201. There Go The Dinosaurs

Comment #73665 by Janus on September 25, 2007 at 7:20 pm

Thank God for Jack Chick.

202. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #73571 by Janus on September 25, 2007 at 10:17 am

Well, yes and no. After all if the designer is much simpler it's not quite clear why it requires an explanation. In fact it's not even clear why an explanation of an explanation is required in any case. For example Einstein's general relativity hypothesis that mass bends spacetime in a particular manner is a powerful explanation for a series of phenomena; but it hardly makes any sense to ask: "But how do you explain that mass bends spacetime in this way?" Or, rather, whether that latter question is meaningful or not, and if it is whether one has an answer or not, does not in any way weaken general relativity's explanatory power.

You're shifting the goalposts (as you do throughout your entire post). The kind of explanation we were discussing is the kind that explains why complexity and order exist. Explanations like accretion theory, nucleosynthesis, the various hypotheses of abiogenesis, evolution, crystal formation, and whatever theory will explain the laws of physics, if one does. General relativity, and many other scientific theories, is a descriptive theory: It describes a certain kind of complexity and allows us to make predictions, but it doesn't say where that complexity came from. A divine Designer is of course not a descriptive theory, it is one that seeks to explain why order and complexity exist, like evolution.

As I have explained many times, a theory that seeks to explain why order and complexity exist cannot be one that ends up with the statement "... and _this_ particular complex and ordered entity doesn't need an explanation, it just exists", because _our goal is to explain order and complexity_. A designer requires an explanation _for precisely the same reason_ that anything in the universe requires an explanation: We. Want. To. Explain. Complexity. And. Order.

Notice that everything we know about the universe thus far follows the pattern that naturalism expects: The further we go back in the history of the universe, the more simple things are. Go back a little bit, and there were no brains; go back a little bit further, and there was only unicellular life; go back some more, and there was no life; keep going back, and there are no planets, then no atoms other than hydrogen, then no stars, etc etc, all the way to the Big Bang.

After all, as I think I've said earlier, it is perfectly _conceivable_ that the universe might have begun in the state that it was 4 billion years ago, for example. The evidence would allow us to see how life evolved, how life formed from lifeless molecules, but it would be impossible for us to know how Earth and the Sun and all other stars and planets formed, and how atoms more complex than hydrogen formed, because they never would have formed. It would look as though this immense amount of order and complexity had simply popped into existence. It would look as though it had been _designed_.

Now, before you argue that contrary to general relativity the God hypothesis does not explain anything let me point out that in our context that's irrelevant, because Dawkins is not arguing that the God hypothesis is wrong because it does not explain anything but because there is not a further explanation for it.

But that's the same thing. For the last time, we are trying to explain order and complexity. Saying that order and complexity "just exist" is not an explanation. Saying that order and complexity was designed by an entity that's also ordered and complex and then saying that this entity "just exists" is no more an explanation than was our first statement. All it does is push back the problem by one step.

To say that anything except fundamental simplicity "just exists" is to give up. If you do want to give up, fine, but at least don't introduce a superfluous entity.

_Of course_ we could say that the order and complexity we know about don't need an explanation: We could say that life just exists, that humans just exist, that planets and stars and everything else just exist, and a huge part of science would never have seen the day. But naturalists don't say that, we refuse to give in to sloth and ignorance.

In short he is asking: "If the existence of a designing God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe then what explains the existence of God?" But apart from the very bad logic behind that question, it turns out it admits a simple answer: "I don't know what explains the existence of God, but the existence of God is still the best explanation for the existence of the universe".

It's not an explanation at all, as I must have explained half a dozen times. A designer could be the best explanation, but not a supernatural designer, not a designer who "just exists". A designer is only a valid explanation for complexity if it's an intermediate explanation (as we humans are) and if there's conclusive evidence in its favor. But of course that's not the case: There is no evidence that points toward design.

There could be, though. If the evidence showed that the universe has begun in an extremely complex state (as I said above), or if, say, iridium atoms tended to self-assemble to spell out the full text of the Bible when put in a certain solution, or some other fact about the universe that clearly pointed to design were discovered, I would immediately accept this conclusion.
But such a designer would still not be a good explanation if It was God in the sense you (and nearly all believers) use the word. If we hold on to our goal of explaining order and complexity, we have to keep assuming that the Designer would have to be the same kind of being that we are, a being that does not "just exist", but that was formed from simpler entities by a simple process, all the way down to fundamental simplicity. To do otherwise is to give up.

Finally please consider that the very idea that intelligence (or being "capable enough" as Dawkins above puts it) requires complexity is question begging as I explained in post 170.

Intelligence is, by definition, a process. A process involves changing at least one variable from one state to another, even if it's just changing 0 to 1. Intelligence also incorporates data storage. Both of these things (being a process and incorporating data storage) cannot be done by a perfectly simple thing. In fact, a perfectly simple thing cannot do anything, that's part of the reason it's said to be perfectly simple.

If you disagree with the above, explain to me how you can define a perfectly simple intelligence in a way that can in principle be described by mathematics. If you claim that God's mind is somehow beyond mathematics, you might as well say that it is beyond logic, and if the subject matter of this conversation is beyond logic, this whole debate is a sham and always has been.

Also consider this: Darwinian evolution is indeed a simple idea (even though not a simple process) that explains a lot.

It is an extremely simple process. It only looks complex because this simple process acts and has acted on so many things on this planet. But all that evolution by natural selection needs is one imperfect replicator, and resources (simple molecules) for this replicator to build more of itself. After that the filter of natural selection comes of itself.

But this does not imply that Darwinian evolution's mechanical kind of simplicity is the only one allowed. The idea that reality consists of a single designing "person" (i.e. conscious being) has intentional simplicity and explains a lot too. Of course to demand mechanical explanations of an ontology that posits an intentional reality is question begging too.

Intentional simplicity? *snort* Intentional simplicity reduces to "mechanical" (compositional) complexity.

Intention presupposes an intelligence capable of intentionality, and such an entity must be compositionally complex. And so we're back to the original problem: How do we explain order and complexity?

This reminds me of the following argument: "'Exists physically' is redundant. To say something exists is to say it exists physically. God is not supposed by theists to be a physical thing. Therefore God does not exist." :-) You see where I am driving at?

I see what you're driving at, but it's a silly analogy. It only matters what definition you're using. For example (and I only mean this as an example, I don't want to argue about it), I've seen some people define "physical" as "logically coherent". In that case, saying that the non-physical cannot exist isn't fallacious at all.

In this case, we are trying to explain order and complexity. Saying it "just exists" is not an explanation.

I define "natural" as that which is in principle comprehensible, which means two things:
1) Everything that exists can be described by mathematics.
2) No instance of order and complexity can "just exist".

If (1) were false, descriptive theories such as general relativity would ultimately fail to explain a phenomenon.
If (2) were false, theories concerned with the why of complexity such as evolution would ultimately fail to explain an instance of complexity.

Now, you can certainly accuse me of using a definition of "natural" which no one else uses (although I would argue that many scientists do use this definition without realizing it), but it doesn't matter, first because there isn't an agreed upon definition of "natural", and second because my definition is mostly irrelevant in this particular debate. All that matters is whether or not it is meaningful to explain the existence of complexity by saying that it was designed by an intelligent being who is itself beyond comprehension.

And as I have explained many times, it isn't meaningful.

Consider that by doing such you are only manipulating yourself into dogmatism. Dogmatism, by the way, does not characterize those who are too confident in their beliefs; after all nobody accuses mathematicians of dogmatism. Dogmatism is the loss of cognitive flexibility, the loss of freedom of thought. It's about losing the ability to actually consider or grasp what the other person is saying.

I completely agree with your definition of dogmatism, and in fact I've been trying to convince people of this obvious fact for a few months now.
I don't think I'm being dogmatic, because I'm not arguing that reality is comprehensible/natural. I'm arguing that as a matter of pure logic, giving up on explaining complexity is the same regardless of at what explanatory level it is done (i.e. whether we say, "the universe just exists", or "the universe's designer just exists", or "the designer's designer's just exists", or... you get the idea).

But what about you? Your definition of dogmatism amounts to saying that a dogmatic person is a person who will never change his mind about one or many of his beliefs. It is, in other words, a person who holds an unfalsifiable belief. How could your supernatural/necessary/unexplainable Designer be falsified?

Well, I don't want to divert this discussion from TGD to my own ontological views, but I think it's pretty easy to answer your question: I don't want to give up trying to explain the subjective part of my experience of life, indeed I don't want to give up trying to explain the huge fact that I am a conscious being in the first place. I find that naturalism fails to explain consciousness, because there is absolutely no reason why a material system should become conscious: there is absolutely no objective evidence (or physical phenomenon) that requires the consciousness hypothesis, therefore no reasoning based on naturalism's epistemology (the so-called "methodological naturalism") can possibly explain consciousness. On the other hand theistic thinking can explain consciousness. As it does explain a huge number of things related to consciousness, including why we experience a physical environment, why we experience natural and moral evil, why love feels like it does, why we possess intentional will, the meaning of beauty, the meaning of death, why there is (or at least appears) not to be any physical evidence for God, why living is so ethically challenging, how come objective morality exists, and so on and so forth.

Sure there's a reason why an intelligent but not self-aware species should "become" (or rather, give birth to a new species) self-aware: It's the next step on the branch of the tree of life which uses complex brains to grow. Human brains evolved from monkey-like brains for the same reason that monkey-like brains evolved from reptile brains: The mutations happened, and natural selection favored them. Considering our success as a species compared to that of chimpanzees, it's not hard to see why.

But that's not very important. What is important is, does the theistic "explanation" for consciousness and all the things it's capable of amount to giving up on explaining these things, or not?

Of _course_ it's giving up. If God designed our consciousnesses, who designed His consciousness? If God is responsible for our intentional will, who's responsible for His intentional will, etc?

It's always the same scenario. You're too impatient to wait for an answer (or perhaps you're too dominated by wishful thinking), so you shift the problem of explaining everything to God, and then declare God to be beyond the need for an explanation.

But beyond intellectual satisfaction the golden standard to measure genuine explanations is their predictive power. All genuine explanations must do testable predictions. And theism does make a lot of predictions, the most famous of which is the continuation of personal experience and identity after death. But a naturalist is apt to ask for a testable prediction in this life. Well, theism's power to explain subjective experience makes a lot of predictions about the dynamics of it. But a naturalist is apt to point out that predictions in the subjective sphere of existence do not count, not to mention that psychology or even neurophysiology can in principle do the same. The naturalist wants objective predictions. Well, apart from the fact that a theist need not really worry about what kind of predictions the naturalist wants, it turns out that theism makes objective predictions too. If theism is true then that truth must be reachable cognitively; so theism's objective prediction is that all intelligent beings (human, artificial, or alien) will tend to adopt a theistic worldview. Right now the opposite appears to be the case, but I think this is a temporal phenomenon easily explained by the fact that people today often commit the fallacy of conflating naturalism with science, and in general to commit lots of logical fallacies as the result of technical of overspecialization as well of philosophical illiteracy.

This is hilarious. This is one huge, bloody farce. This is beyond ridiculous. You say that an extremely important criterion of what makes a good explanation is its predictions, and you try to give us three predictions that theism makes, but then you as much as admit that it's not really a prediction, or that it's a prediction that's also made by naturalism, or that the prediction simply fails!

You say that theism predicts life after death... but you admit there's no way to test this prediction. I can make predictions like that too. I hereby predict that when a person hits a surface at more than 30 kilometers per hour, his or her "ethereal self" will keep going through and past the wall in a straight line, forever and ever. But this ethereal self has no effect on anything and is therefore undetectable and unfalsifiable. Isn't that wonderful? There is an infinity of such ideas, and none of them qualify as explanations or descriptions, precisely because they can't be tested. A claim that can't be tested _is not a prediction_. The ability to test a claim is what _makes it_ a prediction.

Next, you say that theism makes predictions about our subjective experiences. And then you admit that neurobiology does too. Um, yeah. Remember that your goal is to show that theism is to be preferred over naturalism. And one of your three big predictions can't differentiate between theism and naturalism. Do you know how much use this prediction is? None whatsoever.

And finally, the most hilarious prediction of all, that all conscious beings will tend to believe in theism. I would point out that since until Darwin the only way we knew that complexity could arise was design, believing in a Big Great Magic Designer in Some Inaccessible Place So That He Can't Be Falsified (like the sky, or Mount Olympus, or Mount Sinai, or a "spiritual dimension", or outside of time) is a pretty obvious thing to do.

But never mind that, let's say you're right. In your next sentence you admit that people don't tend to believe in theism. Well gee whiz, I guess theism is falsified then, isn't it? What do you think the _point_ of a prediction is? It is to test a claim, to either falsify or vindicate it. If the prediction fails, the claim is falsified.
But of course theists are never that honest, they always come up with excuses, which make what was originally a prediction into a useless, elastic, fuzzy assertion. In other words, it's not a prediction at all.

While we are at it, have you ever pondered what exactly naturalism explains? To my mind it explains not a single thing beyond what science explains, but science's explanations of phenomena work equally well for theism too, so science's explanations do not count for naturalism.

Needless to say this makes no sense if you define naturalism as I do, but even if you refuse to use my definition, this still makes no sense. Theism says that the universe is designed. Any theory supported by evidence that shows that something within the universe was not designed is a blow against theism, and once we've shown that everything came from mindless processes, theism will be falsified (unless theists redefine God to mean something other than a Designer, as some of them have already started to do!).

As far as I can see the only thing that naturalism per se produces is a long list of hard problems, paradoxes, and wildly complex, implausible and mutually contradictory suggestions about how reality is.

On the contrary, the more we learn about the universe, the more it looks like everything is governed by the same set of rules, and that more complex phenomena emerge from this unique set of rules. Sociology reduces to psychology which reduces to biology which reduces to chemistry which reduces to physics.

But of course the reason that scientific inquiry is such a long and difficult process, while theism provides such an easy explanation for everything is the one I've been hammering you with for, what, two days now? Theism, and supernaturalism in general, explain nothing. Yes, I _know_ you can "explain" everything with theism. I _know_ that theism, as an "explanation", fits itself not only to everything that we know exists, but also to everything that _could_ conceivably exist.

And that's exactly what's wrong with theism as an explanation. An explanation that explains everything explains nothing: Because it fits itself to every conceivable piece of evidence, it makes no predictions, it can't be tested, and there's no way to know if it's true. Worse, if people actually believe in such a non-explanation, they stop looking for the real explanation (which does make predictions and which can be falsified). If all of humanity's great scientists had your mentality, why would they have bothered to explain how the universe as we know it came to be?

Or to be more exact: a difficult problem for the intellect of those humans who believe in naturalism. You do see that the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants does not represent any difficulty whatsoever for the intellect of theists.

It only looks like as though it represents no difficulty for supernaturalists because they are not even trying to solve the problem. They have given up.

As for fine-tuning not being a scientific problem, the simple fact that cosmologists have proposed scientific hypotheses to explain fine-tuning disproves that little bit of nonsense. It doesn't prove that fine-tuning can be explained by science in practice (there might not be enough evidence, for instance), but it does prove that it can be explained in principle.

It's a common naturalistic fallacy to believe that science is there to solve naturalism's problem.

Naturalism is a necessary methodological assumption of science. In other words, the goal of science is to understand reality, and in order to understand reality you have to assume that it can be understood.

So the creation by us of what is arguably the most momentous technological achievement possible will have no designer at all?

That's right. See, that's the funny thing about those of us who care about what's true: Emotional arguments like the one above don't influence us in the slightest. They make us laugh.

That's not how most people understand the concept of "designer".

It's precisely how most people understand the concept of designer. To cause something is not to design something. To cause something is to be responsible for an event, to design something is to be responsible for its order and complexity.

For example, when I was a kid my parents bought me a "Magic Crystal Kit". You know how it works, Dawkins even mentions something like it in The Blind Watchmaker. You drop a little bit of crystal in a solution, and it will trigger a reaction which will form more and more crystals. It's a very impressive complexity-generating process. But can I be said to be these crystals' "designer" if all I did was drop the first piece of crystal in the solution?

And you see where I am driving at: How a designer brings about some creation is irrelevant.

But an intelligent being is only the designer of that which it has designed. It is not the designer of something that happened by itself even if the intelligent being started the process.

203. Religion advances despite science (and thanks to Dawkins)

Comment #72960 by Janus on September 23, 2007 at 4:09 pm

That's funny. The article claims that religion is propagating, or at least not shrinking, and then tries to lay the blame on the confrontational tactics of the "new atheists".

But of course the tactic which _has_ been used in the last few decades is the tactic of the appeasers, the scientists and atheists who like to repeat the lie that there is no conflict between religion and science. The tactic of the new atheists has _barely begun_ to be used by a small fraction of atheists. If this supposed growth of religion is the fault of anyone, it's the fault of the appeasers.


And by the way, Dawkins et al aren't saying, "you're with us or you're against us". They are merely stating the fact that there is a conflict between religion and science, and that hiding our heads in the sand and denying that there is a problem isn't going to solve anything. We're not trying to make things more polarized, we're pointing out that they're already polarized, and they always have been.

204. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72930 by Janus on September 23, 2007 at 2:50 pm

Right. But Dawkins does say that, in fact he bases his "unanswerable" ultimate Boeing 747 argument on precisely that premise. Here is what he writes on page 109: "A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right". I take it you don't agree with that. I don't either.

I don't remember what Dawkins said exactly in TGD, but going off this quote I agree with him completely. Dawkins' statement is valid whether or not it's true that a designer must be at least as complex as the thing he designed.
It doesn't really matter if the thing we're trying to explain is more or less complex than its designer. The point is that in order to qualify as an intelligent being, the being has to be complex and orderly enough to require an explanation. Certainly, it has to be more complex than molecular replicators or the laws of physics.

The only way to end the infinite regress of "But what is it that explains this explanation?" is, as I've said, fundamental simplicity. If we're satisfied with an ultimate explanation that is itself complex and "just exists", we might as well cut it out of the theory and say that the laws of physics "just exist" and be done with it.

I am not sure that's true; one could argue that the behavior of Earth's weather system is more complex than the behavior of any human being, but it's not like Earth's weather system is intelligent. In short it seems that "intelligence", "complexity", and "improbability" are pretty independent concepts. Dawkins appears to think that they are all equivalent.

Okay then, the human brain has the most complex behavior we know of _per unit of volume_. :)

I don't think that Dawkins has ever said or implied that intelligence, complexity, and improbability are equivalent.

Well, when I think of myself and all the intelligence/complexity I represent a big part of it came from learning. Don't you think that the designer of our universe could have grown in intelligence/complexity too by learning? In short, don't you think that, besides Darwinian evolution from simpler parts, learning is an alternative and entirely valid process for increasing intelligence/complexity?

Of course learning increases our brains' complexity by some small degree, but that's because our brains already contain the algorithms for learning, which must be pretty damn complex. Those complex algorithms require an explanation, which is natural selection, a much simpler algorithm which works with things much simpler than a brain.

Well, I understand what you are saying, and at first sight it seems reasonable enough. Certainly Dawkins uses this kind of reasoning too. But Plantinga in his review of TGD shows that in fact this kind of reasoning if fallacious (see: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/1.21.html ). As he explains it's a basic logical error to believe that "we know of no irrefutable objections to its being possible that p" implies "p is true". So, for example, the fact that we know of no irrefutable objections to the claim that the universe is comprehensible naturalistically it does not follow that it is reasonable to believe that it is. If you think about it you'll see he's right.

Plantinga is both dishonest and an idiot.

Neither I nor Dawkins claim that because "we know of no irrefutable objections to the claim that the universe is comprehensible" therefore it is comprehensible. What we do claim is that if our goal is to explain order and complexity in general (whether it's life or the laws of physics or anything else), the ultimate explanation for order and complexity cannot be something that is ordered and complex. Stating that complexity and order "just exist" is equivalent to giving up our original goal of explaining order and complexity. Dawkins and scientists in general aren't saying, "Everything that exists can be understood", we're saying, "Don't give up on understanding everything."

You mean comprehensible naturalistically.

No, I mean comprehensible. "Comprehensible naturalistically" is redundant. To say that the universe is natural is to say that it is comprehensible.

If you disagree with me, here's an easy way to prove me wrong: Give me one example of a supernatural "explanation" which doesn't amount to giving up on explaining complexity and order.

The apparent fine-tuning of the physical constants is a more serious problem which I don't consider scientific (strictly speaking science models phenomena and these constants represent parameters of these models), but it is a difficult problem for naturalism.

It's not a difficult problem for naturalism, it's a difficult problem for the human intellect. Once again, give me one example of a non-naturalistic explanation that doesn't amount to giving up. Just one.

Fine-tuning can either be explained by science, or it can't be explained at all.

Another extremely hard and purely naturalistic problem is consciousness.

See above.

Some think so yes, and I personally agree with them. Which leads us to an interesting question: If somebody writes a program using evolutionary algorithms (i.e. algorithms that mimic natural evolution), and that program finally achieves to create an intelligent program that passes the Turing test (i.e. displays human-like intelligence), then who is the designer?

No one, the programmer would have figured out how to mimic evolution, but evolution would have shaped this new intelligence.

This is made particularly obvious by the fact that AI researchers usually have trouble figuring out how simulated evolution "designed" the simplest of things here and now in 2007. Can someone be said to have designed something if he has no idea how this something works and only a vague idea of how it came to be?

205. Poll: Are Dawkins and Hitchens good for humanism?

Comment #72719 by Janus on September 22, 2007 at 12:50 pm

That's the thing, CDG1. Some people would say that it isn't.

Not that I'm one of those people.

206. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72712 by Janus on September 22, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Why do you think that an intelligent being must be complex, or at least more complex than anything it creates?

I know that Dawkins thinks so and bases his 747 argument on this assumption. But he doesn't explain why he thinks so, and we don't have to believe everything Dawkins says, do we? We are free thinkers. So why do you think that an intelligent being must be more complex than anything it creates? I am really curious about your answer.

I never said that an intelligent being must be more complex than anything it creates. I said, in the point below the one you quoted, that an intelligent being must be more complex than a molecular replicator and more complex than the fundamental laws of the universe (if indeed they are fundamental).

The point I was making in the one you quoted is that we are trying to explain organized complexity, and explaining it by saying it was designed by an intelligent being who "just exists" (or exists outside of time, or whatever excuse you come up with) is not an explanation at all, and you might as well just say that the universe or the replicators or whatever "just exist". If you're going to give up on explaining these things, you might as well cut out the superfluous entity: God.

Intelligent beings must be complex because they have a complex behavior; in fact they have the most complex behavior we know of in the universe. It doesn't matter if what makes this complex behavior possible are neurons or silicon circuits or another type of material entity or "mindstuff" or something else that we aren't even capable of imagining. Knowledge must be encoded in _something_, as must be the processes that make intelligence what it is.

If we accept the possibility that complexity can "just exist", then the universe doesn't need an explanation, whether it's God or a natural explanation. If we do deny that possibility, then explaining the universe ultimately means explaining it in terms of fundamentally simple entities: Entities with perfectly simple behavior; entities that, if taken alone, don't do anything, and are compositionally simple.

Of course, denying the possibility that complexity can just exist doesn't mean that we must deny the possibility that it was designed by an intelligent being, but it does mean that this intelligent being can only be an intermediate explanation for complexity, just as we humans are only an intermediate explanation for the technology we've invented. Our universe's designer must have been formed by some sort of process from simpler entities, just as we have. Or the designer might have been designed by another designer, who must have been mindlessly formed from simpler entities. Unless it too was designed, but... you get the idea.

While acknowledging this possibility, it's silly to give it much thought unless there is evidence that conclusively points toward design. After all, all we're doing by positing a designer is pushing the problem back by at least one step. As long as there remains a good possibility that we might be able to solve the problem once and for all (as long as there's no evidence for design), we have to look for a real, ultimate explanation. We have to assume that the universe is comprehensible as long as there remains a possibility that it is. Doing anything else is giving up, which is what theists and deists and other supernaturalists have been doing since the dawn of humanity ("Where does lightning come from? Zeus, of course!" "Where do diseases come from? Demons, of course!" "Where did life come from? God, of course!" etc).

Fortunately, so far it does look as though the universe is comprehensible. After all, it could have been impossible for us to understand how humans came to be from simpler entities, but it wasn't. It could have been impossible for us to understand how planets came to be from simpler entities, but it wasn't. It could have been impossible for us to understand how atoms came to be from simpler entities, but it wasn't. And it's still possible that we won't be able to understand how the laws of the universe came to be, but scientists haven't given up and are (slowly) making headway.

In fact let me help you along. There are many computer scientists who believe that they will someday create computers that are far more intelligent than they are. Now here is the question: If Dawkins and you are correct then these people are deluding themselves when they believe they can create things far more complex than they are, correct? Perhaps AI computer scientists are beyond stupid too.

Heh, and you know what AI researchers have been saying lately? That humans are probably not capable of designing intelligent beings after all, so the only solution might be to engineer a virtual environment in which evolution by natural selection could take place, and let intelligence evolve that way!

But of course, even if computer scientists did manage to design intelligence, they wouldn't have done it from scratch. They would have learned from intelligence which already exists. God, the Ultimate explanation for all complexity, _would_ have to have designed everything from scratch.

207. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72606 by Janus on September 21, 2007 at 10:34 pm

1) The argument from design was never worth crap. Positing an intelligent being (i.e. a complex and orderly being) to explain orderly complexity is beyond stupid.

2) Positing an intelligent being to explain something much, much less complex and orderly than it is (i.e. a replicator, or the fundamental laws of the universe) is just insane.

3) The fine-tuning "problem" isn't one of complexity or order. The initial complexity of the universe, i.e. its fundamental laws, will be explained by something like Paul Davies' hypothesis that a great number of different laws of varying stability competed together in the first moments after t=0.

Hypotheses such as the multiverse don't seek to explain the initial complexity of the universe, they seek to explain an apparent coincidence.
Analogy: The theory which explains how planets were formed is accretion theory. That which explains the "coincidence" that a specific planet with a specific set of characteristics, like Earth, exists, is the fact that there are many, many planets. That is to say, the process of accretion happened many times.

So no, no one is even thinking about explaining replicators, or any kind of complexity or order, by appealing to the multiverse hypothesis, no more than anyone tried to explain the existence of stars and planets by appealing to the multiverse hypothesis.

4) What Darwin did was show that it is possible to get orderly complexity from much less complex and orderly things. In a way, it wouldn't have mattered if it had been discovered that evolution by natural selection isn't the way that life came to be on Earth. The important point is that, to paraphrase Dan Dennett, Darwin demonstrated that the intuition that fancy, complex things can only exist if they were made by fancier, more complex things, is a misleading one.

208. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72579 by Janus on September 21, 2007 at 6:45 pm

Bwahahahahaaaa! Dr Benway for president!

209. Is 'Do Unto Others' Written Into Our Genes?

Comment #72307 by Janus on September 20, 2007 at 5:47 pm

I haven't seen so many guesses in a serious article in a long time. If I didn't know any better I would say it's written by a theologian.

210. Taking exception to Jake

Comment #72194 by Janus on September 20, 2007 at 2:05 pm

It's not as if there's an agreed upon definition of "natural" and "supernatural" in the scientific community or anywhere else. Most dictionaries will define the supernatural as "that which is not natural". It's kind of pathetic, really.

211. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #72173 by Janus on September 20, 2007 at 1:35 pm

These reviews of TGD by theists have done one thing for me: They have removed my last shred of doubt that devout believers (theists for whom religion is more than a tradition inherited from their parents to which they've never given any real thought) are all intellectually dishonest. All of them, without exception.

212. Oxford's Christian colleges 'are not suitable for school-leavers'

Comment #71898 by Janus on September 19, 2007 at 10:44 pm

Seems to me that the aspects of theology that its advocates speak of so fondly aren't theology at all. Ethics is ethics, history is history, philosophy is philosophy. Are you telling me that this is all there is to theology?

The theology I know about is a confusing, purposefully obscurantist mass of baseless speculation about a being that no one knows anything about, not even if it exists. That's what theology really is, and that's what I want gone from all universities.

213. Taking exception to Jake

Comment #71769 by Janus on September 19, 2007 at 3:44 pm

Did I mention how much I like PZ's writing lately?

'cause I really like PZ's writing.

214. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71450 by Janus on September 18, 2007 at 7:51 pm

Thelonious,

Your attitude and Khiyal's is one of pompous pretense and fake depth that should have died with your belief in religious nonsense, but apparently didn't. It's an attitude born out of a perverse attachment to superstitious ignorance and fuzzy-headed thinking.

The two of you remind me of those new age gurus who wrap themselves in an aura of mystery and go on about "Being One with the Universe", or "Empowering your Inner Self", or "Feeling Awe at the Grand Interconnectedness of It All". And Joe Average goes cross-eyed and says, "Whoa man, that's deep", and feels much respect for these gurus.

But of course they're nothing but charlatans. The depth that Joe Average thinks he sees in them is not depth at all, it's just the feeling that most people get when they listen to meaningless nonsense that they, at some level, wish were true.

What do you expect me to think when some bozo comes in and writes in a reverent tone about Worship, Sin, and the Sacred (every one of those words carefully capitalized, of course)? You can practically feel the pompousness oozing out of Khiyal's comment.

Worship and Sin are inherently linked to theism, and can be dismissed as ridiculous by all atheists. To pretend otherwise is dishonest; what can "sin" mean if not to go against God's will? And what do you worship (_worship_, not admire) if not a supernatural entity or "supreme being"?

As for the other three concepts, since Khiyal grouped them with the two I just mentioned, I'm pretty sure he meant them all in the religious sense, but I'll be generous and give him the benefit of the doubt. Devotion, in the sense of passion or dedication, is certainly admirable, but what makes you think Kathy Griffin (or I for that matter) don't feel passion for anything? Redeeming oneself is to atone for one's guilt. What is so "deep" about that?

People call something "sacred" when they have irrational beliefs about it (sacred words? sacred relics? sacred cows?), or when they feel awe born out of ignorance. I feel nothing but contempt for both of these meanings. A person like Francis Collins will feel awe at the complexity of the human genome and will attribute this complexity to his magic daddy in the sky. Do you think that makes him a "deep person"?


To me, a person who is not shallow is a person who is capable of many kinds of thinking. For example, when meeting a new individual, a shallow person will only notice one, or a few aspects of this individual (say, his wealth and his physical attractiveness). A "deep" person will give importance to the individual's personality, his intellectual capacities, his professional competence, and other things.
As for meaning, anyone can give meaning to his or her life, all you need is to give yourself a goal, a purpose, and work towards it.

Here's a challenge: Explain to me how "the Sacred" adds anything to a person's life. My guess is that you'll either have to dilute the meaning of the word "sacred" into utter meaninglessness, or you'll be forced to admit that it must be based on religious superstition to be worth anything (and therefore be worth nothing to anyone who realizes that it is superstition).

215. Larry King Interviews Kathy Griffin

Comment #71359 by Janus on September 18, 2007 at 2:12 pm

While the metaphysical claims of religion are bullshit, much of what it describes is real. Devotion, the Sacred, Sin and Redemption, Worship - these are all real, human characteristics and are among the most important ones. Jeer all you like.

*jeers*

What nonsense. Devotion to and worship of something that doesn't exist? Not what I would call an "important characteristic". Sin and redemption? Among the silliest and most harmful of Christianity's tenets. The Sacred? What the fuck is that?

If there's anything wrong here, it's that you think these things are in any way opposed to shallowness and pointlessness.

216. Youtube hater, I respect your right to free speech.

Comment #70533 by Janus on September 15, 2007 at 11:29 pm

No, I don't think Sapient or the RRS hurt our image. Some of their stuff might be low brow, but it's not stupid or illogical.

On the other hand, I really don't see why this particular piece was posted on the Richard Dawkins website. The previous one I understand, the message had to be spread, but this? It deserves a thread in the forums at the very most.

217. The Dawkins debate

Comment #70432 by Janus on September 15, 2007 at 12:46 pm

It's amazing how so many critics of Dawkins have no idea what a fundamentalist is. They seem to think that a fundamentalist is someone who is "strident", someone who states the facts without pandering to people's egos, someone who points out the obvious truth that not everyone can be right.

In short, they think that pretty much everyone is a fundamentalist when the subject is something other than religion or spirituality.

218. Good News: Both our Foundations are now Officially Recognized as Charities

Comment #70316 by Janus on September 14, 2007 at 11:24 pm

Great!

Can I donate even though I live in Canada?

My guess is I can, but I won't get tax returns or anything.

219. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #70047 by Janus on September 13, 2007 at 10:24 pm

In any case, if we do make these decisions to curtail any study or interest in the "value" religion might have in society, we should at least recognize this is a "moralist" judgment -- a emotion-based opinion -- and not based in science (and the fact believers make similar emotion-based judgments all the time doesn't make our judgments more "scientific.")

Except that nothing is being done to curtail the study of religion. For fuck's sake, promoting the study of religion is the whole theme of Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell. And it certainly isn't true that the "new" atheists see nothing of value in religious morality. All Haidt has been able to come up with to support the main point of the second half of his article is, what, one sentence from Dennett (which might be nothing more than a mistake on his part), Dawkins' hypothesis about religion being a misfiring of evolutionary adaptation (which might very well be true), and one or two other minor anecdotes.

That's very flimsy evidence, to say the least.

As for Harris' article, I agree that he misses the point, but he can't entirely be blamed for this. Throughout his article's second half, Haidt constantly lets out hints that he is a religious appeaser. He should have stuck to his main point instead of going off on these tangents.

220. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69987 by Janus on September 13, 2007 at 2:03 pm

Jonathan Haidt wrote:

My conclusion is not that secular liberal societies should be made more religious and conservative in a utilitarian bid to increase happiness, charity, longevity, and social capital. Too many valuable rights would be at risk, too many people would be excluded, and societies are so complex that it's impossible to do such social engineering and get only what you bargained for. My point is just that every longstanding ideology and way of life contains some wisdom, some insights into ways of suppressing selfishness, enhancing cooperation, and ultimately enhancing human flourishing.

But because of the four principles of moral psychology it is extremely difficult for people, even scientists, to find that wisdom once hostilities erupt. A militant form of atheism that claims the backing of science and encourages "brights" to take up arms may perhaps advance atheism. But it may also backfire, polluting the scientific study of religion with moralistic dogma and damaging the prestige of science in the process.

As far as I can tell, he's saying that there might be some good moral elements found in religion, and that the "new" atheists' condemnation of religion might motivate certain people to blind themselves to the existence of these elements.

Frankly, it seems like a huge strawman to me. I can't say I've ever heard any atheist (much less Dawkins, Harris, or Dennett) argue that the morality contained in most religions is all bad. Dawkins has professed admiration for Jesus as an individual, Harris loves the Golden Rule, etc etc. What is this "moralistic dogma" that Haidt is talking about?

If there _is_ a moralistic dogma that is polluting the scientific study of religion, it's that all religion, in its purest form, is good, and it only seems bad when it's misused, as if religion was like a knife, its moral worth entirely dependant on its "user", as if the various religions didn't exert influence on their followers' psyches.

But I see no absolute condemnation of the morality that's contained in religious ideologies coming from the "new" atheists. So what is it that Haidt is complaining about?

The only possibility I see is that he's complaining about the "new" atheists' absolute condemnation of _faith_, of religion's unsupported beliefs about reality. Because of course, while it's possible to separate religion into two parts, its moral injunctions and its claims about reality, in practice, in the minds of religious believers a religion's moral injunctions are _based on_ its claims about reality. For the religious person, one should forgive one's enemies not because it's a good thing to do, but because it's what Jesus said we should do, and what Jesus says can be trusted because he is the Son of the Creator of the Universe, PBUH. If a religious believer doesn't think about morality this way, he's not thinking about it as a religious believer. A religion that is stripped of the claims it makes about reality, and that is therefore only composed of a moral code, is not a religion any more, it's a "philosophy of life", like secular humanism or some brands of Buddhism.

So what Haidt is saying is not, "You musn't condemn ALL religious morality!", because no one's doing that. What he's saying is, "You musn't condemn ALL unsupported beliefs that act as a basis for religious morality!"

We musn't condemn blind faith if it's blind faith that has a good chance of motivating people to do good, is what Haidt is saying.

The above is a statement that could only be made by someone who, himself, doesn't believe anything on blind faith. No one, not even the most deluded religious believer, actively _wants_ to have a false picture of reality in order to fool himself into behaving well. Although most believers may hold their religious beliefs only for emotional reasons, this is only an _unconscious_ motivation. Not one of them will ever consciously admit that he is deliberately fooling himself so he has an increased motivation to be a good person.

Haidt is the perfect example of someone who "believes in belief" in the most condescending, almost contemptuous way imaginable. Of course he's much too smart to believe in religious nonsense, but isn't it possible that such delusions are actually quite good for society as a whole? Aren't the "new" atheists being dogmatic by denouncing these false certainties in such an uncompromising way?

I would like to ask a question to him and all other sceptics who share his viewpoint about religion as a motivation for moral behavior: Imagine that I told you that I will give you 10 million dollars if, and only if, you accept to take an airplane to South Africa, leave everything behind, and spend the next three years living among the poorest South Africans and helping them as best you can, doing arduous physical work, with no luxury, no comfort, and no remuneration except the 10 million I've promised you. However, I would refuse to provide any evidence that I really will give you the 10 million, or that I even possess this amount.

What would your thoughts be? After all, it's obviously an effective tool to suppress selfishness, and enhance cooperation and human flourishing. Would you stop to consider the moral insights provided by such a faith-based belief? Would you carefully look for traces of wisdom?

Or would you want to know the truth?

221. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #69944 by Janus on September 13, 2007 at 9:22 am

I don't like Sam's rebuttal much. I don't think it's clear at all, and he misses the main points of Haidt's article.

PZ Myers' is much, much better.

Professor Dawkins, couldn't you try and convince the people at Edge to put PZ's piece on their website?

222. Interview with Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell

Comment #68323 by Janus on September 6, 2007 at 8:13 pm

Yup, dishonesty of the worst kind. I mean mendacity. :P

But then, all religious believers who've had a chance to question their faith and have nevertheless remained believers are guilty of intellectual dishonesty.

In the less scrupulous ones, this intellectual dishonesty turns into dishonesty, period.

223. In God we doubt

Comment #67400 by Janus on September 3, 2007 at 9:34 am

It's amazing how often this kind of article pops up. It's as I predicted a year ago: Believers who are bright enough to try and "fight back" against us have realized that they don't stand a chance on intellectual grounds. So all that's left to them is to appeal to the widespread dogma that to express a view, or even a fact with great passion and certainty equals fundamentalism and intolerance and fanaticism.

I think Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and the rest really need to focus strongly on refuting this "argument", and breaking down the aforementioned dogma as much as possible. In fact I think there is no more pressing issue in this campaign that's begun with The Root of All Evil?
It's the religionists' ultimate counter-attack, and sad to say it's working, because most people already agreed with them before they even started using this tactic. It has to be defended against _now_.

224. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66905 by Janus on September 1, 2007 at 1:12 am

Satire, pretty good too.

225. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66903 by Janus on September 1, 2007 at 1:02 am

I posted the last part of my comment, and even then I had to cut it down some.

Ah well, most of my points were made by the Prof. in TGD, so his own comment is pretty much all that needs to be said anyway.

- J

226. Review of Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Response to the God Delusion

Comment #66897 by Janus on September 1, 2007 at 12:42 am

angels are not wispy, winged beings in ethereal nightgowns, but something far more subtle and profound: archetypal images that dramatise the invisible realities. As such, they can act as symbols for the formless elements of physics; but also for the creative imagination.

I must say I like "wispy, winged beings in ethereal nightgowns" better. At least it means something. Something ridiculous, yes, but _something_ nevertheless.

The seraph begins by politely nailing

Dawkins's first sleight of hand which, as loads of people have now pointed out, dishonestly bundles all religious belief and practice into one crude bag that supposedly equals fanaticism.

Strawman, Dawkins does not do this.

Next the seraph gently takes Dawkins to task for his breezy disregard for – some might say ignorance of – serious theology. You cannot criticise a theory until you have made some proper attempt to come to grips with it, and Dawkins hasn't; or doesn't show us that he has tried. He overlooks the big theologians altogether in favour of some pretty low-key, unknown figures.

In science, it is silly to come to grips with the theories of laymen on a subject instead of coming to grips with the theories of scientists working in that field. Why? Because they're experts: They know more about the evidence and the theories based on the evidence than other people do.

But in theology, the theories of laymen are worth exactly as much as the theories of theologians. They call themselves experts, but in what sense can a theologian be an expert? They cannot know anything about the evidence for God, because there is none. And whatever they know about theological "theories" is worthless, because these "theories" are not based on evidence. Without evidence, how does one differentiate true claims from false ones? In other words, without evidence, what is it that makes the claims of theologians better than the claims of the most theologically-inept layman?

Why, nothing.

So why does Dawkins focus on the claims of laymen? I've demonstrated that he shouldn't focus on the claims of theologians, but shouldn't he give the claims of laymen and those of theologians equal attention, at least?

No, because while the claims coming from both groups are equally worthless, they are not equally important from a societal point of view. One of the reasons Dawkins is so worried by religion is that it has an immense impact on society and on the lives of the individuals it's composed of. But religion, in and of itself, is just an idea, it can only make an impact through those who believe in it, and that impact will only be significant if the believers are numerous. Theologians are a tiny, tiny elite living in their ivory towers, and their writings, with a few extremely rare exceptions, are seldom read by the majority of laymen. The claims of laymen are significant because they make up the overwhelming majority of believers. The claims of theologians, however, are utterly insignificant.

As I used to ask students, is Hamlet real?

No, he isn't.

Is the Judeo-Christian God real?
Is Heaven real?
Is Jesus real?

Nor is the Bible "a book" but, as the affable seraph points out, a miscellany of stories, letters, polemic, histories, fables and certainly some great moral teachings, as well as some outmoded and unacceptable social prejudices.

Therefore, it is perfectly respectable to "pick and choose" when reading the Bible

How do you know which parts are fables, and which parts are histories?
How do you know which parts are outmoded and unacceptable social prejudices, and which parts are great moral teachings?

It doesn't follow that they are false because they are stories

Why do you dismiss angels as winged human-like beings? Because there's no evidence for them, and because it's obviously a silly superstition. Why do we dismiss the stories about Jesus? Because there's no evidence for them, and because they're full of claims which are obviously silly superstitions.

Religion as disease, and more pertinently, the religiously inclined as disease-carriers, this is dangerous talk. Dawkins might try substituting "Jews" or "blacks" for "religiously inclined" and he would see why.

If Jews and blacks, as groups, did carry a mental virus, I'm sure Dawkins would say so. But they don't.
Religious people, on the other hand, do carry a mental virus, which is why Dawkins says they do.

See how evidence-based thinking works? If there's evidence for something, you believe it and act on it; if there isn't, you don't.

Not that any of this is likely to alter the minds of the antiGod squad. They "know" they are right – that least scientific of attitudes since it precludes changes of heart or openness of mind.

I wonder where it comes from, this dogma that being certain about something is a sign of close-mindedness.

Do you think physicists are showing "that least scientific of attitudes" when they say they "know" electrons exist?
Do you think biologists are being close-minded when they say they "know" humans and monkeys share a common ancestor?

Do you think that because they "know" these things, they would not change their minds if contradictory evidence was presented?

Being certain about something is only a bad thing if your certainty is not proportional to the quantity and quality of the evidence... or the lack of it.

You claim to know your God exists, you claim to know he has created this universe, you claim to know he is at least somewhat accurately described by Christian scripture and dogma and not by, say, ancient Babylonian mythology, you claim to know that he and listens to our thoughts and answers prayers and countless other things.

There isn't a shred of evidence to support your claims, and yet you haven't stopped believing in them.

Why is that?

Because you're close-minded, dogmatic, and irrational.

227. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66329 by Janus on August 29, 2007 at 5:41 pm

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, we're acting in an _undignified_ fashion, are we?

I think there are worse crimes.

And of course, we don't act this way whenever we "catch a glimpse" of D, D, H, and H. We react to the things they say and write, and that makes all the difference.

228. The Sacrifice of Reason

Comment #66301 by Janus on August 29, 2007 at 4:33 pm

"Such is the genius of the unfalsifiable. We can see the same principle at work among her fellow Catholics: Teresa's doubts have only enhanced her stature in the eyes of the Church, having been interpreted as a further evidence of God's grace.

Ask yourself, when even the doubts of experts are thought to confirm a doctrine, what could possibly disconfirm it?"



Pure brilliance. :D

229. There is no God and Dawkins is his Prophet

Comment #66277 by Janus on August 29, 2007 at 3:03 pm

It seems to me that if I had to write a review of a book several months after its publication, I would take a look at a few of the reviews which have been written already and I would try to say something mildly original.

There isn't a single point in there that hasn't been refuted a thousand times in the comments posted on this very site, for the FSM's sake.

230. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #65890 by Janus on August 27, 2007 at 9:11 am

Bad said:

Show me where in Shermer's piece he argues for not being forthright then.

You can't, because that's not his point at all, and he's not talking about "appeasing" anyone.

First, a definition (from dictionary.com):
Appeasing
3. to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.

In this case the principles that are being sacrificed are truth and forthrightness.


Shermer explains his second point by quoting Darwin:
"It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science."

His third point rests on this assertion:
"It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude toward religion"

And he implies, by quoting Sagan, that the only reason that one might be hostile toward religion is that, "[one enjoys] making fun of all those other people who don't see things as clearly as [one does]."

His fifth point is that, "As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant"

and,

"the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion."


So, to recap, Shermer is telling the "new" atheists to:

- Confine themselves to science, and not bother to attack religion directly.
- Not be hostile to religion or condescending to religious believers.
- Be respectful of religious beliefs.


Dawkins et al are more than happy to let other atheists take a different approach. The ones who want to "convert" other atheists to their approach, as Sherman is trying to do, are appeasers.

231. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #65806 by Janus on August 26, 2007 at 8:15 pm

The only knee jerk reaction I see is coming from Shermer and the rest of the appeasers towards anything which might begin to resemble something that could, remotely, look like militancy (or as I prefer to call it, forthrightness).

232. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #65058 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 7:09 pm

OhioAtheist said:

Anyway, as others have pointed out, there's plenty of room for various tactics in any successful movement. I suspect both Shermer and Sapient would agree.

Um, have you read Shermer's letter? He's _against_ the Dawkins/Harris/Hitchens tactic. He wants them to _stop_ being so direct and forthright in their criticism of religion.

233. Rational Atheism

Comment #65035 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 5:17 pm

Chezzyd, we've already explained why.

1) Because "using the carrot" is dishonest, not to mention condescending.
2) Because it's been tried for decades, with rather poor results.
3) Because if you do something like refraining from criticizing a person's religious beliefs in order to get them to accept the theory of evolution, you're only reinforcing the source of the person's delusion in order to get rid of a symptom.
4) Because we want to break the taboo that protects religious and spiritual beliefs.

234. Open letter to Michael Shermer in response to his letter...

Comment #64936 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Good reply to Shermer's letter. I prefer mine, though. :P

As for the people above me moaning about sexism, kindly get over yourselves.


BicycleRepairMan,

Just one comment about your comment: I don't think I've ever heard a "new" (i.e. forthright) atheist like Dawkins or Harris attack a fellow atheist for using a different tactic to criticize religion. I've only ever seen them attack those who attack their tactic!

235. Rational Atheism

Comment #64906 by Janus on August 22, 2007 at 9:23 am

Shermer is playing right into the hands of religionists.

Point 1 is the only good one, and it always has been understood by the four people the letter is addressed to.

Point 2 is simply false. Even something as basic as refuting the good old theistic arguments (cosmological, ontological, design, pascal's wager, etc) does work and needs to be done more often. Shermer seems to think that nearly all theists know that these arguments are flawed, but for the most part they don't. And if Shermer thinks that merely doing science is enough to make people more rational and more sceptical, he must have been living under a rock for the last decade.

Point 3 is a perverse and ineffective tactic, and rests on a false supposition. The truth is that religious believers do think like children where their religion is concerned, and the means by which they keep their beliefs from crumbling down are inherently dishonest. Condescension and mockery are the only natural and honest reactions to religion. The only real question is whether or not we should be dishonest and hide our true feelings. If our only goal is to convince religious people they're wrong this would probably be the best tactic, but Dawkins and the rest have made clear time and again that this is only part of their objective. The other part is to break the taboo which has brainwashed most people into being respectful of religious beliefs merely because they are religious.
You don't break a taboo by adhering to it.
And besides, it's not true that religious people will "respond in kind". In accordance with the aforementioned taboo, they usually respond by calling us intolerant. And they're not the only ones, atheistic appeasers are just as guilty of promoting this taboo.

Point 4 is just nonsensical. How, exactly, are we "prejudging" theists? By stating their beliefs are false and by calling them irrational, credulous, and delusional? That's not prejudging, it's just judging, and it's an accurate judgement. As for not wanting theists to prejudge atheists, I don't mind at all if a religious person comes up to me and tells me I'm wrong for such and such reasons. What is Shermer talking about?

Point 5 is the big one.
"As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe."

It's at this point I had to scroll up the page to make sure this article wasn't written by some postmodernistic nut.

Mr. Shermer, would you be so kind as to explain to us what, exactly, is the connection between the freedom to believe, and your statement that we should be respectful of religious beliefs?
What does freedom have to do with respect or the lack of it?

Why, absolutely nothing. Not once have I read or heard anything by Dawkins and the other three authors that even suggests that the freedom of religious people should be restricted in any way; have you? Why isn't it possible to uphold the right of someone to believe and say whatever he likes, while pointing out that this person is a superstitious moron?

To be tolerant means just that, to tolerate, not to respect.

236. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64375 by Janus on August 19, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Well, of course they'll shift the goalposts once life has been artificially created, in the same way that many creationists became theistic evolutionists after Darwin. But even so it will be a victory, however incomplete. You'd be surprised how many people still hold to a brand of God-powered vitalism.

237. Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Comment #64372 by Janus on August 19, 2007 at 8:24 pm

Yup. It's not about abiogenesis, it's about demonstrating once and for all that there is nothing mystical or supernatural about life. Biology reduces to chemistry, chemistry reduces to physics. This is already obvious to most scientifically literate people, but the creation of artificial life will prove it even to uneducated laymen.

238. 'Delusion' Revisits Faith Vs. Reason Debate

Comment #62987 by Janus on August 12, 2007 at 7:23 pm

Also, is it just me who finds this modern distaste for rhetoric so irritating? Personally I really enjoy a good bit of polemic and bombast in what I read...

Agreed. My guess is that it's a symptom of the mentality that people's sensibilities must be protected at any cost.

239. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #62985 by Janus on August 12, 2007 at 7:19 pm

The interviewers were soooooo annoying. Let the Professor speak, for the FSM's sake!

Kudos to RD for remaining calm and composed. I'm very much looking forward to The Enemies of Reason.

240. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62826 by Janus on August 11, 2007 at 6:39 pm

Like all people who've been infected by the post-modernistic mentality, Gordon Lynch toils under the misconception that the road to utopia consists of being respectful and tolerant of all beliefs. This probably stems from the impression that what makes religious fundamentalists so scary is their certitude about their beliefs and their outspokenness against beliefs they believe are false. This is superficially true, but it has lead many people to conclude that being certain about one's beliefs is necessarily "fundamentalist", "militant", or "intolerant". But that's obviously nonsense. I am absolutely certain that my body is made of cells; does that make me a fundamentalist? I am also absolutely certain that someone who believes he can divine the future by observing the patterns formed by his feces in the toilet bowl is utterly deluded; does that make me intolerant? If the aforementioned fecal diviner starts charging people money for his services in my area, I'll do everything I can to expose him as a fraud; does that make me a "militant sceptic"?

There is nothing wrong with being certain about your beliefs, as long as your certainty is directly proportional to the amount and quality of the evidence. What is wrong is to be certain of your beliefs for the wrong reason: Because it's comforting, because you happen to have been raised that way, because you don't like the alternative... in a word, because of _faith_.

Fundamentalist believers are indeed scary, but not because they are certain and outspoken _per se_. They're scary because they're certain and outspoken about faith-based beliefs. Religious moderates are better than fundies, not because they're less certain and outspoken _per se_, but because they're less certain and outspoken about faith-based beliefs. And even better than either of them are people who hold no faith-based beliefs at all.

As "intolerant" and "militant" as it sounds, any comparison between forthright atheism and religious fundamentalism is inherently flawed, because you see, we're _right_ and they're _wrong_. That is to say, we hold our beliefs for the right reasons, while they hold theirs for the wrong ones.

That is something that a religious moderate is simply incapable of understanding, because religious moderation is based on a schizophrenic denial that there is an objective reality, and thereby that some beliefs are right while most are wrong. In order to be the people they want to be (nice, meek, and respectful of all beliefs) moderates have no choice but to delude themselves into thinking that all beliefs are equally true, because there is no such thing as a true belief. And from this comes the dogma that certainty and outspokenness about one's beliefs is the great evil of our times.

241. Charles Brooker's screen burn

Comment #62807 by Janus on August 11, 2007 at 2:28 pm

If religious people studied science with an open mind, they would acquire a greater appreciation of the magnificence, immensity and infinite power of God and would become more tolerant of those who have different beliefs then the beliefs of their own particular religion. If scientists studied religion more seriously, they would conclude that it is possible for one God to exist and for human self-awareness (THE SOUL) to continue after death.

Darwin2,

since punching yourself in the throat would do us little good, perhaps it would be better to break all of your fingers instead.

242. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62401 by Janus on August 9, 2007 at 3:35 pm

Yes, this should be illegal. I don't mean that this school and its ilk shouldn't be granted accreditation, I mean that it shouldn't be legal to send a child, any child, to such a school. It's obscene.

243. Atheist 'Metaphysics' and Religious Equivocation

Comment #62124 by Janus on August 8, 2007 at 8:57 am

But of course, no religion is composed entirely (or even mostly) of subjective beliefs. They all make claims about objective reality.

244. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61789 by Janus on August 6, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Ugh. So much nonsense it's next-to-impossible to address everything. I'll get started, someone else can finish the job.

Disturbing indeed. But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.

We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.

It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything." So it has proved.But how did it happen?

The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.

1) It is true that an uncompromising, fundamentalist belief in Christianity (or Islam or some other similar religion) effectively stops its followers from believing in a lot of nonsense. But it's not because these religions favor rationality. It's simply because the fundie believer sees everything that doesn't fit with his faith-based picture of reality as false by definition. A fundie Christian will believe that Islam, mystical chi energies, and evolution are all false, not because Christianity gives him a rational picture of the world, but because his version of Christianity dogmatically excludes these three things, and more. What Ms Phillips is doing is akin to praising an extremely dangerous and devastating bacterium because it also happens to kill many other pathological bacteria while it is killing its human host.

2) Another point that needs to be made is that, of course, while a fundamentalist view of Christianity does mean that the "natural" universe must behave in a coherent manner, it doesn't make Christianity a rational worldview. All of Christianity is still based on faith, that is to say, belief without evidence, and in order to sustain itself, Christianity elevates faith as the ultimate virtue, making it one of the greatest anti-reason forces in the history of mankind. Also, by explaining everything by appealing to an incomprehensible, unexplainable entity, Abrahamic religion blocks the way to complete understanding, which is why methodological naturalism is such an essential part of science.

3) Unfortunately, as much as I wish that Ms Phillips was right about this, we are NOT living in a "scientific age". Some parts of the world are irreligious, true, but that doesn't mean that a majority, or even a significant part of the population thinks scientifically. To think scientifically means to be sceptical, to only hold falsifiable beliefs, to refrain from resorting to cop-out answers which explain nothing, etc. A scientific age is very, very far away indeed.

4) Ms Phillips seems to think that belief in new age nonsense is somehow worse than religious beliefs because it is _demonstrable_ nonsense. But in truth, it is precisely as demonstrable as religious beliefs. That is to say, it is as demonstrably false as its believers make it. When his belief is criticized, a religious believer will say, "Oh, but my god doesn't _do_ these kinds of obvious miracles", or "Oh, but that was meant to be interpreted figuratively, not literally", or "Oh, but my god works in mysterious ways". Likewise, a believer in new age nonsense will say, "Oh, but my powers only work in conditions X and Y, not in these conditions Z", or "Oh, but that paranormal phenomenon can't be detected by mere physical senses, because it's beyond nature", or "Oh, but Guru Apapablanca works in mysterious ways". It is precisely the same kind of cowardly evasion.

Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.

The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".

That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.

This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic. And this collapse of objective truth has, in turn, come to undermine science itself which is playing a role for which it is not fitted.

This isn't a bad analysis of the post-modernistic attitude which reigns in our societies, but it is profoundly ironic that Ms Phillips simultaneously praises religious moderation, which claims that all the miracles (e.g. the falsifiable parts of Christianity) are only metaphors, and that all religions are different paths to truth, and criticizes the post-modernistic mentality which says that nothing can be learned about objective reality.

Earlier in this post I was careful to say that a fundamentalist view of Christianity is a fairly effective defense against other kinds of irrationality, and so it is. But this doesn't apply at all to this modern form of moderate, post-modernistic Christianity which all "sophisticated" believers like Ms Phillips advocate. Christianity as practiced by fundies is indeed about truth. Christianity as practiced by moderates is about what feels good. It can't be any other way, because if Christianity is the One True Religion, then the two other thirds of humanity is simply wrong and deluded, either by themselves or by Satan. This thought is displeasing to modern intellects, which is why the metaphorical, fuzzy-wuzzy, post-modernistic, moderate version of Christianity came into being.

In order to be able to grant equal respect to all beliefs, so that we can be nice and polite and tolerant and open-minded towards all religious and philosophical beliefs, truth must be done away with. As Ms Phillips says, what matters to moderate religious believers is what is "true for them", which means "comforting and the truth be damned".

If anything is responsible for this departure from the search for truth, it is moderate religion.

When science first developed in the West, it thought of itself merely as a tool to explore the natural world. It did not pour scorn upon religion; indeed, scientists were overwhelmingly religious believers (as many still are).

In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.

Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.

Utter nonsense. Like all religious believers, Phillips attempts to divide reality into two parts, "the natural world", where the rules of evidence, logic, and reason apply, and "the spiritual world", where they think they are allowed to believe anything they like on faith without having to justify their beliefs. In truth, no such division exists. There is only one reality, over which science holds absolute dominion, because science is purposefully designed to know everything that can be known about reality. The limitations of science are pragmatic, not dogmatic. That is to say, the scientific method incorporates all methods for discovering truth that _work_, and discards all methods that _don't work_. If theology did work, it would be incorporated into science. But of course it does not.

If there are things which the human mind cannot comprehend, which is certainly possible, then of course these things are beyond science. That does not mean they are within the reach of theology or of religion in general. All that faith "allows" us to do that science does not is to make ignorant, unfalsifiable, meaningless guesses. A guess, such as "God created the universe", is not an explanation. It is just a guess, and we know from experience that guesses about the nature of reality are almost always false.

There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"

This is a complete misunderstanding of what the Big Bang theory (and science in general) is about. The ambition of science (and human reason) is to explain complexity down to the level of fundamental, ultimate simplicity. Goddidit doesn't work because it "explains" complexity by positing a Mind as the ultimate explanation, which doesn't explain anything because a mind is complex by definition. The Big Bang, inflation theory, etc, on the other hand, do explain complexity in terms of simpler entities, which is what a real explanation does.

This is why Intelligent Design fails. We are trying to explain complexity. If we "explain" it by appealing to a complex entity, we haven't made a single step forward.

Intelligent design is only a valid explanation when it is an intermediate explanation, not an ultimate one. For example, explaining a watch by saying it was made by a human is fine because,
a) The evidence shows that watches are made by humans.
b) We don't say that humans appeared magically or are timeless or always existed, we explain humans themselves in terms of simpler entities and their coming into being by a simple process.

The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.

No, he doesn't. This is simply a lie. Evolution starts after the formation of self-replicating molecules, and Dawkins has said this many, many times.

Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.

Spontaneous doesn't mean magical or supernatural. We know that amino acids and many other complex molecules form "spontaneously", but this is because of known and understood laws of chemistry. It is certainly no miracle.

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

Ah, so this is what Ms Phillips misunderstands. As I said above, evolution starts with self-replicating molecules, not with fully-formed cells. The complex nano-machinery of cells _was_ formed via evolution by natural selection.

245. Face to faith

Comment #57752 by Janus on July 20, 2007 at 10:24 pm

Aye, a sociologist that approaches things through the cage of theology. But what's that got to do with it. What does it matter what he calls himself? It's what he's written that needs to be the object of discussion.

Uh, he IS writing about sociology.

246. Face to faith

Comment #57748 by Janus on July 20, 2007 at 9:55 pm

It's not a courtier's reply; the guy's a sociologist, not a theologian.

That said, I don't see the point of this article. As I was reading it I kept telling myself, "Ah, this must be where he starts giving us reasons to believe what he's saying." But he never does. This is nothing more than an argument from authority.

247. A force for good?

Comment #55330 by Janus on July 10, 2007 at 4:13 pm

I'm so fucking tired of reading this kind of crap. It's true that many religious people are intelligent, but none of them, not a single one of them is intelligent about religion.

248. Ah, the fervour in returning to my flock

Comment #54406 by Janus on July 6, 2007 at 11:39 pm

No honey, atheism isn't a religion, it's not a belief system, it doesn't have values, there's no indoctrination involved in being taught there's no evidence for deities, and if your reason for raising your children as atheists is to carry on a tradition, you're pathetic.

What the hell was the point of that article?

249. Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it

Comment #53532 by Janus on July 2, 2007 at 12:22 am

Davies' hypothesis may explain the complexity of the "laws of the universe", but it does nothing to solve the Goldilocks problem, which as far as I can tell can only truly be solved by a multiverse of some sort.

To use an analogy, accretion theory explains the origin of planets, but it doesn't explain why the Earth is so perfect for carbon-based life to evolve on it. That is explained by the huge number of planets that exist in the universe. In other words, we're faced with two problems: Explaining complexity (which is solved by accretion theory in the case of planets, and Davies' hypothesis in the case of universes), and explaining the coincidence (which is solved by there being so many planets in the case of Earth, and by the multiverse in the case of our universe).

Richard Dawkins asserts that living organisms are immensely complex and seem to have been intelligently designed. Similarly physicists like Hoyle, Davies, Hawking acknowledge that this is also the case with the physical constants of the universe. Therefore, we propose, quite reasonably that the universe and the organisms within it were designed.
The question as to the Designer's origin is resolved by saying that it is uncaused or Necessary which is in line I might add with the Bible.

Yes, I see. What if our ancestors who lived before Darwin had been as lazy as you are and said, "There's no need to explain why humans exist, the first humans to exist were uncaused and necessary. Problem solved!"?

Because that's all that it takes to explain complexity according to you, call it "uncaused and necessary", and we're done with it! It's like magic, man!

If we go along with your logic, why should scientists even try to explain the laws of the universe, as Davies is attempting to do, and the universe's so-called fine-tuning? They can just call the universe and its laws "uncaused and necessary!" and voila! Everything's been explained!

But no, fortunately we're not all as eager to give up as you are, and scientists have figured out the real reason why humans exist: We, and all other lifeforms, have arisen from relatively simple beginnings via the algorithm of evolution by natural selection.

Likewise, Davies is trying to explain the laws of the universe in terms of simpler entities, perhaps fundamentally simple ones. Because you see, that's the only point where it may finally be OK to play the "uncaused and necessary" card you love so much, when our string of explanations reaches the point of fundamental simplicity. Complexity requires explanation, but fundamental simplicity does not. If anything is necessary, it will be that, not an immensely complex intelligent being.

250. An Inquisition in science's name

Comment #51205 by Janus on June 22, 2007 at 12:30 am

This is beyond silly.

The rights of human beings to freedom of conscience and expression should never again nor in the future be abrogated in the name of either faith or science.

No one is saying, or even implying that they should be. No, not even Sam Harris, as the author maliciously insinuates. At the very most, Sam Harris has been promulgating "conversational intolerance", which simply means that rational people should speak out when faced with faith-based beliefs and superstition, instead of meekly looking down and shuffling their feet.

In Canada, for example, where you are lecturing this week, the most spiritual members of the population are aboriginal peoples. Many profess to believe something "spiritual" resides not only in every human, but also in animals, rocks, and trees - by your lights, an unscientific notion.

But to suggest their children should be taken away from them and re-educated in some sort of scientific residential schools would be to make a grievous mistake - exactly the same mistake we once made.

The author's suggestion that Dawkins and other prominent atheists would want to put all children of religious parents in "scientific residential schools" is of course laughable.

That said, a distinction that needs to be made is that freedom of expression does not mean freedom to indoctrinate. Speaking in public about your false, repugnant beliefs is one thing. Filling a child's mind with said beliefs, while taking steps to prevent exposure to contradicting beliefs, is another thing entirely. The latter is precisely what many fundamentalist parents do.

That religious people in general tend to teach their children a bunch of silly, but mostly harmless superstitions is no more deserving of special attention than those parents who occasionally give their children a slightly-too-rough spanking. What concerns Dawkins and many other rationalists are those believers who inflict upon their children the intellectual equivalent of a brutal, bloody, daily beating. Have you seen the movie Jesus Camp? That is true child abuse, as much as the physical sort, and that's what needs to be prevented.

What was our great mistake? It was to assume that we the church had an absolute monopoly on how truth was to be defined, discovered, and interpreted

No, not at all. "Your" mistake is the mistake that all "people of faith" have always done and will always do: "You" hold beliefs purely because of your emotional attachment to them.
The rational thing to do is to hold beliefs because there are good reasons to believe they are true; because they are supported by evidence. Had "you" been a skeptic instead of a faith-head, you would have been willing to change your mind when presented with new evidence, and you would have had little or no emotional reasons to hold on to your false beliefs.

It's not certainty that's the culprit. There is nothing wrong about being very certain about some of one's beliefs.
You see, there is this thing that sane people believe in, called "reality", which exists independantly of any one person, of any mind. While we may never be able to know everything there is to know about reality, we can learn a great deal thanks to careful, dispassionate observation and reasoning. Claims about reality which are supported by lots of evidence tend to be true, while claims about reality which are supported by no evidence are mere guesses. And we know from experience that guesses about the nature of reality are almost always false.

No doubt you think that the above paragraph is more than a little condescending, but it's unfortunately necessary when dealing with fuzzy headed postmodernists such as yourself, who believe that real knowledge isn't possible, and that certainty is an illusion.

The Catholic Church's mistake wasn't that they were certain, per se. It's that they were certain for the wrong reasons. They were certain of their beliefs because they were comforting beliefs, beliefs that gave an artificial (but pleasant) meaning to their lives, beliefs that were sheltered from criticism and from evidence, beliefs that had been drilled into their heads from infancy.

And it's not just the Catholic Church's mistake, it's the mistake of every religious believer on Earth. That's the mistake we are trying to correct, but that you and your ilk are promulgating. By protecting faith, you're making sure people will continue to be certain for the wrong reasons.

And we're not doing it (or even suggesting that it should be done) by oppressing anyone, but merely by speaking out and by making sure that all people, especially children, are given the good education that is their right.