Tag Archive for: atheism

Science Doesn’t Say Anything– Scientists Do

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You can’t put honesty in a test tube.

“Science” doesn’t say anything—scientists do.

Those are a couple of the illuminating conclusions we can draw from the global warming e-mail scandal.

“You mean science is not objective?” No, unless the scientists are, and too often they are not. I don’t want to impugn all scientists, but it is true that some of them are less than honest.  Sometimes they lie to get or keep their jobs.  Sometimes they lie to get grant money. Sometimes they lie to further their political beliefs. Sometimes they don’t intentionally lie, but they draw bad scientific conclusions because they only look for what they hope to find.

Misbehavior by scientists is more prevalent than you might think.  A survey conducted by University of Minnesota researchers found that 33% of scientists admitted to engaging in some kind of research misbehavior, including more than 20% of mid-career scientists who admitted to “changing the design, methodology or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source.”  Think of how many more have done this but refuse to admit it!   (The researchers said as much in their findings.)

Outright lies and deception certainly seem to be the case with “Climate-gate.”  The exposed e-mails reveal cherry-picking; manipulating data; working behind the scenes to censor dissenting views; doubting what the measurements say because they don’t fit their pre-determined conclusion.   Matt Drudge headlined this yesterday as the “Greatest scandal in modern science.”

I actually think there is another great scientific scandal, but its misrepresentations are not quite as obvious.  In this scandal, instead of outright lies, scientific conclusions are smuggled in as philosophical presuppositions.  Such is the case with the controversy over the origin of life and new life forms.  Did natural forces working on non-living chemicals cause life, or is life the result of the intelligent activity?   Did new life forms evolve from lower life forms by natural forces or was intelligence needed?

Dr. Stephen Meyer has written a fabulous new best-selling book addressing those questions called Signature in the Cell.   Having earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in the philosophy of science, Dr. Meyer is at the top of the science food chain.  In our August 8th radio interview, he told me he’s been working on his 600+ page book—which isn’t short of technical detail—for more than a decade.

What qualifies a man who has a Ph. D. in the “philosophy of science” to write on the origin of life or macroevolution?  Everything.  What some scientists and many in the general public fail to understand is that science cannot be done without philosophy.  All data must be interpreted.  And much of the debate between Intelligent Design proponents (like Dr. Meyer) and the Darwinists (like Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins) is not a debate over evidence—everyone is looking at the same evidence.  It’s a debate over philosophy.   It’s a debate over what causes will be considered possible before we look at the evidence.

Scientists look for causes, and logically, there are only two possible types of causes—intelligent causes or non-intelligent causes (i.e. natural causes).   A natural cause can explain a geologic wonder like the Grand Canyon, but only an intelligent cause can explain a geologic wonder like the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore.  Likewise, natural laws can explain why ink adheres to the paper in Dr. Meyer’s book, but only an intelligent cause can explain the information in that book (i.e. Dr. Meyer!).

How does this apply to the question of the origin of life?  Long after Darwin, we discovered that “simple” single-celled life is comprised of massive volumes of DNA information called specified complexity—in everyday terms, a complicated software program or a really long message.  Richard Dawkins admits that the information content of the “unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoeba” would fill 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia!

What’s the cause of this?  Here’s where the philosophy comes in.  Dr. Meyer is open to both types of causes.  Richard Dawkins is not.  Dr. Meyer’s book explains why natural forces do not appear to have the capacity to do the job, only intelligence does.  However, Dawkins and his Darwinist cohorts philosophically rule out intelligent causes before they look at the evidence.  So no matter how much the evidence they discover points to intelligence (as a long message surely does), they will always conclude it had to be some kind of natural cause.   In other words, their conclusion is the result of their philosophical presupposition.

While Dawkins has no viable natural explanation for life or the message contained therein, he says he knows it cannot be intelligence.  That philosophical presupposition leads to what appears to be an unbelievable conclusion:  To believe that 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia resulted from blind natural forces is like believing that the Library of Congress resulted from an explosion in a printing shop.  I don’t have enough faith to believe that.

“This is a ‘God of the gaps’ argument!”  Dawkins might protest.  No it isn’t.  We don’t just lack a natural explanation for “simple” life—1,000 encyclopedias worth of information is positive empirically verifiable evidence for an intelligence cause.  Consider the cause of the book The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, for example.  It’s not merely that we lack a natural explanation for the book (of course we know that the laws of ink and paper couldn’t have written the book).  It’s also the fact that we know that messages only come from minds.   Therefore, we rightly posit an intelligent author, not a blind natural process.

Why is it so hard for Dawkins and other Darwinists to see this?  Maybe they refuse to see it.  Maybe, like global warming “scientists,” they have their own political or moral reasons for denying the obvious.  Or maybe they’ve never realized that you cannot do science without philosophy.  As Einstein said, “The man of science is a poor philosopher.”   And poor philosophers of science may often arrive at false scientific conclusions.  That’s because science doesn’t say anything—scientists do.

This column appeared on Townhall.com on November 25.

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Defining Atheism No belief in God or Belief in no God

Defining Atheism: “No belief in God” or “Belief in no God?”

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“Atheist” is a translation of the Greek: atheos using the alpha privative “a” and the term for God “theos.” It does not merge the alpha private with the ENGLISH TERM “theist.” Rather “atheist” as a whole word is a translation of “atheos,” the whole word. Were the original meaning drawn entirely from etymology it would mean simply “godless,” “ungodly,” or “without God.” And this indeed is one of the definitions we find for the term in its Ancient sources. In that time, it also had the definition of “denying God/gods” which followed by implication from the notion of “godless;” if a person truly believed in a grand judge over all the universe he would not live/teach/think as if no such being existed.

 

However the idea of withholding/refraining belief about some God, though present in ancient Greece and Rome, tended to be subsumed under terms like “skepticism” (gk: skepticos) or “materialism” or “atomism” (a form of materialism). “Atheos” however was used to describe a different phenomenon. Thus the effective meaning of “atheos” is something like, “godless” or “disbelief in God.”Were someone to translate ancient and classical uses of “atheos” into “no belief in God” they would do an injustice to the text since that is simply not how Greeks and Romans were using the term when they first coined it, nor when they continued using it over the years.

Etymology (study of word origins, and composite meaning from word parts) is only one way that words take on meaning. When we apply etymology to the English word “atheism,” we have “athe” (from atheos “no God/Godless”) + “-ism” (belief). Belief then characterizes the “no God” hence we have, “Belief in no God.” And the alpha privative, as always, characterizes the word to which its affixed. So the belief is positive, the object of belief in negative. It is “belief in no God” or “belief in Godless[ness].” For etymology to achieve the negative definition of atheism, a popular definition today, from the term would have to be something like, “theos-a-ism” or, “No belief [in a] God.” The etymology argument then is not a friend but a foe of the negative definition of atheism.

In ancient Rome we find the positive form of atheism exercised when Christians were being persecuted and martyred for being “atheists.” They did not simply lack belief in the Roman Gods; rather they consciously rejected all God’s but one. Compared to the plethora of Gods in the Roman Pantheon, rejecting all but one is practically equivalent to atheism. Hence Christians were accused of atheism. Even ambivalence could have been tolerated among the Romans as they did with many agnostic philosophers (though the term “agnostic” had not be invented yet). But conscious rejection of the Roman Gods was seen as an intolerable affront to the State. As we can expect from ideas that are deeply rooted in human nature and the human psyche, the idea of “atheism” survived for centuries with both connotations intact: “godless” and “disbelief in God.”

However in recent times, the definition has come under question by atheist themselves. Three motivating factors can be identified. First, in debates, it is generally the better strategy to rebut the opponent’s case rather than to have to defend one’s one case. A softened definition of atheism allows for this. With negative atheism, the atheist doesn’t carry any burden of proof since that burden is on the participant/s making a positive case of some sort: “God exists” or “God does not exists.” But to claim, “I have no belief about God” is not a positive case, and therefore requires no defense in contemporary debate formats.

Second, Antony Flew’s important article “The Presumption of Atheism” argues that the default or neutral position for humanity is atheism. Building on the point just made, Flew argues that the burden of proof is on the theism to demonstrate that “belief in God” is reasonable. Essentially, Flew is arguing that negative/soft/weak atheism is man’s natural disposition, or if it is not, it is the intellectually justified default position. It is up to the theist to make a positive case for theism.

A third factor which might have played a part in this redefinition is the onset of British positivism, like that of A.J. Ayer. Ayer, among others, suggested that claims must be empirically verifiable or analytically (by-definition) true if they are to be linguistically meaningful. Theology, for Ayer, is not true, but nor is it even false. It is without meaning since its reference to God lacks analytic veracity and empirical testibility the notion cannot even be entertained as a proposition. It is like trying to argue “I believe in ‘ouch'” or “I don’t believe in ‘um.'” These terms “ouch” and “um” are emotive/gibberish terms that defy cognitive belief or disbelief. “Truth” and “falsity” do not apply to them, and, according to Ayer, nor does it apply to any God-talk. Ayer’s positivism was all the rage for a while, but today, few people are conscious advocates of this “logical positivism,” even though its scope and influence is incredibly widespread.

Understanding these three possible influences together: 1) The strategic advantage of donning a negative definition of atheism (“no belief in a God”), 2) combined with the argument of “The Presumption of Atheism,” and 3) a positivistic disposition–it makes complete sense why many contemporary atheists want to define their own camp in negative terms as “without theism, no belief in a God” instead of the historic and traditional usage of atheism as the positive position of “disbelief in God.” Addressing the complexity of the issue we find in the modern era. The term “agnostic” was coined by Thomas Huxley in 1889 with reference to his own conviction that knowledge about God’s existence or non-existence is impossible. He did not consider himself an atheist but found himself being called one.

Not surprisingly, the borders between “atheism” and “agnosticism” are often blurry or invisible. So for atheism to be distinct, defensible, and publically viable, it needs the help of some categorical distinctions since atheists are widely diverse and do not necessarily hold a party line when they don the moniker “atheist.” Somewhere in the Modern era, there seems to have been a division then in both Agnosticism and Atheism, rendering four categories from the previous two.

Negative/Weak/Soft Atheism–“no belief in God.”
Positive/Strong/Hard Atheism–“belief in no God.”
Weak Agnosticism–“knowledge of God does not exist.”
Strong Agnosticism–“knowledge of God is impossible.”
These categories are used by Michael Martin, Antony Flew, and William Rowe. I use these categories myself and find them quite helpful in clarifying some of the subtleties that arise in these debates. However, these are not standardized, and do not necessarily reflect the long history or widescale contemporary usage of “agnostic” and “atheist.” I recommend these categories for clarity of usage, but we should be careful not to follow, unthinking, the contemporary popular usage of “atheist” and “atheism” as being weak agnosticism. Etymology, history, and much contemporary standard sources defy that definition. Don’t believe me? Check some of the sources listed below. The latest entry is by atheist Kai Nielsen. William Rowe is also atheist. And I think Paul Edwards is too.

(historic usage) http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html
(1942) Ferm, Vergilius. “Atheism” in Dictionary of Philosophy. Edited by Dagobert D. Runes. New Jersey: Littlefield, Adams & Co. Philosophical Library.
(1951) http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/e_haldeman julius/meaning_of_atheism.html
(1967) Edwards, Paul “Atheism” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 1. Collier-MacMillan, 1967. p. 175.
(1973) Edwards, Paul, ed., “Atheism” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1973
(1998) Rowe, William L. “Atheism” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edward Craig. Routledge, 1998. (2009) Nielsen, Kai. “Atheism.” Encyclopædia Britannica.

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Who Really Commits the "God of the Gaps" Fallacy?

Who Really Commits the “God of the Gaps” Fallacy?

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The following is adapted from chapter 6 of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist:

The God-of-the-Gaps fallacy occurs when someone falsely believes that God caused the event when it really was caused by undiscovered natural phenomena. For example, people used to believe that lightning was caused directly by God. There was a gap in our knowledge of nature, so we attributed the effect to God. Darwinists assert that theists are doing the same thing by claiming that God created the universe and life. Are they correct? No, for a number of reasons.

 

First, when we conclude that intelligence created the first cell or the human brain, it’s not simply because we lack evidence of a natural explanation; it’s also because we have positive, empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent cause. A message (specified complexity) is empirically detectable. When we detect a message like “Take out the garbage, Mom” or 1,000 encyclopedias we know that it must come from an intelligent being because all of our observational experience tells us that messages come only from intelligent beings. Every time we observe a message, it comes from an intelligent being. We couple this data with the fact that we never observe natural laws creating messages, and we know an intelligent being must be the cause. That’s a valid scientific conclusion based on observation and repetition. It’s not an argument from ignorance, nor is it based on any “gap” in our knowledge.

Second, Intelligent Design scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes. They are not opposed to continued research into a natural explanation for the first life. They’re simply observing that all known natural explanations fail, and all empirically detectable evidence points to an intelligent Designer.

Now, one can question the wisdom of continuing to look for a natural cause of life. William Dembski, who has published extensive research on Intelligent Design, asks, “When does determination [to find a natural cause] become pigheadedness? . . . How long are we to continue a search before we have the right to give up the search and declare not only that continuing the search is vain but also that the very object of the search is nonexistent?” Consider the implications of Dembski’s question. Should we keep looking for a natural cause for phenomena like Mount Rushmore or messages like “Take out the garbage-Mom”? When is the case closed?

Walter Bradley, a coauthor of the seminal work The Mystery of Life’s Origin, believes A there ­doesn’t seem to be the potential of finding a [natural explanation] for the origin of life. He added, AI think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people who reasonably infer that there’s an Intelligent Designer.” Regardless of whether or not you think we should keep looking for a natural explanation, the main point is that ID scientists are open to both natural and intelligent causes. It just so happens that an intelligent cause best fits the evidence.

Third, the Intelligent Design conclusion is falsifiable. In other words, ID could be disproven if natural laws were someday discovered to create specified complexity. However, the same cannot be said about the Darwinist position. Darwinists don’t allow falsification of their “creation story” because, as we have described, they don’t allow any other creation story to be considered. Their “science” is not tentative or open to correction; it=s more closed-minded than the most dogmatic church doctrine the Darwinists are so apt to criticize.

Finally, it’s actually the Darwinists who are committing a kind of God-of the-Gaps fallacy. Darwin himself was once accused of considering natural selection “an active power or Deity” (see chapter 4 of Origin of Species). But it seems that natural selection actually is the deity or “God of the Gaps” for the Darwinists of today. When they are totally at a loss for how irreducibly complex, information-rich biological systems came into existence, they simply cover their gap in knowledge by claiming that natural selection, time, and chance did it.

The ability of such a mechanism to create information-rich biological systems runs counter to the observational evidence. Mutations that aren’t neutral are nearly always harmful, and time and chance do the Darwinists no good, as we explained in chapter 5. At best, natural selection may be responsible for minor changes in living species, but it cannot explain the origin of the basic forms of life. You need a living thing to start with for any natural selection to take place. Yet, despite the obvious problems with their mechanism, Darwinists insist that Natural Selection covers any gap in their knowledge. Moreover, they willfully ignore the positive, empirically detectable evidence for an intelligent being. This is not science but the dogma of a secular religion. One could say that Darwinists, like the opponents of Galileo, are letting their religion (or at least their philosophy) overrule scientific observations.

 

Dr. Frank Turek (D.Min.) is an award-winning author and frequent college speaker who hosts a weekly TV show on DirectTV and a radio program that airs on 186 stations around the nation.  His books include I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist and Stealing from God:  Why atheists need God to make their case

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