Banninated

Is IC falsifiable?

2008-01-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

I happened upon the blog of one "professorsmith" in a Google search, and a couple of exhanges ensued here and here. Due to professorsmith's increasingly itchy trigger finger, it's probably wise to just post this here, where it won't be "disappeared", as has happened a couple times already. Here's my latest comment to William Bradford:

William Bradford,

You said:
The historic nature of the analysis does complicate things does it not? Let me note that ID critics do not hesitate to allege that ID is unscientific because of evidentiary difficulties. Let me return the favor in a way by pointing out that a legitimate position to take is that the answer to a specific question currently lies outside the boundaries of an empirical answer.
Yes, since we don’t have certainty, let’s just call it a solipsistic tie, shall we? I understand that’s a position many ID proponents would like to sue for, but there’s no legitimate expectation of certainty in any of this, especially in forensic questions. Instead, we depend on consilience, parsimony, predictions, and liability to falsification. That won’t produce the kind of satisfaction you’re demanding, but that’s the point: such demands are euphemisms for “unfalsifiable”. That is, the reason my researcher friend say “get outta here” with that suggestion (along the lines of what you demand) is that it’s not a practical expectation, even in principle.

And while science is all about “evidentiary difficulties”, the difficulties ID struggles with of a different kind. As I said, a century ago, we didn’t have the knowledge of DNA that led to the modern synthesis, and even when the modern synthesis was formulated, we had not uncovered the evidence that has given rise to the move towards evo-devo extensions of the model. The whole reason for engaging in the enterprise of science is because we have evidentiary difficulties, but as the evidence accumulates, positive hypotheses emerge that excel in terms of explanatory and predictive power, as well as rationalizing the evidence and surviving potent opportunities to be falsified. The problem is addressed in a positive way.

IC, as I was mention to professorsmith, is a negative argument applied evolutionary theory. It doesn’t have an “evidentiary problem” of the same sort mainstream science does. It is committed to “proving a negative” as a principle, asserting that X cannot be accounted for, as opposed to saying “here is the evidence that X happened, and if X were not true, this other evidence would be in view, but is absent”. It’s a negative model, which completely reverses the nature of the evidentiary problem.

Unless ID proponents are prepared to advance a positive hypothesis (”here is evidence of the Designer as a phenomenological entity, and here is the explanation of of how the Designer effected the phenomena we see…”), it simply must remain a “critique”, a sophisticated expression of incredulity.

I have no problem with that orientation for ID, so long as they are upfront about that orientation. The evidentiary challenges are fundamentally different for evolutionary theory and ID, though.

You said:
Indeed. Unsatisfactory as they are incapable (so far) of rendering definitive answers.

I think you misunderstood the objection. “Definitive” is an artificial hurdle criterion for science. It’s precisely when the complaint comes back that a given framework isn’t ‘definitive’ that the scientist shrugs and realizes he’s been pushed outside of the boundaries of science. It’s an illicit demand, scientifically speaking, when “definitive” becomes the bar to acceptance.

You said:
This is a revealing comment Touchstone, although one you probably have not thought through thoroughly. My comments about IC (and those of other IDists) are firmly grounded in what we know. When I point out that translation mechanisms needed to enable protein synthesis are dependent on the function of enzymes x, y, z… I’m making an observation backed by the evidence of effects of rare diseases brought about by the disablement of a single one of these enzymes. No suppositions needed. You and others may argue that we will someday find pathways to mechanisms needed for translation and you can label criticism of that contention critiques based on ignorance however you need to note that the belief that such non-telic pathways exist is one firmly rooted in a form a faith.
Sure, I don’t think that’s even controversial. Science doesn’t eschew axioms and epistemic presuppositions. I certainly haven’t claimed that, and do not encounter that position in scientific circles I travel in. It’s a method, and as such, begins with a set of givens it considers necessary to enable the enterprise — natural explanations as a requirement for natural phenomena, for example. That’s not a revelation to anyone.

There’s no “guarantee” that the world is intelligible in naturalistic terms. It may not be. But science proceeds on the “faith-based” assumptions that it is, as a means of enabling the acquisition of (natural) knowledge. There are plenty of other domains (e.g. religion) that do not need the constraints of methodological naturalism, as they are not organized around the development of natural knowledge, as science is.

Science may well “overlook” God, if he’s invisible on natural terms, and that’s a risk inherent in the model. But it’s a profitable risk, as MN provides essential protection from the conflation of supernatural ‘knowledge’ with natural knowledge. Epistemically, natural knowledge is fundamentally destabilized if supernatural “evidence” is mixed in.

You said:
Neither do worn out tread mill arguments aimed at straw men. Try dealing with what IDists are actually claiming.
I keep hearing that I’m offering strawmen, but I’ve yet to see what the strawman is. In this post, professorsmith states “IC is falsifiable”. So I think that quote is clearly what one IDist is “actually claiming”. As I took that statement up in the comments, I learned from professorsmith that IC was, after all, NOT falsified in the general sense, if the flagellum were falsified.

So that raises the question of what she means by “IC is falsifiable”. Does that mean IC is only put to rest if every single biological structure any ID proponent can imagine as IC is furnished with a documented fully detailed step-wise pathway? That’s an absurd and cynical use of the term “falsifiable”, if so, simply because ID proponents can keep scientists running in the hamster cage ad infinitum that way.

So, I’m still unclear what the falisification regime for IC is generally. Even if we were to agree on the specific tests for the flagellum, and it was falsified, IC would remain intact, from what professorsmith says. So what does “falsifiable” mean in that case?

If you want to show me where the straw man is in that, I’d be obliged. It may be useful point out that I have been responding to professorsmith’s post, and subsequent comments, as opposed to a post belonging to Gene, Behe, or Dembski. I’m happy to be directed to statements from them or others that professorsmith subscribes to as answers, but as it is, I don’t see what “falisifiable” means for IC as a general proposition.
I’m glad you mentioned DNA. DNA is an information rich molecule whose function is dependent on the sequential order of its nucleotides and an encoding convention by which sequences acquire biological significance. There is no atelic chemical process which generates systems like this.
That’s just a naked beg to the question, isn’t it? I might as well just say there is no telic process which generates system like this, so long as that kind of begging works.

-Touchstone

As you can see, a torrent of vicious epithets there.

And this is a problem, how?

2007-12-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

Bill Dembski just can't seem to manage his frustrations very well. Now, he's annoyed that the demon hordes are punishing all the positive reviews for his new book on Amazon. Here's how Dembski tries to sublimate his anger:

William Dembski:
While such behavior by Darwinists may seem unjust, there are two upsides:
(1) As the saying goes, there’s no negative publicity.

One word, Bill: Dover.

William Dembski:
(2) I’ve been talking with the producers of EXPELLED (www.expelledthemovie.com) about making this book a companion volume to Ben Stein’s film.* Thanks PZ Myers, Wesley Elsberry, Peter Irons, and others for strengthening my hand in these negotiations.

We'd have to ask them to be sure, but I'd say Myers, Elsberry et al would be happy to tie The Design of Life to Expelled. Does Dembski think the movie is going to add some gravitas to his book? Make it more scientific? It may add a little more "snide" factor, but how does that help? I'd say getting those together would be a good thing.

They deserve each other.

It's called "Fideism", Phil...

2007-12-21T16:05:00.001-08:00

Phil Johnson is playing the part of an Orwell character over at TeamPyro. In this post, part of a series on the John MacArthur book "Truth War", Phil wonders how "vital" truth is, and has this to say:

Phil Johnson:
So give him a look like, "Huh?" and remind him that the position you are defending has historically been associated with a point of view that is known for its militant opposition to modernism. Then ask if he understands what "modernism" is.

The irony. What's that pre-modern position called Phil? What's the underlying epistemology you're espousing, here?

Phil goes on, and lets us know how clever he is by zooming right past modernity when talking to post-moderns, and scoffing at their assumptions about his "modern", foundational epistemology. Not so fast, pomos! Phil's not even reached a modern epistemology, something he's quite proud of, even as schedules his next flight on a modern jet, and posts on his modern laptop, relieved from his cold by modern medicine.

Phil Johnson:
He'll most likely respond with a condescending look and tell you in an exasperated tone that—while this all is probably far too complicated for you to understand—you have naively bought into foundationalist epistemology; your worldview has recently been totally discredited; and you need to acquire some epistemic humility.

I don't think there's any problem with complexity here, or mental horsepower. What's in play here is dishonesty and intransigence. Why not just be honest about your fideism, Phil? You eschew epistemology as a discipline. It isn't that you are epistemologically arrogant so much as that you think you are above the discussion of knowledge in the first place.

I'll skip down to the end -- it's just Phil, safe behind his administrative controls, dissembling about the problems of post-modern epistemology. Now post-modern epistemology is problematic; even post-moderns will tell you that. Modernism is fraught with tensions, too. But these are both advanced fighter jets compared to the trike Phil's peddling around, complaining about the comparative weakness of the others.

Here's his finish:

Phil Johnson:
I don't think there's a fancy name for the view of knowledge the Reformers and other biblically-oriented Protestants held, other than "basic Christianity." Call it "Calvinism" if you like. Or you can label it "the Proverbs 1:7 view" to be even more accurate.

"Fideism", Phil. Why not just call it what it is, epistemically?

Hays Struggles Against the Concept of Freewill

2007-12-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

Over here, Steve Hays has a little flare-up of his denialism of freedom of action. Let's take a look at the "metaphysics of free will":

Steve Hays:
Traditionally, libertarians cash out the freedom to do otherwise in terms of alternate possibilities. Although there’s an enormous literature attempting to either prove libertarian freewill or reconcile libertarianism with some other belief, such as God’s knowledge of the future (which, however, some libertarians deny), there’s no comparable literature on the metaphysics of freewill. (In this post I’m going to use freewill as a synonym for libertarian freedom.)

Instead, it’s taken for granted that a free agent can instantiate these alternate possibilities. Let’s pursue that assumption from a number of different angles.

The "granted" obtains from its self-evidence. Whether freedom of action or will truly exists or not, the appearance of agency is simply overwhelming.

Steve Hays:
1.This goes to the question of how the future eventuates, or how time (or segments thereof) comes into being. Do we will the future into being by our choices?

Humans have the ability to influence their surroundings. This ability isn't exhaustive, or even significant on a cosmic scale, but the combination of a desire to effect a particular outcome and the abilities and resources available to a human can produce a "future" that is in line with that choice.

Steve Hays:
How do we will the future into being by our choices? How do we access these abstract possibilities and realize one possibility over against another?

We expend energy in efforts to influence our surroundings. If we find pepperoni more appealing at the moment than sausage for the pizza we are ordering on the phone, we expend the energy in such a way as to give voice to this choice to the person taking the order on the other end of the line. Like all other living beings, we consume energy, and use what we can (there's always waste) to pursue our goals, from survival on down the chain.

Steve Hays
2.From a libertarian perspective, I suppose there must be a general metaphysical divide between one class of events that are willed into being by the choices of free agents, and another class of events that eventuate apart from our volition

No reason to think that. It's fine to make conceptual distinctions in our heads, if that proves to be useful for some purpose, but there's nothing metaphysically different between an impersonal cause->effect chain, and a personal (will-based) cause->effect chain. It's physics-constrained either way. My choices are limited (and enabled) by the physical dynamics of my existence. The physical laws and constraints govern the tumbling rock in the same way they constrain me. Gravity, for example, doesn't care if I have a will or not. I have mass, just like the rock at my foot. There's no "will-based" exceptions to physical laws for humans that I'm aware of.

Steve Hays:
For example, if it rains tomorrow, that future outcome is not the result of human volition. So, if libertarianism is true, then some patches of reality are realized by human volition while other patches of reality are realized apart from human volition. But somehow, these blend into a seamless, unified reality. The reality that it will rain tomorrow, and the reality that I will take an umbrella to work tomorrow, align in time even though these two events are causally independent. One occurs because I willed it while the other occurs without my willing it, or even in spite of my wishing that it would be fair and sunny tomorrow.

Yeah, and the "somehow" has a name: physics. Physics provides the model for how all this is integrated. If I have the determination to bring an umbrella to work, and the physical capabilities (owning or acquiring an umbrella, for example), then I may well realize that goal; it's plausibly within my physical abilities to accomplish. At the fundamental levels of physics, though, the "will" is an irrelevant abstraction. My choice may provide the teleology, but physics governs the reality of it happening, or not.

Steve Hays:
It would be interesting to hear a libertarian explain the metaphysical machinery by which this occurs.

No metaphysics needed, as a metaphysic, to account for this. The "nature of nature" is such that physical dynamics govern all physical interactions, whether attached to something we call a "will" or not. We can muse about why the laws of physics are as they are, but the "machinery" that translates present causes into future effects is just physics. No extra metaphysical machinery needed once the physics are set up and in place.

Steve Hays:
3.At the same time, not everything that human beings do is voluntary, in the sense of a conscious choice. I can deliberately blind my eyes. I can deliberately blink one eye rather than another. I can deliberately blink my eye a certain number of times. But, most of the time, this is involuntary. I give no thought to blinking my eyes. Same thing with breathing and other semiautonomic functions.

Uh, yeah.

Steve Hays:
So, it libertarianism is true, then some blinkings eventuate as a result of human volitions while other blinkings eventuate apart from human volition. Some human actions are realized voluntarily while other human actions realized involuntarily, even when the same type of action is in view. Voluntary blinkings and involuntary blinkings. Human agents will some of their semiautonomic futures into being, but not others. The futurition of some future blinkings is willed by us, while the futurition of other future blinkings is not.

Perfectly uncontroversial.

Steve Hays:
Does this mean, from a libertarian standpoint, that there’s a default possibility which instantiates itself unless that is overridden by the deliberate choice of an alternate possibility? That the future will automatically turn out a certain way unless human volition intervenes? What is the mechanism?

Um, physics! Really, it's an extraordinarily robust model for predicting what will happen, based on what's already happening. At the quantum level, the predictions are probabilistic, and not deterministic. Because of that, the future doesn't evolve in precisely the same way, even from the same starting configuration. The differences at macro-scales are statistically like to be so small as to be undetectable by us. We can predict with remarkable precision where the planet Mercury will be 30 days from now, however, despite the fluctuations at quantum scales.

Steve Hays:
4. On a related note, take habitual actions. Let’s say I learn to operate a stick shift because I like to drive sports cars. At first I have to think about shifting gears. But after a while, it becomes second nature. Yet there are times when I might consciously shift into overdrive if, say, I’m on a wide-open stretch of road, and I want to drive the car flat out.

I think it’s fair to say that, in operating a stick shift, there are degrees of conscious control. Sometimes I consciously shift gears. At other times my mind is elsewhere, and I do it through force of habit. And, at other times, I’m vaguely aware of shifting gears while l listen to music or take in the scenery.

From a libertarian standpoint, how are these alternate possibilities realized? Since they range along a continuum, from subconscious to conscious, what’s the threshold between an outcome that is voluntary and an outcome that is involuntary? What is causing these outcomes to eventuate?

Um, physics! Expressed as biology/physiology here, but physics all the same. In this example, shifting is a task we learn, and eventually learn to do with little to no conscious direction. That is, the tachometer needle and the whining RPM sound of the engine serve as cues that trigger a learned response -- something we have trained ourselves to accomplish with little or no active thought.

The mechanism, then, is our physical capabilities (our muscles, bones, nerve endings, etc. being activated by "macros" we have stored in our brain through learning, practice and repetition. Our memories serve as repositories not just for recognizing the stimuli for an indicated gear shift (tach in the red zone, for example), but for actuating the physical signals and processes to make the action happen (shift from 4th to 5th, for example).

The 'continuum' here is a reflection of the depth of our "automation" through learning, practice and repetition. Not all actions can be so automated, but a great many tasks can be delegated to "habit", requiring little or no CPU cycles from our active thoughts. Humans have a range of capabilities, then between the strictly autonomic (breathing, for example), and the purely directed (focused attention on the task). Physiology as physics.

Steve Hays:
5.How do we cause a possibility to become a reality? Is it simply by willing it into existence, like a Genie? Yet there are many things we cannot will into being.

Um, physics? We are constrained in our abilities to influence the world around us by physical law. We might well manage to locate an umbrella and manage to carry it along with us to work on a day that looks like rain -- well within the constraints of physics for many people. But we'd fail to if decided we desired to drag a 2,000lb boulder in our back yard along with us to work, as a prank. We would need some help, some tools or machinery beyond the strength of our arms, arms which were more than sufficient to tote along the umbrella in our closet.

If our goal is to get the boulder in the backyard to the parking lot at work, we might plausibly devise a way to realize that goal, to achieve the object of our desire. But we would have to interact with our environment -- other people and other things -- in such way as to produce the desired effect within the constraints of physics. We expend energy and resources to coordinate a physics-compliant process to make it happen. Some of our energy is perfecty preparatory; we invest the energy and time to call a neighbor with a Kubota front-loader, for example, and interact with them in such a way that we can bring his machine to bear on our goal ("Don, can I borrow the Kubota, please?").

Steve Hays:
Two young brothers fight over a toy. Both brothers will to have the toy, but the older brother wins the fight because he can overpower his younger brother.

So how is the outcome realized? By willing an alternate possibility? Or by brute force? What’s the relationship between superior strength and actualizing an alternate possibility? Do muscle men have more control over the future than 90-poundl weaklings?

I have twin one year old sons here at home, so this is not an abstract example at all. Physical strength is definitely a factor, but "strength of will" is one also. One of our twins is just a bit smaller and not quite as strong or heavy as the other. But often enough, he prevails, simply because he wants that too more than his slightly larger twin brother. Realizing an effect requires investment of energy and resources, and in many cases, the smaller, weaker twin is prepared to sacrifice more energy and resources than the larger, stronger twin in obtaining/keeping the toy.

Even when the "strength of will" is normalized, brute strength is not the only determining factor. Not by a long shot, as any good martial arts instructor can show you. The dynamics of cause and effect are as complex and diverse as physics itself, so the answer to the question of control would have to take a broad view of not just the determination of the parties involved, but the complete suite of resources and strategies for their use. My eight year old daughter regular "controls" her 11 year old brother without any physical display of strength or control at all, but by psychological and emotional strategies.

Steve Hays:
If it comes down to brute force, then an act of the will is not what instantiates this alternate possibility.

As above, there's a lot more to consider than just physical or muscular strength. But even if we allowed, for the sake of argument that muscular strength was the only determining factor in a contest of wills, then it would be what instantiates the result when there is a conflict. If my goal is to win an arm-wrestling match, the outcome will be determined by my determination and my strength compared to my opponent's. In some cases, the strength differential makes determination and resolve irrelevant -- one contestant is simply too strong, even if just trivially committed to winning the match for the other to prevail.

Steve Hays:
5.Or does it work like this: God causes our choices to eventuate. We choose, but it is God’s creative power that enacts that alternate possibility.

Why would we think that? And even if we imagined such a relationship, this kind of metaphysical subjectivity would be perfectly unfalsifiable, and thus no more 'true' than 'false', so far as we are concerned.

Steve Hays:
But if that’s the case, why does God defer to some choices, but not to others? Why did he defer to the big brother’s choice rather than the kid brother’s choice? Seems unfair to let the older brother win.

Um, yeah. And that doesn't even scratch the surface with respect to the logical problems and conundra this idea introduces.

Steve Hays:
6.And what about animals? Animals also seem to range along a continuum. Higher animals are apparently more intelligent than lower animals. When my dog chases a cat, and I summon my dog, does my dog deliberate over choosing to obey me or choosing to pursue the cat? Are dogs and other animals endowed with libertarian freedom?

Sure, they're part of the physical context too. Their brains aren't as large or well developed, and as far as we can tell, they don't have the same level of congnition, self-awareness and reasoning as (most) humans do. But their brains are organized along the same evolutionary lines -- synapses, neurons, pattern recognition, stimulus response wiring, etc. You can see the differen parts of a dog's brain light up on an fMRI in response to different interactions and stimuli, just like you can with humans (the responses and patterns are different, but the basic neurology is the same, if more primitive).

My dog is often visibly torn between the attraction of the neighbor dog (whom she likes to play with) barking next door, and my command to return to the house. Most of the time she comes at my command, but sometimes she struggles with obeying (visibly!), and runs off to the neighbor's house.

Steve Hays:
A dog is smarter than a crow. A crow is smarter than a clam. Indeed, the idea of an intelligent clam seems pretty absurd—although I’ve never been a clam, and—for all I know—clams have a very low opinion of human intelligence.

"Smarter" is something we can understand in an anthropocentric sense, for sure. Very few clams can read a book and recount its major themes, as far as I'm aware. But by the same measure, the human brain is evolutionarily very poorly suited for life as a clam. Clam brains are highly tuned to serving the needs of a clam, and are "smart" in the sense of utility and efficacy for survival in its ecological niche (it must be, or it would be an extinct species). A human brain would be totally "stupid" for a clam's purposes (survival, reproduction) -- way too large, outrageously expensive in terms of it energy demands.

The brains different animals have are a reflection of what is both a) practically achievable in terms of evolutionary development and b) maximally efficient for survival/reproduction in its environment.

At what point an action becomes "conscious" or "voluntary" is not a discrete boundary, so far as science is aware. If "consciousness" is simply "awareness of one's surroundings", -- and that's a very useful definition for many purposes -- then many forms of life are "conscious".

Steve Hays:
From a libertarian standpoint, are higher animals accessing alternate possibilities? And where’s the threshold below which some animals do not contribute to which possible outcome will, indeed, eventuate?

I don't see the basis for assuming there is a discrete "threshold". If the 'contributary curve' is smooth, then the point at which you would say "this is volitional" and "this is not" seems to be an arbitrary one.

Steve Hays:
Libertarianism presents a patchwork reality in which some pieces of the quilt are willed into being while other pieces come into being without our willing them. Isn’t this a very ad hoc ontological scheme?

It's anything but. The "ad-hockery" here comes from Hays' demand for a discrete threshold. For any given action ("should I open and eat this bag of chips?") there are numerous influences interacting. Some of them are involuntary (when you are hungry, you feel hungry whether you 'will' it or not), while others are more volitional ("I better eat these before my son shows up, or he'll take them and devour them").

The ontology is unified. Physics governs the interaction of physical entities. The "will" doesn't exist in a vacuum, and has complex interactions with other dynamics, dynamics which may be other desires and goals (and ones that may conflict), or which may be entirely "automatic", so far as the mind is concerned. All of that is normalized in our physical context, however. All choices, to the degree that they are choices and not just effects proceeding directly from a determining cause, are still subject to the physics that govern our reality.

Steve Hays:
By contrast, the ontology of Calvinism is far more economical. God has decreed just one unified reality. His decree is realized by means of creation, providence, and miracle.

You don't need Calvinism for a 'unified reality'. Got one without it, check it out. Moreover, the Calvinist use of 'unified' here is just a euphemism for metaphysical subjectivism here, which is unification of reality in the mind of God (what God wills to be real is real), but exhaustive "ad-hockery" for man. Reality isn't "unified" around structures and constraints in this model, but simply whatever the will of God is. Given that, reality is fundamentally as unknowable and as arbitrary as the mind of an impassible God.

But yes, problems notwithstanding, it does make things neat and tidy when struggling with the concept of agency, to just suppose there is none. That I'll grant.

UPDATE:

Hays has responded in the comment stream:

Steve Hays:
T-stone is just confused, as usual. I wrote a critique of libertarianism. The version of libertarianism I'm reviewing is committed to possible world semantics.

Makes no difference. There's a good number of physicists who endorse the Many Worlds Interpretation - quantum decoherence instead of wave function collapse. Steve can protest that he's really picking on something completely detached from reality, and I'd agree; that's his milieu. But even if we suppose his object of critique is completely brain-dead, it doesn't matter. Since Steve insists what he is reviewing is committed to "possible world semantics" he's got a problem. If he is looking for a "mechanism" (his term) for how our reality is unified, it's useless to look for such a thing if he's only playing around with speculative philosophy. The "possible worlds" are purely conceptual -- no other "mechanism" obtains. If he's wondering what really happens, what the mechanism for unification would be in a reality-based many worlds scenario, the answer is that no unification is even happening -- the world we are "in" and calling the "actual world" is just one of many (hence the name!). Terribly confused, he is.

Steve Hays:
T-stone is substituting his own theory of the will. That's irrelevant to my critique of libertarianism.

What "libertarianism"? Steve's shadow-boxing, again. He doesn't provide any citations or source material to substantiate what he's, um, "critiquing".

Steve Hays:
He's also too obtuse even to accurately summarize libertarianism. No one said that my idea or concept *is* an abstract object (e.g. a possible world). The issue, rather, is how my idea corresponds to an accessible alternate possibility.

What does "accessible" mean here, Steve? If I have two options A and B, what's the "issue"? If I want to choose A, then what? There isn't even a coherent enough concept in his statement words to address beyond this.

Steve Hays:
Once again, this is not simply a case of how *I* (as an opponent of libertarianism) frame the issue. This is how many *libertarians* frame the issue. Just spend a little time with The Oxford Handbook of Free Will.

Steve doesn't supply anything that suggest he's read this or is conversant with the ideas it presents. How about a quote of the arguments you're critiquing, Steve? How about something you can be checked against?

Steve Hays:
T-stone is also assuming the truth of physicalism, despite many cogent objections to physicalism.

Not. Rather, I'm assuming the reality of physical law. That doesn't have to be all there is, but it's at least part of what is. And importantly, it's sufficient to provide substantial answers to Steve's questions. Physical law governs how all the various forces and actions around us coalesce into a unified reality.

Steve Hays:
Finally, if T-stone thinks that all future events are the effect of physical determinism, then that commits him to hard determinism. It's the polar opposite of libertarianism.

You can't be passingly familiar with modern physics and mistake it for a "deterministic model". At macro scales it's stable and predictable. At quantum scales, it's only predictable as a matter of probability (try "determining" just when the next atom in an amount of U-238 will decay, for example).

Great Moments in Calvinist Apologetics #239

2007-12-18T23:22:00.000-08:00

Paul Manata in the comment stream of this post:

God does what he pleases, correct... BUT he has a nature that constraines what he pleases.... SO you can't take that verse to imply that God could, say, sin...SINCE there's a limit set on what he can please to do...THUS it is true that God does what he pleases but this doesn't lead to arbitrainess as your enthymeme suggested.

So, who sets this "limit", Paul? Did God please to set his own limit, or has God submitted to external limits?

Classic!

Does UD Have ODD?

2007-12-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

I'm reminded by today's post on global warming by DaveScot over at Uncommon Descent today by a child I know who my wife says has "Oppositional Defiant Disorder", or "ODD" for short. Now, I'm NOT saying here that DaveScot is being childish in this post, or that UD is childish in some general sense -- that is an idea that has some things to recommend it, but it's not my point here.

The point of the connection I've made is that a child with ODD is not just at odds with a particular policy or decision, but has a basic antagonism to authority itself -- an 'oppositional orientation' as a means of approaching the world.

What's that got to do with DaveScot's latest post?
My answer would be to ask what global warming has to do with ID? The folks at Uncommon Descent aren't chained to any particular topic or argument than I am on this blog, but look at these entries from the past few weeks:

All of those were posted in the last six or seven weeks, and they all present arguments critical of the idea that anthropogenic contributions to the earth's climate are a problem. This is more than a note in passing from UD. What's the connection? It's hard to find a "design" connection, or even a religious connection, aside from the obvious affinities between right wing politics and evangelical Christians. What more cleanly explains the "anti-Global-Warmingism" is an oppositional orientation to mainstream science itself. Much of modern science so well attested in practice (you can go get lasik and be contact and glasses free in a couple days, for example) that there's not much to assail for much of the edifice. But global climatology is a big, complex domain -- not as big as the topic of biological origins, but large and intricate in its own right -- that affords the denialist a lot more "wiggle room" than other scientific subjects.

Let's assume that UD is right about global warming. Now what? How does that become interesting or useful to their agenda. How is that in their interest? Why, it's just a means of discrediting the scientific establishment, isn't it? I'd be surprised if this was a conscious rationale announced on the part of UD authors, either collectively or individually. But it's hard to avoid the sense that ID as a movement, and UD as a site, is much more about "anti-science" than it is "pro" anything.

That's not a complicated concept to arrive at, which is what makes me wonder. If global warming is just a stone that UD might heave at the scientific community for the purposes of bashing out a window or two, isn't that a kind of validation of their critics' objections? That ID is a "proxy" for discrediting and marginalizing that which provokes cognitive dissonance?

I'm no supporter of ID, but just separating for a moment for the matter, it seems to me that finding common cause with the global warming deniers would be a way to hand your critics a club to beat you with. UD's support may in some way help cast doubt on the scientific establishment, and that's a good thing from their point of view. But in the end, if ID wants to be taken seriously as a research program of some kind that can compete with and displace other more objectionable elements in the curricula used to teach science, this kind of reflexive opposition really helps substantiate the assertion that ID is an "oppositional defiant disorder" when it comes to science, doesn't it?

If so, isn't that a very poor return on their investment?

MikeGene on SETI and ID

2007-12-17T11:32:00.000-08:00

This post over on TelicThoughts harkens back to a set of lively debates a couple years ago about how (dis)analogous SETI was to ID in terms of their basis for inquiry, their goals, and the filters that they each apply. MikeGene has apparently just recently become aware of some commentary on this from one of the SETI folks dating back aways.

Great Moments in Calvinist Apologetics #238

2007-12-17T00:57:00.000-08:00

Not to be outdone by Manata's sexual aggression, Peter Pike opens up "The First Adam" with this:

Peter Pike:
As I’ve studied theology, I’ve come to the conclusion that God really knew what was best when He decided to reveal Himself through the Old Testament shadows before He revealed Himself fully in the person of Christ.

So, Peter here has come to the conclusion that God really knew what was best, after all... Follow this maverick philosopher right through the whole post, to end up with this bit of extra insight from him in the comment stream:

Peter Pike:
We do know that Adam's sin did not catch God off-guard. It was foreordained, yet in such a way that Adam freely sinned. These concepts are all clear from Scripture.

Yes, in such a way, indeed!

Great Moments in Calvinist Apologetics #237

2007-12-17T00:38:00.000-08:00

Paul Manata has a long post up responding to me, but as so often happens there, the comment stream went off onto other topics. In this great moment, is waxing intellectual over the morality of Israelite enslavement of the virgins of conquered foes in the Old Testament:

Paul Manata:
Good, you're catcvhing on. I *want* you to keep coming back. I'm *banking* on your pride. it only allows me to rape your arguments in diffeent ways. (12/16/2007 6:51 PM)

This said in response to a poster named "Nikki".

Classic! Nikki put up a long response last night, too much for Manata, apparently. He deleted it, and announced the discussion closed. I guess his "rape your arguments" urge has passed.

Good ID Discussion at TelicThoughts

2007-12-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

I hadn't checked back in a while, and found over the weekend that the comment stream for the post "The Other Movement" had registered more than 300 comments since I first read it a couple weeks ago. It's not got just a lot of comments, there are a lot of long comments.

Not only does this thread inform on several levels and provoke thought, it positively condemns the goings-on over at Uncommon Descent. Try reading a little of the TelicThoughts thread, then quick switch over to reading a post by Denyse O'Leary, and you'll see what I mean. And note the correlation: the points where the thread loses its positive momentum as thoughtful exchange are generally the points where the UD posters jump in (see 'angryoldfat''s comments here -- angryoldfatman at UD? Betcha!).

Too bad that TelicThoughts gets so little of the ID spotlight compared to Uncommon Descent. I don't think I agree with the basic claims of "Mike Gene" and the crew there any more than I do with the people running UD (although evolutionary basics like UCD seem much less controversial and offensive to the TelicThoughts team), but at least the debate there happens with some thought. Oh, and there is a debate there, which is a huge difference as well.

Dembksi on Comedy Central

2007-12-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

Hat tip to Jon Curry for this - Bill Dembski talks creation and evolution with Jon Stewart, Ed Larson, and... someone else.

Fairly uncontroversial, but interesting if you've not seen Dembski on video before. Steward asks if the religious conversion preceded his scientific insights, and Dembski says that yes, his religious conversion came before his design discoveries[sic]. Stewart isn't at all surprised, to which Dembski responds that that's not a bad way to have it, Newton and all...

Grumbling Under Dembski's Big Tent

2007-12-15T08:02:00.000-08:00

Over on the "tracking thread" for Uncommon Descent at antievolution.org, "csadams" noticed this article, a recent interview with William Dembski geared at promoting Bill's new book. "csadams" highlighted a key statement in the interview:

Dembski:
I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

That comment was posted Thursday afternoon. By late evening, the folks at UncommonDescent had a post up, working the damage control buttons and levers over this quote. Clearly, someone at Uncommon Descent was monitoring the conversation at Antievolution.org, and realized this was something to get out in front of.

Dembski's PR blunders and self-defeating attempts at satire are now something of a low-level legend in this debate, but while Dembski comes across as decidedly tone-deaf in the wider battle for "hearts and minds", Dembski's been a master of playing both sides of ID movement, internally. On one hand, when speaking to Christian groups, he's the faithful creationist, taking up the sword and spear of his two PhDs and charging forth to battle the demon hordes of Darwinism. On the other hand, when speaking "out in the open", in scientific circles or public fora, he's a mathematician philosopher, whose scientific genius has led him to the discover of emergent properties in nature that objectively implicate an Intelligent Designer.

While that has long seemed somewhat duplicitous, and transparently so, Dembski has made it work, and work well. Dembski continues to enjoy wide and growing support from creationist Christianity, and at the same time, he's been able to construct a "big tent" theme, a loose coalition of sorts committed not so much even to ID specifically, but to the destruction of "Darwinism". Just from looking at the regulars at UD, you can see an array of non-Christians congregating under the safe, challenge-free tent of the blog.

If you read the interview, it's puzzling that Dembski offered this quote up where he did, and in the way he did. Here's the wider quote:

4. Does your research conclude that God is the Intelligent Designer?

I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

The focus of my writings is not to try to understand the Christian doctrine of creation; it’s to try to develop intelligent design as a scientific program.

There’s a big question within the intelligent design community: “How did the design get in there?” We’re very early in this game in terms of understanding the history of how the design got implemented. I think a lot of this is because evolutionary theory has so misled us that we have to rethink things from the ground up. That's where we are. There are lots and lots of questions that are now open to re-examination in light of this new paradigm.

I note here as an aside that Dembski doesn't answer the question. The interviewer is asking about current conclusions as a matter of research, but Dembski isn't listening; he has something else he wants to say.

As has been noted both at antievolution.org and in the comment stream for UD's damage control post, Dembski doesn't qualify the second sentence there with an "I believe". As I read it it, it's fairly implied, and anyone who's read Bill on this subject before knows he's accustomed to making these distinctions. ID is science the proves the existence of an Intelligent Designer, but nothing more about Designer than simply he/she/it is capable of designing organic life. Dembski's identification of that Designer as the Christian God as just his personal belief, beyond any implications of ID.

And insofar as the ID supporters have understood this, it hasn't been a problem. But the implication has always been that this is about the science as science first and foremost, and as for the "who is the Designer?" question, Dembski's got a right to speculate outside of the confines of the Design Inference as anyone. But this quote here seems to go a little farther, and gives the sense that Dembski starts with the conclusion that God is the Designer, and ID is just so much "working the numbers backwards".

This has been the heart of much criticism level at the Intelligent Design movement. Science is supposed to go wherever the evidence leads. In contrast, ID, like creationist arguments before it, is something more like lawyering; given a conclusion, arguments are built up underneath it to support it.

Here's an example of the kind of grumbling Dembski's statement is likely to generate from "big tent ID supporters":

PlatosPlaything:
“The Designer of intelligent design, is, ultimately, the Christian God.”

Umm, that bothers me. This founder of the movement is not saying, “ID proves design, and in my opinion the designer is Jesus,” but, as a fact, the designer is Jesus. As you know, I’m a pagan ID supporter. Where does this leave people like me — as well as the scores of Jews, Muslims and atheists who support ID?

Here's another complaint:

dave557:
Silly old me, I was always under the impression that ID was cold, hard science. ID had nothing to do with god. Time and time again Demski and others have denied religious motive. Oh well, guess I was wrong

That captures the basic objection. However, this particular complaint should be taken with a grain of salt here. I don't know this poster "dave557" to be a sockpuppet -- an ID critic posing as a (nominal, at least) ID supporter as a means of discrediting ID -- but my money's on the guess that he is. He continues by providing a long-ish quote from PZ Myers about Dembski's book. Not something you'd expect from anyone but the Banninated™.

Another poster sees a problem with this from a "textbook" angle:

Frost122585:
The problem here is this. If dembski goes down as saying that the designer is the “christian” god then i dont see how this is going to get tought in any public school.

Dembski weighs in with his own comments:

William Dembski:
In the context of the review, I was saying that I — personally — believe the Christian God is ultimately the designer behind the world. I’ve also written elsewhere that the Christian God might use teleological organizing principles to implement his designs (e.g., that God does not need to specifically toggle the bacterial flagellum). And I’ve stressed throughout my writings that there are alternative philosophical frameworks for making sense of ID. None of these considerations undercuts the scientific core of ID.
Come on folks, it’s no secret that I’m a Christian and that I have various motivations for pursuing ID (if you want to put me on the couch, please do the same with Dawkins).

The reader can be the judge as to Dawkins' sincerity in this, but I'd bet Dawkins would disavow the idea that he has "various motivations" for assuming his conclusion -- that no god exists -- on an a priori basis, external to the scientific investigation of the matter. Isn't that quite different than what Dembski is admitting here for himself? It sounds like he's projecting his own worldview on to Dawkins, and everyone else: believe whatever you believe, for whatever reason, then work backwards toward a supporting case for it.

Dembski here seems close to openly owning up to his "working backwards". If so, I'd say that will continue to not only produce more grumbling the Big Tent of ID, but will give ID opponents some strong philosophical grounds to reject ID as not just "non-science", but "anti-science". Working backwards from an a priori conclusion towards a constrained supporting argument is polemic, the antithesis of scientific inquiry.

Dembski's "Symmetry Inference"

2007-12-14T13:21:00.001-08:00

William Dembski asks today about the Chris Comer firing:

Dembski:
What if someone in the same position as Chris Comer forwarded an email about a forthcoming talk by Ken Ham at a “fundamentalist church” in which he would recommend teaching creationism in public schools?

First, the right answer is "nothing". As problematic as Ken Ham is, here, it's hard to come up with a reasonable basis for firing someone for forwarding a notification of an upcoming event. I will add the caveat that it's perfectly acceptable to fire an employee for violating a direct prohibition -- I've fired people for sending out perfectly acceptable messages to customers in terms of content; they got fired because they had no authority to speak for the company in said messages, and even though they said nothing wrong in those emails, the potential liability for us had they said the wrong thing was very large. They were repeatedly and clearly instructed not to engage in such communications, but did it anyway.

Insubordination, plain and simple.

To the extent that simple insubordination is at the heart of Comer's dismissal, I'm fantastically uninterested in this story. Too bad for her, if so. Lesson learned, hopefully. But Dembski isn't appealing to that idea here, and is instead apparently hoping to justify the ostensible injustice here by suggesting that if the tables were turned, the "Darwinists" would now be calling for Comer's dismissal.

But the apparent symmetry Dembski sees here, the "symmetry inference" he's making in imagining an email alert going out for a YEC event from someone in Comer's position, isn't a sound inference. These are not two sides of the same coin.

Say what you want about the Center for Inquiry in terms of their agenda. Dembski describes them as a "virulently atheistic organization", and from what little I know about them, there's not much to dispute in that, beyond Dembski's typically emotionally-loaded language ("virulently" has got to be bad, doncha know). In any case, I don't think any "virulence" matters, so long as they are willing to affirm the integrity and value of methodological naturalism -- the 'operating guidelines' for science as it is effectively practiced.

And that's the difference. Ken Ham doesn't have a different scientific view. He has an anti-scientific view. Dembski is hoping to impose a kind of "philosophical relativism" here, and the implication in his idea is that, ultimately, there is no method to science, and that it is all just so much politics and subjectivity. But I'd be willing to wager that for all of the Center for Inquiry's "virulence" in their metaphysical outlook (if they do indeed promote one), they would emphatically affirm the importance of methodological naturalism as essential to the succesful pursuit of scientific inquiry.

Ken Ham, on the other hand, sees methodological naturalism as the problem itself, rather than the solution, just as Dembski does. That's what fundamentally distinguishes the practical effects of an email alert about a Center for Inquiry event, and an email alert about an upcoming speech by Ken Ham. The former is broadly compatible with the existing practice of science itself, and the latter is not, not even nearly.

Remember, I wouldn't countenance the firing of a person in Comer's position even if they had forwarded an email alert concerning an upcoming Ken Ham speech, or a long series of YEC-friendly alerts and notes. Insubordination is good grounds for dismissal, but none of the email alerts we're considering here begin to rise to the level of a dismissal. But let's identify Dembski's equation of these two email alerts -- one about the Center for Inquiry, the other about Answers In Genesis for what it is: an attempt, again, and as always, to erode the practice of science itself.

Whatever "evangelizing" the Center for Inquiry might undertake, they can affirm and support the practice of science, as it occurs in the curriculum of the school textbooks for the district. The evangelizing of Ken Ham has a completely different agenda: to de-legitimize and marginalize science itself, and to assert their own authority (in the name of God, of course) over the scientific enterprise. Fortunately, things are so lopsided at this point in terms of evidence against Ken Ham that there is a diminishing threat, even in this. The only people who listen to Ken Ham aren't the least bit concerned about science qua science anyway. Anyone approaching this with their eyes open won't be buying any of it.

Ken Ham cannot affirm the science textbooks and curriculum of Comer's school district. And because of that, the "Ken Ham" alert from Comer would be more than "non-neutral", it would be actively subversive of the schools position on science and its practice. So, I know Dembski is asking his question rhetorically, but the real answer is: if it happened, Comer should not be dismissed, but we would reasonably wonder about her basic competency in the areas of science, were we to learn that she's promoting the ideas of Ken Ham. Not a firing offense, and maybe not an offense at all, but a signal that somewhere along the way, the system failed to locate a competent steward for its Director of Science position.

We'd be troubled to learn that the Attorney General didn't believe in civil rights for blacks or minorities. Or that a sitting judge on the bench neither knew the law or approved of the concept of American jurisprudence. A "Director of Science" promoting Ken Ham would signal the same kind of problem, a basic hostility to the enterprise they are trusted to promote and develop.

Dan Phillips Doubts the Value of Doubt

2007-12-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

This morning's post over a TeamPyro is a little riff by Dan Phillips on doubt.

Dan Phillips:
Our unbelief has to be unfathomable to God, as was the disciples' to Christ.

and

To say that God knows and understands all things is not to say that God finds everything understandable, if you take my meaning.

The first sentence is absurd on its face; Dan believes in an omniscient God, right? Of course he does, and the second sentence provides the equivocation on that statement. God understands, he just doesn't like it or sympathize with it.

Pressed on this a bit in the comments section, Dan clarifies a bit:

Dan Phillips:
We generally use "understandable" in the sense of taking something as reasonable, to be expected, and thus worth acceptance. God knows and knows the meaning of everything. That is not to say (to say the least!) that God shares our view of everything, or finds our view reasonable, rational, and acceptable.

Here, the post-resurrection Jesus clearly finds their unbelief astonishing. It isn't that He doesn't know literally everything there is to know about it. Actually, it's that He does, and He knows it to be nuts.

This is thoroughly incoherent. It's double-speak. On the one hand, Jesus is supposed to know all things, and on the other, Dan has Jesus thinking doubts about him are "nuts" -- irrational, crazy, unfounded.

If Jesus knows all things, then he fully understands that from a reasoning standpoint, his resurrection, even preceded by preparatory miracles, is completely without precedent, and violates a set of basic understandings rational minds develop about the world. Jesus would understand that the people around him are thoroughly convinced that when a man dies, he's dead, that's it. It's permanent.

So it's perfectly rational for someone to be incredulous at the news that a person they had be killed at the hand of the Romans and buried in a tomb was once again alive, and making appearances to his friends and family. It's such an extraordinary event that it be would irrational to accept such reports at face value. That nullifies and jepoardies everything we know about human physiology, about life and death. Now, maybe something has happened that calls all that into question, but only a fool would simply abandons the witness of one's experiences, and the collected knowledge of those all around him, at first sign of a report that a dead man had come back to life after three days.

If that's not clear, imagine a colleague informing you over the water-cooler on Tuesday morning that your Jim, a colleague who had tragically died of masive heart attack last Friday, and who you had seen in his casket at a reviewal on Sunday, had come back to life! In fact, Jim was planning to be back in the office by mid-day Thursday.

Would you doubt such a report? What would you think about someone who simply smiled, and believed, and said "Wow, that's great news. I'll be happy to see him."?

We're deeply reliant -- necessarily dependent -- on our ability to observe, establish patterns, and expectations, and apply skepticism and credulity. And yet, Dan Phillips supposes that our basic rational processing of new claims and propositions -- doubt in the face of the extraordinary and fantastic is "nuts" -- irrational. He's arguing that our rational behavior is actually irrational.

But wait! Since Jesus knows the truth, doesn't all that doubt become "nuts" then, to Jesus, anyway? No, as per Dan, Jesus would understand the rational basis (proper function) of man's thinking about such matters, and would be fully aware of the limited information man has to go on, which, Jesus' miracles prior to his resurrection notwithstanding, points completely at the permanence of death. Jesus, understanding all this, should not be the least surprised at this -- it's rational behavior.

Commenter "StrongTower" helps make this point a little further down in the comments, if unwittingly:

StrongTower:
In a court of law we must find quilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasoned doubt is based upon some finding of fact. Doubt that is based upon no precedent is unreasonable, and therefore without understanding.

There was no reason for those to whom Christ was speaking to doubt, "If you do not believe my word, believe for the sake of these works..." This then goes to the heart. Unreasoned doubt is bound in the darkness of understanding. Where there is no light there is no reason. They stumble but they do not know over what. Why do you doubt? Seeing as there is no reason to give light to your doubt, it is not understandable that you do.

In a court of law, a man's understanding that death was permanent would be held as perfectly reasonable, overwhelmingly indicated by precedent. StrongTower nicely demonstrate the "black is white" inversion that proceeds from Dan's double-speak.

Welcome to "Inspired Designs"

2007-12-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, I worked up a "Successories"-style spoof image to make a point on an email loop I'm on. I got enough positive feedback to work up a small set of "posters", and so here they are, just in time for Christmas: inspirational posters for the Intelligent Design community, from your friends at Inspired Designs Studios.

(I burned some credits at iStockPhoto for the images, so these are legal to pass around.)

UPDATE: Added a couple more. The Dembski photo's not a stock photo.

UPDATE 2: Blogger doesn't allow external access to local images, apparently, so if you want to link to these images, it won't work. I may move these over to a Photobucket or Flickr account, but for now, feel free to grab these and host 'em wherever you'd like. Attribution appreciated -- Touchstone @ banninated.blogspot.com.

O'Leary's Handy Uses For Creationism

2007-12-12T12:39:00.000-08:00

In part four of Denyse O'Leary's appreciation of John Lennox's book God's Undertaker:Has Science Buried God?, Ms. O'Leary draws out the usefulness of creationist ideas for the development of science. Based on what O'Leary provides, I'm inclined to just pass on this book, which otherwise would have been one that intrigued me. She doesn't do much to distinguish Lennox's points from her own, though, and having read a fair amount of O'Leary in the past couple years, it's clear that she sees just what she wants to see in whatever she surveys; the posts in this series present quotes from Lennox of dubious value, which she then make a mess of with her own riffage on Lennox's quote.

Here's an example, starting with Lennox:

John Lennox:
" ... the rise of science would have been seriously retarded if one particular doctrine of theology, the doctrine of creation had not been present." (God's Undertaker, p.22)

My initial reaction to that is to roll my eyes, but with just this little bit presented, one would have to look at the larger treatment in the text to make a fair evaluation. I don't know how Lennox supports this statement, but here's O'Leary's expansion:

Denyse O'Leary:
Why is a doctrine of creation important? Lennox points out that it frees science from the idea that we ought to be able to deduce what is happening in the universe from fixed prior principles. If - in contradiction to such an idea - we assume that God is entitled to create what he likes (trilobites, giraffes, and whales, to name some examples), then our duty is to address what exists rather than to set rules for what can exist. Unfortunately, centuries ago, many scientists attempted to proceed by setting rules about what can exist, according to their theories. Many of their ideas were in conflict with reality, and unproductive conflicts were common.

I held off posting on this yesterday when going through the other two sections, as I was sure I just wasn't reading this part right. But having looked at it several times now, the unavoidable conclusion is that O'Leary finds creationism valuable because it keeps us from artificially limiting reality. The examples she gives are baffling. Do we suppose that with a 'creationist view' that we would dispute the reality of the trilobite, the giraffe, the whale? It's as if O'Leary thinks we'd be inclined to say one or more of those things "aren't real" if we can't deduce them from "fixed prior principles". The giraffe may be standing right in front of us, but we are inclined to deny it because we can't deduce if from physical law, and this is what creationism saves us from?

Science is anchored in observation. To the extent any of those three can be objectively observed, we're obligated to accomodate for them in our model of reality. O'Leary has things reversed, so far as I can see here, suggesting that science want to define what's real, then map our observations onto it. That's nuts. We observe, test, kick, scrape, measure, watch and use all empirical tools at our disposal to establish the phenomena, then we define our reality based on that.

I suspect a part of the confusion for O'Leary here is the equivocation of the term "rule" or "law" here. In the creationist model, rules for reality are prescriptive, due to Christianity's metaphysical subjectivism. Reality is realized, and constrained by the will of God.

In the scientific view, the rules are descriptive. There's no underlying prescription, and the 'rules' than are identify are rules only by virtue of their identifying symmetries and uniform dynamics. So, to a scientist, "[setting] up rules for what can exist" is a fantastically confused statement. We don't make up rules for what exists, we just do our best to describe what exists, and how it exists. Descriptive, not prescriptive. Maybe that's a key clue for O'Leary.

Denyse O'Leary:
Having taught sections of the Design or Chance? adult night school course at St. Michael's in the University of Toronto, I also have a clear sense of another issue: A doctrine of creation encourages people to believe that the universe is worth studying because it puts a limit on the things you would need to know in order to understand. For one thing, even by positing an actual beginning of time, it closes off an infinite past in which virtually anything could have, and has, happened.

Here, I believe we have O'Leary projecting her own confusions about the concept or reality on the general population. Even if we grant her premise -- that the masses need things "dumbed down" so as not to exasperate them -- this in no way retards science itself. If anything, creationism thwarts the advancement of science by positing "pedagogical falsehoods" on the syllabus. A concept may make things easier to understand, no doubt, but that is not, in and of itself, scientifically useful. It's only as useful as it is accurate, performative in predictions and explanations, and unfalsified by salient tests.

Denyse O'Leary:
Assume, for example, that our theory of the universe does not include a doctrine of creation. We might assert - as some cultures have - that the universe is supported on an infinite series of turtles who (in some greater infinity) are swimming in an endless sea. Why study it? The information gained from one turtle may be no use in interpreting another, and then - even if you could get to the end of the turtles (which you cannot, because the series is infinite) - you would then confront the endless sea. All the information you have accumulated is a mass of interesting sludge, really. The prospect of understanding the universe is actually impossible. Lennox aided my understanding of this question by noting that the Jesuit Fathers who visited the advanced kingdom of China in the early modern period had difficulty at first persuading the Chinese scholars that many features of the universe can be understood by simple equations. They had not expected to find the unverse comprehensible in that way.

I don't know of any cultures that suppose that "the universe is supported on an infinite series of turtles". This objection isn't material to O'Leary's point, but it's indicative of the kind of ... "whatever!" approach she brings to science and the philosophy of science. From what I can find (see here, for example and here), Hindu culture has imagined the earth (as opposed to O'Lery's use of 'universe' here) as borne on the back of an elephant, which stood on a single tortoise, and that's about as close as I can come to finding support for her statement here. The Wikipedia article on "Turtles All The Way Down" attributes the "infinite turtles" idea to a single person, someone sparring with Bertrand Russell after a lecture. I won't make a bigger issue of this than just to note: when you start looking at the "building blocks" O'Leary uses, even those often are imaginary, or widely mistaken.

But suppose we are presented with a "turtles all the way down" cosmology. Now what? Well, to the extent you could verify it, you'd have a most significant answer. There are fewer more profound answers to be had, if the theory checks out. Oddly, O'Leary claims this would all be "interesting sludge, really", in yet another example of her command of the language. "Sludge"? She then announces that this would render the prospect of understanding the universe "actually impossible". Yet, she's just posed the foundations for understanding the universe. If the reality is "turtles all the way down", something we can verify, or even just verify that these turtles really do extend a very, very, very long way down and that they do somehow "support the universe", then a significant level of understanding the universe has been "actually achieved".

I know, I know. O'Leary's paragraph here is more incoherent than it is wrong.

I'm just sayin'.

Just to really get things thoroughly confused, O'Leary points to mathematical principles as a useful means for modeling and describing our universe, an approach that apparently hadn't occurred to the Chinese before some Jesuits introduced the idea. But that's not creationism at all, and in fact is the very antithesis of creationism. In proposing math as a key resource in understanding the universe, the Jesuits were proposing a perfectly materialist model of the universe. There's nothing "creationist" about the inverse-square law. In fact, maths are the building blocks for the "non-created" model of the universe, a universe governed by impersonal physical dynamics, rather than the arbitrary will of God. I can't think what O'Leary imagined the pedagogical value of math to be in terms of creationism, but for now, I'm thinking she's as confused about what Lennox is really saying as she is on the cultural popularity of "turtles all the way down".

Denyse O'Leary:
So a doctrine of creation imposes limits on what we must understand in order to gain a picture of our universe. That is critical for science as we understand it. If we assume that if the Big Bang happened roughly 13.7 billion years ago (conventional dating), then anything that could not have taken place within that period by random movements alone either did not happen or happened because of exterior or prior guidance. Or something else? At any rate, we are justified in seeking an explanation.

I'll agree that creationism imposes limits on understanding. But this is positively perverse, epistemologically. And the example she gives demonstrate this. If we are to discover a process or phenomenon that exists and requires 20 billion years of running to reach the state it is in now, we'd have to revise our estimates of the age of the universe. QED, so long as we have reason to trust the calculations on the process timeline. The existing estimates are where they are based on the demands for a model that harmonizes all that we have to go on. If you change the evidence and facts in view, then the estimates might very well need to be changed to accomodate it.

More With Manata

2007-12-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

In this post, Paul pursues the idea of the category that doesn't exist because it's not an instance. We've been talking about whether "secular morality exists", and Paul's now committed to the idea that it doesn't.

Here Paul again turns to Jeff Lowder:

Paul Manata:
The first thing to point out his title - interesting choice of words given that he's an expert on "secular morality." Touchpebble says, "Manata Mangles Secular Morality." Since there is no such thing as "secular morality" then how did I mangle it? For example, prominent up and coming atheologian Jeffery Jay Lowder states,

"On that basis, atheism alone is not enough to construct a worldview. Atheism does not entail any particular ethical theory; all that atheism entails is a rejection of theological ethical systems, such as divine command theory."

So, I have no idea how I "mangled" a non-existent category, viz. "secular morality."

Atheism itself is not an ethical framework. As Lowder points out, it's just the denial of theism -- and the frameworks that are based on it (DCT and Calvinism being examples). "Atheist" is just a qualifier in that sense, so that any ethical framework that eschews supernaturalism would qualify. Would it make sense to declare that there does not exist a such thing as "conservative tax policies"? To apply Manata's logic here, I'd be justified in asserting such because there is no one specific conservative tax policy implied by that term. Or, as Paul will tell us in just a bit, "conservative tax policies" is just an approach to tax policy, and therefore isn't meaningful as a concept in thinking about or evaluating tax policies.

Paul persists:

Paul Manata:
I don't "just think" that it doesn't, it doesn't. There is no such thing as "Secular ethics." Lowder corroborated.

Not. Paul, does the category "conservative tax policies" "exist"? Apparently, Paul is supposing that a group of instances of a class (ethical frameworks that are secular) somehow denies the instances. I'll confess, that's a novel way to dismiss dealing with the merits of any particular secular ethical framework. Haven't seen this maneuver before.

Paul then emphasizes this phrase from the Wikipedia article I references on secular morality:

Secular ethics can be seen as a wide variety of moral and ethical systems drawing heavily on humanism, secularism and freethinking.

Now, he's just again declared that secular ethics doesn't "exist", and has to badly mangle Lowder (maybe we'll have to see if Lowder wants to weigh in on Manata's reading skills here?) to avoid the completely non-controversial concept of secular morality as a grouping of any of a number of ethical frameworks. Here, the Wikipedia article states the concept quite plainly.

Paul's reaction: "Thus saith the Wiki." Srsly.

He then moves on to his objections concerning this category that doesn't exist.

Paul Manata:
ii) At best, this quote says that their is a secular way of approaching ethics. It doesn't support the idea that there is a secular ethic. This can be proved by pointing out that an ethical system is supposed to provide normative, action-guiding principles. If an ethical system didn't purport to tell us how we should act in given moral situations, then that system would be useless as an ethical system. This is to say that there needs to be both a formal and a material aspect to ones ethical theory (this point is made by many, for example, secularist Mark Timmons points this out in his book Moral Theory. Secularist James Rachels makes this point in The Elements of Moral Philosophy. etc). Since the above does not purport to give us action-guides, we haven't seen a "secular ethic."

Heh. The Wikipedia even throws out a couple examples of instances in this category (utilitarianism, ethical egoism). Paul can tell us that any particular ethical system is displeasing to his (theological) tastes, but that in no way disqualifies it as an ethical system. Utilitarianism, for example purports to "tell us how we should act in given moral situations", and provides its grounding for "good" in an actions overall utility (hence the name!). That is a secular ethic, the very thing Paul supposes doesn't exist. Would Paul suggest that utilitarianism is not an instance of a secular ethical system that provides "action-guides"?

Aware of the weakness of ii), Paul hedges:

Paul Manata:
iii) The above account is biased towards a realist conception of ethics. Notice, furthermore, that "culture" is not listed as one of the "basings" for a "secular ethic."

Well, lucky for Paul that this whole category just "doesn't exist", then, huh? Ok, I've noticed that culture is not listed as a "basing". Now what? Maybe it's time to throw in a red herring?

Paul Manata:
iv) There are secular ethicists who deny that anything has intrinsic value.

Totally irrevelant. Unless Paul supposes the existence of such ethicists somehow denies the existence of other secular ethicists who do affirm intrinsic moral worth, this is just a useless observation.

Paul Manata:
That's right, and that's all that I was saying. There is no such thing as "secular" morality. An approach to ethics isn't an ethic. There is no "secular morality" since a morality gives one normative prescriptions that serve as action guides. A "morality" has principles, guides to actions, rules, an axiological position, and, in some cases, aretaic ethics - which, not surprisingly, the Wiki quotes leaves out of the list of the myriad "basings."

Since Paul is having so much trouble with the concept of categories, maybe we can make headway by focusing on an instance. The category is important, as there are a number of competing ethical frameworks that are secular, and those provide a challenge for Paul. But for now, to avoid getting bogged down by incorrigibility, let's consider one of the instances mentioned above: utilitarianism. Even this "instance" is itself a category, or subcategory of secular ethics; under the broader perimeter of consequentialism, utilitarianism comes in multiple permutations -- classic utilitarianism, hedonistic utilitarianism, act/rule distinctions, etc. But, variations considered, utilitarianism provides action-guides, a grounding for moral worth (normativity), offers practical axiological/deontological distinctions.

Utilitarianism, then, would be an instance of secular morality, a member of the class. Does Paul suppose that utilitarianism somehow "doesn't exist" as an ethical framework, secular or otherwise? This ought to push Paul's spinner to red-line RPM levels, I think.

Moving on:

Paul Manata:
ii) I never said "atheism doesn't support ANY ethical system." That's Pebbles' (mis)characterization. I simply said that there is no such thing as "secular morality." Lowder would agree. But, "atheism" does not support any one theory (see (iii) below).

I have to remind the reader here that the context for this was the question of whether atheists can be moral (or as Paul is inclined to re-cast the question: Can atheists provide an account for objective morality?). Rather than face any single, official rendering of secular morality, Paul has an array of secular ethical frameworks to deal with on this question. "Simply" pointing out that secular morality is a category containing multiple instances that qualify (which is what Lowder was pointing to) is a bigger problem from Paul. Rather than having to defeat a single "champion", he's obligated to "run the table". If just one of those secular frameworks can establish grounds for moral value, and the prescriptions and guides that flow from it, then his presuppositional goose is cooked. This is, however, a nice example of Paul as "contortionist pedant". Paul, does an array of secular ethical frameworks make things better for your argument, or worse?

Paul Manata:
iii) I know that Lowder "leaves room open" for secular "ethical systemS." I never denied that there were secular ethical systemS (plural). But, that "atheism leaves room for ethical systems" does not entail that "atheism supports any one system." I might "leave room" for a slacker to get a good grade in my class, that doesn't logically entail that I support any one (or n) slacker/s!

Now we're into thoroughgoing pedantics. If it "leaves room" -- "is compatible with" for those systems, it "supports" them. My Mac "supports" FireWire devices. It "leaves room" for compatible devices to be integrated in to the overall platform. Paul is equivocating on the word "support" here, leaning on "logically compatible with" in one case, and pointing to "fanboyism" (the slacker in his class) in the other.

Atheism supports utilitarianism, for example. They are completely compatible.

Paul Manata:
iv) Pebbles is simply confusing being compatible with ethical system/s, and being an ethical system. There is no "atheistic" or "secular" ethic, though, "atheism" and "secularism" are compatible with numerous ethical systems."

As above, "atheist" is just a qualifier, seperating ethical systems into two categories: atheist ethical frameworks, and theistic ethical frameworks. Any ethical framework that does not rely on theistic concepts or principles is -- de facto -- an atheistic ethical framework. "Conservative" is not a synonym for "tax policy". "Conservative" provides a qualifier for distinguishing to sets of tax policies (conservative, not-conservative). This is not a difficult concept to grasp, Paul.

Paul Manata:
v) Lowder doesn't use the pejorative "magical" in his post. Why does pebbles? He professes to be a Christian yet he refers to a theistic ethical system as "magical." His "Jesus" teaches us of a "law," an "ethic," yet Pebbles disrespects his professed "savior" by spitting on, and mocking, his claims.

Use "supernatural" instead if you like, Paul. You're quibbling about the terms, but the concept is the same. In any case, none of that is relevant to whether or not secular moral frameworks can account for themselves, unless one just assumes, a priori, that they can't. Which, if I understand you correctly to be a presuppositionalist, is just such a commitment. Unencumbered by that intellectual handicap, though, an inquirer as to the merits of secular morality gets nothing out of your objection here.

Paul Manata:
i) No, this was my point. I'm the one who said that there is no such thing as a secular ethic. I cite Lowder as agreeing with me. My only point was that Pebbles' title was sloppy. I didn't mangle "secular morality" since there exists no such enterprise to mangle. That's it. Pebbles needs to make more to this then there is. He's trying to cover his tracks. Simply put, my point was that his title was misleading and ignorant. My point is correct. No amount of complaining and sophistry can change the fact.

Paul, I've sent off an email request to Lowder. I'll report back what he has to say about your interpretation of his words.

Paul Manata:
ii) I know there is no "theistic ethic." That's why I never claimed that there was! Pebbles is trying to put his mistakes on me. Anyway, there is a "theism" where "theism" is defined as "belief in a god." There is no secular ethic, no matter how you define it (speaking non-arbitrarily here). An ethic requires certain things that make it impossible to point and say, "Ah, look, there is the secular ethic." So, his argument from analogy isn't a good argument, and isn't analogous. Everyone agrees that there is an intelligible category which we can use in intelligent conversation called, "theism." This is not the case with "secular ethic." Pebbles is just confused here.

Ayiyi. It's no more possible to say "Ah, there is the theistic ethic" than "Ah, there is the secular ethic." They are both categories. I can say "Ah, utilitarianism, there is a secular ethical framework", and I can say "Ah, sweet Calvinism, there is a theistic ethical framework" (Calvinism, of course, is more than just an ethical framework, but it does provide one, for anyone scanning for ethical frameworks). Paul, the only reason I can see to deny the category "secular morality", is simply intransigence in correctly a poorly thought-out minor point in one of your posts. If you look around, plenty of intelligent people use the term, and the concept it points to, in useful and practical ways.

Me:
If you read Byrne here, this is not the basis for a "sense" -- however trivial and "not my argument" Paul now wants to claim it is -- that atheists CANNOT be moral. From just above Paul's quote in the SEP article:

Paul Manata:
That's not why I cited Byrne, Pebbbles. Perhaps if you calmed down before posting you'd be clear-headed enough to see through your emotional haze of T-blog envy and you'd actually be able to comprehend what your interlocutor is arguing. I had said that my point was something we could both agree on, but that wasn't the focus of my post. My argument was not that atheists CANNOT be moral. That wasn't what I was arguing in my post, Pebbles. I made some qualifications where THAT argument COULD be made, but that was the stated PURPOSE of my post. You picked on something that wasn't INTENDED to function as part of my RESPONSE to the Ethical Atheist.

My point was that those qualifications and "hypothetical" arguments were perfectly vacuous. If you want to affirm that, I'm happy to affirm that was not the sole, or even primary purpose of your post. I wasn't responding to your whole post, if you read my initial comments. I was noting that your "qualified, narrow sense" was so narrow as to be vacuous.

Paul proceeds to implicate me in his own errors:

Paul Manata:
Notice his "deep need" for "justice" and the "need" t provide "incentive" in order to be moral. His "need" of "psychological guardrails," etc. So, even though I didn't make the kind of argument Pebbles attributes to me, he does! Pebbles must ridicule himself now. He appeals to a "magic" after life. Boy did he ever "mangle" secular morality!

This in no way denies that atheistic moral frameworks can have a solid ground, Paul. I said in the quote above that secular morality appears quite plausible, but falls short of the virtues I'm looking for. That doesn't deny its existence as a moral framework, though. I affirm, at least in principle, and even nominally in practice, that secular ethical frameworks can provide accounts for their assertions and prescriptions.

So, I'm saying something quite opposite of what you're alleging here, Paul. A presuppositional claim to transcendental necessity for theism as the basis for morality is wholly unwarranted, a folly. If I can identify aspects of secular morality that I find deficient (or superior, by the same token), fine. But I grant that in principle, the atheist has all the basis he needs for providing justification for value judgments. The frameworks compete, rationally, and none are declared invalid prior to exercise and inspection by some artificial axiom I'm carrying around.

Later on:

Paul Manata:
No, I claimed that nothing interesting followed from emotivism or subjectivism. To make an argument that Christians are immoral on a realist account is something I asked you to flesh out since I don't see them being able to make that claim. At best, we'd have differences at the level of fact, not principle (am I assuming to much to think Pebbles grasps the distinction?).

I'm routinely informed that any theistic tolerances I have are inherently immoral, in and of themselves, by at least two fellow on an email loop I participate in. That is, in their view, entertaining theistic ideas, absent rational justification for same (in their view), I'm an immoral person. This stems from the proposition that we are obligated to be rational and skeptically inclined, in some utilitarian sense. You can't even talk about "being able to make that claim", as you are presuppositionally forbidden from considering it a possibility. But in the general sense, I would dispute the "moral imperative" for totally eschewing supernatural ideas and instincts, but that would be their "qualified, narrow sense" in which theists qua theists are immoral, and cannot provide an accounting for themselves morally.

Their "qualified, narrow sense" is just as much self-serving begging of the question as yours is.

Paul Manata:
"But, well, there's a large paragraph devoted in his original post to the theist side of the coind [sic]. Nothing of any interest proceeds from that, either. But Paul is unaware."

No, things of interest follow from my comments. The proper distinction that I'm making, though, is that my comments had nothing much at all to do with my argument and response to the Ethical Atheist. It was a side point of clarification. I mainly wrote it for fellow theists who might have broached that subject in the combox. But, as I made clear in my post, the subject for discussion was a different one. The apologetic literature doesn't contain arguments from the qualified sense, they press the: O --> G; O; :.G argument I mentioned in my last response to you. It is often claimed that theists are making arguments from the inability of atheists to be moral. To "refute" this argument is simply an exercise in futility since no one is making that claim. I thus made sure that the Ethical Atheist was dealing with the arguments that we do make, not ones he falsely imputes to us. I should think that a sensible fellow like you would have (a) grasped that and (b) agreed with it. Surely you're not for someone wasting their time beating up straw men, are you?

To put it in a nutshell, I believe your agument is: atheists cannot account for their moral judgments.

Do I have that right, for a nutshell?

If so, that's not an innovation in the conversation. That goes back to van Til and beyond. I've never supposed Christians -- the layman in the pew or the world-class apologist -- have contended that atheists cannot be moral/ethical in a nominal sense. It's demonstrably false, and not even interesting to entertain.

No, I'm focused on the intellectual poverty of the attempts I've seen from you and others to either a) declare "presuppositional" victory up front, or b) go into "hyper-sophist" mode in confusing, obfuscating, and simply dealing dishonestly with the analysis of the underpinning of moral frameworks, secular or otherwise, or both. That is, the integrity of thought you bring to this discussion -- not if an atheist can be moral, but if an atheistic ethic can acquit itself -- is just a disaster. But disaster or no, I do see the "justification" question as being the central one from you and other Christian apologists, as opposed to "performance" (i.e. "doing good things").

Paul Manata:
i) I don't use "the transcendental argument for Christian theism alone." I made this point a long time ago. I've pointed this out to Pebbles on numerous occasions. He continues to push bad information. Integrity is not something he holds in very high regard, as you can see.

It doesn't matter what else you use, Paul. Your presuppositionalism is problematic all by itself. It precludes the possibility -- not the demonstration, but the possibility -- of acknowledging secular grounds for concepts like "good" and "bad". It's a set of constraints you cannot get out of. This has nothing to do with your being otherwise willing to rationally consider a proposition on the merits. But you've embraced axioms that preclude that as an investigation. It's disingenuous to claim you can both maintain your presuppositionalist fancies, then also set them aside to consider things rationally.

Paul Manata:
ii) Many non-presuppositionalists make the exact same argument that I do. Once can see that by reading the works of Copan, Craig, Hare, Helm, Moreland, et al.

Completely irrelevant. This doesn't have any impact on anything at all here. Craig isn't bound by the commitments to presuppositionalism that you are, so he can, at least, in principle, claim to be pursuing these questions in earnest, rationally. You cannot.

Paul Manata:
iii) My "worldview" depends, at a basic level, on the information contained in the text of Scripture.

You are the picture of irrationality. If your views weren't yours, you'd despise them as the apotheosis of anti-reason. But you bless them because they're yours, and they make you feel cozy, and provide magic answers to hard questions. Oh, and they insulate you from liability from having to engage these questions on the merits. That's what your worldview depends on.

How do you know that scripture contains "information", Paul?

Why not just come clean, Paul? "I think what I think, at a basic level, because, well, just because."

Paul Manata:
iv) I used "normative" assertions, not "qualitative," in my post.

Which is just a cynical attempt to control the terms of the debate. Look, if God doesn't exist, then your notions of "normativity" are useless. So anytime you throw this word out, you aren't playing by the same rules are the other thinking adults in the conversation are -- it's just a beg to the question of God's existence any and every time you use the term. If God doesn't exist, then "normativity" obtains in a completely different fashion than theistic notions of "moral absolutes" as 'immaterial/cosmic/supernatural law".

So all this argument really signifies is that you cannot get your head around notions of "normativity" that aren't singularly tied to your theism. That's what presuppositionalism does to your brain.

Paul Manata:
v) Many secularists don't think that secularists (or anyone for that matter) can account for norms in morality.

Sure, and it's totally irrelevant. How does this observation attach at all? I might as well observe that some days the sky appears to be blue. Have I reached the point where I can try on Paul's triumphalist hat on, now?

Paul Manata:
Notice Pebbles stipulates to his audience what I "MUST" believe, he doesn't quote me, though. And, it is obvious that Pebbles doesn't know the first think about my ethical theory. It's not that "God must exist" for their to be a "basis for morality," though that it part of it. If I were Pebbles I' make sure I knew the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions.

Well, is it necessary, or not, Paul? Don't be coy. If it's necessary for God to exist, in order to justify an notions of morality, then no atheistic claims to moral distinctions need apply. They don't even need to be analyzed, and they are simply dismissed on a a priori basis.

If your theism is merely sufficient to account for moral distinctions, then the game's entirely different. Atheist frameworks can compete on the merits, at least in principle, and the inquirer can then evaluate between standing competitors. But that gores the presuppositionalist's ox -- it's "unfaithful" to subject your faith commitments to "worldly" standards of evaluation, to paraphrase van Til.

I am proceeding under the assumption that you are committed to the "necessity" of presuppositionalism here, based on what I've read from you. If you want quotes, I can go searching for them, but it doesn't matter if you'll just state it clearly here: It is possible for a non-theistic moral framework to account for itself, in principle, or not. If not, and I do think your answer must be "not" if you are presuppositionally committed to the transcendental truth of the God's existence and the Bible, then spare every one the con-job of telling us it doesn't measure up rationally or philosophically. It's just dishonest to proceed on those grounds.

If your theism is not a necessary predicate for moral distinctions, and is just "sufficient", then I would congratulate your emergence from the dark hole of presuppositionalism and proceed accordingly.

That's all I've time for for now. More later.

YWAM/NewLife Killer In His Own Words

2007-12-11T21:42:00.000-08:00

Given BarryA over at Uncommon Descent's "interest" in the question of atheism inciting murderous hatred in Matthew Murray, the man identified as the shooter in the YWAM/NewLife killings, there are some "interesting" stretches of commentary from Murray's online postings to review here. For what it's worth, the comments put together in that post seem much more problematic for the kind of Christianity Murray grew up in.

I'm a homeschooler. I've got six kids, four of school age, and their entire schooling has been homeschooling. My wife is quite active in the local homeschool co-op, and we are surrounded by evangelical homeschoolers; this is my demographic. We use Sonlight curriculum, and because of that, both my wife and I have been active in their online community for homeschooling families for years.

I'm intimately familiar with the culture of Matthew Murray's upbringing.

But you know what? For all the references and anger, all the possible "incitement to hate" that I could try and identify in Murray's words, all of that is secondary. This is a young man who went right off the deep end. He's responsible for his terrible actions, and no matter how vicious or hypocritical or humiliating he found his lot in life to be, growing up in a homeschooling fundamentalist Christian home, that's not sufficient to make it "interesting" to me to suggest fundamentalist Christianity is somehow to blame for the murders.

Unlike Barry, who simply popped off with an opportunistic bit of musing, the posts from Murray here shine at least a little bit of light on the mind and attitudes behind the killings. I wonder how "interesting" Barry thinks the situation is now, having read the posts of nghtmrchld26?

It doesn't matter, as far as blame is concerned for the killing, however. For all of that, Murray bears the guilt for his actions. It was his choice, his course of action, and his alone.

What remains is the lingering sense that BarryA, ostensibly concerned about the spread of hatred, about demonization, has engaged in the very practice he's concerned about. Barry's no more empowered to unilaterally instill hate in his readers than Ted Haggard or Richard Dawkins are in theirs (does Haggard have an audience anymore?); we must choose to adopt the hatred being offered. But posts like Barry's represent the offer, just as much as the angry words of those he's upset by (Dawkins, Hitchens, et al).

The Hatred Libel

2007-12-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

Barry Arrington is one of my favorite posters at Uncommon Descent. Posts like this are so good at showing the bankruptcy of ID, that one naturally wonders if "BarryA" is extraordinary success in the "deep cover troll" operations that get launched from time to time by the feisty folks at AntiEvolution.org.

This post in particular has the scent of a "false flag operation", putatively pro-ID, but powerful in its discrediting the cause it purportedly advances. BarryA is a contributor at UD, not just a commenter, and I can't recall where, but I know I've read posts by people who are familiar with this guy in real life, so this must be legit. And just so we're clear, that's fine with me.

Do Dawkins and Dennett Incite Hatred? is the title of the post.

Wherein, BarryA says this:

BarryA:
The media is reporting that Matthew Murray posted the following on the web: ”I’m coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. …God, I can’t wait till I can kill you people. Feel no remorse, no sense of shame, I don’t care if I live or die in the shoot-out. All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”
Look at the last part of that quote closely. One wonders if Murray has been reading Dawkins or Dennett. By blaming the world’s ills on religious people do Dawkins and Dennett incite to hatred and make it more likely that tragedies of this sort can occur? I don’t know, but it is an interesting question.

Now, this is a post at Uncommon Descent, the flagship (!) blog for the Intelligent Design movement. This is a blog that is continually at pains to point out that ID is a scientific enterprise, and unrelated and unattached to religion qua religion. From Dembski on down to DaveScot, offenders are repeatedly scolded about conflating ID and Christianity or any particular brand of God. ID defenders routinely bristle at the suggestion that ID is a proxy for evangelical Christianity.

But here, the flagship ID blog is pursuing the intricate scientific details of teleogical design with respect to... well, Barry's not going in that direction at all.

This post is about the scariness of atheism.

There's not much "intelligent design" (pseudo-)science to work with here. Like so many other posts at UD, this is a political missive. Another grenade launched from the ID trench of the Culture Wars.

But remember: ID really is about the science.

As for the "merits" of the post, well, I think the large significance of this post is that BarryA feel comfortable with this kind of "interesting" question in this context. Looking the rationale he's offering topples it over pretty quickly.

Does BarryA suppose that those who cause the world's ills somehow deserve to be killed, even if we grant Barry his premise?
Does Barry believe people are responsible for their own actions, or not?
Does Christian "hatred" of the abomination of homosexual intercourse implicate Christianity in the hate-motivated murders of homosexuals?

It's just a non-starter from BarryA, here. And that's what's most disturbing. It's so poorly thought out, that the "design inference" for this post is that it's a bit of low opportunism, an attempt at cheap rhetorical points to make with the faithful on the blog by exploiting a tragedy.

There's a nice self-referential aspect to this post though. Barry's sort of testing his own theory, by spreading his own brand of ill to the world. What now, BarryA? Who's reading your posts, and are you worried?

Ad Hom Is The Pyro Answer!

2007-12-11T12:27:00.000-08:00

Phil's latest post laments the demise of modern evangelicalism, sullied as it is by the waxing tide of postmoderns, Open Theists and that sinister New Perspective on Paul that NT Wright is seducing the faithful with of late. Phil wonders: How did it come to this?

Phil Johnson:
The problem can be traced, I think, to a craving for academic respectability and worldly admiration. In the middle of the 20th century, several leading evangelicals proposed a whole new kind of evangelicalism—less militant, more tolerant, and (above all) shrewd and market-savvy about public relations. They seemed to operate on the assumption that the way to win the world is by making the evangelical movement and its message as appealing as possible to worldly people. In other words, let's "sell" Christianity the way Budweiser sells beer.

Why not? If they like us, surely they'll like Jesus, too.

It's really just the 'badness' of all these lesser Christians Phil is surrounded by, alas. They compromise their principles, don't you know. They don't -- they can't -- arrive at their positions through earnest inquiry. The Open Theist may say he's pulling his conclusions from scripture, and from logical implications that arise from that analysis. But really, Phil has traced the real cause, and that cause is slavish capitulation to the world's ways, anything at all in order to please Babylon.

Phil has canonized certainty here, as well, so this is pretty much a done deal. Cut and dried.

Phil draws his "tracings" through the 70s (soft on God's wrath), 80s (interest in health, wealth and success), and the 90s ("so bent on winning the world's admiration" that they just stopped talking about the Gospel at all). All the motives are as corrupt as they can be, and you know that's what the motives really were, because, remember, Phil has certainty and certainty is good.

Seriously, though, I honestly don't think it occurs to Phil that his brand of Calvinism might actually be a part of the problem. That would involve doubt, and high-impact doubt, at that, so we know that's not going to be entertained, given Phil's commitment to certainty for certainty's sake. He regularly fails to distinguish his own interpretation and take on things from the AbsoluteTruth™, a sign that Phil is a fundamentalist first, and a Calvinist second. He laments evangelicals steering around "the offense of the cross" -- which he conflates with his Calvinism.

It doesn't occur to him that Piper's reassurance to his little girl that "we all deserve that kind of death and worse, kid" when the I-35 bridge collapses in Minneapolis isn't really the "offense of the cross", but the offense of Calvinism. I know it's hard for Phil to keep those things separate -- what is the case and what he thinks is the case -- and the canonization of certainty fairly innoculates him from any reflexes that might help him out here.

But, at length, one wonders why Phil doesn't cut to the chase, and quote his hero Spurgeon, who suffered none of the temptations Phil entertains to put on the airs of reasoned polemic:

Sit thou down, reason, and let faith rise up!

Wouldn't that just be neater, cleaner, less disingenuous than all of this? You wouldn't have to assault the character of all your critics and theological opponents, and you'd own up to the organizing principle of your Calvinist worldview, in one tidy step.

Phil tries to tie things up near the end with this:

Phil Johnson:
I think it would be a mistake to conclude that the blame for evangelicalism's demise lies merely (or even primarily) with the style or character of the movement's current or recent leaders. It's actually a much bigger and more widespread problem than that. The real root of evangelicalism's problems goes back to the whole movement's blithe and chronic neglect of the gospel as it is presented in Scripture—starting several decades ago. All those attempts to tone down and tame the gospel have changed the fundamental character of evangelicalism's message. By systematically doing away with all the hard parts of the message, evangelicals have essentially done away with the gospel itself.

"As it's presented in scripture" Phil grabbing the high ground here for himself, yet again. Those other guys' interpretations? Bah, that's not what scripture says. How do I know?

It's obvious. And I'm certain, doncha know.

I think the "self-knowledge" genes, wherever they may be, must be turned off in the fundamentalist constitution. How else to explain this trait, across so many fundamentalists? There's what is, and there is what I think about what is. And while these two can and should overlap, and to as great an extent as possible, they need to be kept separate, because they are separate. And sometimes, the two don't hardly overlap at all.

So Phil surveys the religious landscape, and doesn't like what he sees. Evangelicalism has not evolved in a direction that he would like. In addressing the problem, though, Phil is confronted with his own problem, a trilemma:

1) Argue your case on the merits. Everyone else is wrong, and hears the reasoned, articulated case for why.

2) Doubt that you are the conflation of what is and what you want things to be.

3) Embrace the comfortable vanity of your certainty, and just dismiss the slackers as the whores and prostitutes they are.

Now 1) seems like the obvious winner on the face of it. But (and surely Phil knows this), it's a bit of a trap. It quickly leads to stalemate, as there is no arbitration process for Biblical interpretation. In science, we can devise tests designed to provide distinctions and falsifications that provide objective adjudication between competing hypotheses. Phil's a milieu is religion, though, and it affords him none of that, such is his trade.

So, 1) has the effect of declaring a tie between all contestants, surely an insufferable outcome for Phil. What to do, then?

Well, doubt and tentatitivity seem to have a lot going for them in other areas. Application of skepticism in the sciences yields knowledge and tools that are, well, "skeptic-proof", and demonstrable as such. But Phil know's that plugging doubt is the crucial finger in the dam; pull it out, and the levee eventually gives way.

So, by virtue of elimination, Phil is fairly forced to the ad hominem explanation. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, and he doesn't relish the kinds of disparagement he's got to dish out. But he's a fundamentalist, after all, and a Calvinist fundamentalist at that. And these are wages paid out from that path.

O'Leary: Lennox Part 3

2007-12-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

In part 3 of Denye O'Leary's appreciation of John Lennox and his book God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, she tackles the idea of information. She quotes Lennox, who finds it "remarkable" that information is invisible, and comments:

Denyse O'Leary:
Not only that, but information, as Lennox goes on to demonstrate, is immaterial. Example: The knowledge that the concert you hoped to attend has been cancelled due to an ice storm is immaterial. The storm is quite material, but your knowledge that the concert has been cancelled is immaterial, even though it may have been conveyed by material things.
Shades of George Gilder, actually!

There's a Nobel Prize embedded in here, apparently. Forget the rest of this, that's what's remarkable, that Lennox has demonstrated that information is immaterial. I just recently finished reading Leff & Rex's Maxwell's Demon 2, which is a tour de force review of the subject of Maxwell's Demon. Which is, of course, all about information and entropy. While the subject is complex, and to be sure, even established 'experts' in information theory occasionally have disagreements about some of the basics of information as a scientific concept (see Tom Schneider's rejection of "self-information" in favor of "surprisal", for example), "information" is perfectly and completely physical.

And this little example Denyse throws out here is a point at which we can reasonably doubt that Denyse has even the bare beginnings of the conceptual framework needed to be a meaningful contributor in these discussions. I haven't read Lennox's book, and I'm quite prepared to allow that he as a more sophisticated view of the concept of information than Denyse relates here. But as it is, Denyse betrays complete incompetence with the subject matter here. Her example is the "information" that a concert has been canceled, due to a storm. The storm is material, but the information that the concert has been nixed is immaterial.

I'll try to resist the obvious opportunities at humor here, but what does Denyse think her brain is for, anyway? Does she suppose her brain is material? Is it real? The "information" Denyse claims is immaterial is most certainly material -- and is represented by the electrical configurations -- the "brain-states" of any and all who received and stored the message about the canceled show. Now granted, one can't "see" the electrical patterns that reify this knowledge because they are safely ensconced inside someone's skull. The ice storm that prompted the cancellation is a different matter, and quite observable, perfectly "visible", if maybe a little whited-out.

So the visible ice storm leads to a decision (a brain-state) in some individual that determins the show should be canceled. Additional bits of information (brain-states) are marshalled into the service of communicating that decision, and the recipients of this information reach new brain-states as a result of receiving the message. All the electrons are in the right places.

But Denyse can't see 'em, so apparently they don't exist. Kind of a grown-up version of the mistake my 1 year old twins make in thinking that if they can't see me, I can't see them.

Doesn't exist. Immaterial.

I won't even bother with the conflation these examples introduce, the confusion they spread in confusing the "retail" definition of information (knowledge or data that is contextualized for human processing, like the news of a canceled concert) and the scientific definition of information, (the reduction in uncertainty about physical configurations). Denyse isn't ready for "Remedial Information Theory 100" just yet.

Maybe a way to point at the major blunder Denyse is promoting here is to ask: OK, take away all physical objects and entities, for the sake of argument, here. Does this "immaterial" information about the canceled concert still exist? If there are no brains in the entire universe, would such news be "immaterial information"? If not, why not? If she should reply that of course, immaterial information needs a material "home" -- a place to exist -- then I'd say she's on the road to recover from this mistake. She's not there yet, but you can see the right answer from that point.

Information is physical. Where there is physical existence, there is information. Where there is no physical existence, there is no information.

Assuming, of course, that Denyse is confused, and that Lennox hasn't -- mirable dictu! -- actually inverted the whole of physics and demonstratede that information is immaterial.

Denyse O'Leary: What a Design Argument Is (or isn't)

2007-12-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Denyse O'Leary holds forth on design arguments over here at ARN. She's enamored of John Lennox's book God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? and uses Lennox's thoughts (or so it seems, it's hard to tell which ideas are hers here and which are Lennox, which is unfortunate for Lennox) to provide some riffage on intelligent design.

Denyse O'Leary:
With admirable clarity of thought, Lennox avoids confusing design in the universe and life forms with either creationism or Scriptural literalism. A design argument asserts that the evidence for design in the universe and life forms should be taken at face value, that is as evidence that the entities are designed. And Lennox does just that.

Denyse, of course, does confuse design of the universe with creationism/Biblicism. Yet she admires Lennox's 'clarity of thought' here. Lennox conflates design with creationism himself, as it turns out, so what Denyse here is admiring, ostensibly, is Lennox's 'clarity' in sanitizing the argument, laundering out the overtly religious language and underlying epistemology, so that it might read, nominally at least, in some "science-ish" way. Earnest discussions and arguments from creationists on this topic have been disasters in the public forum, so Denyse here admires not clarity so much, but 'effective obscurantism' in avoiding overt displays of magical thinking in scientific discussions. Obfuscation as 'clarity', just another day in the ID universe.

She (and/or Lennox?) contend that a design argument simply accepts evidence for design, as, well, as evidence for design -- at "face value", doncha know. Why didn't those evilutionist scientists think of that? Just accept the evidence for the evidence it is...

It's as radical as it is vacuous. The whole point of scientific investigation is to get beyond "face value" for the phenomena we observe around us. There's nothing wrong with a "face value" interepretation, it's just exceedingly trivial, epistemically. I wonder if Denyse really understands what the term "face value" implies.

Denyse O'Leary:
There are several contrary materialist positions:

1. Design is an illusion. In recent years, that has increasingly come to sound like whistling in the dark.

Denyse is projecting. Every year, more and more evidence is added to the knowledge repository, further detailing the mechanics of evolution, the psychology of man, and man's natural proclivity for anthropomorphizing the world around him. Creationism gets incrementally more problematic as more and more gaps in the repository get filled in -- creating, perversely, two gaps in which to inject the creationist God where there previously was one. Maybe it's this sense that Denyse is appealing to? With all the gaps that get addresses over time, science is experience runaway growth in the number of holes in its theory. Surely it must soon collapse because of all these little gaps!

Enough on this one -- it's just Denyse in self-congratulatory mode.

Denyse O'Leary:
2. Or perhaps there are uncountable numbers of flopped universes out there and ours just happens to be unusually nice. That idea goes down well in popular culture - just think of the FILMS! It can spawn - but it is presently untestable.

I confess, I'm behind on the literature -- I don't even know what a 'flopped' universe is supposed to be. It certainly is true to say that other universes are untestable, given the way we define 'universe'. But it's worth pointing out that the "Cosmic Landscape", as it's called by String Theory heavy Leonard Suskind -- a complex of innumerable other universes -- it isn't so much magical thinking as is engaged by creationist "design arguments". The cosmic landscape is something that proceeds naturally out of the mathematical models that underwrite String Theory. While String Theory is nowhere close to 'established' in the scientific sense yet (and may never be), if it does bear out, then it brings with it maths that fairly require a "landscape" in which universes come to be, and develop with different cosmological parameters (it is the suite of configuration of parameters that gives rise to the term 'landscape' in Susskind's model).

It's directly not testable. It may not even be possible to test indirectly (although this isn't at all clear at this point). Nevertheless, the Cosmic Landscape idea can point to a set of epistemic credentials that creationist ideas cannot; it proceeds automatically, organically, from the solution sets that String Theory math models yield. If String Theory is correct for this universe, then the nature of the theory is such that we are reasonably led to the conclusion that this universe is one of a great many, mathematically.

Denyse O'Leary:
3. Lastly, some argue that the question is not a proper concern of science - in common parlance, "Let's just rule it out of order, and ignore the evidence." That raises the question of what science is, if it is not an effort to learn more about the universe we live in.

Yes, that's the common reaction: Let's just rule it out of order, and ignore the evidence.

I hear that all the time. It begs credulity to suppose that Denyse has not had access to the concept of methodological naturalism, or the basics of the philosophy of science. Science is an effort to learn more about the universe we live in, but it is a disciplined effort, dedicated to a concept of "learning" that is epistemically sound. Those are crucial, and daunting constraints. Science specifically seeks to avoid the magical thinking and superstitious interpretations Denyse wants to "add to the mix" here, and for good reason. Those elements delegitimize the epistemological foundations of the whole enterprise. Indulge Denyse and her creationist "learning" here, and all scientific learning gets devalued down to the credibility level of her 'knowledge'. Science is as strong as its weakest link in the epistemic chain, and Denyse is proposing imaginary segments of chain.

Denyse O'Leary:
But a design argument is not an argument for special creation -. the sudden appearance of multicellular life forms out of nothing. Design does not require such events and does not provide direct evidence for them either. In a designed universe such events are at least a possibility, but other inferences and evidence must establish them. The mere fact of design does not establish them.

Doesn't matter. Magical thinking about "design", even when it loudly disavows "special creation" and "poofing" of Adam and the animals out of thin air isn't any more respectable or useful than "poofing". Denyse might suppose it happened in a 'non-poof' way, but in a way that's still 'designed', but that's as perfectly magical as the "poof" idea. So why bother with such meaningless distinctions.

Don't agree? OK, let's think about more sophisticated, "adult" idea of how design is carried out. Panspermia, perhaps? No, that doesn't help at all, because any Designers who bootstrapped organic life on earth however many billions of years ago would themselves have to be designed, as they have all the "face value" evidence of being designed themselves! Or suppose it is Yahweh after all, and instead of the clumsy sideshow parlor trick approach -- *poof* and behold! Meet Adam -- God uses slow, gradual, organic processes that He controls in subtle, elegant ways to steer the development of organic life toward his design goals.

That doesn't help, either.

God would have to exhibit all the "face value" evidence of being designed Himself! See, it doesn't matter at all who design proponentists suppose the Designer was (or were, if there were many). Whatever he/she/it/they are like, they by definition have the capability to design organic life, which is, per the principles of Intelligent Design, de facto proof that that the Designer was designed.

It's wholly disingenuous, then, to suggest that this makes any difference at all. It's an utterly useless qualification on the merits. It does have the potential to make the ID arguments seem a little less silly, though, and I suggest that is why Denyse says what she does here.

Denyse O'Leary:
There is much confusion on this point in North America. Many on both sides profit from the confusion. The materialist atheist benefits the most because he evades the looming falsification of his central idea - an accidental, purposeless universe - by loudly insisting that design means special creation or a universe created in six days (144 hours). Because he usually has the ear of a sympathetic media corps, he can buy a lot of time for his interpretation.

Not. Design, per Design advocates, means having "complexity" and "specificity" as a Designer, and thus being designed. It invokes infinite regress, if the principles are taken seriously at all. But wait, says Denyse: God stops the regress, He wasn't designed!

Oh, yeah? Well then "specified complexity" or whatever other criterion you want to use as your razor for positively identifying "designedness" doesn't hold. If "God" can be "accidental, purposeless" -- not the product of design, in other words, why can't the universe? This is logical box Denyse cannot get out of, except for through "magical answers". God isn't beholden to these principles, after all, right Denyse? Denyse has the "Creationist Magic Answer Get Out Of Logical Contradiction Card" in her hand, and she's playing it here.

Oh, and don't forget to swirl in a small dose of conspiracy theorism into the mix here, too. That's an important part of the argument from design.

Denyse O'Leary:
Meanwhile, the special creationist hopes that the powerful arguments for design can be co-opted as arguments for special creation. Having little incentive to help set the record straight, he doesn't.
And at the same time the Scriptural literalist - usually a young Earth creationist - is primarily interested in finding science evidence that conforms to his favoured interpretation of the words of Scripture. Actually, many people in that camp do not even like design arguments, as such because design arguments are not drawn from the Scriptures and can be advanced and defended in the absence of any scriptures.

Yeah, and that should be a sobering point for Denyse to observe. YEC creationism, as ridiculous as it is, is both more honest and more coherent than Intelligent Design. ID is the worst of both worlds -- it subverts the epistemic foundation of science with its superstition, and yet it is too embarrassed of its own superstitious nature to identify with overtly superstitious ideologies. Double whammy. Many YECs rightly see it as the most hopeless case of all; it's not faithful or redemptive in its expression, and viciously vacuous as a matter of science. You gotta give YECs credit for at least offering a hypothesis that is liable to falsification, an idea that is nomimally germane as a matter of science. When they claim the earth is 6,000 years old, they are at least offering a claim that can be evaluated. ID can't even manage that.

The allergic reaction Denyse has to allegations of being a 'creationist' is quite plain to see in posts like this. But she's just in a state of denialism. She's believed her own BS, and has fooled herself into thinking ID is something more scientific than YEC, when in fact it's actually far less scientific. It's a persistent, ongoing identity crisis she's dealing with. ID is creationism, by an large, and the panspermian hangers-on do not rescue ID as 'non-religious'. They just broaden the exotic nature of the religious basis for ID.

Manata "Unmangles"

2007-12-11T07:06:00.000-08:00

Manata attempts to set the record straight in this post over at Triablogue.

Paul Manata:
The first thing to point out his title - interesting choice of words given that he's an expert on "secular morality." Touchpebble says, "Manata Mangles Secular Morality." Since there is no such thing as "secular morality" then how did I mangle it? For example, prominent up and coming atheologian Jeffery Jay Lowder states,

"On that basis, atheism alone is not enough to construct a worldview. Atheism does not entail any particular ethical theory; all that atheism entails is a rejection of theological ethical systems, such as divine command theory."

So, I have no idea how I "mangled" a non-existent category, viz. "secular morality."

Well, that explains it, then. Paul just doesn't think it exists as a category. From this Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_morality

Wikipedia:
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from purported supernatural revelation or guidance (which is the source of religious ethics). Secular ethics can be seen as a wide variety of moral and ethical systems drawing heavily on humanism, secularism and freethinking. The majority of secular moral concepts consist, on the grand scale of the acceptance of social contracts, and on a more individual scale of either some form of attribution of intrinsic value to things, ethical intuitionism or of a logical deduction that establishes a preference for one thing over another, as with Occam's razor. Approaches like utilitarianism and ethical egoism are considered rather more radical.

This article is not one of Wikipedia's gems, and there are certainly better resources for more in-depth discussion of the topic. But there it is, right in a trivially obvious place to look. Paul satisfies himself with a quote from Lowder, that suggests to him that it just "doesn't exist" as a category. Lowder is correct: atheist doesn't ENTAIL any PARTICULAR ethical theory. There are any number of particular ethical theories that can operate under the umbrella of secular morality, as noted in the Wiki quote above.

Whoops. Paul hears Lowder say atheism doesn't require any one specific ethical theory, and makes the leap to "atheism doesn't support ANY ethical theories". Lowder was rejecting supernaturalism, but doing so in a way to leave plenty of room for non-magical ethical systems.

Continuing,

Paul Manata:
Furthermore, as I point out in my post, there is no one accepted "secular morality." I wrote,

"This theory is certainly not the accepted view of atheists and naturalists. Some would say that moral principles are necessary truths expressed as conditionals (cf. Shafer-Landau). Some would say that ethics are the products of social contracts (cf. Hobbes). Some would say that ethical principles are the product of virtues (cf. Aristotle, Mill, etc). Some would say that ethics are supervenient facts, products of the natural world (cf. Brink)."

But, perhaps Touchpebble will reply, conveniently, that I am being pedantic. So let's move on...

This Lowder's point, which Paul used as a mangling device above. It's a category, a set of different constituent frameworks. We could say the same thing about theism: there is no one accepted "theism". Some would say God looks like Allah, some like Yahweh, others Quetzacoatl perhaps. But that doesn't "disappear" theism. Paul's instincts are pedantic here, but he hasn't even reached it yet. He's just confused at this point.

Later on:

Paul Manata:
And as anyone who read my post would surely note, the bolded portion was never my argument. In fact, I claimed that there is a sense in which the atheist most certainly can be moral (the minimalist sense agreed to by both sides). In fact, in this sense, many atheists may be more moral than Christians. I did not seek to "decimate" the Ethical Atheist's paper by what Touchpebble quoted. I simply pointed out that there is a sense in which the theist can say that the atheist can't be moral. I even said that an atheist would agree with me here. (For proof of my claim, note what is stated by Byrne on the SEP article on Moral Arguments for God: "Perhaps this is a point at which proponents and opponents of moral arguments for God's existence might agree on. Moral considerations give all a reason to examine the proposition that there is a God very seriously. For if there is no God, morality is a more perilous enterprise than if there is."

Ahh, someone from the Stanford site said something with some of the same words as Paul used. He's off the hook! It is Stanford and all. If you read Byrne here, this is not the basis for a "sense" -- however trivial and "not my argument" Paul now wants to claim it is -- that atheists CANNOT be moral. From just above Paul's quote in the SEP article:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
These versions of moral argument partake of the flavor, and thus of the difficulties, that surround the pragmatic arguments for religious belief found in writers such as Pascal and James. They will meet with the same response: this is wishful thinking dressed up as argument. The non-theist may press this specific point: only if one is convinced prior to these arguments of the premise that
The world is likely to be organized so as to meet our deepest human needs

will one find them cogent. But (44) is just the kind of hypothesis that would be false if there is no God. Arguments such as IX and X thus look circular.

We have here a discussion of the difficulties involved in construction of moral frameworks with and without a God in view. And to be sure, proceeding to build moral frameworks without a supposed supernatural authority presents a significant challenge -- what Byrne calls a "perilous enterprise". It is this peril that points to the criticism leveled at theism -- so much "wishful thinking dressed up as argument". It's just the convenient utility of pointing to an invisible, unverifiable authority that makes theistic morality problematic.

Paul Manata:
So, Touchstone must say that Byrne mangles secular morality as well! Now, I'm a nobody. But to claim that Byrne mangles secular morality stretches credulity.) The obvious implication was, this is not the sense both sides are talking about when they come to the question: Can an atheist be moral? One can easily see, if one were to read my entire post rather than stopping and having a heart attack, that I made nothing of this claim of mine throughout the rest of the post. Touchpebble gives the impression to his reader that I intended the bolded portion to function as some kind of argument in my response to the Ethical Atheist. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. So, this is just flat out shoddy and sloppy work, even for Pebbles.

Paul is clueless as to what is being discussed in this article. Did you read the article, Paul?

Paul then proceeds to distance himself from the relevance or efficacy of the comments of his I looked at in my previous post on this. I'm taken to task for seizing on what really should be taken for what it is -- a trivial "throw-away" digression that really doesn't attach to the rest of his points, the good, relevant points in his post.

Paul thinks about my question of turning the tables...

Paul Manata:
I'd have to see the argument expressed more fully. At this point I'm inclined to say "No." In fact, I'd wager that most atheists don't have a problem saying that Christians can be "good" on myriad secular standards; realist ones, at least. Perhaps some subjectivists would say that those who believe in a god are immoral, and the factor that makes this right is the mere belief of the subject, then I'd agree that if that thesis were true, then I couldn't be good. Perhaps an emotivist thinks: "Theism, boo!" But why think anything of interest follows from that? If pebbles wants this point, I'll gladly give it to him.

This is to miss the point, and the way Paul responds to this 'turning of the tables' reflects the vacuity of his original sense. Indeed, there is a sense in which atheist can say 'theists can't be good'. He then says, without a hint of tongue-in-cheek, "But why think anything of interest follows from that?"

That was precisely MY objection to Paul's original "sense", this self-serving and narrow sense in which Paul gets to define the existential ontology ("God exists"), and the semantic freight too ("Gotta use my interpretation of the Bible to define the terms"). Yes, Paul, there is that "sense" on both sides of the coin -- self-serving and irrelevant. Paul complains that nothing "of interest" follows from the atheist side of that coin. But, well, there's a large paragraph devoted in his original post to the theist side of the coind. Nothing of any interest proceeds from that, either. But Paul is unaware.

Paul now begs off this bit of self-indulgence on his part:

Paul Manata:
Again, Pebbles is running with something that was never there. He's making something from nothing. I indicated that I was speaking about more than one sense. He's picking on what I called "my more qualified sense." That sense was only mentioned in (iv). It illustrated one small point. It was then left and never brought up again. It didn't factor in my "critique," at all. Pebbles simply jumped the gun. He is so ready to shoot his anti-presuppositionalist ray gun at anything that moves, he frequently shoots innocent bystanders. He's the Dick Cheney of atheologians! Pebbles is acting as if my critique was based off his bolded portion, when any one who reads what I wrote in toto can see that this isn't the case, at all. I furthermore do not believe that the "theism" in my post was "Calvinism." I think evangelicals of all stripes could affirm the vast majority of my views on virtue ethics. In fact, much of what I label "my position" on the matter has been gleaned from non-Calvinists. So, Pebbles is wrong on this score, too.

Paul's welcome to minimize his point. It certainly was exceedingly small. Paul here supposes he's hidden his presuppositionalism behind the curtain of "theism", but the larger point of Paul's post (which he stresses is what we should focus on, never mind his "more qualified sense") is that secular morality cannot point to a justification for its qualitative assessments -- "good", "bad", "virtue", "vice", etc. That's a key point for Paul, or any presuppositionalist because their worldview depends on a transcendental argument, one that theism in the general sense neither requires or embraces in many cases. That is, Paul MUST assert that secular morality cannot have a rational foundation because his faith is pinned to the idea that it cannot -- God must exist, presuppositionally, for there to be a basis for morality at all.

A theist who is an evidential, for example, isn't committed to this. He's free to question and doubt the foundations of secular morality, but the discovery or establishment of a secular basis for ethics doesn't invalidate his worldview as it does Paul's. So, whenever you get a presuppositionalist to comment on this topic, you can confidently expect the knee-jerk reaction, the only defense in the presuppositionalist playbook, and one which must be played and stuck to no matter what: there cannot be any basis for secular moral, because God is transcendentally required for morality.

Back to Paul:

Me:
Earlier in the post, Paul dismisses the argument the Ethical Atheist is adressing
-- "atheists can't be moral" -- as a "canard"; no one actually claims that, suggests Paul. But he can't hold off more than a paragraph or two before launching into just that argument.... "if theism is true", of course.

Paul Manata:
I dismiss it because the question he's addressing isn't framed that way in the standard literature. So, in this particular debate, the theist does not make that claim. I did point out, though, that if we did make that claim, the debate would progress beyong a mere discussion of normative or meta ethics. So, that claim could not be defeated by simply pointing out that atheists follow deontic principles, for the most part. That was the point. But, as my post indicated, I didn't wish, or need, to debate that point. I even cited W.L. Craig stating that our objection has never been "atheists can't be moral" (from our position, this is obvious. Thus Saint Paul: "There are none who are good." But we don't make that argument because it would take us right back into a "Does God exist" argument. If G then ~M. We would need to prove G first. Thus the argument could be thought of more like this: If objective morality, then God. Objective morality. Then God. If God then atheists cannot be good persons (in the fullest sense of the term). God. Then atheists cannot be good persons (in the fullest sense of the term). Thus the full argument here would be: {O --> G; O; :. G. G --> ~M; G; :. ~M.} But note that I didn't make this argument.), our objection, the one found in the apologetic literature, is that secularism cannot account for the deontic, normative action guiding prescriptions of objective morality, nor teleological normativity, nor axiological normativity. And that is what I was debating, not what Pebbles so underhandedly presents as my position in the context of the dialogue given the framing by the Ethical Atheist.

Yeah, snore. It's axiomatic for Paul: secularism cannot account for moral norms, because that would invalidate his worldview, a worldview he cannot arrive at reasonably, and can't be expected to leave reasonably. It doesn't matter what arguments an atheists presents, it's literally -- this is vanilla presuppositionalism -- a foregone conclusion. Say what you want, atheists, Paul doesn't need to consider or understand. He knows the TRUTH™ here, and all of this is just so much cynical philosophical swordplay in the fine traditional of van Til and his nihilist heirs. Atheists often make the mistake in reading statements like Paul's "cannot account for" as meaning it's theoretically possible, but atheists haven't succeeded.

That is a mistake.

Paul is telling us here that without God, one cannot account for moral norms, because, well God is the only account. You cannot, even in principle, atheist. All the random quotes Paul wants to throw out from SEP or wherever are just so much hand-waving distractions from the naked assertion he's committed to.

Later:

Paul Manata:
It's unfortunate that Touchpebble had to go on a quote mining expedition--he even states in his response to my that my comments were, "Pure gold"--in order to combat the evils I "most assuredly" spewed in my post. When one wears rose colored glasses, everything looks red. When one just "has it out" for you, then you get read in the worst light and, apparently, people don't even need to bother reading the entirety of your arguments. Like a Pavlovian dog, certain bells and whistles went off, and the machine just turned out a post. It doesn't matter if there is food or doggy doo-doo in the bowl, when the buzzer sounds, the contents of the bowl get eaten. No inspection, just conditioned response. Ironically, this is exactly what he charges me with, and I didn't even bring up Calvinism! Anyway, thanks for playing Pebbles, it's been fun, as always.

Poor Paul. The bad guys have it out for him. Well, I've read plenty in this post, and endless exercises in self-serving sophistry on this from Paul. It's no better on inspection than his "qualified narrow sense". If his Calvinism isn't showing through, then might ask: Paul, if the credentials of secular morality were established, what would that mean? For Paul, a presuppositionalist, his whole paradigm teeters and falls -- that's how he justifies his faith, his worldview, by the assertion of arbitrary, unnecessary axioms. Other theists -- even other Calvinists (there are more shades than just his particular one) -- can be honest and reasonable, at least in principle, with the presentation of such credentials. They don't hang their entire epistemology on God-as-only-possible-source-of-moral-norms.

The larger point, widening out from Paul's "narrow sense" in his long post is that for all its length, it is "content free" with respect to the arguments put forward by the Ethical Atheist et al. That is, when the statement is made that X is considered a norm by virtue of its status as social contract, Paul complains that that is not a sufficient "why". You can point to the evolutionary social constraints that established it, you can point at the biological and instinctual orientations humans bring to the table, their innate sense of empathy, desire, social connection and competition distilled through millions of years of development, and Paul will still say that's not a "why".

Why?

Because Paul has rigged any discussion he's willing to engage in in his favor, is why. The only legitimate "why" for any norm is "God", presuppositionally. So he can simply wave away all the mountains of research and knowledge you dump on his virtual desk. He doesn't even need to address it, any more than he has with the Ethical Atheist. He's presuppositionally right, and the rest is just "narrow sense" details.

Tonsillectomies as Proto-Eugenics?

2007-12-11T00:56:00.000-08:00

The comments in the recent post over at Uncommon Descent titled "A Practical Medical Application For ID Theory" is a goldmine for the wild and wacky musings of the ID crowd. Here, in comment 23, we have "angryoldfatman" um, extending post author GilDodgen's attempt to turn the "science-stopper" accusation back on the evilutionists through the novel strategy of treating all infections with multiple biotics (don't ask how that works here!):

angryoldfatman:

Another example of a little known science-stopping incident brought about by Darwinism: unnecessary harmful surgery.

I remember a big push back in the 1970s for children to have their tonsils removed even if they weren’t sick because tonsils were considered vestigial organs.

They went so far as to push this propaganda on Saturday morning cartoons like Fat Albert, if I remember correctly.

“We don’t know what these body parts do, and according to Darwinian evolution there are going to be body parts that are useless, so let’s just carve these things out.”

To me that’s a lot more dangerous than the results of a “God did it” attitude.

That's pretty much how it went, right? "Let's just carve these things out, since we don't know what they do!" There has been ongoing debate for decades about just when a tonsillectomy becomes advantageous -- benefits outweighing the risks. But here's some creative demonization of the process -- and putting cartoon characters to work in the service of the Devil, no less. Whether or not that's more dangerous than the promiscuous "Goddidit" answer I don't know, but it hardly matters because it's a fictionalized bit of medical history in the first place.

This observation triggered this from "Dog_of_War":

Dog_of_War:
I think you are completely correct about the surgery line of thinking. It is very reminiscent of the something that Sal Cordova does a good job of reporting: a mild for of eugenics that is inherint in the darwinian model.

There you have it -- tonsillectomies, promoted by Fat Albert, as a starter kit for eugenics. It's inherent in the Darwinian model, doncha know? I guess the evilutionists can hardly blamed, since it is, after all, "inherint".

This kind of exchange just floats in the comment stream, and doesn't raise an eyebrow for any of the un-banninated. It's educational, I guess. This is the "background mindset" that many IDers bring to bear on this issue. Good to keep in mind in this debate.

CalvinDude: The Retroactive Trap Reflex

2007-12-10T21:02:00.000-08:00

Peter Pike has a reflex that urges him to respond to objections to his posts with: "See! I knew someone would say that! Fell right into my trap!" Goodness knows Pike has "retro-trapped" me too many times to count over at Triablogue, prior to my bannination. Here's Peter retro-trapping Michael Spencer -- the Internet Monk -- who wasn't thrilled with Pike's self-serving analysis of the recent shootings in Aravada and Colorado Springs, CO.

iMonk:
Peter Pike at Triablogue says prayer only makes sense in reformed theology. This follows his post that the shootings at New Life Church- now revealed to be by a disgruntled ex-YWAM member- should make you a Calvinist.

Is there any astonishment left for the hubris and condescension in these kinds of statements? When an Arminian or non-Calvinist says the reverse of these sorts of things, the walls come down under the crush of internet theologians trying to get their 2 cents in to show how offended they are.

Peter first equivocates:

Peter Pike:
Now first I must note that I never said the shootings at New Life Church “should make you a Calvinist.” If Spencer is going to get upset at me, he should at least get upset for something I actually wrote. I said that the response to the shootings at New Life Church demonstrated that Arminians were closet Calvinists. It didn’t make them Calvinists, it demonstrated that they held Calvinists views without realizing it.

That's quite a distinction; iMonk says "make you a Calvinist", and Pike says you should realize you already ARE a Calvinist. But forget that: all one needs to do is look at the title of Pike's orginal post on this topic -- "When Aminians Become Calvinists". Or read it, and see even more clearly how ridiculous Pike protest is here. Flares and chaff set off by Pike as pedantic distractions...

Then:

Peter Pike:
Again, anyone can refer to my posts to see I actually presented an argument. Spencer gave us feigned indignation, as if that were a valid response. All Spencer offers is ad hominem, but that’s to be expected from the iMonk.

Pretty good "goof density" in that paragraph. Whether what Pike provided in his original post was an 'argument' is a question I'll leave up to the reader, but it doesn't matter if Pike "actually presented an argument" or not, here; that is not even hinted at as part of iMonk's objection. It's just so much distractive hand waving: Hey, I actually presented an argument you know! He apparently thinks this somehow gets him off the hook, away from the point of iMonk's short observation. Not.

But wait, there's more. "Spencer gave us feined indignation", he informs us. How does he know the indignation is feigned? He doesn't say. But he's confident that it is feigned, which all that he needs to declare iMonk's words 'invalid' here. Now, I'm all for earnest, honest communications, and I can definitely see "feigned indignation" as disingenuous, if that was the case (which hasn't been established in the least), but in no way does feigning indignation diminish iMonk's point; it stands as stated, and we don't need to know or care if iMonk is indignant or not, never mind whether any indignation is authentic.

Pike has provided us a non sequitur in his first sentence, then followed with unsubstantiated charges of dishonesty from iMonk, all to 'prove' another irrelevant point. The last leg of his stool here is a nice bit of unwitting irony; "All Spenced offers is ad hominem, but that's to be expected from iMonk."

Delicious! We can be quite sure Peter has no sense of self-critique here, as this would send up red flags immediately if he did. Here, he criticizes iMonk for his ad hominem argumentation by giving us a nice little ad hominem thumb in iMonk's eye. "That's to be expected", eh? Why? Well, iMonk is just a very bad person, don't you see, a non-Calvinist, and that's reason enough, when Pike thinks about it.

Pike pulls the "drama queen" card, and slaps it on the table:

Peter Pike:
Spencer claims that I have exerted “hubris and condescension in these kind of statements” yet he offers no evidence as to why that would be the case. I guess my fatal flaw was looking at an event and stating what I thought was true about it. I guess we’re not supposed to worry about truth these days, since apparently keeping the offended in Hell is more important.

Heh. I guess we're not supposed to worry about truth these days...

Poor Peter. The 'truth martyr' laid low by the Arminian who would rather keep people in Hell rather than offend them with the Truth of Peter Pike™. Think of it as just another crown for you in Heaven, Peter. Keep your chin up, d00d.

Pike has a flare or two left he wants to fire off as distractions and confusion before he turns the table, bring the full force of his 'retro-trap' down on the unsuspecting iMonk:

Peter Pike:
Anyone can look at my argument and see that New Life Church played no part in it. It set the stage for what I wrote, but it had nothing to do with the reasons I provided. Indeed, the tragedy involved could have been anything, and as such was an objective argument that was not limited to any one particular event. I only mentioned New Life because A) it just happened and B) it happened near me.

Peter: what the hell are ya talkin' about? This isn't even remotely attached to anything iMonk said. You're right, you could have used any tragedy, and iMonk's comments work the same way. There's nothing particular about this incident at all, regarding his objection. He's just noting that, like Piper's 'we all deserve to die' bit of wisdom in response to the I-35 bridge collapse in MN, you display the kind of morally tone-deaf timing and reasoning that broadcasts a much more important message about your mind and values than anything you say in your posts (and that's sayin' something!). The tragedy could have been any tragedy, it wouldn't have mattered. The point is that this kind of rationale strikes you as coherent for any tragedy, as you've admitted here. That is the basis for the objection.

Now Pike wants to play offense:

Peter Pike:
In fact, it is Spencer who bends to hubris here. Notice how Spencer goes out of his way to inform us that the shooter has been revealed to be a former YWAM member? I only ask: why does this information matter? Why should your argument change depending on who the shooter was? If what you stand for changes because of something as trivial as this, then how pathetic is your argument in the first place?

I'm looking at iMonk's post to see where he suggests it matters at all who the shooter is... I got nothin'. You? It looks like an interjection iMonk put in there as a bit of late breaking news. But no matter, there's nothing there that makes things more "Arminian" or "Calvinist" or that has any theological argument behind it all from iMonk. Maybe this information doesn't matter. How he gets from there, to "if what you stand for changes because of something as trivial as this...", well, it's comments like that that make me feel stupid for even bothering to comment on this.

Hold the phone, though. Pike's painting this as iMonk '[bending] to hubris', here. How's that work again? By interjecting the news that the shooter was a disgruntled ex-YWAMer?

Right, got it, thanks.

Now, Pike's phaser gets put on "Surreal-Stun":

Peter Pike:
It certainly didn’t matter to my argument who the shooter was. It could have been Dick Cheney for all it would have affected my position. Spencer brings this up because it is he who is attempting to use the violence at New Life in a hubristic and condescending manner. He is using the murders there to stifle the presentation of the truth.

We've got no basis to think that the news about the shooter being an ex-YWAMer means anything here. Somehow, this has become the frontispiece for Pike's argument, the angry claw of his "retro-trap", as it were. Somehow, just somehow -- we are surely fools to ask why or how -- this fact (if it is a fact) has transformed the iMonk argument into a nefarious attempt to "use the violence at New Life in a hubristic and condescending manner". As if that wasn't bad enough, Pike piles on at this point, mercilessly highlight this as a sinister attempt to... -- wait for it -- ... STIFLE THE PRESENTATION OF THE TRUTH.

Maybe I should have said "Comedy-Stun" above.

OK, that's more than I can bear in wading through this crap for now. Pike goes on to compare himself to Jesus in his zeal to "save through offense", and graciously offers to give the iMonk one more chance. Interestingly, though, Pike offers this in the meta, expanding on a cryptic comment at the end of the post about the book "Lord of the Flies":

Peter Pike:
I mean like in the book by William Golding. The severed boar's head became the "Lord of the Flies."

BTW, I totally don't recommend the book. I had to read it in school or else I'd gladly know nothing about it whatsoever. If you haven't read it, don't. If you haven't seen the movies, don't.

But that's just my suggestion.

Very interesting. If you've read Lord of the Flies, and you've read some Peter Pike, this totally makes sense, doesn't it?

UPDATE: iMonk has appealed to the grace of Peter Pike, and attempted to get things right in this post at the Boar's Head Tavern.

Moving the 'Edge of Evolution' Goalposts

2007-12-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

Over at the latest UncommonDescent post here, discussing the ramifications of the evolution of antibiotic resistance, "getawitness" says:

getawitness:
By which I mean a falsification of Mike Behe’s putative “edge” of evolution. Gil’s point, I think, is that a bacteria could never develop such resistance because Behe is right. So that would be a unbeatable antibiotic.

"russ" replies:

russ:
Falsification of his “edge of evolution”, or simply adjusting where the edge lies? If bacteria successfully adapt to each and every antibiotic, there’s no evidence that that will lead to anything more than an altered bacterium.

In other words, "It will never be a dinosaur, nyah!"

I don't know what this means for Behe's 'edge of evolution' (OK I do know what that means for EoE, but that's another discussion), but what is being adjusted here are russ's goalposts in the discussion. Behe's argument is not that "at some point things get impossibly improbable" -- although it might as well be, come to think about it. Evidence that "each and every antibiotic" successfully adapt most certainly would be problematic for Behe's claims, but russ finds refuge, apparently, in that falsification of Behe, or evidence for evolution in the general case, it's still not the overwhelming earth-is-not-flat kind of proof that allows russ to "keep the faith", as it were. Sure, adapative bacteria. But that's no dinosaur, no whale, mind you!

"getawitness" later notes the moving of the goalposts:

getawitness:
Falsification of that edge, yes. He would be free to move the goalposts and draw another line in the sand.

"russ" begs off thusly:

russ:
But is “moving the goalposts” really a fair characterization? Edge of Evolution is an attempt to establish where the limits of evolution lie. NDE THEORY says that you can go from nothing to humans via natural processes with no intelligence. EoE says that the best available DATA indicate that the best you can do is decrease overall function in an attempt to survive. Showing somehow that NDE is even better than we thought at trench warfare does not constitute “moving the goalposts”, or “drawing another line in the sand”. You seem to be using those expressions merely to gain rhetorical points.

Yeah, nothing like making your case as a cheap ploy to gain "rhetorical points". Showing that NDE (he really means the underlying biology modeled by the theory) is "better than we thought a trench warfare" DOES necessitate moving the goalposts, as its this "better"-ness that Behe supposes is precluded by the constraints and probabilities involved.

I think that's as much as anyone like "getawitness" can expect to see by way of capitulation to the evidence from the ID fanboys. "getawitness" has clearly been trying to be on his/her best behavior, and has survived a while, but if DaveScot reads this, "getawitness" is banninated.

UPDATE: Yep, "getawitness" is banninated, but with his posts left intact (so far), and per After the Bar Closes, it was Hermagoras, all along.

Manata Mangles Secular Morality

2007-12-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

It would take weeks to catalog all the problem in Paul Manata's, um, "takedown" of the Ethical Atheist in this post. Let's just get a taste for the confusion with this paragraph from the post:

iv) The cash value of (iii) is that there is a sense in which we can say that atheists cannot be moral. Now, certainly we don't mean that they can't (or don't) follow moral norms (but there are some norms that they do not follow, e.g., praying), we mean that they cannot meet all the requirements needed for us to judge them as "good" people. Thus in a minimalist sense, atheists can be moral. That is, they can follow (many of) the right standards. Of course this was recognized far before these contemporary debates (cf. Romans ch. 2). My more qualified sense is something that the atheist can accept since it depends on theism being true. Thus if theism is true, the atheist cannot be "good" where "good" means more than merely following your duty, or even exhibiting a couple of good character traits (though this would have to be defined biblically, and so it would be hard for the atheist to really have these. Perhaps he can have them in a minimal way. I leave that open for discussion). But, I take it that in this debate, and the sense the Ethical Atheist meant it in, the claim that "atheists can't be moral" is usually intended to connote the idea that atheists cannot adhere to some basic, fundamental, paradigm cases of morality according to a normative model. That is, atheists can refrain from murdering, lying, stealing, etc. (Of course, even here, qualification could be made, for there is much more to following those commands than ordinarily thought. But again, I'm speaking in a very minimalist way. Perhaps a way in which the atheist can accept as what constitutes following moral precepts.)

(emphasis mine)

Got that? The bolded sentence is the jewel in the mix, here. Paul is simply decimating when he lays out his arguments with "if theism is true". Here, we are treated to the observation that IF theism is true, and THEISTs get to define all the terms ("moral", "good", etc.), well, then there is a sense in which those atheist just can't qualify as "good" or "moral". Chew on that for a moment to fully savor its depth and wisdom.

Pure gold.

Let's turn that around for a moment. Would Paul say this?:
"If atheism is true, the theist cannot be good where good means more than following your duty, or exhibiting a couple of good character traits (though these would have to be defined rationally, so it would be very hard for the theist to have even these)."

Well, duh, Paul. If you begin by assuming the primary question (a/theism?), then let the "winner" define the criteria, the "winner" can fashion things any way they want (note how Paul suggest that 'theism' would require Biblical justification for good character traits... 'theism' being a kind of unconscious euphemism for his brand of Calvinism).

Earlier in the post, Paul dismisses the argument the Ethical Atheist is adressing -- "atheists can't be moral" -- as a "canard"; no one actually claims that, suggests Paul. But he can't hold off more than a paragraph or two before launching into just that argument.... "if theism is true", of course.

It's unfortunate that Paul fails so completely to grasp what is being argued by the Ethical Atheist. He has a quite a challenge trying to paint a veneer of coherence over his Calvinism, just on its own terms, but this post is an example of the kind of mental train wreck that comes out of adopting the "worldview" he's chosen. He cannot proceed, of course, from the agnostic point of rational inquiry, neither assuming theism true nor assuming it false. His game's up as soon as he allows that kind of abstraction. So he's bound to thinking about atheism through his lens of presuppositionalist Calvinism, which produces things like... well, go read the post.

You'll see what I mean.

Phil Johnson: Certainly Clueless

2007-12-10T15:27:00.001-08:00

Phil Johnson from this post over at Pyromaniacs a couple days ago:

Any assertion not so qualified risks being labeled "excessive confidence," which according to Brian McLaren is a "cancer" responsible for practically everything that's wrong in the world.

Except for one thing. When you start seeing what a noxious malignancy certainty is, then it's OK to be really, really confident about uncertainty itself. In McLaren's words, "Thinking along these lines, I became convinced that, yes, many of our world's worst atrocities were indeed the result of overconfidence" (Everything Must Change, p. 39).

You won't hear postmodernists or their Emerging-church cousins saying many things with that kind of settled conviction! But their doubts about certainty per se are unwaveringly emphatic.

You don't have to read very much of Phil's stuff to understand his penchant for projecting his own problems onto his opponents. Here, he's annoyed because Emergent types somehow maintain some certainty in their uncertainty about various theological issues.

You see, certainty for Phil is some thing you do, like mowing your lawn. It's not the result of a process of weighing and evaluation evidences with reason and logic, it's the means to an end, not the end itself, of an inquiry or anything else. A good pyromaniac is certain because being certain is good, so long its about the things a Pyro should be certain about (other things not sanctioned by Johnson demand solipsistic skepticism, but that's for another post).

We're dealing two different objects of scrutiny here, and this is a either a subtlety Phil just can't grasp, or Phil's hard in "spin mode" here. Uncertainty about theological propositions is the natural, rational, default position, if only because for so many theological claims there is no "feedback loop" to provide any objective verification about the basic soundness of the claim. Certainty about doubts themselves is trvial to justify, on the other hand. The doubts may be unfounded, but certainty about the fact that one has doubts needs nothing more than a little introspection to establish. In the case of historical abuses and tragic moral transgressions by Christians, there's little controversy in being certain there either. Can we be certain that murderous abuses of ecclesiastical power by, say, Torquemada or Calvin were, in fact, cases of extreme overconfidence in one's theological views?

Think about what uncertainty in that regard means from Phil's standpoint: Maybe Torquemada was right after all, or the nice folks who put Michael Servetus to death were as right as rain, and entitled to their confidence in it.

Here's a paragraph from a little further on in the post:

Ironically, the canonization of doubt as a virtue is also a clear echo of the very worst tendency of modernism (see the Ronald Nash quote above)—which means, really, that the "postmodern" skepticism of our Emerging friends isn't technically postmodern at all. Their modernist ancestors were fine with so-called scientific certainties; but they despised spiritual certainties—especially certainties grounded in the conviction that the Bible is truly God's Word. Emergent Christianity has expanded (not rejected) the modernist mindset by insisting on uncertainty about everything—except, of course, the infallible dogma of uncertainty.

Setting aside Phil's hyperbole here ("canonization of doubt" -- sheesh, point me to that canon, I'd like to see that!), what we have is Phil's objection to confidence in modernist empirical claims not being extended automatically to similar confidence in pre-modern spiritual claims. This may be news to Phil, but it shouldn't be news to anyone else -- these are claims with completely different epistemic foundations. They have different levels of trust to the reasoning mind because they deserve different levels of trust. Spiritual claims do not and cannot perform and be tested or falsified the way empirical claims can. We trust empirical claims because they are performative, and we reserve confidence in spiritual claims because they are speculative, and afford no validation or verification -- even in Phil's best case -- until after the inquirer is dead.

It's a hall of mirrors, looking through the "Phil Johnson" lens - an inchoate epistemology if there ever was one. That's bad enough, but read the whole post (or any of his posts), and note the supreme confidence Phil has in his perverted certainty.