As the lone self-aware monobrow on the skeptical comittee dominated by humans, I was in general peased with the overall quality of their presentations, and offer my congratualtions to the hosts, the Young Australian Skeptics, and in particular Mr. Hughes.
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Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Review of TLS -- Promises are made
This is the second in a series of posts that will be reviewing and responding to the arguments of Dr. Feser's The Last Superstition. This was part 1. I haven't read many books of philosophy, and none aimed at popular audiences, so when I note that Dr. Feser starts out with a list of claims that he promises to demonstrate later, I have no idea if that is standard procedure or not. It does make the first chapter, Bad Religion, devoid of meaningful content with regard to establishing Dr. Feser's claims. However, one of the things I want to do is to in this post is list all these promises Dr. Feser makes in Chapter 1. After I review the last chapter, I will return to this list and we will see what has actually been proven.
Claims Dr. Feser says he will demonstrate
Secularism is inherently immoral and irrational, only a specific sort of religious view can be moral, rational, and sane
On intellectual grounds, atheism can not be true
Secularism can never spring from reason; its true grounding is from a willfulness and desire for it to be true
The basic metaphysical assumptions that make atheism possible are mistaken
Secular propaganda is the source of fideism
It is as impossible to say nature has no meaning or purpose as it is to square a circle (more on that below)
Secularism is parasitic on religion for all its important ideas, it is strictly a negation
What is characterized as a war between science and religion is really a war between competing metaphysical systems
The classical metaphysical picture is rationally unavoidable, and thus so is the traditional Western religious view derived from it
Given atheism and naturalism, there is no persuasive argument that allows you to trust in either reason or morality
Edit on 2009-NOV-17 to add: The abandonment of Aristotle's metaphysics has led to the abandonment of any rational or moral standards that can be used to justify moral positions, and is responsible for the curent civilizational crisis of the West.
Dr. Feser allows himself a full 241 pages in the next five chapters to accomplish all this. Of course, with so modest an undertaking, he leaves himself plenty of space to continue to denigrate atheism, secularism, the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens), Hume, and many more in those chapters as well.
I do have a few other comments on some of Dr. Feser's remarks in chapter 1. While I still intend to avoid responding to the mere demagoguery that he indulges himself in, there are a few points that reveal interesting and noteworthy aspects of both him and his opinion of his audience.
There is nothing particularly noteworthy or striking about his claim that the less people know, they less they realize their ignorance. In fact, I read similar thoughts from a variety of science books and scientists growing up, typically along the lines of 'The more you know, the more you realize how little you know'.
I do not agree that attempts to account for phenomena such as the mind without referencing God is a religious discussion. You might as well say that attempts to account for lightning without referencing God is a religious discussion. Then again, perhaps Dr. Feser would say that. I would not be surprised at all to see him claim that any discussion of any natural phenomenon is inherently religious.
One of the common hallmarks of purveyors of woo is a sense of persecution that results from being treated equally. This comes out twice in Chapter 1, where first Dr. Feser complains that some philosophical positions distasteful to him are considered still worth discussion even when they can't be demonstrated, while the subject of religion is considered not to have made its case. Of course, the second standard is a far higher hurdle than the first, and certainly not to be awarded lightly. To imply that religion must be granted the second when other positions are granted the first, or else the supporters of the second are receiving unfair treatment, sounds very much like a persecution complex. Shortly after that, he complains that the distasteful propositions are referred to as making people think, whereas in this context religion is apparently not worthy of a moment's notice. He acknowledges that most people are raised religiously, but somehow misses the point that immersing people in thoughts they already find comfortable will be doing the opposite of making them think, it is much more likely to lull them to stupor. However, the concern seems to be for some sort of time equality, not purpose, because otherwise religious ideas are just not being treated fairly.
Dr. Feser pulls out the old saw about the desire to disbelieve in hellfire being a motivation for atheism. Oddly, I have met very few Christians who believed they, personally, were going to hell. I certainly never did, back in the day. He doesn't seem to understand the human tendency for exceptionalism, or to be deliberately ignoring it.
Dr. Feser declares that the notions of a selfish gene, or design via natural selection, can only be true and interesting if by these terms we attribute some superhuman, literal intelligence to the gene and the process. I'm not sure what to make of this. Obviously he knows the terms are metaphors that describe the complex interactions of various feedbacks mechanisms. He doesn't think that the study of feedback mechanisms is interesting, that the feedback mechanisms are not true, or that the use of metaphor makes the concept untrue or uninteresting?
Dr. Feser complains about 'Easter Bunny comparisons to God', which he disdains. This is all fine for him, but the authors upon whom he heaps this disdain are do not have the audience of his peers in mind; their books are for the general public, and often specifically the religious members thereof. The Easter Bunny example actually strikes right at the heart of what many of these people believe. If the religious group doesn't have their followers trained in the ideas of Aristotle, why should it be the job of Dennett, et. al., to train them? Later on, Dr. Feser says that this is an example of these authors not being willing to take on the real issues against the formidable opposition. With all the diminutions hurled against these authors, you would think he believe this is the appropriate level of opposition for them, but I suppose he thinks even more poorly of his fellow believers in this regard. At any rate, while I might not have the training of a Dennett, I am happy to accommodate Dr. Feser by engaging his ideas directly. Having read through Chapter 4 so far, I have not found any reason to see his presentation of reason, faith, and religion as having a superior metaphysical basis to your typical Sunday preacher.
Finally, Dr. Feser likes to make great use out of the metaphysical absurdity of square circles. He is unaware that all circles are indeed squares, under the taxicab metric (I'll devote a separate post to that). This is a problem with his metaphysical analysis that we’ll cover in more detail later. For now, let’s just say that like any other formal system, Aristotle’s metaphysics will turn out to be founded on arbitrarily chosen premises that are inherently improvable and not obviously better than a variety of alternatives as a description of reality.
Read more!
Claims Dr. Feser says he will demonstrate
Secularism is inherently immoral and irrational, only a specific sort of religious view can be moral, rational, and sane
On intellectual grounds, atheism can not be true
Secularism can never spring from reason; its true grounding is from a willfulness and desire for it to be true
The basic metaphysical assumptions that make atheism possible are mistaken
Secular propaganda is the source of fideism
It is as impossible to say nature has no meaning or purpose as it is to square a circle (more on that below)
Secularism is parasitic on religion for all its important ideas, it is strictly a negation
What is characterized as a war between science and religion is really a war between competing metaphysical systems
The classical metaphysical picture is rationally unavoidable, and thus so is the traditional Western religious view derived from it
Given atheism and naturalism, there is no persuasive argument that allows you to trust in either reason or morality
Edit on 2009-NOV-17 to add: The abandonment of Aristotle's metaphysics has led to the abandonment of any rational or moral standards that can be used to justify moral positions, and is responsible for the curent civilizational crisis of the West.
Dr. Feser allows himself a full 241 pages in the next five chapters to accomplish all this. Of course, with so modest an undertaking, he leaves himself plenty of space to continue to denigrate atheism, secularism, the New Atheists (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens), Hume, and many more in those chapters as well.
I do have a few other comments on some of Dr. Feser's remarks in chapter 1. While I still intend to avoid responding to the mere demagoguery that he indulges himself in, there are a few points that reveal interesting and noteworthy aspects of both him and his opinion of his audience.
There is nothing particularly noteworthy or striking about his claim that the less people know, they less they realize their ignorance. In fact, I read similar thoughts from a variety of science books and scientists growing up, typically along the lines of 'The more you know, the more you realize how little you know'.
I do not agree that attempts to account for phenomena such as the mind without referencing God is a religious discussion. You might as well say that attempts to account for lightning without referencing God is a religious discussion. Then again, perhaps Dr. Feser would say that. I would not be surprised at all to see him claim that any discussion of any natural phenomenon is inherently religious.
One of the common hallmarks of purveyors of woo is a sense of persecution that results from being treated equally. This comes out twice in Chapter 1, where first Dr. Feser complains that some philosophical positions distasteful to him are considered still worth discussion even when they can't be demonstrated, while the subject of religion is considered not to have made its case. Of course, the second standard is a far higher hurdle than the first, and certainly not to be awarded lightly. To imply that religion must be granted the second when other positions are granted the first, or else the supporters of the second are receiving unfair treatment, sounds very much like a persecution complex. Shortly after that, he complains that the distasteful propositions are referred to as making people think, whereas in this context religion is apparently not worthy of a moment's notice. He acknowledges that most people are raised religiously, but somehow misses the point that immersing people in thoughts they already find comfortable will be doing the opposite of making them think, it is much more likely to lull them to stupor. However, the concern seems to be for some sort of time equality, not purpose, because otherwise religious ideas are just not being treated fairly.
Dr. Feser pulls out the old saw about the desire to disbelieve in hellfire being a motivation for atheism. Oddly, I have met very few Christians who believed they, personally, were going to hell. I certainly never did, back in the day. He doesn't seem to understand the human tendency for exceptionalism, or to be deliberately ignoring it.
Dr. Feser declares that the notions of a selfish gene, or design via natural selection, can only be true and interesting if by these terms we attribute some superhuman, literal intelligence to the gene and the process. I'm not sure what to make of this. Obviously he knows the terms are metaphors that describe the complex interactions of various feedbacks mechanisms. He doesn't think that the study of feedback mechanisms is interesting, that the feedback mechanisms are not true, or that the use of metaphor makes the concept untrue or uninteresting?
Dr. Feser complains about 'Easter Bunny comparisons to God', which he disdains. This is all fine for him, but the authors upon whom he heaps this disdain are do not have the audience of his peers in mind; their books are for the general public, and often specifically the religious members thereof. The Easter Bunny example actually strikes right at the heart of what many of these people believe. If the religious group doesn't have their followers trained in the ideas of Aristotle, why should it be the job of Dennett, et. al., to train them? Later on, Dr. Feser says that this is an example of these authors not being willing to take on the real issues against the formidable opposition. With all the diminutions hurled against these authors, you would think he believe this is the appropriate level of opposition for them, but I suppose he thinks even more poorly of his fellow believers in this regard. At any rate, while I might not have the training of a Dennett, I am happy to accommodate Dr. Feser by engaging his ideas directly. Having read through Chapter 4 so far, I have not found any reason to see his presentation of reason, faith, and religion as having a superior metaphysical basis to your typical Sunday preacher.
Finally, Dr. Feser likes to make great use out of the metaphysical absurdity of square circles. He is unaware that all circles are indeed squares, under the taxicab metric (I'll devote a separate post to that). This is a problem with his metaphysical analysis that we’ll cover in more detail later. For now, let’s just say that like any other formal system, Aristotle’s metaphysics will turn out to be founded on arbitrarily chosen premises that are inherently improvable and not obviously better than a variety of alternatives as a description of reality.
Read more!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Pure Denialism at vere loqui
Martin Cothran joins in the denialfest on the news that the level of snow melt is at a 30-year low.
Both from the terminology and from a small bit of research at a couple of sites, including NASA, the snow melt in any given year seems to be how much the difference in the snow cover over the previous years. Any snow melt is a sign of warmer temperatures. So, saying that this was a year of smaller gains in temperatures than we have seen for a while doesn't really change the message that the warming is going on.
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Both from the terminology and from a small bit of research at a couple of sites, including NASA, the snow melt in any given year seems to be how much the difference in the snow cover over the previous years. Any snow melt is a sign of warmer temperatures. So, saying that this was a year of smaller gains in temperatures than we have seen for a while doesn't really change the message that the warming is going on.
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Never thought it would happen
Watching the lastest Real Time with Bill Maher Sunday, Dr. Bill Frist completely dressed down and embarrassed Bill Maher over Maher's anti-vaccine rhetoric. I cheered out loud. I never thought I would cheer Dr. Frist like that, but he richly deserved my support on that topic (and, for that matter, on most of the health care positions he seems to be taking).
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Friday, October 9, 2009
The 121st Skeptics' Circle
The 121st Skeptics' Circle is up and running at The Mad Skpetic, where Myron does an amusing bit as an announcer for W.E.B.S.
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A discussion of asymptotes
One of the objectives in the Intermediate Algebra class is identifying some basic properties of a relation from looking at a graph (domain, range, is it a function). So, on a test I put in a graph that could roughtly correspond to -log (-x). This graph has the y-axis as an asymptote.
While I have done this a few times before, this is the first time I've had members of the class question whether it was possible for a graph to be an asymptote. As one student said, "Doesn't it need to either go straight up or curl back?" No, not exactly.
So, to make it easier to understand, I talk about how y=1/x behaves as x increases. I won't bore with the details. I get to end the discussion with one of my favorites things to tell a student: It makes perfect sense, it's just counter-intuitive.
If you know anything at all about mathematics, you should know that.
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While I have done this a few times before, this is the first time I've had members of the class question whether it was possible for a graph to be an asymptote. As one student said, "Doesn't it need to either go straight up or curl back?" No, not exactly.
So, to make it easier to understand, I talk about how y=1/x behaves as x increases. I won't bore with the details. I get to end the discussion with one of my favorites things to tell a student: It makes perfect sense, it's just counter-intuitive.
If you know anything at all about mathematics, you should know that.
Read more!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Review of TLS -- a preface
I'm starting a multi-part project today, my first in almost a year (the last one would be a critique of Nagel's paper, if I recall correctly). I will be reviewing/critiquing/responding to Dr. Feser's The Last Superstition for probably the next couple of weeks, at least. I'm going to start this post with a preface of my own, and then look at the preface in the book.
My main purpose will be to look at one thing only: does Dr. Feser present any sort of proof that atheism is untenable, and in particular for his version of God? I have read a variety of comments on Dr. Feser, his variations on the teaching of historical figures, his own associations, etc., from comments on this blog and elsewhere. I understand that many of them are probably legitimate, but I'm not going to address them. Other topics, such as the nature of morality or the practical and political applications thereof will creep into the discussion only because Dr. Feser insists that his proof is evidence that his own particular brand of theism offers these positions obvious rational support. I'm also not going to address the judgemental rhetoric, except to examine any underpinnings they seem to be stemming from, as I don't particularly care what Dr. Feser's opinions are nor how he states them. Further, my goal is to address Dr. Feser's argument on his own ground, in his own terms. Any argument crafted with so much effort deserves at least that much.
Dr. Feser starts with a quote of Plato and then follows with this quote from Aquinas, "A small error in the beginning of something is a great one at the end." I find it ironic that even at the beginning (the preface) of his book, we find errors of category and an error of fact. Now, I don't think these particular errors will be overly relevant to Dr. Feser's argument (certainly not the error of fact), but that just makes them small errors. Whether they have blossomed into great ones at the end, I don't know yet (I'm still in Chapter 2). Both of these errors appear in the same passage:
Just in case you were wondering whether Dr. Feser means that the Pythagorean Theorem is actually true, he leaves no doubt of that in chapter 2 when discussing Platonic Forms: he does indeed mean the Pythagorean Theorem is true as a real-world proposition. This is of course an error. In a formal system where all of Euclid's postulates hold, the Pythagorean Theorem is deducible. However, not all of Euclid's postulates hold in reality (in particular, the postulate regarding lines crossed by a transversal meeting on the side of line where the sum of the interior angles is smaller than 180 degrees, the equivalent to the parallel postulate, does not hold). So, for the followers of realism (as is Dr. Feser), the Pythagorean Theorem is actually false.
The second error is more subtle, and I doubt Dr. Feser would even agree. The types of knowledge used, and the ways that we decide, what marriage is and whether religion is good is completely different from how we derive the Pythagorean Theorem, and the knowledge that H2O is water is a third way of knowing what is true. The three are not comparable. In fact, we aren't completely certain H2O is the formula for water, the Pythagorean Theorem is not real (nor any other purely mathematical concept), and my strong suspicion is that there can be no demonstration of a proper definition for marriage or the goodness of religion.
Isn't nostalgia great? How all those ordinary people were so sexually moral that prostitution was practically unknown, were so religious that they never cursed God and went to church every day. Not to mention, and maybe he missed this, but a modern lower-middle class family of today would be part of the elite back in the days of Aquinas. So, even if his position is true, the modern libertinism and contempt represent no change at all from previous times except for the higher percentage of the population in the elite status.
Read more!
My main purpose will be to look at one thing only: does Dr. Feser present any sort of proof that atheism is untenable, and in particular for his version of God? I have read a variety of comments on Dr. Feser, his variations on the teaching of historical figures, his own associations, etc., from comments on this blog and elsewhere. I understand that many of them are probably legitimate, but I'm not going to address them. Other topics, such as the nature of morality or the practical and political applications thereof will creep into the discussion only because Dr. Feser insists that his proof is evidence that his own particular brand of theism offers these positions obvious rational support. I'm also not going to address the judgemental rhetoric, except to examine any underpinnings they seem to be stemming from, as I don't particularly care what Dr. Feser's opinions are nor how he states them. Further, my goal is to address Dr. Feser's argument on his own ground, in his own terms. Any argument crafted with so much effort deserves at least that much.
Dr. Feser starts with a quote of Plato and then follows with this quote from Aquinas, "A small error in the beginning of something is a great one at the end." I find it ironic that even at the beginning (the preface) of his book, we find errors of category and an error of fact. Now, I don't think these particular errors will be overly relevant to Dr. Feser's argument (certainly not the error of fact), but that just makes them small errors. Whether they have blossomed into great ones at the end, I don't know yet (I'm still in Chapter 2). Both of these errors appear in the same passage:
It is no more up the courts or "the people" to "define" marriage or to decide whether religion is a good thing than it is up to them to "define" whether the Pythagorean Theorem is true of right triangles, or whether water has the chemical structure H2O. In each case, what is at issue is a matter of objective fact that it is the business of reason to discover than democratic procedure to stipulate.
Just in case you were wondering whether Dr. Feser means that the Pythagorean Theorem is actually true, he leaves no doubt of that in chapter 2 when discussing Platonic Forms: he does indeed mean the Pythagorean Theorem is true as a real-world proposition. This is of course an error. In a formal system where all of Euclid's postulates hold, the Pythagorean Theorem is deducible. However, not all of Euclid's postulates hold in reality (in particular, the postulate regarding lines crossed by a transversal meeting on the side of line where the sum of the interior angles is smaller than 180 degrees, the equivalent to the parallel postulate, does not hold). So, for the followers of realism (as is Dr. Feser), the Pythagorean Theorem is actually false.
The second error is more subtle, and I doubt Dr. Feser would even agree. The types of knowledge used, and the ways that we decide, what marriage is and whether religion is good is completely different from how we derive the Pythagorean Theorem, and the knowledge that H2O is water is a third way of knowing what is true. The three are not comparable. In fact, we aren't completely certain H2O is the formula for water, the Pythagorean Theorem is not real (nor any other purely mathematical concept), and my strong suspicion is that there can be no demonstration of a proper definition for marriage or the goodness of religion.
To their minds (or what is left of them) sexual libertinism and contempt for religion, as public, mass phenomena (rather than the private eccentricities of a decadent elite, which of course have always been with us) constitute the final victory of reason ...
Isn't nostalgia great? How all those ordinary people were so sexually moral that prostitution was practically unknown, were so religious that they never cursed God and went to church every day. Not to mention, and maybe he missed this, but a modern lower-middle class family of today would be part of the elite back in the days of Aquinas. So, even if his position is true, the modern libertinism and contempt represent no change at all from previous times except for the higher percentage of the population in the elite status.
Read more!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The 120th Skeptics' Circle
You can fine the 120th Skeptics' Circle at Pro-science, with a straight-forward roundup and topic indicator, and a lot of very good reading.
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Scientific jargon does not support the Fifth Way
Dr. Feser regularly complains that modern's critics of various aspects of design claims and ontological proofs don't really understand the deepness of the arguments of Aquinas-Thomists, and instead are responding to less-rounded arguments made by later philosophers. While I find it curious that his position indicates philosophers seem to have regressed when so many other disciplines have progressed, I feel that the least I can do is repond to Dr. Feser at the level of the arguments he is making. So I'm responding to a post he made on the comments of Jim Manzi regarding the Coyne review or Wright's book and Wright's response. First of all, as a part of my regular theme that we all misread based on our preconceptions, let me say Coyne's review is quite funny in light of Wright’s responses, which boil down to 'I agree with Coyne's point, my book made the same point Coyne is making, and I am not sure why Coyne thinks otherwise'. It's a little embarrassing for Coyne.
Manzi, while claiming to defend Wright, actually addresses a part of Coyne's review that does not even directly refer to Wright's book, but is some stage-setting by Coyne. So, the title to the article is rather incorrect, as Manzi does nothing to defend Wright at all. However, Manzi does defend his own ideas about the comparison of genetic algorithms on computers to the way genes behave, trying to set abiogenesis aside as a philosophical study (without referring to it by name), the importation of a goals into evolution, and the non-physical randomness of mutations. I might decide one day to fisk that article directly, but not today. Below the fold I will excerpt some of Dr. Feser's response to the article, and intersperse some of my own thoughts.
I actually agree with Dr. Feser here, for a given definition of "Darwinism" at any rate. To the degree that we are relying on the science, we have no method of elimination all sorts of exterior teleology and causality. If Dr. Feser is referring to ideas that go beyond the science, then we get into metaphysical assumption whose basis in reality can never be firmly demonstrated.
This is a fine example of 'heads I win, tails you lose' argumentation. Any failures by science to explain something, such as the emergence of consciousness in the brain, is of course evidence that there is something non-physical at work. On the other hand, finding the causes and explanation things can only serve to strengthen the 'Fifth Way' argument of Aquinas for the existence of God. Dr. Feser relies on the work in his book (The Last Superstition, he abbreviates it TLS) regularly rather than outline its arguments, and I have not read it so far. However, I don't find the notion that there is some supernatural "final causality" to be any more likely a proposition than a natural final causality.
I'm not sure whether Dr. Feser understands this or not, but terms like algorithm and information means very different things when applied to biological objects or other non-human-created systems than to computer programs. Algorithms are merely cycles enacted and altered by external stimuli and ended, if at all, by other stimuli (possibly external or internal), while information represents how easily a string can be compressed by interpretations functions that are not aimed specifically at that string. Neither concept has any recognition of teleology or lack thereof, they are statements of content, not purpose.
I do distrust the notion of being "flatly impossible in principle" for many reasons, not the least of which comes from my mathematical training. I find that the Axiom of Choice, or more precise the equivalent statement that the cross-products of non-empty sets is not empty, to be intuitively obvious, to the point that I find it ridiculous to claim that can be an empty cross-product of non-empty sets. The "flatly impossible in principle"Banach-Tarski paradox is a result does not change my mind, since I am forced to choose between to different flatly impossible notions, one of which must be true. I'm Dr. Feser feels he has a good argument for the impossibility of an infinite string of ontological causality, but my recent encounters with philosophers trying to use infinity in a mathematical way leaves me skeptical to the general abilities of philosophers who don't have an extensive mathematical background.
Having read up just a little on what Dr. Feser means by action and potentiality, this strikes me as being pure doggerel. The questions of why the universe exists and operates the way it does do not ever need to end, and they certainly do not end simply because we have an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause. I don't know, nor pretend to know, that such a Mover/Cause does or does not exist, but I do know that, even if we arrive at such an august figure, they are not immune to the further questions of why the Mover/Cause does this, why they feel that, etc., and that the inevitable terminus of this chain is 'We just don't know'. This makes the end of the chain no different from the end of the chain of questions to the naturalist, except the naturalist stops the chain earlier in the process.
This actually reverses motivation and effect from Coyne's point, which is not that attributing purpose to evolution allows the elevation of humans, but that the refusal to accept a non-elevation of humans results in the attributing of purpose to evolution. A => B is quite different from ~B => A.
Again, we have a reversal of cause and effect. It is not the algorithm that acts upon species causing new species to arise, it is the arising of new species in regular ways that is described in terms that look like algorithms to us.
I'm not sure if that is a necessary choice, but I do happen to be on, or at least closer to, the former side. We use terms like "information" and "algorithm" in a jargonistic sense to describe non-human-created systems, and this jargon has its beginning in metaphor. However, the terms have been fairly precisely defined in the given context, so I think it is going too far to say they are merely metaphorical now.
Another good case of a person seeing what they are pre-disposed to see.
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Manzi, while claiming to defend Wright, actually addresses a part of Coyne's review that does not even directly refer to Wright's book, but is some stage-setting by Coyne. So, the title to the article is rather incorrect, as Manzi does nothing to defend Wright at all. However, Manzi does defend his own ideas about the comparison of genetic algorithms on computers to the way genes behave, trying to set abiogenesis aside as a philosophical study (without referring to it by name), the importation of a goals into evolution, and the non-physical randomness of mutations. I might decide one day to fisk that article directly, but not today. Below the fold I will excerpt some of Dr. Feser's response to the article, and intersperse some of my own thoughts.
I argued in The Last Superstition that whatever one thinks of Darwinism, its truth or falsity is (contrary to what New Atheists like Richard Dawkins suppose) irrelevant to the cogency of the Thomistic proofs of God’s existence, including Aquinas’s Fifth Way (which Dawkins incompetently assimilates to Paley’s Design argument).
I actually agree with Dr. Feser here, for a given definition of "Darwinism" at any rate. To the degree that we are relying on the science, we have no method of elimination all sorts of exterior teleology and causality. If Dr. Feser is referring to ideas that go beyond the science, then we get into metaphysical assumption whose basis in reality can never be firmly demonstrated.
Indeed, if Darwinism has any relevance to the latter argument at all, it is in fact by slightly reinforcing rather than undermining it. The reason is that Darwinism, like any scientific theory, posits various causal mechanisms, all causal mechanisms presuppose (for reasons set out in TLS) final causality, and thus (since the take-off point of the Fifth Way is the existence of final causality) Darwinism, qua scientific theory, only lends further support to the Fifth Way.
This is a fine example of 'heads I win, tails you lose' argumentation. Any failures by science to explain something, such as the emergence of consciousness in the brain, is of course evidence that there is something non-physical at work. On the other hand, finding the causes and explanation things can only serve to strengthen the 'Fifth Way' argument of Aquinas for the existence of God. Dr. Feser relies on the work in his book (The Last Superstition, he abbreviates it TLS) regularly rather than outline its arguments, and I have not read it so far. However, I don't find the notion that there is some supernatural "final causality" to be any more likely a proposition than a natural final causality.
I also argued in TLS that the application by biologists, physicists, and other scientists of concepts like “algorithm,” “information,” “software,” “program,” etc. to the natural world evinces a tacit recognition of the reality of teleology or final causation. The reason (set out, again, in detail in TLS) is that the sort of directedness-towards-an-end that these concepts entail just is the core of the Aristotelian-Scholastic conception of final causality.
I'm not sure whether Dr. Feser understands this or not, but terms like algorithm and information means very different things when applied to biological objects or other non-human-created systems than to computer programs. Algorithms are merely cycles enacted and altered by external stimuli and ended, if at all, by other stimuli (possibly external or internal), while information represents how easily a string can be compressed by interpretations functions that are not aimed specifically at that string. Neither concept has any recognition of teleology or lack thereof, they are statements of content, not purpose.
Again, Aristotle and his followers do not argue for a temporal beginning of the universe (even though some of them do happen to believe, on independent grounds, that it had such a beginning). Nor do they think that an infinite regress is a “problem.” For by “infinite regress,” one either means an infinite regress of accidentally ordered causes extending backward in time – in which case such a regress is perfectly possible (and, indeed, actual, in Aristotle’s own view) – or one means an infinite regress of essentially ordered causes of the sort that trace ultimately to simultaneously operating instrumental causes here and now – in which case such a regress is, not merely “problematic” or mysterious (as if such a regress could exist in some as-yet unknown fashion), but flatly impossible in principle. (Again, all of this is explained at length in TLS.)
I do distrust the notion of being "flatly impossible in principle" for many reasons, not the least of which comes from my mathematical training. I find that the Axiom of Choice, or more precise the equivalent statement that the cross-products of non-empty sets is not empty, to be intuitively obvious, to the point that I find it ridiculous to claim that can be an empty cross-product of non-empty sets. The "flatly impossible in principle"Banach-Tarski paradox is a result does not change my mind, since I am forced to choose between to different flatly impossible notions, one of which must be true. I'm Dr. Feser feels he has a good argument for the impossibility of an infinite string of ontological causality, but my recent encounters with philosophers trying to use infinity in a mathematical way leaves me skeptical to the general abilities of philosophers who don't have an extensive mathematical background.
But Manzi’s remarks can be interpreted in another, more Aristotelian way. He might mean that even if the universe had no beginning in time, the basic laws that govern it, and the fact of their continual operation at any given moment, would still require an explanation. Talk of “laws of nature” is more a modern than an Aristotelian way of speaking, but the basic point remains that there is nothing inherent in material reality that can account for the “actualizing” of its “potential” for existing and operating in just the way it does at any particular instant. Unless we trace it down to that which is “pure actuality,” an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause sustaining it in being and operation here and now and at any moment we are even considering the question, we would have no way in principle to account for why the universe exists at all and operates in precisely the way it does. The “problem of infinite regress” on this interpretation is not a matter of accepting a mystery which might have a solution – just one we do not and perhaps cannot discover – but rather the fatal (to naturalism) problem that without acknowledging that the regress of essentially ordered causes operating here and now terminates in an Unmoved Mover, the material world becomes unintelligible even in principle. (You know the drill: See TLS for the details.)
Having read up just a little on what Dr. Feser means by action and potentiality, this strikes me as being pure doggerel. The questions of why the universe exists and operates the way it does do not ever need to end, and they certainly do not end simply because we have an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused Cause. I don't know, nor pretend to know, that such a Mover/Cause does or does not exist, but I do know that, even if we arrive at such an august figure, they are not immune to the further questions of why the Mover/Cause does this, why they feel that, etc., and that the inevitable terminus of this chain is 'We just don't know'. This makes the end of the chain no different from the end of the chain of questions to the naturalist, except the naturalist stops the chain earlier in the process.
Manzi is clearer on the issue of final causality. Coyne seems to think that to attribute purposiveness to evolution entails seeing the human species, specifically, as having somehow been the end result toward which natural selection was working; and he trots out the usual ad hominem response to critics of Darwinism to the effect that they just can’t handle evolution’s humbling implications, blah blah blah.
This actually reverses motivation and effect from Coyne's point, which is not that attributing purpose to evolution allows the elevation of humans, but that the refusal to accept a non-elevation of humans results in the attributing of purpose to evolution. A => B is quite different from ~B => A.
And if this “algorithm” talk is taken seriously, then (to put things more strongly than Manzi does) it necessarily entails, given the nature of algorithms, that there is an end-state towards which the processes in question point – not, to be sure, the generation of some particular species (human or otherwise) at some temporal culmination point, but rather the (in principle non-stop) generation of species after species meeting certain abstract criteria of fitness.
Again, we have a reversal of cause and effect. It is not the algorithm that acts upon species causing new species to arise, it is the arising of new species in regular ways that is described in terms that look like algorithms to us.
Hence one either has to agree with the judgment of thinkers like John Searle that talk of “information,” “algorithms,” etc. is at best a misleading set of metaphors and at worst a complete muddle; or, if one thinks such talk is indispensible (and there is good reason to think it is) one must acknowledge that something like the Aristotelian conception of nature is correct after all.
I'm not sure if that is a necessary choice, but I do happen to be on, or at least closer to, the former side. We use terms like "information" and "algorithm" in a jargonistic sense to describe non-human-created systems, and this jargon has its beginning in metaphor. However, the terms have been fairly precisely defined in the given context, so I think it is going too far to say they are merely metaphorical now.
And, of course, I have noted the many neo-Aristotelian themes to be found in the work of many contemporary philosophers and scientists – including many who have no theological ax to grind – both in TLS and in earlier posts like this one and this one.
Another good case of a person seeing what they are pre-disposed to see.
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Monday, September 21, 2009
My first hour in a Geometry class
This is basically a longer form of the signature quote at the bottom of the page, originally created by a poster named HRG on CARM. My personal attitude toward mathematics is much closer to some combination of formalism and fictionalism than any other position, and I find it useful to remind students that what we are studying is doesn't have to be a perfect representation of the real world in order to be valuable. Indeed, since at the very least the parallel postulate doesn't hold for reality, we are not studying such a system.
So, I start of talking about three criteria that we would like any sort of knowledge to possess. The differ slightly from the usual description of epistemology.
The next part discusses what I see as three different systems that focus on knowledge using the desired attributes above. Of course, any truly broad system of inquiry will make us of all three of the systems I discuss below, but generally only one of them at time. Like a three-way combination of oil and vinegar, they don't seem to mix together. In the examples, I try to offer samples where the primary dependence seems to match the system I use, and the other systems are of secondary significance.
Then the question that guarantees a minute of silence and ten more of discussion: which one of these is mathematics?
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So, I start of talking about three criteria that we would like any sort of knowledge to possess. The differ slightly from the usual description of epistemology.
Reality
We prefer knowledge that reflects the world in which we live, one that has an application to things outside of our imagination. Saying that a ball is red, that an action is evil, that 2 + 2 = 4 would ideally say something about the apple, the action, or the numbers themselves.
Demonstrability
We prefer knowledge that we can show, by some sort of objective process, holds to be true. This allows us to convince skeptical people that the knowledge is valid. Saying that a ball is red, and action is evil, or that 2 + 2 = 4 would mean we had accepted means of demonstrations so that every observer who accepted such means as valid would accept the result.
Certainty
We prefer knowledge that won't change with time, that stands firm. when something is true, it should stay true and not become partly true or even false later on. A red ball should always be red (assuming the ball itself does not change), an evil action should always be evil, and 2 + 2 should always equal 4.
The next part discusses what I see as three different systems that focus on knowledge using the desired attributes above. Of course, any truly broad system of inquiry will make us of all three of the systems I discuss below, but generally only one of them at time. Like a three-way combination of oil and vinegar, they don't seem to mix together. In the examples, I try to offer samples where the primary dependence seems to match the system I use, and the other systems are of secondary significance.
Empirical systems
Empirical systems rely on the investigation of the real word and use inductive processes and assumption to decide what is more generally true about that world. They use demonstrable methods such as taking measurements, running controlled experiments, and making predictions to be verified by further observations and experiments. Because the observations are founded in actual investigations, their reality to the world is a natural consequence. However, the use of the inductive method means that the results can not be certain, that all finding are provisional and possibly erroneous. The best that can be hoped for is beyond a good reason to doubt a finding. Examples of empirical systems would include physics and the results of national polls regarding elections.
Formal systems
Formal systems rely on working from a starting point accepted as being true and using an accepted, objective, deductive means of deriving new truths within that system. The method of deriving new truths within the system is the demonstration of that truth, and the process of deriving the truth would be repeatable regardless of the observer. Also, given a specific starting point, the same truth will always be the result (at least, ideally). However, since the starting point is selected rather than derived, there is no guarantee that such a starting point will have any bearing on the world around us. A formal system may be a useful model of reality, but we can never know whether it matches reality. Examples would include philosophy and law (as practiced at the appellate level).
Belief systems
Belief systems use the trusted, revealed knowledge of an authority of some sort to provide as description of the world and its operation. The truths that we get from this authority are accepted because of the level of trust, not because of any independent test that we run. Belief systems do provide a view of reality and knowledge about the state of affairs in the universe. Also, because the source is some consistent authority, they have the feature of certainty, of not changing within the system itself. However, because our acceptance of this knowledge is based upon trust rather than a means to validate them, these truths are generally not demonstrable to others in a significant or meaningful way. Examples include Shintoism and Objectivism.
Then the question that guarantees a minute of silence and ten more of discussion: which one of these is mathematics?
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Thursday, September 10, 2009
The 119th Skeptics' Circle
You can find the 119th Skeptics' Circle up at Cubik's Rube, with a long narrative and a host of links i don't have time to read today. There is also a shorter, link-only version.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Why ID advocates need proof of a Designer
In my recent discussions with JoeG at the self-styled Intelligent Reasoning, one of the topics that arose was that design is offered the default status in Dembski's Explanatory Filter. You supposedly rule out necessity at the first step, and chance at the next two, and are left with design at the end. This is also true of Dembski's Complex Specified Information formulation and of Behe's Irreducible Complexity. By claiming they can defeat the argument that certain types of objects can not arise through chance alone, they then present you with their only alternative: some outside-the-process designer who deliberately sought to create life as we have it, apparently with special care given to clotting cascades and bacterial mobility. In the course of the aforementioned discussions, I pointed out that there are two other alternatives beside the Designer and no design. JoeG, with the usual deftness of ID advocates, disputed that these were alternatives, and in the process created two I had not even considered, helping to defeat his own position. While I have seen reference to other possibilities existing, I don't recall reading a listing of them, so I thought I would provide one. Let's say that at some point in the future ID proponents succeed in their efforts at convincing us that necessity and chance can provide no sufficient explanation for life. For any program to prove a Designer exists, all of the options below will need to be disproved as well.
Suggestions from the commentators are welcome and may be added. In fact, I may make this my other annual re-post. Details below the fold.
The first option I proposed is life as a by product of some other intention by an outside agent. Life on earth might be a spandrel, something that happened when the Agent was in the process of organizing some other thing. This allows for all sorts of possibilities in the history of life, including the sudden appearance of features of organisms, or even entire organisms, not because the Agent cares about or even notices life here, but as a side-effect of some other intended cause. Any functions we perceive in biological systems would be reflections of the real design, unheard echos.
The next option I proposed was the interior designer, life having a gradually emergent consciousness that began to direct its own activities. The geek in me would call it the Force. As life grows, it begins to direct and design itself, shaping itself into greater levels of complexity, sacrificing some of its own forms in favor of other forms, weathering mass extinctions with determination and ferocity. Life would add it's own functions, choosing to make sure the bacteria got its flagellum, leaving all the hallmarks of design and purpose directly but having no outside designer they are attached to. It's very New Agey.
While disputing my first option, JoeG suggested the outside agent who doesn't even care what he's doing as an attempt at rebuttal, creating a third option: the random outside agent. ID proponents are fond of the tornado-in-a-junkyard argument, the equivalent metaphor here might be a sledgehammer-in-a-junkyard. Of course, the key difference is that the sledgehammer still has to be swung by some person. This is an outside agent that would leave traces that looked like they might design all over the places (the marks from the hammer), but involve no actual design intention on the part of the agent. So, merely detecting signs of design is not proof of design.
Finally, while discussing my second option, JoeG derisively referred to it as "poof". I thought about it, and decided that Poof is a poor description of that option, but an interesting alternative to it. One variation would be a sudden, persistent appearance of a consciousness for life, but an even more interesting variation is a consciousness life creates that appears only when it is needed to direct or preserve something about life, or life itself. Poof awakens when an asteroid hits the planet, or the global temperatures get too warm or too cold, etc. Poof then gets to work in changing the living things that remain, adding a flagellum her or altering a blood cascade there, to make sure life goes on as it should (or at all), and then disappears, ready to be summoned again at need.
So, even if the ID proponents somehow manage to topple the possibility of chance and necessity being sufficient, they have a long way to go to get to their Designer. I doubt I have exhausted the possibilities, either. If you want to say there is a Designer, you need proof of a Designer.
Read more!
Suggestions from the commentators are welcome and may be added. In fact, I may make this my other annual re-post. Details below the fold.
The first option I proposed is life as a by product of some other intention by an outside agent. Life on earth might be a spandrel, something that happened when the Agent was in the process of organizing some other thing. This allows for all sorts of possibilities in the history of life, including the sudden appearance of features of organisms, or even entire organisms, not because the Agent cares about or even notices life here, but as a side-effect of some other intended cause. Any functions we perceive in biological systems would be reflections of the real design, unheard echos.
The next option I proposed was the interior designer, life having a gradually emergent consciousness that began to direct its own activities. The geek in me would call it the Force. As life grows, it begins to direct and design itself, shaping itself into greater levels of complexity, sacrificing some of its own forms in favor of other forms, weathering mass extinctions with determination and ferocity. Life would add it's own functions, choosing to make sure the bacteria got its flagellum, leaving all the hallmarks of design and purpose directly but having no outside designer they are attached to. It's very New Agey.
While disputing my first option, JoeG suggested the outside agent who doesn't even care what he's doing as an attempt at rebuttal, creating a third option: the random outside agent. ID proponents are fond of the tornado-in-a-junkyard argument, the equivalent metaphor here might be a sledgehammer-in-a-junkyard. Of course, the key difference is that the sledgehammer still has to be swung by some person. This is an outside agent that would leave traces that looked like they might design all over the places (the marks from the hammer), but involve no actual design intention on the part of the agent. So, merely detecting signs of design is not proof of design.
Finally, while discussing my second option, JoeG derisively referred to it as "poof". I thought about it, and decided that Poof is a poor description of that option, but an interesting alternative to it. One variation would be a sudden, persistent appearance of a consciousness for life, but an even more interesting variation is a consciousness life creates that appears only when it is needed to direct or preserve something about life, or life itself. Poof awakens when an asteroid hits the planet, or the global temperatures get too warm or too cold, etc. Poof then gets to work in changing the living things that remain, adding a flagellum her or altering a blood cascade there, to make sure life goes on as it should (or at all), and then disappears, ready to be summoned again at need.
So, even if the ID proponents somehow manage to topple the possibility of chance and necessity being sufficient, they have a long way to go to get to their Designer. I doubt I have exhausted the possibilities, either. If you want to say there is a Designer, you need proof of a Designer.
Read more!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Keeping the kids in a bubble
I probably won't mention the Illinois Family Institute very often on this blog. For the most part, their particular flavors of intolerance and woo don't interact with the subjects I like to write about. Once in a great while they'll put up some bland global warming denialism, but mostly it's just politically slanted tripe and homophobia, and there are other bloggers who are really passionate on those topics. My rant is below the fold.
However, Laurie Higgins decided to direct her focus at my kid's school, and in particular at the Challenge Day program they are bringing over. Before I go on, there are two things you should understand about O'Fallon: we are the dead center of the most conservative area of St. Clair County (many residents are current or past Department of Defense workers, as Scott Air force Base is quite close), and our school system has plenty of money (we have 2 new schools built in the past 2 years). So, we really don't need some conservative wingnut protecting our family values, we already have an elected school board that is almost as right-wing anyhow. I'm not going to pretend I have enough information on the program to evaluate its true value, and am skeptical of any week inducing a life-changing experience on people (shy of physical trauma), but if this program was really just some touchy-feely lib-fest, it would not have been funded.
Of course, Ms. Higgins has to pull out some made-for-right-wing expert testimony, and her choice is the book One Nation Under God, a book described as "...a literary version of the thankfully defunct TV show "Crossfire"' and 'They are also waging a dated war against an imagined army of censorious liberals, ... It is culture-wars kitsch'. This of course makes them fabulous sources for a blog devoted to those culture wars.
Fortunately, we get to find out the real problems directly from Ms. Higgins. She quotes from the website:
Note that I did not add the emphasis, nor did the goals of Challenge Day. The emphasis is being added by Ms. Higgins, because that's the stuff that's really concerning. Not that she approves of stereotypes, intolerance, sexism, or homophobia. Just because she thinks children should be pulled from school when teh school allows protesting homophobia does not mean she supports it herself, no siree. She just doesn't think children should be exposed to other children opposing homophobia. You know, because being exposed to homophobia-opposition will be so damaging for the kids.
Ms. Higgins, your attention is not needed, productive, interesting, nor welcome.
Read more!
However, Laurie Higgins decided to direct her focus at my kid's school, and in particular at the Challenge Day program they are bringing over. Before I go on, there are two things you should understand about O'Fallon: we are the dead center of the most conservative area of St. Clair County (many residents are current or past Department of Defense workers, as Scott Air force Base is quite close), and our school system has plenty of money (we have 2 new schools built in the past 2 years). So, we really don't need some conservative wingnut protecting our family values, we already have an elected school board that is almost as right-wing anyhow. I'm not going to pretend I have enough information on the program to evaluate its true value, and am skeptical of any week inducing a life-changing experience on people (shy of physical trauma), but if this program was really just some touchy-feely lib-fest, it would not have been funded.
Of course, Ms. Higgins has to pull out some made-for-right-wing expert testimony, and her choice is the book One Nation Under God, a book described as "...a literary version of the thankfully defunct TV show "Crossfire"' and 'They are also waging a dated war against an imagined army of censorious liberals, ... It is culture-wars kitsch'. This of course makes them fabulous sources for a blog devoted to those culture wars.
Fortunately, we get to find out the real problems directly from Ms. Higgins. She quotes from the website:
Challenge Day successfully addresses some common issues seen at most schools during our school programs including cliques, gossip, rumors, negative judgments, teasing, harassment, isolation, stereotypes, intolerance, racism, sexism, bullying, violence, homophobia, (emphasis added) hopelessness, apathy, and hidden pressures to create an image, achieve or live up to the expectations of others....Be challenged to celebrate the diversity of ALL people.
Note that I did not add the emphasis, nor did the goals of Challenge Day. The emphasis is being added by Ms. Higgins, because that's the stuff that's really concerning. Not that she approves of stereotypes, intolerance, sexism, or homophobia. Just because she thinks children should be pulled from school when teh school allows protesting homophobia does not mean she supports it herself, no siree. She just doesn't think children should be exposed to other children opposing homophobia. You know, because being exposed to homophobia-opposition will be so damaging for the kids.
Ms. Higgins, your attention is not needed, productive, interesting, nor welcome.
Read more!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The 118th Skeptics' Circle
At Evolving Mind we have the Looking Closely edition of the Skeptics' Circle. There are nice bits about the development of precision lenses in microscopes and telescopes as well as the usual links, and I enjoyed it immensely.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The foundations of non-skeptical thinking
I was looking over some of the web sites attached to the members of Intelligent Reasoning when I came across the blog More Than Words by team member David Anderson, and in particular noticed a label he had for Mathematics. It turned into an opportunity to blog on skepticism, mathematics, and philosophy in general, an irresistible combination to me. Continued below the fold.
The particular topic is the general notion of whether mathematics, and similar sorts of activities, are describing something that is real. I have touched upon this topic in previous posts. In some ways, this argument is at the very heart of the worldviews that assert there can be some absolute truth, moral principles, authority, etc. You can't hang an absolute morality or absolute knowledge on a logical foundation that is arbitrary, at least not without some cognitive discomfort.
So, n Anderson's post on mathematics, we find Anderson arguing for how mathematicians feel mathematics is a feature of reality. All quotes following are from his post, unless otherwise noted.
Yes, the good old 2+2 = 5 argument (it never occurs to such people that it is perfectly reasonable in some circumstances to say 2 + 2 = 1). Now, I am sure there are mathematicians who think there is some big design they are uncovering, and that belief does not prevent them from being fine mathematicians. It's probably even a positive when you are working closely with computer scientists, engineers, or physicist in pushing the boundaries of mathematics for direct applications. However, having enjoyed some 66 semester hours of undergraduate mathematics and another 36 at the graduate level, I can say that I ran into more than a few instructors and fellow students who treated mathematics exactly like an arbitrary toy, something you could play with, take apart, and build to order. Most of them, to my knowledge, would not have cared if there were a philosophical position that reflected this attitude, but I find fictionalism to be a decent approximation. We were playing in a universe we created for our benefit, and occasionally something useful would pop out.
Actually, mathematics is highly receptive to humans treating it like an arbitrary invention. It's why we have Euclidean, Lobachevkian, and Riemannian geometries to describe different sorts of space. It's we we have intuitionist, constructivist, and para-consistent logics and their mathematical descendants. We add or remove axioms at our pleasure, look at the results, and call it fun (and occasionally useful).
Now, this is a great example of fuzzy-headed thinking, an absolute truth that is right except where it is wrong. If I smash two apples against two apples, I will quite possibly have over 100 bits of apple. If I pour two liters of water into two liters of alcohol, I will have under 3.9 liters of fluid. Except in very limited circumstances, numbers are not conserved!
Here's an interesting question: how the fundamental nature of an ideal reality depend upon a human mind? Personally, I don't think is can or does. Perhaps Anderson mistyped, and meant that the reality is revealed to the mind, or perhaps it was a Freudian slip. I do think that the reality of any particular five-dimensional construction we create depends on our mind. That makes it not a fundamental property of nature.
The notion of twoness, and similar notions, is the pattern that we humans impose upon our world to make it simpler. Since we are identifying a pattern, it is unsurprising that no one instance of the pattern will form a complete rendition.
I can create a two-dimensional shape that is approximately (but never exactly - because we live in a world of discrete atoms and molecules) equal to the one in the equation of the graph I was using. This is all simple enough.
Anderson references quantum mechanics later on. Perhaps it's my ignorance, but wouldn't it be much more correct to say we live in a worlds of fuzzy atoms and molecules behaving in probabilistic ways? Even here, the need to have absolutes alters the mindset.
I'm not sure why this is particularly breathtaking. While we play with mathematics as a toy, we also do like to make it useful. So, a mathematician, playing around with equations that are useful descriptions of quantum mechanics, comes across a new feature which also has utility, based upon deductively playing with something already utilized. I don't see why that would be surprising. I don't think it would be particularly shocking to Anderson if an engineer predicted that a steel beam would collapse under a certain weight load, and was correct.
Anderson very obligingly illustrated my point for me. This notion of real versus useful fictions is not just semantics and playing with words. It's a part of how and why believers believe, one of the pillars they use to prop up their world view.
I'll offer one final link to a rant by a mathematician, offered because he views mathematics as an art. I don't endorse everything he says about education, but his view of mathematics fits much more closely with the mathematicians I learned from and with.
Read more!
The particular topic is the general notion of whether mathematics, and similar sorts of activities, are describing something that is real. I have touched upon this topic in previous posts. In some ways, this argument is at the very heart of the worldviews that assert there can be some absolute truth, moral principles, authority, etc. You can't hang an absolute morality or absolute knowledge on a logical foundation that is arbitrary, at least not without some cognitive discomfort.
So, n Anderson's post on mathematics, we find Anderson arguing for how mathematicians feel mathematics is a feature of reality. All quotes following are from his post, unless otherwise noted.
Mathematics is also a very interesting field if you have an interest in philosophy and questions about design in nature. Almost all mathematicians are in practice realists - they believe that as they make progress in their field they are involved in discovering and not in inventing. (See here for more on this distinction). That is, they act and research as if there is already a transcendent, pre-existing mathematical universe "out there" that is waiting for us to find and explore it. The opposite of that is behaving as if mathematics is our arbitrary toy, to be played with, deconstructed and rebuilt as we please. Shall we adopt the convention that 2+2 = 5 from now on and see where that takes us?
Yes, the good old 2+2 = 5 argument (it never occurs to such people that it is perfectly reasonable in some circumstances to say 2 + 2 = 1). Now, I am sure there are mathematicians who think there is some big design they are uncovering, and that belief does not prevent them from being fine mathematicians. It's probably even a positive when you are working closely with computer scientists, engineers, or physicist in pushing the boundaries of mathematics for direct applications. However, having enjoyed some 66 semester hours of undergraduate mathematics and another 36 at the graduate level, I can say that I ran into more than a few instructors and fellow students who treated mathematics exactly like an arbitrary toy, something you could play with, take apart, and build to order. Most of them, to my knowledge, would not have cared if there were a philosophical position that reflected this attitude, but I find fictionalism to be a decent approximation. We were playing in a universe we created for our benefit, and occasionally something useful would pop out.
In my view, the atheist materialists who have tried to explain their view of reality are in an exceptionally weak position when they seek to explain mathematics in non-transcendent terms. Mathematics resists, at multiple levels, any attempt to treat it as an arbitrary invention of the human mind. Almost at every turn it cries out "I was here before you, and I am bigger than you!". Maths is a very theistic subject!
Actually, mathematics is highly receptive to humans treating it like an arbitrary invention. It's why we have Euclidean, Lobachevkian, and Riemannian geometries to describe different sorts of space. It's we we have intuitionist, constructivist, and para-consistent logics and their mathematical descendants. We add or remove axioms at our pleasure, look at the results, and call it fun (and occasionally useful).
I can of course always add two apples to two apples and will always get four apples (an inconvenient truth for the atheists who want to argue that mathematical truths are not transcendent!) - but as I do so I'm conscious that there is a notion of "two-ness" or "four-ness" that goes far beyond the tasty bits of fruit and is independent of them.
Now, this is a great example of fuzzy-headed thinking, an absolute truth that is right except where it is wrong. If I smash two apples against two apples, I will quite possibly have over 100 bits of apple. If I pour two liters of water into two liters of alcohol, I will have under 3.9 liters of fluid. Except in very limited circumstances, numbers are not conserved!
The more complicated the mathematics gets, the more obvious this becomes. I can move from the simple adding of objects to a dimension up and do calculus to work out the area under a graph. I can then accelerate to five or six dimensional spaces and work out their corresponding concept of volume. I can work out the properties of completely theoretical objects. you get the idea. Mathematics speaks to us of an ideal reality which depends on the mind.
Here's an interesting question: how the fundamental nature of an ideal reality depend upon a human mind? Personally, I don't think is can or does. Perhaps Anderson mistyped, and meant that the reality is revealed to the mind, or perhaps it was a Freudian slip. I do think that the reality of any particular five-dimensional construction we create depends on our mind. That makes it not a fundamental property of nature.
Whilst it depends on the mind, mathematics also seems to have an unbreakable link to the physical world. In the most simple example, there's something about those two oranges that has the notion of two-ness. The notion of two-ness is contained, but not exhausted, by them.
The notion of twoness, and similar notions, is the pattern that we humans impose upon our world to make it simpler. Since we are identifying a pattern, it is unsurprising that no one instance of the pattern will form a complete rendition.
I can create a two-dimensional shape that is approximately (but never exactly - because we live in a world of discrete atoms and molecules) equal to the one in the equation of the graph I was using. This is all simple enough.
Anderson references quantum mechanics later on. Perhaps it's my ignorance, but wouldn't it be much more correct to say we live in a worlds of fuzzy atoms and molecules behaving in probabilistic ways? Even here, the need to have absolutes alters the mindset.
What is more breath-taking, though, is to understand that correspondences between abstract mathematics and the physical world have also been discovered in far more complicated cases. In some areas, mathematicians discovered new theorems in highly abstract areas that nobody thought would ever turn out to have a practical application - but in fact they actually perfectly described physical phenomena observed decades later. Do you get that? Away in his dusty study somewhere, the mathematician was working on a problem that was thought to be far too abstract to have any real application. Some time later, a physicist realised that this bit of mathematics was the key to something that he was observing. Quantum physics provides a number of illustrations of this.
I'm not sure why this is particularly breathtaking. While we play with mathematics as a toy, we also do like to make it useful. So, a mathematician, playing around with equations that are useful descriptions of quantum mechanics, comes across a new feature which also has utility, based upon deductively playing with something already utilized. I don't see why that would be surprising. I don't think it would be particularly shocking to Anderson if an engineer predicted that a steel beam would collapse under a certain weight load, and was correct.
Observation one: Mathematics has its seat in minds. Observation two: We also now know that mathematics is also embedded at a fundamental and essential in physical reality. Inescapable conclusion: Physical reality is the product of a mind.
Anderson very obligingly illustrated my point for me. This notion of real versus useful fictions is not just semantics and playing with words. It's a part of how and why believers believe, one of the pillars they use to prop up their world view.
I'll offer one final link to a rant by a mathematician, offered because he views mathematics as an art. I don't endorse everything he says about education, but his view of mathematics fits much more closely with the mathematicians I learned from and with.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Discussion on evolution, part 4
I think we are getting close to the end of this discussion. Response below the fold.
You may disagree with my point, if you truly understand it, but it cannot be because you disgree with my useage of the term theoretical. That's what you have tried to make "the point" but it aint, and never has been, mine. Call "natural selection" theoretical if it pleases you. I really don't care in the least what you "call" it in that respect. Either way the assertion of it's "existence" is a completely different issue than the issue of defining and explaining the exact role it plays in causing evolution.
I agree here too. Since my point is that theories can be as sure, as reliable, as supported as facts, and the issue of the role of a theoretical construct is a different discussion from it's existence, your point does not detract from mine.
Ok, finally we agree. Now, if we can just leave "natural selection" out of the process of creating novelty, we can perhaps make some progress on the issue I'm trying to discuss---the "mechanisms" by which genetic novelty is produced. Recombination aside (which itself "creates" nothing novel) do you agree that "mutations" are the sole source of genuine heritable novelty? If you say yes, then I will ask you about how the "randomness" part works.
That would almost be by definition, mutations are defined as heritable variations, unless you mean specifically mutations to DNA, in which case I would disagree.
Where, here again, I think we have two different understandings of what epistemology (whether used as a noun, an adjective, or whatever) is, so I suggest we quit using that term. Any meaningful statement of any kind will contain some "notions," but that does not make the nature of the claim itself epistemological (in the sense I think you are using it--which is not my sense). If I say "God is a big dude, probably at least 9 feet tall, who lives in the sky," I'm sure that claim must contain some element which you would call epistemological. The nature of the claim is nonetheless metaphyical.
We still need a way to categorize the difference between 'God is 9 feet tall', which would be a property God would have independent of the surrounding environment, and "God has helped me', which is a statement that only makes sense in a particular environment and is not just about God. I have accepted referring to both as ontological. If you want to call them both metaphysical, I think that is an abuse of term, since it allows the conclusions of science to be metaphysical, but I'm willing to live with it, as long as there is a way we can refer to the difference.
Yes, I do feel this is a very close analogy to the ways mutations are or are not considered random.
Well, in one sense of the term "metaphysical," it is precisely those assertions which are assumed as an unquestioned starting point which are "metaphysical."
It is always assumed that "metaphysical" claims are not subject to verification. In many places in this thread you seem to imply that the starting "axioms" of a theory are themselves empirically derived. This can't be the case.
This is why you don't understand scientific theories.
An assumption according to Asimov is...
At times you have also indicated that you think "scientific theory" is utterly devoid of any assumptions which have not been empirically proven (and at other times you seem to say you think otherwise). What is your stance on this issue exactly?
The assumptions of science include uniformitarianism (reactions that happen today are the same as those that happen yesterday, a million years ago, etc.), the ability to obtain objective measurements, and the actual existence of the universe to measure. I'm sure I could name more along those lines. They are metaphysical assumptions, not subject to verification.
Theoretical starting points like the constancy of the speed of light and the randomness of mutations with respect to the needs of the environment are inferential extensions based upon observation in a variety of conditions. They are not axioms in the sense a formal theory has axioms. They are always provisional.
I agree with your first paragraph. A naked hypothesis with no specific content, such as, matter is made up of atoms, is NOT a scientific theory,
That's not a hypothesis, it was a speculation (now I would say it is a fact).
even though, people may refer to the "atomic theory" of the ancient greeks as simply this. At a minimum, some specific content is require as an essential prerequisite for qualifying as a "scientific theory." That said, I do not think that mere fact that some claim has a semblance of "theoretical" overtones makes it a full-blown "scientific theory," and I take it that you don't either.
I'm not sure what you meant here, so I am assuming it is, 'I do not think the mere fact that some claim has a semblance of "theoretical" overtones makes it a full-blown "scientific theory," and I take it that you don't either'. I would agree that claims with theoretical overtones start as hypotheses. I would agree a claim that makes flat, simple assertion of mechanism is a poor theory in need of enrichment, and thus not a full-blown scientific theory. I'm not sure if that is what you meant.
This whole discussion relates to the NAS pamphlet and their equivocal use of the term "theory" in that pamphlet. I really don't care to dwell on semantics for semantics' sake. But when sophistical semantical tactics are used to mislead, I may take a greater interest.
I see the pamphlet as trying to communicate the idea correctly using language that would be imprecise in a discussion between science philosophers, but is understandable and communicates the idea correctly to laymen with far less exposure than us. I agree "factual" is less than ideal, but it does communicate the surety correctly.
In the next quote, you attributed your words to me. Please be more careful.
aintnuthin said: "Used in this sense, it is a mere hypothesis devoid of any broad explanatory content.
One Brow said :"It's a one-sentence summary of a long list of diseases to which the theory applies, the germs that cause them, the methods the germs have for entering and multiplying within the body, etc."
It could be taken as an (implicit) summary, but it doesn't have to mean that (that is simply the way you would read it).
I encourage you to email Orac at Respectful Insolence, or any other person who writes and thinks about such things, and ask them if saying 'the germ theory of disease is the theory that various germs cause various diseases' is the content of the theory or a summary of such as I described above.
That is the problem with the NAS pamphlet, they don't mean it the way you are interpreting it, but they know you are nonetheless likely to read it that way.
1) I am not the intended audience.
2) I believe that is exactly what they mean by 'germ theory of disease', or theory generally.
That's what they want you to do. They don't even attempt to clarify what they really mean, but they leave themselves an "escape route" if challenged, by claiming that if you take it the way they want you to, then you misread it. That this is exactly what they are doing only becomes fully exposed when you read other literature of theirs.
I have no idea what sort of exposing you think can happen.
As with germ theory, wiki has a generic definition of "atomic theory" which term basically serves to distinguish from the opposite hypothesis:
"In chemistry and physics, atomic theory is a theory of the nature of matter, which states that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms, as opposed to the obsolete notion that matter could be divided into any arbitrarily small quantity. It began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and India"
That is one defintion of "atomic theory."
Again, it is a summary, not a definition. I encourage you to email a few physicists who think about these things and ask them.
Read more!
You may disagree with my point, if you truly understand it, but it cannot be because you disgree with my useage of the term theoretical. That's what you have tried to make "the point" but it aint, and never has been, mine. Call "natural selection" theoretical if it pleases you. I really don't care in the least what you "call" it in that respect. Either way the assertion of it's "existence" is a completely different issue than the issue of defining and explaining the exact role it plays in causing evolution.
I agree here too. Since my point is that theories can be as sure, as reliable, as supported as facts, and the issue of the role of a theoretical construct is a different discussion from it's existence, your point does not detract from mine.
Ok, finally we agree. Now, if we can just leave "natural selection" out of the process of creating novelty, we can perhaps make some progress on the issue I'm trying to discuss---the "mechanisms" by which genetic novelty is produced. Recombination aside (which itself "creates" nothing novel) do you agree that "mutations" are the sole source of genuine heritable novelty? If you say yes, then I will ask you about how the "randomness" part works.
That would almost be by definition, mutations are defined as heritable variations, unless you mean specifically mutations to DNA, in which case I would disagree.
Where, here again, I think we have two different understandings of what epistemology (whether used as a noun, an adjective, or whatever) is, so I suggest we quit using that term. Any meaningful statement of any kind will contain some "notions," but that does not make the nature of the claim itself epistemological (in the sense I think you are using it--which is not my sense). If I say "God is a big dude, probably at least 9 feet tall, who lives in the sky," I'm sure that claim must contain some element which you would call epistemological. The nature of the claim is nonetheless metaphyical.
We still need a way to categorize the difference between 'God is 9 feet tall', which would be a property God would have independent of the surrounding environment, and "God has helped me', which is a statement that only makes sense in a particular environment and is not just about God. I have accepted referring to both as ontological. If you want to call them both metaphysical, I think that is an abuse of term, since it allows the conclusions of science to be metaphysical, but I'm willing to live with it, as long as there is a way we can refer to the difference.
Yes, I do feel this is a very close analogy to the ways mutations are or are not considered random.
Well, in one sense of the term "metaphysical," it is precisely those assertions which are assumed as an unquestioned starting point which are "metaphysical."
It is always assumed that "metaphysical" claims are not subject to verification. In many places in this thread you seem to imply that the starting "axioms" of a theory are themselves empirically derived. This can't be the case.
This is why you don't understand scientific theories.
An assumption according to Asimov is...
At times you have also indicated that you think "scientific theory" is utterly devoid of any assumptions which have not been empirically proven (and at other times you seem to say you think otherwise). What is your stance on this issue exactly?
The assumptions of science include uniformitarianism (reactions that happen today are the same as those that happen yesterday, a million years ago, etc.), the ability to obtain objective measurements, and the actual existence of the universe to measure. I'm sure I could name more along those lines. They are metaphysical assumptions, not subject to verification.
Theoretical starting points like the constancy of the speed of light and the randomness of mutations with respect to the needs of the environment are inferential extensions based upon observation in a variety of conditions. They are not axioms in the sense a formal theory has axioms. They are always provisional.
I agree with your first paragraph. A naked hypothesis with no specific content, such as, matter is made up of atoms, is NOT a scientific theory,
That's not a hypothesis, it was a speculation (now I would say it is a fact).
even though, people may refer to the "atomic theory" of the ancient greeks as simply this. At a minimum, some specific content is require as an essential prerequisite for qualifying as a "scientific theory." That said, I do not think that mere fact that some claim has a semblance of "theoretical" overtones makes it a full-blown "scientific theory," and I take it that you don't either.
I'm not sure what you meant here, so I am assuming it is, 'I do not think the mere fact that some claim has a semblance of "theoretical" overtones makes it a full-blown "scientific theory," and I take it that you don't either'. I would agree that claims with theoretical overtones start as hypotheses. I would agree a claim that makes flat, simple assertion of mechanism is a poor theory in need of enrichment, and thus not a full-blown scientific theory. I'm not sure if that is what you meant.
This whole discussion relates to the NAS pamphlet and their equivocal use of the term "theory" in that pamphlet. I really don't care to dwell on semantics for semantics' sake. But when sophistical semantical tactics are used to mislead, I may take a greater interest.
I see the pamphlet as trying to communicate the idea correctly using language that would be imprecise in a discussion between science philosophers, but is understandable and communicates the idea correctly to laymen with far less exposure than us. I agree "factual" is less than ideal, but it does communicate the surety correctly.
In the next quote, you attributed your words to me. Please be more careful.
aintnuthin said: "Used in this sense, it is a mere hypothesis devoid of any broad explanatory content.
One Brow said :"It's a one-sentence summary of a long list of diseases to which the theory applies, the germs that cause them, the methods the germs have for entering and multiplying within the body, etc."
It could be taken as an (implicit) summary, but it doesn't have to mean that (that is simply the way you would read it).
I encourage you to email Orac at Respectful Insolence, or any other person who writes and thinks about such things, and ask them if saying 'the germ theory of disease is the theory that various germs cause various diseases' is the content of the theory or a summary of such as I described above.
That is the problem with the NAS pamphlet, they don't mean it the way you are interpreting it, but they know you are nonetheless likely to read it that way.
1) I am not the intended audience.
2) I believe that is exactly what they mean by 'germ theory of disease', or theory generally.
That's what they want you to do. They don't even attempt to clarify what they really mean, but they leave themselves an "escape route" if challenged, by claiming that if you take it the way they want you to, then you misread it. That this is exactly what they are doing only becomes fully exposed when you read other literature of theirs.
I have no idea what sort of exposing you think can happen.
As with germ theory, wiki has a generic definition of "atomic theory" which term basically serves to distinguish from the opposite hypothesis:
"In chemistry and physics, atomic theory is a theory of the nature of matter, which states that matter is composed of discrete units called atoms, as opposed to the obsolete notion that matter could be divided into any arbitrarily small quantity. It began as a philosophical concept in ancient Greece and India"
That is one defintion of "atomic theory."
Again, it is a summary, not a definition. I encourage you to email a few physicists who think about these things and ask them.
Read more!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Yes, I suffer from vanity
I was very pleased to see today that, if you enter 'One Brow' (sans quotes, no less) in the Yahoo! search bar, my blog is the first item returned, and the second one at Google.
On the other hand, I don't appear in the first five pages of MSN/Bing. In fact, searching on 'life universe "One Brow"' brought multiple hits to other blogs linking to me, but not my blog, in the first five pages of search. Why does MSN hate me?
Read more!
On the other hand, I don't appear in the first five pages of MSN/Bing. In fact, searching on 'life universe "One Brow"' brought multiple hits to other blogs linking to me, but not my blog, in the first five pages of search. Why does MSN hate me?
Read more!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
A few less popular blogs looked at
While it can be interesting, and sometimes challenging, to look at the more popular blogs in the ID movement, I'm going to look at a couple that are not so well-traveled. Picking on someone my own size, so to speak. Also, many bloggers like to have regular blog-fodder, I'm no different there. These are the foot-soldiers of the movement. They cough up the money buying the books, and don't use weasel-words designed to give them an out.
Over at the self-styled Intelligent Reasoning, we have Joe G saying in this post that there really is a scientific statement lurking somewhere in ID, based upon Behe's statement
He also offers this note:
However, Joe G misses a couple of basic problems with his arguments. First of all, the effects of design can exactly resemble the effects of nature. In fact, design uses naturally occurring elements to make changes. If I come across a few pebbles that have fallen onto some solid rock, and i move one or two pebbles into a configuration that I find pleasing, and leave the other 8-10 alone, there is no evidence that the resulting configuration is designed. Outside of finding actual fingerprints, or recognizing the configuration himself, Joe G would not even suspect design. Secondly, Behe's entire characterization is full of weasel-words, as any naturally generated ordering of separated components can be deemed 'not sharply dependent' or 'not truly identifiable' at need.
A post in the August 2009 archive of Intelligently Sequenced
titled "Commonly Employed Arguments Against ID", we see the attempted response:
Of course, this is swallowed whole, despite that:
(a) I agree here.
(b) There are no reliable, scientific signs of designers.
We infer design by analogy top known human designers.
(c) There are no "islands of function" in the significantly multi-variate space described by typical protein construction. Function at a point (w', x', y', z') that, on a local level, ends quickly in direction w will often be unchanged in direction x and changed only mildly in directions y and z. Now, replace that four-dimensional model with a more common 100-dimensional model, and the notion of islands of function is easily seen to be preposterous. Further, the whole notion of "plausible source" is a direct invocation of a 'designer of the gaps'.
(d) Generally, the principle of "like causes like" comes from magic, not science.
(e) Every testable formulation of CSI and IC has been been falsified. This has resulted in definition changes to the concepts, especially IC, to the point they are identified post hoc instead by prior standards. That is, first they look at a sequence/construct, check to see if there is an origin, and only proclaim it CSI/IC after no origin exists. This a manifestly non-science.
Read more!
Over at the self-styled Intelligent Reasoning, we have Joe G saying in this post that there really is a scientific statement lurking somewhere in ID, based upon Behe's statement
Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.
He also offers this note:
To test the design inference specific criteria must be met. Criteria such as irreducible complexity, complex specified information and/ or the mere presence of counterflow.
To falsify the design inference all one has to do is to demonstrate that the object/ event in question can arise via nature, operating freely- ie it is reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity.
However, Joe G misses a couple of basic problems with his arguments. First of all, the effects of design can exactly resemble the effects of nature. In fact, design uses naturally occurring elements to make changes. If I come across a few pebbles that have fallen onto some solid rock, and i move one or two pebbles into a configuration that I find pleasing, and leave the other 8-10 alone, there is no evidence that the resulting configuration is designed. Outside of finding actual fingerprints, or recognizing the configuration himself, Joe G would not even suspect design. Secondly, Behe's entire characterization is full of weasel-words, as any naturally generated ordering of separated components can be deemed 'not sharply dependent' or 'not truly identifiable' at need.
A post in the August 2009 archive of Intelligently Sequenced
titled "Commonly Employed Arguments Against ID", we see the attempted response:
39] ID is Nothing More Than a “God of the Gaps” Hypothesis may be the most common anti-ID argument.
ID is not proposing “God” to paper over a gap in current scientific explanation. Instead ID theorists start from empirically observed, reliable, known facts and generally accepted principles of scientific reasoning:
(a) Intelligent designers exist and act in the world.
(b) When they do so, as a rule, they leave reliable signs of such intelligent action behind.
(c) Indeed, for many of the signs in question such as CSI and IC, intelligent agents are the only observed cause of such effects, and chance + necessity (the alternative) is not a plausible source, because the islands of function are far too sparse in the space of possible relevant configurations.
(d) On the general principle of science, that “like causes like,” we are therefore entitled to infer from sign to the signified: intelligent action.
(e) This conclusion is, of course, subject to falsification if it can be shown that undirected chance + mechanical forces do give rise to CSI or IC. Thus, ID is falsifiable in principle but well supported in fact.
Of course, this is swallowed whole, despite that:
(a) I agree here.
(b) There are no reliable, scientific signs of designers.
We infer design by analogy top known human designers.
(c) There are no "islands of function" in the significantly multi-variate space described by typical protein construction. Function at a point (w', x', y', z') that, on a local level, ends quickly in direction w will often be unchanged in direction x and changed only mildly in directions y and z. Now, replace that four-dimensional model with a more common 100-dimensional model, and the notion of islands of function is easily seen to be preposterous. Further, the whole notion of "plausible source" is a direct invocation of a 'designer of the gaps'.
(d) Generally, the principle of "like causes like" comes from magic, not science.
(e) Every testable formulation of CSI and IC has been been falsified. This has resulted in definition changes to the concepts, especially IC, to the point they are identified post hoc instead by prior standards. That is, first they look at a sequence/construct, check to see if there is an origin, and only proclaim it CSI/IC after no origin exists. This a manifestly non-science.
Read more!
Friday, August 14, 2009
The 117th Skeptics Circle
The 117th Skeptics Circle is up at Ionian Enchantment. No post from me this time, but there will be for the 118th. I'm also helping out in the proposed Google bomb on the words chiropractor and chiropractic, because the use of English libel law by the British Chiropractic Association to defend the unwarranted claims of its chiropractors using chiropractic techniques for conditions like asthma, when the chiropractic techniques of chiropractors are little more than good back massages.
Read more!
Read more!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Discussion on evolution, part 3
Again, the previous thread have exceeded 200 comments, I am putting a response below the fold.
"Maynard Smith credits August Weismann’s germ plasm theory as a key factor in the modern synthesis ..."
See? Impossible, in principle, from the git-go, and we aint just talkin some kinda candyass "methodology" here, eh, Eric? We're talkin about what is otologically IMPOSSIBLE.
Thatr reduction allowed a great deal of work to get done, and was later discarded when found insufficient.
Well, apparently you didn't read them very closely (or else just read them with a pre-formed conclusion in mind, which was unshakable. "Explanation" (whatever that is) is the sine qua non of a theory. Mebbe this article is more direct, eh?
"A scientific theory is used as a plausible general principle or body of principles offered to explain a phenomenon.[4]
A scientific theory is a deductive theory, in that, its content is based on some formal system of logic and that some of its elementary theorems are taken as axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.[3]"
Did you miss the phrase "explain a phenomenon"? Scientific theories do use some formmal processes in their efforts to explain. If no explanation if offered, there is no theory.
"In pedagogical contexts or in official pronouncements by official organizations of scientists a definition such as the following may be promulgated.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences: Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory."
This causes the theory/non-theory distinction to much more closely follow the distinctions useful for consumers of science (e.g. should I believe something or not?)"
What this article calls "pedagogical" is more what I would call absurd brainwashing. This is definitely a thoroughly unique and unprecedented way to define "scientific theory," to say the least.
You have to ask yourself what level of evidence would be required to overthrow the theory? How ikely are we to discover that anthrax/measles/smallpox is not caused by pathogens (germ theory of disease)? Should consumers of science believe, and act, as if germs cause diseases? Would you be willing to accept that measles being caused by Morbillivirus is a fact?
"Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe..."
"Real world?" "Factual explanation?" And you claim that only "methodology," and not "ontology," is involved here?
You left out the rest of the quote.
Yes, the phenomenon of evolution is a fact. Yes, the theory of evolution is as facutal as atomic theory or germ theory.
I also note that this claim is made with specific reference to the "theory or biological evolution." They have now turned "theory" into fact, eh?
Evolution is a fact (we have measured all sorts of change) and a theory (explanations for why the change occurs, what it has meant for life, etc.).
This is really just incredible, ya know? Anyone with the least bit of sophisication with respect to the philosophy of science, or even used the least bit of critcal thought, would see the NAS claims as completely over the top on the propaganda scale.
An explantion becomes a theory when "no new evidence is likely to alter" it, at which point it is a "factual explanation" which serves as a "reliable account of the real world."
Simply incredible that NAS would promulgate that view. Are they actually retarded, I wonder?
I find it hard to believe you misunderstood a simple simile. Are you just trolling here, or so ideologically committed that you misunderstood a simile to be an equivalence?
One Brow said: "I don't see anything in this quote that equates to "unfortunate and misleading". I'm sure you had anopther quote in mind."
Then you are just as blind as every other devoted apologist I ever ran into, I guess. No doubt you missed the word "sadly." If you can't see where it was misleading (suggesting that development was irrelevant to evolution) then I really don't think there's anything you could see, unless mebbe you wanted to, ya know?
I think that putting development to the side was a limiting, necessary choice, and the "sadly" was a reflection on the current state of knowledge, and not the choice.
One Brow said: "of the various ways mutations are known to happen, none of them take the actual needs of the organism into account."
This appears to be claim of fact, eh, Eric? Or do you say that strictly as a "methodist," with no ontological intentions at all? If the latter, you might want to study the english language a little more, because that sho nuff aint the meaning you're conveying.
When I say "known to happen", that obviously refers to the limits of what is currently known, making the statement epistemological. Had I spoken 'all the ways a mutation can possibly happen', you would have a point. That you have trouble distinguishing them is not a failing of my English knowledge.
One Brow said: "I don't think he would argue that statement even after acknowledging the importance of development, for which he used the term "selected through their effect on development", as opposed to varying because of their development."
He might or might not argue it, I don't know (but, first, remember that Mayr is not Maynard Smith). I get the feeling that both you, Mayr, and possibly Maynard Smith are confusing genes with some kinda physical objects, as opposed to simply "packets of information," as they seen by George C. Williams (who is highly praised by Dawkins, Gould, Elridge, Maynard Smith (via Eldrige) and others here: http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/h-Ch.1.html
True enough. I am sure that by "gene", he meant 'packet of knowledge on a DNA strand'. Many scientitsts probably do mean something broader than that.
As noted by Magulis, "The neo-Darwinists say that variation originates from random mutation, defining mutation as any genetic change." The close association, if not virtual identity, that the neo-darwinists once tried to make between "genes" and dna has vanished, but many still seem to think in those terms.
Old habits die hard.
If "genes" are simply the message, irrespective of the medium; if, indeed, genes are ONLY information, then certainly the "epigentic" means by which regulatory genes "choose" to express the dna is at bottom a form of "genetic mutation." This would seems to imply that, in Williams' view, genes vary "because of their development," to use your words.
I would agree, with the caveat that if we use a braod notion of 'gene', we should probably be careful to note which type of gene were are discussing in such a context.
You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms, because they both have mass and charge and length and width. You can't do that with information and matter."
Very true.
I said: We have already agreed that the notion of "random mutation" is at bottom a metaphyisical one that cannot be proved or disproved. So why is not neo-darwinism, like ID theory, untestable and hence "not scientific," I wonder.
You responded: We did? I must have been off my feed that day/week/month
Musta been, yeah. This is was you said on April 27: Me: You repeatedly say that all heritable genetic variation has been shown to be random.
You: I certainly hope I have not, because such a statement would be unprovable
April 28: You: "As we have agreed (I think), there is no known test for randomness/design per se.
Your current (and former) ongoing assertions that the "randomness" of mutations can be, and has been, confirmed, seems to relax on occasion, such as on May 3 when you said: "Even if Dawkins is uncomfortable with it, adaptive mutation (which is not classical Lamarckism by any means) happens, and we know this because we have tested mechanisms to demonstrate it."
Are "adaptive mutations" consistent with the claim that all mutations are random? Doesn't seem to be.
Ya know, going through some of these old posts, I realize that you must, as is typical, I guess, have entirely different definitions for "ontological" and "epistemological" than I do. I really can't make a lick of sense of a statement like this: "Neo-Darwinism is dead, remember? Even when it was alive, the biological version relied on epistomological randomness, specifically of the type where mutations are not controlled by the organsim, not ontological randomness."
On an ontological level, most mutations would seem to be non-random, as I mentioned before. They happen for chemical reasons. There are probably a very few that happen for reasons like quantum fluctuation which might be ontologically random. Outside of that, on a metaphysical level, mutations are not random. I don't see anything in the above statements that disagree with this. Even then, this does not of course address unknown methods of variation.
Mutations are random in the sense that, of the known methods by which mutations happen, we have no mechanism that connects that mutation to the needs of the organism. They are random in that regard within the limits of our knowledge. They are also random in sense that we are unable to predict them through an insufficient knowledge of the actual chemical interactions involved along any particular strand of DNA inside a organism. So, random in those two ways.
It would be impossible to prove something is metaphysically random. Even for quantum effects, where we have the stongest evidence, this is a possibility that can be easily overturned. The most we can ever say in that regard is that we have data that resemebles a probablitliy distribution.
The word 'random does not mean 'every occurence is equally likely'. Adaptive mutations seem to mean that the probability curve is adjusted in favor of changes occuring at certain locations on the DNA strand.
I don't know what definitions you are using for ontological claims versus episemological claims. Ontology, to myu understanding, is soncerned with how things are, what their true nature is, while epistemology is concerned with what we can know about things and how we can know it. Do you mean something different?
This all gets quite tedious, eh, Eric?
Yes, it does.
The question was this: "So why is not neo-darwinism, like ID theory, untestable and hence "not scientific," I wonder."
Do you have a direct answer to that question, or not?
Since neo-Darwinism was falsified, it was obviously falsifiable. What could falsify ID?
Is your answer that neo-darwinism makes no claims about reality? If so, does ID make claims about reality, or is such a hypothesis merely "methodological." If they are different in this respect, HOW are they different. You seem to agree that it is not in the "testability" of the two, insofar as their basic premises go.
ID seems to make the claim that a designer is responsible, in part, for the structure of life. Materialism would make the claim no designer is involved in life. Both are equally untestable. Niether is a claim of neo-Darwinism or modern evolutionary theory, in that the 'randomness' present in neo-Darwinism and modern evolutionary theory is compatible with the existence of a designer. Both are claims made by various men, including scientists, when speaking about life outside the scientific literature. Neither claim belongs in a science classroom.
It seems obvious that both views feel compelled to deny that all evolution is (was) random, sensing intuitively that would be prohibitively improbable. Both insist that evolution is NOT random, but disagree on the reasons why this is so. Philosophically speaking, these two viewpoints, as they relate to living matter, seem come down to "vitalism" vs. "materialism."
I disagree. Yo can be a Lamarckian materialist, or a wiesmannian who accepts design.
It is in no means self-evident that such inferences are "unreasonable" or "unscientific" unless one merely defines them as such. One can, for example, say: "I define any inference of design to be both unreasonable and unscientific." But, of course, definitions are arbitrary, and do not dictate the reality of the matter.
I agree.
Again, as I have said before, I can assume (or infer) that an object has been designed without that assumption in any way affecting the way I try to analyze it or explain it. Such an assumption may assist my investigation, but it does not change my methodolgy. If I know nothing about the workings of machines motivated by internal combustion engines, for example, I still will not "understand" one until I know how all the parts interact with each other and what function they serve, which requires investigation (for me). I do not purport to "explain" anything by simply saying: "this machine was designed." Science is ultimately about explanations, not metaphyscial presumptions, although the latter may inform the former. An assumption of "vitalism" would not change that. We would never have, or even be expected to, explain the ultimate nature of the "vital force" to simply investigate the phenomena.
I agree. This is why the discussion does not belong in a science class.
The point I'm making is this: Whether one ultimately believes in or presupposes vitalism (lamarckism in evolutionary terms) or materialsim (darwinism) has nothing to do with science as such. The vociferious outcry that materialism must be taught as an underlying presupposition, but that any notion of vitalism cannot even be discussed as an alternative presupposition, is not "scientific" either.
As noted above, I disagree on the associaiton of vitalism to Lamarckism. Outside of that, I agree.
Lamarckism, whether true or not, whether ever irrefutably demonstrated or not, is NOT off limits to either scientific investigation nor is it inherently outside the realm of "scientific thinking." Of course, neo-darwinists have always thought otherwise, but, still....
That's why the once fruitful school is not bveing discarded.
One Brow said: "But the warping of space is a mechanism for the attrction of bodies. There is no more "spooky action at a distance", just local effects."
Heh, as if the "warping of space" isn't spooky? Seriously, what exactly is "space, and how can it "warp" as a practical matter? Of course, for Einstein, there is no "space" per se. Only space/time. Now, tell me, what is "space/time," apart from a verbalization of the mathematics involved (as was the Newtonian use of the concept of "attaction of matter to matter" to verbalize the mathematical relationship detected)?
I doubt I could, although physicists might be able to. At any rate, that's a new level of mechanism. Anytime you explain something, the explanation itself will open up new questions.
More "pedagogical information," from the AAAS, eh?
...
Well, they pack all the theory in there, eh, and simply call the theory "evolution" which is "described," not hypothesized, interpreted, or deduced. Random mutation (why not just say "mutation," I wonder?--Why does "random" ALWAYS have to be inserted as a qualifying adjective?). Common descent, natural selection, macro-evolution = micro-evolution, the whole 10 yards.
This is an obvious simplification.
I wonder if anyone who aint plumb stupid doubts any of this, eh? Lemme see here....
"Is there "evidence against" contemporary evolutionary theory? No.
Do yo know of some? Against, as in saying evolution didn't happen?
Is there a growing body of scientists who doubt that evolution happened? No...Of the few scientists who criticize contemporary evolutionary theory, most do no research in the field, and so their opinions have little significance for scientists who do."
Well, there ya have it, then, eh? All wrapped up in a ribbon.
Who are the evolutionary biologists who feel there is evidence against evolution?
Hmm, where to even start trying to intrepret and assess this curious brochure, eh? Well, in passing, one might note that the last sentence quoted claims that "that evolution by natural selection is how life on Earth arose."
If "arose" refers to abiogenesis, that seems to be wrong. If they meant 'grew from a small part of the planet to being universally present', that seems to be accurate, but a poor word choice. Looking at the context, I'm inclined to pick the latter.
What you, Eric, have called a "mechanism," this brochure calls "process" [they say "Natural selection is the process by which some traits succeed and others fail..."], so let's use that as a substitute synonmyn is the next sentence, which would then read: "Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a mechanism."
So the "mechanism" (which Gould said was the theoretical part) is now a "basic fact," eh?
I would say there is more to being a mechanism that there is to being a process. Photosynthesis is a completely factual process, but it explains nothing in and of itself. Natrual selection can be explained as a process only, or an a larger level as a mechanism.
The care and authority which went into this dubious publication makes it all the more appalling to a disintered observer.
You think you are disinterested?
Ironically, this brochure has the gall to say (addressing ID theory, of course): "Teaching
non-scientific concepts in science class will only confuse students about the processes,
nature, and limits of science."
The opposite is probably true. Perhaps teaching ID theory would be one way of unconfusing students who are exposed to such "non-scientific" concepts as are contained in this brochure and help them understand the true "nature and limits" of science.
If "ID theory" ever starts to accurately discuss the true nature and limits of science, perhaps.
Well, first, that a "scientific theory" is an "explantion." Just any old explanation? Naw, apparently only those that "are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them." [In the entire history of science has there been a single case of such an explanation?].
The atomic theory of matter. The germ theory of disease. Heliocentric theory.
As a side attribute, a scientific theory also allows us to make predictions, they say.
Do they have an example? Well, yeah, they have two, actually. " A good example is the theory of gravity." Hmm, and you say that Newton's explanation of "gravity" is simply a law, not a theory--I wonder who's right here, you, or them? Whichever, they say "Scientists then use the theory to make predictions about how gravity will function in different circumstances" (as Newtonians did for the "hundreds of years" this brochure brings up). Of course, you also keep saying that Einstein's relativistic view of Newton's mathematical formula was a mere "refinement" of Newton, so let's not quibble here, OK? (having made that request, I expect you to quibble, but I will wait and see about that).
The brochure does not reference a *Newtonian* theory of gravity, so what makes you think they are referring to Newton's Law? Theories have to acount for all of the available evidence, old, new, and yet-to-be-tested, to be viable.
Also, surely you are not confusing what I said about Newton's Laws of Motion and his Law of Gravity. I believe I was clear and held different opinions on that.
Of course their second example is evolutionary theory: "Evolution stands on an equally solid foundation of observation, experiment, and confirming evidence." I mean, like, really now, is this a joke? Are they really trying to compare the predictive power and confirming evidence for "explanantions" advanced by evolutionary theory to that afforded by the strict mathematical formulaes used for gravity?
Only a straight-up chump would fall for that claim, I figure, but that's not to say I haven't found many darwinist cheerleaders swallowin it hook, line, and sinker.
Only a straight-up chump would fail to see that there have been thousands of predictions upheld.
Read this brochure critically, Eric. Look at this sentence and then tell me that the "creationists" who said the term "evolution" was used in multiple, confusingly unspecified manners, are not worth trusting. "Evolution stands on an equally solid foundation of observation, experiment, and confirming evidence."
Didn't you claim that nobody would use the word "evolution" to mean the theoretical elements thereof in a teaching setting?
I certainly hope not. All high-school and above science class should include theory.
The equivocal use of terms to "explain" the topic of evolution as used here is simply a method of misleading students into an extremely mushy, uncritical "understanding" of the theoretical issues, as I see it? Is it intentional? Well, either that, or totally incompetent, as far as "teaching" methods go.
I don't find your analysis persuasive or factually based.
OF COURSE IT IS(!), according to the NAS: "For those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cells." (Science and Creationism, 1999).
That sentence is not in the brochure you linked too. Pennock's statements in that don't necessarily have NAS agreement.
Why say that ID theory is "not science" if naturalistic processes could provide a basis for it, hmmmmm?
Creating a natrualistic basis does not rescue ID theory, because it makes no scientific claims.
I wonder if the authors of these pedagogical brochures, which stress natural selection as the virtually proven theory of evolution (remember, it's not even a theory unless it is doubtful that any new evidence could alter it), are familiar with the works of Masatochi Nei who wrote, just for example, a research paper called "The new mutation theory of phenotypic evolution."
I think they might respond: "As scientists gather new results and findings, they continue to refine their ideas. Explanations are altered or sometimes rejected when compelling contradictory evidence comes to light." Same answer for most of the quotes.
"This is the fundamental reason why we already have the well formulated 'Atomic Theory' but not yet a comparable 'Living Systems Theory.'"
No "theory" because it's all just too complex, eh? Like, whooda thunk, I ax ya?
Everyone. It's probably not possible to have a system as well-reduced as Atomic Theory.
Read more!
"Maynard Smith credits August Weismann’s germ plasm theory as a key factor in the modern synthesis ..."
See? Impossible, in principle, from the git-go, and we aint just talkin some kinda candyass "methodology" here, eh, Eric? We're talkin about what is otologically IMPOSSIBLE.
Thatr reduction allowed a great deal of work to get done, and was later discarded when found insufficient.
Well, apparently you didn't read them very closely (or else just read them with a pre-formed conclusion in mind, which was unshakable. "Explanation" (whatever that is) is the sine qua non of a theory. Mebbe this article is more direct, eh?
"A scientific theory is used as a plausible general principle or body of principles offered to explain a phenomenon.[4]
A scientific theory is a deductive theory, in that, its content is based on some formal system of logic and that some of its elementary theorems are taken as axioms. In a deductive theory, any sentence which is a logical consequence of one or more of the axioms is also a sentence of that theory.[3]"
Did you miss the phrase "explain a phenomenon"? Scientific theories do use some formmal processes in their efforts to explain. If no explanation if offered, there is no theory.
"In pedagogical contexts or in official pronouncements by official organizations of scientists a definition such as the following may be promulgated.
According to the United States National Academy of Sciences: Some scientific explanations are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them. The explanation becomes a scientific theory."
This causes the theory/non-theory distinction to much more closely follow the distinctions useful for consumers of science (e.g. should I believe something or not?)"
What this article calls "pedagogical" is more what I would call absurd brainwashing. This is definitely a thoroughly unique and unprecedented way to define "scientific theory," to say the least.
You have to ask yourself what level of evidence would be required to overthrow the theory? How ikely are we to discover that anthrax/measles/smallpox is not caused by pathogens (germ theory of disease)? Should consumers of science believe, and act, as if germs cause diseases? Would you be willing to accept that measles being caused by Morbillivirus is a fact?
"Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe..."
"Real world?" "Factual explanation?" And you claim that only "methodology," and not "ontology," is involved here?
You left out the rest of the quote.
It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.
Yes, the phenomenon of evolution is a fact. Yes, the theory of evolution is as facutal as atomic theory or germ theory.
I also note that this claim is made with specific reference to the "theory or biological evolution." They have now turned "theory" into fact, eh?
Evolution is a fact (we have measured all sorts of change) and a theory (explanations for why the change occurs, what it has meant for life, etc.).
This is really just incredible, ya know? Anyone with the least bit of sophisication with respect to the philosophy of science, or even used the least bit of critcal thought, would see the NAS claims as completely over the top on the propaganda scale.
An explantion becomes a theory when "no new evidence is likely to alter" it, at which point it is a "factual explanation" which serves as a "reliable account of the real world."
Simply incredible that NAS would promulgate that view. Are they actually retarded, I wonder?
I find it hard to believe you misunderstood a simple simile. Are you just trolling here, or so ideologically committed that you misunderstood a simile to be an equivalence?
One Brow said: "I don't see anything in this quote that equates to "unfortunate and misleading". I'm sure you had anopther quote in mind."
Then you are just as blind as every other devoted apologist I ever ran into, I guess. No doubt you missed the word "sadly." If you can't see where it was misleading (suggesting that development was irrelevant to evolution) then I really don't think there's anything you could see, unless mebbe you wanted to, ya know?
I think that putting development to the side was a limiting, necessary choice, and the "sadly" was a reflection on the current state of knowledge, and not the choice.
One Brow said: "of the various ways mutations are known to happen, none of them take the actual needs of the organism into account."
This appears to be claim of fact, eh, Eric? Or do you say that strictly as a "methodist," with no ontological intentions at all? If the latter, you might want to study the english language a little more, because that sho nuff aint the meaning you're conveying.
When I say "known to happen", that obviously refers to the limits of what is currently known, making the statement epistemological. Had I spoken 'all the ways a mutation can possibly happen', you would have a point. That you have trouble distinguishing them is not a failing of my English knowledge.
One Brow said: "I don't think he would argue that statement even after acknowledging the importance of development, for which he used the term "selected through their effect on development", as opposed to varying because of their development."
He might or might not argue it, I don't know (but, first, remember that Mayr is not Maynard Smith). I get the feeling that both you, Mayr, and possibly Maynard Smith are confusing genes with some kinda physical objects, as opposed to simply "packets of information," as they seen by George C. Williams (who is highly praised by Dawkins, Gould, Elridge, Maynard Smith (via Eldrige) and others here: http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/h-Ch.1.html
True enough. I am sure that by "gene", he meant 'packet of knowledge on a DNA strand'. Many scientitsts probably do mean something broader than that.
As noted by Magulis, "The neo-Darwinists say that variation originates from random mutation, defining mutation as any genetic change." The close association, if not virtual identity, that the neo-darwinists once tried to make between "genes" and dna has vanished, but many still seem to think in those terms.
Old habits die hard.
If "genes" are simply the message, irrespective of the medium; if, indeed, genes are ONLY information, then certainly the "epigentic" means by which regulatory genes "choose" to express the dna is at bottom a form of "genetic mutation." This would seems to imply that, in Williams' view, genes vary "because of their development," to use your words.
I would agree, with the caveat that if we use a braod notion of 'gene', we should probably be careful to note which type of gene were are discussing in such a context.
You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms, because they both have mass and charge and length and width. You can't do that with information and matter."
Very true.
I said: We have already agreed that the notion of "random mutation" is at bottom a metaphyisical one that cannot be proved or disproved. So why is not neo-darwinism, like ID theory, untestable and hence "not scientific," I wonder.
You responded: We did? I must have been off my feed that day/week/month
Musta been, yeah. This is was you said on April 27: Me: You repeatedly say that all heritable genetic variation has been shown to be random.
You: I certainly hope I have not, because such a statement would be unprovable
April 28: You: "As we have agreed (I think), there is no known test for randomness/design per se.
Your current (and former) ongoing assertions that the "randomness" of mutations can be, and has been, confirmed, seems to relax on occasion, such as on May 3 when you said: "Even if Dawkins is uncomfortable with it, adaptive mutation (which is not classical Lamarckism by any means) happens, and we know this because we have tested mechanisms to demonstrate it."
Are "adaptive mutations" consistent with the claim that all mutations are random? Doesn't seem to be.
Ya know, going through some of these old posts, I realize that you must, as is typical, I guess, have entirely different definitions for "ontological" and "epistemological" than I do. I really can't make a lick of sense of a statement like this: "Neo-Darwinism is dead, remember? Even when it was alive, the biological version relied on epistomological randomness, specifically of the type where mutations are not controlled by the organsim, not ontological randomness."
On an ontological level, most mutations would seem to be non-random, as I mentioned before. They happen for chemical reasons. There are probably a very few that happen for reasons like quantum fluctuation which might be ontologically random. Outside of that, on a metaphysical level, mutations are not random. I don't see anything in the above statements that disagree with this. Even then, this does not of course address unknown methods of variation.
Mutations are random in the sense that, of the known methods by which mutations happen, we have no mechanism that connects that mutation to the needs of the organism. They are random in that regard within the limits of our knowledge. They are also random in sense that we are unable to predict them through an insufficient knowledge of the actual chemical interactions involved along any particular strand of DNA inside a organism. So, random in those two ways.
It would be impossible to prove something is metaphysically random. Even for quantum effects, where we have the stongest evidence, this is a possibility that can be easily overturned. The most we can ever say in that regard is that we have data that resemebles a probablitliy distribution.
The word 'random does not mean 'every occurence is equally likely'. Adaptive mutations seem to mean that the probability curve is adjusted in favor of changes occuring at certain locations on the DNA strand.
I don't know what definitions you are using for ontological claims versus episemological claims. Ontology, to myu understanding, is soncerned with how things are, what their true nature is, while epistemology is concerned with what we can know about things and how we can know it. Do you mean something different?
This all gets quite tedious, eh, Eric?
Yes, it does.
The question was this: "So why is not neo-darwinism, like ID theory, untestable and hence "not scientific," I wonder."
Do you have a direct answer to that question, or not?
Since neo-Darwinism was falsified, it was obviously falsifiable. What could falsify ID?
Is your answer that neo-darwinism makes no claims about reality? If so, does ID make claims about reality, or is such a hypothesis merely "methodological." If they are different in this respect, HOW are they different. You seem to agree that it is not in the "testability" of the two, insofar as their basic premises go.
ID seems to make the claim that a designer is responsible, in part, for the structure of life. Materialism would make the claim no designer is involved in life. Both are equally untestable. Niether is a claim of neo-Darwinism or modern evolutionary theory, in that the 'randomness' present in neo-Darwinism and modern evolutionary theory is compatible with the existence of a designer. Both are claims made by various men, including scientists, when speaking about life outside the scientific literature. Neither claim belongs in a science classroom.
It seems obvious that both views feel compelled to deny that all evolution is (was) random, sensing intuitively that would be prohibitively improbable. Both insist that evolution is NOT random, but disagree on the reasons why this is so. Philosophically speaking, these two viewpoints, as they relate to living matter, seem come down to "vitalism" vs. "materialism."
I disagree. Yo can be a Lamarckian materialist, or a wiesmannian who accepts design.
It is in no means self-evident that such inferences are "unreasonable" or "unscientific" unless one merely defines them as such. One can, for example, say: "I define any inference of design to be both unreasonable and unscientific." But, of course, definitions are arbitrary, and do not dictate the reality of the matter.
I agree.
Again, as I have said before, I can assume (or infer) that an object has been designed without that assumption in any way affecting the way I try to analyze it or explain it. Such an assumption may assist my investigation, but it does not change my methodolgy. If I know nothing about the workings of machines motivated by internal combustion engines, for example, I still will not "understand" one until I know how all the parts interact with each other and what function they serve, which requires investigation (for me). I do not purport to "explain" anything by simply saying: "this machine was designed." Science is ultimately about explanations, not metaphyscial presumptions, although the latter may inform the former. An assumption of "vitalism" would not change that. We would never have, or even be expected to, explain the ultimate nature of the "vital force" to simply investigate the phenomena.
I agree. This is why the discussion does not belong in a science class.
The point I'm making is this: Whether one ultimately believes in or presupposes vitalism (lamarckism in evolutionary terms) or materialsim (darwinism) has nothing to do with science as such. The vociferious outcry that materialism must be taught as an underlying presupposition, but that any notion of vitalism cannot even be discussed as an alternative presupposition, is not "scientific" either.
As noted above, I disagree on the associaiton of vitalism to Lamarckism. Outside of that, I agree.
Lamarckism, whether true or not, whether ever irrefutably demonstrated or not, is NOT off limits to either scientific investigation nor is it inherently outside the realm of "scientific thinking." Of course, neo-darwinists have always thought otherwise, but, still....
That's why the once fruitful school is not bveing discarded.
One Brow said: "But the warping of space is a mechanism for the attrction of bodies. There is no more "spooky action at a distance", just local effects."
Heh, as if the "warping of space" isn't spooky? Seriously, what exactly is "space, and how can it "warp" as a practical matter? Of course, for Einstein, there is no "space" per se. Only space/time. Now, tell me, what is "space/time," apart from a verbalization of the mathematics involved (as was the Newtonian use of the concept of "attaction of matter to matter" to verbalize the mathematical relationship detected)?
I doubt I could, although physicists might be able to. At any rate, that's a new level of mechanism. Anytime you explain something, the explanation itself will open up new questions.
More "pedagogical information," from the AAAS, eh?
...
Well, they pack all the theory in there, eh, and simply call the theory "evolution" which is "described," not hypothesized, interpreted, or deduced. Random mutation (why not just say "mutation," I wonder?--Why does "random" ALWAYS have to be inserted as a qualifying adjective?). Common descent, natural selection, macro-evolution = micro-evolution, the whole 10 yards.
This is an obvious simplification.
I wonder if anyone who aint plumb stupid doubts any of this, eh? Lemme see here....
"Is there "evidence against" contemporary evolutionary theory? No.
Do yo know of some? Against, as in saying evolution didn't happen?
Is there a growing body of scientists who doubt that evolution happened? No...Of the few scientists who criticize contemporary evolutionary theory, most do no research in the field, and so their opinions have little significance for scientists who do."
Well, there ya have it, then, eh? All wrapped up in a ribbon.
Who are the evolutionary biologists who feel there is evidence against evolution?
Hmm, where to even start trying to intrepret and assess this curious brochure, eh? Well, in passing, one might note that the last sentence quoted claims that "that evolution by natural selection is how life on Earth arose."
If "arose" refers to abiogenesis, that seems to be wrong. If they meant 'grew from a small part of the planet to being universally present', that seems to be accurate, but a poor word choice. Looking at the context, I'm inclined to pick the latter.
What you, Eric, have called a "mechanism," this brochure calls "process" [they say "Natural selection is the process by which some traits succeed and others fail..."], so let's use that as a substitute synonmyn is the next sentence, which would then read: "Scientists no longer question the basic facts of evolution as a mechanism."
So the "mechanism" (which Gould said was the theoretical part) is now a "basic fact," eh?
I would say there is more to being a mechanism that there is to being a process. Photosynthesis is a completely factual process, but it explains nothing in and of itself. Natrual selection can be explained as a process only, or an a larger level as a mechanism.
The care and authority which went into this dubious publication makes it all the more appalling to a disintered observer.
You think you are disinterested?
Ironically, this brochure has the gall to say (addressing ID theory, of course): "Teaching
non-scientific concepts in science class will only confuse students about the processes,
nature, and limits of science."
The opposite is probably true. Perhaps teaching ID theory would be one way of unconfusing students who are exposed to such "non-scientific" concepts as are contained in this brochure and help them understand the true "nature and limits" of science.
If "ID theory" ever starts to accurately discuss the true nature and limits of science, perhaps.
Well, first, that a "scientific theory" is an "explantion." Just any old explanation? Naw, apparently only those that "are so well established that no new evidence is likely to alter them." [In the entire history of science has there been a single case of such an explanation?].
The atomic theory of matter. The germ theory of disease. Heliocentric theory.
As a side attribute, a scientific theory also allows us to make predictions, they say.
Do they have an example? Well, yeah, they have two, actually. " A good example is the theory of gravity." Hmm, and you say that Newton's explanation of "gravity" is simply a law, not a theory--I wonder who's right here, you, or them? Whichever, they say "Scientists then use the theory to make predictions about how gravity will function in different circumstances" (as Newtonians did for the "hundreds of years" this brochure brings up). Of course, you also keep saying that Einstein's relativistic view of Newton's mathematical formula was a mere "refinement" of Newton, so let's not quibble here, OK? (having made that request, I expect you to quibble, but I will wait and see about that).
The brochure does not reference a *Newtonian* theory of gravity, so what makes you think they are referring to Newton's Law? Theories have to acount for all of the available evidence, old, new, and yet-to-be-tested, to be viable.
Also, surely you are not confusing what I said about Newton's Laws of Motion and his Law of Gravity. I believe I was clear and held different opinions on that.
Of course their second example is evolutionary theory: "Evolution stands on an equally solid foundation of observation, experiment, and confirming evidence." I mean, like, really now, is this a joke? Are they really trying to compare the predictive power and confirming evidence for "explanantions" advanced by evolutionary theory to that afforded by the strict mathematical formulaes used for gravity?
Only a straight-up chump would fall for that claim, I figure, but that's not to say I haven't found many darwinist cheerleaders swallowin it hook, line, and sinker.
Only a straight-up chump would fail to see that there have been thousands of predictions upheld.
Read this brochure critically, Eric. Look at this sentence and then tell me that the "creationists" who said the term "evolution" was used in multiple, confusingly unspecified manners, are not worth trusting. "Evolution stands on an equally solid foundation of observation, experiment, and confirming evidence."
Didn't you claim that nobody would use the word "evolution" to mean the theoretical elements thereof in a teaching setting?
I certainly hope not. All high-school and above science class should include theory.
The equivocal use of terms to "explain" the topic of evolution as used here is simply a method of misleading students into an extremely mushy, uncritical "understanding" of the theoretical issues, as I see it? Is it intentional? Well, either that, or totally incompetent, as far as "teaching" methods go.
I don't find your analysis persuasive or factually based.
OF COURSE IT IS(!), according to the NAS: "For those who are studying the origin of life, the question is no longer whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving nonbiological components. The question instead has become which of many pathways might have been followed to produce the first cells." (Science and Creationism, 1999).
That sentence is not in the brochure you linked too. Pennock's statements in that don't necessarily have NAS agreement.
Why say that ID theory is "not science" if naturalistic processes could provide a basis for it, hmmmmm?
Creating a natrualistic basis does not rescue ID theory, because it makes no scientific claims.
I wonder if the authors of these pedagogical brochures, which stress natural selection as the virtually proven theory of evolution (remember, it's not even a theory unless it is doubtful that any new evidence could alter it), are familiar with the works of Masatochi Nei who wrote, just for example, a research paper called "The new mutation theory of phenotypic evolution."
I think they might respond: "As scientists gather new results and findings, they continue to refine their ideas. Explanations are altered or sometimes rejected when compelling contradictory evidence comes to light." Same answer for most of the quotes.
"This is the fundamental reason why we already have the well formulated 'Atomic Theory' but not yet a comparable 'Living Systems Theory.'"
No "theory" because it's all just too complex, eh? Like, whooda thunk, I ax ya?
Everyone. It's probably not possible to have a system as well-reduced as Atomic Theory.
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