Disentangling Beliefs About Knowledge and Beliefs

Tom:

I’m not sure it’s worth responding to someone who jettisons the Principle of Sufficient Reasons in order to avoid obstacles to his personal world view.

you’re –> your

Nick is–like DL, Geoff, woodchuck, etc.–driven by anything but scientific reasoning. The straight-jacketed materialist commitments that animate their pseudo-philosophical interpretations–which actually end up stifling scientific reasoning and critical thinking–never cease to amaze me. I agree with Aristophanes’ assessment of such self-serving anti-intellectual nonsense: “Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered… but stupid lasts forever.”

We’re not talking about knowing “everything”, anyway, we are talking about knowing the basics about one of the most famous and most glaring problems for a literal/inerrant interpretation of Genesis.

I actually don’t have a problem with you admitting that you don’t know much about this topic and with you being too busy to look into it. But I just want you to acknowledge that your position on “knowledge” being derived from the Bible is totally unconvincing to a neutral observer, and rightly so, until this drastic, crashing conflict between the physical evidence, and the text, is addressed in some convincing way.

Nick does it again!

anyway, we are talking about knowing the basics about one of the most famous and most glaring problems for a literal/inerrant interpretation of Genesis.

It’s pretty clear to me that Nick doesn’t know what Tom meant when he said this:

I believe that the testimony of the Bible, rightly interpreted, is 100% accurate in what it affirms.

If he did, he wouldn’t have said what he did.

Great article reference, Kendalf.

Just for the heck of it, and perhaps for Nick’s benefit, I looked into the Catholic position on the flood. Here is what they say. I don’t see a lot of religious dogma there – some, yes. In fact, I see several references to scientific findings/studies (among other things) in their quest to answer the question.

Nick,

I know of quite a few of “[those] guys” who believe the flood story is allegorical.

Fight your fight, but realize the author is not fighting that one with you.

You seem to be quite bright and have achieved some measure of public note for being so; I have a hard time believing that you are unaware that you’re using a Straw Man argument and (the aforementioned) part/in toto fallacy.

Addressing a couple of your arguments quite plainly – just because you state something is foundational for another doesn’t mean it is; just because you assert someone “ought to” something doesn’t mean they should. Both positions are logically silly.

Ok, it seems like both points of view have some validity here. But it seems neither side (if I may use that term) is acknowledging what’s valid about the other.

First, to Nick. Surely you must be aware that “historical science” is in large part educated guesswork. Which does not mean all, or even most, of its conclusions are wrong. But, for example, we can’t very well simulate a global, or local-but-wide-enough-to-wipe-out-all-people, flood in a lab, so technically we don’t know what would happen. Especially when the flood, as described in Genesis, did not happen by “normal” mechanisms (it’s reported as involving underground springs etc. too). So perhaps geological evidence is not as ironclad as might at first be thought.

But, more importantly, the Scriptures, a collection of generally reliable historical documents, and (I’m told) stories from many other cultures around the world, contain accounts of an extraordinary flood. So far as I know, the only culture that goes out of its way to reject the idea is modern Western culture. You can say what you like about the “creationist” position; at least it doesn’t claim that most people (and pretty much everyone before about 1700 A.D.) are/were either ignorant fools or pathological liars.

In general, when considering past events, by what rule do you include or exclude historical accounts as valid evidence?

Second, to Tom and company. Tom, I appreciate that you’re very busy at the moment. But is there any conceivable model for Noah’s flood that does not involve a radical re-interpretation of geology, archaeology, biology, and so on? Because if not, the conclusion of most people who aren’t already committed to upholding the truth of Scripture is going to be that the whole story is a massive exaggeration, if not indeed made up out of whole cloth. And I’m not sure I could fault them for coming to that conclusion, and for thinking the worse of anyone who says otherwise.

Personally, I find the account of Noah’s flood one of the most exasperating in Scripture; I would like to be able to hold it up as absolute truth, but find it hard to do that when it’s portrayed as the word of the author of Genesis pitted against multiple lines of hard evidence. And there comes a point when avoiding coming to a conclusion starts to look awfully like sticking one’s head in the sand.

The difference, of course, is that you guys still believe a in a Noah’s Flood big enough to wipe out humanity, long after the evidence has come in and debunked it six ways to Sunday. Scientists revise their beliefs in the light of evidence, and drop things when they are disproven. You guys reinterpret the evidence in light of your beliefs.

Nick, you again managed to completely disregard/ignore/avoid the point being made, and rather than taking what was said into consideration you insist on continuing to assert your personal opinion on the matter. But at least this proves the point that others have been making about you.

Eg. Justaguy:

I have a hard time believing that you are unaware that you’re using a Straw Man argument and (the aforementioned) part/in toto fallacy.

Addressing a couple of your arguments quite plainly – just because you state something is foundational for another doesn’t mean it is; just because you assert someone “ought to” something doesn’t mean they should. Both positions are logically silly.

SteveK:

You either didn’t read the link I provided or you chose to ignore everything that it said. You are SO frustrating, Nick. Are you here attempting to understand or do you just like wasting peoples time? I would like a clear and honest answer.

Tom’s point:

You have responded very, very little (other than something to Holo on the local flood issue) to the actual positions we have presented; you have instead continued to press on what is essentially a stereotype of Christian “belief” on this issue. If your use of stereotyping is how you intend to prove you are more of a thinker than we are, it’s not working. If you think that by continuing to press your position, without responding to what we actually write, you are showing yourself to be a better thinker, that’s not working either.

Beware the trap Nick’s trying to set: If Tom had just said that the Flood was an allegory or some exaggerated legend of a local flood that wiped out a community but not all of humanity, I wouldn’t be raising a stink about this.

That’s his game: Nick wants all non-MES knowledge reduced to allegory (or something similar) so that he can then conveniently label it as “subjective” or “opinion” or “your myth” or whatever. He is illicitly using science in the vain hope of relegating other forms to knowledge to the subjectivist trash bin (we know they try that silly game with moral objectivity)… even as the scientific method(s) remain inexplicable to his epistemologically-reductionist approach.

Certainly it’s not an example of rigorous thinking, but rather imposition of personal opinion.

SteveK:

Be careful: atheists wear “to frustrate others” as a badge they believe somehow grants them intellectual standing or “point scoring” ability (Tom’s point).

Why think, when imposing-to-frustrate seems to work so well…?

Heh.

Foolish persistence strikes again.

“Uniformitarianism” as DL employs the term, applies first and foremost to the consistency of physical processes throughout material reality: without it, science—and by extension philosophy and even theology—would be impossible. Prediction in the physical realm is based on a uniform and consistent functioning of physical principles. It’s a good thing—a really good thing.

But that’s where DL’s narrow-mindedness tries to force everyone to a full stop. Why? Because he accepts it without question and without any need for explanation as to why things in the physical realm are uniform and consistent. It’s not only that DL doesn’t care (or can’t understand why), it’s because he’s told us—point blank—no explanation is required. We just swallow it, and he calls it an axiom when it’s not (which means he doesn’t know what an axiom is in the first place). How does he attempt to do this? By undermining this own “explanation”: by jettisoning the Principle of Sufficient Reason (partially driven by his misinterpretation of quantum-mechanical formalisms). Talk about stopping all investigations of reality.

Then there’s the thing he really fears: reasoning from sensory/MES knowledge to the existence of immaterial verities. Why do you think he’s committed to scientism and positivism? Do you think he’s demonstrated that the human intelligence cannot reason to immaterial verities? Why do you think he’s stuck Idealistically thinking about these things in his own mind by asserting, “the only thing we know are ideas of external objects”? Why do you think he’s so (hypocritically) committed to moral relativism—relegating something he can’t grasp with his limited tools to the subjective? Why do you think he so repugnantly reduces humans to “material mechanisms”—aptly suitable to manipulation? Why do you think he’s so (hypocritically) opposed to the existence of free will simply because it can’t fit within his little box of physical prediction—not even able to entertain the notion that it is in human nature (something not captured by his small powers of imagination or conception and scientism) to reason intellectually and have the capacity for free will? Human beings act “predictably” as human beings—not as mountains or galaxies or Venus flytraps or mice—but nonetheless are the only creatures that can—again predictably given the fallen natures—act inhumanely.

By the way, I’d love for DL to point out where Tom has said that mind and morality are not uniform, or that there is no uniformity in certain things. Tom has done no such thing. What Tom (and other critical thinkers) has pointed out (perhaps not in these words) is that physical predictability cannot capture the ontological import of things that “operate” (ugh!) per their natures. It is in the nature of a human being to have the capacity for a really real free will. But this doesn’t sit well with DL, so he just unscientifically, pseudo-philosophically chucks it, in effect saying, “my red glasses suit me just fine: everything is red.” He’s playing a game: what threatens his world view is, by his definition, “non-uniform.” It is “predictable” that humans can’t fly because by their natures they have no wings. It is “predictable” that God will not countenance His creatures doing things that are destructive to their natures. But is that the kind of foolish language one should employ in these matters? Perhaps, but only if one is an atheist a priori committed to narrow-mindedness.

Then, there’s the tired old imposition upon God (Beingness itself—that which sustains all other contingent beings in existence) of what DL wants God to be: “You say God is not predictable. In effect, God is not uniform.” I’m sorry, but that again has gone beyond ignorance to Aristophanes’ characterization of stupidity. Really. It’s what I mentioned earlier: To pretend that Tom stated the mind and morality are not uniform or to pretend that Beingness itself can fit into the narrow-minded conceptions of a barking moon bat is simply for DL to let his methods dictate what counts as reality, rather than letting reality determine his methods. But we know that! DL insists on such an Idealistic approach: “the only things we know are the ideas of external objects.”

Hi Mr. Gronk

I really like your question.

But is there any conceivable model for Noah’s flood that does not involve a radical re-interpretation of geology, archaeology, biology, and so on?

The short answer is, “No.” At least, “No.” insofar as the present model is the product of a philosphical assumption which is diametrically opposed to the biblical model. It is relatively easy to find evidence that the present models “of geology, archaeology, biology, and so on” are dogmatically committed to an anti-Christian model. That is to say that they would accept almost any model so long as that model diminished ‘orthodox’ Christianity.

For several years I stood at the very point you are presently standing, a new Christian, gazing over the precipice. Had I made some dreadful mistake? If the beginning of the book is a ‘fairy tale’ what about the rest and how do I know which is which? Looking for asnwers, I began a many year, on again, off again, search of science, philosophy, and theology.

The most difficult and personally challenging part of my quest was actually forcing myself to look at the evidence, pro and con, with an open mind. I began with a firm belief in the theories modern cosmology, geology, and biology, and tried to make the Genesis account to “fit the facts”. In my mind the age of the earth and ‘fact’ of evolution were beyond challenge, and anyone who said otherwise was either a con-man or an idiot.

The practical consequence of this was that I would not read any book which challenged the naturalist model. The books I was prepared to read all aspired in manifold, sometimes absurd, and ultimately futile, contrivances to reconcile the Genesis account with naturalist philosphy.

At each dead-end I encountered I would put the books aside and try to forget the issue, but the I couldn’t do it. While I was intellectually certain the God is a necessary being, and so must be existentially real I was equally certain that He would only communicate truth about Himself and the world He made. Were we intellectually or technologically incapable of understanding a particular thesis He would either “dumb it down” for us or remain silent. It ate at me, I was compelled to discover the truth.

Suffice it to say, after many years and hundreds of books and articles, I have satisfied my compulsion, at least in my own mind. That satisfaction involved confronting my inmost prejudices and some gut-wrenching reassessments of what I had been taught since infancy. The idols of naturalism, which I had worshipped since childhood, lay shattered at my feet. I wouldn’t go so far as to insist I have learned the truth, the best I can say is that I have learned what is false – I am no longer trapped by empty dogma and prejudice – and can now search out the truth with an open mind.

One of the most important things I learned is to question everything, especially that which you think beyond doubt. At one time I believed that the present “interpretation of geology, archaeology, biology, and so on” was beyond question but have since learned that much of the theoretical parts are nothing more than castles in the sand.

One recent example will suffice, from last week’s Science mag if I recall correctly, “Scientists know that 85% of our universe is made up of Dark Matter, even though it has never been observed…” The literature is replete with similar statements of “fact” founded on nothing more than prejudice.

Yet there are always the Nick Matzke’s around to assert them and to call anyone who questions the dogma stupid, ignorant, or evil.

Tom,

I know you’re about ready to give up on me, but…

Uniformitarianism also does not mean physical determinism, as you seem to be implying here that it does. Catastrophism doesn’t necessarily deny physical determinism, either.

My point isn’t about determinism. My point works just as well with tendency as with necessity.

The meteorite that ended the Cretaceous was catastrophic in the small picture of Earth’s development, but uniform when you look at the big picture of physics. It’s not as if asteroids weren’t flying around the solar system since the system’s formation. Indeed, there have been many meteorite impacts throughout Earth’s history.

I assume you appreciate my point about uniformity because what you said about God can be said of Nature:

There is certainly predictability to Nature… It is the predictability of faithfulness, truth, trustworthiness, integrity. Nature keeps its promises. Nature acts in accordance with its truth and its good character. Nature [acts] for the necessity that it remain consistent with its own character.

The parts I omitted say God is not deterministic. Instead, let’s just say that God has tendencies. I’m fine with that. If God was capricious, untrustworthy, unfaithful, etc., don’t you agree that inference would be impossible?

Here’s the sort of thing I’m expecting you to affirm or deny:

(1) I witness certain events, and am inspired to hypothesize that the events are caused by an intelligent agent. Since the events in question are rarely the same in their details, I will need to create a model of the agent’s goals and modus operandi. This is equivalent to finding the common thread across the many events.

(2) Whatever model I come up with has to be supported by the evidence with two constraints. First, the model should do better than random guessing and better than existing models that have been verified. Second, the data should support my model better than it supports a model with opposed goals.

Part (1) of the above is a commitment to actually saying something non-trivial about God. That last paragraph of your last comment about the nature of God says absolutely nothing about God’s character because it doesn’t define what is good. It says as much about what I can expect from God as my quote above says I can expect from Nature. If I write down the tendencies that form the common thread, I’ll make a prediction about what is more or less likely to be observed in the future.

Part (2) avoids inconsistency. When I make an inference to conclusion X, my method of inference should not make it equally (or more) likely that I should conclude ~X.

Am I saying anything controversial here?

In our debates, you reject (1) because you reject making predictions. But you cannot have inference without them.

When you look at the Resurrection, you think “yeah, my God would do that.” I think that’s what you mean when you say inference to the best explanation. But inferences are not atomic. They’re driven by rules. If your God would do that rather than not do it, what is it about his character that would make him do it? You cannot say it is goodness, love or mercy. Just look at Haiti.

Maybe God’s main characteristic is his obsession with making his human ant colony bow down to him, breaking our will with a sort of cosmic good cop/bad cop routine. That fits a lot better than “goodness”, but not as well as naturalism.

Dave:

Leaving aside the caricature of your position DL snidely puts to you (re: dark matter) for which he really missed the point, the reason why the following is one of DL’s favorites (did you catch the sarcasm?) is because he shudders over it and would never apply it to his own reductionist views: One of the most important things I learned is to question everything, especially that which you think beyond doubt.

Tom:

DL is either not reading what you wrote (his example of “capricious, untrustworthy, unfaithful”), or (more likely) is so blinded by his disordered views of reality that selective inattention to your points and imposition of his own are, yet again, par for the course. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see DL define “capricious, untrustworthy, unfaithful” using his “science”? Do you think DL’s moral relativism is undergoing a “crisis of faith” to be using such terms in, well, what is pretty much an absolutist way?

What would any critical thinker do when faced with persistent, unthinking foolishness of atheism? “Abandon hope ye who enter here.”

Thankfully, there are freethinkers who are not Freethinkers.

Dave,

Thanks for the feedback, and for the encouragement. I’m going to follow up with more questions and observations. (Tom, if I’m veering too far off-topic, feel free to say so.)

Like you, Dave, I reject the theory that any valid explanation must be naturalistic. By \naturalistic\, I mean something that reduces to physical entities, together with interactions between them that always operate and are in principle able to be expressed in mathematical or at least statistical terms. This does not mean that \science\ shouldn’t confine itself to natural, regularly occurring phenomena; that, after all, is where it excels. But not all explanations need be scientific, and the person who attempts to say otherwise is like the deaf man who insists there can be no such thing as music.

However, the problem I have with the first 11 chapters of Genesis is this: they assert various concrete facts, which are, as Holo said above, in principle amenable to testing. I needn’t go into many examples; one obvious example is that the Bible proposes a Middle Eastern epicentre for human distribution, while the boffins tell us that all the oldest human remains have been found in Africa.

I myself am prepared to adopt minority views if those fit the evidence as well or better. But the problem I see with many creationist responses to Flood challenges – particularly YEC ones – is that they often resort to outlandish hypotheses and ad hoc miracles; and the loyal opposition know desperation when they see it.

So, like olegt, I’d like to see some of the literature that you found helpful. Preferably with explanations of experiments that have been done that lend support to the Biblical narrative; or, if such experiments couldn’t be done, an explanation for why that isn’t just a hand-wave along the lines of, \Well, things must have been different back then.\ Don’t be scared to point me in the direction of technical stuff; without meaning to brag, I have some scientific training, and would find it more helpful to read at that level than to read stuff obviously directed towards laypeople. Especially since one of the more common criticisms directed at \creationist organisations\ of all stripes is that they’re setting out to deceive the ignorant.

Argument that Homo sapiens originated in Middle East
http://www.springerlink.com/content/66503p3123n6747t/

As did agriculture:
http://www.spelt.com/origins.html

Charlie,

I wasn’t referring to all miracles. I was referring to miracles, or other very improbable (if not strictly miraculous) events, that aren’t attested in Scripture but are necessary for salvaging some other theory.

One example which springs readily to mind is the emergence of flightless animals such as the kiwi and tuatara in New Zealand. If there was a global flood, such animals would certainly have perished, and any proposed global flood model would then have to assert either a postdiluvian creation of new animals (an ad hoc miracle of the sort I was describing) or a series of extremely improbable “mundane occurrences” to get the ancestors of the kiwi, tuatara, etc. from the Middle East to New Zealand while leaving no traces of their passage.

Holo,

It seems clear to me that your notion of “creationism” differs somewhat from the common understanding of the term. What term might you use to describe the belief that, in the unfolding of the history of the world and the emergence of the different forms of human and animal life in particular, God acted miraculously (as distinct from his general role as sustainer) once the Universe was created?

Hi Mr. Gronk,
You don’t actually have to study the link, just be aware of it. There are professional scientists, paleoanthropologists, who have studied the issue and find that the scientific evidence best supports a middle eastern model for the first Homo sapiens.
Thus, it is not an anti-scientific position to prefer this theory, even if you do so on non-scientific grounds.

Hi olegt

Can you name a few of the “hundreds of books and articles” that you mentioned in your comment? I am somewhat familiar with the YEC literature and it does not impress me much. But maybe I overlooked some real gems.

The YEC literature is the material which I would not read. It took a long time for me to overcome that prejudice. I had to work my way through a lot of books and articles before I would even consider it. That may be why it “does not impress [you] much.” I wasn’t impressed much until I was ready to evaluate the argument and that meant first being able to consider it an argument.

I would suggest you begin with some ID literature – “Darwin on Trial”, “Uncommon Dissent”, “Darwin’s Black Box”, The Right Questions” etc. After that read some naturalist literature, “Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science”, “Darwinism and its Discontents”, “The Mind of God”. You will need some training in logic, “Socratic Logic” is good, and philosophy, “The Question Of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud”, “Ten Philosophical Mistakes”, “Moses and Monotheism”. By this time you will notice a pattern emerging. You might be ready to read some YEC literature, but first you should go back to the ID material and read, “Signature in the Cell”, “A Meaningful World” and a little theology/design/philosophy in “Total Truth”. many of these books may be found, in whole or part, on googlebooks. Enjoy yourself, it is a voyage of discovery! 8^>

Hi Mr. Gronk

However, the problem I have with the first 11 chapters of Genesis is this: they assert various concrete facts, which are, as Holo said above, in principle amenable to testing.[…]So, like olegt, I’d like to see some of the literature that you found helpful.

I posted a partial reading list above, none of which is YEC. I think you need to prepare your mind before delving into the YEC material, we are conditioned to be skeptical of any theistic claims and to be receptive to the most implausible naturalistic claims. I found it necessary to debunk naturalism before I could seriously investigate theism. With that caveat, you may if you wish, read “Why Won’t They Listen?” online. this is the first YEC book I actually read. It deals primarily with the psychological difficulties of reading Genesis 1-11 as history and the theological implications of not reading it as history.

I will take issue with Holopupenko on his editorial commentary vis a vis “Creation” and “Creationism”. While his definition (courtesy of the Catholic Encyclopedia) is technically accurate it is extremely superficial.

Creationism: usually understood as two things (again, borrowing from the Catholic Encyclopedia): (1) “the doctrine that the material of the universe was created by God out of no pre-existing subject”—which eliminates Pantheism and emanationism and (2) “the [false] doctrine that the various species of living beings were immediately and directly created or produced by God, and are not therefore the product of an evolutionary process.”

In reality it has been obvious to all people, as far back as we can document, that individuals in particular ‘species’ exhibit extreme diversity of quality. Human beings have selectively bred various plants and animals for particular qualities as long as we have practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. This ancient knowledge of bilogical plasticity is the fundamental to the theory of evolution. Darwin took known, observed, and limited biological plasticity and extrapolated it into an unknown, unobserved, unlimited process.

Darwin opposed his theory to another unknown and unobserved hypothesis popular in the 17th and 18th Cs., the “fixity of species”. This theory maintained that all species were directly created in the form which we observe today and have not changed.

Modern YEC theories accept a limited degree of ‘speciation’ under the heading of “baraminology”. This word was coined by creation biologist Frank Marsh from the Hebrew words ‘bara’ (created) and ‘min’ (kind). This gives us the word ‘baramin.’ In Genesis we are told God created the animals to reproduce “after their own kind” but kind is not defined in any technical sense. Modern biology classifies biological entities by order, genus, species, according to various arbitrary standards. There is no reason to think these standards correspond to the biblical “kind” and there are reasons, hybridization, to think they do not.

So, God may have created the “dog” kind, which includes all dogs, wolves, foxes, and coyotes all of whom have diversified according to the environment in which they live but all of whom can hybridize. Sheep is another group, almost all known ‘species’ of sheep have been hybridized and some ‘species’ of sheep and goat have hybridized. Horses, zebras, donkies. Lions and tigers, and many other domestic and wild cats. European cattle and American buffalo. The list is rather long. Oh… and all human beings.

This theory is supported by another long observed trait in selective breeding, the limits to change apparent in all species. Breeders find there is an outer limit beyond which they cannot pass. Reduced fitness (death) or reversion (devolution) result. Natural selection itself is now recognized a conservative force, tending to kill of deviations from the norm.

Oh, and doctor(logic)

I am well aware of the “chain of inferences”, and the well-documented and overtly confesssed, psychological need for naturalistic explanations. I suggest you investigate “fark matter”, “dark energy”, the “horizon problem”, the “flatness problem”, the formation of stars, galaxies, and the solar system, the formation of the moon and the recession thereof, and the “fine tuning problem”. These are just off the top of my head… there are other difficulties with the current cosmological model. Oh, and let us not forget the mutual incompatablility of general relativity and quantum physics.

Incredible! This coming from an alleged Ph.D. student? Nick must be shuddering and feeling very threatened these days. Note the form of his M.O. for cutting off questioning and intellectual inquiry:

“So, you don’t like the _________ hypothesis. What’s your explanation for __________? I guess you would be happier if we just said “God [did it]” and were done with it?”

Read: Oh yeah!, Well [ding! sniffle…], I’ll fix you, you just watch!

Does Berkeley now give out degrees for snide and childish remarks that betray fear and loathing of hypotheses that challenge Nick’s “understanding”? He’s not just grasping at straws, but at straw men! And Nick’s not even a physicist/cosmologist who might be able to actually respond substantively and cogently.

Grow up, Nick. You’re shrilling more and more like one of the new atheists.

Dave,

Thanks for the reading list. I’ll look into some of those; I have heard the titles before in many cases.

I think it will be interesting in any case. I’m by no means new to the area; but I’ve perhaps spent too long trying to “figure it out on my own” (always a dangerous trap). Like Holo, I have some problems with the theories (e.g., IC, CSI) behind ID, or at least my understanding of them; though I suspect my reasons differ from his. I also confess that I’ve heard a lot about how YEC proponents and ID theorists are charlatans (or at the very least uninformed), and regrettably if enough mud is thrown, some of it tends to stick. I don’t mean I’ve swallowed the notion of impropriety hook, line and sinker; hopefully I haven’t even been caught on the first barb yet; but we shall see. I would like to be able to consider an idea on its merits, and not on the basis of who is proposing it.

Holo,

I regret that I didn’t quite spot your answer to my question. That could be due to reading comprehension problems on my part. In particular, when you defined “creationism”, you seemed to impose a false dichotomy: either a very limited assertion (“God-as-creator”) or a full-blown “fixity of species” model. I don’t know of any contemporaries who subscribe to the latter position; and the former position, so far as I know, has very little to say on the question of the historical truthfulness of the opening parts of Genesis. The rest of your comment seems to be written at a relatively high philosophical level, using a good many technical terms I don’t fully understand, so I may have further questions on it.

Nick,

I guess you would be happier if we just said “God is holding the galaxies together through his miracle power” and were done with it?

Why do you repeatedly insist on trying to make Christianity into something it is not, Nick? You are fighting a battle against a strawman, and it makes you look like a fool. Instead of spouting nonsense here, I suggest you spend some time reading books about the history of science. You’ll discover that ‘God sustains all of creation’ wasn’t a science stopper. And if you look around today and listen, you’ll discover that it isn’t a science stopper today. Your irrational fear of belief in God is just that – irrational.

Holo,

The reason I described it as a false dichotomy is that it seems to suggest a choice between, on the one hand, believing that no biological life was miraculously introduced by God, and on the other believing that every species (in the modern, technical sense) that now lives or has ever lived was so introduced. My impression is that “creationists” of various kinds occur on a spectrum, of which those two positions mark the extremes. One position existing between them is that of the typical contemporary young-earther, who asserts that many “kinds” were miraculously created, or perhaps formed from pre-existing matter, each such “kind” including at least one, but more commonly, many species. Another is the old-earth creationist (in a narrow sense of the word), who differs from the theistic evolutionist in asserting at least one miraculous introduction of life. His position is also to be found on a continuum, perhaps only asserting a first creation of life (opposing abiogenesis) and common descent thereafter, or perhaps asserting many “kinds” as do the young-earthers, possibly even more “kinds” than they do since the old-earther is often not constrained by the (real or perceived) need to fit all then-existing “kinds” on Noah’s ark.

Thus, I described a false dichotomy, as middling positions that could, at least in theory, have Scriptural and scientific support were ignored. I hope that clarifies things a bit.

In general, I agree that we should be clear on just what Scripture is asserting before we start using scientific findings as a club to bludgeon it with.

You seem to think you know better than the thousands of physicists who study the dark matter question. And you gave no reasons for your skepticism, no reasons why e.g. galaxy rotation rate, the observation of gravitational lensing in that photo I posted, etc., weren’t strong evidence for the mainstream hypothesis. And you criticize science for being naturalistic. The clear suggestion is that you think the supernatural holds the answer instead of dark matter. I’m happy to be corrected, but you’ve got to discuss the science and present a hypothesis, or why should anyone who knows the evidence take you seriously?

Nick is shuddering scientistically again.

Wow. Just, wow.

Hello Nick

Wow. Just, wow.

It may help if you comprehend nature of the observation which elicited your rather bizarre reaction.

Mr. Meyer is right to say that the Cambrian Explosion, if it happened as it is commonly understood to have happened, is evidence against evolution. It is also true that if the Cambrian Explosion did not happen, that is also evidence against evolution.

Why would Dr. Meyer say that the Cambrian explosion is evidence against evolution and the not-Cambrian explosion is evidence against evolution?

Perhaps Dr. Meyer thinks the Cambrian explosion, at best a hypothetical event, is not requisite for his argument. If the Cambrian explosion occurred in the manner portrayed as the “sudden appearance” of “new” morphologies it provides oblique support for his hypothesis. If the Cambrian explosion did not happen it does no harm to his hypothesis.

The Cambrian explosion is a hypothetical event based upon; a) an admittedly deficient fossil record. and b) a hypothetical interpretation of the fossil record. Dr. Meyer’s hypothesis is based upon the observation of information systems active in the present within the cells of living organisms. It may be observed and evaluated in real time, in the present. The Cambrian explosion is, at best, mildly supportive of Dr. Meyer’s hypothesis; at worst, irrelevant.

Hi Nick

The “evidence against evolution” is the insertion of new information for new morphologies. Whether the insertion was sudden (the Cambriam explosion) or gradual (the Cambrian diffusion) is immaterial since both options fail to account for the new information. The “evidence against evolution” is not the rate of change, but the type of change.

Ah OK that makes more sense.

Dave, at risk of asking a really dumb question, what was your comment #79 apropos of?

Righto then. Not a bad quote, I agree; except insofar as Chesterton seems to be suggesting that the only choices are bad ones. Does he offer a third alternative, I wonder?

Yes. Chesterton offers the world Christianity, more specifically Catholic Christianity, but I think he would have made a good Lutheran. He was suspicious of all ideologies, equally critical of socialism and capitalism, and a romantic at heart.

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/index.html

(The first post disapeared but may show up later, I had to rewrite to post again)

Dave wrote:

I would suggest you begin with some ID literature – “Darwin on Trial”, “Uncommon Dissent”, “Darwin’s Black Box”, The Right Questions” etc. After that read some naturalist literature, “Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science”, “Darwinism and its Discontents”, “The Mind of God”. You will need some training in logic, “Socratic Logic” is good, and philosophy, “The Question Of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud”, “Ten Philosophical Mistakes”, “Moses and Monotheism”. By this time you will notice a pattern emerging. You might be ready to read some YEC literature, but first you should go back to the ID material and read, “Signature in the Cell”, “A Meaningful World” and a little theology/design/philosophy in “Total Truth”. many of these books may be found, in whole or part, on googlebooks. Enjoy yourself, it is a voyage of discovery! 8^>

This reminds me of the lyrics from Mary Poppins,

A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down-wown
The medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way

and confirms something that we have suspected all along: ID has no content of its own, it’s just sugar coating for the YEC nonsense.

Dave, can we dispense with the sugar and get down to the bitter pill? Will it be Uncle Walty? CRS Quarterly? Occasional Papers BSG? I am dying to know.

No, my dear colleague Holopupenko, I am neither obtuse, nor inattentive.

In fact, I am quite attuned to the goings-on of ID. For example, I am aware that Discovery’s CSC used to be called the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

I have also read their Wedge Strategy and am aware that scientific research, writing & publicity are merely Phase I of the renewal, to be followed by Phase II, just publicity & opinion-making, which will set the stage for Phase III, cultural confrontation & renewal.

It’s never been about research, my dear colleague. Never.

Hi Holopupenko

I would like to thank you for your kind comment in post #39. We might quibble over details but we are on the same page.

BTW – When I finally understood the highly speculative nature of olegt’s, doctor(logic)’s, and Nick Matzke’s, dogmatic scientism I realized that there is no good reason to give it precedence over the biblical account. Once your realize “the emperor has no clothes” his authority evaporates.

olegt’s response to my (very minimal) list of books was typical of the dogmatic naturalist. Sarcasm, denigration, and misdirection. When there is no sufficient refutation you attack the man. That’s the tactic pioneered by the so-called “New Atheists” whose arguments are, at best, sophomoric.

I reject evolution because it is almost certainly impossible. I have studied the arguments, pro and con, and found the pro-evolution arguments deficient.

On a more philosophical level; evolution is, by its very nature, anti-Christian. I do not think there is any possible way to reconcile evolution and orthodox Christianity. Christianity confesses a God of life, a God who creates, a God who saves; evolution professes a god of entropy, a god which creates through death, a god of universal heat death.

I think it no accident that so many of us filled with self-loathing; no accident that so many desire the end of Western Civilization; no accident that the West is impotent; no accident that the “culture of death” thrives in the West. We practice the religion of death.

Dave wrote:

You just help yourself olegt. You asked; I answered. If you don’t like the answer you are perfectly free to disregard it.

No, Dave, you began answering, but you did not provide a full answer. You listed some preliminary things for me to read, but I have no need for remedial schooling, I am reasonably well educated.

So go ahead and list a few of those “hundreds of books and articles” that make a positive case for the young Earth. These theories should be able to stand on their own, independently of the validity of mainstream science.

Hi Dave:

Briefly…

Why do you think olegt loathes philosophy (is that too strong, moi dorogoi olegt… should I reference your quote? maybe you should investigate with an open mind what Soloviev and Berdiaiev have to say?) or denigrates anything not MES-like to the subjective? Why do you think DL and Nick are so ignorant of philosophical principles and nuances–some of the very ones upon which the MESs depend? You’re spot on in your assessment.

Regarding descent with modification (roughly, neo-Darwinian scientific theories as descriptors of biological change throughout the ages), I beg to differ. If neo-Darwinian scientists actually and honestly stick to the science, then there is no issue. The problem is neo-Darwinin-ISM (which is an interpretive imposition) and the problem is Intelligent Design illicit baggage and not-quite-right-natural philosophy. (This happens in practically all scientific fields–note the Copenhagen Interpretation nonsense imposed by ignorant physicists upon quantum mechanics, note the reductionism in neuroscience, note the equivocation of brute to rational animals, etc. ad nauseum.)

There’s nothing in the science of the various neo-Darwinian theories that opposes Christianity in particular or faith and philosophy in general. The “species” hang-up is a false starter: if one understands what a “species” is from the perspective of biological taxonomy and contrast that with “species” from the perspective of logic while considering the crucially-important philosophical notions of substance, essence, and nature, there is no problem. Really. That discussion is way beyond this thread.

Nonetheless, my humble request to you is to not let any particular interpretive understanding of Scriptures dictate (worse: oppose) the knowledge we obtain of the extra-mental world. We have St. Augustine’s authority to back that up: if our understanding of Scripture seemingly conflicts with reasoning and knowledge of the extra-mental, sensory-accessible world, then (1) it’s an artificial conflict, (2) it’s our interpretation of Scripture that should be suspect. Understanding the material objects and physical phenomena of the extra-mental world are crucial to correctly reasoning to and reflecting upon immaterial verities and Revealed Knowledge. That’s a principle upon which you can hang your hat. Use the same approach you employed when challenging your earlier notions about science and Christianity that brought you to the faith. It works.

Holopupenko,

What is \MES\? I almost had it with \Modern Evolutionary Synthesis\, but that doesn’t quite fit your recent comments.

Meyer is not “adopting any assumptions” of any kind.

1) Unless he’s lying, to the best of my knowledge he really seems to genuinely believe the CE was an actual historical event.

2) Whether certain bones do or do not appear in certain strata depends in no way whatsoever on “neodarwinism” or “methodological atheism”. If aliens erased all our memory of descent by modification and all our observations of evolution occuring in realtime tomorrow, it would still be a cast iron fact that there was a (geologically) sudden explosion of biological diversity about 500 million years ago.

So, given that he is not “assuming things for the sake of argument to demonstrate internal inconsistency”, if what Meyer believes is true, darwinian evolution needs to be amended while YECism is catastrophically, irremediably wrong. How can anyone be so astoundingly blase about whether their beliefs about what happened and when are *true* or not?

Imagine if I started a blog centered around arguing against Christianity. Imagine if my first post was an examination of Ardipthecus and its place in our gradual emergence from our fellow hominoids some 4-5 million years ago. Now imagine that my second post “shattering the myths of christianism” was a glowing review of Hindu creationists Cremo and Thompson’s book _Forbidden Archaeology_, which argues that humans have existed essentially unchanged for *billions* of years. Isn’t it just obvious that this sort of behavior is fundamentally incompatible with the honest attempt to form true beliefs about the world, while it has everything to do with scoring points in a cultural battle because deep down “what those other guys are saying is a moral threat, therefore something, somewhere, somehow must be false about it.”

I think antiplastic was responding to Dave’s YEC views when he was making the pyramid comment. I.e., it’s a little weird for a young-earth creationist to be defending the (in some ways) deeply contradictory views of an old-earth creationist.

Woodchuck:

Sorry. MES = Modern Empirical Science

Dave,

Here is an online version of “Total Truth”

I think it was Charlie who asked about this.

Nonetheless, my humble request to you is to not let any particular interpretive understanding of Scriptures dictate (worse: oppose) the knowledge we obtain of the extra-mental world. We have St. Augustine’s authority to back that up: if our understanding of Scripture seemingly conflicts with reasoning and knowledge of the extra-mental, sensory-accessible world, then (1) it’s an artificial conflict, (2) it’s our interpretation of Scripture that should be suspect. Understanding the material objects and physical phenomena of the extra-mental world are crucial to correctly reasoning to and reflecting upon immaterial verities and Revealed Knowledge. That’s a principle upon which you can hang your hat. Use the same approach you employed when challenging your earlier notions about science and Christianity that brought you to the faith. It works.

Good comments, Holo. Worth repeating here for the benefit of believer and non-believer alike.

Don’t ya know Steve?

64 is how much wood woodchuck wouldchuck if woodchuck could chuck wood.

Sorry woodchuck64, the imp in me couldn’t resist. 8^>

Tell me how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

This is a sentence containing 64 characters.

Right reply: A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck.

This is another sentence that contains 64 characters.

(Cue: music from The Twilight Zone)

Too many hours teaching physics, today.

Too much physics?!? Impossible!

Holo (#85),

I’m actually well aware of what you spoke about; I agree with you, Chesterton and many others that if we want a viable solution we in the end must look to Christ. But, not wanting to completely give up on people, I think part of me holds on to the hope that not all mundane options (of which Chesterton compares and contrasts two) will prove to be equally bad.

Dave, thanks for the further pointers about Chesterton, of whom I’d heard before but haven’t really read any of his works. Something else, perhaps, to go on my list.

Though I’m away for a few days, I’ll check in on this thread when I get back.

Apart from Tom in this and similar posts, I think Dave wins the prize in this string for staying true to verbalizing the theme of this post: Disentangling Beliefs About Knowledge and Beliefs. His pithy response to Nick in comment 105 was spot-on.

Hi antiplastic

Do I detect a bit of a red herring here? You seem more concerned about where I get my evidence than with the evidence itself. Why would you commit the genetic fallacy rather than offer a valid counter-argument? Perhaps you have no valid counter-argument and believe that by attacking the source of my evidence; slyly suggesting that if we do not agree on every issue then we cannot agree on any issue, you will manage to direct our attention away from the argument.

A curious tactic for a seeker of truth. But then, perhaps you are not seeking truth, perhaps you are seeking to score rhetorical points. But you still have not addressed the substance of the argument, that new morphologies require new information, highly specified information, and the process described as evolution is an insufficient cause for that information.

What Dr. Meyer does or does not believe about the Cambrian explosion, and consequently, when it happened, as I have noted above, is irrelevant to his argument for a designer. Whether or when the Cambrian explosion occurred can only add weight to the argument for a designer. If it did not occur the argument is still valid. Even by its own standards the theory of evolution is insuffient.

Here is a lecture on the Cambrian explosion from Stephen Westrop curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of natural History. Dr. Westrop believes the Cambrian explosion is a misconception caused by natural gaps in the fossil record. We see an ‘explosion’ where, in reality, there is diffusion, simply because the fossil record is incomplete. If you get through the second installment you will have the consummate pleasure of watching him, complete with color illustrations, invoke the evolution of the gaps argument.

Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HrB0vSIJ98

Part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mucHpNxfX0c&feature=channel
Part 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOaTZMoQr-E&feature=channel

Part 4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytc8oDg-buo&feature=channel

Part 5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8k2TQtjUNM&feature=channel

Part 6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1XQUckn0G4&feature=channel

Of course, he’s an evolutionist, so I shouldn’t reference him.

Dave:

The “arguments such as the one above” do not “undermine” anything other than the naturalistic paradigm. They are silent on the Bible. See above.

The devil is in the details.

One of Meyer’s arguments specifically uses the nature of the fossil record as an accurate record of changes over time as evidence of an intelligent designer (as I described here).

If the fossil record is not an accurate record of changes over time, but rather a jumble of hydrologically-sorted, drowned organisms, the evidence for an intelligent designer has been undermined; there is one less valid argument.

On the other hand, if an intelligent designer is correctly inferred from the fossil record, a world-wide deluge as the source of rock layers is undermined.

So while YECs and ID proponents may share a desire to prove design, the above example highlights the problems with trying to force mutually exclusive premises together into a coherent picture. Is naturalism wrong because it denies the reality of a flood, or is naturalism wrong because it ignores the clear inference of intelligent design in the fossil record as laid down over eons? It can’t be both. But if you insist on both, you risk baffling your opponents more than enlightening them.

duplicate post. deleted.

Hi woodchuck64

One of Meyer’s arguments specifically uses the nature of the fossil record as an accurate record of changes over time as evidence of an intelligent designer […] If the fossil record is not an accurate record of changes over time, but rather a jumble of hydrologically-sorted, drowned organisms, the evidence for an intelligent designer has been undermined; there is one less valid argument.

Let’s review your argument here. You say that because Stephen Meyer uses the standard chronology and the standard interpretation of the fossil record as an argument to support his hypothesis of an intelligent designer then any hypothesis which contradicts the standard chronology and the standard interpretation of the fossil record, particularly any hypothesis which posits a global flood, undermines Dr. Meyer’s case for an intelligent designer.

If this is not a fair summary of your argument please correct me.

As to the hypotheis of an intelligent designer as iterated by Dr. Meyer we could summarize it in this fashion;

Given the most charitable interpretation of the particular conditions and forces acting within the naturalist paradigm posited by Darwin and his contemporary followers we will demonstate that these forces, random mutation and natural selection operating over millenia, are unable to account for the Cambrian explosion, a geological/biological event which is recognized by these same naturalists. Even allowing for millions of years there is insuffient time for novel morphologies to arise under the mechanism described as naturalistic evolution.

Dr. Meyer is arguing from a position which is accepted by most naturalists as accurately describing the geological/biological history of the earth. Dr. Meyer, by founding his argument on the standard accepted as true by his opponents is able to present his argument in terms which are consistent with their worldview. His argument, therefore, has particular weight because it demonstrates the inadequacy of naturalistic evolution even when judged by its own evidentiary standard.

The argument for design uses naturalistic evidence to overturn naturalism by demonstrating the inadequacy of naturalism to account for the phenomena we observe. It is not a religious argument, it is not a biblical argument, it is a naturalistic argument. We investigate the natural world and discover phenomena which cannot be adequately explained within the naturalistic paradigm. The natural world exists, events happen, but some outcomes exhibit intentionality which cannot be accounted for within within a purely naturalistic paradigm, there must be \something more\.

If the design hypothesis is valid under the constraints of naturalism and its millions of years then it is even more valid if the biblical account of a global flood is true. If the biblical flood occureed then the argument for a designer advanced by Dr. Meyer is moot. If I could demonstrate to your satisfaction that a global flood was a reasonable interpretation of the miles of sedimentary rock, the planation surfaces, and the near-universal accounts of a global flood found in widely dipersed cultures around the world then, yes, it would undermine the argument from the Cambrian explosion, but only because it refutes the whole long ages mythology. Both cases imply an intelligent designer.

Not that I would expect you to suddenly \accept Jesus\ – it doesn’t work that way. We are stiffnecked and stubborn. We like to think we are masters of our own destiny. Like the Hebrews of Exodus, following a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of smoke by day, we would grumble, complain, and build idols.

SteveK:

I don’t subscribe to YEC, however this is an incorrect understanding of the argument, as I understand it. An intelligent agent purports to better explain the order of fossils as they are found in time, not necessarily their location of death, time of death, how they got to that location, etc.

I’m not following you. I agree that Meyer’s argument is that an intelligent agent purports to better explain the order of fossils as they are found in geologic layers representing time. But to be found in geologic layers representing time is to be incompatible with all YEC models of flood geology I’m aware of. Under YEC assumptions, most or all existing organisms (baramins?) lived at the time of the flood and their presence in the fossil record corresponds to 1) their ability to temporarily escape the rising waters, 2) and/or how their remains were sorted by turbulent water.

Hi SteveK

I think woodchuck64’s difficulty is that I am not making YEC arguments. I take the Big Bang (inconsistent with YEC models) and point out how it fails as a materialist explanation. I take general cosmology (inconsistent with YEC models) and point out how it fails as a materialist explanation. I take OE geology (inconsistent with YEC models) and point out how it fails as a materialist explanation. I take paleontology (inconsistent with YEC models) and point out how it fails as a materialist explanation. I take biology, philosophy, and theology, and use it to demonstrate some of the failures of materialism. I take materialism and demonstrate its failures by its own rather flexible standard.

woodchuck64 hopes to save materialism by accusing me of having too many arguments.

Actually, my own commitment to YEC is somewhat tentative. If I may explain…

I have looked at all the arguments I could find which begin from a naturalistic perspective, (this was easy because it was my perspective) and found the naturalist perspective had extremely tenuous support. Not non-existent support, but extremely thin support. Because my postition is contingent I often look for more arguemts to refute my position but have yet to find anything substantial, quite the contrary, they often raise more doubts than they settle.

Once I had irreparably shattered my faith in naturalism I looked at the arguments from a Christian (creationist) perspecive and found the creationist perspective also enjoys tenuous support. Not non-existent support, but thin support… less thin and more rational than naturalism. I also continue to seek and evaluate creationist arguments.

I made a theological and philosphical decision to change my default position. That is to say, all things being equal, I will accept the creationist model before the materialist model. I have examined sufficient evidence decide, given the tenuous nature of naturalistic theories, to shift the burden of proof to naturalism.

I do not claim that all naturalistic are deficient, nor that all creationist arguments are sufficient, only that, on balance, the creationist argument tends, to my mind, a more coherent model. I think, when it comes to this sort of thing, I have an advantage over most others. My desire is to know. I am not afraid of the truth. I challenge myself to seek whatever truth I might discover in this short life, and I would rather learn that I am wrong than live a lie.

Easy peazy.

Fear not, ‘organizing information’ will be declared a fundamental property of the universe, thereby rendering it “natural”. No God needed … by fiat.

[Geeky] Barking Moonbat, n., pron.: \’gēk-kē ‘bärk-thiŋ mün-bat\, 1. someone on the extreme edge of whatever their false -ism happens to be; 2. someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency; 3. an irrational and hysterical individual whose elitist, self-indulgent intellectual indolence has led him to a visceral hatred of all things not in line with their false –ism (naturalism, scientism, atheism, materialism, etc.), the mark of a true moonbat is the total lack of realism and perspective (i.e.. “there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good… a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils” actual quotes of Dawkins juxtaposed), 4. someone who illicitly imparts a kind of Platonic efficacy to mathematical formalisms, thereby convincing himself that such formalisms actualize reality rather than describe reality (e.g., E = mc^2 means that energy is mass!”).

By the way, “unstretched” is not a word… “non-streched” is.

Holopupenko,

I am left wondering whether your circumspect way of calling me a barking moonbat would pass the Starbucks standard. I have a feeling that it wouldn’t, but our host’s opinion may differ.

As to the word unstretched, while it isn’t in regular dictionaries, it certainly is part of the lexicon of physicists working with soft condensed matter. The American Chemical Society had no qualms about printing this short article: F. L. Lambert, “Disorder” in Unstretched Rubber Bands?, J. Chem. Educ. 80, 145 (2003); doi:10.1021/ed080p145.1. That’s hardly a unique example.

And tell me again, what was the point you were trying to make?

commenter has erased this comment

Dave wrote:

We think by naming gravity, or evolution, or dark matter, or any other thing, we have explained it, that we know its essence, that we understand what it is and how it works. In fact we have only applied a more sophistical version of the old cartographic warning; “Here be monsters.”

Huh?? There is much more to theory of gravity than just a name. Newton’s theory is able to predict the motion of planets of the solar system with a high precision. When it was discovered in 1846 that Uranus deviated slightly from the predicted path, Le Verrier postulated that the deviations were caused by a hitherto undiscovered planet. He went on to predict where the unknown planet should be looked for and later that same year Galle observed Neptune.

Likewise, Einstein’s theory of gravity is not just a vague concept that gravity = geometry, it’s a quantitative account of how gravity works. It is in complete agreement with Newton’s theory in the limit of weak gravitational field and it also works for strong gravity, where Newton’s theory fails. Einstein’s theory has undergone stringent experimental tests (see PSR B1913+16 for an example) and we trust its accuracy to the extent that we use it in the GPS.

Both Newton’s theory of gravity and Einstein’s general relativity are tested science. They are here to stay. Get used to it.

Tom,

I think you are confused. Science does not pursue questions like “What gravity really is,” it stays with the how question.

Verlinde attempts to go beyond Einstein’s theory just like Einstein went beyond Newton’s. But even if he succeeds, the likes of Dave won’t be satisfied because that theory will be—in their view—as disappointing as its predecessors (see Barking Moonbat, pt. 4).

What Verlinde does not do is to identify gravity’s first cause. That grand exercise is left to philosophers and theologians, while scientists perform a much more modest role: figuring out how things work.

Dave:

You say that because Stephen Meyer uses the standard chronology and the standard interpretation of the fossil record as an argument to support his hypothesis of an intelligent designer then any hypothesis which contradicts the standard chronology and the standard interpretation of the fossil record, particularly any hypothesis which posits a global flood, undermines Dr. Meyer’s case for an intelligent designer.

If this is not a fair summary of your argument please correct me.

Correct, except I note that this is “one of” Meyer’s arguments; not all of them are incompatible with the flood geological model.

The argument for design uses naturalistic evidence to overturn naturalism by demonstrating the inadequacy of naturalism to account for the phenomena we observe.

While true in some cases, it is not strictly true in the argument I provided in which Meyer shows (either correctly or incorrectly) that naturalistic evidence is also evidence of intelligence. That is, he takes the features of the fossil record and, without addressing naturalistic explanations at all initially, points out how they fit the hypothesis of intelligent design.

If the design hypothesis is valid under the constraints of naturalism and its millions of years then it is even more valid if the biblical account of a global flood is true. If the biblical flood occurred then the argument for a designer advanced by Dr. Meyer is moot.

That particular argument would not just be “moot” but utterly invalid. The patterns and hierarchies Meyer has analyzed would be coincidental or imaginary, an artifact of flood processes. (Again, assuming that YEC flood theories state that all organism types lived contemporaneously and that the fossil “record” is hydrologically sorted remains).

If I could demonstrate to your satisfaction that a global flood was a reasonable interpretation of the miles of sedimentary rock, the planation surfaces, and the near-universal accounts of a global flood found in widely dipersed cultures around the world then, yes, it would undermine the argument from the Cambrian explosion, but only because it refutes the whole long ages mythology. Both cases imply an intelligent designer.

YEC or ID, the details don’t matter as long as both roads lead to intelligent design? I can understand that view as a consequence of giving up on scientific methodology as suspect and corrupt. But then without a reliable method to determine truth at the level of fine details, you are forced to be guided top-down: if it affirms God, it is true, otherwise false.

I would say that the most important step is getting the details right, the evidence clear. Let’s ignore our preconceptions, what is really there? Is evidence for a global flood strong enough to stand on its own? If so, I would expect all of the items above to make good sense.

I checked the claim for planation surfaces from Michael Oard’s site, and find that conventional dating (which is key to any interpretation of planation surfaces) is quickly thrown out on the basis that “the continents would be reduced to near sea level in 10 to 50 million years”. This is true if you ignore tectonic uplift; but uplift is then dismissed with this reasoning:

For example, it is suggested that the mountains still exist because uplift is constantly replacing them from below. Consequently, the mountains would have been eroded and replaced many times over in 2.5 billion years. However, although uplift is occurring in mountainous areas, such a process of uplift and erosion could not go on for long without removing all the layers of sediments. We would therefore not expect to find any old sediment in mountainous areas if they had been eroded and replaced many times. Yet, surprisingly, sediments of all ages from young to old (by evolutionary dating methods) are preserved in mountainous regions. The idea of continual renewal by uplift does not solve the problem.

http://creation.com/eroding-ages.

With five minutes of thought I can find the error in this. No one is claiming that uplift occurs uniformly. Some areas are rising, some are sinking, some areas are eroding quickly, some slowly. Therefore, while some layers of sediments are being eroded away, lakes and oceans are forming new layers of sedimentary rock that may later be uplifted to form new mountains. Old mountains that are no longer experiencing uplift may erode away to plains. Only extremely old mountains experiencing continual uplift would be expected to have all sedimentary rock eroded away.

If young-earth creationists have discovered evidence that conventional science has ignored or overlooked, they should publish. But if their work is as sloppy as that paragraph above dismissing uplift appears to be, I would say they’re not interested in the details or evidence, only in supporting their top-down conclusion.

But as time goes on, science encroaches on what used to be philosophy and theology’s turf and that inevitably leads to conflicts. Index Librorum Prohibitorum includes cosmological works of Girodano Bruno, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Evolution was next, now it’s the workings of the mind.

It just so happened that Quodlibeta had something to say today about this and the whole naturalism excludes God deal. Quoting excerpts from C.S. Lewis’ writings on what is known as “The Argument from Reason”:

The picture so often painted of Christians huddling together on an ever narrower strip of beach while the incoming tide of “Science” mounts higher and higher corresponds to nothing in my own experience. That grand myth which I asked you to admire a few minutes ago is not for me a hostile novelty breaking in on my traditional beliefs. On the contrary, that cosmology is what I started from. Deepening distrust and final abandonment of it long preceded my conversion to Christianity. Long before I believed Theology to be true I had already decided that the popular scientific picture at any rate was false. One absolutely central inconsistency ruins it; it is the one we touched on a fortnight ago. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears. Unless we can be sure that reality in the remotest nebula or the remotest part obeys the thought laws of the human scientist here and now in his laboratory — in other words, unless Reason is an absolute — all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based….

…Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of that primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come, by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

The rest of the post is a good read, with Chesterton’s analogy of how some people see trees blowing in the wind and think that it is the trees that cause the wind.

Hi olegt

I think you are confused. Science does not pursue questions like “What gravity really is,” it stays with the how question.

I guess I’m just dense…

Yet that is not the end of the story. Though Newton and Einstein provided profound insights, their laws are only mathematical descriptions. “They explain how gravity works, but not where it comes from,” says Verlinde. Theoretical physics has had a tough time connecting gravity with the other known fundamental forces in the universe. The standard model, which has long been our best framework for describing the subatomic world, includes electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces – but not gravity.

Or maybe not.

Hi Tom

Is there some reason we’re talking about whether Meyer’s theories comport with YEC/Flood theory? What would that reason be?

It’s a red herring. woodchuck64 thinks that because Stephen Meyer bases part of his argument for design upon the Cambrian explosion that it is inconsistent for me, an avowed creationist, to defend Meyer. I don’t think he quite understands that if Meyer can demonstrate design even under the constraints of a system that was specifically constructed to defend the theory of naturalistic evolution then it only strengthens my position. If naturalistic evolution fails its own test on its own terms then it has failed indeed.

Or perhaps he thinks quoting Genesis, chapter and verse, is stronger argument. Either way, I have tired of this pointless little detour. See my response to antiplastic.

https://www.thinkingchristian.net/2010/01/disentangling-beliefs-about-knowledge-and-belief/#comment-19543

Tom Gilson wrote:

You’re right on one level to say that time will tell on questions of mind and brain, except I think there are difficulties in principle with explaining mind just on the basis of the brain. Suppose someday we were to have the ability to account for every thought, feeling, and behavior by mapping electrochemical processes within the brain.

This is a bad caricature of what neuroscience is trying to accomplish. It’s not supposed to work like this. Consider the science of thermal phenomena. Physics does not attempt to fully describe the position and velocity of individual molecules in a volume of gas: this task is beyond the capabilities of science. But we don’t need that kind of detailed knowledge in order to make precise predictions about collective properties such as pressure, temperature, and density of the gas. This is the simplest example of emergent behavior.

Actually that could never happen, because there are quantum effects there that would have to remain indeterminate, so at best we would have a mix of determinate and probabilistic explanations.

Tom, this objection is quite lame. It’s like saying that quantum effects at the atomic level make it impossible to predict the motion of a planet around the sun. Clearly that is not true. Quantum indeterminacy works at the microscopic level, but it is unnoticeable at the macroscopic scale. Neurons measure well above a micron in size, so they are macroscopic objects from the viewpoint of quantum mechanics. (They also interact strongly with the warm liquid environment, so quantum effects are squashed by decoherence on the scale of picoseconds—if not femtoseconds—and neurons act on much longer time scales.)

What then would we have accomplished? We would have either shown that thought, feelings, and behaviors are completely determined by factors and forces other than an agent self; or we would have to re-define the agent self strictly in terms of deterministic (or random, if we include quantum effects) forces; or we would have the option to regard the brain as being the organ by which the mind expresses itself in the physical world; or we could opt for another Christian (Catholic) position called hylomorphic dualism that actually I don’t understand well enough to summarize here.

Most of the terms you used in this excerpt come from philosophy of mind. It’s a mistake to think that neuroscience must use the same terms to describe its subject. If the past is any guide, look at Aristotelean physics and see how much of it has been recycled by Newtonian mechanics. The answer is not much. Not only did philosophy not provide the right answers in that case, it didn’t even ask the right questions! I think the same is true about philosophy of mind. The future will tell.

His reason in unreason stands,
and faith unfaithful keeps him true.

Wow, congrats to Papa and family!

Tom:

It’s not conclusive evidence, but to the extent t he argument succeeds, it shows that p(NDE) < 1; thus p(ID or YEC) > 0. (How much those probabilities change depends on how successful the argument actually is.)

If you check my comment to you, in the argument I’m focusing on (and I’ve already said that not all ID arguments are this way), Meyer uses the fossil record as evidence of design. Therefore, to the extent that design is incompatible with NDE, p(NDE) < 1, agreed. However, p(YEC) < 1, as well, since the fossil record can not be used as an inference of design in terms of hierarchical top-down patterns if the fossil record is a result of flood sorting.

Note also that there is nothing in here of the sort you accused Dave, of “working from a top-down model: if it affirms God, it is true/important, otherwise false/unimportant.”

I qualified that statement carefully, it was not an accusation: “If you believe in the flood model of geology and simultaneously believe Meyer has strengthened your position with his argument for observing intelligent design in the relative positions of fossils”…

Perhaps I’m belaboring the issue, but details are important. In fact, I suspect, details are everything (which I take to heart to mean no criticism of theism, Christianity, ID, or creationism is possible without a thorough understanding of it).