The Volokh Conspiracy

If there really are unicorns, what color are they?

We can spend time debating this, with about as much practicality as debating Sen Brownbacks hypothetical policies should he be elected president.

Instead, I propose we all breathe a sigh of relief that the three candidates who raised their hands on May 4th are fringe candidates and will remain fringe candidates.

Anderson pretty much nails it.

EV overlooks the argument that Brownback deserves criticism because he refuses to believe things for which there is overwhelming evidence, because, well, he just doesn't believe them.

It's not a question of religious faith, it's a question of not accepting empirical facts. That's a pretty undesirable quality in a President.

What thing does Brownback disbelieve that is provably true, if one assumes a God who can perform miracles? (I don't assume this, but Brownback isn't the only candidate, I expect, who does assume it.)

Not accepting empirical facts is an unfortunate trait in all our presidential candidates. It leads to spending money on policies that don't work. Stay tuned.

An interesting corrolary to EV's questions are whether if Brownback's beliefs don't disqualify him from being a US Senator should they still disqualify him from being President?

The argument was unclear DELIBERATELY. Brownback never really commits himself to any grappling with any evidence for this or that: even a 6000-year old earth is mentioned as not necessarily creationist... but isn't discounted as false either.

In short, the entire thing is an exercise in careful rhetorical cowardice. I don't think he believes the Earth is 6000 years old... but he knows full well that a large number of his most ardent supporters do.

He also pulls this whopper out: he claims that he "of course" believes that small changes within a species are possible "but on the other hand" does not believe that all life is meaningless randomness with no hand of God. That's about as dishonestly false a dichotomy as you can get: and yet again allows him to careful sidestep any discussion about evidence for things like common descent (or even any specific mention of it and discounting it) while at the same time discounting it as part of a pretty serious straw man.

Then there are the usual creationist canards (scientists have various debates over particular mechanisms and elements of evolution, so therefore they are not sure whether common descent really happened at all: which is, of course, false).

And while he has a fair point in that people who claim that evolution demonstrates that all life is without external purpose are going farther than science can support, most of those people are already honest about that. Worse, Brownback just does the same damn thing, when he asserts:

"Those aspects of evolutionary theory compatible with this truth are a welcome addition to human knowledge. Aspects of these theories that undermine this truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science."

i.e. he has the truth, and anything that speaks against it need not apply.

Excuse me - Brownback isn't running for President of the Synod.

Well, Sen. Clinton believed that CFR was Constitutional and GWB believed he could count on the USSC to cover for him if he signed it, so I can't say that an ability to believe without evidence is much of a disqualifier for President. Au contraire....

Incidentally, EV, God is no more evident in the world than we are evident in our bodies. But so long as our assumptions are that we work the way the world works and that we work by will, the burden of proof is on the atheists.

Nope. What if we had a candidate who denied the holocaust happened but was otherwise exemplary? The good deeds wouldn't matter right? That denial alone clues you in that there's a basic cognitive deficiency in our hypothetical candidate.

Evolution is so central to modern biological science that such head in the sand idiocy should be automatically disqualifying.

I think the key conclusion to be drawn here is that Senator Brownback, when it comes to the question of evolution, is not thinking scientifically, but rather is thinking theologically.

Senator Brownback has theological first principles, and any scientific evidence that he believes contradicts those first principles is automatically discounted. Scientific thinking means being willing to question fundamental premises, and being willing to give up those premises should enough convincing empirical evidence come to light. Theological thinking means having faith that one's fundamental premises are true regardless of empirical evidence.

Stephen Jay Gould conceived of science and religion as "non-overlapping magisteria." Senator Brownback does not. And that leads one to wonder how he would approach science policy, and even empirical data generally.

I find his attitude about belief off-putting. It is one thing to have faith and quite another to have it with this convinction. These beliefs play such a central role in his reasoning in that any claims that contravene them are not only false, they don't even fall in the realm of "science" but "atheistic theology posing as science." This strikes me as very strong language. He even states it in the passive voice, in a general manner, as if we all should believe and act this way as well. I have no problem with an executive with strong beliefs about things not provably true or false, but his certainty in these beliefs - the hints that we should all be so certain - reflects poorly on his judgement. He sounds stubborn and arrogant, and I wouldn't think these traits are only characteristic of his attitude about religious matters but other, more politically salient matters as well.

Although I wouldn't want a president as confident in his atheism, at least I would now that this purely hypothetical president probably had great respect for "reason" and scientific thinking.

I'm sure we can think of various times throughout history where something "so central to modern . . . science" or otherwise viewed as beyond question was indeed legitimately challenged. This is why academic freedom, freedom of speech/religion/etc. need to be so absolute...

And that leads one to wonder how he would approach science policy, and even empirical data generally.

With a pitchfork and a torch, apparently.

"The conviction that there can be no more reliable a source of truth than whatever we've defined "science" to be (which BTW was a subset of philosophy until a couple hundred years ago!) is every bit as much an article of "faith" as is the opposite view."

Nice try, but no dice, aside from I guess comforting yourself.

The definition of science is basically not that much different from the principles of the everyday empiricism we ALL admit to by virtue of dealing with the physical world in a rational way. You're posting to the internet on a device developed by scientists: you're doing this INSTEAD of trying to beam your thoughts directly into our minds. So even you seem to implicitly admit that one is far more reasonable than the other.

I'm sorry if the rest of philosophy is a bit envious of the ability of science to deliver useful and verifiable to all (rather than just to believers) truths to a degree no amount of faith seems capable of, but science really can't help that.

"What thing does Brownback disbelieve that is provably true, if one assumes a God who can perform miracles?"

We can approach this question as reasonable people approach almost all questions in life, or we can approach it by insisting that "provably true" means "so clearly true that there is zero doubt." Prof. Volokh appears to be using the latter approach, which Descartes' thought experiment (viewed critically and sensibly) showed doesn't get one any farther than knowing that one exists. That seems to me to be the wrong approach to the "provably true" concept.

Using the approach that almost all of us actually use in real-life situations, then the answer to the question is: Senator Brownback denies the provably true fact that human beings descended, via application of the principles of natural selection, from earlier "primitive" -- more apelike -- species. Sure, a "God that performs miracles" might have intentionally placed in the archaeological/genetic record the abundant evidence of such descent that actually exists, simply in order to fool us (or for any other reason that He chose). But that hypothesis, like the one Prof. Volokh explicitly mentions in connection with planetary motion (that we're simply dreaming) has meaning only if we're applying the extreme definition of "provably true." And that definition is so extreme as to be literally meaningless.

Indeed, as I understand scientific reasoning, nothing is "provably true" in any ultimate sense; instead, a great number of things are provably false, and propositions that are falsified are rejected, permitting us to continue the never-ending quest for "true" propositions. And such falsification is accomplished through application of reasonable and not extreme notion of what is sufficient proof (i.e., a notion that rejects the possibility that the scientists in question are all dreaming).

It is correct that any candidate who is an orthodox, believing Christian presumably believes in at least one miracle, and probably in several. But as one commenter pointed out, such belief -- in a miracle or miracles that happened long, long ago -- is different from disbelieving current facts that, under any reasonable definition, are clearly true.

"I'm sorry if the rest of philosophy is a bit envious of the ability of science to deliver useful and verifiable to all (rather than just to believers) truths to a degree no amount of faith seems capable of, but science really can't help that."

It's interesting that Augustine believed scripture should be interpreted so as to not pose any inconsistencies with otherwise-known (i.e., science, intuition, etc.) facts, so as to maintain credibility with the world. Aquinas, on the other hand, seemed content to only use reason when it suited his theology (for which he was criticized by Russell and other atheists/agnostics).

I believe that it's rational for somebody to believe that science is 99.99999% accurate, and yet that his faith is 100% accurate, and thus when they occasionally depart (which need not happen very often in daily life!) that faith would thus come first...

I realize this poses all sorts of *practical* problems, but is there any *logical* problem here?

"I'm sure we can think of various times throughout history where something "so central to modern . . . science" or otherwise viewed as beyond question was indeed legitimately challenged. This is why academic freedom, freedom of speech/religion/etc. need to be so absolute..."

This is the famous "they laughed at Einstein, they laughed at Galileo" dodge. But the reality is that they also laughed at the Marx Brothers. Yes, plenty of new ideas have radically challenged longtime assumptions (though never to quite the degree often portrayed). But that in and of itself is not a legitimate argument against any specific consensus or body of evidence. Science IS always open to challenges, but challenges on the evidence, not of rhetoric. Einstein and Galileo brought evidence to the table.

It's also worth noting that since the advent of modern science, not a whole lot of the big ticket items (or which evolution is undeniably is one) really HAS been completely overturned. Even Eistein and others who ushered in the crazy realm of QM vastly deepened our understanding of the universe, but not to the extent that it made older equations wrong: they continued to be useful and accurate within the realms and scales in which they were developed. Likewise, things like common descent and evolutionary change are highly unlikely to turn out to be completely wrong: there is just too much convergent evidence for them. We may well one day turn out to discover unexpected and important new principles and ideas. But if so, they almost certainly will deepen our understanding rather than invalidating older, comparatively sloppier constructs.

Prof. Volokh appears to be using the latter approach, which Descartes' thought experiment (viewed critically and sensibly) showed doesn't get one any farther than knowing that one exists. That seems to me to be the wrong approach to the "provably true" concept.

Right. If Brownback thinks a deceitful demon might've faked the fossil record, inserted mitochondrial DNA into our cells, and whisked the WMD's out of Iraq just as our troops crossed the border, then he should say so. Preferably on video.

Otherwise, the objection belongs in undergraduate philosophy class.

I just don't know if I could be comfortable voting for a guy who would authorize a 26 year old press secretary to instruct a volunteer intern to go out and and find someone to ghost write an op-ed like this!

1. We might argue that this shows Brownback believes things that are provably false, and that this reflects badly on his judgment. But while I myself believe in evolution, I can hardly say that divine creation is provably false, at least under any familiar standard of "proof." If God exists, and he can work miracles, he might have created man in a way that makes evolution look plausible. I don't see any evidence for this proposition, but I can't say I can disprove it. For that matter, I can't say that a theory that man was created by super-intelligent aliens -- either created from scratch or "uplifted," to borrow David Brin's science fiction term, from apes -- is provably false.

I realize you're going out of your way to be impartial here, but you're smarter than this, Eugene. Obviously, science makes certain assumptions about the reality of the empirically-observed world that are vulnerable if one stipulates to the existence of an omnipotent God who does things like putting dinosaur fossils in the ground as a test of faith, but the problem is, as pointed out above, that if you accept that premise, nothing is "provably false." We all assume, concededly without "proof" in the absolute sense, that the empirical observations presented by our senses are a generally accurate depiction of external physical reality. By that standard, Brownback's refusal to accept the truth of human evolution is, at best, an irrational departure from the principle of Occam's Razor, as Darwin demonstrated persuasively that we need not hypothesize an omnipotent creator in order to explain the abundance and diversity of life on Earth. At worst, Brownback's position is a willfully ignorant and rather narcissistic refusal to see the world as it is, rather than as he would prefer it to be.

Are school boards being overrun with ressurrectionists who want to teach an alternative viewpoint to death?

because this then raises the question why a creator would create creatures in such a way as to look, for all the world, like they evolved from each other

So that secular intellectuals like you could doubt the veracity of the Holy Bible and ensure your eternal damnation, silly!

Does anybody who believes creationism to be intellectually illegitimate *not* believe the same to be true of the resurrection?

Sure. The Resurrection is not a scientific event; it's a "one-off" miracle of the type EV expressly includes. By definition, it's a violation of the natural order -- which for a strict empiricist like Hume, was enough reason to disbelieve in it. But most of us are less strict.

Whereas creationism leads us to infer the type of God that I invoked above to tease GuestJ.

"I believe that it's rational for somebody to believe that science is 99.99999% accurate, and yet that his faith is 100% accurate, and thus when they occasionally depart (which need not happen very often in daily life!) that faith would thus come first..."

I personally don't see why faith comes anywhere in terms of determining factual truth.

"I realize this poses all sorts of *practical* problems, but is there any *logical* problem here?"

When your beliefs don't match up with the evidence, that doesn't mean that your beliefs are for sure wrong, but it does mean you'd better darn well consider the possibility seriously, or else I'm gonna have some severe doubts about your judgment.

"But while I myself believe in evolution, I can hardly say that divine creation is provably false, at least under any familiar standard of 'proof.'"

I think this is wrong. Pick any standard of "proof" familiar to law professors. Under any of them, the God thesis fails. It is not supported by substantial evidence; it is not more likely than not true on the evidence; and the case against it is beyond a reasonable doubt (with the stress on the word "reasonable"). To understand why, simply do as Sam Harris suggests and think of any context in which we use the word "God" (e.g., "In God We Trust"). Now, substitute the word "Zeus" for the word "God." If that doesn't convince you, consider a similar case. Aristotle's theory of why falling objects gained speed as they approached the earth was because they sensed they were heading toward home. This theory must be as difficult to "prove" false as the God thesis, and yet no one (after Newton) argues that it should be taken seriously.

Is a Christian worthy of support?

A strongly devout Christian? No. This isn't a Christian nation. What if our President really was a committed "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" Christian? I supposed he'd offer Osama the Empire State Building.

Christianity is good for neighborhood relations, but its no way to run a country.

if we say it's intellectually legitimate to believe in a virgin birth, a resurrection, walking on water, and countless other "non-scientific" tenets of certain faiths, then why draw the line at whether a Creator could have reasonably done something else inconsistent with the "evidence?"

Maybe I'm alone in this camp, but I don't think we can assume that any of this is intellectually legitimate.

"I personally don't see why faith comes anywhere in terms of determining factual truth."

Many devoutly faithful believe that divine revelation is actually the *most* reliable source of truth -- not just some gap-filler for the things man can't figure out "on his own." So it seems rational to me for somebody to prioritize their faith on those rare occasions where it may differ with science and/or even reason...provided, of course, that one does not presuppositionally stipulate scientific claims to be 100% infallible.

so would "strict empiricism" like Hume's be an article of faith, since he actively rejects the resurrection merely for lacking evidence one way or the other?

Today, I'm defending Darwin; you'll have to find a Humean for that one. Though if you've never read "Of Miracles," it's a hoot.

So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding,and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

I like John Derbyshire's comment that hearing Brownback talk about evolution versus creationism is like hearing Paris Hilton talk about partial differential equations.

The same can be said regarding Richard Dawkins discussing religion (though Dawkins is surely a fine scientist).

Oh, and, while the evidence (or absence of evidence) for God and for werewolves may be the same, it's not true that the evidence for werewolves and for God is of equal strength. Werewolves, as conceived of in the common folklore, are predatory creatures that live among human beings. It would be reasonable to expect that their existence should produce evidence human beings would find. At least some conceptions of God, by contrast, build in the notion that God would be expected to be outside ordinary human experience.

At least some conceptions of God, by contrast, build in the notion that God would be expected to be outside ordinary human experience.

Yeah, and if Brownback were an eighteenth-century Deist, his views might be defensible (or at least not falsifiable) on that ground. But clearly Brownback, and the vast majority of contemporary theists, believe in a deity that routinely intervenes in human affairs, and therefore one would expect to find the same degree of telltale evidence of such intervention that one would find of other supernatural creatures living among us. Celestial werewolf tracks, or some such thing. The absence of any such reliable evidence is inconsistent with belief in an intercessory deity.

"Ohad: The same can be said regarding Richard Dawkins discussing religion (though Dawkins is surely a fine scientist)."

I often hear people saying things like this, humphing and harumpfing that Dawkins doesn't address the particular white elephant exception they think their faith has, but I have never really encountered anyone seriously grappling with the actual arguments Dawkins makes in his books.

"Esquire: Many devoutly faithful believe that divine revelation is actually the *most* reliable source of truth"

Well, that's nice and all, but it's a not a particular useful definition of truth. The truth science deals in are truths that we can all verify in our common reality. It most certainly cannot encompass all possible imaginable truths: it is, in fact, a fairly constrained scope. But that's precisely its power. All these divine revelations can't offer any real hope of anyone agreeing to them. We can all run around claiming that we have a direct line to "Truth" but problem is, that sort of Truth just doesn't allow for any useful comparison or test against other people's reality.

"So it seems rational to me for somebody to prioritize their faith on those rare occasions where it may differ with science and/or even reason...provided, of course, that one does not presuppositionally stipulate scientific claims to be 100% infallible."

I think you have it backwards. Science is pretty much by definition the admission that no claim is 100% infaliable, and thus we must always check our work over and over, always come back to the evidence again and again. What you are saying seems to essentially be that first we admit that... and then we spin around and claim that we can just divine the ultimate truth without any feeling that we have to back it up with something. That DOES seem a little sketchy, frankly.

derbyshire has done some great (by far the best at NRO) skewering of "scientific creationists" etc. and some of their ridiculous claims.

again, i have yet to see any evidence that brownback does not believe in evolution. it seems people are making a lot of assumptions. i read his statement three times. i don't think prof. volokh's premise is supported, that started this whole thread.

the burden of proof is on the atheists

Can you prove a negative? An Atheist would have to show that there is no God, never was a God, and Never will be a God based on any concept of what God is... Seems pretty difficult. Sorry, you can not transfer the burden of proof that easily.

"Can you prove a negative?"

in some cases, yes. in others - no. this is one of the biggest pop-philosophy fallacies around - the "you can't prove a negative". in SOME cases you can.

but i understand your point.

" An Atheist would have to show that there is no God, never was a God, and Never will be a God based on any concept of what God is"

yes. a socalled "strong atheist" would. that's why atheism in this respect can be argued to be a belief system/leap of faith, in the same way that any religion can.

god is an issue of faith. all pascal'esque wanking aside, it's that simple. faith is not science, and fails miserably when people try to make it science (see: 'scientific creationism')

but stating you know there is no god (vs. you don't BELIEVE in god, or you doubt his existence) is just as much a leap of faith as saying you do believe in god, or have faith in god.

i also see no evidence, based on brownback's essay that he denies "evolution as a process". if i could distill what he says down to the barebones, he says evolution can be seen as having the hand of god behind it. which is of course conveniently unprovable, but that's kind of the nature of religion

I think that a president who believes in creationism is less likely to do damage to us and our society that a persident who holds any of several other non-scientific beliefs, like say in the efficacy of socialism, or in the benefits of central planning.

Cornellian wrote at 5.31.2007 4:46pm:

I like John Derbyshire's comment that hearing Brownback talk about evolution versus creationism is like hearing Paris Hilton talk about partial differential equations.

Or Brittany Spears on semiconductor physics?

Link may or may not be work-safe, YMMV. But it does feature some differential equations, and an interesting (and work-safe) vignette of another popular star who actually did make a significant contribution to technology.

You never answered me. Is saying there is no Santa take just as much of a leap of faith as saying there is a Santa? That's absurd, we both know it.

yes. a socalled "strong atheist" would. that's why atheism in this respect can be argued to be a belief system/leap of faith, in the same way that any religion can.

I disagree. Anyone who doubts would have to leap the same hurdle in your belief system. Agnostics uniquely hold that they DON'T know. That lack of faith in god's existence does not necessarily mean belief that he doesn't exist.

but stating you know there is no god (vs. you don't BELIEVE in god, or you doubt his existence) is just as much a leap of faith as saying you do believe in god, or have faith in god.

This makes as much sense as saying that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.

There's a difference between the hard-agnostics who say that NOBODY could know, and the soft-agnostics who humbly say THEY don't know, while still aknowledging that maybe a higher being could have revealed himself convincingly to somebody else...

The battle for the burden...he who sets the default, wins.

JLR,

"Stephen Jay Gould conceived of science and religion as "non-overlapping magisteria." Senator Brownback does not."

How do you reconcile this with his statment that "The scientific method, based on reason, seeks to discover truths about the nature of the created order and how it operates, whereas faith deals with spiritual truths. The truths of science and faith are complementary: they deal with very different questions, but they do not contradict each other". That seems to be saying exactly what you would like.

Senator Brownback states exactly what he objects to - any theory of evolution which would require him to accept an "exclusively materialistic" viewpoint which "holds no place for a guiding intelligence". He objects to the philosophical ideas that are often promoted alongside scientific evolutionary theory - the idea that God is not the ultimate creator of the universe, the idea that human beings are not "special" in the sense of having a different relationship to God than the animals.

I'm just a simple caveman lawyer. I'm not a scientist. I don't have much of a first-hand opinion on whether or how macro-evolution occurs. I know that scientists who know more about science than me do believe in macro-evolution, and I can accept their conclusion, although there is plenty of disagreement about how this occurs. With Senator Brownback, though, I do not believe I am required to assent to the other philosophical and theological assertions that are often put forward by evolution proponents, assertions which I do not believe have been or can be proven by evolutionary theory.

whit, I won’t derail the thread further, but just because science doesn’t answer something doesn’t mean you can plug in some concept and claim that it takes faith to believe that concept does not exist. So, no, I don’t see the difference. Your argument pared down seems to be that we can’t scientifically explain certain things therefore it takes faith not to believe that God exists. That’s a non-sequtiur. I don’t expect science to answer many questions, but that doesn’t mean the answer is God.

Regarding your comment that an honest atheist will admit there's no way to prove God's non-existence. In a trivial sense, that’s true. Different people will define God in different ways so no “proof” could disprove God in that sense. It’s a moving target. Once somebody defines what they mean by God, then you’re wrong. I can use my experiences, the claims made by people about God, etc. to come to a reasonable certainty based on the evidence that there is no God. Much like I would do with Santa. So unless you’re implicitly accepting (which you are) that the burden is on other people to somehow prove God does not exist, I can certainly believe and know that he does not exist.

At the end of the day, I think the postmodern-relativistic types may have one thing right -- that even if there is absolute truth at some fundamental level, there's nothing to stop the human will from rejecting it.

Of course, I still cannot for the life of me see how reason or science can unilaterally render assertions of faith somehow "invalid" -- the debate is older than Augustine, Aquinas, and other better-minds-than-mine which have grappled with the conflict.

If science is to preserve its status as being above philosophical banter, it by definition cannot get into dogmatic mandates that speak to people's foundational premises or worldviews.

Esquire: "Well, nobody ever said (or at least proved) that truth has anything to do with people's agreement on it (as uncomfortable and impractical as this notion could become!)."

That's irrelevant. There may or may not be some "truth" of the sort you are talking about, but it really doesn't much matter, because we'll never be able to establish it or do anything with it precisely BECAUSE we can't get people to agree.

The truth, small "t" science deals in, whatever you want to call it, works and IS someone that compels agreement on its own terms. Science gets way way beyond the basic premises of empiricism too: most faith beliefs never really manage that: they are just restatements of the original beliefs with no unsought convergence even on their own terms.

"And while many of the criticisms of a faith-driven worldview do indeed illuminate all sorts of *practical* problems, I'm still not seeing any *logical* fallacy inherent in elevating divine revelation above other epistemological sources."

There's no logical problem with sophilsm either. So? You're confusing terms: logic is about the validity of ARGUMENTS. Simply saying "I believe X, end of story" is not an argument, it's just a bare premise. But anyone can have a bare premise, especially if they feel no need to either prove it or at least show that it's unavoidable for most people in practice.

Tim Amulb: "Senator Brownback states exactly what he objects to - any theory of evolution which would require him to accept an "exclusively materialistic" viewpoint which "holds no place for a guiding intelligence". He objects to the philosophical ideas that are often promoted alongside scientific evolutionary theory - the idea that God is not the ultimate creator of the universe, the idea that human beings are not "special" in the sense of having a different relationship to God than the animals."

The problem is that if you read Brownback's claims, he basically says that ANYTHING beyond "species change in small ways over time" is a philosophical idea that we can rule out because it negates his belief that God is a designer. That means that things like common descent are ruled out (though without having to get up and say so directly). See the bait and switch there?

"The demarcation between a scientific theory and a metaphysical theory is that the first looks for refutations it can survive and the second just looks for any confirmation." SenatorX

Senator, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm no philosopher but you're far less of one. Certainly, in analytical philosophy, reason plays a highly probative, skeptical and even corrosive role vis-a-vis metaphysical theory (here at Volokh for only the barest hint of the barest beginning of such an inquiry). Too, both scientific theory and metaphysical theory look for confirming data as well as data that might refute any hypothesis/theory.

A better way to characterize this "demarcation" you're referring to might be by reference to empiricism, but even that is problematic since the further one "strays" from the hard sciences (physics, first and foremost) the more one is forced to rely upon various forms of rationalism and rationalizations (aka hypotheses) and the less upon empiricism per se. That's little more than a characterization, but reflects a set of relevant qualities nonetheless.

I've never seen why people just don't get the burden of proof concept. As whit says, if you run around claiming that there is no god, then congratulations: you've incurred a burden of proof.

And, frankly, you've done so pointlessly, in my mind. Simply not believing in God is good enough without running around claiming to know that there is no God. Be as skeptical of the claims FOR God's existence made as you need, and then simply remain unconvinced about the binary issue of whether or not there is a God. If a theist cannot establish their burden of proof that God exists, then that's that, game over. There's no need to go any further.

"but I can't for the life of me see how anything in the quoted section above (in the post) amounts to any assertion of a separate creation if that's supposed to mean a denial of common ancestry in speciation."

Saying you believe in small changes within species but on the other hand you don't believe in all that vile evolutionist nonsense is boilerplate creationism. Yes, his construction is very very careful not actually state anything outright or address the issue of speciation or common descent, but that's exactly what's so shady about it. He lumps all of that into the category of godless purposelessness by implication instead of actually mentioning it directly and taking a position.

Heck, the guy doesn't even come out against a 6000 year old earth.

Oh Michelle B, I didn't invent that it's pure Karl Popper. You're right, you are no philosopher.

Whit: "an honest atheist will admit there is no way to prove god's nonexistence. i certainly can't prove he exists or doesn't exist, nor would i claim that i know he does or doesn't exist."

Dawkins' recent book relates Bertrand Russell's example of the orbiting teapot. This idea says there is a very small teapot orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Now, we can't disprove that right now. So, how does the rational person approach the idea of the orbiting teatpot? And, what does our lack of proof do for the supporters of the celestial teapot? Is it reasonable to believe in the teapot?

Oh SenatorX, you fail to provide an intelligible argument. Your invocation of Popper means nothing without reasoning through your argument, which is to say both transparently and cogently.

Instead of any type of serious engagement, you duck. That you once opened some pages of Popper means nothing. You were the one, after all, who referred to positively looking "for refutations" that can be survived. Yet when put to the test, you invoke authority and an empty and ineffective retort, one that relies upon dismissiveness rather than reason.

Because it's being aggressively asserted by political interest groups in an attempt to undermine science education for religious purposes. There's no practical consequence to someone's belief in the capital-R Resurrection. The practical consequence of creationism's political agenda is crappy science education.

So hopefully one positive side effect of electing Brownback president would be to get liberals to stop thinking that the federal government should have any role in science education.

"also, as noted, the teapot does not answer any (eternal and universal questions). god does. "

Well, I sort of disagree there. I think that in general, the idea that god answers questions is basically illusionary. Issues like morality or purpose turn out to not really be any better off with a god than without. God often just ends up being a nametag for an explanation that never actually arrives: just a rephrase of "something I don't understand happened in a way I don't understand... but at least I KNOW that it was done by a being I cannot fully conceive of and cannot explain!"

"atheists are usually guilty of thinking they are oh so much smarter/rational than theists, and thus can't stand to admit they have made a leap of faith in their KNOWING god does not exist."

To be fair to atheists, however, a lot of them grow up in isolation and reacting to theists who often try to phrase the issue in a confusing manner so that there ISN'T any other position than having to claim god doesn't exist. Heck, the whole debate over what the word atheist means is pretty much a microcosym of that basic confusion. Plenty of people will happily call me an atheist, for instance, when I tell them that I don't believe in God, and then they will turn around and ask me to defend the claim that God doesn't exist. Uh, what? So I can see how a lot of reactive atheists go metaphysically overboard, not to excuse the error. It's also worth noting that while I don't agree with any I've come across, many strong atheists generally claim to have rational arguments as to why a (generally specific) God cannot exist. Thus it's not really quite fair to accuse them of having a faith or a dogma. Of course, by the same measure, it's not really fair to accuse theists of that either, though in many cases its the theists themselves that assert that they have faith.

I only made it about halfway through these comments. I wanted to commend EV's analysis, and point to one bit--

But what makes evolution better is that this naturalistic assumption is much more productive of potentially useful predictions about the world.

--that seems to conflate evolution as a theory of origins with evolution as an observable phenomenon. I don't know of any Christian (although I'm sure there are some) who doesn't believe that we can see animals adapt to their environments through natural selection and that new species develop in response to environmental changes. That's where the "predictive power" of evolution comes from.

You could argue that a theory of evolution that posits (as a macroevolutionary theory of origins does) that life can be spontaneously generated from non-life predicts the fact that life can be spontaneously generated from non-life in the future (or is in the present), but I'm not sure anyone expects to see that. Do they? Is that valuable?

My point is that Christians who accept evolution as an observable fact of life but reject it as a satisfactory philosophical explanation for the existance of humanity bring most (as far as I can see, all) of evolution's predictive value. This is the position virtually every Christian I know takes, and quite possibly the position Mr. Brownback takes.

I fully expect, Mr. Volokh, that there is a glaring flaw in this point; if you get this far into the comments, I hope you'll respond. Thanks for the excellent post.

"But does it account for all the differentiation of species (recognizing that species is an arbitrary concept)?"

I don't know how we could prove that it accounts for ALL of the differentiation, and there are a lot of different evolutionary mechanisms. But certainly evolution CAN account for all these things pretty handily. Heck, the degree of morphological change in the fossil record is orders of magnitude SLOWER than the observed rates of change in nature: one of the big issues in evolutionary biology is actually why evolution is so conservative in practice.

"Someday I want to write on Devolution"

No such thing really. Evolution isn't directional.

"and Unintelligent Design."

Again, evolution cannot promise optimality (and in fact, bizarre convoluted solutions to what should be easy design problems are a hallmark of evolutionary algorithms)

"Why do we have an appendix whose sole function is to give us appendicitis?"

It clearly served a useful purpose in creatures we are related to, so it is vestigial. As to whether its sole function in us is just to cause that disease, we can't say for sure, but again, evolutionary processes can't always get "there" from "here."

"Why do we get bald on top, where we most need protection from sun? hy is impotence a common problem among older men (who remain fertile to their dying day) and not among women (who by then have lost the capacity to add to the species)?"

Again, evolution does not promise perfection, let alone the subjective perfection you might happen to care about. There is no real reason to think that human beings as organisms prior to modern society ever even had a evolutionary pressure to live long enough to worry about going bald. Evolution doesn't necessarily have to have a reason: stuff breaks, and at that point, it doesn't matter so there is no pressure to correct it.

"I never have figured out how the scorpion evolved. He needs a tail, a sting, and venom-generating gland. Any one is useless without the others."

Really? I don't see how you could think that. All can exist for other purposes. Tails are a given to begin with, and stingers are an obvious improvement over a tail with no stinger. Start having cells secrete poisonous substances is even better on top of that, and so on.

Joe: "My point is that Christians who accept evolution as an observable fact of life but reject it as a satisfactory philosophical explanation for the existence of humanity bring most (as far as I can see, all) of evolution's predictive value."

You are confusing issues here. Evolution is not a "philosophical" explanation for the existence of humanity, nor is it directly in contradiction with any one that someone might have. It DOES explain that we are apes and shared a common historical ancestry with other apes. If one believes that was all in keeping with what God intended, then in fact there really is no contradiction at all. Science doesn't support that idea or deny it: it's an issue outside of evolution.

Michael B: "That's a leap of faith."

No: a leap of faith is saying: "I can't prove this, but I believe it." That's not what they are saying. Even if you think they are wrong, then what they are is mistaken, not engaging in faith.

"Such would be the case only if those putatively "rational arguments" were valid and conclusive."

Indeed. If not, then they would be in error (as I think most are). But that's still not faith. When someone makes the modal ontological argument for God, I think they are clearly wrong, but what they are not engaging in is a leap of faith. They are making an argument.

"And why, pray tell, do you not require of yourself what you require of others in the adjacent thread?"

There's no disconnect. I'm not making an accusation against anyone, just summarizing what they themselves say they argue. That's not the same thing as claiming that someone's arguments are laughable but then never bothering to present the argument as to why.

Actually Michael your comment is thick with projection.

Please tell me again why Popper's demarcation is not relevant here? And no "A better way to characterize this "demarcation" you're referring to might be by reference to empiricism" that’s not a better way. In fact it exposes an ignorance of the subject. Empiricism was rejected by Popper and not for the reasons you would like.

The irony of you accusing me of going to Popper for authority instead of providing context is not lost on me considering his well executed attack on knowledge of any sort having ANY claim on authority. Hardly the same thing as the empiricist demarcation is it now? The empiricist view is flawed not because it gets weak as it moves away from the "hard sciences" but because it has no more authority to claim the truth via perception than any other source. In fact for Popper there are no hard sciences as you refer to them because even the most apparently immutable laws of physics will be perceived in new ways.

I find Popper relevant in almost every way important frankly. The more people that understand the folly of placing creationist theories next to scientific ones as equals the better. That a man could do this and be elected leader of the country I live in amazes me.

Funny...when secularists debate ID, they often say that creationism is fine as religion, but just keep it out of science class. But now in response to Brownback, there are a lot of people saying that "science" always needs to *trump* any given religion in the event of a conflict...lest one be tagged anti-intellectual or some such.

By definition, one cannot offer science (previously known as the PHILOSOPHY of scientific naturalism, which is why science doctorates are still called Ph.D.s) as somehow offering "universally-agreeable" answers, if half the population is willing to side with their respective religion (whatever it may be) whenever there's a conflict.

Russell said Aquinas was not a "true philosopher" because by his own admission he was not willing to go *wherever* reason took him. But, to rule out the possibility of ever encountering a higher truth than reason strikes me as an article of faith in itself...the relative sizes of leaps of which can be shaky territory to quantify.

Senatorx,

Believe me, as with your other ad hominem displays, we can accuse one another of mere projection 24/7.

I have a great deal of respect for Popper, I have five volumes of his on my shelves (so if you'd provide a citation it might help). I simply find your construals less than serious, much less probative. I don't mind you going to Popper for authority per se, I mind you going to him without any attendant explication and fuller development. By your measure, that's somehow presumptuous? Too, I was not defending "creationist theories," in part because I have no idea what you intend by the term, though yes I am a theist and you can brand me with that curse all you care.

In terms of my reply, I already did so, directly upthread.

Too, I stated the following: "A better way to characterize this "demarcation" you're referring to might be by reference to empiricism, but even that is problematic since the further one "strays" from the hard sciences (physics, first and foremost) the more one is forced to rely upon various forms of rationalism and rationalizations (aka hypotheses) and the less upon empiricism per se. That's little more than a characterization, but reflects a set of relevant qualities nonetheless."

Iow I was not being conclusive and definitive, I was merely being suggestive and tentative.

And plunge, I did reply, with commentary by a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine, here, and secondly with commentary by Alvin Plantinga, professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, here.

But enough for today.

Plunge,

Belief in evolution becomes a philosophical position when it insists that an omniscient being did not create a world in which evolution occurs. Correct or not, that is a philosophical position.

Replying to the original post (!): The difference between believing in creationism and believing in the virgin birth or resurrection is that Brownback doesn't just believe in something which can't be proven by the physical world--he believes in something which is *outright contradicted* by the physical world.

It would be possible to believe in a type of creationism which doesn't have this sort of problem. For instance, Brownback could believe in some sort of omphalos theory, where God made the world in six days, but made it look exactly as if it was billions of years old. That theory would be nonscientific and depend on faith, but Brownback could assert that theory without making any factual errors.

On the other hand, the creationism we normally know of in America makes incorrect factual claims. Creationists don't just say that dinosaurs lived with cavemen but God hid all the evidence. They say that dinosaurs lived with cavemen, and God did *not* hide the evidence, and scientists don't see the evidence because they're Satanic. Creationists don't say that there was a Noah's flood, but God faked the fossil record to look billions of years old. They say that the fossil record *doesn't* look billions of years old, and that scientists who think so are ignorant, rather than understandably fooled by God's fake evidence.

(That being said, there *is* a case to be made for not voting for someone who believes in a virgin birth or resurrection. Believing in arbitrary weird things without evidence is not good. The only reason we should accept politicians who believe in the virgin birth is that we understand that humans can compartmentalize their religion, and their weird beliefs don't extend to other areas.)

"I'm glad we've evolved to the point where we can discount the philosophical positions of nearly all history's great pre-1800 minds."

You say that like they didn't have all sorts of beliefs that none of us find credible today: like the belief that Africans were impossible to educate and had a musical spirit. Being great and famous for some things does not prevent you from being wrong.

"Joe Bingham: Belief in evolution becomes a philosophical position when it insists that an omniscient being did not create a world in which evolution occurs. Correct or not, that is a philosophical position."

Sure, but that's not what evolution is.

I don't see any reason to believe that God created the universe, but it's certainly not hypothetically inconsistent with evolution, or even abiogenesis.

Ken Miller presents one pretty plausible sketch of a theology that explains why the universe is as it is (according to science) and why God would want it that way in his book "Finding Darwin's God." I still don't believe it, or see any compelling reason to need to believe it, but I celebrate the spirit in which it was conceived by someone who does, and I don't find any fault in it beyond not being convinced myself.

If one accepts a strict constructionist view of the Creation of the world from the standpoint of Genesis, would that same person be likely to strictly interpret the constitution.

I don't think there is any evidence for this proposition. It seems more of an argument of wishful thinking since people tend to compartmentalize their religion and apply different standards to their religious texts than they do secular works.

Joel B, I look forward to seeing how this Biblical strict constructionist is going to persuade the voters to vote for someone who favors the death penalty for working on the Sabbath, for women who have sex before marriage, and for any number of other Biblical provisions universally rejected by all but a few lunatics.

"But does it account for all the differentiation of species (recognizing that species is an arbitrary concept)?"

I don't know how we could prove that it accounts for ALL of the differentiation, and there are a lot of different evolutionary mechanisms. But certainly evolution CAN account for all these things pretty handily. Heck, the degree of morphological change in the fossil record is orders of magnitude SLOWER than the observed rates of change in nature: one of the big issues in evolutionary biology is actually why evolution is so conservative in practice.

Still have problems, see below.

"Someday I want to write on Devolution"

No such thing really. Evolution isn't directional.

One might hope it functions in the direction of favoring individuals who have the potential to increase population of the species. Otherwise it is not logical. So why would males, capable of procreation until death, often become impotent in age, when women, whose reproductive span is more limited, are quite capable of such (as Ben Franklin and Mark Twain so famously explained). And why do we have the appendix, whose sole function is to kill us and thus limit our reproduction?

"and Unintelligent Design."

Again, evolution cannot promise optimality (and in fact, bizarre convoluted solutions to what should be easy design problems are a hallmark of evolutionary algorithms)

It seems to me that this answer indicates that the theory cannot be refuted ... which means that, as with any posit of a divine being, it also cannot be proven. An omnipotent being planted all those fossils to test our faith, or because he really liked practical jokes. Evolution left behind all these artifacts that would kill off the genetic bearer, because it was imperfect. Or really likes practical jokes.

"Why do we have an appendix whose sole function is to give us appendicitis?"

It clearly served a useful purpose in creatures we are related to, so it is vestigial. As to whether its sole function in us is just to cause that disease, we can't say for sure, but again, evolutionary processes can't always get "there" from "here."

Sounds like an argument from faith to me. 2+ million years, and nobody has had a mutatation that gets rid of the appendix, or just shrinks it enough to reduce the problem? Cripes, we've had sickle-cell anemia, with no less than three genetic sources, that gives something of a resistance to malaria, at the cost of killing an appreciable number of its victims/beneficiaries.

"Why do we get bald on top, where we most need protection from sun? hy is impotence a common problem among older men (who remain fertile to their dying day) and not among women (who by then have lost the capacity to add to the species)?"

Again, evolution does not promise perfection, let alone the subjective perfection you might happen to care about. There is no real reason to think that human beings as organisms prior to modern society ever even had a evolutionary pressure to live long enough to worry about going bald. Evolution doesn't necessarily have to have a reason: stuff breaks, and at that point, it doesn't matter so there is no pressure to correct it.

Again, this starts to incline toward an argument based on faith rather than science and reason. If a given feature can be explained in terms of giving an advantage in reproduction, that proves evolution is responsible. If it cannot be so explained, it proves it was just a glitch. Yet I think we could all agree that (a) males who remained potent to the day they died would have a MASSIVE reproductive advantage until viagra was invented (and there were such mutations, look at Aaron Burr) and females who could have stretched out their reproductive years would have had the same advantage.

"I never have figured out how the scorpion evolved. He needs a tail, a sting, and venom-generating gland. Any one is useless without the others."

Really? I don't see how you could think that. All can exist for other purposes. Tails are a given to begin with, and stingers are an obvious improvement over a tail with no stinger. Start having cells secrete poisonous substances is even better on top of that, and so on.

Tails are not a given among arachnids. Stingers may be an improvement, but a tail stinger without toxin isn't much, the prey just runs off. Toxins not only require a gland to excrete them, but either immunity to them or a storage area. This is, shall we say, not so much as weapon as a weapon delivery system.

I should add, in case you haven't had the encounters with these fellows that I've had, the mere jab of the sting isn't likely to stop even a cricket. It's "ouch!" rather like being jabbed with a needle. Being as they have lousy eyesight, and hunt at night anyway, they'll have trouble finding prey that covered even a few feet after being hit. But cripes, do they have a neurotoxin!

I'm disappointed so many here would consider most of the great thinkers before the 20th century (excepting Hume and a few others) as unfit for public service.

I realize that theists have been taking an intellectual beating for a long time now, but this is a dreadfully tiresome canard that needs to be retired. People in earlier centuries-- including intelligent, educated, successful people-- believed all sorts of nonsense that wouldn't be justified today. Aristotle, who was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone posting in this thread, believed all kinds of crazy things that have since been disproven. There was a time when the educated class was justified in believing that the Earth was a flat disc in the center of the universe. Fortunately, the scope of human knowledge has moved past those primitive ideas, due in large part to western civilization's development and application of the scientific method. So the fact that Thomas Jefferson believed that the world was created by God does not in any way legitimize Sam Brownback's decision to hold that same belief today. Jefferson lacked the benefit of subsequent scientific breakthroughs; given his keen interest in natural philosophy, I have no doubt that if he were alive today, he would be an ardent student of evolutionary theory. Really, creationists, if the best you can do is point out that your views were considered mainstream 300 years ago, it's time to reassess your position.

James 999,
Yes-- my example is called "common sense," or "the accumulated body of knowledge about the basic tenets of Catholicism." Show me a mainstream Catholic who doesn't believe that God intercedes in human affairs, and maybe we'll have something to discuss. Otherwise I'm going to continue assuming that Brownback accepts the fundamental tenets of his professed faith.

Dave Hardy: "One might hope it functions in the direction of favoring individuals who have the potential to increase population of the species."

Yes, indeed that is the point (though less about population levels as much as surviving into the future period, however that's done). But that's precisely why it doesn't make sense to speak of "devolution" in the sense that you seem to: i.e. changes that seem subjectively less nice or less complex.

"So why would males, capable of procreation until death, often become impotent in age, when women, whose reproductive span is more limited, are quite capable of such (as Ben Franklin and Mark Twain so famously explained)."

Again, you are acting as if evolution sat down and planned things out, and so was being illogical. But in reality, evolution can only make moves in a particular landscape of nearby possibility. That's one thing that sets it apart from design. A designer can see a problem and just radically refit and solve it. If the engine of a 2005 Ford is fault, the 2006 model can appear with a totally new redesigned from scratch engine concept, or one borrowed in whole from a completely different company. That's NOT what we see happening in nature, and its beyond evolution's capability. Evolution can only work with what moves are available from where it is. If certain solutions are blocked by something or too far away, then it has to make do with some other solution or direction.

As I said, questions about what happens in old age to humans are probably moot, because it's only for an extremely tiny and evolutionarily irrelevant period that humans even lived long enough to worry about such things (and thus for them to have any bearing at all adaptively.) So there's no reason to think that there was any adaptive pressure to care about it.

"And why do we have the appendix, whose sole function is to kill us and thus limit our reproduction?"

As I already explained, evolution can't just magically solve any problem in any way. It's quite possible that the gene changes necessary to eliminate the appendix would cause other problems elsewhere. Or, alternatively, that the smaller an appendix gets (on the way to vanishing altogether) the MORE likely it is to get infected and rupture, and so it CAN'T just shrink away.

"It seems to me that this answer indicates that the theory cannot be refuted"

Not at all. In fact, turn it around and you have a pretty easy way to refute it: just show that some form of life exhibits any of forethought or planning.

"Evolution left behind all these artifacts that would kill off the genetic bearer, because it was imperfect."

You're confusing two different ideas. Again, evolution never promised optimal function in the first place, so how can you fault it for not delivering it? All that matters to long term persistence of a species is that its traits keep on adapting well enough to its environment to keep the generations going: that's not the same thing as saying that they must always have the best solution on tap and be perfect in every imaginable respect. Species that really DO develop traits which really do kill off too many really won't last, as we might expect. But just because you've found examples in which some people die off early is not really much of anything either way.

"Sounds like an argument from faith to me. 2+ million years, and nobody has had a mutatation that gets rid of the appendix, or just shrinks it enough to reduce the problem?"

I don't see how not knowing the full story on something, and admitting it, is faith. It would be faith if we claimed that we knew for certain the full story, not the other way around. As I already explained, the issue is a lot more complicated than that. There may not BE just one mutation in any direction from the current position of the genome that can get rid of it safely. A designer could do it easily, of course.

"Cripes, we've had sickle-cell anemia, with no less than three genetic sources, that gives something of a resistance to malaria, at the cost of killing an appreciable number of its victims/beneficiaries."

Yep. And this is exactly why one shouldn't immediately assume that some thing that causes horrible pain and nastiness is necessarily something evolution "should have" eliminated. Resistance to malaria is a big deal, and may well be worth the cost. Evolution deals in tradeoffs like these all the time. A lot of times a seeming major cost has some other tradeoff that makes it worth the cost.

"Again, this starts to incline toward an argument based on faith rather than science and reason."

Again, you seem so eager to get to that conclusion that you never really explain why it's "faith." I think the real problem here is that you treat everything as if it were one long argument trying to prove evolution is true.

"If a given feature can be explained in terms of giving an advantage in reproduction, that proves evolution is responsible."

No, we can already establish whether or not evolution was responsible via other means.

"If it cannot be so explained, it proves it was just a glitch."

Again, you are seeing evolution as if it were a thinking designer with purposes and intentions that it then irrationally fails to live up to. That's just not the way it works.

"Yet I think we could all agree that (a) males who remained potent to the day they died would have a MASSIVE reproductive advantage until viagra was invented (and there were such mutations, look at Aaron Burr) and females who could have stretched out their reproductive years would have had the same advantage."

Again: if no one ever lives that long anyway, why would it be any advantage at all? In fact, there are many reasons to hope that older members do not reproduce, because the older they are the more likely their offspring will be sickly or have heavy genetic damage, or get orphaned early (and thus at a disadvantage) and so on. Again, you are trying to tell a story without acknowledging all the other possible pressures and tradeoffs and so on that can also be at play.

If you just assumed that having a million offspring was the best way to propagate, then you'd be at a loss to explain why some creatures have only a few at a time. But that's because EITHER strategies can work out and be successful depending on the particular environment. It's the "depends" that we have to work out, and in fact what most biologists DO spend their time working out and demonstrating in excruciating detail.

"Tails are not a given among arachnids."

They most certainly are ancestrally and developmentally, whether or not all modern arachnids have them.

"Stingers may be an improvement, but a tail stinger without toxin isn't much, the prey just runs off."

Isn't much is still better than not, and that's all evolutionary advantages require. This is like the question "what good is 1% of an eye????" Well, frankly, it's a heck of a lot better than no eyes at all.

"Toxins not only require a gland to excrete them, but either immunity to them or a storage area. This is, shall we say, not so much as weapon as a weapon delivery system."

But none of that has to evolve all at once. The toxins can start out not being all that damaging to the surrounding tissue and get more damaging ALONGSIDE the development of a better way to store them.

Leviticus 11:9--12 says:

9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.
12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Deuteronomy 14;9--10 says:

9 These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:
10 And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

Perhaps someone should ask Senator Brownback whether he would permit shellfish to be served at a state dinner in light of these scriptures.

John Herbiso,

Joeseph Lieberman, as a traditional Jew, follows the Biblical rules you outline, among others, and doesn't eat selfish. If he had been elected Vice-President, presumably shellfish wouldn't have been served at state dinners. Would you be less inclined to vote for him over this? Is this something that ought to influence how one votes? Why?

Jimj: "Evolution is an insufficient first cause. And if evolution is outside the scope of first cause (an argument I’ve seen from time to time), it seems insufficient to explain the reality of what exists, and is nothing more than an attempt to avoid the difficulty of the question. "

That's some pretty strange reasoning: who EVER has claimed that evolution is a "first" cause? Who actually made this argument you've seen from time to time? Because it doesn't make any sense, and I can't see how anyone even remotely related to biology would actually make it. Evolution requires life, and in the only case we know about, required the planet Earth to exist. And the universe, which is to say, pretty much all the existence we know about, has been around a lot longer than the Earth. So who anywhere has claimed that biological evolution came before, well, even the universe? Or is that not what you meant to say?

"The God of the Old Testament is the only vehicle I’ve seen that satisfactorily provides for me a sufficient first cause."

I've never really seen the utility of this. Simply saying that the universe as we know it big banged seems simpler and just as valid as saying that God big banged the universe. In both cases we have something that we cannot explain he origin of in a causal sense, but then, both things are probably so far outside the context of our experience that it's silly to expect to know what they can and cannot do.

"For me, random chance is totally inadequate to explain the complexity of what’s out there."

Well, in that case, its worth pointing out that evolutionary processes are NOT, in fact, simple random chance at all.

"While I’ve seen many statements over the years that evolution is proven, I’ve never seen a convincing argument that holds up when looked at in its details."

Can you give examples?

"Yes, there is microevolution, where species change within themselves."

Ok, but you do understand that "species" is merely a population that can interbreed, and interbreed-ability is itself just a change int he genes of the gene pool, right? So there is no real "within" to species in that sense.

"But in making the case for macroevolution, where new species evolve by themselves from other species, there is always insufficient evidence to support the claim, and insufficient cause to support the change."

I've looked at the evidence, and I find it very far from insufficient. In fact, I find it very hard to even conceive of any other way to explain the evidence we have, because of the way it all converges to the same place in fine detail no matter what method is being used to test and examine it. That's something pretty much impossible to explain by the idea that even ALL of those methods are in error (because there still would be no reason for them to all give the same erroneous answers in such convergent ways).

"A factoid, by my definition, is a statement that, when repeated often enough, becomes true in spite of, not because of, the evidence. This is where I’ve seen the case for macroevolution."

Well, I don't agree. It's a fact because the evidence is there whole hog, period.

JimJ writes:
The God of the Old Testament is the only vehicle I’ve seen that satisfactorily provides for me a sufficient first cause.

The idea of God doesn't solve the problem of first cause, it only compounds it;

If the universe must have a first cause then so must God. If you can exempt God from needing a first cause then you can exempt the universe on the same basis. Any fancy footwork to claim that God exists "outside time" and such is just a dodge to avoid admitting the obvious inconsistency (much of theology and philosophy is dedicated to making things so confusing that it is hard to see how completely nonsensical they are.)

Even for those people who choose to ignore this logical conundrum and demand that God must provide first cause, there is nothing special about the God of Abraham that makes Him a better agent of first cause than any other equally powerful concept of god, be it Baal or Odin or what not. In fact, the God of Abraham is not all powerful given that it took 6 days to create the universe and such rather than an instant, and given that God had to do silly things like create a massive flood rather than just making all the evil people on earth disappear.

It does not follow that "The universe must have been created, therefore my god exists and exists to the exclusion of all others."

to be honest, although I think Eugene does a wonderful job parsing the arguments he does identify, there's one that he hasn't that is, for me, the most concerning.

as a matter of data analysis, i'm sure people that profess to the superiority of non-evolution (i tried to pick the most non-valent term, a practice that i know is frequently disfavored here), by doing so signal their liely position on a number if issues that many people find quite upsetting.

In response to scote's post about first causes, my very amateur understanding of the state of contemporary physics is that, at the quantum level, causation and temporal linearity just don't work the way the way we perceive them to in daily life, such that there is no need for a "first cause" of the universe. I would welcome input from someone with a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics who could elaborate upon or rebut my understanding, though.

scote,

Perhaps, but I think it could follow to say that everything in the physical universe appears to need a cause, so therefore there must be *something or someone* beyond the physical universe (as we understand it).

Michael, "So if one acts upon a mistaken belief, a belief that one is correct about some aspect of the world, such is not an act of faith?"

No Michael. If one makes an _argument_, based on logic or evidence, then they are not making a leap of faith.

Again: people who argue that the claimed qualities of God are incoherent or inconsistent are not making leaps of faith. People that argue that God exists because of the first cause argument are not making a leap of faith. They are making arguments. They may well be unconvincing, but people that offer arguments cannot de facto be accused of employing faith without some serious argument as to why.

"Of course it is, unless you wish to confuse contextual knowledge with Truth, which confusion broaches a metaphysical issue. "

But I don't, and haven't. Sorry. This is just another irrelevant discursive diatribe.

Esquire, I myself am a theist. But you're confusing issues. If you want to learn about the empirical world, you use empirical methods. E.g., you want to see what composes water, you electrolyze it in a lab. If you have a new theory about the composition of water, you can't just get it from a dusty scroll. Demonstrate it in the lab, and we can discuss it. Otherwise, can it.

Creationism simply has no seat at the table of empiricism. And like it or not, empiricism rules our empirical world.

Esquire: "Bottom line: Any assertion by one camp or the other that divine revelation trumps "empirical" data (*or* vice versa) circularly assumes that the opposite isn't true! Both sides can appeal to their respective *intuition* about what FEELS to be a sensible base-line, but at the end of the day that "gut" feeling is all you've got."

Well, there is the little matter of empiricism directly tracking the physical common reality we all live in, thus providing a basis for commonality. You can push your "I can walk through walls" beliefs all you want, but I think teachings people "if try to walk through a wlal you'll bump your nose" is more than just an arbitrary bias. Empirical science is all still just an extension of that realm.

Material reality isn't necessarily all there is, but it is probably the only stuff we can prove to everyone's satisfaction that there is, provided that they first concede that live within the material world. Given that they must concede this to even recognize that the debate is going on, I think it's a safe bet.

Isn't there a difference between conceding the reality of the physical world (which I stipulate to pretty readily, BTW!) and conceding that ALL of our inferences we derive from it are ALWAYS more accurate than any given (believed) divine revelation?

It seems that's where things break down, because when half the population believes in a God who at least *CAN* trump science/empiricism at (His) will, then we can't say it's still "universal" anymore in those certain cases...it then gets down to gut feelings about comparative reliability, no?

Esquire-give me an example where you believe divine revelation trumps empirical reality.

Atheism has no place whatsoever in a science class. Atheism is just more metaphysics.

Science is a method not a result.

Esquire, I reject nothing, not even miracles, a priori but, in this world, past performance is the best guarantee of future results.

If your teenage daughter comes home and says she's pregnant, would you believe her if she says the conception was immaculate?

If the Cosmos had a begining evolutionists have to answer the "something out of nothing" question. A question that is outside science also, isn't it?

No, it isn't, but that's a question for physicists, not biologists. I suspect that you don't know any more about quantum mechanics than I do, so there's no real point in exploring the question of the ultimate origins of the universe without someone here who knows a bit about the actual scientific theories involved. In any event, though, the theory of evolution picks up with the point at which organic, self-reproducing molecules first appear on Earth, and explains their subsequent development into the abundant diversity of life we see today. Whether the primordial Earth popped into existence by the word of God or by the operation of blind physical laws over the millions of years following the Big Bang is a question entirely irrelevant from an evolutionary perspective.

Plunge, we have a difference of opinion about what is false and misleading. You have clearly been brainwashed by the popular propaganda machine of our educational system.

Brownback's mentioning of the contrast of evolutionary models like Punctuated Equilibrium versus Darwinian Selection is certainly valid. You are being way too insecure if you think that such comments alone somehow dismisses evolution as being false. He is simply pointing out that there is much we don't know, and so a completely atheistic model still has a lot of problems.

You ask me to explain why the fossil record does not support common descent, or why there are statistical problems. This is not the forum for such long discussions. Surely you are aware of the huge gaps in the fossil record. Others have written volumes on this, many by atheistic evolutionists. Evoluionists like Ernst Mayr and George Gaylord Simpson have been honest enough in many of their tomes on this matter. Have you ever read a polyphyletic evolutionist like Kerkut ("Implications of Evolution") go through the problems with common descent?

I will agree with you that many creations present a lot of bad "science," but that is because many of them are theologians. The concept of origins crosses disciplines of knowledge and that is why there is so much confusion and bad mouthing one another. Have you ever read Robert Gentry's "Creation's Tiny Mystery"? That might present you with at least some basics of an actual creationist who understands science and presents interesting data and uses a strong inference method of disproving competing hypotheses.

Your last comment assumes that here is no empirical data supporting creationist models of evolution. This is just more bogus propaganda that you have erroneously accepted. For example, if an evolutionist posits a uniformitarian model for a geological structure, it is perfectly reasonable to point out the polystrate fossils in the strata and argue that a catastrophic event in line with a creationist model is better supported by the empirical data.

FYI, disinformation like Mr. Miller's is handily refuted by browsing at talkorigins.org. For instance, the "gaps! in! the! fossil! record!!!" bit is addressed at their FAQ.

(Short answer: of COURSE there are gaps -- most organisms do not leave fossils. The amazing thing is how well the fossil record *does* support natural selection.)

Miller, it's also worth pointing out that Punctuated Equilibrium is not "versus Darwinian Selection." If you think so, then you clearly don't know what PE actually is or concerns.

Esquire asked: "Does anybody who believes creationism to be intellectually illegitimate *not* believe the same to be true of the resurrection? I'm honestly curious why one is generally more tolerated as an acceptable belief than the other, when both would seem to defy science so blatantly."

I do. I believe creationism is illegitimate and intellectually dishonest, but the resurrection is true. I hold this view on purely theological grounds - no science or empiricism required.

Christian scholars have rejected the soi disant "literal interpretation" of Genesis since 235 AD. Outside the US, creationism is a fringe view rejected by most Christians.

Belief in creation is based on a misunderstanding of the Biblical proof texts. This misunderstanding is so pervasive among Bapist decended Churches that they misremember and misquote the Bible.

You can confirm this by asking a creationist to quote Genesis. He will probably misquote it to say God created the heavens, god created the earth, god created the Plants, and God created the animals. It does not.

The resurrection is soundly grounded in Christian theology.

1 &2 Are both based on the the evidence of his irrationality and how that would affect his judgement. If he truely believes things that are contrary to objective factual evidence, he could not be relied upon to make rational decisions in the future.

3 His science policy could be shaped by many factors in addition to his personal religious views, so this conclusion is weak.

4. Looking foolish should not be a strong concern. The first person to publish a truth contrary to the conventional wisdom often looks foolish at first. I am not suggesting the Senator has offered a new truth, just that a person's credibility shouldn't be dismissed purely because they utter something that differs with widely held notions.

Good heavens, you certainly have "stoked the conversation." Anyway, yes, that's right folks, science is no orthodoxy delivered from on high. But surely it is no "dogmatism" to note that for the layperson scientific consensus is the epistemic best-bet. (Compare the results of faith's wagers against science in the past...) Given that ours is a secular government, then, I just don't see how a politician who is willing to bet against a policy-relevant scientific consensus on the basis of a counterfailing [sic] "faith" is fit to participate.

Oh, lord:

So how is such a hypothesis, qua hypothesis, not a certain act of faith in and of itself, even in the abstract?

I will explain.

An "act of faith" means that I *believe something to be true.*

A "hypothesis" means that I entertain a proposition about what might be true, for the purpose of testing it to ascertain whether it can be true or not.

Not any proposition can be a hypothesis, because it has to be testable ("falsifiable," as Popper puts it). "God exists," for ex, is not a hypothesis, except on some definition of "God" that would allow for testing -- like, "God is an entity that will not allow me to injure myself if I jump from the top of the Temple onto the flagstones below."

Copernicus, please recall, was writing at a time *before* scientific method was developed, a century before Bacon. In and of itself, his book was forgettable. He lucked out because Kepler picked up the idea and ran with it.

I do. I believe creationism is illegitimate and intellectually dishonest, but the resurrection is true. I hold this view on purely theological grounds - no science or empiricism required.

Christian scholars have rejected the soi disant "literal interpretation" of Genesis since 235 AD. Outside the US, creationism is a fringe view rejected by most Christians.

Belief in creation is based on a misunderstanding of the Biblical proof texts. This misunderstanding is so pervasive among Bapist decended Churches that they misremember and misquote the Bible.

Once you a "faith" component to your belief set you give up the right to claim that anyone else's faith-based beliefs are wrong. If you believe something based on faith it is just silly to point at someone and say that their irrational belief is wrong but your irrational belief is right **and** claim you have a rational reason why your irrational belief is right and theirs is wrong.

You claim that creationism is a "misunderstanding" whereas the resurrection is "solidly grounded" in Christian theology yet both of those positions are built up on top of a foundation based on belief without reason. Anything built on such a foundation, such as your claims of solid grounding for your theology, will still be faith based and still be irrational no matter how logically the top floor is built.

The interesting thing is that the fossil record better fits a creationist model of evolution than it does the purely Darwinian model. PE makes the creationist model and evoluionary models less distinguishable from each other.

Can you kindly explain, Dr. Miller, how on Earth you reach this conclusion? What is the "creationist model of evolution?" Does punctuated equilibrium deny the process of speciation, or the ultimate derivation of all life forms from a single protenitor?

2) What to eat and what not to eat is Old Testament. Read Acts and Peter's vision on the rooftop. Christianity is not Judaism.

Yeah, guess you better throw out the Decalogue, Genesis and all of that "Jewish" stuff if you are Christian. I guess evolution is now no problem since you as a Christian don't have to pay any attention to the Old Testament; no "begats" adding up to 6,000 years and no Old Testament account of Genesis. To say otherwise would be inconsistent with your proposition.

Faith (which is synonimous to trust) and reason are not mutually exclusive.

Faith and trust are not "synonimous." Trust can be based on reason--such as can I "trust" this scientific information to be accurate. Faith can't be based on reason--that would be an oxymoron.

Revelation and science are not antagonistic but science has to investigate because revelation is outside its abilities.

Both are ways of learning and knowing about the universe. They most certainly are antagonistic because you can make claims based on revelation that contradict empirical fact and vice versa.

"Such observations don't say anything about the atheistic nature of the evolutionary theory."

Of course they do. Evolution is not atheistic. It is science, not a theology or philosophy.

"However, almost all scientists have taken the position that any reference to a Deity in the explanation of anything violates their method of study."

That's a methodological commitment based on empiricism, not a ruling out of god philosophically. It's basically saying "magic is not an answer." If you can explain how you'd do science on untestable miracles, then you are welcome to propose an alternative. But time and time again, we see this bluster with no follow up.

"If one cannot reference a Deity in his model of explanation, then the discipline is atheistic."

Oh, so if I explain tooth decay without resorting to a Deity, dentistry is "atheistic"?

"You have not seen me do that."

Your references to Mayr and Simpson certainly come close. What else could you be referencing than the standard creationist quote mines of their books?

"Your comment to my example of polystrate fossils illustrates yet again how you blindly follow your paradigm in spite of direct empirical evidence to the contrary."

There isn't direct empirical evidence to the contrary. The physical evidence does not support flood geology there, and it does not contradict mainstream geology. The idea that it does is pretty much a layperson-level lack of understanding of geology. Like with most creationist arguments, it attempts to pass off an argument that sounds reasonable to a person that is not really familiar with the more complex ins and outs of geology.

"It doesn't matter how much data seems to overwhelmingly support a viewpoint. It only takes one piece of clear evidence to falsify an idea."

Then present some. Show me a single lineage in the entire world that, for instance, has a feature taken whole hog from another lineage that isn't supposed to be related to it.

"In regards to Punctuated Equilibrium, it is a modification of the pure Darwinian model, something necessitated by the lack of fulfilling Darwin's prediction concerning the fossil record."

Well, then you're quite wrong. PE is a reaction to phyletic gradualism, but phyletic gradualism is not something Darwin supported: it post-dates him, and there is considerable controversy whether or not the position Gould and Eldredge attacked was in fact just a straw man. Not that it matters, but Darwin says pretty clearly that he does not suppose that the pace of changes is always the same, and even talks about short spurts of adaptation with long periods of relative stasis. Sound familiar?

"I have read the original article by Elredge and Gould, answered questions about PE during a Master's and PhD program in biology, and taught it in the university."

I pity your program and your students for being so misinformed in that case.

"I assure you I know what PE is."

Then why did you offer it as a contrast to selection? PE concerns the pace of speciation and change over time, not contradicting the mechanism of selection in assuring particular adaptations to an environment.

"The interesting thing is that the fossil record better fits a creationist model of evolution than it does the purely Darwinian model."

You keep saying, but you also keep failing to explain how.

"PE makes the creationist model and evolutionary models less distinguishable from each other."

Nonsense. As I said, you don't really seem to understand how the fossil record fits into evolution as evidence for it. Your reference to gaps is a pretty standard creationist drivel in this regard. No biologist ever expected the fossil record to be complete, and it doesn't have to be anywhere NEAR complete to establish common descent (in Darwin's day, there wasn't even a faint hope of actually mapping out the relations in the way we can today: all he really used fossils for was to establish ideas like extinction and the difference between past and modern life). All it has to do is be consistent in every physical regard... and it is. To an absurd degree, and also just so happening to match up with the independent check we have in measuring genetic relation.

I knew I would regret taking the time to post here. (sigh)

Look, most of you have jumped on your favorite dogma and have forsaken critical thinking. You can't even read what I write without misinterpreting what I have said or reading your own preconceived notions about what you think I am about to say.

Anderson: I quoted as I did because the rest of what he said was already written and understood within my terse quote. It doesn't change my point that Darwin himself predicted the gaps in the fossil record to be filled in. Go look at the data yourself or ask any HONEST evolutionist. Whenever I have raised this in graduate study classes, always the graduate students think the fossil record is fine, but the honest professors shamefacedly agree with me and then start with the EXCUSES.

Guest101, PE is not distinct from Darwinian evolution. The PE model describes long periods of Darwinian evolution which are punctuated by explosive periods of rapid evolutionary change. The trick then becomes how to explain the sudden and rapid changes. On the other hand, a purely Darwinian model is different than PE. The predictions of the fossil record and the kinds of empirical evidence are different.

Furthermore, I do not in any way indicate that the fossil record is the only or best empirical evidence. On the contrary, it is one of the strongest evidences AGAINST it. You need to understand that science best operates not by trying to find all the evidence to support an idea, but rather by attempting to falsify an idea. Think critically and skeptically, or you will continue to misunderstand what I am saying as well as my motivation.

In regards to your last question, the prediction of creationist models concerning the fossil record is that organisms were created according to their kind. Theologians differ on what "kind" is. Some use the term species to define it, but a class level of taxonomy probably better defines the kind specified in Genesis. Creationist models generally predict a fossil record that show organisms already developed, and then after the fall, evolutionary processes worked in a degradative fashion to produce what we observe today. This is contrary to the classical Darwinian model which predicts a single event creating the original life, and then evolutionary processes working toward increasing complexity and development to produce what we have now. When considering the fossil record, it more closely matches the predictions of the creationist model developed from Genesis than it does the classical Darwinian model. However, PE modifies the Darwinian model in a way that more closely matches the predictions of the creationist model. Note, however, that this has been done in an ad hoc fashion in response to seeing how the evidence support Darwin. A statistician can tell you the problems this kind of theory modification presents. You may want to consult a very good article called "Stong Inference" by Platt if you have any serious interest in understanding good science.

Forgive me all if I don't continue with this thread. My time is very limited these days. I do hope some of you will study a little deeper and think more critically and honestly. Don't believe everything that the establishment tells you. When you see the educational system censoring certain kinds of information, like creationist viewpoints, look carefully. There might be other reasons they don't want you to know about the evidence they are hiding.

PE is not distinct from Darwinian evolution. The PE model describes long periods of Darwinian evolution which are punctuated by explosive periods of rapid evolutionary change. The trick then becomes how to explain the sudden and rapid changes. On the other hand, a purely Darwinian model is different than PE. The predictions of the fossil record and the kinds of empirical evidence are different.

I note, first, the obvious contradiction between the two bolded statements that makes it rather difficult to tell what you're trying to say here. As has been pointed out, though, punctuated equilibrium and gradualism are simply disagreements about the rate of change in a process about which both sides are completely in agreement as to the broader details-- and that process is entirely inconsistent with a creationist model.

Furthermore, I do not in any way indicate that the fossil record is the only or best empirical evidence. On the contrary, it is one of the strongest evidences AGAINST it. You need to understand that science best operates not by trying to find all the evidence to support an idea, but rather by attempting to falsify an idea. Think critically and skeptically, or you will continue to misunderstand what I am saying as well as my motivation.

I'm well-acquainted with Popper's work. But you have yet to explain what testable prediction the theory of evolution makes that is falsified by anything in the fossil record. Your effort to distinguish punctuated equilibrium from the broader theory of evolution is apparently part of that-- even if it were the case that the fossil record conclusively establishes that Gould and Eldridge are right about the process of evolution as a series of long periods of stasis followed by short periods of rapid change, that would obviously not falsify the theory of evolution-- it would simply disprove one hypothesis about one detail about how the process works. Obviously, neither Gould and Eldridge on the one side, or Dawkins on the other, ever suggested that the punctuated equilibrium vs. gradual change debate implicated the validity of the general theory of evolution.

It seems to be you who needs to develop an understanding of how science works, as you are apparently under the impression that a professional disagreement between practicing biologists about a technical detail of a larger natural process somehow rebuts the overwhelming empirical evidence in support of the general theory within which the scientists are debating. The scientific method requires testing empirical observations against ever more detailed hypotheses about the natural world; this is exactly what is happening in the punctuated equilibrium debate, and whichever side prevails in that debate (and from my limited understanding of the issue, I tend to think that the many scholars who have suggested that Gould and Eldridge really overblew the scope of the disagreement and the significance of their "alternative" model), the theory of evolution will emerge stronger from it. This is one of many rather ignorant arguments you've made that compel me to question your claim to have a Ph.D. in biology, at least from a legitimate university. You sound more like someone who has read a few creationist tracts online without bothering to read the actual science.

Anderson,

I wonder how Mr. Miller explains why we almost never find human fossils down beneath the Precambrian ones.

Godditit. That must be what happened to all the rabbits, too...

Jam:
Scote:
1) Acts, chatper 10. Start at verse 9
2) Lookup faith in the dictionary.

Your claimed exemption from Jewish dietary restrictions is a rather narrow one and it actually makes your case weaker because it shows by omission that the other laws of the Old Testament do still apply. Such as this classic from Deuteronomy 13:

"13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die"

Note that you are a "Strict Constructionalist" you also have to destroy entire cities where God has been rejected, as well (Deuteronomy 13:12-17)

Your argument about diet was apparently meant to diffuse the question of whether a President who was a "strict constructionist" about the Bible would have to ban shell fish at state sponsored dinners. Oh, if only such minor quibbles were the worst case. Your point that Christians don't have to follow Jewish dietary restriction ignores all the other gems that are part of the Old Testament that Acts doesn't rescind.

Now back to mere diet, rather than exhortations by an all loving deity to kill people for their belief, here is, perhaps, the salient portion of what you were referring to:

"10:13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
10:14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
10:15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common."

Of course, this isn't entirely new, since in the Old Testament God told Noah:

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you." Genesis 9:3

But, that promise didn't last long. What was good for Noah apparently not so good for Moses.

"Nevertheless, these shall ye not eat, of them that chew the cud or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel and the hare, and the coney; for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore, they are unclean unto you. And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass." Deuteronomy 14:7-8

The Bible is really not a good source for consistency.

Of course I'm sure you will want to point out that Christians really don't believe that they need to kill their wives if they are unbelievers. Well, why not? This takes us back to the selective adoption of the Old Testament by Christians. I would point out that the degree to which the Old Testament Law applies to Christians has been a continuous and unsettled debate among Christian factions. It is generally a case of cherry picking combined with selective theology.

e.g.

Psalm 119:151-2 Clearly states that the Old Testament shall apply forever:

"Thou art near, O LORD; and all thy commandments are truth. Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever."

Whereas
Corinthians 3:14
"But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ."

Naturally there is a great deal of theology to explain away these contradictions and I'm sure you have something to say about them but that does not negate the fact that they exist in the first place, nor does your opinion on the matter settle the issue between Christians or explain why Genesis applies but the inviolable Biblical laws demanding the death of fortune tellers ("dreamers) do not .

Anyway, all of these quotes and the Bible itself are irrelevant in regards to evolution, which is based on empirical evidence not the tortured excuses of millennia of theological discourse.

"faith |fāθ| noun
1 complete trust or confidence in someone or something : this restores one's faith in politicians.
2 strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof."

You are conflating the two separate definitions. Used in the religious context, as you were doing and as I was responding in kind, faith isn't a synonym for "trust," it is an irrational belief.

(E.g., scote's definition of 'faith' is comically tendentious and self-serving in the extreme. So in all this I'm assumming a more serious approach is intended.)

Ah, forgive me for using the reportive definition of faith, clearly "self-serving the extreme."

If faith is a strong belief without proof then it is an "irrational" belief, that is one believes without rational proof. One can argue that it is "rational" to believe on blind faith, but I think such a position would have no truth value as to the veracity of the belief only a value as to the comfort or social value of the belief.

200...wow.

:)

To be fair, Eager, they're short, illustrated, use small words and smaller ideas. It doesn't take much time to read Big Daddy.

Michael, Michael, you don't need two paragraphs to concede the point, unless of course you are TRYING to bury it in obscure verbiage. The issue was simply and clear. I pointed out that we cannot glibly declare that strong atheists are acting on faith when they say that their claims are based on arguments. You got all huffy about that. But now you seem to grudgingly concede it, albeit in the most roundabout way imaginable.

Ok? So now there is really nothing more to say on that point. Now you can move on to the next issue.

David Miller: Haven't you ever read the Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin? It is amazing to me how many evolutionists I have met who have never read it.

What's amazing about working biologists not reading a book that's a century and a half out of date? They aren't doing the history of biology, but rather they're working to fill in the details of the science accurately. It's only "amazing" if you think the way to truth is to read some 1900 year old text...

Darwin made some very clear predictions about how the gaps in the fossil record would fill in and prove his theory to be true. His prediction was false. Obviously, Darwin wasn't right about everything. Scientists build on their predecessors work by collecting new data, comparing it to existing theory and hypotheses, and making modifications as required, so each generation creates a more complete and accurate picture. Apparently your religion works very differently - does it ever admit to making a mistake?

If one cannot reference a Deity in his model of explanation, then the discipline is atheistic. No, David, not everything is about your God. Most people are neither with you nor against you, but just don't care at the moment.

Joeseph Lieberman, as a traditional Jew, follows the Biblical rules you outline, among others, and doesn't eat selfish. If he had been elected Vice-President, presumably shellfish wouldn't have been served at state dinners. Would you be less inclined to vote for him over this?

If I understand Judaic traditions at all, it matters not a whit to the observant Jew that others don't follow their ways. Lieberman isn't going to try to ban shellfish, or more to the point, two things that I eat frequently, porkchops and bacon cheeseburgers, he will just avoid eating them himself. So his Kosher diet doesn't affect whether I will vote for him. Why I'm likely to vote against him is because he has voted to interfere with my freedom in other ways in the past (e.g., he voted for McCain-Feingold), and I suspect that if the Democrats continue on their present course, someday he might even join them in voting to ban french fries "because they aren't good for us".

As someone who's actually read Origin, I challenge Miller to actually quote the sections he's talking about. I think it should come to no ones surprise that his characterization of what Darwin predicted and what later occurred are false.

But that's true of a theist, and it's also true of one who positively disbelieves, an atheist or anti-theist; neither can submit a proof in support of their position or belief on purely rational grounds.

Indeed, however disbelief is the rational zero point as I can summarize with two words: Tea Pot. I'm sure you recognize the reference.

Atheism and agnostic are problematic words since different people use them in different ways. I'll use them in the manner Dawkins does. Atheism is a pragmatic position. It is not faith based because it does not require "faith" to disbelieve in the absence of evidence. Dawkins atheism does not assert that there can be no god, only that there is no sound reason to believe that there is and even less so to believe in any specific, detailed claim of god such as the god of Abrahm. In this sense, atheism is more of an Asymptotic agnosticism.

Atheism is not solipism. It is not necessary to disprove all possible things, for that is what you are implying--a sort of antithesis of solipsism.. The God of Abraham is only one possible idea of god and yet the faith component in theism is the belief in a particular god rather than the corollary disbelief in the infinite number of alternate possibilities. I think you mangling the definition and use of the word "faith" to near unrecognizable proportions.

On the other hand, due to the ontological and epistemological limitations we face, such (the agnostic's position) obviously doesn't mean that we can suspend our existence, in time. Time marches on, we continue to face the challenges before us, choose whom to love and associate with, etc. Hence unless we opt for apathy and resignation we are "forced" to express some type of faith by dint of our positive actions in the world, in the various aspects of our lives, certainly so if we seek a certain fecundity in our lives and are willing to work toward those ends.

Thus the recent exchange between Habermas and Ratzinger/Benedict, thus notable aspects of Benedict's Regensburg's address, thus the entanglements someone like Tariq Ramadan presents to western interlocutors and policy makers, thus sundry assaults on rationalism from post-modern and other quarters, etc.

Thus the problematic character of faith, more seriously apprehended and apperceived.

Or "Yada, yada, yada." Which is all to say that while you are perfectly willing to criticize my definition of the word "faith" you still decline to provide an improved one of your own, instead rambling on and saying nothing but that faith is "problematic." Color me unimpressed.

It isn't that I lack the capacity for nuance or an unwilling to adopt new and better positions but that you have failed to actually say anything even while saying nothing in a very erudite manner.

I don't mind provocations if they eventually lead to something more fruitful, unfortunately yours do not.

I feel the same way about your arguments. I glad we can finally agree on something.

Certainly, it's true that I know Rick exists (empirically) while I don't know God exists in that same manner. But here it's a matter of substituting what can be reasonably believed (theism) vs. what cannot be reasonably believed (celestial teapots and unicorns).

Well, I'm certainly enjoying your clear argument, for once. However, you are practicing what you accuse Russel and Dawkins of, equivocation on a vast scale. You equivocate believing in a person (vast empirical evidence for the existence of actual people) and believing in God (no empirical evidence and many religions reject the idea that belief in God should be based on anything but pure faith.)

Your assertion of "what can reasonably be believed" is presumptive and without support from you. Your argument against Russel's "Teapot Atheist" is nothing more than pure assertion. You simply assert that theism is reasonable to believe but that unicorns are not reasonable to believe in. This argument by assertion fails to make any claim of how the two kinds of belief are different nor how they may be differentiated. Providing a link to Alvin Plantinga's Lecture Notes does not address this difference with any specificity nor does it remove your obligation to make your own case. It is not up to me to wade through the link sifting through the text to see if you might get lucky with a 9,200 word bulk citation. If there is a specific section of his notes that supports your position, you should cite it to prove the point that you are supposedly making, otherwise the link is merely specious.

Rather light on any rigorous quality or serious attention at all to what's been presented; instead, refusal. But essentially, no, not in the least, you're not grappling with the logic being presented and instead are retorting with the "assertion" label, along with other rhetorical flourishes. If you don't comprehend the commensurate quality and correspondence between the empirical example (Rick) and the rational example (God), vs. the irrational teapot, then it's a reflection of the fact that you're merely continuing to channel Dawkins' and Russell's creed rather than thinking very seriously and critically. It's not merely a coincidence that empiricism and rationalism, both, are two primary cornerstones of science and critical thinking in general.

You haven't grappled with what's been presented. You're in a rut, a fideist rut, and resolutely refuse to acknowledge that. Your god - Dawkins and crew - has been found wanting, yet you refuse to so much as see it much less fully appreciate that fact and additionally acknowledge it.

Critically, you seem to miss the point vis-a-vis Plantinga's theistic arguments, quite obviously they are not going to be persuasive to anti-theists/atheists, they are exhibited to reflect the reasonable/rational quality of said belief - not any decisive quality anymore than an atheist can present a decisive argument to support their belief/faith. Hence the cogent appeal of those arguments; correspondingly the lack of any cogent arguments in favor of a celestial teapot of unicorn. The fact you steadfastly refuse to seen all this is reflective of the deep-seated quality of your own fideism, channeling that rather than reviewing it critically.

Again, both empiricism and rationalism are foundational. You're a believer, a true believer, something of a dogmatist and fundamentalist, steadfastly refusing to examine your core beliefs, subjecting them to a critical review.

Michael,

Perhaps your approach would be more effective if you stopped trying to impress us all with your big words and explained a little bit more of what your point is supposed to be. You appear to be attempting to rebut Russell's teapot argument with the observation that belief in God is "rational/cogent." This is either misguided or entirely irrelevant. If you're arguing that there are good empirical reasons to believe in God, then you're right that that argument is not susceptible to a Russell's Teapot objection-- but no one, Russell or otherwise, ever claimed that it is. On the contrary, if you're arguing that Russell's Teapot applies to unicorns but not to God because belief in God is more "plausible" or "rational" than unicorns, then you simply miss the point of Russell's thought experiment, which has nothing to do with how objectively plausible the object in question is.

To illustrate this latter point, let's move the teapot from orbit into the cupboard. Say you walk into a middle-class American house and know nothing about its inhabitants. In the kitchen is a cupboard. Are you justified in believing-- not acknowledging the theoretical possibility of, but adopting an affirmative belief in the actual reality of-- the proposition that a blue china teapot is inside the cupboard? It's certainly plausible that such an item exists, but I think you'll agree with me that you have no basis whatsoever for forming a rationally-justifiable belief that it does in the absence of any evidence one way or the other. And therein lies the death knell of your apparent objection to Russell-- the fact that the existence of an object or entity is conceivable, even plausible, is not in itself sufficient to justify an a belief that the entity actually exists in the absence of affirmative evidence in support of that proposition.

You fail to grasp and fail to think critically about your own underlying assumptions and beliefs.

This seems to be a very popular ad hominem among the theists and creationists in this thread; as has been pointed out above, it's a very easy accusation to make. You seem to have trouble supporting it with more than empty conclusions.

Btw, you are hung-up on this "accusation" thing. Quite obviously if I state my opinion in a summary fashion (e.g., that "You fail to grasp and fail to think critically about your own underlying assumptions and beliefs") then all that is is a general comment or summary of what I an thinking, a kind of general indicator. You can take it or leave it but to describe it as an "accusation," as if I'm accusing you of a crime or am calling you, as a person, "stupid" (which obviously would be an unhelpful accusation and comment) is simply inane, it makes you look incredibly defensive and reactionary.

Btw, you are hung-up on this "accusation" thing. Quite obviously if I state my opinion in a summary fashion (e.g., that "You fail to grasp and fail to think critically about your own underlying assumptions and beliefs") then all that is is a general comment or summary of what I an thinking, a kind of general indicator. You can take it or leave it but to describe it as an "accusation," as if I'm accusing you of a crime or am calling you, as a person, "stupid" (which obviously would be an unhelpful accusation and comment) is simply inane, it makes you look incredibly defensive and reactionary.

I don't believe I used the word "accusation" at any point, and if you're suggesting that the statement "You fail to grasp and fail to think critically about your own underlying assumptions and beliefs," is not an ad hominem argument, even as a "summary of what [you are] thinking," then we apparently have different definitions of "ad hominem."

"And an atheist? If not, then I don't see how that rebuts my point."

Please, slow down a bit. I wasn't sure what exactly you intended, I can't read your mind, so minimally I was offering that information. And if you didn't intend the two together, in an additive sense, then why didn't you simply state the one without the other? Regardless, the following is more important.

"How is the fact that belief in God is (arguably) more "plausible" or "cogent" than belief in unicorns in any way relevant to Russell's point about the burden of proof necessary to sustain affirmative belief in any entity or phenomenon, as illustrated by the teapot example?" Guest101, emphasis added

Let's take this one step at a time to see if it's worth going further with this:

Do you accept, or believe, that a belief in God can be more cogently and plausibly argued than a belief in a celestial teapot or an angry unicorn on the other side of the moon? (And again, the Plantinga link was provided to substantiate that aspect of what was previously presented.)

"No." scote

Well, I was asking Guest101, who at least began to suggest otherwise.

Regardless though, then we have nowhere to go from here, unless you can offer similarly cogent arguments in favor of a plausible and reasonable belief in unicorns or celestial teapots. Similar, that is, in terms of cogent appeal, of reasoned and rational appeal, as compared to Plantinga's arguments vis-a-vis theism. That gets to the crux of the argument first made immediately upthread, here, that crux being that the formal logic of the arguments are equivalent, certainly, but the equivocation between the two arguments is nothing more than a sleight of hand maneuver. Hence you repeated assignation of "argument by assertion," when in fact the original argument presented is well reasoned.

Too, when you launch into your "Why on earth would you find it ..." graph, you are reflecting the degree to which you continue to grasp the logic and reasoning in the original argument presented.

Guest101,

Well, you did speak of accusations. And yes, we certainly have a different conception of ad hominem inferences and attacks. I was characterizing something about your thinking or beliefs or acceptance of a certain underlying mode of rationalization you're using, entirely germane, not about you personally, as a whole, or however you'd care to put it.

Michael,

You're right, I did use the word "accusation." I didn't notice that in my review of my earlier comment. I continue to feel justified in that characterization-- if I were to say something like "You fail to see my point because you're obviously a moron," I don't see how that would be any less an ad hominem simply because I characterize it as "something about your thinking or beliefs or acceptance of a certain underlying mode of rationalization you're using, entirely germane, not about you personally, as a whole," but in any case that's a bit of a distraction.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that belief in God is more plausible than belief in unicorns. How does that obviate the need for affirmative evidence to justify a rational belief that a concededly (arguendo) "plausible" entity exists in reality?

PS,
I don't think "assignation" is the word you are looking for...

That positively is the argument being made. The argument is not to convince an atheist to become a theist nor is it to convince a theist to become an atheist (because conclusive arguments on purely rational grounds, in either direction, cannot be made). The argument being made is that the equivocation used by Russell and Dawkins and co. is what invalidates the comparison. If we were dealing with pure abstraction and formal argument only then that would be the end of it. But again, and as originally noted when the argument was first presented directly upthread, Russell and Dawkins and crew adumbrate a massive equivocation onto the pure logic of the argument. Once you make the concession you just made, my argument is, eo ipso, granted its due. It's over and done with.

This may be my last attempt at this. Despite this rather lengthy monologue, you have explained absolutely nothing about whatever it is that you apparently think you've demonstrated here. Russell's "'rational' zero point of belief/disbelief," as you characterize it, is simply an illustration of the point that it is irrational to ascribe affirmative belief in an untestable or unprovable proposition (or, in weaker form, to a proposition for which one lacks any affirmative empirical evidence). Your repeated references to "adumbrat[ion of] a massive equivocation" really are just argument by assertion, or rather by obfuscation, because I still don't have a terribly clear idea of what you're talking about, or what "equivocation" you believe the Russell's Teapot//unicorn argument is guilty of. (You do realize that the term "equivocation" refers to the fallacy of using the same term in two different ways, not to the often valid substitution of one term for another to prove a general point, correct?). Maybe I'm just not clear on what you're trying to prove here, since, as I think I demonstrated pretty clearly with the teapot-in-the-cupboard hypothetical, the fact that a particular proposition is or is not plausible in some intuitive sense has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Russell's point still applies to it. Nor do I think that my concession (for the sake of argument only) above in any way validates your argument that Russell's Teapot is not a valid epistemological objection to faith-based belief in God. But we seem to be going in circles here, and I'm not sure what else there is to be said.

Guest101,

Then I suspect you don't understand aspects of Russell's argument or the import Russell is giving his argument. Russell is not forwarding a premise or law of logic as such, a formal form of argumentation. Russell is forwarding an epistemological and ontological result on the basis of two propositions: 1) the form of the argument/logic he is using, together with 2) the analogy. Both, together, comprise his method of arriving at his desired end. (1) is sound as a formal piece of reasoning/logic per se, (2) is not, and that's what invalidates the epistemological and ontological end Russell is seeking. (Russell, in his text, uses his own rhetorical flourishes, a subtle hint perhaps that he senses the insufficiency in his reasoning.)

Finally, your cupboard example misses the point, in fact it serves to prove the opposite, in part because in moving the teapot to somewhere in the kitchen, at least as a possibility, you've eliminated the absurd quality of the celestial teapot in an elliptical orbit around the sun.

To wit, you state "it's certainly plausible that such an item exists [in the cupboard], but I think you'll agree with me that you have no basis whatsoever for forming a rationally-justifiable belief that it does in the absence of any evidence one way or the other." To which I would agree (with this analogy of the theist's position and faith). However, you should also agree that "it's certainly plausible that such an item does not exist, but I think you'll agree with me that you have no basis whatsoever for forming a rationally-justifiable belief that it does not exist in the absence of any evidence one way or the other." (Which is to say the analogy with the atheist's position and faith.) The two are obverse sides of the same coin.

Once you remove the teapot from its celestial orbit, therein removing the absurd quality Russell is invoking, both the faith inherent in the atheist's position and the faith inherent in the theist's position are rendered equally apparent for all to see - as perceived from a purely rational/empirical perspective, which is to say a perspective that is curtailed or delimited to a materialist metaphysic.

Once again: Q.E.D.

"Not my job and you know it. You were arguing against the Teapot Atheist position by asserting that belief in theism is reasonable and that belief in unicorns is not. QED." scote

A repetition, and a repetition only, of your underlying creed or faith in Russell's argument.

Of course it is your job. If you believe otherwise then it's not apparent you understand the rudimentary logic at play here. The challenge there is to come up with a reasonable/rational support for the celestial teapot in a manner that is commensurate with the arguments forward by Plantinga given their own cogency. Lacking that serves as dispositive proof that the analogy is in fact far fetched and incommensurate, to be over-kind.

Too, I've not only never accepted the celestial teapot comparison, I've successfully refuted it. (And merely whining about referencing someone else's perfectly valid arguments doesn't bode well for your own reasoning ability.)

Michael,

Once you remove the teapot from its celestial orbit, therein removing the absurd quality Russell is invoking, both the faith inherent in the atheist's position and the faith inherent in the theist's position are rendered equally apparent for all to see - as perceived from a purely rational/empirical perspective, which is to say a perspective that is curtailed or delimited to a materialist metaphysic.

I feel quite confident in saying that I understand Russell's argument as well as, if not better than, you do. I do think I finally see the point you're driving at-- and let me add, you've done an awful job of articulating it. So your point is, it's just as much a leap of faith to believe that there is no teapot in the cupboard as to believe that there is? In other words, the "strong" atheist position of "I know there is no God" is just as much a leap of faith as the theist position, "I know there is a God"? Well, obviously. There are probably some who would dispute that, but it's not a great insight, and it certainly isn't a rebuttal of Russell's position, because Russell is simply demonstrating (whether the teapot is in the cupboard or in orbit) that without an affirmative reason to believe something, the rational default position is one of non-belief-- whether you're talking about God, about teapots, or about your friend behind the building. This is simply an application of Occam's Razor-- the principle, essentially, that you need a reason to be rationally justified in ascribing belief to a proposition-- and is a far cry from an affirmative position of non-belief. To offer another example-- do I believe that there is a man named Jack Jones who lives in St. Louis and works as a car mechanic? No-- I have no reason to, as to the best of my knowledge I just made him up. Do I believe, however, that there's not such an individual? No, I have no reason to believe that, either. However, until I have some affirmative evidence in favor of Mr. Jones's existence, I'm going to persist in my state of non-belief--call it passive disbelief or agnosticism if that helps clarify the point conceptually-- as the rational default position. Otherwise we'd be justified in believing all sorts of sheer nonsense with no basis in reality. This is particularly true-- and this was the crux of Russell's hypothetical in which the teapot was beyond the scope of our most powerful telescopes-- about empirical propositions that are not only unknown, but unfalsifiable.

I still don't see what plausibiliy, or lack thereof, has to do with any of this.

Since the comments have closed on the prior thread Michael, I should probably take the time to say that it's been a complete waste of my time trying to get you to argue cogently, and I would recommend that others not waste their time as well. I do not know if you are intentionally trolling these threads in order to derail substantive discussion, but regardless of your intentions, that is your effect.

I keep challenging you to rebut my arguments or at the very least explain WHY they are ill-formed, misaimed, or whatever your accusation of the moment is. You never do. You insist on discussing things on only the shallowest level of mere characterization, never of actually addressing an argument and showing why you think it's false. There's just no point to that. A computer with no comprehension of anyone's arguments could do what you are doing: simply respond over and over with pre-programmed variations of "you don't know what you are talking about, you're wrong, you're irrational." Most of your posts don't even give any clear evidence that you've actually even read what you are responding to.

It's a pity.

Guest101, that you "feel quite comfortable" with your beliefs is all too apparent. It very much is that comfortable quality that is front-and-center in virtually everything you've offered.

scote, likewise, you fail to see the depths of your misapprehensions.

plunge, pitiable, certainly. Repeating the same charge and never coming to terms with the arguments presented, never responding to the substance of what had been laid out. Presumption and evasiveness, together with disdain, then endlessly repeated, don't add up to sound arguments or serious engagement; what they do add up to is avoidance and self-blinded, truncated analyses. Hence the continued ad hominem inferences and charges in lieu of more seriously grappling with the arguments presented; intellectual disengagement, fronted with anemic protestations, self-regard and disdain.

Pitiable is the right word, and such will be apparent for anyone with a critical acumen who cares to review what has transpired.