Classic Dualism

Courtesy of the Faraday Institute

I'm part of a Facebook group called Evangelicals for Evolutionary Creation. This is not to say that I've committed myself to standard Evolutionary thinking, but I feel that this group are worthy thinkers to keep an eye on. However, somebody put the following comment on their FB feed....

So I’m getting toward the end of Origins by the Haarsmas. A question arises, if abiogenesis is true, how does this not prove that life can happen without God? This kind of concerns me and it seems to be an open question in evolutionary creationism.

I believe that "Haarsmas" is a reference to Deborah Haarsma, the current president of Biologos, the Christian evolutionary creation organisation. I didn't comment on this statement as the Evolutionary Creation people are more than capable of critiquing such a breathtakingly naive perspective, a perspective with widespread appeal among both Christians and atheists. On this view it's a binary choice: "Either God did it or evolution did it"

I've no doubt said something like the following many times before: Since the enlightenment Western science has merely shown us that the cosmos is sufficiently organized for us to form succinct mathematical statements describing its dynamics. As many Christians fully understand, those descriptions in and of themselves only tell us about the "how?" of the cosmos and not the "why?" - but the "why?" is only a meaningful question if one first accepts that sentience, intelligence and purpose are a priori features of existence.

 If  anything this strange mathematical descriptive elegance only compounds the enigma of the cosmos and tells us little about absolute origins; that is, the ultimate gap, a gap that descriptive science is logically incapable of filling and if pressed simply leaves us with an elegant-descriptions-all-the-way-down regress. In fact, since we have no logically obliging reason for the continued existence of the contingencies of our cosmic reality that ultimate gap is everywhere and everywhen. 

And yet the dualistic view expressed by the above quote is the common default: That is "either God did it or cosmic processes did it"; the underlying assumption of this perspective is that somehow the enigma of cosmic organization has a logical self sufficiency which at best only leaves room for the God of deism or at worst no God at all. Such a perspective might have its origins in the early enlightenment/industrial era when it started to become much clearer that mechanisms (such as a steam regulator & automata) could be developed which meant that machines looked after their own running. The popularist conclusion was that the cosmos must be that kind of mechanism. Such mechanisms appeared not to need any prayerful ritualistic support or mystical input of any kind to continue. On this perspective sacredness seems to have been purged from what was now thought of as a self sustaining profane cosmos. 

But the realization that such mechanisms were so startingly sophisticated enough to beg the question of their design seems to have been lost on many people: One such person in our modern era is (atheist?) theologian Don Cupitt of the Sea of Faith movement. Also, blowhard atheist Richard Carrier is of this ilk. Carrier is so convinced by the sophistry of his flawed view of probability and randomness that he believes probability to be logically sufficient to fill in the God-gap.  And yet Carrier succeeded in identifying that our cosmic context lacks some logically self-sufficient kernel, although Carrier's erroneous concept of probability doesn't provide that kernel. 

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It is surely ironic that the self same virtuoso cosmic organization which for some fills in the God-gap actually intensifies the nagging enigma of the absolute origins question; the contingent particularity of that organization is amazing. In fact as I have shown, evolution itself (if it has occurred) is effectively creationism on steroids.  And yet it is the underlying dualism of God vs evolution that much of the North America Intelligent Design movement (NAID) trades on. They will deny it of course, but whenever they open their mouths it is easy to see that they are exploiting the popularist God-of-the-gaps "Intelligence vs blind natural forces" dichotomy. To attack standard evolution on the scientific basis that the evidence is insufficient is one thing but to attack it on the basis of a half-cocked dualist philosophy is quite another - and I put it to the NAID community that although they affect to claim theirs is a scientific dispute their ulterior reasoning is in fact based on the popular appeal of their philosophical dualism, whatever they might claim. That appeal, however, is understandable I suppose because the above quote from a Facebook page is in fact the tip of a huge market iceberg of popularist thinking which the NAID's dichotomized explanations address and by which they make their money, trade and continue in mutual backslapping. For more on NAID see here, here and here.

NOTE: Luskin's God-of-the-Gaps paradigm

As I've made it clear before I don't think much of NAID theorist Casey Luskin's competence as an apologist for Intelligent Design. This post on Evolution News, which describes Luskin's views, cements his reputation as a God-or-of-the-Gaps apologist.  As I've said above I have no intellectual commitment to standard evolutionary theory, but what is clear, evolution or no evolution, one cannot get away from the question of intelligent design. That Luskin is so anti-evolution, a priori, is evidence that he still thinks subliminally in dualist and atheist categories in so far as he believes it to be  a choice between "blind natural forces vs intelligent design"..... where he interprets evolution atheistically in terms of "blind natural forces". Ergo, Luskin is a God-of-the-Gaps apologist whatever he claims. 

Abracademia

The above cartoon, very appropriately named Abracademia, appeared on PZ Myers' blog where he comments:

It makes a good point, that magic isn’t an explanation for much of anything — you need some chain of causality and evidence, with some mechanism at each step. You don’t just get to say “it’s magic” or “it’s a miracle.” 

Bonus, the comic pokes fun at that absurd ad hoc magic system in the Harry Potter books that is nothing but lazy plot gimmicks.

I know that PZ Myers has got a downer on JK Rowling and that explains some of his aversion to H. Potter, but I ask myself this: Do I agree with him? Sort of, but I'll have to qualify. 

Firstly, the cartoon starts off with a chair that is actually being levitated by, well, "magic". So in this context, whatever "magic" is within this cartoon world, it is predicated as a real phenomenon. So given that this so-called magic is real our young heroine in the cartoon does have a point: The curious have every right to usefully ask: "How's it done?" By smoke and mirrors? By thin wire suspension? By a newly discovered anti-gravity ray? Or by something even more exotic (like psychokinesis) of which we know nothing? I assume that when Myers tells us there's need for some explanatory chain of causation along with its accompanying evidence, he's asking for a closer linked cause and effect connection than the utterance of "Floatularis" and the wave of the wand; otherwise, there is a big gap there!

In our world cause-and-effect entails the transmission of the energy & information from A to B. So where's the energy & information coming from to lift that chair?  But then this question presumes that the energy/signal transfer paradigm is the correct one to use. Perhaps it doesn't work like that at all when we are dealing with so-called "magic"! But assuming that the cause-and-effect paradigm applies here by what mysterious ways does energy get from A to B? Cause-and-effect "explanations" fill in some of the "in-between" details and often in ways that allows those details to be predicted using those succinct laws of physics to generate those details. But apart from this clever mathematical trickery I have to confess that's as far as our understanding goes and just why those physical algorithms work is as good as "magic"! As I would contend, this kind of science is, in the final analysis, mere description, albeit clever description that comes out of asking the kind of questions our heroin above, at risk of her life, is asking. Of course, it may be possible to further improve on the elegance and comprehensiveness of the laws of physics in hand but in an absolute sense the descriptive role of science's physical "algorithms" means that ultimately it leaves us with wall of explanatory incompleteness, what is in fact an explanatory silence. It's ironic that as science fills in the gaps with more descriptive details, we zoom in only to find just more finely spaced gaps! 

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So, is it all magic & mystery? No, it's not magic and the mystery is better described as the miraculous, an idea pregnant with meaning which stimulates curiosity and prompts further questions. Contrast that with a purely secular take on the cosmic perspective which posits the organization of the universe as either a meaningless brute fact or proposes that the apparent selective contingency of cosmic organization is a human perspective effect on the infinite sea of randomness in a multiverse. It goes to show that a magical paradigm is not the only way of thinking which stifles curiosity.  Do you hear "multiverse" and just stop asking questions?

We really need to supplement the past tense question "Where did it all come from?"

 with the present tense continuous question " Where is it all coming from?

Relevant Link:

Quantum Non-Linearity: Something comes from Something: Nothing comes from Nothing. Big Deal (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Science & Faith in Norfolk Lecture Notes 21 September

Norwich Cathedral west end where a skeleton of a diplodocus is currently on display.

The wife and I attended the lecture at Norwich Cathedral by Nick Spencer of Theos. The lecture came under the auspices of Science and Faith in Norfolk and was titled "Dinosaurs, Evolution and Religion".  Although I was familiar with much of the story Spencer related, below I log some notes on salient points. (I've also embedded some comments of my own in square brackets): 

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Science & Faith in Norfolk Lecture 21 September. Nick Spencer

The "Warfare Thesis" of science vs religion is invalid. For example Galileo was not arguing against Christianity but the failure of Aristotelian "science". [I believe he also was perceived to have shown disrespect for the authority of the religious leaders of the day - the problem was less with his science than his lack of deference to authority and lack of diplomacy when dealing with it] 

The idea of man evolving from other primates appeared to blur the distinction between man and the animal kingdom and this upset many. [Evolution was less the issue than was the perceived demeaning of human life and an apparent concomitant loss of its sacredness] But Darwin's Origins was a storm in a teacup compared to the reaction to "Essays and Reviews". 

Huxley was one of the first professional scientists: The word "scientist" was coined in 1834. His problem was with the authority of amateurs like Bishop Wilberforce who were making unfounded dogmatic  pronouncements on evolution. Wilberforce, on the other hand, was concerned with humanity: He was indignant about the belittling of humanity. (But evolution isn't the only perspective on humanity). There was a mismatch of underlying motive here.

As if to confirm the fears of the dehumanizing effect of Darwinism, in 1901 the pygmy Ota Benga was exhibited in the monkey house of Bronx Zoo and portrayed as a missing link. Black ministers were enraged that this exhibition made a beast of the pygmy. In reaction these black ministers stressed the soul of man, setting him apart from animals. [The fault line between the third person perspective vs the first person perspective was opening up between the practitioners of science and religion respectively]

But man isn't just an evolved primate. We need to understand humans in subjective and first person terms. There is "I and you" as well as an "it". We aren't just an "it". Spencer's point was that evolution dealt with the "it" only.

The expanse of time also raised questions. Why so much time between humans and dinosaurs? Spencer was asked this question by a child: His response was that important things take time. cf: Carl Sagan's quip about the time needed to make an apple pie.

Points made during Q&A time:

There are human values well mixed into science that are needed to make it work - truthfulness and integrity. 

There is a replication crisis in some sciences - many psychological studies can't be replicated. 

At what point did we become human? Where's the threshold? There is the "human revolution" of 30,000 years ago. 

Even Monkey's have a sense of fairness. Evolution isn't just about competition - it can also favour cooperation and altruism [But even taking into account the evolution of altruism, nature still comes over as utterly ruthless and impersonal, favoring only a survival ethic. This observed ruthlessness, especially when put together with the death of Darwin's daughter, slowly sucked the life out of Darwin's faith (and the faith of others too - it was yet another manifestation of the problem of suffering and evil)]

FURTHER COMMENTS

I'm glad to see that Spencer made the point about the internal first person perspective. As I've said before everything hangs on this perspective: Without it life becomes a meaningless simulacrum (See my "consciousness" label). 

What I will say however, is that the findings of systematic science have been and remain a challenge to an anthropocentric perspective on the cosmos even to the extent that some, fooled by the language games of the third person perspective, have attempted to deny the reality of the conscious first person perspective. Although distorted by polarized interests, the humanity vs mechanism fault line that was coming very much to the fore in 18th and 19th centuries is evidenced in Spencer's lecture material. (See also here). But here's a point I've made before: It's easier to design & make a car than it is to design & make a machine that designs and builds cars. It seems that in the cosmos we have something more like the latter. But it comes with overheads. 

This is a picture of the lecture video camera screen. I can be seen taking a picture of the screen. I'm on the far right at the edge of the small  audience. The diplodocus skeleton can be seen in the middle background. 

NB:  Science and Faith in Norfolk along with the Faraday Institute are the go to people for Christians interested in Science & Faith in the UK. In these days of cranky christian trends promoting crackpot conspiracy theories and anti-science notions about a flat earth and/or young earth, a source of technical & scientific competence such as we see in these institutions is sorely needed.

Links:

Network Norfolk : Dinosaurs, evolution and religion lecture (networknorwich.co.uk)

Talkative Tuesday - Dinosaurs, Evolution and Religion - YouTube

Watson, Crick, Franklin, Wilkins & Scientific Wisdom.

DNA Pioneers: James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin. 

See : https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/dna_checklist

I recently re-watched a video I had recorded way back in the March of 2003. It was recorded from the UK's Channel 4 and was entitled DNA: The secret of life. It told the story of the discovery of the structure of DNA. James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins appeared on the programme. Also appearing was Raymond Gosling who at the time was a PhD student and lab assistant to Rosalind Franklin. According to the program Franklin and Wilkins of King's College were the experimentalists who generated the X-Ray diffraction patterns which so helped Crick and Watson to successfully theorise about the structure of DNA. It's not that the King's College team weren't theorists themselves, but they also did the hard work of getting the necessary experimental data about DNA. It is very easy to put Crick and Watson into the role of the "lazy lads" who just theorised together down at the pub and let others do the hands-on science. That they appeared to be riding on the backs of others was the cause of tension. But whatever, they were clearly very bright guys who can rightly claim credit for making the right inferences from the data. It didn't help the King's College team that Franklin and Wilkins had a poor relationship; in contrast it seems that Watson and Crick worked well together (and drank well together!). Also, that Franklin was a pretty woman in a largely man's world may have introduced frustrating pressures and detrimentally affected her attitudes. Or perhaps she was just a awkward personality.

The programme tells us of Watson and Crick's first attempt at a model. The King's College team came to have a look at this model. But when Rosalind Franklin saw it she laughed out loud; in the light of the experimental data the King's team had accumulated the model was clearly wrong. Watson & Crick were suffering from their working in a too rarified experimental semi-vacuum. Then one day Wilkins, who seems to have been an obliging sort of character, showed Watson an X shaped diffraction pattern that the King's team had obtained. Watson and Crick knew immediately that this implied DNA was a double helix and they went on to develop the correct model we are all familiar with.  Lab assistant Ray Gosling takes up the story:

Wilkins undoubtedly (and I think if you ask him he will say he did), if there are any cats to be let out of any bags, he had done it.

To which Wilkins responded:

Well I suppose it's perfectly true, but science isn't supposed to be kept in bags, no more than cats. I mean, I don't know what he means but I don't like as a scientist working away and sort of "Oh no! I mustn't tell the other scientists". I don't think it's the way to be working. Science ought to be an open activity, so you can work as a community. 

Well yes, in theory, that's the ideal world: that's wisdom we should aspire to, take home and act on: But no, we aren't in that kind of world; we're in a human world. Human beings can't be so detached and dispassionate. Competition, reputations, making a name for yourself, not to mention wealth & fame are at stake and have a strong tendency to trump the cooperation and community effort thing. The consequent mutual distrust means that people keep their cards close to their chests. Competition vs community effort! It's all very reminiscent of the capitalist conundrum of free market vs community.  And yet again I'm reminded of Philippians 2:1-11 which seems to be the key to community living. 

During the program, Maurice Wilkins also came out with another pearl of Wisdom. As we've seen Crick and Watson's first model was laughed off stage by Rosalind Franklin. But of this failed attempt Wilkins comments wisely as follows:

One might say but why not? It's an exploration to make a model. You make a model and if you make a bit of a fool of yourself in the process why worry? ....you might get lucky!

A big lesson there for all blue sky theorists: Its any exploration and there's no telling whether you are going to  make a fool of yourself or win the jackpot - most likely the former,. So enjoy he ride while it lasts; you may not be the chosen one after all!

Useful Link:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-science-did-watson-and-crick-really-steal-rosalind-franklins-data

Epistemology, Ontology, Creationism and Scientism

 Contemporary North American young earthism is a modern  construction
coming out of the 1960s. Ken Ham can say what he likes!

I recently got some come back from Joe Smith who first made a starring appearance on my blog here. After some mutually cross words with him there was a calming down period after which the relationship settled down to a more cordial basis. The lesson is: If you want to stand chance of making an initial connection use emotive language. 

I think it is fair to say that Joe Smith, when he thinks about creation,  has what I would call certain fundamentalist habits mind, but signs are that those exclusivist fundamentalist attitudes (which really mark out a fundamentalist) are not his strong point (I hope). If they were there would be little to be gained in dialogue as hard core fundamentalists, from Mormons through Jehovah's witnesses  to Answer in Genesis start from a position of assumed spiritual superiority and have a deep distrust of those who don't acquiesce to the divine authority of their opinions.

Anyway I'm hoping for a fruitful discussion. My reply to Joe's first email can be picked up here: This has been a useful exercise as it has summarised my views on epistemology and directly challenges the fundamentalist "Historical science vs Observational science" canard.

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It is perhaps ironic that I would also use the views I express in my reply to Joe Smith to attack the kind of atheist scientism which has a vested interested in attempting to draw a sharp line of demarcation between formal science and studies deemed to lie outside formal science. This is the so-called demarcation problem: For me it has always been a pseudo problem; all attempts  to understand the cosmos entail a tense dialogue between theory and experience, whether we are talking spring extending and test tube precipitating science or sociology; both disciplines use a juxtaposition of experiences and/or observational protocols and imaginative narratives to explain those experiences/observations but with varying degrees of plausibility; for clearly the highly regular world of springs and chemicals is far more systemically accessible than the erratic and complex objects of sociology. Consequently this leads to firmer based science than can ever be hoped for than in much sociology. There is a trade off between the complexity and accessibility of an object of study and its epistemic robustness.

But the suspected underlying motive for those peddling scientism is not unlike that of fundamentalists who (want to?) see the world in the blacks and whites of in-groups and out-groups. The aficionados of scientism seek clear cut criteria distinguishing science and non-science in order to provide a pretext to cast into the outer darkness anything they regard as beyond the intellectual pale and which can then be written off with emotive words such as "irrational" and "superstition" and therefore invalid knowledge.

It is true, however, that in the contention between experience and those narratives which attempt to make sense of experience we find that some conceptions are far less amenable to experiential investigation than others. (e.g. springs vs sociological objects). But you can be sure that as epistemic tractability fades out human stupidity and epistemic arrogance tend to fade in and this epistemic sin recurs with both atheists and theists.

Below are some of my posts on the subject of science and epistemology. As I review these posts I notice that one name keeps popping up: That of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran. So, as far as Quantum Non-Linearity is concerned there seems to be enough prima facie evidence to charge Moran with the sin of scientism. I present the documentary evidence for that prima facie case below.

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/05/atheist-vs-atheist-evangelical-vs.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/03/evolutionary-psychology-under-fire.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-universe-is-not-necessarily.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2016/09/epistemic-notes_14.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/02/evidence-guide-lines-but-not-tram-lines.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-great-epistemic-tradeoff.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2013/10/springs-precipitates-paranormal-and.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2013/10/generalizing-science-beyond-test-tubes.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2013/09/yes-its-all-science-larry-but-not-as.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2013/08/epistemic-notes.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2012/08/its-science-larry-but-not-as-you-know-it.html
http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2009/01/on-epistemology.html

Science and the Multiverse

Just one imaginative vision of how the multiverse might 'look'

The de-facto Intelligent Design (ID) community are, in the main, a much nicer bunch of people to get on with (and more intelligent - see William Dembski for example) than the fundamentalist young earthists (for examples of the latter see here, here, here and here). Unfortunately the mutual hate-in that exists between the left of centre evolutionary academic establishment and the academic out-on-a-limb IDists has fueled polarisation which has probably pushed the IDists toward the political right-wing and even into the open arms of that lying demagogue Donald Trump, a man who is quite capable of whipping up suspicion, paranoia, hatred and fear in order to bolster his presidency.^*1

ID doesn't necessarily contradict evolution as top flight IDist William Dembski admits. Conversely, sophisticated atheists like Joe Felsenstein and PZ Myers have effectively  made it clear that evolution  requires a presumed background of transcendent organisation from which to work. (See here, here and here). I therefore see common ground between IDists like Dembski and atheists like Felsenstein and Myers, although of course they would disagree sharply about the ultimate origins of the necessary a priori information needed to drive evolution. Moreover, in these days when fear of the unknown along with tribal, racial, cultural and religious fault lines are exaggerated and exploited by the likes of Donald Trump, Alex Jones and Ken Ham, we are very unlikely to see people unifying around common ground.

The upshot of all this is that I probably automatically find myself on the opposing side to the IDists even though I would agree that the universe only makes sense if we posit complex sentient intelligence as a given (More about that in a later post). As I have explained elsewhere my concept of intelligent creation differs markedly from the IDist's explanatory filter based conclusions. But in spite of this, I am now pleased to announce that I actually agree with something posted by Barry Arrington, the supremo of the Intelligent Design web site Uncommon Descent (This certainly has not always been the case with Barry! See here). In this particular instance Arrington is posting on the subject of the scientific status (or otherwise!) of the multiverse as an explanatory device; his post is entitled The Multiverse is Anti-Scientific.

Unless those many posited universes of the multiverse interact with our own in someway, thereby providing the potential to make testable predictions, I believe Arrington is right to question the scientific status of an otherwise untestable theory. In fact it's arguable that the universes of the multiverse shouldn't interact with our universe by definition and therefore by definition can never be observed!  I suppose, however, it could be argued that if the multiverse is a prediction of an otherwise successfully tested cosmogony then this would be evidence in favour of the multiverse. But then it could be claimed that the theory is being used for an unwarranted and untestable extrapolation into the unknown and should be made more mathematically succinct by recasting the theory so that it did not require the extravagant elaboration of infinite amounts of conjectured reality. In the absence of any interaction with our universe the multiverse is not predictive but only serves as a narrative retrospectively applied in a way which for some people, repeat for some people, constitutes a sense making cosmic myth which is sympathetic to their a priori world view (See this post for more on the epistemic point being made here).

So, without being a genuinely testable science, as Arrinton's colleague Denise O'leary has also pointed out, we are then left judging the content of a multiverse theory purely on the basis of what feels right. But, of course, what feels right will be very subjective and/or worldview sensitive - see here where I did a post on this matter. In the positing of these subliminal universes beyond all detection the subjective deciding factor is, I believe, to do with a sensed need for symmetry: Viz: This symmetry is imposed by generalising the cosmological principle so that each case taken from a very wide range of platonic possibilities is posited as having been reified into a universe. That is, no universe taken from a well defined range of possible universes is specially favoured with reification since a hyper-symmetric uniformity reigns over all conceived possibilities in so far as each of these possibilities is posited as reified. To some people of an atheist persuasion this makes complete and utter sense. But it doesn't make sense to me and neither does it to Arrington; for some people symmetry has no god-like status in the intellectual canon. For others, meaning and purpose trump symmetry when it comes to making sense of the universe, although trying to apply these complex anthropic ideas to cosmology don't readily yield simple mathematical rules.

The sentiment of symmetry would be equally satisfied, if not in actual fact better satisfied, if nothing existed at all! For in such a case all platonic possibilities would be treated equitably in so far as  none of them would have any reality thus avoiding the awkward question of why a very particular cosmos has been singled out for preferential existential treatment. But given the existence of our universe the hi-symmetry fans are faced with the question of why at least something actually exists and, it seems, quite unnecessarily so! That something - namely, our cosmos -  appears to be of a very contingent kind and on the face of it quite unjustifiably favoured for existential status. Now, for some people this special existential status is disquieting and smacks too much of unjustifiable (intelligent) selection. Hence to restore the idea of symmetry and universal mediocrity across the board there is for them only one thing for it; that is, to go to the opposite extreme and posit that every conceivable thing exists; or at least postulate that the probability of existence of every conceivable thing is uniformly smeared across platonic space. Taking this sentiment of symmetry and uniformity to its extreme conclusion we soon find ourselves knocking at the door of Max Tegmark's extravagant mathematical universe: This (unscientific) "theory" posits that every mathematical construction has some kind of existential reification*. It's very tempting to suspect that the underlying motive for proposing such an idea is that it undermines any awkward questions about the apparent contingent asymmetry of our universe, an observation which might lead to the mooting of divine selection and/or intelligent contrivance. After all, in our culture the divine is seen as a personal sentience and therefore (as is the wont of personality) generally having an inscrutable bias toward certain preferences which in turn leads to very particular choices and, accordingly, a very contingent creation. As I have remarked before, intelligent beings have a tendency for bias, interest and focus toward order. (See here and see the epilogue here)

It is very unlikely that even a multiverse is an absolutely random affair: If we were part of a huge multiverse of absolute randomness we would expect our own cosmos to be observably and very rapidly dissolving into disorder a lot faster than is required by the second law of thermodynamics. This dissolution would, of course, eventually kill us off as observers, but there would be a large number of possible scenarios where we would be hanging around long enough to see it happening; these scenarios are much larger in number than the number of possible cases where we have an apparently ordered and stable existence, such as we see in our universe.  Since we don't see this rapid decay happening it follows that it is very likely that even the multiverse, if it exists,  isn't absolutely random and therefore itself has a relatively narrow "symmetry breaking" contingency!

Fundamentalist young earthists often claim that they see the same data as the science establishment but simply have a different worldview and therefore interpret that data according to the fundamentalist worldview with equal plausibility: Not true! Young earthism leads to silly and irrational thinking and also undermines God's creative integrity (See here, for example). However, the  principle "same data, different interpretation" does apply when it comes to the choice between belief in the high symmetry of the multiverse or belief in the specially selected contingency of the observable cosmos. This is because by its very nature the multiverse doesn't readily throw up testable predictions and therefore it is just one way of stitching together a dot-joining myth which for some people makes sense of reality.

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APPENDIX I

If you are a hard core fan of symmetry as a "theory of everything" then there are at least two ways of applying this philosophical prejudice to one's view of the cosmos. The simple way is to do a "Max Tegmark" and simply posit the systematic existence of everything; that is, each mathematically possible world is somehow reified once and once only^*2.

Another way of preserving symmetry is to posit that each and every platonic possibility has an equal probability of existence. But this leaves us with some questions that are not easily answered: What is the value of the probability of the existence of a universe and what theory assigns these probabilities? What is the number of probabilistic trials which have brought the reified universes into existence? What is the size of the set of platonic possibilities from which the trials are taken?  These questions themselves suggest the existence of a particular stochastic model which addresses them and this raises the meta question of why this particular model is favoured for reification.

If universes are being selected at random from a platonic but denumerable set of size T then the probability of the selection of a particular universe will be 1/T; in fact the probability of a cosmos being selected n times will be (1/T)ⁿ. So this probabilistic scenario implies that there is a small chance of a cosmos being selected more than once. Clearly as T goes to infinity the probability of a particular universe making any appearance at all will be infinitesimal. But if the number of trials N goes to infinity as T goes to infinity then the probability of the appearance of a particular universe could be finite, although of indefinite value.

But whether it is intelligible to posit the reality of other universes which neither have observers nor can be observed is, as far as I'm concerned, moot. I have always had positivistic leanings myself and find such an idea  difficult to swallow  But more about that another time.

APPENDIX II

On Symmetry

Footnotes:
*1 See for example this post on Dembski's blog where he identifies with ultra-right winger Tommy Robinson whose book has been banned from various book sellers. He also links to articles on the banning of Milo Yiannopolous from entering Australia and (presumably sympathetically) to Brietbart material on transgender issues and Jacob Wohl. Dembski has been roughly treated by "left wingers" for his ID work so it is no surprise why he finds it easier to identify with these people. So even without me doing anything or even disagreeing with Dembski's core thesis I find myself on the opposite side.

*2 I'm passing over here the considerable conceptual problems Tegmark's proposal raises, not least how to actually define, without self referencing inconsistency, the class of mathematical structures available to his hypothesis.

The Premium on Prediction

I have updated my short essay "The Premium on Prediction": This is an application of Bayes Theorem to the question of why a theory that is used to successfully predict outcomes enhances its chance of being right. This contrasts with theories which are retrospectively fitted to the data in hand with imaginative "dot" joining narratives, an activity which if achieved succinctly only amounts to a kind of data compression. The new edition of this essay can be found here. I have a feeling that this essay may be useful in the not too distant future as I look into related topics. Below I reproduce the introduction of this essay.

***

The following is a back of the envelope analysis that attempts to shed some light on why theories which make correct predictions enhance their chances of being right.

Before I proceed, however, I must add this caveat. It is not always possible to use our theoretical constructions in a way that makes predictions; historical theories in particular are not easy to test at will and sometimes we have little choice but to come to terms with the post-facto fitting of a theory to the data samples we have in hand. In fact with grand theories that attempt to embrace the whole of life with a world view synthesis, abduction and retrospective “best fit” analysis may be the only epistemic option available. If we are dealing with objects whose complexity and level of accessibility make prediction impossible, then this has much less to do with “bad science” than it has with an ontology which is not readily amenable to the scientific epistemic. However, in this post I'm going to look at the case where predictive testing is assumed to be possible and show why there is a scientific premium on it. To this end I'm going to use a simple illustrative model: Credit card numbers.

Imagine that valid credit card numbers are created with an algorithm that generates a very small fraction of the numbers available to, say, a twenty digit string. Let us imagine that someone claims to know this algorithm. This person’s claim could be put to the test by asking him/her to predict a valid credit card number, or better a series of numbers. If this person repeatedly gets the prediction right then we will intuitively feel that (s)he is likely to be in the know. But why do we feel that? Is there a sound basis for this feeling?

I’m going to use Bayes' theorem to see if it throws any light on the result we are expecting – that is, that there is a probabilistic mathematical basis for the intuition that a set of correct predictions increases the likelihood that we are dealing with an agent who knows the valid set of numbers; or rather the algorithm that generates them.

In this paper entitled “Bayes Theorem and God” I derived Bayes' theorem from a frequentist concept of probability and then went on to consider an example taken from the book “Reason and Faith” by Forster and Marsden where they use Bayes' theorem to derive the probability of God. As I remarked in “Bayes Theorem and God” there are certainly issues with the interpretation of the terms used by Forster and Marsden, issues which compromised the meaningfulness of their result. However, although the problem addressed in this paper is isomorphic with F&M's “probability of God” calculation, in this more mundane application of Bayes' theorem the terms are less cloudy in meaning. Both the Venn diagram and the mathematics used in my previous paper on Bayes and God can be taken off the peg and Forster and Marsden’s terms reinterpreted.

Twenty One Reasons Noah's World Wide Flood Never Happened

...and one very big reason why it never happened.

I thought I would promote this article, Twenty One Reasons Noah's World Wide Flood Never Happened by Christian geologist  Lorence G Collins.  If it should go offline I also have a copy here.  It even got a recommendation from evangelical atheist PZ Myers who said:

A geologist gives 21 evidence-based reasons why Noah’s Flood never happened. It’s nice, short, succinct, and clear, and is going to be useful in future discussions about creationism. It’s also all really obvious — we have a few hundred years of observations by geologists, who were mostly Christian, that made it irrefutable that, in the most charitable interpretation, the book of Genesis was a metaphorical fable.

Also enthusiatic is the friendly atheist: see here:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/04/07/this-is-how-we-know-the-biblical-great-flood-never-happened/

Professor Collins has succeeded in building a bridge to the atheist community by having his article published in the Skeptical Inquirer. He has also published some very useful material here:

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/creation.html

Near the beginning of his article Prof Collins says this:

I realize that readers of Skeptical Inquirer accept modern scientific views on this subject, but this examination of the creationist claims might be useful when communicating with others less imbued with scientific thinking

Well yes, we know all about the "less imbued with scientific thinking" on this blog.

In response to Prof Collins' work my text-book fundamentalist, Ken Ham, provides us with yet another essay on how the fundamentalist mind responds to this kind of bridge building. Needless to say Ken is foaming at mouth with righteous indignation and issues the standard spiritually threatening missive which presumably would have some God-fearing folk quaking in their boots. Read Ken's outburst calling down hell and hamnation here:

https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2018/04/02/christian-equips-atheists-debate-christians/

I'll follow my usual practice of quoting Ken's post and  interleaving my comments

Apparently Dr. Collins must think that if someone disagrees with the naturalistic model that rejects God’s Word and is an interpretation imposed on the evidence, the person is “less imbued with scientific thinking” than those who do accept this framework.

MY COMMENT:  Change "God's Word" here to "Ken's Word"; Ken believes in the divine authority of his opinions - after all he thinks he can simply extract those opinions from the Bible with little or no interpretative and epistemic responsibility, as all fundamentalist think they can.  For the old "naturalistic" vs "supernaturalistic" dualism see here. If the thinking of fundamentalists like Danny Faulkner and John Sarfati has become so imbued by fundamentalist anti-science strictures, in spite of their scientific training, you can rest assured so too will be the thinking of the fundamentalist rank-and-file.

Many creationists love science, of course, and are quite knowledgeable. Indeed, many hold degrees—even PhDs—in their field, including several who work here, such as Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson who holds a PhD from Harvard; Dr. Andrew Snelling who earned a PhD from the University of Sydney, Australia; Dr. Georgia Purdom who holds a PhD from The Ohio State University; Dr. Tommy Mitchell with an MD from Vanderbilt; Dr. David Menton with a PhD in biology from Brown University; and Dr. Danny Faulkner who received a PhD from Indiana University. To round out this group, we also have a historian of science, Dr. Terry Mortenson with a PhD from Coventry University.

MY COMMENT:  Fundamentalists do not "love science" - they only love the kind of destructive take down of science and rationality that we see among the John Sarfati's and Jason Lisle's of this world; they don't want to do positive science but only negative science - ergo, they are anti-science. I note that the same familiar old names crop up in Ken's list of PhD's; evidently scientifically trained fundamentalists are in short supply. In comparison I'm always coming across new names from the Christian academic establishment; in fact Prof Collins is new name to me and I'm very pleased to hear it. 

Now, we’re used to hearing false claims like that. What made me sad was that Dr. Collins was specifically writing this article to give Skeptical Inquirer magazine readers counter-arguments to use against Christians. And who are the readers of this magazine? Most are skeptics and atheists! A professing believer (who claims on his website that he has “sought to bring people to Christ”) is trying to equip unbelievers to tear down the faith of believers! Ultimately, he is helping atheists attack God’s Word and the Christian faith. I would not want to be in his shoes standing before our holy God—he will give an account one day!

MY COMMENT:  Collins claim is utterly true; Fundamentalists are in general less scientifically savvy especially those like Ken Ham who are swayed less by scientific argumentation than they are by the letters after the names of his small minority of tame scholars whose chief "scholarly" activity is anti-science. Notice the spiritually threatening language in the last two sentences. So imbued with a belief in the divine authority of his opinions we find Ken threatening a Christian bridge builder with divine displeasure, perhaps even a threat of hell. This is very reminiscent of the incident recorded in my VNP blog here, here and here where a Christian bridge builder, Bishop Harrison, was condemned by Ken and I too was then attacked by Ken for condemning his attack!

As believers, we are commanded to tear down arguments that are against the knowledge of Christ and make our thoughts obedient to him (2 Corinthians 10:5). Dr. Collins certainly isn’t doing that when it comes to origins. Instead, he’s taking man’s ideas and reinterpreting God’s Word in light of them. No longer is God the authority—instead Dr. Collins has made evolution-believing scientists and their interpretation of the evidence (and thus, even himself) the authority.

MY COMMENT:  Here Ken effectively affirms the divine authority of his opinions. According to Ken, Prof Collins is merely opining "man's ideas" whereas Ken, of course, believes his opinions to be God's very word. Yes Prof Collins' ideas are man's ideas but then so are Ken Ham's ideas; the difference is that Ken has an inflated opinion of his authority. Ken fails to see the symmetry: Ken sees himself as "interpreting God's Word" and Prof Collins as "reinterpreting it" rather than seeing two people before God, one a fundamentalist and the other a free-thinking Christian, coming up with two very different interpretations. 

Ken Ham puts me off Christianity so completely that I can't imagine how atheists feel! Moreover, vicious fundamentalist infighting is another turn-off. It's a good thing that there are a lot of Christian academics out there like Prof Collins, a lot more than Ken's small band of tame fundamentalist anti-scholars, otherwise I might have given up the faith. 

Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Could MI6 have an interest in my little story? Probably not, because I try not to live in the real world.

I spotted the following material online over a year ago, but as I'm currently short of time for blogging I thought I would tell this odd little tale in lieu of my otherwise absence from the blogosphere......

This paper on solid state physics written by Chinese authors  Xiang-Ying Ji and Xi-Qiao Feng is rather curious. Why so? .....because my book Gravity and Quantum Non-Linearity is referenced in it. Honours like this don't often come my way, so it's time to play it for all it's worth and bask in the glory.  Here's where in the paper's text the reference occurs: 

The reference 14 attached to their biased diffusion equation (4) appears in their reference list as follows:

I wonder if these guys know who I am and what I'm about because there is a bit of "but" in all this! The equation in my book Gravity and Quantum Non-Linearity  that is nearest in form to equation (4) above is equation (3.13) below:

If you can read equations like this then you will understand that apart from a couple of differences my equation (3:13) is more or less of the same form as Xiang-Ying Ji and Xi-Qiao Feng's equation (4). Those differences are in the constants and also the appearance of the last term on the right hand side of (3.13). 

But .. and here's that "but" I spoke of..... notice  I have "i" ( that is, root minus one) in front of the diffusion constant. When you add this complex factor to the diffusion term it changes an ordinary biased diffusion equation into a wave equation. The other thing to notice is the appearance of the last term on the right hand side - this is to compensate for the fact that in the kind of diffusion represented by (3.13) the diffusion is a process where in the underlying random walk the stepping agent bifurcates and steps both left and right at the same time. To prevent such a system violating conservation laws the third compensating term on the right hand side must be subtracted.  (This is not a point that appears in my book, but is something that has occurred to me more recently). It is this feature that gives my equation its relativistic character.

Xiang-Ying Ji and Xi-Qiao Fengstop stop short (wisely perhaps) of this "relativistic complexification" of biased diffusion - after all, their paper is really all about the ordinary diffusion of real particles in materials and not about a quantum equation or its extension into quantum gravity. It is perhaps a little strange that they should reference some weird and eccentric amateur theory of quantum gravity when the derivation of the non-imaginary form of their equation (4) is pretty standard fare! But I'm honoured that our esteemed Chinese friends have chosen to use this reference! I wonder if there are some security issues entailed here? I'll leave MI6 to decide on that one!

Pluto

(Click to enlarge)

Some brief off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts on this image of Pluto.

After all the talk about Pluto's surface having a surprising dearth of cratering I realized on looking at the above image that scientists were talking in relative terms; the picture actually shows Pluto to be quite pock marked with craters - however, a lot less so than that of the Moon and other planets, but probably much more so than the Earth. Ergo, Pluto's surface is older than that of the Earth which, of course, is subject to high levels of largely atmospheric based erosion and change. In fact the crater density of Pluto may be comparable to that of the Lunar Mare.  (See the hi-res picture of Pluto on the web site below)

 Pluto has a thin atmosphere as this picture shows:

Pluto's size, along with its inclined and eccentric orbit may be evidence that it is a captured Kuiper belt object; perhaps an outcome of the long term gravitational chaos of the Solar System. If the once very frozen Pluto was relatively recently captured into its current orbit then its solar constant would change. Such orbital change could conceivably result in the low boiling point of some of Pluto's surface compounds just being passed, consequently creating an atmosphere and in turn starting off a slow erosion cycle. This may explain Pluto's relatively "young" surface. But remember; in Solar System terms half a billion years is "young"!

Anyway, be all that as it may, we had better wait and see what the experts say. One thing is clear: Given the number of unknowns there is plenty of theoretical scope to explain the appearance of Pluto!

For more pictures of Pluto see:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Pluto

Shrouded in Mystery (I bet that one’s been used before)

This mystery is far from wrapped up!

(Note: see 21 June postscript)

As a bit of light relief I thought I’d make a few comments on this BBC article on the Turin Shroud:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33164668

Even if one accepts the 1989 radiocarbon 14 dating which puts the shroud between about 1260 and 1390, the shroud is, as the article says,  “a deeply puzzling object”.

The radiocarbon dating is consistent with the first historical reference to the shroud which the BBC article gives as 1357 in Lirey, France. (Although Wikipedia thinks 1390 is more certain). I’m hardly an authority on medieval art or techniques, but it strikes me that for the shroud to be a work of art of considerable technical expertise we would have to push the artifact well into the Renaissance; it is far too early for that. In any case the article suggests that the material evidence for the shroud being a painting is slim. That leaves us with various mechanical and/or natural means of generating what seems to be a very realistic looking, technically correct even, picture of a crucified man. In this connection the article goes on to consider some possibilities. Viz: Various chemical reactions in the cloth catalyzed by the presence of a real dead body or perhaps it was created by skilled medieval technologists who knew enough to make a crude photo of an effigy or may be even of a crucified dead body. But it turns out there are problems with all these explanations.

If we assume that the cloth is the genuine article and we have no inhibitions about invoking fairly exotic processes in its formation, there is still a question in my mind:  When the image was formed presumably the cloth would have been wrapped tightly round the body of Christ. I suppose one really needs to do some experimentation with real shrouds and know something about first century Jewish funerary practices, but off the top of my head I would have thought that this wrapping would so distort the receiving medium of the cloth that the image would hardly look like two photographic plates taken front and back!* But if one is willing to invoke exotic processes in the formation of the image, no doubt the imagination can soon fix this little query!

And finally an irony: Aficionados of evangelical atheism, of course, won’t countenance even a hint of doubt about the natural or human origins of the shroud image.  But guess who else detests this very Catholic artifact of devotion and is thoroughly committed to the idea that it is a fake?  Take a look at an extract from a letter to the May Premier Christianity magazine in response to an article on the Turin Shroud the month before:

John’s Gospel says that Jesus’ head was covered by a cloth separate from the linen Shroud.  As the Turin Shroud is in one piece it cannot be genuine. It has no place in a true engagement with the risen Christ. The Shroud has been shown by many historical tests to be a 14^th century fake, dating from a time awash with similar artifacts. The pieces of “evidence” in the article sidestep those conclusive proofs. The article is a disingenuous attempt at promoting credulous superstition. That leaves with me with real concern that Premier Christianity has put its name at risk.

Now it may well be the shroud is a fake, but I would certainly not want to argue along the lines of this naive piece of fundamentalist prejudice: It doesn’t follow that the presence of a head cloth entails the absence of a full length shroud – one would have to delve into the history of the funerary practices of the time before one could use this head cloth reference as a basis to assert with any level of confidence that “it cannot be genuine”. Moreover, head cloth or no head cloth it would all very much depend on the process of image formation, a process which if it involved the “supernatural” would introduce so many possibilities that we've no knowing what could happen under such circumstances! The BBC article appears not to be aware of those “conclusive proofs” that the letter writer claims exist and in any case is science ever absolutely conclusive? And where are those "similar artifacts" of the period comparable with the Shroud's apparent expertise?

I’m not quite sure what evangelical tradition this fundamentalist is coming from: Fundamentalists who style themselves as “Reformed Christians”, who loathe the Catholic Church and are still fighting the Reformation would certainly not accept that such a “heretical” institution is the custodian of the real shroud of Christ. But a Reformed Christian is unlikely to write to a charismatically flavored magazine like Christianity. So perhaps this person is what I call a reformo-charismatic. But whatever: Notice that as is the wont of fundamentalism we find juxtaposed with the superlatives of high devotion (like “true engagement with the risen Christ”) the utmost spiritually condemning terms; in this case accusations of hypocrisy, dishonesty and the promoting of superstition!  This is why I don’t get on with fundies (and some evangelicals) – even when their conclusions may well be right I still don’t agree with them. This is mainly because they are so arrogantly certain of their opinions and so ready to accuse more liberal Christians of heresy and blasphemy! What’s wrong with a bit of self-skepticism, self-doubt and self-criticism? Everything in the fundamentalist's eyes: To criticize self is to criticize one's opinions and to criticize one's opinions is to criticize the Bible where those opinions are claimed to originate; and that is tantamount to criticizing God himself! Such intellectual vice!

Footnote

* This query extends to all explanations that posit the formation of the image whilst the body was wrapped; but it is only a query: May be laying the body on one half of the shroud and then gently draping the other half over the body generates the sort of relation between shroud and body we are looking for.

Postscript (21 June)

So what's my opinion of this object: Real or Fake? That could be another false dichotomy as I shall explain. A less loaded question is: Is the shroud from the first century or the late middle ages? Although I have a measure of open mindedness about this puzzling object, on balance I think it originates from the late middle ages. This is because I find the coincidence of the radiocarbon dating with the historical references fairly compelling: If a miraculous first century image formation process somehow had the effect of distorting the radiocarbon dating it seems unlikely that it would contrive such a coincidence.  Alternatively, if the cloth has become contaminated in someway (e.g. with repairs) during its passage through history would this have the likely effect of returning a radiocarbon dating that coincided with the date of its first historical reference?

There is also an internal consistency question that arises if one is prepared to accept that the shroud is a product of exotic paranormal processes. If such processes are available is it just possible that the image could conceivably have been impressed on a late medieval cloth in response to the psyche of the medieval mindset, a mindset that as we know was obsessed with relics? After all, there are claims of paranormal images having been imprinted upon photographic plates, floor tiles and even human bodies. In fact, perhaps even God himself arranged for this to happen in order to give post black death medieval devotion something to hook on! It it is also conceivable within the paranormal paradigm that God inspired skilled medieval workmen to do his bidding! Who knows? Of course, these sorts of hypotheses are unlikely, but if you are prepared to accept the miraculous in the formation of the image, these candidates should be weighed and rejected or selected.

I would love to think the object is the real thing, but as I have said "real or fake" may be inappropriate categories expressing an implicit valued judgement. Perhaps the Catholic church has the right idea in not commenting one way or the other. If the shroud is a 14th century creation (as opposed to a "fake") it still remains a very singular object and a very realistic depiction of the end result of crucified suffering. Whether it be a work of art, a medieval technological feat, or perhaps even a  record of some 14th century paranormal event, it nevertheless is so remarkable in its execution that like any really good piece of art it inspires; and that can't be bad - unless you are an evangelical atheist or an artless fundamentalist Christian!