An Interview with Elisabet Sahtouris
by MikeGeneGeobiologist Elisabet Sahtouris gives a rather interesting interview to Scott London (HT: MatthewCromer)
She says:
When the scientists decided that they didn't need God in their worldview, they eliminated God from their Cartesian worldview but kept the idea of an array of mechanisms. Now how do you explain the origin of mechanisms without a creator? By definition, a machine cannot exist without a creator. If they are there and couldn't have been assembled on purpose by an intentional creator, the only alternative is to say they came together by accident. So you got these bizarre theories that literally say that if enough parts of a Boeing 747 blow around in a whirlwind in a junkyard eventually one will assemble itself. This is going to appear to us as perhaps the most bizarre and perhaps harebrained concepts of how things work that has ever been proposed in the history of the world. And I think it will be seen that way in the very near future, because it is fundamentally an illogical point of view. The problem was that they thought you had to choose between God, the purposeful inventor, and accident. We had no theory of self- creation as a perfectly natural, biological, universal event. Now we do, so we don't have to invoke either hypothesis.
Sahtouris nicely captures the perceptual Triad at work. When it comes to the origins, we have the Non-teleological Perspective (it's all an accident) and the Teleological Perspective. The Teleological Perspective then breaks down into two primary schools of thought: Design from Beyond(God or ETI) and Design from Within (Self-Creation). In my opinion, ID exists at the interface of these two schools. By focusing on design, and not the designer, ID bridges these two schools, providing points of commonality. The ID movement may have blown some holes in this bridge, but I think it still exists (as evidenced by the various types of IDers I have encountered on the Internet throughout the years).
Sahtouris also expresses her views on Darwin.
Yes, I think Darwin's theory was good for its time, but remember that its time was within a mechanical worldview framework. To me Darwin's theory is a very mechanical one in which you have "accidents" occur (remember, we talked earlier about explaining a natural world of machinery by accidental development – so that notion was around). Then the "accidental" variations in the genetic material is shaped by the environment, which Darwin saw as a kind of template. If the cogs of these accidents fit into the wheels of the environment, then it would survive and the machine would run on; and if it didn't then it would die out, it would be inappropriate.
It occurred to me that life seemed to be much too intelligent to proceed in its evolution by accident. I kind of stuck my neck out ten years ago by saying that. I thought that probably genetic errors were repaired. Arthur Koestler had some similar ideas, I believe, he was one of my sources for these ideas.
Now the geneticists are becoming aware of this at a microscopic level. We can look at what is happening with the relationship of proteins and genes and cell membranes and all that, and it looks very much as if life does not proceed by accident but by design. And, as I said in my book, the nucleus is really a giant library of genes accumulated throughout evolution which can be drawn on under stress. Creatures such as sharks or cockroaches are very well-adapted and don't need to change (I call them bicycles in a jet-age because they still function very well although other species have gone on with totally different paths of evolution). In other words, life changes itself only when it needs to. It knows how to conserve what works well and change what doesn't work well. That is why you get very uneven evolution, not as in Darwinian theory which would predict a very even rate of accident and even rate of evolution for all species. We certainly know that that is not true and no geneticist today would uphold the ideas of Darwin completely.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I think that bridge is just growing, despite the holes. It's a fantastic and helpful way to view the sciences and nature in general.
Comment by nullasalus — September 7, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
September 7th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Office of Science: The role of DNA repair processes in fixing genetic damage, as well as the role of genetically impaired repair mechanisms in cancer, were first discovered by investigators funded by predecessors to the Office of Science in the 1960s.
Hoyle's 747 argument is a strawman. No valid scientific theory proposes that the first cell would be as complex as modern cellular life, or that it would assemble in a single event.
A valid distinction.
If you consider spontaneous self-organization to be design, then many things are 'designed', including weather complexes. This is different than the insistence of many within the ID Movement of intelligent agency in the history of evolution. There is no scientific evidence of this.
Comment by Zachriel — September 7, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
September 7th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
The idea of mechanisms is very much the problem of induction. If you have laws of physics but no law-giver, they are hanging in mid-air. If you don't have a law-giver or sustainer, you have no reason they couldn't change tomorrow.
When we assume physical laws are going to stay the same, we are borrowing from theism.
Self-creation creates a whole set of issues. I interacted with Paul Davies when he was on his book tour and he had a self-creation model. I don't know this woman's position. But you have to ask how can you create yourself if you aren't there to begin with?
Davies wanted to go with quantum mechanics type stuff. But the problem with his understanding is that life non-life is a meaningless distinction if all you have is the universe. It's all just matter in motion.
Comment by geoffrobinson — September 7, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 1:08 am
That may be the conceptual framework through which the problem is viewed but there is no scientific origins theory able to distinguish between an accidental paradigm and a guided but unintelligent process. Unlike evolutionary counterparts there is no known replicating process shown to produce diversity through selection. In fact the dilemna is worse than suggested by this for we are even unable to peg selection to the known outcome; there being no scientific basis for asserting that theoretical SRM replicating errors would lead to results flowing in the direction of a cell.
That conclusion depends on how clues to an intelligent outcome are assessed. One could assert with equal or greater certainty that no evidence of self-organizing encoding systems exists. Or self-organizing genomes for that matter. When we study outcomes directed by intelligence we consistently find one common denominator. That outcome would not have come about through unguided natural forces alone. That is an evidentiary standard by which to assess the likelihood that a minimally functional genome would be the end result of some precellular process.
Comment by Bradford — September 8, 2007 @ 1:08 am
September 8th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Here's a fun exercise: load this "geobiologist"'s name into Google Scholar and see if she has, in fact, published anything at all that can even remotely be classified as science. Sadly, no. It's all new-age fluff. And she emits brainfarts like this:
which could only be uttered by someone who knows nothing of the actual practice of science, which is entirely about relating dynamics to the mechanisms that generate it. When she says "all the ones at the leading edge", you have to read it "all the aging hippy scientists who showed up at the Alternative Spirituality Festival last year".
Comment by mtraven — September 8, 2007 @ 1:56 am
September 8th, 2007 at 4:15 am
geoffrobinson:
By that logic:
If you have a law-giver but no law-giver-giver, then the law-giver is hanging in mid-air. If you don't have a law-giver-giver or law-giver-sustainer, you have no reason that the law-giver couldn't change tomorrow.
Comment by keiths — September 8, 2007 @ 4:15 am
September 8th, 2007 at 8:15 am
There's no complete theory of abiogenesis. However, there is some evidence that life is a natural consequence. There is strong evidence that once life began, it evolved naturally into its present diversity.
Life is a self-organizing 'encoding' system.
Comment by Zachriel — September 8, 2007 @ 8:15 am
September 8th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Based on what scientific study?
Comment by Bradford — September 8, 2007 @ 9:08 am
September 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am
MikeGene:
Zach:
Is Zach's statement very different from "Self-creation" Compare and contrast (10 pts.)
I would like to understand more about the difference about "Design from Beyond and Design from Within" and the need for a bridge. Are they 2 different theologies?
In MikeGene ID you said:
This seems to conflict with what you said above. Should ID be divorced from consideration of the Designer or not? I would like to know what
minimal assumptions you would make about the designer.
And, by the way, this blog is great. Thanks
Comment by WedgeHead — September 8, 2007 @ 9:09 am
September 8th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Ateleologists like to invoke analogies to such natural events as tornados to plead a case for "self-organization." As we will see the difference between a coding system like DNA and entities like hurricanes explains why self-organizing analogies fail.
Comment by Bradford — September 8, 2007 @ 9:31 am
September 8th, 2007 at 9:49 am
It's what life is. It takes unorganized matter and energy and organizes it.
Babies are created every day. It's often called a miracle. However, we have evidence that this self-organization proceeds by known physical laws.
It's not an analogy, but an observed example of self-organization. It doesn't 'prove' that life originated spontaneously, it only debunks the statement that matter won't self-organize. There are significant differences between weather complexes and the origin of DNA. That's why science doesn't claim to have a valid and complete theory of abiogenesis. Fixating on the word "code" doesn't represent a scientific argument.
Is a reliable and consistent water-pump "organized matter"
Comment by Zachriel — September 8, 2007 @ 9:49 am
September 8th, 2007 at 9:57 am
This would bring us to infinite-regress. Is a better explanation that the laws of nature which have no foundation for remaining the same just do or is a better explanation that God, who is the source of everything that exists and is the First Cause of everything, sustains those laws? I can give an account for those laws remaining the same. An atheist cannot.
Comment by geoffrobinson — September 8, 2007 @ 9:57 am
September 8th, 2007 at 11:24 am
Zach:
There is no scientific evidence for spontaneous generation of life, nor is there scientific evidence for spontaneous transmutation of life from one form to another.
Life does, however, exhibit a strong inclination toward individual survival and adaptation, while hedging that losing bet with the capacity to reproduce. Hence in the big picture, to evolve. Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis [EAM] is one ID hypothesis for explaining evolution. Though like Darwinism and the modern synthesis, it only explains what happened after life already existed. It can offer a reasonable explanation for complex structures and sub-systems that avoids direct divine intervention.
There's no good reason apparent design can't be investigated as if it were actual design, no matter how it got there. If you can accept spontaneous design *as* design without having to explain a causal mechanism, some other investigator could accept intelligent design *as* design without having to explain a causal mechanism. So long as the design gets quantified, its processes and purposes for the organism understood, lack of explanation at the causal end isn't a science-stopper. It's just something science can't explain.
If not knowing things were really as threaty to science and civilization as reactionaries on your side of the fence pretend, we'd never have gotten as far as we have in understanding life, the world, or the universe. Not knowing isn't a crime – it's a reason to keep wondering, or to seek one's answers in philosophy of choice.
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 11:24 am
September 8th, 2007 at 11:35 am
She has published many popular books and articles about ecological views of science. She is a popularizer, but the people whose research she is talking about have impeccable academic credentials and publishing records, like Rupert Sheldrake and Mae Wan Ho.
I'm not sure when being a popularizer of scientific ideas became such a bad thing to your crowd. . . What exactly do you think people like Richard Dawkins have been doing the past 30 years? What did Carl Sagan do for the last 20 years of his life? Certainly not research. . . I guess it all depends on which scientific ideas get popularized. . .
Comment by MatthewCromer — September 8, 2007 @ 11:35 am
September 8th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Matthew:
LOL! You nailed it. Though it's not like the nay-sayers don't already know this perfectly well. Whenever it is mentioned that Dawkins doesn't do any real science, or that Harris doesn't have any scientific credentials in the first place (though he can claim to have been the Dalai Lama's bodyguard once…), we get the usual apologetics that 'Science' supports their vehement atheism anyway.
Luckily there are many scientists out there steadily investigating the systems approach and offering the same 'Science' support for that non-reductive approach to phenomena. It's still a matter of who can eventually get the most answers to outstanding questions. In that sweepstakes the NDS die-hards are indeed losing ground. The academic gate-keepers can no longer stem the tide – the design-oriented approaches to biological puzzles are going corporate, where there are no departmental overlords to enforce dismissal of evidence for ideological reasons. That's where the real money is…
Regulus Therapeutics
Rosetta Genomics
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
There is strong scientific evidence that life has evolved and diversified from primitive beginnings through evolutionary mechanisms into today's myriad of forms. I would be happy to provide cites to the appropriate scientific literature.
NATIONAL ACADEMY of SCIENCES: "The theory of evolution has become the central unifying concept of biology and is a critical component of many related scientific disciplines. In contrast, the claims of creation science lack empirical support and cannot be meaningfully tested."
I'm not sure your point here. Science attempts to determine causal mechanisms.
Comment by Zachriel — September 8, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
There is nothing wrong with being a popularizer of science, nothing at all. However, the claim was that she is a "geobiologist", which sure sounds like a scientist, not a journalist or writer.
I'm not even sure what a "geobiologist" is supposed to be, but if you Google it, you find that most people who use that term are not scientists but NewAge cranks of one sort or another.
Then this made the coffee come out of my nose:
I'm not familiar with Mae Wen Ho, but Sheldrake is well known as a worthless crank.
There is a big difference between popularizing science and popularizing nonsense.
Joy said:
I wonder what in the world you are talking about. There is an actual field of science called Systems Biology, but it is mechanistic as any other real science and has nothing to do with morphogenetic fields, intelligent designers, or magic pixies. Drug companies are very interested in the former, not so much in the latter.
Comment by mtraven — September 8, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Zach:
Oh, good grief! I have no significant doubts that evolution has occurred, by means of the fact that life – being universally mortal – invented means of reproduction. Descent with modification. That and the good evidence of geology and the fossil record is pretty much all anybody needs to know. If it matters to them, that is.
What I don't buy are the NDS's magical poofs and emphasis on refinement (selection) over origin (genomic engineering). I think life has reason to adapt, and means to that end. There will be a range of relative success or failure to reach those goals, but life is nothing if not persistent and opportunistic.
Accidents happen. No one denies that. They happen in genomes almost as often as they happen in the course of life's ongoing crap-shoot. Which is well known to select-out the fit as well as the unfit. Magic poofs and cosmic oops are not sufficient explanations for life or biodiversity. To a great many more people than those few for whom it's Holy Writ. That's reality. You too can learn to live with it.
Of course it does. So do other systems of knowledge. But the recognition that hypotheses are provisional doesn't hurt, and acceptance of the fact that there are whole 'important' phenomena for which we have no explanations is okay. For most people, that is.
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
mtraven:
All approaches to physical science will be mechanistic by definition, since western science is all about quantification for the practical purpose of control. Sternberg is a systems biologist. It didn't make him more popular with the NDS True Believer self-appointed gate-keepers who determined to destroy his career, did it?
Drug companies have figured out that magic poofs and cosmic oops won't help them understand what goes right – and wrong – with the system, nor will they help design means to effect therapeutic alterations in the system. They're designers, studying design. And at least for Rosetta (launched 8 years ago) the presumption that all that "Junk DNA" wasn't junk at all. That's a much different approach to biology than NDS Orthodoxy insists upon.
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Not if the law giver is necessary, and not contingent.
Comment by Randy — September 8, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
geoffrobinson wrote:
Yup.
Theism asserts that reality is by metaphysical necessity non-capricious, since theism is the hypothesis that the ontologically and explanatorily ultimate reality is necessarily and perfectly rational. But impersonal Nature, by itself, with no rational creator and superintendent, logically could have been capricious, may become capricious at any moment, and may be generating capricious parallel universes as we speak. Given naturalism, there is simply no necessity requiring that nature obligingly cooperate sufficiently to make science possible. In fact, the degree of predictability in natural phenomena is actually rather staggering upon the hypothesis of naturalism, because impersonal Nature wouldn't care how predictable it needs to be to make human or any other organisms exist or understand Nature. Why should we not float 40 feet in the air for 3 minutes on one random unpredictable day per month? Every plausible answer relies on nature being rationally ordered. But its degree of rational order is extremely unlikely given naturalism and quite likely given a perfectly rational creator.
There are many, many more logically possible ways unintentional processes could 'design' something than there are logically possible ways a perfectly rational intentional designer would design something. Infinitely many more ways, in fact. They include all the ways a perfectly rational intentional designer would design something, plus all the other ways"”"”the ways that a perfectly rational designer would not choose.
The concept of Nature as impersonal designer is thus far less logically constrained than is the concept of even an intelligent, imperfect rational designer, never mind the concept of a perfectly rational designer, in terms of expectable possible effects. Which is one reason why a naturalistic multiverse logically can contain an infinite number of chaotic, lifeless universes, and an infinite number of sentient beings which experience nothing but pain, but a theistic creation logically cannot (since theism's God is perfectly rational and moral.)
This is why naturalists have to posit either a multiverse and rely on an anthropic selection effect, or else postulate there being a unique set of impersonally necessitated Laws of Nature. But Hume on induction and causation and Descartes on evil demons (maybe even Linde and Susskind on the cosmic landscape) teach us there is no necessity in nature (i.e., assuming there is no perfectly rational, moral, and almighty creator/superintendent) requiring that physical worlds be ordered like ours, and no guarantee that the world will not change drastically from one minute to the next. Another way to put it is that there are infinitely many logically possible worlds.
The stability of nature"”"”in other words, that there are any physical necessities at all, never mind enduring predictable ones"”"”"“is precisely what naturalism cannot readily account for. It is in fact amazing, given the infinite number of ways in which things logically could have been less regular, and more random and unpredictable. But given a perfectly rational and moral creator/superintendent, such order is to be expected.
So theism is a reasonable explanation. It is the conclusion of an abductive inference which goes like this: the best or most likely explanation for the fact that scientific activity and rational inquiry more generally appear to disclose a highly rational, elegantly coherent, intelligible, predictable, enduring, and ordered physical world (plus many other phenomena such as morality, religious experience, aesthetic experience, etc) is that theism is true. A more disordered, chaotic, unintelligible or unpredictable world either might well have been the case if the nature of the world was due to chance, or due to impersonal cosmic necessity. For any impersonal competitor, by definition, would not care about life existing, nor about intelligent life perceiving the world as intelligibly and elegantly ordered and stable enough for conscious rationality to be effective at disclosing the nature of the world. Hence, it's more likely that the world was rationally intended to be that way. The theistic hypothesis is more thus likely, and explains a range of disparate phenomena, including the degree and mathematically elegant kind of observed physical order.
Comment by stunney — September 8, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
geoffrobinson wrote:
Geoff,
Is a better explanation that God (the law-giver), who has no foundation for remaining the same, just does, or is a better explanation that a law-giver-giver is responsible for sustaining him?
The problem is that you are trying to stop the regress, not by referring to some known entity which can function in the role of a first cause, but by defining a first cause and slapping the label "God" onto it.
Comment by keiths — September 8, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Randy wrote:
Similarly, there is no need for a law giver if the ultimate laws are themselves necessary and not contingent.
Comment by keiths — September 8, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Matthew Cromer wrote:
mtraven wrote:
mtraven,
Mae Wan Ho is another crank who believes that living organisms are able to violate the Second Law of thermodynamics. Her book The Rainbow and the Worm is one of Joy's favorites, which may explain some of the strange positions taken by Joy in previous discussions.
From Wikipedia:
Comment by keiths — September 8, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Hi Mike,
I was being busy with the other theads and didn't look into this one until now.
I like it. Especially the part about the bridge. You know, where you said…
I resisted the temptation to highlight your comment about the ID Movement in bold and UPPERCASE. However, at the risk of spoiling this bonding moment, I suggest the answer might be a little more than merging two existing concepts. We are talking about a paradigm shift here, not a compromise (or bridge).
Obviously, I am suggesting something like the realization that everything in interconnected both in space and time. The universe being one large wavefunction in Minkowskian spacetime down to the quantum level. Life, having being front loaded to rely on quantum mechanics, is also interconnected with all other life.
In a paradigm shift major foundations are shaken. This isn't going to be an easy transition. The idea of randomness and "particles" are such cherished concepts people have invented infinite alternate universes to keep them. And you are undoubtedly aware of my concerns for the reaction of the faithful when God is firmly pushed deeper into the metaphysical realm.
Comment by Thought Provoker — September 8, 2007 @ 4:47 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
GeoffRobinson, Randy,
As you can see, some might wonder if the ultimate physical laws are themselves necessary and not contingent. But how likely are they to be necessary given that a naturalistic multiverse logically can contain an infinite number of chaotic, lifeless universes?
A quick and easy way to see the sheer scale of the problem facing the materialist account is to go to Max Tegmark's homepage, and the lengths to which some scientists are prepared to go to explain away the fine-tuning data. (Click on his 'Fun Articles' section, and read the scanned New Scientist article he has there. You'll need to click to enlarge pages and scroll your mouse to read all of the text).
Let me quote from the reviewer for Booklist of Stephen Barr's book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith:
Quite so.:smile:
Elsewhere Barr has written:
Our own David Heddle has noted that given a creator's decision to create intelligent physical life in a physical world—i.e. one that operates according to physical principles—the universe has to be as big as it is, and contain as many galaxies as it does, because the creator would have to select the correct baryon density to allow such life to evolve via the process of atomic construction from big bang to stars to supernovae to planets, etc.
And then there's this:
In other words, the scope for variation in the magnitude of dark energy (also known as the cosmological constant) while preserving the possibility of human life is mind-bogglingly small.
It strikes me that this is why positing a multiverse is the only rational option a scientist can take to avoid the inference that the universe was intelligently designed"”–especially if the design has to be intelligent enough to make life as complex as lours possible. This is also the sort of scientific evidence that persuaded noted British philosopher Antony Flew recently to abandon atheism.
Susskind, the guy quoted in the article, is one of the leading proponents of the multiverse. Essentially, the number of universes in the multiverse has to be practically infinite in order for it to be the case that the dark energy level in our universe has the magnitude it has by sheer chance. Ironically, the multiverse essentially is an infinite and invisible thing posited to explain why we are here, and the explanation it gives is 'sheer chance'. I'm not sure how this is supposed to be simpler or more obviously true than positing one transcendent creative and ethical mind.
Oh, and this multiverse type of explanation, even if true, would only explain why things are the way they are physically in our universe. We'd still be left with the mind-body problem, morality, religious experience, and all that jazz"¦..such as the aesthetics of jazz. Why does any of this stuff arise from physical matter at all?
Again, positing one transcendent creative, rational and ethical mind seems a lot simpler and economical to me, explaining not only the astonishing fine-tuning of our physical universe, but also the existence of rational minds, moral value, aesthetic value, and religious experience. What's even more odd about the multiverse hypothesis is that if an infinite number of universes did exist, not one of them would exist for a mind-dependent reason on the materialist account. They'd all just be there for no reason at all. That notion seems utterly nutty to me, I must say.
At the very least, I think this dark energy calculation is the kind of empirical discovery that makes the theistic hypothesis not at all unreasonable. I would add that there's a good case to be made that even positing a multiverse would not be sufficient to solve the fine-tuning problem. See this fascinating article for more on that.
Comment by stunney — September 8, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Except that we know of no situation where information (law) is not contingent. Let's face it. Information does not come from nowhere. When dembski stated that the evidence for ID is essentially the "Logos" of John's gospel, he was not making a religious argument, rather, he was saying that nothing comes without the Law-giver or "Logos" (word). It's a question of mind over matter, and mind wins out. Incidentally, laws are not tangible. They are merely ideas, which are intangible. Only necessary and contingent beings (entities) are tangible. How does the tangible come out of the intangible? It is self-refuting. When the Kalam Cosmological argument suggests a first cause, and that first cause as God, it is so because the only tangible entity that could have started it all is an entity that seems to possess the attributes of the God of scripture as the law giver.
If you are going to say that the laws that govern the universe are eteranally existent, it means nothing. Laws do not create anything. The laws of the universe are meaningless without the universe itself. Therefore, something had to be there even before the laws were there. That something is the Logos. The Logos (or God) is a necessary being. All other beings are contingent. The problem with Darwinism is that it presents us with a whole line of evolving contingencies without a necessary logos to get it all started. Without that, all Darwinism can give us is an infinite regression, which the Kalam Cosmological argument shows us is absurd.
Comment by Randy — September 8, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
the poster calling itself "keiths" said:
How very strange. There's nothing in The Rainbow and the Worm that even comes close to denying any of the 'laws' of thermodynamics. It's a book about actual biophysics research done on 'the usual' fruit-fly larvae. It was required reading for a course I took. Along with Einstein's Relativity, Gribbin's In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, Penrose's The Large, The Small and The Human Mind, and several other choice tomes I had to buy and read so I could even begin to understand the nature of what they'd (a consortium of scientists in several fields worldwide) would be talking about.
That I happen to agree with noted biophysicist Ho's politics is more a matter of who I am and what I do in real life (organic grower, herbalist and otherwise independent living advocate) than who she is. In fact, when I took that course I had no idea I'd later find her in the forefront of the anti-GMO and organic farming movement worldwide. I was pleasantly surprised.
It has been made rather obvious here that this particular poster calling himself "keiths" has a big problem with me and everything I have to say. Since he is a mere commenter and NOT a contributor, I usually ignore what he has to say. This misrepresentation is over the line, so I am rectifying the situation. If you're going to count on Wikipedia as final arbitor of what's true or not, you're hopeless.
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 5:45 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
You and I both agree. However, I don't have the skills to put it into words as descriptively as you. I have dreams where I'm floating in the air 40 feet or higher. I wish it were true, but it's not. The reason is because of the conststants of nature. Those constants being what they are indicate the rationality of theism to me.
Comment by Randy — September 8, 2007 @ 5:50 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Joy:
When people cite "Wikipedia," they really should cite it as "according to someone on the web." But, of course, 'Wikipedia' sounds much more authoritative.
Comment by MikeGene — September 8, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Keiths:
Hardly. There has to be a stop to the regress somewhere. The God hypothesis is the best and most parsimonious answer.
The first cause has to be uncaused – eternal
The first cause has to have all the knowledge contained in the universe it created – omniscient
The first cause has to be something other than matter itself – spirit
The first cause has to have the power to create everything else – omnipotent
The first cause cannot be confined due to its spiritual nature – omnipresent
The first cause cannot change due to its eternal nature – immutible
The first cause must have the attributes that it endows on its creation – personality, creativity, etc.
The first cause is above all its creation and answers to no-one – sovereign.
Sounds a lot like the God of scripture – scripture that has existed for thousands of years. The God hypothesis stops the regress with the idea of an entity that seems to have communicated to its highest creation – not an unknown entity, but a known entity. God seems to be the best label to slap on it.
Comment by Randy — September 8, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Hi Wedgehead,
Thanks for noticing my comment as it contains, in my biased opinion, the most interesting angle on this topic (and the reason for posting it). Yes, I would imagine there are at least 2 different theologies. But I would think "˜culture' would be a better term than theology. As such, I'd suggest we have the Western version of teleology and the Eastern version of teleology. From there, Western versions can be shaped by the East and Eastern versions can be shaped by the West.
But I don't think there is any need for a bridge. I'm just pointing out that ID sits at the interface of these two cultures.
Have you noticed that no critic here has yet to accuse Sahtouris of being a creationist? If Sahtouris had been billed as an IDer, and used the exact same arguments I quoted above, don't you think the critics would be calling these "˜creationist arguments' and labeling her a creationist?
The first minimal assumption is that the designer possesses a human-like intelligence. It is this assumption that is needed in order to extrapolate our own (human) experience with design as a guide to the biotic (or natural) world. Yet this assumption is actually quite neutral with regards to the different teleological world views.
Comment by MikeGene — September 8, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
While I agree with the majority of what you said (you managed to change my mind here and there, especially upon rereading the article you linked to, which doesn't happen a lot to me), I was wondering, since you seem to steer clear of any particular religious connotations except that "everything" was created by a rational, omnipotent, omnibenevolent superintelligent designer, what is your position on the question of birth & death of every individual organism? Where do we come from? Where or we going? Or is this beside the point? What is the nature of consciousness? Are we a part of the "universal consciousness field" produced during the inflation period in a Big Wow scenario or are God's way too mysterious to be hypothesized about?
Also, this of course still fails to elucidate the nature of the designer which is, in light of what you've written above, seems even more utterly inexplicable than it was before.
Comment by dimasok — September 8, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Sheldrake has publication credits in Nature, Planta, and a host of other journals. He was director of a research lab in Cambridge. But I'm not surprised to see a positional materialist like yourself uphold dogma over science.
Comment by MatthewCromer — September 8, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
She has a PhD in evolutionary biology if I recall correctly, and taught at MIT, worked on PBS' Nova, and did other popularization of science.
Do you think by calling people who have different scientific ideas than you "crackpots" you are seeking out the truth, or seeking to confirm your own biases?
Also Mae Wan Ho, who Keiths called a crank, proved that Lamarkian effects occur in the lab, something contrary to reductionistic genome-only inheritance. I'm not surprised that you two are not aware of that research.
Comment by MatthewCromer — September 8, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Matthew:
Matthew, they'll deny, deny, deny to their dying day. Doesn't matter one bit to what's true, or to where science can go beyond their brick walls around causation. It'll all work out in the end.
Besides, I happen to already know dogs are telepathic. Have one who won't let my epileptic daughter anywhere near an iffy situation when she's going to have a seizure. He gets the aura way before she does, and we trust him completely to do that job. It has more than once saved her life, since she didn't develop this condition until in her early 30s. Not like she grew up with it or anything…
People at large do generally know more than scientists allow in their exclusive little corner of reality. There is the famous example of the Royal Society proclaiming that stones never fall from the sky, despite ample eyewitness accounts from normal folk that it happened quite regularly. The Royal Society's nifty big and imposing building subsequently (right around the same time) got hit hard by a meteor shower, punched out numerous windows and put big holes in the roof. The Royal Society decided that maybe stones do fall from the sky.
Duh…
Comment by Joy — September 8, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Sheldrake may have done real science in the past but at some point went off the rails. It happens. If he's published anything in the last 20 years in journals more prestigious than Complementary Health Practice Review or the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, it doesn't show up on Google Scholar.
I would like to understand why some people are so strongly drawn towards pseudoscience. Suppose Sheldrake turns out to be right — dogs can predict when their owners come home, people can sense when they are being stared at, and monkeys pick up on potato-washing techniques by some previously unknown mechanism. "Morphic fields", rather than the more mundane forces of physics, pervade reality. So what? What does that buy you? Is the universe more meaningful if these phenomena pan out somehow, than if they don't? I don't really see how that works.
I'm guessing (based on the Sahtouris article) that some people don't like "mechanism", or "reductionism", because they see it as diminishing their own self-worth somehow. But if morphic resonance turns out to have a basis in scientific reality, then it will just be another mechanism, obeying whatever laws it obeys. Then those searching for alternatives will have to find some other mirage to chase in their quest to be free of the constraints of reality. Or if morphic resonance is somehow outside of and immune to the constraints of physical law, then it's hard to see how it can be studied by science. You can't have it both ways.
Comment by mtraven — September 8, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
September 8th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I wrote:
Joy wrote:
I'm not counting on Wikipedia. I'm judging Mae-Wan Ho's position from her own words, which happen to be conveniently quoted in the Wikipedia article. If you're not disputing the accuracy of those quotes, then what are you complaining about?
Joy, did you even bother to read the table of contents, much less the rest of the book?
The author claims that living organisms are able to violate the Second Law by successfully instantiating Maxwell's Demon:
In the third chapter she even presumes, in a sure sign of crankitude, to rewrite the Second Law to fit with her idiosyncratic ideas. This is her version:
If that weren't bad enough, she even claims that living organisms can violate the First Law:
Joy, if you were able to read The Rainbow and the Worm without recognizing the extraordinary level of thermodynamic woo in passages like those above, then a remedial course in introductory thermo is indicated — post haste.
Comment by keiths — September 8, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 12:14 am
mtraven wrote:
Does it ever! One need look no further than our own John Davison for another sad example.
mtraven:
It's a fascinating question, and one of the reasons I keep coming back to Telic Thoughts and Uncommon Descent. Now that you've posed it, I'd encourage Matthew, or Joy, or anyone else with strong feelings on the subject to give their answers.
I think you're correct about these people being averse to mechanistic explanations of mind, which they see as demeaning. Grush and Churchland advance a similar explanation for why people are attracted to quantum theories of consciousness such as the Penrose/Hameroff proposal:
Comment by keiths — September 9, 2007 @ 12:14 am
September 9th, 2007 at 12:35 am
People expect more from the universe. The possibility that there is no life after death, no paranormal events, no God and no greater meaning to their existence ponies up an unimaginably vast array of negative emotions as to the "inconceivability" of the above. Dawkins latest program about this called "enemies of reason" forayed into the irrational thinking we're all engulfed in.. failing to realize that the very picture he espouses, whilst truly astonishing in it's own right (as science had always been for me) is still rather primitive compared to what most people expect from the universe to be.
Now, I'm in no way or form opposed to all that. In fact, I'd like for it all to be true since I do find the world to be a bit humdrum if we are all that nature was able to cough up since the beginning of time (or before that?), but seeing as i've never really experienced anything like that, I will remain a skeptic until I come face-to-face with similar occurrences and I can't wait to do just that!:mrgreen:
Comment by dimasok — September 9, 2007 @ 12:35 am
September 9th, 2007 at 12:48 am
For the same reason, probably, that some people are desperate to label Sheldrake as a con-artist, a crank, and whatever else – because it happens to be a particular line drawn in the sand between people of different views and, really, priesthoods. For every person out there who looks to Sheldrake, Mae-Wan Ho, or Elisabet Sahtouris for scientific thought, there's someone else out there desperately opposed to anyone considering their musings scientific, or even thoughtful/helpful. It's not just about the science. Or "science". Take your pick.
And it's akin to why I don't like to dip much into the 'supernatural v natural' arguments. If the supernatural is shown to exist, it will – no matter its properties, no matter how it works – become natural on the spot. The word is corrupted and abused, as is 'magic'. All things that are real can be or are categorized as natural, and it would follow whether what's "proven" is qualia, retrocausality, God, or otherwise.
Comment by nullasalus — September 9, 2007 @ 12:48 am
September 9th, 2007 at 1:09 am
You've just said what i've been thinking about for so long! Indeed, supernatural is already natural because there is absolutely no reason to label anything as being separate from reality and seeing as anything that nature could or would produce is natural from it's very nature, the word "supernatural" or variations thereof are a linguistic trick. Reminds me of the brilliant Wittgenstein "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language".
Anything, God, ghosts (or any other paranormalities), magic, afterlife or any other conceivable/inconceivable feature of reality is indeed as natural as they can get and always were.
Sometimes the skeptics act as killjoys because it almost seems as if they're not so much arguing for the non-existence of the obsolete definition of supernatural but they indeed want to expunge it from existence at all! And that's what upsets me, not because I believe in it given the experiences i've had in life (which makes me a doubter), but because I truly do want to experience something outlandish, otherwordly but can't seem to manage to do that.
Comment by dimasok — September 9, 2007 @ 1:09 am
September 9th, 2007 at 1:16 am
mtraven:
Assume he turns out to be correct. Are you also assuming that the unknown mechanism takes the form of a physical arrangement of parts or of natural forces whose measurement leads to physical predictions like a specifiable quantity of mass or energy? There no doubt would be some interface with a measurable, physical world but it might not be detectable in a way that leads to reliable predictions. That in turn could signal a scientific boundary.
Comment by Bradford — September 9, 2007 @ 1:16 am
September 9th, 2007 at 1:48 am
I agree that "supernatural" is a troublesome term. Perhaps it is a lack of an adequate definition of what supernatural means. It comes from a time when we really did not understand nature itself. I still believe that there are two realities: natural and spiritual. "Spiritual" is a better term than supernatural, because it acknowledges the other reality and does not presume that reality as beyond natural reality. But of course, with the existence of spirit, there is something odd going on.
Comment by Randy — September 9, 2007 @ 1:48 am
September 9th, 2007 at 6:49 am
dimasok,
I'm glad to know someone else has thought upon the same lines. I think this is one of the single biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to discussing a lot of science, personally.
Actually, recognizing the particular problem of 'supernatural' was a kind of eureka moment for me. See, if "magic" and "supernatural" truly are corrupted words/concepts as I believe them to be, then whatever line there was between the natural and the supernatural is, in a way, gone. Even if they're done entirely with science, I think man is achieving essentially supernatural goals at this point – everything from entanglement manipulation to neurological advances to otherwise. We may disagree on this point, but it's how I view the world now; without that false dichotomy.
Comment by nullasalus — September 9, 2007 @ 6:49 am
September 9th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Hi mtraven,
You ask, "I would like to understand why some people are so strongly drawn towards pseudoscience." Don't you think you should define pseudoscience? Literally, it means "˜false science.' So what do you mean by "˜false science'?
Comment by MikeGene — September 9, 2007 @ 9:22 am
September 9th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
mtraven:
I would hazard a guess that people are drawn toward hypotheses that propose to explain aspects of their empirical experience that people like you claim cannot be explained because that empirical experience never happened. Which, for people who actually have such empirical experience, is not a rational response, not a scientific statement and not particularly interesting or impressive. It's just an insult.
I don't think that's at all difficult to understand.
Comment by Joy — September 9, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
That's the difference between you and me.
I'm interested in the science, and you're interested in sociology.
The fact that journals like Nature and Scientific American aren't interested in reading about the evidence for telepathy is because they are run by dogmatic materialists. Of course they aren't going to publish Sheldrake's research which casts severe doubt on their faith-based beliefs. It has nothing to do with the quality of the research.
BTW Sheldrake was published recently in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. So all mainstream science journals are not totally biased towards materialism.
Your problem is you think by throwing terms like "real science", "crackpot", "went off the rails", "crank" and the like, you are describing something about Sheldrake, et. al. Instead you are simply describing the limits of your own faith-based system of materialism. You're simply not interested in hearing about evidence against it.
Comment by MatthewCromer — September 9, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I like his hypothesis of formative causation (the theory of morphic resonance) which proposes that phenomena "” particularly biological ones "” become more probable the more often they occur, and therefore that biological growth and behavior become guided into patterns laid down by previous similar events. He suggested that this underlies many aspects of science, from evolution to laws of nature. Indeed, he wrote that the laws of nature might be thought of as mutable habits that have evolved since the Big Bang.
Why is he controversial to the degree he is accused with again?
Comment by dimasok — September 9, 2007 @ 1:51 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Pseudoscience is something that superficially appears to be science but isn't, for any of a number of reasons. Occasionally soemthing that is thought to be science turns out to be pseusdoscience, or vice-versa.
I don't think any of you caught my point. Forget the category of pseudoscience and let's take Sheldrake's work as a concrete example of something. Regardless of whatever scientific merits it may have, some people seem to latch onto it as a harbringer of something wonderful — it's going to get rid of materialism, usher in a new era of holism, reveal that the universe is a much nicer place than ordinary science says it is, or something.
But I don't get it. What exactly is Sheldrake going to demonstrate? Here are the possible outcomes:
- Sheldrake's work is shown to be worthless, unreproducible and incoherent. I'd say there is 99% chance of this being the case, but say it isn't. That leaves:
- Sheldrake has uncovered some real phenomena that other scirntists have ignored, but they are explicable by ordinary an known underlying phenomena, such as some form of elctromagnetic or pheromonal signaling. In that case, he's made a real contribution to science but has not fundamentally altered our world view.
- As above, but it turns out that there he uncovers a hitherto unknown basic force, structure, phenonmenon, or whatever it is, called "morphic resonance", that is truly revolutionary and makes us rethink the basic structure of reality. Let's say it's as revolutionary as quantum mechanics, a real science which has forced us to rethink some basic metaphysical assumptions.
Even in the last case — extremely unlikely IMO, but say it happens — so what? Quantum mechanics, despite its many appropriations by New Agers, did not somehow make the world a more spiritual, caring, rainbow-hued place. It provides a better description of the same reality we've always lived in. Despite the misinterpreters, the universe is not a less mechanical place after Heisenberg, Bohr, Dirac, and Feynmann than it was before. And if Sheldrake's work turns out to be science rather than pseduoscience, the same will be true of his discoveries.
So my question is why do so many people have an emotinal investment in the work of people like Sheldrake, why do people seem to think it's going to validate some kind of metaphysics that will redeeem the unvierse for them?
As far as I can tell, they are putting their spiritual hopes in the wrong place. They are looking for a science that will validate their spiritual and metaphyisical beliefs, but that's not what science does. It's this attempt to blend material reality with spiritual dreaming that generates pseudosciences. Sheldrake is pretty clearly in this category, and so is ID.
Comment by mtraven — September 9, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Did you expect it to do just that? How do you think it is possible in principle to make the world a better place? Isn't that the very essence of the technologies we'll have in the future? Even if Sheldrake has it all wrong, it wouldn't stop the march of technology to make the world precisely as many of us know it needs to be. With the help of QM, these technologies became possible, and perhaps if some of his work is validated, that might give science even more of a push in the right direction?
I do agree with you that human beings come pre-equipped with a DEMAND for the universe to suit their wishes (something that makers of "What the bleep do we know" capitalized on), but science too seems to want to completely isolate everything that doesn't fit their picture of reality, all in an effort to preserve the sterile, mechanistic, dead universe we're destined to die in.
Now I appreciate the objectivity of science in a way, but I do not share many of their sentiments that we should relish our brief lifespans here and then vanish without a trace… that is simply unacceptable, which is why i'm a transhumanist and will accept any new discoveries that would propel us all into a better world, and if Sheldrake can deliver (personally I kinda think his work is completely unrelated to that, but oh well…), then i'm more than happy.
Comment by dimasok — September 9, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
It is telling how you leave protoscience out of your discussion. You're setting up a false dichotomy; either something is science or it is total bunk. I don't think that position is tenable, only the faith-based pseudoskeptic might think otherwise. Do a search for Truzzi, pseudoscience and protoscience to see what I mean.
Comment by Jean — September 9, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Hi mtraven,
Well, if we are going to talk about appearances and "true science", we quickly get into psychology, sociology, and philosophy. When you take measurements about people's color preferences and tie that to just-so stories about fruit, skies, and natural selection, what does that appear like?
Why think that everyone thinks alike? I certainly do not put my own spiritual hopes in ID nor do I think it is supposed to validate my spiritual and metaphysical beliefs. LOL. That would a lot to expect from a late-night, intellectual hobby! Do you need me to explain why I think about ID?
Comment by MikeGene — September 9, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
dimasok:
That form (and law) is mostly habit is an established aspect of the physics of reality. Thus it's not actually controversial. Except to a certain antiquated ideology embraced in biology, which apparently has to be protected in academia by an 'orthodox' priesthood and imposed on society by force of law.
Comment by Joy — September 9, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I explicitly said that the line between them is not hard and fast, because there's always room for new evidence. "Protoscience" is a reasonable term for something that is new and indeterminate, but might become science some day. String theory might be considered to be protoscience — it's controversial, and at the moment untestable. Parapsychology is another protoscience. It's been tested many times and nobody's found very good evidence for it. But if it does somehow become science, then it's going to be science, not a spiritual revolution.
I don't think that everyone thinks alike, but it is undeniably true that most of the ID defenders here are motivated by religious reasons.
Comment by mtraven — September 9, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Hi mtraven,
Perhaps, but what ARE these motivations? From reading the many people here, I don't get the impression that most/all would become atheists if ID failed. Thus, I don't think many people here are looking to ID to prop up their spirituality or metaphysics.
Y'know, motivations are a tricky thing. I would think everyone should know this. For example, what motivates you readers to read this blog? What motivates you people to comment on this blog? I suspect that most people are like me "“ there are multiple reasons that converge to motivate us, not One Big Reason that pushes us around.
Comment by MikeGene — September 9, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Since we're discussing general motivations..
MikeGene is right in my case. If IC structures turn out not to be IC, my metaphysics are unharmed. My interest in ID has more to do with the philosophical possibilities, and ways of viewing nature – I see an incredible amount of room for telic views, and I don't think such views inhibit discovery or interest in scientific study.
Plus, I think ID is doing a great job of promoting scientific interest. When science is treated as a subject that can lead to all kinds of informed thought and ideas, rather than 'You must regard biology as Richard Dawkins does or you should be barred from discussing it', people who are normally turned off by technical talk become attracted to it.
Comment by nullasalus — September 9, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
mtraven:
I will readily admit that I got interested in this particular front in the "culture war" because of indefensible assertions being made by people pretending to be scientists on the internet. Because I have some familiarity and experience with science and scientists, it struck me very odd that such posers seemed to have no understanding of what science is and does, and no grasp of how badly their transparent dishonesty reflects on the enterprise (and any legitimate authority science may have over its own practice and representation).
You can believe whatever you like about deities and origins and the meaning of life. So can I. Either or both of us can claim all day long that science supports our beliefs, and it might even be true on some level, at this or some other moment in time. Talk is cheap. What neither of us can do – or reasonably expect to do – is force someone else to believe what we believe simply by our appeal to science. Science's authority exists only in-house, and even there it's entirely provisional. It has not been granted any authority in society at large to force anybody to believe or disbelieve anything. Pretending otherwise doesn't change reality one bit.
The kind of authoritarian garbage being openly spewed by science posers offends my scientific and humanistic sensibilities, not my religious sensibilities.
Comment by Joy — September 9, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
September 9th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I agree with this sentiment.
That does not mean there are no valid truth statements. So we might say that "The Theory of Evolution is a strongly supported scientific theory." This is a true statement and is worth defending. The science is provisional. The science could be wrong. But it would be a false to deny it.
On the other hand, you can *believe* that the world was created Last Thursday with libraries full of books, and all of our memories; but this would not be a scientific statement. You would still be honestly compelled to assent to the scientific evidence that implies the world is much, much older.
Comment by Zachriel — September 9, 2007 @ 11:18 pm
September 10th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
That statement just shows how little you know about the field.
Comment by MatthewCromer — September 10, 2007 @ 7:36 pm