Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 109

February 8, 2022

Whatever Darwin may have been, he was (probably) not a plagiarist

Another book is set to drop on the market claiming that Darwin plagiarized the work of another evolution theorist:

Charles Darwin is credited with transforming the understanding of natural history – but a new book claims to have found evidence that he stole his Theory of Evolution.

Written by an experienced criminologist, it argues there are overwhelming similarities between Darwin’s seminal On The Origin Of Species and an earlier work by a naturalist called Patrick Matthew…

In 1859, having observed such creatures as the giant Galapagos tortoise, he published On The Origin Of Species, spelling out the theory of a ‘Process of Natural Selection’. However, 28 years earlier Matthew had published On Naval Timber And Arboriculture, which expounded similar findings through his theory of the ‘Natural Process of Selection’.

Dr Mike Sutton, whose book Science Fraud: Darwin’s Plagiarism Of Patrick Matthew’s Theory is published by Curtis next Saturday, said: ‘This is the biggest science fraud in history.’ …

Perhaps most damning is a letter from Darwin’s wife, Emma, written on behalf of her husband.

Dr Sutton said: ‘She wrote claiming Darwin was too ill to write, with a telling line to Matthew. She says, “Darwin is more loyal to your own original child than you were yourself.” If you want an admission, there it is – “Your own original child”.’

John Dingwall, “Charles Darwin is accused of stealing Theory of Evolution from rival naturalist in history’s biggest science fraud” at Daily Mail (February 5, 2022)

Heady stuff.

On a bet, we asked science historian Michael Flannery, who has written a fair bit on early evolution theorists himself:

There is nothing new in this plagiarism claim. It’s at least as old as Samuel Butler (1853-1902). One of the more recent versions of this theme can be found in Roy Davies’s The Darwin Conspiracy (2008). My problem with this take on Darwin is that much of its evidence is shaky and more based upon a priori assumptions and interpretations than incontrovertible data.

Also, it can serve as a way of getting Darwin off the hook as it were. If Darwin was merely echoing ideas of others (such as Patrick Matthew) then we’ve all been barking up the wrong tree. If true, maybe Matthew should be the target or someone else. But it should also not be forgotten that Darwin added a “Historical Sketch” in the third edition of Origin (1861) that does a pretty good job of outlining most of his evolutionary predecessors.

My preferred position would be to say that despite numerous earlier attempts at formulating an evolutionary theory, Darwin’s complete package really did contribute something new and different. In short, it was a fairly complete materialistic metaphysic that used science or scientific explanation as its presumptive foundation. The key to Darwin is to be found not in its historical similarities but in its unique differences. Even when contrasted with Alfred Russel Wallace, the differences are striking. I discuss this at length in Nature’s Prophet (pp. 33-42).

That’s Nature’s Prophet: Alfred Russel Wallace and His Evolution from Natural Selection to Natural Theology, if you want to follow up.

We’ll assume that the Darwin-in-the-schools people have picked the right hero.

You may also wish to read: Washington, DC Mayor’s Office: Let Darwinism take care of the unvaccinated. Darwinism? Just when we thought we were veering off-topic, our issues all collide.

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Published on February 08, 2022 01:23

February 7, 2022

The police swoop in Ottawa: The Constitution? Old news now

“Trust the science!” is starting to show its totalitarian face in Canada — but citizens, slowly starting to learn the facts about the COVID crisis, are standing their ground.

Canadian commentator Mark Steyn has the story:

In Ottawa, attempts by agents provocateurs to provoke violence at the Freedom Rally have gone nowhere…

Meanwhile, the Ottawa police have begun arresting citizens trying to deliver food to the truckers. There is no basis in Canadian law for the actions these goon coppers are taking, but the attitude of their dreadful police chief is: hey, the law is whatever I say it is. So he has ordered the arrest of citizens for “mischief”. By mischief, he means bringing sustenance or heat to protesters passing the night in temperatures of twenty below…

The truckers are rallying against “vaccine mandates”, which have no justification in science: The Prime Minister, who is as vaxxed, jabbed and boostered as any mammy singer on the planet, is supposedly hors de combat because he’s down with a second dose of the Covid.

Oh, but don’t worry! To be sure, the common understanding of the word “vaccine” is that you won’t catch what you’re being vaccinated against. But what we really mean is that, if you do get it, it won’t be serious, you won’t be in the ICU, and you certainly won’t die of it.

And by “certainly” we mean, well, probably. Israel, en route to be the world’s first entirely fourth-jabbed nation, currently has a daily death toll higher than before it started giving anyone the first jab. There is no public-health justification for making liberty conditional on compliance with the developed world’s failed strategy of coerced vaccines and constant testing.

Mark Steyn, “The Cavalry Rides in to Covidstan” at Steynonline (February 6, 2022)

Canadians are not braver than other people but we have a prime minister who spouts hate (from wherever he is hiding) against those of us who have figured out that the government’s “Trust the Science!” strategies are not working and may be endangering more people than they help. And an opposition party too spineless to say or do anything about it. And media he has bought and paid for are amplifying every slander.

This video could be one of the most powerful statements you will ever hear from peaceful, law-abiding citizens who have had enough of the slow morph into a “science”-driven totalitarian state (happening in many places around the world). And it is not a long jaw. Just watch a bit of it and study their faces:

Freedom Convoy Leadership Update – Address to the Nation 7:00pm February 6, 2020. Ottawa Mayor declared a state of emergency. How Ottawa Police taking the convoy fuel and occupying the convoy tents does not impact the Freedom Convoy logistics.

From the comments: “Canadians: ‘Be polite when you are being arrested.’ u guys rock!” (Sure, commenter. Canada belongs to the people of Canada. And this is how free people fight back. Serfs, by contrast, destroy things and attack people because they have no stake in a free and prosperous society. – O’Leary for News)

Also: From Shawn Whateley, past president of the Ontario Medical Association, to the progressive elite: Quit slandering and start listening:

Many Canadian elites have shown an unexpected level of incompetence, in response to protest.

The prime minister chose to attack the truckers’ Freedom Convoy 2022. Listening was beneath him. He slandered instead of showing compassion. He refused to meet. Trudeau only listens to those he likes.

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, did the same. Many individual MPs hurled insults. The media made us dizzy with spin…

The elites may have lost the larger crowd already.

Thousands of regular people have gone to see the convoy for themselves. They find a happy celebration. They sing and dance and play soccer and hockey in the street. They wave flags and exchange high fives. People hand out free hot food on every corner.

Close family and friends return with pictures and videos of a moving, patriotic event. I now have dozens and dozens of first-hand reports from people I trust: this is not a violent protest.

Shawn Whateley, “The Only Rational Response to Truckers’ Freedom Convoy” at Epoch Times (Updated February 7, 2022)

He hopes a leader will rise up to guide us into a common sense response to COVID-19 Some of us, including O’Leary for News, sadly, don’t see Justin Trudeau growing into the role.

Update: The Jeep driver who ran down four demonstrators in Winnipeg is David Zegarac, a far left activist, active on the punk rock scene. Was he perhaps only doing what many such persons have fantasized about?

Here’s a safe crowdfunding site to hire lawyers for arrested truckers (there’ll likely be more, probably on flimsy pretexts). The elite have gone to war against the free citizen in lots of places in the world, using “science” as a bludgeon, not a tool.

Also: The good news is, you don’t have to be a Canadian to fight back: ‘Freedom Convoy’ Protests Are Spreading Throughout World as Truckers Lead the Fight Against Mandates.

Update: Candice Bergen, the interim leader of the Conservative Party, is calling for an end to the COVID crazy, something the leader who was just voted out, Erin O’Toole, could not bring himself to do:

This must happen. Wrecking kids schooling and social lives is not a way to fight COVID-19. We need to focus on protecting those at serious risk of untimely death.

You may also wish to read: Let us listen to Dr. Robert Malone, dissenting expert, on the COVID-19 crisis

and, for what’s happening in suddenly famous Canada:

What I saw at the Freedom Convoy in downtown Victoria It was all friendly; people were having a good time. There was no violence; I heard no racial epithets and saw no racial insignia. So if media tell you that it is really about white nationalism, etc., remember that the legacy Canadian media are in fact supported to stay in business by the federal government. Because few depend on them for news any more.

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Published on February 07, 2022 09:54

The cost of silencing science debate: Subjective science

A vaccine research scientist from mainland China discusses the cost of authoritarianism in science:

I did not want the tragic death of my brothers to ever happen to another defenseless child, so I devoted my scientific career to vaccine development. Thanks to the well-tested, safe, and effective vaccines that have been developed, we see far fewer children die from infectious diseases today than 70 years ago.

As a vaccine research scientist in Canada, I realized my dream of advancing fact-based science to reduce the child mortality rate. Also, unlike in China, where information the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deems harmful is censored, I had access to uncensored information in Canada. That’s how I discovered a phenomenon that could be more deadly than any infectious disease: Subjective Science.

I learned that my sister Zhen did not have to die; she would have lived if it wasn’t for Mao’s insane Great Leap Forward campaign. Many families in our village died with no survivors, while my family was one of the luckiest with only one dead.

Joe Wang, “Pandemic Lessons Learned: Scientific Debate Silenced, With Deadly Consequences” at Epoch Times (February 5, 2022)

And today?

It seemed that the SARS-CoV-2 origin narrative had been decided upon—even when the existing facts did not support the narrative. The scientists took the existing facts and forced them to fit the preferred narrative, and also forced the general public to accept it, while silencing all other opinions and essentially banning scientific debate on the issue.

Seeing what was happening in the science world, and the controlled narrative of the authorities on scientific matters, as a former proud scientist I was dismayed and distressed. I couldn’t believe prominent scientists like Kristian Andersen and publications like Nature Medicine could betray the very principle of science: telling the truth. Instead, they used people’s trust in science to silence scientific debate and advance their own narrative. This is Subjective Science, the Mao-style totalitarian science, at work in the free world!…

Before Canada and the United States become Mao-style communist states, we still have a chance to get rid of Subjective Science and restore fact-based, Objective Science. That will put us in a much better position to take on the next challenge Mother Nature may throw at us.

Joe Wang, “Pandemic Lessons Learned: Scientific Debate Silenced, With Deadly Consequences” at Epoch Times (February 5, 2022)

One consequence is that those who seek to provide non-approved but defensible information are vilified and persecuted, to protect the Official Story by which many prosper, though the public as a whole may be harmed.

Darwinism has metastasized.

You may also wish to read: Washington, DC Mayor’s Office: Let Darwinism take care of the unvaccinated. Darwinism? Just when we thought we were veering off-topic, our issues all collide.

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Published on February 07, 2022 08:24

Isaac Newton’s whole career, we are told, was a pursuit of the divine

Remember this when someone tells you that science and religion don’t mix:

Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726/27)

Isaac Newton formulated the laws of mechanics and the law of universal gravity, the laws we use to describe so many of the phenomena we experience, from apples falling and rockets taking off to Mars to the colors of the rainbow. As a bonus, he also invented the reflector telescope that we use to extend our vision into the Universe. And, of course, Newton co-invented calculus, without which there would be no physics or engineering…

To focus on Newton’s science in order to understand Newton simply won’t do. His appetite for learning far transcended what we would nowadays call science. He devoted a larger amount of time to studies in alchemy and theology, dealing with arcane questions which ranged from the transmutation of elements to biblical chronology and the nature of the Christian Trinity.

Although we correctly learn in schools that Newtonian physics is a model of pure rationality, we would dishonor Newton’s memory if we overlooked the crucial role God plays in his Universe. It may be true that to understand Newton’s scientific achievements we can neglect the more metaphysical side of his personality. But that is only half the story — for Newton saw the Universe as a manifestation of the infinite power of God. It is no exaggeration to say that his life was one long search for God, one long search for communion with the Divine Intelligence, which Newton believed endowed the Universe with the beauty and order manifest in nature. His science was a product of this belief, an expression of his rational mysticism, a bridge between the human and the Divine.

Marcelo Gleiser, “Isaac Newton’s life was one long search for God” at Big Think (February 2, 2022)

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Published on February 07, 2022 07:40

L&FP, 51: The fallacy of the false dilemma

A classic rhetorical tactic is to pose a dilemma, an argument where the opponent is presented with alternatives, all bad so forcing him or her to either make a bad choice or back away from the position taken. In a variant, one of the choices is presented as a lesser of evils, which is to be taken even reluctantly.

It is a powerful rhetorical strategy, and so it is often posed even when it is unwarranted, which is where fallacious dilemma arguments come from. This post is about that fallacious case, and the following infographic will help:

Gladstone in a political dilemma
[HT, Wikipedia]

Here, we see how policy proposal or argued position P is presented with a dilemma, Q XOR R — two exclusive, allegedly exhaustive options, but where each leads to an unpalatable or unacceptable outcome, X’ or X”. The so trapped party is then invited to retreat (or in some cases to pick the lesser evil, say X’).

This form of argument is closely related to the very respectable argument form, reduction to absurdity, where one fork being absurd, one takes the other as truth given P.

HT, ZW, two classic cases from the gospels may help to clarify how powerful and even dangerous a dilemma can be. A woman is thrown down before Jesus as he teaches in the Temple: adulteress caught in the act. Moses said stone such, what do you say? Similarly, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? Each of these was a yes/no — and yes such are often used by wicked interrogators insisting on short answers they can readily twist — Stone her, you are a rebel against Rome, do not stone her you are a heretic against Moses (and we will lynch you). Do not pay and Rome will crucify you as a rebel, pay and you are a traitor to Israel. Both times, Jesus took the third option.

So, how does one deal with a dilemma?

It might be that indeed, one must retreat from P (though, most of the time that is not likely)Sometimes, the forced alternative is not valid and a third way, S, can be taken that leads to a good result or a less worse one than P or Q. A classic case is the Euthyphro argument on roots of morality and the theistic answer that God is the root of reality who is inherently good and utterly wise, where also the good and right are sufficiently intelligible that we are not forced to act blindlyIn a high form of the art of rhetoric, some pose a counter-dilemma that gives an even worse choice to the other party, substituting Q’ and R’ for Q and R, to force the other party to retreat.

In any case, a dilemma is not easy to deal with at all.

There is another related case that comes up on policy matters. The business as usual trend in a community reflects the balance of its power factions and sometimes is on a road to disaster. The run up to the two World Wars is a classic pair of cases. The issue then becomes finding a credible alternative and building a critical mass coalition to switch to it before it is too late.

If that fails, preach the good word but spend your 120 years building an ark. END

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Published on February 07, 2022 03:20

Guest post: Harry, on the misanthropy (so, disregard for life) of the lawless elite

UD sometimes hosts guest posts, some by request, some by promotion of comments. This is one of the latter. A key point is his note that the toll of our living posterity in the womb is now two billions (I can readily show 800+ millions and can plausibly support the 1.4 billion statistics I have seen). Similarly, the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic shows sobering disregard for life and duties of care. We need to ask how we have come to this, within living memory of the Nuremberg trials.

Without endorsing beyond “this is food for thought” we need to consider Harry’s concerns and considerations:

>>The outrageous corruption of the godless elite is finally coming into the light of day. It didn’t reach such depths of depravity, such complete lack of respect for human life overnight. The diabolical nature of the present corruption developed into its current nightmarish form over decades, actually over centuries, since it was conceived in the militant atheism that arose with the so-called Enlightenment, and has now matured into a monster that dominates the institutions of what was once Christendom.

We are now at two-billion innocent human lives taken by “legal” abortion worldwide. The greatest holocaust of innocent human life in the history of the world began only a few decades after the Nuremberg Trials established that the state has no authority whatsoever to legalize the murder of innocent humanity; its prosecutors treated “legal” abortion as a crime against humanity; defendants who demonstrated that they had done nothing illegal under Nazi law were hanged. Why? Because the state simply has no authority whatsoever to legalize the murder of innocent humanity. Murder is intrinsically illegal and can’t be made legal.

How did the world, so soon after defeating the Nazis by paying an unprecedented price in blood and tears, and so soon after condemning them at Nuremberg, resume the basic Nazi error? That error was, of course, to deify the state. Only a self-deified state that makes itself into a god claims the authority to “legalize” the murder of innocent humanity. After all, if there is no God then the state, for all practical purposes, is a god with no authority above its own. Such an atheocracy inevitably assumes that if there is no God managing the human herd, directing its evolution, then somebody has to ensure the survival of only the fittest. Self-appointed, godless social engineers in cooperation with the self-deified state must direct the culling of the herd.

Understanding this puts the thwarting of effective treatments for Covid in perspective. One realizes that the godless elite has decided that two-billion lives taken by “legal” abortion isn’t sufficient; they must further cull the human herd. [–> Note, Harry’s inference per fair comment, note Mr Gates’ notorious on camera comment on reducing population starting with by use of vaccines] The ideal human population, according to the population controllers, is around 1.5 to 2 billion people.(1) You, dear reader, are disposable surplus that is causing problems — at least you are that according to the reigning atheocracy.

Again, how was it that the basic Nazi error was so quickly put into practice again? In today’s computerized world it is helpful if one thinks of the Nuremberg Trials as an official declaration that a database was indeed terribly corrupted; the data was corrected, but the root cause of its corruption was never corrected. So the database, of course, quickly became corrupted again. And what was the root cause of the corruption that was never dealt with? John Quincy Adams described the basic cause long ago. In his 1839 Jubilee of the Constitution discourse he repeatedly contrasts “the judgment of the sovereign constituent people, responsible only to God” and the “grossly immoral and dishonest doctrine of despotic state sovereignty, the exclusive judge of its own obligations, and responsible to no power on earth or in heaven for the violation of them.” The latter is the case today under the reigning atheocracy, and profoundly so. Sovereignty rests in the people, not in a godless state. That is what made the American revolution different from all previous revolutions in history; the people didn’t want a new [absolute] king or a new [unaccountable] ruler, they wanted public servants:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness — it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The activities of public servants are constrained by the “consent of the governed.” The activities of the currently reigning atheocracy is constrained by nothing whatsoever. Whatever they have the power to do they will do. Ultimately sovereignty rests in the people, “responsible only to God,” as John Quincy Adams made clear. Americans must reassert this basic principle.

Another point should be made for the sake of those who will dismiss the thinking of America’s founding generation as hypocritical because the revolution didn’t end slavery. Consider the thoughts of Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens shortly before the Civil War actually began:

The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day, (2)

Stephens was right about the founding generation believing that slavery was “in violation of the laws of Nature.” The reason the American Constitution, quite temporarily in the eyes of the founders, “secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last,” was that, as Stephens puts it, “It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with,” and they were convinced it would soon be gone anyway, as Horace Greeley confirmed in 1856:

The old Articles of Confederation having proved inadequate to the creation and maintenance of a capable and efficient national or central authority, a Convention of Delegates from the several States was legally assembled in Philadelphia, in 1787 — George Washington President; and the result of its labors was our present Federal Constitution … It will be noted that the word “slave,” or “slavery” does not appear therein. Mr. Madison, who was a leading and observant member of the Convention, and who took notes of its daily proceedings, affirms that this silence was designed — the Convention being unwilling that the Constitution of the United States should recognize property in human beings. … Contemporary history proves that it was the belief of at least a large portion of the delegates that Slavery could not long survive the final stoppage of the the slave-trade, which was expected to (and did) occur in 1808. (3)

To accuse the founding generation of being fundamentally racist (which is done by critical race theory) because their revolution didn’t end slavery is as ridiculous as it would be to accuse today’s Christians of being pro-abortion because they don’t see clearly how to end “legal” baby murder. We are working on it; and we will continue to work on it, although there is a lesson for us from American history and from Sacred Scripture.

The lesson from American history

The founding generation was right that the evil of slavery would be ended by God’s Providence, although they weren’t expecting that to happen through the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War. Lincoln described the situation as follows:

The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” [Mt 18:7] If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled up by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” [Ps 19:9] (4)

“two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil” cried out to God for justice:

Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
— James 5:4

So does the innocent blood of two-billion innocent children:

What has thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth.
— Genesis 4:10

In our case the question isn’t “What hast thou done?” but “What hast thou done about it?” After all, God gave “both North and South, this terrible war.” The North hadn’t used their God-given freedom sufficiently to end slavery; apparently God wanted more Abolitionist fervor than he saw in the North as a whole.

In the same way, if “legal” baby murder, “having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove” God may not restrict His chastisement to the godless elite. He asks each of us “What hast thou done?” as in “What have you done about it?”

The lesson from Sacred Scripture

Whether it was the Egyptians, or the Midianites or the Philistines who were oppressing/enslaving God’s people, the reason God allowed it was that it was God’s chastisement for idolatry. God would hand His people over to oppression or slavery by the nation whose false god they had worshiped.

The reason Christianity is disintegrating throughout what was once Christendom is our failure to realistically resist the state’s usurpation of authority over innocent human life that belongs only to God. The state has no authority whatsoever to “legalize” the murder of innocent humanity. To fail to unceasingly resist that usurpation is to render unto Caesar that which belongs only to God. That is idolatry, which, besides being the destruction of Christendom, brings down God’s chastisement upon us.

The Nazis didn’t think they did anything illegal when they culled humanity of those deemed by them to be “unfit.” Nor do contemporary abortionists think they have done anything illegal when they kill wiggling, kicking babies more viable than patients routinely cared for in modern neonatal intensive care units. Nor does the godless atheocracy when it suppresses effective Covid treatments.

Yet murder is still intrinsically illegal. The Nazis couldn’t have been more wrong. Contemporary abortionists couldn’t be more wrong. The population controllers couldn’t be more wrong. And contemporary Christianity couldn’t be more wrong in failing to aggressively resist “legal” murder, which isn’t just killing babies and those refused effective treatment for Covid, it is killing Christianity itself due to the idolatry inherent in signaling to Caesar our approval by our failure to realistically resist it.

The future is up to you.

In order to save Christianity God will have to chastise us. The question is will He hand us over to oppression by the tyrannical atheocracy for generations to get our attention? Or will He allow us to go on as a free people after a chastisement, like He did after the Civil War?

Things are coming to a head because the peaceful means of changing government policy has been removed from us by election-rigging and massive voter fraud on the part of the atheocracy. How are we going to have a peaceful election in November when the majority of Americans believe the current regime assumed power fraudulently? And they don’t plan relinquishing their power peacefully. Things are going to get chaotic.

Make your mind up now to do the right thing no matter what happens, and do so with the fervor of a flaming Abolitionist, and God may yet have mercy on us, and on our children and grandchildren.

(1) http://www.theguardian.com/env…..ul-ehrlich(Some estimates of the ideal world population are much lower, around a half-billion)
(2) Cornerstone Speech; Savannah, Georgia; March 21, 1861
(3) A History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction in the United States from the Declaration of Independence to the Present Day; Horace Greeley; New York: Dix, Edwards & Co., 221 Broadway; 1856
(4) Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, 1865.>>

Food for thought. Is Harry uncomfortably near to truth? Has Malthusianism gone mad? Have we fatally undermined the perceived value of life? Is he readily dismissed? What do the ghosts have to say on it? Why? END

PS: A note on the challenge of lawlessness:

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Published on February 07, 2022 02:13

At Mind Matters News: How easy is it to imagine absolutely nothing?

Theories around the Big Bang provide an interesting test of the concept. Some argue that our universe is constantly coming into and going out of existence, in an endless series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches:

It does not appear that the Big Bang had a natural beginning. It was the beginning. Before it, there was nothing at all, which is a hard concept for us to grasp. In a debate with naturalist philosopher David Papineau, theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor described it as an effect with no physical cause. Despite their other differences Papineau agreed with that.

Some have argued that there were multiple Big Bangs, each building on the ashes, so to speak, of the last…

Perhaps the laws of reality (the metaverse, whatever) simply do not allow for a state that we would understand as completely nothing. We think of nothing as simply the absence of stuff, of matter and energy, but perhaps it’s more complicated than that. It may simply be impossible for there to be truly nothing in that simplistic sense. This, of course, deals with the ultimate nature of reality, where physics borders metaphysics…

What if the maximally expanded and cold universe mathematically approaches the identical state as the singularity that resulted in the Big Bang? Again, our human minds limited by the frame of the Earth cannot wrap around this concept, but we can crunch the numbers. At some point the heat death universe becomes a singularity, and then starts another cycle of the universe. If you want to really blow your mind, some physicists even speculate that this would be the same universe. Not another version of the same matter and energy, but the actual same universe in space and time. Essentially the end of the universe and the beginning of the universe are the same moment in time, the universe loops back in on itself in one giant self-contained temporal cycle.

The universe would then be temporally finite but unbound (Stephen Hawking discussed this in his book, A Brief History of Time). The best analogy is a ring, we just keeping going around the ring forever, but there is no true beginning or end. In this concept there is no beginning or end, there is no before, there is just a bound infinite loop. This solves the “something from nothing” problem, because the universe did not come from anything, it just always was. This still leaves us with the deeper question – why is there something instead of nothing, but that may not be a useful line of inquiry.

Steven Novella, “Was the Big Bang Something from Nothing” at Neurologica Blog (January 20, 2022)

The non-theistic explanations are colorful but it is not clear that they solve problems. Rather, they demonstrate the difficulty we have imagining… absolutely nothing.

News, “How easy is it to imagine absolutely nothing?” at Mind Matters News (February 6, 2022)

Takehome: The non-theistic explanations are colorful but it is not clear that they solve problems. Rather, they demonstrate the difficulty we have imagining… absolutely nothing.

You may also wish to read:

Freebits: An interesting argument from the Big Bang for free will There are two types of uncertainty, we learn, only one of which could create free will. Astrobiologist Caleb Scharf argues that “information isn’t just a way to probe the fundamentals of nature; it may be part of the fundamentals.”

and

Round 3: Egnor vs Papineau: The Big Bang has no natural beginning, In the debate between theistic neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and naturalist philosopher David Papineau, the question gets round to the origin of the universe itself. Egnor maintains that the Big Bang, which is held to have created the universe, is an effect with no physical cause. Papineau agrees.

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Published on February 07, 2022 00:18

Historian Richard Weikart helps talk show maven Whoopi Goldberg understand why the Holocaust WAS about race

Whoopi Goldberg is sitting out a short suspension from her usual seat at ABC’s “The View” for remarks to this effect:

On Monday, while discussing a Tennessee school district banning the graphic novel “Maus,” Goldberg said, “If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it because the Holocaust isn’t about race.”

Goldberg said instead it was about “man’s inhumanity to man” and that both groups of people were white.

ABC News, “Whoopi Goldberg suspended from ‘The View’ for 2 weeks over Holocaust comments” at ABC News (February 1, 2022)

Weikart is not trying to Cancel Goldberg; rather, he thinks there are some things she (and perhaps most people) don’t clearly understand about the Holocaust. First, to the Nazis — whatever anyone else may think — it WAS about race.

Weikart’s recent book, Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism, covers the links between Darwinism, as understood in the early twentieth century, and Nazism and other racialist movements like White Nationalism, etc. At The Stream, he writes,

Up to the about the 1850s, Jews in Europe were usually identified by their religion. Jews who converted to Christianity were usually no longer considered Jews. They were treated as full and equal members of society.

But in the late nineteenth century this changed, as biological determinism gained adherents. This view taught that heredity determined human traits, even behavioral traits. On this view, the racist stereotypes of Jews as greedy, deceitful, and sexually immoral were chalked up to heredity. It was “in their blood.”

Richard Weikart, “Whoopi Goldberg’s Not the Only One Making This Mistake About Jews and Race” at The Stream (February 6, 2022)

Biological determinism?

Also, by the 1890s and early 1900s many biologists and anthropologists promoted scientific racism. Often they focused on disparities between Europeans and black Africans, East Asians, and Native Americans. Many anthropologists also divided Europeans into different racial groups. This is why Hitler thought the Aryan or Nordic race was also superior to other non-Nordic Europeans. (The terms “Aryan” and “Nordic” were used synonymously.)

As I explain in my new book, this malicious brew of scientific racism and anti-Semitism was not the province of some fringe, hare-brained publicists. In Germany—both before and during the Third Reich—these ideas were mainstream among scientists. For instance, Fritz Lenz was one of the leading geneticists in Germany before the Nazis came to power. He integrated anti-Semitism into his co-authored textbook on human genetics. And he was by no means alone.

Richard Weikart, “Whoopi Goldberg’s Not the Only One Making This Mistake About Jews and Race” at The Stream (February 6, 2022)

Weikart goes onto explain in considerable detail that the on-the-ground interpretation of Darwinism underlay this development.

(born Caryn Elaine Johnson, 1955), a gifted comedienne, considers herself Jewish. If so, the best that can come of this is that an accomplished historian is helping her straighten stuff like this out. If she doesn’t know, just think how many other people don’t.

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Published on February 07, 2022 00:00

February 6, 2022

Can the Higgs boson give believers their multiverse? Shot and chaser

Shot: The Higgs ought to be three times as heavy as it is. So…

We’re not sure why it isn’t heavier, but a new paper lays out a fascinating solution. According to physicists Raffaele Tito D’Agnolo of Université Paris Saclay in France and Daniele Teresi of CERN, the problem can be resolved if, at the time of the Big Bang, the Universe consisted of many universes – a multiverse.

Not only do the physicists’ calculations solve the mass of the Higgs boson, they also solve a seemingly unrelated problem in the Standard Model: the preservation of symmetry in the strong force that binds the elementary particles that form all normal matter.

The team’s model starts the Universe as a multitude of universes. Each universe in this multiverse has a different mass for the Higgs boson – some quite heavy, and some very light.

Michelle Starr, “Mind-Bending New Multiverse Scenario Could Explain a Strange Higgs Boson Feature” at ScienceAlert (February 4, 2022)

Chaser: There is simply no empirical evidence for the existence of a multiverse, as opposed to “If there were a multiverse, it would solve such-and-such a problem:

The Multiverse is everywhere these days…

But is there any real empirical scientific basis for it? Is there good reason to believe that this Multiverse idea, which emerged from the frontiers of science, is true? In other words, do you live in a Multiverse?

The answer for better for worse is no. There is no empirically grounded scientific reason to believe there is such a thing as a Multiverse of parallel realities. In fact, the only time the Multiverse appears in scientific theories is as a bug rather than a feature. If you have a Multiverse in your cosmic model, it is probably evidence that your model is failing in some important way.

Adam Frank, “There is no empirical, scientific evidence for the Multiverse” at Big Think (February 3, 2022)

The obvious difficulty is that the multiverse drags in inconceivable complexity in order to solve comparatively common, minor issues of the sort that science always faces. People don’t think of that approach as a solution unless they have a vested philosophical and emotional interest in the idea.

You may also wish to read: The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide.

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Published on February 06, 2022 08:16

Isn’t the famous Drake Equation a sort of design filter for intelligence?

At Mind Matters News: The Drake equation at 60 years: The second most famous equation after e = mc squared. New technology is improving our ability to search the skies for signs of possible extraterrestrial civilizations.

Last year marked the sixtieth year of the iconic Drake Equation, developed by astronomer Frank Drake aimed at stimulating the public to think about the prerequisites for life on other planets…

Drake was pretty daring. When he first started working on the idea, it would be over three decades before exoplanets began to be spotted in the 1990s. Now they are routinely catalogued…

Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb seems to be following in Drake’s footsteps with his efforts to develop detection systems for intelligent signals, but some aspects of his work are proving controversial…

Loeb replies to his critics, “We will not entertain fringe ideas that are outside the boundaries of the standard model of physics.” Of course, the Standard Model of physics does not rule out extraterrestrial civilizations; all we can infer from it is that they would be bound by the same laws as we are.

Whatever comes of the current ET detection projects, a design filter of the sort proposed is more useful than squabbling about the probability of ET without collecting any data.

News, “The Drake equation at 60 years: The second most famous equation” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Whatever the fate of current ET detection projects, a Design Filter like design theorist William Dembski’s beats squabbling about the probability without collecting any data.

You may enjoy these accounts of why we do not see extraterrestrials:

1.What if extraterrestrials can’t afford to take chances with us?
That’s the Dark Forest Hypothesis, riffing off the title of one of famed Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin’s novels. The Dark Forest Hypothesis assumes that we can use sociology to figure out what extraterrestrial intelligences might be like or might want. But can we?

2.Are the Aliens We Never Find Obeying Star Trek’s Prime Directive? The Directive is, don’t interfere in the evolution of alien societies, even if you have good intentions. Hence the Zoo hypothesis. Assuming the aliens exist, perhaps it’s just as well, on the whole, if they do want to leave us alone. They could want to “fix” us instead…

3.How can we be sure we are not just an ET’s simulation? A number of books and films are based on the Planetarium hypothesis. Should we believe it? We make a faith-based decision that logic and evidence together are reasonable guides to what is true. Logical possibility alone does not make an idea true.

4.Did the smart machines destroy the aliens who invented them? That’s the Berserker hypothesis. A smart deadly weapon could well decide to do without its inventor and, lacking moral guidance, destroy everything in sight. Extinction of a highly advanced civilization by its own lethal technology may be more likely than extinction by natural disaster. They could control nature.

5.Researchers: The aliens exist but they are sleeping… And we wake them at our peril. The Aestivation hypothesis is that immensely powerful aliens are waiting in a digitized form for the universe to cool down from the heat their computers emit.

6.Maybe there are just very few aliens out there… The Rare Earth hypothesis offers science-based reasons that life in the universe is rare. Even if life is rare in the universe, Earth may be uniquely suited to space exploration, as the Privileged Planet hypothesis suggests.

7.Does science fiction hint that we are actually doomed? That’s the implication of an influential theory, the Great Filter hypothesis, as to why we never see extraterrestrials. Depending how we read the Kardashev scale, civilizations disappear somewhere between where we are now and the advanced state needed for intergalactic travel.

8.Space aliens could in fact be watching us. Using the methods we use to spot exoplanets. But if they are technologically advanced, wouldn’t they be here by now? The Hart-Tipler conjecture (they don’t exist) is, of course, very unpopular in sci-fi. But let’s confront it, if only to move on to more promising speculations.

9.Is the brief window for finding ET closing? According to some scenarios (the Brief Window hypothesis), we could be past our best-before date for contacting aliens. Of course, here we are assuming a law of nature as to how long civilizations last. Can someone state that law? How is it derived?

10.What if we don’t see aliens because they have not evolved yet? On this view, not only did we emerge during a favorable time in the universe’s history but we could end up suppressing them. The Firstborn hypothesis (we achieved intelligence before extraterrestrials) lines up with the view that humans are unique but sees that status as temporary.

11.The aliens exist—but evolved into virtual reality at a nanoscale. That’s the Transcension Hypothesis, the latest in our series on science fiction hypotheses as to why we don’t see extraterrestrials.
On this view, after a Singularity the ETs become virtual intelligences, exploring inner space at an undetectably small scale.

12.Is intelligent life in the universe living in interior oceans of planets and moons? The Ocean Planets Hypothesis is that intelligent beings may flourish in the interior oceans of the moons of gas giant planets — or within exoplanets — but they are trapped there. If intelligent life forms are trapped in the interior oceans of rocky moons and planets, Earth is a special planet—much better suited to space exploration.

13.Is real-world space travel just too daunting for ET? That’s the Percolation Hypothesis as to why we don’t make contact with aliens. They can’t overcome the laws of physics, any more than we can. If there is a purpose behind the universe, maybe the aliens and we weren’t intended to meet. That’s worth considering, given the physics barriers.

14.The Aurora Hypothesis: ET could risk only rare contact with us. Given the difficulties and risks of space travel, extraterrestrials with advanced technology may have visited Earth only one in a million years, researchers say. After centuries of modern science, we are just now looking for fossil bacteria on Mars, not without risk. ET may be in the same position.

15.Data analyst offers 15 reasons extraterrestrials aren’t seen. He estimates that there should be 100,000 civilizations in our galaxy. Some of Yung Lin Ma’s suggested reasons are ones we had not considered before, including flow of time and communication differences.

16.What if ET has morphed into what we now call the laws of nature? Astrophysicist Caleb Scarf has asked us to consider a daring hypothesis for conundrums around dark matter and dark energy. Scharf’s hypothesis highlights the genuine difficulty of accounting for a universe that comes into existence without any underlying intelligence at all.

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Published on February 06, 2022 07:56

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