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Gods and earthlings
by Richard Dawkins
Reposted from:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-dawkins18apr18,0,2798612.story
If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors.
Arthur C. Clarke, who died last month, said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If we could land a jumbo jet beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods? The technology of interstellar travel, and the scientific knowledge on which it would be based, are as far beyond us as our present-day knowledge surpasses that of Dark Age peasants. Parting the Red Sea -- or splitting the moon in two as Muhammad is alleged to have done -- would be child's play to those who command forces powerful enough to propel them from star to star.
But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense. To deserve the name of God, a being would have to have designed more than just a jumbo jet or even a starship. He would have to have designed the universe. And therein lies a fundamental contradiction. Entities capable of designing anything, whether they be human engineers or interstellar aliens, must be complex -- and therefore, statistically improbable. And statistically improbable things don't just happen spontaneously by chance without an explanation trail. That is what "improbable" means, as creationists never tire of assuring us (they wrongly think Darwinian natural selection is a matter of chance).
In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things. Even if our species was created by space alien designers, those designers themselves would have to have arisen from simpler antecedents -- so they can't be an ultimate explanation for anything. No matter how god-like our interstellar aliens may be, and no matter how vast and wonderful their starships, they cannot have designed the universe because, like human engineers and all complex things, they are late arrivals in it.
Intelligent design "theorists" (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: "For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space." This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.
Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their "space aliens" political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design's best shot.
The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called "Directed Panspermia." Life, they argued, could have been "seeded" on the early Earth by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4 billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.
We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves.
Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate) answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins. Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had always existed would be far more improbable still.
This technique of arguing against a theory by setting up its most plausible version and dismissing it is commonly used in science and philosophy. The late, great evolutionist John Maynard Smith used it in his 1964 attack on the then-popular theory of "group selection." He set himself the task of devising the best possible argument for group selection. The details don't matter; he called it the Haystack Model. He then proceeded to show that the assumptions that the Haystack Model needed to make were highly unrealistic.
Everybody understood that this was an argument against group selection. Nobody twisted it to trumpet to the world, "See? Maynard Smith believes in Group Selection after all, and he thinks it happens in Haystacks, ho ho ho!" Creationists, by contrast, never miss a trick. When I have raised the science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless.
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, is a professor at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-dawkins18apr18,0,2798612.story
If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass. The capabilities and powers of our interstellar visitors would seem more magical to us than all the miracles of all the gods that have ever been imagined by priests or theologians, mullahs or rabbis, shamans or witch doctors.
Arthur C. Clarke, who died last month, said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If we could land a jumbo jet beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods? The technology of interstellar travel, and the scientific knowledge on which it would be based, are as far beyond us as our present-day knowledge surpasses that of Dark Age peasants. Parting the Red Sea -- or splitting the moon in two as Muhammad is alleged to have done -- would be child's play to those who command forces powerful enough to propel them from star to star.
But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense. To deserve the name of God, a being would have to have designed more than just a jumbo jet or even a starship. He would have to have designed the universe. And therein lies a fundamental contradiction. Entities capable of designing anything, whether they be human engineers or interstellar aliens, must be complex -- and therefore, statistically improbable. And statistically improbable things don't just happen spontaneously by chance without an explanation trail. That is what "improbable" means, as creationists never tire of assuring us (they wrongly think Darwinian natural selection is a matter of chance).
In fact, natural selection is the very opposite of a chance process, and it is the only ultimate explanation we know for complex, improbable things. Even if our species was created by space alien designers, those designers themselves would have to have arisen from simpler antecedents -- so they can't be an ultimate explanation for anything. No matter how god-like our interstellar aliens may be, and no matter how vast and wonderful their starships, they cannot have designed the universe because, like human engineers and all complex things, they are late arrivals in it.
Intelligent design "theorists" (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: "For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space." This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.
Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their "space aliens" political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design's best shot.
The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called "Directed Panspermia." Life, they argued, could have been "seeded" on the early Earth by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4 billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.
We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves.
Theologians attempt two (mutually incompatible and pathetically inadequate) answers to this unanswerable point. Some say their God is not complex but simple. This obviously won't wash. No simple god could design bacterial flagellar motors or universes, let alone forgive sins or impregnate virgins. Presumably recognizing the justice of that, other theologians go to the opposite extreme. They admit that their god is complex but assert that he had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar motors were always there. You cannot have it both ways. Visitations from distant star systems are improbable enough to attract ridicule, not least from the advocates of intelligent design themselves. A creator god who had always existed would be far more improbable still.
This technique of arguing against a theory by setting up its most plausible version and dismissing it is commonly used in science and philosophy. The late, great evolutionist John Maynard Smith used it in his 1964 attack on the then-popular theory of "group selection." He set himself the task of devising the best possible argument for group selection. The details don't matter; he called it the Haystack Model. He then proceeded to show that the assumptions that the Haystack Model needed to make were highly unrealistic.
Everybody understood that this was an argument against group selection. Nobody twisted it to trumpet to the world, "See? Maynard Smith believes in Group Selection after all, and he thinks it happens in Haystacks, ho ho ho!" Creationists, by contrast, never miss a trick. When I have raised the science-fiction olive branch to try to argue against them, they have twisted it -- most recently in a movie scheduled to open this week -- in order to proclaim loudly, "Dawkins believes in intelligent design after all." Or "Dawkins believes in little green men in flying saucers." Or "Dawkins is a Raelian." It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless.
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, is a professor at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion."
Comments 1 - 50 of 181 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #163397 by kaiserkriss on April 18, 2008 at 9:47 am
Richard's message should be hanging from every flag pole, posted on every Church website and notice board around the world... jcw Other Comments by kaiserkriss
3. Comment #163398 by RamziD on April 18, 2008 at 9:47 am
Good article!Glad to see RD given some space in an American newspaper.
Other Comments by RamziD
4. Comment #163399 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 18, 2008 at 9:48 am
We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves.
So why not a "god" who arose from "natural" causes that spawned our universe? It still makes the likelihood that a species of ape on a planet rotating around a star, one of thousands of millions in the galaxy, that is one of millions upon millions of other galaxies, are the reason for the "creation", and of course elementary logic means we first consider the evidence before we make these kinds of speculations but this argument wouldn't bother people who wish to believe there is a God, they merely want a daddy.
Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
5. Comment #163402 by Colwyn Abernathy on April 18, 2008 at 9:51 am
So why not a "god" who arose from "natural" causes that spawned our universe? It still makes the likelihood that a species of ape on a planet rotating around a star, one of billions in the galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies, are at the the reason for the "creation" but of course elementary logic means we first search for the evidence before we make speculative conclusions.
Tho it doesn't hurt to ask, "What if?" Gives us an idea on what to search FOR, even if we come up empty handed. I'm still intrigued by the idea of silicon based life, tho its plausibility escapes me. Still, asking the questions is the first step, after all, innit? :)
Other Comments by Colwyn Abernathy
6. Comment #163403 by John Done on April 18, 2008 at 9:56 am
I never tire of these articulate counters to the claims of cdesign proponentists. It cuts straight to the matter at multiple points: why we shouldn't believe something confounding to be magic, the way in which evolution accounts for complexity (and hints to the orgins of life itself), how the idea of god(s) fails to constitute as an answer, the hogwash of theology, and the obviously misleading tactics of the ID movement. Were this to be known to those self-cloistered individuals only exposed to religiously-inspired misleading materials, the matter of religion and science, and religion itself, would surely be resolved sooner than the most hopeful predictions.Other Comments by John Done
7. Comment #163404 by Koreman on April 18, 2008 at 9:56 am
Reminds me of the Boltzmann brain hypothesis.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzman_brain
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html
Other Comments by Koreman
8. Comment #163409 by rwrjunior on April 18, 2008 at 10:09 am
I am also glad to see this was printed in here in the US. It's hard to get within firing distance to attack these beliefs that people hold so very emotionally. I don't think very many people here have thought the ID proposition through very carefully, it's just that they prefer it, on a visceral level, to the alternative. The problem as I see it is to get people to approach it on an intellectual level. I don't have a solution. Thoughts?Other Comments by rwrjunior
9. Comment #163410 by Podaar on April 18, 2008 at 10:12 am
they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselvesThank you Professor, that made my day.
Other Comments by Podaar
10. Comment #163411 by max dyson on April 18, 2008 at 10:15 am
"If we could land a jumbo jet beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods?"
Um! No! It is very, very much more likely they would class you as demons or fallen angels, and as such proceed to burn you...
Good article otherwise.
Other Comments by max dyson
11. Comment #163412 by riki on April 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
"Dawkins is a Raelian" Don't worry, a high percentage of Christians probably think that Moses was one of the twelve disciples. Facts don't really matter to them, even in Christian mythology, let alone Science.
Christianity is a slippery rope. They can twist it any-which-way they want. As long a they believe, that's the only thing that really matters. But show me two Christians that believe in the same thing.
Other Comments by riki
12. Comment #163413 by Jiten on April 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
When will the IDiots get it through their thick heads?RD can write articles like this till the cows come home and they still will carry on as before.I guess they're not interested in the truth,only in keeping the truth from the ignorant masses.Their power will only wane when we educate and make science-literate the masses.
Other Comments by Jiten
13. Comment #163414 by philiproulx on April 18, 2008 at 10:16 am
Creationists usually respond with the, "god is a complex spirit, outside of our realm of the tangible and physical" line when the issue of complex antecedents is raised.As a philosopher, I'm okay with exploring this line of reasoning...as a scientist I find it very unnerving and very unscientific.
But you do propose the need to find simpler antecedents, but as creationists are quick to point out, the simplest antecedent, out of necessity, must preexist matter/space/time?
God as a spirit, not a physical being and not made up of the same components of our physical reality, is what they claim is the simplest antecedent. The ultimate cause.
Does this not necessitate that matter/universe has always existed? Or is there something that we can point to that preexisted matter, which serves as a probably, reasonable, rational antecedent?
Other Comments by philiproulx
14. Comment #163415 by ThoughtsonCommonToad on April 18, 2008 at 10:18 am
But now the question arises: In what sense would the god-like aliens not be gods? Answer: In a very important sense. To deserve the name of God, a being would have to have designed more than just a jumbo jet or even a starship. He would have to have designed the universe. And therein lies a fundamental contradiction.
Well what if there were god-like alien creatures who did exactly that? Would they deserve the title of Gods? I don't see the contradiction. All that is ruled out is a complex entity as the Ultimate Cause.
Other Comments by ThoughtsonCommonToad
15. Comment #163428 by Koreman on April 18, 2008 at 10:45 am
No entity, made of whatever, can not have created itself nor its own habitat. Any assumption of a godlike creature is false. Other Comments by Koreman
16. Comment #163438 by Janus on April 18, 2008 at 11:02 am
complex -- and therefore, statistically improbable
Why? The relation between complexity and improbability is well supported empirically, but we're talking about things and beings outside of our universe, where this relation may not exist (or may exist in a weaker form). There's nothing logically incoherent about an intelligent being that "just exists".
They admit that their god is complex but assert that he had no beginning: He was always there and always complex. But if you are going to resort to that facile cop-out, you might as well say flagellar motors were always there.
We can't do that, because we have lots of evidence that flagellar motors (and life as a whole) have not always existed.
Other Comments by Janus
17. Comment #163441 by Pattern Seeker on April 18, 2008 at 11:05 am
Good space morning everyone, this is your captain, Rael, speaking and welcome aboard the Starship Jefferson. We'll be flying through the Hawking Wormhole at approximately the speed of light and will arrive in about...now! All passengers participating in the 'seeding' should move to the rear of the spacecraft and prepare to eject said 'SpaceSperm' TM. And thank you for flying Betelgeuse Spacelines. Other Comments by Pattern Seeker
18. Comment #163444 by ksskidude on April 18, 2008 at 11:07 am
Well said!
I haven't decided yet if I will go and see the documentary yet or not. I magine that I should, just so that I am well versed in what it is trying to say. But then again I already know what the so-called movie is going to say, "nothing."
It will once again twist and lie and pray on the feeble minded. It will argue that we non-beleiver's, we that require "evidence" are simply bullying them around. "Sigh.........."
If an alien or aliens come to our planet and reveal themselves and thier technology,I will be excited beyond belief. But I will never think of them as god-like. That would be an insult to them.
Other Comments by ksskidude
19. Comment #163449 by thewhitepearl on April 18, 2008 at 11:09 am
WOW. The tone of that article was incredibly intense.
In that very smooth-talking, polite manner of his he basically tells all of his critics and opponents to bend over and take it.
Love it.
I have to point out that the last statement was my favorite part "Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, is a professor at Oxford University. His most recent book is "The God Delusion." "
Other Comments by thewhitepearl
20. Comment #163450 by KRKBAB on April 18, 2008 at 11:13 am
rwrjunior- Yes, your right. The people who like intelligent design haven't really thought it out. Most of the time when I TRY to have a discussion/argument, it usually doesn't go too deep. They seem to like it the same way they like comfort food. The familiarity of the concept makes them feel at home. It's as if we're asking them to leave home and strike out on an adventure. Home is limiting, but the limits don't seem to matter to theists. I don't know of an effective way to communicate with these folks.Other Comments by KRKBAB
21. Comment #163457 by mintcheerios on April 18, 2008 at 11:26 am
They really are shameless.http://www.discovery.org/a/4589
Other Comments by mintcheerios
22. Comment #163460 by al-rawandi on April 18, 2008 at 11:31 am
mintcheerious,
Richard Dawkins is a Raelian.
The Discovery Inst. really is a useless piece of trash. Flailing about in all directions, desperate to get hold of some item that could be the ad hominem to defeat Evolution. So they call Dawkins a Raelian, simply because he said it is "possible that advanced aliens could have seeded life".
He also said it is possible a God did this (although very very unlikely), does that make him a Catholic? I simply cannot comprehend this anti-logic.
Other Comments by al-rawandi
23. Comment #163466 by Count von Count on April 18, 2008 at 11:39 am
Nice article. My favorite take on this idea (complexity from complexity leads to infinite regress) is the question:"Could god make a cake so big, he himself could not eat it?"
(Insert "burrito" or "joint" etc. for "cake" according to preference.)
thewhitepearl -
Welcome aboard! When I read your comment, I made a fist and said "Yes!" It reminded me of this:
Other Comments by Count von Count
24. Comment #163467 by shemp333 on April 18, 2008 at 11:43 am
Confident, polite, to the point, and a slam dunk to finish! Love it!
whitepearl, beautiful pic. I have tried and tried to get a pic on my comments. Can you or anyone else give me a little advice? I don't believe I'm a dumb ass... but I must concede I may be deluding myself. Thanks!
Other Comments by shemp333
25. Comment #163471 by Jack Rawlinson on April 18, 2008 at 11:46 am
Janus writes:Why? The relation between complexity and improbability is well supported empirically, but we're talking about things and beings outside of our universe, where this relation may not exist (or may exist in a weaker form).
Leaving aside the problem that "outside the universe" is a highly questionable proposition, you're describing a fudge factor, not anything we can make the slightest supported assertion about. This sort of argument is empty, because it's basically saying, "yes, we know about the things we can know about, but what about things we can't know about? We don't know about them, so maybe they're completely different! Maybe there's a god! Maybe Euclidian geometry doesn't apply and there are four-sided triangles! Woooo!"
Futile, and it gets us nowhere. With this line of thinking we can basically say anything might exist and it may or may not conform to some, all, or none of the rules and laws we know about.
There's nothing logically incoherent about an intelligent being that "just exists".
So, you make a declaration about the logical coherence of your out-of-universe, not-subject-to-what-we-know (including logic) fudge factor god? Kinda having your cake and eating it, there. :-)
We can't do that, because we have lots of evidence that flagellar motors (and life as a whole) have not always existed.
That's missing the point, I'm afraid. The point is that if a believer is going to claim - without evidence, of course - that there is a type of thing which might always have existed, we have every bit as much right to claim that is true for, say, the universe, or the matter and energy which went into its formation, or however far back you care to take it. If the believer is going to say there is a category of thing which needs no explanation... same thing.
The believer who makes such a claim is, of course, simply trying to create the ultimate, unreachable "gap" for his increasingly evidence-assailed "God of the Gaps". This behaviour is almost embarrassingly pathetic. Whenever I see a believer reduced to it I find myself imagining a tearful, utterly cornered child insisting that his imaginary friend is real, no he IS, but we'll never be able to see him no matter where or how hard we look because he JUST DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! It seems such believers think that wholly unprovable postulates which are utterly lacking in evidence somehow become clinching arguments. When a person has sunk to that level you have to understand they are operating on nothing more than a crippling need to believe in a god of some sort, and they will move heaven, earth, the laws of physics, common sense, logic and every single thing we know about reality in order to do so. It's quite shockingly pitiful.
Other Comments by Jack Rawlinson
26. Comment #163477 by Count von Count on April 18, 2008 at 11:52 am
philiproulx-
As a philosopher, I'm okay with exploring this line of reasoning...as a scientist I find it very unnerving and very unscientific.
Really? Forgive me if I am being ignorant on this subject, but why should something unscientific be reasonable to consider philosophically? Philosophy, I thought, is a type of search for truth. Therefore it seems any reasoning that works in science should also work in philosophy. Philosophy may be a great supplement to science (such as in the case of questions about free will, etc.), but it does not make sense to me that it should override or conflict with scientific reasoning (that is to say, with reasoning).
Other Comments by Count von Count
27. Comment #163485 by Border Collie on April 18, 2008 at 12:07 pm
When have they not been completely shameless? Other Comments by Border Collie
28. Comment #163491 by akado on April 18, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I have been doing my part in telling people around here not to see the movie!
I am getting tired of the creationism and am doing what I can to fight back and agianst the ideas of god as well and I have actually freed some people from their deluded minds(with a lot of persistance).
but love the article RD!
I enjoy reading everything you write ^^
Other Comments by akado
29. Comment #163492 by Darius on April 18, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Hmm...tell me something I dont know...Other Comments by Darius
30. Comment #163493 by philiproulx on April 18, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Count von Count, I was just trying to delineate between what can be tested and what can not. Science encompasses what can be tested, philosophy encompasses both what can be tested and what can not.Philosophically it's okay to theorize about the spiritual realm, scientifically it's impossible to make any comment on the issue, since it's not something we can empirically quantify, test or prove or deny. So as a philosopher I am okay with exploring the notion that there was something spiritual (in a realm that is not physical) the preexisted everything...as a scientist, it makes me nervous, and unscientific because it can not be brought into the realm of science.
That's all.
Other Comments by philiproulx
31. Comment #163494 by Bigorra on April 18, 2008 at 12:21 pm
When arguing an antecedent to the universe that created everything, are the intelligent designers not ignoring that astrophysicists agree that at the singularity that preceded the Big Bang, all physical laws break down and no longer apply? If theirs is a scientific theory, should they not also go about figuring out a manner in which it is possible for any form of intelligence to exist in a singularity where none of the known laws of the current universe apply? How exactly would a designer that is not complex proceed to accomplish this feat? How would it manage to straddle the inside/outside boundary to set up a place for all of us to exist in the "Goldilocks" zone? Intelligent designers, as the scientist they claim to be, must certainly give an answer to this question when postulating antecedent progenitors of life on Earth or in general. I would like to see them have a go at an answer. Other Comments by Bigorra
32. Comment #163495 by Teratornis on April 18, 2008 at 12:21 pm
If we could land a jumbo jet beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods?
Something similar occurred repeatedly during the European conquest of the world. From what I've read, in almost every case of first contact between cultures at different levels of scientific and technological development, the less-developed culture basically imploded as a result, even in those rare instances when the more-developed culture had good intentions.
There seems to be something psychologically crushing about having virtually every aspect of one's received cultural knowledge overturned all at once.
Think about the centuries of social upheaval in Europe that it took to get from the Middle Ages up to such level of rational enlightenment as exists in, say, modern Sweden. Each bad idea that was overcome, had to be overcome in a long painful struggle, sometimes stretching over centuries.
Imagine compressing that entire emotional journey for everyone in an entire culture into about one minute.
We should probably be glad the odds are strongly against the appearance of advanced extraterrestrial aliens on Earth in our lifetimes.
Other Comments by Teratornis
33. Comment #163500 by Dr Benway on April 18, 2008 at 12:26 pm
...we're talking about things and beings outside of our universe, where this relation may not exist (or may exist in a weaker form).Yes, but when you begin talking about things outside the universe, defined as the set of all things that exist, you bo[e vg 0ee]g jj ij eij'apa'g nalkdkvvm zzzzzzz....... kjf;i
Other Comments by Dr Benway
34. Comment #163501 by D'Arcy on April 18, 2008 at 12:27 pm
As usual, Richard has his finger on the pulse. IF life did not originate on Earth, there is a possibility that it originated elsewhere in the universe and has subsequently been brought to Earth by comets or even aliens "seeding" the cosmos. This is all Richard said. The theory of panspermia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia was given more scientific basis by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/aliens_all_001027-1.html
As Richard said we don't know how life started, but we know a hell of a lot more about life than we did even 50 years ago.
If the creationists wrote a whodunnit, the conventional final chapter revealing who the villain was, would be the first chapter in their version. All subsequent chapters would be justifications of the opening one. Much like the Bible in fact!
Other Comments by D'Arcy
36. Comment #163510 by jimbob on April 18, 2008 at 12:42 pm
It's called "lying for Jesus," and they are completely shameless.
Technical correction: Jesus may apply to some, but not all god believers.
I'm a bit rusty on my holy books, so I'm not sure if the 10 commandments apply to jews and muslims? If so, my hackneyed "Oops, there goes #9 again!" exclamation would be more apt.
Other Comments by jimbob
37. Comment #163512 by epeeist on April 18, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Comment #163411 by max dyson "If we could land a jumbo jet beside a medieval village, would we not be worshiped as gods?"Hmm, cargo!
Other Comments by epeeist
38. Comment #163513 by Teratornis on April 18, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Comment #163493 by philiproulx:
Science encompasses what can be tested, philosophy encompasses both what can be tested and what can not.
I hate the passive voice with missing actor, but I'll roll with it here:
If something cannot be tested, can it be defined?
If something cannot be defined, can it be coherently discussed?
I'm wondering if unfalsiable claims have any meaning, in the meaningful sense of the word.
Philosophically it's okay to theorize about the spiritual realm,
Scientifically speaking, it's not OK to use the word "theorize" that way. To theorize about something, we have to be thinking up ways to test our theory.
I prefer the words "imagine" or "speculate" about the spiritual realm, since those words imply no truth claims.
scientifically it's impossible to make any comment on the issue, since it's not something we can empirically quantify, test or prove or deny.
I disagree. I think that scientifically, we can prove that untestable claims have no meaning, because "meaning" is only apparent to physical entities, and must therefore in some sense be sensible or computable or in some way anchorable to some sort of concrete physical basis.
If a concept is purely subjective, then it can mean anything to anybody, and thus it has no particular meaning.
Thoughts which have no definable meaning may be enjoyable thoughts for some people. Some of these thoughts seem to be the source of greatest joy for some people. Along with some of the greatest anger for the same people.
I don't see anything wrong with this sort of intellectual hedonism per se, but it easily gets out of hand when people start killing each other over disagreements about things which are inherently undefinable.
Religions are divisive precisely because they trade in unfalsifiable/inherently meaningless/undefinable claims.
So as a philosopher I am okay with exploring the notion that there was something spiritual (in a realm that is not physical) the preexisted everything...as a scientist, it makes me nervous, and unscientific because it can not be brought into the realm of science.
That's all.
Reality is the realm of science, and whatever cannot be brought into reality is not real. If you will agree that "spiritual" refers to things which are not real, then there is no need for self-contradictory language on the topic.
"Something spiritual" is a contradiction in terms. For "something" to be a "something," it must be definable, which means that all the verbal descriptions must at some point anchor onto something with physical definiteness. If "something" is "spiritual" then it has no physical anchor, and thus there is nothing for any chain of verbal descriptions to anchor to.
Even in purely fictional worlds, there are clear references to physical entities. One can read a Harry Potter book and recognize many commonalities with the real world, along with some rule violations. If the entire fictional world was unreal, the story wouldn't be understandable and thus it wouldn't sell.
This is why I agree with Richard that the existence of God is a scientific question, if it is to be any sort of question at all. Humans could not understand a purely spiritual story. Whatever God is, or does, must at some point intrude into physical reality enough to leave identifiable marks, or else humans can have no access to God.
One could claim that an invisible boat is plying the waves, but the claim would only start to have meaning if we could see a wake. An invisible boat which leaves no wake nor any other effect is indistiguishable from no boat at all, or any other imagined invisible entity which doesn't interact with anything. Occam's razor and all that.
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39. Comment #163522 by Janus on April 18, 2008 at 1:03 pm
In reply to Jack and Dr Benway:I guess I should have specified, but by "universe" I meant our universe (i.e. the bubble in which we live, if there is a multiverse). People usually write "the Universe" with a capital U if they're talking about Everything That Exists.
Jack is right that it's silly to speculate about things which are unlike anything we know about. That's a good reason to not believe in a Designer. However, it also means that Dawkins' argument is an argument against something that may be unlike anything we know about. That's all right if it's only intended to show how silly the argument from design is, but it fails as an argument against a Designer.
I'm not trying to say that theists are rational. They're not. I'm simply trying to dispassionately figure out the approximate likelihood that God exists. I'm almost certain that the gods of all religions, with their miracles and prophets and ridiculous moralizing, don't exist. I'm not so sure about a generic supernatural Designer, however. Richard's argument is one attempt to show that a Designer that "just exists" is probably impossible. I'm pointing out the flaws in that argument.
Here's something else to think about: What if the Big Bang theory, accretion theory, nucleosynthesis theory, etc, had all been been 'proven' beyond reasonable doubt before the discovery of evolution? Wouldn't an uncaused Designer have been a pretty good explanation for the complexity of life?
Let me explain. I agree with Jack that positing a God to explain the origin of our entire universe is stupid, because the 'explanation' given for God's existence (He just exists) can be used just as easily for our universe (it just exists). However, as I pointed out, the same can't be said about animals and plants. We can't say that they "just exist", because we know from evidence that there was a time when they didn't exist.
We know that now, but we didn't two centuries ago. To put the previous scenario in different words, what if there had been a time when we knew that complex life didn't always exist, but hadn't yet discovered the real explanation for how it came to be? A theist could have said that life could only have been designed by an intelligent being, that this intelligent being "just exists", and atheists couldn't have said that the same pseudo-explanation could be used to explain life!
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40. Comment #163532 by jonjermey on April 18, 2008 at 1:24 pm
"To put the previous scenario in different words, what if there had been a time when we knew that complex life didn't always exist, but hadn't yet discovered the real explanation for how it came to be? A theist could have said that life could only have been designed by an intelligent being, that this intelligent being "just exists", and atheists couldn't have said that the same pseudo-explanation could be used to explain life!"But atheists would have said -- correctly -- that if we assume there is an explanation in scientific terms and start looking for it then we will find it eventually. Whereas believers say 'we have the explanation and even though the explanation doesn't make sense we will cease to enquire any further'. The scientific point of view doesn't assume that we can explain everything scientifically now, but it does insist that any satisfactory explanation, if and when we arrive at it, will involve the principles of science and logic. The reason why there is no scientific explanation for gods, fairies or ghosts is not because these are in some way immune to scientific method, but simply because they don't exist.
"I'm simply trying to dispassionately figure out the approximate likelihood that God exists."
The methods of probability can't be applied to incoherent statements. What's the probability that Tuesday is earthbound? What's the probability that I have a red car which is green all over? What's the probability that something exists which provides no evidence of its existence and is empirically indistinguishable from something which doesn't exist? The only appropriate response to statements like this is 'Huh?'.
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41. Comment #163535 by Aquaria on April 18, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I can't wait to read the LTTE's. Just because it's CA doesn't mean there aren't plenty of delusional people in Cereal City (nuts and flakes). LA is built on delusion. Plus, it's the home to Scientology!Somebody pass the popcorn.
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42. Comment #163540 by BryanEvans on April 18, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Anybody remember the claims made by someone by the name of Eric Von Daniken, paraded over the tabloid press many years ago, including his at the time contoversial question: 'Was God an astronaut?' He wrote a book or two on the subject, complete with illustrations and photos to 'prove' his case. I wonder what ever happened to him?On the subject of proponents of 'intelligent design' and their awe and wonder in respect of their creators handiwork, I would refer them to Arthur C. Clarke's closing words in the foreword of '2001: A space odyssey' which went something like: 'But please remember, this is only a work of fiction; the truth as always, will be far stranger.'
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43. Comment #163541 by bendigeidfran on April 18, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Well I like P.W.Atkins Creation line that the Universe self-incepted from nothing, absolute void, like -1 and 1 from 0, because there were no laws to prevent it. I like it because that's as far as my maths goes. Other Comments by bendigeidfran
44. Comment #163544 by Teratornis on April 18, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Comment #163522 by Janus:
Here's something else to think about: What if the Big Bang theory, accretion theory, nucleosynthesis theory, etc, had all been been 'proven' beyond reasonable doubt before the discovery of evolution? Wouldn't an uncaused Designer have been a pretty good explanation for the complexity of life?
It's so hard to imagine all those discoveries occurring before evolution that one would have to posit some completely different type of thinking entities to do the discovering.
Consider how Darwin needed only relatively simple technology to make the observations necessary to hit on his theory. Maybe in a world with no islands or other partly-isolated environments for species to have diverged a bit from their mainland counterparts, Darwin's job would have been harder, but given the weight of evidence all around, and the relative ease of observing it, you'd think someone would have hit on the theory before science had worked out the structure of DNA, observed the remnants of the Big Bang, etc.
In science, discoveries tend to follow the introduction of enabling technologies, without too much delay for the most part.
After someone makes a key breakthrough, a certain number of people can ask "Why didn't I think of that?" However, realistically, only a small number of people were probably in position to think of it, and they probably had not been for too terribly long.
One wonders how differently history might read, however, if someone in ancient Greece had thought to look through two convex glass lenses, and invented the spyglass. The Industrial Revolution might then have started 1000 years or more sooner, which would mean fossil fuels would have been exhausted for centuries by now. The population explosion and subsequent die-off might have already occurred, and instead of us there might only be scattered bands of miserable foragers, gazing with wonder at the decaying remains of shattered cities.
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45. Comment #163550 by RainDear on April 18, 2008 at 1:52 pm
About lying for Jesus:I was in a film industry seminar a few weeks ago and attended a lecture given by a top entertainment lawyer. It was on the legal issues such as contracts, copyrights and moral rights as they are handled in the European Union.
In the EU generally, it is illegal to mistreat anyone's original material. You can't make a porn film of your friend's school play, even if you pay him a million. And you can't turn an atheist novel into a religious film either. You may even have bought the rights and you may have a written consent, but this means very little in a European court of law, if the author later feels his moral rights (droit moral) have been violated. Moral rights can't be waived by a signature. They are inalienable, to protect our intellectual work and accomplishments.
Well, I'm not a lawyer. But in my understanding of this business, the Droit Moral- concept in our European law would also allow legal action against a documentary, in which an interview is deliberately edited to give a false impression of the interviewed person's real opinions. Apparently, at least RD's statements have clearly been treated in a derogatory way by the producers of Expelled.
Sadly, the US law doesn't recognize these moral rights of an artist, writer or any original creator. Also the UK handles these moral rights differently from the rest of the EU. And since Dr. Dawkins is a public figure, he doesn't enjoy the same legal protection of his private person as most of us do.
But in the continental Europe, prosecuting and even convicting the producers of Expelled shouldn't be too hard in this case. Of course the outcome of any court case is uncertain, and the ID morons probably steer away from European screens. But I wouldn't mind if, say, the RDF were awarded some of that creationist blood money
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46. Comment #163557 by Teratornis on April 18, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Comment #163438 by Janus:
We can't do that, because we have lots of evidence that flagellar motors (and life as a whole) have not always existed.
It is just as easy to prove flagellar motors did not exist at some time in the distant past as to prove God does not exist right now.
I would be curious to hear of one piece of evidence that proves flagellar motors did not exist at some specific fime. As far as I know, fossils cannot preserve molecular structures that small, except possibly in (relatively recent) frozen remains, or in (still not ancient enough) amber, so we probably can't even prove directly that flagellar motors existed at all more than just a few thousand or few million years ago. Instead we infer their existence from the fossilized remains of organisms whose modern counterparts do have them.
The absence of multi-cellular fossils in pre-Cambrian sedimentary rocks strongly suggests the absence of multi-cellular life at the time of sedimentation, but this does not rule out the possibility of multi-cellular life. It only makes the probability very low, according to our best theory of how fossils should have formed if anything was around to fossilize at the time.
If you agree that absence of evidence is evidence of absence in the case of pre-Cambrian multi-cellular life, would this argument also apply to any sort of God for which there is no evidence?
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47. Comment #163558 by designsoda on April 18, 2008 at 1:59 pm
As Richard said we don't know how life started
Yet. ;)
It seems to me a whole lot of confusion arises from the fact that "how life started" is imagined by believers (and even non-believers) as an instant. Life's not here *POOF* life's here.
Biologists please correct me if I'm wrong but is the set of "things that are alive" not a fuzzy set? If it is fuzzy then don't you open up the possibility of life emerging so slowly that you wouldn't be able to pinpoint the instant it started?
Perhaps like building a mound of sand grain by grain. When do the grains of sand become something we would recognize as a mound?
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48. Comment #163561 by Duff on April 18, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Epeeist,Cargo...good one. I'm sure it was lost on most.
The reason the ID lovelies go to pre-big bang "cosmology" is because it is the only place science can't prove them wrong.
They are the "traditionalists fighting unsuccessfully against new knowledge", spoken of by Bertrand Russell. And they are not doing any better job at it than the papists fighting Galileo.
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49. Comment #163565 by severalspeciesof on April 18, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Now, if we could only somehow get this article to every one who goes to see "Expelled"...
Well, sometimes it's fun to daydream...
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50. Comment #163566 by Teratornis on April 18, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Comment #163558 by designsoda:
As Richard said we don't know how life started
Yet. ;)
Whenever Richard says that, I wish he carried around sufficient special-effects machinery to recapitulate scientists in the past reporting some things they did not know yet. We might hear Thomas Jefferson reporting that we don't know how stones can fall from a clear blue sky - yet. Generations of mapmakers might have reported that we don't know why the east coast of South American appears to fit with the west coast of Africa - yet. Anyone from the Middle Ages could have reported that we don't know how bats can fly around in the dark - yet. Actually they did have an answer for the bat question: bats were possessed by devils.
For the God of the Gaps argument to seem like an argument, a person must know very little about history.
However, the fact that science has discovered lots of things in the past does not guarantee anything about the future. Some things may turn out to be undiscoverable, or science itself might collapse locally or worldwide. Even today, very little science occurs in large parts of the inhabited world, and who knows - maybe the whole world could end up like that. As optimists, we like to think of scientific progress as being more or less inevitable, but in reality science depends on a bunch of supporting conditions.
Biologists please correct me if I'm wrong but is the set of "things that are alive" not a fuzzy set?
I'm not a biologist, but you've got prions (maybe), viruses, and bacteria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria
If it is fuzzy then don't you open up the possibility of life emerging so slowly that you wouldn't be able to pinpoint the instant it started?
Yes. Presumably we cannot observe such slow emergence of life today in the natural world, not only because it is slow, but also because bacteria are just about everywhere on Earth where the building blocks of life can be, busily devouring any building blocks that might spontaneously synthesize. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
It is painful to watch people like Ben Stein doing violence to science by reducing the discussion to sound-bite parodies. When Stein claims that science cannot explain life, he makes it sound as if scientists haven't even proposed any plausible mechanisms, instead they just all threw up their hands and admitted the problem was hopeless.
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1. Comment #163396 by Colwyn Abernathy on April 18, 2008 at 9:46 am
For some ODD reason...I feel a Clarke's Law coming about. Miss you, Fellow Traveller. :_(
EDIT:
It's like I'm psychic. ;)
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