can be true? It seems to me that scientific modeling ought to be motivated by a search for truth and nothing else. That means that everything should be on the table. One of the principles of right reason is that true faith and true science cannot contradict each other, since there is only one truth. So, there is no reason to be inhibited about constructing new models. -----“Should faith be shaken if scientific models depart from what one believes is true?” Probably not. Science is always provisional and new information is always coming in. On the other hand, if one acquires numerous facts in a variety of contexts that render one’s belief system implausible, then the believer should take pause. Offering an assent of the intellect to a revealed truth is a major commitment, and it should be done only if the religion in question passes the test of reason. Testing that religion would include investigating the claims and the character of its founder, studying its history; judging its tenets according to the principles of right reason; observing the morality of its adherents; examining its record for producing a well-ordered society; and comparing each aspect against those of the other religions, including the religions of atheism and agnosticism. Not surprisingly, those last two belief systems are the first to fail the test. In any case, there is no such thing as a person without a religion, even if that religion is no more than a worship of self, which, by the way, is the flip side of atheism. Everyone submits. The only two relevant queestions are these: [A] To what does one submit, meaning, what is the object of worship? [B] Does that thing or person deserve assent of the intellect and submission of the will?StephenB
July 19, 2008
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In [96] Thomas Cudworth notes my recent absense and askes if I’m going to respond to certain comments I made in the discussion thread. Yes, I have been gone. I have a day job and have been putting in some long hours over the last few days. To your question, let me set the stage: pubdef asked in [4]: “Is the Christian’s faith in the existence of God similarly subject to revision based on new data?” I responded in [7]: “Yes. An excellent read on this topic is “The Skeleton in God’s Closet” by Paul Maier, which explores this question: “What would happen to Christianity if we suddenly received irrefutable proof that Jesus’ body had been found?” Paul (the apostle, not Maier) writes that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is in vain. If Jesus body were found, I would succumb to despair, because at that point I would know that materialists’ assertion that our existence is pointless would be true.” To which William J. Murray responded in [8]: “No, you would only know that your faith wasn’t true. You wouldn’t know that materialists are right. There are other spiritual and religious faiths in the world.” And avocationist commented in [43]: “With all due respect, I find this comment almost bizarre. Are there not many monotheists in the world who are not Christian? Does the Moslem or Hindu or American Indian who spoke so often of “The Creator” have no reason to believe in God?” And Timaeus chimed in in [44]: “If Jesus was not raised, then historical, orthodox Christianity would be false. But then Christians would still be free to embrace Judaism, which worships the same God that Jesus worshipped, and which possesses the same creation doctrine that Jesus endorsed. Isn’t it “over the top” to suggest that for believing Jews “existence is pointless”?” Yes, the practitioners of these other religions have reason to believe in God for the simple reason that the God of the Bible – not just any God – exists. God has revealed Himself to every person through His creation. Theologians call this the “general revelation.” The general revelation alone is sufficient to compel a belief in God. Therefore, it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of the people in the world believe in God. I believe the God the practitioners of these other religions believe in is the God revealed in the Bible, the “specific revelation” of the Christian faith. Because I believe the Bible, I have placed all of my hope in Christ and Christ alone, and if I were presented with irrefutable proof the resurrection did not occur, my faith would be crushed and I would despair. After reflecting on the matter, I would despair not because the materialists are right, but because I would know my faith has been in vain. It is a little difficult to discuss this issue, because it is like discussing the question “what would you do if you found out green is really red?” Well, green isn’t red and it is impossible for it to be red. Similarly, Christ has risen, and it is impossible for me to believe he has not.BarryA
July 19, 2008
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Actually, I'm not laboring under the delusion that it makes any difference what I have to say about suffering and whether the poor or sick can experience the reality of God through the claim that "all things work together for good to those who love God." Please understand that from my point of view, the "I" spoils anything that I might say. But since you asked, it is interesting to note that Christianity, alone among world religions, declares its mission to be to "preach the good news to the poor." Christ did not value the things the world values. He did not equate wealth or power with happiness—the “kingdom of heaven.” In fact he said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. From the Biblical point of view, it is entirely possible for the poor and sick to experience a kind of blessing that cannot be found in our rich, neurotic society—because they know that they are poor. They know that they need God. They are in a position to obtain the psychological blessing that comes from clinging to God and God alone; clinging to his power instead of to “the world.” In that sense, Paul’s statement can be said to have more meaning for the poor than it does for those of us who are rich in things. The poor man is in a position to see the hand of God more clearly in his life because there is nothing standing in his way—no pride, no vanity. This is why Christ counseled the rich young man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor if he wanted to inherit life. From the Biblical point of view, the rich are poor because they have nothing to hope for, while the poor are rich because they live on hope. The Bible has a rather dark view of “the world” and those who obtain power and prominence in it. The most soulful song in the Bible is soulful specifically because it says that “he has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent empty away.” Finally, the Bible is very decidedly on the side of the poor. The law demands justice for the poor. It prohibits a farmer from going over his field twice; he must leave the gleanings for the poor. It also requires periodic forgiveness of debt. Isaiah 58 reveals the nature of the law when it declares that true fasting is to give bread to the hungry and shelter to the poor. And Christ says that “the sheep” will be known because they are the ones who gave meat to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, and visited the sick. Perhaps it is when we do these things that the poor and sick can experience the reality of God and the truth of the statement that “all things work together for good to those who love God.”allanius
July 19, 2008
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Atticus
You can’t talk about units of information until you define “information.” Perhaps you meant to ask what type of information. Recall that I was focused on information as a physical entity, not an abstraction.
Then it should be even easier to answer my question! We know what, for example, the units of mass are, energy etc. These are also "physical entitys". In the context you are using, where information is a physical entity, what units are you measuring it in?M.Baldwin
July 19, 2008
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It's good to see BarryA back, after an apparent absence of a few days, and in fine, witty form as well. Now that he's back, I for one would be interested to hear him further explain the remark he made in comment #7, in light of the objections and questions raised about it in #s 8, 9, 43, and 44.Thomas Cudworth
July 18, 2008
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M. Baldwin, the admirable parsimony of your post 74 has not gone unnoticed or, now, unremarked.BarryA
July 18, 2008
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M.Baldwin asked, "What units is “information” measured in here?" You can't talk about units of information until you define "information." Perhaps you meant to ask what type of information. Recall that I was focused on information as a physical entity, not an abstraction.Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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"That chain of movers cannot go on to infinity." But an entity that can create the least something out of nothing can also create anything whatsoever out of nothing, including something that has always been. The notion that creation must happen in time, rather than that time is created, is sheer human bias.Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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StephenB: "The point is, it [order] can’t come into existence on its own. The big bang was it’s origin, whatever it is or whatever you want to call it." Actually, all we can do is attempt to explain what we perceive. And we know we don't perceive all that is or has been. Random configurations have orderly regions. That is, the complete absence of order is unlikely to arise randomly. No one can rule out multiverses. The number of them does not have to be infinite for the probability that one of the "universes" is orderly to be high. Please do not jump to the conclusion that I am pinning hopes on large numbers. My point is purely that we don't know. You seem to accept standard "Big Bang" cosmology, which cosmologists acknowledge has some Big Problems. The fact is that a space probe is collecting data that should permit testing of the standard model and two models of a cyclic universe (i.e., a universe going through a succession of bangs and crunches) against one another. You and I don't need to speculate on the results. The universe is cyclic in Hindu cosmology. If a cyclic scientific model were to replace the Big Bang model, would you treat it as evidence that the religious beliefs of Hindus are true and those of Jews, Christians, and Muslims are false? Would you say that scientists must have gotten things wrong? In fact, the Steinhardt-Turok cyclic model preserves the correct predictions of the Big Bang model, but would fix the Big Bang model's problem with the cosmological constant. If accepted, it can only improve on the present standard model. Should scientific modeling be constrained by belief on faith that only some things can be true? Should faith be shaken if scientific models depart from what one believes is true?Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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Tom MH says, "Theories have no reality, they are only mental constructs for what reality might be and how it might behave." What you're driving at is of the essence in the ID debate. But theories are abstract, not "mental." The error of assigning physical reality to an abstraction is called hypostatization or reification. Many scientists steer clear of reification in technical writing, but reveal in their informal comments that they in fact think of abstractions appearing in models as physical reality. Psychologists who study "intelligence" are fairly good at owning up to it as an abstraction. They understand that the only way to observe intelligence scientifically is to define it operationally. They don't believe that an animal they say exhibits "intelligence" by one or more of their definitions actually has physical intelligence "inside" it. The situation is not so clear in quantum mechanics, where some scientists proclaim that "information is physical" while others regard it as an abstraction. In my opinion, "information is physical" is simply reification. See Quantum Information Theory and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, by Chris Timpson, a philosopher at Oxford University. Whether ID is or can be science depends critically on the claim that intelligence is a physical, but non-material, source of physical, but non-material, information. To be honest, the jury is out on the matter of "information is physical." To be brutally honest, I have seen no one in the ID camp attempt to define "intelligence" rigorously, let alone argue for its physical reality. It seems we all "just know" from experience that intelligence creates information. Evidently we are also supposed to "just know" that "intelligence is physical" because "information is physical." This is, of course, a false inference.Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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StephenB, I understand, all causes need a causer apart from the ones that don't. That works out well for one particular position, I'll give you that!M.Baldwin
July 18, 2008
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I. Everything that moves has to be moved by another thing. And--- That chain of movers cannot go on to infinity. ----- M. Baldwin wrote, “these two points (A and B) “cannot both be true, no matter what words you put in between them. If nothing that is created can exist without a creator then the chain falls apart simply by asking what created the creator of everything.” As it turns out, this is not the case. The end of the chain must result in a “causeless cause,” which is the essence of the argument. Thus, Bertrand Russell’s famous and confused question, “Who made God?” misunderstands the argument. The causeless cause is, by definition, unmade, meaning, self existent. Not only are A and B both true, both things must be true." II. The physical universe cannot be that eternal something, because science confirms its age at 13.7 billion years. -----M. Baldwin: “I know some members of this board, FTK most notably among them, would vehmently disagree with that statement. What makes you think that? -----M. Baldwin: "So maybe the physical universe could after all be eternal part you require, but created with apparent age but from that point on existing for eternity?” If the universe was created, then it is obviously not self existent even if it does go on existing forever.StephenB
July 18, 2008
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Atticus
I prefer to press for precise meanings of “intelligence,” “information,” and “design” as pical entities.
What units is "information" measured in here?M.Baldwin
July 18, 2008
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Last comment ended, "I prefer to press for precise meanings of 'intelligence,' 'information,' and 'design' as PHYSICAL entities.Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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Tom MH: "Violate civil law (as you are free to do) and you are potentially in trouble. Violate a “Law” of nature, and the LAW is in trouble." Well said. "It might be better if we avoid the term 'law' in favor of the more generic term 'theory' (as long we as agree that we are speaking of a scientific theory, and not merely some hypothesis)." I'm all for dropping the term "law," but I don't want to join you in suggesting that categorization of scientific explanations is simple. Even with restriction to scientific usage, the word "theory" has multiple meanings. Note first that "theory" can serve as a mass noun, denoting a collection of theories. The most important example of this is "Darwin's theory of evolution," which, in Ernst Mayr's analysis, comprises five theories, including the "theory of use and disuse" rejected by the scientific community. We all were taught the "hypothesis to theory to law" progression in the context of the scientific method. In actual scientific usage, "laws" are usually components of theories. Einstein's "e = mc^2" is widely regarded a law, but it is not the whole of the special theory of relativity. Many physicists referred to "string theory" long before anyone came up with ways to test it. It seems that some scientists value mathematical consistency of models so highly that testability is an afterthought. By the way, there's a weird and wonderful relationship between "theory" and "model" in actual scientific discourse. The upshot is that there is no simple characterization of scientific usage of "theory." ID has a lot of wiggle room here, and I prefer to press for precise meanings of "intelligence," "information," and "design" as pical entities.Atticus Finch
July 18, 2008
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Baldwin: "Are you saying such unfortunate people have a lack of faith? Or are you saying they have faith in the wrong thing maybe?" This of course is part of the theodicity problem, forever a thorn in the side of traditional religion, prompting endless tortuous, convoluted reasoning on the part of theologians.magnan
July 18, 2008
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StephenB, Both
Everything that moves has to be moved by another thing.
and
The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity
Cannot both be true, no matter what words you put in between them. If nothing that is created can exist without a creator then the chain falls apart simply by asking what created the creator of everything. Therefore the solution is likely to lie outside what mere words can represent.
The physical universe cannot be that eternal something, because science confirms its age at 13.7 billion years.
I know some members of this board, FTK most notably among them, would vehmently disagree with that statement. So maybe the physical universe could after all be eternal part you require, but created with apparent age but from that point on existing for eternity?M.Baldwin
July 18, 2008
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Tom MH: Thanks agains for your patience. -----You wrote, "If you wish to point me to some Aristotle or Aquinas that might change my mind, I am open to that." Let me offer an abbreviated version of a couple of items: I find the argument from motion persuasive. Everything that moves has to be moved by another thing. I take that as a self evident principle similar to the other beginning axioms that reason must begin with. From the observation of motion, it is fairly straightforward. The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity, another key assumption necessary to reason. We must arrive, therefore, at a first mover, as both Aristotle and Aquinas conclude. The argument from contingency seems to hold as well. Something obviously exists now, and something never sprang from nothing. As someone put it, “being itself must have been without a beginning.” Something eternal must be admitted, either by the theist or the materialist. In order for contingency to be possible, something necessary and eternal must exist. The physical universe cannot be that eternal something, because science confirms its age at 13.7 billion years. Obviously, it did not bring itself into being. Since something must be eternal, and since the universe is not eternal, I submit that an eternal created being is the logical conclusion.StephenB
July 18, 2008
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allanius wrote:
"Moreover, believers find confirmation for this statement in experience. They can use it to identify signs of supernatural forces at work in their lives, connecting them with a mate, closing some doors and opening others, delivering them from evil, supplying their needs, etc".
The problem I have with such sentiment, laudable as it is, is what do you say to people who have known nothing but lack of choices, poverty and suffering? Are you saying such unfortunate people have a lack of faith? Or are you saying they have faith in the wrong thing maybe?M.Baldwin
July 18, 2008
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Paul Giem @ 63: I did promise a response. Yes, we can both readily agree that abiogenesis is a historical fact – even if we presently do not know the particulars of when, where, or how – of an event that took place some time between the Big Bang and now. I’m happy to rule out the silliness of aliens, fertile meteors, time-travelers, and robots. Some other comments on your post, not necessarily in order. t even possible without the intervention of some kind of intelligence? We certainly don’t know the answer is yes by any kind of scientific experimentation. In fact, all our experiments to date argue that the answer is no. Neither yes nor no, but “don’t know”. Certainly HUMAN intelligence has so far failed to accomplish abiogenesis. If and when we do, that success would presumably hold important clues for how it might (or might not) occur in nature. The only way to show that a scientific theory is valid (or not) is to form the theory, make predictions contingent on the theory, and conduct experiments to confirm or deny the predictions. No such tests of natural abiogenesis have been performed because AFAIK no such theory exists! I am not a biologist, or even a scientist (just in case anyone might think I was), but I have read things on the web about “RNA World”, and “Lipid World”, and while I don’t have the relevant expertise to evaluate those ideas on their technical merits, I am struck by how provisional and tentative they seem. Perhaps a good start, but not yet a real theory. No theory, nothing to prove or falsify. We’re still stuck at “don’t know”.
Are there
mes at which there is evidence for a singularity? Are there any other times when the laws of physics fail to explain the observed phenomena?
You use of “singularity” to describe abiogenesis is novel to me, but a bit troubling. When applying the (known) laws of physics to the conditions of the early universe, we see they break down at points close to zero – predictive models fail, parameters race away to infinities, that sort of thing. Hence “singularity”. What analogous breakdown of natural laws occur in abiogenesis? t is that it is generally recognized that the spontaneous generation of life is at least difficult and rare.
It certainly is now, but the pre-biotic world was necessarily different then the world we live in today. The ubiquity of bacteria alone is probably enough to doom any natural abiogenesis today, by turning the requisite pre-biotic materials into dinner.
[B]elief in abiogenesis allows us to view the universe as completely (well, except for quantum mechanics and the Big Bang itself), explained by cause-effect relations. But it is heavily faith-based. We have no experimental evidence for this belief, and the theoretical problems appear insoluble. We have here belief against all the evidence, analogous to the most daring leaps of religious faith imaginable, that is to say, faith not only without evidence but in the teeth of evidence.
Perhaps the only faith I can see involved is the postulate of the rational universe: that natural events are governed by discoverable rules of regularity. But as I said in an earlier post (in paragraphs presumably not eaten by the blockquote monster), the entire scientific enterprise hangs off that postulate. It’s worked pretty good – why stop now? Nor do I see “belief against all evidence”. Lacking a coherent theory of natural abiogenesis, there is precious little to believe IN, or pose evidences against. Lists of ways that abiogenesis could not happen do not reduce the likelihood that it DID or COULD happen. As you said in a previous paragraph, “this could be one more area where our information is incomplete”. What is wrong with “we don’t know”? Or the more hopeful “we don’t know yet”? > And it is even worse; there is no appeal to a God Who could reasonably do the feat that needs explaining. It is a miracle without God. We didn’t understand the motion of the planets for a very long time. Fifteen centuries stand between Ptolemy and Newton. At what point during that time would it have been reasonable to declare the problem hopeless for natural law and hand it to a God Who could reasonably do the feat that needs explaining? And if you believe that nature – the universe, this world – and the laws that govern it are God’s miracles, then how could abiogenesis be a miracle without God?Tom MH
July 18, 2008
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From a philsophical perspective, the cosmological argument still holds: we observe movement, we also observe that the movement is regular, we infer order from the regular movement, and we infer a designer from the order.
The first statment is observation, the second and third are the postulation of a Theory, and the fourth looks to me like a leap of faith. Assigning the regularities of nature to a Creator is not required by the scientifc method, which embraces only theory and observation. If you wish to point me to some Aristotle or Aquinas that might change my mind, I am open to that.Tom MH
July 18, 2008
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Actually there is a big difference between the faith on display in modern theoretical science and religious faith. Religious faith is reasonable, while many of our theories of being are not. Faith is not the same thing as reason, but at least the Christian faith is in accord with reason. According to Christianity, God exists, and God is love; hence “all things work together for good to those who love God.” The statement is reasonable based upon the premises. Moreover, believers find confirmation for this statement in experience. They can use it to identify signs of supernatural forces at work in their lives, connecting them with a mate, closing some doors and opening others, delivering them from evil, supplying their needs, etc. Darwinism, on the other hand, is opposed to reason. This becomes increasingly clear as the miracle of life is unfolded through painstaking basic research. We now know what Darwin could not have known: It is contrary to reason to believe that life can come from that which is not life. The Bible is perfectly harmonized as a rational whole; astonishing, considering that it was the work of many hands. Once its first premises are understood, everything else fits in and makes perfect sense. For example, we are told that the “the meek shall inherit the earth.” This picture of reality may seem counterintuitive, but it fits in perfectly well with the notion that man is a fallen creature and that the fall came about through the spirit of emulation. Meanwhile the only way to make Darwinism coherent is to reject meekness. Darwinists attempt to account for civilized values through evolutionary psychology, but meekness cannot be harmonized with natural selection. It becomes an excrescent value. Faith and reason are perfectly harmonized in Christianity. Faith in Darwinism cannot be supported by reason, however, and leads to uncivilized behavior.allanius
July 18, 2008
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