1. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92984 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 9:39 pm

Is there some place where I can look up schedules for talks, presentations, other speaking engagements or these debates by Dan, Richard, Sam Harris et al. I would like to attend one of these things if they happen to be in the neighborhood. I could search on this website but if someone already knows a link or links I would greatly appreciate their passing on the info.

2. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92981 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 9:28 pm

Much is made of the "fine tuning" argument. As I see it the crux of the argument from the theists' side is:

All the fundamental constants seem so fine tuned that even slightest variation in any one of them and 'we wouldn't exist'. Therefore the universe must have been fine tuned (by a creator/intelligence/god) with us in mind.

My questions:
1> If one of the questions had a different value, perhaps we (i.e life on planet earth or planet earth itself) would not exist. But how do you know that in whatever universe that did come into existence (with the different constants than ours), life or some complex phenomenon that resemble life and conscious beings would NOT exist? Is there some proof that shows that with slight variation in any of the constants, matter as we know it would not exist at all?

2> Let us accept for a moment that the universe is fine tuned by a creator. What makes you think that the creator had 'us' in mind? We have good reasons to believe from probabilistic calculations that life and perhaps intelligent life exists in other parts of the universe. What is the proof that the creator actually favor the beings on Blargon 7 somewhere in a solar system in Andromeda galaxy? Why us? In all probability the earth is a penal colony to dump all the "failed" models (I think Hitchens has mentioned this idea in god is not great.)

3. To what accuracy do we know these constants. E.g the gravitational constant G = 6.67428[+/-0.00067] x 10^-11 N.m^2.kg^-2. This means there is uncertainty about the 14th decimal place onwards and the value could be:
6.67495 x 10^-11 N.m^2.kg^-2 to 6.67361 x 10^-11 N.m^2.kg^-2. Granted that the uncertainty is very small (~ 0.01 %) but doesn't this in itself prove that things are doing fine with small uncertainty? How much does one of the constants have to vary to make things as we know blow up or not appear at all?

4. Last but not least... it seems like use of the fine tuning argument is nothing but an extension of the god the gaps argument. We don't know why the universe looks fine tuned for life... goddunit. Maybe in my life time I would be lucky enough to see that gap closed.

3. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92847 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 3:07 pm

Okay I watched the full debate. My impressions:

I think the debate mostly revolved around the same old ideas that D'Souza kept repeating:
a. Pascal's wager.
b. The uncaused cause argument.
c. The tweaking of the universal constants argument

Secondly I think it was an ugly debate (to put it politely) primarily because D'Souza kept bringing in all sorts of arguments each of which may be a subject of an individual debate. There is no possible way one can have a reasonable debate with this guy if he doesn't stick to the topic.

He kept ridiculing the speculations of the multiverse theory and I was surprised that Dan didn't point it out that D'Souza's alternative (god dunnit) is equally if not more speculative.

At one point he said that the caveman in 2000 BC wouldn't know anything outside of a 2 mile radius. Does this guy know anything about ancient civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, South America?

I am glad that Dan caught him when he tried to pin one of his arguments on the irreducible nature of consciousness.

D'Souza talked about humans not evolving in recent history (~last 5-15k years), I believe there are studies that have shown otherwise.

He ridiculed the multiverse hypothesis (or speculation if you like that word) by giving some crazy argument about O J Simpson's defence etc. That is not what the multiverse hypothesis is about!

In general it seems to me that debate with D'Souza is pointless. It is kind of like teaching Newton's laws to a dog (to borrow an example from D'Souza).. first of all we can't communicate with him (D'Souza) in a reasonable manner. Secondly, no matter what you say he just keeps barking tired old arguments.

4. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92830 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Dawkins speaks about the complexity of God, this is outcome, not cause. In fact, he uses his musings on the outcome that is his idea of God, to attempt to debunk the cause.

No Dawkins is using this to counter the Intelligent design argument that D'Souza kept repeating... "a watch is a complex entity, it needs an even more complex and intelligent watchmaker."

What Dawkins says is... if that were true then imagine how complex the ultimate watchmaker must be...and surely something of such complexity must have an even more complex cause..and so on ad infinitum. Dan used the term "trickle down theory of goodness" in the debate for this same idea I think.

5. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92781 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 1:04 pm

This is my first time listening to D'Souza in a full length debate. This guy basically has amazingly shallow understanding of cosmology, theory of evolution and natural selection, fundamental physics.

Very very very bad choice...

6. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92773 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 12:37 pm

"For future debates that you will see (you will enjoy the fact that Tufts will have numerous debates over the next few years) different debaters debate different topics."

I look forward to them.

BTW I am on part 6 and this guy brought up Pascal's Wager. I don't know whether to laugh or cry :(

7. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #92743 by SameerMarathe on December 1, 2007 at 11:35 am

Dear Mr. Pat Andriola

Your opening remarks introducing Dinesh D'Souza as an "authority" or at least an authority of comparable depth of understanding in his area as Dan Dennett can claim in his area simply astounds me. I wish you had a more serious and less frivoulous opponent for this debate. I can almost predict the shoutfest I am going to see from Dinesh for the typical questions that have been asked to him (e.g. in previous debates... like the one with Christopher Hitchens).