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Swallowing Camels with Peter Robinson
Uncommon Knowledge is a terrific show and I rarely miss it. This post is in response to the February 1st episode By Design: Behe, Lennox, and Meyer On The Evidence For A Creator.
Peter ended the interview by asking why these men have been rejected by the scientific community. I’d like to offer an answer that his guests will not, but that I think is close to the truth.
Science didn’t leave these men. These men left science.
I don’t say that lightly. Over the last couple of years we have witnessed “The Science” abused by erstwhile Men of Science to exclude those who hold marginal or unapproved views. My respect and my sympathy is with those who dare to challenge the orthodoxy — regarding public health, regarding climate, regarding energy, etc. — with information and with reason and with an open mind.
But this isn’t that. This isn’t the story of a handful of Davids taking on the Goliath of establishment belief armed with nothing but better ideas and greater intellectual honesty.
Peter is not himself a man of science, as he’s quick to admit (and as anyone who’s ever heard his comments regarding space exploration will already know). Peter’s guests, in contrast, have impressive credentials, and are charming, intelligent, and eloquent men. What they are not, alas, is men of science in the deep sense. Science is an exercise in humility and self-restraint. Those who practice it necessarily subscribe to an ethos, a framework of discourse, and a set of standards. These gentlemen have rejected that framework and the intellectual self-restraint that it implies. And they have stopped practicing science. Or, which seems less likely given their obvious intelligence, they have simply begun practicing it incompetently.
I’ve written on this topic before and I so I’ll keep this relatively brief.
The core of the argument these men make is that the universe and life within it is simply too improbable to have occurred without divine intervention.
They could make a different argument. They could argue that we don’t currently know of any mechanism by which the universe and life in it might have occurred, and that we can’t rule out divine intervention. They could also add that they personally are predisposed toward that explanation, but that it isn’t one they reach by way of science. That would be fair, and I’d respect that.
But what they can’t do while remaining both true to science and competent in its conduct is make this argument:
The evidence available to us suggests that divine intervention is the most plausible scientific explanation for the existence of the universe and the life in it.
That is the argument they’re making, and the flaws in that argument are sufficient justification to challenge their standing as men of science.
The problem is that divine intervention — what Meyer calls “The God Hypothesis” — isn’t explanatory. It’s like answering the question, “how does that rocket work” with the answer, “Elon Musk built it.”
Left unanswered is the question of “how.” (And I tip my hat to Peter for asking that question late in the interview, at about the 55-minute mark. No answer was forthcoming.)
The God hypothesis doesn’t tell us how God created the universe or life in it. One could as readily say that Elon Musk created the universe; at least we have some concrete evidence that Elon Musk exists. But neither claim has explanatory power. By what mechanism did the creator instantiate the universe? By what mechanism did that creator manipulate it to bring about life and intelligence?
Lacking explanatory power is only half the problem. The God hypothesis is fundamentally illogical.
Consider: Any being capable of creating the universe and of so comprehending its nature as to be able to direct it would, presumably, be at least as complicated as the universe itself. So how is it logical to simultaneously claim that the universe can’t just be the way it is while invoking the intervention of something even more improbably sophisticated and complex in order to explain it? What does that accomplish, other than to place the need to actually explain things — the need to “do science” — comfortably beyond reach?
And while it seems like a simplistic question, it really isn’t: Where did the creator come from? How does “always pre-existing” work, and why doesn’t that work to explain our own universe (which, again, is presumably less complicated than our creator would necessarily be)?
Occam’s Razor is not actually a scientific principle, merely a useful guide to how we think about and evaluate arguments. There’s nothing parsimonious to the God hypothesis. On the contrary, it asserts, under the guise of explaining, a new universe of laws, forces, actions, effects.
Invoking the God hypothesis to fill in the blanks in our understanding of the natural world is, truly, to strain at gnats while unquestioningly inviting far greater mysteries.
I think it would be great if Peter were to invite to his show two or three individuals who were respectful of the science and willing to engage the arguments brought up by this batch of guests. Not so-called “scientific atheists,” men who make the same leaps of faith as Behe and Meyer but in the opposite direction. Rather, it would be good to hear from people who approach both the science and the theology with respect and humility, who don’t declare the unknown to be unknowable, who don’t abandon rational materialism in favor of the supernatural when they run out of answers.
A closing thought and a pet peeve. Meyer continues to repeat the claim, as he did at about 51:45, that “We know from our uniform and repeated experience that information always arises from a mind.” He uses that claim to argue that instances of encoding encountered in nature must therefore also arise from a mind — have an intelligent designer.
This is a transparently circular argument. It is like declaring that everything that floats is a boat and the product of an intelligent creator, then noting that, since coconuts also float, they are clearly the product of an intelligent creator. Meyer wraps the idea in enough buzzwords to make it sound good, but it still doesn’t make sense.
Published in Science & Technology
So all of this was just another HR lamentation–“They’re arguments from ignorance!“
No, buddy, they still aren’t.
Every argument has a pattern–a structure, a form.
An argument from ignorance has a particular pattern.
These arguments don’t have that pattern.
I’m-the-teacher-you’re-the-student-and-by-the-way-you-know-nothing.
We’ll try again later, SA.
I still don’t know why you think I’m playing some game.
Teaching you–if you were aware of what you don’t know, if you were willing to learn, and if I were able–would be much better than this farce of a conversation.
But I’m not the teacher, and I don’t want to be, and you certainly don’t know nothing. You just don’t know what it is you don’t know, and you talk about it a lot.
So, anyway, for anyone still following along:
The problem with what these men are doing isn’t that they’re expressing their faith. That’s wonderful, and I wish more people felt it and expressed it.
The problem is that they’re performing judo with the scientific process. Science is about hypothesizing and falsifying, failing and pressing on, all the while respecting a framework of objectivity and rigor.
As I said in my critique of Stephen Meyer’s book, the argument these men are making is an argument that could have been made — and has been made — at any time in history, at any stage of ignorance. No matter how far we extend man’s knowledge, there will always be those who stand on the precipice and say that, finally, surely this is beyond our understanding and the supernatural must be the best explanation.
Meanwhile, those who actually do science will shake their heads and keep plodding along.
Rather than use the word “science” in this context, I would use the word “evidence.”
If I could observe how you and your grandson interact, I might have a strong opinion on whether you love your grandson or not.
I wouldn’t call this science. I would call this me forming my opinion of your proposition (“I love my grandson”) based on empirical evidence I have available to me.
Also, even without observing you and your grandson, I tend to think that you do love your grandson based on my observation that, in general, most grandparents love their grandchildren. That’s my sense of the landscape of grandparents and grandkids generally and since I have no pressing reason to think you are an exception to this, I think your statement “I love my grandson” is true, not false.
Yes. But but many physicists and other scientists have responded to arguments similar to theirs.
So, the “Hey, these guys wrote books on this topic,” doesn’t mean that one must accept their conclusions.
And some people might think that an infinite regress of causes is tenable.
Of course it doesn’t.
But instead of just saying “It’s not clear” and “Some smart people disagree,” why don’t you learn what are their premises, learn what are their conclusions, learn what pattern of reasoning the arguments use, assess whether the premises provide good support for the conclusion, and then assess whether the premises are true?
Way to miss the point, buddy.
That is exactly what I have done.
Maybe you need to look in the mirror and realize that you aren’t very good at making a point. That might explain why so many of the people you converse with don’t get the point you are making.
Can you select one of the arguments–any old one–and tell us, for a start, what are its premises and conclusion?
Alternatively, why don’t you read your point–italicized and underlined above for your convenience?
Then you could maybe figure out what my point was. You will notice that your point has an if-then structure, and that my point involved rebutting the if clause. Do you think my point might just possibly have something to do with rejecting the then clause?
Why don’t you do that?
I think you need to rephrase your argument.
How?
It’s the “God of the Gaps.” And I agree—it’s a risky strategy. Gaps have a tendency to be…bridged…
Unlike you, I didn’t say I already had. Nor did I volunteer to be the guy who can prove these guys wrong.
Another problem is that I’m in this thread talking with 2 out of the 7 people on Ricochet who are the most inclined to ignore the meaning of my sentences and yet respond to them anyway.
But, in any case, I did. I didn’t work alone–who has time for that? But I find the presentation of two premises and one conclusion from Meyer on a blog post, as copied here, to be quite acceptable.
You’d also be basing your opinion on what you believe a “loving granny” does and doesn’t do. Since you and I probably share enough (culture-wise) to agree, this wouldn’t be a problem, but it might be in a different culture, or at a different moment. Love doesn’t always look like love from the outside.
But I agree: Most grandparents love their grandchildren, and we almost certainly share an understanding of what we mean by “love.”
Just read what you wrote–underlined and italicized.
Then read my reply–underlined and italicized.
You said “If X, then Y,” and I pointed out that you were getting X wrong. The implication is that there’s no reason to bring up Y.
Murder, various forms of torture and abuse, etc.
It’s not.
Which means, dear HeavyWater, that we could also have a fruitful discussion of what is meant by the phrase “God is Love.”
Exactly.
I do think that the statement “God is Love” could be true, but only if we were talking about a God other than the God of the Bible.
It’s hard to read about the so-called God of the Bible and conclude, “God is Love.” Instead, one is likely to conclude, “God is cruel.”
This is especially true if one takes on board certain types of Christian theology, such as “Jesus is the only path to salvation,” thus a majority of the human population will suffer in hell for eternity.
That leads one to the conclusion, “God is cruel.” But I don’t believe that God exists.
I don’t mean to be insulting — I hope that’s not my style — but you are stating the obvious.
It is interesting to me that some saints have said they never had the revelation personally but lived their lives in dedication to the Church and its teachings. I couldn’t, but then I make no claim to sainthood.
The other problem with the God of the Gaps in science is that there is also a God of the Gaps when it comes to…well, God.
What do we mean when we say “God?”
The classic answer to someone who says they don’t believe in God is “Which God do you not believe in?” I find that Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris et al are often arguing—very entertainingly, it must be said—against a God that I don’t really recognize. So no wonder they always win, in their own minds at least.
It might be obvious to you. But many Christians tend to think that if they read about a revelation in the New Testament, well, it must be true. They don’t seem to consider the possibility that someone like St. Paul could have thought he heard Jesus’s voice but actually didn’t. They don’t seem to consider the possibility that a rumor of Jesus rising from the dead got started and many people started believing it, similar to how other religions got started.
I admit I’m cutting corners here and doing a disservice to the person who wrote eloquently on the subject, but the heart of the matter is that God made the world dangerous so that moral judgements and actions come to a point. They matter and the do matter because the world is NOT a high-school class debating ethics/morality. In the world you seem to think God should have made and sustained, ethics/morality and especially courage are pointless.
Yes. I don’t think it is either the God many Christians talk about (an extremely cruel God in which all Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, agnostics, atheists, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs will spend an eternity in hell) is the only God on the table for discussion.
Trying to rule all of them out is a bit like playing whack-a-mole.
I think it is possible that a God or multiple gods exist. But not a “classical” God that is omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient.
But going back to the parent analogy, if a parent made his household dangerous so that his children would very likely hurt themselves so that the parent could scold them for being insufficiently careful, this would not be a good parent.
So, it seems that many Christians believe in a very morally flawed God.