Remonstrans
Humor In Unbelief
11/13/09
Humor In Unbelief
I am fascinated by the Intelligent Design argument as Stephen Meyer articulates it, and I am entertained by the shrill and doctrinaire "new atheists". I can't decide who is funnier, Tony Jones or Richard Dawkins.
Following his visit to Dallas I asked Meyer (with his knowledge of the history and philosophy of science) what might become of science as a discipline. Given recent discoveries, explanations and repercussions, what future is there for honest exploration and real science? He suggested that aspiring scientists would simply "move on to more productive efforts". I don't doubt that he is right: who wants to devote his time to pursuing answers that might cut the career short?
Still.
I'm not sure that the matter is quite so simply resolved. It's not just the work of the Discovery Institute that should have materialists worried. Materialists can surmise forever about matter and energy and chance, but I think Meyer's critique is—at this point—a mortal wound. Information does appear to exist and it does not appear to have an explanation materialists are willing to cough up. Materialism tells us precisely nothing. All the chance and necessity in the universe can't make this dog hunt. If you read Signature in the Cell you come away with the sort of hopelessness Dante spoke of.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I'm certainly not enough of a scientist to guess what possible answers might be offered in the future. I'm certainly not prepared to say Signature in the Cell will be the last book published on the subject (I do say it is a comprehensive introduction), but no answers even seem possible given what we now know.
As I say, it's not just ID narrowly defined. You should want to read about this, and you might want to pursue this line of thinking further. The very least that can be said is that "Darwinism is no longer alone in this world".
It may not be the greatest news I've heard all day, but it is now a fact of life for thoughtful men. We've been encouraged to become more reflective: here is one place to start.
Eternal things now cast a discernible shadow.
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1 Comment from: the divine passive [Visitor] 
So the next heresy down the pike will be neo-deism, right? Intelligent Design apart from the categories furnished in special revelation could only take one that far. We'll be up to our eyebrows in Thomas' Five Ways in ten years.
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11/13/09 @ 10:24 2 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
I really don’t know. I don’t think they can handle even a very genteel supernaturalism or a benign deity.
Traditional deism has a soul that survives death and a moral obligation. I can’t imagine what a neo-deism would do with a soul or a moral judge.
We should ask Tony Jones.
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11/13/09 @ 10:56 3 Comment from: BLT [Visitor]
I wonder how humorous this will be
http://www.tccsa.tc/calendar.html
Scroll down to November 16.
http://www.tccsa.tc/calendar.html
Scroll down to November 16.
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11/13/09 @ 12:56 4 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
From what I can see, any calendar event that includes pzmeyers will be a guaranteed knee-slapping hoot.
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11/13/09 @ 13:29 5 Comment from: Joshua Allen [Visitor]
I read a lot of material on evolutionary biology, genetics, etc. and keep relatively current on new research. I tend not to read the authors who synthesize for rhetorical purposes, although I thought Collins was pretty good (and I've been forced to read Dawkins to be able to explain to friends why he is an idiot).
The Amazon page for Signature in the Cell makes it sound like it covers mostly arguments I already know, but I may read it anyway. Following your other link, I'd much rather read the book by Gerhard Neuweiler, but apparently it's not translated to English? No way is my German good enough for that level of reading.
Speaking of "what's next for science", it's not as if there are large numbers of scientists engaged in fundamentalist anti-Christian polemics. And the few that are, are completely irrational, so they'll continue. The rest of the scientists, who are *not* engaged in religious polemics, will continue exactly what they are doing.
Professing belief in Dawkins "blind watchmaker" may sometimes be a requirement for getting a Ph.D in related scientific fields (I have seen this happen), but that's a political tax. It is in no way relevant to getting real scientific work done. The scope for useful contribution by people who "act as if" the theory is a Newtonian "local principle" (as Gerhard Neuweiler says), is vastly larger every year. That is, the associated science is imminently practical -- from medicine to economics.
The idea that evolution is controlled by information is certainly not fatal to practical science -- it's basically an assumption. But most scientists are already there; at least the scientists I know personally, who all moved to machine learning (information mining and pattern recognition) approaches to studying evolutionary processes a decade ago. Again, these are not scientists studying how new *species* form (which is a ridiculously impractical field no matter how you spin it). These are friends studying things like H1N1, HIV, Cancer, and heart disease.
The Amazon page for Signature in the Cell makes it sound like it covers mostly arguments I already know, but I may read it anyway. Following your other link, I'd much rather read the book by Gerhard Neuweiler, but apparently it's not translated to English? No way is my German good enough for that level of reading.
Speaking of "what's next for science", it's not as if there are large numbers of scientists engaged in fundamentalist anti-Christian polemics. And the few that are, are completely irrational, so they'll continue. The rest of the scientists, who are *not* engaged in religious polemics, will continue exactly what they are doing.
Professing belief in Dawkins "blind watchmaker" may sometimes be a requirement for getting a Ph.D in related scientific fields (I have seen this happen), but that's a political tax. It is in no way relevant to getting real scientific work done. The scope for useful contribution by people who "act as if" the theory is a Newtonian "local principle" (as Gerhard Neuweiler says), is vastly larger every year. That is, the associated science is imminently practical -- from medicine to economics.
The idea that evolution is controlled by information is certainly not fatal to practical science -- it's basically an assumption. But most scientists are already there; at least the scientists I know personally, who all moved to machine learning (information mining and pattern recognition) approaches to studying evolutionary processes a decade ago. Again, these are not scientists studying how new *species* form (which is a ridiculously impractical field no matter how you spin it). These are friends studying things like H1N1, HIV, Cancer, and heart disease.
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11/16/09 @ 10:47 6 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Oh yes; I don’t believe there is anything new in Signature in the Cell. I certainly hope I didn’t give than impression. Meyer himself calls it the “story” of his pursuit of these questions. Its value for me was in the review of a) the philosophical problem in the origin-of-life debate that has arisen over the last several decades since the discovery of information in the functioning of DNA, b) the various implausible attempts at a naturalistic explanation, i.e. the RNA world, probabilistic resources, chance elimination, pattern recognition, etc., c) the fact that Darwin’s own methodology comes to the rescue, and d) the logical bind that all of this places the materialist in.
It was one thing to read philosophers of science natter at one another; it was one thing to read “Creationists” (which included way too many crooks and cranks) making easy targets of themselves; it was one thing to listen to Evangullibles trying to baptize their Darwinism…it is a very different thing to wake up in all this political turmoil to find the materialist at a total loss to explain the very first fact we should have from science: Where in blue blazes does information come from, fellas? Isn’t that kinda important to your explanation?
Chance, necessity and survival of the fittest cannot—by definition—account for how life arose. Sure, “science” is not going away, but science certainly is changing. Sure there will be medical research, but that's all it will be. And scientists are losing credibility, as Berlinski points out.
That makes our world different from our grandparents’ world, and a different place to do pastoral work.
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11/16/09 @ 12:01 7 Comment from: Joshua Allen [Visitor]
It's quite a pickle. The scientists who are above the cult of materialism tend to consider themselves to also be above repentance. Stupidity takes out the bottom half, and pride at not being stupid takes out the top half.
On the one hand, the strident Dawkinites tend to not be the ones who are doing real science. Real science abhors and punishes the kind of epistemological certainty claimed (illegitimately) by Dawkins these days. It's the wives and children of the real scientists who seem to stumble in arrogance; and all of the kids that we churn out of our schools. Of course, real scientists can sometimes be goaded into responding where they shouldn't.
On the other hand, those scientists who readily admit their impotence to explain first facts like life, consciousness, etc. don't tend to consider themselves sinners. They may chortle at Dawkins and allow that perhaps *he* is in need of being "saved".
Anyway, that's my experience...
On the one hand, the strident Dawkinites tend to not be the ones who are doing real science. Real science abhors and punishes the kind of epistemological certainty claimed (illegitimately) by Dawkins these days. It's the wives and children of the real scientists who seem to stumble in arrogance; and all of the kids that we churn out of our schools. Of course, real scientists can sometimes be goaded into responding where they shouldn't.
On the other hand, those scientists who readily admit their impotence to explain first facts like life, consciousness, etc. don't tend to consider themselves sinners. They may chortle at Dawkins and allow that perhaps *he* is in need of being "saved".
Anyway, that's my experience...
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11/16/09 @ 16:37 8 Comment from: dissidens [Member]
Well, it’s true: you always have the sham and the charlatan. But this is one of the ways it has changed. Quacks like Dawkins will not debate Meyer. This is a sea change; it’s just unfortunate that we got here after the mess that guys like Gish and Hovind created.
As I often say with respect to other things, there is a real benefit to good housekeeping. We have not had good housekeeping on either side since about 1925.
But it really is more than you say: there is more here than a few Dawkins dweebs and some chortlers. There really is a Smithsonian dogmatism, an institutional inertia that resists the truth, and there really is a gaping hole in the side of their boat. It won’t close down clinics and labs, that’s true. But it does change the way we all do business.
As I often say with respect to other things, there is a real benefit to good housekeeping. We have not had good housekeeping on either side since about 1925.
But it really is more than you say: there is more here than a few Dawkins dweebs and some chortlers. There really is a Smithsonian dogmatism, an institutional inertia that resists the truth, and there really is a gaping hole in the side of their boat. It won’t close down clinics and labs, that’s true. But it does change the way we all do business.
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11/17/09 @ 06:01 Leave a comment:
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