Crypto-Deism

America, Masons, Deism,Conspiracy Theories, Fundamentalism and Paranoia

America, nowadays, is a nervous if not rather frightened country (See my last blog entry, http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2011/09/witchs-brew-from-townhallcom.html). The US are going through a tough time when many Americans have become paranoid about all manner of dogs, real and imagined, who are out to get them; from actual Islamic terrorists to florid tales about conspiratorial groups within the US government itself. Given this malaise it is no surprise that certain motifs - such as global warming theories - are listed as subversive of the American way of life and provoke passionate responses. Such reactions, if they boarder on the obsessive compulsive, are not good news for us in the West who look to the US for firm and confident leadership in science, technology, culture, politics, commerce and even in Christianity. Instead the Country seems to be tearing itself apart with all sorts of spiteful polarised arguments.

Another of those ideas regarded as subversive, especially amongst America’s considerable Christian fundamentalist population, is of course evolution or “Darwinism” as they refer to it. For Christian fundamentalists the question of the origins of life is seen through a “God did it” versus “Darwinism did it” dichotomy. The Christian anti-evolutionists see the two as mutually exclusive and this, as I have suggested before on this blog, is down to a subliminal deistical mindset which is over-awed by the putative creative and sustaining vitality of “naturalism” and therefore sees it as a threatening pretender to God’s sovereign role. For if “Darwinism did it” then that is regarded as a challenge to the claim that “God did it”. If God didn’t do it that means naturalism did it. If naturalism can do it, that means we don’t need God to do it. If we don’t need God to do it that makes His presence, perhaps even his very existence, superfluous. Thus for many American Christians “Darwinism” challenges the very basis of their faith.

In a blog entry dated 19th September 2011 anti-darwinist blogger Cornelius Hunter (See the “Darwin’s God" blogspot) paints the perfect picture of classic deism where“Natural laws” are putatively able to do God’s work for him thus giving him his redundancy papers. In fact this kind of deism, if followed to its natural conclusion, is in danger of taking God out of the picture altogether and handing Him His “God is Dead” certificate: Here are some pertinent extracts from Hunter’s article:

The view that God should work according to natural laws rather than direct providence has always been attractive to religious believers. These believers prefer a more distant God for many reasons. For instance, is it not obvious that God would not have directly created such an evil world? Instead, God must have created the laws and went away. Like Aristotle’s Prime Mover, God is removed from the evil and not culpable. But there are several other theological traditions that argue just as strongly against divine intervention, and for creation by natural law. One is that the world, especially the lowly things of the world, are beneath God’s dignity.

In the era of modern science the infra dignitatem argument, orinfra dig for short, traces at least back to the Cambridge Platonists in the seventeenth century. The idea was that God would not, as the Anglican botanist John Ray put it, “set his own hand as it were to every work, and immediately do all the meanest and trifling’st things himself drudgingly, without making use of any inferior or subordinate Minister.”

The subordinate minister or agent was Plastic Nature which, unlike the Creator, was not infallible or irresistible. Instead, Plastic Nature had to contend with the ineptitude of matter. The results were those “errors and bungles” of nature.

Such gnostic tendencies by no means ceased with the seventeenth century. Indeed, this view seemed to have a divine sanction. After all, to control the world exclusively through natural laws—God’s secondary causes—required an even greater God. In 1794 Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin wrote this Gnostic-sounding vision of how natural history should be viewed: “The world itself might have been generated, rather than created; ….”

Divine providence could engage in the noble activity of impressing laws upon matter, but not grovel in the muck of nature

Alfred Wallace agreed. Evolution’s cofounder argued that the universe was self-regulating according to its general laws and in no need of continual supervision and rearrangement of details. “As a matter of feeling and religion,” concluded Wallace, “I hold this to be a far higher conception of the Creator of the Universe than that which may be called the ‘continual interference hypothesis’.”

Darwin, for his part, was keen to the implications of this modern gnosticism. If God was not intimately involved in the world, then was He involved at all?

Likewise, it was reasonable for Darwin to argue that complex organs were not likely shaped by God because that would mean he works as man does. (This latter statement appears to be motivated by a humunclus view of ID – see http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2011/09/does-intelligent-design-make-testable.html )

In his post Hunter puts these deistical ideas into the minds of Victorians who he claims had a Gnostic-like religious rationale for putting a distance between God and a world full of suffering and evil. These Victorians, according to Hunter, favoured the idea of evolutionary and “naturalistic” mechanisms being responsible for a morally sub-standard creation, because it got God off the hook for the evil and suffering in the world; basically a maneuver very similar to the Gnostic attempt to solve the problem of suffering and evil with a theological kludge which puts creation into the hands of a demiurge.

Now, I myself can’t speak for Victorians, but Hunter is clearly portraying them as promoting a distant and unconnected God, a God that is not exactly the epitome of the incarnate God of the Cross who closely identifies with His creation. Hunter’s subtext here is that because these spiritually suspect Victorians used and needed evolution as a kind of gnostic rationale for suffering and evil, therefore “evolution” is concomitantly discredited. But Hunter’s argument is only compelling for those who implicitly accept the force of the deistical notion that “naturalism” implies a disconnected if not absentee God. Ergo, Hunter is a crypto-deist.

Before proceeding I must make it clear that I have no strong commitment to conventional evolution and I would even go so far as to say that I’m very interested in the kind of criticisms Hunter makes of standard evolutionary theory. But if evolution is to be ultimately rejected it must be rejected for the right reasons: The crypto-deism that Hunter subliminally espouses is not one of those reasons.

It is irony is that many a Christian believer is subliminally impressed by the logic of deism and its challenge to their faith. That they (subconsciously) accept the underlying categories of deism is seen in their reaction to it: If “naturalism” renders God redundant they respond by re-employing God in acts of “super naturalism” ; that is they bring Him back in to the show by allowing Him to intervene in the workings of nature from time to time; the bigger the “intervention” the better it is. For if the creation of life is to be regarded as a kind of macro “intervention” that fails to fit into a Darwinian natural law framework then it leaves a conspicuous logical hiatus readily filled with God’s interventional role, a role which for many is the rationale for His existence and the underwriter of faith. But my thesis is that many anti-evolutionists have in fact swallowed the concept of deism and its concomitant concept of “naturalism”; for the only way they can think of challenging the sovereignty of “naturalism” is by holding onto to the concept of divine “interventions” in the face of what they take for granted as the otherwise autonomous “natural” processes. For the Christian crypto-deist the existence of those “interventions” is important, if not critical, to faith. Evolution is thought of as a non-interventional process whose efficacy to generate form and pattern must be challenged at all costs. In this context “generation” and absolute creation are conflated; there is a failure here to see that the concept of  "pattern" doesn't just apply to a configuration that is an end result but also to a configuration that is spread over time in the form of a process of generation.

At the heart of this reaction to the putative autonomous creativity of “natural mechanism” is, I suggest, a profound misunderstanding about just what science is uncovering. Science is not uncovering autonomous mechanisms and processes, but rather the amenability of the patterns of nature to be described using two kinds of mathematical object, namely, algorithms and statistics, (or “law and disorder” as I call it). That we find the patterns of nature to be amenable to mathematical description does not mean nature runs itself any more than computer algorithms can run themselves – such algorithms need the constant sustaining presence of a computational substrate to run. (A similar sustaining immersive presence of God may be alluded to in Acts 19:27b-29). Algorithms and statistics ostensively make nature more knowable but that says little about the metaphysical question of whether or not that that entails less need for some transcendent supporting substrate. If nature does contain those one-off discontinuities in pattern such as water being transmuted into wine, this interruption in the flow of normalcy would be no more an “intervention” than a hardware interrupt in the execution of a program. So called “naturalism”, (that is the reign of law of disorder) has less to do with absolute creation than it does a description of the patterns of what is already created. (I’m using the running of an algorithm as a metaphor here, but some people are taking it more literally! See here: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2007/02/time-travel.html )

In any case if the unknowability of the “miraculous” one-off somehow prompts us to feel the presence of God more keenly, then even should our world be exclusively a story of law and disorder it is still subject to the unknowable and the singular. Viz: The laws of our world are non-linear and therefore the patterns they generate are highly sensitive to  the least significant decimal places of real numbers, numbers whose information in the decimal depths is inaccessible to human kind. Moreover it may well be that quantum randomness is absolute in sense that it generates patterns that are not amenable to humanly manageable short time algorithms. Thus as far as we are concerned the cosmos is open ended, the receptacle of one-off providences, even under so called “naturalism” .

In sum then I don’t see why the tainting of evolution with Victorian religious motives and deistical assumptions has any necessary effect on its truth or falsehood. In some ways Hunter typifies the nervous anti-evilutionist who obsesses about the apparent threat evolution poses to his faith. Although his blog contains many thoughtful challenges to evolution it is largely the domain of anti-theory and on the actual history of life he has little to say.


End Note: I don't want to be entirely negative about Hunter. He often makes some good points. Here's one of them taken from the post I've considered above: It is perhaps one of the great enigmas in religious thought that one can profess to be an agnostic, skeptic, or even atheist regarding belief in God yet still hold strong opinions about God. Very true I feel.

Witch's Brew from Townhall.com

...plus, one Mayan end of the world prediction, a page or two from Revelation, Islamic terrorism, Haitian Earthquake, US tornadoes, Wikileaks upstarts, Japanese tsunamis, Super Volcanoes, North Korean H bombs, the Sun going Super Nova...... With that mixture of unconnected scare stories you won't want for an apocalypse.

The email below was been sent to me twice from what appears to be my "Townhall.com" account. "Townhall.com" is a right of right wing American Web sight. Now, I'm not exactly a follower of the "Zilch Government, Mega Big Business" philosophy, but I've signed up with them because I'm interested in hearing what the've got to say. But even by "Tea Party" standards the "Government Conspiracy" theory hawked below looks to be so extreme I am wondering if it is some kind of spoof based on an application "Poe's Law". I have to admit that I'm completely at a loss as to whether it's serious or not. But what the hell, it will definitely sell; threat of apocalypse sells books so why let authenticity get in the way of big business? The story exploits humanity's deeply entrenched superstitious and apocalyptic fears and taps into the 2012 survival guide market. It reminds me of the witch's brew in Macbeth; every scary rumour and morsel from urban folklore is thrown into a fearful brew, from Mayan end of the world predictions, through Islamophobia, to scientifc patter about Solar instability. After reading it you'll be hallucinating all sorts of frightening monsters from the id. Needless to say the author of the story wants us to read his four volume post-apocalypse survival guide which he will post to us if we send him a dollar or two; why let the End Of The World get in the way of a nifty Big Business plan? I'll be purchasing my copies after 21st December 2012 when I can get a knock down stock clearance discount - I suggest everyone does the same; why let the End Of The World get in the way of a good business head?

STOP PRESS 28/9/11
The  21st December 2012 profiteers are making hay while the sun shines: See:


http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/260614/mexican-film-claims-proof-of-aliens.html

Dear Fellow American, The US government has been lying to you. I wish I could say that the government was just keeping the secret because they’re incompetent… But no one can miss how vital this secret is. In fact, this secret could literally save millions of innocent American lives… Or spell near-certain death for thousands of families. Please don’t think I say this to scare you; this is reality.

Horrific Predictions For 2012… From: Maxwell Swart – Independent American Researcher Date: Friday 9/16/11 Dear Fellow American, The US government has been lying to you. I wish I could say that the government was just keeping the secret because they’re incompetent… But no one can miss how vital this secret is. In fact, this secret could literally save millions of innocent American lives… Or spell near-certain death for thousands of families. Please don’t think I say this to scare you; this is reality. The worst part is… We’ve made it easy for them to lie to us. Click Here To Get The Inside Scoop On The Horrific Predictions The Government Has Been Hiding! You and I have been ignoring the fact our loved ones are in grave danger. Pretending this “President” isn’t ruining our country, military and economy. Pretending it’ll just “blow over.” But you’ve had that sinking feeling… You know there is something very wrong here. I can relate to that. It was tough for me to admit it, but our homeland is in a precarious position. As hard as it is to imagine, our great nation could literally be wiped-out – by an enemy we don’t even have on the radar. You see, right now our biggest threat isn’t the Taliban, Islamic radicals, North Korea or even a deadly disease from Africa. Our biggest danger, is also something we can’t live without… The sun could kill us. Click here to read the time sensitive predictions made on the fate of the US in 2012… Oddly enough, there’s more here than pure scientific discoveries… For The First Time In Modern History, Science, Religion, & Common Sense Agree… Strangely enough multiple unrelated sources are pointing to something big: The Mayan Calendar drops off completely Current events have started sounding an awful lot like Revelation Now NASA picks up potential for the sun to go haywire and decimate our nation. Bottom line? Something is very wrong. Sure, here in the US we’re still reasonably safe – but for how long? Take a good look at the world. In 2010 alone we’ve had: The Haitian earthquake killing over 220,000 – not to mention more massive earthquakes than the world has seen in the past few centuries… A dramatic increase in tornadoes in the US… Wikileaks jeopardizing our relationship with practically every country on the map… North Korea gearing up to attempt a nuclear Armageddon… Islamic Jihadists in Sweden… Just turn on CNN & I’m sure you’ll have more. The painful reality is… we’re spiraling downward. The even more painful reality is… If you haven’t started preparing for 2012 you could be sealing your family’s fate. Again, this isn’t fear mongering. Here’s why: I HATE to think of my fellow Americans harmed, and I pray that your wife and children stay safe. Which is exactly why I’ve got to be honest with you about the dangers of 2012. No one likes to imagine your starving neighbors rioting. Beating down your front door to steal any food you were smart enough to stockpile… It’s a nightmare to imagine yourself losing everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve… The home your family was raised in, the nest-egg you scrimped and scraped to save. Worst of all is the thought of our noble nation being torn apart from the inside. Torn apart by widespread fear and panic. Brother turning against brother. Trust me, you don’t want to be forced to rely on strangers for your next meal. Or even worse – the government… But don’t take my word for it. Ask the Katrina survivors what it was like… Not showering for days. Having no place to go but FEMA refugee camps, and being treated like dead weight… Click Here to learn exactly how to protect yourself & your family from the horrific predictions of 2012… You see, the reality here is not pretty. And the government knows it. But… The Government Does NOT Want This Information Becoming Public! Since the Wikileaks fiasco, the electronic arm of the FBI has been on the prowl to shut down any and every website that might have “potentially harmful” information. While I applaud them for prosecuting that good-for-nothing cyber-spy Assange, the sad truth is they’re going to tackle anything they see as a threat. Which wouldn’t be so bad, but, this administration sees American pride and truth as a threat. Now, I’m not going to lie down and give up without a fight, but, I’m not sure how much longer this information will be available… Click here to read the time sensitive predictions made on the fate of the US in 2012… Please do not procrastinate! Without this knowledge you and your family are wide open to serious danger that you absolutely must prepare for. Sincerely, Maxwell Swart P.S. NASA has made some of the biggest discoveries in human history. Don’t let their earth shattering secret that could save our nation stay hidden! P.P.S. You’re not going to get any scientific mumbo-jumbo here – just exactly what you need to save your family, and possibly your country. Click Here to learn exactly how to protect yourself & your family from the horrific predictions of 2012… __________________________SUBSCRIPTION INFO__________________________ This email is never sent unsolicited. It is only sent to people on the Townhall.com network OR a friend might have forwarded it to you. We respect and value your time and privacy. You can UNSUBSCRIBE from this Townhall Spotlight by clicking here. OR Send postal mail to: Townhall Spotlight Unsubscribe 1901 N. Moore St - Suite 701, Arlington, VA 22209 WERE YOU FORWARDED THIS EDITION OF THE TOWNHALL SPOTLIGHT? You can get your own free subscription by clicking here. * Copyright Townhall and its Content Providers. All rights reserved.

Failed YEC Star Light “Solution” One Year On

Jason Lisle – A Clever-Dick Ahead of the Game?

On September 22nd of last year “Answers in Genesis” published yet another attempt to solve a very basic problem that has bugged Young Earth Creationism since its 1960s recrudescence amongst Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists – namely, the problem of how star light arrives on our Earthly doorstep given that few people disagree (even YECs) that those stars have distances measured in thousands, millions and even billions of light years. The author of this latest YEC “solution” is AiG blogger Jason Lisle. Lisle’s theory uses the fact that issues of repeatability and uniformity make it difficult to measure the one way speed of light with scientific rigor, whereas the two way speed of light can be measured with much greater experimental strictness. In 1963 the theoretical physicist W. F. Edwards showed that the results of special relativity still apply even if the speed of light in one direction is different from that in the opposite direction; in fact it is possible, without compromising special relativity, to arbitrarily define the speed of light as infinite in one direction and ½ x c in the opposite direction – as long as the “there and back” journey returns an average speed of c, special relativity still works, it seems. Thus, it is possible to define an anisotropic speed of light without any apparent observational knock on effect.

The star light problem is not only a very difficult problem for YECs, but it is also a very clear problem, a problem that even your average fundamentalist rube with little understanding or respect for institutionalized science can appreciate; go out on a starry night and look at the Milky Way and one has on one’s hands an elementary observation that appears to refute Young Earth Creationism, regardless of the veracity (or otherwise) of Big Bang Theory or Evolution. Given the seemingly intractable nature of this elementary difficulty with YEC it is easy to imagine how the slightest hint of a possibility that the speed of light, if only one direction, might be infinite would ping on a bulb in Jason Lisle’s fundamentalist head.

And so Lisle developed his “Solution” of the YEC star light problem: To be consistent with his reading of the Bible Lisle postulates that all the distant heavenly bodies, with appropriate words of magic from God himself, were “spoken into existence” around 6000 years ago “just like that” (as the comedian Tommy Cooper used to say). Because Lisle thinks (wrongly) he can define the speed of light to have an all but infinite value toward the Earth he can claim that we see the stars more or less as they are now.

But this theory has a major flaw, a flaw that neither Lisle nor his AiG reviewers spotted: My understanding is that Lisle could not postulate this geocentric anisotropy in the speed light without introducing space-time distortions that would constitute a gravitational field. Therefore what he thinks of as just a mathematical maneuver involving the setting of the one-way speed of light by convention is in actual fact a statement that has physical content, content that in all likelihood violates observation. My more detailed criticism of this theory can be seen in this blog entry .

Since the publication of Lisle’s paper things, as far as I can tell, have been quiet at AiG regarding the gravitational field problem, although a few months ago my blog was briefly linked to from AiG’s administration pages. However, outside of AiG many are now aware of the failings of Lisle’s “solution” to YEC's biggest and yet simplest conundrum. This page on rationalwiki has, amongst many other comments and links, a link to my blog post refuting Lisle’s paper and this talk page on the same site takes a quote from my post. If you want to see further atheist comments on Lisle follow the links to “Sensuous Curmudgeon” on the former of the two rationalwiki web pages I have linked to. More views on Lisle from an atheist platform (including a quote from my blog post) can be seen on the provocatively named web site Why won’t God heal amputees? ( a valid question in my view)

Amongst scientifically literate Christians the reaction to Lisle is also scathing. I don’t think my particular issue with Lisle is the only line of criticism that one can take; in fact this web page at GeoChristain contains a comment by GeoChristian himself where he mentions other issues that need consideration, such as Maxwell’s equations, stellar aberration and interference. However, off the top of my head I’m not so sure that even these phenomena could be used to detect a systematic skew in the speed of light in one direction alone. The point about the Edwards space time is that it is possible to get rid of the skew in the speed of light with the appropriate coordinate transformation; that’s what makes such a skew simply a convention. But as soon as the light speed skew varies from place to place one gets a gravitational field that cannot be eliminated with a coordination transformation; under these conditions GeoChristian’s points are probably valid. However GeoChristain also writes: "Finally, I wish I could take credit for this, but I didn’t really bother studying Lisle’s nutcasery beyond the point where it was obviously wrong, but someone did, and it turns out that Lisle’s variable speed of light would require a gravitational field oriented across the universe toward the Earth, one that could quite easily be noticed if it actually existed". So clearly he is also aware of the gravitational problem

****

Now, when it comes to YECs I don’t always want to have to play “hard cop” with them; after all deep time, like deep space, can be very intimidating and demeaning to small creatures such as ourselves, creatures whose deep seated sense of self importance is violated when we hear that we are just a small scratch at the end of huge tracts of time utterly devoid of human effect and endeavor; the temptation to restore one’s self esteem by shrinking time until one sees oneself as a big fish in a small pond is overwhelming for those whose religion presents them with a naive view of humanity’s cosmic significance. Likewise deep space also has the effect of belittling our presence and therefore one can understand the motivation (if not the science) behind the latest clutch of geocentric Christian fundamentalists who are denying Copernicus and whose beliefs restore the physical importance of the Earth by placing it at the stationary centre of a universe that rotates around the Earth all in one day. In the vast theatre of space and time the human act is as if something very much smaller than a microbe alighted on the huge stage of a very long drama. And yet Christian theism’s perspective on humanity is that humankind actually does have a centre stage significance in the cosmic drama. In the light of this Christian paradox it is understandable that a naive religious egotism often instinctively rebels against the humbling dimensions of space-time with some kind of outright denial, a denial that is seen both at AiG and amongst Christian geocentrists.

I also try to be understanding of the skepticism one finds amongst reasonable atheists; after all, the notion of a complex transcendent entity like God is barely tractable to the imaginative discourses of theology let alone a science that is largely geared up for dealing with relatively simple objects that manifest themselves in patterns of law and disorder amenable to mathematical treatment. This highfalutin entity, of which Christian theism claims to be the self explaining source of a contingent cosmos, is only known to His followers through a mixture of intuition, subjective epiphany, personal anecdote, historical imagination and some philosophy. Therefore when atheists say there is little or no evidence for God it is presumptuous to bad-mouth them from an assumed position of epistemic arrogance; the reasonable atheists have at least a prima-fascie case (although I believe it to be a case I must ultimately reject). I say this as a Christian theist who realizes that a reciprocating mutual respect is not going to be an option with the likes of the acerbic PZ Myers of this world.

But, bad-mouthing, at least of the pietistic kind, is the consummate skill of Ken Ham at AiG; when he is not slagging off well-meaning liberal-left atheists he is accusing scientifically literate Christians of transgressing and compromising on his bigoted reading of “The Word of God”; Ham does his level best to impugn the consciences and motives of Christians who don’t accept the divine authority of his opinions. Given the cognitive fragility of the theist’s case it hardly helps if yet another botched attempt to the solve the YEC star light problem is seen, once again, to proceed against a background of doctrinaire, overbearing and spiritually egotistical Christian partisans. Perhaps I should close ranks with AiG on the basis that Christians should stick together, but this is impossible, because as a traitorous heretic in the eyes of AiG I’m likely to be regarded as worthy of an even lower place in hell than PZ Myers. Not that that worries me as the grace in Christ more than matches the bullheaded and sectarian pronouncements of some of His querulous followers. However, in trying to sum up the reflection of this affair on both Christian “heretics” like myself and the Flintstone fundamentalists, Jason Lisle has in fact taken the words right out of my mouth: “HOW EMBARRASSING!”

Does Intelligent Design Make Testable Predictions? Part 3: Homunculus ID

Parts 1 and 2 of this series can be found here and here respectively. The “ID predictions” I have been looking at appeared in this post on Uncommon Descent. The predictions examined in this part all pertain to Biology and Paleontology, subjects outside my own area of training and interest. Therefore my comments will be rather brief and may not do justice to the subject, although this gives me an excuse to quickly wind up this series.

As I have said before on this blog my general view is that unless we have a-priori information about the nature of the designer, then in its most abstracted form, few substantive predictions can be made from ID  After all, it seems that at the back of most ID supporter’s minds is an intelligent entity whose genus is so different in substance to ourselves that it renders unreliable all attempts to anticipate that entity’s methods and motives. In particular, if we are dealing with the standard concept of Deity then we are talking about something transcending the human realm and which is not only the ultimate source and sustainer of biological configurations but also of the fundamental physical regime supporting those configurations. It is this transcendence which raises questions over the biocentric concept of ID we see on UD: UD correspondents usually have a low view of the laws of physics and believe those laws do not provide sufficiently improbable preconditions (i.e. preconditions with adequate information content) to explain the absolute improbability of biological configurations. But if Deity has selected those laws then who knows what level of computational complexity Deity is capable of rising to in order to find and pull out of the limitless tracts of platonic space a very rare kind of physical regime; namely, a regime with a sufficiently high probability of generating life (assuming such a regime has at least a mathematical existence). Therefore even evolution, as a configuration generating process, can be interpreted as having its origins in ID. All in all then, without some a priori theological revelation about the specific nature of the designer, the making of specific predictions from abstract ID is a very chancy business.

As I have already said, the ID supporters who contribute to UD are in the main not convinced that our cosmic physical regime possesses a sufficiently high probability of generating life. They may claim that this is an a-posteriori opinion based on empiricism, but I’m not so sure about that; I suspect cultural, philosophical and metaphysical reasons also figure. For example, militant atheism is very enamored with the concept of a life generating physical regime and this has had the effect of spiritually blighting evolutionary ideas. Moreover, latent deism in our culture favours the notion that like a well oiled clock rational physical regimes run all by themselves, rendering redundant a supporting diety. Therefore in a reactionary move against militant atheism some IDers, I feel, prefer a much more overt involvement of ID than carefully chosen physics. They are therefore working to an almost homunculus view of ID: They envisage a designer very much in the anthropomorphic mold as a kind of molecular engineer or DNA programmer who is tinkering with the given machinery of nature and almost on a par with an alien technological player who is inside the cosmos rather than transcending it.

However, I’ll hand it to the UDers; if this homunculus view of ID is assumed then it does at least suggest vaguely perceived expectations about the molecular configurations we call life, expectations which, if realized, are difficult to make sense of in the context of bog standard evolutionary theory. This biologically hacking homunculus, one might expect, would leave traces behind that do not sit well with evolutionary theory, but that is about as strong as I can put it because I don’t think we are talking hard science predictions here. In fact homunculus ID “predictions” are more akin to the kind of retrodictions historians make as they call on that important resource of understanding they refer to as the “historical imagination”. However, once established evolutionary theory has been dumped a form of prediction by negation can be carried out and perhaps even positive predictions can be made on the basis that we are dealing with a biological hacker rather than a cleverly chosen generating system. For example, we might expect a hacker to clean up his code every now and then and thus predict that junk DNA is unlikely to exist. But then again even this prediction is not absolutely assured – a hacker might well want to keep a record of his past efforts and simply “comment out” historical code. Who knows? After all, by definition intelligence is personality and personality is intelligence. Therefore it is likely that a Creative intelligence will have those atypical idiosyncrasies and foibles that make personality difficult to predict.

Most of the following predictions have their basis in anti-evolutionary and homunculus expectations and really are a way of saying “We don’t believe Darwinism did it”. However, if some of these predictions are correct they would present conundrums for standard evolutionary views. But frankly I see them as less predictions than a set of stated obstacles to evolutionary ideas; when I surveyed this list I was unsure whether I was dealing with authentic “predictions” or simply a wish list of hoped for observations that would give the evolutionists of the scientific establishment a hard life!

ID Prediction 05: ID predicts an increase in evidence for the non-adequacy of the DNA-centric view of living systems.

My Comment: Possibly; a hacking molecular engineer is free to build significant synergy into the biological contexts that use DNA simply as one resource amongst many others. This would be one in the eye for evolutionary theory where the story of the mutating “selfish” replicator is exclusively center stage.

ID prediction 06: ID predicts that complex molecular convergence will happen routinely.

My Comment: Possibly; a molecular engineer is not bound by the strict nesting of the “Tree of Life” concept and has no need to reinvent the wheel each time; useful complex molecular mechanisms can be co-opted for use right across a spectrum of otherwise seemingly unrelated organisms.

IID prediction 07:  ID predicts the presence of irreducible complexity with respect to macromolecular systems and organelles.

My Comment: Possibly: Our molecular engineer is not bound by the incremental change of evolution that requires structures to be reducibly complex; presumably he can and does implement great leaps of the imagination. The trouble with IC is that it is difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt: The presence of IC may only be apparent; a human perspective effect of only seeing the end result of a complex and convoluted history of change that defies human imagination to reconstruct.

ID prediction 08: ID predicts that the prevalence of functional protein folds with respect to combinatorial sequence space will be extremely small.

My Comment: The frequency of functional protein folds is not a consequence of the ID hypothesis but a consequence of our physical regime. If it turns out that functional protein folds are too few and far between for standard evolutionary processes to search them out, then evolutionists would have to think again. Needless to say this would not be a problem for a very intelligent designer who can presumably locate functional protein folds. This is not so much a prediction but a much desired show stopper for evolution which if true would enable the homunculus IDers to shout “I told you so!” and then usher in their homunculus.

ID prediction 09: ID predicts that evolutionary pathways to new protein functions will require multiple co-ordinated non-adaptive mutations (more so than likely to be achieved by a random process).

My Comment: Possibly; basically this is a molecular restatement of IC: Presumably our homunculus designer is intelligent enough to create structures that can only be arrived at by large inventive leaps of the imagination.

ID prediction 10: ID predicts that DNA, which was once considered to be junk, will turn out to be functional after all.

My Comment: Difficult to tell: Junk DNA may be an idiosyncratic artifact of the designer’s methods; he might want to keep evidence of his experiments.

ID prediction 11: ID predicts delicate optimisation and fine-tuning with respect to many features associated with biological systems.

My Comment: Quite Possibly: One might expect a homunculus designer to have pride in his work and have a desire to hone his creations to an optimum. But then whether evolution is efficacious enough to do the same is unknown to me.

ID prediction 12: ID predicts that organisms will exhibit in-built systems which promote evolvability (e.g. front loading).

My Comment: Possibly; are they referring to “front loading” in terms of on board genetic code waiting in the wings? But then if evolution works, it could only do so as a consequence of the selection of the right systems constituting the physical regime; in that sense even bog standard evolution is “front loaded” – although ironically neither militant atheists nor homunculus IDers are very clear about this fact.

ID prediction 13: ID predicts the observed pattern of the fossil record whereby morphological disparity precedes diversity.

My Commment: I don’t see why this is a specific prediction of homunculus ID; it seems also to be an expectation of standard evolution.

ID prediction 14: ID predicts saltational, or abrupt, appearance of new life forms without transitional precursors.

My Comment: Possibly; this prediction presumably maps to our homunculus designer’s ability to implement his leaps of imagination.

Final Comments

I’m uncomfortable with homunculus ID because it appears to give God an ancillary role in His creation rather than a totalizing role; it has a tendency to contrast the Creator over and against a contingent physical regime, as if that regime’s ability to generate form and pattern somehow answers the question of aseity. As a consequence homunculus ID actually favours atheism should homunculus ID's scientific program become bankrupt. Another fact that makes me feel uncomfortable with homunculus ID is that intelligence, at least intelligence as we understand it, actually generates its artifacts using a form of generalized evolution: Human intelligence is capable of only limited intellectual leaps – for example, a Neolithic culture could not invent a jet fighter – the latter can only be an end product of a progression of many incremental innovative steps involving the co-option of many fortuitous developments along the way, both cultural and technological. And yet this process culminating in a highly sophisticated artifact is a product of both limited human foresight and limited intelligence and entails a convoluted route of trial and error that doesn’t necessarily have those sophisticated end products in sight: Ergo, the complex artifacts of our technological societies were not purposely strived for early on in the history of man; and yet that early history contains vital precursors for the sophisticated artifacts of industrial society.

It is a truism that baring the existence of magic certain structures can only come about as the end product of a sequence of stages. This necessary sequential assembly implies that these structures have a lower limit computational complexity as measured in terms of the number of necessary precursor stages required to arrive at them. Intelligence itself (with an eye on some of Penrose’s ideas) may not be thoroughly computational, but one can use computational ideas to elucidate the complexity of the products of intelligence just as one can do so for the products of evolution. Taking these ideas of complexity together with the evolutionary nature of human technical and cultural development, homunculus ID must, in the final analysis, conceive its concept of intelligence in generalized evolutionary terms. In any case a general evolutionary experimental method of search, reject and select is implicated in the operation of intelligence as we understand it. Therefore if homunculus ID becomes associated with too strong an anti-evolutionary platform its thinking will harbor deep internal contradictions.

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.