NAID Part V: Politics and North American Intelligent Design

 See here for the previous parts of this series: Quantum Non-Linearity: NAID Part IV: Evolution: Creation on Steriods (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Wesley J Smith channels the primordial 
fears fueling conspiracy theorism and by 
default furthers the cause of a certain
D J Trump and his demagoguery

I don't like politics. It is a messy business bound up with the complexities and foibles of a human nature, impossible to fully understand and render in neat formulaic expressions. Well, I suppose I was being naive when I thought the Evolution/Intelligent Design question could be approached from a purely mathematical angle and that politics wouldn't figure; in actual fact the subject is shot through with group identification, group think, and group camaraderie; how silly I was; what did I expect of a highly gregarious human animal? Moreover, since the appearance of a certain Mr. D J Trump and the far-right the question has become even more politised and like covid-mask wearing it has become a predictor of one's woke or unwoke status.

In this connection I was piqued by the following article on the North American ID website Evolution News written by a Wesley J Smith a man who I would place as part of the religio-political wing of the North American Intelligent Design community:  See here:

Beware of the “Right to Health” | Evolution News

Wesley, it seems, is a specialist in human exceptionalism. I'd not disagree with him on human exceptionalism, but although not necessarily disagreeing with his conclusions I can almost guarantee that I'd disagree with the cultural route to those conclusions. Actually, come to think of it, I can bet that I'd also disagree with just what he means by "exceptionalism". But all that is another story, so back to his article. I reproduce the article below, but before I do some general comments.....

Since I wrote a series of posts in 2007 that I called "Mathematical Politics" my suspicions of both the collectivism of Maxism and the libertarian individualism of the far-right has only increased. In fact, I would go as far as to say that both, when pushed hard enough, are the gateways to dictatorships. Both try to sow distrust in the cut & thrust of democratic politics and its established institutions, e.g. democratic forums, the civil service, the police, the army, the judiciary, the media, academia, big tech, big pharma etc, which they believe to be harbouring malign highly self-interested parties.  Both Marxists and libertarians have visions of doing away with "big government" which they will tell us is serving a quasi-anonymous elite. This sense of alienation and suspicion is what I refer to as proto-conspiracy theorism, a precursor which provides fertile ground for the more specific & detailed nonsense of conspiracy theorism such as QAnon and 5G-vaccine theories etc. The political fantasy goal of both Marxists and extreme libertarians is of a folksy decentralization, either in the form of communism or a thoroughly decentralized market.  Both visions see government as part of the problem and therefore both seek the dismantling of the ramifying democratic state which they will portray as the enemy of the people. Much as the romantic idea of a decentralized society sounds attractive, just and fair, it would leave a dangerous power vacuum up for grabs by the demagogues who would emerge out of Marxism and libertarianism.  

In his article Wesley takes the view that those ostensively good causes promoted by governments, quangos and technocratic elites in actual fact favor authoritarian control or may even be a cover story for those whose ambitions are power & social control. Let's recall that Marxism makes a similar claim: Viz: Government, whether we call it democracy or not along with its associated institutions, is there to support the interests of the propertied classes.  But for those who see social reality through the spectacles of proto-conspiracy theorism, no obvious dictators pulling the strings are named; instead they lump people into malign classes and nefarious hidden actors who are identified as the cause of our problems with perhaps some individuals (like Bill Gates or Anthony Fauci) singled out as especially evil. In the malaise of a troubled democracy folk discontent readily latches onto these casts of hidden actors who are blamed for social woes and become a target popularists love to hate. This "who-can-we-blame" effect is readily exploited by demagogues who are looking to displace the complexities, contentions and cut-and-thrust of democratic & accountable government with the great simplifications of dictatorial and quasi-monarchical rule. 

Wesley's article speaks for itself. As we see below it is full of how apparently good causes are being used as a cover story to influence the populace to accept the covert goal of authoritarian rule. In his article he names all the hot topics which make the blood of far-right pundits boil: Viz: Gun control, vaccinations, confiscation of intellectual property rights, rule by experts, the international technocracy, the WHO, the UN, Anthony Fauci, limiting fossil fuel use, climate change, human rights, "woke" philosophy, racism, welfare state, public health care, gender transitions, abortion, and more...  These are all bad, bad, bad and set the pulses racing of those who have been baited by the idea that they are all pretexts for ultimate authoritarian control, just as Marxists will claim that government, the legal system, the police, the army and private property rights of the ruling class are a way of keeping the working classes in their place.  

In Wesley's article below I've highlighted the inflammatory & emotive phrases:

Wesley J Smith: Wealth and wellness are becoming the primary justifications for international technocracy, or “rule by experts.” Indeed, we are told that preventing the next pandemic will require that the World Health Organization be given the power to declare pandemics and impose emergency policies internationally. Anthony Fauci went even further, arguing that that the UN and the WHO must be given greater powers to “rebuild the infrastructures of human existence.” Imagine the authoritarian potential.

We have been told, also, that climate change is a health emergency that justifies greater technocratic control. So is racism. Ditto, gun proliferation in the U.S. And we can’t forget the threats to biodiversity. On and on the proposed policy imperialism goes. This is why the seemingly good-sounding proposal for an international “right to health” is such a trap.

A Purported Right: As an illustration, the Lancet just published an article seeking to push this purported right into international law. Note the expansive scope of the proposal. From “Revitalising the right to health is essential to securing better health for all” (my emphasis):

The right to health is a duty held by all states under international human rights law and covers a range of entitlements, including available, accessible, acceptable, and good quality health care for mental and physical health, along with freedoms such as bodily autonomy. The right to health also extends to the underlying determinants of health — those factors, such as the rights to safe drinking water and to adequate food, which are integral to human dignity. Health is a fundamental human right that is indispensable for the exercise of other human rights and essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

That covers just about the entire range of contemporary international technocratic ambition, including the desire to do away with fossil fuels, establish worldwide abortion absolutism and a right to access “gender transitions,” attack the ability of meat and dairy producers to remain in business and family farmers to properly fertilize their fields (as we have seen in Europe, lately), etc. Indeed, the advocacy is steeped with a voracious technocratic grasping for power. To wit:

The report of the International AIDS Society–Lancet Commission underscores the centrality of human rights to achieving better health for all, discussing many of the key issues that require urgent attention. Newer challenges include the worsening impacts of the climate crisis and the potential harms emanating from digital technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence, which continue to advance in a regulatory vacuum.

Efforts to advance the right to health must also involve consideration of the impacts of commercial companies, given their practices that are too often inconsistent with their responsibility to respect human rights — for example, on pricing and distribution of medicines and vaccines.

Good Grief: Under this guise, almost everything becomes about “health,” and authoritarian powers — such as the ability to suspend intellectual-property rights during a health “emergency,” as is already proposed — are justified under a so-called human-rights economy.

At the national level, embracing the Human Rights Economy approach — a concept that places people and the planet at the core of economic policy making — can promote investment in health care and other social goods.

A Human Rights Economy can also drive effective action to end power disparities — often the painful legacy of slavery, colonialism, and racist and patriarchal structures — that perpetuate discrimination and marginalisation, entrenching inequalities and inequities.

 You get the drill.

Yes, I do get the drill Wesley! You are a proto-conspiracy theorist and all this plays into the hands of far-right demagogues and conspiracy theorists. Well, OK those government institutions & quangos are composed of flawed human beings and therefore self-interest and error always lurks in the background; cockups and cover-ups are frequent. But when these failings are exposed, fearful and imaginative conspiracy theorists all too easily weave them into the fabric of their paranoid and highly organized macro-conspiracy fantasies; this appears to be a coping strategy in the face of the chaos and randomness of the human condition. But I would maintain there is no organized macro-conspiracy needed to explain this condition; common-or-garden human sin and epistemic limitations are enough. 

Wesley is adding fuel to the fires of fear, discontent and alienation. What is notable is that he names no authoritarian leader who is behind the plot striving to get into the cockpit of society; instead, he just stokes up resentment, blame and above all fear. He fails to see that the real dangers come from identifiable autocrats & potential autocrats who when their guile fails will use threat and coercion to impose their will. It is also notable such authoritarian leaders stoke up popularist fears and have a history of exploiting conspiracy theories and lies to apportion blame on covert actors that the popularists believe have got-it-in-for-them. See here for more on why I believe conspiracy theory to be a false theory society. (See also here)

I would challenge Wesley's understanding of how a society works and in particular the dynamic of societal authoritarianism; the means of authoritarianism is, as always, the good old fashioned overt dictator working through a brutal secret police. So, look out for the up and coming "strong-men" and not those ostensively good international causes no matter how misguided they might be; whilst accountable democracy still exists these causes can be openly argued over. 

Nevertheless, I have some sympathy with the reaction of the NAID community of which Welsey is part. They have been rejected by a highly secularized academic community, a community who have lost their way in regard to the meaning of life; they can only offer emptiness when in fact human instincts about ultimate purpose & meaning actually point elsewhere.  But the NAID community, as I have tried to show in this series, haven't helped themselves with the kind of nonsense they have served up and things have only got worse with them as they have accepted the welcoming embrace of the far-right. But they do have fragments of a case at least worth considering. Writing-off that case wholesale as pseudo-science has only help fuel the grievance politics that motivates Trumpite popularism and blights the academic community in the popularist imagination. 

I'm pretty sure Wesley, like Ken Ham, will be voting Trump, and in doing so he'll be voting for authoritarian control with knobs on.

Relevant Links:

1. Libertarians boo & heckle Trump!

See the links below for the complex pattern of divisions in the ranks of the far right, probably down to the inner contradictions of libertarianism: Try and reduce society to a folksy decentralized level and the demagogues of would-be authoritarian government rush into the power vacuum. These libertarians are finding out what "draining the swamp" means and are in collision with the unintended consequences of their views.

Trump suffered a 'stunning rebuke' in disastrous Saturday night speech: analyst (msn.com)

‘No wannabe dictators!’: Donald Trump booed at Libertarian convention | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

2. Evidence that the Trumpism is an entryist party and not Republican or conservative.

If Trump becomes dictator, pro-Putin Steve Bannon could jostle to be the next in line. He's a lot brighter than Trump and he's riding on Trump's back. Notice that he uses pseudo-Marxist terminology at one point.  If my guess at the long term is correct, then if the Trump/Bannon party get into power they'll form an alliance with Russia against China. So, if you are listening China, there's something there for you to think about. 

Trump's nomination could be 'stolen' by establishment conservatives, warns Steve Bannon (msn.com)

Some Quotes:

Donald Trump’s nomination as Republican candidate for President could be stolen by establishment conservatives, a close Trump advisor has warned.

Speaking exclusively to GB News, Stephen Bannon said that supporters of Nikki Haley, a previous opponent of President Trump, could attempt to “steal the nomination from Trump”.

“They think they have a plan like Cruz had in 2016 to actually try to steal the nomination from Trump at the convention which he should win overwhelmingly.”

“And the reason is they're conservatives, they only mouthed the principles of conservatism. They don't realise you also have to fight for those values"

In his exclusive hour-long sit down with GB News America, Bannon also warned of a potential third world war and slammed the (UK) Conservative Party as Left-wing “liars”.

The former Trump advisor and current radio host said if Britain continued down its current path, “You're going to have a revolution, and that revolution is going to be a violent revolution.”.

He described the current system as “late-stage finance capitalism in the City of London, late-stage capitalism and now becoming techno feudalism”.

Tim Ventura, Anti-Gravity, and The Philadelphia Experiment

The Fascinating World of Fringe Science

I ran the story below 18 years ago in 2006, back in the days before I had formed a conceptual framework for dealing with conspiracy theorism. The story is in fact my tongue-in-cheek retelling of the "Philadelphia Experiment" as told by Anti-gravity aficionado, Tim Ventura.  Well, I call him an "Anti-gravity aficionado" because that was then when he ran a websitre called "American Anti-Gravity": Since, Tim's actually moved on, enhanced the gravitas of his image by wearing a tie & suit rather than T-shirts and now has a YouTube channel where he interviews investigators and technologists who work on, to put it nicely, risky avant-garde science; that is, science at the boundaries of the accepted mainstream; some might call it "fringe-science", still others would call it pseudo-science! It's risky because professional dabblers in these borderline paranormal connections are putting their reputations and careers at risk

Tim Ventura's original telling of the "Philadelphia Experiment" can be found here.  I have to confess that the only Ventura interview I've watched was the one with Kevin Knuth whose fair-minded reasonableness actually did impress me. 

Other relevant links:

Quantum Non-Linearity: The Anti Gravity Road Show. (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Quantum Non-Linearity: An Identified Lying Object? (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Quantum Non-Linearity: The Bizarre Case of Bob Lazar. (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

***

Some years time ago, whilst I was working as a programmer, a software engineer who was aware of my physics background approached me and asked if I knew anything about LCR circuits. The outcome of the ensuing conversation was that I promised I would give him some information on the theory of these circuits, and subsequently I provided him with a couple of sheets of equations. He never did tell me just why he wanted this information. I knew him to be accomplished in both hardware and software engineering and I guessed he was engaged on some private hardware project. In time he left the company, but that was not the last I heard of him. Some years later I happened across an engineering magazine containing an article where he was being hailed as an inventor of a new device. The device? - A dimmer switch for fluorescent lighting. That’s a bit like managing to invent a tin of stripped paint. The magazine article claimed that my friend had been told that such a device was against the laws of physics.

Although I don’t think there really was any contravention of the laws of physics here, this engineer's attitude is in many ways typical of his class. He now has a consultancy and in his publicity material we read of: “ ….our radical and positive attitude. Where others might say ‘it's not possible’, we'll take up the challenge to inquire, improve and innovate.” As a theorist I like to keep an eye on the practical inventors; if anyone is going to test the laws of physics to breaking point it’s the engineers and inventors – their eye is on what they can actually achieve and not on what the laws of physics tells them they can’t do. They tinker around until they get what they want or stumble across something new, and if they manage to achieve this by dispensing with the laws of physics, so be it!

Perpetual motion has long been an interest of engineers and inventors, and the modern version of the perpetual motion aficionado can found amongst the “zero-point energy” web sites. The “zero-point energy” enthusiasts are not actually striving for perpetual motion as such, for their hope is now grounded in fundamental physics and they are seeking to harvest an inexhaustible supply of free energy by extracting it from the quantum fluctuations of space. These web sites are not for the girls – they don’t present sensitive green schemes that modestly gather energy from nature’s gentler and familiar forces of wind, wave and water, but instead these are very masculine projects that aim to hunt down and wrench energy from nature by exposing her deepest secrets. It is a boys story of daring do, a venture into the unknown for treasure, exceeding great treasure. And it’s not all amateurs: Professor Martin Fleishmann of cold fusion fame probably fits into this category.

However, my favourite cutting edge engineer-inventor web sites, for obvious reasons, are the antigravity sites. If there is such a thing as gravitational anomalies that break the mold of current gravitational theory then these men stand a good chance of finding them. Prominent among the antigravity workers is Tim Ventura. Dubbed as “The Linus Torvalds of Antigravity” he is the designer and constructor of the high voltage lifters popular amongst garage-based inventors (See leading picture accompanying this post). These ‘lifters’ are reckoned by some to demonstrate an antigravity effect, although it has to be said that the physics of these lifters looks suspiciously like the well-known ion wind effect rather than a true gravitational anomaly.

As well as constructing lifters Ventura spends a lot of time researching the background of antigravity, and he mixes with some colourful characters and tells some very colourful stories. One story he reports is so fantastic that it has provided material for film producers. It is a story of intrigue, misunderstood geniuses, secret Nazi projects, heroic refugee scientists, cover-ups, governmental conspiracies, sci-fi technology, flying saucers, you name it. It’s the physics version of The DaVinci Code, an admixture of all the ingredients of block-buster cinema. Does real life ever bring together all this in one convenient concentrate? It does in Tim's stories.

***

The story starts with that now legendary theoretical genius, Einstein. After developing his space-time curvature theory of gravity Einstein went on to attempt the development of a unified field theory that would incorporate electromagnetism; this much is well known. It is also well known that this had the effect of marginalizing Einstein from the mainstream of physics as the new kids on the block went on to develop quantum theory, a theory toward which Einstein expressed diffidence. Hence, the picture of Einstein in his later years is that of solitary genius working by himself into old age on a now forgotten project, a project that many today would regard as the work of a has-been. It is at this point that Ventura’s less substantiated narrative takes over. Taking up the testimony of some of his mysterious contacts Ventura hints that Einstein’s efforts to create a unified field theory were at least partly successful and when he escaped Nazi Germany and fled to America Einstein left a colleague in Germany who handed over the details of this theory to the Third Reich. The Nazis set up a research park under SS chief, Hans Kammler (pictured) where they endeavored to make use of Einstein’s unified field theory to develop new superiority weapons. Like "The DaVinci Code" Ventura’s story has real sites that you can actually visit and ponder the mystery. The research park is in Poland and you can enter its dank underground workshops. Above these workshops on the surface is a strange concrete construction (pictured), which, provided you have flying-saucers in mind, looks suggestively like a flying-saucer launch pad. In fact it looks like a modern-day Stonehenge and thereby accrues all the associated mystique of that much debated ancient structure.

The Nazis, it seems, did not succeed in bringing about a practical result. Instead the research park was overrun by the Russians, but not before one of the top scientists escaped to America. This scientist then provided vital input toward secret American military projects of which the most notorious was the infamous Philadelphia Experiment. 

So, what was the Philadelphia Experiment? It was an experiment that, like all promethium tamperings with the fundamentals of nature, went horribly wrong. It was intended that via an application of Einstein’s unified field theory rays of light would be bent round an object in such a way as to give it a cloak of invisibility. However, instead of merely providing a cloak of invisibility the experiment succeeded in teleporting the test object! And what was the test object? Was it an experimentally controlled carefully quantified block of metal? No. Was it a fly that accidentally got trapped in the apparatus? No. Was it a laboratory rat? No. Was it a tank? No. Was it some brave volunteer? No. It was nothing less than a whole battleship, crew and all! (USS Eldridge – pictured) Today there is a cast of colorful characters flitting in and out of the shade who are supposed to have some sort of connection with and/or knowledge of this experiment and know a lot more than they are letting on. Tim Ventura, of course, has had contact with some of these actors and like a modern day Tintin he is helping to bust the Governmental cover up and conspiracy surrounding the experiment.

I like Tim Ventura; he’s ambitious, he’s bright, he’s freelance, he’s fair-minded and he thinks big, but he has, perhaps, taken the male hankering after the Boys own adventure just a little too far. I recommend Tim's site, if like me, you find fiction rather tame compared to stuff that adds an extra twist by inextricably tangling fact with, let’s just say, some creative interpretations (a bit like the Jack the Ripper Dairies!) and thus presents the investigator with the interesting challenge of trying to extract the true story. Unfortunately, although I am a gravity investigator myself, I can’t come anywhere near matching this kind of drama, and this may be why I have to tell you about other people's adventures rather than my own. The story of my own encounter with the romantic force of gravity is utterly commonplace and banal. That story would include those holidays spent on the beach at the Norfolk seaside resort of Hemsby as I reflected on the problem of gravity, a problem that I increasingly felt was coming my way. Whilst the Children played in sand and sea I, between sips of tea from a vacuum flask, spent many hours with binoculars looking out to sea, pondering with amazement the bulging curvature of the planet Earth that becomes so apparent when good binoculars are used. I have always found that sight breath taking. To see the Earth as a planet from a height of just a few feet above sea level added a palpability to Arthur C Clarke’s technically competent 2001 trilogy of interplanetary travel, a trilogy I read through on more than one occasion during those Hemsby beach holidays. That’s about as near I got to intrigue and high adventure during my forays into Gravitational theory. Boring? No doubt, but then I can only tell it as it is.

The Compulsion of Conspiracy Theorism

 (This post also appeared on my Views, News and Pews blog, but to complete the collection on Quantum Non-Linearity I add it here as well)

                                        

I have recently compiled this analysis of an article by end-times pundit Wilfred Hahn. Below I've copied in the introduction to my analysis. 

1.     Introduction

      This document is best read in conjunction with my document here where I explore some of the pratfalls of conspiracy theorism. 

Conspiracy theorism is a pernicious evil that wracks democratic society; it undermines confidence and plays into the hands of tricksters and would-be-dictators who are looking for the disillusioned, the angry, the disaffected, the traumatised and the paranoid as an easy-sell for their concocted rumours of conspiracy & blame in order to justify a power grab. The cut & thrust and the open contensions natural to an accountable democracy exacerbates the insecurity of those targeted by would-be-despots who perceive democratic debate and its rancour as a sign of weakness and failure.

Of course, in societies where dictatorship has been successfully installed (e.g. Putin’s Russia) there is sufficient autocratic media control to block all conspiracies theories but the one put out by the protection racketeers in charge. In totalitarian and authoritarian states government may be headed by a demagogue figure who is portrayed as the only truth teller.

In this document I look at a web article by Christian end-times pundit Wilfred Hahn.  He consciously avoids fanciful conspiracy theories peddled by web enabled theorists. These theorists join the dots of social history into ramifying plots hatched by hidden nefarious operators who are said to be the evil geniuses behind current affairs. Hahn’s overall thesis is that an integrated economic system facilitated by enhanced technology, social integration and a world market makes the idea of international centralized social control by an anti-Christ an all too plausible scenario. I would not disagree with this conclusion.

But as we shall see, although Hahn identifies no specific baroque conspiracy behind current affairs he nevertheless informs us that the history of progress is a product of a conspiracy intended to bring about an anti-Christ power grab. He therefore inadvertently plays into the hand of conspiracy theorists by leaving the edges of the map blank and making statements to the effect that “Here be Monsters”. Therefore the active imaginations of the disillusioned, the angry, the disaffected, the traumatised and the paranoid are encouraged to fill in those spaces with fanciful entities which explain and make sense of their fears and anger: Such will take their eyes off up & coming world-dictators and instead they will focus on the fanciful intrigue imagined to be going on behind the scenes. All this will play into the hands of an antichrist.

It’s with reluctance that I relate my anticipation that many Christians are well set up to be duped by up-and-coming dictators who use conspiracy theories to exploit Christian diffidence about the democratic West where freedom of expression & choice is a prime moral value.  It is ironic that reformation Christianity opened the way to a sequence of events that ultimately gave Western populations the choice to accept or reject the core message of Christianity. This very freedom of choice was built into Christianity along with many other aspects of the democratic West where the concept that community serves the individual (and vice versa) along with the freedom to dissent still has a very strong hold on Western minds. The irony was that Christ’s take-it-or-leave-it presentation of Himself turned out to contain the seeds of the possible demise of core Christianity in the West.

As a reaction against the marginalisation and decay of core Christianity in the West it seems that some Christians consequently find common ground with potential dictators and will support a dictators cause as the price for the restoration of their traditional authoritarian view of society. (e.g Hitler, Trump and Putin). In any case many of those Christians come from sects with a culture that has a high view of demagogic leadership and may even seek to bring about a Christian social authoritarianism bordering on dominionism.  My guess is that Christianity will become debatable ground during the end times; by that I mean demagogues will claim to be working for Christianity.

Concerning Conspiracy Theorism

In this document I use my interleaved commentary format to counter Covid 19 vaccination conspiracy theories. My host in this case is someone I shall call Agent-Y. Agent-Y may (or may not) be a fiction or partly a fiction from my imagination, an agent provocateur invented to act as a sounding board for anti-conspiracy theory theory. I preproduce  the introduction to "Concerning conspiracy theorism" below.  

Introduction

This small book concerns the modern day phenomenon of conspiracy theorism. The layout of this book takes the form of an email discussion with someone I shall call Agent-Y. I think of Agent-Y as having projected themselves into the psyche of an advocate for conspiracy theorism and thereby giving us a window into their world view. But I must caution here that Agent-Y may or may not be a fictional or partially fictional character. That is, Agent-Y could be a figment of my imagination created in order to bring out the errors of the conspiracy theorist world view.

Conspiracy theorists seek to make sense of social reality with their “join-the-dots” explanatory narratives, narratives whose chief feature are shadowy and malign agencies who, it is alleged, subtly direct the course of history from behind their cover. These nefarious agencies, we are told, are hidden deceivers whose all but omniscient information and control is a major source of social angst.  The true motive of these hidden agencies is not always clear but the old-fashioned lust for power, wealth & glory is often implicated. But “glory” is problematical if power & wealth isn’t public. As we shall see this is just one aspect of conspiracy theorism which cuts across what we know about human nature.

This book starts with the Loveworld  news item which appeared in the January 21 edition of Premier Christianity magazine (See left). Loveworld is a Christian satellite TV channel that was airing false conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 virus. This group believed that the social dynamic surrounding Covid-19 to be the planned product of mysterious conspirators who have such exquisite information and control that they can both effectively rule and at the same time remain almost completely undercover to most us, except of course to the enlightened conspiracy theorists who can pride themselves in having cracked the code of appearances and seen behind the façade to the underlying secret of the “deep state” illuminati.

I have written articles criticising the “Fearlosophy“ behind conspiracy theorism elsewhere, but in this short book I enlist the help of the capable Agent-Y who has succeeded in getting into the psychology of the conspiracy theorist and reveals their inmost fears and thoughts that drive them.  Without the help of Agent-Y this work would not have been possible. The identity of Agent-Y is above top secret and this means that I can’t even reveal whether (s)he is real or just a fiction created by myself or someone else’s imagination. Agent-Y may or may not be my alter ego or the alter ego of someone who is working with me.

This book then, like conspiracy theory itself, may be a creative artistic license, a fiction, but which integrates itself into reality with probing tentacles. To quote H G Wells’ Time Traveler in chapter 16 of his book The Time machine……

Consider I have been speculating on the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?

The Sea of Faith

An extract from Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach" published in 1867

A friend of mine sent me this link to an article entitled "Christianity is Collapsing" by an atheist who is triumphant about the decline of Christianity in America as measured by statistics. These statistics are no surprise to me, of course, and any case we have a long term decline in the UK although it would be wrong to call it a "collapse" - that's hopeful rhetoric among some entrenched anti-Christians. Of particular interest to me is just how much some of the recent eccentric expressions of Christianity  are bound up with this decline (Viz: extreme right-wing fundamentalism, young earthism, geocentrism, flat earthism, Christian conspiracy theorism,  fideism, gnosticism, Covid denial, anti vaxxers, anti-climate change lobby, the Trump followers etc). Anyway here was my reply.

Thanks for the link to the article! V. V. interesting to read!

The overall stats are likely correct as it concurs with other stats I've heard about. Of course a vested interested atheist is going to use emotive terms like "collapse" to describe this trend, terms which really describe his hopes rather than what actually may come to pass in due course. These social trends tend to be chaotically cyclic as the relevant variables are coupled into non-linear feedback loops.

What is referred to as "Christianity" actually resolves into at least three groups; fundamentalist, non-fundamentalist evangelicals and liberal (Further sub divisions are possible, no doubt!*). Along with atheists we then have population flows between these groups plus kids growing up and identifying with one or the other group and people dying from all groups. What the net result and the true story is behind it all that would require a lot of stats studies to find out. 

If there is some kind of polarising trend going on with a net loss from a broad church of Christian persuasions then as often happens in a period of crisis of confidence fundamentalism tends to consolidate itself and become more extreme & self assertive by way of reaction. Fundamentalists gain from anti-establishment & counter-cultural feelings and the disaffection which goes together with a puzzling social milieu. For example there has been a recent growth in flat earth Christian fundamentalism; they might well portray that small increase as a recovery and restoration of the true faith, congratulate themselves and see it as the start of a success story! They will also likely blame Christians who don't follow their particular brand of fundamentalism for the decline in Christianity (as does Ken Ham for example). 

But just how can we measure the number of people these fundamentalist clowns, who see themselves as the epitome of true faith, are alienating, putting off and becoming hostile toward Christianity? They certainly put me off and I'm a Christian, so I guess they must also alienate a lot of people who might otherwise give at least a little space to the faith. There are some fundamentalist to atheist conversion testimonies out there telling us that young earthism and its scientific failure was their reason for converting to atheism. 

America (on which the article in based) seems to be a very passionately polarising sort of country, especially at the moment; the extreme right, including the Christian right, are thoroughly disaffected from the establishment, culturally & politically. The consolidation of a cranky fundamentalism which is a disparate mix of young earthism, flat earthism, conspiracy theorism and all sorts of eccentricities is to my mind likely to be one of the factors behind the general cultural run-down of the faith and its alienation from the wider populace. But coupled feedback relationships abound in society and fundies of all brands will be reacting to the extremes of the opposite side; extreme and unreasonable anti-theists, Marxists & postmodernists also have a culpability here. The only good news is that such cybernetic couplings usually involve cycles. So wait for a swing back! Let's remember, for example, that atheism welcomes one to a potentially empty, nihilist, meaningless, purposeless, postmodern and random world! There will be a reaction to that!

Footnote

* I suppose you'd have to include Catholics in this mix among many others (e.g. Mormons)

Epistemology, Ontology, Creation and Salvation

A fundamentalist and young earth creationist goes over the top in more than one sense.

But I was ready for him.

I recently finished compiling a reply to a Christian fundamentalist who sent me a 13 page document criticising my stand against young earthism. Let me say straight away that it was nice of him to spend so much time trying put me back on the straight and narrow. He meant well although it is true that he is probably a bit of a curmudgeon and being a fundamentalist was, from the outset, suspicious of my motives for believing what I do. But I couldn't let it go. So I took my spiritual life into my hands and over the course of no less than two years I slowly dissembled his arguments and added another 80 odd pages to those 13 pages. On sending him the first draft the outcome however was inevitable; he was after all a fundamentalist: My name was mud! Below are a couple of extracts from the preface to my book length reply:

***

The format of this book has been styled as a reply to the contents of a 13 page document compiled and sent to me by a Christian fundamentalist & Young Earth Creationist. I shall call him Joe Smith. That 13 page document was in turn a response to a short PDF I sent him. It was very nice of Joe to reply at length to my initial PDF. But having lured him to go over the top only to have me use his arguments, like WWI troops, as target practice for my machine gun, it all smacked of dirty tricks to Joe’s suspicious fundamentalist mind and he accused me of sucker punching him. 

***

I will leave the real name & identity of Joe Smith as an enigma; although the original Smith arose out of a real correspondence that now may or may not be the case: I may or may not have concocted him from bits of Christian fundamentalist reality for the sake of illustration and for the purpose of bringing to the foreground the salient points I wish to make. Just how real or unreal this person is, need not come into it. Joe Smith is an abstraction, perhaps even another Simplico after all. But as an abstraction he has given me the opportunity to showcase in this book important technical matters whose implications go far beyond a singular debate with this or that fundamentalist: Namely:

1.      Epistemic distance & epistemic amenability.

2.    That the fundamentalist sound-bite that there is a difference between historical science and observational science is an incoherent & scientifically harmful notion.

3.      Time irreversibility and messaging.

4.      The signalling cosmos and creative integrity.

5.      The difference between historical (H) vs. algorithmic (A) descriptions and their respective epistemic distances.

6.      The interdependence of H and A.

7.      The nature of standard evolution.

8.      Interpreting the Bible.

9.      The right way to read Genesis 1.

The primary focus of this book is actually epistemological and about just how far short many fundamentalists (and secondarily some atheists) fall in their understanding of epistemology.

Timothy V Reeves, June 2021

ADDENDUM 14/07/21

Sympathy with Ken Ham!

That the fundamentalist tendency to use a polarised puritanical polemic to depict social reality is too simplistic becomes apparent when even someone like myself can sympathetically align with fundamentalists on certain issues (as ought to be clear from my book). Take this example from Ken Ham's blog: Viz: 

https://answersingenesis.org/racism/scientific-american-publishes-error-filled-hit-piece/

It's titled Scientific American Publishes Error-Filled Hit Piece, Claiming Genesis Is Racist. The piece Ken is talking about was written by Alison Hopper who according to Ken is a film maker. Ken's post includes part of the following quote from the offending Scientific American article, an article sensationally titled Denial of Evolution is a Form of White Supremacy Viz: 

At the heart of white evangelical creationism is the mythology of an unbroken white lineage that stretches back to a light-skinned Adam and Eve. In literal interpretations of the Christian Bible, white skin was created in God's image. Dark skin has a different, more problematic origin. As the biblical story goes, the curse or mark of Cain for killing his brother was a darkening of his descendants' skin. Historically, many congregations in the U.S. pointed to this story of Cain as evidence that Black skin was created as a punishment.

The fantasy of a continuous line of white descendants segregates white heritage from Black bodies. In the real world, this mythology translates into lethal effects on people who are Black. Fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible are part of the “fake news” epidemic that feeds the racial divide in our country.

It's likely true that East and West versions of Christianity have disproportionately portrayed Adam and Eve as white Europeans thus effectively promulgating an almost unconscious systemic racism.  Moreover, I can't speak for the whole history of fundamentalist brands who from time to time may (or may not) have identified the mark of Cain with Black skin; but I've never heard of any Christian groups who have have made this identification. Also, it is clear from Ken's article that it has never occurred to AiG to promote such a harmful notion and AiG certainly don't teach what Hopper is slanderously claiming. This is Hopper interpolating the contemporary concept of a heinous sin and putting these "modern blasphemies" into the mouths of innocents, inquisitional style. It certainly doesn't follow that denial of evolution necessarily entails racism any more than belief in evolution necessarily entails racism (as some anti-evolution Christians might try to maintain).

In any case I wonder if Hopper really understands evolution. In my book Epistemology, Ontology, Creation and Salvation I talk of the difference between evolution as natural history (H) and evolution as algorithm or mechanism (A), two very distinct meanings; one can be in a position where one believes one but not the other. Does one automatically classify as racist in Hopper's eyes if one challenges the status quo on evolution? Sounds as though Hopper believes one does, and who knows, if her ideas catch on the virtuous thought police may be knocking at your door! Authors like Hopper who are claiming to fight for the black cause are actually doing harm to that cause by caricaturing it so badly.

All in all it seems that some of the new watchers of our morals can be just as inquisitional & threatening as fundamentalists:  If they are anything like Hopper they too see the world through polarised spectacles; we are all labelled as racists if we don't believe what Hopper believes. But really there is no surprise here: The fact is these new moral guardians are flawed humanity like the rest of us and therefore tempted by the same draw to polarising extremism as are fundamentalists. The resultant effect of Hopper's false accusations will only entrench fundamentalists further into their embattled stance and confirm to them that the world of outsiders is out to get them. 

Finally it's important to note that at the end of this sensationally twisted article Scientific American adds a disclaimer.....

This is an opinion and analysis article; the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

They've made sure they've washed their hands then!

NOTE: The de facto Intelligent Design web site, Uncommon Descent, also comment on this article:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-pj-media-a-response-to-religious-claims-made-in-scientific-americans-denial-of-evolution-is-white-supremacy-piece/

ADDENDUM 20/08/21

Lack of sympathy with Ken Ham!

In a post dated 19 August and entitled Do Conservatives have a “Difficult Relationship with Science”?  We find Ken peddling his usual anti-science notions about the difference between observational science and historical science (sic), a matter I address in the book linked to in this post. In Ken's post we find the usual cliché surfing that Ken is inclined to do on this subject:

But what the author is failing to recognize is the difference between observational and historical science. In other words, this author has a “difficult relationship with science” because the author doesn’t understand the word science. You see, very few people have a so-called “difficult relationship with science” when it comes to observational science. Observational science is studying what is directly testable, observable, and repeatable. It’s the kind of science that uses the scientific method and builds our technology and medical innovations. Both creationists and evolutionists agree on observational science......But this is very different from historical science. This kind of science deals with the past—which cannot be directly tested, observed, or repeated

As I show in my book this is both false & incoherent anti-science nonsense. He simply doesn't understand epistemology any more than does Joe Smith. Instead he claims others don't understand the word science because they don't take onboard his intellectual gimcrack. He can get this nonsense past his naïve supporters and that's all that matters to Answers in Genesis

Make it IDist proof and along comes a better IDist

                                 

In a Panda's Thumb post dated 5th May Evolutionary Mathematician Joe Felsenstein criticises Intelligent Design aficionado Granville Sewell for making the claim that the following problem is unsolvable: According to Sewell that problem is, how do we...

#3 Explain how life could have originated and evolved into intelligent humans, through entirely natural (unintelligent) processes.

Felsenstein quotes Sewell where Sewell explains why he thinks the foregoing problem is unsolvable (Emphases are mine):

Well, I have a very simple proof  [*GASP!*] that the biological problem #3 posed above is also impossible to solve, that does fit in the margin of this document. All one needs to do is realize that if a solution were found, we would have proved something obviously false, that a few (four, apparently) fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into libraries full of science texts and encyclopedias, computers connected to monitors, keyboards, laser printers and the Internet, cars, trucks, airplanes, nuclear power plants and Apple iPhones.

Is this really a valid proof? It seems perfectly valid to me, as I cannot think of anything in all of science that can be stated with more confidence than that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could not have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones.

The irony is that the chief weakness of Sewell's argument is due to potential internal inconsistency in his world view; for presumably Sewell's a Christian theist who like myself believes in a created cosmos; all of it & not just some bits that God did! That means as far as we know those so-called "unintelligent natural forces" and their constants might have been intelligently selected to ensure that the evolution of life somewhere in the universe has a high probability given the size of the cosmos. If you are a Christian you are not supposed to be a dualist who sees the "natural world" as somehow, well.... natural and therefore inferior in some way; it is after all the creation of an omniscient omnipotence. 

Now, although many respected evangelical Christians are not at all adverse to evolution in terms of the proposed mechanisms of change (e.g. Tom Wright, Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, Simon Conway-Morris, John Polkinghorne)  I myself do entertain considerable doubts about those mechanisms (But I accept the story of natural history - an important distinction there). My issue with evolution revolves around whether a structure I call the spongeam exists in configuration space (See links at end). But having said that I probably have more in common with these evangelicals than I do the de facto Intelligent Designers like Sewell who see the world through polarising filters, in this case  a natural forces vs God did it intelligent agency dichotomy. The logical outcome of this subliminally dualist world view is the kind of crass argumentation we get from Sewell which he then presents as a perfectly valid "proof". 

Given my doubts about standard evolutionary mechanisms and my I belief that Divine intelligence has acted and continues to proactively act in creation, particularly the creation of life, one might think I would find common cause with people like Sewell in spite of their dualism. But no, there is no chance of that; Politics has seen off that possibility. The de facto ID culture along along with its ugly fundamentalist sisters (Like Answers in Genesis) has gravitated toward the extreme right-wing even in some cases voicing the conspiracy theories of a "stolen" 2020 US election. Rejected by the academic establishment the de facto ID movement have fallen into the arms of right-wing "drain-the-swamp" fantasists whose liar-in-chief is Donald Trump, a man who seeks to overthrow the necessarily  argumentative, factionalism  & fractiousness of democracy with the illusion of a bucolic volk-libertarianism.*. To this far-right community the middle ground politics of Joe Biden looks like the far left! 

 

On the Spongeam

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/evolution-naked-chance.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-mathematics-of-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/02/on-structuralism-and-spongeam.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/11/intelligent-designs-2001-space-odyssey.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/06/algorithms-searches-dualism-and_13.html

Footnote

* The wealth making and innovating energy of the market is without doubt, but unfortunately that energy sometimes thrashes uncontrollably: The non-linear instabilities of the market and its power law wealth spectrum, often perceived as unjust, are liable to fuel alienation and far left socialism.  Community identification & the highly localised "serve yourself" operation of the market often find themselves at odds. Somehow the best of the free market and the best of community values have to be reconciled - the alternative is volk-libertarianism which will  generate a counter culture of alienation and extreme socialism. See here: https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2020/07/marx-vs-smith_30.html

Science Ignoramus

The following letter sent to Norfolk & Norwich's Eastern Evening News is a priceless gem of science illiteracy. I don't have the date of the paper: I just happened to stumble across the letter  recently already in clipped form. 

As is the way with this kind of thing I did at first wonder if the letter originated from some mischievous journalist wanting to stir up a big mail bag for the letters page, but that we appear to have a name and address counts against that.

I'm sure 1930s schooling couldn't have been that bad, so it's likely that Fred has forgotten some very basic lessons and is also failing to put 2 and 2 together: "CO2 is most definitely not emitted from vehicle or aircraft exhausts et alia....." *GASP*!

The above letter isn't worth critiquing. In any case I'm sure the Evening News got their big post bag (& email box) of intelligent critics teaching Fred a thing or two about elementary science - at least I hope they did; it would restore my faith in Norwich people's grasp of reality! 

In spite of picking up at least some (if not enough!) lessons from the educational establishment in the 1930s Fred now effectively dismisses that establishment and writes them off as "learned" pundits telling us "squit". Paranoid delusions about a government plot to make money have filled in the spaces of his ignorance. If he's still alive today and a web user then he would be fertile ground for covid 19 conspiracy theorism!

Certainly, the establishment isn't exactly angelic (one need only think of Boris Johnson); that establishment is, after all, populated with sinners like the rest of us. But those who perceive the machinations of Machiavellian motives driving a baroque Agatha Christie style plot behind every government move are a nutritious seed bed for conspiracy stories. When the intuitions and feelings tell one that something is wrong and that one is otherwise unable to discover or articulate what is wrong, the "left brain", or what Steven Pinker has called the "baloney generator", gets to work to rationalise one's fears and invents an explanatory story; perhaps a story of conspiracy. Failure to see that one could be part of the problem need not enter into this story, for one may well be suffering from what Kenneth Clark calls that most fatal of delusions - one sees oneself as virtuous! This is what far-right popularism looks like at grass roots level. If exploited by a would-be-dictator self-righteous popularism is a ready tool for an opportunist to attempt to overthrow the argumentative, messy & factious democratic status quo. It's ironic that establishment overthrow is exactly what the far left also seeks. Marx, however, did correctly perceive that alienation is an aspect of even democratic societies and in fact are part and parcel with a democratic society; that's because democracy must (by definition) give space to dissention.