I was amazed. A NY Times guest op-ed that actually acknowledged the need for attitude adjustments on the part of militant atheists like Richard Dawkins, as well as a dishonest creationism that even if true at its core, is not and never can be science (negative hypothesis, anyone?). The reconciliation of religion and science is important on many levels, not least of which is the fact that religious morality and the ethic of science form the twin pillars upon which our civilization rest. I've discussed this before.
Robert Wright of the New America Foundation:
"The "war" between science and religion is notable for the amount of civil disobedience on both sides. Most scientists and most religious believers refuse to be drafted into the fight. Whether out of a live-and-let-live philosophy, or a belief that religion and science are actually compatible, or a heartfelt indifference to the question, they're choosing to sit this one out. Still, the war continues, and it's not just a sideshow. There are intensely motivated and vocal people on both sides making serious and conflicting claims.... William James said that religious belief is "the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto." Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony - and in that adjustment, too, may lie a supreme good."
Excellent article. Thanks for pointing it out.
It's worth observing that not all truths are scientifically testable truths.
As an uncontroversial example, mathematical theorems are not scientifically testable truths. They are logically provable statements that follow from their givens. Theorems are true in all possible worlds, whereas scientifically testable truths are true (as far as we can tell so far) in this one.
More controversially, descriptions of individual religious experiences may well be true, but are not scientifically testable. IMHO, only certain "scientific fundamentalists" like Dawkins claim that such untestable statement are meaningless or false, rather than simply being beyond our ability to test using the methods of science.
As a Christian, I have to acknowledge that the Bible lacks key information for this discussion; exactly how was life created on this planet. I cannot open the book of Genesis and create life. The information is not there. "How" is immaterial to the message.
The mission of science is to investigate this mystery; how was life created. The plain fact is that we don't know. I cannot clear a desktop, open a textbook and create life from inorganic materials. The science is not there.
Supposing we are capable of creating life, what exactly does this prove? Does this prove that God does not exist? Hardly. Knowing how something was done does not disprove that someone was behind the event. One is left with with the next mystery of how this process came into existence.
From my observations, about the only religious group that feel the need of the affirmation of science are the atheists. They have long proselytized their religion in our schools under the guise of teaching science; i.e. Evolution is a scientific fact that proves that God does not exist. (Don't tell me that atheism is not a religion. The Supreme Court declared them so years ago.)
So what do we need to do? First, we need to recognize that despite the trappings of scientific jargon, this is a relgious discussion. Atheists and the worshipers of Scientism have their own religion. Next, we need to give to Science the things that are science and leave religion to the believers. There's lots of room for both.
We need a word that means "adherent of Scientism" that doesn't sound anything like "scientist".
I've read a number of things by Robert Wright, and liked most of them (especially moral animal, which is highly theoretical, but an interesting exercise). However, I didn't love this piece.
For one, the idea that evolution is designed is ok (it's certainly better than believing the earth is 6,000 years old) but it still misses the point of evolution. The theory of evolution dictates that it must be random. Believing that evolution has a specific endpoint (us) still misses the idea altogether. (For a fun, but stupid reading into that point, see the first 20 minutes of Mike Judge's Idiocracy). Wright is confusing the chances that something will happen vs. an intention that something will happen.
The second, is that it complete reputes his own writing in Moral Animal, which although completely speculative, attempts to recount why morals may be massively important to societal coherence, and thus evolution. In that book, he retraces how 'moral' behavior might have been created, and how it might give evolutionary advantages. (I'm paraphrasing 200pages here)
The 3rd problem is that only a few scientists are 'attacking' religion (see atheists), but a very broad swath of religious groups are pushing to change scientific education in the schools. To do so they are lying about the evidence we teach (and they're really is no subtle way to say it).
For more information, I strongly recommend the two-hour special Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. It does an excellent job of displaying the most common half-truths used, and how blatant many lies are...mostly in the second hour. You can currently find all the parts on youtube.
As a result of these lies, scientists who were gracious towards religion are becoming more bellicose. If they're going to try and point out our 'errors', we're going to point out yours. If you try to point out our flaws, we'll demonstrate (cleanly & clearly) how little you know about science, (or anything else for that matter)
In fairness, it hasn't helped the debate anyway. However, it's the natural reaction when groups repeatedly & deliberately lie about your life work.
" The theory of evolution dictates that it must be random. Believing that evolution has a specific endpoint (us) still misses the idea altogether."
Well... that sidesteps the issue of determinism, which is critical. Excluding quantum mechanics for a moment (i know, bear with me), the idea of 'random' is not nearly so simple. In a purely Newtonian universe what may seem random in fact would be entirely predictable if you had access to infinite data and computation power.
IE- a 'random' mutation was caused by a cell nucleus being struck by a charged ion bounced loose from a cosmic ray that originated in a supernova.. all the way back to the big bang. The randomness of the event is simply our inability to comprehend the chain of events that led to it. Theoretically if you knew every starting condition you could accurately predict a zebra's stripes.
The problem with that, of course, is the probability based reality that quantum mechanics describes. But this brings up entire new questions of determinism that end up being even more pointed in some ways. Nobody understands this or can describe how it effects our macro world yet (collapsing waveforms etc) and the competing theories would have vast implications for determinism (hidden variables vs many worlds etc), but if the 'universal wave function' is a valid concept, you can still pose a philosophical theory of a universe set up like a domino board, with the universe and life as we know it as the current state, and the dominos (physical laws) carefully and perfectly crafted to achieve this moment. What that says about free choice is a fascinating question.
Ok, in fairness, alot of physicists beleive that there is a single equation that can describe the whole universe.... but realistically, that seems ridiculous. Even if you could understand how every particle in the universe operates (and we don't) there is no way that a single equation could accurately describe all 10^72 particles moving in free space.
For those counting at home, that's
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 particles (give or take, many think the number is alot higher).
If you want to, you can argue that each particle is acted on deliberately. That's fine, but it's a leap of faith. That's a belief, not a fact. Until that is proven, it's more accurate to call these mutations statistically random until proven otherwise.
For an analogy on how our math compares to above, Physical Chemists have long used the joke "a spherical cow" to explain where the science is at.
Like cows, many atoms/molecules are NOT perfectly spherical. We know this, and yet, there are some real mathematical problems in describing complex systems that involve non-spherical objects.
Hence, in my conversations about "describing a spherical cow", we referred to particles where the math can be solved, but the math may/may not aptly describe reality.
Is there anyone out there whose spent more than a year with Quantum Mechanics?
"Even if you could understand how every particle in the universe operates (and we don't) there is no way that a single equation could accurately describe all 10^72 particles moving in free space."
Why? We have a universe that contains 10^72 particles, that in itself is equally as unbelievable in its own way. Claiming scale as an argument when we demonstrably live in a universe who's scale boggles the mind doesn't seem right.
"If you want to, you can argue that each particle is acted on deliberately. That's fine, but it's a leap of faith. That's a belief, not a fact."
Deliberately? That's a loaded word. Simply 'acted upon' is more appropriate, and that being the case the forces that caused a zebra stripage are not entirely independent of the spin of a photon in the Horsehead Nebula. The idea that some greater force is directing or indeed set up this system is (of course) speculation indeed, and it is philosophy and not science. My point is that it is trivial to simply argue 'random' without defining what underlies that term.
A philosopher could argue that god personally chooses every coin flip, being sure the aggregate comes to reflect the physical laws he created. If you are talking about a universe creator that is omniscient, setting an ending condition and working backwards to the big bang along those lines would be trivial, or the world omniscient has no meaning.
I'm not sure that those who view random natural selection as a refutation of design or faith understand the concept of a "ludic fallacy." There's a big difference between looking backward and deriving a consistent explanation for events that have already occurred and applying the principle to reliably and consistently predict future events. In some cases the theory can't even "predict" past events very well. This amounts to a kind of human perceptual flaw that's analogous to autism, except that practically everyone has it. Ironically it's a flaw that seems to have enhanced, rather than diminished, our survival odds... but it does give us the unique capacity to fool ourselves into believing that we know more than we actually do.
In some cases the theory can't even "predict" past events very well
Which theory do you mean here? Even inside evolution, some predictions are much much better than others.
Demo, Random natural selection is a refutation of design inasmuch as "random" means "without design" in plain, everyday use. Evolution refutes faith in a particular context. Prior to the widespread acceptance of evolution, religious faith included belief in the fixity of God's creation. The faith of many people has since adapted to the circumstances and most people have given up the beliefs of the past. E.g., given evolution, it is hard to maintain the belief, once widely held, that humans were created in God's image. Evolution, if properly understood, does make it considerably less likely that humans are the direct result of God's will and intent. Not impossible, of course, but certainly less likely than in a world without evolution. Evolution has altered faith in many ways and certainly presents a significant challenge to many specific claims of faith. As numerous claims of faith have been abandoned to scientific claims, faith itself falls into question for some people. Other people will hang on to faith despite all evidence, but then, that's what makes it faith.
Reconciling Evolution and Faith has always been a difficult subject, and one that I have wrestled with as mechanical engineer and a Christian.
I agree with Jerry that the opening book in the Old Testament leaves alot of unanswered questions about creation. However I would argue that the purpose of the Bible is not the "How" either, but more importantly the "Why".
Frankly I don't necessarily think that science and religion are mutually exclusive. There are many aspects of the human condition that are not properly answered by science in much the same way you would not use a ruler to measure the temperature of a glass of water.
The discussion on evolution vs. faith is also missing many keep components that need to be considered such as the purpose of scripture & divine inspiration.
A better question would be who looks at the Mona Lisa and worships the brush used to paint it?
There are many aspects of the human condition that are not properly answered by science in much the same way you would not use a ruler to measure the temperature of a glass of water.
And that's fine and dandy, until you get to Galileo, and the church demands that THEY alone should measure temperature.
And while that's an extreme example, there are still many people who believe that Christianity must be the only word in every segment of life (including scientific theory). These people are the ones pushing ID theory, creationism, and the context that evolution is "only a theory". (Seriously watch that PBS special)
So when people say we should be more cooperative... ok, I see where they're coming from. At the same time, many of the groups pushing for this 'consideration' are also trying to pull the rug out from under us.
That makes scientists like me very uneasy.
Hold it. Is that actually right? I seriously doubt that the theory of evolution depends on the source of mutations being random. The actual theory is that evolution (i.e., change in the nature of species over time) is the product of natural selection. That is, even if there is a biased (i.e., stochastic but non-random) source of mutations, then natural selection based on reproductive fitness will, over time, bias the distribution of the resulting population in the direction of increasing fitness. Any bias in the mutation distribution will be overcome, given enough time.
For that matter, the predictions of the theory of evolution have to do with distributions of characteristics across species, not with individuals.
Let's suppose that God does a really good job of designing the laws of physics when He prepares for the Big Bang. He sets the thing off, and away it goes, creating galaxies, stars, planets, oceans, chemical soup, replicating chemicals, unicellular creatures, and so on, at least on some of those many, many planets.
Given a God capable putting this show together, it doesn't seem likely that He has prohibited Himself from giving the occasional molecule a shove in some direction or another, as He might choose, just in case this stochastic process showed signs of getting stuck in an undesirable local optimum.
But, assuming that He is a loving God, He won't do it all that often, especially after intelligent life has emerged. Why not? Because He wants His intelligent creations to learn the laws of His universe. If He keeps breaking those laws, the resulting behavior of the universe won't be comprehensible, and His intelligent creations won't be able to make sense of it.
In other words, if God wants his creations to grow up the way He intended, He won't intervene to prevent every bruise, or every death, or perhaps almost any death, because to do otherwise would be to spoil the whole thing.
He can intervene a moderate number of times, but not reliably or predictably, and certainly not when scientists are watching, or are in a position to gather data. Under the assumption that He wants us to experience a world that we can learn to comprehend. (Or to believe we can comprehend.)
He can use evolution as a tool, but He is not constrained by its rules. So it goes.
Ah, I've spent more than a year on quantum mechanics. I'm not really aware of any scientists who really hold with the idea that there is a master equation which, once understood, will enable or re-enable a deterministic, infinite resolution predictive model of the universe. Quantum mechanics prevents that.
And one can, I suppose, posit a God who sets up a timeline where every single experiment ever run and every observation ever made just happens to yield statistical results consistent with the randomness of quantum mechanics. What one can't do is prove that, not even a little. Nor can one technically disprove it, but there are a lot of things I can't disprove that I don't believe. It's not really a useful discussion outside of late night dorm room bull sessions your freshman year, or, perhaps, graduate level philosophy seminars.
I also think that for the most part (and there are some obvious exception) most adults in the west today are fairly content to let other people believe whatever they want. The battleground, as always, is the minds of the children. That's where the knives come out.
Even without the randomness of quantum mechanics, even in a perfectly deterministic Newtonian world, the finite resolution of observations means that accurate long-term prediction would be impossible.
This follows from the phenomenon of "sensitive dependence on initial conditions" (one aspect of the larger phenomenon of "chaos"), that is difficult to avoid once you get beyond very simple systems.
"I'm not really aware of any scientists who really hold with the idea that there is a master equation which, once understood, will enable or re-enable a deterministic, infinite resolution predictive model of the universe. Quantum mechanics prevents that."
Many Worlds interpretation?
"And one can, I suppose, posit a God who sets up a timeline where every single experiment ever run and every observation ever made just happens to yield statistical results consistent with the randomness of quantum mechanics."
'Just happens' is a strange term to use if discussing a designer.
"What one can't do is prove that, not even a little."
Of course. Which is what distinguishes philosophy from science.
"Nor can one technically disprove it, but there are a lot of things I can't disprove that I don't believe."
Assuredly. I can't disprove the theory that marxism will bring peace and prosperity to the world. I can make arguments for or against it that can be compelling.
"It's not really a useful discussion outside of late night dorm room bull sessions your freshman year, or, perhaps, graduate level philosophy seminars."
That's where we differ. As absurd as it is for the religious to look to science (particularly god help us quantum physics) for evidence of a god, it is equally absurd to look to science to prohibit the existence of a god that is (by definition) outside the scope of science to test. It is a philosophical question- why is there something instead of nothing, and it has been a fundamental question our race has debated since the beginning of civilization, quite aside (though certainly inclusive of) late night bull sessions.
Alchemist, The received narrative most of us get about Galileo is a myth. He was not forbidden to publish his theories, only to claim that they were proven truth (which they were not at the time). The idea of the Church was not "We have all the truth and will destroy anyone who disputes that." It was more "We don't know that Ptolemaic cosmology is absolute truth, but we have a lot invested in it. If we're going to abandon it, we'd better be damned sure of our facts, a lot more sure than Galileo is now." As a conservative, I sympathize completely with that position. Gallileo was the one who insisted that he had the proven truth despite the fact that he should have been more cautious. So narrowness and arrogance are not always and not all on the side of religion. I have no truck with the ignoramuses who want to claim the Bible is a science text, but the truly vocal ones who would interfere with the work of scientists are a tiny minority of even of those ignoramuses. And I have even less truck with scientists like Dawkins who make theological pronouncements as shallow and ignorant as the fundamentalists' scientific pronouncements.
If you try to point out our flaws, we'll demonstrate (cleanly & clearly) how little you know about science, (or anything else for that matter)
Ah, "punch back twice as hard". How scientific.
Is there some kind of correlation between ignorance about evolutionary theory or cosmology and ignorance of every other field of human endeavor that allows the scientist to claim his enemy knows little about anything? Does the scientist know a lot about science and everything else for that matter, such that he is in a position to make such a claim? I'd be interested in a clean, clear demonstration of either of those two propositions.
Fred (#18),
It's not too much of a simplification to say that Galileo got into trouble because he was an a**hole, and Copernicus didn't because he wasn't.
"Alchemist, The received narrative most of us get about Galileo is a myth. He was not forbidden to publish his theories, only to claim that they were proven truth"
Oh really? Someone should have informed the church that that was the case:
"We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents. We are willing to absolve you from them provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, in front of us you abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the manner and form we will prescribe to you. "
link to Galileos trial documents
Sort of hoists you up on your own petard doesn't it?
Turns out that there's a good reason why so many saints are martyrs.
Most saints are fanatical, annoying, unreasonable people who get in the faces of ordinary people just trying to muddle on through. This includes saints in other religions like Mary Dyer (hanged on Boston Commons and now honored with a statue there), and secular saints like Gallileo and Richard Stallman.
Rather odd view of science that its ok to discover something as long as you keep it to yourself...
Sort of hoists you up on your own petard doesn't it?
Not really Mark. As I said, the Church had a lot invested in Ptolemaic cosmology. But it did not outright forbid teaching of heliocentrism, only of declaring that heliocentrism was truth instead of speculation.
We all know that Galileo got in trouble with the Roman Catholic Church for propagating the argument that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of vice versa. According to the author, there were Jesuits who already believed that in 1633.
Galileo, however, was headstrong and insisted, unreasonably, that science is the sole avenue to truth. This is Galileo's "mistake," dogmatically arguing that only science provides the truth about nature. Yet popular intelligence has gotten things backwards, canonizing Galileo as a martyr to science while vilifying the Church as an unprogressive institution fearful of what science can bring to light. This "myth of Galileo as the paladin of truth and freedom opposing a venal and closed-minded Church," the author asserts, "is untrue." And the substance of the book is the establishment of this fact.(forgot to copy the link on this one. The book from which it comes is Galileo's Mistake: A New Look at the Epic ... - by Wade Rowland. It's on Googlebooks)
Copernicus's De Revolutiombus was placed on the Index in 1616, until it should be corrected so as to make the heliocentric theory appear simply as a convenient mathematical hypothesis; and Galileo was warned to teach the Copernican ideas only in this.(have a link on this one, but can't get it to work)
Now it is perfectly true that the prohibition against Copernican works was not removed formally from the Index until 1822. But it is not try that only in that year did it become permissible to teach the Copernican theory in Catholic countries. As we will see, Catholics were always allowed to teach it as a theory.(emphasis added)
You asked how we "hit back"?
To start out, I'm an agnostic, I have no feelings pro or con for Christianity 95% of the time. It's just when they step on my turf that they bug me. So here's posts where they do that, and illustrate that they're either lying, or don't understand they're own argument. Many of them are by Atheists, and so they're snarky, but they know what they're talking about.
1) Dembski. is a mathematician who has been arguing that mathematically and statistically, evolution is impossible. Unfortunately, he either doesn't understand basic mathematical or statistical principles, or he is lying.
2) A wired on religious groups claiming the grand canyon is only 6,000 years old, and it's more correct age.
3)Here's a creationist who tries to prove that modern embryology is wrong with.... (wait for it).... balloon animals
4)Here someone tries to prove that because nature is being used for TV's, it must be designed in the first place.
Look, I think this is more than enough demonstration. ID theorists attack "evolution", and in doing so make it clear that they don't know what they're talking about. So we point it out.
On the other hand most scientists have no desire to go through the bible & point out errors. It's clear (to me at least) who is doing the toe-stepping here.
"But it did not outright forbid teaching of heliocentrism, only of declaring that heliocentrism was truth instead of speculation."
Interesting that they CONVICTED him of heresy for believing it Fred. I'm having trouble finding any of what you are saying in the text of the conviction.
"it was decided at the Holy Congregation held in the presence of His Holiness on 25 Feb 1616 that the Most Eminent Lord Cardinal Bellarmine would order you to abandon this false opinion completely; that if you refused to do this, the Commissary of the Holy Office would give you an injunction to abandon this doctrine, not to teach it to others, not to defend it, and not to treat of it; and that if you did not acquiesce in this injunction, you should be imprisoned."
That sounds decidedly more than an injunction not to teach the subject as immutable truth.
I'll take the direct source over the interpretations of the apologists 400 years later I think.
"Catholics were always allowed to teach it as a theory.(emphasis added)"
Oh?
"herefore, in order that this opinion may not creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Congregation has decided that the books by Nicolaus Copernicus (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and Diego de Zuniga (On Job) be suspended until corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini be completely prohibited and condemned; and that all other books which teach the same be likewise prohibited, according to whether with the present decree it prohibits, condemns, and suspends them respectively."
They were allowed to teach it as debunked theory.
I'm having a hard time understanding how being forced to teach an idea with the caveat that its not actually true differs from outright prohibition. Or is an improvement on it.
Galileo's apology:
_"However, whereas, after having been judicially instructed with injunction by the Holy Office to abandon completely the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and does not move and the earth is not the center of the world and moves, and not to hold defend, or teach this false doctrine in any way whatever, orally or in writing;"_
emphasis mine
Finally- if Galileo was convicted of merely not placing a caveat on these ideas that they are not proven, WHY WAS HE FORCED TO CLAIM THEY WERE ENTIRELY FALSE AS PUNISHMENT?
I abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies
Shouldn't his apologia been simply that his theories weren't definitive? And of course this would render his famous parting shot nonsensical: "And yet it moves".
I'm sorry, I didn't mean for Galileo to take over the conversation. Just name dropping primarily, of the most famous scientist bum rushed by religion. But I could have said Scopes too. However my response to bgates are all good examples of religious groups infringing on religion, and then getting smacked down by people who understand the topic much, much better than they do.....
Oops, somehow post never went up. Let's try this again.
1)"Dembski":http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2006/06/dishonest_dembskithe_universal_1.php is a mathematician who has been trying to prove that evolution is not statistically possible. However, he is either very bad and math and statistics, or he is simply lying.
2)Here's a guy that tries to prove he has a better explanation for embryology than biology by..... (wait for it)..... making baloon animals. Yes, he's supported by the ID theorists.
3) Here's an article that claims since new technology was designed for a television from an analogy in nature, nature must be designed as well. Yes, that's their only proof.
I'm missing one now, but you get the idea. There's alot more where this came from.
Beard (#14) makes largely the same point I made in my discussion of evolution and G-d.
It doesn't avoid the issue that made Darwin a non-believer (how could a loving G-d even design a system that could include things like the Sphex Wasp?), but the idea that creations have to grow up in order to make meaningful moral choices and exercise stewardship as a function of those choices, and that understanding the way stuff works is an important part of the growth, is to me a very good one.
If you choose not to use the intellect that is your gift to understand evolution, and a plague of evolving bacteria and/or viruses destroys millions of your fellow sentient beings, you don't get to plead innocence because you chose to be ignorant of the mechanism. Doing all you can to understand, and then act wisely and correctly on that understanding as a moral agent, is what the whole deal of existence is about.
Science can't give you all of that, of course, vid. my story of the scientist Mordecai Hafkine. But without it, there is (for instance) no cure - and if the policies that got in its way had insufficient moral weight justifying them, that's a morally culpable thing.
As for the rejoinder:
"Believing that evolution has a specific endpoint (us) still misses the idea altogether."
Believing that man is the end point of evolution is not the same thing as saying that a divine creator would instantiate a system which aims to produce intelligent creatures who can grasp moral truth. And which therefore has, written into its ground of being on a whole array of levels, biases designed to lead to that point. Of which man is currently the only example we know.
Saying that, IS saying that evolution has a desired end point. But it does not say anything about the mechanism, which must be understood incompletely at all times according to our best theories. Nor does it say that homo sapiens is THE endpoint, beyond which (or in addition to which) nothing else shall exist.
Thanks for the back-pointer, Joe. We're very much on the same page on this. (Evidently, I enjoyed your story about Mordecai Hafkine when you first posted it.)
We are asked by God to search for truth. Science is one of the most powerful tools known, to use in the search for certain kinds of truths. But to think that those are the only truths is a serious error.
We use a variety of metaphors in our attempts to understand God, and what He (a metaphor itself) or She (another metaphor, no more or less useful) might have in mind for this universe. The notion that evolution is a tool, used toward a desired end, is certainly a metaphor. It might be equally helpful to view God as an artist, tweaking Creation from time to time according to His aesthetic response. Who knows?
But I find it compelling that God wants us to be intellectual and moral agents, not deterministic automata, and created us and our world to help us reach that state.
Is homo sapiens at t=2009 the pinnacle and goal of creation? I seriously doubt it. Surely we are of value in and of ourselves, but we are also on the way somewhere else. We'll see. (That last bit is an article of faith.)
For the record bgates, I tried to respond, something is swallowing my posts.
But back to the point. Most scientists I know are perfectly willing to let Christians believe whatever they want.... as long as it doesn't influence the classrooms we teach. Even the idea that evolution has been guided, though I feel to be wrong, is fairly innocuous.
However, when groups go out of their way to disprove our work, I think it's fair to illustrate that their arguments are typically manufactured under false pretenses. (google quote mining for more).
Note that this is a perfectly fair response, compared to the work undertaken by Atheists. Scientists are not necessarily atheists and vice versa, though there is overlap between groups.
To say that we scientists should be responsible for how some interpret out evidence is unfair (even if some of those same people belong to our community). The work done in universities makes no such claims.
Joe, your belief that God created a complex, evolving universe that is intended to result in an intelligent creature, whose purpose is to understand that creation, seems, to me at least, a very inventive but transparent and awkward attempt to return mankind to the center of things, and a way of getting around the much more simpler and likelier conclusion that, disappointing as it may be, we are nothing special in the greater scheme of things.
Your theory requires a very odd God indeed (although one that suspiciously resembles a certain type of human.). Why on earth, so to speak, would God create such an elaborate game of hide-and-seek? He creates the test and then creates the creatures who will take the test? Isn't that ultimately a test of His own designing abilities? Do you imagine God around 1125AD scratching his head and wondering if maybe He hadn't made the mechanisms of nature a little too hidden, a little to hard to discover? Or perhaps he hadn't given His beloved humans quite enough brain power to grasp the nature of their moral responsibilities and stewardship roles. After all, it had been over 50,000 years by then. (btw, Aren't we lucky to be alive on the right side of the Awakening!) Or was God comfortable that the outcome was a foregone conclusion, knowing that in fact, we were going to grow up and accept our proper roles, and one day start "mak[ing] meaningful moral choices," which, then of course, wouldn't really be choices at all.
For my part, I just don't quite understand the need to infuse the universe and its creator with such human-like motives and intentions. I mean, really, what are the chances that our morals and intelligence resembles God's any more than do our hairy nostrils, badly designed knees, or passion for games with balls? Pretty remote, I'd wager.
Of course, the other task your theory performs is to make it possible for someone to be "right" by positing an absolute authority to confirm one's moral beliefs as the correct ones, thus relieving one of the necessity of defending one's beliefs on their own terms, which is always such an unsatisfying task when there are always so many others who just don't get it. So much easier to say it's the moral thing to do because it's what God wants us to do. God wants us to understand the mechanics of evolution. That's why he created them. For us, the product of those mechanisms. (So we don't get bored, I suppose.)
There's a little too much of eating and having your cake in this belief. This reconciliation doesn't seem destined to last, IMHO. Evolution and faith remain at odds. Nice try, though.
Mark [#30], seems to think that "we are nothing special in the greater scheme of things".
On the contrary, whether there is a God or not, as a matter of simple, observational fact, the species homo sapiens is the species on this planet with by far the most sophisticated mind, and by far the most sophisticated moral sense. There have been interesting recent results showing that the gap between our species and others is not quite as huge as was previously thought, but the presence of a very large gap is not controversial.
One might argue about whether humans are special because there is a God who created us to be special in this way, or because some blind process necessarily produces local optima, and we are one of those, just like dolphins are the best swimmers, and cheetahs are the best runners.
But the property of having minds and moral senses is pretty darn special, however we got them.
Mark also sets up a straw man to fight, criticizing the Argument from Authority that I haven't seen anyone make in this discussion. But, just in case someone does try to make such an argument, he's ready!
Beard, It's no straw man. I think Joe established quite clearly his belief in the connection between the God he is proposing and the source of moral authority, e.g:
"the idea that creations have to grow up in order to make meaningful moral choices and exercise stewardship as a function of those choices, and that understanding the way stuff works is an important part of the growth, is to me a very good one."
This is the establishment of a moral imperative, with God as it's source. And, it quite handily validates the very argument Joe happens to be making. Not only can Faith and Evolution be reconciled, doing so is itself a moral act. Joe is not only correct, he's getting extra credit.
With regard to your other objection, you are making something of a tautological argument. The "simple, observational[sic] fact, [that] the species homo sapiens is the species on this planet with by far the most sophisticated mind, and by far the most sophisticated moral sense" is not a exactly a compelling argument for the belief that human intelligence and morality is the criteria by which specialness should be measured. From the point of view of, say, a redwood tree, size and longevity might be qualities God prizes above all others. Why are humans so intent on believing that the qualities which they possess in abundance are the qualities God likes so much? After all, God created weeds, too. Maybe cleverness & persistence is the best imitation of God.
I'm sorry, but as nice as it would be, I just don't see a valid or persuasive argument for believing that humans are "special" critters of God's, or that God would possess human-like qualities. I doubt very much that He gets angry, wants to be worshiped, likes to be obeyed, or spends much time making or worrying about "morality." That's what WE do.
"a very inventive but transparent and awkward attempt to return mankind to the center of things, and a way of getting around the much more simpler and likelier conclusion that, disappointing as it may be, we are nothing special in the greater scheme of things."
What 'greater scheme of things' would that be? What we've observed to date is a particularly empty universe, aside from our life teeming planet, upon which we are far and away the only creature capable of morality. The Fermi paradox hasn't been figured out yet, and until it is we have a very strange place in this vast universe indeed.
"Your theory requires a very odd God indeed (although one that suspiciously resembles a certain type of human.)."
How do you define the sole deity as odd? Isn't that akin to describing the color violet as 'weird'.
"Why on earth, so to speak, would God create such an elaborate game of hide-and-seek"
Why indeed. God's retort:
"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
2: Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
3: Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
4: Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
There is a particular arrogance in assuming we should understand god's plan, or are even capable of it. Forget the theological implications- just imagine for a moment a force capable of creating this universe to achieve this exact moment. Is it really reasonable to expect to understand its purposes and methods? A newborn would have a far better chance of comprehending our tax code.
But Mark B., being the only creature capable of morality doesn't actually mean anything until you've established that being capable of morality is significant outside of the human realm. Because we have this particular unique quality doesn't necessarily mean it's a God-like, or God-preferred quality.
I don't define the sole deity as odd. I defined a particular version (not mine) of a sole deity as odd because it so resembles a human being and imputes rather particular motives to this sole deity. Again, such a deity seems unlikely. (Violet isn't a weird color in Elizabeth Taylor's eyes, but it is on a tennis ball.)
Whether it is an arrogant belief or not is totally irrelevant to whether it is an accurate belief that we ought to understand God's plan. Joe seems to think we ought to, or at least try to. Myself, I am pretty skeptical that there is even such a plan to understand.
I define a particular version of a sole deity as odd because it so resembles a human being and imputes rather particular motives to this sole deity. Again, such a deity seems unlikely.
Your questions about the oddity of a sole deity and the lack of our ability to understand his plan seem to presuppose the existence of both, which rather begs the question. And, yes, in theory, God could be as bizarre as a unicorn and his plan could be mysterious and incomprehensible. But there's no reason for supposing so.
The idea of a moral deity, with access to a significant amount of supernatural power, chose to intervene in human affairs many centuries in the past (indeed, at a time when deities were often assumed to intervene in human affairs, and it was not unusual to ascribe what we know to be purely natural processes as proof of divine intervention)... but that the deity is obstinately silent now, when we are significantly more advanced... eh. I can't buy it. That's not reconcilable with any concept of "good" I subscribe to.
That doesn't mean that no deity exists. There's no reason an omniscient and omnipotent deity couldn't engineer evolution. In fact, it's probably a lot harder to do it that way than to "just" create life fully-formed. I envision a God chalking his pool cue, setting up a shot with n balls and n pockets on an n-dimensional pool table, saying "wait until you see THIS trick!"
(Alternately, same deity, staring at the universe-sized pool table and saying "I have no idea how THAT happened...")
But, largely, there is no way to reconcile the ethics that we practice, the scientific and historical knowledge that we possess, and the existence of one of the deities in any major religion. Either we have absolutely no idea what "good" means (such that, er, religion probably isn't cluing us in), or we're absolutely and completely mistaken about the nature of the world around us (and I hate existentialism), or the major religions are wrong.
There's no reason an omniscient and omnipotent deity couldn't engineer evolution.
That's true. But there's no reason to believe that one actually has, except to hang on to the belief that humans were created on purpose, which is a poor reason to believe it.
I am skeptical of beliefs that seem designed to satisfy a desire, especially when there is no external or independent evidence to support the belief.
"But Mark B., being the only creature capable of morality doesn't actually mean anything until you've established that being capable of morality is significant outside of the human realm."
That is true. However so far as we know we are the only creatures on this planet (and as yet, the universe) capable of observing and describing this distinction. IE- a worm might be able to draw the Mona Lisa or pen Hamlet, but a worm wouldn't understand its significance. Self-awareness is something unique as far as we know.
"Because we have this particular unique quality doesn't necessarily mean it's a God-like, or God-preferred quality."
True, but again we are in the unique position of being able to ask the question. And with a nod to Ben Franklin, beer does exist.
"Whether it is an arrogant belief or not is totally irrelevant to whether it is an accurate belief that we ought to understand God's plan."
In my experience arrogance is the quickest road down cultisacs of knowledge. If knowledge is the goal, arguing that our inability to understand the plan given our current level of development and the data currently available means there can BE no plan is counterproductive reasoning. Galileo didn't have access to Newtonian physics, but he didn't consider his inability to explain the movement of the heavens a reason to chalk it up to the inexplicable or dive back into church dogma.
"I define a particular version of a sole deity as odd because it so resembles a human being and imputes rather particular motives to this sole deity."
I would find that odd as well, but I don't require that particular hypothesis. I have no need to believe or argue for the big white bearded man on the cloud. Whether that exact being exists says nothing one way or another for the existence of a deity in general. Again, if we're talking omnipotence and omniscience it seems silly to argue about what such a force would or wouldn't be likely to do or be.
"Your questions about the oddity of a sole deity and the lack of our ability to understand his plan seem to presuppose the existence of both, which rather begs the question."
Presuppose? That would depend on how I came to the conclusion that such a being is likely to exist. Certainly not through scientific deduction. But through philosophical inference?
Mark B.,
I feel misunderstood. I am not arguing that there can BE no plan. I am most especially not making any connection between the plan's existence (or non existence) and it's complex or hidden nature. What I am saying is that there is no evidence to support the existence of such a plan and that, absent such evidence, I am skeptical of its existence.
Obviously, I am skeptical of the existence of God. However, I am decidedly more skeptical of any God that has human attributes, or of any Universal plan that puts human beings as the centerpiece of God's creation, as this seems very likely to me to be the result of human imagination rather than a reflection or description of reality.
Finally (let us all hope (or, if you prefer: pray)), I see no reason to suppose that self-awareness is the consequence of divine intention, when it seems much more likely to be the result of natural evolution. I can understand why we tend to see ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution. But on peering further into the matter, it appears, from what we know, that this is an illusion. There are enough examples of intermediate stages of consciousness between the most rudimentary and the most complex to strongly suggest that self-awareness is the result of evolution; just as there is enough evidence to suggest that thinking is a purely neurological process, not a magical one.
So when I say we are nothing special, I do not mean to suggest that we are not unique but that the characteristics that make us unique are as much the result of natural and undesigned processes as our characteristics that are not unique.
Mark feels misunderstood [#39].
Welcome to the club. That's pretty much par for the course, whether you are having a discussion in blog or in the pages of academic journals. So it goes.
If there is a God, then He is transcendent (by definition; otherwise he's just a powerful extraterrestrial). Being transcendent, we cannot fully understand His nature or what He is up to. However, by our nature, it appears that we are compelled to try, so we use the only conceptual tools available to us, which are metaphors based on things that we do understand.
That's why what we say about God looks a lot like us and like things we know. Even those of us who are aware that we must be only scratching the surface of something vastly greater than we can know. We're just doing the best that we can.
What you mean is that there is no scientifically acceptable evidence to bear on a scientific hypothesis about whether God exists or not. Science is a powerful tool for converging on certain classes of truths, but those do not exhaust the set of all truths, and science is not the only tool to provide useful leverage on the truth.
Spiritual experiences, both subjective experiences and sets of events observed in the external world, give me evidence of the presence of God. Could I be wrong? Sure. But any given scientist, interpreting a set of compelling data, could likewise be wrong for any number of reasons.
Atheists are fond of saying that there is no evidence for the existence of God, which is flat false. The actual situation is that there is no evidence that they are willing to accept for the existence of God.
I enjoy telling an atheist friend of mine that atheism is just as good a religion as being a Baptist or a Methodist. Many of them get together on Sunday mornings and sing atheist songs (really!). Where others might recite the Apostles' Creed, they recite Occam's Razor. Just like members of any other religion, they take a faith-based position on the nature of transcendental reality: that there isn't any.
Funny, those ignorant, barely-literate early Hebrews already had this figured out...
Really? Then how do you explain their description of him as jealous. The God they imagined was also by turns vengeful, loving, petulant, domineering, merciful, parental, avuncular, kind, mean and sometimes petty. The God they imagined was as brimming with human characteristics as any character created by Shakespeare.
Beard # 40 notes: "Spiritual experiences, both subjective experiences and sets of events observed in the external world, give me evidence of the presence of God. Could I be wrong? Sure. But any given scientist, interpreting a set of compelling data, could likewise be wrong for any number of reasons. Atheists are fond of saying that there is no evidence for the existence of God, which is flat false. The actual situation is that there is no evidence that they are willing to accept for the existence of God."
I am an atheist for the reason that I do not find the idea of God helps me to better understand the world. As Beard notes, God is transcendent, we cannot know or apprehend him. As I understand language, the proposition "I believe in X," where "X" cannot be defined and is fundamentally unknowable, doesn't have much meaning.
Our world and the Universe is full of mysteries and science and religion attempt to come to terms with these mysteries in their own way. As Einstein noted, whether we call that mystery God or something else doesn't much matter. However, the point is it's the same mystery. To this extent science and religion are not in conflict.
To the extent that science advances, religion takes note and must deal with the new knowledge. Religion may struggle for a while, as the Catholic Church did with the Copernican system, but ultimately new scientific knowledge will affect religious doctrine. In other words religion and science both deal witht he mysteries in light of the world as we know it through scientific knowledge. To this extent also, there is no conflict between religion and science.
Conflict arises when claims are made on behalf of religion that religion provides God given answers that can be known, and that are specific and definite. On that level, science and religion cannot be reconciled.
Philososphers of the Age of Reason struggled mightily to reconcile religion and science without success. I'm going to repeat an anectote from Jonathan Bennett, a British Philosopher who taught for a while at the University of British Columbia where I had the pleasure of hearing him lecture on Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz. One of the issues the Rationalists confronted was Aristotelian teleology. Descartes, a theist, rejected teleology of a religious nature, as employed in propositions like "The acorn develops as it does becausee God wants it to become an oak." Descartes vigorously rejects religious teleology for science:
The efficient cause that Descartes talks about concerns what happens, which is the realm of science. By contrast, a knowledge of God's purpose is beyond our reach. However one conceives of God, or whether one does, that seems correct to me.
Here is Bennett in "Learning from Six Philosophers" Clarendon Press, Oxford 2001.
For me this focuses the issue. The only standards we have for judging morality, and how to lead life correctly, are human standards. Religions concern themselves with these questions. This can be valuable and good if done with humility and without claim of divine impremature. Science, not to say scientists, does not concern itself with those questions, so again, to that extent there is no conflict between religion and science.
It seems to me that humility is essential in both scientific and religious inquiry. In both cases, it is a matter of faith that there is a truth that is out there, but it is certainly beyond our capacities to know that truth completely.
I also believe that there should be no conflict between science and religion. Both are searches for truth. Conflict arises when adherents of one method deny the validity of the other, or (in obvious lack of humility) claim that their own current understanding of the truth necessarily trumps the current understanding of the truth on the other side.
However, Roland Nikles goes a bit too far when he says:
There are plenty of things that cannot be defined, and for which complete knowledge cannot be attained, about which we can say and learn quite a lot. For example, Wittgenstein transformed philosophy by careful consideration of the case "X = games", to pick an apparently everyday example. My own favorite would be "humor".
Our understanding of God, including how and whether He interacts with individual humans, depends on our individual experiences, our readings of the experiences and reflections of others, and the way we choose to interpret those.
To be a confirmed atheist seems to me to be taking a strong, faith-based position on the nature of all those religious experiences: to assert that they are all personally- and culturally-generated illusions. This is quite the opposite of humility in the face of complex phenomena.
Atheists are very fond of citing Occam's Razor: the simplest hypothesis should be preferred. But scientists should not discard a substantial portion of relevant data in order to allow a simpler hypothesis to explain the remainder. (To be frank, of course, this is how science is typically done: one decides what is negligible, and explains the rest. Scientific revolutions typically correspond to changes in our understanding of what is negligible, and what is not.)
Note that Occam's Razor is not an axiom. It is not a truth. It is merely a heuristic strategy for devoting one's attention to more likely hypotheses, on average.
To be a confirmed atheist seems to me to be taking a strong, faith-based position on the nature of all those religious experiences: to assert that they are all personally- and culturally-generated illusions. This is quite the opposite of humility in the face of complex phenomena.
The problem with this idea is that science views individual measurements with great uncertainty. Unless something can be replicated over and over again, it is not important enough to be published.
Yes, the belief in God (and those that accept His evidence) is a complex phenomena. Hell, people are a complex phenomena. Even "Will a pharmaceutical work" takes hundreds of thousands of specific experiments before science (ie FDA) can determine it's functionality.
Scientists have asked observers "Are you happy?" This should be a simple question. And yet, it is very difficult to tell if individuals can actually judge the answer. (Read "Stumbling on happiness" for more). If we can barely measure the belief of this simple question, how are we supposed to measure "Is there a god?" or "was your religious experience real or imagined?".
According to science, there is simply no way to tabulate them. Even experiments meant to judge pure scientific questions about death have been inconclusive at best.
The mind, of course, does not work like science. The mind is "designed" to put information together quickly, even when pieces are missing. All studies say that if you believe something is true, you will always see the evidence to the affirmative. And that works on both sides of this debate.
One way or restating what you said is that "Atheists take it on faith, that people are confused about their faith." And you know, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that this is true as well. For example, I see little evidence that Church is connected with divinity. Instead, I know a lot crooks, liars and thieves that claim to be pastors, priests, and authorities on the moral.
I see kids who die on insulin shock because the parents prayed over them. This also happened last week with appendicitis
Is that enough to say, ok, there's clearly no connection to God.
No. It's anecdotal. But our mind collaborates these pieces into a larger narrative. What you think is what you see.
So I'm agnostic. I can't answer the question, and I don't really think there is an answer. At the end of the day, there's only faith (or lack therof). I don't have a problem with either one.
As I've said several times, science is an amazingly valuable method for converging toward certain kinds of truths. But not every kind of truth is accessible to the methods of science, exactly because science typically relies on repeatable observations and experiments.
I consider agnosticism to be a far more intellectually respectable position than atheism.
It's not a bad heuristic to estimate that the difficulty of answering a question is inversely proportional to the number of syllables in the words. So, "Does acetaminophen reduce inflammation?" is relatively easy to answer by scientific means, while "Are you happy?" is very hard, and "Is there a God?" is probably impossible.
Finally, I would draw a very strong boundary between the characteristics of religious experience in individual humans, and the characteristics of corporate organizations (i.e. churches) created around particular sets of beliefs. The relationship is minimal, and perhaps negative.
So, in many ways, I agree with you, Alchemist.
Beard #46: "I consider agnosticism to be a far more intellectually respectable position than atheism."
If I've understood Beard's position correctly, I believe he would concede it's a toss up (50/50 proposition). Give or take on the pecentages, although how would you calculate them, that would seem to be an agnostic's position.
Apart from the fact that this begs the question of what "it" is, if you grant agnosticism as a "respectable" position, doesn't it follow that "he exists" and "he doesn't exist" are on the same intellectual footing? Everybody's guessing, right?
Of course, to deny something for which there is no evidence [I don't buy subjective "spritual experiences" as evidence--Jonah Lehrer's "Proust was a Neuroscientist" has a nice chapter about Walt Whitman on this topic] seems hardly radical.
In any case, "atheism" doesn't necessarily imply a hard "he doesn't exist." "Theism" is belief in god; but "atheism" is nothing more than the absence of such a belief, in the sense that amorphism is the absence of shape. In that sense all agnostics are atheists.
As to terminology, according to the Wikipedia entry on Atheism, there is no consensus on the meaning of the term "atheism", but your usage is the third of the three meanings they list, after "rejection of theism" and the belief that "deities do not exist".
Naturally, it makes it easier to "deny something for which there is no evidence" if you have rejected the legitimacy of a major source of evidence for it. Certainly religious experience is a genuine phenomenon in the world, which can be analyzed for its significance. William James spent a good deal of time on it.
Our current state of understanding of the question of God's existence is not adequately captured by the qualitative claim that "it's a toss-up". However, that qualitative description is certainly better than the spurious quantitative character of a "50/50 proposition".
Back at the time of Columbus, was it a "toss-up" or a "50/50 proposition" whether the world was round or flat? Sailors were all familiar with the phenomenon of ships departing from harbor being progressively obscured by the horizon. Some people were impressed with the significance of this mundane observation. Many were not, or were unaware completely. Most people considered the notion of a round Earth to be absurd on the face of it, since the people on the other side would just fall off! And, hills and valleys notwithstanding, the Earth was obviously pretty much flat.
I don't claim that there is persuasive scientifically-acceptable evidence of the existence of God. What I argue against is the position that atheism is the only intellectually sound position.
Arguing about the existence of God is pointless puffery. I accept the possibility, even the likelihood, that the whole business is a result of a quantum fluctuation - the beginning of time without cause. If there is no God, that's how it all must begin.
If there is a God who initiated and preceded any event, eternity lies in both directions and all that can ever be has been - unless, of course, I simply do not understand the mind of God.
Neither Nature nor Physics stood back and dictated to the universe how it should behave. The universe behaves as it must. No laws have been imposed on it except by our perception. The movement of the stars, the function of my liver are complex only because I say so. Indeed, in the beginning was the word.
Almost anything can be made to seem right and God is on all sides of every argument. Deplorable and outrageous acts are defended as homages to the Almighty. Those who in former times would have recognized the ridiculous now close one eye and declare the need for tolerance. They prove the brutal right. Sooner or later the just and gentle will be converted or dead. Perhaps only then will any of us know anything at all.
I followed you up to the last paragraph, and then I got confused. What do you mean by 'ridiculous', 'tolerance', and the 'just being converted'?