Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 137

November 22, 2021

At Mind Matters News: Does science disprove free will? A physicist says no

From Michael Egnor: Marcelo Gleiser notes that the mind is not a solar system with strict deterministic laws:

One of the most disturbing implications of materialism in modern science is the inference that science disproves the existence of free will. Of course, this is not actually the case, but even the mistaken denial of free will has profound and very disturbing implications for our social structure, our criminal justice system, and our way of government. People who are assumed to lack free will are ultimately little more than cattle to be herded and, as philosopher Hannah Arendt, has observed, the denial of free will — and the denial of individual responsibility that follows on it — is a cornerstone of totalitarianism. At Big Think, physicist and philosopher Marcelo Gleiser points to the fallacy that physics and neuroscience disprove free will:

News, “Does science disprove free will? A physicist says no” at Mind Matters News

[T]he mind is not a solar system with strict deterministic laws. We have no clue what kinds of laws it follows, apart from very simplistic empirical laws about nerve impulses and their propagation, which already reveal complex nonlinear dynamics. Still, work in neuroscience has prompted a reconsideration of free will, even to the point of questioning our freedom to choose. Many neuroscientists and some philosophers consider free will to be an illusion. Sam Harris, for example, wrote a short book arguing the case.

Marcelo Gleiser, “Do the laws of physics and neuroscience disprove free will?” at Big Think (November 10, 2021)

…

Gleiser points out a third mistake — misinterpretation of neuroscience research in free will:

This shocking conclusion [that free will is an illusion] comes from a series of experiments that revealed something quite remarkable: Our brains decide a course of action before we know it. Benjamin Libet’s pioneering experiments in the 1980s using EEG and more recent ones using fMRI or implants directly into neurons found that the motor region responsible for making a motion in response to a question fired up seven seconds before the subject was aware of it. The brain seems to be deciding before the mind knows about it. But is it really?

Marcelo Gleiser, “Do the laws of physics and neuroscience disprove free will?” at Big Think (November 10, 2021)

[No. It wasn’t.] More.

Takehome: Apart from simple laws governing neurons, we have no clue what laws the mind follows, though it does show complex nonlinear dynamics.

Note: Another physicist disagrees. See: Can physics prove there is no free will? No, but it can make physicists incoherent when they write about free will.It’s hilarious. Sabine Hossenfelder misses the irony that she insists that people “change their minds” by accepting her assertion that they… can’t change their minds. (Michael Egnor)

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Published on November 22, 2021 19:10

Laszlo Bencze offers a thought experiment on whether a random mistake can create information

From Bencze, the plight of the man-moth:

Sometime between 1934 and 1936 American poet, Elizabeth Bishop wrote a poem titled “The Man-Moth” about some sort of strange creature inhabiting the storm drains and subway tunnels of New York city. From the poem:

He flits,

he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains

fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.

The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way…

She added a footnote to that poem stating “Newspaper misprint for ‘mammoth’.” So the inspiration for this poem came from a random misprint that she had encountered somewhere in the newspapers or advertisements of 1930s New York. The New Criterion (Nov. 2021) devotes a six page article to research on exactly where she might have encountered the misprint and what might have caused it. (“the right shoulder of the ‘m’ may have sheared off or been worn away”)

Can we say that this random mistake created information even though it is clearly a “loss of information” type of mutation similar to those we encounter in the DNA of living things? I suppose we could except for the fact that it required the highly imaginative efforts of a skilled poet to transform it into something meaningful. Of all the millions of intelligent agents reading the misprint only Elizabeth Bishop noticed anything wonderful about it. So even in this rare case of a random mistake seemingly creating information the ability of an intelligent agent to notice and respond was critically important.

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Published on November 22, 2021 18:32

At Mind Matters News: A Darwinian biologist resists learning to live with panpsychism

Jerry Coyne makes two things quite clear: He scorns panpsychism and he doesn’t understand why some scientists accept it:

Jerry Coyne, a traditional Darwinian evolutionary biologist and author of Why Evolution Is True, is having a hard time understanding why anyone would even consider taking panpsychism seriously. His bafflement over the growing acceptance of the idea that everything is conscious, to some extent may shed light on some new features of the changing science landscape.

His jumping off point is a recent three-way debate/discussion, sponsored by MindChat, between panpsychist philosopher Philip Goff, naturalist theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, and physicalist philosopher Keith Frankish, who views the mind as an illusion created by the brain — or, as Coyne puts it, “a trick of the biological mind.”

News, “A Darwinian biologist resists learning to live with panpsychism” at Mind Matters News (November 22, 2021)

Coyne, as a metaphysical naturalist (nature is all there is), is quite sure that panpsychism is “bunk” and that Carroll won the debate:

[But as a commenter points out to him (more here) a widely accepted consciousness theory, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), is panpsychist… and it gets better… ]

Panpsychism — of which there is a number of varieties — is not a dualist viewpoint. It assumes that consciousness is present in some sense in all of nature (Christof Koch) or at least in all or most living entities (Bernardo Kastrup). It is most fully present, to date, in humans. Whereas naturalism is reductive (human consciousness is an illusion or a spandrel, for example) panpsychism is expansive. It doesn’t claim that electrons (or socks) have opinions (contra the jokes) but that our own ability to have opinions is a natural, gradual, and quite real development of the components from which we are constructed.

The difference here may seem a subtle one. But Coyne’s reaction shows that it is significant: The naturalist says, “Human consciousness developed simply because it helped primates hunt better” or “Human consciousness developed as a byproduct of other changes in the brain.” The panpsychist says, “Human consciousness is an inevitable development, given the greater complexity of the human than of the hydra, which experiences it at a primitive level”).

The panpsychist must do more to account for our human consciousness than that, of course. But he is free of the need to explain it away. Meantime, here’s a question worth thinking about:

Why do we assume that all science advances will support naturalism? [That hasn’t happened in neuroscience.] More.

Takehome: The differences between panpsychism and naturalism are subtle but critical. As panpsychism’s popularity grows, insight will be better than rage and ridicule.

You may also wish to read: Philosopher: Panpsychism is not in conflict with physics at all. Responding to criticism from physicists Sabine Hossenfelder and Sean Carroll, Philip Goff points out that panpsychism is not a dualist perspective. Philip Goff sees panpsychism (consciousness pervades all nature) as offering a simpler view of physics than dualism, with fewer gaps than materialism.

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Published on November 22, 2021 18:19

The American Christians did not “wage war on” Darwin either — not at first

Earlier today, we noted the work of PhD student Seth Hart (science and theology) on the extent to which nineteenth century Christians in Europe generally accommodated Darwinism, rather than opposing it. So what happened among American Christians?:

Within 20 years of Darwin’s publication, the scientific community was all but completely committed to evolutionary theory (though, again, differing on the mechanism by which it occurred). According to scientific historian David Livingstone, by 1880 the sole exceptions seemed to have been Sir John William Dawson and Arnold Henry Guyot, and even they (as will be discussed below) wavered in their views.[1]

Ronald Numbers, perhaps the world’s foremost expert on the history of creationism, comes to a similar conclusion. Of the 60 members of the National Academy of Sciences between 1863 and 1900 who expressed their views, 51 accepted evolution of some sort. Only five or six remained creationists. Religion was apparently not a deterrent to evolution’s acceptance, either, since, among practicing scientists, orthodox Christians outnumbered agnostics/atheists two to one. Most tellingly, Numbers adds that he could find no evidence of any individual abandoning the faith over the issues posed by Darwinism.[2]

…

Consequently, the tale of a great conflict between the Church and Darwin in the immediate aftermath of Darwin’s publication can be deemed one of the great myths of history. The statistical evidence is uncontroversial: the American scientists of faith offered virtually no resistance to evolution’s eventual acceptance, and much of the church acted as an eager cheerleader along the way. In other words, rather than deterring the spread of evolutionary ideas, theologically orthodox Protestants were often at the frontlines advancing them. By the time a significant a significant anti-evolution movement formed within American churches (well after the turn of the century), evolutionary theory was already deeply ensconced within the scientific community. Thus, the myth of scientific advance being stymied, resisted, and suppressed by a legion of radical, anti-intellectual religious fanatics is just that: pure myth—one worthy of taking its place next to the supposed “Dark Ages” and the “torture” of Galileo in the trash bin of bad history.

Seth Hart, “Did American Christians Wage War on Darwin? (Spoiler Alert: No)” at Capturing Christianity

Perhaps Hart will explain in a later piece how evangelical Protestants came to reject Darwin so soundly despite the view of their earlier leaders.

Incidentally, he notes a coalescence among some Christian thinkers today between Darwin and the much-ridiculed William Paley (19th century design proponent). Yes?

That whirring sound you hear is Darwin spinning in his grave, reaching unthinkable speeds…

Here is a YouTube vid along those lines: “How Evolution Can Still Be Evidence of Design” (May 27, 2021)

In this video, Dr. Rope Kojonen (philosopher/theologian) and Dr. Zachary Ardern (evolutionary geneticist) explain how evolution can be evidence of design, based on Dr. Kojonen’s forthcoming book, “The Compatibility of Evolution and Design.”

You may also wish to read: Christianity vs. Darwinism: The war that never took place? Seth Hart has the story about the many Christian thinkers who embraced Darwinism early on. One guesses that by the time most Christian thinkers discovered what Darwinism really was (Social Darwinism undoubtedly helped them see… ), many were heavily compromised and it was too late to back out.

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Published on November 22, 2021 17:56

Christianity vs. Darwinism: The war that never took place?

Seth Hart, PhD student in science and theology (and tireless researcher) has the story:

In truth, Darwinism was mostly well-received by Christian figures, both within theological and scientific circles. This was partially due to the fact that Darwin was not the first to propose universal common ancestry. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather to Charles), Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Robert Grant, Lorenz Oken, and Robert Chambers had all toyed with evolutionary ideas prior to Darwin. Darwin’s proposed mechanism was simply one more addition to an ongoing scientific conversation. Geologists like Charles Lyell had additionally established the antiquity of the earth without much religious discontent.[1] Thus, assimilation of evolutionary (though not necessarily Darwinian) ideas along with the scientific presuppositions behind them progressed rapidly among Protestant circles.[2]

Surprisingly, many clerical figures even argued that Darwinism was an ally of the church.

Seth Hart, “Christianity’s War on Darwinism, or the War that Never Happened” at Capturing Christianity (October 5, 2021)

The same sorts of people said that about Marx, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao. At first. It’s understandable. You’re hoping it’s not as bad as it sounds.

The future archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, complimented the novel ideas of Darwin in a sermon at the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1860 (the same year as the famed Huxley/Wilberforce debate).[6] He would later go on to write against those who attempted to derive scientific claims from the Genesis text.[7] Additionally, the Scottish naturalist Henry Drummond found in Darwin a “real and beautiful acquisition to natural theology” and stated that his theory was “perhaps the most important contribution to the literature of apologetics” in the 1800s.[8] Evolution, he argued, aligned with the Christian view that God aims to perfect beings.[9]

Additional names could easily be added to this list.

Seth Hart, “Christianity’s War on Darwinism, or the War that Never Happened” at Capturing Christianity (October 5, 2021)

We don’t doubt that. By the time most Christian thinkers discovered what Darwinism really was (Social Darwinism undoubtedly helped them see… ), many were heavily compromised and it was too late to back out. They had to accommodate or face social ostracism from people who “got it” earlier than they did and were rapidly becoming a power in the land.

One… two… three… Biologos!

You may also wish to read: Why did the evangelical Christian world go nuts for Christian Darwinism a decade ago? Contra Trendy Christians: It makes sense that all humans would descend from a single couple. If you had to account for something like, say, human consciousness, isn’t it easier to address if we all belong to the same family of origin? Would you prefer to explain the development of human consciousness assuming that we come from multiple different ones? Darn good thing if someone can prove its true genetically.

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Published on November 22, 2021 05:01

November 21, 2021

Why did the evangelical Christian world go nuts for Christian Darwinism a decade ago?

Casey Luskin, in a longish and informative article on William Lane Craig’s recent book In Quest of the Historical Adam reminds some of us of a vintage moment in the long sellout:

William Lane Craig is to be commended for trying to see if a historical Adam and Eve existed, even as he tries to fit them within an evolutionary model. Perhaps Dr. Craig personally harbors doubts about evolution (I don’t really know), but if so, his book takes a rhetorical posture of silencing those doubts. His aim instead is to see if Adam and Eve can fit within an evolutionary view. This strategy has value in certain regards, but is it really required by the best science available? What if cautionary tales can be told of a different nature, leading to the opposite conclusion — that sometimes evangelicals prematurely latch on to what they think is “settled” evolutionary science, only to later find out that it was flawed? What if evangelicals are trying to conform to mainstream evolutionary ideas that are simply wrong? What if abandoning 2,000 years of orthodox beliefs, and capitulating to the evolutionary “consensus,” actually makes us look foolish because we’re letting go of important beliefs without having confirmed that science requires it?

Casey Luskin, “Lessons from the Evangelical Debate About Adam and Eve” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 15, 2021)

And now, the vintage moment:

In June 2011, Christianity Today (CT) published a cover story on “The Search for the Historical Adam.” However inadvertently, the article’s title (which sounds conspicuously similar to the title of Craig’s new book!) was misleading. The real purpose of the CT article was not to search for a historical Adam and Eve, but to highlight evangelical thinkers who fully accept modern evolutionary biology and reject traditional doctrines about a historical Adam and Eve. Filled with praise for Francis Collins — an evangelical celebrity scientist who made it big in the secular world — the article states:

Collins’s 2006 bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief — which so vexed those secularist critics — reported scientific indications that anatomically modern humans … originated with a population that numbered something like 10,000, not two individuals. Instead of the traditional belief in the specially created man and woman of Eden who were biologically different from all other creatures, Collins mused, might Genesis be presenting “a poetic and powerful allegory” about God endowing humanity with a spiritual and moral nature? “Both options are intellectually tenable,” he concluded.1

The basic argument is that modern day human genetic diversity is so great that it could not be explained by humans descending from a mere initial pair of two individuals. Many humans — thousands — would be necessary to generate a population with the genetic diversity that humans possess today.

Casey Luskin, “Lessons from the Evangelical Debate About Adam and Eve” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 15, 2021)

Adam and Eve, as portrayed in that seminal article, looked, um, well suited to survival in a Darwinian wilderness, like they had never been anywhere else. Not at all the kind of work you expect from God.

At the time, yer news hack lived north of New York State and was headed south into the States for a conference. And, wow … Christianity Today had just joined the Darwin cult! Does anyone know if they ever got their heads clear? Kinda lost touch with them after that.

But, as Luskin explains, as things stand now, there is no particular reason to assume that all humans are not descended from a single couple:

First, there was biologist Ann Gauger, a senior fellow and senior research scientist with Discovery Institute. In the 2012 book Science and Human Origins, she looked at human genetic diversity in HLA genes, some of the most diverse genes in the human genome. According to Gauger, the great diversity of these genes “seemed to provide the strongest case from population genetics against two first parents.” Yet she found that this diversity could still be explained if we originated from an initial couple: “if it were true that we share thirty-two separate lineages of HLA-DRB1 with chimps, it would indeed cause difficulties for an original couple. But as we have seen, the data indicate that it is possible for us to have come from just two first parents.”6

Another voice that joined the conversation was that of Richard Buggs, an evolutionary geneticist at Queen Mary University London…

Casey Luskin, “Lessons from the Evangelical Debate About Adam and Eve” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 15, 2021)

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, contra Trendy Christians: It makes sense that all humans would descend from a single couple. If you had to account for something like, say, human consciousness, isn’t it easier to address that if we all belong to the same family of origin? Would you prefer to explain the development of human consciousness assuming that we come from multiple different ones?

Darn good thing if someone can prove its true genetically.

You may also wish to read: William Lane Craig on Adam and Eve as less intelligent than us Whatever else Craig’s view is, as Luskin notes, it is a far cry from the Scriptural traditional assumption that the unfallen Adam and Eve were our betters and that we have all deteriorated as a result of sin. Adopting Craig’s view is bound to have worldview consequences.

and

Casey Luskin: The mytho-history of Adam, Eve, and William Lane Craig. Long a defender of orthodoxy, Craig seems to want to prune the orthodoxies he is expected to defend. But the pruning process in which he is engaged can never really stop. The “sensible God” is most likely the one looking back at us from our medicine cabinet mirrors.

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Published on November 21, 2021 20:23

Part 2 of New introduction to intelligent design: Recognizing Design Part 1

Courtesy John and Sandy Palmer:

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.

In this series, we cover the most important topics of the Intelligent Design vs Evolution debate in six video sessions, each divided into two half hour segments. More.

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.

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Published on November 21, 2021 19:16

At Mind Matters News: Multiverse cosmology is not a good argument against God

Or against fine tuning of our universe. God could have created countless universes on various principles for a variety of reasons:

New Scientist’s executive editor Richard Webb, a “recovering particle physicist,” offers a look at the current state of the idea that there might be an infinity of universes out there. Why believe it? Mainly, it turns out, to avoid believing something else:

News, “Multiverse cosmology is not a good argument against God” at Mind Matters News (November 21, 2021)

Many people assume that the idea that ours is the only universe must be a religious one. Webb quotes cosmologist Paul Davies: “‘You have to decide if the origin of the universe is a natural, or a supernatural, event,’” says Davies. “‘If it is a natural event, you wouldn’t expect it to happen just once.’”

Perhaps not. But we can just as easily theorize that a Divine Mind created an infinity of universes. Perhaps ours is one of the few that was “chosen” to produce life. True, one could simplify cosmology by showing that natural laws would randomly produce countless universes, a handful of which may work. But what, exactly, are those laws? As they are outside our universe, we must take them on faith.

The problem with the multiverse doesn’t lie in issues around a role for God. The problem opponents cite is that there is no serious evidence for any universe other than our own. Acceptance of theories without evidence (perhaps to evade a logic problem of some kind) is bad for science in principle.

Although popular science magazines might imply that physics is pointing us to the reality of a multiverse, there is much opposition from within the discipline. Prominent proponents of the multiverse have included well-known cosmologists such as Max Tegmark and Alexander Vilenkin, Brian Greene and Neil Turok,Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking,as discussed in online science magazines. Opponents include theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder ( “Why the multiverse is religion, not science”), cosmologist Paul Davies (“it also leads to a fake universe with fake physics”, which undermines arguments from physics) and cosmologist George Ellis (“beyond the domain of science”). Well-known science writer John Horgan considers them “bad for science” and mathematician Peter Woit thinks that it “has left conventional science completely behind.”

A mathematical argument against the multiverse: More.

Takehome: The key argument against the multiverse is that there is no evidence for it; it takes us outside the realm of observable science — a choice with consequences.

You may also wish to read: In an infinity of universes, countless ones are run by cats… Daniel Díaz notes that most of the talk about the multiverse started to appear once it was realized that there was fine-tuning in nature. Robert J. Marks points out that even 10 to the 1000 th power of universes would only permit 3,322 different paths. Infinity is required but unprovable.

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Published on November 21, 2021 18:05

Dinesh D’Souza on socialism:

Let us watch:

Food for thought. END

PS: As it seems necessary here is the historically anchored political spectrum with Overton Window:

And, here is what we need to know on culture/colour revolution pushes

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Published on November 21, 2021 03:30

November 20, 2021

Why actual science is not a world of simple solutions

Philosopher Jonny Thomson, author of Mini Philosophy, reminds us that science is not a world of One Big Answer:

Scientific pluralism — the idea that several models can exist for a single phenomenon — is common. Physicists must accept the reality that general relativity explains the very big while quantum mechanics explains the very small. Multiple models are accepted across climate science, behavioral biology, psychology, and many other fields.

What this means in practice is that science is not some paradigm of straight answers and happy endings. Across most scientific disciplines, the answers you get will depend upon the model or the lens that you are using. A chemist sees the world differently than a biologist.

The problem lies within our own minds. The issue is not necessarily a metaphysical one (that is, about the “actual” way things are) but an epistemological one (that is, about our own knowledge). We each approach the world armed with our own “maps” and expectations. As a result, it is highly unlikely that any scientific field will easily, if ever, coalesce around one simple answer to any complex question.

Jonny Thomson, “Scientific pluralism: why science does not give straight answers and simple solutions” at Big Think (November 19, 2021)

You may also wish to read: Professional skeptic Michael Shermer gets it about what’s going wrong at the new Woke Scientific American. It turns out, Michael Shermer has his own sad story about how he got dumped by Scientific American after a long career as a columnist there (since April 2001) — as he tells us in “A case study in how identity politics poisons science.”

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Published on November 20, 2021 20:11

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