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Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 2/7/2001; 1:10 PM Answering a poster over at nitcentral, I've recently read The Panda Thumbs Its Nose at the Dysteleological Arguments of the Atheist Stephen Jay Gould. I've decided to repost my thoughts here. You all read it, then come back here. I'll wait. First, let me speak a little off-topic: Answers in Genesis is screamingly religious. That's their right, but I will never understand why religious people seek scientific support for their faith. And get so infuriated when it doesn't show up. Is your faith so weak it must co-opt scientific language to bolster it? More importantly, if creationism is a religious belief then it needs to stay out of the classroom. To be precise, there is nothing wrong with people wanting to correct scientific flaws or errors in classroom teachers, if their motives are religious, as long as the corrections are, um, correct. If a historian wanted to teach a horribly distorted version of the history of the Catholic Church, and a group of Catholics took it as an offense to their religious beliefs, and demanded that the history of their church be based on the evidence, then their motives are irrelevant. As long as the final result advocates no religious views, and is based on the evidence, the motives of those promoting the change can be religious or not, it matters not. The problem is when a religious group promotes a specific religious agenda as a science. It's clear that the Answers in Genesis people are promoting the notion of a particular view of God, and want that view promoted in the classroom. Not in my country, folks. Onward to the panda. I wish I had a copy of Gould's work in front of me to compare--there's no way of knowing otherwise if the argument they debunk is the argument Gould makes. A standard BS rhetorical technique is the straw man argument wherein you falsely claim your opponent has some ridiculous point of view, and you demolish that point of view. The point is, why there is a watch on the beach in the first place! Evidence indicates that wind, water, sun, and sand are incapable of explaining the existence of the watch. Whether or not it is well-designed (whatever that is supposed to mean, and according to someones opinion) is quite irrelevant. Clearly then, the poor design of the watch is nothing more than a red herring designed to divert attention from the inability of beach-related processes to account for the existence of the watch on the beach. Nope. If you can say "clearly, using my human intellect, I have deduced that this must have been designed" then I can say "clearly, using my human intellect, this was very poor design". One implies the other. You know a watch was designed using your human intellect to examine the results. Further, the argument that wind and water could not make a watch is a way of saying, by analogy, that supposedly designed features could not evolve. Read The Evolution of Color Vision for an example of how a complex structure can easily have its elements accounted for by evolution by natural selection. See also Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe for a discussion of Behe's more complex version of the "watchmaker" argument. One false premise is sufficient to destroy an argument. The evidence of design and therefore for a designer is incontrovertible, so the evolutionist is without excuse. These two sentences commit the either-or logical fallacy: if you are wrong, that is evidence that I am right. Nope. You must not only show me to be incorrect, you must also provide evidence for your side. We might both be wrong, or both partially correct. Do these points sound familiar to anyone else? They should. They're the same tired arguments creationists always make, and they're always refuted the same way, and creationists insist on using them again and again. Makes Mark tired. Here's the same thing, again (emphasis mine): There are no grounds whatsoever for contending that the pandas thumb is some sort of non-designed contraption. Instead, it has its own precise function, which can only point to God the Creator. That "only" is the logical fallacy. In tracing human history, we would probably find that at least one engineering solution had served as an inspiration for the invention of its homologue. Perhaps, for instance, someone had suggested that the scissors sharp edges be dulled in order for the new scissors (later called tongs) to be able to hold hot food objects instead of cutting them. Perhaps. But your suppositions are not evidence. They are suppositions. There is a complex argument in the middle about using evolution to show evolution, and about Gould not using evolution consistently. I have some thoughts on this, but I want to think about them so I can clearly discuss them. And I really, really wish I had a copy of Gould's book to see what he actually said.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Brian Carnell on 2/7/2001; 12:39 PM The whole idea of trying to find scientific explanations for religious claims is a fascinating one. The biggest problem is that usually you end up demeaning both religion and science. A good example of this is the efforts made by Immanuel Velikovsky to come up with "scientific" explanations for the events described by the ancient Hebrews. On the other hand, a lot of times some scientists like to act as if there is a lot more compatibility between religion and science than there really is. The fundamental problem for most religions in a scientific age is that science postulates -- and seems to be correct so far -- that nature is an orderly system that is understandable by human beings and whose behavior can be explained by principles that are tested empirically. Religions, however, almost always postulate that nature is not orderly and that events occur in nature which are simply unexplainable and unpredictable in principle (because God is typically outside the world). If God starts the whole thing off and then doesn't intervene that's one thing, but the notion that God is regularly intervening in the world is an enormous problem for religion and science since at its heart it means one of them is simply wrong (if God intervenes regularly in the world, physics is nonsense -- at the very least it needs a huge asterisk next to it).
Re: Watches on the Beach By: Sean McMains on 2/7/2001; 11:19 PM > If God starts the whole thing off and then doesn't intervene that's one thing, > but the notion that God is regularly intervening in the world is an enormous > problem for religion and science since at its heart it means one of them is > simply wrong (if God intervenes regularly in the world, physics is nonsense -- > at the very least it needs a huge asterisk next to it). Ah, but doesn't that assume that the only way God would choose to intervene in the world is through a miraculous suspension of natural law? Many people who hold to a belief in God would say that he chooses to work largely through people and their actions, rather than directly. Even if God chooses to intervene directly, the study of how things work when He's not choosing to do so is worthwhile. God might well choose to suspend causality in a specific way to part the Red Sea, but it doesn't mean that the Israelites didn't generally rely on the orderliness of the world they believed Him to have created in their daily lives. In fact, in the Genesis account of creation, it's telling that God brings order from chaos. Put another way, if I'm rolling around a couple of marbles in a bowl, the mere fact that I can reach in and interfere with the way those marbles are moving doesn't mean it's futile to study the laws of motion under which they operate when I'm not pushing on them. So, while I'd agree with the huge asterisk, I'd certainly have to oppose the idea that "physics is nonsense" just as strongly as I'd oppose "faith is nonsense." Sean
Re: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 2/8/2001; 7:07 PM I agree with Brian here. God might well choose to suspend causality in a specific way to part the Red Sea, but it doesn't mean that the Israelites didn't generally rely on the orderliness of the world they believed Him to have created in their daily lives.Question: how do you tell the two types of events apart? Science in general assumes that all events are of the second nature--that is, naturally occuring. But if God regularly intervenes in the natural order, you have to examine any event as a possible example of that. Again, while there might be evidence only of a local flood that generated the Noah myth, do you try to take into account that perhaps there was a miracle? Science must assume all events happen as part of a natural order. If you allow even one supernatural event, you make predictions impossible, both as explanations of the past and as possibilities for the future. The only place, in my opinion, for the miraculous is in faith. When doing science, you just must assume there have been no miracles. This is something the creationists have chosen to ignore.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Brian Carnell on 2/8/2001; 8:12 PM At 07:23 PM 2/8/01 -0500, Mark wrote: >I agree with Brian here. God might well choose to suspend causality in a >specific way to part the Red Sea, but it doesn't mean that the Israelites >didn't generally rely on the orderliness of the world they believed Him to >have created in their daily lives.Question: how do you tell the two types >of events apart? Science in general assumes that all events are of the >second nature--that is, naturally occuring. But if God regularly >intervenes in the natural order, you have to examine any event as a >possible example of that. Again, while there might be evidence only of a >local flood that generated the Noah myth, do you try to take into account >that perhaps there was a miracle? > >Science must assume all events happen as part of a natural order. If you >allow even one supernatural event, you make predictions impossible, both >as explanations of the past and as possibilities for the future. A nice summation. This is, btw, simply a rehash of Hume's argument against miracles. The only way to preserve both religion and science with something like the parting of the Red Sea is to postulate something like a post-Newton view of God as the clock maker who winds the clock but then doesn't intervene. If god is omnipotent, surely he could create a universe such that if this group of Jews find themselves in this situation in Egypt then these completely natural conditions will obtain -- the universe as one enormous Rube Goldberg machine in essence. This is close to what I believe someone like Thomas Jefferson and others who lived after Newton's discoveries believed -- that God revealed himself in thrpught universe but was not actively interceding in the universe. The predictability problem is an enormous one. Part of it I think is a very different mindset between ancient and modern minds. If you read the Old Testament or pretty much any ancient literature, it is clear that many ancient people did not believe that their world was predictable and that God or gods interceded regularly to change the course of events. Today we are at almost the complete opposite end of the spectrum where our ability to predict future events and understand the causes of events is enormous compared to ancient peoples, and because of that we tend to view the world as far more orderly.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Brian Carnell on 2/8/2001; 8:21 PM At 11:35 PM 2/7/01 -0500, Sean wrote: >Even if God chooses to intervene directly, the study of how things work when >He's not choosing to do so is worthwhile. God might well choose to suspend >causality in a specific way to part the Red Sea, but it doesn't mean that >the Israelites didn't generally rely on the orderliness of the world they >believed Him to have created in their daily lives. In fact, in the Genesis >account of creation, it's telling that God brings order from chaos. The problem with the idea of temporarily suspending causality is that you would need to put a cosmic disclaimer in front of every physical law and their derivatives saying essentially, "Warning: These physical laws may be altered by supernatural beings without prior notice." Some atheists I know ridicule religious cultures who believed that possession by supernatural beings caused what we now call mental illness. And yet if you start saying supernatural beings can intervene in the world, it's not really such a weird idea (in fact until the last 300 years or so it's really the hypothesis that best fit the evidence). At the very least you might want to say that something like schizophrenia is caused by mental illnesses except when it's actually caused by demonic possession (something which, after all, the Catholic Church still maintains is a reality, although they tend to downplay it), and as a result just throw the idea of an orderly universe out the door (this is an added problem since the God of the Old Testament seems Himself to be unpredictable).
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 2/8/2001; 8:36 PM Speaking of Hume, the Skeptic's Dictionary entry on miracles provides a discussion of Hume's argument against miracles. Said entry strongly influenced my thinking about the topic, along with Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things. Both quote Hume's dictum (he called it that): [N]o testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish. Hume argues that every day we assume an orderly universe--that we assume that fish cooked one way tonight will end up the same way tomorrow if we cook it the same way, give or take. That walking in front of a moving bus is deadly but that busses do not materialize out of the sky and fall on us. I find this argument compelling, but others may disagree.
Watches on the Beach By: Richard Davidson on 2/10/2001; 3:26 PM Watches on the beach and time drifts over the dunes A wave over my life, and back, ever back They rise and fall to forever Eternity laps at my soul Watches on the beach and Salvador Dali laughs Melting them into the tide They spin to the depths of my ocean Blue green trip to the end Watches on the beach and Scientists could never measure Their frantic motions, to and fro They point subtly up towards God Connected by shafts of light Watches on the beach and the surf roars in anger Crushing innocent shells with its force They never wanted to hurt anyone But they knew their time would come Watches on the beach that never stop mocking My shallow approach to their truth They send me to years I'll never know Always, the same seagull is there
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Simon on 10/12/2001; 6:18 PM Science and religion as separate issues altogether. Hmmm. I think this subject is very prone to breakdown under the dissection of definitions. The simple reality is that science can neither confirm nor deny the existance of a God, and while some of the arguments in either direction are quite impressive and built around sound logic, the fact remains that you are trying to logically prove the illogical and to tangibly prove the intangible. That's like using the laws of physics to try a criminal case or using American law in Egypt and even the most complex and impressive discourses can't overcome that simple reality. That said, Atheism takes at least as much blind faith as Relgion. Fanatical Atheism requires a person to reject all concept of God, spirituality, and the supernatural explainations of life, the universe, and everything. Fanatical Creationism and similar religous practices requires a person to reject purely scintific explanations for life, the universe, and everything. The trouble is, neither science nor religion can with absolute certainty address the origins of life, the universe, and everything. This is where faith comes in - whether you call it faith in science or faith in religion, either way, you're getting behind a system that has so far failed to prove itself entirely and completely as the absolute truth in everything. Science can't explain how the watch got to be on the beach with certainty any more than religion can. To do so introduces speculation, and speculation does not equate to truth. I think that individuals who use science to explain religion can do so without contradiction because, as noted, both are incomplete systems. They need not be mutually exclusive. If a God does exist, really and truly, would that not be a part of scientific reality? Existance apart from human experience can't be disproved by science as we understand it; a God would certainly exist apart from human experience. Just because we can't observe that being doesn't mean it can't possibly exist, and the laws of the universe that we understand can't be applied to aspects of existance that we haven't perceived. By the same token, it can't prove that such a God DOES exist. But science can be used to give credibility to either cause, and so that statement is at once an argument in either direction; it simply comes down to which set of rules you want to stand behind with fanatical devotion. People who take the middle path and study science but admit their inability to use it in explaination of everything shouldn't be branded as hypocrites; they're just exploring reality using as many tools as they can. What fascinates me more than anything else is the amount of trouble people will go to in order to prove the unprovable, the existance or non-existance of a God. The complicated, logical, rational constructions; impressive, but in either way, the fact remains that we can't either prove or disprove what we can't directly observe.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/13/2001; 4:42 PM Hi, Simon. Welcome to Unreason! Did you come here from Infogrames? Fanatical Creationism and similar religous practices requires a person to reject purely scintific explanations for life, the universe, and everything. Oh, would that this were true. I'd be so happy. The reason the Creationist movement infuriates me so is that they don't reject purely scientific explanations for life, the universe, and everything. What they do instead is take a literal interpretation of Genesis and try to make it into a science. Or to be more exact, they give it scientific-sounding technobabble and say "see, we can sound like a science to the lay person, let us in the classroom!" I am an atheist, but I am also a student of science. And it just drives me nuts that trivial details like, oh, a testable theory that makes predictions that can be falsified is just too much for creationism to provide. I define faith differently than you do, it seems. Many people define faith as "the unprovable axioms that any philosophy must be built on". I don't agree, as I think this makes the term faith meaningless. What does it mean when you say, then, that you have strong faith? Is there not a fundamental difference between "I believe that when I am hit by a car and injured, that event really happened" and "I believe in the divinity of the risen Christ"? I'm not trying to convince you that I'm necessarily correct, sir, as your points are well taken. That's just where I'm coming from.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Simon on 10/14/2001; 12:25 AM Is there not a fundamental difference between "I believe that when I am hit by a car and injured, that event really happened" and "I believe in the divinity of the risen Christ"? That again depends on what you perceive to be true. If Kant is right, even the science that we observe is not trustworthy all the time. That Creationists "infuriate" you with their explainations is more telling than anything else - give them a break, you don't have to get angry at them because they believe something different from you. I suppose you might have a monopoly on the truth, but I think it improbable. Faith has lots of different definintions but however you define the word, you need to believe in some truths that you can't perceive to jump on either the god boat or the atheism boat. Prove scientifically that there's no god, or that there is, and I'll change my point of view. No disrespect to you, but I hardly think you're capable. Me, pesonally, well, I just don't know the truth - but I'm not infuriated by people who think they do, whether they believe in god or not.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/14/2001; 3:17 PM If Kant is right, even the science that we observe is not trustworthy all the time. I agree with Kant here. I just feel that belief in miracles require something fundamentally different from a belief in the existence of observed phenomena. And I think that fundamental difference is best expressed as miracles (and other supernatural things) require faith. I have a deep respect for people who hold strong faiths, and I quite honestly believe it cheapens the term to make it as broad as "axiom." That Creationists "infuriate" you with their explainations is more telling than anything else - give them a break, you don't have to get angry at them because they believe something different from you. I suppose you might have a monopoly on the truth, but I think it improbable. Why, yes, I was in a cranky mood yesterday, why do you ask? My apologies if I go overboard and look like I think I have a monopoly on the truth; I do not. The reason Creationists infuriate me is not because of their religious nature. It is partially because I see Creationism as a pseudoscience, a construct that wants to take the words and language and respectibility of science without bothering to do the actual work. It is mostly because this religious belief wants to pretend it is not a religious belief and get itself taught in the secular school system. No. You cannot. Until you are willing to create a testable theory that makes predictions that can be disproven, and be willing to risk having your theory proven wrong, you may keep your religion in church. I honestly have no clue how one would create a disprovable theory that includes God. God can easily remove Himself from any empirical test, so if your prayer didn't cure the sick, you really haven't gained any knowledge because you might have just pissed God off with your hubris in trying to test Him. The ultimate truth, for all I know, is that science is wrong and religion is right, or some mix of the two, or neither. I dunno.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Simon on 10/14/2001; 8:33 PM Well cool - but don't let it INFURIATE you. That's kinda childish, don't you think?
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/15/2001; 12:51 PM I guess that depends on what sort of things infuriate you, Simon. If creationism stayed a private belief, that's one thing. But its adherents' political moves to enter the public school system look to me as a clear attempt to return religious-based education to the secular school system, by pretending *not* to be religious-based. I find such behavior unacceptable. I am sure to have children in that school sysem, and I firmly believe in the value of a secular government. Every time George Bush blesses God in his speeches concerning the current war, I respect his right to do so, and realize that this just serves to bolster the argument of those (not me) who consider it a religious war. But that's really a different topic.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Sean McMains on 10/15/2001; 2:31 PM And it just drives me nuts that trivial details like, oh, a testable theory that makes predictions that can be falsified is just too much for creationism to provide. Well, though evolution on a small scale can make testable predictions (black moths become more numerous when the trunks of trees become soot-soiled), the large scale evolution that its adherants claim generated the world's current biodiversity is also for the most part unable to make much in the way of testable predictions. How do I prove that man evolved from apes? Can't do it -- it's in the past, and there are no reliable witnesses. Can I prove that man could have evolved from apes? Perhaps, but the sheer temporal scale of such an experiment makes it a challenge. One could make predictions about what fossils will be found, but even going back and fitting the theory to the fossil record yields pretty spotty results currently. Sean
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Brian Carnell on 10/15/2001; 2:57 PM At 03:47 PM 10/15/2001 -0400, Sean McMains wrote: >Well, though evolution on a small scale can make testable predictions >(black moths become more numerous when the trunks of trees become >soot-soiled), the large scale evolution that its adherants claim generated >the world's current biodiversity is also for the most part unable to make >much in the way of testable predictions. How do I prove that man evolved >from apes? Can't do it -- it's in the past, and there are no reliable >witnesses. Can I prove that man could have evolved from apes? Perhaps, but >the sheer temporal scale of such an experiment makes it a challenge. One >could make predictions about what fossils will be found, but even going >back and fitting the theory to the fossil record yields pretty spotty >results currently. This is really a subset of a larger debate over whether or not history is a scientific discipline or not. The same basic argument can be lodged against pretty much every single possible historical claim, since historical claims are not immediately testable in the sense that a claim about gravity is testable. Julius Caesar was murdered. This is an untestable hypothesis. There is no experiment (aside from taking the Enterprise back in time to witness it) to prove or disprove this claim. (And, of course, science itself is in many ways merely an odd form of history, so you can run into some really odd philosophical problems if you dwell on this too much). I won't go into the gory details over this debate except to add that a number of creationists advance this claim which has always seemed odd to me because, if taken seriously, this argument also severely undercuts Christianity's main claims since Christianity is a heavily historical religion (i.e. it relies on certain historical facts being incontrovertibly true).
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Seth Dillingham on 10/15/2001; 3:21 PM On 10/15/01 at 3:57 PM, Brian Carnell wrote: >This is really a subset of a larger debate over whether or not history >is a scientific discipline or not. The same basic argument can be lodged >against pretty much every single possible historical claim, since >historical claims are not immediately testable in the sense that a claim >about gravity is testable. Except that macroscopic evolution is (almost?) entirely pre-historic. Historical documents may not be perfectly precise, accurate, or even truthful, but they have the advantage of needing very little interpretation, compared to any unwritten historic (or pre-historic) evidence. They can be treated as "recorded observations" with as much or little validity as the recorded observations of your contemporaries. The fossil record, on the other hand, is perfectly precise, accurate, and truthful (if you will), but it can *only* be understood through heavy interpretation. >I won't go into the gory details over this debate except to add that a >number of creationists advance this claim which has always seemed odd to >me because, if taken seriously, this argument also severely undercuts >Christianity's main claims since Christianity is a heavily historical >religion (i.e. it relies on certain historical facts being >incontrovertibly true). I'm surprised that you'd bring this up. What's your point? Christianity relies on one thing (which nobody denies is untestable, at least in the sense we're talking about now): that the Bible (the history you referred to) is inspired by an omniscient being. How does this negate the fact that pre-history is untestable? If prehistory is untestable, why then is macroscopic evolution-of-species accepted as science? Seth
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/15/2001; 3:24 PM Can I prove that man could have evolved from apes? Perhaps, but the sheer temporal scale of such an experiment makes it a challenge. One could make predictions about what fossils will be found, but even going back and fitting the theory to the fossil record yields pretty spotty results currently. This is exactly my point. Evolutionary biology has made a prediction here. It can be tested, by examining the fossil evidence. (It can also be tested by examining the DNA evidence. IF we are related to primates THEN our DNA should be more similar to some primates, and less similar to other primates, and even less similar to species to whom we are less related.) My argument against creationism is, "What is its theory, and what test can I make of it? What predictions does it make, that anybody of any religion or non-religion can check?"
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Seth Dillingham on 10/15/2001; 3:47 PM On 10/15/01 at 4:40 PM, Mark Morgan wrote: >My argument against creationism is, "What is its theory, and what test >can I make of it? What predictions does it make, that anybody of any >religion or non-religion can check?" But I think you miss the point. They're not trying to teach creation as a testable science. They're trying to teach it simply because it's true. Nothing more, nothing less. ;-) (Annoying, huh? Sorry, couldn't resist.) Unfortunately, there are a lot of different versions of "creationism"... probably as many versions as anything else that is believed (in any field or philosophy). Seth
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/15/2001; 4:24 PM Seth, if that were true, I'd bow out. But they are trying to teach Creationism as a science, and it's not. The refrain, again and again, is "children should be taught competing theories" but Creationism is not a competing theory. Until it is, it can stay out of the secular school system. Lots of religious groups would like their religious beliefs taught in the secular school system, but Creationism is the only one that does this infuriating thing of trying to pretend it is not a religious belief, but a science. That pretending just doesn't cut it with me.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: ScottN on 10/15/2001; 4:26 PM We may be getting into semantics here, but isn't there a difference between "Creationism" and "Creation Science"? Creationism is essentially the belief that the universe and the beings in it came about through the efforts of an intelligent agency (some may call it G-d). It makes no claims of being a science, and therefore is immune to requirements of testability, etc... Creation Science is the effort to push Creationism as a valid scientific field, and hence into school science cirruculums. In this case, I would think that testability and falisifiability are required. I think that Mark's problems are with "Creation Science" rather than "Creationism". This is understandable, as they are difficult to keep separate.
RE: Watches on the Beach By: Mark Morgan on 10/15/2001; 4:28 PM (Aside: for web users, this thread is now officially too painful to read. I can't have both pagination, and the HTML anchors. This frustrates me highly.)
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