Dawkins Misuses Science
by MikeGeneLet's say that someone proposes God created the world 6000 years ago. "Aha!" Richard Dawkins might say, arguing this belief about God is a scientific hypothesis. So let's look to science. My goodness, science says the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. So there you have it "“ science has tested and disproved the existence of God.
Oh, but not so fast. All science did was test when the Earth came into existence. That is, while Dawkins might think that science has falsified the claim " God created the Earth 6000 years ago," all science has done is falsify the claim "God created the Earth 6000 years ago."
Let's say that science determined the Earth was 6000 years old. Would that mean science detected the existence of God? Would that mean science detected a divine act of Creation? No, the only thing that science detected was the age of the Earth.
Dawkins doesn't seem to understand basic points in theology and science "“ God is not some part of Nature that can be measured and in science, measurement is not something we can discard. At best, the theist or atheist can argue that science can detect the effects of God's interventions in Nature. But detecting an effect is not detecting the cause. And if the cause is in some sense outside of Nature, science can never get to it. Science would be stalled at the effect. And if all you have is the effect, science, by its very nature, will choose the causes it can reach to explain that effect.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Well said.
Comment by Eric Anderson — October 1, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:12 am
Mike wrote:
I wouldn't make that claim, and neither would Dawkins. Science cannot falsify the general idea of God, as Dawkins is careful to point out in his book.
On the other hand, specific conceptions of God can be falsified, and the YEC God is one of these. The majority of YECers hold that
1) God created the Earth less than 10,000 years ago, and
2) God would neither deceive us, nor allow us to be deceived, by an Earth that appeared to be much older than it really is.
Their God is falsified by science's determination, through multiple lines of evidence, that the Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.
Other Gods are compatible with an old Earth, and are not falsified by this observation. Even the YEC God can be made compatible with an Earth that appears to be 4.5 billion years old, if you allow for the possibility that God might be deceiving us — to test our faith, for example.
The claim "God created the Earth 6,000 years ago" stands or falls as a whole. If it's true, then God created the Earth 6,000 years ago. If it's false, then God did not create the Earth 6,000 years ago. Shifting the emphasis makes no difference.
I think what you're really trying to say is that the claim "God created the Earth" is distinct from the claim "God created the Earth 6,000 years ago." If the first claim is false, so is the second. But the second claim could be false without negating the first.
No. It would simply mean that the YEC God was still in the running, and that the OEC God (among many others) had been falsified.
But science cannot directly "get to" a cause within Nature, either. Science learns about everything, within Nature or without, by observing its effects.
For example, a human observer does not directly apprehend that a particular particle is an electron. There is no "electronic essence" that communicates itself directly to us and allows us to make that determination. Instead, we observe the presence of the particle indirectly, and discern its attributes indirectly, by monitoring the effects the particle has on its surroundings. In a very real sense, the electron is defined by these effects, because any other attributes it has will have no observable consequences. These other attributes will remain forever outside the grasp of science.
In exactly the same way, the effects of God, or of an immaterial soul, on the physical world, if any, can be observed. We learn about the nature of God, or of the soul, from these observations, just as we learned about the nature of the electron from observations of its effects. And just as the electron may have unobservable attributes that are forever out of the reach of science, so may God or the soul, if they exist. Despite this limitation, electrons remain within the purview of science, and so do God and the soul, provided that their existence has empirical, repeatable consequences.
Note: I used an electron as an example, but a chair would have done just as well. We don't apprehend a chair's "chairness" directly — we observe the pattern made on our retinas by photons that have hit the chair, or the pattern of stimulation of our tactile nerves when the atoms in our skin touch the atoms in the chair. It's all indirect.
Comment by keiths — October 2, 2007 @ 9:12 am
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
keiths: "2) God would neither deceive us, nor allow us to be deceived, by an Earth that appeared to be much older than it really is."
Who says?
Paul the apostle said this about the last days prior to the return of Jesus:
"And for this cause [the cause of rejecting Jesus] God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (See also 1 Kings 22:23, 2 Chronicles 18:21,22, about Yahweh putting a "lying spirit" in the mouth of some prophets, so Israel would be deceived.)
It would appear that the Judeo/Christian God might very well allow some physical evidence about the age of the earth to deceive humans.
(Yes, I know about Titus 1:2, where it says "God cannot lie", but according to the Bible, He apparently allows it and even sanctions it in others on occasion. Would you suppose Yahweh would allow some deceiving agency, like the Snake, into the Garden of Eden to lie to the pair for no reason? Etc.)
Maybe the real God (if there is one) would never do any of this. Maybe he would. But it seems reasonable from the text that the Judeo-Christian God would.
KB
Comment by kornbelt888 — October 2, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
kornbelt,
That's why I wrote:
And, as you point out, the Bible contradicts itself on this issue (and many others as well), so believers can cherry-pick the verses that support their prejudices.
Most of the YECers I've known would be uncomfortable with the idea that God would actively try to deceive us, thereby causing us to reject him and be damned. (It's sort of the theological equivalent of entrapment.)
Back when I was a young literalist, coming to grips with the incompatibilities between the Bible, taken literally, and the scientific worldview, I glommed onto the idea that God was testing our faith in Scripture by presenting us with contradictory physical evidence. That enabled me to hang onto my literalism a little longer.
Comment by keiths — October 2, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:38 pm
…between the Bible, taken literally, and the scientific worldview, I glommed onto the idea that God was testing our faith in Scripture by presenting us with contradictory physical evidence. That enabled me to hang onto my literalism a little longer.
It seems to me that the supremacy of the Word over imagery has always been part of a biblical ethos. In other words, God has indeed tested people or apparently allowed them to be tested by Satan time and again. Examples I remember off hand: "Have you considered my servant Job…" "Satan desires to sift you as wheat…" or as KB notes: "There was a serpent…" So it seems that God allows contradictory evidence to exist according to the Bible, therefore it's not apparent why anyone should be surprised by the existence of evils/devils, evil people as well as contradictory evidence and so on and on. It's not as if the text isn't clear time and again on the fact that deception, corruption and so on exist despite the Victorian era theology and views typical to prissy Christians who can't handle God getting his hands dirty by dealing with evil because they're supposedly so clean, clean themselves. It's not surprising that this focus on supposed purity is woven all through Darwinian reasoning time and again, whether it's "panda's thumb" type arguments or the theodicy typical to Darwinism given that Darwinian reasoning is rooted in Victorian era theology as well. So no matter what the original source for their views of God says the gardening God of the Bible must be kept from getting his hands dirty and the like and once people make such an assumption historically they have typically concluded that there is no place for God in an evil world.
"Most of the YECers I've known would be uncomfortable with the idea that God would actively try to deceive us, thereby causing us to reject him and be damned. (It's sort of the theological equivalent of entrapment.)"
Basically you seem to be trying to say that God/Good/Conception is actually the Devil/Evil/Deception if he allows evil to exist or uses evil for his own purposes and so on but it seems to me that a lot of the text of the Bible is meant to keep that distinction in so far as it is possible in the language of degenerates. Most YECs I know never want to deal with the fact that human language is not inerrant.
Comment by mynym — October 2, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
mynym wrote:
The Bible contradicts itself, therefore God allows contradictory evidence. Yeah, right. No circular reasoning there. No matter how ridiculous or self-contradictory Biblical stories, it always makes sense. The power of brainwashing never ceases to amaze me.
Comment by Raevmo — October 2, 2007 @ 6:30 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Doesn't matter how old the Earth is, both evolutionary theorists and creationists agree that life did not always exist on Earth. Life appeared on Earth subsequent to its "creation."
You guys agree on other (seemingly) important matters as well. E.g., evolutionists assume that conditions existing on Earth led to the natural origin of life. Cf. Moses who has God saying, "Let the Earth produce"¦"
Etc.
You guys have more in common then you are wont to admit. I have often noted this Love/Hate relationship.
Y
ou guys can't live w/o each other. So why doncha just kiss and make up?
I know why"”I've had relationships like that"”Sparks, smoke, friction and fire keep a relationship alive.
Both of ya slouching on the couch and watching TV while eating Cheetos?
That kind of behavior kills relationships.
C'mon, admit it"”You cannot live w/o each other.
You need each other so you might as well admit that even if you don't love each other you can't live w/o each other.
Comment by Rock — October 2, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Picture Dembski and Dawkins on the debate platform.
Each catches the others eye.
Something happens. (No one knows what, why, or how.)
In that purely magical moment when you know you have found the one you love, the one you will devote the entirety of your life to, they hurl themselves together.
Breathlessly whispering sweet nothings, each one desperately holding and caressing the other, tearing at each others clothing, smothering each other in passionate kisses. In their ardor they sink to the floor"¦
Well, you know what happens next.
Comment by Rock — October 2, 2007 @ 8:31 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Hi Keiths,
Then it sounds like Dawkins is talking out both sides of his mouth. I encourage people to watch at least the first minute or so of that BBC interview I recently posted. Keep in mind three things: 1) Dawkins is extremely articulate; 2) Dawkins is well-practiced with expressing his views in the media; 3) he is being interviewed in an exceptionally comfortable setting. He's asked why his promotion of atheism is so important. His answer? He frames it as science (always posturing as if he comes to us while wearing the white lab coat). And he doesn't outline any specific conception of God. He calmly asserts that he DOES (with emphasis) regard the hypothesis of a "supernatural designer" (or supernatural creator) as a "scientific hypothesis." That's it. A "supernatural designer" IS science (his emphasis). Well, that is indeed a pretty darn "general idea of God."
Since we're on the video, I encourage people to take a closer second look. Note carefully his own conceptualization of God: "A universe that HAS a supernatural"¦.intelligence, a supernatural over-mind IN it, is a very, very different kind of universe"¦" Notice I emphasized IN it. Dawkins views the universe as something that contains God, as if God is just one more thing IN it. Of course, if you are used to comparing God with spaghetti monsters, unicorns, fairies, etc., it's easy to see how Dawkins comes to see God as some super-creature that is housed within the universe.
What science falsifies is a belief about the age of the Earth, a proposed action of God. It seems to me you are conflating an action with an identity. Imagine I wrote the following at TT: "Okay, I had it. I finally took out the sledgehammer and trashed my VW Rabbit. I smashed the windshield, I smashed the grill, I smashed the hood, the trunk, the doors." Then a day later, bipod come by and takes another picture of my Rabbit and posts it here - it looks just fine. At that point, what has bipod falsified? Bipod has falsified the notion that I smashed my car. MikeGene did not smash his car as he said he did. Yet wouldn't it be odd for bipod to instead proclaim, "I have falsified the existence of the Rabbit-smashing MikeGene?"
I think it does. This is not some little logic question. This is communication from a political activist. Rock is right "“ Dawkins is the precise mirror image of the ID movement. Dawkins is peddling a metaphysical view, yet very badly wants to make it sound like science. My shifting emphasis example helps people see the bait-and-switch he is engaged in.
Are we talking about being "in the running" in a scientific sense? How does science get beyond this state? What do we next test?
I'm not sure why you think being within Nature or outside it is inconsequential. If a cause exists within Nature, we can get much closer to it by manipulating it. If an enzyme catalyzes a reaction, then we can manipulate the cause of this accelerated chemistry. This not only enhances our conviction about identifying the right cause, but helps us to better understand the cause (which only happens to be a major ingredient of science). Can you manipulate God to ensure God really is the cause and better understand God because of the differing effects? No.
And let's not forget that we're not only talking about a cause beyond Nature, but an agent. The sciences that study populations of agents today (the social sciences) haven't matured enough to allow me to trust science's ability to speak about an agent outside of Nature.
Of course, I can always ask for the peer-reviewed literature that shows science is capable to dealing with causes outside Nature.
Comment by MikeGene — October 2, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Mike
Whilst I don't per se have a problem with the way you are demarcating science, I think you might.
You seem to be saying that because a cause can never be directly observed or measured that it is therefore outside of science. I'm sure there are quite a few examples that are considered science that will not meet that criteria.
Of course, someone could always argue that perhaps, at some point science will be able to directly observe 'x', but on what basis can you claim that the argument is warranted. Arguing that we could never scientifically observe God because God is unobservable is question begging, and all someone would have to do is claim that God is observable given enough technology to make theological type claims 'science' by your criteria. (One possible natural way would be for science to create a time machine to observe the creation event?)
Another point would be the idea that directly observing the age of the earth is not and will not ever be possible. All that science has done is to observe an effect and then postulate a completely unobservable cause (4 billion years of time passing). So in that sense the ancient age of the earth is also not a scientific claim….
anyways, just some thoughts
Comment by alangrey — October 2, 2007 @ 11:18 pm
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:03 am
The Bible contradicts itself, therefore God allows contradictory evidence.
It's trivial logic that if ultimate Good/God exists and evil also exists then God allows evil to exist. The Bible may contradict itself in as much as it must given a degenerate language while it still may contain as much truth as can be expressed given the limitations of language.
Arguments like this: Most of the YECers I've known would be uncomfortable with the idea that God would actively try to deceive us… seem to be arguing, "I say that Good/God must not let Evil/Devils exist, so if evil exists then God does not." That is an ignorant argument for any Christian given that a central Christian tenet is God killing the Christ as he is symbolically lifted up as if Good/God is the Snake/devil/evil. In the Christian mythos the metaphoric Yeast is in the Bread, the symbolic snake that eats its own tale slithers through the Tree of Life promising knowledge/scientia of itself, etc.
The irony of all atheistic arguments that are based on the existence of evil (i.e. those that are based on moral judgments against God) is that Evil/Devils/Wrong can only be advanced as an argument against God/Good/Right to the extent that one assumes they "exist." If moral judgments reduce to brain events caused by matter in motion and are not defined in any meaningful/spiritual way by something transphysical then what anyone believes is a meaningless illusion anyway. But if there is something transphysical/spiritual which defines morality then it would have to be represented metaphorically given that it's not physical/literal by definition.
Comment by mynym — October 3, 2007 @ 12:03 am
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:11 am
Actually I guess what arguments like this: Most of the YECers I've known would be uncomfortable with the idea that God would actively try to deceive us"¦ are actually saying is that if God/Good/Truth is actually the Devil/Evil/Deceiver then God does not exist or God is not Good.
Ironically, if humans are liars or deceptive ourselves then every time we structure an argument which blames God/Good for letting lies or deception exist we are asking for our own destruction.
Comment by mynym — October 3, 2007 @ 12:11 am
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:14 am
keiths:
I don't think the Bible texts I cited say exactly that. It's not that God is trying to deceive mankind in general, rather only those who have rejected his message that have come through the prophets. The elect will be tested by the evidence, but will not be deceived. There's some complicated theology related to all of this, to be sure.
(Disclaimer: I take no position here if any of this is true or not. My personal views are irrelevant to the point.)
Comment by kornbelt888 — October 3, 2007 @ 9:14 am
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:28 am
mynym: But if there is something transphysical/spiritual which defines morality then it would have to be represented metaphorically given that it's not physical/literal by definition.
Which brings me back to C.S. Lewis's argument that we have a sense to a real morality because there must be a real morality. Not that our notions of what morality is in practical terms always correct, but the fact that most humans have a kind of transcendent intuition in the first place that some kind of "absolute morality" exists. How could blind watchmaker productions of "mere matter" produce minds that have an intuitive transcendent sense? It could be an illusion, but an illusion of what? A mirage may not really be water, but it would cease to a be a mirage proper if water did not exist.
Comment by kornbelt888 — October 3, 2007 @ 9:28 am
October 3rd, 2007 at 11:45 pm
MikeGene writes:
This may surprise some people who have read my posts in the past but as a Theist I don't like the word God when discussing either natural theology or matters relating to ID. The problem is that our English word G-o-d is too generic or too non-specific and therefore is the source of more confusion than it is of clarity. For example, Albert Einstein talked about God a lot but his conception of God was a pantheistic one. For a pantheist it is not so much a question of God being IN the world because God in fact IS the world. In other words, the sum total of everything is God. Of course this is not what theists mean when they use the term God.
Personally, I prefer to, as accurately as possible, define what I mean rather than use a term that has been rendered meaningless by misuse and abuse. Unfortunately the term God appears to have fallen victim to intellectual (or maybe pseudo-intellectual) misuse and/or abuse.
I would argue that the new science of Cosmology invites us to think about what (or perhaps who) caused the universe to come into existence. At least if we accept the Big Bang we need to consider the very real possibility that the universe was in some sense caused.
Consider what belief in the Big Bang implies. It implies that IN the very beginning of time the entire universe was compressed into such a super dense compressed state that time and space in and of them selves did not even exist. (BTW this is a view that is supported by the predictions of General Relativity) In other words, not only did all the matter-energy of the universe come into existence in that first primordial moment, but, so did space-time. The only logical conclusion that I can come to is that whatever it was that caused the universe to come into existence it must almost certainly be something that by it's very nature transcends space and time. Therefore, if it "existed" ontologically prior to space and time it is not something that by its nature ontologically depends upon or exists IN the spatial-temporal manifold that it caused to come into existence. Furthermore, the idea that logic ultimately leads us to is something that has always existed. Therefore, whatever caused the universe is an Eternally Existing Transcendent Something. Is that something intelligent? I think that I can make a logical argument that it is, but since it is getting a little late I'll save that for part 2 of my response.
In his book, The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins makes the same mistake that a lot of atheists make. He asks, "Who made God?" But that is only a problem if you mean by God something that exists in a spatial temporal manifold. But it absurd to ask the same question about an always existing, or eternally existing something, because that something has always existed.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — October 3, 2007 @ 11:45 pm
October 4th, 2007 at 12:43 am
How could blind watchmaker productions of "mere matter" produce minds that have an intuitive transcendent sense?
The notion of a Blind Watchmaker seems to have to do with some little fellows' failure to admit to transcendence of any sort. Sometimes they do not even seem to realize that if they crawl too far back into the immanent womb of Mother Nature then they cannot claim a transphysical reality like "insight." How do the little watchers tell when it is time to emerge from Nature's blindness to look at empirical evidence without blinders? When one tries to pry a philosophical naturalist off the teat of their Mommy Nature it seems that the time to "see" things as a whole never comes, instead they always seem to be blinded by tittles.
But if I'm allowed to cite my own imagination about the past as if it is an empirical fact similar to the fact that the earth revolves around the sun and so on and so forth just as those who support Darwinian reasoning typically do then I can imagine a few things about a "transcendent sense," naturally enough. Perhaps morality evolved based on natural selection, for I'd imagine that the general usefulness of an intuitive transcendent sense in humans caused natural selection to select for its biological basis. Perhaps something similar to this:
Now that I've imagined something natural that should be treated as the default answer. After all, if you can imagine a tale that seems natural to you then it may as well be so or pretty much progressing to be so given that what seems natural is the equivalent of all science.
I'd also imagine that some apes having sex in the past sit on the causal chain which causes Richard Dawkins to imagine things, therefore ape penes are responsible for the illusion of intelligent agency or information in his books.
Comment by mynym — October 4, 2007 @ 12:43 am
October 4th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Mike,
The question of science's ability to study the supernatural comes up again and again at Telic Thoughts, so I think it would be an appropriate topic for a guest post. I'd like to write something up over the next couple of days. If I do, will you consider posting it?
Meanwhile, I'd like to respond to this paragraph (warning to the reader — contains scenes of gratuitous automotive violence):
The difference is that the label "Mike Gene" refers to a specific individual who wears pajamas, contributes to Telic Thoughts, recently herniated a disc, praises bunnies and denigrates Richard Dawkins. (By the way, note that actions can establish identity, as in this example.) If someone claims that Mike Gene supports embryonic stem cell research, it doesn't make sense for me to ask "Which Mike Gene?" if I know of only one.
The label "God", by contrast, does not refer unambiguously to a single entity. One person might regard God as simply "all of existence"; another sees God as a divine person who led his chosen people out of captivity in Egypt. There is no chance of confusing the two concepts, yet they share the same label. "Which God?" is a perfectly sensible question.
Because the range of concepts denoted by the word "God" is so broad, they do not stand or fall together. It therefore makes sense to say that the YEC God is falsified by the evidence of the Earth's age, but that the pantheist's God is not.
Similarly, suppose that you did a Google search and discovered that there are three Mike Genes out there: you, a dry cleaner in Las Vegas, and a soldier serving in Iraq. It would make perfect sense, when speaking of the other Mike Genes, to refer to them as the "dry-cleaning Mike Gene" and the "military Mike Gene." And if you discovered that the Las Vegas Mike Gene didn't exist in real life, but was only a character in a novel, it would be legitimate to say that the dry-cleaning Mike Gene had been falsified.
Comment by keiths — October 4, 2007 @ 9:22 am