In a post at The Panda’s Thumb, Timothy Sandefur says this:

[T]he reason many people complain about evolution education is because they believe that it is a kind of “religion” which is receiving preferable treatment over their own religions.…There are three problems, however, with this argument. First, evolution, being science, differs from religion in that it is a testable, confirmable theory, which can be compared with observed results. The “creation model”—that is, a miracle story—is usually stated in an untestable way, and when it has been stated in a testable way (e.g., that the world was created in 4004 B.C.) such “models” have failed the tests.

Not so fast. Here’s some of what Wikipedia has to say in today’s featured article about the “Big Bang“:

The term “Big Bang” is used both in a narrow sense to refer to a point in time when the observed expansion of the universe (Hubble’s law) began, and in a more general sense to refer to the prevailing cosmological paradigm explaining the origin and evolution of the universe….

According to current physical models, 13.7 billion (13.7 × 10⁹) years ago the universe was in the form of a gravitational singularity, time and distance measurements were meaningless, and temperatures and pressures were infinite. As there are no models for systems with these characteristics, and in particular, no theory of quantum gravity, this period of the history of the universe remains an unsolved problem in physics.

In 1927, the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître was the first to propose that the universe began with the “explosion” of a “primeval atom“….

A number of Christian apologists, and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, have accepted the Big Bang as a description of the origin of the universe, interpreting it to allow for a philosophical first cause.

The “creation model” posited by Sandefur isn’t the only “creation model” put forth by religionists. Father Lemaître offered a testable model, one that seems to be holding up as fact and which is accepted by many religionists. And Father Lemaître wasn’t simply trying to evade the consequences of scientific thought:

He based his theory, published between 1927 and 1933, on the work of Einstein, among others. Einstein, however, believed in a steady-state model of the universe. Lemaître took cosmic rays to be the remnants of the event, although it is now known that they originate within the local galaxy. He estimated the age of the universe to be between 10 and 20 billion years ago, which agrees with modern opinion.

Einstein posited (and later renounced) a cosmological constant so that his equations for general relativity would yield a steady-state universe rather than a collapsing one. It now seems that there is a cosmological constant, but not of the kind envisioned by Einstein: The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate because of something called “dark energy,” the origins of which are unknown.

And it took a Belgian priest to point the scientific world in the right direction.

Sandefur is too anxious to paint all religionists as know-nothings. He should relent if he wants his ideas to resonate beyond the circle of ardent atheists, whose grasp of scientific rigor is tenuous, as I’ve explained here, here, and here.

Asymmetrical Information links to a fascinating article about

a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events.

The machine apparently sensed the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre four hours before they happened – but in the fevered mood of conspiracy theories of the time, the claims were swiftly knocked back by sceptics. But last December, it also appeared to forewarn of the Asian tsunami just before the deep sea earthquake that precipitated the epic tragedy.

How does it work? It began with

a humble-looking black box known as a Random Event Generator (REG). This used computer technology to generate two numbers – a one and a zero – in a totally random sequence, rather like an electronic coin-flipper.

The pattern of ones and noughts – ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ as it were – could then be printed out as a graph. The laws of chance dictate that the generators should churn out equal numbers of ones and zeros – which would be represented by a nearly flat line on the graph. Any deviation from this equal number shows up as a gently rising curve….

Again and again, entirely ordinary people proved that their minds could influence the machine and produce significant fluctuations on the graph, ‘forcing it’ to produce unequal numbers of ‘heads’ or ‘tails’….

Dr [Roger] Nelson…extended [this] work by taking random number machines to group meditations, which were very popular in America at the time. Again, the results were eyepopping. The groups were collectively able to cause dramatic shifts in the patterns of numbers….

Using the internet, he [then] connected up 40 random event generators from all over the world to his laboratory computer in Princeton. These ran constantly, day in day out, generating millions of different pieces of data. Most of the time, the resulting graph on his computer looked more or less like a flat line.

But then on September 6, 1997, something quite extraordinary happened: the graph shot upwards, recording a sudden and massive shift in the number sequence as his machines around the world started reporting huge deviations from the norm….

For it was the same day that an estimated one billion people around the world watched the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales at Westminster Abbey….

So, in 1998, [Dr. Nelson] gathered together scientists from all over the world to analyse his findings….The Global Consciousness Project was born.

Since then, the project has expanded massively. A total of 65 Eggs (as the generators have been named) in 41 countries have now been recruited to act as the ‘eyes’ of the project.

And the results have been startling and inexplicable in equal measure.

For during the course of the experiment, the Eggs have ‘sensed’ a whole series of major world events as they were happening, from the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia to the Kursk submarine tragedy to America’s hung election of 2000….

But the project threw up its greatest enigma on September 11, 2001.

As the world stood still and watched the horror of the terrorist attacks unfold across New York, something strange was happening to the Eggs.

Not only had they registered the attacks as they actually happened, but the characteristic shift in the pattern of numbers had begun four hours before the two planes even hit the Twin Towers….

What could be happening? Was it a freak occurrence, perhaps?

Apparently not. For in the closing weeks of December last year, the machines went wild once more.

Twenty-four hours later, an earthquake deep beneath the Indian Ocean triggered the tsunami which devastated South-East Asia, and claimed the lives of an estimated quarter of a million people….

Cynics will quite rightly point out that there is always some global event that could be used to ‘explain’ the times when the Egg machines behaved erratically. After all, our world is full of wars, disasters and terrorist outrages, as well as the occasional global celebration. Are the scientists simply trying too hard to detect patterns in their raw data?

The team behind the project insist not. They claim that by using rigorous scientific techniques and powerful mathematics it is possible to exclude any such random connections….

It is possible – in theory – that time may not just move forwards but backwards, too. And if time ebbs and flows like the tides in the sea, it might just be possible to foretell major world events. We would, in effect, be ‘remembering’ things that had taken place in our future.

For lots more, go to the website of the Global Consciousness Project. Among the links is one to an interview of Dr. Nelson, who strikes me as rather spacy. At the end of the interview with Dr. Nelson, the interviewer appends a statement by physicist Tom van Flandern:

I am extremely skeptical of “statistically significant” results that are so close to what chance would produce. There comes a point in any analysis at which systematic, rather than random, errors dominate, invalidating statistical conclusions. And when working so close to chance probabilities, it may be impossible to think of all the hidden ways that systematic errors might arise. To be intrinsically convincing, we need to see the result of a controlled, double-blind test that is well above what chance can produce. Until then, the default assumption must remain that no such phenomena exist.

Another link is to a paper by Brian D. Josephson, a Cambridge University physicist, who explains why thoughts might be physical, measurable phenomena:

[S]ome aspects of mentality involve a realm of reality largely, but not completely, disconnected from the phenomena manifested in conventional physics. The idea of a disconnected realm does have precedents, for example in the way two of the fundamental forces (the strong and weak forces) play no role in large areas of physics and chemistry, whilst in other contexts they have a very important part to play. Next note that string theory, involving as it does spaces having more dimensions than the usual three…is consistent with there being such a ‘separate realm’….

But why should such a realm exist at all?….

[A] form of proto-life, defined as fluctuation patterns surviving longer than typical patterns do, can be hypothesised as occurring at the Planck scale, evolution of such life being expected to involve evolution of the accompanying informational systems also. We get to the proposed model by supposing that the ordinary physical component and the informational component can evolve separately. and that the informational component can even survive the creation and destruction of individual universes, remaining as an ever-present background with which new universes, Planck scale fluctuations and more developed life forms can all beneficially interact….

[W]e suppose that individual life forms can perturb the background state so as to create a localised ‘thought bubble’, tied to the individual concerned….

Assuming the validity of the scenario that has been described, the picture proposed can be adapted to account for the phenomena we set out to explain, namely telepathy or ESP….We assume, as would need to be assumed generally in the model, that the state of this bubble plays the role of information that is meaningful in the context and, by virtue of this, usable by the connected systems….

The problem any such analysis has to face is that of explaining how it is that, if such a mechanism for ESP or other paranormal processes exists, these processes manifest themselves only in very specific ways, and in ways that are not readily controllable….The right way to think about ESP is therefore to see it as a slowly developing phenomenon for a given individual, and one which may not develop at all if conditions are unfavourable. We see from this analysis that the frequently made counter-argument to the existence of ESP, that if it were possible it would have such a survival value that we would all evolve to be very good at it, is based on a misleading concept of what would be involved.

A related problem is the one raised by Weinberg (1993), who asks what possible physical signal could move distant objects and yet have no effect on scientific instruments? Such a question ignores the possibility that there might be a threshold for psychokinetic effects. A similar argument would lead one to be equally sceptical of claims that the heat of the sun can induce chemical reactions (i.e. burning) in a piece of paper, analogously something that happens only under special circumstances (e.g. using a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays on to a spot on the paper), the amount of burning under normal conditions being negligible.

All of which is very interesting, in a bizarre sort of way, but I’m not sure it posits any scientific (falsifiable) hypotheses.

If you have any thoughts on the subject, think hard. I’ll try to pick them up.

From an article at Prospect by Michio Kaku:

The universe is out of control, in a runaway acceleration. Eventually all intelligent life will face the final doom—the big freeze. An advanced civilisation must embark on the ultimate journey: fleeing to a parallel universe….

But since the big freeze is probably billions to trillions of years away, there is time for [an advanced] civilisation to plot the only strategy consistent with the laws of physics: leaving this universe. To do this, an advanced civilisation will first have to discover the laws of quantum gravity, which may or may not turn out to be string theory. These laws will be crucial in calculating several unknown factors, such as the stability of wormholes connecting us to a parallel universe, and how we will know what these parallel worlds will look like. Before leaping into the unknown, we have to know what is on the other side. But how do we make the leap? Here are some of the ways.

Find a naturally occurring wormhole….

Send a probe through a black hole….

Create negative energy….

Create a baby universe ….

Build a laser implosion machine….

Send a nanobot to recreate civilisation
If the wormholes created in the previous steps are too small, too unstable, or the radiation effects too intense, then perhaps we could send only atom-sized particles through a wormhole. In this case, this civilisation may embark upon the ultimate solution: passing an atomic-sized “seed” through the wormhole capable of regenerating the civilisation on the other side. This process is commonly found in nature. The seed of an oak tree, for example, is compact, rugged and designed to survive a long journey and live off the land. It also contains all the genetic information needed to regenerate the tree.

An advanced civilisation might want to send enough information through the wormhole to create a “nanobot,” a self-replicating atomic-sized machine, built with nanotechnology. It would be able to travel at near the speed of light because it would be only the size of a molecule. It would land on a barren moon, and then use the raw materials to create a chemical factory which could create millions of copies of itself. A horde of these robots would then travel to other moons in other solar systems and create new chemical factories. This whole process would be repeated over and over again, making millions upon millions of copies of the original robot. Starting from a single robot, there will be a sphere of trillions of such robot probes expanding at near the speed of light, colonising the entire galaxy….

Next, these robot probes would create huge biotechnology laboratories. The DNA sequences of the probes’ creators would have been carefully recorded, and the robots would have been designed to inject this information into incubators, which would then clone the entire species. An advanced civilisation may also code the personalities and memories of its inhabitants and inject this into the clones, enabling the entire race to be reincarnated.

Although seemingly fantastic, this scenario is consistent with the known laws of physics and biology, and is within the capabilities of a Type III civilisation. There is nothing in the rules of science to prevent the regeneration of an advanced civilisation from the molecular level. For a dying civilisation trapped in a freezing universe, this may be the last hope.

But why would we want to recreate civilization if it wouldn’t include “us”? Why not use all that technological know-how to build a humongous space heater to fend off the impending chill? (Space heater…get it?)

There’s only one proper way to end this post:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

— Robert Frost

A reader’s comments — in two thoughtful e-mails — have led me to revise “Atheism, Religion, and Science.” The revisions may not wholly satisfy the reader, but I am very grateful to him for his comments, which led me to make my arguments clearer and more complete.

Hooray for science! Without it our lives would be “poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” as Thomas Hobbes put it in another connection. Much as I prefer science to non-science, I know that mankind does not live by science alone. We also live by such extra-scientific phenomena as emotion and faith. (Even scientists have faith, though it may not always lie in a religious direction.)

I am an avid reader of novels and watcher of movies (forms of entertainment that appeal to emotion). The fruits of science enable the production and distribution of novels and movies, but the people, places, and events depicted therein are (or can be) wholly fictitious. Others — who may or may not read novels or watch movies — find solace, guidance, and (in their view) salvation in religious faith: a belief in God and adherence to the precepts of a religion that is based on the existence of God.

In sum, science neither provides nor explains everything of value to humans.

Consider these three categories of knowledge (which long pre-date their use by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld): known knowns, know unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Here’s how that trichotomy might be applied to a specific aspect of scientific knowledge, namely, Earth’s rotation about the Sun:

1. Known knowns — Earth rotates about the Sun, in accordance with Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

2. Known unknowns — Earth, Sun, and the space between them comprise myriad quantum phenomena (e.g., matter and its interactions of matter in, on, and above the Earth and Sun; the transmission of light from Sun to Earth). We don’t know whether and how quantum phenomena influence Earth’s rotation about the Sun; that is, whether Einsteinian gravity is a partial explanation of a more complete theory of gravity that has been dubbed quantum gravity.

3. Unknown unknowns — Other things might influence Earth’s rotation about the Sun, but we don’t know what those other things are, if there are any.

For the sake of argument, suppose that scientists were as certain about the origin of the universe in the Big Bang as they are about the fact of Earth’s rotation about the Sun. Then, I would write:

1. Known knowns — The universe was created in the Big Bang, and the universe — in the large — has since been “unfolding” in accordance with Einsteinian relativity.

2. Known unknowns — The Big Bang can be thought of as a meta-quantum event, but we don’t know if that event was a manifestation of quantum gravity. (Nor do we know how quantum gravity might be implicated in the subsequent unfolding of the universe.)

3. Unknown unknowns — Other things might have caused the Big Bang, but we don’t know if there were such things or what those other things were — or are.

Thus — to a scientist qua scientist — God and Creation are unknown unknowns because, as unfalsifiable hypotheses, they lie outside the scope of scientific inquiry. Any scientist who pronounces, one way or the other, on the existence of God and the reality of Creation has — for the moment, at least — ceased to be scientist.

REVISED, 01/04/05 – 7:08 A.M.

REVISED AGAIN, 01/25/05 – 6:00 P.M.



Do atheists suppose that they are somehow more “scientific” than Theists or Deists? I began to wonder about that after reading a post by Matt Young at The Panda’s Thumb about philosopher Anthony Flew’s “conversion” to Deism. Young is the author of No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an Impersonal Universe, about which the publisher says,

Rejecting belief without evidence, a scientist searches the scientific, theological, and philosophical literature for a sign from God — and finds him to be an allegory.

It seems that Young is a scientist and an atheist. Which leads me back to Anthony Flew’s “conversion” to Deism, which is noteworthy because, according to Richard Carrier (“Anthony Flew Considers God…Sort Of” at The Secular Web),

…Flew is one of the most renowned atheists of the 20th century, even making the shortlist of “Contemporary Atheists” at About.com. So if he has changed his mind to any degree, whatever you may think of his reasons, the event itself is certainly newsworthy….

Carrier goes on to say this:

The fact of the matter is: Flew hasn’t really decided what to believe. He affirms that he is not a Christian — he is still quite certain that the Gods of Christianity or Islam do not exist, that there is no revealed religion, and definitely no afterlife of any kind (he stands by everything he argued in his 2001 book Merely Mortal: Can You Survive Your Own Death?). But he is increasingly persuaded that some sort of Deity brought about this universe, though it does not intervene in human affairs, nor does it provide any postmortem salvation. He says he has in mind something like the God of Aristotle, a distant, impersonal “prime mover.” It might not even be conscious, but a mere force. In formal terms, he regards the existence of this minimal God as a hypothesis that, at present, is perhaps the best explanation for why a universe exists that can produce complex life. But he is still unsure….

In an update, Carrier adds that he asked Flew

what he would mean if he ever asserted that “probably God exists,” to which [Flew] responded (in a letter in his own hand, dated 19 October 2004):

I do not think I will ever make that assertion, precisely because any assertion which I am prepared to make about God would not be about a God in that sense … I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations.

Rather, he would only have in mind “the non-interfering God of the people called Deists — such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.” Indeed, he remains adamant that “theological propositions can neither be verified nor falsified by experience….” *

Thus, in spite of his “conversion” to Deism, Flew takes up what seems to be a standard line of atheism: A belief in God or Creation is unscientific because a belief in God or Creation is an unfalsifiable hypothesis; that is, one can simply assert that there is a God and that there was a Creation, without fear of contradiction by physical evidence.

That leads me to ask whether atheism is any more scientific than a belief in God or a Creation.

Consider these statements:

A. I believe that there is a God; that is, an omniscient, omnipotent being who created the universe, and who remains involved in the events of the universe, including the lives of humans. (Theism)

B. I believe that there is some kind of force or intelligence created the universe, but that force or intelligence has since had no involvement in the universe. (Deism)

C. I believe that there is no God, force, or intelligence of the kind posited in A or B. (Strong atheism)

D.1. I choose not to believe in a God, force, or intelligence of the kind posited in A or B, even though His or its existence cannot be proved or disproved. (Weak atheism)

D.2. I choose to believe in a God, force, or intelligence of the kind posited in A or B, even though His or its existence cannot be proved or disproved. (Weak theism or deism)

E. I take no position on the existence of a God, force, or intelligence of the kind posited in A or B because His or its existence can never be proved or disproved. (Agnosticism)

If A and B cannot be disproved (falsified) by empirical evidence — as atheists insist — then C cannot be proved empirically, because the disproof of A or B would imply the proof of C. Similarly, if C were a falsifiable hypothesis, then the disproof of C would imply the proof of A or B (depending on the exact form of the disproof).

Both versions of D acknowledge the unfalsifiability of A, B, and C. But both versions of D then take a leap of faith, as it were, to reject or embrace the idea of a God. That is, each draws a conclusion that cannot be supported empirically. The statements of disbelief and belief in D.1 and D.2, respectively, are therefore on the same empirical footing as A, B, and C.

The scientific virtue of statement E (agnosticism) is that it does not pretend to assert a truth, as do A, B, and C. Nor does it make a leap of faith, as do both versions of D. Statement E addresses the issue of falsifiability head on and comes to a scientifically valid conclusion. Therefore, agnosticism is the only scientifically honest position to hold in opposition to a belief in God or a Creation.

Atheism is just as much a matter of faith as religion. As noted scientist and anti-religionist Richard Dawkins puts it:

I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all “design” anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe. [Emphasis added.]

As I say in another post:

Thus — to a scientist qua scientist — God and Creation are unknown unknowns because, as unfalsifiable hypotheses, they lie outside the scope of scientific inquiry. Any scientist who pronounces, one way or the other, on the existence of God and the reality of Creation has — for the moment, at least — ceased to be scientist.

__________

* Carrier’s account is consistent with Flew’s statements in “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: An Exclusive Interview with Former British Atheist Professor Antony Flew,” Philosophia Christi, Winter 2005, in press, but available here.

FuturePundit, who often runs pieces that debunk bad science, is spreading bad science. His most recent post is a scare piece about the “next” pandemic. He leads off with this quotation:

“I believe we are closer now to a pandemic than at any time in recent years,” said Shigeru Omi, regional director for the Western Region of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“No country will be spared once it becomes pandemic,” he told a news conference on Friday.

“History has taught us that influenza pandemics occur on a regular cycle, with one appearing every 20 to 30 years. On this basis, the next one is overdue.

“We believe a pandemic is highly likely unless intensified international efforts are made to take control of the situation.”

First, the WHO has a vested interest in pandemic scares. Second, I would like to know if it’s true that “influenza pandemics occur…every 20 to 30 years,” and if it is true why it happens. A “scientist” who resorts to historical inevitability is as much a scientist as Karl Marx. Remember him?

UPDATED 11/26/04

This one’s getting a lot of play, but I have to add my dime’s worth:

Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School

Wed Nov 24, 2004 04:12 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God — including the Declaration of Independence.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

“It’s a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful,” said Williams’ attorney, Terry Thompson.

“Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country,” he said. “There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence.”…

Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.

Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington’s journal, John Adams’ diary, Samuel Adams’ “The Rights of the Colonists” and William Penn’s “The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania.”

“He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that’s what the founders wrote,” said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. “The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination.”…

Is Vidmar trying, Soviet-style, to write Christianity out of American history? Perhaps. More likely she has an axe to grind with Williams or a twisted view of the meaning of separation of church and state. Whatever her motivation, Vidmar is a living advertisement for the corrupt state of public “education”.

P.S. I am not a religious person. I am simply appalled by the know-nothings who find religion so threatening that they strive to expunge it from history and daily life.

UPDATE:

Now comes this, from Fox News:

Young students across the state read stories about the Pilgrims and Native Americans, simulate Mayflower voyages, hold mock feasts and learn about the famous meal that temporarily allied two very different groups.

But what teachers don’t mention when they describe the feast is that the Pilgrims not only thanked the Native Americans for their peaceful three-day indulgence, but repeatedly thanked God.

“We teach about Thanksgiving from a purely historical perspective, not from a religious perspective,” said Charles Ridgell, St. Mary’s County Public Schools curriculum and instruction director….

How is it a “historical perspective” to teach about Thanksgiving without reference to God? What are these people afraid of, that they’ll offend someone by referring to God, or that they’ll instantaneously convert non-believers to believers by mentioning God? This urge to deny a simple historical fact suggests downright animosity to religion (or at least to the form of religion practiced by the Pilgrims). That hardly seems consistent with leftism’s vaunted tolerance for differing views. (Oh, I forgot, in the lexicon of the left, differing views can only be non-Judeo-Christian and non-Western.)