We here at Bad Astronomy Central (and by we, I mean me) have heard just about every silly claim you can imagine. Planet X, the Moon Hoax, astrology, creationism… you know the story.
It’s not just astronomy, of course. Ghosts, spirits, crystals, homeopathy, prayer… these all go totally against what we know to be real, what we know to be true.
But when I (or countless other rationalists) point this out to the True BelieverTM, we always get the same response: "Science doesn’t know everything!"
Well, duh. We never said it did. But it’s the best tool humans have to distinguish truth from fantasy.
And that’s what makes me even madder when I hear scientists or science journalists buy into the pseudoscience framing. How many times have you heard a scientist say, "We can’t test the supernatural"? The idea being that prayer, ghosts, what-have-you, are not subject to scientific scrutiny.
Bull.
The latest blurting about this comes from a scientist quoted in a book review. In the review, the science journalist says:
As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are “not within the scope or abilities of science.”
This is 100% wrong. Any claim, any explanation of an event, definitely falls within the scope of science. That’s because science is a method of investigation.
If someone says prayer helps people get healthy, then there is a clear methodology to test this (double blind tests with statistically large samples, as has been done — conclusion: prayer doesn’t work). If someone says a ghost makes noises in their house, then that noise is recordable, and the house itself testable: it may be old and creaky, or has pipes which thermally disturb the wood, or has rats in the walls. Creationists say the world is 6000 years old. We know this can be tested, literally thousands of ways. The conclusion: well, you know the conclusion.
Let me be clear: if you say there is a cause for an event, then there is a way to test that cause. It may not be easy, and it may involve elimination (like destroying the Moon Hoax arguments one by one until the only viable conclusion left is that we did indeed go to the Moon). The only claims I can think of that cannot be tested are solipsism (which to me is an interesting idea to toy with, but an intellectual dead end since it tells you nothing) and the actual existence of God.
For the latter, I say that it may not be possible to test for the existence of God, but people do make claims about what God has done. If those claims are true, then they can be tested.
Anything that has a physical, measurable manifestation is within the realm of science.
Which leaves me to say the thing I have said so many times, but which so many people don’t seem to want to understand: there is no such thing as the supernatural. If something exists, then it is real, and it is natural.
I don’t expect people at large to pick up on this, necessarily, but I sure think scientists should.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Um, Phil, I think you misunderstood the quote: “As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are ‘not within the scope or abilities of science.’”
I tried to track down this exact quote, but I’ll betcha it had to do with a failed effort a few months ago to try to push creationism as a scientific course at Iowa State. The proposed course included teaching a supernatural component–a designer–as part of the course.
Some members of the Iowa State faculty objected. Supernatural “explanations,” they said, are not really explanations at all. They are not scientific. Chances are this is what that quote meant, and chances are, you’d probably agree.
The proponent of the plan to teach creationism, Guillermo Gonzalez, was subsequently denied tenure.
Also, if you’ll check, you’ll find that Iowa State has a number of notable skeptical watchdogs. Prof. John Patterson, for example, is listed as a consultant for “Skeptical Inquirer.” (Prof. Patterson made national news in the late 1970s by objecting to the teaching of psuedoscience at Iowa State.)
September 27th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I would say that you COULD legitimately argue that there is the supernatural. However, there is no such thing as the supernatural affecting the natural. IF there was such a thing as the supernatural, it would have to be something like a parallel universe or something which has absolutely no effect whatsoever on this universe. Unless you, BY DEFINITION, argue that if it exists it has to be natural…. but that kind of misses the point.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
I’m reminded of a line from some version of The Haunting of Hill House, in which the lead ghost hunter makes the point that what he’s investigating isn’t properly the supernatural, but rather phenomena which science hasn’t explained yet.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
PS: and the point that I was referring to is that the supernatural is something which is outside of this universe. I realize you specifically defined something existing as being natural… which I think is just plain wrong because it misses the point.
I don’t know if I’m getting the fallacy (missing the point) correctly, but there HAS to be a fallacy in that logic (maybe straw man?)
September 27th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
The apparent source of the quote is here:
http://www.biology.iastate.edu/STATEMENT.htm
Quote:
“Whether one believes in a creator or not, views regarding a supernatural creator are, by their very nature, claims of religious faith, and so not within the scope or abilities of science. We, therefore, urge all faculty members to uphold the integrity of our university of “science and technology,” convey to students and the general public the importance of methodological naturalism in science, and reject efforts to portray Intelligent Design as science.”
September 27th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
While I agree that the existence of God is not a scientifically testable claim (for reasons too numerous to enumerate), I have to disagree, Phil, with the statement that any claims about what God is purported to have done are testable.
For example: How would you propose to test the classic claim “God created the Earth?”
It seems to me that your answer would be to investigate how the Earth was formed, discover dust discs and planetary accretion, etc., and conclude that the claim was false. But all that gets you is a creationist saying that you didn’t really understand the claim, and that all you did was shed light (no pun intended) onto the process God used to create the Earth.
You’ll argue them back to where they say that what they really meant was that “God created the Universe”, thus forcing you to inspect the un-inspectable, what happend before the big bang.
If we accept (as I know we do) the scientific method as one of posing testable hypotheses that can be refuted or confirmed by comparing the result of experiments against predictions implied by the hypothesis, then it seems to me that just about every paranormal claim can be reduced to a form that is a) unfit for refutation by the scientific method, and b) still acceptable to the loonie claiming it in the first place as a valid instance of their original claim.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Whenever I hear someone regurgitate the old saw about how “Science doesn’t know everything,” I always respond: “Of course not. If we knew everything, there wouldn’t be any need for science.”
As for God not being testable, that only applies to certain conceptions of God. Also, these conceptions of God tend to consist solely of lists of things that don’t apply to God. He’s not temporal. He’s not spatial. He’s not material. He’s not in the universe. He’s not bound by any laws or rules at all. He’s not describable in human terms. He’s not knowable. In other words, God is defined by taking any and all measurable, testable qualities and denying he has those qualities.
The end result is a tautology: God is not detectable because we define him to be undetectable. But to paraphrase Carl Sagan’s question regarding the Invisible Garage Dragon: What’s the difference between an intangible, space-less, time-less, undetectable, unknowable, indescribable, immaterial God, and no God at all? How is defining God in terms of all these negations any difference from denying his existence?
Usually, the person you’re debating will fall back on subjective experience at this point. But then, Carl Sagan’s Invisible Garage Dragon can be the object of subjective experience, too. And then we’re back where we started–What’s the difference?
September 27th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I’m still of the opinion that “supernatural” is a nonsense word.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Right on, Phil. I tried to make basically this point myself some time ago:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2005/11/16/the-kansas-school-board-is-right/
but it did not go over well. Hopefully people make the effort to understand what you are saying.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Unfortunately, it takes less time to invent an imaginary hole than to plug it. Once you point out that non-parallel shadows are natural, they’ll point out halos. Once you point out halos are natural, they’ll point out light bleed in the photos. Once you explain that, they’ll, I dunno, point out that the astronauts looked tired when they got back.
There’s got to be a better way.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Phil, I’m surprised you didn’t mention either the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion or the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, both of which have been operating for decades to expose supernatural claims to scientific examination.
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/cser/
http://www.csicop.org/
September 27th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
>>> IF there was such a thing as the supernatural,
>>> it would have to be something like a parallel universe
>>> or something which has absolutely no effect
>>> whatsoever on this universe.
Well, some superstring models suggest that gravity is a force emanating (leaking) from another universe where gravity is a much stronger.
Alternatively, the Multiple Worlds Interpretation suggests that particles in our universe are directly affected by probabilistic versions of themselve in parallel universes.
I’m just sayin’, is all.
Has there ever been a *good* study done on prayer versus healing? Perhaps one with a handy URL? I’m not sure how you’d even set that up, especially a double blind experiment. I thought one of the points is that you pray for a specific person, or something.
I’m not religious, so my knowledge oif such things is limited.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I think the point is that if supernatural things exist, they have exactly the same effect on us as if they didn’t exist. In order to claim something exists, one must have evidence, which is seeing how it effects us. Thus, there cannot ever be evidence for the supernatural. If there were, it would automatically place the phenomenon firmly in the realm of the natural.
I am actually currently working on a video for YouTube trying to prove this very point.
September 27th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
(Fred, I’d presume Phil didn’t mention the existence of Skeptical organisations as they tend to get quite a lot of publicity around here.)
Whenever I hear people talking about something that exists or happens that can’t be “tested by science”, I feel they are telling us that it’s something we are forbidden to investigate. It’s like they are saying “just don’t even think about it”. I mean at heart, science is just the process of turning something over in your mind, attempting to understand it.
When I am told that some biological organ is “irreducibly complex”, I feel I’m being told “don’t even try to work it out”.
Is “God created the Earth” testable by science? Sure, if we can first prove that God exists – and to do that we’ll need someone to provide a consistent description of God. If we decided that I am God, then that definition can be scientifically testable because I am testable.
Sure we could say that all pink unicorns have three wings, but it’s meaningless testing that they have three wings if no pink unicorns exist in the first place.
So many people construct a pathetic straw-man of science: it claims to know everything, but has been shown to be ignorant or wrong many times. But once we shuddered in fear from lightning storms, now we understand and have harnessed the power of electricity. Science is organic and perpetually growing, learning, exploring. In the golden age of sea-faring explorers, what did it mean if someone else found an island where none was known before? Did it mean that maps and exploring was pointless? Once a new island is found, it just raises new questions – who lives there? What grows there? What mysteries lie inland?
September 27th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I agree with Phil 100% on this. I keep telling my friends that the supernatural doesn’t exist. It’s made up to explain the unexplainable. It’s like saying “God did it!”. Instead of trying to understand how something works they use this cop-out. If it exists then it’s real and it’s natural. For some reason it doesn’t keep my friends from believing in the supernatural. It’s been ingrained in their heads their whole lives so I guess using logic and reason isn’t enough to change their beliefs. I’ll keep trying thou.
P.S. please don’t watch The Ghost Hunters on Sci-fi. They use very flawed logic. ‘Oh there’s a cold spot in that corner it must be a ghost!’. Duh it’s by a window that should give you a clue that it would be cooler then the rest of the room especially in the winter.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:14 am
Did not Douglas Adams offer proof of solipsism?
“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all planets in the universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole universe is zero, and that all people that you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.”
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
September 28th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Where does this “science does not know anything” claim come from? To a good part it is the fault of the “scientists” (in the definition of scientist I want to include here doctors, engineers and so on) themselves.
To many of us are not able to accept something new. History of is full of engineers, scienists, doctors claiming something is impossible because “science” knows better.
Things like: delirium furiosa when first rail roads popped up, engineers and scientists claiming no apparatus heavier than air could ever fly, doctors (until today) sticking to the knowledge of their books insted of seeking to understand more and get to better knowledge.
Psychiaters claiming they know exactly how the human behaviour can be explained.
Even if we try not to do so, the first reaction of most scienists if they hear about something they cannot explain is “this is not possible”.
“Just because you can’t explain it does not mean there is no explanation” is to often forgotten also by scientists.
We all have to be aware of this. Stay open minded!!
Andre
September 28th, 2007 at 1:02 am
While being open-minded, don’t forget what Dawkins said (though I can’t actually remember where I found this, but I think it was some interview): Before trying to develop a theory to explain any phenomenon, you need to first determine if the phenomenon actually exists. (quote paraphrased by way of poor memory) It isn’t close-minded to reject a “theory” attempting to explain a phenomenon that hasn’t even been shown to exist. It’s Occam’s Razor in action.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:13 am
“If someone says prayer helps people get healthy, then there is a clear methodology to test this (double blind tests with statistically large samples, as has been done)”
Can you cite the research for this. The link you posted was referring to political elections and not to healing. Unless I’ve clicked on the wrong link.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:24 am
I just have to disagree with you for the most part (OK well maybe not most). I believe in God. That belief is internal to me and requires no external proof whatsoever for me. I pray and that makes me psychologically feel better (though I haven’t ever been that sick anyway). This may all just be mumbo jumbo to you, but to me it’s faith. If you choose not to believe in God then that is your right, and living in America that is fine as here we have freedom of religion. The fact that you would need but cannot prove whether or not God exists is your problem (in my opinion). I (unlike some) am not out to prove anything to anybody, or convert anyone. I believe that the die hard fire and brimstone convert or else types do more harm then good in the world. You probably feel the same way, so you have to ask yourself, is this blog entry any better than that? Are out to change all the religious people non religious people? Science explains things you are absolutely correct in that. But try this. Think of the last time you felt any emotion at all. Now prove to me scientifically that you felt that way! Religion works the same way.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Actually Jeremy, you can prove scientifically that you have felt an emotion. Fear shows up just fine without using any scientific instruments other than the observers eyes. Dilation of pupils, increased perspiration, and so forth. And fear is an emotion. Not being a doctor, I don’t know which other instruments you could use for other emotions but I’m guessing an MRI would help out.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:43 am
Selina,
Here is a link to one of the most recent, and largest studies concerning the effectiveness of intercessory prayer.
http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/amhj/abstract.00000406-200604000-00041.htm;jsessionid=G8tF0hPvbqLvDnlbDBymg6Tlh6SnyLTmJpWRcWR2s7Lfjv1jPC2n!1330140564!181195629!8091!-1
As you will see, it was a very thorough and controlled study. The researches found no statistical difference between the prayer and non-prayer groups. The real irony is the group that KNEW they were being prayed for faired worse than those that did not know.
OEJ
September 28th, 2007 at 1:59 am
You have to start by agreeing what “supernatural” means. It can’t just mean “not naturally occurring in Nature” because if it did, my cell phone would be supernatural, and if my cell phone were supernatural, I would expect a much more favorable calling plan. (Neverwhere Minutes?)
So “supernatural” has to mean something like “not bound by the conventional rules of Science.” I think that could be reasonably applied to most of what is described as supernatural.
But if this is true, then the original description that got Mark so worked up is true by definition. Supernatural explanations are NOT within the scope of science. If they were, they would not be supernatural.
Mark seems to be confusing scope of description with zones of jurisdiction. Science aspires to describe the whole world. Good scientists know that this is still a work in progress. The temptation to say “F*** IT” and pre-emptively claim the whole universe in Science’s name is almost irreistible. But it’s also unscientific. Science can’t just sneer at the “supernatural” and win. It has to provide explanations. Which is an endless, ongoing work in progress. But don’t blame people for noticing the wet edge.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Here’s a debate on the results of the study One-Eyed jack linked.
http://www.csicop.org/articles/20010810-prayer/
Interesting stuff.
The more I think about it, the more I think it might be untestable. How can you ever have a truly blind study when the object of the study is some sort of intelligent force behind the universe?
September 28th, 2007 at 2:04 am
OEJ
Thanks for the link. I think it was not as thorough as it could have been. Should there not have been a fourth group not receiving intercessory prayer after being told they would not receive it? And what about a control group who were told absolutely nothing at all?
Additionally, there is no (in the abstract) detailing as to how many people were actually doing the praying. It could be argued that it was their faith that was weak rather than the patients.
I would be interested in reading other examples though.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:22 am
uknesvuinngon 28 Sep 2007 at 1:02 am:
“While being open-minded, don’t forget what Dawkins said (though I can’t actually remember where I found this, but I think it was some interview): Before trying to develop a theory to explain any phenomenon, you need to first determine if the phenomenon actually exists. (quote paraphrased by way of poor memory) It isn’t close-minded to reject a “theory†attempting to explain a phenomenon that hasn’t even been shown to exist. It’s Occam’s Razor in action.
Thats exactly what I am aiming at! To often a phenomenon is denied instead of being investigated.
My favourit example from medicine: Until begin of the last century it was “well known” women cannot have such a thing as an orgasm or even beiing sexually ecited.
Women showing such “symptoms” were thought to be ill and needed medical treatment.
Ofcourse, finally you can say today we know it better and that is due to science. But if scientist would be more open minded in the first place things would develop faster.
As far as I understand occams razor applies to the explanation, not to the phenomenom itself.
Andre
September 28th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Jeremy, I think you’ve missed the point a little here. All you are telling us is that you believe in God and require no proof, it does not then follow that God exists, just that you have a belief.
As for the point about emotion, it is still a physical process; it is certainly possible to monitor my brain activity and observe what happens during my claimed emotional experience. If I was to then, under observation still, undergo that same experience, then the two instances of brain activity could be compared. My personal perception of these events does not change the fact that the physical processes underpinning them can be examined.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Emotions are actually scientifically measurable to some extent, so under properly controlled conditions (you hooked to the proper monitoring equipment), your emotions CAN be measured to a degree and thus proven.
In fact, emotions can be electronically stimulated, and thought patterns in your brain can be triggered by something as trivial as the introduction of small electromagnetic charges to key points in your brain.
Admittedly our ability to do these things is currently quite crude, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future, as the ethics of live conscious brain function exploration and especially brain control limits growth of knowledge in this field, especially with current technologies. However, the technology available to researchers is expanding and our understanding will continue to grow.
But any unbiased comprehensive study of the all of the brain research to date would give no logical reason to conclude that there is anything other than the four forces of nature behind the workings of our brains.
The argument that you can’t “prove” that you had an emotion is specious at best — no matter how hard you tried, you likely couldn’t prove to anyone that you wore underwear during the last presidential election. This argument does not justify claims that supernatural beliefs are real in any way.
Faith is faith — no argument there. But that is all that it is. No argument that it has an emotional payoff to many who subscribe to various faiths, but in many cases, the cost of that emotional payoff is enormous. Emotions can be stimulated by many things: the win/loss of a sports team, a job promotion/demotion, and positive/negative thinking (which I think is the category I would broadly put faith in). It is not surprising that people can positively (and in some cases, negatively) affect their emotions with their faith, but that doesn’t validate the object of their faith as being objectively true.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:16 am
The emotion metaphor was a bit faulty but I see what the poster meant.
Faith really seems to be about selectively rejecting standards of evidence in exchange for something that produces a favorable emotional reaction (i.e. spiritual experience). Faith/spirituality is that socially acceptable rejection of Occam’s razor. In others words it is a delusional state. When under such a delusion, and are intelligent, then you can justify it pretty well. When I was under similar delusions (god is real (shirked in 8th grade),magic is real and allows you to focus psychic ability (shirked ten years ago), etc) I was unshakable but reasonable. I could justify any claim made by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It took years and years before I finally gave up on it and came into reason in my own time.
While we can’t prove that we are or are not in a computer simulation it is not necessary to assume we are. (Although we might be able to determine the nature of the putative simulation; If we say, “I want a banana” and don’t get one out of thin air then we can conclude that if we are in a simulation designed by folks who want us to have everything we want (from the most recent SETI: Are We Alone podcast).
I read about an interesting thought exercise (read it in “Why People Believe Weird Things” by Michael Shermer… I think that was the book it was in) given by a professor. He asked how we could disprove the claim that world was created by god six seconds ago with all of us in it having memories of their previous ‘lives’ implanted there.
Faith would let me claim either of these assertions (simulation and God)as true because I “know because it feels right.” They allow themselves that, but they would laugh (or at least not take the untested drug) if a pharmaceutical rep said, “This drug is safe because I know it’s safe. God revealed its safety and efficacy to me in a vision while I was at Church” in all seriousness. There is no difference, although the poster might argue (fallaciously) otherwise.
I seem to be arguing more and more with moderate religious folks that if you reject parts of your relgion (i.e. the bits you don’t like) you must reject the whole. I am concerned with this because it would seem to be ecouraging fundamentalism. Mostly it is just saying, “Look, if you reject this bit, which is the Word of God, then haven’t you given yourself authority to reject all of it? And why haven’t you? At this point it’s just wishful thinking and playmaking. There is no integrity left to your beliefs.”
September 28th, 2007 at 4:38 am
“There is no such thing as the supernatural. If something exists, then it is real, and it is natural.”
Well, there is of course the realm of metaphysics, which by definition transcends the physical world. Can the whole of metaphysics be described by the empty set? Perhaps, but that needs careful philosophical debate. For example, the idea of a perfect sphere exists in some sense (we use it all the time), but it is safe to say that a perfect sphere does not exist in Nature.
September 28th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Richard Dawkins addressed this point in his TAM3 talk, “Paranormal or perinormal?” His point was that just because scuence doesn’t know the answer to X yet doesn’t mean that X is inherently unknowable.
For me, however, (and I’m with Phil on this), educating the public at large is a huge problem. This past week I’ve been debating with a woo-woo on the internet who claims that god exists, and yet refuses to, or is uncapable of understanding, that the burden of proof falls on the person making the positive claim. So when I reply that I don’t beleive in any gods because there’s no evidence, she says that these are both faith positions. She is backed up by a college professor (postmodernist) who asserts that all worldviews are equally valid, my scientific one and her supernatural one. So when I asked him if her claim that the Moon is made of cheese and my claim that it’s made of lunar rock are equally valid, he says “Yes”. And this man is teaching young people. *Sigh.*
September 28th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Selina,
A fourth group would be needed if the purpose of the study was to test the effect of the patients’ knowledge of being prayed for, but that was not the purpose. The purpose was to test whether intercessory prayer could affect patient outcome. As with any scientific study, you must limit the number of factors you are testing or the test becomes useless.
It has been a while since I read the study, but I think they do mention the number of people doing the praying in the full paper.
Yes, you could make all sorts of arguments about the dedication/faith of those praying, along with all sorts of other apologetic woo. The point is that if intercessory prayer works, then their should have been a statistical, positive result among the prayed-for groups.
An interesting side note is that the study was funded by the Templeton Foundation, a religious organization. Apparently they didn’t pray hard enough for favorable results. Or perhaps their faith was just too weak.
OEJ
September 28th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Quote Shawn S:
—————————————————–
“I seem to be arguing more and more with moderate religious folks that if you reject parts of your relgion (i.e. the bits you don’t like) you must reject the whole. I am concerned with this because it would seem to be ecouraging fundamentalism. Mostly it is just saying, “Look, if you reject this bit, which is the Word of God, then haven’t you given yourself authority to reject all of it? And why haven’t you? At this point it’s just wishful thinking and playmaking. There is no integrity left to your beliefs.â€
——————————————————
I find myself doing the same. In some ways the fundamentalist bible literalists are being more consistent than the apparently reasonable moderate religious types. The claims that god is testing our faith by planting false evidence for an old earth, and that the apparent contradictions in the bible are because we don’t fully understand god’s mysterious ways, do have a logical consistency of sorts. But as soon as you start rejecting some parts of that faith by accepting physical evidence and applying reasoned arguments the whole house of cards collapses. I think it’s hypocritical when religious people quite rightly pull apart the beliefs of creationists, but claim that their own unfounded remnant of faith is different and special and shouldn’t be subject to the same examination.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Hi, reading through these comments I thought of something. There has been a study where Parallel Universes has been proven to exist. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=paUniverse_sun14_parallel_universes&show_article=1&cat=0
September 28th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Kurt said:
“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. . . ”
I’m afraid there’s a flaw in that argument. Just because not all worlds are inhabited, does not mean that the number of inhabited worlds is finite. If 0.0001% of all worlds in the Hitchhiker’s universe are inhabited, that’s still an infinite number of worlds. To confirm that only a finite number of worlds is inhabited would require visiting all of the infinite number of worlds. Which would take an infinite length of time (Of course, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is working on it, but has only got as far as D).
September 28th, 2007 at 6:15 am
OEJ
But there clearly was patient knowledge present in the test. Some were even lied too. If the true test is simply to test whether or not people being prayed for have a better chance of getting better, why tell them at all? Indeed, you could even suggest that to some of them it could have a placebo effect (albeit, presumably only to those with a religious bias in the first place).
September 28th, 2007 at 6:45 am
It would be interesting to conduct a test to see whether you can scientifically verify some intrinsically human traits, such as emotions. (Other animals exhibit emotion, I would argue.)
For example, get actual couples to discuss their relationship with interviewers and a couple of actors. Determine whether it is possible to differentiate genuine love from good acting.
I suspect that it couldn’t be done.
Certain mundane things aren’t really scientifically testable, so trying to catch a supreme being with its hand in the cookie jar seems to be logically beyond our capabilities (assuming the supreme being does not want us to).
I am from a scientific background and education, but became a Christian later in life, so have a reasonably good grasp of this tension between faith (assertion) and science (argument). Other Christians occasionally throw absurd “scientific proof” of things like the existence of God, miracles, etc. at me and get offended when I point out that the “science” is bunk. Atheists generally prefer to stick with the null hypothesis (the Flying Spaghetti Monster is just as real as any supreme being) but then assert that this “proves” that there is no supreme being.
Fighting against religion/superstition is never going to succeed – you may as well fight against love, anger, jealousy, etc. A better aim is to try to advance thinking (both critical and the more general “switch on brain prior to reacting” stuff), rationality, and an understanding of science and what it actually is. You seem to be simply helping to create a resurgence of wilfully insane fundamentalist “Christians” in the US with the current “attack God / religion / irrational belief” approach. Please try a more constructive strategy – fundamentalist religion is super dangerous in any context, and you guys have an awful lot of very nasty weapons.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:51 am
> Should there not have been a fourth group not receiving intercessory
> prayer after being told they would not receive it? And what about a
> control group who were told absolutely nothing at all?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong about this, but if you were testing an actual drug, you would inform the patient beforehand that they were taking part in a trial involving an active drug and a placebo, and that they could be given either during the trial (this is a requirement of informed consent in double-blind, placebo controlled trials is it not?), and would only find out which one after the trial.
So, I would suggest that the group that was not prayed for, having been told that they may or may not be prayed for, would be analogous to the control group in a drug trial. Hope that makes sense.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:15 am
I’m a little late to the party, but Phil is right, the supernatural cannot exist. The moment that it naturally occurs, it is no long the super and becomes the natural.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:29 am
For a long time I’ve been using the following statement:
“There is no ’supernatural’ – there is only the natural we understand and the natural we don’t.”
I may have found it in a book somewhere, but it’s been so long now that I really don’t remember.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:33 am
I agree with you for the most part, however, I see two obvious arguements.
1) “Anything that has a physical, measurable manifestation is within the realm of science.”
Ghosts/spirits/Gods/etc aren’t physical or measurable.
“If something exists, then it is real, and it is natural.”
What if something specifically doesn’t exist? anti-matter? Dark energy? etc..
What about dreams? Do you believe that dreams don’t exist? I mean you can measure a person’s brain activity while they sleep but that doesn’t really prove that they dreamt.
What about whatever it is that contains the universe? You believe in the big bang and the expanding universe theory? So what’s outside that? Will we ever measure/observe it? Seems doubtful. What about the other 6 of the 10 dimensions (if you believe that theory) that we’ll probably never experience?
@ Kurt
“…simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in.”
There is? How exactly do you measure infinity? Or do you just assume/accept that as truth? Per Phil’s arguement here something has to be physical and measurable to be true.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Yes, Douglas Adams’ joke requires mis-applying the concept of countably infinite. That’s what makes it so funny.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:56 am
> What if something specifically doesn’t exist? anti-matter? Dark
> energy? etc..
Um… didn’t scientists create antihydrogen at CERN in 1995, and then reproduce the result at Fermilab?
> What about dreams? Do you believe that dreams don’t exist? I mean
> you can measure a person’s brain activity while they sleep but that
> doesn’t really prove that they dreamt.
Dreams have a physical manifestation as brain activity, they aren’t separate.
> What about whatever it is that contains the universe?
From everything I have ever read that question is meaningless.
> You believe in the big bang and the expanding universe theory?
> So what’s outside that?
Again, talking of ‘outside’ doesn’t make sense, I’m certainly no expert on the topic, but my understanding is that the big bang was an expansion OF space and time, and not an expansion into anything.
September 28th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Boggis has a point here.
Choose your battles, and choose them wisely.
Now, it is known that, say, it cannot be proven that an extranatural being (something that somehow manages to exist outside of the universe) exists and belief in it is a matter of faith and the null hypothesis as the default is a matter of convention. Now, let us take as true that in our quest for objective belief, no one should ever put any weight (”belief” or “sense of knowledge”) in any concept that cannot be proven through rigorous scientific analysis.
Well, good for us, we’ve just killed the entire tradition of Western liberalism. We cannot scientifically prove the value of /abstract concepts/ of equality, liberty, freedom, egalitarianism, meritocracy, democracy, so on and so forth. Studies tend to indicate that men and women are physically, scientifically, different, thus -disproving- the concept that men and women are “equal.” Same thing with different “races;” far from being merely null-value terminology based on the accidental color of one’s skin, ethnicities are, due to their microevolutionary responses to their local environments, testably and identifiably different, thus seeming to disprove the concept that all people of all colors and kinds are “equal” in some sort of idealistic sense. One cannot legitimately prove that democratic or otherwise populist political systems are superior to monarchist or oligarchist because there is no agreed standard of measurement beyond whatever ideals or final conclusions someone had in mind to begin with. One cannot legitimately prove that capitalism is superior to communism, because the adherents to both operate off of different standards of superiority, re: the generation of wealth and expansion of economy versus a warm fuzzy feeling of everyone being equal and working together towards a common goal.
It cannot be proven that freedom of religion is a good idea, nor can it be proven (perhaps more importantly to you guys) that freedom of thought is a good idea. Both of these center around the belief that the individual freedom to hold an opinion is more important than the social requirement that everyone achieves groupthink for the betterment of the whole. If that last bit sounds particularly familiar, it was intended to.
This is a most dangerous road to go down. I fervently /believe/ in things like the equality of all people under the law, the equality of all people qua entities as people, the value of egalitarianism, the validity of the meritocratic concept that one’s social position should be dependent upon their merit and how they apply themselves to their tasks rather than some outdated concept of noble blood, the freedom to /believe/ and /think/ whatever one pleases and with that the concomitant freedom to be scientifically /wrong/. Holding most any sort of political belief is scientifically wrong because eventually it comes down to some sort of nonrational value decision: that human life is worth something (worth what? in what fashion? prove it!), or whatever ideals one holds are worth something (answers in cubic centimeters, please).
I think Richard Dawkins is an excellent scientist, but he should stick to science. With his zealous promulgation of the New Atheism with the stated goal of eradicating religion in particular and nonscientific thought in general, he does three things: firstly, he gives the fundie wahoos more ammunition to play with. Is their religion being threatened? Of course it is! It’s being threatened by militant skepticism the same way scientific thought is being threatened by militant creationism–it’s a two way street. Secondly, he causes those moderate religionists who do cherry-pick their values to shy away from the side of rationality because their beliefs, which are not actually that damaging to science as a whole, are being attacked as well for being ‘nonscientific.’ Moderate religionists who are willing to see reason but for whatever reason choose against it in very limited circumstances should be allies in this ideological struggle, especially as it’s the kampf/ji’had for the hearts and minds of the society.
Yes, that last sentence was phrased the way it was with grim intentionality.
Thirdly, Dawkins defeats his own set of beliefs–from what I’ve seen (having never met the man) he truly believes in the ideals of Western liberalism and the Enlightenment. Good for him (really)! The problem is that the idealistic superiority of these ideas, and thus the reason why they should be held to rather than others, cannot be proven! One cannot /prove/ that intellectualism or individualism is superior or better than mysticism or collectivism. These are statements of value ascribed to abstract concepts that cannot be rigidly defined in the way necessary for them to be described in terms of true science.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like you guys. Sometimes, however, the zeal (RAWRGH MUST CRUSH CAPITALISM… er… UNSCIENCE) disturbs me a bit. Just as you have the right to believe (and I use this word consciously, understanding how it’s defined here) in the superiority of science and rational thought over nonscience and irrational thought, other people have the same right to believe the same thing. People do have the right to ‘know’ wrong things, and teach these wrong things to their progeny, as sad as it is. No one’s going to get it easy by throwing away our ideals in order to establish rightthink and thoughtcrime designations; the /free/ marketplace of ideas demands that the dialogue of ideas, even pig-headed or thouroughly blatantly wrong ones, ensue. This is the disadvantage to holding ourselves to ideals which allow rationalists to exist in the first place without being burned at stakes for saying God doesn’t exist.
As a self-made… well, ‘religion’ connotes there being some sort of defined creed or at the very least some sort of ritual… let us say ’spiritual rationalist’ I know full well some of my Deisitic views are non-scientific, and you can not like those to your heart’s content. I understand they are arbitrary, irrational, existentialist beliefs. Still, I tend to agree that in things in the natural world, that which exists, should be approached scientifically lest one falls into traps such as the “primacy of Man” and other such beliefs which have allowed us to get into such a rough spot environmentally and whatnot. I’m much closer to the atheist skeptic than the fundie–but I am the exact kind of moderate religionist that “if you pick and choose your beliefs, then give the whole thing up!” attempts at proselytization bothers. Conflicts in ideology are only rarely won by the true believers of any camp; the zealots are necessary to drum up the base but they’re both struggling for the good graces of the moderate masses who, in their day to day lives, can’t be arsed to either prostrate themselves to God as much as Imam Wha’sis’buquet or Bishop Sherrywouldbelovely say nor keep up to date on the constantly evolving amorphous understanding that is science as much as Professor Arbitraryname says.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:31 am
@Bogis the cat: Researchers are already mapping brain activity using tools such as MRI and the like while the subject carries out different tasks or experience different moods to see which areas of the brain are active. It is even possible to ‘remotely’ stimulate the brain with magnetic fields to mimic feelings that, IIRC, 70% of subjects describe as ’spiritual’. I remember Richard Dawkins being quite disappointed that he was one of the one it didn’t work on.
I recently watched a science lite program by one of the Top Gear presenter who had his brain mapped while looking at various images. Afterwards it was possible to see that while analysing a scan taken while he looking at an image of one of his favourite cars the parts of the brain responsible for motion were also activated which corresponded to him remembering and imagining what it was like to drive that car. While, what were to him, neutral images only ‘lit’ up the expected parts of the brain. Similarly, if you do brain scans while someone is frightened the parts of the brain required for motion, i.e. flight or fight, are also activated. This also ties in with research at an UK uni, sorry don’t have a link, where they used brain imaging to try and determine whether someone was lying or not with some degree of success.
Thus, however crudely it may be for now, it is already possible to detect emotions to some degree. Therefore I think it is only a matter of time before we refine such techniques so that it would be possible to tell the difference between someone claiming or acting as if they were in love with someone as compared to someone who actually was in love with someone.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Very interesting. But, what does this have to do with
astronomy? Bad or good.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:01 am
All this is true but the claim you have made before that science will answer everything — or your suggestion thereof — is not really the way things seem. Nasa engineers I have met have told me the cool thing about science is that each answer brings more questions.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:30 am
…none of which are actually claims about the existence of some physical entity. False analogy.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:36 am
> It’s not just astronomy, of course. Ghosts, spirits, crystals,
> homeopathy, prayer… these all go totally against what we
> know to be real, what we know to be true.
I know you’re a Bad Astronomer, but I would hope that astronomy doesn’t go against what you know to be real.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:43 am
I disagree; it’s still intrinsically germane. Some sort of outside-the-ken-of-nature (i.e. that which happens and can be shown to happen) entity is as abstract as freedom and liberty. The definitions of various gods vary as much and as wildly as the definitions of freedom do.
Saying that a god exists is different from saying that a god exists -and- interferes in the universe. The analogy is not false because I would agree that an interfering god as an explanation should be testable (maybe the value of pi suddenly changes for a particular urn so it really is ten cubits across and thirty around), but the scientific concept of the burden of proof being upon the stater and a null hypothesis as the default result when said proof is lacking fails in any form of extranatural claim (i.e. God exists, God initialized the Big Bang, whatever doesn’t actually impinge upon the operation of the universe as it currently runs). These claims are inherently abstract as they fail to be explanations of predictable events (another Big Bang would be somewhat troublesome and asking what happened before time began is a scientifcally absurd question) and thus are not scientifically interrogable. Same with all of the ideals of freedom of thought which we support, but only when everyone thinks like us.
Still, the curt dismissal of “False analogy” ignores the point of the argument, which is that perhaps, just perhaps, a less aggressive and combative tone on our part would be advisable lest, in the eyes of the general populace, we look exactly like those we oppose, just ‘praying in a different direction.’
September 28th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Some of the things that Richard Dawkins says make me cringe, and *many* of the things Hitchens says do also, but it’s tough to claim that overall they are bad for atheism. Do you think there would have been the same spike in interest in atheism without their contributions over the past couple of years?
Their books have been in the best seller lists for months, proving that there is an appetite for this debate out there. Provoking controversy is a well tested and proven method for getting your viewpoint aired.
So, some Christians have had their sensibilities offended. Well, welcome to the club. What they may be hearing for the first time is nowhere near as offensive as what gays, Jews, Muslims, blacks, asians, and Mexican Americans have had to put up with for years or decades. Atheists may have gotten off lightly in comparison, but when millions of Christians in this country believe that we are either fools or cowards (usually both) or worse then forgive me if I don’t worry too much if the tables are turned on them for once.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:05 am
The only way you can even make the case for the supernatural is that there is some mechanism which assures that it only works in circumstances where there will be no documentation or scientific validation, and that this is capable of seeing into the future, thereby assuring that any given event will not be capable of having an effect that might be measured or validated.
This explanation is so far fetched and patronizing that it reaches the point of being insulting.
The supernatural has never been proven or documented. it has been shown to be explainable by simple and well understood phenomena of the human psyche. It’s illogical and implies things which are not within the realm of well validated scientific principals.
Conclusion: It is reasonable to presume it does not exist. Phil is 100% correct.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:11 am
here is my own intro to skeptism: http://www.depletedcranium.com/skepintro.htm
Phil is correct to bring this up and it has everything to do with astronomy and everything to do with every other science. We are a very unique species, because with science and logic we can leave the bounds of earth’s gravity, conquer many diseases with antibiotics and vaccines, understand the structure of the galaxy and the implications and so on.
But superstition and beliefs in things that just aren’t so holds back humanity. It’s the sort of thing that leads to burnings at the stake and people refusing medical treatment. It leads to laws against birth control. It leads to evolution not being taught and the elegant logical beauty of the world being obscured.
The future of mankind is the stars. It’s better living standards worldwide. It’s clean energy, perhaps from nuclear fusion. Better medicine and cures and treatments for more diseases. It’s safer travel and more information and better computers.
Superstition is threatens this and holds back progress in understanding.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:16 am
[...] still worth a read, mostly because everything he says makes sense and is… um… true.  Check it out here. I predict some feathers ruffled, but I second everything he has to say.  Good job, [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
I’m not saying it’s bad for atheism. I’m not an atheist myself, so I don’t care how that horse fares in the races. Neither am I a Christian nor a Hindu nor a Wiccan nor a Muslim nor a Shintoist nor a Buddhist nor a Jew so I don’t care how those horses come in or what their odds are. I’m on my own horse, and races are boring as it’s just going ’round and ’round in circles, so I’m happily trotting out over the hills and seeing what I can find. I am a pilgrim seeking knowledge, after all.
I’m saying it’s bad for getting the general population more scientific. Sure, fine, people are converting to skeptical atheism. That’s wonderful, in the sort of way some rugby team from some country won some game–it’s wonderful for them, and I can appreciate their victory from their point of view just as much as I can appreciate the loss from whatever poor sods they beat. The question is Ivan Glassofkvas, Joe Sixpack, and Semir Al-Coholis’sadlyforbidden. The everyday people who would benefit most from enlightened discourse and rational thought in the physical world. Who cares if the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus made the world yonkety-yonks ago; the facts of the matter is that the world is round, nothing yet proven exceeds the speed of light, and beware of wooden nickels.
The problem is that to the common man in the street atheism, especially New Atheism, looks a lot like a religion for exactly the reasons Dawkins and Hitchens make you and I cringe, Tacitus. Both religions and New Atheism:
1) Claim to be the way -to- think.
2) Everyone else is wrong.
3) Everyone else is not only wrong, but bad for being wrong.
4) Proselytize based on the above.
In public discourse, appearance is just as important, if not more so, than reality. The moderate religionist is more than happy to say “Well, this old book which was written by fallible humans years ago says that you’re going to go to Hell, but parts of it also say that I can sell my sister into slavery so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Carry on.” He’s much more likely to think scientifically about scientific things if the argument is presented to him in the same /tolerant/, if not friendly, light.
Now, I know the counterargument. Rationalists speak about facts, mystics/religionists/unrationalists speak about opinions. Facts are facts are facts; opinions are nothing. This is true, but recall that all the wahoos describe their creation myths with the same force of fact that they would describe the sky being blue or things dropping to the ground when released from a height above the same. When it comes to those matters, oftentimes the audience that we want converted do see it as a matter of belief and have to be persuaded as such. It’s the -kids- who can be addressed with the Force of Truth, which is why it’s so extremely important to keep pseudoscience out of schools.
The issue to me here isn’t belief in some Flying Spaghetti Monster. I agree it’s somewhat existentially absurd, but so is being a proper Western Enlightenment idealist. I don’t figure that the FSM/Invisible Pink Unicorn/Whatever Analogy Is In Vogue To Make Fun Of Believers actively interferes in Its creation, so there is literally no conflict with science until we get to things like “why the Big Bang happened,” which is firmly outside of the magisterium of science (now Gould, there was a consensus-builder for you).
The issue is maintaining science and rationality to explain how our world works for generations to come. Science and rationality are our best bets, when combined with irrational idealistic thoughts such as the value of every individual as the ends and not the means, to continue human progress. It even recommends avenues for how to sustain that progress, something the Abrahamic faiths haven’t really helped with (perhaps coming about in a desert didn’t help any). To do this, however, in an atmosphere of antiscience is to make the pill easier to swallow, not put all sorts of little barbs on it so it catches on otherwise unimportant throat linings.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:23 am
>>What if something specifically doesn’t exist? anti-matter? Dark >>energy? etc..
Antimatter most certainly does exist. Positrons and anti-neutrinos are pretty easy, because they are products of natural radioactive decay. Anti-protons and anti-neutrons are more difficult, but can be made with an accelerator. “Dark Energy” is a force or energy or effect which is not entirely explained or understood. This does not mean it doesn’t exist. Wireless signals were discovered long before they were understood to be part of the electromagnetic spectrum in the same way light is
>>What about dreams? Do you believe that dreams don’t exist? I mean >>you can measure a person’s brain activity while they sleep but that >>doesn’t really prove that they dreamt.
Dreams are internal. They exist but not beyond the mind of the person dreaming. It’s like a “Software issue” if you have a computer and are running a program you can tell the computer is doing something by measuring the heat of the CPU and hearing the harddrive working. But knowing exactly what data is being worked with within the computer’s memory means that you have to turn on the monitor and view the output.
(Imperfect analogy, because you might be able to sniff the system bus or even somehow measure the voltage within the memory. The human brain is far less regular in it’s layout and less easy to reverse engineer. We may get to that point eventually)
September 28th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Science is never going to disprove that a supernatural exists or that such an entity is not responsible for the creation of the Universe and, eventually, us. But science is very capable of narrowing the field regarding the claims that people can make about such a being.
Virtually no one believes in the Greek, Roman, or Norse pantheon of gods today. Why? No doubt in part because the Christian church proved to be a much more useful political and military tool in controlling the masses, but it is also because the mythology that surrounded those ancient beliefs is no longer credible given what he now know about the world and its history through scientific exploration.
The same thing is happening to Christianity today. Sure there are millions of people who believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old, but it is still far fewer than was the case 25, 50, 100 years ago, and the vocal communities that defend such literal beliefs are mostly on the defensive, preaching to the converted to stop them from finding out the truth. The battle over creation vs evolution has been over for decades, notwithstanding the minor nuisances of IDists and other creationists. They talk a big game, but they are nowhere to be found in academia, being reduced to trying to sneak their beliefs in at the high school level in the hopes that they can indoctrinate enough kids to keep the movement going. Given the recent demographic trend away from religious belief, they are failing.
Natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes may still be the vengeance of a wrathful god to some, but where once that explanation remained unchallenged, we now have mountains of solid evidence that explains them as part of the natural rhythms of the planet.
Leaders used to claim that they were carrying out the will of God, or even that they were acting on direct instructions from the Almighty. Today such a leader would be called deranged. Sure, people like Dubya and Blair will claim to pray and have received guidance, but they have never explained a policy decision by saying that God told them to do it.
So, in many ways, God today is truly a “God of the Gaps” and science is slowly squeezing those gaps smaller. But since science cannot explain everything, especially events described in religious texts that happened over 1,000 years ago, there will always gaps for faith to fill.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:32 am
> If someone says prayer helps people get healthy, then there is a
> clear methodology to test this (double blind tests with statistically
> large samples, as has been done — conclusion: prayer doesn’t
> work).
Unless, of course, God doesn’t answer prayers that are being studied to see if they’re effective. And, since He is omniscient, it would be hard to trick Him.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:34 am
DAar said:
> Hi, reading through these comments I thought of something. There has been a study where Parallel Universes has been proven to exist.
I read the link. The result is overstated. They did not prove parallel universes exist. They demonstrated that mathematics describing branching universes is consistent with mathematics describing the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes, i.e. the resulting fact that quantum behavior is described by probabilities rather than exact measurements.
Overhype for dramatic effect. Bad journalism.
Thorin said:
> What if something specifically doesn’t exist? anti-matter? Dark energy? etc..
Anti-matter does exist – it has been created. Dark matter has been measured by effects – gravitic distortions not caused by visible matter. Dark energy is a hypothesis to explain a set of data – it is being investigated as to what it actually is. All are clearly something that exists, even if the nature of that something is unclear.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:47 am
> So, in many ways, God today is truly a “God of the Gaps†and science is slowly squeezing those gaps smaller. But since science cannot explain everything, especially events described in religious texts that happened over 1,000 years ago, there will always gaps for faith to fill.
Ding! Give the man a Monolith! That is the future of an intercessory God that interferes in the affairs of the Universe, and one I thoroughly agree with. I dislike Abrahamic religions because beyond the problem of evil one gets the worse problem of predestination: if God’s omniscient, omnipotent and has a plan down to the quantum level, the universe is a clockwork orange. It looks natural, but it’s just gears ticking away. Free will is an illusion based on the fact that the actors don’t have the script, in the same way that a robot doesn’t actually read its own source code. I don’t like that. I don’t like it one bit.
Still, people are capable of discerning a distinct qualitative difference between the method in which an event occurs (the “how”) and the underlying reason an event occurs (the “why”). A “why” described in this way presumes a reason, that is, not a physical cause but an acting will. How person A kicks person B in the shins is distinctly different from why person A kicks person B in the shins; this is all Gould’s magesteriums regurgitated, I know, but it offers a valuable delineation for faith that is actively harmful to science (”Goddidit”) and faith that actually complements science by making it more amenable to people for whom atheism is not an acceptable answer. More people who accept science are beter than fewer people who do so, and there’s plenty of room on the boat of rationalism for people who both believe and disbelieve in some sort of may-as-well-not-exist superbeing whose existence simply cannot be proven without looking ninety degrees to reality.
The problem comes down to one of language, really. A small child points up to the sky and asks “why is the sky blue?” Our pat answer is “well, light is made of many colors and the sky absorbs all the colors other than blue, so that’s all we see.” An oversimplification, yes, but let’s not explain diffraction to three-year-olds quite yet. That answer does indeed describe how the sky is blue, and the discussion on the oxygenation of the atmosphere a few blogposts down explains further the process in how it turned blue. It does not, however, explain a why-due-to-will. “Why” and “how” are so often conflated so as to make the correct answer, “Well, why it’s blue I don’t know–maybe there is no why–but I know how it’s blue. The sky is blue because…”
September 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I’m going to disagree on this one Phil. I think “supernatural” could have a viable usage, if it is restricted to the idea that our universe and its primary components operate along a particular set of natural regularities and capacities (a description I like a lot better than “laws”), but that there are things outside of it that are not operating int he same way.
That said, I can’t think of any good way to ever learn about that other stuff: either it wouldn’t interact with us at all, or, by interacting with our “stuff” it would either follow our rules or else modify them (since we can only characterize them as rules insofar as we observe nothing different).
I do, however, fully share the idea of how vaccous “supernatural explainations” are, which almost always are nothing more than synonyms for “I can’t and won’t explain how it works or happened.” I recently wrote an essay on how utterly empty theist claims to be able to explain “meaning” are and I’m working on an article that basically asserts that things like fine tuning and the anthropic coincidences are ONLY interesting puzzles if and only if you are scientist/methodological naturalist: they are utterly useless to supernaturalists and theologians (despite the belief of such people that they greatly support their point of view). Breaking out of the context of empiricism effectively renders the key ideas of the surprise and supposed coincidence of natural laws effectively meaningless.
September 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am
[...] wrote an interesting post today on The supernatural does not existHere’s a quick [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am
(got caught in the spam filter, so I’ll try again without a link I had included)
I’m going to disagree on this one Phil. I think “supernatural” could have a viable usage, if it is restricted to the idea that our universe and its primary components operate along a particular set of natural regularities and capacities (a description I like a lot better than “laws”), but that there are things outside of it that are not operating int he same way.
That said, I can’t think of any good way to ever learn about that other stuff: either it wouldn’t interact with us at all, or, by interacting with our “stuff” it would either follow our rules or else modify them (since we can only characterize them as rules insofar as we observe nothing different).
I do, however, fully share the idea of how vaccous “supernatural explainations” are, which almost always are nothing more than synonyms for “I can’t and won’t explain how it works or happened.” I recently wrote an essay on how utterly empty theist claims to be able to explain “meaning” are and I’m working on an article that basically asserts that things like fine tuning and the anthropic coincidences are ONLY interesting puzzles if and only if you are scientist/methodological naturalist: they are utterly useless to supernaturalists and theologians (despite the belief of such people that they greatly support their point of view). Breaking out of the context of empiricism effectively renders the key ideas of the surprise and supposed coincidence of natural laws effectively meaningless.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I think this works when things are already going your way. In some ways, the country of my birth, the UK, is more infused with religion than the USA in the sense that the nation has an established church where the prime minister picks the CofE archbishops (though I believe that is about to change, if it hasn’t already) and, more important, almost every state school in the land has some form of religious worship. However, despite that, Christianity is dying a slow death, most Christians accept what the scientists tell them about our origins and the age of the planet, and the real fundamentalists are a tiny minority of the believing population.
But the USA, particularly since Bush took office, has had a growing trend of anti-science — political interference from conservatives who object to the truth being told, at least in part because it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Religious fundamentalism is much more entrenched in the USA and I think it needs something to shake it loose. Perhaps it would be preferable to have those spokespeople for rationality be less caustic than Hitchens and (less so) Dawkins — I thoroughly enjoy listening to Sam Harris, for example — but as is often the case, those who find themselves in the vanguard of a movement and usually those who kicking over the ant hill.
There are plenty of other “New Atheists” trying to get the message across and who do it with a less acerbic tongue — people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, James Randi, Daniel Dennet, etc — but, of course, Dawkins and Hitchens get the lion’s share of the publicity exactly because of their outspokenness. But then, if they weren’t around, we might not be having this debate in the first place because the message of materialism and rationality wouldn’t even be on the radar screen of the media.
So, while I cannot claim for sure that the cause for rationalism has been aided by Hitchens and Dawkins in the long run (i.e. you might be right) it’s hard to see how we get to this level of debate any other way in this country at this particular point in time.
Nope — they make me cringe because I was brought up not to say rude things about a person’s personal beliefs. This is nothing to do with being like a religion, people are always going to be offended when they are bluntly told they have got it all wrong, no matter what the subject.
1) They claim it is a -better way- to think, and give rational reasons, supported by evidence, as to why. Religions don’t do that.
2) Well, by arguing your case, you are, by default, claiming that others have got it wrong to some extend. Not really unique to religions.
3) Untrue. They claim that religion leads some people into doing bad things. That is not the same thing at all.
4) Are they really proselytizing? Is their goal to win converts to atheism, in the same way that Christians count the number of souls they have saved? I would like to see more evidence of that. Getting your opinions and viewpoint out is not the same as actively seeking to convert people.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Phil, I thought I would let you know that I believe in God and what He has done in my life by blessing me with a wonderful woman and an amazing 19 month old son, and notice that I said He has blessed me with this! I don’t deserve these blessings, but He gives them to me because He loves me, and He loves you to! I will say this however, He does exist whether you or anyone else believes so! Fire burns whether you believe it or not, planet x is real whether you believe it or not, and it is coming! I have heard about this from a very reliable source who has insider information on this. He does exist, and the theory of evolutionism is the stupidest thing one can even consider! God created science, not the other way around!
September 28th, 2007 at 11:25 am
On the lighter side, it would be fun to see what happen should one of two extremely unlikely events occurred:
Either:
a) We invented a method of time travel that allowed us to observe the distant past
or
b) An alien race drops in to say “Hi” and leaves us with the recordings of Earth’s history they’ve been making for the past, oh, few million years.
I guess (b) is more likely, but either way, we could go back and look for ourselves as to what happened during the birth pangs of the world’s religions. If people found out that whatever miraculous events their particular religion was based on did not actually take place, that would cause quite an upheaval to say the least.
I once asked about the alien video tape library scenario on a Christian message board. One particularly honest respondent said that he thought that many Christians would believe that the aliens were trying to deceive them. Even recorded eyewitness evidence would not be enough to sway them. I suspect that he is correct.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:29 am
@AndyC
“Again, talking of ‘outside’ doesn’t make sense, I’m certainly no expert on the topic, but my understanding is that the big bang was an expansion OF space and time, and not an expansion into anything.”
How can something expand if it is not within something else? Yes you can measure expansion from a central point but then we’d have to assume that there is nothing beyond the universe and that we would never be able to measure/explain that “nothing”. Based on the arguements Phil has made that’s completely unacceptable.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Ah, the ultimate carrot and stick argument. God loves you so much that he will condemn you to an eternity of unimaginable pain and suffering in the pit of Hell if you don’t do as he says.
How many children who died just past the supposed “age of accountability” (say, eight, nine, ten years old) would be suffering the agonies of Hell right now if what you claim is true? What chance did millions of them to even hear about “God’s love” let alone respond to it, especially if they live in non-Christian countries or lived before the time of mass communication. There might be a place for despots like Stalin and Hitler in Hell, but they would be vanishingly few compared to the many millions of kids there who had done nothing more than perhaps steal an apple from the dinner table or say something rude to their sister.
No parent would be so callous as to punish their child so brutally. Not even close.
Forgive us if we remain unconvinced.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Here’s my simple, though completely unscientific, “proof” that intercessory prayer doesn’t work:
If it did work, every medical facility in the world would have a group of people whose sole job was to pray for the sick. Every fertility clinic (to reference the famously discredited study) would have staff “prayors”. Hospitals would contract with monasteries or convents and then advertise that they have more and better prayors than their competition. Insurance companies would cover the costs of being prayed for and would almost certainly mandate their customers go to doctors that offered intercessory prayers (or least pay only out-of-celestial-network rates to those that didn’t.)
September 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
> 4) Are they really proselytizing? Is their goal to win converts to atheism, in the same way that Christians count the number of souls they have saved? I would like to see more evidence of that. Getting your opinions and viewpoint out is not the same as actively seeking to convert people.
Well, without going into excessive depth, just titling a book “The God Delusion” and letting it be known on all sorts of various forums and interviews that ‘God’ ranges from the Abrahamic Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah through Zeus and Thor and Shiva and Krishna to The Flying Spagetti Monster, that doesn’t offer much in the way of alternatives except atheism. He’s said so much on the BBC that he would very much prefer people to think as he does and his efforts do show the desire to convert.
Is it an issue of trying to save souls? Obviously not. However, I think proselytization is still the right thing to call it: he’s saving their minds from the ignorance of irrational belief. Either way you slice it, it’s bringing people into rightthink and that’s a dangerous way to go about it.
Do I think people should think like I do? Well, most of us do think that people should think like ourselves, and I’m not going to lie by saying ‘no.’ I’m hoping though that I can be seen as arguing for moderation in, well, arguing rather than Thou Must Think This Way. People can think and argue any which way they please; the consequences may be messy, what with all the whining from the theists that their religion is being attacked and the skeptics that reason is being attacked, but that’s the marketplace of ideas for you.
September 28th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
I guess you are correct that what Dawkins is doing is proselytizing (that must be one of the hardest word in the English language to spell!) since it is basically defined as winning over people to your side of the argument, be it religion, politics, or even a scientific theory, but there is a qualitative difference between what Dawkins is saying an what many religious evangelists do.
It goes back to your mischaracterizations of points (1) and (3) in your previous list regarding atheism.
(1) Orthodox Christianity (as in the mainstream Christian tenets, not the Eastern Orthodox Church) and Islam claim to be the revealed and absolute truth. Dawkins may claim to have enough evidence to prove that these religions are wrong, but he has never claimed that he knows it all. In fact he accepts that science does not have all the answers, and that it is possible there is a supernatural creator of the Universe — just not very likely.
(3) Christianity (and maybe Islam, I don’t know) teaches that we, as human beings, are worthless outside of the will of God. (Look up “total depravity.”) In fact, as Brandon claims above, without God, we are so vile that not only are we deserving of death, but our punishment should last for eternity. That’s how bad people are for being wrong.
Conversely while Dawkins points out that many people have done terrible things in the name of religion, he does not claim that being religious makes you a bad person, or even any worse than the average atheist. Even without any religion in the world, there will still be bad people doing bad things, and Dawkins has never claimed otherwise. He is arguing that without religion spurring us on, the number of bad things we do as a species will be reduced.
I don’t necessarily agree with Dawkins on this since I don’t think we have enough evidence to make that claim (it is quite possible that the controlling aspect of religion more than offsets the harm it does), but that is not the point of my argument.
Anyway, I am enjoying the discussion (even if it has distracted me from all the other stuff I should be getting on with!).
Cheers!
September 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Queit_Despearation asked:
“Has there ever been a *good* study done on prayer versus healing? Perhaps one with a handy URL? I’m not sure how you’d even set that up, especially a double blind experiment. I thought one of the points is that you pray for a specific person, or something.”
I looked around and found that there have been some very good studies of prayer and it’s lack of effectivness. Skeptico references them here
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/07/prayer_still_us.html
Dawkins also discusses one of these studies in his book “The God Delusion”.
I hope that helps. (I should have said “I pray that this will help’)
September 28th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Quote Thorin:
———————————
How can something expand if it is not within something else? Yes you can measure expansion from a central point but then we’d have to assume that there is nothing beyond the universe and that we would never be able to measure/explain that “nothingâ€. Based on the arguements Phil has made that’s completely unacceptable.
———————————
It’s not unacceptable at all, although I agree it’s hard to visualise. Our brains are used to dealing with our immediate surroundings, and on our tiny scale relativistic effects and the curvature of space-time are indiscernible without special instruments. It’s worth reading some of the popular science books on Einstein’s universe, with a bit of effort it is possible for us ordinary mortals to get our heads around these concepts.
We instinctively tend to think that space is simply a void that must spread out to infinity in all directions with our universe at some position in that space because that’s the way things seem to work in our normal life. In the same way we also feel that time is an absolute, it ticks away at the same speed everywhere, and if 2 things appear to happen simultaneously then that they must actually be simultaneous from any viewpoint. Einstein showed that neither of those things are true. Both time and space are strange stretchy things which are to some extent interchangeable, and they are both physical properties of our universe rather being external absolutes that contain the universe. Once you accept that, there’s no reason to suppose that the universe has to have something to expand into, it carries it’s own space with it, so “outside the universe” is meaningless in terms of physical space. In the same way “before the universe began” is meaningless because time is just another property of our universe. There’s nothing special about the beginning or the end, they’re just a couple of points in the universe as a whole.
Perhaps somebody cleverer than me can explain it better.
September 28th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Koro:
> Unless, of course, G-d doesn’t answer prayers that are being
> studied to see if they’re effective. And, since He is omniscient,
> it would be hard to trick Him.
I thought G-d answered all prayers. At least that’s what the billboards I’ve seen all say.
I like how an episode of M*A*S*H handled the subject.
A wounded soldier is brought in, claiming he’s Jesus. At one point, Radar asks him “is it true that G-d answers all prayers?” The “Jesus” soldier replies “Yes. But sometimes the answer is ‘no’.”
September 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
@ Mick
That was a very good attempt to clear things up, and I think I get what you and Einstein are trying to say but it still seems that if we claim the universe is expanding we obviously believe that it is measurable from a central point to an edge, or else how can we claim to know it’s expanding?
So, either there is an “edge” and something beyond it. Or, it’s turely infinite and therefore we can not measure it which fails Phil’s criteria: “Anything that has a physical, measurable manifestation is within the realm of science.”
Finally if the universe does not have a “measurable manifestation” it’s supernatural (or whatever … not science) so why can’t other things (god, prayer, etc) be grouped in this category as well?
September 28th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Thorin,
> How can something expand if it is not within something else?
I think the key problem here is viewing the universe as being within something. The universe is everything there is, and therefore it is not expanding into anything (I can’t think of a good analogy here, but I think it was Phil who at some point said ‘What’s north of the North Pole?’), it’s space itself that is expanding (not something within space), and not with reference to any central point, so it doesn’t make sense to talk of a centre of the universe either.
As I noted earlier, I’m not an expert on this subject, and the best I can suggest is to do some reading on the subject from sources more reliable than me; a quick Google search on the big bang will provide plenty of resources (I’m about to read Weinberg’s ‘The First Three Minutes’, so perhaps I’ll be able to give a better explanation after that!).
September 28th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I’m an aerospace engineer; today’s a slow day (but don’t let the 787 or A350 XWB projects know that!)
First, let me reiterate I’m not calling New Atheism a religion, or atheism in general a religion, or anything of the sort. I’m saying that to the archetypical Everyman it -looks- like a religion. Hearts and minds means that objective truth unfortunately has to go sit in the corner while the PR monkeys chatter on their typewriters.
> (1) Orthodox Christianity (as in the mainstream Christian tenets, not the Eastern Orthodox Church) and Islam claim to be the revealed and absolute truth. Dawkins may claim to have enough evidence to prove that these religions are wrong, but he has never claimed that he knows it all. In fact he accepts that science does not have all the answers, and that it is possible there is a supernatural creator of the Universe — just not very likely.
Let’s go back to what I put:
> 1) Claim to be the way -to- think.
Not believe, think. Christianity: “by faith alone.” Dawkins: “by reason alone.” Religions mostly, but not always, claim to be matters of revelation. Buddhism sort of treads the knife’s edge between the two; Gautama had a ‘eureka’ moment but whether it was a matter of cogitation or any variation on the universal Bhraman plinking an idea into his head is a matter of debate.
Being a “doubting Thomas” is a bad thing in Christianity; I always felt otherwise, even when I was a very, very resolute Christian: why not test one’s faith as best one can? But no, one must be like the little children and believe. This is admittedly a poor mindset for science, but a good one for both dogmatic control /and/ offering people an opportunity to perhaps comfort themselves (albeit in an absurd fashion) in a big, scary universe. An imaginary big friend in the sky isn’t necessarily a bad thing once existential crises show up, so long as people realize two hands working are always better than a thousand hands clasped in prayer when it comes to the real world.
Meanwhile, Dawkins says reason is the order of the day. Any concept–including might-exist-might-not-exist-doesn’t-matter-except-for-reasons-of-morale Deistic gods–should not be given credence unless they can be rationally supported and, preferably, scientifically proven. People in the modern day and age can still make reasonably supported arguments for discrimination by race, age, and height; they can still reasonably support autocratic forms of governance over representative republics or democracies; they can support collectivism at the expense of the individual. Reasoned thought brought us eugenics, the concept of Caucasian/Negroid/Mongolid subraces of humanity, and phrenology–at the time, they were all considered quite scientific no matter the ulterior motives that lurked underneath; we are all human. Reasoned thought also pulled us away from those brinks, but with the help of belief in the not entirely rational ideals of egalitarianism and equality. I feel that reason is superior to faith in most cases, but certainly not all.
It doesn’t matter that Abrahamic religions are matters of revelation and Dawkin’s opinions were developed through reason. What matters is that it establishes that there is but one way to think in all seasons, and that is what I find dangerous in both.
Now the next point.
> (3) Christianity (and maybe Islam, I don’t know) teaches that we, as human beings, are worthless outside of the will of God. (Look up “total depravity.â€) In fact, as Brandon claims above, without God, we are so vile that not only are we deserving of death, but our punishment should last for eternity. That’s how bad people are for being wrong.
From
> 3) Everyone else is not only wrong, but bad for being wrong.
Now, I did simply mean ‘bad.’ Not “depraved go to hell” ‘bad,’ but simply “morally incorrect” ‘bad’ as opposed to “factually incorrect” wrong. If I weren’t at work I could look up the BBC interview where Dawkins practically states that it’s ‘bad’–morally incorrect–for people to ever resort to irrational beliefs because it inspires irrational thinking and irrational thinking is detrimental to human society. Insert obligatory references to heresies, holy wars, inquisitions, pogroms, and holocausts here.
Never mind that irrational belief in a Big Bearded Three-In-One has also inspired completely astounding acts of charity and mercy. This is not to say that atheists aren’t charitable nor merciful, not at all; but belief in a higher power, when applied correctly, can help inspire people to be better than they would be otherwise, and as long as it doesn’t conflict with what is known to be physical fact, what’s the harm?
Religions (separate from unorganized and mostly thought-experiment faiths like my Deism, for example), on the other hand, obviously force the concept that people that think and believe otherwise are bad. Else there is no stick to go with the carrot of eternal life or whatnot. Again, Buddhism walks that fine line of, well, you’re immortal anyway; the goal is to essentially stop living as we know it and become reabsorbed into the great Everything. Still, you’re not going to get there unless you’re [at least acting like] a Buddhist.
Both extrema hold the values that it’s essentially “our way or the highway.” Religions find atheism ‘bad’ intrinsically, but moreso because people like Dawkins act as an existential threat (i.e. an threat to their existence). Hyperatheists find religion ‘bad’ because of all the bad things that religious-based wrongthink have contributed to over the years. These are viewpoints that, in a violent culture, could not coexist. In our culture, they do, albeit with a lot of shouting and sneering and generally bad juju.
Which is, honestly, how I prefer it. It would be -nice- if everyone thought as I did and went their own way, allowing others to do the same so long as it wasn’t blatantly socially harmful to do so (”we must sacrifice these virgins what didn’t volunteer to the moon god so he’ll make love to the earth god and fertilize the crops!”), but then the part of the internet that’s for people screaming at each other would shrivel up and die and all we’d be left with are the parts that are for the distribution of new and exciting forms of pornography.
It would be nice, but I prefer it this way because, every so often, inbetween the people who firmly entrench themselves in one camp or the other and decide to reenact Passchendaele, people like you and I who clearly disagree on some points but are willing to live and let live can come together and talk like nice, civilized folks should.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
>That was a very good attempt to clear things up, and I think I get what you and Einstein are trying to say but it still seems that if we claim the universe is expanding we obviously believe that it is measurable from a central point to an edge, or else how can we claim to know it’s expanding?
>So, either there is an “edge†and something beyond it. Or, it’s turely infinite and therefore we can not measure it which fails Phil’s criteria: “Anything that has a physical, measurable manifestation is within the realm of science.â€
>Finally if the universe does not have a “measurable manifestation†it’s supernatural (or whatever … not science) so why can’t other things (god, prayer, etc) be grouped in this category as well?
Hmmm. How to put this…
The circumference of a circle is a finite length with no boundaries (end points) because a circle is a two-dimensional object.
A sphere’s surface is a finite area with no boundaries (edges) because a sphere is a three-dimensional object.
The universe is like that, because it’s actually a four (or more) dimensional shape. If you go in a straight line on the surface of a sphere, you will end up back where you started after any given time. Same thing with the universe: it’s a closed four-dimensional shape with a finite volume in three dimensions but no boundary.
This is to say that there is no proper center of the universe, spatially speaking. There isn’t some vast expanse in the middle where there’s absolutely nothing, and all the cool stuff is along the rim (like the inflating-balloon metaphor). The ‘vast expanse in the middle’ is in the temporal direction, and this all relates to space and time being the same thing and information travelling at the speed of light and all that.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Just in case the aerospace engineer wants to point it this way, Dawkins et al think that reason is the only thing to be employed in evaluating truth claims. When talking about emotions or experience, reason may be secondary and perhaps not discussed.
Of course, though the common-folk (Hobbesian) might see nary a difference between reason and superstition, if this is indeed a challenging prospect, it could be disarmed with this piece of fake dialogue:
Person 1: “Our only sacred cow is that we have no sacred cows.”
Person 2: *gasp* “So you really DO have a sacred cow!”
Person 1: “Dear God, you’re right! What fools we were! The hubris! The folly of it!”
*think Charlton Heston in the big reveals of his sci-fi movies* TEH FOOD IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!111″
Another response of mine is that to bemoan science for only being able to explain so much is like frowning upon sense for it’s inability to be nonsensical!
September 28th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
[...] The supernatural does not exists no Bad Astronomy [...]
September 28th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Quote Thorin:
———————————
“it still seems that if we claim the universe is expanding we obviously believe that it is measurable from a central point to an edge, or else how can we claim to know it’s expanding?
So, either there is an “edge†and something beyond it. Or, it’s turely infinite and therefore we can not measure it which fails Phil’s criteria: “Anything that has a physical, measurable manifestation is within the realm of science.â€
———————————
Ah, but things can be a finite size without having an edge or a centre, the surface of Earth for example. Admittedly it’s a 2 dimensional example, but you can walk for ever in a straight line and never come to the edge of the world. The way I managed to get a handle on this was by visualising the inflating balloon analogy which simplifies things because it does away with a dimension:
The universe exists in 4 dimensions, 3 space and 1 time. Let’s imagine that the 3D space of our universe is represented by the 2D surface of a rubber balloon, and the 1 time dimension is represented by the radius of the balloon. As the balloon is inflated and the radius increases (i.e. time passes) the 2D surface area also increases (analogous to the 3D volume of the universe). The surface has no edges and we can move around on it freely wherever we want, but it has a finite yet increasing size.
The analogy has it’s limitations as the balloon does actually expand into an existing 3D space, but it illustrates the “expanding finite size with no edges and no centre” feature in a way that’s easy to understand. Combine this with Einstein’s discovery that space and time are just internal properties of the universe and I think it helps one to grasp what’s going on.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
> Just in case the aerospace engineer wants to point it this way, Dawkins et al think that reason is the only thing to be employed in evaluating truth claims. When talking about emotions or experience, reason may be secondary and perhaps not discussed.
I admit, my statement of my profession isn’t germane to the discussion, but it wasn’t an attempt to claim some sort of authority. It was a response to Tacitus saying that the discussion was distracting him from other things he had to do. It’s more like “I’m at work too, doing this, so here’s where I’m coming from.”
Agreed, Dawkins argues that reason is the only thing to be employed in evaluating truth claims.
“All people are born equal” is a truth claim. Either all people are equal, or all people are not equal.
“God exists” is a truth claim. So is “God exists and interferes in Its creation.” So is “irrational beliefs, such as theism, are harmful.” So is “atheism is harmful.” These are all essentially claims made as truths, even if they only reflect opinions. Either they are harmful, or they are not; a definition of ‘harm’ can be developed and tested, and people will argue about it forever because ‘harm’ itself is an abstract concept (certainly, hitting someone in the face harms them, but what about preventing someone from getting two cents for a song by downloading it off of a file-sharing network when otherwise you would of bought it? Isn’t that a harm as well?).
All we’ve been discussing, Tacitus and I, are essentially truth claims. Emotional/experiential claims “I saw a UFO and I was excited” don’t really enter into it much.
> Of course, though the common-folk (Hobbesian) might see nary a difference between reason and superstition, if this is indeed a challenging prospect, it could be disarmed with this piece of fake dialogue:
I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow you. Most people can tell the difference between superstition and reason. Most people do have difficulty discerning the difference between a belief and scientific fact, which are entirely different animals. That some people argue scientific facts with about the same amount of vitriol that some other people argue conflicting beliefs, and usually they’re being vitriolic towards each other, only cements this misunderstanding. To most people, facts are things presented in quiet ways. “The world is round,” as opposed to “The world is round, and if you think otherwise, you are WRONG! YOU IGNORANT IMBECILE!” or “God will damn you to HELL if you don’t use CRELM TOOTHPASTE!”
Bonus points for a Soylent Green reference, but I still don’t quite get the angle.
> Another response of mine is that to bemoan science for only being able to explain so much is like frowning upon sense for it’s inability to be nonsensical!
…Who’s bemoaning? I think what we have here is a failure to communicate.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
“I think the term supernatural should refer to extra-organic granola.”
-Shaggy, Scooby-Doo: The Movie
September 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Right on, Phil!
However, I think there are at least two semantical ways that people can reasonably disagree with you.
First, I happen to think that a more proper definition of science is much narrower–science is what scientists do. The definition that you (and others) use is so broad that it seems to encompass all of observation, deduction, and induction. This is fine, as long as your definition is consistent.
Second, many people define the supernatural specifically as that which cannot be determined at all from science or reasoning. However, I think people who use this definition are usually being inconsistent. To say something cannot be reached by science (broadly defined) basically implies that there is no observable difference between the case that it is true and the case that it is false. Supernatural claims might as well be false.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Agreed, Phil.
I would add that observations on historical religions and natural phenomena makes gods improbable beyond reasonable doubt.
September 29th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Great comments by the Centipede indeed.
And plenty to think about.
I do go myself a bit further than that, because I do believe that “rational atheism” can be considered as a religion.
Since we are here there has to be something that caused us to be. Either we accept the agnosticist’s point, and that “something†is not knowable, or we have to accept the existence of some sort of Deity (or deity). If you believe there is no “God” then it must be Luck or Chance or Whatchamacallit that got you here: so Luck, Chance, or whatever _is_ your “God”…
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/the-atheists-goddess/
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/the-atheists-goddess-2/
All in all Dawkins et al.’s worst mistake in going on the attack against any form of belief may just be that what they are inadvertently attacking is the very idea of being human. Because to be a person means to believe in something.
Perhaps you really really want to define all your life but sticking to strictly scientific means (repeatable, testable, falsifiable, etc etc): then you have to _believe_ that’s the way to do it.
How can it be otherwise? Who is going here to reason that there is one belief-independent Truth in how to conduct oneself?
That said, of course, as the BA says, everything that happens in the Universe has to be testable. Hence religious people trying to find “evidence” for God are fallacious indeed
http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/on-the-nature-of-god/
September 29th, 2007 at 9:11 am
“…Dawkins and Hitchens make you and I cringe…”
Using a pronoun in the subjective case as an object makes ME cringe.
September 29th, 2007 at 11:00 am
The two claims about God are truth claims. The rest are normative. You could make them truth claims by providing objective metrics of ‘harm’ and ‘equality,’ but the question of whether those definitions are correct/useful/fair is itself normative.
September 29th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Wow Phil, you got mad about that one! I agree every millimetre of the way of course.
I love your site, and the way you put things – YES we can test these claims, no, science doesn’t know everything (but what built your TV?) – keep on it Phil, you are the master. (oops a Dr Who ref…)
September 29th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I was brought up not to say rude things about a person’s personal beliefs.
It’s funny how people who say in this one breath almost always claim I am going to hell in the next.
If it hurts your feelings to be shown you are wrong, you probably had a very very hard time in first grade math class.
September 30th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Is it me, or does every post the BA makes concerning topics of this nature elicit the most responses?
Why is that?
Posts on these threads also seem to range from the most eloquent and profound to the most short-sighted and ridiculous.
These topics also bring out the trolls and lurkers (proud member of the latter group).
Why? Why? Why?
Douglas Adams knew. So did Kilgore Trout (Kurt Vonnegut).
To seek even the tiniest bit of enlightenment on THE BIGGIE questions: Why are we here? Why did we evolve (why were we created) to ask so many questions that can never be answered before we die? WHY? WHY? WHY?
Kilgore Trout provided the only answer to these questions that, IMHO, really rings of the truth.
I’m sure someone else out there can come up with the quote to share with the rest of the BA’s readership. Go ahead, prove your trivial knowledge gigantoriousness. I also just want to see if anyone else has read the really obscure book with this great answer.
September 30th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
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October 1st, 2007 at 8:20 am
@ The Centipede
@ Mick
Thanks!
I guess I shouldn’t have used the word “edge”. Surface or boundry would have been better words. Basically, using the balloonm example, I was thinking from within the balloon to the rubber boundry/surface/edge.
Anyway I think you’re right I’m too stuck in my 3 dimensional thinking.
I’m still not convinced that we’ll ever be able to measure the universe and thus have it meet Phil’s requirement. But I’ll have to do some more reading before I can argue it more logically the way you’re thinking of it.
Thanks again!
October 1st, 2007 at 9:08 am
It is all so similiar to the invisible dragon in the room. The “abscence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”. If you contain a situation as you said you can prove the causes and effects.
If you contain a room, you can prove that there is no invisible dragon in it.
A jump is being made by people saying that you can not prove there isn’t an invisible dragon outside of the room.
This is true. You can’t. What you can do is encapsulate areas outside of this room with other rooms.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:25 am
The underlying problem I think is still one of rationality; in this case, rational irrationality. Let’s put it this way:
Yes, by limiting the system to the room, then you can prove that there may as well be no invisible dragon in it. The invisible dragon thus becomes unnecessary to any explanation for whatever happens in the room. There could still be an invisible dragon outside of the room, however; so let us constrain all of the rooms in the house, which in this metaphor represents the realm of everything that could ever possibly be observed. Upon eventually constraining this entire house, there are two possibilities:
One, all variables of the house will be constrained and thus we will have a Law of Everything In The House. This is remarkably like the attitude of Victorian physicists of the 1890s (and part of the reason H.G. Wells wrote /The War of the Worlds/, as it added to the Imperial hubris).
Two, all variables of the house will not be constrained, perhaps due to the Incompleteness Theorem acting on a larger scale, and there will still be gaps in our house-knowledge that some people could point to and say ‘hic sunt dracones.’
For the sake of the argument, let’s assume the first (although that gets to be a bit too Orion’s Arm-ish for my own tastes once we import the metaphor back into reality). There are no invisible dragons inside the house. However, we cannot see outside the house as the house is defined. Nothing from outside the house, as far as we can determine, affects the inside of the house, as we have constrained all variables and can explain all phenomena. There may be an invisible dragon outside of the house, but it doesn’t matter and it may as well not exist.
Let us say there is a particular person inside the house who, understanding that the house is perfectly defined and understood, still gains pleasure and fulfillment from thinking about the invisible dragon outside the house. He understands that the invisible dragon does not affect in any sort of direct way anything inside the house, and agrees fully with the perfectly constrained explanations for events inside the house. Still, to give these events meaning, he contributes their prime motivation back to the invisible dragon outside the house (as the house certainly could not emerge ex nilhio, even though the concept of spatial-temporal existence is meaningless outside of the house). He constrains this irrational belief rationally, understanding that it makes no difference in how things are explained scientifically whether there is an invisible dragon or not, and the invisible dragon probably has nothing to do with events he perceives outside of perhaps building the house (but nothing in it) to begin with. He rationally accepts that he is believing this irrational concept because he, as a being that combines logical and emotional components, /feels/ better in this belief. Like a dream, it need not have any inherent reality outside of his own head, and he understands that.
He is being irrational, but in a rational way. He is being irrational in a way that matters nothing to anybody else, and when it comes to events within the house, he maintains a rational pragmatism towards them as events he must respond to, but may associate meaning to them irrationally in such a way (through associativity with the ‘prime mover’ invisible dragon) that gives him comfort and nothing else.
He looks at a tree and sees the self-similar patterns from leaf to twig to branch to trunk, he knows it’s mirrored underground in the roots. He thinks about how individual cells, each one dedicated to a simple task, make up the various tissues of the tree that manage complex energy and resource transfers from leaves to roots and back again. He thinks about how these cells are defined by relatively simple codes that do not describe the tree as a whole, or even how the tree as a whole functions, but rather the structure and implicitly the operation of each individual cells. This code is constructed of molecules whose properties are determined by the atoms that comprise them, and their relationships are defined by reactions clearly defined in terms of fundamental forces and energy states. There is no room in this physical explanation for an invisible dragon, and nowhere does he go ‘the invisible dragon did this, or the invisible dragon holds these together, or the invisible dragon blah blah blah.’ Instead, he looks at the synergy that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts, of the tree that is somehow the result of atomic interactions yet defined nowhere in the laws of atomic interactions, and he thinks ‘it’s really keen that the invisible dragon built the house so everything works like it does’ when he knows full well that maybe the invisible dragon might not have built the house, but it’s irrelevant because the house-builder (or however the house came about) is necessarily outside of the delineations of the house. For all practical intents and purposes, the house simply /is/, from nothing. He recognizes this, but continues to choose to think that the invisible dragon did it to make him feel better.
What’s so wrong with that, really?
October 1st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
“If you believe there is no “God†then it must be Luck or Chance or Whatchamacallit that got you here: so Luck, Chance, or whatever _is_ your “Godâ€â€¦”
Arguments like this are soooo embarrassing. Did that conclusion REALLY come out of your mouth?
Being unconvinced by God claims is also not the same thing as having to believe anything in particular about how things got to be the way they are.
And “everything other than MM’s belief” is not an ideology of a God or a religion or whatever.
October 1st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Brandon Hooks said:
> Phil, I thought I would let you know that I believe in God and what He has done in my life… God created science, not the other way around!
Is this post parody or sincere?
tacitus said:
> He loves you to! I will say this however, He does exist whether you or anyone else believes so! Fire burns whether you believe it or not…
> Ah, the ultimate carrot and stick argument. God loves you so much that he will condemn you to an eternity of unimaginable pain and suffering in the pit of Hell if you don’t do as he says.
I think you misread that (I almost did, too). His remark about fire had nothing to do with hellfire, he was stating that fire burns whether you believe in it or not same as gravity pulls down whether you believe in it or not.
Maurizio Morabito said:
> I do go myself a bit further than that, because I do believe that “rational atheism†can be considered as a religion.
> Since we are here there has to be something that caused us to be. Either we accept the agnosticist’s point, and that “something†is not knowable, or we have to accept the existence of some sort of Deity (or deity). If you believe there is no “God†then it must be Luck or Chance or Whatchamacallit that got you here: so Luck, Chance, or whatever _is_ your “Godâ€â€¦
Your statements are true only if you abuse language to the point that words don’t have meaning. You’ve redefined “deity” to mean “however we came to be here” and then eliminated any worship, obedience, and glorification from the definitions of God and religion. You might as well say, “Atheism is a hamster*.”
*For certain definitions of “hamster”.
Let me repeat it for dramatic effect: Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
DTdNav said:
> I’m sure someone else out there can come up with the quote to share with the rest of the BA’s readership. Go ahead, prove your trivial knowledge gigantoriousness. I also just want to see if anyone else has read the really obscure book with this great answer.
All hail the great goddess, Google:
- Cat’s Cradle
October 1st, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone linking to this blog post that, in passing, says much the same thing as the BA:
http://rockstarramblings.blogspot.com/2006/05/doggerel-6-impossible.html
To quote the relevant bit:
Of course, there are some contexts where things really are impossible.
The first that comes to mind is the category of “logically impossible.”
Some things with mutually exclusive terms fit into this category,
like “round squares,” “acid with a high pH,” and “supernatural effects.”
October 1st, 2007 at 8:44 pm
By one:
> Since we are here there has to be something that caused us to be. Either we accept the agnosticist’s point, and that “something†is not knowable, or we have to accept the existence of some sort of Deity (or deity). If you believe there is no “God†then it must be Luck or Chance or Whatchamacallit that got you here: so Luck, Chance, or whatever _is_ your “Godâ€â€¦
And another:
> Being unconvinced by God claims is also not the same thing as having to believe anything in particular about how things got to be the way they are.
I’m going to go with the latter as an issue of practicality. It is practically impossible to convince someone that they actually in some way acknowledge the existence of something they deny acknowledging, and I don’t really like telling people how to think. Let’s put it this way:
“I do not believe Communism is a realistic system of economic organization for large groups because it has not been proven to be one yet.”
“I do not believe there is a God because there is no evidence that one is needed.”
These two statements are essentially equivalent, a statement on the validity of an idea. Now I would argue both are indeed statements of belief; the nonexistence of a God-like being as of right now cannot be proven and stating categorically that a probably inherently ineffable being does not exist is, indeed, a statement of belief. It is, however, scientifically informed belief because the null hypothesis is considered the default ‘truth’ until proved otherwise. This is good, lest we have to scientifically believe in things until they are /not/ proven, which would lead to absurdities such as pink unicorns and leprechauns existing /somewhere/ in the whole wide Universe.
To say that atheists aren’t really atheists because they believe in something is a canard; what they believe in is the process of rational thought and the lack of belief in something is not equivalent to the belief in something else. I can take some people taking exception to the statement that rational thought is something that has to be ‘believed’ in, but it’s more of an ontological concern more than anything else: people have to ‘believe’ (deprecated by the rational mind in favor of ‘know’) something or else they’re empty-headed bipedal primates not really using the three pounds of meat in their head very efficiently. Rational thought is certainly a better method to believe in than superstitious thought if one wants to describe the universe in predictable, verifiable, scientific ways, but it also can lead (usually via mind-experiments) to paradoxes that are perfectly rational whilst simultaneously being completely absurd. I would posit that there may be a sort of super-rationalism that avoids this, but such a thing is wholly conjectural and smacks of Nietzsche (as ape is to man, man is to over-man) or, again, Orion’s Arm.
If I may tar with a broad brush, an uncareful atheist would say as a statement of belief that “nothing created the universe.” This would classify as a belief in the traditional sense that it is not (can not?) be proven that the responsibility of the universe can really be shuffled off onto the concept of nothing. It sounds mealy-mouthed, I know, but it comes from the semantics of using the active tense. This is still not equivalent to saying “God” or “Luck” or “Fate” created the universe, because logically clearly “God” or “Luck” or “Fate” aren’t the null set, i.e. absolutely nil (of course, if an atheist wanted to be a smartass, he really could say “God created the universe” because to him “God” /is/ a null set, but nobody likes a smartass). A more careful atheist would probably say that “the cause of the universe, if there is one, is unknown [and at this time apparently cannot be known],” relying both on a passive tense and a statement of fact concerning certainty as opposed to whodunit, to avoid the whole ‘creation’ logical trap altogether. Again, this is clearly not equivalent to “God created the universe.” Both are statements of what has been given shrift (belief), but they are not equivalent and suggesting them to be is an overambitious attempt to flank the opposing viewpoint and screech “gotchya!”
I’m actually in full agreement with the atheist crowd about the Universe up until that asymptotic point where the concept of time is literally meaningless. “What was there before the Universe?” is a meaningless statement; the Universe -is- time and before it, there was no time, and therefore no before. I only posit a prime moving force because I find the ex-nilhio proposition personally dissatisfying, but that is nowhere close to pointing at man’s descent from earlier primates and saying “Godidit” or at the formation of the Earth and saying “Godidit” or at any particular event and saying “Godidit.” I believe because it suits me, not anyone else, and my own theology certainly doesn’t synchronize with any organized religion or even philosophy that I know of (except the broad term ‘Deism,’ which isn’t really a defined philosophy other than ‘God exists, but may as well not’). My concern, when all things boil down, is one of tolerance. Not agreement, not by a long shot; merely tolerance. Theists must tolerate the existence of atheists and vice versa. This doesn’t mean they have to agree, merely that they have to acknowledge the other’s right to think their own way, no matter how wrong it may be. -That’s- where thoughts like ‘religion is a disease that needs to be cured’ bothers me; they’re inherently intolerant.
But, and yes, I started a sentence with a conjunction, the weakness of the Platonic ideal of tolerance is that one must tolerate the intolerant, and that’s a worthwhile ideal so long as said intolerance remains simply one of words and not, shall we say, effective action. Through the marketplace of ideas human endeavor presses forward (most of the time), through debate and understanding ideas flourish and fade. I do believe at some point that the modern Abrahamic religions will crumble and die like the Hellenistic religions before them (Hinduism may do the same, but Buddhism has the unfair advantage of reverting to philosophy and thus carrying along for a good long while; philosophies almost never die, as far as I know in my limited understanding). Other irrational religions will inevitably arise in their place, or–who knows?–perhaps rationality itself will be threatened by some over-rationality, who will see modern rationality as backwards and foolish as rationality now views superstition… but that’s neither here nor there. I just wish to inject some tolerance into the debate, because I’m a namby-pamby do-gooder like that.
Sorry for the rambling.
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:24 am
@ The Centipede
Believe it or not (hee, hee) there is at least one atheist here who appreciates your sentiment on tolerance. Just like revenge, rudeness begets rudeness. I think that many of us who have a low faith quotient get pretty tired of the brow-beating and intolerance we receive from the faithful, much of which is backed up by a seemingly self-induced immersion in nonsense. Thats what the vitriol comes from. As much as I agree with a large part of what is said by the current crop of atheistic literature and the small-minded pleasure I get from one of my group hitting back, I still cringe at the levels of intolerance and retaliatory blame shown towards the religious community. I don’t think bad things in this world happen because of any one group’s religious bent, I think they happen because we’re all human.
@ Irishman
Interesting quote. Just not the one I’m looking for. The one I want is a little shorter and comes from “Venus on the Halfshell.”
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:40 am
> I don’t think bad things in this world happen because of any one group’s religious bent, I think they happen because we’re all human.
Another person who gets a Monolith. If people don’t have a God to tell them to smite the heathen, then they’ll find another excuse to put down the inconvenient (eugenics as practiced in 1920s-1940s comes to mind)…
I read in the news recently that someone revealed (after holding on to it for quite a while) a photo album by a Holocaust camp adjutant showing Nazis having fun just over the hedge from the aforementioned camp. Generally acting like the normal people they essentially were–and it brings up a good point. We desperately want to believe that those who commit the most horrible atrocities are sick, inhuman individuals with no relation to us, but then we’re shown evidence to the contrary. We’re all human, and that forces us to identify not only in others but also ourselves all of the gritty disgusting potential of our nature and work past it. To oversimplify things can be most dangerous indeed, especially when there’s an “us” one desperately wants to identify with and maintain and a “them” one considers not only diametrically opposed to the “us” but existentially mutually exclusive: summed up simply in the “us or them” mindset.
Given how easy it is to pigeonhole adversaries, the optimal (in my mind) state of almost friendly rivalry probably isn’t going to happen anytime soon–but a man can dream, no?
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:45 pm
DTdNav, would that be the belch or the “Why not?”
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Irishman, “Why not?” is precisely what I was looking for! Sometimes that seems like the only fitting answer to the “WHY, WHY, WHY?” Although the belch is a close second. Perhaps it strikes me as so profound because of who (or what) uttered the phrase in the book.
Centipede, That’s exactly what makes me hrumph at the news media when they report another horrendous school shooting. The “What kind of monster could do that sort of thing?” approach is always used. Although I certainly feel that those acts are indeed horrendous and would hope I could never do that sort of thing, the monsters they call “them” are really “us.”
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:51 pm
[...] 3rd, 2007 by tinyfrog I have to agree with Phil Plait when he says that science can evaluate the supernatural. He says: The latest blurting about this comes from a scientist quoted in a book review. In the [...]
October 4th, 2007 at 6:41 am
If, that is *if* something is, then is it not natural? at least in the sense that it makes words like “paranormal” and “supernatural” as much nonsense as the nonsense they are intended to categorize?
October 5th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Quote Thorin:
———————————
I guess I shouldn’t have used the word “edgeâ€. Surface or boundry would have been better words. Basically, using the balloonm example, I was thinking from within the balloon to the rubber boundry/surface/edge.
———————————
In that analogy the balloon surface isn’t a boundary as we’re using the distance from the centre to represent time since the Big Bang, not space. Our brains are incapable of picturing the shape of things in 4 dimensions (3 space and 1 time), but dropping one of the space dimensions in this way allows us to construct a 3D mental picture which includes the time dimension. The balloon surface represents the size and shape of a 2D universe at a particular point in time, it’s a momentary snapshot. The centre of the balloon is the beginning of time, not the centre of the universe. “inside” the balloon just means the past, and “outside” is the future. Another snapshot taken at an earlier time would show the same basic shape except that the balloon would be smaller (i.e. the objects within it would be closer together relative to the range of atomic forces etc.). A 2D creature living in this 2D universe would only be aware of the left/right and back/forward space dimensions so it would have no boundary, and “up” and “down” would be meaningless concepts to it in the same way that we can’t imagine a 4th space dimension at 90 degrees to the 3 we’re already familiar with.
Coincidentally, Daniel Rutter over at http://www.dansdata.com/gz074.htm has just come up with a really nice way of visualising the shape of the universe using the virtual worlds of computer games. A 2D side scrolling game which wraps around horizontally can be pictured as occupying the surface of a cylinder, so it has a finite width with no side boundaries, but it has boundaries (or else stretches to infinity) above and below. A 2D game which wraps around horizontally and vertically has a finite area with no boundaries and is doughnut shaped. Our universe can be thought of as a 3D game world which wraps around in all 3 dimensions which means it can have a finite volume but no boundaries.
Quote Thorin:
———————————
I’m still not convinced that we’ll ever be able to measure the universe and thus have it meet Phil’s requirement.
———————————
One of the neat things about using the virtual world of a computer game is that we can see that there doesn’t have to be an external virtual space to contain this universe. The 3D space of a virtual world is simply a mathematical construct and there is no virtual space “outside” the volume which is defined. Of course, a game’s virtual universe exists within our meta-universe, but our physical space isn’t an extension of that virtual space. If it were possible to programme intelligent observers as characters inside the game universe, they would be able to measure the properties of their unbounded universe (including it’s volume), but there’s no way for them to find out anything about our meta-universe. So there might be something in the idea that we’re actually living in a simulation ourselves, but there’s probably no way we’d ever be able to find out, all we can say is that we don’t know.
October 19th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Somewhat against my better judgment, I will leave a (regrettably) late post.
If you want to understand what makes many forms of monotheistic religion “work” in their intellectual aspect you need learn to reason in a more fundamental way than any scientific education–however laudable and good in itself–can supply you. That is, you need to study the Western tradition of metaphysics from Plato’s Parmenides and Aristotle, up through at least Aquinas and Scotus. I mean really and intensively try to understand its categories and ways of apprehending the world in their own terms, with the same passion you might use as a scientist trying to understand mathematics necessary for your field. I guarantee some interesting results emerge–especially if you then compare its ways of knowing and reasoning with the modern sciences.
(Modern philosophy in most of its forms doesn’t count, for complicated reasons.)
To make a long story short, I think it can be shown that while modern sciences can most certainly stand on their own two feet with regard to certain kinds of questions–if you will, the “how” questions–at root the scientific way of reasoning is at best capable a very limited critique of older ways of thinking when it comes to “why” questions–although historically the metaphysicians are responsible in large degree for the divorce between the two forms of reasoning in modern times, in part because they tried to explain certain very specific physical processes and relations (like gravitation) metaphysically, when they are really to be explained scientifically. And so people, overgeneralizing from these particular failures, lost interest in it. But now we have the reverse, where people try to grapple with problems like the existence of God on the basis of scientific methods. This strikes me as an awkward category mistake. (Of course, this may not be true of given claims of the miraculous–but metaphysical arguments for God’s existence don’t depend on the miraculous, actually.)
Examples of metaphysical concepts presupposed by science but not–strictly speaking–definable in terms of it: “actuality” and “potentiality” (in general terms), and “reality.”
Barring such attempts to understand each other’s categories of thought, I fear we theists and you atheists and agnostics will just aggravate each other more and more, and civic peace will suffer for it. I don’t think many of us want that!
November 25th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
we are… dunno why, lets not destroy us. A blog which is a good read for me, so I learn all from discussion.
September 1st, 2008 at 2:07 am
im not sure wat is going on, but the supernatural is true.
i see them,
i know this might be hard for you to believe me, but i have. this isnt a joke, i would laugh at myself if this was a joke but its not. ive seen them, ive felt them,
is it wrong for me to be able to see them, to feel them,
how can i stop this. ??
please. i need help.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:32 am
Well, I think, to understand the universe more, we must understand our own minds first. How we perceive things, how if you can day dream something your mind will make it real. Your mind doesn’t know the difference from reality and imaginary. I once thought, imagined, real hard that i was doing a backflip on the ground, and after two try’s, I could actually do it. To say you felt and seen the “supernatural” means that something went on in your mind to cause you to imagine whatever you saw or felt, thus making it “real” to you.
This leaves anything left-over from what I said like; photographs, etc. that are so called “proof” of supernatural. If it is proof, THEN, you can leave it to science to investigate.
So, I say that if you saw and felt something that is not testable by science, maybe it is! But in the aspect that we must first understand the mind itself, and gather evidence from it. If only we could connect to our brains and gather data from the event. Like your health state, what you where thinking, what you thought you saw, etc. Then we could probably just find out that it was all in your mind, and never “actually” happened (but yet still happened in your mind, making it still testable by science).
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:38 am
Ok Phil, I do understand to what you are trying to prove.. what if your right that there is no God?? Then where will you go wrong in just believing in him?? Lets say there is a Heaven and there is a Hell…. at least you belived and you’ll go to Heaven but now lets say there is no after life where you just die and thats the end…. at least you belived in something that was greater then you and you want have to worry about suffering for eternity…. And i do agree science can’t prove everything!! Especially on Religion….