Notes on Draper's Article on Behe's Design Argument, Part 4: Behe's Revision

In the last installment, we saw that there are two serious problems for Behe's key claim that some biochemical systems are irreducibly very complex:

(i) Behe fails to demonstrate that his example systems in Darwin's Black Box are irreducibly very complex, and (ii) a number of scientists (e.g., cell biologist Kenneth Miller and biochemist David W. Ussery) have given excellent evidence to show that his examples aren't irreducibly complex. However, Draper points out that Behe has responded to this criticism by (in effect) revising his account of irreducibly complex systems. To see how, we’ll need to give a slightly more precise formulation of Behe’s original account of that notion. Recall that his original account defined irreducible complexity as a system "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein removal of any of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". Thus, Behe's original account of irreducible complexity (henceforth 'IC1') can be expressed in terms of three clauses:

(IC1) A system S is irreducibly complex if and only if:

(i) S is composed of several interacting parts
(ii) S's parts are well-matched
(iii) removal of one or more of S's parts would cause S to cease functioning

Now in response to Ussery's criticisms of Behe's examples of irreducibly complex systems (e.g., Ussery's point that bacterial flagella can perform their function with less than the 40 parts in its system that Behe claimed were essential to its functioning), Behe replies:

"some systems may have parts that are necessary for a function, plus other parts that, while useful, are not absolutely required. Although one can remove the radio from a car and the car will still work, one can't remove the battery or some other parts and have a working car."

(As Draper points out, Behe's analogy isn't quite apt, since a radio isn't a part of a car's primary function. However, Draper helps Behe out by replacing his example of a radio with that of a set of tires. Since tires aren't required for a car to drive, but do enhance its function, we have an apt illustration of Behe's point.)

Two initial remarks concerning Behe's reply to Ussery are in order. First, Behe's response tacitly concedes that Ussery is right, and thus that the bacterial flagellum fails to satisfy Behe's original definition of irreducible complexity (i.e., IC1). Second, and more to the main point in our discussion here, it tacitly replaces IC1 with a new definition of irreducible complexity -- call it 'IC2':

(IC2) A system S is irreducibly complex if and only if:

(i) S is composed of several interacting parts
(ii) S's parts are well-matched
(iii') A subset x of S's parts are such that removal of one or more of x's parts would cause S to cease functioning

The most important thing to notice about IC2 is that clause (iii) of IC1 has dropped out, and with it, its crucial implication that an irreducibly complex system requires all of its parts to function. In its place is a new clause -- clause (iii') -- which only entails the weaker claim that an irreducibly complex system requires a subset of its parts to function. Thus, unlike IC1, IC2 allows a system to count as irreducibly complex even if it has parts that aren't essential to its function.

Thus, with his revised account of irreducible complexity (IC2) in hand, we can put Behe's reply to Ussery as follows: granted, the point about the bacterial flagellum not being irreducibly complex, while strictly speaking correct, doesn't defeat the fundamental point that it contains a subset of parts, each of which must be present from the get-go for it to function at all. But systems like that -- systems that have at least a portion that is irreducibly complex -- can't evolve.

What to make of Behe's new definition of irreducible complexity? If you've been following the earlier posts, you might already see the problem with Behe's reply. For as we have seen in earlier installments, Behe allows that evolution can create simple irreducibly complex systems via indirect evolutionary pathways, and it that it can create reducibly complex systems via direct evolutionary pathways. But if so, then Behe has left open the very real possibility that his example systems have evolved via a two-staged combination of evolutionary pathways: an indirect pathway to create a simple yet irreducibly complex system in the first stage, and then a direct pathway to make that system very complex in the second stage. But such systems satisfy his revised account of irreducibly complex systems (i.e., IC2): systems containing both reducible complexity and an irreducibly complex (in the IC1 sense of 'irreducibly complex') core.

Now one might reply on behalf of Behe that although this sort of two-stage evolutionary process could produce irreducibly complex systems (in the IC2 sense) where the core set of interdependent parts is very simple, it can't account for Behe's example systems (e.g., the bacterial flagellum). For the core set of interdependent parts in those systems are very complex, and thus couldn't have evolved via indirect evolutionary pathways. But this reply won't work. For recall our discussion from the last installment. There, we saw Draper's point that Behe failed to show that his example systems are irreducibly very complex. For when Behe gets around to that task in Part II of his book, he only establishes examples of systems that are irreducibly complex and examples that are very complex. But showing those things is of course crucially different from showing what he needs to show here, viz, that at least some of his examples are irreducibly very complex.

But the problems with Behe's argument don't end here. For as Draper goes on to argue at the end of his article, Behe's arguments against simple direct and indirect evolutionary pathways to irreducibly very complex systems have very large holes in them. We'll wrap up our discussion of Draper's article by discussing these points in the next post or two.

Divining the Will of God: The Israelite Priest as Voodoo Root Doctor

Those of us who grew up in the Gullah-Geese coastal area of the southeastern United States in the 1950’s - 60’s are familiar with Voodooism in the former African slave population that inhabited the coastal islands around Beaufort, S.C. on such isolated sea islands as Daufuskie Island just across from Hilton Head.

On these remote coastal islands the local population incorporated their native African religions mixed in with Christianity to create a way to know the will of God via divination. One of the ways to discern the will of God was for the Root Doctor to “Cast the Bones” and read the answer God gave him.

In early Israelite religion in the Bible, it only appears that Yahweh is talking directly to his chosen priestly leadership made up of the Aaronide priests and the Levites (two clans of Tabernacle holy men often at odds with each other for power in this ancient theocracy as in Numbers 16 were a descendant of Levi named Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron), but apart from Moses, the only communication these Tabernacle priest had to determine the will of God was by some dice shaped oracular objects carried in a multicolored pocket carried on the heart above the ephod (Exodus 28: 16, 29 - 30; 29:5; Lev. 8:8).

Like the coastal island Voodoo Root Doctors, these Yahwistic holy men would cast these dice to determine either a “Yes” or “No” answer to an oracle question directed to God, but only as understood by the priest himself.

Although references to the ephod, the ark (in this case a small oracular dice carried by Abiathar I Kings 2:26), or the Urim and Thummim are mentioned in a number of texts, the religious term “to inquired of the Lord (Yahweh)” was understood to be determined by casting of these holy dice like objects just like the Voodoo Root Doctor cast and read his bones.

In Numbers 27: 21, Joshua directed his questions to the priest Eleazar , who “shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before the Lord; at his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in…”

In the case of Achan in Joshua 7: 16 - 18 (though not mentioned directly) these dice were cast four time until the guilty person was found.

In later times, both King Saul (I Samuel 14: 36 -37; 41); and King David (I Samuel 23:9 - 12; 30: 7 - 8) determined the will of God’s by shooting these dice symbols just as the bones are read to know the will God by the Gullah-Geese Voodoo Root Doctor.

Notes on Draper's Article on Behe's Design Argument, Part 3: Are Behe's Examples Really Irreducibly Complex?

We've been discussing Paul Draper's criticisms of Behe's design argument in Draper's 2002 article, "Irreducible Complexity and Darwinian Gradualism: A Reply to Michael J. Behe".[1] To briefly review,

recall that the article focuses on stage one of Behe's two-stage design argument, which argues that certain biochemical structures cannot have arisen via gradualistic Darwinian processes. The argument of this stage crucially relies on his notion of irreducible complexity, where this is defined as a system "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein removal of any of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". [2] With this notion in hand, Behe argues that there are irreducibly very complex biochemical systems, and that these systems can't plausibly be explained in terms of gradualistic evolutionary processes. And the reason is that evolution can only create systems via direct and indirect evolutionary pathways. But evolution can create no irreducibly complex system via a direct evolutionary pathway. And while evolution can create simple irreducibly complex systems via indirect pathways, and reducibly complex systems via direct and indirect evolutionary pathways, the odds are overwhelmingly against creating irreducibly very complex systems via indirect pathways.

That's the argument laid out in Part I of Behe's book. In part II, Behe attempts to support the key premise that some biochemical systems are irreducibly (very) complex. Toward that end, he gives seven examples of such systems: (i) the bacterial flagellum, (ii) the cilium, (iii) the vertebrate blood-clotting system, (iv) certain cellular transport systems, and three subsystems of our immune system: (v) the clonal selection system (vi) the antibody-diversity system, and (vii) the complement system. Given this, and given his argument, there are at least three ways to criticize his argument directly:

(1) Undercut or rebut the claim that his example systems are irreducibly complex (or at least irreducibly very complex)
(2) Undercut or rebut the claim that irreducibly complex systems can't be created via indirect evolutionary pathways
(3) Undercut or rebut the claim that irreducibly complex systems can't be created via direct evolutionary pathways

Draper argues that Behe's argument falls prey to all three types of criticism. In this installment, I'll cover most of his discussion of type-(1) criticisms.

First, Draper points to the work of others to offer rebutting defeaters for a number of Behe's candidates of irreducibly complex systems. So, for example, consider Behe's cilium example. Behe argues that cillia require eleven microtubules to function: two central microtubules surrounded by nine encasing microtubules. But Draper refers to Ken Miller's point that some organisms have cilia with three microtubules and no inner microtubules. Therefore, since cilia don't require all eleven parts to function, Behe's cillium example fails to satisfy his own account of irreducible complexity. A similar problem plagues Behe's flagellum example. Behe asserts that the bacterial flagellum requires at least 40 parts to function. But Draper refers to biochemist David W. Ussery's point that some forms of bacteria have flagella that only require 33 parts to function. But if so, then since the bacterial flagellum doesn't require all 40 parts to perform its function, then by Behe's definition, it isn't irreducibly complex.[4] Draper points out that the same criticism applies to Behe's immune system and cellular transport examples.

Second, Draper points out that Behe fails to show that his own example systems are irreducibly complex. On p. 42 of Darwin's Black Box, Behe states his two-step method of testing and demonstrating whether a system is irreducibly complex:

Step 1: Find the system's function, and identify all the components that contribute to that function.
Step 2: Determine whether all of the system's components are required for it to perform the function.

But when it comes time to argue that his example systems are irreducibly complex (in Part II of the book), he fails to follow (at least) Step 2 for any of his example systems. Instead, he typically picks a proper subset of a system's total components, and argues that the system can't function without them. So, for example, in his discussion of the cilium on p. 73, he says that it has "dozens or even hundreds" of parts involved in its function. However, instead of explaining how each of these parts is necessary for the function of the system, he picks four of them, discusses their essentiality for performing the paddling function, and then fleetingly asserts that probably many other of its parts are essential as well [3]. As mentioned above, and as Draper points out, Behe continues to ignore Step 2 in his presentations of the remaining five example systems as well. The result is that a crucial premise in the main argument of Behe's book -- that there are irreducibly very complex biochemical systems -- is left unargued for.

Draper nicely sums up the problems with Behe's claim that some biochemical structures are irreducibly (very) complex: "The bottom line is that Behe doesn't deliver in the second part of his book what he promised in the first part...The systems upon which he bases his case contain parts that contribute to the system's function, yet either are not essential for that function or at least have not been shown by Behe to be so."[5]

As Draper points out, however, Behe has come up with a reply to this criticism. We'll look at it in the next installment.

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Notes

[1]Faith and Philosophy 19:1, pp. 3-21.
[2] Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 39.
[3] p. 73
[4] I should note that Kenneth Miller has gone farther on this point by showing that the parts of the flagellum system, while irreducibly complex qua propeller, has plausible evolutionary precursors that performed different functions. See this YouTube clip for a sketch of his point.

A somewhat technical quibble: There seems to be some ambiguity with respect to Behe's notion of irreducible complexity, leaving room for two interpretations of a clause in his notion of irreducible complexity (the one about loss of function with the removal of a part):

Interpretation 1: If any part of the system were removed, it would cease to have any useful biological function for the organism.

Interpretation 2: If any part of the system were removed, it would cease to have the function it currently has (although not necessarily some other).

Now Miller's point in the clip is that, contrary to what Behe has argued, the bacterial flagellum example isn't irreducibly complex. However, in light of the two interpretations above, we see that whether Miller's example in the clip supports that point depends on whether interpretation 1 is correct; If it's not, Miller's point is false.

I say that this is a something of a quibble because the substance of Miller's point poses a problem for Behe's account even if he has misinterpreted Behe's notion of irreducible complexity (although I don't think he has). For Miller's example shows a plausible evolutionary precursor to the bacterial flagellum. And given this, MIller's example poses a problem for Behe's use of the bacterial flagellum in his design argument on either intperpretation: On interpretation 1, Miller's example undercuts Behe's claim that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. And on interpretation 2, Miller's example undercuts Behe's claim that irreducibly very complex systems (such as the bacterial flagellum) cannot be created via an evolutionary pathway.
[5] Draper, ibid, p. 10.

Notes on Draper's Article on Behe's Design Argument, Part 2: Three Bad Criticisms

Here is the second installment on Paul Draper's critique of Behe's design argument in his "Irreducible Complexity and Darwinian Gradualism: A Reply to Michael J. Behe", Faith and Philosophy 19:1 (2002), pp. 3-21.


Draper points out that three common criticisms of Behe's irreducible complexity argument miss the mark.

I. Bad Objection #1: Other Biochemical Systems are Reducibly Complex and Evolvable
First, some have argued that lots of biochemical systems exhibit redundancy, which shows that such systems are not irreducibly complex. But Draper points out that this doesn't refute Behe's argument. For recall that Behe isn't committed to the claim that all biochemical systems are irreducibly complex, but rather the weaker claim that at least some are, and that some of these (viz., those that are very complex) could not have evolved through gradualistic evolutionary processes. Behe isn't your standard creationist: he thinks the evidence for the key evolutionary theses of common ancestry and descent with modification are persuasive. He also thinks that gradualistic evolutionary mechanisms can account for many biochemical structures as well -- viz., those that are reducibly complex. But the authors in question don't address the particular examples of biochemical systems that Behe argues are irreducibly very complex (e.g., the bacterial flagellum).

II. Bad Objection #2: Very Simple Irreducibly Complex Systems are Evolvable
Second, a number of people -- most prominently, cell biologist and devout Catholic Kenneth Miller -- have argued that certain structures are irreducibly complex, and yet have clearly evolved gradually. So, for example, MIller points out that the three-boned structure within the inner mammalian ear is irreducibly complex, and yet we have excellent evidence that it evolved via an indirect evolutionary pathway from parts of the jaws of reptilian evolutionary predecessors. But this doesn't refute Behe's argument, either. For recall that Behe argues that while no irreducibly complex system can evolve via a direct evolutionary pathway, he grants that a relatively simple irreducibly complex structure can evolve via an indirect evolutionary pathway: "Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously." Behe, Darwin's Black Box, P. 40.

In short, the first two popular criticisms of Behe's argument miss the mark. For these are based on examples of reducibly complex systems and simple irreducibly complex systems that have arisen via gradualistic evolutionary pathways. But to touch Behe's argument, one needs an example of an irreducibly very complex system that has arisen via a gradualistic evolutionary pathway.

III. Bad Objection #3: It's Just Paley's Bad Analogical Design Argument in New Packaging
Finally, a number of people have claimed that Behe's argument is just a re-statement of Paley's design argument, and since Paley's version falls prey to Hume's and Darwin's criticisms, so does Behe's. But Draper argues that while Behe has contributed to this perception (he explicitly identifies his argument with Paley's), it is nonetheless a misleading and uncharitable criticism. This is because most people think of Paley's argument as the one Hume attacked, viz., an argument from analogy, and having the following form:

1. Human artifacts are intelligently designed.
2. The universe, or some of its parts, resemble human artifacts.
-----------------------------------
3. Therefore, the universe, or some of its parts, were (probably) intelligently designed.

But as Elliot Sober has argued[1], while Paley talked about an analogy between watches and organisms, his actual argument wasn't itself an argument from analogy. Rather, it was an abductive argument to the best available explanation:

1. Some natural systems (e.g., the human eye) are mechanically ordered (i.e., they exhibit the same sort of order as watches and other machines produced by human beings).
2. Intelligent design is a very good explanation of mechanical order.
3. No other explanation (or no equally good explanation) of mechanical order is available.
4. Every instance of mechanical order has an explanation.
-------------
5. So, some natural systems were (probably) intelligently designed.

But if so, then at least three things can be said on behalf of Behe in response to the third criticism. First, while the critics may be right that Hume refuted the analogical version of the design argument, they're wrong to think that Hume refuted Paley's design argument. For his is the abductive version, and Hume's criticisms don't refute it. And if Behe is defending Paley's abductive argument, it follows that it's not enough to point to Hume to answer Behe's argument.

Second, Behe has made a genuine contribution to improving Paley's argument by articulating an account of mechanical order mentioned in the premises, viz., his notion of irreducible complexity.

The previous point brings us to the third. For while many would argue that Darwin refuted Paley's abductive argument (even if Hume did not), Behe has strengthened Paley's argument in a way that requires more of a response than just pointing to Darwin. For Darwin and subsequent scientists have only shown how biological systems larger than biochemical structures can evolve gradually. But that's consistent with the claim that the smaller, biochemical structures cannot evolve gradually. And as we saw in a previous post, Behe has argued just this: certain biochemical structures (e.g., the bacterial flagellum) are irreducibly very complex, and thus couldn't have arisen via direct or indirect evolutionary pathways. Therefore, we have another reason for thinking that Behe's argument can't be dismissed by just pointing to earlier critiques of the design argument.

We've just seen three common criticisms of Behe's argument that don't seem to work. In the remaining posts in this series, we'll take a look at three criticisms that seem telling.
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Notes
[1] Philosophy of Biology (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 34-35. Draper's reference, "Irreducible Complexity and Darwinian Gradualism", p. 7.

Hebrews vs Greeks

Another excerpt from my upcoming book, comparing the Ancient Hebrews with the Ancient Greeks.

While the Hebrews were content with being ruled by a so-called divinely appointed monarchy, the Greeks were advanced enough to have an aristocracy* (rule by the best) and a democracy (rule by the people). While the Hebrews were content with entertaining themselves by burning incense and dancing around campfires, the Greeks were busy writing stories for the theatre–having invented the genres of comedy, drama, and tragedy. While the Hebrews were content with their beliefs being guided by faith, superstition, and a violent god, Aristotle and other Greeks were discovering the principles of logic, reason, rational thought, and argumentation. While the Hebrews were content with believing that God was in control of all aspects of reality, Archimedes and other Greeks were laying the foundations of the scientific method. While the Hebrews were content with writing psalms that praise an egotistical god, the Greeks were busy developing musical theory. While the Hebrews were content with explaining their past by relying on myths, legends, and other oral traditions, Herodotus and other Greeks were establishing the principles of unbiased, unemotional, nonjudgmental, and factual documentation of history.

While the Hebrews were content with breaking bird necks to cure leprosy, topically applying animal dung to cure various skin ailments, performing exorcisms to cure epilepsy, and praying to cure a number of untreatable afflictions, Hippocrates and other Greeks were developing rational anatomy-based medicine that relied on experience and observation. While the Hebrews were content with building temples for their god to dwell in, the Greeks were producing innovative architecture, sculptures, and paintings.** While the Hebrews were content with mundane stories and the writings of prophets, Homer, Sophocles, Aesop, Sappho, and other Greeks were writing some of the most powerful works of literature that the world has ever known. While the Hebrews were content with counting how many people belonged to each of their tribes, Euclid, Pythagoras, and other Greeks were inventing geometry and other advanced mathematics. While the Hebrews were content with believing whatever God or their other leaders told them about reality, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates were busy not only inventing philosophy, but also writing some of the greatest philosophical treatises that the world will ever know. Yet after comparing the innumerable accomplishments of the Greeks to the unenlightened barbarity of the Hebrews, are we still to believe that the creator of the universe was working through the latter to carry his timeless message of paramount importance to future generations? Something is definitely wrong with such a position.

I could elaborate on the difference between the Greeks and Hebrews for the rest of the book without adequately drawing deserved contrast between the two groups, pointing out for example how Plato and Aristotle argued for their positions while Jesus merely gave assertions and threatened those who did not accept them, or how Democritus appreciated the vastness of the universe while any Hebrew thought he was the center of it, but I will instead put the issue to rest with one undeniably moving final observation.

Hippocrates, the aforementioned father of medicine who lived from approximately 460-370 BCE, once said, “Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it.” Yet four hundred years after the mortal Hippocrates realized that there had to be a natural, rational explanation for the mysterious medical condition, Jesus was allegedly curing epilepsy by casting out demons. Hippocrates realized that people attributed epilepsy to demonic possession only because they did not understand it. This leads us to perhaps the most important question I will pose in this book. How is it that the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe sent a messenger, the savior of all humanity, who knew less than an ordinary man who had been dead for centuries? How could Hippocrates have a better understanding of the world than Jesus? Why should we hold Jesus as a superior teacher? It does not make sense.

* In my opinion, the best form of government. Not a traditional aristocracy of the wealthy, but one of the enlightened – the philosophers, as Socrates called them.

** None of the paintings still exists, but we have anecdotal reports of their appearance often being indistinguishable from reality.

Notes on Draper's Article on Behe's Design Argument, Part 1: The Argument Stated and Explained

Here is the first in a series of posts on Paul Draper's important critique of Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box, in his article, "Irreducible Complexity and Darwinian Gradualism: A Reply to Michael J. Behe", Faith and Philosophy 19:1 (2002), pp. 3-21.


I. General
Michael Behe is a biochemist at Lehigh University. He uses his knowledge of biochemistry for the basis of the first stage of his two-stage design argument. In the first stage, he argues that certain biochemical structures (e.g., the bacterial flagellum and the blood-clotting cascade) could not have arisen through the gradualistic processes of evolution. In the second stage, he argues that if such structures could not have arisen in stepwise Darwinian fashion, then it's very probable that they were produced by one or more intelligent designers. Draper's article focuses on the first stage of Behe's argument.

II. Irreducible Complexity
The central notion of Behe's argument is what he calls 'irreducible complexity'. Behe defines an irreducibly complex system as one "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein removal of any of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" [1]. He uses a mousetrap to illustrate the notion of an irreducibly complex system. A standard mousetrap has five parts: a hammer, a spring, a holding bar, a catch, and a base. The mousetrap is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function. Furthermore, it appears that the mousetrap would effectively cease functioning (i.e., it would lose it's ability to catch mice) with the removal of any of the five parts listed above: it needs the hammer to clamp down on the mouse; it needs the spring and holding bar to arm the hammer; it needs the catch to detect the mouse; and it needs the base to secure the other parts. Therefore, the mousetrap appears to be a helpful illustration of the notion of an irreducibly complex system. As we will see, Behe argues that certain biochemical structures are irreducibly complex, and that such structures pose a serious challenge to evolution.

III. Evolutionary Pathways
Before we state Behe's argument against Darwinian gradualism, we need to briefly discuss what are ostensibly the only two sorts of evolutionary pathways for creating biological systems: direct and indirect. A gradualistic evolutionary pathway leading to a function F of a biological system is direct if it produces F by continuously improving it without changing F itself, and without changing the system's mechanism. And a gradualistic evolutionary pathway leading to F is indirect if it does so by changing the system's function or mechanism .[2]

IV. Behe's Argument
With the notions of direct evolutionary pathways, indirect evolutionary pathways, and irreducible complexity before us, we can now state Behe's argument against Darwinian gradualism: There are irreducibly complex biochemical systems (e.g., the bacterial flagellum and the blood-clotting cascade). Now if Darwinian gradualism is true, then each such system is created via either a direct or an indirect evolutionary pathway. But no irreducibly complex biochemical system can be created via a direct evolutionary pathway, for any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition non-functional.[3] And while it's possible in principle to create an irreducibly complex biochemical system via an indirect pathway, the probability of this happening is too low to be plausible for systems that are very complex (and there are such systems).[4] Therefore, it's very probable that Darwinian gradualism is false.[5]

V. Key Aspects of Behe's Argument, and an Important Implication
As Draper points out, Behe's argument against direct evolutionary pathways to irreducibly complex biochemical systems differs from his argument against indirect pathways: direct pathways are ruled out by the irreducibility of the complexity with respect to function, and indirect pathways are ruled out by the complexity of such systems. Direct pathways to all irreducibly complex systems are therefore ruled out as logically impossible, while indirect pathways to irreducibly very complex systems are ruled out as too improbable to be a plausible explanation. Note (as Draper does in his article) that Behe's argument leaves open the possibility of relatively simple irreducibly complex systems (say, systems with two or three parts) being produced gradually via indirect evolutionary pathways. This will be important to keep in mind for later posts.

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Notes

[1] Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 39.
[2] Draper, Paul. "Irreducible Complexity and Darwinian Gradualism: A Reply to Michael J. Behe", Faith and Philosophy 19:1 (2002), p. 5
[3] Irreducibly complex systems "cannot be produced directly, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing even a single part is by definition nonfunctional." Darwin's Black Box, P. 39. The quote appears in Draper, ibid.
[4] "Even if a system is irreducibly complex (and thus cannot have been produced directly), however, one can not definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. As the complexity of an interacting system increases, though, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously." Behe, Darwin's Black Box, P. 40.
[5] This summary is closely based on Draper's. See ibid, p. 5.

NOVA: "The Bible's Buried Secrets"

Despite a few quibbles, NOVA's documentary is one of the best in recent memory.

The best part is that it outlined the modern critical view well. I am sure, however, that fundamentalists will be fuming about it, and saying that they were not given equal time. The program was heavily laden with Harvard professors and alumni (that is bad for Yale,I suppose). I do have some quibbles, and I will briefly outline a few of them here.

I'll Be Attending the Christian Apologetics 2008 Conference.

Does this sound crazy or what? I personally know some of the speakers. This should be interesting. Into the lion's den I go. Maybe I'll get saved? I do this so you don't have to. If you're attending, look for the guy with a black hat. Yep, that's me. The bad boy in the crowd. ;-) Link. I'm scraping the bottom my checkbook to go. If you could, please help me out financially for this. Just click on the donate button. I'll report on what I learn when I get back.

If God Cares About Animals, Then What About Animal Sacrifices in the OT?

I am presently writing a book about animal suffering tentatively titled: The Darwinian Problem of Evil: Christianity and the Problem of Animal Suffering (four chapters so far!).

I think this particular problem of evil is the most serious one for believers. I'm also looking at what the Bible says about the treatment of animals and the various theistic responses to this issue. Think about just one thing. The Bible commands animal sacrifices in the OT, and for some national ceremonies we're told thousands of them were sacrificed, and done so gruesomely. But then we read in the book of Hebrews that these sacrifices never helped take away any sins. So God purportedly had his people slaughter animals for no good reason at all. Is this a God who cares for animals? No, not on your life, and that's just one thing we find about the treatment of animals in the Bible, and that's just one aspect to the whole problem of animal suffering.

"The Most Impressive Thing Loftus Brings to the Table"

I'm curious when I see my name mentioned on a forum to read what they're saying about my work. Let me say that it's no fun getting shot at from both sides in this debate, but that's what I see. Let me tell you also that I know what I'm doing. I know the evangelical mindset very well. I know how to speak to them. I said in my book that skeptics won't all appreciate why I argue the way I do, and that's true. But I am interested in changing peole's minds. And while Christians will assail me for it from time to time I know how to speak their language. I AM NOT INTERESTED IN PREACHING TO THE CHOIR! For a case in point over at the Rational Response Squad forum there has been a discussion about an argument I made and my work. They don't even list my book on the sidebar as an important one.

I have no clue who these people are, but one person said this:

I think the most impressive thing Loftus brings to the table is his apparent credentials in the scholarly-believers/apologists circles. He's the only 'new atheist' I know of who's gotten significant positive blurbs from apologists such as Norman Geisler.

I'm reading his book right now, and while it is not particularly thought-provoking to me, his real target audience is educated believers, and he takes the time to address them thoroughly, as opposed to say Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, or Harris. He approaches it from their perspective, moreso than not.

To put it one way, he 'takes the ridiculous seriously'. In other words, he takes likely arguments theists might make and takes the time to thoroughly debunk them. Whereas other 'new atheists' would basically just blow off the ridiculous arguments with a brisk "... but that's an obvious non-sequitur".

I think Loftus makes a good bridge from atheist language to apologist language. For instance, his arguments do not go into depth into logic, but instead use argument from authority and other informal fallacies which -- like it or not -- actually do hold weight with believers.

Another useful thing Loftus brings to the table is how he repackages old atheist rejoinders into full-fledged arguments against theism. Probably his strongest example of this is his Outsider Test (chapter 4; 10 pages). Whereas an atheist will respond to theist arguments with something like: "Well if you believe in biblical miracles, why don't you believe Mohammed flew on a horse to heaven?" or "The burden of proof is on he who claims". Instead, Loftus takes the time to spell out all the gory details about why these rejoinders make sense. He makes a thorough case for why theists have an intellectual responsibility to examine their own beliefs as if they were outsiders from the belief. Christians should look at Christianity from the perspective of non-Christians, etc. Loftus uses his own personal deconversion story to add emotional/anecdotal weight to his argument.

In short, while I agree his arguments are not as strong as other 'new atheists', he brings a valuable angle to the table that other 'new atheists' do not, probably because it doesn't occur to them that they need to take the time to explicitly detail what 'should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about logic'.

I'm quite excited actually, that Loftus can start a new phase in the conversation that Sam Harris said he was trying to start with The End of Faith. I hope Loftus inspires other hardcore-theists-turned-rationalist-atheists to pick up the baton and run with it. The goal after all is to actually convince people, remember. If it takes a little anecdotal reasoning to get people to start to question, it can't hurt. There is no one way. It takes all kinds.

Now I dispute some of the things he said, but you can read through that thread beginning here with his post. (scroll up to start reading).

I wish I could convince more skeptics that I know what I'm doing and why I argue the way I do. If they could just get behind my work we could make a bigger impact. Ahhhhh, but after all, we're freethinkers, and you cannot corral freethinkers like you can believers. ;-)

Dan Barker Interviewed Me, 11/15/08

It's posted here (just scroll down and click on my name). Enjoy.

YEC and Homeopathy

An excerpt from my new book, due out by the end of the year.

Young Earth Creationism is just another discipline found on a long inventory of pseudosciences. There is even a brand of pseudoscience quickly gaining popularity in my primary field of study called homeopathy, which offers a terrific illustration on how someone can manipulate information before presentation. Homeopathy is the principle that a disease can be cured by giving very small amounts of a substance that produce symptoms similar to the ones produced by the disease. According to homeopathy, as you further dilute the concentration of the medicinal substance that you administer to someone, the active ingredient will accomplish an increasingly desirable result. Mainstream pharmacologists (who all realize that homeopathy is bunk) understand that most drugs work on production inhibition or under enzyme-receptor theory. We know that as you increase enzymes levels introduced to the body, more receptors will become stimulated and produce greater effects. We also know that as more inhibitors are introduced to working processes, fewer enzymatic goals will be accomplished. These are currently undeniable facts of science; and the field of nonsensical homeopathy is in direct contrast to these foundational theories of medicine.

Substances that follow the principles of homeopathy cannot actually work to any appreciable degree if they are not present in sufficient concentrations.* Manufacturers of homeopathic products can even legally sell their products in the US as long as they carry a warning that the Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate their claims. As an alternative, you will find many supporting studies referenced on the product labels that support their claims. So if the products do what the manufacturers say they do, and there are studies to support their claims, why do these products not go through the FDA approval process? The answer is very similar for both homeopathy and creationism.

The FDA serves as the governing body that orders drug manufacturers to present all relevant evidence for review–not just evidence favorable to the manufacturer. If you run enough studies, according to the statistical laws associated with chance, you will eventually get a result that you want.** One of the shortcomings with our administration of scientific research is that there are no governing bodies controlling what studies are published and advertised to consumers. The best that the scientific community can do is separate journals that publish only peer-reviewed findings from ones that will publish anything offered. Creationists do not publish in peer-reviewed journals because those involved in the appraisal process know that their methods are too flawed for other scientists to consider seriously. This observation came to light in the 1987 United States Supreme Court Case Edwards v. Aguillard, which decided that teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional because it a religious belief that cannot be factually supported.***

* This is not to say that all homeopathic medications fail to work since some really aren’t following the principles when they aren’t diluted very much, and the side effects of such substances just happen to mimic the disease itself. Dawkins (167) also points out a possibility that I had not considered too heavily before. “Homeopaths may be achieving relative success because they, unlike orthodox practitioners, are still allowed to administer placebos – under another name. They also have more time to devote to talking and simply being kind to the patient.”

** The standard level of confidence for running a statistical analysis is 95%. This means that the researchers want to be 95% sure that their result did not occur by chance, which leaves a false positive in 5% of cases. If you run twenty tests, you’re likely to get a false positive that you can use to support your product.

*** Also relevant is Stephen Jay Gould’s observation of the Arkansas State Supreme Court case McLean v. Arkansas. He realized early on that his side would win because court hearings require proof – not speeches.

Jesus As God From IDQ Design Deficiencies

This article will show how the concept of the Trinity was derived from the Design Deficiency of incomplete representation in scripture leading to "Garbling" causing Scripture to map to a meaningless state. The Bible has many instances of incomplete representation but for the sake of brevity, this article will focus on "Jesus as God". It highlights some disconfirming evidence which refutes the proposition that "Jesus was God" can be rationally determined from the text.

This Article is part five of the series of articles applying Information and Data Quality Principles to the Bible. Links to the previous articles are listed below.
1. How Accurate is the Bible?
2. Applying Data and Information Quality Principles To The Bible
3. Applying IDQ Principles of Research To The Bible
4. Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture

Presuming that Jesus was Jewish, and that Jesus was a rabbi, and that Jewish rabbis were experts in Jewish theology, and Jesus was an expert in Jewish theology, in John 14:6-11 Jesus was not referring to himself as god but more likely referring to a Jewish teaching regarding their view of the relationship between God and Man with respect to the soul. It can also be seen that Jesus did not clearly and unequivocally state that he was the incarnation or personification of God.

The example used in this article could be used for two types of IDQ deficiencies depending on the context. If we presume for the sake of argument that it is true that Jesus was God, then the example falls in the category of the IDQ deficiency of Incomplete representation. If we presume that Jesus was not God then the example would fall under the category of Ambiguous Representation. However, I would prefer to use the presumption that Jesus was God and handle it as a an Incomplete Representation and save the Ambiguous Representation for another example.

As described in my article "Overview of IDQ Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture"(1), in order for an information system to accurately represent real world events, each of the Information System data must "map" to a real world event.
A brief review of Incomplete Representation and Mapping to a Meaningless State(2) follows.

Incomplete representation
If the Information System is missing some information about the real world, then the information system cannot accurately represent the state of the real world for which it was intended. This is termed as "incompleteness". Figure 1 illustrates this point by showing three instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and two instances of Data in the D column. One instance of a Real World state is not represented by the Data in column D.

Figure 1


Operation Deficiencies - Garbling:
Meaningless State
In human terms, garbling occurs at the point of "consumption" or reading and interpretation. In Information Systems, it occurs at operation time or when the database is being accessed. Garbling occurs when a Real World state is incorrectly mapped to a wrong state in the Information System. There are two cases in which this occurs. If a meaningless state exists, then Real World mapping will be to a meaningless state, or the mapping might be to a meaningful but incorrect information state. This can occur as a result of inaccurate data entry or omissions of real world states at the creation or origin of the data. Analogous examples of this type of garbling are legends, folktales and the "Artistic License" of the author or originator.

Figure 2 illustrates this point by showing two instances of data represented by spheres in the column labeled RW (Real World) and three instances of Data in the D column. One instance of an information state is not represented by or does not map back to a real world state and a Real World state in incorrectly interpreted as being represented by the superfluous datum.

Figure 2


The Trinity
The concept of the Trinity was a hotly debated topic for generations that came to a head in 325ce when it was formally adopted as a tenet by the Council of Nicaea(3). It lead to accusations of Heresy, religious persecution and according to sources lead to the poisoning of Arius(4).

Jesus was Jewish and a Jewish principle is that the "soul" is part of God that God has hidden in us, and we are to show it to other people through our lifestyle, and by doing so Gods influence on the earth will be released.
On the website Askmoses.com, Rabbi Shlomo Chein(5) responds to a request to define the Jewish soul. He says

" A person is known as a "miniature world". The soul can perhaps be explained as a "microcosm of G-d". By allowing his G-dly soul to be expressed within his own existence the Jew can bring G-d into all of existence."
…
"So the next time you face adversary, feel ostracized, or question your ability to carry out your Divine mission of Judaism, remember, G-d is not only with you, He is in you."

But Scripture tells that Jesus said the following about himself which has been used to justify the concept of the Trinity. If Jesus really said this and he was a Jewish Rabbi it is not likely that he meant that he was God on Earth.

John 14:6-11
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."
8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."
9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.
11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.

So if John 14:6-11 represents the type of thing Jesus said about himself, and Jesus was a Rabbi, Jesus probably had the same concept as Rabbi Chein and was not saying that he was God incarnate. It seems to be a misinterpretation of a Jewish teaching that was not part of Gentile culture. Understood as the Jewish viewpoint of the soul, it makes more sense, but understanding it as Jesus saying that he was God on Earth, can only be described as DOUBLETALK.

Jesus never clearly said that he was God on earth, and he never said that he, God and the holy spirit were one substance. Therefore, if it is true, and it was not included in the scriptures, it is the design flaw of incomplete representation. It has been shown through IDQ research that "Poor data quality can have a severe impact on the overall effectiveness of an organization"(2) and "Poor data quality can have substantial social and economic impacts"(6). Christianity has had a relatively poor adoption rate compared to Mathematics which was developing about the same time(13). Mathematics adoption is practically ubiqutious where Christianity is not. These results can be explained, when compared to Christianity by the relatively high quality of information about Mathematics, its relevance, utility, reproducability, and resultant plausibility.

The scriptures recognized the problem with Information and Data Quality, but the insight they demonstrated was typically human and poor when compared to their peers. They had no divine guidance about how to handle this "divine revelation". Instead, they handled it inadequately by warning against false prophets and worrying about the "correct" interpretation of scripture which has resulted in a very splintered church(7). Not even the "Holy Spirit" has been effective in preserving the true meaning of the text across Christian Churches and denominations. Due to lack of clarity, many interpretations have been derived from poorly designed scripture and have resulted in the three major divisions which are The Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox and the Protestant Churches. Further competing interpretations have lead to each of those divisions having various subdivisions resulting in tens of thousands of denominations. Furthermore this has historically led to Christian on Christian violence which leads to a doubt about the Holy Spirit(8) and is not likely to be something intended by Yahweh or foreseen by him, or those that put words in his mouth. Christians will equivocate this point calling it "the body of Christ" pointing to the parable of the grape vine, but we know through real world experience, trial and error, applications in business, war strategy and a field of research that it is a weakness and a sign of poor performance, so much so that there are sayings addressing it, "United we stand, divided we fall", "Divide and Conquer" and "Divide and Rule".

God showed remarkable lack of insight by not providing instructions for ensuring the Quality of Data and Information, or in picking the right people that would have done it naturally or that would have figured it out without compromising their free will. The Fact that Jesus verifies scripture as Gods word and it can be shown to be of such poor quality is further disconfirming evidence that the scripture is the word of god and that Jesus was god on earth. From the text, it cannot rationally be determined whether Jesus was God or not and interpreting John from the view point of a Jewish Expert, Jesus was just repeating a Jewish teaching about the soul.

Below are some lists showing how poor quality data has lead to the splintering of Christianity and its poor 33% performance world wide over 2000 years(9).

A Short List of Christian Denominations
1 Catholicism
1.1 The Catholic Church: Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome
1.2 Other Churches that are Catholic, But Who Are Not In Communion With Rome

2 Eastern Churches
2.1 The (Eastern) Orthodox Church
2.2 Western-Rite Orthodox Churches
2.3 Other Eastern Orthodox Churches
2.3.1 Assyrian Church of the East
2.4 Oriental Orthodoxy
2.4.1 Oriental Orthodox Communion

3 Anglicanism
3.1 Anglican Communion (in communion with the Church of England)
3.2 Independent Anglican and Continuing Anglican Movement Churches

4 Protestant
4.1 Pre-Lutheran Protestants
4.2 Lutheranism
4.3.1 Presbyterianism
4.3.2 Congregationalist Churches
4.4 Anabaptists
4.5 Methodists
4.6 Pietists and Holiness Churches
4.7 Baptists
4.7.1 Spiritual Baptists
4.9 Apostolic Churches - Irvingites
4.10 Pentecostalism
4.11 Oneness Pentecostalism
4.12 Charismatics
4.12.1 Neo-Charismatic Churches
4.13 African Initiated Churches
4.14 United and uniting churches
4.15 Other Protestant Denominations
4.16 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

5 Messianic Judaism

6 Restorationism
6.1 Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement
6.2 Southcottites
6.3 Millerites and Comparable groups
6.3.1 Sabbath Keeping Churches, Adventist
6.3.2 Sabbath-Keeping Churches, Non-Adventist in north Pennsylvania
6.3.3 Sunday Adventists
6.3.4 Sacred Name Groups
6.3.5 Other Adventists
6.3.6 Bible Student Groups
6.4 Anglo-Israelism

7 Nontrinitarian Groups
7.1 Unitarianism and Universalism

8 Religious movements related to Christianity
8.1 Manichaeism
8.2 The New Church also called Swedenborgianism
8.2.1 Episcopal
8.2.2 Congregational
8.3 New Thought
8.4 Christian mystery movements

9 Ethnic or syncretic religions incorporating elements of Christianity

10 Christianism

A List of Inter-Christian controversies
- Trinity or no?
- Arianism
- The disputes that drove the creation of Protestants.
- Denominations of Protestants
- Denominations of Catholics
- War between Catholics and protestants
- Holy Spirit male or female?
- Holy Spirit is a person or not?
- Salvation, faith or works
- Baptism
- Infant Baptism
- Hell is real and fiery or not?
- Purgatory
- Snake handling
- Once saved always saved?
- Where do Suicides go?
- Speaking in tongues
- Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit
- New covenant theology
- The 'two natures' in Christ.
- The Ordination of Women
- The attitude towards gays
- The various parts of the Bible that seem to be later additions, such as the 'story of the woman taken in adultery' and the 'Great Commission' that ends Matthew, etc.
- The Rapture
- Slavery
- Biblical inerrancy
- Christendom
- Papal Infallibility
- Double Predestination
- Just War Theory
- Penal Substitution
- God as a Male
- Sin
- Unforgivable Sin
- Second coming has already happened
- The point in time that the holy spirit indwells and fills you
- Gifts of the spirit given to everyone or different people at different times
- 'pre-Nicean' controversies

References and Further Reading
1. Overview Of IDQ Design Deficiencies Which Are Evident In Scripture
2. Anchoring Data Quality Dimensions in Ontological Foundations
3. Wikipedia - Formulation of the doctrine of the trinity
4. Wikipedia - Arius
5. Askmoses.com, Rabbi Shlomo Chein describes the Jewish Soul
6. Beyond Accuracy: What Data Quality Means To Consumers
7. Wikipedia - Christian Denominations
8. Reasonable Doubt About The Holy Spirit
9. Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents
10. Wikipedia - Arianism
11. Wikipeda - Trinity
12. Wikipedia - Christology
13. Wikipedia, History of Mathematics

Outline of the Analogical Design Argument

The Design Argument,

1. Preliminaries:
1.1 Topic: the design argument for the existence of a god
1.2 Defining ‘design’:
1.2.1 What do we mean when we say that something is designed? We mean, roughly, that a person of some kind intentionally made or altered something for a purpose.
1.2.2 A word that is often associated with the notion of design is ‘teleology’ and its derivatives, such as ‘teleological’.
1.2.3Etymology: telos: end, purpose
1.2.4 ‘Teleological’: exhibiting or relating to design or purpose, especially in nature
1.2.5 Thus, the design argument is often called the teleological argument
1.3 The design argument has often been called the most rationally compelling and intuitive argument for the existence of God.
1.3 It attempts to provide strong reason for believing that the universe, or at least parts of it, is the product of an exceedingly intelligent being, viz., God.
1.4 The basic idea:
1.4.1 Many of the features of the world have the appearance that an intelligent agent – i.e., a person – made it.
1.4.2 Other explanations for this appearance, e.g., that it looks that way by chance, seem implausible compared to the hypothesis that it was designed by an intelligent agent.
1.4.2.1 For these features of the world are too complex and orderly to make it probable that they got that way through chance or other natural processes.
1.4.2.2 By contrast, we know by experience that intelligent beings are able to create these features
1.4.3 So, probably, it really was designed. And if so then, probably, an intelligent designer of the world exists.
1.4.4 But such a being is what we refer to as ‘God’.
1.5 The most widely-known defender of the design argument: William Paley (1743-1805). His most famous exposition of the design argument is found in his book, Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature.
1.6 He compared the universe to a watch:
1.6.1 Just as a watch has features from which one justifiably concludes that it was designed, so, too, does the universe and its parts.
1.6.2 Therefore, it is probable that just as the former was designed by an intelligent being, so too was the universe.

2. Setting Up the Argument
2.1 When and why do we infer that something has been designed?
2.1.1 If, walking through a field, you came upon an object, and were immediately convinced that a person made it, what is it about that thing that would lead you to think that a person had made it?
2.1.1.1 Complexity: having parts
2.1.1.1.1 This might be necessary for a thing to be recognized as designed, but it isn’t sufficient by itself
2.1.1.1.2 E.g. rocks, piles of sand, etc. are complex, and yet no one says “design!” when looking at them
2.1.1.1.3 So there must be something else, in addition to complexity, that leads us to infer design
2.1.1.2 Functionality: the parts work together to perform a function
2.1.1.3 (If the parts weren’t fit together in just the right way, then it wouldn’t carry out the function)
2.1.1.4 Examples: plastic cups (with plastic lids and straws), mousetraps, tables, chairs, houses, bicycles, cars, computers, etc.
2.1.1.5 Let’s call the combination of these two features – complexity and functionality – design indicators
2.2 How do we come to learn that complexity and functionality indicate design – i.e., that they are the design indicators?
2.2.1 It doesn’t seem that it’s an innate idea, i.e., we’re not born knowing this
2.2.2 It doesn’t seem to self-evident that they are the design indicators, either. Compare: “All bachelors are unmarried males”, “and “nothing can be red all over and green all over at the same time”, vs. “all complex and functional things are designed”. The first two are self-evident; the last one is not.
2.2.3 So it must be that we learn that those are the design indicators by experience.
2.2.3.1 Step 1: we observe a constant conjunction of one type of cause (intelligence) producing one type of effect (complex, functional things). This justifies the belief that there is a causal connection between intelligence and complex, functional things.
2.2.3.2 Step 2: after our observations justify this causal connection, we no longer have to observe the cause of a thing to know that it was intelligently designed; rather, we just observe the effect (the complex, functional thing) and then infer the cause (intelligence).

3. Paley’s Design Argument
3.1 Most of the things that we observe to have design indicators are human artifacts: i.e., human-made objects
3.2 However, many things in the natural world have these same design indicators!
3.3 But if so, then, probably, these things were designed as well! For example:
3.3.1 the human eye (Paley’s favorite example)
3.3.2 the wing of a bird
3.3.3 the human circulatory system
3.3.4 whole organisms
3.3.5 whole ecosystems
3.3.6 In general: living organisms and their parts
3.4 But of course, these things weren’t designed by humans
3.5 And to say they were designed by, say, aliens, only pushes the issue back a step: aliens are complex and functional, and so they, too, would require a designer
3.6 So we need some designer that escapes this regress
3.7 That would require an intelligent being that’s not part of the biological realm
3.8 This being we all call ‘God’.
3.9 Standardizing the argument
3.9.1 Human artifacts are intelligently designed.
3.9.2 Living organisms and their parts resemble human artifacts (in that they both have several parts that work together to perform a function).
3.9.3 Therefore, probably, living organisms and their parts are intelligently designed as well.

4. Four main criticisms
4.1 The “Weak Analogy” objection: the analogy between human artifacts and biological organisms (and their parts) is too weak to confidently infer that the latter were intelligently designed
4.2 The “Design Mimickers” objection: it seems as though other, non-intelligent causes can mimic the effects of designers (i.e., complex, functional things)
4.2.1 We see in nature that there are also many non-intelligent causes of complex, functional things (e.g., spiders produce spider webs by instinct; tiny seeds contain an internal principle of order that lead to various kinds of vegetation (e.g., plants, trees, vegetables), etc.). [1]
4.2.2 Neo-Darwinian evolution can produce the complex, functional structures seen in living things
4.3 The “Who Designed the Designer?” objection:
4.3.1 Either all complex, functional things require an intelligent designer, or some don’t
4.3.2 If all entities that have parts that work together to perform a function require an intelligent designer, then since the mind of the hypothetical designer of the natural world seems to bear these traits, then it, too, would need a designer.
4.3.3 On the other hand, if some entities with these features don’t require an intelligent designer (e.g., God), then why can’t we say that same thing about living organisms, or at least the universe?
4.3.4 Therefore, either God needs an intelligent designer, or we have no good reason to think that living organisms – or at least the universe – needs an intelligent designer
4.3.5 The basic point here is that *both* key hypotheses -- theism and naturalism -- have brute functional complexity (i.e., functional complexity that has no prior cause), and so it's special pleading to say that one sort of complexity requires an explanation while the other does not.
4.4 The “Even if it Worked” Objection: Even if the argument works, it doesn’t prove that the designer is the god of theism. I.e., it wouldn’t prove that:
4.4.1 the designer is all-knowing
4.4.2 the designer is all-powerful
4.4.3 the designer is perfectly good
4.4.4 the designer is an immaterial spirit
4.4.5 the designer is eternal
4.4.6 the designer is omnipresent (present everywhere)
4.4.7 the designer is also the creator
4.4.8 there is just one designer
4.4.9 the designer still exists

---------------
[1] One might wonder: "but what is the cause of the functional complexity of the spiders with their instincts and the seeds with their internal principles of order?" See the "Who Designed the Designer?" Objection for one reply to this. But before you do: remember, the proposition, 'All functional complexity comes from intelligent designers' isn't self-evident or otherwise a priori. Rather, the argument states that we come to learn of the causal connection between intelligence and functional complexity via experience. Now the theist, the atheist, and the agnostic are all interested in the most basic direct causes of functional complexity. And in their inquiry, all parties appeal to observed causes of functional complexity. But these are all non-basic direct causes. Now the hope is that such non-basic direct causes resemble the most basic ones. As it turns out, though, we observe various non-basic direct causes of functional complexity besides intelligence. But if there is more than one non-basic direct cause of functional complexity, and all we have to go on are our observations of such causes, then the grounds for accepting any one of the known non-basic direct causes as an analogue of the basic one(s) are basically the same as for any of the others. And if that's right, then the inference to intelligent design is undercut.

The Ten Commandments: A Defunct Ancient Israelite Code

To the Biblically illiterate, the so-called Ten Commandments appear to be the ideal theocratic bases for the rule of a religious society. Within the past year, debates raged about posting these ancient Jewish legal codes in court rooms, schools, capitals, and public squares. When the Supreme Court ruled against the public display on the bases of separation of religion and State, churches here in the South passed out weather resistant Ten Commandment posters on wire frames which could (and are) displayed in private yards throughout the upstate of South Carolina as well as decals of the Commandments which were stuck on many a conservative Christian’s vehicle’s rear window.

However, when taken in the context of ancient Israelite socity as record in the Hebrew Bible, of what real value are these ancient Israelite Codes many call the Decalog. Then too, it should be noted that in ancient Israelite society, the penalty for breaking any of the first nine codes was death!

(Since Exodus 20: 1 - 17 is repeated in Deut. 5 6 - 21 as part of the Deuteronomistic History (Deuteronomy - 2 Kings) I’ve used the popular section of the Sinai story in Exodus to adds some short comments on.
The first 40% are dealing strictly with Israelite religion and Israel’s contract with their God.)

1 Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 You shall have no other gods before Me.

(This establishes an exclusive contract / Covenant with Israel only based on God’s deliverance of Israel form Egypt. It does acknowledge other equally real Gods)

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

(This further defines the bounds of Yahweh’s contract with Israel and will be the bases for future the fall of Israel (722 BCE) and Judea (586 BCE).

7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

(An oath sworn to Yahweh must be carried out even if it meant the death of ones own daughter. See story of Jephthah and the sacrifice of his daughter. Judges 11)

8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

(This establishes the a rest day drawn for the creation myth and the anthromorphic nature an ancient Near Eastern Semitic god called Yahweh. This is the main Commandment Jesus is often found breaking in the Gospels and the religious section of this Decalog was the reason the religious Jews felt Jesus must died.)

12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.

(A son or daughter’s days were “prolonged” if one was not killed for a rebellious actions.)

The following are exclusive laws which apply only to Israelites who had the contract / Covenant with Yahweh. Israel’s neighbors were viewed as in violation to the first 4 religious codes and were thus free to be killed. raped, lied to, and plundered for sexual needs and human sacrifice.

13 You shall not murder.

(Exodus 20: 13) תִּֿרְצָח׃ לֹא רְצָח (qal: kill, murder, strike down. A very limited verb used to protect only righteous Israelites. Out of this violent Hebrew society which employed 10 different word of killing often with their gods approval, slaughter and murder; ratsach is used only six times mainly to protect only Israelites.)

(Numbers 31: 17) הֲרֹגוּ׃ זָכָר לְמִשְׁכַּב אִישׁ יֹדַעַת וְכָל־אִשָּׁה בַּטָּף כָל־זָכָר הִרְגוּ וְעַתָּה

הִרְג is a word meaning roughly the same thing as רְצָח, but is used with Yahweh’s approval in Holy War.


14 You shall not commit adultery.

(This Commandment is far from what adultery means today. In Israelite society a girl was property of her father until married and then property of her husband after marriage, adultery meant the use of another man’s sexual possession to pleasure and children.

Plus, the fact that prostitutes, polygamy, concubines were protected sexual rights for all men under Yahweh’s Commandments, males were always assured of sexual gratification and while women remain uneducated property.)

15 You shall not steal.

(Applies only to Israelite clan property be it women or animals. Since non-covenanted countries were not protected, the conquest of Canaan in Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua reveal how (even after these commandments were given) the children of Yahweh killed, raped, stole and plundered the land with God‘s orders and blessings.)


16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

(“neighbor” רֵעֲ is only used for Israelites. The rise of King David revels how the most famous figure often abused his Hebrew neighbor.)

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

(To ensure any legal violations were deterred, an Israelite was to protect his own life by not planning a violation which could mean his death.

Within this commandment, one can see how women were equated with slaves, donkeys and material goods of other male Israelite.)

Fine-tuning Foolishness: Hammering Out The Stupidity

The other day, I found myself needing to hang a wicker basket shelf in my bathroom. But the shelf was too heavy for tacks and glue, so I had to fetch a hammer and nails to do the job. After some milling around in the ever-useful “junk drawer,” I found the nails and a Stanley claw hammer dad had left at my place. I took some time to take a look at the flashy thing; it was relatively new, nearly all metal, with a duel-pronged claw on one end and the head at the other. It had a tremendously ergonomic rubber handle too, with curves and ridges along its surfaces, making it a perfect fit for the hand. I said to myself, “Now this is a well-made hammer!”

It was when the job was done that I found myself thinking of how the elements of the hammer work together so well. I thought to myself that if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that the universe was “fine-tuned” just for the sake of producing this very useful hammer I was still holding in my hands.

Of course, I did and do know better. I understand that the handy instrument I held in my hands was indisputably designed and existed for a purpose, and before I gave it a name and was able to appreciate its worth, it existed in other, less useful forms. I realize that a “hammer” is just matter manipulated by humans into a tool to fulfill a small range of tasks.

I understand that the entire cosmos did not come to be for the sake of that practical-but-petty item known as the hammer. The universe doesn’t revolve around it. It doesn’t really matter in the cosmic scheme of things if it exists or not, and in no sense can it be said that the universe was “fine-tuned” to produce that instrument—even though the nice rubber handle whereby I held onto the hammer was designed to fit neatly into my hands, and even though the weighting was just right for swinging and tapping, and even though the shape and construction of the instrument made it ideal for the task for which we humans made it. The hammer has a place in my life, albeit a very small place.

But I also understand something else; I understand perfectly well what many Christians do not understand—that all teleological arguments (arguments based on the “intelligent design” of the universe, including the anthropic or “fine-tuning” arguments) are worthless and false. We exist like the hammer, and for most of the same reasons as the hammer; we fit nicely into our environment and we are a manipulation of matter, being made of the same stuff that the universe is composed of.

But we are also not like the hammer; we manipulate matter based on our intelligence and the hammer doesn’t, and the hammer was designed while we have no proof that we were. But we do know that we designed the hammer, and we don’t have any reason to believe that anyone designed us, and that is the central fallacy of all versions of the design argument—they just assume what they want to prove (that we and other life forms, as well as objects like houses and watches, were designed by an intelligence).

It is intellectual folly to assume that the universe was “fine-tuned” for the formation of life, just as it would be to assume that the universe was made so that a nicely crafted, shiny hammer can be built for the purpose of nailing a wicker shelf to a wall. The universe was “fine-tuned” for neither purpose. At least, if it was, there are no logical arguments or observations that lead us with any gusto to accepting that conclusion.

And we must ask the really big question here—why must a designer be posited to explain our sensory observations of the world? Does the fact that 9 or 7 cannot be divided evenly mean that there must be a Creator? Is e=mc² less true if God doesn’t exist? Can atoms not revolve around one another and have stability without a Master-designer? Would the atoms making up concrete and steal suddenly fly apart on an atomic level, or else lose their “hard” properties and become like Jello without a deity? Does the survival of fish in frozen ponds due to water freezing from the top downward mean that the universe was fine-tuned for life? Does the fact that gravity is strong enough to keep us on this planet, and yet not strong enough to liquefy us constitute proof that God made this world to house life like us? Does the fact that oxygen/nitrogen – as we have them on this planet for breathable air – instead of toxic gases, like methane and ammonia, mean that the earth must have been designed for habitation?

Robert G. Ingersoll, in his oh-so-eloquent 1872 work entitled “The Gods,” pointed out the grotesque absurdities of intelligent design thinking when he said…

“Even the advanced religionist, although disbelieving in any great amount of interference by the gods in this age of the world, still thinks that in the beginning, some god made the laws governing the universe. He believes that in consequence of these laws, a man can lift a greater weight with, than without, a lever, that this god so made matter and so established the order of things that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so that a body once put in motion will keep moving until it is stopped, so that it is a greater distance around, than across, a circle, so that a perfect square has four equal sides, instead of five or seven. He insists that it took a direct interposition of providence to make the whole greater than a part, and that had it not been for this power superior to nature, twice one might have been more than twice two, and sticks and strings might have had only one end apiece…These religious people see nothing but design everywhere, and personal intelligent interference in everything. They insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent.”

Then we must ask why God needed to even bother with awkward designs like the flawed and ridiculously concocted ones we see in nature; why, for instance, did God give us skin as protection from germs and foreign particles, and yet not make us to thrive on what we know as harmful radiation? Or, if God gave us ears to hear with, noses to smell with, eyes to see with, taste buds to taste with, and nerve cells to feel with, then why did he only give us those senses? Why not also the ability to see gamma radiation and rays of light not visible to the human eye? We see them with telescopes, we detect them with finer instruments, so why not with the eye? God was not limited in having to create cardboard creatures as flimsy as ourselves. He could have made us to exist and thrive in black holes or within the hearts of blue stars, and yet he went through the senseless trouble to create (or some would stupidly say, “evolve”) these bundles of bunions called human bodies. Words don’t describe the asininity of it.

And this is the real foolishness of the fine-tuning argument—its limited focus. Just look at how much of the universe is inhospitable to any type of life. If the universe was fine-tuned for life, why is there so little life in it? Why is most of our world trying to kill us, let alone all of space and time beyond this odorous outhouse called Earth? Not even a seedling can grow and thrive on Mars, and yet Mars is the closest to habitable planet in this solar system we have knowledge of outside of our own. This realization makes our own evolution rather unique and spits on the dumb notion that the universe has been tailor-made as an environment for the growth of carbon life forms (and even more arrogantly, for the growth of the human race, so that we may fight and quarrel and give credit to a fictitious being for its existence).

First, the universe was, and then it evolved us. Only later did theologians come along, with their suits and ties, and their hymnals and sermon notes, and their calfskin-covered New International Version Bibles, standing in their pulpits, proclaiming that the way things are is the way they had to be. When an apologist says, “the stability of atoms makes the material world possible,” that means to him that matter was fine-tuned by God Almighty on the atomic level to make all substances possible. But using this reasoning, any given order of nature that managed to bring about any type of sentient life at all would have to be considered designed, in which case teleology’s assumptions are unfalsifiable. In other words, we humans are no different than some really big, smart fish—we’re going to think that the proverbial river we are swimming in was “made” for us no matter what! And there’s no point in stopping there! We might as well say that the riverbed beneath it was intelligently designed to be just big enough for the river!

No, Mr. Theologian, the universe exists in some form or fashion with or without us. We, and our petty, self-aggrandizing perceptions of it come after it and as a result of it. We are not special and we are not wanted. Our perceptions of the cosmos are subjective and only valuable to us as tools to understand it, but those perceptions cannot be used to question reality. We can use our perceptions of metal beaten into a hammer to categorize the instrument made and give it a name, but we cannot argue that because metal can be shaped into a hammer that therefore a cosmic mind fine-tuned the universe to work together on an elemental level to make that product possible, and the same has to be true of humankind’s existence.

The flakey idea of a fine-tuned universe reminds me of an encounter with a mystic I had several years ago who insisted that apparent faces spotted in nature (such as in clouds or in natural formations like wood and sand) are evidence for the divine and man’s destined place in the grand scheme of things. Of course, we have to get booster seats for these mental midgets by correcting them: in truth, the “faces” seen in nature are only faces when homosapien brain-farts come along and call them “faces.” But until then, they are only one among many possible visible formations of matter, and nothing more.

We have no evidence – not even a smidgen of it – to believe that the universe has been finely tuned by a cosmic entity for any purpose whatsoever. But we do have minds, and as with the so-called faces showing up in nature, the minds by which we perceive and understand nature also sometimes project false images onto it. We find “evidences” for a fine-tuning God because we humans create and fine-tune things ourselves. So it should come as no surprise when uninformed people come along and assume that someone like us (but higher than us) does the same things. It’s a classic case of projection and a very humbling sign of our own cosmic level of ignorance, arrogance, and juvenility.

(JH)

My Interview on the Infidel Guy Show

What Would You Want to See More of Here at DC?

There is a poll on the sidebar to your right. Vote and then explain your choices, if you will.

Bart Ehrman on God’s Problem and Human Solutions: How the Bible Explains Suffering

In September 2008, Bart Ehrman delivered one of the 2008 Foerster Lectures on the Immortality of the Soul at the University of California, Berkeley. The lecture series commenced in 1928, and has included lectures by Oliver Sacks, Thomas S. Kuhn, Aldous Huxley, and Paul Tillich.

The Calvinist God is Evil!

There are things in this video I don't agree with, and certainly neither will Calvinists. But there are a couple of interviews in it that are instructive of the kind of God Calvinists worship. [The script is hard to read so I've posted it below, sorry about the language].

Script of the video:

Have you ever heard of this brand of Christians?

You haven't? Well let me briefly summerize the difference between Calvinism and arminianism...

Calvinists believe in so called predestination coupled with limited atonement
This means that they believe that Jesus didn't die for everyone but only for specific people whom God choose before he created them. And only those people are saved, the rest will go to hell

So basically it comes down to this:
God created a whole bunch of people who are just forever fucked

Yup a fucking cosmic lottery
If you don't have the right number, well that is just too fucking bad
How lovely right?

The calvinist's view is that mankind does have free will, but that free will shall always lead people to hell

Because sinning is just so fucking great right?

So God basically just violated some people's free will so that they would choose to obey him. That way some of the people can go to heaven.

Let me introduce you to some famous calvinists: (picture of the westboro baptist church)

You know how most christians say that God is love and such
Well at least the calvinists are honest to admit that their God is a God of hate... and a little tiny bit of love on the side

(video)

Can somebody please kick this guy's teeth in?

Now calvinists will say that God is not obliged to save everybody, since we all deserve to go to hell. It is actually very merciful for him to save at least some.
Now what kind of fucked up logic is that? Because according to calvinists it is in our very nature to go against God. The unsaved people simply CANNOT do anything else but sinning.

This is the important part; we CANNOT choose anything else but sin. It is in our nature to sin, it is impossible for us to either choose to live a sinfree live or to choose to accept God's salvation. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE

So God is going to torture his creatures forever for doing what comes naturally
with no way out...

But calvinists will say that God doesn't make people sin, they do it because they want to (because they cannot want to do anything else by nature)

But if God created our nature, it is HIS fault, not ours.
Of course they have a pathetic answer to this as well.

(video)

Okay so God did not fuck us over, but adam did.

So send adam to hell you fucking idiot!

It is impossible for a calvinist to get around the fact that God simply created most people for destruction, even though they are not to blame and have no way out.

If God created evil (or let evil be created by adam, whatever... that is the same thing) then God is infinitely evil for doing so

And everbody who believes, accepts and follows this God is therefore also infinitely evil

And you can see to what kind of horrible people calvinism leads to.

The weirdest thing is that calvinists actually DO evangelize, because the bible commands them to. However, even if they wouldn't the exact same amount of people would go to heaven

So why don't you just go around shooting people in the face? That would work a lot faster right?

Why would anybody's life matter? They are already fucked or "blessed"

Also how are the unelect supposed to live? Their lives are completely worthless since eternal hell is unavoidable for them.

So why shouldn't I just torture as much calvinists as possible in my life?

It doesn't matter right? After all, if I am elect I will go to heaven anyway even if I would live a life of torture and murder.

And if I am unelect, so what? I was simply already fucked from the start. Can't make it any worse right?

Calvinists are simply the sickest psychotic people on the planet and don't deserve any respect whatsoever. They don't give a crap about people so neither should we care about them.

I cannot possibly conceive of a God who is more evil than the God of calvinism. That is not meant as an insult, I honestly cannot conceive of any possible God which would be more evil.

Even a God who would send everybody to hell would not be more evil because at least he would treat everybody equally. I mean if a judge would randomly let murderers go you wouldn't call him merciful or good right?

The only two words which apply to calvinism are: Infinite Evil