Dear Steve:
It was good to meet you last month at Biola. The Q&A period after your presentation was a little too short, but I thought that we identified a couple of areas in which we could "continue to converse." These might include concepts of explanation, ideas surrounding supernatural action, notions of randomness and divine oversight, or more importantly the ways in which people (especially Christians) go about assessing the explanatory power and success of what we call science.
Yes, it would be great to follow up on our brief meeting onstage, and to find ourselves in situations in which topics of mutual interest are discussed by knowledgeable and intelligent people (at conferences, for example, or in multidisciplinary working groups). For my part, I'm eager to be involved in such activities, and in the coming years I intend to seek and create opportunities for scholars to consider concepts of biological design in the context of Christian belief.
Right now, I don't see how you could be a thoughtful contributor to such an effort. It's not because you're stupid, or because you have "bad relationship skills," and it's not because you prefer ID-based explanations for biological phenomena. It's because you seem to have abandoned scholarship and the intellectual community, and instead embraced apologetics and political persuasion. As near as I can tell, you've almost completely isolated yourself from science and from scholarship, and this means you have no future as a contributor to the consideration of design in biology. That strikes me as a sad waste; hence my letter to you.
Here are my observations, along with some unsolicited advice.
1. Although you claim to be interested in the origins of biological information and genetic control systems, you seem not to have any serious contact with scientists and scholars who study such things. Do you attend conferences on these subjects, or initiate contact with experts in these fields? Your ideas are potentially very significant – you seek to rule out naturalistic explanation for the origin of life and of DNA – but even if they were merely interesting, it would be foolish for you to think that you could contribute to the development of new theories or viewpoints outside of regular and rigorous interaction with colleagues who know this stuff the best. I have the impression that you don't do this. That's a crazy mistake.
2. A very serious and related problem is the nature of the scientific community that you do interact with. Jonathan Wells just isn't an accomplished or respected scientist, and his ideas are considered laughable by those (including me) who know and understand the relevant fields. Richard Sternberg's platonic views of biology are interesting, but he's on the fringe (to put it mildly) and, worse, he seems not to understand molecular biology. Doug Axe is a smart guy, it seems to me, but the two of you desperately need to get out of your freakish little gated community and talk to people who know that the initiation of cancer is indeed fueled to a large extent by driver mutations, and that genome sizes are indeed a hard problem for design theorists to tackle. When you have Wells whispering to you in one ear, and the bizarre perspectives of Richard Sternberg echoing in your mind, you have a huge problem: you're out of touch with real science, with real biology, with the ideas that you have to engage in order to really put design on the map.
Steve, seriously: you have no chance of having any influence outside of the church school circuit as long as you are isolating yourself and, worse, listening to some pretty confused people who seem not to even understand the ever-changing fields they claim to represent. Get out more. And find some new friends. It is without sarcasm or guile that I say that you are welcome to contact me anytime to ask questions or discuss ideas.
3. Your Discovery Institute is a horrific mistake, an epic intellectual tragedy that is degrading the minds of those who consume its products and bringing dishonor to you and to the church. It is for good reason that Casey Luskin is held in such extreme contempt by your movement's critics, and there's something truly sick about the pattern of attacks that your operatives launched in the weeks after the Biola event. It's clear that you have a cadre of attack dogs that do this work for you, and some of them seem unconstrained by standards of integrity. I can't state this strongly enough: the Discovery Institute is a dangerous cancer on the Christian intellect, both because of its unyielding commitment to dishonesty and because of its creepy mission to undermine science itself. I'd like to see you do better, but I have no such hope for your institute. It needs to be destroyed, and I will do what I can to bring that about.
4. If you want to save your legacy, to make your movement into something other than repackaged creationism, you should do both of the following. First, you should acknowledge the excellence of natural explanation in general and the steadily growing prowess of origin-of-life theories in particular. I don't mean that you should embrace these explanations, I mean that you should stop misleading your credulous audiences (in print and on stage) into concluding that such ideas are silly. Everyone who knows these fields knows that you are engaging in profoundly misleading tactics, and we have a right to question your integrity when we see that kind of stuff. There's a difference between pointing to the weaknesses in a theory and deliberately portraying it, inaccurately, as obvious nonsense. Stop it. Second, you should pay more attention to the ideas of Simon Conway Morris and (to a lesser extent) Michael Denton. If there's any hope for your movement at all, any hope that it can make intellectual headway and offer rational and useful explanation, it is to be found in the deliberate focus on design that Conway Morris and like-minded thinkers offer.
Steve, I just don't see how the Discovery Institute can be saved; from here it looks to be wholly corrupt. But you can still become a part of the scholarly examination of the phenomenon of biological design, and as a Christian you can offer insight into how these questions impinge on issues of faith. It would be a shame if your only contribution was as a political propagandist who served as an impediment to the honest consideration of design and intelligence in biological origins and who was remembered as an enemy of science.
Best regards,
Steve Matheson
126 comments:
Arr, matey.
I've yet to meet Meyer, but I agree with your assessment of Axe - he seems to be a sharp guy, and I enjoyed meeting him (albeit briefly) last summer at the ASA meeting. One wonders what getting out of the DI subculture might accomplish for him...
Steve, are you by chance going to the Biologos conference this coming week? If not we should chat about me trying to get down to Calvin this fall for a visit.
Hi Dennis, yes I'll be at Gordon. I'll post something here soon in case Boston-area folks want to meet for a suitable beverage. And it would be great to have you come to Michigan soon. We can hoist the colors together.
Brilliant. See you soon, then.
Excellent letter, Steve. While I did not intend, coming to the Templeton-Cambridge seminars, to 'confirm' your assessment of the Discovery Institute, it has become clear just in conversation with the many scientists speaking here, that their experience with the organization is the same as yours.
I don't have the slightest hope that Stephen Meyer will be moved by your letter--indeed one can argue that for the purposes of the PR machine he is supported by, it's very much in his interest not to.
But one can always hope.
for a sample taste of his GARBAGE...
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/06/sunday_sacrilege_imagine_no_he.php
HIJACKING IN PROGRESS!!!
http://hawaiiwebgroup.com/maui-design/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/website-hijacking.jpg
HIJACKING IN PROGRESS!!!
how can these HEADLESS IDIOTS BET AGAINST GOD!!!
________________________________________
what happens when you LOSE Pascal's Wager...
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/pascals-wager.htm
_____________
you FIGHT PAPER MONSTERS...
the blood and bodies of the atheist movement...
you mofos killed MICKEY MOUSE!!!!
this has more TRUTH then what Dawkins, Randi, Harris, Myers, and Shermer
combined have said in their entire lives...
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=5R2wE8Sduhs&playnext_from=TL&videos=hht1U_19anc&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh%2Bdiv-1r-3-HM
they tried to BULLDOZE the entire METAPHYSICAL DIMENSION...
they LOST THE WAR......
you have FORFEIT YOUR SOUL, shermer... you have become an object in the
material world, as you WISHED...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/7/11792994_ffaaee87fa.jpg
we're gonna smash that TV...
They had become ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE AND OF GOD...
you pushed too much and *CROSSED THE LINE*
degenerates (PZ) or children (HEMANT) - ATHEISTS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRRg2tWGDSY
do you have anything to say, you STUPID LITTLE F*CKER?
how about I tell you, Mr. Shermer, EVERYTHING YOU THINK ABOUT THE WORLD is
*WRONG*
THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!
http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek
RUN, ATHEISTS, RUN!!!
-------------------
Regarding your first point, has anyone ever done a comparison of the number of scientific conferences Meyer has presented at with the number of churches and conservative media outlets he has spoken to/on? My impression is that his diary is full of one of them but very thin on the other.
Somebody claiming to having scientific credentials and a real scientific viewpoint simply cannot appear on things such as this, alongside Eric Hovind and Ray Comfort. They just can't.
Not as far as I know. I doubt that Meyer goes to scholarly meetings at all right now, and I'm curious about whether he ever did. Paul Nelson is different, I think: he was at the Developmental Biology meeting in Ann Arbor in 2006 but wasn't able to stay, or I would have met him at his poster.
And I think it's significant that Meyer is hanging with the anti-science creationist crowd. Maybe he's giving up.
Admirably clear and succinct. But I have not seen anything in his published materials to indicate he possesses the flexibility of mind to take advantage of your suggestions. Which is a pity, since few things would be more exciting to a Christian than to find the Fingerprints of God.
these IDIOTS cannot tell the difference between scientific FACTS and RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRUTHS...
dmab/dmabus
Not sure if you're a poe or not, but the capitalization of words/phrases should be used sparingly. You come across as a crazy person... if poe... well played.
dmabus posted this same nonsense on talk origins a few days ago. Apparently he's a well known nut.
Venus
Meyer is not looking to advance scientific knowledge. To the extent he and the Discovery institute appropriate scientific terms and language, it is to give themselves a superficial veneer of scientific authority. That is all they need or want from the scientific community, and your agreeing to even debate with him has enhanced that veneer.
The Discovery Institute is about public relations and spin, to bolster the certainty of flagging creationists or simply confuse laypeople who would otherwise be interested in real science. Their approach to facts and ideas is the same as any religious institution in our society - take the core ideas and beliefs already held, and then cherrypick data and create focus-group driven syllogisms that sound appealing at face value.
There is no honest interest in or pursuit of scientific advancement of knowledge by Meyer or the DI. See their leaked "Wedge Document" for a true statement of their values and mission. Like most religious conservatives, they are more concerned by what happens to us before we are born and after we die. The real world is both meaningless and a threat to their values because, you know, Satan buried the dinosaur bones to confuse us or whatever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
I was always unhappy with commenting and trackbacks on Blogger, so I went with Disqus over the weekend and now I can blacklist him every time he crawls out from under the manhole cover.
I am just a lay person with an interested in evolution vs. ID and what a great letter. Doubtful that it will do any good but I have never heard it said any better.
I saw Meyer "operating" at the Castle Rock Colorado do. The goal was to sell books to make money and take adulation from the religious fans. The most common word I overhead while he was talking to people was "Jesus".
It is clearly nothing to do with science but another profit seeker playing a version of the fear monger card. Maybe snake oil salesman - selling people what they want hear ala the rest of the right wing clowns like Beck, Palin,,,,, Especially Palin, who makes much more money than Meyer by saying even more ridiculous stuff.
About Stephen Matheson
Associate Professor of Biology, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Reformed Christian
Developmental cell biologist
Evolutionist
Stephen Matheson, your letter to the creationist Stephen Meyer is priceless. I especially like your desire to destroy the Discovery Institute ("It needs to be destroyed, and I will do what I can to bring that about.")
Now the only thing you need to do to become a perfect person is throw out your Christian death cult. Certainly you must agree it's pointless to believe in a magic god fairy who never had anything to do. And it's even worse to believe in the worthless dead preacher man Jeebus.
You already sound like an atheist. You share the moral values of atheists. Now you just need to become an atheist.
Like "Human Ape", I take issue with the supernaturalist elements in the otherwise excellent open letter. I keenly await Prof. Matheson's response to Ape's comment, as someone who has unsuccessfully attempted to engage Prof. Matheson on this very point.
"Jonathan Wells just isn't an accomplished or respected scientist"
This is probably the understatement of the century. Are there actual people around who think that he is? How far detached from reality must a person be who comes to such a conclusion? Has there ever been a more deceitfully 'earned' and intentionally misused PhD in the history of science? When I look up the defintion of the word 'pseudoscientist' I expect to find his picture there; evolution denier, AIDS denier, and most probably pretty much everything else. At the Kansas trials he said he was basically unsure of the age of the earth. What else can we throw in? Climate change skeptic, moon hoax 'theory' proponent, geocentrism, flat earthism, etc, etc. I'm sure he'd sign up to any of these in return for appropriate remuneration.
Hi Kevin and Ape,
Yeah, I'm a believer. Right now, that applies about 5 days a week. The other two I'm a skeptic. Kevin, I'm sorry that you object to the "supernaturalist elements" of my letter, though I don't know where they are. As for "engaging" me on faith, let's hear a question. I make no guarantees about your satisfaction with my answers. Ape, thanks for the compliment. My very best friends right now are both atheists, and I am honored to be compared to them.
Hi Steve,
As I have stated before, I see plenty of bias and closed-mindedness on both sides of the debate. On your side, I am puzzled by your optimistic outlook in the origin-of-life field. Leslie Orgel's last paper (published posthumously, I believe) gave a very bleak outlook for solutions. Sutherland's work came out afterwards, so we don't know what Orgel would have said. But Robert Shapiro shot it down as offering a very unrealistic pre-biotic scenario. And now there's a recent paper that tells scientists to give up metabolism-first scenarios. All I see are dead ends.
Molecular biologists may be finding out all kinds of cool stuff that RNA can do, but chemists haven't the foggiest how it got here.
If you have contradictory evidence, please present it. Otherwise, quit bluffing.
Bilbo, when a layperson concludes that an entire field of science consists of "dead ends," there's little point in presenting "contradictory evidence" to them, especially if they equate different viewpoints (like, say, identifying progress instead of focusing on unsolved problems) with "bluffing." I'm surprised, frankly, to see you talk like that.
This past week I was at a remarkable conference run by the BioLogos people, in Massachusetts near where I used to work as a postdoc. It was so refreshing to be with serious Christians who are serious about science and truth-telling. I visited Boston one day, to see Park Street Church and Harvard. It would have been fun to see if I could visit the Szostak lab at MGH (I worked at MGH as a postdoc), if only to see how the whole "bluffing" project is going at that lame scientific backwater. (They have a nice new review article, full of "bluffing" about "Expanding Roles for Diverse Physical Phenomena During the Origin of Life." Poor sad dupes. If only they kept up with the latest developments emerging from the ID movement.)
I returned to see the high-class commentators of Telic Thoughts and Uncommon Descent waxing eloquent about introns and "junk DNA" with adolescent bravado toward me. I don't know what's more pathetic: the constant redirection of the questions, or the monstrous hypocrisy of browbeating critics about their "tone."
Your movement is almost completely bankrupt, morally and intellectually. Stay close to Mike Gene, Bilbo. He's all you have right now.
Steve,
Was this a serious letter?
Serious as opposed to... what? I don't understand the question. It's not sarcastic, and I mean every word of it. Does that help?
Steve,
You write: "Bilbo, when a layperson concludes that an entire field of science consists of "dead ends," there's little point in presenting "contradictory evidence" to them, especially if they equate different viewpoints (like, say, identifying progress instead of focusing on unsolved problems) with "bluffing." I'm surprised, frankly, to see you talk like that."
As a layperson, I try to rely upon people who would most likely give an objective, expert evaluation of the work being done in a particular field. That's why I referred to Shapiro and Orgel, not Meyer. I briefly looked at the review paper you cited. I think I know what Shapiro would ask: How much of their work is accomplished under carefully controlled conditions with only the purefied forms of the reactants being used, in order to obtain the desired results? In his book, Origins, a Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Shapiro pointed out how optimistic every researcher was about the results of his work. But on closer examination, every one of them "cheated," by doing exactly the above. So how much are the researchers in the review "cheating"? As a layperson and outsider, I wouldn't have a clue. And I doubt that the researchers would be forthcoming about such information. Would you know?
I know that though both Shapiro and Orgel thought the RNA-world was an intermediate step between the initial form of life and cells as we know them, they both rejected RNA as being the initial form of life. Sutherland's work was haled as re-establishing RNA as a possible candidate as the initial form. Shapiro said Sutherland's work was too implausible. Has someone refuted Shapiro? If not, that means RNA as the initial form should still be ruled out, and the search for something else should continue.
Now, Douglas Axe, at his blog, has cited a recent paper that says we should rule out self-organization theories, also. Maybe the paper is wrong. I wouldn't know. But it wasn't done by ID advocates. So it probably has some sort of objectivity. Has someone refuted it? If not, then that rules out the major competitor to the RNA-world for the initial form of life.
So, what's left? As I said, it looks like dead ends to me.
J. Craig Venter, after his recent success as synthetically reproducing a genome, said that he thought there "philosophical implications" that cells were "software-driven biological machines." I realize that's not the same thing as saying they were intelligently designed. However, given what appear to be dead ends, and given that cells are software-driven biological machines, believing that they were intelligently designed is a very reasonable thing to do. It seems to me that one would need very strong philosophical or theological reasons not to believe it. I imagine you have such reasons. Are they any good?
As far as the mud-slinging, I've discovered that what goes around often come around.
On a friendlier note, I take it you didn't get to go to game 5. I imagine those tickets are worth their weight in gold in Boston.
Bilbo, it seems to me that OOL research is certainly very slow but it appears progress is being made.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100614101957.htm
Hi Mark,
This is a good example of Shapiro's complaint:
"The Hud and Orlando laboratories conducted experiments by heating formamide to 130 degrees Celsius...."
So did they start their experiment with formamide already present? Or did they start with no formamide and then under pre-biotic conditions obtain formamide? If the latter, were there other products beside formamide? Would these other products have inhibited the production of guanine? How did they go about increasing the concentration of formamide? Did they just continue the running the experiment, or did they obtain a concentrated amount of formamide from the chemical warehouse?
Bilbo wrote:
"As I have stated before,…"
What someone SAYS.
"I see plenty of bias and closed-mindedness on both sides of the debate."
There is no "debate." One "side" produces new evidence every single day, while the other "side" produces nothing but rhetoric and conflates rhetoric with evidence.
Bilbo, what is the ratio of Telic Thoughts posts about what people SAY vs. posts about the evidence, devoid of quotes? Have you read a Nature News & Views review? They describe the evidence to a general audience, not what scientists say. Have you ever seen those quote a paper that they cite?
"On your side, I am puzzled by your optimistic outlook in the origin-of-life field."
That's because you are afraid to look at evidence.
"Leslie Orgel's last paper (published posthumously, I believe) gave a very bleak outlook for solutions."
What someone SAYS.
"Sutherland's work came out afterwards, so we don't know what Orgel would have said."
Who cares? What about what Sutherland DID?
"But Robert Shapiro shot it down as offering a very unrealistic pre-biotic scenario."
What someone SAYS.
"And now there's a recent paper that tells scientists to give up metabolism-first scenarios."
What someone SAYS.
"All I see are dead ends."
That's because you and your side have a pathological aversion to evidence—both producing it and examining it.
"If you have contradictory evidence, please present it. Otherwise, quit bluffing."
Why do you demand that others present evidence, when all you and your silly blog do is babble about what people SAY?
Steve,
I am a Christian, a Ph.D. in physics, and a software engineer. I find the tone of your letter incredibly arrogant, short-sighted, and strange. It certainly does not sound like one Christian trying to give advice to another Christian. I would suggest that somehow you have gotten off the right track yourself. You seem to be too far committed to some modern biological thinking and to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the materialist line that everything is answerable by Darwinism.
Sometimes someone caught up in a certain discipline fails to objectively measure the successes of the field. What seems to you like mountains of evidence, may just not be the solid case you think it is. What seems to be the agreement of everyone who is really knowledgeable in the field - may just be your own cabal of wisdom.
Discovery Institute is biased toward Intelligent Design. They admit that. You do not sound like the rational bulwark against it totally committed to objectivism, but as one who is totally committed to the other side of the argument. Your inflammatory rhetoric does not help you case. It only offends.
Steve
Evidently, your best arguments against design and for the materialist explanation have already been exhausted. How do I know this? Because you are now resorting to throwing insults instead of presenting reasoned arguments. Grow up.
Secondly, it is obvious that Mr. Meyer has made a compelling case for design. If that offends your personal, religious sensibilities well I'm sorry, but that doesn't make it a scientific case against design. Faced with the evidence, you may wish to reconsider your world and religious views.
Steve,
I am a Christian with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, and am actively engaged in scientific research, including publication in peer-reviewed journals. I am impressed with this open letter. It is difficult to state clearly and respectfully the nature of your differences with Dr. Meyer (to speak the truth in Christian love), but I think you've managed to do that.
I note with interest that those in this comment thread who disagree with you have made little effort to address your actual points. The simple fact is, those who are truly interested in "biological design" need to get busy and do some actual research with some actual biological systems, once they figure out how to articulate some testable hypotheses that would allow objective differentiation of designed systems from those that result from evolution. Heck, I think the problem is interesting enough that I've considered trying to do that myself, and I think modern evolutionary theory is the best scientific framework we have for understanding biological diversity.
I am tempted to say that it's time for the Discovery Institute either to put up or shut up, but it's really too late for that. They've had quite a while to put up and have zero to show for it; it's time for anyone who hopes to be a serious scholar to run, not walk, away from the DI.
Thanks for a thought-provoking letter!
SWT
Steve Matheson,
Please write more about how you want to destroy your intellectual enemies.
I personally have some intellectual enemies that really need to be destroyed, but reason and honest debate seem to be having little to no effect on them. They just keep saying the same bad things. Can you offer some advice on the best ways to destroy intellectual enemies?
Dear SWT,
Certainly a letter in love does not contain the rhetorical exaggerations found in Steve's letter.
abandoned scholarship... not to have any serious contact... freakish little gated community... unconstrained by standards of integrity... wholly corrupt...
These don't look to me to be "in love" phrases, but unnecessary flourishes. I think Steve should have read his letter to himself and then toned down every attack word about 200%. And he should do that independent of whether others are attacking him. After all it was once said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I doubt Steve would want others to respond to him with as many over the top insults as he put in that letter.
Did we read the same letter?
Yes we read the same letter. I just happen to think that Steve (our host) is correct.
I think Meyer does seem to have abandoned scholarship and the intellectual community, and instead embraced apologetics and political persuasion. Meyer does seem not to be in serious contact with scientists and scholars who study the origins of biological information and genetic control systems.
The other two thirds of the phrases you use as examples of "unnecessary flourishes" are in fact directed at Meyer's defenders and the Discovery Institute, and I think they've earned those criticisms fair and square.
On the other hand, as far as I know, Steve is the only one of Meyer's critics who has noted that Meyer could in fact be a significant contributor to biology.
I got a question!
How can finite sins result in infinite punishment?
Steve,
Let me be a little more specific about my responses to your open letter. Going beyond just complaints about the general tone.
1. You claim Meyer does not spend enough time looking at serious scholarship. I would ask you how do you know this? I am only interested in ID and OOL as a hobby, yet I don't just read what someone else says about OOL research I go and read the original papers.
But cheifly because of my operating assumptions, I just don't see the same thing as you. Where you see tons of progress toward an OOL explanation, I see the same old tricks and introduction of operator information. Where you see a large step - I see a step of 8 to 10 paces in a journey of tens of thousands of miles. Where you have a faith that the answer will eventually turn out to be totally materialistic, I see no reason to make that claim. Thus when I read the "serious scholarly papers" I don't see what you see. I suspect that Meyer reads many of the scholarly articles you claim he should read, but after a while, they all seem the same. This is not just mine or Meyer's or view. In my estimation it appears to the the view of men like Bob Shapiro, Paul Davies, and others without a Christian affiliation. Your accusation of Meyer looks to me to be overstated and unsupported. Of course, I do not know what private communication you have had with him, but I suspect it has been limited.
2. Now to be fair, and give you a chance to respond, I will say it does not appear to me that you understand the work of Douglas Axe. I read his comments on his blog on your response to Meyer's quoting of him. It does not appear that you understand the relevance of the ratio of functional proteins to non-functional proteins. I don't see how you dismiss his points as irrelevant. To me it indicates ignorance. Please enlighten me if you have a better reason.
3. With regard to your example of the puffer fish and the lung fish. Don't you see you are making some unwarranted assumptions. You assume a monotonic or at least somewhat proportional relationship between your perceived complexity of function and number of base pairs. I don't see how given our ignorance we can do that. You assume that God would have been parsimonious with the number of base pairs in his design, but that is a religious argument, not a scientific argument. I would be wary of any supposed scientific argument against design that starts "If God designed this, then He would have...." These are alway arguments about what God would or would not do and not about science. They need to be thought of in what is God's character, not what is science like.
4. Finally to your faith that a completely materialistic explanation for OOL will eventually be found, I don't see why you believe this. God does not waste miracles. In fact he appears to be extremely parsimonious with them. But clearly you believe in the virgin birth, the feeding of the 5000, the changing of water to wine, the resurrection, tongues on the day of Pentecost, and the conversion of Paul to name a few. Why would God who stated that He was the one who created the Heavens and the Earth out of nothing and that He created man from the dust of the earth, not use a miracle where one was appropriate, and by my estimation, evident.
I look forward to hearing any reply.
Dear Ninja Noel,
I strongly suspect that this is not a sincere question. I think, like the Saducees of Matthew 22:23-33 you think you have presented a real poser. Anyway, I will treat this as if it is a sincere inquiry and answer it, but please read with an open heart. You may actually discover here a perspective you previously did not understand or did not even see. Please forgive the ALL CAPS words. I wanted to place emphasis on certain words.
First you are looking at the salvation issue wrong. A finite sin does not cause an infinite punishment. Salvation is conditional on YOU being able to be in fellowship with GOD. Now GOD is perfect. No sin is allowed in his presence. He will utterly consume it. You can not exist in the presence of GOD bearing any sin.
It is not that ONE sin creates an INFINITE punishment. It is that ONE sin destroys your perfection. Now that you are imperfect, no amount of finite good deeds can ever make you perfect again. You are forever banished from the presence of GOD because He can not have fellowship with you.
So how can GOD recover perfection in someone who has sinned. HE gives the INFINITE life of HIS SON. Only an INFINITE life can restore your perfection. Salvation comes from you accepting the free gift of GOD to cleanse you from your sin. Then you can have fellowship with GOD. Without this forgiveness you (an infinite soul ) are forever banished from God's presence. ( Hell ).
Or to analogize - (Note please don't commit the fallacy of arguing back at my analogy. The analogy is only to help you understand what is written above ) only 100% pure water is allowed in God's presence. Introduction of even one foreign molecule makes the water less than 100% pure. Adding more water ( good deeds ) may bring down the concentration of contaminant, but adding a finite amount of water can never again recover purity. But adding an infinite amount of pure water makes the imperfection in your finite glass irrelevant. By the addition of an infinite amount of water, your container once again contains 100% pure water. Since your glass now contains 100% pure water you can be admitted to God's presence.
This is the mystery of salvation. I invite you to accept the salvation that Christ has for you.
Chris P,
You said - "The goal was to sell books to make money and take adulation from the religious fans."
Do you really have the ability to perceive the motivations of other peoples hearts? Are you claiming this ability?
I suspect not. So don't make such foolish statements please.
Ninja,
I agree that your quesiton is an important one; I do have a problem with the logic though.
1. Your whole argument seems to hang on the assumption that since “God can do anything,” he should have created creatures who can exercise independent moral choice and action, while at the same time hemming them in in such a way that they were incapable of ever screwing things up. But positing a logical contradiction (ie, the robot with free will) doesn’t create a valid indictment against God.
2. On the question of heaven & hell: In your view, should God _compel_ people to enter his realm and live under his leadership, even if that’s not what they want?
Chip,
If you think it's logically impossible for an omnipotent creator to design earthly creatures who are simultaneously (1) in possession of moral free will and (2) unable to sin, how do you square that with the Christian view of heaven?
Possibilities:
1. Heaven has sin (with or without free will). I don't think any Christian would agree to this.
2. Heaven has no sin and no free will. Its inhabitants are robots who somehow lost their free will upon death. I doubt any Christian would endorse this, either.
3. Heaven has no sin, but does have free will. You just stated that this is impossible.
4. The concepts of "sin" and "heaven" are complete bullshit.
Ninja Noel,
First of all, I feel you are on very shaky ground here because you seem to be standing as judge against God. In other words - the Bible reveals "A" about God. In your finite understanding "A" is unacceptable behavior for God. So you judge that the Bible must be wrong about God because He did not use the "superior" strategy of NinjaNoel and set up a "sin bin".
Second its funny you should end your comment with "Love you!' It is the exact answer to your conundrum. God did not create a "setup". He created a world where Love was possible. Even Love for a perfect God for imperfect creatures. By the "set up" of an infinite punishment - God created the need for a sacrifice of an infinite life to redeem mankind. Man could not redeem himself ever, only the sacrifice of His Son would suffice. It would sadden me greatly if your lack of humility forbids you from seeing this.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." ( NIV )
Romans 5:8"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."(NIV)
"
Prof. Matheson,
First, let me repeat my praise of your open letter, to the extent that it science-slaps Meyer and rips him a structurally-superfluous new behind. Bravo!
As to the "supernaturalist elements" of which you disavow knowledge, I was referring to your numerous mentions of Christianity, faith, the divine and so forth. You say you want to "continue to converse" about "supernatural action" and "divine oversight". You say you want to "seek and create opportunities [...] to consider concepts [...] in the context of Christian belief". You claim that the Disco Institute is "bringing dishonor [...] to the church" and "is a dangerous cancer on the Christian intellect". You say that it's possible to "offer insight into how [scientific questions] impinge on issues of faith".
All of these references suggest that you regard supernaturalism, specifically faith, specifically Christian faith, as something other than complete nonsense? Why?
It seems entirely reasonable to me to extrapolate from methodological naturalism's long, successful record the idea that metaphysical naturalism is probably the best way to approach life.
Proofreading fail on my part. After "complete nonsense", there should be a period, not a question mark.
Matheson:
You're an embarrassment to Calvin College and Christian intellectuals everywhere. When are you going to join Howard van Til and apostasize?
yours,
John Bergsma
Kevin,
First of all, how old are you? Someone who speaks with such arrogance sounds definitely like a teenager. You should show a little more humility when you dare to discuss ideas great thinkers have pondered for many years.
Second of all. I have no idea what you mean by "methodological natualism's long, successful record". Sure natural sciences have discovered much about the natural world. But science is lousy at figuring out what to do socially. I would contend that the track record of societies based on a secular mindset is too put it bluntly abysmal.
Third. What is metaphysical naturalism?
continuing reply to Kevin.
So I went to Wikipedia and looked up metaphysical naturalism. I find it very interesting that someone could hold that viewpoint of life.
So in order to demonstrate a little humility, I really don't understand how metaphysical naturalism does not lead to "no free will". Please enlighten me. Where is the philosophical problem with the statement, "If I am only the result of previous natural causes, then "i" do not exist as a free moral agent"
But if we are not free moral agents, what sense does it make to talk about anything philosophical. If I don't have a free will to choose metaphysical naturalism, ( because I am bound to my particular fate by the previous causes ) why discuss it?
Wow, defensive much? If you think I'm arrogant, go read Pharyngula for a while; your head will probably explode. I'm showing, and will continue to show, precisely the amount of humility that is appropriate for discussions of invisible sky fairies. The fact that many otherwise-intelligent people have wasted countless man-hours parsing a collective delusion doesn't lend your belief system any more legitimacy or gravitas than the study of leprechauns or unicorns.
Please go read up on the naturalistic fallacy, which is the error of deriving an "ought" from an "is". It's not a reasonable criticism of science that it doesn't tell us "what to do socially". Science is for figuring out how stuff works, and has been tremendously successful at such. It's not science's job to show us how to structure relationships and society; that is the domain of ethics and morality and politics.
I don't know how much time you spend on the Internet, but you are likely to receive a lot of angry criticism if you do things like committing logical fallacies (as above) and repeating hopelessly flawed canards, like the Stalin/Mao/Pol Pot gambit. For more on that, see: http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/communism.html
Regarding metaphysical naturalism: you seem to have Internet access. They have these things called "search engines". Go use one.
Prof. Matheson,
Take this guy's advice. Come join the dark side! We have cookies.
4 things.
1. I did look up metaphysical naturalism before you pointed me to the search engines with such disdain. ( Please note that my post "continuting reply to Kevin" predates your post ).
2. Your exact quote was "metaphysical naturalism is probably the best way to approach life." This is an "ought" indeed. So you are the one who introduced an "ought" into the discussion.
3. I have personally spoken to PZ Myers. I find him an irritating and small individual. His way of life leads to arrogance. As I get older I find the proper amount of humility to be one of the keys to life.
4 How old are you?
BTW- Having grown up before the internet, I don't really think of using it sometimes when I should. I.m predicting you went to Calvin College and were born in the early 80s. The internet really neat.
1. I replied to your statement as-is. You are on record as asking a simple "what is X?" question instead of just Googling in the first place. Whatever your positions and opinions happen to be, asking people to provide definitions when you have access to the whole Internet makes you sound lazy.
2. You criticized science because it doesn't tell us "what to do socially". This is a textbook example of the naturalistic fallacy ("ought" from "is"). When I said that science's spectacular record of figuring stuff out predisposes me to be highly skeptical of supernatural explanations (i.e. metaphysical naturalism), that was in no way deriving an "ought" from an "is", other than in the trivial sense that all ethical decisions are based on data from the real world. Adopting a default of metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical opinion based on the practical usefulness of science and the practical uselessness of supernatural worldviews. If religionists regularly came up with useful, confirmable information that was unknowable via science (demonstrating that religion was more than just the product of human delusion), I can't see how anyone could hang onto pure metaphysical naturalism. But that's utterly not the case.
3. You're entitled to your opinion. If showing deference to irrationality makes you happy, more power to you.
4. That's not your business, and you're starting to creep me out.
Kevin,
Please answer my question that I posed in the "continuing reply to Kevin" post. I am really interested in seeing your reply.
Hi Kevin,
What kind of cookies?
After spending a lot of time in the past week not just commenting on your blog but reading it intensely, I have to say, I am impressed. But most of all I would ask you to make a new effort "...to be brutally frank without being brutal." I think you are failing at that one miserably.
Dear John,
Between Calvin's embarrassing maroon street signs with golden logos "My Heart I offer to you, My Lord", mind-boggling anti-homosexuality campaigns by the board of trustees, violations of the constitutional rights, constrictions of academic freedom, and references to evolution as the "e" word of which we will speak of only if necessary and in whispers, Steve Matheson is the only hope that place has of ever gaining some credibility as a serious academic institution. I know this because I am a Calvin student who has been severely damaged by Calvin's ideas of a perfect Christian world.
I do wish that people would set aside their religious labels, and examine the intelligent design theory as merely a theory, not the true answer to reconciling the natural world with the Scripture that MUST be proven RIGHT at all COSTS. If nothing else, Steve aims to treat ID people as scholars. But instead, they cling to Discovery Institute like it's their Mecca, and we all know once the religion has been brought into the discussion, there is no way to have it be honest without offending someone. At least Matheson is being honest and has shown his thoughts to the public, while Meyer keeps hiding in the cubicle of his institute, supposedly preserving his embarrassment (in reality, he is ruining his reputation by his silence).
And before you attack me for being an embarrassment as a student to my wonderfully-balanced, Christian institution, I should let you know that it is thanks to Calvin College and narrow-minded people like yourself that I have absolutely no desire to believe in God anymore.
Sincerely,
Matt
Dr. Matheson, as someone who brags about his great knowledge and connections with resepect to Darwinism, I find it ironic the numerous gaffes that you spewed out in your exchange with the Discovery Institute.
Even supposing for the sake of argument the DI is as bad as you claim (a point I disagree with), you'll have to do a better job of argumentation if you wish to oppose the Discovery institute. You claimed that 12 functioning introns would be a generous estimate. I have found minastream liturature that goes beyond that number. Kind of ironic that you say Stephen Meyer is in an isolated cubicle when judging by your response, you evidence even more ignorance of mainstream literature yourself. Not to mention, some of your reasoning wouldn't pass the muster of freshman logic. Need I point your gaffes here explicitly.
Scattered comments in the comment sections in following links highlight your howlers (like the 12 function introns being generous, and your logical errors):
http://tinyurl.com/2fx2yp7
http://tinyurl.com/24a74j6
http://tinyurl.com/2c9uhew
http://tinyurl.com/22uq3lx
Hi Matt,
I'm sorry you've lost your faith in God because of our very imperfect examples of what it means to believe in Him. I hope someday you will regain your faith.
Sal, I've read your nonsense at Uncommon Descent, and it doesn't merit a response. I'm working on a few posts here on introns which you'll never bother to understand, but in the meantime I think you'll be much more comfortable at UD where you can delete the comments of your critics. Run along now.
Kevin, we have cookies too, and tira misu and chicken korma and saag. You'll have to offer more than that.
John, thanks for reading and for commenting. I'll respond to a few of your comments soon. You can probably tell that I have little patience with complaints about tone, and I have never gotten a straight answer from anyone regarding just what the rules of this game really are. Most crying about harshness is actually ululating over the death of a favored ox, and scriptural proof texts about kindness tend to falter on competing texts involving Jesus facing the teachers of the law or Paul wishing self-mutilation on the Judaizers. I note that many of my readers have reached a very different opinion from yours, and judgments tend to correlate with views of the motives and tactics of the ID movement, not with faithfulness to Christ or the commandments.
Still, you asked me to make a new effort. And I'll do that.
Wow, SWT, thanks for reading what I wrote. I think John read something else: he read what he thinks I wrote, what he thinks I think. It's an understandable mistake.
Well? Have you stopped beating her?
"It seems entirely reasonable to me to extrapolate from methodological naturalism's long, successful record the idea that metaphysical naturalism is probably the best way to approach life."
First, Kevin, thanks for the encouragement, and I hope our discussion goes better than it did last time. I'll do my best. I really do appreciate your participation here, and I'm curious if you'll have anything to say to/about Matt.
I really don't have a good answer to the question of why I believe faith is not "complete nonsense," if the question presupposes that such faith functions to answer questions that "naturalism" can't answer. My naturalism, when it comes to explanation, is so thoroughgoing that it asymptotically approaches what many would call "metaphysical naturalism." In other words, I do not embrace or prefer supernatural explanations for phenomena. Yes, I do believe that miraculous signs have occurred and can still occur. But I do not prefer supernatural explanation, and find that only in the face of a clear miracle could it be anything other than superfluous.
But my belief isn't fundamentally a "supernatural" thing, and it is most certainly not a source of the kind of explanation that scientific theories provide. It's not something I became convinced to accept. It's something I feel compelled to confess. I identify it as an act of God, and confess it without any pretense that it makes more explanatory sense than unbelief.
I'm sure I haven't answered the question to your satisfaction, but let's keep going.
Thanks, Matt, and we should talk sometime soon. I'm not the only hope for Calvin College. At the very least, there's also you.
Dr Matheson,
Good for you. Sal Cordova is one of the worst apologists for ID around. Not only does he not know what he is talking about, he is also proud of shameless quote mining. Keep up the good work.
Well, John, if my faith were based on the behavior of faithful believers like you, I'd have been gorging myself on Kevin's cookies decades ago. And give me an honest gentleman like Howard any day.
Now I must let you go. You must have a lot of reading to do, being such a devotee of Christian intellectuals. Unless you find it more efficient to watch them on the 700 Club.
Steve,
This new format your using for your blog is rather unique. Apparently, if someone clicks on reply, then it comes right after the comment it is replying to, no matter how long after it comes. So it means that in order to find the latest comments one must read through the entire comment section, to make sure nothing is missed. A little buggy.
Not a bug, a feature. :-) Seriously, I set comments to "threaded" so that responses would stay with the relevant comments. If it's too disorienting for others, I can disable threading. We'll see what others think.
Hi Kevin.
I hope I don't derail the thread with this, but I think you've confused the naturalistic fallacy with the is-ought gap. The locus classicus of the term "naturalistic fallacy," is G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica. There, Moore claims that any attempt to define ‘good’ in terms of natural properties commits the naturalistic fallacy, and this because of his famous open-question argument.
By contrast, the is-ought gap concerns the question, how is what is the case related to what ought to be the case? In other words, what is the relationship between statements of fact and moral judgments? The standard reading of Hume has him arguing that one cannot put forth a valid argument in which the premises use only is-terms and the conclusion contains an ought-term. For this reason, this sort of deductive inference is sometimes called the is/ought fallacy.
All that to say, if you're trying to make a point about the meaning of certain terms (such that, for any descriptive predicate P, it is not the case that "X is P" just means the same thing as "X is morally right" or some other moral claim), then you're talking about the naturalistic fallacy. If you're trying to make a point about validity, then you're talking about the is-ought gap. Or, if you're claiming that no natural or descriptive facts can also be moral facts, or if you're claiming that we cannot reasonably infer any moral conclusions from descriptive facts (e.g., Act A causes extreme physical and emotional pain to person P with no offsetting benefit, therefore it is wrong to do A), you're talking about something else entirely.
FWIW, I like the "threaded" arrangement.
Hi Bilbo,
Thanks for your response. Imperfect is too nice of a word, even with a "very" added in front of it. I would personally like to go with horrible, perhaps even heart-breaking, soul-crushing examples. I could have gone on with the list, but there is only so much I can take before becoming angry at people who claim that they serve God in humility, and then turn around and treat people who do not fit their idea of "normal" like trash.
I like to think of my faith right now as being in a coma. I read Matheson's posts regularly, and a glimmer of hope sparks through occasionally that there is a possibility to be a believer AND a thinker at the same time. But, then, I read the comments people post, and my glimmer gets crushed with the fist of reality.
Religion, as a system, is damaging to the brain because it reduces our ability to think outside of the Christian spectrum (or any religious spectrum for that matter). That is the reality that I have chosen to accept, and until I see those things that Steve wrote in the open letter to Meyer come true, I am not changing my point of view.
Sincerely,
Matt
Hey Steve!
It would be great to talk to you. E-mail me.
And as for me being a hope for Calvin College, thanks for making me laugh. Just a year ago, I was willing to openly share my letter to Calvin College in which I state that the most honorable thing for them to do was to self-destruct and spare the incoming generations of students from mental illness. At the end, I decided that posting that letter was not wise, for various reasons, but most important one of them all was simply this: Calvin is just not worth my time.
I now envy you for having more courage than me to post a letter to the DI leader. I guess it comes with age. ;)
Peace,
Matt
It's cool. Much better than before.
Matt
I don't think a Biblical case can be made against "tone", after all clearly Jesus did not use good "tone" when He said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
On the other hand many of your comments fall under direct condemnation of "judge not, lest ye be judged".
I don't believe "judge not, lest you be judged" means we can't call a stupid idea stupid or a ludicrous argument ludicrous. However I do believe it means that we dare not call a man a liar or a fraud without good evidence of it being a deliberate lie or fraud. We can never claim to see another's heart. We can't claim corruption where we don't know whether it just could be confirmation bias.
You seem to be very much into the "explanatory" power of common descent based on genomics. Being day to day in the field you seem to bristle with rage when others wade into this area, capitalize on unclear or unfortunate statements of other scientists, use wrong conclusions to bolster their agenda, and then propagate this information.
But I think your rage blinds you to the idea that these people are not committing fraud. True they are driven by an agenda, but since the objections to the data that seem blindingly obvious to you are not obvious to them, they think they are operating on fair conclusions. I am not saying that sometimes people do not deliberately twist words to their advantage, but I am stating that what seems just laziness to you may be just inability to find know where to look and contentedness with the amount of research done.
I think several places you have not accused people of being sloppy, instead you have accused them of being deliberately deceitful. You seem to do this without trying to see things from their perspective, without considering the powerful temptations of confirmation bias, and I think without prayer.
If I sound like I am just too soft on people, well that's part of my personality.
My advice to you is to go ahead and write your attacks/counter attacks, then go back and read them and take out every attack that presupposes you can see into the motivation of the other. Then tone down all of your attack metaphors by 200%. Then reply.
In Christ,
John Hansen
John Hansen wrote:
"1. You claim Meyer does not spend enough time looking at serious scholarship. I would ask you how do you know this?"
Anyone who engages in serious scholarship knows this. I know it. Steve Matheson knows this. Meyer is guilty of deliberately deceiving his audience.
"I am only interested in ID and OOL as a hobby, yet I don't just read what someone else says about OOL research I go and read the original papers."
Then that makes you better than Mike Behe and Stephen Meyer, and it shows how dishonest they are.
"But cheifly because of my operating assumptions, I just don't see the same thing as you. Where you see tons of progress toward an OOL explanation, I see the same old tricks and introduction of operator information."
Right. So tell me—name the 3 BEST unassailable facts that support the RNA World hypothesis over all the others. I'm not asking you to endorse it, just pick out the ones that scream out that it all must have started with RNA.
"Where you see a large step - I see a step of 8 to 10 paces in a journey of tens of thousands of miles."
We'll see if you are seeing very well if you can name the 3 best facts.
"Where you have a faith that the answer will eventually turn out to be totally materialistic, I see no reason to make that claim. Thus when I read the "serious scholarly papers" I don't see what you see."
Do you read the PRIMARY scientific literature, or do you keep your eyes half closed by limiting yourself to the secondary and tertialry literature?
"I suspect that Meyer reads many of the scholarly articles you claim he should read, but after a while, they all seem the same."
I suspect that neither of you read the primary literature. Feel free to prove me wrong (note: quote mining will prove me right).
"This is not just mine or Meyer's or view. In my estimation it appears to the the view of men like Bob Shapiro, Paul Davies, and others without a Christian affiliation. Your accusation of Meyer looks to me to be overstated and unsupported. Of course, I do not know what private communication you have had with him, but I suspect it has been limited."
It's dead on. Meyer is a charlatan.
"2. Now to be fair, and give you a chance to respond, I will say it does not appear to me that you understand the work of Douglas Axe."
I don't know about Steve Matheson, but I've done actual work (and published it in far better journals) that contradicts Axe's thesis. Moreover, I did it to solve a technical problem, not address Axe's minor paper.
"I read his comments on his blog on your response to Meyer's quoting of him. It does not appear that you understand the relevance of the ratio of functional proteins to non-functional proteins."
It does not appear that you understand that Axe's tiny bit of data should not be generalized to all of biology.
"I don't see how you dismiss his points as irrelevant."
I do, but then I've done relevant work.
"3. With regard to your example of the puffer fish and the lung fish. Don't you see you are making some unwarranted assumptions. You assume a monotonic or at least somewhat proportional relationship between your perceived complexity of function and number of base pairs."
You are utterly full of it. He is mocking those who claim that complexity =ID. They are hypocrites. What did Jesus Christ say about hypocrisy?
John Hansen wrote:
"You seem to be too far committed to some modern biological thinking and to have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the materialist line that everything is answerable by Darwinism."
John, if Steve Matheson and myself both understand that there are non-Darwinian mechanisms in evolution, how can you credibly claim that we believe that "everything is answerable by Darwinism"?
"Sometimes someone caught up in a certain discipline fails to objectively measure the successes of the field."
Look in the mirror. I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I'm a geneticist, cell biologist, and neuroscientist. What do you make of that?
"What seems to you like mountains of evidence, may just not be the solid case you think it is."
So, John Hansen, have you ever bothered to BLAST a sequence of a favorite (or random) protein against the database, or could it be that the evidence for which you show such disdain is much, much more mountainous than you ever thought it was?
"What seems to be the agreement of everyone who is really knowledgeable in the field - may just be your own cabal of wisdom."
Or it may be based on the evidence that Meyer and you avoid…
"Discovery Institute is biased toward Intelligent Design. They admit that."
But their very name is a lie—they will never discover anything because they aren't DOING any science and never will. Apologetics is so much more lucrative.
John Hansen wrote:
"I am only interested in ID and OOL as a hobby, yet I don't just read what someone else says about OOL research I go and read the original papers."
Sorry, John, but based on the academic level of your comments I'm going to call you out on this. I don't think you know anything about the state-of-the-art in OOL research nor do you take the time to read the original research. I, on the other hand, do have a PhD in chemistry and do know how and where to read the original research which I do regularly. I also knew Leslie Orgel personally if you want to name-drop that card. Want to discuss origins in any more detail?
You could always mock them by posting your homoerotic fantasies about them. (But really, how has that been working out for your credibility?)
Are you suggesting that I "beat" my intellectual enemies?
Richard Dawkins suggested that I try ridiculing my intellectual enemies, but that hasn't worked either. Larry Moran said he thought his intellectual enemies should be banned from college. PZ even suggested that kicking intellectual enemies in the balls was a tempting proposal. Is this what you had in mind?
How do you intend to destroy the Discovery Institute? Please hurry - my intellectual enemies become more threatening every day.
Doc Bill and JohnZ
I think its said the contempt you seem to have for people who are just truthful enough to state their belief. Do I pretend to know as much about genomics as someone who is intensely involved in the field everyday? No. Do I have an interest in the field.? Yes. Am I willing to put in hours of study so I can know more details from the peer reviewed literature than you? Definitely not.
But please answer me this question.
Using only the mechanisms science currently understands, and only the chemical pathways currently known, how would you go about estimating the probability of abiogenesis. Would it be 0.5, 10^(-2),
10^(-10), 10^(-1000). I know its a hard problem, but limiting one's self to what is currently known its hard to imaging any reasonable estimate that is not vanishingly small.
So, if I am right and any reasonable estimate using current knowledge puts the probability at vanishingly small, why are you so confident that new mechanism's will be discovered which radically change the probabilities by 100's of orders of magnitude.? Why can't you at least for the moment admit that under our current understanding, design is the best hypothesis? Just, in your minds, a naive question probably, but one worth asking.
Nah, John, you have me and Z all wrong. We save our contempt for the professional creationist liars like Meyer. So, rather than actually learn something about the subject you launch into a laughable "analysis" of probability.
Today, John, a raindrop hit me on the head. The molecules of water in that raindrop came from the Pacific Ocean (my guess). Calculate the probability of a particular collection of water molecules evaporating from the Pacific Ocean, traveling hundreds of miles, forming into a droplet, then falling tens of thousands of feet buffeted by air eddy currents to hit me (a moving target) right on the forehead? Please show your work.
So, if I am right and any reasonable estimate using current knowledge puts the probability at vanishingly small, why am I so confident that I got hit in the head with a raindrop?
Doc Bill,
I am saddened that you would put up such an irrelevant response to my query. It shows you are not really interested in debating, but are more interested in repeating tired old arguments.
Please do not continue to misunderstand the intelligence level of your critics. It makes you say stupid stuff.
I suspect you know the difference between the questions
1. Did I get hit with A RAINDROP today?
2. Did I get hit with THE RAINDROP which originated from a particular place in the vast ocean?
These are two vastly different queries with vastly different answers.
Its much like the difference between the questions
1. Will someone win the Lottery?
2. Will Doc Bill win the Lottery?
Or like the difference between the questions
1. Does someone in this room have the birthday on June 23rd?
2. Do two people in this room share the same birthday?
As you probably know this is known as the birthday problem and it is essential that someone understands it to understand how to compute basic probabilities.
Biologists would rightly condemn as naive people who try to compute the chances of life originating on earth by computing the chances of A PARTICULAR PROTEIN forming by chance. But almost no one makes this argument. It is a straw man.
I asked you ( since you seem so convinced that naturalism must win the day ) to compute the chance that ANY life form of minimal complexity to sustain life originated by chance ( abiogenesis ).
Now this is admittedly a very difficult problem, and since all possible sustainable life forms can't be known, it can only be estimated.
But...
1. If you can do the problem - what is your answer?
2. If you can't - why do you have so much confidence that OOL will eventually have a naturalistic explanation. Other than your "faith" commitment.
Please make a better reply that your last ignorant answer.
Steve, maybe a good way to achieve your stated goal of destroying the Discovery Institute would be to rip out pages of their books. PZ Myers was very successful using this tactic.
Also, that was awesome when you called the DI a "dangerous cancer" with a "creepy mission"! Some other words you might want to try that I've found extremely effective:
IDiot, stupid dummy, lard-ass
Let's say that the universe is very, very much larger than what we have been able to see so far (light just has not had time to travel here). Or maybe there are a very large number of universes. I might be able to use those hypotheses to come up with a probability of life beginning without a designer being near 100%. But I could expect to find just about anything using those ideas - they wouldn't help me figure out what happened in the past or will happen in the future. I would see what I see because I am in that part of reality in which it happened.
What I am interested in seeing for an explanation is a description of a series of events that we can infer from evidence and our knowledge of those forces or entities that we observe working.
The problem with ID theory so far is that it merely wants to say that some things are intelligently designed but without any investigation into the designer, which leaves us with some unobserved "force" or "entity" doing the work. This is no better than saying life is an eventually-to-be-expected fluke in a very large unobserved world extending beyond our own.
To really make headway ID needs to stop trying to be the default answer if current investigations fail, and go off on its own investigation of the designer.
Actually, Steve didn't claim that 12 would be generous. He started generous at 100. And guess what? When I looked to see the twelve introns with "important functional roles" that Sal had claimed to have found, it turns out that they don't actually have functional roles. In most cases, it was simply a mutation that caused the intron to interfere with proper gene formation. It's kinda like saying that a piece of rusty scrap metal accidentally left on structural steel has an important functional role because it causes the structural steel to rust and collapse. Every case Sal brought up was an example of what Steve had specifically said was not what he considered an important functional role.
John Hansen wrote:
"But please answer me this question."
No. Quit being a coward when it comes to evidence and answer my challenge first. I'll even make it easier on you:
name 3 of the 5 most salient facts (not extrapolations, not interpretations, just simple, empirical facts) that point to an RNA world over one in which protein or DNA came first.
I took ID off the table. I'll bet that you're so corrupt that you're afraid to try.
Heck, I'll even give you a big clue about one of them with a fill in the blank: peptidyl transferase is a _____________ (a single word).
Another hint: Meyer deceived his audience about this salient fact in his sleazy book.
I predict that because in your shriveled, hate-filled soul you know that there's no evidence on your side, you won't be up to my challenge.
"It shows you are not really interested in debating, but are more interested in repeating tired old arguments."
Oh, please. Science isn't about debating. It's about testing hypotheses and producing new data, something that you and everyone in the ID movement is too cowardly to do—no faith, you see.
It's not about arguments, either. It's about evidence, something that you have no faith will support your position. That's why you sell these lies in which science is like high-school debate.
John,
Stars in galaxies rotate much faster than they should based on the matter we can detect in them. To explain the discrepancy, scientists have hypothesized that dark matter is responsible. The catch is that we don't know what dark matter's other properties are, how to measure it, or whether it even exists (slight exaggeration). Why don't we just admit that the most probable explanation is that the finger of God is stirring up the galaxies and be done with all this "trying to find a natural explanation" nonsense?
...douche, pansy, dork
kakapo,
Unlike our brutally frank host here, I am not going to assume you make a bad argument because you are duplicitous, or a liar, or lazy. I am going to assume you make a bad argument because you just don't see a few things. I hope this helps.
Don't you understand that you are comparing apples to oranges here. The main problem is with the idea of "things that happened" and "things that are happening". My experience with the study of God, and study of the natural world is that God does not waste miracles. He does not set up situations where He is constantly intervening. OTOH, he clearly chooses to intervene in limited situations.
Notice how my argument comes from both my study of who God is, and the natural world. I do not make an argument from nothing and therefore - God. I make an argument that is consistent with the revelation of God, and the study of natural world.
So, since "...galaxies rotate much faster than they should based on the matter we can detect in them ..." ( a process which is currently on going i.e. is happening ), I don't for a moment assume "...the finger of God is stirring.." them. This is not consistent with the revelation of God. His creation shows that He creates self sustaining objects. I instead assume something is wrong with either our calculations, our theory, our observations or there just might be dark matter we can not detect.
OTOH the Bible declares that God created life. It states that God created order from chaos. Now I whole heartedly believe that God created life forms which are able to adapt. So limited amounts of evolution do not bother me in the least. What bothers me is when people do not allow God as a possibility. Especially when they make an argument solely from epistemology. ( i.e. We can't ever determine whether that was the hand of God, so we CAN NEVER propose that that was the hand of God.)
Well perhaps you should not label it as science to assume the hand of God, but you should be open to the possibility.
In my belief system, many people were at a wedding in Cana. Jesus chose to manifest his divine nature to a select few by turning ordinary water into wine. It was a small miracle. It was for his disciples to see only. It was consistent with His use of miracles. I believe this actually happened.
So what about the creation of life makes me think God did it.
1. I have never, ever, seen any convincing argument other than hand waving that using genuine probability estimates it is at all probable that the information rich genome was generated by chance. The fact that something contains information is the antithesis of being created by random processes.
2. God declares in His word that nature shows his handiwork.
3. The miracle of DNA and the genome is that it is a coding system. It is not something that should naturally occur. As far as I can tell, it defies any incremental construction by random events. No one has yet proposed any logical system for how it can develop. No other naturally occurring thing has these characteristics. It is unique.
Far from being a "God of the Gaps" theory, the hypothesis that God created life is consistent and rational. It is supported by a God who wished to reveal himself in many different ways to those who would not shut their eyes to the truth.
It is the idea that DNA came about by some random process that is an irrational idea which can only be supported by the faith proposition that there is no supernatural.
JohnZ
I tried your little game but I couldn't think of any "..that scream out that it all must have started with RNA."
I could think of two which I think are correct which make the RNA first hypothesis less irrational than the DNA first hypothesis. Sorry if this is ignorance on display, but here's my guesses.
1. RNA can be both enzyme and encoder.
2. RNA is more stable.
And the answer to your little quiz? Are you looking for the word "enzyme" or "aminoacyltrasferase". I'll go with "enzyme".
Please tell me the other three you had in mind. I admit ignorance on the others that "scream".
JohnZ,
Are you a real scientist? I mean, have you ever practiced it. Do you write journal articles?? What do you mean science is not about debate and argument. Of course it is. Its about testing hypothesis - producing data - and then throwing your conclusions out there in public so the other experts can have at them.
Its about realizing that as a scientist you need others to check your work because you can't come up with all the truth on your own. Its about hoping against hope you ( or some grad student you were working with ) have not made a stupid error that compromises all of the conclusions from your data.
What do you think a peer-reviewed journal is for. Do you think it is a place where you put your experimental results, and I just buy your conclusions. Do you think that "scientists" are infallible.
Science is absolutely about debate and argument. Not "debate team debate" where the object is for one team to win by presenting the most convincing argument.
Its a debate where colleagues try to put holes in other's theories so we can arrive at the objective truth.
I have never read a journal article with the idea "here is the truth". I am always playing referee.
Why do you think they are peer-reviewed. Its so easy to make mistakes in cutting edge work. Once published, peer-reviewed work does not reach "hallowed ground" where it can never be argued about.
Your vision of what science is scares me.
First of all I would like to say, I am not trying to fashion a retort. I am really interested in what position is more on the side of objective truth here. So this is a sincere inquiry for someone more knowledgeable than me to post an answer, not a debate.
OK, I don't see the same things you guys see, so educate me. I thought what we are talking about is evidence for or against design or evidence for or against randomness in evolution.
So lets say we find an non-coding intron. In fact its only function seems to be to lengthen the gene in order to somehow make the timing of meiosis fit some fitness model for the cell. I would call that a function. Not what it originally did, but I would still call it a function.
Or lets say that a pseudogene is present that only seems to act to regulate the rate of transcription of the real gene. I would call that a function.
The point is that these non-coding genes do improve the fitness of the cell.
1. Are these even correct hypothetical "functions" for introns?
2. If these were present in the genome would you consider them evidence for design, evidence for random evolution, or neutral toward the question?
I look forward to a sincere answer, and not a swipe at my supposed ignorance.
Very interesting. I take it then that you do not feel that there is a need to investigate who or what the designer is? You feel that what should be considered miraculous and what should not should be based on a text with an inaccurate description of origins?
It seems that you would require the investigation of the world to be constrained by a particular reading of the Bible (Genesis as myth, Gospel as history) so that incorrect attributions to design would be avoided for the behavior of galaxies and other ongoing phenomena, but the Judeo-Christian God would not be ruled out based on inaccurate "testimony".
If the scientific community as a whole agreed that intelligent design is responsible for the origin of life, would you expect that investigating who or what did it would be off limits or at least constrained by your reading of the Bible?
Bottom line: how should origins (or any other) research proceed?
John Hansen,
Mainstream OOL researchers have a set of ideas they are exploring. They form hypotheses, they do experiments, they look for additional historical data, and they revise their hypotheses as new data are obtained. Their results are published after peer review. Maybe, as you suggest, they're only taking baby steps, but they're actively engaged in scientific research.
On the other hand, I have yet to see a testable hypothesis from the ID camp that was actually about intelligent design. I have yet to see anyone from the ID camp indicate what empirical data would serve as a test of ID; maybe you'll be the first. What data could you imagine receiving that convince you that intelligent design is not true? Is there any concieveable data set that is NOT consistent with ID? Can you tell me how to reliably make an objective determination that something is designed or not? ID researchers are free to develop answers to these questions, regardless of what other researchers are doing, yet I haven't seen any progress on this front.
John,
I will retract my analogy and rephrase it in the past tense: "Why don't we just admit that the most probable explanation is that the finger of God stirred up the galaxies and be done with..." Even though this reformulation gets around all your counter-arguments, I completely agree that I am comparing apples and oranges! That's what analogies are. Some people understand apples better than oranges.
My point is that there are mysteries in all areas of science for which the current, proposed solutions look "irrational" to some extent or from some perspective. To accept the alternative explanation of "the hand of God" would be to stop doing science. We seem to agree on this point. Where we disagree relates to whether we should take the "hand of God" explanation and stop doing science. I believe we stand to lose out on a lot of learning about the world with that approach. E.g. in the beginning of the 20th century, quantum mechanics looked absolutely ridiculous, but it sure does explain a lot of things, doesn't it?
We also disagree about whether the "hand of God" explanation would be a "God of the gaps" argument. If I interpret you correctly, you're saying that if there's no current natural explanation for something and there is a theological justification for a supernatural intervention, then it's not "God of the gaps." I can't see how having a theological basis for the act changes anything. If you're inserting God to fill a gap in natural explanation, then the argument is "God of the gaps" whether it seems like a good idea theologically or not.
I can't fully respond to your 3 points about why you think "God did it" right now but why does "nature shows [God's] handiwork" imply that God created DNA ex nihilo? Why does there have to be no natural explanation for it to be God's handiwork?
Where have I ever implied I want to shut down origins research, or stop cosmological investigation. Read my text over again. Does it even imply that? Just because I think design is the best answer, that does not mean that people who have differing opinions should not keep asking questions.
On the other hand, Steve Matheson feels it is his duty to destroy the Discovery Institute. You have to ask why?
I said I think design is the most successful answer. Because it makes it easier to argue design from a theological perspective, I employed a natural and religious argument.
My second point is a purely religious argument. God's word predicts that evidence for him would be found in nature. I agree with this.No mystery there at all.
But let me turn the tables on you. If a two year old rolled a dice 10 times. And I wrote down the digits. Then I discovered that the resulting number had all sorts of interesting properties, would you credit the two year old with the discovery? So if we are created by random events, how ARE we God's handiwork? Maybe you have an answer for that, but it sounds like you are taking God out of the equation.
I am not just saying that there is simply no natural explanation. I am saying that the design hypothesis is consistent with..
1. The principles of design we as human beings exercise regularly.
2. The revelation God has given through his apostles and prophets that nature declares his handiwork.
If you see this as "God of the Gaps" I just don't know what to say anymore to make it any clearer. You are not going to change your mind.
Jason,
Do you really see a undeniable logical progression from
"I think design is the best answer" to "I think all origins research should be restricted to a very narrow reading of Genesis 1 and 2"
Do you see that? I sure don't. If anyone wants to shut down other people from pursuing their own line of research here it is Steve Matheson who claims it is his duty to shut down the Discovery Institute.
Maybe you are just projecting. You want to shut down design research, so anyone who advocates design research, you claim is also trying to shut down evolutionary research.
Read the post over again. It is about my opinion. It is not about claiming I have the cornerstone on the truth so its useless for other options to be pursued.
Bottom line, I think origins research should proceed as it is being done right now. There just should not be an a priori decision that it could not possibly be the hand of God.
Do you think Discovery Institute should be free to continue their line of work? Or should Steve Matheson be sent out to destroy it.
You ask "what empirical data would act as a test for ID? First of all there are two parts to testing a theory. One part is positive evidence. Does DNA ( lets isolate to DNA ) show the hallmarks of design. The answer is an emphatic YES! I don't think that point is in dispute.
I'm sorry, but the answer is actually an emphatic NO! Every analogy that one to make to this end (and analogy is the only "method" ID proponents use) falls apart when one looks carefully. I have found no exceptions to this rule.
John,
As I said before, having a theological justification for inserting God to fill a gap in natural explanation does not stop the argument from being a "God of the gaps" argument. Even if that argument also seems to 'make some sense' from a human perspective, it doesn't matter - it's still a supernatural explanation inserted for a natural one. I guess we have to agree on the fact that it isn't science but disagree on whether it's a God of the gaps argument.
I think the part we agree on (i.e. design is not science) is the key to why the DI is a problem. They claim to be doing science. (If they claimed to have the "best explanation" but that it wasn't science people wouldn't be upset.) For people who are doing theory work, they have a large budget. They've had many years (far more than you get in a tenure track) and haven't published anything meaningful. As you point out in another post, they haven't even managed to define the terms which are critical for beginning their research! However, they go around proclaiming that they have changed science?!? That's called false witness.
In reference to the 2-yr old rolling dice, you do realize that die rolls are completely deterministic, don't you? That doesn't matter much for the purpose of the analogy, but it does suggest you don't understand randomness at all. In any case, if the 2-yr old designed the brought about the dice and the table and the law of physics that govern them, then I'd say, "Yes, the die rolls are her handiwork!"
That should read:
Every analogy that one makes to this end ...
Sorry about that.
John Hansen,
I appreciate your response. In the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on a couple of segments of your post that really get to the core of my questions.
I think the question you really are after is -- is it testable. This is a really hard question. What you are asking me is what would convince me life is not designed. What would convince me that design was not the best answer.
There is one pretty simple to answer. If it was demonstrable that good, objective estimations of the probabilities of the steps involved in OOL came up with a number that was at all reasonable, that would be good evidence against design. …
Would it? Or would it once again push the design argument down a level, to “fine tuning” of the universe?
If someone conducted an experiment where they simply turned on a computer and subjected it to voltages that made bits flip randomly and the result was that self replicating computer programs just evolved on their own this would be evidence against design.
1) How could you rule out a designer intervening in the process?
2) Computer instantiations of random variation + natural selection (such as Tierra and Avida) have consistently shown increases in “complexity” that directly contradict the core assertions of ID (as best I can understand them). ID proponents have consistently argued that the programmers “smuggled in” information – they’ve even claimed that about something as simple as Dawkins’s “weasel” program.
You might find this article interesting. It doesn’t quite meet your specifications, but I think it’s a fairly powerful demonstration of what’s possible with random variation + natural selection.
Let me end where you started: Could you give me a clue what you think would falsify design.
My answer is, no I can’t … because I can’t see anything that’s testable in ID, and from a scientific standpoint, an untestable explanation is no explanation at all.
SWT
I really appreciate that we seem to be having a discussion with more light than heat. I am thankful.
As to Avida, Tierra etc. Yes I find that in that analysis of these, operator input is always being smuggled in. Its sometimes difficult to spot it, but it's there. Don't even get me started on WEASEL, which as S Matheson has pointed out was just a small stupid exercise anyway and was never meant to evaluate evolution.
Let me tell you where I come from on design/evolution problem and maybe you will understand some of my natural bias.
My formal training is in Physics. One of the first thing every physicist ( who receives a good education ) is confronted with is the conservation of energy. This means NO PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINES. One of the first concepts a good physics teacher will throw at their students is the energy state ratchet. There are many variations on this problem but it goes something like this.
1. Design a step ladder of water compartments. Its at finite temperature so some of the water will evaporate from the lower compartments and land in the upper compartments. Let that water accumulate in the upper compartments. When you have a sizable amount of water in the upper compartments let it back down through a turbine. Store that energy.
This design uses thermal energy to boost the gravitational potential energy of water. Almost no water molecules have enough thermal energy to make it to the top compartment in one giant leap, but a lot more can make it in small steps. It attempts to use a ratchet to boost the energy in small steps. However, in the end it fails to give free energy because of two basic reasons.
1. You always end up using more energy to boost up the energy of the water than you get from letting it run down hill.
2. In any ratchet design giving the molecules enough energy to travel up the ratchet also allows stuff to go down the ratchet also.
Now information is not energy. I don't know how information gets created, I don't know what kind of conservation principles it satisfies, but since it is similar to entropy it should at least satisfy something.
Evolution is a claim you can get information for free. It specifically a ratchet design. In the words of Dawkins, evolution is able to "climb mount improbable" by a series of small steps.
I am biased not to believe it. I don't think you can create enough information to specify the complete body plan of as complex as thing as the human being by an information ratchet. This is not a proof, because we are not dealing with energy, we are dealing with this ephemeral concept of information. But I think it takes a giant leap of faith to assume a ratchet is no good for creating a perpetual motion machine, but it will work for going from mud to man.
One other point. You say an untestable explanation is no explanation at all. NOT TRUE!. An untestable explanation is NOT SCIENCE! But it certainly is an explanation.
Example.
Congregant A: God says my sins are completely forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. Can you explain that?
Preacher B:God sacrificed the infinite life of his Son to give you a right to his eternal life.
A: Well that's an explanation but can you test it. Otherwise I will not believe it, and I won't classify it as an explanation.
B: No I can't think of any way to test this.
A: Well, I won't believe it then. ( Dies and misses out on heaven ).
John Hansen,
I'll try to put together a response to the first part of your note later on ... I'm in the thick of a few things today and might not have the time to compose an adequate response until the weekend. I will tell you that I have an earned doctorate in chemical engineering and have taught both undergraduate thermodynamics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. I'm very comfortable with discussions of the second law of thermodynamics and its implications, and you will probably not be surprised to discover that I consider the second law to be no impediment to evolutionary processes or to self-organization in general.
I'm posting now mainly to emphasize that what I said at the end of my previous post was (emphasis added) "from a scientific standpoint, an untestable explanation is no explanation at all." My concern here is about science, not theology.
John,
What I see is you first chastising Steve Matheson for pointing out that two fish species having very different genome sizes is a problem for ID as making an unfounded assumption about how God would operate, and then stating that based on your study of God that you can make assumptions about how God would operate (not involved in current phenomena, but involved in OOL). This was confusing to me because it looked like you were saying that what naturalistic explanations should and should not be pursued should be steered by a particular set of religious beliefs. But your latest comment makes clear that you do not.
Some ID debates seem to get bogged down in a mixture of religion and science. It is not clear how some folks are reaching their conclusions and on what basis they think you should agree with them.
In fact, I do not want design research shut down. I want it pursued with much more ambition than it has been so far. Right now it is being pursued as an anti-evolutionary apologetic (often for Christianity). What I am looking for folks at the DI to do is ask and investigate the answers to the same questions that mainstream scientists would find themselves asking if they agreed that a designer was involved: Who? What? When? How? Where? and Why?
Right now the design hypothesis is being treated as a default answer when it should be the first step in an eagerly pursued investigation. ID theorists should be like the guy who tricked out a a motorhome with sensors and cameras in his quixotic search for Bigfoot. They might look silly, but at least they would be in pursuit of the answer that would really bring them vindication.
Should DI be free to continue their line of work? Legally or morally? And what is their line of work? If they are taking pot shots at biologists and taking quotes and experimental results out of context, then they should have the decency to stop.
I don't see how Steve can destroy DI. I can see how he was used as window dressing at Biola. If ID proponents want to engage their critics it would be better to do it at a conference rather than a too-brief Q&A where folks are vying for the applause of an audience.
I also just tried out the "edit" function -- very nice to have!
Me:
"name 3 of the 5 most salient facts (not extrapolations, not interpretations, just simple, empirical facts) that point to an RNA world over one in which protein or DNA came first."
"I took ID off the table. I'll bet that you're so corrupt that you're afraid to try."
John Hansen:
"I tried your little game but I couldn't think of any "..that scream out that it all must have started with RNA."
Then you can't possibly be familar with the OOL literature, primary or secondary.
"I could think of two which I think are correct which make the RNA first hypothesis less irrational than the DNA first hypothesis. Sorry if this is ignorance on display, but here's my guesses."
I want guesses. I'm testing your honesty. I'm impressed with your responding, but I'm not convinced that you are doing so honestly.
"1. RNA can be both enzyme and encoder."
Nope. That's partly my fault for being unclear, but I'm asking for simple facts, not what can be or might be or extrapolations thereof.
"2. RNA is more stable."
Huh? More stable than what, exactly?
"And the answer to your little quiz? Are you looking for the word "enzyme" or "aminoacyltrasferase". I'll go with "enzyme"."
Nope. Your answer is correct, but you have to be more specific to confront the most salient fact suggesting the RNA World hypothesis.
What *kind* of enzyme is it, John? I'd love to admit that I was wrong about your corruption.
John Hansen wrote:
"Are you a real scientist?"
Yes.
"I mean, have you ever practiced it."
Yes.
"Do you write journal articles??"
Yes.
"What do you mean science is not about debate and argument. Of course it is."
Well, that's convincing!
"Its about testing hypothesis - producing data - and then throwing your conclusions out there in public so the other experts can have at them."
Nope. Not even close. You're regurgitating the standard IDC lie, that science is like high-school debate.
"Its about realizing that as a scientist you need others to check your work because you can't come up with all the truth on your own."
I don't claim to have the truth on my own, John, and I find your attempt to attribute that position to me to be deeply dishonest on your part.
I publish new data (no one on your side does) because that's my job. My conclusions aren't the service I provide to society.
" Its about hoping against hope you ( or some grad student you were working with ) have not made a stupid error that compromises all of the conclusions from your data."
Nope. It's providing my data to others.
Do you realize, John, that contributions to the secondary literature (the best that anyone in the ID movement has achieved to date) are not even counted when assessing my scientific productivity?
"What do you think a peer-reviewed journal is for."
Publishing data. Do you realize that much of the secondary scientific literature is not peer-reviewed?
"Do you think it is a place where you put your experimental results, and I just buy your conclusions."
No, it's a place where I contribute my data, and you can buy or not buy my conclusions. I don't sell them very hard; nor do most of my colleagues, which is what allows the incredibly dishonest quote-mining from your side.
"Do you think that "scientists" are infallible."
Absolutely not! Is this the best response you can muster?
"Science is absolutely about debate and argument."
It's absolutely not. Debates are almost always very short, usually held at meetings, and resolved by new data. We use debate to agree on the experiments or observations that will resolve disagreements about our interpretations of the extant data.
"Not "debate team debate" where the object is for one team to win by presenting the most convincing argument."
Then why is it presented in precisely that way by your side?
"Its a debate where colleagues try to put holes in other's theories so we can arrive at the objective truth."
ABSOLUTELY NOT. We debate to AGREE on the most important experiments to do. We are far more honest than you are; science is a set of rules (that can and are broken) to reject human nature and do our interpretation BEFORE we know the result.
That's why you ran away from SWT's challenge.
"I have never read a journal article with the idea "here is the truth"."
Nor have I. Do you always put so many words in the mouths of others? Is that a Christian thing to do?
"I am always playing referee."
Baloney. You are afraid to do the interpretation before you get the data.
"Why do you think they are peer-reviewed. Its so easy to make mistakes in cutting edge work."
That's just silly. It's easy to make mistakes, but very little of peer review is about catching mistakes.
"Once published, peer-reviewed work does not reach "hallowed ground" where it can never be argued about."
Obviously. But we're much more honest than you—we'll tell the person with whom we're debating exactly what would convince us.
I suggest reading about Stan Prusiner for an example.
"Your vision of what science is scares me."
Your false claims about my vision, based on your ignorance of how science is done, are the scary thing here.
John Hansen,
I will add here that my challenge to you to name, in good faith, 3 of the 5 simple, empirical facts suggesting the RNA World over the other abiogenesis hypotheses goes directly to the point about Meyer.
IMO in his book he lies to conceal these facts from his audience. He can't not know these facts.
SWT,
Please do not lecture me about entropy, I have a Ph.D. in Physics. The last thing I need is another lecture in thermodynamics.
You know, these kind of debates go a lot better if one does not assume the opponent is ignorant. I never even mentioned entropy except as an example of an unexpected quantity that was not clear until Boltzmann and others created a formal definition. I know entropy does not equal information, and I know entropy satisfies only an inequality. Read my post again. Where oh where did I make any assessment based on entropy.
Now as to Shannon information. It is totally insufficient for adjudicating whether abiogenesis is possible or not. That is because it is an entirely context free system of measuring information, as was demonstrated in your post above. The shannon information is about equal, the bio-information is much different.
I will give you another homely example. 8 equal sized lines are hurriedly drawn on a piece of paper. Now with all the degrees of freedom allowed in specifying the location and rotation of these lines, the amount of Shannon information created by a single drawing is amazing. However most orientations and locations carry no meaning.
However, if they are arranged in a regular octagon. They mean STOP and just might save the train from going off the bridge.
I have never read Stuart Kaufman, so I will take a look if I find time. The last time I read someone trying to do a pro-abiogenesis calculation was a 1998 Ian Musgrave article that ( admittedly is probably out of date ) but I found full of bad assumptions and in the end was utterly unconvincing. The most irritating thing I found about Musgrave's work was that constantly he belittles his intellectual opponents assuming they do not have his "superior" understanding. He thinks he succeeds because he thinks he is charting new territory. He does not succeed because he is not doing anything his intellectual opponents don't already know.
Now I was not postulating that I currently know the law which takes into account an objective measurable amount of information. Any reasonable way of measuring information for life must be context dependent.
This kind of context dependent information is used all the time by search engine algorithms. Imagine you are doing a search for certain scientific articles. The two six letter words "except" and "intron" have the same amount of Shannon information in the context of specification of letters from the English alphabet. But no good search engine for a scientific web site would ever choose "except" as a keyword for a scientific article. It is probably equally distributed throughout the papers and the fact that an article contains it probably does not help the user find the paper he is interested in at all.
I don't know if there is a conservation law for this type of context sensitive information. It seems like there should be. I am not aware of a formal definition of this that comes up with a testable theory. But I don't think it has been proven that no such law exists.
Finally, I know that I raised a theological situation instead of a scientific situation when arguing about "testability".
First off, the reason I was posting about the theological implications of your position, is that I have heard too many young people who adopt a flawed scientism as a basis, not only for science, but for life. They foolishly make the irrational statement that they only live by what science can prove to be true. This type of statement is sad and ludicrous. The scientific method is indeed useful, but it is completely lacking as a method to decide how to live one's life.
Secondly, a scientific proposal does not have to be testable - yet. It can be adopted as a formalism and investigated to see if it can develop some testable proposals. This takes time.
BTW - Is string theory testable? Is it science? Is the multiverse testable? Is it science?
Try doing this.
1. look for new posts at the beginning or end ( depending on how you have them sorted ).
2. do a search on the words "reply to". Its easier than reading the whole comment section, and highlights the exact line where you are told how old something is.
Are you looking for "ribozyme" then?
JohnZ
I don't claim to be an expert on the philosophy of science, but I can see when someone's limited focus is keeping him from seeing the big picture.
You are so limited in your idea of what science is.
"I publish new data (no one on your side does) because that's my job. My conclusions aren't the service I provide to society."
You mean you publish all data from every experiment? Don't you realize just in the intellectual control of what experiments are done, and the editorial control of what data you publish you are already guiding the conclusions. Pure data without some interpretation is useless to me. I don't have time to do your work for you. Your data must be presented. But to do science you must also present some interpretation and conclusions. Otherwise you are only a technician, and not a scientist.
"We debate to AGREE on the most important experiments to do. We are far more honest than you are; science is a set of rules (that can and are broken) to reject human nature and do our interpretation BEFORE we know the result."
Who is this "we" in this paragraph. The whole scientific community? Science is not easy. Its not all hypothesis and experiment.
How much experimental data did Einstein offer up when he first proposed special relativity. He did thought experiments.
Honestly, John, I think you are so worried about this evolution/anti-evolution debate that you have purposely narrowed your definition of science, solely to be able to call what you do science and to eliminate what your opponents do as science. I am not putting words in your mouth. I am just saying that you are so focussed in your current work and what you do as a scientist, that you are forgetting what science, and the pursuit of truth, is all about.
John Hansen,
… these kind of debates go a lot better if one does not assume the opponent is ignorant.
They also go better if you recognize (1) that your correspondent has only what you’ve posted to go on when responding and (2) that there are likely to be other people following the discussion who don’t have the training that you do. I took the time to write a more technical response because I knew your background. I have been operating under the assumption that your objection to modern evolutionary theory was more than a simple argument from personal incredulity.
I never even mentioned entropy except as an example of an unexpected quantity that was not clear until Boltzmann and others created a formal definition. I know entropy does not equal information, and I know entropy satisfies only an inequality. Read my post again. Where oh where did I make any assessment based on entropy.
John, you wrote “I don't know what kind of conservation principles [information] satisfies, but since [information] is similar to entropy it should at least satisfy something.” It is Shannon information that is similar to entropy, so I don’t think it was a huge leap to conclude that you ultimately had some sort of a second law objection to evolution.
… The shannon information is about equal, the bio-information is much different.
It appears from this statement and the examples you provide that you are using “information” as a synonym for “meaning.” From the standpoint of information theory, I don’t think this is correct. Please specify what you mean by “information”.
… The scientific method is indeed useful, but it is completely lacking as a method to decide how to live one's life.
We agree on this. However, my objection to ID is technical, and if the theory is just wrong or too poorly developed even to be wrong, its theological implications don’t necessarily matter.
… a scientific proposal does not have to be testable - yet. It can be adopted as a formalism and investigated to see if it can develop some testable proposals. This takes time.
A proposal that claims to undermine a large and well-verified field of science does need to be testable. ID proponents have claimed that modern evolutionary theory, which is supported by a large body of evidence and is a key organizational principle in biology, will soon meet its Waterloo. If you’re going to make a claim like that, you’d better bring something testable to the table; as far as I can tell, all ID has at this point is polemic. Correct me if I’m wrong – point me to a testable ID claim.
Why, yes!
Now, why on Heaven or Earth would an omnipotent designer use RNA as the catalyst for protein synthesis?
And let's not forget how your hero Meyer presents the RNA World hypothesis:
"According to this model, these RNA enzymes were eventually replaced by the more efficient proteins that perform enzymatic functions in modern cells."
The strongest evidence is that some of the most important RNAs (i.e., the least dispensable ones) were NOT replaced. Meyer is lying to conceal the most powerful evidence.
Here's yet another lie from Meyer:
"A PROTEIN within the ribosome known as a peptidyl transferase…"
p. 128
John Hansen wrote:
"You mean you publish all data from every experiment?"
Nope, only the interesting data.
"Don't you realize just in the intellectual control of what experiments are done, and the editorial control of what data you publish you are already guiding the conclusions. Pure data without some interpretation is useless to me."
I provide interpretation and context. But you are free to accept or reject my interpretation. That's why I'm publishing the data!
" I don't have time to do your work for you. Your data must be presented. But to do science you must also present some interpretation and conclusions."
You are putting words in my mouth. I clearly stated that you are free to buy or not buy into my conclusions. How, without being utterly dishonest, can you go from my statement to pretending that I publish data without interpretation or conclusions?
"Otherwise you are only a technician, and not a scientist."
That would be the case if I had written what you falsely attributed to me.
"We debate to AGREE on the most important experiments to do. We are far more honest than you are; science is a set of rules (that can and are broken) to reject human nature and do our interpretation BEFORE we know the result."
"Who is this "we" in this paragraph. The whole scientific community?"
The people who disagree about a particular hypothesis.
"Science is not easy. Its not all hypothesis and experiment."
It's almost all hypothesis and experiment. Your side does neither.
It's very little debate. That's all your side does.
"How much experimental data did Einstein offer up when he first proposed special relativity. He did thought experiments."
Einstein was a patent clerk. He made empirical predictions, something no one on your side has the faith to do. Einstein wasn't hailed until the empirical predictions of his hypothesis were shown to be correct.
"Honestly, John, I think you are so worried about this evolution/anti-evolution debate that you have purposely narrowed your definition of science, solely to be able to call what you do science and to eliminate what your opponents do as science."
You are not being honest. I'm not an evolutionary biologist.
"I am not putting words in your mouth."
That's precisely what you are doing. You transmogrified 'Science is not about debate,' to 'Just buy my conclusions.'
"I am just saying that you are so focussed in your current work and what you do as a scientist, that you are forgetting what science, and the pursuit of truth, is all about."
I am saying that you have no faith in your position, so you have to misrepresent mine with malice.
BTW, John, I've published 3 papers in which I demolished a hypothesis that I had presented or endorsed in previous ones.
YAY! We have finally made it to the major problem with all of your reasoning John Z.
I will quote you verbatim.
"Now, why on Heaven or Earth would an omnipotent designer use RNA as the catalyst for protein synthesis?"
Don't you see this is a religious, and not a scientific, argument???? We finally get down to the end of things and you make a religious argument. Your argument is no better than Meyer's.
Essentially you say this, "An all powerful designer would not do it this way". Please elaborate. But... confine yourself to scientific arguments only.
"Don't you see this is a religious, and not a scientific, argument????"
I see it as a question for you. I also see that like Meyer, you can't explain it. Meyer lied in his book to conceal this from his audience.
"We finally get down to the end of things and you make a religious argument."
My "argument" is that Meyer is lying to his readers and you're trying to move the goalposts.
"Your argument is no better than Meyer's."
I'm not deceiving my audience about the data.
"Essentially you say this, "An all powerful designer would not do it this way". "
Straw man.
It's a hypothesis about WHO your designer is. Meyer saw that this most important piece of evidence couldn't possibly fit, so he lied to conceal it—once when deliberately misrepresenting the hypothesis, the other when describing peptidyl transferase.
So, John Hansen, why did Stephen Meyer call a ribozyme a protein? Is he utterly incompetent, utterly dishonest, or both?
Kakapo
Like all analogies, the 2 yr. old dice rolling was meant to make you think about your own presuppositions, not to mince words on what constitutes a random process. Die rolls and coin flips have always represented random processes in discussions ( i.e. normal people assume fair coins, and perfect dice ).
However, your pettifogging about determinism does bring up an interesting point about die rolling. I have never done the calculation, so I wonder if die rolls are really deterministic or not. Think of it this way.
What I mean when I say something is deterministic - is knowing the initial conditions - dictates the final result. But for something to be truly deterministic, it must not only satisfy this, but it must also not be chaotic.
Consider the initial position, orientation, translational velocity, and rotational velocities of one die in relation to the flat table to be a 12 dimensional set of variables. To avoid being chaotic, slight changes in these coordinates can not mean big changes in the outcome. But since the throwing of a die maps these continuous variables onto a discreet set ( 1 - 6 ) any change in the rolled number is a large difference in the outcome.
If die rolling were completely deterministic, one could imagine an experiment done by a perfect dice thrower that mapped each set of initial conditions to a certain outcome of 1 - 6. Then you would know the inverse map of each outcome ( 4 for example ) to all the initial coordinates which generated it. This map would be a bunch of volumes in the phase space of the initial coordinates. The essential question is what would the size of the phase space volumes be compared to planck's constant. If the knowledge of the initial conditions necessary to know the outcome violates the uncertainty principle, then it can't be deterministic. Did you really want to get into a discussion of quantum mechanics, or were you just pettifogging?
...or were you just pettifogging?
says the person who built and entire argument on the fact that he didn't like the tense of one of the verbs I used in an analogy.
But how could you have known what I meant? Oh, wait, there's always what I wrote: That doesn't matter much for the purpose of the analogy...
In person, I would be more than happy to discuss the proper model for die rolling. If as you say, there's part of the system that cannot be described classically then, you are correct that the outcome would be random. If it can be described classically, then it's deterministic (classical chaotic systems are deterministic, as you know.) Whether we could ever know the initial conditions to sufficient precision to predict the outcome is immaterial. Well, it would be a material consideration at the craps table, but that's another story...
As this thread is also blending into the margin and you chose again not to answer the substantive portion of my reply, I will bid you adieu.
John Hansen wrote "I have personally spoken to PZ Myers. I find him an irritating and small individual."
Mr. Hansen, I find you to be an asshole. Can't you exist without insulting people who are much more knowledgeable than you could ever be? What is it with your "How old are you"? What business is that of yours? You're a typical full-of-shit Christian.
Why does PZ irritate you? Is it because he doesn't respect your childish idiotic Jeebus religion? Grow up moron.
John Hansen wrote "I invite you to accept the salvation that Christ has for you."
OK, that explains everything. You, John Hansen, besides being a stupid asshole, are god-soaked insane beyond any hope. You're equal to a Muslim terrorist in your insanity. You're a gullible moron and a complete waste of time. I would invite you to grow up, but you're too cowardly to do that. "The salvation that Jeebus has for you" What an idiot.
Hansen, you retard. I'm not surprised you're a Bible thumper. Get help moron. You're way beyond insane.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son"
Yeah, you're batshit crazy. And you're an asshole.
Hansen wrote "Design theory is in its infancy."
Why do you call magic "design" Mr. Hansen? Do you seriously think calling magic by another name makes it less childish?
By the way magic is not a scientific theory. It's a fantasy that you share with other uneducated hicks. Grow up moron.
Unbelievable response Human Ape, actually quite scary, and I do think it qualifies you for hyperbole of the year. If you can logically explain why graciously inviting someone to believe as I do is the same level of insanity as blowing up oneself and killing or injuring tens or hundreds or thousands of people, I will believe you are a reasonable person. Otherwise I will think that it is your anti-religion bias is leading you to say such foolish things. Please don't pollute good discussion with such nonsense.
This is why I didn't go to Calvin. I found even the students to be such tools for "intellectuality" that they seemed to turn of their faces at anyone that wrestled with the evolution issue, or really, any other issue that they already had settled through their "I'm a Calvinist Christian Intellectual" perspective. And it all worked itself out on a theological level even - Calvin was an almost pope-like figure that was to be revered at all costs. I've come to realize that intellectuality, like politics, is like a club with peer pressure, memes, name calling, and a ridiculous amount of patronizing. I don't know how someone can be a Christian with such negativity flowing through their entire being. I've read blogs from Calvin "intellectuals" where it seems they're hell-bent on defending indefensible liberal political views about abortion etc... and their language is horrible - not civil at all. I'll agree that "Steve" is a propagandist and after finishing this post I realized that you are too, except you're not quite so civil. I guess anything can be justified when the Hand of God is at your back. These exchanges make my head spin and I feel listless - is this Christianity? "..to the honest consideration of design and intelligence in biological origins." You honestly consider it? "and who was remembered as an enemy of science." You forgot to capitalize Science.
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