1. Texas Supreme Court rules church can't be sued in exorcism

Comment #200911 by AmericanGodless on June 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm

The only thing that really troubles me here is that the girl was 17 years old, and her parents weren't there. What if she had been having an epileptic seizure? (For that matter, maybe she was!) Are people who hold an epileptic to keep them from injuring themselves in a seizure and to prevent choking going to be held liable for causing emotional distress? What about a sado-masochistic "scene"? At some points, this sounds eerily like S&M -- when she said the agreed-upon safe-word, "Jesus," she was released.

The lesson here is that in religion, as in so many other voluntary situations, there is an element of "caveat emptor." If she went in with open eyes (and was of legal age, an issue questionable, but not discussed in the article), had good reason to know how the others were going to act (as she certainly did on the second occasion), and suffered a rug-burn and a couple of bruises on the wrists, then she might have the right to complain about the injuries without bringing in the question of religion (says the court), but she doesn't have the right to complain in addition about emotional abuse.

This is a difficult case, but I don't think the decision is a license for churches to abuse their members. I would probably reluctantly agree with the court majority. Freedom of religion means the freedom to associate with nutty people. You do so, you take certain risks. I blame the parents.

2. PZ Myers - Expelled from Expelled

Comment #200894 by AmericanGodless on June 28, 2008 at 12:13 pm

This interview with PZ is definitely worth the time. It is rare and refreshing when a scientist will criticize other scientists who want to soft-pedal the incompatibility of science with religion. AAS, and especially NCSE, do serve a political agenda. While I agree with PZ that it may be a necessary (though hypocritical and thoroughly distasteful) job, we and they must be clear that they do so at the expense and peril of science. Matt Nisbet (who is a social scientist, so may know a lot about "framing" issues for propoganda purposes, but next to nothing about real science and intellectual integrity) may think that PZ and Richard are rejecting the "best scientific approach" to "effective communication". But what does it help when what you are communicating is the nonsense of "god-guided" evolution?

PZ says that in the long run, he hopes that people will learn that it is "OK to disagree with established religion." I would also hope that they will learn that it is OK to disagree with those established scientific institutions that are trying to build a cozy detente with religion. They are, in my opinion, promoting an incoherent popular view of science that will ill-equip the public to deal with reality. How can they be expected to accept or comprehend the science of the future, as a better understanding of the natural origins of life, of intelligence and mind, along with the development of machine intelligence, will make it increasingly difficult to entertain the fantasy that a non-evolved non-natural intelligence would be required to guide the evolution that obviously has happened and is happening here on earth?

3. Common New Atheist Fallacies

Comment #200549 by AmericanGodless on June 27, 2008 at 9:19 pm

I must disagree with those who have commented that Mr. Koukl made a good argument about ridicule not being relevant. If he would have explained that an ad hominem argument is irrelevant, that would have been good. But he did not do that. Instead, he showed Hitchins promising that he would not accuse Dinesh D'Souza of being hypocritical, like so many others he has debated, who don't actually believe what they are trying to make others believe. Then he quoted Hitch as arguing that most believers will have ulterior motives for holding and spreading their religious belief (like the culture into which they have been born), even if they don't truly believe it themselves. But hypocrisy and compromised motivation in the witnesses are irrelevant, Koukl says, to the question of whether God exists. But why is that? It is because God, to this man, is not a hypothesis, but is a presumed truth.

The sincerity and trustworthiness of those who would try to convince us of God's existence is indeed relevant to those of us for whom God is, at best, a hypothesis. When scientists admit to disbelieving their own publications, and to having reasons other than evidence to promote a hypothesis, we are justified in having less confidence in their findings. When the subject is the existence of God, however, from a believer's point of view, the qualifications of witnesses is irrelevant, since belief for them is not a hypothesis, but is the default position, to be assumed true until proved to be absolutely false. But evidence cannot ever do that, and so science and its inductive methods are irrelevant, as are the qualifications and reputation for honesty of those whom we might expect to bring any such evidence to our attention.

No true believer will ever be impressed with an argument that ends with "therefor, God almost certainly does not exist."

4. The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete

Comment #199983 by AmericanGodless on June 26, 2008 at 3:16 pm

This article reminds me of one I read in "Omni" magazine about 25 years ago that suggested that biologists should stop experimenting with animals, and just model them with computers. I wrote to them and asked how we would ever "model" the cellular biochemistry of animals without ever experimenting with a live animal. No answer. I dropped my subscription. What ever happened to "Omni?"

Having since then moved from biology to earth science, I took a break this afternoon from writing programs to make certain kinds of original data easier to visualize so that human data managers might better judge its quality, and read this article where I learned that what I am doing is worthless.

So, while they are crunching the numbers and finding all of those statistical correlations that need no model to tie them to a humanly-constructed conception of reality, here's a possiblility to throw into the mix: What if the data they are using is wrong?

Oh, sorry, that would be a part of a "model" for interpreting the data, wouldn't it? We aren't supposed to care why the data play out way they do, just report what the numbers do, how they correlate with each other, and go on to publication.

My job is working with historic data that have recorded (in a sometimes faulty way) some geophysical aspects of a world in the past that we cannot go back and measure again. There are many cases in which we have to flag the data as compromised in one way or another; sometimes it is correctable, sometimes it is not. All those corrections, all of those compromises to the data, become at least a small part of the "model" that is used to understand how the reality of today (and, we hope, of tomorrow) correlates with the raw numbers collected in the past. It is a necessary part of science.

Not that I think that computers are incapable of eventually becoming conscious, and making their own decisions on how to correlate the "bad" data with, say, a systematic problem that affected one or two out of a dozen investigations; or with a bad batch of instrument probes in another case; or a computer bit-shift in another case; or a units conversion problem in another. But before they do, they will have to have internalized a lot more information about how both humans and machines can mess things up. And when they do, what they will be doing is building models themselves, and will have taken a large step toward artificial intelligence. When the computers start, on their own, suggesting to the humans new ways in which to look at the data, ways that the human beings have not thought of on their own, then they will have earned a place on the author line of the published papers. Until then, science will continue to make progress through human-designed models, not unexamined and un-modeled correlations.

5. Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars

Comment #192993 by AmericanGodless on June 14, 2008 at 12:05 pm

I was all excited about the headline, expecting a story of nucleic acid polymers being found in extraterrestrial materials. But not so -- just the bases. The contribution here seems to be evidence that the bases are not contaminants from Earthly biology, but were formed in space. It has been known since the mid-50's that purines and pyrimidines (as well as amino acids) could be generated in pre-biotic conditions (see the Urey-Miller experiment, and subsequent similar work).

What I get from this news article and the abstract of the paper is the lesson that purines and pyrimidines can be synthesized naturally even in extraterrestrial conditions. I do not see this as evidence that these extraterrestrial bases contributed to the origin of life on Earth. The purines and pyrimidines involved in the origins of life could well have been (indeed, would almost have to have been) made on Earth. The important step in formation of life is the polymerization of these bases into a chain that can preserve information in the order of the bases.

In particular, the suggestion by ridelo, above, that "molecules with 'space-carbon' landed on earth and somehow started to replicate themselves using compounds with 'earth-carbon'" would be a misconception. These are just single bases (uracil and xanthine); a polymer of these (along with ribose sugars and phosphate bonds) could hold some biological information, but not just the bases. The bases themselves don't "replicate" (that is, act as a template for sythesis of similar molecules). Replication requires a polymer (RNA or DNA, or a similar molecule) from which the information in the base order can be preserved in a new copy.

This is an interesting confirmation that the building blocks of life are common in non-biological conditions, but not really an indicator that "parts of earliest genetic material may have come from the stars," as the headline states. Yes, some extra-terrestrial molecules could have been utilized, but most likely they would only have added to those already present on the pre-biotic Earth.

6. Faith no more as World Youth Day fans flames of disbelief

Comment #189800 by AmericanGodless on June 7, 2008 at 9:55 am

So, is this guy serious, or is he writing tongue-in-cheek? I'm really not sure, but I suspect that he is proud of his boys.

7. Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem

Comment #187773 by AmericanGodless on June 2, 2008 at 3:39 pm

Barry Pearson: "The state of the neighbor's lawn provides support for the neighbor's views on lawn-care."

I disagree. It may just say something about how easy it is to follow lawn care advice.

You trust the doctor more than the neighbor because you are assuming that the doctor is educated in the matter of health and weight, while the neighbor does not have a degree in horticulture. You are also judging the advice to lose weight as probably valid because of your own previous knowledge. This is OK, but recognize when you are bringing in outside assumptions (which may be incorrect). Without these additional assumptions, the arguments are equivalent.

EDIT: Shuggy's comment above leads me to conclude that the assumption here is the the neighbor's lawn looks good (rather than bad). My assumption was the opposite. I agree that, if his lawn looks good, his advice is more likely to be good, too. In that case, it's not ad hominem to look at his lawn, it is checking the result of the neighbor's experiment. If the lawn is bad, you need to ask why so, (if he's so knowledgeable).

8. Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem

Comment #187615 by AmericanGodless on June 2, 2008 at 11:32 am

I don't get it. The doctor says lose weight and the patient is concerned that doctor is herself overweight. The author says this is unfair personal criticism. But when a neighbor advises on lawn care, the author says it is relevant whether the neighbor's lawn is healthy. What's the difference? Why would "tu quoque" be fair in the latter case but not in the former?

9. Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion

Comment #187527 by AmericanGodless on June 2, 2008 at 9:28 am

I recall that when Pons and Fleischmann were doing this, there were a number of physicists who said the real proof would be to demonstrate the high-energy particles that should be the product of fusion (high energy neutrons I think-- not sure without looking it up, this is not my field). But this could not be demonstrated. Some were even saying that the most definitive proof that it was not really fusion was the fact that the researchers (and witnesses) never suffered radiation sickness.

As my wife said back then, it is nice to fantasize about this, for a few moments; but it is highly unlikely to come to anything.

10. Bible Theme Park Faces Opposition in Tennessee

Comment #180727 by AmericanGodless on May 15, 2008 at 4:19 pm

"a nondenominational, nonreligious attraction" where you are to "imagine an indoor exhibit on the parting of the Red Sea with water shooting into the air and the booming voice of Moses raining down."

Sorry, my imagination just can't resolve that contradiction.

What a sad waste of farmland.

11. UC Berkeley is going to court over Evolution website

Comment #180724 by AmericanGodless on May 15, 2008 at 3:58 pm

Pacific Justice Institute says that the Berkeley site is "directing visitors to statements from selected religious groups that support evolution." and that "the website derides religious beliefs that 'contradict science' by teaching six-day creation."

What I imagine that Pacific Justice Institute will be arguing is that, OK, the scientific theory of evolution is contradicted by the six-day creation story. But that doesn't give a State University the right to "deride" those religions that teach creation, and to point visitors to statements by other religions that do support evolution.

I can't help but wonder what relief they would be asking for. Excision of the words "Of course" in the sentence: "Of course, some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science (e.g., the belief that the world and all life on it was created in six literal days)"? Removal of the side-bar link to "Voices for Evolution" on the NCSE Web site? I expect what they really want is the entire web site to be taken down. What they ought to get is a more honest statement on the Berkeley page that would point out that virtually all religions promote beliefs that are contradictory to science. The side bar could be links to religious sites with examples, except that there wouldn't be enough room, and they'd be accused of bias if they left any out.

The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with PJI, that UC Berkeley shouldn't be joining NCSE in promoting, as they seem to be doing here, certain religious groups that happen to be OK with theistic evolution. Better to point out evenhandedly that most religions make a claim to have knowledge of a non-evolved intelligence in the universe, a claim that is contradictory to the entire body of what modern biology is finding about the evolution and development of brains and intelligence.

Not a chance of that, however, as Berkeley, like NCSE, will want to take the accommodationist "Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists" route to seek "Peace in Our Time."

12. The Dissent Of Darwin - The World Of Richard Dawkins

Comment #180537 by AmericanGodless on May 15, 2008 at 7:12 am

The claim that Richard is a dualist because he posits that humans have evolved the ability to behave altruistically, while evolution itself is indifferent, should probably be expected of a creationist. It is is quite similar to the claim that life violates the second law of thermodynamics. The key point that is ignored in both cases is open or closed system, scale, and locality.

Just as life (within an open local system) can violate the global law of ever increasing entropy, so can human beings act altruistically within a community, while nature around them is still "red in tooth and claw". We're all doomed by the heat-death of the universe (if not by the death of the Sun). Just because the universe as a whole is piteously indifferent to our survival and well-being, doesn't mean we have to be.

13. 'Framing Science' and The Dawkins Effect

Comment #180375 by AmericanGodless on May 14, 2008 at 5:20 pm

Page 7: "But of course the question of how best to win converts to atheism or irreligion is not identical to the question of how to bolster evolution teaching."

And neither of those questions is identical to the question of whether we are dealing with cranes or skyhooks: will further research be better served by a theory that takes intelligence to be the source of life on earth, or one that takes life on earth to be the source of intelligence?

Page 8: "The stronger version [of the accommodationist complaint] is that the mere presence of agonism in public discourse is detrimental to attempts to ensure excellent evolution education."

If it actually happens to be the case that intelligence is a product of evolving life, rather than vice-versa, then how can leaving this out of a presentation of evolutionary theory, and even discouraging public discussion of this logical consequence of the theory, serve to "ensure excellent evolution education?

What is seems to be missing here is the ethic of science: how to act in such a way that what happens to be true might at some point come to be known to be true. Excellence in evolution education is moot where it does not exist at all; but to the extent evolution becomes stripped of its context in naturalism, its ability to guide fruitful research will be seriously compromised (unless it is really true that a divine skyhook is out there somewhere, in which case science is itself moot, because it has already failed).

While it is important that the accommodationists do their distasteful job of dumbing down evolution enough to get some of it taught in public schools, it is even more essential that Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and others continue to do their job of making sure that the logical case for naturalistic material evolution is available to the few who will be able and willing to absorb it, and eventually to improve upon it.

14. 85% of Americans Want a Presidential Debate on Science

Comment #180157 by AmericanGodless on May 14, 2008 at 9:41 am

Ok, so maybe 85% want a presidential debate on science; 15% don't. But this tells me nothing about WHY they would or would not like to see such a debate. How many from that 85% just want to see where each candidate comes down on (for example) global warming: in favor of my own prejudice, or my nitwit neighbor's, so that I can vote for what I already think is the scientific (or divine) truth. Maybe the 15% don't want to see a debate because they fear that any candidate that actually shows some possibility of understanding the impact of science on such issues will be labeled as an elitist wonk, and we'll once again see intelligence and competency become a political liability.

15. A natural selection

Comment #180139 by AmericanGodless on May 14, 2008 at 9:06 am

The "How/Why" rhetoric, along with "NOMA" and "It's just the way God did it" are what Richard in TGD called the "Neville Chamberlain school" of evolution. Peace in our time. Make nice with the believers so that at least some mention of evolution can be made in science classes. Intellectual integrity and scientific consistency are downplayed in the interest of gaining political allies.

It is sad, because it rips the heart out of the theory, promotes public misunderstanding, and risks delaying scientific progress. Future scientist who see evolution as a means used by a divine skyhook will be ill prepared for the work of discovering the cranes by which life originated and evolved. We can only hope that a sufficient number of students will see beyond the politics and actually get the point.

16. 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #179094 by AmericanGodless on May 12, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Unfortunately, I have been unable to watch this video (it stops about 7 minutes in, and offers to start at the beginning again -- three times now!!)

But I have to comment on the Monty Hall problem. The Wiki article on it is very good, and points out a very important source of confusion (and Vos Savant's telling of the problem was ambiguous on this point): the game host must not only be assumed to be omniscient, but also to have an agenda to keep the game going as long as possible. This means that he will never immediately reveal that you have won or lost the big prize right after your first pick, so after he reveals a goat you have some new information about the probabilities of what is behind your door.

I have long thought that Monty in this story might be a good stand-in for God. The wisdom of ordering your life-choices around the "will of God" depends critically on whether you have reason to believe not only that He is revealing stuff to you, and is omniscient, but that He has a plan for your life and that you know what that plan is. If you're wrong about any of these points, you're back to even odds.

17. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #179077 by AmericanGodless on May 12, 2008 at 1:40 pm

Is anyone else struck by the connection between Leon R. Kass' attitude toward the indignity of allowing stem-cell research (or public licking of ice cream cones) and that of Abdel-Qader Ali toward the humiliation of having a daughter who would speak to a British soldier?

While I am sure that Kass wouldn't stomp a daughter to death because he disapproved of her flirting, his choice of a motivating concern appears quite similar.

"The dignity of our family has been restored." -- Ironic line, from Leonard Bernstein's retelling of Voltaire's Candide.

"Dignity, always dignity." -- Ironic line, from the film "Singing in the Rain".

18. Scientists Know Better Than You--Even When They're Wrong

Comment #178183 by AmericanGodless on May 10, 2008 at 6:18 pm

..if I want to talk religion with someone, it won't be a scientist; it will be with someone who understands theology... I believe people like Dawkins give atheism a bad name because their arguments are so crude and unsubtle.

My question for Harry Collins would be, has he actually read any of Richard's books? Or those of Dan Dennett? Their major contention is that the question of the existence of God has become one of science, not theology. Collins may dispute that, but if so, he needs to explain why he thinks a theologian would be better choice than an evolutionary scientist to discuss the origins and development of order, life and intelligence in the universe -- because that is the question raised by the claims of religion to revealed knowledge.

And, considering the crude political claims of religion, (did not the Cardinal say, closely echoing Ben Stein, that a god-free zone in a secular society would inevitably lead to Nazi-like totalitarianism?) he should also explain why it should require a degree in theology to point out the perhaps crude, but nevertheless important point (which Collins himself at one point seems to understand) that religion and science are incompatible. Are we back to the myth of Non-Overlapping Magisteria?

19. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

Comment #177784 by AmericanGodless on May 9, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Paula wonders why the speech by Cardinal Murphy O'Connor should have been given such prominent coverage by news media. Fides says it is because he speaks for a large number of believers, and "belief works" (whatever that means). But I am sure Paula must agree that news coverage of the Cardinal's speech must in the long run be a good thing. After all, he can't seem to stop himself from making Richard's point for him.

The Cardinal's argument in his speech was that while religion is not founded in reason, there is nevertheless some kind of mystical "connection" to reason and truth:

Catholic Christianity is characterised by three things:
1) ..spiritual and mystical traditions;
2) ..theology ... the knowledge born of faith;
3) ..community held in communion and truth by the Pope and Bishops.

That is, religious belief is:
1) mysterious (so need not make reasonable sense)
2) born of faith (so need not be referenced to observed evidence)
3) assured of truth by tradition and authority (so need not be shown through reason and evidence to be even probably true).

The conclusion (as we heard in the radio interview): Too much reason is dangerous, and should be distrusted and discouraged. A god-free zone for public affairs could only produce a dictatorship, prone to terror and repression, as happened in the case of the German Nazis.

This is a message that should be shocking to anyone with even a touch of common decency, let alone common sense. The Cardinal sounds as crazy as Ben Stein, who is spreading the same wretched nonsense here in the US. Of course, they have the right to say such things, but they certainly don't deserve the respect Richard does, for actually trying to contribute to a civilized discussion.

20. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170148 by AmericanGodless on April 27, 2008 at 12:46 pm

Mitchell Gilks --
You may be correct that, for the purpose of this discussion, Dawkins would say that an entity that created a universe would be called a god; or he may mean only that this would be a necessary but not sufficient criterion. It does seem to be, to Shermer and ThoughtsonCommonToad, a sufficient criterion for calling it God. So indeed there may be no contradiction. In which case, I would have to assume that Shermer, Dawkins, Toad, and I would all agree that this God may have evolved in another universe and so may not have all of the characteristics traditionally ascribed to God, and so is fair game for whatever investigation might be possible into its natural and material character (or for sabotage). But our use of the word in this way among scientists would undoubtedly not agree with the way in which most people would use the word. For this reason, I would endeavor myself and advise others not to use the word in that contradictory (pardon my saying so) way.

21. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170127 by AmericanGodless on April 27, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Toad -- Shermer says that an entity with the technology to create a universe would be called God. Dawkins says that it would be contradictory to call it a God if we agree that it is complex and statistically improbable. You say, along with Shermer, that there is no contradiction. Neither Shermer nor you give any reason that I can see for your insistence on this. But the question is ultimately one of appropriate terminology. I see such usage of the term with all of its traditional baggage as a contradiction of the ethical stance of a scientist to act in such a way that what is true may come to be known to be true. Perhaps you disagree. You and Shermer can call such a thing God if you want. Pardon me if I don't join you.

22. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170108 by AmericanGodless on April 27, 2008 at 11:40 am

I am sorry, but it is not easy to see how Shermer shows Dawkins' contradiction to be no contradiction. Shermer says:

If we knew the underlying science and technology used to do the engineering, we would call it Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence; if we did not know the underlying science and technology, we would call it God.

So Shermer is saying that what we would call this new force depends upon whether we know the technology behind it. Fair enough for most people, but not for a scientist, and not if how we act toward it is affected by what we call it.

As far as I can see, the "contradiction" is that, even if Dawkins points out that the origin of such a complex creator must be an improbable event, Shermer says we nevertheless would call it God. Maybe Shermer would, but if we join him, that would still contradict our scientific responsibility to try to learn more, and to rule out a natural explanation for an improbable entity before calling it by a name that, by tradition, refers to something for which an investigation of its complexity is considered out of bounds. All Shermer's Last Law does is beg the question. A scientist should not call something God unless he knows, to a high probability, that there is no underlying technology.

And I don't see how what I am saying is any different from what Steve Zara said: "I'm not going to worship just anyone;" which you call "brilliant."

23. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170074 by AmericanGodless on April 27, 2008 at 10:39 am

Shermer: "[I]f we did not know the underlying science and technology, we would call it God."
Dawkins: "Entities capable of designing anything, whether they be human engineers or interstellar aliens, must be complex -- and therefore, statistically improbable."
ThoughtsonCommonToad: "[Dawkins] seems to not be able to take his own argument that one step further, as Shermer has done, and incidentally I did."

I must confess that I don't understand the "extra step" that Toad sees. Shermer is saying that if we see a creative force new to us, and inexplicable within our current knowledge, we would (should?) call it God. Dawkins is saying* that our experience with similar past human beliefs about such forces, and the record of science in finding natural explanations, should caution us against our concluding that it is a "skyhook" before thoroughly investigating the possiblility (probability) that it has actually been produced by evolution or some other natural "crane" (to use Dennett's metaphor).

Toad is right that Dawkins' argument does not obviate God in a sense that would effect a religious person's belief, as they have never learned the deep lesson of evolution. But "Shermer's Last Law" (any sufficiently advanced Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence would be indistinguishable from God), in my opinion, sounds like "if you don't see a natural explanation at first, don't expect that you ever will." Unless I am missing something, the extra step is to forget everything we have learned, abandon science, and retreat into worship.

* Edit: (By pointing to the statistical improbability of the new "god", and thus suggesting that, if it exists, it is highly probable that it came to existence by a naturally probable pathway, not a miraculous pathway.)

24. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #167612 by AmericanGodless on April 24, 2008 at 8:01 am

From the post-debate article linked in: 145. Comment #167434 by Corylus:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2275634,00.html

Dennett also rejected the idea that science is certain about anything - except the method it uses to pursue the truth. For Dennett, it is science that expresses uncertainty and religion that plays "the faith card when rationality is no longer on its side".

It is religion that lets people hide behind "the certainty and sincerity of their passions to do something inexcusable", he said.

Glad to hear that Dennett cleared that up.

25. Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Comment #166739 by AmericanGodless on April 23, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Dennett:

...religion has a feature of that none of them can boast: it doesn't just disable, it honours the disability.

Winston:

Do we understand where we come from, where we are going, or what lies beyond our planet?

The question was: "Is religion a threat to rationality and science?" By citing the story of Job and his God's taunting dismissal of human knowledge, Winston has, in my opinion, conceded Dennet's point.

Winston may think that "both religion and science are expressions of man's uncertainty", but there is little evidence that many of his fellow religious believers agree with him. Science is in the business of defining the uncertainty that all human knowledge must share. At its moment of greatest precision, it defines an "uncertainty principle", and all scientific papers use statistics, not to eliminate, but to underline the extent and limits of uncertainty. Religion, on the other hand, denies its own human origins, pretends to have access to a revealed certainty, and mocks the uncertainty of a scientific worldview by which we human beings would attempt to understand reality as best we can.

Perhaps Dennett does not make it as clear as he should that science expresses its truths only within defined limits of tolerance (at least I cannot find a good quote on the subject from his books). But neither have I seen him argue for "the truth" of science in a way that would justify Winston's attack on him as promoting a "kind of certainty" (even a "gentle" kind of certainty). Does anyone have a good feel for Dennett's position on this?

26. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166050 by AmericanGodless on April 22, 2008 at 5:27 pm

Comment #166037 by aquilacane:

Besides, if god's plan is so grand and beyond human contemplation, everyone (including theologians) should be hell bent on discovering what science can teach us about everything else we can know (that's only if god's will can not be known, of course).

Years ago I used to attend philosophy seminars at my university, just for fun. Some were fun; some were infuriating. Like the one by a tenured philosopher who carefully explained that since materialist biologists thought that their own bodies and their own thought-producing brains worked entirely by material means, they would, if correct, have no way of ensuring that their thoughts were correct. Therefore, they are either right (and humans can't think correctly), or they are wrong (and most humans can think, but biologists can't). In any case, materialist biology can safely be ignored.

27. Responses to 'Gods and Earthlings' by Richard Dawkins

Comment #166016 by AmericanGodless on April 22, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Ken Savage: "the assumption that the universe is rational and logical and not absurd";
James McDermott : "the Big Bang and evolution are the ways God created";
Paul Rosenberger: "God 'is,' meaning he always was and always will be";
William S. LaSor: "Either the universe has always existed, or it was created by someone who has always existed";
Elaine Fleeman: "There is no advantage to non-living material becoming a living cell".

Five responses, all of which (with the possible exception of the last) simply assume the prior existence of an "intelligence" -- not just "complexity," but "intelligence." The only example of intelligence we have that could inspire such a conjecture is that of human beings; so human intelligence either (a) evolved here on earth and is being falsely projected by some onto a "creator god"; or (b) it is a product of a previously existing and inscrutable intelligence (the "creator god") that has implanted a small bit of itself into humans, some of whom are now foolishly trying to understand that tiny chip off the divine block.

What repeatedly strikes me as odd in this conflict of ideas is the lack of attention paid to the radical incompatibility of the two scenarios ("it's the way God did it" just won't work here).

If we are going to impute intelligence to something outside of human beings (or other biological entities), shouldn't we first have a definition of what it is? Science is telling us a lot about human intelligence (the necessary prototype for positing a "divine" intelligence), and the best story so far is that it evolved as an elaboration of brains, which evolved to make it possible for animals to move around in their environment. Is that what the divine intelligence does too? If not, then what does it do? Our biological intelligence is in service to the project of (ultimately) propagating our selfish genes. To what project is the divine intelligence in service? How does its definition differ from that of the intelligence we can really know something about? Is it at all fruitful to compare the two?

The impertinence of science seems to be in trying to understand intelligence (or anything) at all. If intelligence evolved, we have some hope of understanding how it got here and what it does. If it is an implant from a non-material, non-evolving entity, we may as well give up hope of ever understanding it.

But then, that's the major bone of contention, isn't it. What are humans, to try to understand their own material origins and workings? Better to just serve God (whatever that means) and admit that there is "no advantage to non-living material becoming a living cell" (or a living human).

Sorry, folks, but I don't think there is any way of doing science and not appearing to be elitist in the eyes of those who just don't WANT to understand who and what they are.

28. Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions

Comment #163310 by AmericanGodless on April 18, 2008 at 7:20 am

Mitchell Gilks, bamboospitfire, & others interested in the pedantic issue of "the Earth is (not) round": I have long thought it amusing to note that if the Earth were a billiard ball, it would fail Brunswick's tolerances for sphericity, but pass for smoothness (just barely).

29. Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss

Comment #162209 by AmericanGodless on April 16, 2008 at 10:50 am

nother person --

Thanks for your "late" post. I haven't watched all of this conversation yet, and I look forward to it. The Bronowski series is excellent, and I'm glad to hear that Lawrence Krauss brings it up in the conversation. I think that it should be required viewing in schools, though the science may be too dated. But it is the philosophy behind the science that is his important message.

It is unfortunate that the "Ascent of Man" was tied up in copyrights for so long, and could be distributed only as an educational series in an unpopular tape format. Now that it is available as DVD's, I don't know if anyone is buying it.

The Bell Labs films were great, too. I remember "My Mr. Sun" and "Hemo the Magnificent." I'd love to see them again, just for nostalgia's sake. I remember an animated chloroplast in the "Sun" video ducking behind a curtain as the narrator explained that we didn't know how he used sunlight to split the water molecule. He peeked out and said "And darned well going to stay that way." Then as a college undergrad I wrote a research paper on the subject. I ought to look up what's been learned about it since then.

30. Evolution fray attracts top scientist

Comment #162171 by AmericanGodless on April 16, 2008 at 9:11 am

"The proposals would also protect from punishment students who refuse to accept Darwin's evolution." -- Are there really biology teachers who show the instruments of torture to the students and demand that they recant? (And they whisper, "Yet we are intelligently designed".)

"..teachers and students feel too frightened to even discuss intelligent design." -- They should just feel too embarrassed.

"Today they don't need to know how anything works. ... There's a large number of kids probably prepared to accept something without being too careful." -- And this is the real lesson, and the real danger.

31. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #162133 by AmericanGodless on April 16, 2008 at 8:07 am

Szymanowski:

And it's easy to confuse a pragmatic or relative "this is true" with an absolutist or 'dogmatic' one.

Exactly. Especially if the "truth" is your own. And that is the problem.

I want to thank you people for your views on this. I would really like to get a room full of you guys, especially those who think that this is "post-modern" or "paranoia", to watch Bronowski's TV episode together. Was Bronowski paranoid?

The point, I think, is that science, properly viewed (if you agree that J.B's view is proper) can serve as a check against the kind of dogma (whether racist, political, or pseudo-scientific -- Nazism was all of these) that is a necessary (though perhaps not completely sufficient) cause of such atrocity. That is why I have been disappointed for many years that Bronowski's view (as I see it) has faded into obscurity.

It is a question of human connectedness and human responsibility. "Is you is, or is you ain't my baby?" (the song that JB heard playing on the ship on which he stayed while inspecting the ruins of Nagasaki in 1945).

Edit: What's the connection to the news article that started this thread? I think it is the pragmatic truth that "prostitution is the only answer to our problems" having become an absolutist dogma for the culture described. The world needs more kids like that one who was willing to try to convince his grandmother that she might be mistaken.

32. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161975 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 10:46 pm

Steve Zara quotes me:
"All meaning, that of fact or value, is subjective, or as I would prefer to put it, local, not cosmic." That's what I said, and I have to say I still mean it. And I don't think it has anything to do with "post-modernism". I believe this passionately, and cannot imagine how I could be convinced otherwise. Let me try to explain why.

I can understand and share your apparent strong aversion to the "post-modern" notion that the "subjectivity" of scientific knowledge means that it is somehow arbitrary, with no more epistemic virtue than dogmatic faith. But I think it is dishonest and dangerous to claim that our scientific knowledge and the meaning we ascribe to it somehow escapes or transcends the local nature of all human cognitive activity, just because it is "about" something that we believe is more objective than we are. We risk a cure that is at least as bad as the disease.

A naked "fact" we might posit to be objectively true (because, as I recall Paul Churchland once putting it, "it just so happens to be true.") The observational evidence we bring to bear in support of our calling it a true fact is less objective (it is, among other things, "theory-laden"). But the meaning we derive from that evidence is something we have to build for ourselves here, now, locally, on Earth, personally and as a community.

"This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods." These were the words of Jacob Bronowski, as he stood in a pond of human ashes at Auschwitz and pleaded with the world, that "We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power." "Science is a very human form of knowledge. We are always at the brink of the known, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped. Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible."

Science allows our construction of meaning to be a community project, and we may collectively decide that the evidence is so strong that further dissent is just perverse. We are at that stage with A LOT of science, including evolution, and we are right to say so. But if we dishonestly deny the ultimately subjective and local nature of all human knowledge, if we allow the local meaning we have built from our personal and collective scientific judgement to become locked into dogmatic certainty, we will risk joining forces with those who "aspire to the knowledge of gods."

33. School bars same-sex partners at formals

Comment #161870 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 7:58 pm

"We love all our [gay] students as we do all people in our churches but their lifestyle is not encouraged, particularly if it was a promiscuous lifestyle."

I don't get it. They don't want to promote a promiscuous lifestyle, so those who have a steady same-sex partner are forbidden to take their partners to a "coming-of-age function" where they might show their monogamous commitment and have it socially encouraged.

Ah, religion is a puzzlement.

34. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161843 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 7:23 pm

Mitchell Gilks --

I agree with you completely that we can have extremely warranted confidence in provisional truths. But I have seen Richard touch on the subject of fallibility himself, and it is clearly at least part of the reason that he always allows that it is "ALMOST certain that there is no god". And I agree that the distinction between what is "out there", and our best explanations of our observations of what is "out there" is critical. Maybe that is where Steve Zara and I are at cross purposes.

And yes, the "world is round" conceit was overblown for this context. I wrote it (with much more detail than I gave here) years ago in response to a Humanist magazine article, where it was argued that a good walkabout will show that the world is not round, as science says it is, but is a rough and jagged shape that only approximates a sphere. This shows that science makes mistakes, so we should "find ways to understand the world that go beyond rational thinking." This is just the kind of popular post-modern nonsense that I think is encouraged when scientists fail to emphasize that science always operates within a play of tolerance (Bronowski's phrase).

35. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161841 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 7:21 pm

Steve Zara --

".. he is claiming.. that physical and possibly even mathematical laws are subjective and local." No, but our KNOWLEDGE is.

You asked me to explain how I came up with the idea of an "unstable hydrogen atom". Physics is not my field, and it has been a long time since I read "The First Three Minutes" by Steven Weinberg. In any case, I am sure his was not and will not be the last word on the subject. But his story had it that even at what he called the "sixth frame" (3 million degrees Kelvin 34 minutes 40 seconds into the process of expansion) the universe was too hot for stable atoms, even that of hydrogen, a single proton and electron. Perhaps the picture he drew is now known to be wrong?

The world a perfect sphere? Nope, nowdays we know better. The laws of physics as we now know them never changing in all the history of the universe? Perhaps, if you say so. But please pardon me if I hold out for just a smidgin of cautious doubt.

The speed of light is not subjective, I agree, but a property of the universe. Our knowledge of it however, is human, local, and a property of fallible human beings. The infinitude of primes is not subjective. It is a logical property of a formal system. The second law of thermodynamics is not subjective. It is statistical, and so probabilistic.

It truly surprises and saddens me that you could hold Bronowski as a personal hero and yet apparently miss or reject what I see as his most passionate message about the nature of science and human knowledge. Perhaps we are just talking past each other? When was the last time you read or watched "Knowledge or Certainty", Chapter or Video Episode eleven of "The Ascent of Man"?

36. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161797 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 5:23 pm

I am disappointed to see that the myth of science as absolute knowledge is alive and well in this forum.

irate_atheist:
Do you really think that just because E=mc^2 works so well here in our local back yard, that it is utterly impossible that some eventual TOE might find a flaw in it? Pv=nRT? What part of the word "ideal" do you not understand? Show me someone who understands the limitations of human certainty at 30,000 feet and I'll show you someone who will insist on aircraft inspections.

Steve Zara:

I guess the fact that we can look back throught the Lyman-alpha absorption band of hydrogen and see that the laws of physics were the same billions of years ago must be simply cultural.

Yes, indeed, that fact is local to the part of the universe that is currently observable. You may also be able to extrapolate that fact to apply in some probable manner to some of the non-observable portion of the universe, but you will need to show that your hypothesis is consistent with a lot more "facts" to do so. And are you sure that it applied when the universe was so young that the hydrogen atom was not yet stable? And, in any case, the human knowledge of such facts is limited to the locality of this planet, and is quite fallible.

It is not "post-modernist drivel" to acknowledge the fallibility of all human knowledge. I learned it from Jacob Bronowski 30 years ago, and more recently from philosphers Patricia and Paul Churchland, and it is also what I have learned from 40 years of doing and watching science.

Do you guys really think that all the scientific knowledge we have today is just as certain as the fact that the world is round? Well, you are right -- except that the world isn't round. "Round" is an ideal mathematical description, which the world fits to a better approximation than it does to "flat." But the world is an oblate spheroid: the diameter at the equator is about 26 miles greater than the diameter taken pole to pole, giving a deviation from sphericity of about 3.3 parts per thousand, almost four times the permitted tolerance allowed for a Brunswick billiard ball. But an ellipsoid is not quite right either. It's more pear shaped, slightly more plump in the southern hemisphere. The geodesic datum has been measured to a precision of about one meter last I checked (probably better now), and modeled in some places to about 10 cm. But we could wish to have even better numbers, because it would allow better calculation of ocean heat content and currents when combined with satillite sea height measurements (which are good to about 5 cm). But human knowledge is approximate. Scientists invest their efforts to do what can be done to improve it, not to pretend that it is perfect as it is.

Those "defenders" of science who take it out of context and fail to recognize the limitations that apply to science and all other claims to human knowledge, do it no favors. Those who would like to deny the greater value of science over faith are happy to point out cases where scientists have made overblown and overconfident statements, and love to use those examples to support their claim that science is "just another faith system."

Scientific knowledge, Bronowski said "is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible." Only by recognizing and embracing the approximate and at best probabilistic nature of all human knowledge do we have a chance to build a world culture, local in time and space, that can combine the knowledge and ethics and morality that will be required to let us survive this century with our civilization intact. Or would you prefer to leave it to religious dogma, or HB's nihilism?

37. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161294 by AmericanGodless on April 15, 2008 at 6:05 am

H.B. says:

[A]ssertions of fact can be proven; assertions of value cannot. So therefore I can judge others' assertions of value to be meaningless whereas you cannot judge my assertions of fact as being so.

Wrong. A philosopher H.B may (or may not) be. A scientist, he is not. In science, an assertion of "fact" can always be questioned. As I said before, his philosophy is a holdover from a time when the only truth that was valued was that which pretended to be absolute. An assertion of fact can be defended as being highly probable and consistent within a particular context of prior well-established knowledge. An assertion of value can be defended as highly probable to be consistent within the context of a collection of values held by a given moral community. Neither is immune from the critical charge of being ultimately meaningless.

All meaning, that of fact or value, is subjective, or as I would prefer to put it, local, not cosmic. We establish our point of view. We try to share it with others and form a community, moral or scientific. H.B has (or pretends to have) no point of view, and just gets his kicks from trying to trash that of others. He fails.

38. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161048 by AmericanGodless on April 14, 2008 at 5:31 pm

Henri B. --
I think you are agreeing with me more than disagreeing. No scientist is going to find the "true rights of humankind" in biology, no political theorist is going to find them in "historical necessity," and no theist is going to find them in the will of God. But scientific knowledge will drive our collective value judgments (because it is all the knowledge we have), or we must abandon prescriptive morality to fantasy and illusion. Science does not solve our moral dilemmas, and cannot absolve us of our responsibility for our decisions (as religion absolves the believer); but it can inform our deliberations, and it can warn us against hasty certainties (as in being so certain that you can't derive oughts from what is).

I had more to say, but it was lost in submission, and you've left, and you were not serious but only playing with us anyway, so this will do.

39. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160995 by AmericanGodless on April 14, 2008 at 4:35 pm

In his commentaries here, Henri Bergson reminds us that a lot of philosophers have said "you can't derive ought from is." This has always puzzled me. How do these philosophers derive their oughts from what isn't? Or do they just give up on oughts? I really think that this is a hold-over from an epistemology that valued only absolute truth.

I'm just a scientist plugging away, trying to separate a bit of truth from a lot of error, but I really think that moral philosophy could learn something from the scientific search for approximate truth -- especially how to get on with it when you find that absolute truth is a will-o-the-wisp, and you will have to get along with "good enough for the project at hand."

Rights must be created by human beings. So H.B. is right, "universal human rights" are neither god-given, nor will they be found by scientists as absolute truths somehow writ large in the fabric of the universe. But H.B is wrong, too, when he says "you cannot judge another culture from your own culture's perspective." You have no other perspective from which you can judge, and for human beings to remain silent when they perceive suffering is to rob them of any impulse that evolution has given us that might make the preservation of the species worthwhile. We have always judged each other, and have very likely gained survival value from listening to each other. I am not certain, but we probably should keep it up -- that is, if we do think the species is worth preserving.

40. The Art of Creating Controversy Where None Existed

Comment #160148 by AmericanGodless on April 13, 2008 at 6:08 pm

will young:

The pursuit of truth is amoral. It is what we do with knowledge that needs moral consideration.
... I never said the practice of science should be amoral,
... Most certainly, but that still does not change the amoral nature of truth.

I think you may misunderstand me. We agree that science should be practiced in a moral way (as in the example of clinical tests, we don't keep the results of our tests secret, to the detriment of the health of our human subjects). But beyond that, I still must disagree with you if you really mean to say "The pursuit of truth is amoral." If we hold the active pursuit of truth to be amoral, then don't we also have to hold the deliberate obscuration of truth to be equally amoral? Are we prepared to say that?

The decision to pursue truth, rather than to obscure it, is a moral choice. I could agree that "truth" is "amoral" only if we were talking about some kind of theoretical truth that is separate from human knowledge or human interests. The truth may be "out there," and as long as it stays "out there" I can agree that it is amoral. But it is hard to come by, hard to establish and justify, hard to put into human hands (or heads). Pursuing it is hard work. Anything that takes so much effort (and indeed, can also be the subject of so much effort by some to conceal and obscure) is not, in my view, morally neutral. The very decision to gather truth and to verify it (as at least probable) is itself a moral decision.

But I don't think we disagree at all. You say to "refer to comment #7 if you still fail to grasp my point." There Diacanu says:

Science is the pursuit of knowledge, and to deny knowledge for any reason, especially a scare-mongered one is antithetical to everything I consider to be the meaning of being human, and therefore life itself.

Sounds like a moral choice to me.

41. The Art of Creating Controversy Where None Existed

Comment #160009 by AmericanGodless on April 13, 2008 at 2:13 pm

#3 yussel123:
Is there ever a moral consideration that justifies halting scientific research?

#19 will young:
The pursuit of truth is amoral. It is what we do with knowledge that needs moral consideration.

Scientific research is frequently halted due to moral considerations. Clinical trials of drugs or medical procedures are based on the moral assumption that the researcher can truthfully say to the human subject that there is insufficient evidence as to whether the treatment may be no better than a placebo, or whether the side effects may be worse than the condition. If the preliminary evidence from the trial builds to a point where the researcher is convinced that the treatment is more dangerous than witholding treatment, the trial will be stopped. There are historic cases (for example, in using mercury compounds to treat syphilis) where trials were continued far beyond this point, and these are cited as clear lapses in scientific research ethics.

The practice of science cannot be called amoral. The ethic of science is that the scientist must act in such a way that what is true may come to be known to be true (Jacob Bronowski, "Science and Human Values," 1956). The rhetorical sophistry discussed in the article is an example of what happens when that ethic is abandoned.

42. Reviews of Expelled

Comment #158224 by AmericanGodless on April 10, 2008 at 8:28 am

Richard -- re your Comment #158036:
Of course, Kaiser is quoting (Comment #158027) -- he even gives the link.

We all are interested to hear what the real context was for the "seeded by space aliens" discussion. But we all also need to understand how this is expected to play to the intended mass audience of religious believers (if it ever reaches them, considering the copyright problems). Here's another friendly review and interview I was sent (I am on the email list for a couple of Christian groups). It includes a quote from Mark Mathis.

From http://www.tothesource.org/3_26_2008/3_26_2008.htm:

tothesource: Word is out that best-selling atheist Richard Dawkins talks himself into a corner. Could you fill us in on that?

Expelled: .. Mr. Dawkins is very well versed in his arguments against God. But something rather shocking takes place when Mr. Stein asks Mr. Dawkins about the possibility that intelligent design might be useful in the area of genetics. Mr. Dawkins responds by laying out the "intriguing possibility" that life may have come into existence elsewhere in the universe and that this unknown intelligence seeded life on earth. Mr. Stein skillfully exposes the stunning contradiction in the foundation of Mr. Dawkins's thesis. That is, Mr. Dawkins is "intrigued" about the possibility that there could be an intelligent designer in the universe, just so long as that designer isn't God. Anyone who would suggest that there is a God designer is stupid, ignorant or evil.

What's so important about this moment is that Mr. Stein doesn't just expose the double-speak of Mr. Dawkins, but also that of his fellow Darwinists. Mr. Stein exposes what's really going on in this debate. The controversy isn't about the science; it's about the atheistic, materialistic philosophy of the elitist establishment. If the Darwinists discovered evidence of an alien designer they would be giddy. If they discovered evidence of God, they would be crushed, and would do everything in their power to dismiss the evidence as fraudulent or inconclusive.

Note that the thing that amuses and astonishes the believers is that a scientist would not understand immediately that "god" is the answer to the "design problem." It would not occur to them (believers) to entertain first any possible materialistic explanations. That's why I personally dislike the "methodological naturalism" ploy used by so many of the "Neville Chamberlain school" of evolutionists. The material naturalism of science is neither a philosophy nor a methodology, but the unifying hypothesis for all of science. Of course, if we were to find the equivalent of a patent notice in the fine structure of mitochondria or chloroplasts, we would look first to find any possible material and natural patent holder, even one from outer space. But the believer says, "well, all patents belong to god the master inventor, so that settles it."

43. The Atheist Next Door

Comment #156944 by AmericanGodless on April 8, 2008 at 12:20 pm

The difference:
Religious morality: responsibility TO a moral code.
Godless morality: responsibility TO AND FOR a moral code.

The greatest evil of religion is that believers can do anything and feel good about it, just as long as they can pretend that it is approved by their god, their church, their pastor, or someone/something other than themselves. The godless have nobody else to blame, nothing to hide behind. How can you be moral without being godless?

44. In His Name We Pray, Ramen

Comment #152178 by AmericanGodless on March 30, 2008 at 11:07 am

Post 43 above, Comment #152110 by gimlibengloin:
"..the fossil record is an even bigger problem for evolutionists due to the lack of evidence for gradual change" -- Read "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin.

"Also they argue the record is just a reflection of the fact that dinosaurs and humans didn't live in the same areas ie we don't find humans and tigers buried together." -- but unlike humans and dinousaurs, we DO find humans and tigers fossilized in rocks (and buried in soil) of the same age.

"..creationists will point to ancient art eg literature, paintings, engravings which do bear a resemblance to large reptiles." -- Reptiles would be familiar to most human culture, as would the notion of gigantism. Also, some dinosaur bones may have been found during human pre-history and may have inspired myths of dragons. It has long been thought that the Greeks may have been inspired to invent the cyclops based on prehistoric dwarf elephant skulls, in which the large nasal opening was mistaken for an eye socket.

45. 'We Make Our Own Heaven'

Comment #151351 by AmericanGodless on March 28, 2008 at 2:35 pm

Too Young to Not Believe? -- Some outside the church might take issue with the humanist teachings being taught to a young person like Jane.

Is it possible that this could have been read on the air on ABC news without the irony being so strong as to incite laughter even from the reporter? Are Christians really this obtuse and ignorant? Alas, they most likely are. I can just hear them muttering.. 'How dare those Humanists teach a mere child that she is allowed to think for herself!!??'

46. Happy Birthday, Richard Dawkins!

Comment #150273 by AmericanGodless on March 26, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Happy Birthday, Dear Richard!

Sixty-seven years? It would be silly to worry about something that happened so long ago.

May it be ever longer. The world needs you.

47. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148599 by AmericanGodless on March 23, 2008 at 11:34 am

Steve -- Yes, that's what I said. Mick Hume is a self-defined (so-called) atheist who likes the idea of humans being "little gods on earth." Scientific atheists (the "new zealots" in Hume's words) leave no room for humans as little gods, and Hume is upset over that.

48. It looks like Man crucified

Comment #148594 by AmericanGodless on March 23, 2008 at 11:19 am

I think I get it. Mick Hume is, as I understand it, a Marxist journalist, but probably not a scientist. That means that his atheism is most likely founded in a political agenda, not in a concern for the truth. He sees the "new atheism" as a rejection of what he calls "humanism" ("Must we give up the ghost of humanism?"). But apparently, "humanism" for him means an ability to transcend the reality of our biology.

Back in the 1960's, the Nobel prizewinning biologist Francois Jacob (EDIT -- no, Jaques Monod wrote the book -- Jacob shared the Nobel Prize) wrote a book called "Chance and Necessity" in which he presented the case for an atheist view of reality in the light of what had so recently been discovered about the biochemical mechanisms of living matter and the processes of mutation (chance) and natural selection (necessity). Along the way he described the alternatives as being varieties of "animist projection," the human religious desire to see a life-force in everything, especially in the universe as a whole. And, in this respect, he pointed out that Marxism is indeed a religion, substituting the promised "historical necessity" of an inevitable outcome to class struggle for the "salvation" promised by Christianity.

The "new" atheism, based as it is in science, is not kind to any "animist projection." It must be just as hard for a Marxist, committed to the truth of a political philosophy as ardently as Christians are to their Gospel, to see the popular expression of an atheism that does not promise salvation, just the freedom to face the world and the human condition as it really is, rather than as we might wish to fantasize it to be.

For those so-called "atheists" who want to worship humanity as "little gods on earth" who are destined to find some kind of "salvation" beyond our biology, an atheism based in science must seem very bleak indeed. But the "new atheism" is neverthless profoundly humanistic in its insistence that humanity face its future realistically.

49. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144679 by AmericanGodless on March 16, 2008 at 3:16 pm

Dr Benway:

We should grant the public at least a common sense grasp of methodological naturalism.

I question whether anyone can even consistently define, let alone defend the notion of "methodological naturalism" (a phrase which was invented by Alvin Plantinga, religious philosopher and a supporter of ID). As far as I can see it is an incoherent theistic attempt to dismiss as a mere "methodology" the natural world view that has proved itself successful as part of the explanatory cluster of theories tested in almost all scientific experiments. Bayesian logic, operating on the successes of naturalism and the failures of supernaturalism, tells us that naturalism as a theory of reality (not a "methodology") is as well confirmed as evolution or quantum physics.

But Bonzai tells us that Bayesian arguments are not acceptable in US courts. With that, most of science can be dismissed out of court.

(EDIT: ThoughtsonCommonToad gives a link that seems to be from a New Zealand source, not US. In any case, I am pleased to see that the linked article argues that "There cannot be two different ways of thinking about evidence." If only courts and theologians might agree.)

Dr Benway says later: "People can't distinguish a good argument from a bad argument, because they don't know the rules." Quite right. Carl Sagan, on the one occasion I was honored to talk to him, agreed with me that a big part of the problem with the public perception of science is a lack of any education in scientific epistemology. "But unfortunately," he said, "My plate is full."

Which is why I appreciate the efforts of Richard (and also especially Dan Dennet.) so much.

50. Selling science to the masses

Comment #144207 by AmericanGodless on March 15, 2008 at 10:28 am

We all know what Richard thinks of this -- see The God Delusion, the section on "The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists".

One of the people mentioned when Richard discusses that "school" is Eugenie Scott, of NCSE. Richard doesn't talk about this directly, but to me, Scott's promotion of "methodological naturalism" is one of the worst examples of abandonment of scientific integrity in favor of public relations. Naturalism is not a "methodology," that can be left in the lab like the PCR machine and the lab coat, but a central theory that unifies all of science. And, when I asked her after one of her lectures if she didn't agree that naturalism was part of the cluster of theories tested every time an experiment is done in science that turns out not to require the "supernatural" to explain its results, she agreed with me, and further agreed that it is probably the best-tested theory in all of science.

Deepthought, in the first comment in this thread, suggests (following along with a Discover Magazine article by Bruno Maddox) that science might better frame itself as a collection of disparate and scattered fields of study, and that this might insulate evolution from criticism by physical chemists. But this is impossible, because evolutionary studies depend upon physical chemistry

Maddox, in his article in Discover (see Deepthought's comment for the link) asks, "What benefit is currently accruing to the scattered fields of botany, Mars exploration, quantum physics, and so on, by being thought of as mere branches of a greater, more boring whole?" Just how are you going to explore for life on Mars without a grounding in the chemistry of earthly plant life? And how will you understand mutation rates in plants without some understanding of the quantum chemistry of the tautomeric shifts in DNA bases that are the random (truely random -- you can't get more random than quantum physics) cause of many mutations?

The enterprise of science has two crucial virtues: its method, and its unity. Maddox dismisses the scientific method as being, by now, just part of "common sense," as most people know by now instictively that they must have evidence to back claims. But just gathering evidence is not the scientific method. The "method" is nothing more or less than a collection of steps that scientists have found helpful in their efforts to avoid fooling themselves. If you don't bother with controls and peer review, if you ignore negative results, if you cull the data, or allow any of hundreds of other sources of self-delusions to color your conclusions, then you are not doing science. Gather all the evidence you want, you can still fool yourself.

And one of the greatest assurances that you are not fooling yourself is when you find that some other line of research from someone else working on something quite different dovetails with what you are doing, and the reality of science springs out at you, because you realize you are looking at the same thing from two different directions. If you "frame" science by breaking it up, you will never see that the dance of chromosomes you see in meiosis under the microscope fits perfectly with the dance of the genetic symbols in transmission genetics; and you will never see that the timeline of geology fits with the timeline of genetics (see "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin).

And you won't see that the smoke from a stack has a potential connection to hurricanes. No, hurricanes don't come full-blown from smokestacks (nor from butterfly wings), but both metaphors are apt, when considered in a context where the goal is to understand the world as an integrated whole, and where care is taken to avoid expanding the metaphor into self-delusion.

The article from New Scientist quotes Matthew Nisbet: "Sometimes the best way to talk to the public about science is not to talk about science at all." Nonsense. If you are talking about the real world, you are always talking about science. The "framing" problem, as I see it, is that most people fail to see science as a unified whole, and fail to see that science consists of all human thought and communication that bothers to take some care to avoid self-delusion. Which is why, when I hear people talk of "other ways of knowing" beyond science, I always wonder why it is that they think self-delusion is a "way of knowing."

The public mis-apprehension of science, especially in the US, is due to a public presentation that removes science from its philosophical context as a moral system of truth-telling and a unification of all human knowledge. If science is the only road to knowledge, and has no place for their religion, then the public will have none of it, thank you. What they want (and too often get) is a museum with a gift shop full of sparkley toys where the exhibits are the dismembered and stuffed pieces of science, and where the real guts of science, its unifying world view and its moral imperative, have been quietly buried out back.

Richard is in the business of getting to the heart (and the rest of the guts) of the matter.