Thursday, March 22, 2007 | Reason : Science of Religion | print version

Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

by PZ Myers, Pharyngula

Reposted from:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/03/orr_vs_dennettdawkins.php

H. Allen Orr and Daniel Dennett are tearing into each other something fierce over at Edge, and it's all over Orr's dismissive review of Dawkins' The God Delusion. It's a bit splintery and sharp, but the core of Orr's complaint, I think, is that he's unimpressed with Dawkins' 'Ultimate 747' argument, which is basically that postulating an immensely complicated being to explain the creation of an immensely complicated universe doesn't actually explain anything and is self-refuting — if you need an intelligent superbeing to create anything complex, then the superbeing itself is an even greater problem for your explanation.

Dawkins clearly believes his argument is much more than this [more than a parody]: it's a demonstration that God almost certainly doesn't exist. Can Dennett really believe that some facile argument about the probability of correctly assembling all of God's parts by chance alone is anything of the kind? Does he really believe that God is (necessarily) complex in the same way as the universe, just more so?

I think Orr is looking at it in the wrong way, and part of his problem is a failure to define the god he is talking about. If we are talking about something that is not necessarily complex like the universe, that is basic and fundamental and that we derive in some way from something as essential as the laws of existence, then we are not addressing the existence of the god worshipped by almost any religion in existence. Sure, we could equate "god" with simplicity, but that's Einstein's or Spinoza's god, which are not a problem. Dawkins clearly lays out his terms and states his position:

Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.

Dawkins explicitly divorces his argument from the idea of god as impersonal primal force, which the 'Ultimate 747' argument does not address, and instead focuses on the kind of god-concept we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis in the real world — not the abstraction of theologians, but the capricious, vindictive, meddling magic man of the churches and the weekly prayer meetings and the televangelists.

The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it treason, but it certainly is intellectual foolishness. I like Orr's work, I usually greatly enjoy his reviews, but I think in this case he is, perhaps unconsciously rather than deliberately, confusing the pantheistic cosmic force he is unnecessarily defending from Dawkins' argument with the righteous anthropomorphic bastard that is actually refuted.

And yes, I know it is the nature of religion that everyone who believes will automatically state that their god sure isn't the complicated caricature of the Bible or the Torah or the Koran and will retreat to the safety of the Ineffable (but Simple) Cosmic Muffin until the bad ol' atheist is out of sight, and then they will pray to Fickle Magic Man for the new raise or that their favorite football team will win, and they will wonder if Righteous Bastard will torture them for eternity if they masturbate. Until that atheist glances their way again � then once more, God is Love, can't get much simpler than that, man, your arguments against that silly version can't touch my faith. It's familiar territory. Get into an argument with someone over Christianity or Islam or any of these dominant faiths, and you'll see them flicker back and forth between the abstract and the real god of their religion — their only defense is to present a moving target.

I think Orr would be better served by putting up a clear statement of what god he is defending, rather than shuttling back and forth. I suspect that if he did so, he'd either find himself agreeing with Dawkins, or finding his choice of god bedeviled with a very pointed criticism, one he can't dismiss so easily.

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1. Comment #26978 by MIND_REBEL on March 22, 2007 at 5:33 pm

It's a shame that Allen Orr, a so called "Scientist" feels the need to attack real science like The God Delusion in order to please some space merlin or whatever.

Dennet and Dawkins are two great minds that are actively working to ensure a better tomorrow for all of us, and i can't help but think that strawman attacks like Orr's, represent a desire to return to the stoneages where we're all bound and gagged by the meme of religion.

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2. Comment #26981 by BaronOchs on March 22, 2007 at 5:41 pm

From Wikipedia:

"He has published 66 Scientific Papers (including 2 in Nature, 1 in Science and 2 in PNAS)"

When you've had two papers published in Nature you tend to be called a Scientist MIND_REBEL.

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3. Comment #26983 by timothygmd on March 22, 2007 at 5:49 pm

Ummm, look at his credentials - Orr is a real scientist. He is also more or less on our side.

What he's falling prey to, in my opinion, is a combination of ego (Dawkins book doesn't make the points HE'D like to make) and possibly a bit of envy.

He's not alone. Look at all the fleas jumping on Dawkins back, trying to personally grow big by trying to feed off these discussions and be involved in conflict, one way or another.

One interesting point, though, derived from Orrs criticism, it that god (any god, really) become easier to defend when they are not well or clearly defined. An extreme example is Einstein's god, which is so poorly defined it is not distinguishable from no god at all. The more clearly defined a gods is, the more silly.

Anyone else note a trend ? Maybe we should make some kind of spectrum.

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4. Comment #26987 by John P on March 22, 2007 at 6:03 pm

From Orr's rebuttal:

What, for instance, does Dawkins think of Wittgenstein's picture of religion? Does he reject Wittgenstein's idea that believers sometimes use language in a way that differs from (and is incommensurable with) how we normally use language?

Now this interests me. I've always thought there was a language barrier between theists and atheists. For a long time I thought it was just my limited ability to comprehend, but whenever I read Christian apologists, what they said made no sense to me. Not that it was incomprehensible, because it was in English, and was grammatically correct, but I could never wrap my head around whatever concept they were expounding on. The bible itself seems to be written that way also, and they always have this irritating habit of quoting passages to support them, compounding the incomprehensibility of the argument.

But maybe this is simply a different brain using language in a different way.

Anyone else have this experience?

I must go look up this character Wittgenstein.

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5. Comment #26989 by BaronOchs on March 22, 2007 at 6:11 pm

When I first encountered Dawkins' argument that God is an unsatisfactory explanation because he would be at least as complex and improbable as that which he is supposed to explain it did niggle at me that Aquinas and co describe God as simple.

Q: How does God manage to be omnipotent and omniscient etc but also not just quite simple but perfectly simple?

A: We were not intended to understand such mysteries now get on and say your prayers.

Essentially I smell a move from something very difficult to understand, the universe, to something that is in principle beyond our understanding, God. This should be regarded as a travesty to anyone who wants real understanding and this whole complex/simple argument is not worth the time of day.

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6. Comment #26990 by BaronOchs on March 22, 2007 at 6:35 pm

John P I recall a few things Wittgenstein said on religion such as:

"The religion of the future will have to be very ascetic, and that doesn't just mean going without food and drink"

i.e. religion will have to not rely on unfounded metaphysical claims. His thought on religion is not atheist in a straightforward sense whilst hardly offering much hope to the orthodox either.

Various philosophers of religion have developed approaches based on Wittgenstein (D.Z. Philips and Don Cupitt come to mind). Much of which would probably be acceptable to anyone who accepts Dawkins' Einsteinian religion.

H. Allen Orr shouldn't treat Wittgenstein and William James (his Varieties of Religious Experience is very worth reading) like magic words that need simply be spoken as a knock-down point in a debate. If he wants to rest his case on them he ought to develop the implications of their thought and ask himself honestly if the churches etc will ever be willing to accept those implications.

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7. Comment #26997 by justme on March 22, 2007 at 7:47 pm

John P:
"But maybe this is simply a different brain using language in a different way.

Anyone else have this experience?"

The language is definitely specialized. Religious terms tend to look and act like normal words ... but not always. That's when much of the confusion comes up.

That said, much of the misunderstandings are over basic assumptions.

For example, fairness.

When a creationist says 'both sides should be told', it is hard to not bend and say 'sure, both sides, sounds fair'.

Yet, as we know, it isn't fair to allow creationism to be treated as a proven science without any of the rigor involved in every other proven field of science. The work doesn't get done by the creationists, and they want a freebie.

Poper's falsifiability is a critical concept when approaching anything in a scientific way. Creationism does not allow for falsifiability.

On a personal level, I had a very short argument with my father over allowing creationism in science classes. Focusing on fairness...he was right to say "Why not let them talk about it?".

Thankfully, he immediately knew the value of falsifiability to science when I brought it up and we could agree that religion does not lend itself to falsifiability. Since creationism, as a religious concept, is not falsifiable, it is not science and should not be in a science class.

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8. Comment #26999 by neander on March 22, 2007 at 7:48 pm

John P, your right when you say "I could never wrap my head around whatever concept they were expounding on" when you try to examine religious "logic". This is due to the horrific acts of mental acrobatics that are require to believe total rubbish and think at the same time. To ignore the stupidy of these ideas, whilst simultaneously trying to justify them takes some really amazing closed mind rationalization. Each practitioner's brain will develop its own tricks in self deception, no wonder its hard to follow.

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9. Comment #27009 by Zaphod on March 22, 2007 at 8:17 pm

I agree with Dennett and PZ. All I get from Dawkins Ultimate 747 argument is this "Saying god did it proves nothing and doesn't further science and discovery". You can postulate the 747 argument for god. If god must have created the earth, universe or whatever then what created him. He must be at least as complex as a human being if he created the universe. You would think he or she (sorry) would more be even more complex given the wonders of the cosmos and planet earth that he created.

This is where evolutionary theory comes in and raises our conciousness as Dawkins says. It shows us how the simple can become complex. Evolution does the "designing", but it is a trial and error bottom down-up design with no concious direction.

A lot of religious and even not so religious have a problem with this because they think that makes us look small. My answer to this is the same as Richards. TUFF.

Grow up and accept the world and universe the way it really is and move away from child like ego and geocentric views of reality.

Read some of Richards other books. Watch Cosmos by Carl sagan. You will find that a naturalistic and realistic view of reality can be an even more wonderful realisation than a superstitious fictional view ever could.

We are all made of star stuff. The universe isn't just out in space, it is in you.

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10. Comment #27010 by Zaphod on March 22, 2007 at 8:23 pm

MIND_REBEL - I love Richards books. His latest book the god delusion I also enjoyed. This isn't science though. Science is the body of knowledge we have the in disciplines and the method we use to obtain and interpret this knowledge. You could perhaps call it loosely popularising science but its more about theology, philosophy and atheism. Still a dam good book and great read.

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11. Comment #27013 by Scep on March 22, 2007 at 8:50 pm

About defining the different Gods, wouldn't the word "supernatural" do the trick?

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12. Comment #27014 by Scep on March 22, 2007 at 8:54 pm

"Read some of Richards other books. Watch Cosmos by Carl sagan. You will find that a naturalistic and realistic view of reality can be an even more wonderful realisation than a superstitious fictional view ever could."

Well said Zaphod!

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13. Comment #27024 by hightrekker on March 22, 2007 at 10:19 pm

This like Stalin reviewing Trotsky---
The GOULD,LEWONTIN, ROSE VS DAWKINS,DENNETT,PINKER
war has been going on for years, and Orr is a lackey for the Gould side--
Coming from a Marxist background, I have been rooting for the Gould side, but the evidence is fully with Dennett, Pinker and Dawkins--
One must fold the cards sometime, but with Orr being the major reviewer for the Eastern Media Establishment, they will not give up---

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14. Comment #27026 by hightrekker on March 22, 2007 at 10:59 pm

What the War is About------

Abstract

Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory -- that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets this criterion: grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.
Keywords: Language, Evolution, Language Acquisition, Natural Selection, Grammatical Theory, Biology of Language, Language Universals, Psycholinguistics, Origin of Language

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15. Comment #27031 by Zaphod on March 23, 2007 at 12:05 am

That is all well and interesting hightrekker but what does it have to do with this article?

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16. Comment #27032 by Feuerbach on March 23, 2007 at 12:07 am

I would have thought that after writing a book in the most convincing way he has, that Richard must now be a professional Atheist. Making money from any profession does not make one brilliant, nor does being an amateur relegate you to automatic incredibility.

Orr likes straw men because he cannot match Dawkins.

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17. Comment #27060 by Jonathan Dore on March 23, 2007 at 4:04 am

hightrekker -- what's the paper for which your post no. 14 is the abstract? (Title, publication details etc.). I'd be interested in reading the whole thing.

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18. Comment #27065 by denoir on March 23, 2007 at 4:16 am

PZ is spot on as always. The 'Ultimate 747' argument is just a very simple demonstration that an argument for god based on the improbability of the universe means absolutely nothing as you end up with an �ber-improbable unexplained entity.

So what's the difference between an infinite regress in magic designers contra an infinite regress into multiverses and things like that? That the latter has some form of physical foundation to stand on. It's a bottom up explanation that may never come to a termination point, but that's far less of a problem than if you try to build a top-down system and have infinite regress upwards.

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19. Comment #27081 by fonex_86 on March 23, 2007 at 5:27 am

I used to think that all "proper" scientists would view religion with disdain -- perhaps even contempt. Heck, I usually reserve the hey-I-know-science-but-I-*respect*-religion attitude as exclusively engineer territory. Then Orr came along, and >>boom<<.

I'd dismiss him as an anomaly, but now, I see more and more people like him cropping up all around me! What gives?

Is it fear of religion? Fear of offending others? Geez, people, what?!?

Will it take a religion to demand that 3+3 =7 for you to quit your downright stupid defense of religion?

*end of rant*

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20. Comment #27116 by hightrekker on March 23, 2007 at 7:24 am

Zaphod--
The point is, it is probably less about the 747 and religion, and more about discrediting Dawkins of Dennitt on any level while
fighting this war. Orr's roll is to minimize and discredit any position taken by Dawkins, Dennett or Pinker.
There are political and social implications that cannot be accepted
from the Gould side if Dawkins and Pinker's science becomes validated.

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21. Comment #27117 by BaronOchs on March 23, 2007 at 7:45 am

Thanks hightrekker.

I did know there was an often quite fierce debate between Dawkins and Gould and their allies and it helps to understand Orr's animosity that this is a continuation of that controversy.

Perhaps I ought to look at the features of that debate. I know there is plenty of information from the Dawkins point of view on the other Dawkins website.

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22. Comment #27143 by hightrekker on March 23, 2007 at 9:23 am

J Dore--
Here is the full paper--
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/99/bbs00000499-00/bbs.pinker.html

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23. Comment #27185 by WilliamP on March 23, 2007 at 12:40 pm

I applaud Dawkins for making this argument and bringing this problem with the Design Argument (DA) to the forefront. This needed to happen because it is a potentially fatal flaw in the argument that many people use to justify their beliefs in god.

If Orr wants a more fair representation of religion from Dawkins, maybe he should also be fair to the DA proponents and ask them just what they think of the issue of complexity of the "creator(s)" that they claim made the universe. I'm sure they won't think that it's necessary to have a creator that is more complex than its creation because that would obviously contradict their main argument. What would they say, though? For DA-justified Theists, it would be very hard to come up with a reasonable definition of complexity that describes the whole of the universe, yet doesn't describe an all-knowing, omnipotent diety.

Such a definition of complexity might be possible to concieve. I don't see Orr doing it, but he does suggest that god might not be "necessarily complex in the same way as the universe", but doesn't suggest how or why that's even relevant. Are we to say that A-type complexity means that god made it, but B-type complexity means that it is god. How do we know? I don't see why he's so bitter toward Dawkins and Dennet for not considering these remote and muddled possiblities.

I also don't see any DA proponents coming up with a way to justify the belief that complex things are neccesarily created, but their creator isn't. They should if they want their arguments to survive. Until they do, it looks like Dawkins has the final word.

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24. Comment #27193 by jeepyjay on March 23, 2007 at 1:34 pm

John P wrote: "I've always thought there was a language barrier between theists and atheists. For a long time I thought it was just my limited ability to comprehend, but whenever I read Christian apologists, what they said made no sense to me. Not that it was incomprehensible, because it was in English, and was grammatically correct, but I could never wrap my head around whatever concept they were expounding on." and asks: "Anyone else have this experience?"

Yes, I would go further and say that a lot of philosophy is like that, not just theology. Theology is indeed, as Dawkins claims, a vacuous subject. But a lot of Philosphy is also vacuous, being merely expert word-shuffling.

All good Philosophy eventually becomes Science. Speculation becomes knowledge. Much of ethical philosophy for instance will eventually be superseded by neurologically based psychology.

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25. Comment #27267 by the great teapot on March 23, 2007 at 4:48 pm

2 months ago I never knew what a straw man was.
I have never looked up the word straw man in a dictionary or had anyone explain the term to me but i have read so many comments by theists in the last 2 months I now feel like I could recognise a straw man before I could recognise a member of my own family.

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26. Comment #27274 by the great teapot on March 23, 2007 at 5:08 pm

fonex

I am an Engineer- I have worked with possibly 40 Engineers in my life- I have only worked with 2 Companies- and I have only met with 2 fellow Engineers who think there is a personal God - 1 is retired and the other is 2 years away (but should be retired now- he lacks good judgement generally) so less of the Engineers are stupid scientists in future.

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27. Comment #27485 by Mat on March 25, 2007 at 12:05 am

The whole debate about creationism is an interesting one - I think it should be discussed in science classes, but NOT necessarily investigating the actual claims that creationists make. It is hard to see a better example of non-science parading around in a scientist's garb than creationism. Maybe a lecture series entitled "If You Start Doing This Kind of Thing and Trying to Pretend It Is Science, You Should Be Extremely Worried." I think creationism would fit nicely into a science class in that context.

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28. Comment #27603 by J. J. Ramsey on March 25, 2007 at 3:07 pm

"I think Orr is looking at it in the wrong way, and part of his problem is a failure to define the god he is talking about."

I think this sentence distracts from Orr's point. Here's a fuller quote from Orr:

Frankly, I find it astonishing that Dennett thinks the 747 gambit accomplishes much of anything. If Dawkins had offered his argument as a parody of those admittedly puerile philosophical proofs of God's existence, I'd laugh along. But Dawkins clearly believes his argument is much more than this: it's a demonstration that God almost certainly doesn't exist. Can Dennett really believe that some facile argument about the probability of correctly assembling all of God's parts by chance alone is anything of the kind? Does he really believe that God is (necessarily) complex in the same way as the universe, just more so? And just what metric of complexity does Dennett take to extend so readily from the natural to the supernatural? Does none of this trouble Dennett? Are things really so neat as Dawkins says? [emphasis added]

The problem, which PZ Myers dodges, is how the heck is Dawkins comparing the complexity of God to the complexity of the universe. It is one thing to say that God and the universe are each complex in their own ways. It is another thing to say that one has a metric of complexity that applies equally to something physical like the universe and a ghostly who-knows-what like the Deity we all know and, um, well, we all know, and that one can judge whether a complicated arrangement of matter is more or less complex than a really weird fictional specter. To put it in more concrete terms, this can be sort of like comparing the complexity of the Grand Canyon to the complexity of a cat. How would you even go about doing that, and would you even get a meaningful result when done? This is the problem that Orr is talking about. The problem is not so much whether God is simple, but whether it is even coherent for Dawkins to claim that the complexities of God and the universe can be compared at all.

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29. Comment #27607 by tomwb on March 25, 2007 at 3:48 pm

These sorts of arguments mystify me.

The term 'universe' has its roots in the latin word 'unus' ('one'), and refers to everything we can observe.

There cannot be 'another sort of complexity' outside the universe unless either A) it has absolutely no effect on our universe and is therefore irrelevant, or B) it does have observable effects and is therefore part of the universe.

Of course, there are theories that propose something outside the universes (the multiverse theory for example), but the point is that these other universes either have no effect on ours, or that their effects can be observed, in which case we will have to expand our concept of the universe (experiments with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will be very interesting).

It simply isn't good enough to argue that there is some other form or reality that we can't observe and can't understand, but that nevertheless has an effect upon out universe. This is the same as a belief in magic.

God as a concept either has no effect upon our universe (and is therefore an irrelevant and unnecessary concept), or it does have an effect that can be observed and can therefore be subjected to the same scrutiny as everything else in the universe.

You can't have it both ways. God is either natural (and is a useless explanation for anything - as the ultimate 747 argument shows), or he is supernatural (and is a useless explanation for anything because then you have to explain how the supernatural interacts with the natural).

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30. Comment #27608 by J. J. Ramsey on March 25, 2007 at 4:16 pm

tomwb: "These sorts of arguments mystify me.

"The term 'universe' ... refers to everything we can observe."

"There cannot be 'another sort of complexity' outside the universe unless either A) it has absolutely no effect on our universe and is therefore irrelevant, or B) it does have observable effects and is therefore part of the universe."

Your conclusion follows from your premises, but it is a purely semantic argument. When others talk about the universe, they often mean the "material world," which doesn't include God. But let's use your definition. God is then, supposedly, a part of the universe. A really weird part of the universe that doesn't go by the same rules as the rest of the universe, but a part of it.

We still have the same problem, just rephrased. Instead of comparing the complexity of God with that of the universe, we are then comparing God the complexity of God with that of the rest of the universe. All the problems with defining a common metric of complexity still remain.

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31. Comment #27613 by Janus on March 25, 2007 at 4:39 pm

The argument usually goes that since God is defined as the designer and creator of the universe, he must have been able to hold in His mind the concept of the universe before actually creating it, therefore He must be at least as complex (and probably more) than the universe.

But anyway, it really doesn't matter whether you can compare the complexity of the universe to that of God. The point is that God, being an intelligent being, must be at least somewhat complex, and therefore cannot be the ultimate explanation for complexity. Even if He is less complex than the universe, we still need to explain God. And since God is by definition the cause of Everything except itself, God refutes the theistic assumption that complex things cannot "just exist" (and therefore require a Designer); if this assumption is false, if a complex being like God can "just exist", then why can't the universe "just exist"? It no more needs a designer than God does. Logically speaking, God is therefore either non-existent (if complex entities cannot "just exist") or superfluous (if they can).

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32. Comment #27619 by J. J. Ramsey on March 25, 2007 at 5:21 pm

Janus: "But anyway, it really doesn't matter whether you can compare the complexity of the universe to that of God."

It does if you are claiming that God would need to be more complex than the universe--and that is what the Ultimate 747 argument does.

Janus: "if a complex being like God can 'just exist', then why can't the universe 'just exist'?"

That's a great refutation of the cosmological argument, but that's not what the Ultimate 747 argument is about. The Ultimate 747 argument is meant to counter design arguments that focus on either the origins of particular pieces of the universe, like flagella, or why the universe is supposedly fine-tuned. It is not about arguments dealing with why the universe exists at all.

Janus: "God refutes the theistic assumption that complex things cannot 'just exist'"

True, but not even those arguing for design are making the generic argument that complex things, in general, cannot "just exist." Usually, they are arguing that the particular instances of complexity that we see, such as flagella or eyes, could not have come about by particular blind processes. These arguments, faults and all, have details that are specific to various biological things. For example, the arguments about the flagellum presume that it is made from discrete parts and that "evolutionists" make the bold claim that all these parts just came together by chance. Such an argument doesn't really work on things that aren't made of discrete parts. (Such an argument doesn't work at all, actually, as van Till's article "E. coli at the No Free Lunchroom" points out, but that's another story.)

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33. Comment #27621 by tomwb on March 25, 2007 at 5:29 pm

J.J. Ramsey: 'Your conclusion follows from your premises, but it is a purely semantic argument. When others talk about the universe, they often mean the "material world," which doesn't include God. But let's use your definition. God is then, supposedly, a part of the universe. A really weird part of the universe that doesn't go by the same rules as the rest of the universe, but a part of it.'

But why should I accept that there is 'a really weird part of the universe that doesn't go by the same rules as the rest of the universe' at all. Is there any evidence for this? We're back in celestial teapot territory.

And if this weird part of the universe does exist, then presumably there is some kind of interaction by which that part affects this part; and by observing the interaction we would be able to understand the other part.

The ultimate 747 argument isn't really an argument agaist the supernatural (how could anyone argue against something that, by its nature, cannot be understood), it is a counter-argument to the 'standard 747' argument from design.

Dawkins' point is that the argument from design doesn't work because it tries to naturalise the supernatural - to pose non-material explanations for material observations. This is more than just semantics. If you try to bring God into the material universe then he becomes a material phenomenon and should therefore be observable. If God is outside the universe then you must explain how the interaction works in order for it to be an explanation of anything.

If you're satisfied with supernatural explanations that say 'something I don't understand caused this, and I don't understand how', that's fine. But I don't think this is anything like an explanation, and it certainly doesn't satisfy my curiosity.

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34. Comment #27632 by J. J. Ramsey on March 25, 2007 at 8:38 pm

tomwb: "But why should I accept that there is 'a really weird part of the universe that doesn't go by the same rules as the rest of the universe' at all."

You shouldn't. But neither should you accept bad arguments that happen to support your beliefs. It is perhaps telling that you assumed that I was a theist because I was arguing against an antitheistic argument.

tomwb: "The ultimate 747 argument ... is a counter-argument to the 'standard 747' argument from design."

And no one has disputed that. Unfortunately, the Ultimate 747 argument shares at least one flaw with the very arguments that it is meant to counter. It relies on appealing to intuition, leaving far too many of its premises either unstated or underdeveloped. Saying that the designer must be more complex than what it designs looks good until you start asking how the heck you are going to measure this complexity. This was Orr's point, which Myers obscured by leaving off the question, "just what metric of complexity does Dennett take to extend so readily from the natural to the supernatural?" and by changing the subject.

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35. Comment #27648 by tomwb on March 26, 2007 at 1:37 am

J. J. Ramsey: 'Unfortunately, the Ultimate 747 argument shares at least one flaw with the very arguments that it is meant to counter'

And that is precisely the point. Dawkins is saying 'If you believe position A to be true for a particular set of reasons, then by your own logic you should also believe position B'

The flaw in the original logic is exposed by turning the argument back on itself. The conlusion: either stop using the 747 argument (since by its own logic it is flawed), or admit that by its own logic it doesn't explain what it tries to explain.

No-one would use this as an argument on its own. I'm sure Dawkins hasn't come to an atheist conclusion because of this argument. He's just using it to counter those people who think the argument from design is the trump card - which it isn't.

I didn't assume you were a theist. I'm just puzzled by the idea that there could be 'another sort of reality' that we can't understand. Isn't this just another way of saying 'supernatural'.

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36. Comment #27694 by J. J. Ramsey on March 26, 2007 at 6:55 am

J. J. Ramsey: 'Unfortunately, the Ultimate 747 argument shares at least one flaw with the very arguments that it is meant to counter'

tomwb: "And that is precisely the point."

Except that the flaw that the Ultimate 747 argument shares with design arguments is a flaw that prevents it from successfully overturning them, namely a failure to make its premises clear. If the premise "the designer must be more complex than what it designs" is either outright incoherent or hinges on a definition of complexity that is irrelevant to design arguments, then the Ultimate 747 argument flops.

tomwb: "I didn't assume you were a theist. I'm just puzzled by the idea that there could be 'another sort of reality' that we can't understand."

"Another sort of reality" is your words, not mine.

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37. Comment #27783 by tomwb on March 26, 2007 at 5:19 pm

Okay, I'm struggling to understand. I'm going to try to outline the argument as I see it. What am I missing?

Argument from Design: There are observable features of the universe, particularly in biology, that are too implausible to have come about as a result of purely material, mechanistic processes. A supernatural explanation is necessary.

Dawkins' Counter-Argument: If we believe that a supernatural explanation is more plausible than a material explanation, we are mistaken, because the supernatural explanation itself requires more explanation than that which the explanation attempts to explain. Also, to talk about design, we mean something like 'conscious effort to change the universe towards a particular goal'. 'Conscious effort' and 'goals' require some sort of information processing - which necessarily implies at least a certain level of complexity. And as Janus pointed out, in order to process the information required to design something, the designer must necessarily be at least as complex as the thing being designed (and probably more).

Orr's Criticism: Dawkins' counter-argument doesn't demonstrate that God almost certainly doesn't exist. It is wrong to argue that design by God necessarily implies a level of complexity greater than that which is being designed, because God is not complex in the same way as anything else.

I just don't understand what 'not complex in the same way as anything else' could possibly mean. Why should Dennett have to provide a 'metric of complexity'. Complexity is just a measure of the number of connections between different parts of something.

Comparing the complexity of the Grand Canyon to the Complexity of a cat would be a strange task (a particular cat, or just the taxonomic category cat?), but no-one would try to use either of these things as an explanation for the other (what is the reason for the Grand Canyon? A Cat!). And anyway, I suspect that a cat is more complex than the Grand Canyon, because a cat is made up of a multitude of different parts, whereas the Grand Canyon is made up of rock and space. Although both scenarios are implausible, I think it sounds more plausible to say that a cat created the Grand Canyon, than to say the Grand Canyon created a cat.

Orr seems to take the position that since arguments involving the supernatural exist, then we should treat the supernatural as though it is real.

But why should we?

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38. Comment #27888 by J. J. Ramsey on March 27, 2007 at 6:12 am

tomwb: "Why should Dennett have to provide a 'metric of complexity'."

Because complexity is a vague concept, and there are many different possible working definitions for complexity, not all of which will yield comparable metrics.

tomwb: "Complexity is just a measure of the number of connections between different parts of something."

That's one way of looking at complexity, but not a good one if one is looking at the complexity of snowflakes, where the interest would be on the shape of the snowflake rather than connections among water molecules, or of the complexity of a piece of music, where the focus would be on chord changes, combinations of overtones, and so on. Indeed, what constitutes a "connection" for a snowflake and for a piece of music would be rather different.

tomwb: "Comparing the complexity of the Grand Canyon to the Complexity of a cat would be a strange task ... but no-one would try to use either of these things as an explanation for the other"

That no one would use one as an explanation for the other is irrelevant. The point is, as you said, comparing the complexities of the two things would be a strange task, and--more to the point--an ill-defined one. Whether a cat is considered more or less complex than the Grand Canyon depends a lot on how one measures the complexity. One could argue that your conclusion ignores that the Grand Canyon has different kinds of rock in many different configurations. One could argue back and forth about which one is more complex than the other, and do it ad nauseum, simply by arguing over which working definition of complexity is an appropriate one to cover both a rock formation and an animal.

tomwb: "Orr seems to take the position that since arguments involving the supernatural exist, then we should treat the supernatural as though it is real."

No. Not at all. You are trying too hard to see an endorsement of the supernatural in Orr. What Orr is saying is that one of the premises of Dawkins' argument appears terminally vague.

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39. Comment #28502 by chance on March 29, 2007 at 12:55 pm

J.J. Ramsey said: "Because complexity is a vague concept, and there are many different possible working definitions for complexity, not all of which will yield comparable metrics."

This is not at all true. Complexity is not vague at all, nor are there many possible different working definitions. There is a very specific measure of complexity. Do some reading/research on Information Theory and Claude Shannon. You may find that the Ultimate 747 argument makes more sense after that.

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