British philosopher Betrand Russell, famous for his agnostic views as much as for his theories on logic, was once asked how he would answer if he turned out to be wrong about God. Russell was delighted with the question and answered, "Why, I should say, 'God, you gave us insufficient evidence.'"
I suspect that upon their meeting, God corrected the ol' Brit, showing how the evidence was there and that Russel had simply chosen to ignore it. But it does raise the question of why different people when presented with much the same evidence, come to such varying conclusions about the existence of God.
Presumably, rational people weigh the evidence of God's existence or non-existence in order to determine the probability of one being more likely than another and proceed from there. After all, since we can't know the answer with absolute certainty, we have to base it on our best probabilistic assumption.
But how can we determine what is more likely when applied to an issue such as the ontological status of God? That is the question British theoretical physicist Stephen Urwin attempts to answer in his book, The Probability of God.
By applying Bayesian probabilities, a statistical method devised by 18th-century Presbyterian minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes, Urwin attempts to determine the probability of God's existence. Since 50-50 represents "maximum ignorance", Unwin begins with a 50 percent probability that God exists and then applies it to the following modified Bayesian theorem:
The probability of God's existence after the evidence is considered is a function of the probability before times D ("Divine Indicator Scale"):
10 indicates the evidence is 10 times as likely to be produced if God exists
2 is two times as likely if God exists
1 is neutral
0.5 is moderately more likely if God does not exist
0.1 is much more likely if God does not exist
Unwin then uses the following lines of evidence and applies his own, admittedly subjective, figures for their likelihood:
Recognition of goodness (D = 10)
Existence of moral evil (D = 0.5)
Existence of natural evil (D = 0.1)
Intra-natural miracles (e.g., a friend recovers from an illness after you have prayed for him) (D = 2)
Extra-natural miracles (e.g., someone who is dead is brought back to life) (D = 1)
Religious experiences (D = 2)
Plugging these figures into the above formula (in sequence, where the P after figure for the first computation is used for the P before figure in the second computation, and so on for all six Ds), Unwin arrives at the conclusion that the probability that God exists is 67%.
While I generally agree with Unwin's assessment, my own calculations would be slightly different;
Recognition of goodness (D = 10) -- I agree that the existence of goodness is more probable in a world in which God exists.
Existence of moral evil (D = 1) -- I believe that the existence of evil is a neutral factor in regards to God's existence. As Alvin Plantinga shows with his "free will defense" argument, moral evil is just as probable in a world in which God exists as it would be in a world in which He didn't.
Existence of natural evil (D = 1) -- Since "transworld depravity" could apply to nonhuman moral agents, Plantinga's argument still applies.
Intra-natural miracles (D = 2) -- I've personally had a sufficient number of these types of experiences to believe that it is two times as likely that they are divine actions rather than coincidences. Since the mathematical probability of them being coincidences are impossibly high, though not outside the realm of possibility, I can only rate this a 2 rather than a 10.
Extra-natural miracles (D = 2) -- I haven't read Urwin's book so I'm not sure why he thinks that these types of miracles are neutral. Personally, I would put them in the same category as the ones above.
Religious experiences (D = 2) -- I give my personal religious experiences the same weight as I did the intra-natural miracles.
When I plug these number into the formula (fortunately, Urwin provides a calculator) I come up with the probability that God exist to be 99%. Even if I had started with the presumption that there was a 98% chance that God does not exist, when I factor in the evidence it still puts the probability at 62%. Clearly, based on my interpretation of the evidence, it would be more reasonable for me to believe that God exists than to doubt it.
In part three I'll present an argument explaining why this isn't just an interesting mathematical puzzle but an important apologetic tool. By combining Urwin's formula with Pascal's Wager, I believe we can clear away some of the intellectual underbrush and show that agnosticism is not rooted in practical reason but in the human will.
[Note: By using Urwin's calculator, we can perform this analysis based on any seven lines of evidence. We just assign each a designator (E1 - E7) and plug them in to come up with the probability.]
I got 50%, but that's because I rated each form of evidence as a 1. I would have rated extra-natural miracles as a 10, but since I have the same level of doubt of their existence as I do of God's (and since I'm running with Urwin's 50% base-rate), I stuck with 1. With that listed as 10, I get a probability of 91%, but with all of the certainty that God exists (the 41% above 50%) resting on the existence of a type of miracle for which I see no evidence (using a real Bayesian calculation, and given my 29 years of experience, the prior probability of extra-natural miracles is rapidly approaching 0 -- unless you count the Mother Theresa danish at my old favorite coffee shop).
I'm pretty sure that the evidence that God exists is not external. God reveals himself to every person and the only possible way to believe he does not exist is to reject Him.
That is why people can be confronted with the same evidence and yet come to seperate conclusions.
Maybe it would have been better to have said, "The evidence of God's existence, while also external, is more internal." or something along those lines.
The point is that the Lord reveals Himself to everyone. That is why those who are not with us are called our enemies. You do not accidently, or mistakenly, become an enemy to God. Yet He loves them still and commands us also to love our enemies, and His.
These probabilities are not objective in any real sense. YOu can achieve any desired end result by simply plugging the right numbers in for the factors and reasonable people can have widely diverse views on what's a reasonable number to put in.
"God reveals himself to every person and the only possible way to believe he does not exist is to reject Him."
A ridiculous statement. How can you claim to know what has been revealed to anyone but yourself? Given the consequences, it would be foolish to "reject" Biblegod if he revealed himself. I don't know anyone who would willingly endure eternal torment for pride,selfishness or any other reason. I've read enough Jonathan Edwards to know that if I even thought there was a remote possibility that the Bible was inerrant, I would actively seek its deity. If God exists, he knows my mind well enough to know what constitutes revelation to me.
It irritates me when my fellow humans claim to have knowledge of my mind. They don't.
Joe,
One of the reasons I like your website is your commitment to rationality. You are not content merely to believe; you must be satisfied that your beliefs are true.
I feel the same way as you do. Truth, and the pursuit of truth, are very, very important matters.
In your post, Wagering a Life, Part 1, you write,
By combining Urwin’s formula with Pascal’s Wager, I believe we can clear away some of the intellectual underbrush and show that agnosticism is not rooted in practical reason but in the human will.
I believe you may be making a slight misinterpretation of the results that you are getting from your combining of Urwin's formula with Pascal's wager.
While you do succeed in establishing a rational basis for your theism, you do so in a somewhat restricted manner. What you have done is establish a rational basis for theism for yourself, based on your subjective probabilities.
If Peter J. Somebody disagrees with your subjective probabilities, he is not going to necessarily think that you have established a rational basis for Peter J. Somebody to believe in theism.
This is not a mere quibble, either.
I have encountered this kind of over-generalization in other posts of yours. You have made claims to possess the absolute truth, and if anyone disagrees with your version of the absolute truth, it must be because they are refusing to be rational.
You need to acknowledge, that although you believe you have a solid grip on the absolute truth, it is possible that your belief may be mistaken to some degree or another.
Why should you acknowledge this possiblity of error on your part? Because it's true! It is true that you might be in error!
I'm not infallible, you're not infallible, no one is infallible.
Now, if you can't admit a common truth, that no one, including ourselves, is infallible, then you lose some important credibility. And any credibility you might lose is credibility that you will not be able to use in your mission to spread the Gospel.
If you let your personal confidence in the Word of God turn into a species of know-it-all-ism, you are actually letting your intellectual pride get in the way of your duty to serve God and your fellow man.
If I am being unfair or dense, and have made the mistake of unjustly accusing you of belief in your own infallibility, then I apologize. But I think you would be doing everyone a favor if you could display some more humility on a few key points.
Love and peace to you, sir.
Wow, well said, Matthew.
Joe, I think a very important part is left out of the formula and that is the complexity of living things, all the way from a leaf on a tree to the wings of a bee.
I had an appointment with an eye doctor last week. While waiting for him, I studied a large chart on the wall of the exam room showing various depictions of the human eye in extreme detail. I was struck by fantastic complexity of the eye and the chart did not even begin to explain how the brain senses the result of the projected picture and ends up being able to “see”. Two choices, creation or evolution. Most so called scientists today choose evolution. Why? Because evolution gives them the wonderful world, the Alice in Wonderland World, of believing in millions upon millions of “miracles” without the necessity of dealing with the Maker of Miracles who might make demands of them. It’s all about self importance and self indulgence. Darwinism gives one the freedom to be at the top of the heap. Believing in a Creator powerful enough to speak things into existence would force them back into a less significant role by far. As Paul so aptly put it in Rom. 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Evolution is the great religion of our time. I was a Darwinist for a long period of my life. When I became a Christian I still tried to hang on to the beauty of Darwinism, becoming a Theistic Evolutionist. I finally gave that up, realizing that Theistic Evolution is just an attempt to push God further and further back until he becomes irrelevant. Once you put - “what has been made” - into the formula, you are left with either a yes or a no, a 100% certainty that God is and always has been, The Alfa and the Omega, The Beginning and the End. Or 0% - I am at the very top of the heap and nothing will ever be greater than what I am! The formula becomes subservient to what We want and what We think. Thus the formula is flawed because it does not take into account our human, and very sinful nature. Either we are his sheep who listen to his voice, or we do not believe because our arrogance precludes listening to anyone other than ourselves. John 10:22-30.
Evolution is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not God exists. It is pretty arrogant to claim that 'complexity' requires a simplistic creation story rather than nature which we only have a limited understanding of (after a great deal of effort).
For those who want to explore the topic a bit, Bayesian statistics are more of a decision aiding tool than rigerous mathematics. God either exists or he doesn't, the 'probability' therefore is either 100% or 0%.
Yeah Matthew, I think you might be judging a little unfairly. I don't see Joe saying, "agree with me or you're irrational." The posting seems to grant over and over that the interpretations/values are subjective and worth talking about. (He didn't call Unwin irrational, right, even though he sees things differently.) This posting is just another way of talking about the issue and breaking it down.
Even in the last statement -- the one that you objected to -- he said, "I believe." If he thought he was infallible, as you say, would he have used that qualification?
Having said that, I do want to say that I also appreciate the way you express yourself.
Boonton, If I waded through this correctly, Joe wasn't using the equasion to determine the probability of God existing (His ontological state), but rather the probability of a person DECIDING that God exists (an epistomological conclusion).
Roger
" I finally gave that up, realizing that Theistic Evolution is just an attempt to push God further and further back until he becomes irrelevant."
Sorry, Roger, your "realization" sounds an awful lot like the bogus talking points of preachers who mistakenly place the "proof" of their deities in the natural world.
In fact, you realized nothing. All you did was learn how to recite a script to please your yourself.
It's a pity you chose to worship a weak version of a deity, so weak that the deity's relevance diminishes with each step human beings take away from the dark caves that certain evangelicals would like to drag us back into.
I suggest taking a deep breath and growing up. Use the brain that your deity allegedly gave you. Stop drinking the kool-aid provided to you by power-hungry preachers who want your money and loyalty. And stop being hypocritical.
Scientists have been kind to you. Try to return the favor instead of spitting on them.
Thanks.
Larry,
Shouldn't you be at your court appointed anger management class? You're going to blow an O-ring & shoot fluid all over your feet if you're not careful.
Casual Observer
"You're going to blow an O-ring & shoot fluid all over your feet if you're not careful."
A dozen ounces of Bridgeport IPA on a semi-daily basis prevents that.
I would agree (and many of my atheist/materialist friends would take strong umbrage w/ this) that the probabilies do come out in favor of *some* metaphysical reality beyond this and towards a "Creator" that we might choose to call "God" (although there is certainly no evidence that God is singular or has ANY kind of number that we can put behind it, and no good reason to believe that God is a "He" in gender).
However, if we were to use the same above given formula and asked to determine whether Biblical Revelation was 100% true or inerrant, I am certain that the answer would be a 100% probability that Revelation is not inerrant.
God can not be proven nor disproven. His existence is a matter of faith, and always will be.
Rob said,
"It irritates me when my fellow humans claim to have knowledge of my mind. They don't."
You can't mean that, or if you do, you mean something slightly different.
If we had no knowledge of your mind then we wouldn't be able to get rid of your headaches when you had them.
God knows everything, your mind is included in that, and He knows what you have knowledge of. But let's pretend for a moment that your statement is correct.
Me and you are standing in a park together and we see a hunter with a rifle. We watch that hunter shoot down a deer, skin it, and carry it's corpse away. I look over at you and say, "Did you see that?" and you say, "Yeah! That was crazy." Guess what, I now have knowledge of what is in your mind.
The same thing can happen with authority. We can look at the text of the Constitution and get a pretty good idea of what was in the mind of the founders. Or we can ask a relative and get a pretty good idea of what is in someone's mind. Or we can be told by God and get a perfect idea of what has been revealed to everyone's mind.
"If we had no knowledge of your mind then we wouldn't be able to get rid of your headaches when you had them."
What does a headache have to do with what I think and what I know? What I object to is that you think you know that God has revealed himself to me and I have rejected him despite the unthinkably horrible consequences. I think I would remember that. You do not know my mind except to the extent I reveal it to you. Your imaginary friend may be omniscient, but you are not.
Roger,
You say this:
"It’s all about self importance and self indulgence. Darwinism gives one the freedom to be at the top of the heap. Believing in a Creator powerful enough to speak things into existence would force them back into a less significant role by far."
I am far from certain that this is so. I have recently begun to comb through the literature in Environmental Ethics. There you will find a number of people (Aldo Leopold, the grandaddy of Env. Ethics, among them) who attempt to construct an ethic on top of Darwinian evolutionary theory. They uniformly come to the conclusion that we human beings are in no way exalted over the rest of life but are, as Leopold puts it, "Plain members and citizens of the biotic community". This of course stands in stark contrast with prior, theistically motivated ethics, for in them we did stand over the rest of creation. The upshot of evolutionary theory, it seems to me, is to as it were cut us down a notch. We arose as did the rest of life. Indeed we only diverged from our human-primate progenitor species relatively recently, when viewed against the time-scale of life on Earth, and we share much in common with other extant primates.
A second but related point. I recently read a biography of Darwin. It seems that he did not propose his theory out of any desire to raise himself up the level of God, or to break free of the moral authority of a God. Rather he was lead to it by a careful examination of the evidence.
Franklin,
If that is the case, can we foul the earth just as other animals do? If we are not “higher” species then why should we be held to a higher standard? Why, for example, should we care about the extinction of endangered species? All that should concern us is the spread of our own genetic material.
Joe,
Characteristically in Env. Ethics you'll find the claim that we human beings are atypical in a certain way. We are able, by increase in population and development of environmentall destructive technologies, to pose a real threat to global environmental integrity. Moreover, we have a cognitive capacity that makes possible for us such things as appreciation of the beauty/diversity in nature and a sense of kindship will all life. And it is this sense of kinship, this ability to appreciate the beauty/diversity in nature, on which Leopold builds his ethic. We care about the extinction of species b/c we are in a way one with them. We are one in origin and perhaps one in fate. Moreover, we care about it because we value the beauty/diveristy of nature, and extinction serves to decrease that.
To say that we are one with life on Earth in the way that Darwin described is not to say that we should search other species for the proper way in which to live our human lives. We acknowledge that we are extraordinary and we seek a mode of life that is good for we humans; and the good life for us must include at its base a recognition of our kinship with all life.
Leopold and others like him think the Christian view on which we are radically different than the rest of life quite dangereous. It leads us to not give the proper regard to life and the land.
I don't mean to say that I agree with Leopold about all this. But I do find that his view has a certain allure (but am skeptical of thecondemnation of Christianity - certain trends in current Christian thought seems quite environmentall sound).
Joe,
We may or may not be a higher species, but many, if not most, of the arguments I have heard about being good stewards of the earth usually have a strong component of self-interest.
That is to say, we shouldn't pollute too much because we, the human species, needs a clean planet. We shouldn't kill off endangered species because we ourselves benefit from a healthy and diverse ecosystem.
As for Roger's point about the complexity of life being evidence for God, I personally have a very different reaction to the complexity of life.
For`example, when I read about the basic structural unit of life, the cell, I am amazed at how just one microscopic bag of protoplasm is able to organize itself through millions of interactions between genes, proteins, and other substances every second of every day.
I am amazed at how the mitochondria enjoy a largely autonomous existence smack dab in the middle of each of our cells, to the extent of having their own DNA and reproductive cycle. It is as if they are more like a symbiotic bacteria that has decided to become a secret stowaway in each of our cells -- although they pay for passage many times over by serving as cellular engines.
What does the existence of God have to say about all these tiny marvels? Does the will of God actually move chemicals across cell membranes, or tell ribosomes how and when to express genes into proteins, or flick a divine switch that triggers cell mitosis? Does the will of God monitor and influence the millions of interactions that place each second in just one cell?
The more I learn about how biology actually works, down at the greatest levels of detail, the more the naturalistic view of life makes perfect sense. Our cells really are little factories, we really do fuel our tissues and organs through inspiration, diffusion, circulation, and osmosis, and chemistry and physics are helping to steadily chip away at the large gaps in our biological understanding.
Part of the reason that looking at an eye on an eye-chart, or even an actual dissected specimen of an eye, is so mysterious, is that we are looking at a snapshot, the product of a long and complicated process that has suddenly been interrupted. We are looking at a living organ that has been isolated, and often killed, so that we can have the opportunity to examine it.
Our reaction is, "Wow, look at that! How does that work, and how did that ever get to be like that?"
But as a matter of fact, we do know quite a bit about how it works, and even how it got to be like that. We know that it came from cell division and differentiatiion and migration while a tiny fetus was growing in the womb. And as I mentioned above, we know volumes about how those cells live and reproduce and interact with each other.
So to take our initial "Wow" reaction and assume that the eye can only be explained as a divine handiwork seems to be a conclusion that may be "not rooted in practical reason but in the human will."
At least, that's the kind of conclusion it would be for me -- I would have to ignore what I know and believe about developmental and evolutionary biology, and force myself to accept a conclusion that strikes me as forced and unnatural.
If someone else prefers a divine explanation, though, that's fine by me. If everybody thought the same thing about the mysteries of life, the world would be a much less interesting place.
Franklin,
Moreover, we care about it because we value the beauty/diveristy of nature, and extinction serves to decrease that.
Here we see one of the primary problems with naturalistic explanations. I have yet to see one that follows the logic of natural selection to its ends. Rather, they invariably sneak in a foreign concept in order to make it more palatable to our moral and aesthetic intuitions.
If naturalism is true, the only “value” that beauty/diversity of nature could have is to help propagate the species (and even this is, ultimately, accidental). Environmental ethics cannot claim that we are not a “higher” species and then turn around and claim that our higher functions are the reason we should act differently. That’s logically incoherent.
Any ethics based on Darwinism should not step outside the bounds of the theory when making justifications. If you can’t live with the results its probably a sign that something is inherently wrong with the foundational premises.
Joe
You say:
"Environmental ethics cannot claim that we are not a “higher” species and then turn around and claim that our higher functions are the reason we should act differently."
I don't believe that the view I sketched is guilty of this. Environmental ethicists (some, not all) will deny that Homo sapiens is higher in the sense that, from the moral point of view, its existence matters more than does the rest of life. Thus they would deny that our cognitive capacities are 'higher' in any morally relevant sense. But they are different than what is found in other species. And thus we should have no reason to suspect that what constitutes the good life for members of Homo sapiens will constitute the good life for other species as well. Indeed we have reason to suspect the contrary. The good life for us involves the use of our extraordinary intellects, and no other species seems capable of the intellectual feets of even a 6 yr old.
Boonton; Wow! I didn't realize that I was being arrogant by suggesting a simplistic creation story to explain the complexity of life. The big bang caused by ( ? ), followed by goop turning into single cell crawly things that suddenly come to life and begin to reproduce themselves and then become plants and animals and all sorts of wonderful stuff! Now there’s a story! I followed that yellow brick road for years. Don’t feel the need to go back to it. Maybe I am arrogant!
Larry Lord; Wow! You almost blew a gasket over my conversion from Darwinism to Christianity! Sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you so much. And Larry, this may come as another shock to your system but there are quite a few scientists who have not embraced evolution and flat out refute it. Try reading some of the publications and books by those men who strongly disagree. For example, take an Alka-Seltzer, and then read “Refuting Evolution” by Jonathan Sarfati. You’ll find that there is just a whole lot of religious belief, not scientific belief, that goes into being a good little Darwinist.
Roger,
Jonathan Sarfati thinks the world is no more than 5,000 years old. He thinks all the stories in the Bible, like Noah and the Ark, took place exactly the way it says in the Bible.
Anyone who relies on Mr. Sarfati's authority or intellect in order to evaluate the theory of evolution, or any other scientific theory, is bound to be seriously misled. You would be just as well advised to ask someone like myself how to translate Gogol from Russian to Finnish, or how to hunt a grizzly bear.
You’ll find that there is just a whole lot of religious belief, not scientific belief, that goes into being a good little Darwinist.
I'd imagine that all depends on whom you're talking about. I'm sure there are quite a few religious Darwinists running around out there somewhere.
But there is nothing inherent in Darwinism that requires an adherent to the theory to use religious standards of evidence.
Darwinism is merely a scientific theory. Currently it is the best scientific theory out there, in terms of explaining the known facts. If a better theory comes along, then a new generation of scientists will be using that new theory instead of Darwinism.
There's nothing religious or not religious about this.
Roger
I didn't blow a gasket. I soberly (and sadly) pointed out that you are fooling yourself regarding any "realizations."
Matthew G., of course, is absolutely right re Mr. Sarfati.
You mentioned something about "quite a few scientists"? That's hilarious. The number of biologists who believe in God and evolution dwarfs the number of charlatans who dissemble and lie and sell books to rubes describing the efforts of "materialists" to destroy Christianity.
Mr. Sarfati's anti-scientific willful ignorance in the name of Jesus is emblematic of the problems facing evangelicals in the 21st century.
But perhaps Roger you live in a cave because you sincerely believe the utility of the scientific method is just dogma that was foisted on you by an atheist cabal. Then, at least, you'd be living your life consistently -- a key component of the evangelical "worldview" if you take this blog at face value.
Matthew
"I'm sure there are quite a few religious Darwinists running around out there somewhere."
They are everywhere.
Among them, Jack Krebs and Wesley Elsberry and Rev. Lenny Flank, all of whom post frequently at the blog, www.pandasthumb.org.
Or, visit your local university and -- if you don't mind being a little nosy and/or plain rude -- just ask the biology professors whether they believe in God.
Mathew Goggins; Surprise, surprise! There are still scientists who accept the Bible as literal. They are also Christians. Age of the earth? I don’t know, different scholars debate it differently. But to suggest, as you do, that any person who believes the earth to be young is very much unscientific and not to be trusted, is troublesome in itself. In short, you will not listen to their arguments or what proofs they might present because it goes against current evolutionary thought. Anything against current evolutionary thought cannot be scientific. We have been brainwashed by this theory so thoroughly as to make any alternative unbearable and unbelievable! The theory requires millions upon millions of years, therefore, the earth must be that old! (And yes I have read about the dating methods that they use, all which are based upon the assumption that the conditions that they measure are the same now as thousands or millions of years ago, e.g. half lives and rates of decay, etc.) Like one scientist said in jest, “this antler is about 250,000 years old, give or take about 250,000 years”.
Years ago I read that science had determined that the continents of earth were rising as fast as they were eroding away. If not, they would disappear in 23 millions years. That bothered me a lot because I was still a good little Darwinist. If they were eroding away to the point were no continent would be left in that period of time, then why were we finding fossils that were being dated at 30 to 65 million years old? The animals would have had to be buried thousands of feet below the existing landscape where they were roaming around on in order for erosion to be now uncovering them. How did that happen? I watched one of those documentaries on TV several years ago and the guy was crawling around on a hillside in South America and picking up fossilized dinosaur egg shell pieces and talking about how the dinosaur must have had her nest nearby. I nearly choked! 20 million years ago this beast had her nest nearby! 20 million years of climate extremes, erosion, animals trampling around and this guy is finding fossilized egg shells! Since they were fossilized and since they were dinosaur eggs, then his belief system kicked in rather than his common sense! The obvious question should have been, “How did these get here?”
Now, Jesus and his disciples, and the writers of the New Testament seem to take the first 11 chapters of Genesis as factual accounts, not allegories, not myths. Since they seem to take them this way, then I guess I will too. Sorry if this troubles you.
Evolution, the great religion of our time, requires us to “throw out” the great stories of creation, the worldwide flood, the tower of Babel, etc. Once we do, the rest of the Bible starts to crumble. They would like nothing better than to see us throw out the entire thing. Who needs it? We have Charles Darwin! Amen and Amen! Drum roll please!
My one question - how come no one commented on my little line of poetry in my original post? I thought it was cute - “all the way from a leaf on a tree to the wings of a bee.” Applause. Thank you, thank you!
Joe, you wrote:
That is a strange idea of naturalism you have.
Again, that's a strange way of thinking. By "higher," I understand the envrionmental ethicist to be saying "generally more capable." Like a dog is generally more capable that a fly, we are more capable than apes and monkeys. One of those uniquely human capabilities is to think and reason about the world and the future. I don't see any logical incoherence.
But I don't see how when considering my ethics I am stepping outside the bounds of "Darwinism" (I prefer the term naturalism). Humans have evolved to have brains that can consider and reason about the past, present, and future of the world, to have a culture that can transmit ideas about Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism down through many generations, to engage in a dialog about what's right and wrong, better and worse for us and our planet. What's wrong with this picture?
Larry Lord,
Please excuse my ambiguity.
While I am well aware that there are thousands of scientists who are also Christian, that's not what I meant by "religious Darwinists". I was talking about Roger's religious Darwinists: people, including some scientists, who believe in Darwinism uncritically, as a matter of faith.
Thanks for the tip about pandasthumb.org.
Roger, you don't have to be a scientist to know that the world is much older than 5,000 years. You might as well be saying the world is only 10 seconds old, and God just created everything 10 seconds ago in just exactly the right way as to give the impression that we were around before then.
And the truth is, you could believe that if you want, and nobody would be able to disprove it. But now you have left the realm not only of science, but of religion itself, and have embraced an interesting blend of fantasy/science fiction.
But to suggest, as you do, that any person who believes the earth to be young is very much unscientific and not to be trusted, is troublesome in itself. In short, you will not listen to their arguments or what proofs they might present because it goes against current evolutionary thought. Anything against current evolutionary thought cannot be scientific. We have been brainwashed by this theory so thoroughly as to make any alternative unbearable and unbelievable!
I know there are a few scholars, including at least one very personable fellow with a graduate degree in geology from Harvard, who agree 100% with what you say. And I agree with you as well, I have been "brainwashed" by my studies to know ahead of time that someone who concludes the earth is 5,000 years young is in error.
But I am still willing to listen to such people and weigh their arguments.
I don't think you can say the same thing about them, though. They have made it their calling in life to take any and all facts about the world and shoehorn them into their Rube Goldberg theories about geology and cosmology.
This discussion reminds me of Joe's post about "plausibility structures". You are right, Roger, to warn scientists, and those who rely on scientists, to take care that their plausibility filters don't screen out stuff just because the new stuff doesn't fit very well into an established theory.
But good scientists are trained to take new stuff and use it to modify their theories. And if the new stuff still doesn't fit, the good scientist will discard the old theory and come up with a new one.
And that is one of the prime differences between science and religion.
Science is supposed to be questioning and challenging old theories, by the very nature of what science is and does. Religion, on the other hand, takes core truths on faith. Some religions even frown on the very idea of doubt and skepticism, which are supposed to be at the heart of the scientific method.
Darwinism is no exception in science. It is a theory, a very old and well-established theory. But if evidence accumulates against it, science will scrap it and develop something new. This seems highly unlikely at this point, but bigger paradigm shifts have happened in science, even in just the past 85 years.
About your poem, "all the way from a leaf on a tree to the wings of a bee": it's a good poem.
Your poem does two things at once. It highlights the skepticism religion directs towards science and towards the scientific agenda of trying to figure out everything in the world.
But it also highlights the draw of science, the draw of the scientific quest to puzzle out the most challenging riddles that the universe throws out at us. This exciting quest mesmerizes scientists in a way that is not unlike the porch light that serves as a beacon to the moth.
Roger, I respect your skeptical bulldog attitude towards science, because I share it. However, I don't direct my skepticism just at science, but at religion as well.
Here's what is perhaps a novel worry about those who reject evolutionary theory. Evolutionary is about as good as a scientific theory gets. It is not in its infancy but is rather well-developed. It is accepted by nearly all who are objective and in command of the necesssary theory/evidence to render a legitimate opinion about its truth. (I'm not one of those and suspect that I never will be.) Thus if evolutionary theory gets the world as badly wrong as some here think, we should have little faith in the other sciences. The same point put a bit differently: If the biologists, who qua scientists are no less objective and knowledgeable than, say, the physicists,have gone so badly wrong, we have little reason to suppose that the physicists have not gone badly wrong as well.
The upshot is that if we discard the theory of evolution, we might as well discard the rest of science too, for it will all be fundamentally unreliable. Will anyone go so far as this?
Roger
"There are still scientists who accept the Bible as literal. They are also Christians. Age of the earth? I don’t know, different scholars debate it differently."
Oh, your agnosticism on the subject of the age of the earth is SO IMPRESSIVE, Roger. You are so open-minded!
Let's say you have to decide between two choices, Roger: the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old or it's 10,000 years old.
Which do you choose? For which hypothesis is the evidence better? Which hypothesis is supported by 99.9% of working scientists?
What other bogus crap do you refuse to take a position on, Roger, because "some scholars believe differently"?
Is Sasquatch roaming the Oregon hills? Are alien abducting people and probing them? Can John Edward the TV Medium communicate with dead people? Can some people read minds? Can Uri Geller bend spoons with his mine?
Please state your answers to each of these questions: yes or no.
"But to suggest, as you do, that any person who believes the earth to be young is very much unscientific and not to be trusted, is troublesome in itself."
No it's not because anyone who believes the earth is 10,000 years old is ignorant. To the extent they are not ignorant and they actually understand how science is done (which you seem clueless about yourself, Roger) then the individual is a charlatan.
Is it troublesome to suggest that someone who believes that John Edward is communicating with dead people is a sucker? Or someone who calls up a psychic over the phone to get advice about his aura? Is that "troublesome" Roger?
Let's see if Roger wakes up or if he reaches for another tall glass of Kool-Aid.
Matthew
"people, including some scientists, who believe in Darwinism uncritically, as a matter of faith."
This is an odd use of the term "faith."
Are you saying that there are scientists who accept everything Darwin wrote as infallible inerrant scripture?
Can you show me one example of such a scientist, Matthew? I am not aware of a single such scientist.
I realize you are "on my side". I simply want to alert you to the possibility that when you make strange statements in an effort to be (or appear to be) congenial with creationist types, you will find your strange statements coming back to bite you in the bite.
For the vast majority of people -- 99.999% of all humans on the planet -- there is no reason to think "critically" about evolutionary biology. Just as there is no reason to critically question scientists' expert opinions that matter consists of atoms and the earth orbits the sun (views that are not universally held by all, I'm sure).
Larry, Lord of reason says:
Let's say you have to decide between two choices, Roger: the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old or it's 10,000 years old.
Which do you choose? For which hypothesis is the evidence better? Which hypothesis is supported by 99.9% of working scientists?
What if I answer that the current evidence seems to support an old earth, but the young earth people make some interesting claims? Am I a rube for wanting to investigate those claims? What if I decide to give them the benefit of the doubt? Am I foolish?
Regarding what 99.9% of working scientists believe, this is a good indicator, but not infallible. Not too long ago, 99.9% of scientists thought that the speed of light was intantaneous, and could not have a measurable speed. I'm sure you could think of a more modern paradigm that has been broken, but you get the idea.
Also, when scientific ideas have strong implications or links to moral stances or foundational ideas that impact a world view, more people hold on to those ideas for more than purely "scientific" reasons. What I mean is, if I question the voracity of evolution in *any* way, I am considered a rube not because I may have reason to do so, but because I have the ordacity to question orthodoxy.
I mean, despite the respectable effort of the ID folk, in general, they are heaped with scorn. I betcha you can't even find it in yourself to call their effort respectable. But I am not surprised. Lots of people react that way when their faith is challenged.
No - physicist's thought the steady state universe beyond question; and now its pretty achieved the status of "flat earth". When I was in school, the human race "grew up" from a number of centers - now spread from one.
Science will not fall because natural selection cannot be extended to abiogenesis; or be unable to explain the diversity of species.
Science will be perfectly happy to say "never mind" and go on with whatever new science theory replaces the old
Matthew Groggins. Enjoyed reading your last posting. Thanks!
Don’t worry, I’m not far enough gone to claim the world is only 10 seconds old. And of course no one could prove me wrong, but that would be the height of deception on my part and a complete departure from reality. I agree with you fully.
Sarfati believes the earth to be somewhere around 6000 years old. He may be right but I somewhat disagree with him on two points. He is basing this on the genealogies given in Genesis and if I read my Bible scholars right, the ancient Hebrews tracked father and son relationships a lot different than we do today. Jack was the father of so-and-so might mean that he was the father or the grandfather or the great-grandfather. Matthew refers to Jesus as Son of David, showing this Hebrew tendency. This would lengthen the time line by a whole bunch if quite a few of the lesser important names were simply skipped. Now don’t get me wrong, this still puts me among the dreaded young earth adherents, but the time line could now be roughly 10,000 to maybe 15,000 or even 20,000 years.
The second point may be this -- if the first sentence in Genesis is separate from the creation week that follows, then we could be talking about the universe being 4.5 billion years old and the rest of the creation story as being told from the position of an observer standing at the surface of the earth. This would explain some of the other problems of the creation story; in other words, the sun and the moon would have become visible on day 4 as the thick fog-like atmosphere cleared, even though they were created during that time period covered by the first sentence. There are several scholars who have advanced this thought. There might be some serious objections to it as well. One possible objection would be when Jesus states in Mark 10:6, “But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female,” which puts creation of mankind at the beginning of creation. Does he mean the whole creation that includes that first sentence or does he mean the creation week as observed from earth? I don’t know.
You notice though, that when Sarfati’s name came up, the well known feathers began to fly. The evolutionist crowd became incensed. How could anyone attribute any common sense to someone like Sarfati, a young earth proponent? Was I crazy? This is the religious zeal that comes out of Darwinism.
I quote Larry Lord’s post here as the example - (No it's not because anyone who believes the earth is 10,000 years old is ignorant. To the extent they are not ignorant and they actually understand how science is done which you seem clueless about yourself, Roger then the individual is a charlatan.) Now, if that isn’t religious zeal, what is? Have these folks ever sat down quietly and studied the evidence put forth by our side? Probably not.
One thing that you and others have observed about me (you more nicely than some of the others), and that is that I have really taken my conversion from Darwinism to Christ very seriously. Despite what Larry Lord thinks, it wasn’t one of those evangelistic TV superstars that want my money and nothing else. It was C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist and philosopher. The third time I read his book, “Mere Christianity”, did it. It made sense, finally! I was 37 years old at the time. The evolutionary garment fell off piece by piece during the years after and not because of sermons that I have heard. As a matter of fact, my personal feeling is that the church today in the U.S. is losing the war because they have been far too accommodating to evolution, seemingly unwilling to challenge it head on. Darwinists, on the other hand, are in full battle array against the church and have enlisted politicians, the ACLU, and every activist judge they can find. Their aim is to eliminate Christianity from this nation entirely. The religious zeal that they have carried with them into this battle is frightening.
JCHFleetguy,
Good to see you again.
You're totally right about science surviving the destruction of its favorite theories.
What often happens though, when a new theory replaces an old theory, is that the new theory radically expands the scope of the old theory in some way, and the old theory still remains relevant as a special case of the new theory.
For example, Einstein's theories of relativity have replaced Newton's laws of motion. But we can still use Newton's laws with great accuracy, except in special circumstances involving large relative velocities.
Larry Lord,
Are you saying that there are scientists who accept everything Darwin wrote as infallible inerrant scripture?
Can you show me one example of such a scientist, Matthew? I am not aware of a single such scientist.
It is not unusual for new scientific theories to run into a lot of resistance from older scientists who are set in their ways.
Sometimes, the resistance is so strong that new theories have to wait for the old guard to die off before they gain widespread acceptance.
For example, Galileo got just as much grief from other scientists for his helio-centric theory of the solar system, as he got from the clerics. In fact, a number of Jesuit priests were highly supportive of Galileo and his findings.
More recently, Bjorn Lomborg, a Swedish environmental author, did some environmental meta-studies and reached some conclusions that went against the received wisdom in various scientific disciplines.
For his troubles, a Danish committee of scientists called the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty tried to shut him up by branding his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, "objectively dishonest” and “clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.”
And in this country, Scientific American, in their January 2002 issue, published an unusual tirade by scientists from four different fields in an effort to thoroughly discredit Lomborg's book and ideas.
Larry, scientists are people too, and are subject to the same human weaknesses and vanities as anybody else. Even when addressing their own areas of expertise.
Hopefully there aren't too many Darwinist scientists who approach evolution as a matter of faith. If they do believe Darwinism uncritically, then of course they're being bad scientists. But unfortunately, there are bad scientists.
A few more points:
Young earth types are wrong because they want a theory to be true and they try to fit the evidence into the theory, instead of trying to find a theory that fits onto the evidence.
However, their zealous motivation can spur them to make criticisms and to offer unusual insights that real scientists would never stumble across. That's why it's good to listen to people with loony theories: once in a while they find some interesting spot that no one else has noticed, even though they draw the wrong conclusions from their discovery.
... when you make strange statements in an effort to be (or appear to be) congenial with creationist types, you will find your strange statements coming back to bite you in the bite.
Look, people believe all kinds of things. If I were to interrogate you, I could probably find some things you believe that are superficially irrational.
I respect people's beliefs, even beliefs I disagree with, such as creationism or young earth-ism, because smart people can end up believing almost anything, so being wrong isn't a sign of being stupid.
And if a smart person believes something wrong, or even something loony, then there must be a reason for his belief. Unless and until I thoroughly understand the reason behind the belief, I am not going to be judgemental and discourteous if there is some way I can restrain myself. There is really no point in being rude and demeaning about these things.
Just as there is no reason to critically question scientists' expert opinions that matter consists of atoms and the earth orbits the sun (views that are not universally held by all, I'm sure).
If someone prefers to think of the sun circling the earth (as opposed to the earth revolving around the sun), I'm not sure it's actually incorrect to do so. Motion is relative to one's frame of reference (I believe Galileo discovered that principle too).
And even if it is incorrect, there's nothing wrong with trying out the idea as a thought experiment or a hypothesis. Einstein was very big on thought experiments, and created some immensely important science that way.
One last thing:
You are right that I am on your side. We both have enormous confidence in scientific theories, and we both are highly critical of accepting things on faith.
But I like to think that I am also on the side of anyone who seeks to know and understand the truth. And hopefully most people want to know the truth.
We're all in this together, this business of figuring out the world.
Hello Roger,
I don't have time to do the rebuttal thing to your whole comment.
But here's a little rebuttal for you:
This is the religious zeal that comes out of Darwinism.
The religious zeal that most scientists have for their science is very different from the religious zeal of religious believers for their religion.
Religious religious zeal is typically based on faith-based revelation. Scientific "religious" zeal is almost always based on rigorous experimentation and deduction. It's two totally different beasts.
By the way, my last post on my blog, The Bronx Blogger, is about C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.
Good night!
My point was not that science is unable to survive change but rather that if it gets the world so badly wrong as, say, the young Earthers say that it does, science has proven itself fundamentally unreliable as a guide to truth. When Einsteinian relativity theory replaced the older Newtonian physics, that old physics was recognized to quite closely approximate the truth at low velocities and low masses. Moreover, much of the basic conceptual apparatus of the Newtonian physics was preserved by Einstein (mass, energy, momentum etc.) Eistein was in a way a break with Newton but it was just as much a continuation of the project that Newton had begun.
If the young Earthers are right, we can have no such continuity with old theory. Put anothe way: one can, from the Einsteinian point of view quite easily understand why at a prior time a Newton might have proposed the theory he did. But if the young Earthers are right (and if, God forbid, their views were to come to hold sway), it becomes a complete mystery why prior science took the form that it did. One would, I suppose, have to say that the evolutionsists were stupid, corrupt or some such thing. Theirs can't really have been an honest mistake.
Franklin,
There is more than serious doubts that that will occur. Back in my heathen days I used to run down to Ozark Bible College and torture students on evolution. I would bone up all week and go in on Saturdays when they had a "coffee house" for hippies and just have a great time.
One favorite theory of theirs was that the Earth was created by God with the fossil record, appearence of age, etc. in order to test our faith - God would create false data to see if we would believe the Bible instead of the data. You have to give it to young earth folk - they do not rely on THIS argument anymore. (Of course I was dealing with theology, not science, students)
The only way young earth could be true is if that were true. Now it is not "impossible" God would work that way, and He certainly could have invented the earth anyway He chose, for any purpose - I will just be really shocked when I stand in front of Him if that turns out to be true. (Of course, I expect quite a few shocks at that point).
Young earth creationism will never supplant current evolutionary theory. Of course, even young earth creationism has room for natural selection within a species to create variation. This is of course exactly what will remain if abiogenesis can never be shown to make sense on a natural forces level and macroevolution is shown to be non-Darwinian.
In the meantime, science is not threatened - as Matthew so well pointed out - by loony theories. I think science is actually more threatened by the Sternberg case; or Lomberg
Franklin,
I know you cannot of meant this the way you said it. If young earthers are right, why would you want their views not to hold sway? I am sure you didn't mean this as defense of science that is "right" not winning over science that would therefore be wrong.He he. I understand you. I didn't mean to say that if true, their view shouldn't come to be accepted. I just meant simply that I dearly do hope that they don't come to be accepted, for they are almost surely false. My point was this: the young earth theory is such a radical departure from so much of currently accepted science that if it did come to hold sway, we would have to say that previous science, and its adherents, were deeply irrational. Or deeply corrupt.
Matthew
"If I were to interrogate you, I could probably find some things you believe that are superficially irrational."
Sure. But I'm not advocating teaching those things in public schools as science or as part of a fake trumped up "controversy."
Why am I not advocating that? Because I'm honest and I appreciate the usefulness of science and I value the contributions that scientists have made to society, which I don't stoop to smear them like so many folks here are so willing to do (after all, they were asked by their preachers to do so).