Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 131

December 6, 2021

At Mind Matters News: Physicist: Science, by nature, can’t have a theory of everything

Such a theory is a sort of religious quest that has united philosophers, theologians, and scientists, But is it possible? Marcelo Gleiser doesn’t think so:

As Gleiser puts it, “The very process of discovery leads to more unknowns.” And they may be smaller or larger. For example, in 1977, Carl Woese (1928–2012) almost accidentally discovered a Third Kingdom of life, the Archaea — which are neither bacteria nor more complex life forms (eukaryotes). The fifth and sixth [fundamentsal] forces may be out there too.

News, “Physicist: Science, by nature, can’t have a theory of everything” at Mind Matters News (December 6, 2021)

Science is not, at any time in the foreseeable future, going to be all tied down and delivered in a box.

You may also wish to read: Can quantum physics, neuroscience merge as quantum consciousness? Physicist Marcelo Gleiser looks at the pros and cons of current theories. The problem is, if we assume that “the mind is nothing more than the brain,” there may be nothing we can discover about how it works.

and

Does science disprove free will? A physicist says no. Michael Egnor: Marcelo Gleiser notes that the mind is not a solar system with strict deterministic laws. Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.

Also: Astronomer: We can’t just assume countless Earths out there. He points out that the Principle of Mediocrity is based on faulty logical reasoning. Marcelo Gleiser notes that the starting point of the Mediocrity Principle assumes countless Earths. That’s not a conclusion from evidence. It’s bad logic.

Takehome: As Marcelo Gleiser puts it, “The very process of discovery leads to more unknowns.” And they may be smaller or larger than our current knowns.

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Published on December 06, 2021 18:19

Casey Luskin on what ID is and how we should defend it

The key concept is specified complexity: complexity that means something:

Roughly speaking, something is complex if it is unlikely. But complexity or unlikelihood alone is not enough to infer design. To see why, imagine that you are dealt a five-card hand for a poker game. Whatever hand you receive is going to be very unlikely. Even if you get a good hand, like a straight or a royal flush, you’re not necessarily going to say, “Aha! The deck was stacked.” Why? Because unlikely things happen all the time. We don’t infer design simply because of something’s being unlikely. We need more — according to ID theorist William Dembski, that is specification. Something is specified if it matches an independent pattern.

To understand specification, imagine you are a tourist visiting the mountains of North America. First, you come across Mount Rainier, a huge, dormant volcano in the Pacific Northwest. This mountain is unique; in fact, if all possible combinations of rocks, peaks, ridges, gullies, cracks, and crags are considered, its exact shape is extremely unlikely and complex. But you don’t infer design simply because Mount Rainier has a complex shape. Why? Because you can easily explain its shape through the natural processes of erosion, uplift, heating, cooling, freezing, thawing, weathering, etc. There is no special, independent pattern to the shape of Mount Rainier. Its complexity alone is not enough to infer design.

Now you visit a different mountain — Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. This mountain also has a very unlikely shape, but its shape is special. It matches a pattern — the faces of four famous Presidents. With Mount Rushmore, you don’t just observe complexity; you also find specification. Thus, you would infer that its shape was designed

Editor’s note: This article is an excerpt from a chapter in the newly released book The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021)

Casey Luskin, “What Is Intelligent Design and How Should We Defend It?” at Evolution News and Science Today (December 6, 2021)

University of Waterloo computer science prof Jeffrey Shallit seems to doubt that there is any difference in information content between Mount Fuji in Japan and Mount Rushmore. Radical naturalism does that to people. That may be one reason why radical naturalism is losing its grip.

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Published on December 06, 2021 18:00

Sokal hoaxes: The straw could be coming out of the stuffed shirts

Re the hoax paper that just took in Higher Education Quarterly:
According to Jonathan Bartlett, you could be the lucky sharpwit who spots the next one!

More intriguingly, “Sage Owens” told the Chronicle, “We plan to reveal the full extent of this hoax later. For now we recommend readers look for other fake papers.” Marina Ziemnick from the National Association of Scholars identified the Twitter account of “Sage Owens,” though the account is now suspended. Until November 30, the account attempted to maintain the appearance of being a real account. Then, on December 1, the account asked, “Can you find the other 15?” and followed up by pointing out many of the errors.

One of the anonymous hoaxers said, “We plan to reveal the full extent of this hoax later. For now we recommend readers look for other fake papers.”

Jonathan Bartlett, “Be on the lookout for more Sokal Hoaxes” at Mind Matters News (December 6, 2021)

That could be a hoax too. But there are plenty of Woke journals out there…

And if you spot one, let Bartlett know by tagging @cnaintelligence on Twitter. We will bring you the latest, the greatest, the dumbest, the craziest, and the best.

We will force people to start reading and thinking about what they publish! Or face the Gong!

You may also wish to read: Reflections on the original Sokal hoax. It’s one thing for scientists to want to go Woke, if they do. It’s another thing to expect the same status when facts, as well as truth, are forever negotiable.

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Published on December 06, 2021 09:16

December 5, 2021

Dembski: Is truth just what your peers will let you get away with saying?

He argues, sound, logical thinking is NOT the norm. Many people, anxious to remain in good standing with leaders and influencers, live quite happily with incoherence and inconsistencies:

We inhabit not merely a physical environment but also a cultural environment. Our cultural environment sets boundaries for what we may think, what we can say, and how we should live. Stray beyond these boundaries, and you’ll face a cultural backlash. Our cultural environment includes our ideas about what exists, what can be known, and what counts as evidence for our beliefs. It assigns value to our life and work. It describes what’s within and beyond the moral pale. Above all, it determines our plausibility structures — what we find reasonable or unreasonable, credible or incredible, thinkable or unthinkable.

Christian apologetics lives and moves within such a cultural environment. To be effective, Christian apologetics therefore needs to work effectively within its cultural environment. That’s not to say that it should bow to the cultural environment. Quite the contrary: in a fallen world like ours, cultural environments will always to varying degrees be corrupt, and it is the task of Christian apologists to speak truth to and transform for the better any cultural environment in which they find themselves.

News, “Is truth just what your peers will let you get away with saying?” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Christian apologists should recognize that incoherence and inconsistencies only become a problem in most people’s thinking when they hinder their lives.

The entire analysis is here.

Here’s the first portion (Parts 1 and 2) published at Mind Matters News

What makes arguments for God convincing — or not? Is truth enough? A look at the unfulfilled promise of Christian apologetics: Christian apologetics has, in my view, mainly been in the business of playing defense when it needs to be playing offense.

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Published on December 05, 2021 20:55

Recognizing Design: Part 2 of the “Introduction to Intelligent Design” video series

In Part 1, we look at evidence that the universe had a beginning, therefore it had a Beginner – a Creator. We look more deeply at the information in DNA that makes life possible. Part 2 applies the core concepts of irreducible complexity and functional coherence to one of the most important functions in each cell – energy production.

Group discussion questions are available here.

You may also wish to see:

New introduction to intelligent design at YouTube Part 1. Palmer: Part 1 begins with the basic concepts of Darwinian Evolution. Darwin’s theory related to heredity, but the science behind genetics was a mystery in his day. Darwin’s assumptions about heredity have proven to be mistaken.

New introduction to intelligent design at YouTube, Part 2: Molecular biology Part 2 introduces the foundational concepts of Intelligent Design. Evidence from molecular biology over the past 60 years completely upends Darwinism.

Part 2 of “Introduction to intelligent design”: Recognizing Design, Part 1 Palmer: Palmer: Part 2 applies the core concepts of irreducible complexity and functional coherence to one of the most important functions in each cell – energy production.

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Published on December 05, 2021 20:27

At Mind Matters News: Einstein believed in Spinoza’s God. Who is that God?

In a discussion at Theology Unleashed, neuropsychologist Mark Solms admits that life is “miraculous” and sees Baruch Spinoza’s God, embedded in nature, as the ultimate explanation:

So the funny thing is that [you were] motivated, as I was, by puzzling about these profound questions. The particular one at issue being, how come I am a body? What is the relationship between me, this subjective being, and this object. I puzzled about it, pondering it, looking at the question in relation to neuroscientific observations and so on. I was eventually led in the mid 1990s — in fact I wrote a paper about it in ‘97 — to this view that I sketched in a very rough and ready way some minutes ago, which is that there are two appearances. [01:02:30]

The actual thing called “Mark Solms” is neither his subjective experience nor his body. He’s something that unites the two and lies behind both surfaces. And he is not just the appearance, he’s something deeper than that. I was then sort of surprised and disappointed to discover this was not some great insight that I had forged. It was an ancient philosophy that belongs to Spinoza or was articulated most clearly initially by Spinoza. And you will know better than anyone, Michael, Spinoza’s view on these theistic questions that you are touching on. I mean he was a deeply spiritual man. And he saw all of this as that this… We are of God, we are… All of us, the whole universe is the expression of God…

Michael Egnor: Sure. One of the things I really love about Thomism is that it rather nicely combines [that with] the profundity of Spinoza insights. And I have a lot of respect for Spinoza… he’s been the inspiration for a lot of scientists. I mean Einstein commented that the God he believed in was Spinoza’s God so Spinoza fits very nicely into natural science. Spinoza had a lot of very deep insights, the Thomistic view fits in with that, I think, in many very nice ways.

News, “Einstein believed in Spinoza’s God. Who is that God?” at Mind Matters News (December 5, 2021)

Takehome: In a discussion with Solms, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor argues that it makes more sense to see God as a Person than as a personification of nature.

So, double bill: Egnor and Solms: What does it mean to say God is a Person?

Mark Solms and Michael Egnor discuss and largely agree on what we can rationally know about God, using the tools of reason:

Michael Egnor: St. Thomas and Boethius said that there were some things that we could know about God, that God is not totally unknowable. The first thing we can know about God is what he is not. That is, God is not a piece of matter, he’s not finite, he’s not evil. He’s not mortal.

We can know about God by his effects, by what’s created in the world — with the assumption that whatever is created in the world is in some way an aspect of God that is reflected in his creation. And we can know about God by analogy that is that we can say for example, that God is infinitely powerful. Although the term “power” really can’t describe something that is transcendent, power is something that we understand in our universe. It’s like something infinitely powerful. [01:12:00]

When you look at the effects of God in the world, I think the most remarkable effect is our personhood, our subjectivity. The fact that we are persons leads me — and I think has led a lot of theologians — to say, “That’s because God is a Person.” That’s where our personhood comes from. We’re the small case I am and he is the big case I AM.

So I think Spinoza had a lot of things very right, and there’s a lot of consilience between his view of God as sort of being-in-everything and St. Augustine’s view that we are in God. But I think that the fact that we are persons means that God is a Person and that we are created in his image as persons.

News, “What does it mean to say God is a Person?” at Mind Matters News (December 5, 2021)

Takehome: Egnor argues that, if the most remarkable thing about us is our personhood (I am), it Makes sense to think of God as a Person (I AM).

Bonus: A neuropsychologist takes a crack at defining consciousness. Frustrated by reprimands for discussing Big Questions in neuroscience, Mark Solms decided to train as a psychoanalyst as well. As a neuropsychologist, he sees consciousness, in part, as the capacity to feel things, what philosophers call “qualia” — the redness of red.

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Published on December 05, 2021 19:43

A tale of two publications on the “xenobots”

Those frog stem cells about which so many radical claims have been made (the paper is open access) :

At Science News:

Tiny “living machines” made of frog cells can replicate themselves, making copies that can then go on to do the same. This newly described form of renewal offers insights into how to design biological machines that are self-perpetuating…

“Originally, no one would have predicted any of this,” Levin says. “These things are routinely doing things that surprise us.” With xenobots, researchers can push the limits of the unexpected. “This is about a safe way to explore and advance the science of being less surprised by things,” Levin says.

Laura Sanders, “Tiny living machines called xenobots can create copies of themselves” at Science News (December 3, 2021)

Evolution News and Science Today:

The claim that the researchers created self-replication is highly exaggerated. The aggregation of cells into spheroids was almost entirely due to the innate capacities of the progenitor cell clusters. The researchers only arranged the cells into a configuration that maximized its performance. Their intervention was analogous to a house owner rearranging sprinklers to water more evenly his or her lawn. Most of the work depended on the design of the sprinklers and the plumbing supplying the water.

Brian Miller, “Xenobots: Researchers Claim to Have Created New Form of Biological Self-Replication” at Evolution News and Science Today (December 3, 2021)

Miller at ENST also points to John Timmer’s realistic assessment at Ars Technica.

What’s interesting is that the supposed “science” publication is largely hype and the supposed “non-science” publication is realistic.

Sometimes it feels like camping on a volcano.

You may also wish to read: Eric Holloway: Frog stem cells are NOT self-reproducing robots Calling these stem cells “self-reproducing robots” is like saying that humans create catbots when a pet cat produces a litter of kittens.

and

Ars Technica slams claims re living, reproducing robots At Ars Technica: But the paper buried this in language that, at best, is overhyped, and the researchers aren’t even being technically accurate when describing this work to the press. At a time when trust in science seems to be at an all-time low, this isn’t likely to be helpful.

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Published on December 05, 2021 18:44

Can We Endure?

We are deeply divided.

On the one hand, there are those of us who believe Lincoln was right when he said this nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We insist that the fundamental character of this nation – grounded as it is in the transformative and revolutionary principles of the Declaration – is very good indeed. We concede that these ideals have sometimes been imperfectly realized. Nevertheless, that goodness has always been central to our national character and has been demonstrated by the great strides we have made over the centuries toward realizing the ideals of our founding charter.

On the other hand, there are those who believe Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project narrative. They say Lincoln was perpetuating a myth, and the ugly truth is that this nation was founded in an oppressive system that has always been central to our national character. Contra Lincoln, they believe this nation was conceived in evil and dedicated to the preservation of that evil, and therefore it must be transformed at a fundamental level.

Those views are irreconcilable.

In 1863 Lincoln understood that the nation was being tested. Could a nation so conceived long endure? When he said those words, the answer to that question was still very much in doubt. Today, we are being tested again, and the outcome of that test is again very much in doubt. The 1619 Project is being taught in literally thousands of schools. How can a nation endure when half of its children are being taught that it has always been evil at a fundamental level? Will this nation endure? It is hard to be optimistic.

Calls for from the Left to suppress speech are especially alarming. But we should not be surprised. Neo-Marxists Herbert Marcuse, in his paper Repressive Tolerance, says that even the thoughts of those expressing belief in the ideas of The Enlightenment and individual sovereignty should be silenced.”

Some people see a great irony here, because the Left at one time was the greatest proponent of First Amendment rights. Be assured; there is no irony. Muad’Dib’s dictum: “When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles.”

The Left was never in favor of freedom of conscience in principle. They were in favor of freedom when it was useful for them. Now that it is useful for them to stifle freedom, they are in favor of that.

In the days before the Left achieved cultural hegemony, they wanted freedom of speech for themselves. Now that they have achieved that hegemony, they no longer have any use for freedom. Their intolerance of competing ideas and call to stifle the speech rights of their opponents is merely an application of Muad’Dib’s dictum.

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Published on December 05, 2021 07:17

December 4, 2021

Maori creationism is okay in New Zealand schools; objectors could be booted from NZ’s Royal Society

Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne has been following the story:

As I wrote yesterday, a big woke fracas is brewing in New Zealand, with the universities and government on the side of the woke, and the science professors (by and large) on the side of the angels. Since my piece appeared, I’ve gotten half a dozen emails from academics in New Zealand, objecting to the University of Auckland’s new policy to teach Maori “ways of knowing”, which include creationism, alongside modern “real” science—and in science class! This all started last summer, and is still going on…

The misguided effort to teach Maori indigenous knowledge as coequal with science will not only confuse the Maori (and everyone else!), but disadvantage those who embrace indigenous ways of knowing. Suppose, for example, that a Maori teenager wants to be a physicist. Well, there are no positions for “physicists doing Maori string theory”; there are only positions for physicists. There is no Maori physics or American physics or Indian physics, there is just “modern physics”.

I also wrote yesterday that seven academics from the University of Auckland wrote a short piece in The Listener (read it here), objecting to the insertion of Maori Matauranga (ways of knowing) into science curricula. Instead of their fellow academics defending them, the “Satanic Seven,” as I call them, have been demonized. Their jobs have been threatened, the Vice Chancellor of Auckland University has said the seven don’t adhere to the University’s “values,” and two of them are being threatened with expulsion from New Zealand’s Royal Society. Jerry Coyne, “The “teach Maori other ways of knowing in science class” fracas continues; Richard Dawkins weighs in” at Why Evolution Is True (December 4, 2021)

World-class Darwinian atheist Richard Dawkins has tried to weigh in. Coyne quotes from Dawkins’s letter to New Zealand’s Royal Society, opposing the move:

I have read Professor Jerry Coyne’s long, detailed and fair-minded critique of the ludicrous move to incorporate Maori “ways of knowing” into science curricula in New Zealand, and the frankly appalling failure of the Royal Society of New Zealand to stand up for science – which is, after all, what your Society exists to do.

The way things are going, Dawkins could get himself Cancelled, along with those New Zealand scientists and Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), Darwin’s famous “bulldog.” Coyne offers background on the New Zealand scientists here.

By the way, was this how people like Dawkins got branded at Salon as merging with the far right? On that, see: Woke atheist rejects the New Atheists — not Woke enough Take in for a moment that the editors of an allegedly serious publication actually sponsored an article claiming that all of these prominent atheists have “merged with the far right.” Remember that the next time someone starts caterwauling about the need to suppress conspiracy theories. We can direct them to Salon’s website, for their best convenience…

Sadly, the Darwinians are now learning the value of the very intellectual freedom they have so long denied to non-Darwinians of all stripes.

One wonders when the Woke will get round to Darwin. Then, probably, it’s Einstein, Stephen Hawking and such next… The real losers are young New Zealanders who will get lots of cultural immersion in science class but not much hard science.

You may also wish to read: It Begins At Last… T. H. Huxley, Darwin’s Bulldog, About To Be Cancelled – Other Early Darwinists To Get The Chop Soon?

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Published on December 04, 2021 20:18

CalTech researchers map spatial organization of the (“junk”) DNA and RNA in the cell nucleus

In territories and compartments, we are told, throughout the interior:

Scientists at Caltech may have sounded the final death knell for the “junk DNA” myth. If only Dan Graur had known this years ago, it might have saved a lot of wasted rhetoric. ENCODE, readers recall, found that 80 percent of the genome is transcribed, even if only a small part codes for proteins. The functions of those non-coding regions were only hinted at. Now, the windows are opening on organization so all-encompassing for all those non-coding RNA transcripts, it is truly mind-boggling what goes on in the nucleus of a cell.

Using a new survey tool they call RD-SPRITE, Caltech researchers, in cooperation with others at USC and UCLA, mapped the spatial organization of all the DNA and RNA in the nucleus. It was challenging, they admit, to explore the spatial roles of RNA transcripts that don’t produce proteins, because the nucleus is a dynamic place crowded with DNA, proteins, and numerous RNAs of unknown function.

News, “Caltech Finds Amazing Role for Noncoding DNA” at Evolution News and Science Today (December 3, 2021)

Dan Graur? Oh, he’s the one who refused to “do politeness” any more about the ENCODE findings years ago that cast doubt on junk DNA. Wasn’t he also the one who said, if ENCODE is right, evolution is wrong? We won’t hold him to it. The world is too busy getting past Darwin to bother.

You may also wish to read: France’s Biology Year: Reimagining evolution as horizontal gene transfer It’s probably not anywhere near as simple and certain as Catherine Jessus is making out. Viruses don’t likely do enough to create placentas. But the main point is, this definitely isn’t yer old biology teacher’s Split-the-Desk Rant for Darwin!!! Stay tuned.

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Published on December 04, 2021 19:23

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