Prediction by Negation

Evolution as a sense making structure joins many of the dots of observation (at least in a post-dictive sense), but my opinion about just where it lies between plausible conjecture and “fact” is reserved. (Although this reserve may be down to me having neither stake nor expertise in biology and paleontology). Therefore I’m prepared to give some space to the anti-evolutionists one finds on Uncommon Descent. And yet in spite of that I find myself frustrated by what I consider to be the unsatisfactory treatment of the intelligent design question on this web site. This post by Barry Arrington is an example of why I think the concept of intelligent design is  being mishandled by the out and out anti-evolutionists. In this post we read:

……the [Intelligent Design] hypothesis is, in principle, falsifiable. All it would take is even one instance of CSI or IC being observed to arise through chance or mechanical necessity or a combination of the two. Such an observation would blow the ID project out of the water.

… in fact it would do no such thing, because in its most abstract form the ID hypothesis is not a basis from which falsifiable statements can readily be made.

What Arrington refers to as “mechanical necessity” is not “necessity” at all, at least in the absolute sense. The outputs from mathematical functions/algorithms (Which I assume is what Arrington inappropriately calls “mechanical necessity”) are at most conditional necessities; that is, conditional on the selection of the particular mathematical functions/algorithms employed. Therefore information is implicit in such functions in as much as they are contingencies and not necessities. If “CSI” was ever found to have a realistic probability of output from the operation of such functions, then that information would be implicit in the selection of the appropriate functions. Ergo, the Intelligent Design question would then shift from the pattern itself to the selection of the pattern generating mechanisms. One would think from the way Arrington is talking that “chance and necessity” (sic) are logically self sufficient processes that answer the problems of Aseity and design. Further consideration of whether or not mathematical functions can generate complex organization can be found in the following links:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/11/self-organisation.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/11/luddites-and-evolution-machine.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-evolution-vs-intelligent-design.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/12/beware-luddites-at-work.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/12/evolution-not-wanted-dead-or-alive.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/12/more-on-self-organisation.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/12/blind-alleys.html

The difficulty in making predictions from ID stems from the fact that in most cases the posited creating intelligence is far too alien for us to be sure of its motives and methods; in particular the intelligence is usually envisaged to be a divine entity with omni-powers, transcending the physical status quo. Presumably such an entity would have “chance and necessity” (sic) at its beck and call. Attempting to anticipate just how such a hyper-alien entity operates is likely to prove unreliable. Separated from a specific theology of this Sublime Creator, ID in its most abstract form is all but irrefutable.

But what Arrington really means is that if an example of CSI was found to be sourced in a physical regime it would falsify anti-evolutionist expectations: ID has a more readily scientifically amenable content if it contains an implicit denial of evolution. In fact in North America "ID" is all but synonymous with "anti-evolutionism" and so called “ID predictions” are in many cases simply the negation of evilutionary predictions (I’m taking up the question of ID predictions in my “Can ID make predictions?” series). The implicit concept of ID most Uncommon Dissenters are working to seems to be that of a tinkering genetic engineer/programmer whose methods and motives are very anthropomorphic.

Prediction by Negation; "Oh no it isn't!"

A Study in Cognitive Dissonance

The church in the 1950s; the lull before the storm.

I want to wind up my recent theme of the Christian YEC phenomenon with some thoughts on “Why it’s where it’s at”.

1. Cognitive dissonance theory has an important bearing here I feel: Utter failure is difficult to face fairly and squarely. Therefore, if a failed notion has been backed to the hilt then it will not be easily relinquished; so rather than admit to a futile conceptual investment, auxiliary adjustments are made and ad hoc hypothesis are constructed in order to account for the apparent failure and save the investment. In fact rather than bin a cherished idea quite farfetched and fanciful ideas may be entertained: For example in order to save YEC fundamentalists postulate that the world wide science community is working to a common set of false assumptions that colours their view to such an the extent that something tantamount to conspiracy theory has to posited. Some of the responses to cognitive dissonance remind me of that fable where the Sun and the Wind tried in turn to get a man to remove his coat. The Wind blew hard but the man wrapped his coat round himself all the more tightly. The Wind, nevertheless, was so convinced of his power to remove coats that he was sure that his failure was because he was simply not blowing hard enough; so he redoubled his efforts in order to get the result he expected. I have seen this “must blow harder” effect right across the conceptual spectrum; from left and right wing political parties who think they are not getting enough votes because people need more political extremism, to fundamentalists who, dismayed by their reception, put it down to them not being holy or vehement enough in their faith. The result: Failure only reinforces the very reason for failure and in face of this failure vociferousness, outlandishness and separation only intensifies. Marginalized groups derive self validation from the strength and contrariness of their promulgation of the irrational.

2. YEC History: The following is my digest of YEC history as depicted in the book “The Biblical Flood” by Christian geologist Davis A. Young (BTW: Young believes in an old Earth): With the discovery of the New World in the 16th century, a fresh understanding of the distribution of flora and fauna started to put strains on the belief that Noah’s Ark received and housed samples of organisms from all parts of the globe. In consequence some scholars mooted the idea that the flood in the book of Genesis was not global. The difficulties in relating an increasing understanding of biology and geology to a universal flood intensified until by the mid nineteenth century large numbers of scholars, both conservative Christians and otherwise, no longer advocated the notion of a global flood; in particular, it became clear that the great thickness of rock found on the surface of the Earth, with their very complex histories of deposition, intrusion, uplift, folding, erosion and re-deposition, could not be explained as a product of a yearlong global flood, but would require a lot more time than a mere 6000 years to form. Hence, by the mid nineteenth century few serious scholars entertained a Young Earth. This situation persisted up until the 1960s, although throughout this period a small number of advocates of global flood theory and a young Earth did exist, but they were either Sola Scriptura ("scripture alone") ultras that ignored geological and biological data or were those who used this data very selectively. One example of the latter is the seventh day Adventist George McCready Price (1873-1963) who, prompted by prophetess Ellen G White, wrote several books on geology. His works were a foundation stone for what was to eventually become modern flood geology. By the early 20th century conservative Christian scholars had been pushed to the margins of academia and had lost much of their “cultural prestige” (as Davis eloquently puts it). They reacted to this marginalization by disconnecting themselves from mainstream academia. Thus, evangelical and conservative Christians were well placed to give a sympathetic reception to Whitcomb and Morris’ 1961 book “The Genesis Flood”, a book that resurrected Price’s flood geology. Up until the 1960s flood geology and Young Earth had bumped along the bottom, but since the 60s flood geology and its dubious accompanying motif of “mature creation” has all but become the de-facto point of view amongst fundamentalist Christians ever since and many evangelicals have followed suit.

3. My reading of the situation is as follows: The remarkable recrudescence of YEC since the 1960s is in part caused by the marginalization of conservative Christianity as an intellectual force at the beginning of the 20th century. However, this marginalization in and of itself is not enough to explain the relative success of YEC amongst evangelicals because YEC remained a minority conservative view until the 1960s; something happened in the 60s to tip the balance. Up until the 1960s Western nations at least nominally identified themselves as Christian, but during the 1960 there were very open cultural challenges to the dominating Christian social gloss. Prior to the 1960s conservative Christians could at least feel they identified with the overall social ethos and rationale of their societies and this made it much easier for them to identify with the established science of their society. For example, see this blog post on my church blog where it is apparent that the prewar minister of my church took for granted the science of the day. Since the 1960s, however, conservative Christians have not only been academically marginalized but also culturally marginalized. A subculture can perhaps live with academic marginalization, but cultural marginalization has such strong overtones of devaluation and loss of social status that it creates fertile ground for an extreme fundamentalist reaction amongst conservative Christians. YEC is, I submit, one of those extreme responses. Alienated from many aspects of society the average conservative Christian uses YEC to protest against the slighting of his cherished values by defecting to a very vocal counter culture.

4. At the bottom of fundamentalist contrariness is cognitive dissonance. The fundamentalist reaffirms his dignity by engaging in proactive responses, the very vehemence and outrageousness of which are taken as evidence of vitality and authenticity. Weird gnostic practices (Like the Toronto Blessing) and weird beliefs (like YEC) are, in fundamentalist eyes, de-facto signs of spiritual life. My recent interest in Ken Ham is because he is a fine example of an extremism that is a product of a faith under stress. He is so extreme that even an outspoken evangelical like William Dembski becomes a target for strong accusations of spiritual compromise and sin (see my last blog post). In a blog post dated July 19th 2011 Ham displays the classic response to cognitive dissonance: In his view the reason for failure is because YEC isn’t being pushed hard enough:

Actually, the real scientific research conducted for our book Already Gone clearly illustrates that generations of young people brought up in the church are leaving the church, and one of the main reasons is the hypocrisy of being told to believe the Bible but also told to reinterpret the Bible particularly in Genesis because of millions of years.

Very significantly, geocentrist Gerardus Bouw expresses a very similar reaction to cognitive dissonance, except, of course, that in Bouw’s view the reason for failure is down to the hypocrisy of people like Ken Ham in not pushing a geocentric reading of scripture! Viz:

One of the arguments that creationists (i.e. YECs) use against geocentrists is that geocentricity destroys the credibility of the creationist in the eyes of unbelievers like these two men. What makes them hard to win to the creationist cause is that they clearly see the hypocrisy. ..... Indeed, on a personal note, it was people like Danny Faulkner and Hugh Ross who converted me to atheism in my teen years. ……Evolutionists, atheists, and agnostics in the know can easily shame creationists on the issue of geocentricity by simply pointing out the hypocrisy of their insistence that the days in Genesis 1 are literal while the rising and setting of the sun is not. Likewise, to insist that the rising of the sun is figurative while the rising of the Son is literal is also hypocrisy. Given that the geocentric model is pure physics, mathematically tractable, and realistic, and consistent with Scripture, we conclude that the creationist’s desire to reject it can only be for the sole purpose of appearing intellectual and acceptable to the world, which desire is enmity with God (James 4:4)

For Bouw and Ham respectively geocentricity and YEC are not part of the problem but part of the solution and therefore they are both going to blow all the more hard.

5. The day I walked into Norwich Central Baptist church’s building I was fascinated by the stained glass windows on the back wall (As pictured above) and I wondered what they were trying to tell me: For today’s culturally alienated church these windows are meaningless, so why would Christians of the early 1950s create such windows? It has since become clear to me that these windows celebrate the civic connections of a church that was yet to be culturally marginalized; these were Christians at ease with themselves and who by and large felt at one with the ethos of their society. They didn’t know cognitive dissonance and the strength of the cultural stresses faced by the church today. But nevertheless there was a hint of disquiet amongst them; there was that sense of tension one gets just before a storm. (see http://norwichcentralbaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2009/12/christmas-1939.html)

Evidence of Ham’s Religious Extremism

In connection with my recent theme of YEC disdain for Christian academics, I note a blog post by Ken Ham dated July 20th and titled “Radio host Hank Hanegraaff supports evolutionary old earth proponent”. In the post Ham expresses his antipathy to William Dembski and Hank Hanegraaff who hosted Dembski on one of his shows. Recall that Dembksi and Hanegraaff are evangelicals who believe in the inerrancy of scripture. Therefore they are supposed to both have much in common with Ham as far as core faith is concerned. The following quotes from Ham's post are, however, evidence of his sectarian extremism and tells us what really counts as core faith with Ham – namely, YEC. (By the Way: I don’t go along with Dembski’s somewhat bizarre view of the fall).

Just to remind you, I have featured him in a previous blog post in which I indicated what Dr. Dembski has stated in his book The End of Christianity. Here are just a couple of outlandish statements from his book……

At our Apologetics Mega Conference this week, I showed video excerpts of Dr. Dembski and quotes from his books and other writings. I gave the conference attendees numerous examples of Christian academics who compromise God’s Word in Genesis; these Christian academics are sadly influencing the next generation of Christians with their teaching that undermines biblical authority.

It is so sad that such compromise with evolution and millions of years—and such an outlandish idea that God took animals and made them into Adam and Eve and gave them amnesia so they would not remember all the death and suffering in the world they once lived in—is being promoted by such a well-known radio personality. While I appreciate that Hank Hanegraaff had me on his radio program many years ago, I need to point out now that such outright compromise is undermining the authority of God’s Word.

I urge people to voice their opposition to Hank Hanegraaff and his promotion of this shocking compromise of the Bible, as he has pushed man’s religion of millions of years and evolution and has reinterpreted the clear teaching of Scripture in Genesis. Now, Hanegraaff has previously published a book against biological evolution, so it is perplexing to see him now promoting a man like Dr. Dembski who accepts many evolutionary ideas (Dr. Dembski is really promoting a type of “theistic evolution”)—and Hanegraaff is also accepting of death and millions of years of history before the Fall.

Even though there are many Southern Baptist leaders who are standing up for biblical authority (including a literal Genesis) in their seminaries, how disappointing it is that Dr. Dembski holds a position at one of the premier Southern Baptist seminaries in the country.

Interesting to see Ham identifying Dembski as a Theistic Evolutionist. I wonder what they would think of that on Uncommon Descent?

The Faith Test

...he's just passed!

A belief in Young Earth Creationism is one thing; to turn it into faith test material is quite another; but that is precisely what Ken Ham and his followers are doing. Ken’s new book (written with Greg Hall), “Already Compromised”, is very tellingly subtitled “Christian Colleges took a test on the state of their faith and the final exam is in”. Of course, we know what that means: If you don’t accept Ham’s view of creation, you’ve failed the test. But here’s the good news: Reading Ken’s blog posts it looks as though the majority of colleges tested didn’t pass his exam.

In a post blog post dated June 14 and entitled “Publish or Perish” Ken spills the beans: I’ve highlighted the important bits in bold.

“With so many Christian academics in our Christian colleges compromising with evolution and millions of years, many people have asked me why it is so”.

“I do believe the publish or perish syndrome, together with academic pride and peer pressure, really (sadly) explain much of this compromise so rife in Christian circles"

“…compromise is so rife through the leadership in so many churches”

In a blog post dated June 28 Ken publishes a letter from a mother who read “Already Compromised”. Once again the picture she paints for YEC is down beat, to say the least:

“Though I was already aware that there is a lot off compromise of Biblical truths I had no idea that it was to this extent. I saddens, shocks and angers me all at the same time”

"Based on the research in your book, it appears to me that there is a severe case of intellectual schizophrenia on Christian college campuses today! Presidents, professors, and the other faculty claim to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, yet turn around and say that they disagree with key Biblical truths or that they embrace evolution, which is completely contrary to the Bible!"

"One of the most disturbing things I see from your book is that those who seem to be the most passionate and committed to this battle are the evolutionists! They are fully engaged, and honestly, I think our apathy emboldens them even more! I expected that they control the secular academic arena, but was shocked to see that even in “Christian” colleges, they are gaining more and more ground!"

The review of “Already Compromised” in the AiG book store is also encouraging: This review says of the book: “You find the answers to questions about each school’s purpose, and the stance on the inerrancy of scripture, origins and age of the Earth, and many more” ….and…. “The findings are shocking.”

I won’t be reading the book because these quotes tell me all I need know – Ken’s YEC crusade has not had much effect and if anything Christians are moving away from YEC. It’s telling that Ken’s correspondent had no idea of the extent of the problem for YEC; that’s probably a sign of how fundamentalist communities tend to quarantine themselves from the surrounding culture – and for good reason; without that insulation they would easily become “subverted” by outside ideas.

However, there is, as they say, no room for complacency. In painting a very bleak picture Ken and Co are doing what they do best and that is appealing to some very basic instincts; anger, fear and above all fear of the unknown. It is these primeval emotions that fundamentalists instinctively know how to exploit; they threaten non-fundamentalists using some of the most deep seated fears known to man, and these fears revolve around one’s unknown standing before God and one’s eternal destiny. As we know from Jones Town and various other religious sects, these fears can prove to be stronger than even the fear of death itself.

For Ken and Co, YEC is a battleground for the very spiritual life of the church and therefore they have huge emotional stakes in the matter and a concomitant determination. This becomes clear when we read the blog posts I have quoted. In Ken’s view non-YEC Christians are, needless say, compromised, especially, it seems, “Christian academics”, who, I guess, are AiG’s main antagonist and competitor in their crusade. For Ken rejection of YEC is a spiritual failing that he puts down to such things as “academic pride and peer pressure” and “indoctrination from colleges”. Whilst Christian academics largely stand against Ken's YEC publicity machine he will do all he can to portray them as hopelessly compromised by their institutional  connections.

Ken knows how to rally his troops and raise the genie of jingoism and self righteous anger: This is evidenced by his correspondent saying:

“…the battle that is raging ….. young people whose faith is on the line and who have not been adequately equipped for the attack [against YEC I presume] that they will face, not only from the world but now even from those trusted to teach them Biblical truths….. I am angered by those who claim to trust God’s word and follow Jesus, who rely more on man’s fallible word and who are leading young people astray in the proves…. Thank you for reminding me of the craftiness of the deceiver”. 

Fundamentalists don’t address the intellect but they sure know how to manipulate the emotions; they make no bones about who they think is deceiving you if you reject their message.

Ken’s correspondent goes on to tell us about the “simple” solution: “…now even Christian colleges fail to produce disciples! There must be a return to the simple, yet profound task of making disciples!” The method of making disciples is likely to be authoritarians and patriarchal. As the AiG book review page says “A common theme is that those in Administration [in Christian colleges] do not really know what is being taught, and little is being done to weed out unorthodox and errant teaching.” And boy, do these people know how to “weed out unorthodox and errant teaching”! In that reference alone is a microcosm of spiritual spin, fear and subtle emotional bullying.

Make no mistake, Ham and those he stands for are determined spiritual empire builders. They will not agree to disagree with Christians who don’t follow YEC; they will not leave them alone to make up their own mind about an issue moderate Christians regard as a non-core faith question, but will treat them as targets for spiritual duress. With huge business, political and social kudos interests at stake these fundamentalists are determined to convert an “erring” church to their views.

Subverting Science

I have just published the following comment on Network Norwich and Norfolk: (See here)

As I have already indicated, I do not accept YEC attempts to make a fundamental distinction between sciences which they try to undermine with the quip “You weren’t there” and those present tense continuous sciences like physics. Since all information arrives at our observational door via circuitous routes in space and time the “You weren’t there” quip could be damagingly applied across the board and, if pressed, subvert the whole domain of science and history.

In this connection the following blog post of mine may be of interest:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2011/06/cloistered-academics-vs-punks.html

The above post links to a post on atheist PZ Myers’ blog where he criticizes to the “You weren’t there” philosophy. The exact circumstances involve Myers criticizing an eleven year old girl who had been taught to parrot this quip by YEC ministries. Myers writes a gentle open letter to the eleven year old.

Myers letter is in my opinion very reasonable; he completely understands that the “You weren’t there” philosophy undermines not just the historical sciences, but the whole of science. (In fact ultimately it even undermines the Bible) PZ Myers is basically assuming the world to be rational and coherent and it is on the basis of that assumption that “You weren’t there” nihilism is prevented from frustrating all science. Where I would disagree with Myers is that the coherent ontology that permits science to prosper is taken for granted by him as axiomatic; for him the highly coordinated patterns of a rational cosmos are just descriptive brute facts of nature; end of story. However, I would want to push the boat out further and suggest that the coherent patterning in nature is not just descriptive but prescriptive, with all the connotations of a guiding a-priori complex intelligence that the term “prescriptive” entails (i.e. God)

My main reason for bringing this up is that in spite of disagreeing with Myers on ultimate origins I’m entirely at one with him on the assumption of the intelligibility of our world, an intelligibility that is undermined by a thoroughgoing application of “You weren’t there” nihilism. Hence I support Myers’ stand against implicit YEC nihilism. What I would like to point out is that in spite of Myers reasonable and gentle open letter to an eleven year old the YEC response to Myers was all but hysterical, triggering off a frenzy of spiritual recrimination. He was accused of all sorts of heinous sins such as “viciously attacking a little girl”, and being “an instrument of Satan” amongst other self righteous fulminations.

Although I differ with Myers’ on many things, in this instance I believe he has been unfairly treated by those who profess to be Christians. My own opinion is that those professing Christians should apologize to Myers for their treatment of him. This, I suppose, is too much to ask, but the least they could do is engage dispassionately with his perfectly reasonable argument rather than unfairly assassinating his character.

Cloistered Academics vs. Christian Punks

The Irony of a Cloistered Academia

I have recently been hammering it out with a couple Young Earth Creationists on Network Norwich (See the discussion thread found here). One of the issues I touched on was the YEC claim that because “we were not there” we are unable to disprove the YEC view that the cosmos was created a mere 6000 odd years ago. Here is an edited version of what I wrote in response to this view:

Science and repeatability: We need to get this straight as a matter of principle: No experiment is ever exactly repeatable as in principle it may be subtly modified by the effects of time, place and circumstance. Interestingly, Jason Lisle of AiG exploits this fact with his Anisotropic Synchrony Convention “solution” for the start light problem and yet here is a YEC telling us that experiments are for all practical purposes repeatable! All experiments are ultimately plagued by the “You weren’t there” syndrome and the “water under the bridge” effect of time passing. If YECs can grasp this they might have a little more humility about so called “operational science” which only differs from evolutionary science in degree and not in fundamental quality.

The canard about us not being a witness to something actually applies to every theoretical construction we conceive; not just ancient history, but to the whole of science. Viz: I wasn’t present for the testing of the laws of physics so how then do I know they are valid? We weren’t present at the writing of the Bible so perhaps its makeup had nothing to do with God’s choreography of events. The “You weren’t there” argument, if pressed, ultimately erodes our confidence in the whole of God’s revelation. Fundamentalist attempts to distinguish between “operational science” and history is an arbitrary construction that tries to stop the nihilist rot, but ultimately fundamentalism subverts science by undermining the information which the grace of providence has pleased to send us from the cosmos. (See: "Beyond Our Ken")

The motive behind the “You weren’t there” argument is to undermine the historical sciences. But the YECs want to have their cake and eat it; they won’t challenge physics (Unless you’re AiG's Jason Lisle, or a geocentrist) because that would really make them look silly and so they attempt to make an artificial and sharp demarcation between testable science and untestable science.

Interestingly enough PZ Myers tackles this same issue in response to Ken Ham congratulating a child for using the “You weren’t there” quip that Ken’s ministry teaches its following to use. PZ Myers’ excellent response, for which I’ll give him full marks, can be read here. Also of interest is PZ’s post here which makes the likely point that the Bible’s perspective (at least in the early OT) is in fact one of a flat earth and a geocentric cosmology. This perspective is valid for arcadian man but industrial age ultra-literalists have used it to delude themselves and marshal a gathering of gullible “punk” followers by exploiting the latter’s disaffection with the agnosticism of an ironically cloistered academic establishment.

It is very appropriate that Ken Ham relates the story of a child challenging the scientific establishment with the quip that his Ministry had taught the child, for really it is a child’s argument; one that’s easy to remember and understand and yet one that can leave even scientifically literate adults baffled for a moment as they grope for a simple one-liner riposte. As is so often the case children’s questions probe things that adults have long taken for granted and forgotten why they know them, but as soon as a little thought is applied the question crumbles at the touch. That this “you weren’t there” argument is so easily and uncritically swallowed by AiG’s gullible clientele is far from a recommendation for the mentality of that organization’s following. It reveals that shrewd fundamentalist ministries like AiG are based on a financial platform largely supported by scientifically illiterate punks who are disaffected with the profane academic establishment. AiG’s high profile has little to do with academic expertise, but instead exploits what the academic establishment refuses to give, and that is faith.

STOP PRESS 26/06/11
In this post PZ Myers tells us about to Ken Ham’s response to the above matter. Without engaging PZ’s very reasonable criticism of the “you weren’t there” quip, Ken and his correspondents put a very dark spin on the matter. They achieve this by piling on the emotive anti-superlatives: “Atheist attack”, “vile blogs” “shake their fist at God”, “an attack of the enemy”, “viciously attacking a little girl”, “instrument of Satan”. “How low they can go?”

And yet there is no attempt to engage PZ’s points and instead we get a tirade of deep, deep (self) righteous indignation. However, this response is not unexpected for it is inextricably bound up with their world view which tells them “If you are not with us you are against us; if you are against us you are against God, and if you are against God you must be evil”. The consequence is that these people have a very dark view of those not with them. Even Christians are treated with a deep suspicion if they don’t follow the YEC line and they will genuinely believe that such Christians are engaged in some kind of deep seated sin and compromise with Satan. I know because I have met many Christian sect members in my time; they look at you sullenly unable to establish normal cordial human relations with outsiders because they see them as at best apostate and at worst Satan’s scheming minions. I myself have been accused by the members of these sorts of sect as a “lover of lies”. No surprise really because they just cannot conceive that somebody can reject their position and still have a good conscience. They see the behavior of outsiders in a jaundiced light and therefore readily read the slightest criticisms as an ad hominem attack. They have no compunction about implicating outsiders  in heinous sin and yet they will put on a great show of (self) righteous indignation at trivial name-calling. Their consequent outlook on the world is a kind of pathological group think; for any reasonable and sane person could hardly construe PZ’s response as “viciously attacking a little girl”.

Polarisation passion feeds. Passion polarisation breeds. Polarisation is passion's cause, for crusade and holy wars.

“Church in England Spiritually Dead” According to Ham.

.

Ken Ham: Flying in the Teeth of the Evidence

Ken Ham has obviously read James Knight’s latest Network Norwich & Norfolk’s article. Ken quotes a large chunk of it on his blog here. Ken is a little upset about James calling AiG a “cult”. Ken is also not very complimentary about state of the church in England, or even in America for that matter:

Oh, by the way, look at the state of the church in England: it is all but spiritually dead. I’ve ministered in England about 15 times now and have met with countless church leaders there. I’ve seen for myself that this once-Christianized nation is pagan. Most of the next generation doesn’t even believe in God. Yes, that is the outcome of this heretical teaching, which sadly not only pervades the church in England but is also infecting the church now in the USA. Sadly, academics like Peter Enns and those from Calvin College (and others as quoted in the Christianity Today article) are leading generations of church leaders to undermine the authority of the Word instead of standing uncompromisingly upon it as we must do!

As far as I’m aware the church in England is far from spiritually dead; what Ken means, of course, is that a church rates as all but spiritually dead, or at least compromised by heresy, if it doesn’t accept YEC teaching and ministry. Thus, as far as Ken is concerned that puts the great majority  of the English church well beyond the pale of God's pleasure! No wonder he sees the English church as dead; so very little of it swallows AiG's flintstone travesty of palaeontology, hook line and sinker. And am I glad: The last thing we want in this country is an expensive outsized wooden toy boat dominating the shore of an undersized ornamental lake; it would be an affront to both atheist and Christian scientists in this country. It is this sort of doctrinaire sectarian perspective by Ken and AiG  that ticks one of my cult check boxes.

As I’ve said before I have a reserved view toward evolution and I have a lot of respect for many of the anti-evolutionist correspondents on Uncommon Descent. I can even understand how your average Joe and Josephine Pugh, puzzled and confused by the times they are in, are looking for something that narrows the domain of cognizance thereby taking the strain off their creaking epistemic resources. For them a literal interpretation of early Genesis provides a myth that makes sense of reality and suits them just fine; at the very least it cuts down the vertiginous time dimension to anthropic proportions, if not the agoraphobic spatial dimensions of the cosmos.

I have to say that in spite of being potentially sympathetic I have a great deal of trouble trying to summon up respect for AiG and what it stands for with its “Our Word is God’s Word” ethos. But the rampart “dead cert” fundamentalism of AiG is not the only problem I have: Frankly, when it comes to technical subjects commentators like Beyond Our Ken Ham lack competence and aptitude. Give me William Dembski, or Hugh Ross any day – but not Ken Ham. Ken’s expensive Theme Park projects are just a little too kitschy and sentimental for me. Ken really needs to sort out his PR even in America before he brings his anti-science circus and far right Christian extremism over the pond.

2001 SPACED OUT ODYSSEY

The following post is an essay I wrote on Postmodernism in 2001

Singularly Askew: "It was an incomprehensible interlacing of bars and tubes, oddly awry, heeling over into the black shadows as if to elude our scrutiny" (From an early version of H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine")

The following contains some of my thoughts and reflections on the subject of postmodernism. The contents are not a summarised compilation of the enormous amount of data on this subject, but really represent some back of the envelope theorizing as I search for the kind of underlying, unifying, simplifying and universal principles that are anathema to extreme postmodernism itself. Theorising is a risky business, especially with something like postmodernism which, with its tolerance of contradiction, fragmentary discourses, irrationality, schizophrenic analyses, and extreme pragmatism, affects to defy all categories by its very definition. Postmodern philosophers dislike any attempt to categorise their philosophy and may be highly evasive about just what they believe, and, in fact, may prefer to be thought of as believing nothing at all.

The Rational Cosmos

                I am a great believer in the inherent grand rationality of our world, a rationality that makes that world comprehensible and controllable, thus providing the foundation for all forms of rational philosophy, mathematics, high science, and technology. It is with a certain amount of affection that I look back to the time when these things started to take a firm root in Western Civilisation. Although there are precursors, it is the period called the "enlightenment", (roughly the 18th Century) which is usually regarded as the time when Western Civilisation started to exploit the deeply rooted cosmic order for all it was worth, giving extra impetus to commercial and industrial growth. Since then mathematics, science, and technology have burgeoned to become the hallmarks of modernism and the fuel of industrialisation and there seems to have been no looking back. Or has there? Nerds and techno freaks might feel at home and in control with science and technology but not everyone does. For many, especially the postmodernists, the apparently grandiose and obliging truths of mathematics and rigorous science are intimidating and may even be regarded as an oppressive form of chauvinistic intellectual imperialism. As a professor of humanities has remarked: "Humbled by the mathematical language of science, I become speechless and relapse into my tribal dialect ...." (*1)

A Long history of disaffection

                It seems to be a historical fact that Western culture goes through periodic times of crisis in confidence, times when doubts about the trappings of modernism and where it is going start to advance like the glaciers of the ice ages. Although separated by relatively warmer "interglacials", periods of disenchantment, like the glaciers themselves, may never disappear completely. These fluctuations in our cultural weather system can be traced throughout modern times; in fact crises of confidence seem to surface even during the enlightenment itself. Moreover, since the 18th century one could draw attention to various historical waypoints in support of a theory of waxing and waning confidence. I won't describe them in any detail here but merely name them: Nietzsch's nihilism, the collapse in confidence at the end of the nineteenth century, the "Dada" art coming out of World War 1, the extreme anthropocentrism of existentialism, relativism, gnosticism, and so-called postmodernism. In many of these cases one can hear the same echoes: A self undermining scepticism, a disaffection with high rationality and the powers that be, a turning to mysticism, irrationalism, and anthropocentrism, an emphasis on the "inner voice", a glorification of juvenility and sometimes insanity. One could characterise these things as a complex cluster of symptoms caused by a kind of recurring social nervous break down of varying severity.

When did it start?

                In one sense it may true to say that "postmodernism" is better called "paramodernism" as it seems to be a manifestation of a concomitant of modernism; a disaffection with the latter that waxes and wanes and perhaps never disappears completely. Postmodernism may, in fact, really be an emerging into consciousness, (through popularisation and commodification) of things that have been there on and off for a long time; a new manifestation of an old problem. However, I suppose that postmodernism slowly emerged as a philosophy with a name and conscious identity from about the sixties and seventies onward as various academics and intellectual commentators, like Focault, Lyotard, Derrida, Buadrillard (these are the names that hit you first - definitely a French connection there) articulated and crystallised its key ideas. The central paradox presented by postmodern intellectuals is that they are theorists who have generated a grand and general theory asserting that one cannot annunciate grand and general theories!  In so doing they have done what they do best, namely, contradict themselves. But contradiction is precisely what extreme postmodernism affects to live with. One commentator remarks on two postmodern analysts (Deleuze and Guattari) for whom the schizophrenic in their "scheme of things becomes some kind of ideal model of human behaviour"(*2). Insanity is a recurring theme in extreme postmodernist expressions. I find it difficult to answer the question as to whether philosophical postmodernism grew out of more general “postmodern” social trends or whether it helped fuel those trends; most likely some sort of feedback relation couples them and the two probably go hand in hand.  One thing to note however; postmodernism is not pandemic; many people, especially those who have large stakes in the technocratic complex, are quite happy with the enlightenment paradigm, thank you very much.

What is Postmodernism?

                Academics may have given it name and an identity but it is impossible to catalogue all the cultural vernacular that goes under the heading of postmodernism in folk philosophy, much of which is a mere hint and flavour of the postmodern ethos, and often amount to benign stylistic renditions of a more extreme philosophy. The core ideas of philosophical postmodernism seem to revolve around the belief that one can no longer believe in all-embracing theoretical generalisations (or "grand narratives" as some postmodern intellectuals call it), so typical of modernism, whether it is in connection with morality, politics, theology, sociology or science etc.  For the postmodernist the cosmos is too complex, irrational and hostile a place to allow itself to be encapsulated into a few succinct universal principles amenable to human understanding. In contrast the postmodern concept of truth is thoroughly pragmatic and the breath taking theoretical vistas sought for by the "enlightenment project" are replaced with fragmentary disposable ideas that one can hold as long as they are useful or desirable. Thus, hard postmodernism is deeply suspicious of anything thing that has pretensions of being an over arching timeless truth and the universality of the majestic Christian message would certainly fall into this category. Side by side with the loss of belief in a deeply rational cosmos is the demise of any optimistic utopian vision or a belief in incremental historical progress - surely no surprise as both require control and control requires a benign and deeply rational world; the hard postmodernist believes in neither, and probably has a deep seated guilt complex about the whole notion of control; may be because in our world it is here that things have so often gone wrong; a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing and the steward so easily becomes the control freak in search of hegemony. The postmodernist, therefore, has little faith in the authorities.

                How these core philosophical ideas of postmodernism relate to the wider social nexus is debatable and it is at this point one could spend years studying the subject. There is a postmodern take on everything, whether it is science, literature, theatre or art etc., and there is claim and counter claim as to what ranks as "postmodern". Tracing all the connections, associations and allusions requires an expert. Typical of the postmodern mindset is the attitude to "simulation". Postmodernism blurs the distinction between reality and the "simulations" of the media (e.g. films, stories, computer games etc.). In fact the postmodernist Buadrillard claimed that the Gulf war, (a war we saw through the lens of target cameras, thus making it resemble a computer game), was a simulation. This was really a provocative way of saying that the media is so pervasive and real that its products now constitute a reality in their own right. There is grain of truth here: We see so much of our world through the media that distinguishing between simulation and reality can be difficult. For example, some people claim the moon landings were simulations. The televised O. J. Simpson case became its media representation.  For many who saw the televised attack on the World Trade Centre the immediate impact was of something as unreal as a science fiction film. In postmodernism appearances count for a lot and any effort to get round the superficial interfaces of our world to a deeper, universal and obliging logic is not taken seriously. Appearances don't deceive the hard postmodernist because he believes there is no deeper meaning to be deceived about. For the postmodernist meaning is subjective and everyone lives in their own private world of meaning unable to fully communicate; least of all with language because its ambiguities allow each to interpret it differently. And the postmodernist is unlikely to have much regard for "high tech" theoretical tools like probability, randomness, information theory, association networks etc. which help address the paradoxes of communication and language.

                Postmodern cultural products tend to focus on the irrational, the chaotic, the inconsistent, the bizarre, the nihilistic, the retrograde, the bleak or the hostile. If you see buildings mixing and matching a variety of clashing architectural styles (sometimes called pastiches) then you are probably looking at a postmodern design. Media productions and writings that jumble styles, time and space, allow fact to intrude upon fiction and vice versa, are also postmodern as are productions where performance and reality are mixed (e.g. the Jerry Springer show). Films that otherwise accept the logical rationality of our world but which have a bleak moral and social outlook (e.g. Terminator, and Alien) are also postmodern; gone is the idea that evolution, social and biological, is a progressive process in favour of humanity. Postmodernism also has a fascination with "self referencing" scenarios; e.g. a person plays himself in media productions; to what extent does his "real" persona become the role he plays and should he feed that back into the role? i.e. should he play himself playing himself ? The postmodernist is fascinated with such logical conundrums because they seem (superficially) to transcend all logical analysis, reinforcing his faith in an unknowable confused world resistant to human understanding, a world of shear appearance where simulation and reality blend together into a depthless world that Baudrillard calls the "hyper reality".

                Like other philosophies the general ethos of postmodernism is imbibed and exhaled by the populace and makes itself felt in a drift toward a variety of preferences, attitudes and styles. In particular, postmodern minds are receptive to consumerism, mixing and matching, transience, hyper reality, and a disconnected hotchpotch of ideas and perceptions. But the hard postmodernism of the philosophers must be distinguished from "soft" postmodernism; the term "postmodern" has been mobilised as a kind of catch-all category describing the general trends of the social milieu including anything which seems to capture the mood of postmodernism. e.g. brainstorming, fuzzy logic, eclecticism, chaos theory, proliferation of choice, quantum mechanics, theories of historical retrogression etc, etc, all of which really amount to a sophistication of concept or method but which do not strictly fall outside the rational paradigm. The term is also used rather loosely to label any movement in society that expunges some of the crass optimism of modernism, and modernist assumptions of an incremental progressive historical drift. In fact, the prefix "post" is often used when the preliminary "hype" that may greet new and modern ideas gives way to sobriety and reality: For example, with the demise of the "dot coms" one might say that we are now in a "post.com" period. In fact I have heard claims we are now passing into a "post-postmodern" period. That's no surprise to me; postmodernism has not only been "bandwagoned" and hyped, but it also suffers from the very ills it diagnoses and has logical limits on how far it can be developed.

                Whilst one must always be aware of the operation of social feedback loops much of the immediate responsibility for the philosophical state of our society is down to its intellectual leaders who through sins of omission fail to give a lead or through sins of commission lead in the wrong direction. Those who control the media are usually influenced by the philosophies of the day, and they in turn may be found supplying the fragments of postmodern texts and narratives by which the average person can dress and justify a life style of extreme pragmatism, individualism and a world of private meaning. But hard postmodernism has one last devastating message: With its thorough going scepticism of any deep rationality or benevolence in order to things, postmodernism leaves humanity wide open to the ultimate dissolution of the personality; for it must even question whether we are mistaken about the very concept of individuality and personal identity. Hard postmodern is so deeply logically flawed and cognitively unstable that its whole structure slips and slides toward a chaotic metamorphosis as it undermines even its own implication of individualism and the distinction between the sane and the insane is then ultimately lost.

The Causes

                On the causes of Western postmodernism the following are probably relevant:

1) Big anonymous machine like societies committed to investment and growth leading to communal fragmentation, and heartless change. Inequalities and exploitation. Many high and unfilled expectations. Demystification of authority.

2) The own goals of hi-tech society: Ecological stress. Control freak approach to the environment (probably a sign of insecurity). Warfare on an industrial scale. Nuclear energy gave us fear in the form of the bomb but never generated the promised "too cheap to meter" energy etc, etc.

3) A deep alienation from the highly analytical approach of science and technology. Science has revealed things difficult to make anthropic sense of: Cosmic history. The spectre of machine intelligence and alien life forms. Cosmic sizes. Atomism. A paradoxical blend of randomness and determinism. An exclusively "emergent paradigm" that disregards context, contingency and providence.

4) Physics, the science of fundamentals, is passing into a very abstruse and difficult stage, barely understood even by its intelligentsia, thus helping to consolidate the notion of an incomprehensible cosmos.

5) Science and technology has a relatively high proportion of nerds and techno freaks. That these social inadequates have one over on the rest of the population is often more than the socially competent can bear.

6) There are profound and unanswered questions over goals, purpose and meaning that the "emergent paradigm" of contemporary folk philosophy cannot address, and indeed may regard as meaningless.

7) Counter Reactions: A strong affirmation of the exclusively human: e.g. emotion, irrationality, sensuality. Affirmations of otherness: gnosticism, new age, “cargo” cults. Clutching at any hints of the supernatural. Alternative versions of history (e.g. Atlantis), medicine, and science.

8) Scepticism is a healthy enlightenment attitude in as far as it is an urge to test, demonstrate and prove, but if pressed too far it is like a digestive system that in its lust for food starts to digest itself.

                No doubt much could be made of these lines of inquiry and more. However, once alienation and disaffection sets in, for whatever reason, there seems to be no philosophical backstop to halt it. By way of illustration there is one theme above (8) that I would like to pick up briefly.

The 2001 Syndrome

                Ever since enlightenment times questions have been raised about how, without God, we have any right at all to expect a secure authoritative foundation to epistemology and ontology ( = know-how) whether it be in connection with science, social order or morality: Without God as underwriter, why should we be favoured with know-how beyond what is immediate, pragmatic and needed for short term survival? Attempts to place human know-how on a firm footing without the assumption of a Divine underwriter often resemble that famous self referencing problem we see when a dog chases its own tail. One might chase up the foundations of human know-how in order to secure its place in the museum of human achievement, but the cognitive and epistemic mechanisms doing the chasing are the very things being chased. If man seeks to secure a logically self-sufficient agnostic foundation to epistemology and ontology such a target may be unreachable because the very foundation sought for must be secured with that self same foundation. To the thoroughgoing scepticism of extreme postmodernism this is further evidence that there is no absolute foundation at all; a conclusion that is itself contradictory. The fact is that there will always be inherent instabilities and deep contradictions in human cognition whilst it affects to adopt a thoroughgoing scepticism either about its own make-up or of the world of which it is part. Those contradictions may remain hidden for a while but from time to time will resurface in recurring crises of confidence.

                To me, extreme postmodernism smacks of machines gone wrong; human machines stuck in a vicious self-referencing feedback loop: 2001 with its pathological HAL9000 has arrived. One might construe this as the just deserts for the abuse of providence by a self-congratulatory modernism that credits its socio-technological successes to anything but providence. As the proud "control freakery" of modernism seeks to put the foundations of human affairs on a Godless base it soon finds there is no such base and runs into self-referencing problems. Loss of faith in the deeply coherent structure of cosmic rationality may be a consequence. To the extreme postmodernist life is a simulation, an interface that can change as quickly and irrationally as the TV screen of the channel surfer. The perception is that the players and entities in this skin deep world have bit parts with no extensive background history or story that can be exhaustively tested and probed. But to me exactly the opposite is true; our world has the touch and feel of reality precisely because its coherent, consistent and replete rationality cannot be faulted by any test known to man. As such it can be likened to the kind of machine intelligence proposed by Alan Turing; that is, as a player that performs flawlessly and rationally under all conceivable probes, interrogations and tests (*3). Likewise, the players in our world whether they be sentient or material are not fakes, facades and bit parts; they do not have a mere "appearance of history" but have full blown life stories; they are not mere interfaces but have real mechanisms behind the facade.  Thus, in every sense they go beyond appearance. Any self-conscious being knows what I mean.

                If postmodernism serves any useful purpose at all it may do so as a vehicle for raising questions where there should be questions and sometimes one gets the feeling that the term “postmodernism” is used simply to refer to “modernism with humility”. But we must not forget that the kernel of philosophical postmodernism is its contradictory "antifoundational" philosophy and this antifoundationalism becomes apparent in the evasive shifting answers postmodernists give as to what they believe because to do so is to admit some kind of absolute foundation. Scepticism in measure is healthy; after all it was good old-fashioned enlightenment scepticism that brought me to faith. But the absolute scepticism of extreme postmodernism ultimately destroys itself in an unstable feedback loop.

It is fundamental to human nature to attempt to understand the world of which it is part. Even postmodernism comes to its own perverse, nihilistic and anarchistic conclusions. However, one cannot take for granted that the complexities of the Cosmos can be encapsulated in relatively few simple principles. Encapsulation of human know-how is a kind of data compression and this can happen only if, firstly, there is something about cosmic data allowing it to be so compressed, and, secondly, there are the cognitive resources available to compress it. But in a graceless world neither contingency need be granted. The giveness of these contingencies is dependent on the grace of providence and we can only exploit them if we are willing to accept that grace.

                                                                                                                                                                T.V. Reeves November 2001

*1 See reference 2, page xi

*2 See reference 1, page 7

*3 Alan Turing, Bletchley Park computer pioneer, suggested that the condition for true machine intelligence would be fulfilled if a machine can converse at an indistinguishably human level. Without commenting on the sufficiency on Turing`s condition, it serves as a useful illustration of what is meant by "in depth rationality"; that is, as something which can never be revealed as a facade by all the conceivable the tests and probes available to finite beings.

References

1. The Icon critical dictionary of Postmodern Thought: Editor Stuart Sim. Icon 1998

                A compilation of essays on the cultural effects of postmodernism. Includes a useful index of terms.

2. The Enlightenment. Norman Hampson: Penguin 1976

                Records and analyses some less well known aspects of the enlightenment.            

3. Introduction to H.G Wells' Time machine: Jonathan Benison, Cideb 1994.

                Benison cites the "irrationalism of  the Decadent era of the 1890s"

4. At the Edge of History/Passages about Earth: William Irwin Thompson. Lindisfarne press 1990

                An eloquent critical appraisal of technocratic society.

5. How to know you know you know it.  Knotes by T.V.Reeves 1993. Unpublished

                A short study on "self reference" in human knowledge.
(See here for the latter reference http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-know-you-know-you-know-it.html)

Does Intelligent Design Make Testable Predictions? Part 2

Could ID predict this scenario? If it happened would the explanatory filter fail to detect ID?

In the first part of this series I expressed doubt about Intelligent Design’s ability to make hard predictions; after all, ID covers a large range of opinions from Sir John Polkinghorne’s fruitful evolutionism to Beyond our Ken Ham’s mature creation, a creation created “just like that” 6000 years ago. It seems that ID can be used to underwrite so many creation scenarios that its predictive content is seriously compromised. I say this as an ID creationist myself, so I am not saying it from an anti-ID stance. In fact I say it because I am anxious to make all due allowance for the problems of prediction that arise naturally from an ontology that starts with the assumption of some complex presumably self-explaining entity whose nature is very alien to human kind; hardly a sound basis for successful prediction - and we thought predicting human behaviour was difficult enough. So perhaps the lack of predictability in ID is less a bug than it is an expected feature of the ontology it posits. Let’s face it, ID is going to struggle to be hard science.

So where does this leave the predictions in Uncommon Descent’s post here? Well, ID does become a harder science if, as seems to be the case in the community UD represents, ID is de-facto anti-evolutionism. A de-facto anti-evolutionism is liable to contradict certain evolutionary scenarios and will presumably impact expected biological and paleontological observations. But even if we assume an anti-evolutionary position that still leaves us with an open ended range of ID candidates running from Old Earth Creationism to fundamentalist views like that of Beyond our Ken Ham. Anti-evolutionists, then, will claim that they know what hasn’t happened, but they have no consensus on what has happened and consequently they are going to be vague about just what they expect the fossil record to reveal; all they know is that it’s not going to reveal evolution, at least as currently understood. Nevertheless, when ID slips over into anti-evolutionism it at least appears to be saying something with a little more content than “God did it – somehow”.

Anyway, without further ado here are the first four predictions in UD’s list, each followed by my own comment. I was hoping to get through all predictions in one post, but as there are a total of 14 predictions it looks as though it’s going to be a long hot summer.

ID Prediction 01: ID predicts that the Universe had a beginning.

My Comment: I can’t see why this follows. In his book “The Intelligent Universe” Sir Fred Hoyle moots the idea that life is intelligently designed and yet as a lifelong supporter of Steady State Theory he obviously didn’t think his version of ID implied a universe with a beginning. Neither do I see this as a prediction of ID in its most abstracted form. However, I agree that it is a prediction of mainstream Christian Theism; but Christian theism isn’t ID in its most abstracted form.

ID Prediction 02: ID predicts an increase (and not a decrease), as science progresses, in the number of finely-tuned parameters pertinent to the laws and constants of physics.

My Comment: I have a feeling that this prediction arises out of a misconception I have occasionally seen on UD that physical laws can’t carry information: The naive argument runs as follows: Laws equate to “necessity” and therefore the patterns they generate have a probability of 1. A probability of 1 entails zero information. The upshot is that many anti-evolutionists cannot see how the patterns implied by physical laws can be a receptacle of information. The only kind of information they recognize, then, are configurations that appear to have been patched in “by hand” rather than generated by physical laws. Moreover, Dembski’s explanatory filter, although valid in circumstances within the cosmic context, has the unfortunate side effect of making it look as though Law and Disorder causes obviate the need for Intelligent Design; the filter doesn’t readily raise the question of the Intelligent origin of Law and Disorder but instead invokes a regress whereby Law and Disorder generates Law and Disorder.

All in all this amounts to a double whammy against the efficacy of physical laws, for not only do they appear to be information-less, but the all important explanatory filter fails to explicitly acknowledge that laws themselves may be intelligently contrived. Thus, on UD there is tendency for only “hand patched” information to register on their radar as having ID origins. Hence in UD’s view the greater the level of overt hand patching the firmer the case for ID. Anti-evolutionists, then, expect more hand patched configuring rather than less. In my view high levels of “hand patching” does not necessarily follow from ID. If it really is possible to generate life using law and disorder, then given the level of Intelligence envisaged by ID creationists it follows that that intelligence is well able choose an elegant set of laws with a minimum of adjustable variables. Whether elegant laws can actually generate information I have considered on the following web pages:

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2010/11/self-organisation.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2009/12/darwin-bicentenary-part-29-dembski-and.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2009/03/darwin-bicentenary-15-critique-of.html

However, I must add a disclaimer: None of this necessarily means that Physical Law is the means by which  a creative intelligence has introduced information into our world. The UDers may be right and life isn’t a product of law and disorder, but has, in fact, been directly patched in by Divine Intelligence in the form of a second creative dispensation – this is why I like to keep tabs on UD in case they come up with something; they just might. Unlike some people who call them “IDiots” I do have respect for their abilities.

ID prediction 03: ID predicts the presence of specified complexity in living systems.

My Comment: For something to have “specified complexity” two conditions must be met. Firstly, the object must be complex in configuration – this rules out highly ordered configurations like crystalline periodicities. Secondly, the object must be highly improbable - this rules out highly disordered configurations because high disorder, by virtue of its overwhelming representation in the space of possibilities, is, assuming equal a-priori probabilities, very probable. Hence objects with specified complexity are objects that are both complex and at the same time members of a very improbable class. In absolute terms it is clear that organic structures fulfill both these conditions – they are complex and yet ordered enough to be very far removed from absolute disorder. So in one sense the above “prediction” is less a prediction than it is a manifestly obvious feature of life. I must emphasise, however, that I have just said “in absolute terms” – that is, a la Fred Hoyle’s Junkyard Jumbo “explosion” where it is assumed that each and every possible configuration of elements is equally possible thus entailing an absolutely minute probability of a Jumbo Jet forming during an explosion.

But if as evolutionists are implying life is a product of the “self organization” implicit in the laws of physics, then in terms of conditional probabilities the probability of life is much greater than it would be in absolute terms. The probability of life conditioned on the Laws of Physics can be represented as Prob(Life|Laws of Physics). Evolutionists are effectively telling us that the value of Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) is great enough for there to be a realistic chance of the formation of life in the history of the universe. Thus, the “specified complexity” of life, given the Laws of Physics, is correspondingly reduced. Now, as far as the UD community is concerned, specified complexity is used to detect Intelligent Design; it is used in the explanatory filter to decide whether a configuration is a product of intelligence or law and disorder. The trouble is, as I have pointed out above, the explanatory filter does not explicitly acknowledge the present of intelligence if a configuration can be explained, with a reasonable probability, as the outcome of law and disorder. Hence, if Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) is sufficiently high UDers are liable to lose sight of a cosmic intelligence behind the universe. Consequently, they favour the view that Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) is extremely low, which is the mathematical way of expressing their strong anti-evolutionist line; that is, they maintain that the laws of physics are not a sufficient condition for life thus entailing the high specified complexity of organic structures even given the laws of physics.

In order to convert the conditional probability Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) into the absolute probability Prob(Life), we need to know Prob(Laws of Physics). Trouble is, we haven’t got a clue what this value is and in fact we have little idea how to calculate it, if indeed it is an intelligible concept. In spite of some speculations about how physical laws might change across a multiverse no quantification is currently possible because there is no known Law and Disorder regime that generates law and disorder regimes. However, we can perhaps get an inkling of an answer to this question if we remind ourselves of an important mathematical abstraction: Namely, of all possible platonic patterns of behavior the ordered behavior described by the laws of physics is clearly an extreme rarity. Hence on this basis, and assuming equal a-priori probabilities, Prob(Laws of Physics) looks to be very low. This implies that even if Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) is relatively high, then the absolute probability of life, Prob(Life), is very low. So as far as specified complexity is concerned life has a very low absolute probability whether or not it is implicit in the laws of physics. That means that the above UD “prediction” has more the character of a logical truism in as much as it is true whether we are evolutionists or not. Therefore this “prediction” does not necessarily express an anti-evolutionist view.

ID prediction 04: ID predicts that, as scientific research progresses, biological complexity will be seen to increase over time, and information will have a more and more central role in the governing of life’s operations.

My comment: By “increase over time” I think the author actually means human research time. If so then this seems a rather trivial prediction given that as far the extent of our knowledge about organisms is concerned the only way is up!

But I’m going to use this opportunity as an excuse to talk about an increase in organic complexity over paleontological time; a prediction that is not peculiar to anti-evolutionist ID but also follows if Prob(Life|Laws of Physics) has realistic values - that is, evolution itself predicts an increase in biological complexity over time. Let me explain.

It is clear that not all biological organisms are of equal complexity. Here I am not so much talking about configurational complexity but the more abstract computational complexity measured by computation time. For example, it is fairly self evident that metazoans must be preceded by precursor structures; very likely single cell organisms. Single cell organisms in turn will be preceded by basic chemical constituents. In short any organic structure is preceded by a minimum number of precursor conditions that follow in a strict stratified sequence. This stratified sequence forms a kind “critical path” in the manufacture of the structure. The longer this path, the more computationally complex the structure is because the minimum time needed to arrive at the structure  is an increasing function of this sequence length.

If evolution is a kind of diffusion motion through configuration space then the precursor structures will necessarily be reached first. This diffusion motion causes a slow population growth in organic configuration space where the stratification sequence ensures that the “lower levels” will be populated before the “higher levels”. Thus it follows that biological complexity will be seen to increase over time. One way to think about this result is thermodynamically: The Earth is in a kind of morphological disequilibrium; as time increases the shuffling of happenstance entail a kind of diffusion motion which ensures the progressive population of morphological slots over time. Those morphological slots that require a sequence of morphological stages to be followed before they are arrived at will be populated later rather than sooner. The result is that biological complexity, computationally speaking, increases over time.