Today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of naturalist Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book On the Origin of Species. Darwin did not create the theory of evolution, which dates back to the Greeks; he only postulated the mechanism by which it occurred, natural selection.
Despite the efforts of certain people to discredit evolutionary theory, because of a vested interest in Bronze Age superstitions that cannot be reconciled with observable fact, our understanding of evolution forms the cornerstone not only of modern biology, but resonates throughout all of the natural sciences, from chemistry to archaeology to anthropology to medicine.
If evolution weren't true, none of the modern medications or antibiotics we have would work. But they do, because it is.
There was a lot that Darwin didn't know about -- he had no knowledge of what we today call genetics, for example. Although DNA would be discovered during his lifetime, its implications in relationship to natural selection would not be understood until the mid-20th century. With all the advancements in knowledge we have made in the last century and a half, Darwin would likely find any of the current work being done in the field of evolutionary biology completely mystifying.
But through 150 years of science, evolution by means of natural selection has been proven, and strengthened, with every new discovery. There are certainly conceivable discoveries that could be made that would render the theory invalid, or at least inadequate to explain them; but such discoveries have, to date, never been made. Anyone who tells you that evolution is a "theory in crisis" is either ignorant of the facts, or lying about them.
Ars Technica has an article about appreciating evolution. I'm sure you will find many more out there to enjoy and learn from.
Today, by the way, also happens to be the actual 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. So props to him too, though the official birthday celebration has been paired with the celebration of Washington's birthday and gets everyone not working in post-production a day off on Monday.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Secular Sunday: Atheist Q&A!
So I actually can't find my copy of Case for a Creator right now. I picked it up to have it with me to write this week's entry and now I can't remember where I put it, and with a new job taking up ten of my daily waking hours, I actually don't have a lot of time to look for it.
It probably sounds like I chucked it in the bin, but I didn't -- I'd tell you if I did. So please, nobody send me another one. I will find it.
But this week, we're not falling far from that tree, because I'm still going to talk about a Lee Strobel topic. Lee Strobel was asked some questions, by an atheist, which he answered.
I may address his answers another time, but I am led to think that maybe I've been a little harsh on the guy. I've accused him of intentionally obscuring or distorting the truth, but it appears quite possible that he really just has poor critical thinking skills, no doubt atrophied from years of disuse. It seems like he may honestly believe that the things he writes and relays in his books really are logically sound.
To paraphrase Gandalf: a fool he may be; but perhaps, at least, an honest one.
But as I said, that's not what I'm going to post about today. In response to the atheist questions posed to him, he and some of his apologist buddies came up with some theist questions they would like to hear answered by atheists. Other atheist blogs have addressed them, but I thought I'd take my own crack at it.
What I say is not the "official atheist answer," as no such thing can exist. Atheism has no tenets or dogma and thus cannot have an "official" position other than the non-belief in gods. These are only my responses to these questions.
By the way, some Harry Potter spoilers slipped in there by means of comparison. If you haven't read the books, particularly the last two, then you should have by now, but I'll still tag it in case you want to avoid.
Licona's first error, of course, is in assuming that the only alternative to atheism is Christianity. I might ask him what "turns him off" about Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. Perhaps he would give reasons that regarded the behavior of certain of those religions' adherents, but ultimately I think it would come down to "I just don't buy what they're selling." As the saying goes, we are both nonbelievers in Apollo, Thor, Mithra, Shiva, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, among thousands of others. I only take it one God further than he does (or three, depending on your perspective).
My issue, first and foremost, is not that Christianity has "turn offs." It is that theism in general lacks sufficient evidence to indicate the existence of any god, much less any one(/three) in particular.
Though I both experienced and continue to research theistic beliefs, I have yet to come across any evidence that has "troubled" me with regard to my current lack of belief. I would be more than willing to acknowledge such evidence, should it ever be presented, but I'm not holding my breath.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot about what's written in the Bible that I find repulsive, and I'm pretty sure from a literary standpoint that God is actually the villain of the story. And there's a lot about the intolerance and arrogance that Christianity has a tendency to engender in its followers that "turns me off." And I think that it damages critical thinking skills, and does not allow for sufficient questioning or doubt. But none of that has anything to do with the reason I don't believe in it.
Well, first of all, I object to the way this question is phrased. Asking for the "real reason" implies that I have or would give a "fake" one.
That aside: I don't believe in God because I have not been shown any compelling reason that I should. It's the same reason I don't believe in unicorns, faeries, goblins, or Lord Voldemort.
The second question is equally presumptuous, as it assumes that the atheist being questioned has ever had faith in any god in the first place. It happens to be true in my case, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very loaded question.
I've already written my answer to this, but the short version is that I lost my faith in God when I went seeking for evidence to strengthen my faith, and sharpen my apologetical skills, and found at every turn that none existed. And so I was forced to determine -- against my heart's desire, at the time -- that God, too, most probably did not exist.
My question in return is: how does the meaningfulness of the universe impact the meaningfulness of one's own life?
Sure, the fact is that millions of years from now, not only will I be long gone, but the entire human race will be gone. There will be no one left to remember my name or my deeds, and the universe will continue to do what it does as if humanity had never existed. But that's true whether God exists or not, isn't it? The fact that my life doesn't mean anything to the dust of Mars is a fact, whether there is a God or isn't.
Does that really preoccupy anyone on a day-to-day basis?
Quite honestly, I think life has more meaning when that meaning is ours to determine and create, rather than just fulfilling a grand "plan" in which our every action is already anticipated and accounted for. Where is the meaning there, when your part to play is given to you by some outside entity rather than self-determined? How is this life "meaningful" when it is supposedly the lesser of the two lives one will live?
I create a meaningful life by making use of my life to improve and enhance the lives of those around me. It is fleeting for all of us, and that should make us more determined to make it as enjoyable as possible. Meaning is whatever we make of it.
That's a lot of assertion, and a lot of bandying-about of the word "fact" without actually backing it up.
Who are these "contemporary scholars"? I want names, and the reasons that they "concede" these "historical facts." Better yet, skip the appeal to authority and just tell me what the evidence is that makes those assertions "facts." As far as I can tell, they are not facts at all, just a semantical ploy. Borrowing from another atheist blogger's answers, I will rephrase your "facts" in the form of questions, because that's really what they are: questions to be answered.
Was Jesus killed by crucifixion? Skipping the questionable nature of the very existence of Jesus at all (and yes, it is questionable), it is reasonable to believe that he might have been crucified. It was an actual method of execution, so it is not outside the boundaries of possibility that a rabble-rouser named Jesus was executed by means of crucifixion.
Did Jesus' disciples believe that he rose and appeared to them? Again granting that he existed at all, sure. His followers may very well have believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them. But the Aztecs believed that human sacrifice made the sun rise. Scientologists believe that our bodies are filled with alien ghosts. Just because a person or group of people believe something does not mean that it is true.
Did the church persecutor Saul convert to Christianity? Once again, the first assumption is that such a person ever existed, although admittedly it is likely that he did. Saul of Tarsus may genuinely have converted to Christianity, and may genuinely have believed that he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. But again, because someone believes something does not make it true. As no one was with him when he had his vision, it seems perfectly possible that he hallucinated the experience. He was walking in desert heat, maybe he got sunstroke. That he genuinely believed it happened does not mean it really happened.
My pet theory, on the other hand, is that Saul realized that he could benefit much more by conning believers than by killing them. Paul realized he could make some serious cash off the whole "tithing" thing if he got in at the high levels of the church, which he did. He's also the one who invented the notion, out of thin air, that Jesus' salvation applied to Gentile as much as Jew. Sounds like he was trying to add more members to swell up the coffers.
I have no evidence of that, but it's certainly a "natural explanation...that makes better sense than [resurrection]."
Did the skeptic James, Jesus' half-brother, convert to Christianity? As I hope is clear by now, I find this point irrelevant. Doesn't make it true even if he did.
Was Jesus' tomb empty? So what if it was? The best and most sensible explanation you've got for a dead body not being where it's supposed to is that it un-died? Grave-robbing is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, if there in fact even was a Jesus and if in fact there even was an empty tomb. I might as well say that [HARRY POTTER SPOILERS]Dumbledore's cracked tomb is evidence of Voldemort's return[/SPOILERS]. If we can't even establish the existence of the tomb, much less its empty or cracked state, then it's fatuous to claim that its emptiness is evidence of supernatural events.
In fact, of all explanations for all the so-called "historical facts," even if their historicity was totally undisputed, the resurrection explanation is the one that makes the least sense, is the least reasonable, and has the least evidentiary support.
These "minimal facts" are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975.
Name them, and their writings. Don't just say "there's lots of them, srsly." Doesn't fly.
Well, to the first question. I'm not sure that the belief that all matter and energy began a finite time ago is "commonly recognized." Certainly the universe as we know it had a "beginning," which we call the Big Bang, but it was not a sudden creation of matter -- just a sudden expansion. It represented a change in the state of matter and energy, but not necessarily the beginnings of them.
I'm sure the "fine tuning" argument will come up later in Case for a Creator, so I won't go into it now, but I have a counter-question: if the universe is so "finely tuned" for life, why is there remarkably little life in the universe? Why is so much of the universe hostile to life as we know it? The vacuum of space does not support life, nor does any other planet of which we are currently aware. Even our own planet has large swaths of its surface that are hostile to life. It's a bit like finding a single silver atom in a 20 ton granite boulder, and saying that the boulder was "finely tuned" for silver.
A universe "finely tuned" to support life should presumably be teeming with it. It seems to me that life as we know it has finely tuned itself to survive within the constraints of this universe, rather than the reverse.
As for the question of evil, it's an easily observable fact that there is no universal morality or concept of evil that transcends boundaries of culture. We believe the actions of Muslim terrorists are evil; they in turn think the same of our actions. Who is right?
Everyone defines evil in their own way, and cultures create a consensus, one that can shift drastically (see, for example, the shift in Western culture from considering homosexuality "evil" to merely "undesirable," and now very nearly to "acceptable").
The notion of something being "bad" or "wrong" is not remarkable when each culture, and each individual, ultimately defines it for themselves.
Okay, one at a time:
How does something come from nothing? Atheists aren't the ones that say it does. Theists are, and they have no answer for how other than "magic." In the beginning God created etc.
I happen to think that all the matter in the universe has always existed in some form. So I can't answer the question because I don't believe the assertion I'm being asked to defend.
How can life come from death? Life doesn't come from death. Life, as we define it, comes from natural chemical processes that occur in various reproductive cycles.
How can mind come from brain? Dunno how. It's a fascinating question currently without an answer.
But despite the fact that we don't yet know how it does, we do have strong evidence indicating that it does. With MRI and other scanning technology, we can see brain activity occurring when a person engages their higher functions of thought and reasoning, and the areas of the brain triggered have a consistent correlation with the types of thought processes occurring. And we have plenty of documented cases in which brain damage has drastically altered a person's personality and thought patterns (aka what we would call "mind").
How did our moral senses develop from an amoral source? This is a question that would be done a disservice with a short blog answer. Entire books can be (and have been) written on the subject, and I suggest you look into them for a more comprehensive answer. But for the sake of the Q&A, the short-to-the-point-of-oversimplification version is that humans are pack animals, a cooperative species. In our evolutionary past, we would have survived better working together than against each other, and so it would have benefitted us as a species to evolve a sense of how to get along with each other. Hence what we call "morality."
Not to mention basic empathy. There's nothing mystical about "I don't want it to happen to me, so I won't make it happen to others."
The first question implies that there is a "why," and also that "nothing" being here is even a possibility, neither of which we have reason to claim are or could be the case. As I mentioned above, just because the universe as we know it is not eternal, does not mean that the matter comprising the universe is in some way finite. On what basis would you expect there to be "nothing" here?
The "two" options are not only a false dichotomy -- they are actually saying the same thing. If everything has to come from somewhere, then the "something outside the physical universe" had to come from somewhere. Or else it came from nothing. So if you believe that something outside of the universe created the universe, you're still stating that everything came from nothing, you're just pushing that "nothing" back a step. What's the point of that?
Neither of the two options presented is particularly reasonable, and as a result, I have not "opted for" either one.
What about the third option, that the universe has always existed? That's the answer you would give to "where did God come from," isn't it? "He's always been there." So why can't that answer be true of the universe, and just skip the tacked-on anthropomorphized "cause"?
Well, that was fun. Presumably back to Case for a Creator next week.
It probably sounds like I chucked it in the bin, but I didn't -- I'd tell you if I did. So please, nobody send me another one. I will find it.
But this week, we're not falling far from that tree, because I'm still going to talk about a Lee Strobel topic. Lee Strobel was asked some questions, by an atheist, which he answered.
I may address his answers another time, but I am led to think that maybe I've been a little harsh on the guy. I've accused him of intentionally obscuring or distorting the truth, but it appears quite possible that he really just has poor critical thinking skills, no doubt atrophied from years of disuse. It seems like he may honestly believe that the things he writes and relays in his books really are logically sound.
To paraphrase Gandalf: a fool he may be; but perhaps, at least, an honest one.
But as I said, that's not what I'm going to post about today. In response to the atheist questions posed to him, he and some of his apologist buddies came up with some theist questions they would like to hear answered by atheists. Other atheist blogs have addressed them, but I thought I'd take my own crack at it.
What I say is not the "official atheist answer," as no such thing can exist. Atheism has no tenets or dogma and thus cannot have an "official" position other than the non-belief in gods. These are only my responses to these questions.
By the way, some Harry Potter spoilers slipped in there by means of comparison. If you haven't read the books, particularly the last two, then you should have by now, but I'll still tag it in case you want to avoid.
Christian apologist Mike Licona: "What turns you off about Christianity? Irrespective of one's worldview, many experience periods of doubt. Do you ever doubt your atheism and, if so, what is it about theism or Christianity that is most troubling to your atheism?"
Licona's first error, of course, is in assuming that the only alternative to atheism is Christianity. I might ask him what "turns him off" about Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam. Perhaps he would give reasons that regarded the behavior of certain of those religions' adherents, but ultimately I think it would come down to "I just don't buy what they're selling." As the saying goes, we are both nonbelievers in Apollo, Thor, Mithra, Shiva, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, among thousands of others. I only take it one God further than he does (or three, depending on your perspective).
My issue, first and foremost, is not that Christianity has "turn offs." It is that theism in general lacks sufficient evidence to indicate the existence of any god, much less any one(/three) in particular.
Though I both experienced and continue to research theistic beliefs, I have yet to come across any evidence that has "troubled" me with regard to my current lack of belief. I would be more than willing to acknowledge such evidence, should it ever be presented, but I'm not holding my breath.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot about what's written in the Bible that I find repulsive, and I'm pretty sure from a literary standpoint that God is actually the villain of the story. And there's a lot about the intolerance and arrogance that Christianity has a tendency to engender in its followers that "turns me off." And I think that it damages critical thinking skills, and does not allow for sufficient questioning or doubt. But none of that has anything to do with the reason I don't believe in it.
Christian philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig: "What's the real reason you don't believe in God? How and when do you lose your faith in God?"
Well, first of all, I object to the way this question is phrased. Asking for the "real reason" implies that I have or would give a "fake" one.
That aside: I don't believe in God because I have not been shown any compelling reason that I should. It's the same reason I don't believe in unicorns, faeries, goblins, or Lord Voldemort.
The second question is equally presumptuous, as it assumes that the atheist being questioned has ever had faith in any god in the first place. It happens to be true in my case, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a very loaded question.
I've already written my answer to this, but the short version is that I lost my faith in God when I went seeking for evidence to strengthen my faith, and sharpen my apologetical skills, and found at every turn that none existed. And so I was forced to determine -- against my heart's desire, at the time -- that God, too, most probably did not exist.
Author and Christian pastor John Ortberg: "How can you create a meaningful life in a meaningless universe?"
My question in return is: how does the meaningfulness of the universe impact the meaningfulness of one's own life?
Sure, the fact is that millions of years from now, not only will I be long gone, but the entire human race will be gone. There will be no one left to remember my name or my deeds, and the universe will continue to do what it does as if humanity had never existed. But that's true whether God exists or not, isn't it? The fact that my life doesn't mean anything to the dust of Mars is a fact, whether there is a God or isn't.
Does that really preoccupy anyone on a day-to-day basis?
Quite honestly, I think life has more meaning when that meaning is ours to determine and create, rather than just fulfilling a grand "plan" in which our every action is already anticipated and accounted for. Where is the meaning there, when your part to play is given to you by some outside entity rather than self-determined? How is this life "meaningful" when it is supposedly the lesser of the two lives one will live?
I create a meaningful life by making use of my life to improve and enhance the lives of those around me. It is fleeting for all of us, and that should make us more determined to make it as enjoyable as possible. Meaning is whatever we make of it.
Resurrection apologist Gary Habermas: "Utilizing each of the historical facts conceded by virtually all contemporary scholars, please produce a comprehensive natural explanation of Jesus' resurrection that makes better sense than the event itself." "These historical facts are:
-Jesus was killed by crucifixion
-Jesus' disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them
-The conversion of the church persecutor Saul
-the conversion of the skeptic James, Jesus' half-brother
-The empty tomb of Jesus.
These "minimal facts" are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975. While the fifth fact doesn't enjoy quite the same universal consensus, nevertheless it is conceded by 75 percent of these scholars and is well supported by the historical data if assessed without preconceptions."
That's a lot of assertion, and a lot of bandying-about of the word "fact" without actually backing it up.
Who are these "contemporary scholars"? I want names, and the reasons that they "concede" these "historical facts." Better yet, skip the appeal to authority and just tell me what the evidence is that makes those assertions "facts." As far as I can tell, they are not facts at all, just a semantical ploy. Borrowing from another atheist blogger's answers, I will rephrase your "facts" in the form of questions, because that's really what they are: questions to be answered.
Was Jesus killed by crucifixion? Skipping the questionable nature of the very existence of Jesus at all (and yes, it is questionable), it is reasonable to believe that he might have been crucified. It was an actual method of execution, so it is not outside the boundaries of possibility that a rabble-rouser named Jesus was executed by means of crucifixion.
Did Jesus' disciples believe that he rose and appeared to them? Again granting that he existed at all, sure. His followers may very well have believed that Jesus rose and appeared to them. But the Aztecs believed that human sacrifice made the sun rise. Scientologists believe that our bodies are filled with alien ghosts. Just because a person or group of people believe something does not mean that it is true.
Did the church persecutor Saul convert to Christianity? Once again, the first assumption is that such a person ever existed, although admittedly it is likely that he did. Saul of Tarsus may genuinely have converted to Christianity, and may genuinely have believed that he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. But again, because someone believes something does not make it true. As no one was with him when he had his vision, it seems perfectly possible that he hallucinated the experience. He was walking in desert heat, maybe he got sunstroke. That he genuinely believed it happened does not mean it really happened.
My pet theory, on the other hand, is that Saul realized that he could benefit much more by conning believers than by killing them. Paul realized he could make some serious cash off the whole "tithing" thing if he got in at the high levels of the church, which he did. He's also the one who invented the notion, out of thin air, that Jesus' salvation applied to Gentile as much as Jew. Sounds like he was trying to add more members to swell up the coffers.
I have no evidence of that, but it's certainly a "natural explanation...that makes better sense than [resurrection]."
Did the skeptic James, Jesus' half-brother, convert to Christianity? As I hope is clear by now, I find this point irrelevant. Doesn't make it true even if he did.
Was Jesus' tomb empty? So what if it was? The best and most sensible explanation you've got for a dead body not being where it's supposed to is that it un-died? Grave-robbing is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, if there in fact even was a Jesus and if in fact there even was an empty tomb. I might as well say that [HARRY POTTER SPOILERS]Dumbledore's cracked tomb is evidence of Voldemort's return[/SPOILERS]. If we can't even establish the existence of the tomb, much less its empty or cracked state, then it's fatuous to claim that its emptiness is evidence of supernatural events.
In fact, of all explanations for all the so-called "historical facts," even if their historicity was totally undisputed, the resurrection explanation is the one that makes the least sense, is the least reasonable, and has the least evidentiary support.
These "minimal facts" are strongly evidenced and are regarded as historical by the vast majority of scholars, including skeptics, who have written about the resurrection in French, German, and English since 1975.
Name them, and their writings. Don't just say "there's lots of them, srsly." Doesn't fly.
Christian philosopher and apologist Paul Copan: "Given the commonly recognized and scientifically supported belief that the universe (all matter, energy, space, time) began to exist a finite time ago and that the universe is remarkably finely tuned for life, does this not (strongly) suggest that the universe is ontologically haunted and that this fact should require further exploration, given the metaphysically staggering implications?"
"And, second, granted that the major objection to belief in God is the problem of evil, does the concept of evil itself not suggest a standard of goodness or a design plan from which things deviate, so that if things ought to be a certain way (rather than just happening to be the way they are in nature), don't such ‘injustices' or ‘evils' seem to suggest a moral/design plan independent of nature?"
Well, to the first question. I'm not sure that the belief that all matter and energy began a finite time ago is "commonly recognized." Certainly the universe as we know it had a "beginning," which we call the Big Bang, but it was not a sudden creation of matter -- just a sudden expansion. It represented a change in the state of matter and energy, but not necessarily the beginnings of them.
I'm sure the "fine tuning" argument will come up later in Case for a Creator, so I won't go into it now, but I have a counter-question: if the universe is so "finely tuned" for life, why is there remarkably little life in the universe? Why is so much of the universe hostile to life as we know it? The vacuum of space does not support life, nor does any other planet of which we are currently aware. Even our own planet has large swaths of its surface that are hostile to life. It's a bit like finding a single silver atom in a 20 ton granite boulder, and saying that the boulder was "finely tuned" for silver.
A universe "finely tuned" to support life should presumably be teeming with it. It seems to me that life as we know it has finely tuned itself to survive within the constraints of this universe, rather than the reverse.
As for the question of evil, it's an easily observable fact that there is no universal morality or concept of evil that transcends boundaries of culture. We believe the actions of Muslim terrorists are evil; they in turn think the same of our actions. Who is right?
Everyone defines evil in their own way, and cultures create a consensus, one that can shift drastically (see, for example, the shift in Western culture from considering homosexuality "evil" to merely "undesirable," and now very nearly to "acceptable").
The notion of something being "bad" or "wrong" is not remarkable when each culture, and each individual, ultimately defines it for themselves.
Radio host Frank Pastore: "Please explain how something can come from nothing, how life can come from death, how mind can come from brain, and how our moral senses developed from an amoral source."
Okay, one at a time:
How does something come from nothing? Atheists aren't the ones that say it does. Theists are, and they have no answer for how other than "magic." In the beginning God created etc.
I happen to think that all the matter in the universe has always existed in some form. So I can't answer the question because I don't believe the assertion I'm being asked to defend.
How can life come from death? Life doesn't come from death. Life, as we define it, comes from natural chemical processes that occur in various reproductive cycles.
How can mind come from brain? Dunno how. It's a fascinating question currently without an answer.
But despite the fact that we don't yet know how it does, we do have strong evidence indicating that it does. With MRI and other scanning technology, we can see brain activity occurring when a person engages their higher functions of thought and reasoning, and the areas of the brain triggered have a consistent correlation with the types of thought processes occurring. And we have plenty of documented cases in which brain damage has drastically altered a person's personality and thought patterns (aka what we would call "mind").
How did our moral senses develop from an amoral source? This is a question that would be done a disservice with a short blog answer. Entire books can be (and have been) written on the subject, and I suggest you look into them for a more comprehensive answer. But for the sake of the Q&A, the short-to-the-point-of-oversimplification version is that humans are pack animals, a cooperative species. In our evolutionary past, we would have survived better working together than against each other, and so it would have benefitted us as a species to evolve a sense of how to get along with each other. Hence what we call "morality."
Not to mention basic empathy. There's nothing mystical about "I don't want it to happen to me, so I won't make it happen to others."
Christian apologist Greg Koukl: "Why is something here rather than nothing here? Clearly, the physical universe is not eternal (Second Law of Thermodynamics, Big Bang cosmology). Either everything came from something outside the material universe, or everything came from nothing (Law of Excluded Middle). Which of those two is the most reasonable alternative? As an atheist, you seem to have opted for the latter. Why?"
The first question implies that there is a "why," and also that "nothing" being here is even a possibility, neither of which we have reason to claim are or could be the case. As I mentioned above, just because the universe as we know it is not eternal, does not mean that the matter comprising the universe is in some way finite. On what basis would you expect there to be "nothing" here?
The "two" options are not only a false dichotomy -- they are actually saying the same thing. If everything has to come from somewhere, then the "something outside the physical universe" had to come from somewhere. Or else it came from nothing. So if you believe that something outside of the universe created the universe, you're still stating that everything came from nothing, you're just pushing that "nothing" back a step. What's the point of that?
Neither of the two options presented is particularly reasonable, and as a result, I have not "opted for" either one.
What about the third option, that the universe has always existed? That's the answer you would give to "where did God come from," isn't it? "He's always been there." So why can't that answer be true of the universe, and just skip the tacked-on anthropomorphized "cause"?
Well, that was fun. Presumably back to Case for a Creator next week.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Newsweek drops the ball
What the hell, Newsweek. You act like you want to be taken as a serious journalistic source for, you know, news. And yet you go publishing this utter nonsense about a supposed re-emergence of Lamarckist theory?
The short version of Lamarckist theory is that it is "evolution via acquired traits." The article gives a good example of the theory, which is that giraffe's necks got longer because short-necked giraffes stretched their necks to reach the trees, and their offspring were born with the longer necks. This is tantamount to claiming that if a very light-skinned person spends a lot of time in the sun and gets tan, he or she will have tan-skinned offspring. The theory is obviously absurd to us today, but before Darwin hit on natural selection, the jury was still out on how exactly evolution took place (although the fact that it did take place was not generally under dispute).
The explanation of Lamarckism is about the only thing this article gets right.
First of all, what the hell is this Sharon Begley character doing writing Newsweek's science articles? A glance at other articles to her credit include "Can God Love Darwin, Too?" and "Science Finds God." I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
She starts this article with the following:
That's right. Not the universe. The "creation."
Oh, but it gets better. From Begley's biography:
This woman is supposed to be an actual science writer. It would seem that by "breaking down complex scientific theories," the writer of this biography (no doubt Begley herself) means "completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting complex scientific theories, so that they can be explained simply and reach the conclusion she desires."
Though granted, I'm only going off one abysmal article. Maybe her others do better, but I haven't read them so I can't address them. Let's talk about the current article.
Second paragraph in, and already she's got so much wrong. Only the mother's DNA sequences are transmitted to her offspring. Her experiences affect the expression of those DNA sequences. Ms. Begley, science writer extraordinaire, seems not to grasp the fundamental difference between a phenotype, and a genotype.
I'm not a programmer, so I can't put this into an actual programming language like a clever blogger, but the developmental process we're talking about basically works like this:
That's the very very very simplified version of what we're dealing with here. Begley's article makes it sound like if a water flea's mother is in threatening circumstances, the offspring is spontaneously born with a spiny helmet, apropo of nothing as far as the DNA is concerned.
But the truth of the matter is quite different: the gene for the spiny helmet (TRAIT A) exists in every water flea. It is part of the genotype of that organism. The ones whose mothers were not put in a threatening situation (CIRCUMSTANCE B) simply did not express the trait, meaning that the organisms of the same genotype are of a different phenotype.
It is a well-known principle of gestational development that chemical triggers cause genetic traits to be expressed, or not. For one example, a chemical trigger applied to a human fetus at the right time will cause the fetus to express male traits, i.e. it makes a boy; if that chemical trigger is not applied, the fetus will develop to be a baby girl.1
It is also well-known that environmental factors can affect both the gametes of an organism, and the development of offspring even after the egg has been fertilized. That's why you shouldn't smoke or drink during pregnancy: it screws up the chemical processes of the body, and as the fetus develops, some important functions may never be triggered on; or some traits that ought to stay off get turned on.
I really shouldn't keep using code analogies since I'm not a programmer, but here goes: Since evolution has been a blind process, extraneous information has not necessarily been culled from the genome to keep things tidy. Each version of the software has added or altered code as needed, but not necessarily subtracted if not needed, only made it inactive. There's a lot of legacy code in our genes, some of which can be very harmful if it is re-activated.
All that to say that the existence of a life-threatening situation simply results in a particular chemical trigger that kicks in during some water fleas' gestational development, causing them to express different traits than water fleas without that chemical trigger.
It is not a level of science that is outside the understanding of a layperson, and certainly not an observation that gives those who accept Darwinian evolution "heart palpitations" as she claims. If a human woman experiences a great deal of stress during pregnancy it can affect the child's development, too. This is no different in principle, the only difference is that the water flea genome has a contingency trait should that situation arise (TRAIT A for CIRCUMSTANCE B).
Begley makes another example about the diets of pregnant mice affecting traits in their offspring, by altering the DNA of their eggs (gametes). Begley "emphasizes" that "this is not a mutation," and Begley is frankly stupid to do so. Of course this is a mutation. The alteration of DNA is the definition of genetic mutation.
Let me emphasize something in my own turn: what she is talking about are not acquired traits. The mother flea does not get a spiny helmet from somewhere else and pass that onto her kids. The mother rat does not turn brown and pass that onto her kids. They undergo experiences which alter the development of their offspring, either at the DNA level or during key stages in development, to express dormant or recessive traits. That is just standard genetics. Nothing new or revolutionary here at all.
So let's skip right to the end here:
It's true that natural selection usually moves fairly slowly. The point, which anyone with even a passing understanding of evolution would manage to grasp, is that those many generations to create the genetic code for helmeted fleas have already occurred, leaving us with the water fleas as we observe them today. The helmets are not a new trait, they are an existing trait that is either expressed or not.
It is certainly interesting that they developed in such a way that allows environmental factors to inform the expression of the trait, rather than just automatically having all water fleas be helmeted. But this is in no way an affront to the theory of evolution via natural selection, and is in fact easily accounted for as a positive survival adaptation. The fact that this article attempts to make it sound like it could invalidate or undermine the theory is not only sensationalism, it's just plain bad science, and Newsweek should be ashamed.
The short version of Lamarckist theory is that it is "evolution via acquired traits." The article gives a good example of the theory, which is that giraffe's necks got longer because short-necked giraffes stretched their necks to reach the trees, and their offspring were born with the longer necks. This is tantamount to claiming that if a very light-skinned person spends a lot of time in the sun and gets tan, he or she will have tan-skinned offspring. The theory is obviously absurd to us today, but before Darwin hit on natural selection, the jury was still out on how exactly evolution took place (although the fact that it did take place was not generally under dispute).
The explanation of Lamarckism is about the only thing this article gets right.
First of all, what the hell is this Sharon Begley character doing writing Newsweek's science articles? A glance at other articles to her credit include "Can God Love Darwin, Too?" and "Science Finds God." I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
She starts this article with the following:
Alas, poor Darwin. By all rights, 2009 should be his year, as books, museums and scholarly conclaves celebrate his 200th birthday (Feb. 12) and the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species" (Nov. 24), the book that changed forever how man views himself and the creation.
That's right. Not the universe. The "creation."
Oh, but it gets better. From Begley's biography:
Sharon Begley, widely known for her ability to break down complex scientific theories and write about them in simple prose, returned to Newsweek in March 2007 from the Wall Street Journal, where she wrote the "Science Journal" column for five years.
This woman is supposed to be an actual science writer. It would seem that by "breaking down complex scientific theories," the writer of this biography (no doubt Begley herself) means "completely misunderstanding and misrepresenting complex scientific theories, so that they can be explained simply and reach the conclusion she desires."
Though granted, I'm only going off one abysmal article. Maybe her others do better, but I haven't read them so I can't address them. Let's talk about the current article.
Some water fleas sport a spiny helmet that deters predators; others, with identical DNA sequences, have bare heads. What differs between the two is not their genes but their mothers' experiences. If mom had a run-in with predators, her offspring have helmets, an effect one wag called "bite the mother, fight the daughter." If mom lived her life unthreatened, her offspring have no helmets. Same DNA, different traits. Somehow, the experience of the mother, not only her DNA sequences, has been transmitted to her offspring.
Second paragraph in, and already she's got so much wrong. Only the mother's DNA sequences are transmitted to her offspring. Her experiences affect the expression of those DNA sequences. Ms. Begley, science writer extraordinaire, seems not to grasp the fundamental difference between a phenotype, and a genotype.
I'm not a programmer, so I can't put this into an actual programming language like a clever blogger, but the developmental process we're talking about basically works like this:
For TRAIT A:
-if CIRCUMSTANCE B is present, express TRAIT A
-if CIRCUMSTANCE B is not present, do not express TRAIT A
That's the very very very simplified version of what we're dealing with here. Begley's article makes it sound like if a water flea's mother is in threatening circumstances, the offspring is spontaneously born with a spiny helmet, apropo of nothing as far as the DNA is concerned.
But the truth of the matter is quite different: the gene for the spiny helmet (TRAIT A) exists in every water flea. It is part of the genotype of that organism. The ones whose mothers were not put in a threatening situation (CIRCUMSTANCE B) simply did not express the trait, meaning that the organisms of the same genotype are of a different phenotype.
It is a well-known principle of gestational development that chemical triggers cause genetic traits to be expressed, or not. For one example, a chemical trigger applied to a human fetus at the right time will cause the fetus to express male traits, i.e. it makes a boy; if that chemical trigger is not applied, the fetus will develop to be a baby girl.1
It is also well-known that environmental factors can affect both the gametes of an organism, and the development of offspring even after the egg has been fertilized. That's why you shouldn't smoke or drink during pregnancy: it screws up the chemical processes of the body, and as the fetus develops, some important functions may never be triggered on; or some traits that ought to stay off get turned on.
I really shouldn't keep using code analogies since I'm not a programmer, but here goes: Since evolution has been a blind process, extraneous information has not necessarily been culled from the genome to keep things tidy. Each version of the software has added or altered code as needed, but not necessarily subtracted if not needed, only made it inactive. There's a lot of legacy code in our genes, some of which can be very harmful if it is re-activated.
All that to say that the existence of a life-threatening situation simply results in a particular chemical trigger that kicks in during some water fleas' gestational development, causing them to express different traits than water fleas without that chemical trigger.
It is not a level of science that is outside the understanding of a layperson, and certainly not an observation that gives those who accept Darwinian evolution "heart palpitations" as she claims. If a human woman experiences a great deal of stress during pregnancy it can affect the child's development, too. This is no different in principle, the only difference is that the water flea genome has a contingency trait should that situation arise (TRAIT A for CIRCUMSTANCE B).
Begley makes another example about the diets of pregnant mice affecting traits in their offspring, by altering the DNA of their eggs (gametes). Begley "emphasizes" that "this is not a mutation," and Begley is frankly stupid to do so. Of course this is a mutation. The alteration of DNA is the definition of genetic mutation.
Let me emphasize something in my own turn: what she is talking about are not acquired traits. The mother flea does not get a spiny helmet from somewhere else and pass that onto her kids. The mother rat does not turn brown and pass that onto her kids. They undergo experiences which alter the development of their offspring, either at the DNA level or during key stages in development, to express dormant or recessive traits. That is just standard genetics. Nothing new or revolutionary here at all.
So let's skip right to the end here:
The existence of this parallel means of inheritance, in which something a parent experiences alters the DNA he or she passes on to children, suggests that evolution might happen much faster than the Darwinian model implies. "Darwinian evolution is quite slow," says Whitelaw. But if children can inherit DNA that bears the physical marks of their parents' experiences, they are likely to be much better adapted to the world they're born into, all in a single generation. Water fleas pop out helmets immediately if mom lived in a world of predators; by Darwin's lights, a population of helmeted fleas would take many generations to emerge through random variation and natural selection.
It's true that natural selection usually moves fairly slowly. The point, which anyone with even a passing understanding of evolution would manage to grasp, is that those many generations to create the genetic code for helmeted fleas have already occurred, leaving us with the water fleas as we observe them today. The helmets are not a new trait, they are an existing trait that is either expressed or not.
It is certainly interesting that they developed in such a way that allows environmental factors to inform the expression of the trait, rather than just automatically having all water fleas be helmeted. But this is in no way an affront to the theory of evolution via natural selection, and is in fact easily accounted for as a positive survival adaptation. The fact that this article attempts to make it sound like it could invalidate or undermine the theory is not only sensationalism, it's just plain bad science, and Newsweek should be ashamed.
- The human Y chromosome is a modified X chromosome. This throws something of a wrench into the arguments of those creationists who would claim that scientific discoveries are only proving information that has always been in the Bible. Gestational development indicates that Adam, in fact, comes from Eve. ↩
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Secular Sunday: Nobody believes in Zeus anymore...
Last week, toward the end of my analysis of the latest section of CFC, I spoke of something in quick and dismissive passing, when it actually deserves more focus. So before I move on today (or instead of doing so, we'll see how long this ends up being), I want to go back to it.
Strobel makes the case, sort of, that the abiogenesis of life is nothing short of miraculous. This has been addressed by better and more intelligent writers -- than myself, let alone Strobel -- such as Richard Dawkins, who points out (and I'm paraphrasing here): if the odds of life as we know it arising on any planet, the odds of all the qualities of a planet aligning perfectly to support such life, are one in a billion billion, then out of a billion billion planets, it is not only probable but mathematically certain that on one planet, life will arise. If only one planet in the universe has life, then we are the one in whatever number of planets there are -- those are our odds.
In an infinite universe, it's not miraculous that life arose here. In an infinite universe, it would actually be miraculous if life as we define it didn't arise somewhere. (Of course, if that were the case, there would be nobody to marvel at the miracle.)
But that's not what I want to address (as I said, Dawkins among others has covered it much better). What I want to address is the following quote, attributed to Walter Bradley, "origin-of-life expert:"
No. And no. And NO.
I need to be very clear about this, because this is extremely important. Ultimately this is the primary failure of this entire book, the foundational misunderstanding upon which Strobel is building his eponymous Case:
Science.
Does not.
Work that way.
To make it easily apparent why I have such a strong objection to Bradley's statement, let me rephrase, to have it say explicitly what Bradley is only implying:
As I said, this is the fundamental departure point, the fundamental mistake Strobel and others like him make. If they don't know the answer, they make it up. Or, conversely, they decide on the answer they will choose to accept before even bothering to look at the evidence.
Any scientist will tell you that many things occur in the world that science can't answer. And scientists will have their hypotheses for the reasons that these events occur, based on a sort of triangulation of the observations that they've made ("because A, and B, and C, it seems to make sense that D is occurring").
Through repeated experimentation they will either verify the hypothesis -- in which case it eventually becomes the accepted explanation, and is considered something we "know" -- or falsify the hypothesis -- in which case they will begin searching for a new answer to test.
What they absolutely do not do is fabricate a "supernatural" and untestable "reason" that has no relationship to the evidence given, nor do they force themselves to adhere to a predetermined "explanation" for new information.
A true scientist is not afraid to say, "I don't know."
And saying that, as a corollary, is not the same as saying, "No one will never know."
Bradley's attitude is the opposite of scientific inquiry -- the death of scientific inquiry. Pick a scientific discovery of significance. Say electricity. Or antibiotics.
Until the 17th century, human beings had little to no awareness of the microscopic world. We didn't know about bacteria, which means that we didn't know how people got sick. Following Bradley's exact line of thought, those who came down with illnesses were thought to be either cursed by God/the gods, or possessed by evil spirits. There wasn't a natural explanation, and there wasn't the potential of finding one. So they pursued the supernatural explanation.
Except that there was a natural explanation, and eventually we found it, because despite people like Bradley, who were happy with their comforting-but-completely-unjustified "answer," some people kept looking.
Admittedly, even attempts to be "naturalistic" can and have been wrong, too. Humourism, for example, was the dominant non-supernatural theory in medicine for nearly the entirety of Western history. A theory which has now, by modern medicine, been completely discredited.
But the important component in this example is that even despite believing that they had the answer, despite having held to and operated under this theory for 18 centuries1, scientists kept looking to make sure. And when they started to make observations that humourism couldn't answer, to create alternate hypotheses that had a higher success rate of explaining and predicting related occurrences, the long-held theory of humourism was eventually discarded.
A true scientist is not afraid to say, "I was wrong."
This is the strength of the scientific method, the reason that the scientific method is the only reliable method for determining objective truth about reality. Science is not emotional, it is not entrenched, it is continuously adapting -- indeed, science is constantly evolving. Scientific discoveries in one discipline have a ripple effect across our entire understanding of our universe. If a paradigm for understanding the universe cannot accommodate objective observation, that paradigm must be discarded.
In ancient Greece Bradley would have said that obviously Zeus was the source of lightning, because there was no natural explanation for it and no potential for finding one. And at the time he would have been right that there was no natural explanation for lightning and no potential (again, at the time) for finding one. But now we know exactly the natural explanation for lightning, and while that doesn't automatically mean Zeus isn't the one making nature work that way, that's just a case of pushing the "Zeus" answer one step back. Not because there's evidence for the Zeus answer, but because its adherents can't deal with letting go.
As you all know, nobody seriously believes in Zeus anymore. And yet intelligent design is exactly the same thing. They say God did it. Once you show how nature did it, it goes back a stage to "God made nature do it like that," with no evidence to back that up, or even indicate a reason to think so. They call that lack of evidence (aka ignorance) faith, and they are inexplicably proud of it.
People like Bradley are afraid to say, "I don't know." People like Bradley are afraid to say "I was wrong." People like Bradley choose a comforting answer because it is comforting. Not because it is appropriate, correct, or even warranted. People like Bradley are not proper scientists.
Because science doesn't work that way.
As I thought might happen, this post got long enough that I think it's enough for today. But it was important. One of the reasons supernatural explanations are so compelling is that they're easy to communicate, and sometimes more intuitive than the natural explanation. One sentence of creationist claptrap takes paragraphs and paragraphs to answer in a way that is both relatively accurate and intellectually accessible to people who are not scientists.2 (Not to mention the challenge of making sure I understand it right, not being a scientist myself.)
Now I can simply point back to this post, or even use the acronym SDWTW, and you will know what I mean without having to spend paragraphs explaining myself. (Even given that, by the end of this whole endeavor, I may very well have written more words about the book than Strobel did in it.)
More CFC next week.
Strobel makes the case, sort of, that the abiogenesis of life is nothing short of miraculous. This has been addressed by better and more intelligent writers -- than myself, let alone Strobel -- such as Richard Dawkins, who points out (and I'm paraphrasing here): if the odds of life as we know it arising on any planet, the odds of all the qualities of a planet aligning perfectly to support such life, are one in a billion billion, then out of a billion billion planets, it is not only probable but mathematically certain that on one planet, life will arise. If only one planet in the universe has life, then we are the one in whatever number of planets there are -- those are our odds.
In an infinite universe, it's not miraculous that life arose here. In an infinite universe, it would actually be miraculous if life as we define it didn't arise somewhere. (Of course, if that were the case, there would be nobody to marvel at the miracle.)
But that's not what I want to address (as I said, Dawkins among others has covered it much better). What I want to address is the following quote, attributed to Walter Bradley, "origin-of-life expert:"
If there isn't a natural explanation and there doesn't seem to be the potential of finding one, then I believe it's appropriate to look at a supernatural explanation...I think that's the most reasonable inference based on the evidence [page 42].
No. And no. And NO.
I need to be very clear about this, because this is extremely important. Ultimately this is the primary failure of this entire book, the foundational misunderstanding upon which Strobel is building his eponymous Case:
Science.
Does not.
Work that way.
To make it easily apparent why I have such a strong objection to Bradley's statement, let me rephrase, to have it say explicitly what Bradley is only implying:
If something happens that we don't understand, and its reasons for happening are not immediately apparent, we should feel free to make up any explanation that suits us.
As I said, this is the fundamental departure point, the fundamental mistake Strobel and others like him make. If they don't know the answer, they make it up. Or, conversely, they decide on the answer they will choose to accept before even bothering to look at the evidence.
Any scientist will tell you that many things occur in the world that science can't answer. And scientists will have their hypotheses for the reasons that these events occur, based on a sort of triangulation of the observations that they've made ("because A, and B, and C, it seems to make sense that D is occurring").
Through repeated experimentation they will either verify the hypothesis -- in which case it eventually becomes the accepted explanation, and is considered something we "know" -- or falsify the hypothesis -- in which case they will begin searching for a new answer to test.
What they absolutely do not do is fabricate a "supernatural" and untestable "reason" that has no relationship to the evidence given, nor do they force themselves to adhere to a predetermined "explanation" for new information.
A true scientist is not afraid to say, "I don't know."
And saying that, as a corollary, is not the same as saying, "No one will never know."
Bradley's attitude is the opposite of scientific inquiry -- the death of scientific inquiry. Pick a scientific discovery of significance. Say electricity. Or antibiotics.
Until the 17th century, human beings had little to no awareness of the microscopic world. We didn't know about bacteria, which means that we didn't know how people got sick. Following Bradley's exact line of thought, those who came down with illnesses were thought to be either cursed by God/the gods, or possessed by evil spirits. There wasn't a natural explanation, and there wasn't the potential of finding one. So they pursued the supernatural explanation.
Except that there was a natural explanation, and eventually we found it, because despite people like Bradley, who were happy with their comforting-but-completely-unjustified "answer," some people kept looking.
Admittedly, even attempts to be "naturalistic" can and have been wrong, too. Humourism, for example, was the dominant non-supernatural theory in medicine for nearly the entirety of Western history. A theory which has now, by modern medicine, been completely discredited.
But the important component in this example is that even despite believing that they had the answer, despite having held to and operated under this theory for 18 centuries1, scientists kept looking to make sure. And when they started to make observations that humourism couldn't answer, to create alternate hypotheses that had a higher success rate of explaining and predicting related occurrences, the long-held theory of humourism was eventually discarded.
A true scientist is not afraid to say, "I was wrong."
This is the strength of the scientific method, the reason that the scientific method is the only reliable method for determining objective truth about reality. Science is not emotional, it is not entrenched, it is continuously adapting -- indeed, science is constantly evolving. Scientific discoveries in one discipline have a ripple effect across our entire understanding of our universe. If a paradigm for understanding the universe cannot accommodate objective observation, that paradigm must be discarded.
In ancient Greece Bradley would have said that obviously Zeus was the source of lightning, because there was no natural explanation for it and no potential for finding one. And at the time he would have been right that there was no natural explanation for lightning and no potential (again, at the time) for finding one. But now we know exactly the natural explanation for lightning, and while that doesn't automatically mean Zeus isn't the one making nature work that way, that's just a case of pushing the "Zeus" answer one step back. Not because there's evidence for the Zeus answer, but because its adherents can't deal with letting go.
As you all know, nobody seriously believes in Zeus anymore. And yet intelligent design is exactly the same thing. They say God did it. Once you show how nature did it, it goes back a stage to "God made nature do it like that," with no evidence to back that up, or even indicate a reason to think so. They call that lack of evidence (aka ignorance) faith, and they are inexplicably proud of it.
People like Bradley are afraid to say, "I don't know." People like Bradley are afraid to say "I was wrong." People like Bradley choose a comforting answer because it is comforting. Not because it is appropriate, correct, or even warranted. People like Bradley are not proper scientists.
Because science doesn't work that way.
As I thought might happen, this post got long enough that I think it's enough for today. But it was important. One of the reasons supernatural explanations are so compelling is that they're easy to communicate, and sometimes more intuitive than the natural explanation. One sentence of creationist claptrap takes paragraphs and paragraphs to answer in a way that is both relatively accurate and intellectually accessible to people who are not scientists.2 (Not to mention the challenge of making sure I understand it right, not being a scientist myself.)
Now I can simply point back to this post, or even use the acronym SDWTW, and you will know what I mean without having to spend paragraphs explaining myself. (Even given that, by the end of this whole endeavor, I may very well have written more words about the book than Strobel did in it.)
More CFC next week.
- A common defense of religion is that its longevity and tenacity somehow give it credence. How could a wrong idea survive so many centuries? My answer to that, as with humourism, is simply "because people didn't know any better." ↩
- One of the creationist tactics in "debates" with qualified scientists -- and apparently one of Strobel's tactics in this book -- is to rattle off in quick succession half a dozen or more wholly-incorrect but succinctly-stated talking points. Their opponent becomes flustered by the assault, frustrated by being unable to communicate the answers clearly in the allotted time (and/or by the ridiculous nature of the claims), or winds up forgetting or not being allowed to answer one of the points, which makes it appear to the audience that s/he had no answer to give. That's why I'm taking my time going through this, I don't want to leave any stone unturned.↩
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Secular Sunday: Case for a Creator: Chapter Three, Part 2
So there's this asshole Christian asshole by the name of Jack Chick, who has produced evangelical tracts for several decades, but who has only come to most peoples' attention since the advent of the internets. These "Chick tracts," freely available on his site, are by turns misogynistic, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic, and just about any other -ist, -ic, and anti- you can think of (except, of course, atheist or agnostic).
Also, everything is Satan's fault. Chick is basically The Church Lady, except he's serious.
The tracts are supposed to be little comic-book stories that you can hand out to people, they read them, and, thoroughly convinced, they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
If that sounds a little too pat, that's apparently how easy it is in Jack Chick's mind, because that's how it always works in the tracts. This is how most of the Chick tracts go:
You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. Go read them. You'll see.
You can tell that Chick has never met a true unbeliever -- certainly he thinks that everyone actually believes, they're just "rebelling" -- and so he only imagines, poorly, the way such people talk and think.
I bring this up not to specifically go off about the Chick tracts; they're morbidly amusing, but don't really deserve a detailed response. Most folks, even religious, can see that the arguments presented in the tracts (such as that Catholicism came after Protestantism, and is a perversion of Christianity as opposed to, you know, its origin) are absurd. And those who cannot are clearly either stupid, insane, or sociopathic, and deserve nothing more than to be pointed and laughed at.
No, I bring it up because the continuation of Chapter Three, the Jonathan Wells interview, plays out essentially like a Chick tract. Strobel has cast himself in the role of skeptic, but he has never been one, and doesn't know what the word means, and so his performance is shockingly poor.
The gist of the interview is Strobel discussing the images of evolution, presented in Chapter Two, with Wells. And it basically goes like this:
You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.
Wells presents no evidence to support his case, only dismisses the evidence Strobel presents as not being evidence, and Strobel, in the most embarassing parody of skepticism I've ever seen, immediately accepts Wells' dismissal as totally valid. As a corollary, he also immediately accepts any assertion Wells makes regarding what is true, without requiring Wells present any evidence to support it.
At this point, the best-case scenario explanation for this book is that Strobel is a credulous idiot. It's starting to seem like he keeps presenting arguments from authority because he genuinely finds them compelling -- he accepts Wells' arguments because he considers Wells an authority.
But at this point -- long since, really -- it has become clear that Strobel is actually a liar and an opportunist. It's become clear that if Strobel expects his reader to be the credulous and idiotic ones. He thinks that his declarations of being "convinced" will themselves do the convincing, in the absence of an actually convincing argument.
And of course, when it comes to his target audience, he's right. Over Christmas, a close friend's girlfriend received another Strobel book "The Case for Christ," which her brother, the giver, encouraged her to read. And the first thing out of his mouth was "The guy who wrote it was a skeptic, and then he became a Christian!"
That means nothing. It might mean he was a bad skeptic, or an idiot, or (quickly becoming my pet theory) a liar.
Not to mention the fact that if it were that easy, I could always counter that I was a Christian, then I became a skeptic, which is completely true. Have all you theists out there automatically dropped your beliefs as a result of my testimony? Does the fact that I am unconvinced mean you are unconvinced?
That's what I thought.
Admittedly, his conversion, if such it was, could mean that the evidence was genuinely convincing. But if it were, we wouldn't have to spend so much time being convinced that the fact that these people are convinced should be enough to convince us.
Arguments from authority are meaningless, and the manner by which many (otherwise sensible!) people find themselves talking about their naked Emperor's exquisite clothing.
I'm going to try not to go intricately into the poor writing or poor argumentation of this chapter as I have been doing before -- not only is this book not restoring my faith in God, it's beginning to erode my faith in humanity. Just know that it's still there under the surface. I'll be doing my best to address only the main arguments, and save my snark about Strobel's foolish conclusions and/or laughably poor writing for only the most grievous passages.
Still, I can't help this one little piece of dialogue:
Yes, Strobel is just shocked -- shocked -- that a man working for theDishonesty Discovery Institute in Seattle, the sole expressed purpose of which is to promote Intelligent Design over evolution, who got his Ph.D specifically for the purpose of "destroying evolution," in the name of the glory of God (who by the way is a Korean man), should state that evolution is false.2
Like I said, most of the dialogue in this book is like that, and I will spare you. Am I not merciful?
But okay, Wells. I'm ready to have my mind blown. Gimme whatcha got.
The Miller-Urey Experiment
Wells' first argument is that the Miller experiment used the wrong atmospheric composition in its "early earth" simulation, the one which produced amino acids, which are the building blocks of life.
It is true that Miller's original theory about the composition of the early atmosphere has since been abandoned in favor of other atmospheric theories. But Wells fails to mention that most scientists agree that the initial formation of organic compounds, and even the early forms of life, probably occurred well away from the atmosphere (e.g. in the deep sea), making the composition of the atmosphere largely irrelevant.
Wells does state that other experiments have been performed which create complex organic compounds -- but points out that some of the molecules formed are cyanide and formaldehyde, which he refers to as being intensely toxic. And they are.
To humans.
But they're also necessary building blocks to important biochemical compounds, such as amino acids. Therefore in this context they are not toxins. Wells even acknowledges that "it's true that a good organic chemist can turn formaldehyde and cyanide into biological molecules," but then states that "to suggest that formaldehyde and cyanide give you the right substrate for the origin of life...well, that's just a joke." [page 38]
What? WHAT? You just said that those two chemicals can form the basis of biochemical compounds, then say that it's a joke.
In context, the punchline of the "joke" is that what you create by mixing them is embalming fluid. Which is true. But what he doesn't mention, because it would be devastating to his case, is that you can also get amino acids, which are the substrate for the origin of life. Of course, despite the fact that Wells has two Ph.Ds, neither of them is in biochemistry, so at best it can be argued that he just didn't know. But if he didn't know he shouldn't go around saying it with such finality and authority.
A simple Google search of "cyanide amino acids" brings up pages and pages of scientific studies discussing how hydrogen cyanide is a precursor to the formation of amino acids. Wells is supposed to be the expert, he's TELLING us he's the expert, and yet he can't be bothered to actually check if what he's saying has any truth?
The other option is that he has done the research, he knows he's lying by omission, and he's doing it anyway. It's not the first, nor I'm sure the last, occurrence of lying for Jesus I've seen in my life. It's probably far from the last that I'll see in this book.
In the next section he goes on to say that if you were to poke a hole in a cell and allow the insides to drain out, you could not form another cell from this material, nor expect one to form, even though "you've got all the components you would need for life." [page 39] But that's not the way cells are formed, and not the way evolution works, and Wells knows this. Evolution involves replication and reproduction, activities in which a dead cell -- especially a dismembered one -- cannot engage.
This section of his argument is just ridiculous, but of course someone who is already ignorant or suspicious of evolutionary biology will latch onto it as making total sense. And that's the alarming part, to me.
And of course, since Wells has dismissed these naturalistic explanations for abiogenesis, there must be a supernatural reason. Not because there's any evidence for a supernatural explanation, mind you. Just cuz.
So, in this section Wells fails to disprove abiogenesis -- by his admissions about the products of abiogenesis experiments, he has in fact provided evidentiary support for the theory. He lies and says it's evidence against, but being an actual skeptic, I did some research. It didn't even take me long to find all the ways he's full of shit (going by number of Google hits on "cyanide amino acids," approximately 666,000 ways. How appropriate).
Since he has no evidence of his own, he instead fills pages with straw man arguments, a clearly misguided understanding of evolution that I do not believe he actually holds (rather, he just hopes that the people reading won't know better and won't bother to check), and rhetoric that assumes the pre-determined conclusion.
I've said this before, but the correct process is: "here is the observation, what does that indicate." Not "God exists, chase observations in support and ignore/deny observations against." So far, Wells -- and Strobel -- are following the latter.
I'll finish up the Wells chapter next time. For now, no points awarded. Try again next round.
Also, everything is Satan's fault. Chick is basically The Church Lady, except he's serious.
The tracts are supposed to be little comic-book stories that you can hand out to people, they read them, and, thoroughly convinced, they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
If that sounds a little too pat, that's apparently how easy it is in Jack Chick's mind, because that's how it always works in the tracts. This is how most of the Chick tracts go:
Unbeliever: Religion is stupid!
Believer: But Jesus died for your sins.
Unbeliever: No one ever told me! Praise His holy name!1
You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. Go read them. You'll see.
You can tell that Chick has never met a true unbeliever -- certainly he thinks that everyone actually believes, they're just "rebelling" -- and so he only imagines, poorly, the way such people talk and think.
I bring this up not to specifically go off about the Chick tracts; they're morbidly amusing, but don't really deserve a detailed response. Most folks, even religious, can see that the arguments presented in the tracts (such as that Catholicism came after Protestantism, and is a perversion of Christianity as opposed to, you know, its origin) are absurd. And those who cannot are clearly either stupid, insane, or sociopathic, and deserve nothing more than to be pointed and laughed at.
No, I bring it up because the continuation of Chapter Three, the Jonathan Wells interview, plays out essentially like a Chick tract. Strobel has cast himself in the role of skeptic, but he has never been one, and doesn't know what the word means, and so his performance is shockingly poor.
The gist of the interview is Strobel discussing the images of evolution, presented in Chapter Two, with Wells. And it basically goes like this:
Strobel: This is evidence of evolution, right?
Wells: Nuh-uh.
Strobel: I've never heard it from that perspective! You've totally convinced me!
You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not.
Wells presents no evidence to support his case, only dismisses the evidence Strobel presents as not being evidence, and Strobel, in the most embarassing parody of skepticism I've ever seen, immediately accepts Wells' dismissal as totally valid. As a corollary, he also immediately accepts any assertion Wells makes regarding what is true, without requiring Wells present any evidence to support it.
At this point, the best-case scenario explanation for this book is that Strobel is a credulous idiot. It's starting to seem like he keeps presenting arguments from authority because he genuinely finds them compelling -- he accepts Wells' arguments because he considers Wells an authority.
But at this point -- long since, really -- it has become clear that Strobel is actually a liar and an opportunist. It's become clear that if Strobel expects his reader to be the credulous and idiotic ones. He thinks that his declarations of being "convinced" will themselves do the convincing, in the absence of an actually convincing argument.
And of course, when it comes to his target audience, he's right. Over Christmas, a close friend's girlfriend received another Strobel book "The Case for Christ," which her brother, the giver, encouraged her to read. And the first thing out of his mouth was "The guy who wrote it was a skeptic, and then he became a Christian!"
That means nothing. It might mean he was a bad skeptic, or an idiot, or (quickly becoming my pet theory) a liar.
Not to mention the fact that if it were that easy, I could always counter that I was a Christian, then I became a skeptic, which is completely true. Have all you theists out there automatically dropped your beliefs as a result of my testimony? Does the fact that I am unconvinced mean you are unconvinced?
That's what I thought.
Admittedly, his conversion, if such it was, could mean that the evidence was genuinely convincing. But if it were, we wouldn't have to spend so much time being convinced that the fact that these people are convinced should be enough to convince us.
Arguments from authority are meaningless, and the manner by which many (otherwise sensible!) people find themselves talking about their naked Emperor's exquisite clothing.
I'm going to try not to go intricately into the poor writing or poor argumentation of this chapter as I have been doing before -- not only is this book not restoring my faith in God, it's beginning to erode my faith in humanity. Just know that it's still there under the surface. I'll be doing my best to address only the main arguments, and save my snark about Strobel's foolish conclusions and/or laughably poor writing for only the most grievous passages.
Still, I can't help this one little piece of dialogue:
"If these icon are the illustrations most cited as evidence of evolution, then I can see why they're important," I said. "What did you find as you examined them one by one?"
Wells didn't hesitate. "That they're either false or misleading," he replied.
"False or misleading?" I echoed. "Wait a second -- are you saying my science teacher was lying to me? That's a pretty outrageous charge!" [page 36]
Yes, Strobel is just shocked -- shocked -- that a man working for the
Like I said, most of the dialogue in this book is like that, and I will spare you. Am I not merciful?
But okay, Wells. I'm ready to have my mind blown. Gimme whatcha got.
The Miller-Urey Experiment
Wells' first argument is that the Miller experiment used the wrong atmospheric composition in its "early earth" simulation, the one which produced amino acids, which are the building blocks of life.
It is true that Miller's original theory about the composition of the early atmosphere has since been abandoned in favor of other atmospheric theories. But Wells fails to mention that most scientists agree that the initial formation of organic compounds, and even the early forms of life, probably occurred well away from the atmosphere (e.g. in the deep sea), making the composition of the atmosphere largely irrelevant.
Wells does state that other experiments have been performed which create complex organic compounds -- but points out that some of the molecules formed are cyanide and formaldehyde, which he refers to as being intensely toxic. And they are.
To humans.
But they're also necessary building blocks to important biochemical compounds, such as amino acids. Therefore in this context they are not toxins. Wells even acknowledges that "it's true that a good organic chemist can turn formaldehyde and cyanide into biological molecules," but then states that "to suggest that formaldehyde and cyanide give you the right substrate for the origin of life...well, that's just a joke." [page 38]
What? WHAT? You just said that those two chemicals can form the basis of biochemical compounds, then say that it's a joke.
In context, the punchline of the "joke" is that what you create by mixing them is embalming fluid. Which is true. But what he doesn't mention, because it would be devastating to his case, is that you can also get amino acids, which are the substrate for the origin of life. Of course, despite the fact that Wells has two Ph.Ds, neither of them is in biochemistry, so at best it can be argued that he just didn't know. But if he didn't know he shouldn't go around saying it with such finality and authority.
A simple Google search of "cyanide amino acids" brings up pages and pages of scientific studies discussing how hydrogen cyanide is a precursor to the formation of amino acids. Wells is supposed to be the expert, he's TELLING us he's the expert, and yet he can't be bothered to actually check if what he's saying has any truth?
The other option is that he has done the research, he knows he's lying by omission, and he's doing it anyway. It's not the first, nor I'm sure the last, occurrence of lying for Jesus I've seen in my life. It's probably far from the last that I'll see in this book.
In the next section he goes on to say that if you were to poke a hole in a cell and allow the insides to drain out, you could not form another cell from this material, nor expect one to form, even though "you've got all the components you would need for life." [page 39] But that's not the way cells are formed, and not the way evolution works, and Wells knows this. Evolution involves replication and reproduction, activities in which a dead cell -- especially a dismembered one -- cannot engage.
This section of his argument is just ridiculous, but of course someone who is already ignorant or suspicious of evolutionary biology will latch onto it as making total sense. And that's the alarming part, to me.
And of course, since Wells has dismissed these naturalistic explanations for abiogenesis, there must be a supernatural reason. Not because there's any evidence for a supernatural explanation, mind you. Just cuz.
So, in this section Wells fails to disprove abiogenesis -- by his admissions about the products of abiogenesis experiments, he has in fact provided evidentiary support for the theory. He lies and says it's evidence against, but being an actual skeptic, I did some research. It didn't even take me long to find all the ways he's full of shit (going by number of Google hits on "cyanide amino acids," approximately 666,000 ways. How appropriate).
Since he has no evidence of his own, he instead fills pages with straw man arguments, a clearly misguided understanding of evolution that I do not believe he actually holds (rather, he just hopes that the people reading won't know better and won't bother to check), and rhetoric that assumes the pre-determined conclusion.
I've said this before, but the correct process is: "here is the observation, what does that indicate." Not "God exists, chase observations in support and ignore/deny observations against." So far, Wells -- and Strobel -- are following the latter.
I'll finish up the Wells chapter next time. For now, no points awarded. Try again next round.
- That's another odd thing that Jack Chick seems to believe: that the vast majority of people in America aren't aware of the fundamental tenets of Christianity -- Christ's divinity, salvation, etc. Presumably he thinks that the only logical explanation for people not believing is that they haven't heard. Though of course "Jack Chick" and "logical" never seem to have been properly introduced.↩
- Shocked.↩
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Case for a Creator: Chapter Two
Remember yesterday, when I said that it seems that Strobel seems very concerned with telling us about himself, and how very very atheist he was? Chapter Two begins thusly:
It's clear throughout this chapter that Strobel really wants to hammer home just how he was "toooooootally atheist, guys! Like seriously!" Like Durin pointed out yesterday, I can't shake the feeling that this is setting up an implicit Argument from Authority. I mean, if someone THAT atheist could be convinced, this MUST be good evidence.
It in fact has the opposite effect -- I begin to wonder if Strobel was actually ever an atheist at all. The atheism Strobel describes is a standard Christian caricature of atheism, as evidenced below:
The subject of morality without God deserves a post of its own (and even that is probably selling the subject short; books have been written), so I won't sidetrack this one with the subject. Suffice it to say that no atheist I know actually sees it as an "excuse" to misbehave -- the fact that so many of the religious seem to think that the only thing keeping them from raping and/or murdering every man, woman, child and pet they come across is the threat of God's punishment only belies the fact that they are not good or moral people at all.1 The moral person does good because it is good; the man who does good because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he does bad is not moral, he is merely a coward.
Buuuut, that's getting off the subject a bit. My point is that Strobel's attempts to convince me that he was an atheist have in fact convinced me of the polar opposite, and I will have trouble putting aside the fact that I believe he is being dishonest with me. Fascinatingly, he even describes himself as being "smugly arrogant" -- exactly the two words I used yesterday to describe the atheist characterization he was laying on so thick.
Ultimately, however, it doesn't necessarily matter if Strobel was or wasn't an atheist (which makes it yet more annoying that he spends so much time on the subject). The more important question is, does the scientific evidence he presents indeed point toward a Creator? Well, I'd like to tell you, but at this point he still hasn't presented any.
Actually, I take that back. In this chapter, Strobel presents the evidence that led to his apparent atheism when he learned it in his science class. This chapter is called "The Images of Evolution," and he refers to several iconic concepts (or "images") that, to him, represent(ed) the undeniable fact of evolution:
Image 1: The Miller-Urey Experiment -- in which scientist Stanley Miller reproduced, under laboratory conditions, an approximation of the atmosphere of the early Earth, and via application of electricity was able to spontaneously produce amino acids, the building blocks of life.
It should be noted, before moving on, that the Miller experiment is one testing the abiogenesis hypothesis -- the notion of life arising from non-life on the early Earth. Abiogenesis is a separate theory from evolution; evolution does not concern itself with how life started, only with explaining the diversity of life that arose after the moment that life began.
Image 2: Darwin's "Tree of Life" -- referring to an illustration in On The Origin of Species, showing life's theoretical common ancestor as the bottom of the tree, and all the diversity of life growing and diverging and blossoming upwards from there.
It's here that Strobel again tips his hand to, if not intentionally misrepresenting evolution, at the very least misunderstanding it:
All evolution is small changes within a population of organisms.2 As he says, over time the sum of those small changes can result in organisms so totally different that they are scientifically classified as different species.
As an analogy, imagine that you are five feet tall at the age of fifteen. Every day for a year you measure your height, and on a day to day basis you will see little difference between one day and the day immediately before or after. Yet at the end of that year you find you are six feet tall. Even though the changes were small, at the end it resulted in the need to recategorize you (from "five foot tall person" to "six foot tall person").
Evolution is this concept writ large, with billions of organisms over billions of years. The notion of a separation between "micro" and "macro" is a semantical dodge, designed to allow creationist (or intelligent design) proponents to admit to what they can no longer deny, while continuing to deny what they don't wish to admit.
Image 3: Ernst Haeckl's Drawings of Embryos -- up to a certain point, the embryos of vastly different organisms can look almost totally indistinguishable. This is taken as demonstrating how similar we all are genetically, and by extension the likelihood that we share common genetics, since that would logically result in common development up to the point where our genetics diverge.
Fast-forwarding back to 2008 (we're in 1966, remember), it's worth noting that we now have pictures of these various embryos and their striking similarities, not just taking an artist's word for it.
Image #4: The Missing Link -- referring to archaeopetryx, the famous transitional form between reptile and bird.
Strobel spends the rest of the chapter establishing his argument, which is that you've got to take a stand and choose between evolution or God. He acknowledges that there are some who believe that evolution and God are compatible, but he immediately determines that because evolution leaves no need for God, it leaves no room for one.
And not just any God, mind you, but the Christian God specifically:
Of course, he isn't concerned with those other possible Gods, because Mr. Strobel has already determined for himself that the Christian God exists, and is seeking only to find and deliver validation for that belief.
If Strobel's intentions are becoming more plain, his methods are becoming more dubious:
Why cite the quote secondhand? If Johnson did not include a citation of his own so that it could be traced back to the source -- and context -- of Dennett's remark, then the use of the quotation in both Johnson and Strobel's works is highly suspect. If Johnson DID include a citation, and Strobel chose to cite from Johnson's essay instead of researching the quote directly himself -- and, in so doing, making it more difficult for a reader of his own work to trackback the quote -- then the use of the quote is, again, suspect.
Granted, Signs of Intelligence is readily available on Amazon, but why quote a quote instead of going directly to the source? As a journalist Strobel should know better, which leads me to believe he intentionally evaded properly citing Dennett's remark -- which may in fact have had nothing to do with "Darwinism" at all.
It's not that the quote even really affects the argument being made -- it is, at least as reported here, a statement in support of the non-ID view of things -- but it certainly does not instill confidence in Strobel's journalistic integrity, nor his devotion to "not only...ask questions...but to go wherever the answers would take me." [page 29]
None of this necessarily negates his argument -- good evidence is good evidence no matter the source -- but it certainly makes it clear that Strobel is not playing a fair game.
Nowhere does this become clearer than in the home stretch of the chapter, in which Strobel says:
In choosing his "experts," Strobel has in fact chosen specifically only those who are already sympathetic to his beliefs. A truly neutral, journalistic approach would be to talk to people on both sides of the issue and let the facts speak for themselves. Strobel instead reveals his bias by limiting his conversation to those he knows will agree with his pre-ordained conclusion, silencing the opposition by simply not speaking to them.
Astonishingly, he follows that declaration with this one:
...
I...
...
Wow.
Strobel cautions the reader that "getting beyond our prejudices can be difficult. At least, it was for me...I didn't want there to be a God who would hold me responsible for my immoral lifestyle." [page 29]
Again with that. I can't speak for other atheists, but I don't lead an immoral lifestyle -- even by Christian standards. I don't lie to people, I don't cheat people, I am not sexually promiscuous, I don't get shitfaced-drunk or hurt people or do any other "immoral" things, certainly no more than your average Christian and I would bet, pound for pound, less so than most of them.
Strobel wants to assert that I'm afraid to admit God exists; I'm not. I live a good life, I am a decent person, and I'm confident that any God worth worshipping would take that into account when the time comes. If God exists and he/she/it is truly righteous, then I'll shrug, say "my bad, good to meet you," we'll have a laugh and move on with eternity. And if God exists and is not righteous, then fuck him/her/it anyway.
Either way I'm unafraid of the notion that God might be real. But if I'm going to believe, I'm going to need evidence -- and despite the book's subtitle, Strobel still hasn't given any. Instead he's written two "chapters," really glorified forewords or prefaces, which combined have made me more wary of his claims, and more likely to do due diligence on what's being said and who is saying it, than I think they were intended to do.
That being the case, future installments of my analysis may not be daily. I need research time, and I'm doing this around After Effects renders, so that time doesn't come easy. The next chapter is called "Doubts about Darwinism." I'm doing my best to approach this openly and without bias, but when the author refuses to do so, when he announces his prejudices in the same breath as he asks me to set aside my own, it makes it much more difficult.
Rewind history to 1966. The big hit on the radio was Paul McCartney crooning "Michelle." On a television show called I Spy, Bill Cosby was becoming the first African-American to share the lead in a dramatic series. Bread was nineteen cents a loaf; a new Ford Fairlane cost $1,600.I check the cover to make sure the subtitle is, in fact, "A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God," and not "The Pointlessly Detailed Life of Lee Strobel." Maybe they teach you to pad your word count with "colorful details" in the papers, Lee, but I was told that this was going to be an investigation of scientific evidence that points toward God. It would be great if you could get on with that.
As a fourteen-year-old freshman at Prospect High School in northwest suburban Chicago, I was sitting in a third-floor science classroom overlooking the asphalt parking lot, second row from the window, third seat from the front, when I first heard the liberating information that propelled me toward a life of atheism. [page 17]
It's clear throughout this chapter that Strobel really wants to hammer home just how he was "toooooootally atheist, guys! Like seriously!" Like Durin pointed out yesterday, I can't shake the feeling that this is setting up an implicit Argument from Authority. I mean, if someone THAT atheist could be convinced, this MUST be good evidence.
It in fact has the opposite effect -- I begin to wonder if Strobel was actually ever an atheist at all. The atheism Strobel describes is a standard Christian caricature of atheism, as evidenced below:
I reveled in my newly achieved freedom from God's moral strictures. For me, living without God meant living one hundred percent for myself. Freed from someday being held accountable for my actions, I felt unleashed to pursue personal happiness and pleasure at all costs. [page 25]It is this statement in particular that leads me to think that Strobel was never actually an atheist; rather, he is attempting to convince me that he was an atheist so that, as I said above, I will be compelled by his radical conversion. Having never been an atheist, he instead describes how he thinks atheists think, which will convince those who already believe (also having likely not been atheists themselves), but actual non-believers will have to conclude that if he ever was an atheist, he was a grotesquely stupid one.
The subject of morality without God deserves a post of its own (and even that is probably selling the subject short; books have been written), so I won't sidetrack this one with the subject. Suffice it to say that no atheist I know actually sees it as an "excuse" to misbehave -- the fact that so many of the religious seem to think that the only thing keeping them from raping and/or murdering every man, woman, child and pet they come across is the threat of God's punishment only belies the fact that they are not good or moral people at all.1 The moral person does good because it is good; the man who does good because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he does bad is not moral, he is merely a coward.
Buuuut, that's getting off the subject a bit. My point is that Strobel's attempts to convince me that he was an atheist have in fact convinced me of the polar opposite, and I will have trouble putting aside the fact that I believe he is being dishonest with me. Fascinatingly, he even describes himself as being "smugly arrogant" -- exactly the two words I used yesterday to describe the atheist characterization he was laying on so thick.
Ultimately, however, it doesn't necessarily matter if Strobel was or wasn't an atheist (which makes it yet more annoying that he spends so much time on the subject). The more important question is, does the scientific evidence he presents indeed point toward a Creator? Well, I'd like to tell you, but at this point he still hasn't presented any.
Actually, I take that back. In this chapter, Strobel presents the evidence that led to his apparent atheism when he learned it in his science class. This chapter is called "The Images of Evolution," and he refers to several iconic concepts (or "images") that, to him, represent(ed) the undeniable fact of evolution:
Image 1: The Miller-Urey Experiment -- in which scientist Stanley Miller reproduced, under laboratory conditions, an approximation of the atmosphere of the early Earth, and via application of electricity was able to spontaneously produce amino acids, the building blocks of life.
It should be noted, before moving on, that the Miller experiment is one testing the abiogenesis hypothesis -- the notion of life arising from non-life on the early Earth. Abiogenesis is a separate theory from evolution; evolution does not concern itself with how life started, only with explaining the diversity of life that arose after the moment that life began.
Image 2: Darwin's "Tree of Life" -- referring to an illustration in On The Origin of Species, showing life's theoretical common ancestor as the bottom of the tree, and all the diversity of life growing and diverging and blossoming upwards from there.
It's here that Strobel again tips his hand to, if not intentionally misrepresenting evolution, at the very least misunderstanding it:
It seemed obvious to me that there's such a phenomenon as microevolution, or variation within different kinds of animals. I could see this illustrated in my own neighborhood, where we had dozens of different varieties of dogs. But I was captivated by the more ambitious claim of macroevolution -- that natural selection acting on random variation can explain how primitive cells morphed over long periods of time into every species of creatures, including human beings. [page 20]See, the creationist folk realized some time ago that they could not deny that evolution does occur. It is, as he points out, an observable fact. So instead they have inserted an arbitrary designation between microevolution and macroevolution -- two terms that, in a scientific context, do not exist. There is only evolution.
All evolution is small changes within a population of organisms.2 As he says, over time the sum of those small changes can result in organisms so totally different that they are scientifically classified as different species.
As an analogy, imagine that you are five feet tall at the age of fifteen. Every day for a year you measure your height, and on a day to day basis you will see little difference between one day and the day immediately before or after. Yet at the end of that year you find you are six feet tall. Even though the changes were small, at the end it resulted in the need to recategorize you (from "five foot tall person" to "six foot tall person").
Evolution is this concept writ large, with billions of organisms over billions of years. The notion of a separation between "micro" and "macro" is a semantical dodge, designed to allow creationist (or intelligent design) proponents to admit to what they can no longer deny, while continuing to deny what they don't wish to admit.
Image 3: Ernst Haeckl's Drawings of Embryos -- up to a certain point, the embryos of vastly different organisms can look almost totally indistinguishable. This is taken as demonstrating how similar we all are genetically, and by extension the likelihood that we share common genetics, since that would logically result in common development up to the point where our genetics diverge.
Fast-forwarding back to 2008 (we're in 1966, remember), it's worth noting that we now have pictures of these various embryos and their striking similarities, not just taking an artist's word for it.
Image #4: The Missing Link -- referring to archaeopetryx, the famous transitional form between reptile and bird.
Strobel spends the rest of the chapter establishing his argument, which is that you've got to take a stand and choose between evolution or God. He acknowledges that there are some who believe that evolution and God are compatible, but he immediately determines that because evolution leaves no need for God, it leaves no room for one.
And not just any God, mind you, but the Christian God specifically:
Certainly Christians would say that God is not a hidden and uninvolved deity who thoroughly conceals his activity, but rather that he has intervened in the world so much that the Bible says his qualities "have been clearly seen...from what has been made." [page 22]But what would Muslims say, Mr. Strobel, and what does the Quran say about God's qualities? The Hindus and the Vedas? You haven't even proven that there is a God at all, let's not jump to conclusions about which God it is.
Of course, he isn't concerned with those other possible Gods, because Mr. Strobel has already determined for himself that the Christian God exists, and is seeking only to find and deliver validation for that belief.
If Strobel's intentions are becoming more plain, his methods are becoming more dubious:
I was experiencing on a personal level what philosopher Daniel Dennett has observed: Darwinism is a "universal acid" that "eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake a revolutionized worldview." [page 24]Note, again, the selective quotation. Strobel puts the word "Darwinism" into Dennett's mouth to ingrain it further. More alarming, though, is the citation found if you follow this quote to the endnotes, which gives this source:
Quoted in: Phillip E. Johnson, "The Intelligent Design Movement: Challenging the Modernist Monopoly on Science," in: William A Dembski and James M. Kushiner, editors, Signs of Intelligence, 34. [page 308]If the significance of that citation isn't immediately apparent, let me explain. Strobel has not quoted Dennett in his argument -- he has quoted ANOTHER person quoting Dennett, that other person being an Intelligent Design proponent, making the quote in a pro-ID essay.
Why cite the quote secondhand? If Johnson did not include a citation of his own so that it could be traced back to the source -- and context -- of Dennett's remark, then the use of the quotation in both Johnson and Strobel's works is highly suspect. If Johnson DID include a citation, and Strobel chose to cite from Johnson's essay instead of researching the quote directly himself -- and, in so doing, making it more difficult for a reader of his own work to trackback the quote -- then the use of the quote is, again, suspect.
Granted, Signs of Intelligence is readily available on Amazon, but why quote a quote instead of going directly to the source? As a journalist Strobel should know better, which leads me to believe he intentionally evaded properly citing Dennett's remark -- which may in fact have had nothing to do with "Darwinism" at all.
It's not that the quote even really affects the argument being made -- it is, at least as reported here, a statement in support of the non-ID view of things -- but it certainly does not instill confidence in Strobel's journalistic integrity, nor his devotion to "not only...ask questions...but to go wherever the answers would take me." [page 29]
None of this necessarily negates his argument -- good evidence is good evidence no matter the source -- but it certainly makes it clear that Strobel is not playing a fair game.
Nowhere does this become clearer than in the home stretch of the chapter, in which Strobel says:
My approach would be to cross-examine authorities in various scientific disciplines about the most current findings in their fields. In selecting these experts, I sought doctorate-level professors who have unquestioned expertise, are able to communicate in accessible language, and who refuse to limit themselves only to the politically correct world of naturalism or materialism. [page 28]Emphasis mine. The problem with this approach is that, despite Strobel's attempt to couch it as "politically correct," or previous attempts he's made within to characterize "naturalism" as only a particular "sect" of scientific study, the fact is that science by its very nature concerns itself with the natural, material, measurable world. Once you introduce supernatural hypotheses, science goes out the window because they cannot be tested and are therefore not scientific.
In choosing his "experts," Strobel has in fact chosen specifically only those who are already sympathetic to his beliefs. A truly neutral, journalistic approach would be to talk to people on both sides of the issue and let the facts speak for themselves. Strobel instead reveals his bias by limiting his conversation to those he knows will agree with his pre-ordained conclusion, silencing the opposition by simply not speaking to them.
Astonishingly, he follows that declaration with this one:
After all, it wouldn't make sense to rule out any hypothesis at the outset. I wanted the freedom to pursue all possibilities. [ibid]So. He didn't want to rule out any hypothesis -- except the natural or material ones -- and wanted to pursue all possibilities -- except the natural or material ones.
...
I...
...
Wow.
Strobel cautions the reader that "getting beyond our prejudices can be difficult. At least, it was for me...I didn't want there to be a God who would hold me responsible for my immoral lifestyle." [page 29]
Again with that. I can't speak for other atheists, but I don't lead an immoral lifestyle -- even by Christian standards. I don't lie to people, I don't cheat people, I am not sexually promiscuous, I don't get shitfaced-drunk or hurt people or do any other "immoral" things, certainly no more than your average Christian and I would bet, pound for pound, less so than most of them.
Strobel wants to assert that I'm afraid to admit God exists; I'm not. I live a good life, I am a decent person, and I'm confident that any God worth worshipping would take that into account when the time comes. If God exists and he/she/it is truly righteous, then I'll shrug, say "my bad, good to meet you," we'll have a laugh and move on with eternity. And if God exists and is not righteous, then fuck him/her/it anyway.
Either way I'm unafraid of the notion that God might be real. But if I'm going to believe, I'm going to need evidence -- and despite the book's subtitle, Strobel still hasn't given any. Instead he's written two "chapters," really glorified forewords or prefaces, which combined have made me more wary of his claims, and more likely to do due diligence on what's being said and who is saying it, than I think they were intended to do.
That being the case, future installments of my analysis may not be daily. I need research time, and I'm doing this around After Effects renders, so that time doesn't come easy. The next chapter is called "Doubts about Darwinism." I'm doing my best to approach this openly and without bias, but when the author refuses to do so, when he announces his prejudices in the same breath as he asks me to set aside my own, it makes it much more difficult.
- Nor does it make much sense, since -- at least in Christianity -- all they have to do, whatever the transgression, is be genuinely sorry afterward and all is forgiven. But that is also a topic for another day. ↩
- I notice he uses the word "kinds" of animals rather than "species," "kind" being the Biblical designation; another flash of the cards he seems to be stacking.↩
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)