Here is the latest Solas video….I really enjoyed this interview with the brilliant Jonathan McLatchie on Intelligent Design….click on the link below to get more information.
http://www.solas-cpc.org/wp/science/quantum-71/
The Blog of David Robertson
The Blog of David Robertson
Here is the latest Solas video….I really enjoyed this interview with the brilliant Jonathan McLatchie on Intelligent Design….click on the link below to get more information.
http://www.solas-cpc.org/wp/science/quantum-71/
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Where to begin with this?
What is the basic purpose of ID from God’s perspective. It is the most illogical idea in the whole history of pseudo-scientific theistic nonsense.
God designed the digital coding mechanism that underpins DNA. But then, he allows otherwise unguided evolution to produce humanity 13.9 billion years later. Are events such as meteor impacts or tectonic movements ID’d or just naturally occurring?
They appear to be some of the most vital events in the history of evolution. Once large animal populations have evolved (before humans) there are occasional mass extinctions that then seem to require urgent ID’ing to get species up again such as the Cambrian Explosion.
Then, wiped out again to eventually allow humanity to develop, strangely using 98% of the DNA for chimpanzees, although he was always the purpose of the universe!
Please do some research into the peer-reviewed output of the Discovery Institute and Michael Behe’s “expert” contribution to the field – it’s illuminating.
Specified Complexity – one of the most pseudo ideas in all of pseudo science. Entirely dreamed up by proponents of ID and having no merit whatsoever in the general scientific or academic communities.
“We Know the universe had a beginning” – well please tell the rest of the world because you are in line for Nobel prizes instantly! We have no more than theories of what preceded the big bang and the most eminent scientists in the field disagree still.
The A vs. B theory of time – to spare you the hassle of research or reading William Laing Craig’s interminable book. The theist needs the A theory although duffers like Einstein didn’t agree and strangely God only made the world look like it uses the B theory, but we just don’t realise it!
Fine tuning – at least it plays by the rules, i.e. there is a scientific basis of sound data. A simple question though; the Entropy level of the early universe was profoundly low, but if it was designed then God had to design or somehow set in place the possible alternate states before we could make any probability equation. If there are an actual infinite number of possibilities, how long would it take him to construct them?
The Multi-verse is not ad-hoc, it is an inevitable outcome of certain theories of the origin of the big bang and is not in the least fallacious. The Boltzmann Brain hypothesis is becoming a favourite of theists after it was used by Craig but again demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of different theories of early cosmology.
The Painting/Watchmaker argument is the oldest theistic red-herring known to humanity and simply not worthy of a response.
The fact that Dawkins definition of God makes no sense to you is only true if theism is true. Your defence is entirely circular.
Finally – Atheism is corrosive to Science! Hopefully, it may encourage scientists to confront this type of ill informed propaganda although I suspect most couldn’t be bothered to give it the time of day.
If you want to provide ammunition to the zealots in the SSS, keep on producing this bunkum!
Jon,
my apologies for not going through your points one by one but since it seems that your post is pretty full of illustrations of why Atheism is corrosive to Science, I think it best to cut to the chase. I wouldn’t depend on Scientists to defend Atheism, by the way, it’s surely up to Atheists to defend themselves or ignore the charge as they see fit. Thank you for bringing it up; it gives me a chance to agree that Atheism is corrosive and explain why I agree.
1. The adoption of Atheistic presuppositions has led to a flight from scepticism, so that concepts such as irreducible complexity are rejected on grounds that are at best pseudo-sceptical. Generally speaking, though, even pseudo-scepticism fails to get a look in because Atheist ‘defenders’ of Science seem to suffer from a sort of bipolar disorder, vacillating between Fundamentalist Atheist fear one minute and Cynical Atheist foolishness on the other.
2. It may be fun to tease Creationists in their mistaken belief that science is about truth when The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has taught us that what we have is not Truth but Paradigm. However, giving the impression that paradigms are changed on a daily basis is undermining trust in what Science knows and in how Science can be trusted,
3. The assumption that the Atheistic agenda is the Scientific agenda is particularly damaging. The minor local difficulty that the Big Bang fits Quantum Mechanics but not Relativity merely places the Beginning behind a fence of mystery; it ought not be used to pretend that steady state hopes are still alive.
4.The Atheist insistence that the scientist must be considered both judge and jury is poor jurisprudence. Lastly, Atheism didn’t invent ad hominem attacks on opponents but there does seem to be an increase of it-can’t-be-Science-because-she’s-not-a-scientist thinking.
Of course it’s a charge that Atheists will wish to challenge but the best defence would be a return to critical thinking and proper scientific investigation of rival claims.
Yours,
John/.
John
The fundamental problem is that theism and science are totally incompatible. The “scientific method” relies on the notion of a control and experiment approach to testing of theories that must assume a uniformity of law and process. The latter may be open to theistic challenge but the scientist has no alternative and the collective history of scientific endeavour has done nothing to disavow us of the epistemological value of such an approach.
The theist on the other hand makes an a priori decision that there are such things as omnipotent (by their own definition) beings and here the problems begin. On a fundamental level, Quantum Field Theory explains the underlying structure of the universe and provides the most tested and resilient theory we have on the nature of matter and energy.
We believe that the Standard Model provides us with 4 forces that govern all interactions. This must be the basis for all science we undertake and we are able to state positively that there is no force undiscovered that could be sufficiently long ranged to have any meaningful contribution to our everyday biology or environment.
Except that God can do anything! So it is meaningless to say that the photon is the force carrier for the Electromagnetic Force because God can govern such interactions if he chooses to. Special Relativity’s limitations on the speed of light do not apply to God as he is simultaneously in all places. The theistic scientist, whilst believing that God has set the rules in motion that we interpret as QFT, can never know if God is intervening to hold the electron in place himself. Although he will say has no reason to believe God would do this, he cannot know for sure. There are many questions regarding God’s actions that the theist cannot explain.
This is the central contradiction of science and theism. The assumptions that science must make are meaningless as is the weight of experimental support for them. Unfortunately, the scientific evidence for omnipotence is even more problematic, let alone the logical incoherence of the idea.
Jon.
rather than defend Atheism from the charge of being ‘corrosive’ of Science, you have chosen to attack Theism as being incompatible with scientific method. An opportunity missed perhaps but thank you anyway for the insight into how Atheists see Theism. If your charges of incompatibility; contradiction, and rendering scientific categories ‘meaningless’ were true then I’m sure that Science per se would have to defend its integrity but since the charges are groundless – at least for the examples you give – we shall have to be content with Atheism attempting to speak on Science’s behalf.
In one sense, the actual picture is much worse than you paint for us: Christians go much further than merely saying that God can intervene and do directly what is done naturally by the action of one of the four forces of particle physics – the ‘Standard Model’ only covers three of those at present, of course – though I’m somewhat at a loss as to why it would be a problem for a believing scientist that he ‘can never know if God is intervening to hold the electron in place himself.’ What we find in the Bible is the more radical idea that Christ is the sustainer of all things:
[Colossians 1:15-18] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Another way of saying the same thing is to be found in the letter to the Hebrews:
[Hebrews 1:1-3] Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Now these notions of all things holding together in Christ and of Christ upholding the universe by the word of his power are not scientifically-derived statements of truth, nor could they be and they ought not be used as though they were scientific statements. Science has every right to protest if such statements are used to skim over the gaps that are currently present in the Standard Model but – and this is absolutely crucial – these statements are not anti-scientific in any way. Even a paradigm change doesn’t render what was formerly accepted as ‘Scientific fact’ meaningless, so how can a theological statement render the scientific explanation ‘meaningless’? It doesn’t.
Yours,
John/.
Jon,
While I can not respond to any of your posts about science, do you accept that there is an a priori philosophy that underpins science, pre-assumptions that can not be scientifically proven? And theories that remain theories and have not been scientifically proven, but seem to have morphed, evolved into fact. Do you accept that truth/fact precedes evidence and that it is therefore “revealed.”
Scientific peer review is a thorny issue, raising questions of conflict of interests/belief, standing , the quality of the review, qualitative , quantitative, group- think peer pressure and funding.
I know you are well read, but have you come across the work of Stuart Burgess, prof of Engineering Design at Bristol University, former NASA scientist and his book, “Hallmarks of Design: the Evidence of Purposeful Design in Beauty and Nature”
Also you may have come across the books by prof John Lennox, “God’s undertaker: has science buried God?” and others.
Is there not sufficient scientific work that would lend support to either side? It’s clear that you will not be convinced by argumentation alone from scientists (who are scientists no matter how much you may disparage them) of your non-god belief, but neither will science be an impediment to my belief in the triune God who has revealed Himself to me and or their theism.
In that case Graham, we are both happy and that’s what matters most.