Can America Survive Evolutionary Humanism?

"It appears that your knowledge of the subject is conventional and not very informed."

That's one option. Another is that the conventional view is correct. I'm certain that there are others.

But let me be clear on my position (and this is supported by the writing of Jaki regarding Godel's incompleteness theory and the "theory of everything").

The only genuine tools we have for incrementally approaching truth are evidence and reason. Hume pointed out that inductive reasoning rested on an unprovable assumption and therefore could not itself be "proven." Godel extended that inability to ever attain proof to deductive reasoning as well. The net result is fascinating if you are a philosopher, but of exactly zero pragmatic use to living human beings.

We operate inductively because it works. There is no other reason, and no other reason is necessary. It's all we got.

"Moreover if non-repeatable events happened in Christ’s life then science would record them as data, it wouldn’t simply discard them because they don’t fit an imposed paradigm of naturalism"

Completely consistent with my previous response to Andy. Science does not reject any such phenomena out of hand... but it does expect them to be actually demonstrated to exist before they can be seriously considered.

Any "non-repeatable events" that happened in Christi's life are not discarded because they fail to fit a naturalistic paradigm. They are discarded because they are not data at all, they are anecdote.

So along with Andy you are arguing with a convenient caricature of naturalistic science, not with science as it actually operates. What was it you were saying about someone's "knowledge of the subject [being] conventional and not very informed?"

Let no irony go unsmelted.

Why Use the Dead Sea Scrolls instead of the Masoretic Text to translate Isaiah?

OK, thanks for posting this. Sounds like they are explaining why a manuscript 1200 years older is preferred.

But while I am trying to consider Ender's telephone analogy with regard to these texts, I still have no idea how his reference to the dead sea scrolls helps him make it.

What I can determine by my own meager scholarship is that the KJV which was made with very few manuscripts is slightly inferior to the NIV and modern versions which used a great many more manuscripts, many of which were older.

But if the "telephone game" analogy is valid, I would expect the NIV and KJV to be hopelessly divergent. But I find they have very little difference except in what English words were chosen for translation. The apparent differences in manuscript were minute and irrelevant to anybody but the nit-picking perfectionists who do God's tedius work of translating these things.

Thus I must conclude its unreasonable to take Ender seriously in this matter.

“An early paper of Hoyle’s made an interesting use of the anthropic principle. In trying to work out the routes of stellar nucleosynthesis, he observed that one particular nuclear reaction, the triple-alpha process, which generates carbon, would require the carbon nucleus to have a very specific energy for it to work. The large amount of carbon in the universe, which makes it possible for carbon-based life-forms (e.g. humans) to exist, demonstrated that this nuclear reaction must work. Based on this notion, he made a prediction of the energy levels in the carbon nucleus that was later borne out by experiment.

However, those energy levels, while needed in order to produce carbon in large quantities, were statistically very unlikely. Hoyle later wrote:

Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule.” Of course you would . . . A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.[3]

“Hoyle, an atheist until that time, said that this suggestion of a guiding hand left him “greatly shaken.” Consequently, he began to believe in a god and panspermia.[4] Those who advocate the intelligent design hypothesis sometimes cite Hoyle’s work in this area to support the claim that the universe was fine tuned in order to allow intelligent life to be possible. Some of his thoughts in this area have been referred to as “Hoyle’s fallacy” by detractors.

His co-worker William Alfred Fowler eventually won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 (with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), but for some reason Hoyle’s original contribution was overlooked, and many were surprised that such a notable astronomer missed out. Fowler himself in an autobiographical sketch affirmed Hoyle’s pioneering efforts:

The concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first established by Hoyle in 1946. This provided a way to explain the existence of elements heavier than helium in the universe, basically by showing that critical elements such as carbon could be generated in stars and then incorporated in other stars and planets when that star “dies”. The new stars formed now start off with these heavier elements and even heavier elements are formed from them. Hoyle theorized that other rarer elements could be explained by supernovas, the giant explosions which occasionally occur throughout the universe, whose temperatures and pressures would be required to create such elements.”

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

“Any “non-repeatable events” that happened in Christi’s life are not discarded because they fail to fit a naturalistic paradigm. They are discarded because they are not data at all, they are anecdote.”

That’s an interesting objection. Most of what we know of history is anecdotal. Do you discard all the rest of history as well, or just the parts that aren’t caught on film? Give us a hint of some history that isn’t based on anecdote.

“But let me be clear on my position (and this is supported by the writing of Jaki regarding Godel’s incompleteness theory and the “theory of everything”).

The only genuine tools we have for incrementally approaching truth are evidence and reason. Hume pointed out that inductive reasoning rested on an unprovable assumption and therefore could not itself be “proven.” Godel extended that inability to ever attain proof to deductive reasoning as well. The net result is fascinating if you are a philosopher, but of exactly zero pragmatic use to living human beings.”

A mildly interesting detour, albeit having little relevance to what Jaki says about Goedel. Jaki is interested in the implications of Goedel for attempts, as Hawking tried, of proving that the universe could define and create itself. Jaki says Goedel proves it’s not possible, something that reinforces theistic arguments for the universe and something that creates a problem for materialist explanations.

“So along with Andy you are arguing with a convenient caricature of naturalistic science, not with science as it actually operates. What was it you were saying about someone’s “knowledge of the subject [being] conventional and not very informed?””

I didn’t offer any view of naturalistic science, other than it’s misapplication as described by Hayak in what he calls ‘scientism’. You present an example of it with:

” Science does not reject any such phenomena out of hand... but it does expect them to be actually demonstrated to exist before they can be seriously considered.

Any “non-repeatable events” that happened in Christi’s life are not discarded because they fail to fit a naturalistic paradigm. They are discarded because they are not data at all, they are anecdote.”

The methodology of science isn’t applicable to the events of Christ’s life, the rules of evidence are. It’s a simple epistemological distinction, and one you fail to make.

“But while I am trying to consider Ender’s telephone analogy with regard to these texts, I still have no idea how his reference to the dead sea scrolls helps him make it.”

The telephone game is a foolish argument and you are wasting your time wondering about it. If you want to learn about how the biblical texts were transmitted over time there are many good books on the subject, FF Bruce’s works come to mind. The study of the error correction methods built into the text and those used to keep copyist errors to a minimum are are fascinating. The number of letters and arithmetic value of each line were known for each book, some books create an ‘X’ if they are correctly copied, and so forth.

The KJV was based on the textus receptus of Erasmus. Greek texts had arrived in the West after the fall of Constantinople, and Erasmus was able to assemble the textus receptus out of them. This corrected a number of errors that had crept into the Latin vulgate text that was the sole source in the West for centuries.

Since Erasmus time many more manuscripts have been discovered permitting modern scholars to get a perspective unavailable to Erasmus. And ancient translations from the Greek into Aramaic and other languages permit another way to cross check manuscripts for differences. All the same the number of differences is small between any of these texts. The ancients had many methods to insure that they copied accurately.

"That’s an interesting objection. Most of what we know of history is anecdotal. Do you discard all the rest of history as well, or just the parts that aren’t caught on film? Give us a hint of some history that isn’t based on anecdote."

Well... you have now rather dramatically changed the subject, haven't you? I was speaking of science, and you suddenly are switching to history. But that's okay... having identified and been explicit regarding this particular feat of verbal legerdemain, let's talk about history.

In the first place, only certain periods of history come down to us as anecdotes. Some are exclusively data, particularly when we are speaking "prehistory" (understood as prior to writing). But even the most anecdotally rich periods of history also provide us with data. I (for example) collect Roman Republican coins and weapons. The excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii provide a wide assortment of relevant artifacts and remains. Even the documentary evidence provides us with multiple independent sources that can be used to check and cross check accounts in the effort to reach some sort of confidence regarding the probable truth.

And in the process, yes, we discard a vast amount of historical anecdote as false, unlikely, tendentious or impossible. See how that works?

" Jaki is interested in the implications of Goedel for attempts, as Hawking tried, of proving that the universe could define and create itself. Jaki says Goedel proves it’s not possible, something that reinforces theistic arguments for the universe and something that creates a problem for materialist explanations."

And of course Jaki reached that intended conclusion precisely because he inserted that desired outcome into his assumptions. It is a classic example of the circulum in probando. The universe is no more obviously created than God is obviously created. So the very premise of anybody (let alone the universe itself) creating the universe has already assumed facts not in evidence.

But it is necessary for Jaki, lest his arguments find no evidence for his faith.

"The methodology of science isn’t applicable to the events of Christ’s life, the rules of evidence are. It’s a simple epistemological distinction, and one you fail to make."

The methodology of science is applicable to everything. Some applications are just harder than others.

"The telephone game is a foolish argument and you are wasting your time wondering about it. If you want to learn about how the biblical texts were transmitted over time there are many good books on the subject, FF Bruce’s works come to mind."

Actually, yes... F.F. Bruce is a fine source especially because even though his premise and agenda was the validation of the NT Texts as reliable, even he is unable to completely account for or dismiss the vast messiness and controversy with which the canon of the NT has some down to us.

The primary shortfall in his work is the sectarian choice to presume Pauline Christianity as "true" and thereby reject or ignore the vast diversity of the early Church. As a result, even his messy review is erroneously skewed to make the canonization look inevitable when it rather patently was not.

His treatment of Marcion for example is (at least from the perspective of scholarly objectivity) particularly shameful. Tagging him with the heavily-baggaged label of "heretic," he writes that "Marcion's list, however, does not represent the current verdict of the Church but a deliberate aberration from it."

A deliberate aberration from what? There was no such "verdict of the Church" at the time at all. How does one "deliberately aberrate" from something that does not exist?

Bruce is simply unprepared or incapable of asking the one serious and substantive question regarding Marcion (or any of the other members of that vast fleet of Gnostics and other Christian sects that existed at the time). What if Marcion was right?

No, my friends. The "game of telephone" (which I first introduced regarding the Old Testament rather than the New) takes on a particularly unforgiving character regarding the Gospels and associated texts. The significant changes I speak of are not mere "copyist errors." They are the wholesale loss, rejection, suppression and attempt to eradicate a vast corpus of documents regarding a Church history that is not the linear, seamless transmission of authority via apostolic succession that Pauline Christianity would have us believe.

That is simply the version of Christianity that won the war.

The universe is no more obviously created than God is obviously created.

Well, there is certainly something that was not created. Because there is, well, "stuff". Logic gives us two choices as to the nature of that thing (or those things):

A) That thing which was not created is a natural part of nature.

B) That thing which was not created transcends nature itself.

The obvious reason to reject A is why even my daughter (who was 4 at the time) rejected naturalism. We all do. As Paul points out there is no excuse. We know the nature of God from what was created.

When I asked where milk came from, she said the refrigerator. I followed up and asked how it got in the refrigerator, and she said it came from the store. When I asked how it got in the store, she said that God put it there.

She was correct, albeit she left out some steps. Her logic was otherwise dead on. Now matter how we study nature, and learn additional milk data points...we can not escape this conclusion.

"Well, there is certainly something that was not created. Because there is, well, "stuff". Logic gives us two choices as to the nature of that thing (or those things):

A) That thing which was not created is a natural part of nature.

B) That thing which was not created transcends nature itself."

Of course that is certainly something that was not created. We both agreed almost a week ago that ex nihilo, nihil fit.

But I have no idea what you even mean by "transcend[ing] nature itself." Isn't that an oxymoron like "outside the universe" or "more than everything?"

"The obvious reason to reject A is why even my daughter (who was 4 at the time) rejected naturalism. We all do. As Paul points out there is no excuse. We know the nature of God from what was created."

I'm sorry... that makes no sense to me whatsoever. "We all do" is an obvious reason for rejecting naturalism? How can that be when in point of fact, we don't all. If we all did, there would be nobody to argue with.

"When I asked where milk came from, she said the refrigerator. I followed up and asked how it got in the refrigerator, and she said it came from the store. When I asked how it got in the store, she said that God put it there.

She was correct, albeit she left out some steps. Her logic was otherwise dead on. Now matter how we study nature, and learn additional milk data points...we can not escape this conclusion.

In point of fact, your example there actually demonstrates the complete abandonment of reason that is necessary to draw the conclusion "because God."

Your daughter started by beginning to assemble a chain of causality. And this is the perfectly correct place to start, because we all understand that nothing comes from nothing. The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species. The confidence is so great that we even have invented a label for those instances when it appears the law might have been violated. We call them "miracles."

But as your daughter commenced her journey along that chain of causality, she eventually just threw up her hands, stopped following it, and "called it God." She did it at a very early part in the causal chain. You do it at some much more distant point, perhaps at the Big bang, or perhaps even before.

But you have both done the same thing. You have both given up, thrown up your hands and called it "God." Worse, you actually believe that that "logic is dead on" when in point of fact, it is the explicit abandonment of logic. Logic cannot lead you to the conclusion of God. Logic can only lead you to the conclusion of an eternal and uncreated chain of causality.

An eternal universe.

This is exactly where so many "proofs of God" break down. The argument of the "uncaused cause" or the Kalam Cosmological argument all depend on eventually abandoning their premises and asserting a God that was not actually reasoned to. If we hold the premise that all effects have causes, it cannot lead you to an effect that has no cause. It can only lead you to an eternal chain of causes and effects.

Please don't come back and baldly assert, "But that's absurd." After all you have already conceded that something must be eternal. An eternal universe is no more or less absurd than an eternal God. The only difference is that we actually have evidence for a universe. What comparable evidence do we have for your version of God?

The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species.

Specifically this is rigorously confirmed by induction based on observation, not deduction. Otherwise one could simply say we can simply deduce what you just called "miracles" do not happen without any observation of the universe at all.

An eternal universe is no more or less absurd than an eternal God.

If and only if this eternal God did not transcend nature in a way that made the observation based induction of causality applicable to Him.

An eternal universe.

If there is one thing modern physics has strongly suggested about the universe, that we as a species were not aware of before, it is that there is no example of anything infinite in it.

Now this contradicts our intuition, and who knows what theories will evolve later, but currently it looks like there is a smallest discreet unit of everything. Matter, energy, space, and even time. Thus nothing in the universe strictly needed the Calculus. There is a lot of space, but it doesn't go on forever. There are many particles, but there is a finite amount. There is a lot of energy, but it is finite. Any kind of infinity in this universe only appears to be a concept in the minds of people.

Ender, I have noticed a repeated fallacious pattern in your logic. Again and again you start with a modest premise that is easy to accept but then change it (without realizing it I suppose) to a stronger premise when you apply it to your argument. For example:

The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species.

Here you have a rather modest premise. Easy to support. You use the word "induction". Which is correct, as long as one means something inferred from what we can observe.

Logic can only lead you to the conclusion of an eternal and uncreated chain of causality.

Ah, but here is where you have applied the above premise. But presto-chango-re-arango now the meaning is that this causal change is an inescapable deduction of not only what we have observed...but of any possible Heavenly realm we have not. You have elevated an observed induction to a principle of deductive logic which is beyond question.

Be more careful, and you will see truth more clearly.

” this surely does sound like another conspiracy theory.”

It is. Your first clue should be Endless Wiggles appeal to “lost books”; if they are lost, then he certainly can’t know what’s in them any more than you do, and you can’t examine them to keep him honest. He can make them say whatever he wants. He pretends that these Lost Books support what he’s selling because it’s easier for him than dealing with a real text that he finds inconvenient.

It’s not hard to find copies of “suppressed texts” that aren’t included in the canon of scripture. Some, like the Didache or the Shepherd of Hermas, are considered valuable and worthy of study. They just aren’t canonical. Others are gnostic texts that were rejected as being heretical. The Gospel of Thomas would be an example.

Wiggle’s disparagement of Pauline Christianity is another clue that he’s wandering in the fever swamps of terra conspiratoria. Pauline Christianity is the major portion of the NT. His acceptance by the Apostles is documented by Luke, by the first Jerusalem council.

FF Bruce was one of the preeminent scholars of his time and his books are classics of apologetics. Wiggle’s condescension of Bruce simply marks him as a crank.

“Well... you have now rather dramatically changed the subject, haven’t you? I was speaking of science, and you suddenly are switching to history.”

No, you switched to history when you decided to dismiss the events of Christ’s life as being anecdotal. There is nothing being measured there, it is a judgement that involves the rules of evidence. You quite obviously haven’t studied epistemology and you like to to scurry to the cover of “science” even when it’s not appropriate to the subject in question. Again it’s what Hayak criticizes as “scientism”, the inappropriate attempt to apply the tools of hard science to social phenomena, and history is social phenomena.

“And of course Jaki reached that intended conclusion precisely because he inserted that desired outcome into his assumptions”

Of course Jaki did nothing of the sort and I’m quite certain your sole familiarity with his work was to read his wikipedia page last night. Goedel’s Theorem demonstrates the necessity of mathematical systems to draw upon information outside of the system itself. The same mathematical systems are used in theoretical physics to describe the universe. Jaki pointed out that this necessitates that the universe draws upon information outside of itself, a fact that parallels Aristotle’s concept of the unmoved mover and theistic conceptions of God outside of creation.

“The methodology of science is applicable to everything. Some applications are just harder than others.”

Illustrating again that knowing nothing of epistemology you try to get by with scientism rather than science. The methodology of science is applicable to empiricism where we can observe and measure. It’s non-applicable and second order to disciplines like mathematics and logic.

"No, you switched to history when you decided to dismiss the events of Christ’s life as being anecdotal."

Nonsense. The thread stands for everyone to read and you are the one who, confronted with the argument from science that I was making, chose to change the subject rather than make a serious effort of addressing what I said. Now... I went along and patronized your ploy, so I see no reason you should suddenly play Captain Renault from Casablanca.

"There is nothing being measured there, it is a judgement that involves the rules of evidence."

In terms of the singular events of Christ's life reported by tradition, you are absolutely correct. There is nothing being measured here. That is why, as I pointed out previously, they cannot be considered scientifically. They are mere anecdote. But it is disingenuous of you to pretend that the necessary dismissal of those ancient tales shows that science has made some dogmatic decision to reject such evidence out of hand were it to ever be presented. Your continued effort to mischaracterize science in that respect does you no credit.

Because, I assure you... if you were to come into my laboratory today and under controlled circumstances turn water in to wine I would happily measure it and then commence the effort to try and explain it. Because that's what science does. We leave to mullahs and apostles the more traditional choice to just throw up their hands and blame it on "God."

"You quite obviously haven’t studied epistemology and you like to to scurry to the cover of “science” even when it’s not appropriate to the subject in question. Again it’s what Hayak criticizes as “scientism”, the inappropriate attempt to apply the tools of hard science to social phenomena, and history is social phenomena."

You know, I can be as pedantic as the next guy. But I also can tell when someone is trying to substitute supercilious dismissal for actual argument. This is little more than another attempt by you to shift the subject from what was actually being discussed to some straw man of your manufacture that you find more congenial to your purpose. I see no need to cooperate with what we both understand to be little more than a rhetorical device.

Have I studied epistemology? Actually yes. What was the conclusion of my study? That like most philosophy its primary purpose is to make the proponent sound intelligent and overwhelm with authority that which can not be defeated by reason. I am happy let you accuse me of not studying any and all the "-ologies." And when you are done, I'll still be here ready to actually talk about the substance of our disagreement.

"Of course Jaki did nothing of the sort and I’m quite certain your sole familiarity with his work was to read his wikipedia page last night. Goedel’s Theorem demonstrates the necessity of mathematical systems to draw upon information outside of the system itself. The same mathematical systems are used in theoretical physics to describe the universe. Jaki pointed out that this necessitates that the universe draws upon information outside of itself, a fact that parallels Aristotle’s concept of the unmoved mover and theistic conceptions of God outside of creation."

Unlike Jaki (amongst his many sins, this was not one of them) you are confusing the "mathematical systems [that] are used in theoretical physics to describe the universe" with the universe itself. They are no more the same than a ledger entry of my weight, height, eye and hair color is me. Godel speaks only to the limitation of the systems with which we describe... not the reality we are describing.

But worse, (and this actually was one of Jakis errors) the decision to apply such a measuring system to the universe and not also God is an arbitrary one. That arbitrary choice is not derived from any actual reasoning that preceded it. It is (as in the many flawed arguments depending ultimately on an "uncaused cause") the abandonment of the reasoning that had led to that point and the random insertion of "God."

Jaki does not makes (and cannot make) any real argument why the universe should require something outside of itself while God should not. If Godel's incompleteness theorem required a "God" outside of the universe to "complete" it, does it not also require an über-God outside of God to complete Him? If not, why not?

No... everything Jaki "concluded" depended upon having already assumed the existence of entity that violated the very basis of his "reasoning." Such a conclusion is no less arbitrary when wrapped in a matrix of philosophical prose than if he has simply stood up and said, "Logic? We don't need no stinking logic!!" His argument is simply a more eloquent version of Andy's daughter asserting that God puts the milk in the store.

"Specifically this is rigorously confirmed by induction based on observation, not deduction. Otherwise one could simply say we can simply deduce what you just called "miracles" do not happen without any observation of the universe at all."

Yes... that's why I called it an "induction." I thought you would notice... but I'm not sure now that you did.

"If and only if this eternal God did not transcend nature in a way that made the observation based induction of causality applicable to Him."

What a splendid admission that your version of God is an arbitrary invention that cannot be reasoned to. To posit the existence of such an entity you must give it characteristics that excuse it from ever actually being subject to investigation. That is very convenient to to the sectarian apologist. But it offers no path to confidence that it is true.

What continues to fascinate me is why any body who believes this would bother to try and reason to a conclusion that they have already admitted is beyond the access of reason? It speaks (IMHO) to the tacit understanding that science actually is the most powerful, more important and most successful human endeavor in all of history. The temptation to try and co-opt some of that "glory" in the service of sectarian belief is overwhelming; hence religiously based pseudosciences like creationism.

If, as you asset above, God transcends nature in a way that makes the observation based induction of causality inapplicable to Him, why then even pretend to care what science has to say on the issue?

"If there is one thing modern physics has strongly suggested about the universe, that we as a species were not aware of before, it is that there is no example of anything infinite in it."

A complete red herring. An eternal universe does not require there to be "anything infinite in it."

"Ah, but here is where you have applied the above premise. But presto-chango-re-arango now the meaning is that this causal change is an inescapable deduction of not only what we have observed...but of any possible Heavenly realm we have not. You have elevated an observed induction to a principle of deductive logic which is beyond question."

LOL... I have done no such thing.

I have simply used logic the only way it can be used. All deduction must begin with a premise or set of premises. Some premises are false, others are true, and the confidence we have in any of them can only be derived by some prior induction.

What you call my "modest" premise is something that you appear to explicitly agree with. Why then would you object even the tiniest bit if the premise should then serve for what actually is a rigorously deductive set of subsequent syllogism?

Rather than object to the reasoning, you pursue the (false) red herring that I have made some sort of logical leap in confidence. I have done no such thing. I have used an mutually agreed upon premise to then deductively reach a conclusion that is unassailable, if the premise is true.

If you're ready to actually address my position, then do so. If not, then just say so and move on.

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