AcademicFreedomBlog

Reply to Ruse

Dr. Mc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:52:18 +0000

In the Monday, March 8 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Michael Ruse wrote an article entitled, “Philosophers Rip Darwin ,” in which he rips Jerry Fodor for his book, What Darwin Got Wrong.
It is easy to see from this article that Michael Ruse does indeed read the works of many who object to Darwinian evolution as a complete picture of biological origin, and I commend his many clear statements of their positions. Overall, however, I question his approach here to answering them.
First he state that new objections are coming from philosophy and then mentions his own connection with philosophy. Fine. But then he lists biological advancements that assume a Darwinian viewpoint. I see no connection. If there are holes in the logic (philosophy), then it doesn’t matter what the observations are (science).
He then address objectors by first positioning them as religious. What has that got to do with the validity of their arguments, unless they argue from religious texts? They don’t. He points out that Platinga believes in ID and is committed to debunking evolution. If these disqualify him from participating in the debate, then Ruse is disqualified for his commitment to Darwinian evolution and his religious position.
Then Ruse begins his response. “What does one say about these critics? ..To say that a speckled moth is less likely to be eaten by a robin than a dark moth, because the robin can less easily see the speckled moth against the lichen-covered tree, is to say nothing about God or any other conscious being.” I agree. Why is he bringing it up? Platinga and Fodor don’t. They stick to philosophy and science.
His borage of current scientific investigations and findings are impressive, and cause me to be proud of human accomplishments, but I must disagree that “the bacterial flagellum, the blood-clotting cascade—[have] been shown to be the exquisite end result of evolution. “
And as for his “suspicion ..that Fodor doesn’t really give a damn about fruit flies or finches or anything else out there. But when it comes to Homo sapiens, he wants no part of a naturalistic explanation that reduces design to the workings of blind law”: So what? The point is that sufficient “blind laws” have not been found. And the philosophical arguments of Fodor, which I thought this article was to address, remain unanswered.

Another Bio-Language

Dr. Mc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:48:34 +0000

Fascination with the language of DNA is getting a lot of press these days, especially with Stephen Meyer’s book pointing out the obvious implications of the Signature in the Cell. But there is at least one other bio-language, no less important to all animals, and it too, is being researched.
I was taught in high school biology that our bodies are commanded to move and that sight and other senses are possible because electrical impulses are fired from neurons (nerve cells) to various parts of our brain and throughout our bodies. As our knowledge of this realm grows exponentially, we now discover it is not just an impulse, but a neuronal code. One neuron can send different signals by means of impulse rates. The rates carry different meanings and thus result in different responses at the other end. Researcher terms such as “information,” “encoding” and “decoding” reveal that, like DNA, neurons are truly the medium of a language. In fact, we must develop a “dictionary” for the language! By learning this language scientists hope to someday provide paraplegics and quadriplegics with artificial limbs that they can command by thought, thought encoded into wires and decoded into metal and plastics. And like all languages that we must learn, it must have been designed.

Global Warming and Religious Objection

Dr. Mc — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:28:57 +0000

It’s always refreshing to see a paper like the New York Times publish a piece that makes a point I made in my blog months earlier. Yes, there is strong parallel between the way objections to the global warming belief system is being handled and the handling of objections to Darwinian evolution. People are noticing the parallel and viewpoint discrimination is being addressed in some state legislatures.
Interestingly enough, the author engages in another parallel herself. She positions opposition to the global warming belief system as religious, just as defenders of status-quo evolution position its objectors. This holds for Darwin skeptics, even though their ranks include prominent agnostics, atheists, and people of other diverse religious positions. There is no reason to assume the same does not also hold for global warming scare objectors.
Notice that no science is ever alluded to in the Times article, only opinions and categorizing of the opponents (read that “name-calling”). Perhaps white evangelical Protestants are more likely to not believe the global warming dogma, because they already see the misconduct of orthodox scientists in squelching the evolution debate. Does this somehow mean the objectors are wrong? What does it matter what reason motivates a person to propose a scientific investigation. What should matter is if the hypotheses and subsequently accumulated evidence passes the rigor of the scientific method.
Why even talk about what some pole says about people’s opinions? Why is the evidence not the issue instead of opinions? The article frames white evangelical Protestants as bad guys because they are more skeptical of the global warming consensus than the general population. (We are given no information about what black evangelical Protestants think, so they may be more or less skeptical than white.) The way the argument is framed obscures the larger truth: Only 36% of the general population buys the idea that there is a human-induced global warming issue. In my math classes that would be considered quite short of a majority. Does the author of this article somehow miss that her politically correct view still represents the minority of Americans?

The Language of Life

Dr. Mc — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:11:04 +0000

Dr. Paul R. Frommer may be Professor of Clinical Management Communication at University of Southern California, but that’s not what got him listed in Wikipedia. That took writing the Na’vi language for Avatar. This is no small feat, and writer-director James Cameron wanted it to be real, complete with grammar, syntax, the works. He go it, but it took Frommer five years of commitment to pull it off, from collecting the sounds and grammar rules to some very long days on the set, helping actors pronounce the words.
Just as one need not understand perspective and shadows to know that a picture looks real, so the general public has no clue why the Klingon language in Star Trek or the Na’vi language in Avatar sound so real. It’s because they are real. Someone with knowledge and skill invested major time and effort into inventing them. I’m sure Frommer’s previous data collection from 30 languages was no small part of his preparation to invent Na’vi, which by show time could boast aobut 1000 words.
Yet today many biologists find it difficult to lay aside their “training” and recognize that the language in DNA is no less dynamic and no more likely to occur by accident. DNA is composed of a 20-letter alphabet in a never-repeating series with virtually a never-ending possibility of combinations. Even though this truly random option occurs nowhere else in the universe as we know it, this is not the most amazing part. The really amazing part is that DNA is actually used to carry a language, complete with grammar, syntax, the works. We discovered it because it works. Each sequence comprises a series of commands that are in errantly carried out by molecules and organelles, resulting in the construction of proteins necessary for all functions of a given organism, including the molecules and orangelles that carry out the construction. In the human genome alone the language contains 30,000 words, and the average “word” is 250 letters long. There is only one reasonable explanation for why it seems so much like a real language: because it is real. Language only comes from minds.

The Power of Pride

Dr. Mc — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:38:45 +0000

To kickoff the Jan 2010 release of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed on DVD in the UK, a debate was arranged via phone between ID theorist Stephen Myer and Oxford evolutionist Peter Atkins on Premier Radio UK. I found the whole radio hour to be amazingly one-sided, with all logic brought to bear on the ID side and only name-calling and posturing in support of evolution. In his closing arguments, however, there was a particularly striking statement made by Professor Atkins as his last point (beginning at minute 52:01):
“Everyone, both of non-religious and religious disposition, should take pride in the fact that the human brain has emerged and is capable of understanding, understanding seemingly without limit. I think that’s a wonderful, wonderful organ, and a wonderful aspect of the physical world; and for people like Stephen (Meyer) and his colleagues to suggest that there is an area where the human mind cannot penetrate, cannot get understandable, comprehensible explanation, I think that’s a denial of humanity.”
I am struck that an appeal to pride would be made as the final argument against considering an alternative view. If asked what the greatest enemy of truth is, we might be tempted to say, “a lie!” But it isn’t. A lie may be the opposite of truth, but a lie that does not appeal to pride will not be believed. The greatest enemy of the truth is pride, because without pride, a lie has no power.

Emissions and Omissions

Dr. Mc — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:06:29 +0000

Does it bother anyone else that we are supposed to be “going green” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions? I learned in my ninth grade biology class that GREEN plants need carbon dioxide to “breath” just as animals need oxygen. I also learned, probably long before that, that green houses were places that green plants grow better. So some how by reducing carbon dioxide we are supposed to make Planet Earth “greener?” Fundamentals like that cause me to look a little harder at all the statistics that are supposed to make us responsible for global warming. Why is it that they include figures like how many pounds of carbon dioxide humans and their industries have put into the atmosphere each year, but I can’t find anywhere what percent of the earth’s carbon dioxide that is at any given time? One example is this link by UC San Diego. Glance down to the graph showing the rise in carbon dioxide captured in polar snow. Are the any studies on how fast carbon dioxide escapes from polar snow? This would be vital to any indication of change over time.
In that same paragraph in which that graph first intrudes, there is an explanation of the increase in CO2 ppm that includes a logarithmic conversion. Logarithmic conversions are useful when measuring things that increase by huge multiples in comparing their significance, as with the Richter Scale for earthquakes. They are absolutely useless in comparing two numbers where one is not even double the other. Perhaps it was included so that the average reader would get lost and just accept the conclusion, in this case that “we are a little more than one third of the way to a doubling of carbon dioxide, on a log scale.” Anyone with four-function math skills can tell that 360 divided by 280 is closer to a fourth in difference than it is to a third (28.6%). The actual increase since 1957 is a little over a fourth. For the sake of argument, let’s use logs and give them the third. It certainly sounds more dramatic to say that the number is more than a third of the way to doubling than to say it’s gone up by a little over a third, which is of course the same thing, but without using the word “doubling” it sounds less ominous.
OK, so assume that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by one third since 1957. During that same time frame the population of humans (Remember, they are the villains in this story.) has increased from less than 3 billion to around 6.8 billion, which is MORE than double. Sometimes people are forced in a direction against their better judgment, but it’s more powerful to direct their judgment by withholding certain information.

What Would it Take?

Dr. Mc — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:49:38 +0000

If you believe there is no god, I don’t blame you. Very few people who “believe” can actually give a reason why they believe. They just say, “Do it.” So you just don’t. So what evedence would convince you that there is a god? How about just to believe there is a supernatural realm?
I think the first thought of most of us would be some kind of undeniable, supernatural display. (I’m thinking lights, sounds, and awesome appearances.) I’m afraid that’s a contradiction in terms. If it is “supernatural” (outside of normal experiences), then it is by definition, “deniable,” because it has no reference point in our reality. Not only would no one else believe you, but you would be hard pressed to believe it yourself after just a little time. Maybe it was a dream, induced by greasy pizza.
What if others saw it, too? Better, but still not there. How many others? How long ago? If you don’t believe in
God, then how convinced are you by stories of “miracles?” Events, no matter how many witnesses, lose credibility over time. They are not testable, therefore not “scientific” knowledge.
So it would have to be something tangible, testable, replicable in the sense that you could always find it. You could go back to it, point others to it; and others could verify it was there, and is continuously there. Testable implies some undeniable cause-and-effect, or there is no connection of facts, no evidence of anything.
As usual, the cause-and-effect must constitute a bridge between the known and the unknown. In this case the know effect is measurable with our senses, and the unknown cause is not detectable with our senses. So far, I am not suggesting anything beyond modern chemistry. In this case however, the “effect” must be defined as “natural,” while the “cause” portion of the bridge must be defined as “supernatural.”
Defining the effect as natural is easy. It could be anything detectable as proposed above. It is known and experienced to materially exist, but it must have one additional characteristic. It has to be something that undeniably has not always existed. It must have come into existence at some point in history, thus making it undeniably part of a cause-and-effect relationship.
But the supernatural cause portion must also meet two specific tests. The cause must be sufficiently supernatural to have no rational explanation within any known or even suspected laws of chemistry, physics, or other sciences. While we are at it, let’s throw in no known mathematics. If the cause portion of the bridge is rationally explainable within our experiences, then the whole cause-and-effect is within our realm of experience, and it is natural, not supernatural. There is no bridge. It gives no clue about the supernatural.
But the cause must also have some link to our reality. It must somehow relate to something in the material world as we know it without being in and of our “natural” world. That something must be a parallel material existence that has a measurable natural cause.
For these two criteria in the cause to converge with the two criteria for the effect in a cause-and-effect relationship, four conditions must be detectable: (1) the effect is something material (2) that has not always existed; (3) there is no rational cause for what exists within suggested laws of science or mathematics; yet (4) what exists has a parallel material existence with a known measurable cause. Stated another way, for “cause-and-effect” to bridge that supernatural-natural gap, the effect would have to be completely in our realm of experience, while the cause would have to be one that we could recognize in form, but with no possible origin within our material experience.
May I suggest consideration of such linked material evidence? If the same criteria used by archeologists to conclude that markings on chards and ancient walls are written language are in turn applied to DNA codes, the inevitable conclusion is that DNA carries a written language. I dare say there is no definition of written language that will work consistently for archeologists, or even SETI, that would exclude the messaging that we know to be carried in DNA. DNA carries written language.
(Note: Materially, DNA is a string of organic compounds that may be arranged in a virtually infinite number of ways, thus allowing it to carry a language. Scientists may hope someday to recreate DNA-type molecular strings in the laboratory, but this is simply a language medium, not the language itself. The medium, whether DNA, papyrus, silicon or whatever, is irrelevant. The language exists apart from the medium and could be transmitted through other mediums, even though we may know it through only one.)
The only known cause for written language is intelligence. That is, the language had to be designed with a specific application in mind. May I repeat, “mind?” Our only material experience with minds capable of composing and writing language is humans. Human intelligence is the only known cause with the effect of written language.
There is no rational and natural explanation for DNA carrying a written language, and yet we know that only intelligence causes written language. The conclusion is that DNA carries a written language imposed upon it by an intelligence outside of what we call “natural.” The logical conclusion is that the written language carried in DNA is both intelligent and supernatural in origin.
I believe I have said nothing here that is inconsistent with the logic of Stephen Myer’s in Signature in the Cell, though his logic begins and ends on different grounds.
Myer’s argument begins with science and ends with science. My argument begins and ends instead with a priory assumptions about the supernatural. This is because most people do not reject ID (intelligent design) arguments for scientific reasons. They do it for strongly-held, though possibly subconscious, beliefs about the nature of God, which include assumptions about His participation (or lack thereof) in the universe as we know it. The person following this logic must have no preconceived limits on what can be concluded from the thought process. Without that, any attempt at an honest conclusion is short-circuited. Though some might claim that they reject theology for scientific reasons, they in fact reject science for theological reasons.

Signature in the Cell

Dr. Mc — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:04:03 +0000

I went into my local Barnes & Noble bookstore today to consider a copy of Stephen Meyer’s new book, Signature in the Cell. From all accounts, it’s making quite an impression, though apparently not on Barnes & Noble: Upon asking for where I might find it, the store employee escorted me to the collection on comparative religion. A book on DNA is located in “comparative religion?” I guess that’s OK, as long as one understands that the religion it is compared with is Darwinian evolution.

Climategate and the Survival of the Politically Correct

Dr. Mc — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:25:24 +0000

Despite “Climategate,” and a growing number of outspoken scientific skeptics, the global warming summit plowed ahead. What else could they do? There is a lot invested in the idea that man is causing global warming: Grants are less likely to be issued for what man cannot change, and how can he change it if he did not cause it? I’m hearing some common liturgy, like “Show me the peer reviewed opposition,” when the opposition is not allowed through the peer review process. The deaf ear of the politically correct is scary, but not as scary as what lies at its heart. I am afraid that the political bulldozing of free scientific inquiry into questioning Darwin has bled into other areas of science. That once “scientists” discovered that funding and publication could be protected for one dominant opinion in one area of science, it could be done for another. Who cares about finding the truth? It can only slow down fame and fortune. Who cares about stifled enterprise and joblessness when the appearance of a united front is more valued? I just heard a quote I love: “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”~Flannery O’Conner.

Climate Hackers and other Non-Believers

Dr. Mc — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:08:00 +0000

“Climate Emails Stoke Debate” is the headline for this subject in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, but it illustrates the even deeper problem that continually threatens science. I refer particularly to the quote by George Rebovich: “Any group with such a single-minded view (whether they are believers in global warming, global warming rejectionists, liberals, conservatives, whatever) bears close watching and a certain amount of skepticism.”
I like his use of the phrase “believers in,” because that is at the heart of the issue. Once a group convinces themselves to believe in some one view, they have a hard time self-policing their integrity. It doesn’t even have to be intentional. Read the whole article. Is it really true that each science journal “evaluates papers solely on scientific merit,” or is it possible that a belief system can stifle opposing data from being published publication? What if you through into the mix that careers and fortunes (grants) are at risk? The climate issue is pretty new. How much more so should we expect this phenomenon with biological and chemical origins?