Jonathan links to Sen. Brownback's explanation of his views, which do indeed seem to reject the proposition that man evolved through a natural process from lower life forms. Nor, as best I can tell, does he take the view that evolution took place but that the mechanism for evolution was set up by God. Perhaps I'm wrong on this -- his argument isn't crystal clear -- but it seems that he is viewing man as a product of separate creation:
While no stone should be left unturned in seeking to discover the nature of man’s origins, we can say with conviction that we know with certainty at least part of the outcome. Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order. 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.
How should this affect a person's judgment about whether he supports Sen. Brownback? I'm not sure I know the answer, but I thought I'd raise the question, and mention a few thoughts of my own. (Note that I am by no means a supporter of Brownback's, though I have no implacable hostility to him, either.)
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.
2. We might argue that this shows Brownback believes things about the physical world that are not based chiefly on reason and evidence, and that this reflects badly on his judgment. This is a classic burden-is-on-believers-to-show-it argument against belief in God: As a friend of mine put it, there is the same evidence for the existence of God (at least once evolution is available to explain the development of complex systems) as for the existence of werewolves. Yet we would comfortably say that "werewolves don't exist," and look askance at someone who says "wait, maybe they do exist, you can't prove that they don't." We usually put the burden on people who are claiming the existence of things to provide some evidence that they exist; a contrary view is seen by us as superstitious or unscientific (again, consider claims about werewolves, vampires, or ghosts).
Likewise, the argument would go, we should fault those who assume the existence of a God, and a miracle-working God at that, without real evidence or logical deduction. Of course, this assumes that we've rejected the logical arguments for the existence of God, but I've never found any of those to be particularly persuasive, and in my experience even many religious people don't rely on those arguments.
Note, though, that this argument would equally apply to candidates who sincerely believe in the Virgin Birth, in the Resurrection, in the parting of the Red Sea, and in any other miracle. Perhaps it should apply to them; but I do want to flag that this argument isn't peculiar to evolution.
3. We might argue that this shows Brownback, if elected President, will have a lousy science policy.
Evolution is not in some abstract sense the "simplest" or "most plausible" theory of the development of mankind or of other species. Divine creation is in some ways simpler, and to some more plausible. Evolution is the simplest or most plausible theory that doesn't require the existence of some external intelligence (whether God or aliens); in that respect, there is some truth to the argument that belief in evolution rests on a sort of judgment about the relevance of God just as creationism does.
But what makes evolution better is that this naturalistic assumption is much more productive of potentially useful predictions about the world. Compare, by analogy, the theories that the planets appear to move around the sky because of gravity, that the planets appear to move around the sky because divine beings push them, and that the planets appear to move around the sky because all reality is just a dream. The good thing about the gravity theory isn't that it's provably true and the others are provably false; they definitionally resist disproof. Rather, the gravity theory is the most useful theory -- most useful at predicting the location of planets, at developing machines, and more -- and the other theories aren't useful at all.
If this is right, then rejecting the theory of evolution would lead a Brownback Administration to misinvest science research resources, and to underinvest in research that assumes the theory of evolution. This might distinguish most beliefs about one-off miracles in the past; it's unlikely, for instance, that a government leader's belief in the Virgin Birth would lead to poor governmental judgments about funding of gynecology and obstetrics.
4. We might argue that electing Brownback would make America look foolish to world elites that accept the theory of evolution. On the other hand, note that this, too, is potentially true of electing people with various other religious beliefs; and query more generally how much we should guide our judgment by such concerns.
In any case, these are just some tentative thoughts. I offer them not because I'm sure about them, or because I feel I've settled on an answer, but just because I think this is an important intellectual and practical question, and I wanted to stoke the conversation a little.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Does It Matter That Sen. Brownback Doesn't Accept the Theory of Evolution?
- Brownback on Evolution:
Put another way, however, Brownback disbelieves things that are provably true. There is a great deal of evidence for evolution by natural selection.
One might not want to have a President who disbelieves anything with as much evidence supporting it as "macroevolution is true" on the basis that his religious beliefs require him to think otherwise.
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.
FTR though:
I won’t vote for Sam Brownback for reasons that have nothing to do with his rejection of the theory of evolution – but you may want to remember that these “world elites” undoubtedly already look down their noses at the United States and pretty much always have. In which case a chance to stick a thumb in their collective eye might actually be a point in his favor.
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.
And who knows where *that* would get us ....
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?
Exactly! As I wrote in the previous thread:
I'm always disturbed at dogmatism in science...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?"
Admittedly, the Dawkins types do indeed go "all the way" and denounce religion althogether -- but it seems that's what you'd need to do...
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.
He disbelieves in evolution, or, as he calls it, "macroevolution." I understand that he touts miracles as an alternative to provability, but that means that he doesn't believe that anything is provably true. I think that says poor things about his rationality, and is a point against him in the election.
More broadly, I wouldn't vote against someone because they believed in miracles, or in unprovable assertions generally. (I might vote against them if they believed in specific, objectionable, unprovable assertions.) But Brownback says, "Aspects of [scientific] theories that undermine [religiously revealed] truth, however, should be firmly rejected as an atheistic theology posing as science." There is, as Anderson suggests, a world of difference between believing in a faith-based assertion and rejecting scientific evidence on the basis of that faith. Brownback is running for President of the Synod; I want a candidate who represents his polity on the basis of objectivity, not subjective and unprovable revelations.
If he can't believe in science because he doesn't want to, then how can we trust him to believe in economic or strategic realities that conflict with his preferred preconclusions?
What does he mean, "should be firmly rejected"? In what way? Should the books be burned? Or would he prefer to burn people?
BTW, this uniqueness in the created order -- does it mean he's totally sure there's no life outside Earth? Or that aliens, were we to meet them, would definitely be inferior?
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.
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.
Evolution is so central to modern biological science that such head in the sand idiocy should be automatically disqualifying.
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.
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.
Wiki yielded this quote of a quote.
"Robert Wicks discusses Nietzsche's basic view of truth as follows:
Some scholars regard Nietzsche's 1873 unpublished essay, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" ("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn") as a keystone in his thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we call "truth" is only 'a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.' His view at this time is that arbitrariness completely prevails within human experience: concepts originate via the very artistic transference of nerve stimuli into images; "truth" is nothing more than the invention of fixed conventions for merely practical purposes, especially those of repose, security and consistence."
Evolution, though, has that special cachet which allows certain of us to feel immeasurably, inconceivably superior to others of us.
Taking one side or the other of Newton vs. Einstein just won't do it.
With a pitchfork and a torch, apparently.
What does anyone disbelieve (or believe) that is provably true (or false), if one assumes a God who can perform miracles? Put another way, is "I don't care what the physical evidence says, God did it" a legally valid defense? If not, why not?
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.
Nothing, which is precisely why his answer makes him unfit to be President. If one assumes a god who can perform miracles, there's no need for empirical proof. After all, apples might fall from trees because a god wills it, not because of gravity. Of course, believing in such a god is by no means an automatic disqualification, but it doesn't say much for a candidate's ability to use logical reasoning when he refuses to rely on an explanation of some phenomenon for which there are loads of empirical proof (like evolution or gravity) in favor of relying on a miraculous god.
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.
If one assumes a God who can perform miracles, then nothing is provably true, not even that Sam Brownback exists.
The issue is what Brownback regards as a basis for forming beliefs about the natural world. He plainly gives his personal beliefs priority over empirical facts. He says as much in the op-ed. If he is willing to do that with respect to evolution then he may be willing to do it with respect to matters he deals with more directly as President.
It is not that hebelieves things about the physical world that are not based chiefly on reason and evidence, , but that he refuses to believe things about the nattural world for which there is overwhelming evidence.
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?
A hypothet obviously since Bush is president. In any event, I'm all for challeging the scientific status quo, but we must have certain standards.
Whenever anyone tells me creationism should be presented as an alternative in science class, I ask if holocaust denial should be so treated in history class. I don't know if you've spent much time investigating the neo-nazi holocaust denial propaganda, but those idiots do apparently believe it, in outright denial of all empirical reality based on a priori beliefs.
Creationism is a less toxic belief, but its intellectual foundations are equally shoddy.
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.
How many times were they legitimately challenged by creationism? Answer: None. They were challenged by science itself.
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 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.
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.
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.
Moreover, there's no scientific evidence that a man named Jesus Christ died and did not rise again. Only that such a thing hasn't been observed and tested scientifically. There is scientific evidence that evolution has happened and continues to happen. The difference, as people keep pointing out, is between believing in an unprovable assertion, and rejecting a provable assertion. The one is commonplace and unobjectionable, whereas the second raises eyebrows.
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.
In a sane world, or with a sane candidate, the same would be true of evolution. What the sane non-scientist can say is that he understands some basic concepts of the theory, knows that among scientists who understand these things the basic theory is uncontroversial, that there are technical issues about which scientists are divided and about which the sane non-scientist has no basis to form or offer an opinion. All of this could be thrown into a cocked hat by some new theory or new evidence, but that's true of all science and the sane non-scientist has no business doing anything more than acknowledging that possibility and leaving the issue to scientists.
Rejecting well-established scientific theories for religious reasons is different from being open to the possibility of the occassional supernatural intervention. Believers in the Virgin Birth do not disbelieve or disparage basic biology. They believe as a matter of faith that God made a special exception. There's no scientific evidence for that belief and, in principle, there couldn't be, but believing in exceptional divinely-mandated exceptions to the general rules, or believing that "something" out there accounts for the general rules, is vastly different from denying the general rules, which is what the Brownbackian anti-evolutionist does.
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.
Hmm...interesting...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?
I'm still skeptical of whether there's such thing as a 100% "neutral" approach, but the closest to it would probably be some kind of distinction along those lines...
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.
sorry, but contrary to the whole premise of this post, that statement is NOT inconsistent with evolution. it says neither that man is part of a "seperate action" (your words), nor that he did not develop to reflect the "image and likeness" of god THROUGH evolutionary processes.
he very well may not believe in evolution, but i don't see your excerpted quote as supporting that to be a fact.
Maybe I'm alone in this camp, but I don't think we can assume that any of this is intellectually legitimate.
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.
Assuming you mean this in the sense of Occam's Razor, it's not true. What William of Occam actually said wasn't that we should take the simplest explanation but the one that requires the fewest assumptions.
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.
The same can be said regarding Richard Dawkins discussing religion (though Dawkins is surely a fine scientist).
In reality, I think Americans want their Presidents to be religious but not too religious. But it's up to the majority to decide. I think a candidate's fundamental belief systems of this sort are vastly more significant than their current health care policy.
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.
Nietzsche does not reject “truth,” despite several decades of crappy post-modern “philosophers” arguments to the contrary.
/off soap box.
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.
And I believe in and worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster who created the world and breathed life into man through his noodly appendage.
My beliefs are not "provably false" under EV's definition so don't you dare call me crazy.
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.
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.
Denying evolution as a process actually requires one to deny a far broader scope of empirical reality.
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
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main 657083.shtml
I'm willing to say that I know there is no Santa. Are you?
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.
nice strawman. i made no claim about the "burden being on you" to prove or disprove anything.
what i am saying is that saying you KNOW there is no god is JUST AS MUCH A LEAP as saying you KNOW there is a god. plenty have claimed they know god exists - like martin luther king i might add - about a million times.
That statement is rather unclear because your analogy isn't as profound and self-evident as you think it is.
As to the burden of proof being on Atheists, obviously not. By that standard it would be up to Christians to assume that all other religions are true and to have to disprove each and every one of them. Clearly Christians do not subscribe to such a standard of proof, instead they dismiss all other theistic claims out of hand while holding their own as inherently and unchallengeably true.
To put it clearly, Stephen Roberts said, "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all of the other possible gods you will understand why I dismiss yours." This aphorism neatly summarizes the inconsistently applied atheism and presumed burden of proof of theistic Christians. They are atheists with regard to all other gods but their own yet they decry "atheism" as an evil, ignoring their own atheism.
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.
This makes as much sense as saying that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.
science has yet to answer why love exists, why we are here, and all those other metaphysical questions.
that's why nearly every society ever known to man (and many evolved completely isolated from others) had some concept of god or gods, but very few can point specifically to santa claus. do you see the difference?
again, i guess you now tacitly admit that it was not ME that made that 'burden of proof' claim, because i didn't.
what i said is that being agnostic does not require a leap of faith. denying the possibility of god's existence DOES, just as denying the possibility of his non-existence does.
The battle for the burden...he who sets the default, wins.
correct. and agnosticism does not require a leap of faith. KNOWING that god does not exist, or KNOWING that he does - DOES require a leap of faith.
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.
"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.
It's not that scientific theories are "the truth" because they will always be getting refined in the face of new data, new refutations. That’s one thing that many creationists project onto atheists, that we all believe science is the absolute truth. Instead that is the claim made by believers in many metaphysical theories. The LESS provable the TRUER it is. The fanatic equates the strength of their denial with the power of their belief.
Good science is based on doubt though. A long history of trial and error with a method to pass on the knowledge gained. It's not really a truth at all the concept is mis-applied I think because it's always changing, losing parts and gaining others.
I find Brownback's statement revolting. Undermining truths is one of humanities most endearing qualities. I'm glad VC is undermining HIM.
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.
You were on the verge of a good point with the argument about "knowing" vs. lacking belief in God, but this is sheer nonsense. Science can and has explained to us why love exists (a chemical process in the brain evolved for the purpose of encouraging procreation that we subjectively experience as a warm and cuddly feeling), and "why" we are here (product of emergent complexity of the interactions of fundamental physical particles)-- to presume that there is more of a "why" to our existence than that is to simply beg the question in favor of the theistic perspective.
In that limited context, Brownback has the better of the argument; non-overlapping magisteria is an unintelligible cop-out, at least insofar as religion makes any empirically testable claims-- which, excluding the handful of Deists I mentioned earlier, all religions do.
I think it's important to bear in mind, as unfortunately even scientifically-literate atheists sometimes do not, the relevance of evolution to arguments about God. Despite the fact that it is often carelessly cast this way (even by Dawkins, who should know better), evolution is not a direct refutation of the God thesis. It is a refutation of one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God, the Argument from Design. To the extent that theists (who obviously bear the burden of proof for their hypothesis, despite Person from Porlock's ill-informed disputation of that point) rely on the Argument from Design in favor of their belief, that argument is rebutted by the fact of evolution. There are other arguments for God, though, to which evolution is not directly relevant.
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.
believe in a deity that routinely intervenes in human affairs,"
Yes, but many have a belief that God's interventions are primarily within the hearts and minds of human beings. Some go so far as to posit that God prevents his/her/its actions from being directly observed / measured / tested to require faith.
I'm not saying I find this persuasive, at all -- I don't - I'm just noting that many religious people have an explanation for the difficulty of observing God that they fit into the definition of God. God basically plays hide and seek with us. Not so with werewolves.
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.
I'm not sure about the idea tha the burden of proof is always on the part of someone asserting something exists. It seems that at least in the case of logic, people are willing to simply assume it exists and proceed as if the idea of questioning it were simply inconceivable.
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?
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'm not trying to give some sort of defense of faith. i'm merely saying that faith REQUIRES a leap. so does (strong) atheism.
science and faith (and religion) answer generally different questions.
i really don't want to get into a long metaphysical wank, but suffice it to say that science has little to say about duality, why we are here (like does there even have to be a reason) blah blah blah. we can't explain why life appeared.
science is based on experimentation and comparison. we can't compare our universe to another universe, to see if non-god-created universes exist. we can't look back to the beginning and see what happened, nor can we reproduce the evolutionary process etc. there are tons of holes. some people make a leap of faith and attribute god to those holes. others make a leap of faith and say there is no way god is to account for the holes.
the band live in their song "heaven" makes basically the same point. even with the double negatives!!! :)
You don't need no friends
get back your faith again
you have the power to believe
another dissident
take back your evidence
it has no power to deceive
I'll believe it when I see it, for myself
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive
I sit with them all night
everything they say is right
but in the morning they were wrong
I'll be right by your side
come hell or water high
down any road you choose to roam
I'll believe it when I see it for myself
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive, yeah
darling, I believe, Oh Lord
sometimes it's hard to breathe, Lord
at the bottom of the sea, yeah yeah
I'll believe it when I see it for myself
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive
I don't need no one to tell me about heaven
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset
I can see the sunset
I can see the sunset
I don't need no one
Ohhhh
I don't need no one
I don't need no one
I don't need no one
To tell me about heaven
I believe
I believe it, yeah
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.
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.
By the way, I wonder how Senator Brownback, who converted to Catholicism as an adult and whose opposition to abortion rights is central to his political career, interprets Genesis 2:7, which indicates that man did not become a living soul until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Does a non-breathing fetus have a soul?
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?
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.
also, as noted, the teapot does not answer any (eternal and universal questions). god does.
almost every society on earth has had some concept of god/god(s)
not true with orbiting teapots.
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.
it's rather ironic that they have the same arrogance/dogmaticism that they accuse many theists of having
Certainly. There is doubt that evolution occurs. Just get an infection, stop taking antibiotics before the bugs are dead, and you can have an evolution of your own.
But does it account for all the differentiation of species (recognizing that species is an arbitrary concept)? Someday I want to write on Devolution and Unintelligent Design. Why do we have an appendix whose sole function is to give us appendicitis? Why do we get bald on top, where we most need protection from sun? Why 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)?
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. So how'd he get all three? On the other hand, I can't figure out why any intelligent designer would have made the little %&#^#$ pest, either. Lizards would serve his purpose very nicely, and haven't stung me.
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.
Well, for one thing it's not an analogy, it's a syllogism: if we work the way the world works then the world works the way we work; and if we work by will then the world works by will. Obviously this is false if we don't work the way the rest of the world does, or if we don't work by will. But so long as we make those very common assumptions, some notion of 'god' flows logically from them and it is up to those wishing to deny that notion to prove at least one of the assumptions wrong.
Your further objection is trivial. When one religion claims another's god "does not exist" it is by way of asserting that its own does. You cannot, with that line of logic, get the god-count down to zero as atheism requires.
I should explain that I have no religious interest here; 'god' is simply a structural necessity in a universe that contains us, if we work as we think we do.
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.
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