Skeptico

Irreducibly Dumb

Another lame-o, writing on Dembski’s blog, asks what he obviously thinks is a killer question:

In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have long wished to see posed to ID opponents: “If we DID discover some biological feature that was irreducibly complex, to your satisfication (sic) and to the satisfaction of all reasonable observers, would that justify the design inference?” […]

Answer – NO. Because irreducible complexity does not imply a designer and is not a problem for evolution. In fact, irreducible complexity has been proven to evolve. But this dolt clearly hasn’t heard of this, because he goes on to demonstrate even more stupidity:

If the answer is yes, we just haven’t found any such thing yet, then all the constantly-repeated philosophical arguments that “ID is not science” immediately fall. If the answer is no, then at least the lay observer will be able to understand what is going on here, that Darwinism is not grounded on empirical evidence but a philosophy.

Noooo, that’s not what it shows. It shows that ID is grounded on argument from ignorance. That is, it’s not science.

In any debate on Intelligent Design, there is a question I have frequently seen posed to IDists (but is never answered): “If we DID discover some biological feature that (hypothetically) you could demonstrate was irreducibly complex – what would that tell us about the designer. Because if the answer is “nothing” (which it is), then at least we can be clear that ID is useless vacuous nonsense.

68th Skeptics’ Circle

The 68th Skeptics Circle has just been posted at Aardvarchaeology, in a refreshingly straightforward format. Nice one Martin.

Nothing there from me this time, but plenty of other good skeptical posts for your edification.

No intelligence used…

…to make this film.

You will have heard of the new Ben Stein film, "EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed", that PZ and others have written about? It’s a piece of anti-evolution propaganda, due to be released next year.

Today, You Are Dumb tells Ben Stein exactly why he was dumb to get involved with this film.

How is he? Rough!

Now we have a dog who can tell nurses when someone is going to die. I wonder if he would have picked out Joe DiMaggio?

67th Skeptics’ Circle

The 67th Skeptics Circle has just been posted at The Bronze Blog. Bronze Dog has assembled a team of combat robots to tackle wooism in this edition. I think this picture is supposed to be me. (It’s the letter “S” that gives it away.)

Idiot Journalist is the new enemy of reason

A twit of a journalist called Melanie Phillips, writing in the Daily Mail, thinks that science is the enemy or reason. Why? Well, she seems to be saying that abandonment of religion has led to people believing in new age nonsense, alternative medicine etc. Quite why this is science’s fault is unclear, but I think this “journalist’s” reasoning is that Richard Dawkins is somehow arrogant in deriding Intelligent Design, and that this is as illogical as religion. Or something. It is a little hard to make any sense of what passes for a reasoned argument in this woman’s mind.

See if you can make sense of this:

But where Dawkins goes wrong is to assume this is all as irrational as believing in God. The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality.

No. Irrationality was there already – people just believe in other irrational things too – as irrational as religion in many cases.

We are living in a scientific, largely post-religious age in which faith is presented as unscientific superstition. Yet paradoxically, we have replaced such faith by belief in demonstrable nonsense.

It was GK Chesterton who famously quipped that "when people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything."

Yes. That is why this blog is about critical thinking and skepticism, not just anti-religion. Pity this “journalist” didn’t apply some – maybe explain to her readers how to be a critical thinker. You know – write something useful.

The big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe - which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science.

A rational creator? No, a petulant creator who demands obedience, worship and sometimes human sacrifice. Whose only son has to die so that he (God – who made the rules, remember?), can forgive us for our sins. Because he couldn’t just forgive us our sins unless his only son dies. Although he is God. Very rational.

And the most irrational thing about all this – believing in this pile of nonsense in the first place. Oh but wait:

Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don't correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance.

So which is it? Is there a rational creator, or is it all a metaphor? Surely it can’t be both?

The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth, which gives rise to reason. But our postreligious age has proclaimed that there is no such thing as objective truth, only what is "true for me".

Which is the opposite of what science teaches. How is this science’s fault, again?

That is because our society won't put up with anything which gets in the way of 'what I want'. How we feel about things has become all-important. So reason has been knocked off its perch by emotion, and thinking has been replaced by feelings.

Agreed. But why is science to blame?

This has meant our society can no longer distinguish between truth and lies by using evidence and logic.

How else do you distinguish between truth and lies?

In modern times, however, science has given rise to 'scientism', the belief that science can answer all the questions of human existence. This is not so.

Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.

Count the straw men. Science doesn’t even pretend to know the answers to “all the questions of human existence”, nor does it suggest it has explained “the origin of the universe”. Although it is the best method we have of knowing those things, if they are knowable.

The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin's theory of evolution - which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection - also accounts for the origin of life itself.

Well, I don’t know if Dawkins actually says that. But no scientific theory states that as yet. But at least science tries to answer those questions. What is Phillips’ better way? See what the Bible says?

There is no evidence for this whatever and no logic to it. After all, if people say God could not have created the universe because this gives rise to the question "Who created God?", it follows that if scientists say the universe started with a big bang, this prompts the further question "What created the bang?"

The argument is that saying “God created the universe” is not an answer – it just raises the question “who created God. So “Goddidit” tells us nothing. The Big Bang, however, tells us a lot. And makes predictions.

Indeed, if the origin of life were truly spontaneous, this would constitute what religious people would call a miracle. Accordingly, this claim in itself resembles not so much science as the superstition that Dawkins derides.

If he claimed it true without evidence, then that might be correct. Of course, what scientists are trying to do is find the evidence for the origins of life. Again, what is the alternative? “Magic man did it”?

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

Er, no it hasn’t.

These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.

Some of them may be scientists (not many, but some of them may be), but they’re not practicing science. And the findings didn’t “give rise” to the school. The school existed before – it was religion that “gave rise” to it. They then tried to shoe-horn the evidence to fit the religious beliefs they already had.

While this theory is, of course, open to vigorous counter-argument, people such as Prof Dawkins and others have gone to great lengths to stop it being advanced at all, on the grounds that it denies scientific evidence such as the fossil record and is therefore worthless.

No, they go to lengths to prevent it being taught as science, because it is not. And being taught ID as though it were science would jeopardize future scientific progress.

Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.

Again, nonsense. The Cambrian explosion is not a problem for evolution.

These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.

Yes, but only because they can’t imagine how it could have come about without God.

Whether or not they are right (and I don't know), their scientific argument about the absence of evidence to support the claim that life spontaneously created itself is being stifled - on the totally perverse grounds that this argument does not conform to the rules of science which require evidence to support a theory.

No, IDists do not have a “scientific argument about the absence of evidence”. They ignore the evidence for evolution, and they have no evidence for their lame idea. So yes, that isn’t science.

As a result of such arrogance, the West - the crucible of reason - is turning the clock back to a pre-modern age of obscurantism, dogma and secular witch-hunts.

Far from upholding reason, science itself has become unreasonable. So when Prof Dawkins fulminates against 'new age' irrationality, it is the image of pots and kettles that comes irresistibly to mind.

Science is unreasonable because it can’t yet explain how life started? And what is your explanation then Ms. Phillips? And what is your solution, if you don’t like science? Because you don’t provide any solutions in this long whine at Richard Dawkins. And if you have no solutions, what is the point? Pots and kettles indeed.

The God Part of the Brain

The publisher of Matthew Alper’s The God Part of the Brain, sent me a copy to review. The premise of the book is that spiritual consciousness (and therefore belief in God), is an evolved trait. Alper argues that our self-conscious awareness, and with it the awareness of our own eventual death, meant that humans would have lived in a state of constant dread unless there was something that could relieve us of the painful effects of that awareness. He suggests that spirituality – and the belief that we continue to live after death – is the palliative mechanism without which our species might not have survived.

It’s an interesting idea, and one that sounds right to me. Not every atheist would necessarily agree. As I recall, Michael Shermer had a slightly different take – I believe he suggested that religion was a way of “enforcing” acceptable rules of conduct necessary for group living. (I could be wrong – it is a while since I was at that talk.) Also I know that PZ Myers really doubts that religion is an adaptive trait. Still, I like the idea. Which is why I was so disappointed that this book doesn’t really make the case.

I was pretty much turned off the book from chapter 3 – “A Very Brief History of Time – which is a description of how we got here, from the big bang, through the formation of stars and planets, the possible way life may have started, and the subsequent evolution to the life we see today. It was a good idea to lay it all out like this, and it would be a useful read for someone not familiar with all the steps. It was let down by the numerous factual errors it contained.

My first “What?” moment occurred only four paragraphs in (page 26), where Alper explains Einstein’s E=mc²  equation:

What this essentially means is that if mass (matter) is accelerated to a high speed, it will become energy. Inversely, should energy be slowed down, it will settle into matter.

Which is of course nonsense. I can only assume that Alper thinks that since the equation includes the speed of light (“c”), this means matter has to be accelerated to a high speed (presumably close to light speed), to be converted to energy. But that is not what it means at all – “c” is just the ratio of conversion from matter to energy. You convert matter to energy by (for example) splitting an atom, not by speeding it up. (Also, how do you slow energy down? What does that even mean?) That had me shaking my head for a bit.

More serious, considering the premise of the book is to explain spirituality through evolution, was his rather startling errors in describing aspects of evolutionary theory. The explanations of natural selection were pretty good. But he goes off the rails on page 41 when he writes about punctuated equilibria:

Other times, a beneficial mutation emerges that is so dramatically different from its peers that a species can be transformed within a few generations…

He seems to be suggesting Saltation. But Stephen Jay Gould was very clear that he never linked punctuations to microevolutionary saltationism. The idea that massive evolutionary changes could come about in a few generations is clearly absurd, and is contra to just about everything else the theory of evolution tells us about small beneficial random mutations. All punctuated equilibria states is that there can be long periods with no evolution, followed by periods of relatively rapid change. But note “relatively” (perhaps fewer than 100,000 years for significant change) - not “a few generations”.

Then on the next page Alper describes genetic drift. Strangely he seems to think it occurs when members of a species migrate to a new area and are isolated from the rest of the species. While small populations are more prone to it, I’m pretty sure genetic drift occurs in all populations, and isolation from the herd is not necessary. But the major and I mean MAJOR error he makes here is in the example he gives for genetic drift – Darwin’s finches. But Darwin’s finches are an example of natural selection, not genetic drift. I actually read this section about five or six times to be sure this was what he was saying, it was so wrong. The errors in this section are so serious and basic that they really need to be cleaned up in any future editions. More to the point, it caused me to doubt the statements of facts and interpretations of data elsewhere in the book, when he was describing things I was less familiar with.

Most of the rest of the book is given over to numerous detailed logical arguments for why all traits must be evolved traits (all planarians turn to the light, all bees build hexagonal hives, all cats meow, etc). He makes a reasonable case although I found the writing style ponderous and repetitive. Unfortunately, although he makes a perfectly logical case to explain how God-belief could have evolved, he offers no actual evidence to support it. In fact you get to page 130 before he even promises that:

In the remaining chapters, I will provide … the most recent neurophysiological and genetic research that supports [the book’s] hypothesis.

But the rest of the book is mostly more of the same logical (and repetitive) arguments (planarians again, honey bees again), with virtually no actual experimental evidence. The most interesting part of the book, in my view, was the short section from page 136 where he describes the work of scientists (such as VS Ramachandran), that reveal an individual’s behavior can change in specific ways following the alteration of specific parts of the brain. In my view this section should have been longer, and with more references to the actual research. This brief section did actually seem to support the idea that “God” resides in a specific part of the physical brain and is not a product of any outside agency. (Paging Michael Egnor. Michael Egnor to the house phone.) Unfortunately it was too short and didn’t touch on the specific reasons Alper claims for the evolution of God-belief.

I really wanted to like this book, and I do think its main premise – that God belief evolved as a way of coping – may be true. But this book offers zero experimental evidence to support the case. The book might be useful to explain the widespread belief in God without proposing that God actually exists. But the factual errors in describing evolution need to be corrected before I could recommend it.

66th Skeptics’ Circle

The 66th Skeptics Circle has just been posted at Denialism Blog. Click on the link for the abstracts. And guess who’s on first! 

Missing The Point

I can’t help it. I really can’t. I just can’t help deconstructing poor or fallacious arguments. And Dembski’s blog is chock full of them. Yesterday, BarryA, in Identify the Indian or Shut Up, re-tools one of the old saws in the creationist tool bag – the argument that archaeologists determine design in items they find, just like IDists do in nature. I covered this before in SETI, archeology and other sciences – actually a rebuttal to an argument made by Casey Luskin. Barry is making the same argument, although this time it’s about finding sharp stones that look like arrowheads.

The other day I got into an argument with one of my friends who insisted that the literally hundreds of pieces of flint in my grandfather’s collection, each showing an almost identical chip pattern, could not possibly be accounted for by blind unguided natural forces like erosion. I have to admit he made a fairly impressive mathematical case and I was beginning to waver. But then my friends at Panda’s Thumb came to my rescue. They argue that a design inference is illegitimate unless the person asserting the inference can also identify the designer.

I don’t know about the PT guys, but that’s not how I would put it. I would say that archaeologists can infer design because they know something about the putative designer. For one – they know they are human. That means we know something about their habits (they eat meat), limitations (they have no claws, etc) and strengths (they compensate by being smart enough to design weapons). Also, if an artifact is found within an obvious human encampment, the object is likely to be of human origin. So although we cannot know the identity of the designer (a rather silly straw man), we do know something about the designer, and can draw inferences from that knowledge. Barry continues:

I pointed to one of the stones in the frame my grandfather gave me (It continues to hang on my wall for sentimental reasons, not because there is anything special about the stones themselves). I said, “OK, Mr. Smarty Pants. If the pattern on that stone is designed, tell me who the designer was.” He was, of course, stumped, so I declared myself the victor in the argument. Yet another triumph for materialist reasoning!

Of course, archaeologists don't have to "identify" the Indian - just knowing it was an Indian is enough.  (Although ironically, Barry's grandfather might not have actually known enough to be able to do that in most cases.  No matter.)  The problem with ID is not that they can’t identify the designer. The problem is that they know nothing about the supposed designer, and so have no way of inferring design in the complex patterns we find in nature.  Still – I think I’ll borrow Barry’s headline and modify it so it represents the true archaeologists’ argument, and play it back at him. IDists – tell us something about the designer (eg how he designs / why he designs / how he manufactures his designs / what strengths and limitations does he have) – something that would allow us to infer design in nature - or Shut Up.