I just realized that for some reason day 1 never got to the ASA list. I
resent it it still didn't go through. So I am splitting it Here is the first
half:
I will post an account of each day of the Nature of Nature
conference at Waco. I met an internet friend, Frank
Lovell there and we spent some time together. Frank and I don't share a lot
of our views in common, he is an agnostic and I not, but we had a lot of fun
together. You will see me reference him every now and then. I got everything
on tape except Dembski's talk. The length is more for my own documentation,
but you all might as well see the detail as well. I apologize to all the
author's whose arguments I mangle and the names I misspell.
I do want to emphasize again, the quality of the convention was great. I
really must give it to the ID folks, they put together some really
interesting talks (along with a few less stellar ones). At the university
level, this type of
conference is wonderful in that it gets opposing data into the minds of
those who don't hear alternatives--and to make clear what I am referring to,
I am referring to Christians who don't hear a lot of contrary data to what
their apologists tell them.
In the following, I will try to separate what are either my comments or my
understandings from what I think the author actually said by putting my
comments in [...]. One other thing, being a bit hard of hearing, If I mangle
a name, I will gladly accept my punishment. Spelling some of these
previously unknown fellows for which I only have a mangled phonetic
description may lead to some real howlers down below.
Wednesday night
*********
Robert Koons, UT Austin
He presented an argument that Ontological naturalism [ON](no causal
influences from outside the material universe) when combined with
Philosophical naturalism [PN] (human knowledge and intentionality are
explained by brain states) is incompatible with Scientific realism (SR).
Koons defines naturalism as ON +PN. The argument follows:
(1) ERN Reliability is an essential component of knowledge and
intentionality, on any naturalistic account of these.
(2) PS A preference for simplicity (elegance, symmetries, invariances) is a
pervasive feature of scientific practice. (He said that behind the data is a
consistent beauty and as Plato taught beauty is a reflection of the ultimate
truth.)
(3) RC A reliable connection between two factors must be mediated by a
causal mechanism of some kind (either a causal connection from one to the
other or from some common cause to both); mere accidental correlation is not
enough.
(4) MLS The only causal mechanism that could connect the simplicity of a
formula to its actual lawfulness would be a mechanism that caused the laws
of nature to be what they are (a mechanism with a bias toward laws with
simple formulas).
(5) PCE A cause must be causally prior to its effect.
(6) LPS The fundamental laws of nature pervade space and time in such a way
that no spatiotemporal event or condition could be causally prior to those
laws.
. SR, PN and ERN entail that scientific methods are reliable sources of
truth about the world.
. From PS, it follows that simplicity is a reliable indicator of the truth
about natural laws. (This was the point upon which everyone hit him)
* From RC, it follows that there must be a causal mechanism connecting the
simplicity of a formula to its characterizing an actual fundamental law of
nature.
. By MLS, this mechanism must cause the fundamental laws to be what they
are.
. By PCE, this cause must be causally prior to the fundamental laws of
nature.
. Since the laws of nature pervade space and time (LPS), any such cause must
exist outside space-time. . Consequently, ON is false.
He concluded that nature is comprehensible only if nature is not a closed
causal system. PN draws no support from SR and the status of ontology is
unaffected by scientific success. In other words a purely material world is
not proven by a successful science.
********
Michael Williams NW Univ.
Williams argued for what he called Pragmatic Realism. The realistic
naturalist rests on correspondence theory--our views are true if they
correspond to reality. The pragmatic realist is strongly anti-a priori.
True is what works. Truth should not be what is assertable on current
evidence (presumably because it changes). And Williams wants to abolish
truth talk. He feels that it is expressive, not a property. Truth is merely
something that we use in scientific inquiry but isn't a state or property of
statements.
He then compared 3 meanings of naturalism.
1. Natural-unnatural: Nature has inner principle of change in the
Aristotelian sense where things move to get to their natural place An
acorn's natural act is to grow into an oak. It would be an unnatural act for
the acorn to grow up to become a camel.
2.Natural-supernatural: science rejects view 1 above as well as this
supernatural view.
3. natural-meaning normative or conventional: This was the area of social
customs. Norms are local institutions.
He concluded that scientific knowledge is constrained by theory & data.
Objectivity is not illuminated by truth talk. Modern science poses a problem
for religion. Simple theories are not due to their truth. Simple is not
Truth. This last is obviously a swipe at Koons.
***********
Michael Toole, U. Colorado
This was the weakest paper of the night. It was too quick a survey of
arguments for God with little detail being given out. There were too many
ellipses in the arguments. In about the time it takes me to type this
sentence he went through the ontological, cosmological, design, moral,
religious experience, and miracle arguments for God's existence.
What surprised me was that he cited Andrew White's study of St. Francis
Xavier in which miracles attributed to him grew with time. Every time I
cite White, the historians of science whap me across the head, saying that
he
isn't trustworthy.
Then he turned to recent pro-supernatural arguments which included :
1. An appeal to consciousness/nonphysical properties. (Laws for emergent
properties require a deity).
2. Anthropic principle. (He argued that one can't calculate the
probability--Robin Collins of Messiah College answered this in his speech
below in response to Toole making that claim again during Collins' Q&A
session). Toole claimed that one needs to focus on all possible laws for the
universe--which to me is a flaky argument because if the very mathematical
form of the laws are up for grabs, then the probability of having life drops
precipitously. A gravitational law which has an inverse 4th power
relationship with distance won't work. Neither will the Yukawa potential
(that associated with the Strong force) allow life, if used as a
gravitational law.
3. Antievolution arguments. The first of these is the young earth arguments
which must accept Gosse or reject science. The second is the OEC argument
that things could not evolve. They are unable to explain the fossil record
and must claim false things like no transitional forms and no beneficial
mutations. The third antievolution argument is irreducible complexity.
He charged Behe with misquotation of Coyne and Margoulis and had a
quotation as evidence. I didn't get the references so I will eventually have
to see if that is on my tape. Secondly he said that Behe didn't provide
support for his premises. Premise 2 was that it is impossible to develop a
complex system by an indirect method. Take a system B* which goes to
(-->) [AB*}-->[AB] but B* does both B and A inefficiently. Toole further
said that Behe gives no reason for why probability drops as complexity
rises. Toole attacked Behe's premise 4 which is that as the number of IRC
systems increase the probability of Darwinism goes down. What grounds are
there for holding no evolution of a system?, Toole asks, None other than
Behe just doesn't see how.
After the talk I asked Toole if he had ever been criticized for citing
Andrew
White--he said he hadn't. That surprised me given my experience citing him.
During the Q and A Koons was questioned hard on the simplicity argument. The
laws of nature are not true because they are simple. It became very clear
that Koons should have used 'elegant' or 'beauty' instead of simple, but
that still wouldn't have gotten him out of his problems.Michael Williams hit
back on the concept of Truth--He thinks it is something we can do without.
Which to me, makes it hard to see how much of science can work without the
concept of the Truth or Falsity of a hypothesis. He said that Truth simply
carries no weight and does no work for the scientist. (Obviously I don't get
it or I would explain it better). And Michael Toole was told by a
creationist that there were no transitional forms. When Toole responded that
some of the amphibians had both lungs and gills another fellow in the
audience shook his head no, to which Toole said something like, you say no,
but there are these types of animals.
Thursday Morning
I had breakfast with Paul Nelson, Mark Kalthoff and Tom Judson(?) the latter
two were from Hillsdale College. I introduced myself to Mark and he said, "I
know who you are, your reputation precedes you." :-) I had wanted to
convey to Paul the effect that christian apologists who don't get their
facts correct have on people like me. Because of the fact that Christian
apologists can't get their facts correct, I don't believe what a Christian
tells me until I check it out. I told Paul that it is really unfortunate
that I feel that I have to treat apologists like a used car salesman. Ide
Trotter, who I understand is a Oil Investment person in Dallas, a physicist
by training and is a well connected Southern Baptist from Dallas sat down at
the next table and overheard our conversation. He was complementary to what
I was saying to them. In Dembski's Saturday talk, he appeared to have the
same objection to Dembski's work as I did.
***********
Alvin Plantinga, Notre Dame
Plantinga's argument is similar to Koons' in that he believes that
Naturalism and Evolution defeats itself. It was aimed at showing that
naturalism can't explain beliefs of our consciousness. It was a long and
complex argument and I am not going to bore people with it. Some of the
highlights as best as I can reduce them. He starts with a quote from Darwin
(no reference): "With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the
convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the
lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust
in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such
a mind?"
He then quotes Patricia Churchland as saying "Boiled down to essentials, a
nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding,
fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is
to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may
survive....Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary
advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is
geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organisms' chances of
survive. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."
This is from Plantinga's handout (so maybe I will bore you):
(1) Epiphenomenalism: behavior is not caused by beliefs.
J. M. Smith wrote that he had never understood why organisms have feelings.
After all, orthodox biologists believe that behavior, however complex, is
governed entirely by biochemistry and that the attendant sensations fear,
pain, wonder, love-are just shadows cast by that biochemistry, not
themselves vital to the organism's behavior....
(2) Semantic epiphenomenalism
(3) Beliefs are causally efficacious-semantically' as well as
'syntactically'-with respect to behavior, but maladaptive.
(4) Beliefs are indeed both causally connected-'semantically' as well as
'syntactically-with behavior and also adaptive.
To quote myself:
Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a
tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it
unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts
in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much
by way of true belief. . . . . Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large,
friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it: but he also believes that the
best way to pet it is to run away from it. . . . or perhaps he thinks the
tiger is a regularly recurring illusion, and, hoping to keep his weight
down, has formed the resolution to run a mile at top speed whenever
presented with such an
illusion; or perhaps he thinks he is about to take pan in a 1600 meter race,
wants to win, and believes the appearance of the tiger is the starting
signal; or perhaps . .
.. Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally
fit a given bit of behavior (WPF pp. 225-226).
(1) P(R/N&E) = (P(R/N&E&Pi) x P(Pi/N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P2) x P(P2/N&E)) +
(P(R/N&E&P3) x P(P3/N&E)) + (P(R/N&E&P4) x P(P4/N&E)).
(2) P(R/N&E) = P(R/N&E&C) x P(C/N&E) + P(R/N&E&-C) x P(-C/N&E),
It is exceedingly hard to see, that is, how epiphenomenalism-semantic or
simpliciter-can be avoided, given N.
It looks as if P(-C/N&E) will have to be estimated as relatively high; let's
say (for definiteness) .7, in which case P(C/N&E) will be .3. Let's also
estimate that P(R/N&E&-C) is, say, .2. Then P(R/N&E) will be at most .45,
less than 1/2. Of course we could easily be wrong; we don't really have a
solid way of estimating these probabilities; so perhaps the conservative
position here is that P(Rfff&E.)too is inscrutable: one simply can't tell
what it is. The sensible thing to think, then, is ftat P(R/N&E) is either
low or inscrutable. Cartesian demons and Alpha-Centaurian superscientists.
But if I have an undefeated defeater for R, then by the same token I have an
undefeated defeater for any other belief my cognitive faculties produce, a
reason to be doubtful of that belief, a reason to withhold it. For any such
belief will be produced by cognitive faculties that I cannot rationally
believe to be reliable. But then clearly the same will be true for any
belief they produce: the fact that I can't rationally believe that the
faculties that produce that belief arc reliable, gives me a reason for
rejecting the belief. So the devotee of N&E has a defeater for just any
belief he holds-a defeater that is ultimately undefeated. But this means,
then,
that he has an ultimately undefeated defeater for N&E itself. And that means
that the conjunction of naturalism with evolution is self-defeating, such
that one can't rationally accept it. But anyone who accepts naturalism ought
also to accept evolution; evolution is the only game in town, for the
naturalist, with respect to the question how all this variety of flora and
fauna has arisen, if that is so, finally, then naturalism simpliciter is
self- defeating and cannot rationally be accepted-at any rate by someone who
is apprised of this argument and sees the connections between N&E and R.
REPLY TO TALBOTT
Talbott's objection: suppose I'm a naturalist and come to see that the
probability thesis is in fact true. Doesn't it seem that I would nonetheless
continue to believe R, that my cognitive faculties are reliable? Won't I at
any rate continue to assume this, in the sense that when I am not explicitly
thinking about this question, I will carry on my intellectual life as I did
before, accepting the testimony of my senses and memory, reasoning in accord
with modus ponens, and the like?
The clue is as follows: if only our truth aimed processes were at work in
these situations, she would have a defeater. Some of the processes governing
the maintenance of R are not directly aimed at truth, but rather at the
ability to earn' on our
cognitive life. And our design plan is such that if those processes-the
processes that govern the maintenance of R but are not directly aimed at
truth-were excised, she would have an ordinary rationality defeater. This
becomes evident when we reflect on what we would think about the reliability
of someone else who had ingested XX. Let's say that a person in this
condition has a purely alethic rationality defeater.
******
William Talbot, University of Washington
Here is his handout. These philosophical arguments are not really
interesting to me.
Conference on the Nature of Nature
The Michael Polanyi Center
"Are Evolution and Naturalism Incompatible?"
Baylor University
April 13,2000
NATURALISM UNDEFEATED
William J. Talbott
University of Washington
Wish Fulfillment Example: Consider an agent AP who believes that God exists
(G). Let 'R(WF)' stand for the statement that AP's faculty of wish
fulfillment is reliable.
Let X be evidence that AP has that WF is not reliable. AP's reasoning:
(Step 1) P(R(WF)/X) « 1/2.
(SteP 2) X
(Step 3) I believe G based on WF..
(Step 4) I have no other basis for believing [God exists--grm]
(Step 5) Steps (l)-(4) are not themselves subject to defeat.
(Step 6) My belief G is irrational.
I suggest that we rephrase Plantinga's point to say that Steps 1-4 give AP a
prima fade defeater for G. Whether it is rational for AP to believe G
depends on whether this prima facie defeater becomes an actual defeater. The
only thing
that can save AP's belief G from actual defeat is ifAP has other beliefs
which defeat one or
more of Steps 1-4 (beliefs which are not themselves defeated by other
beliefs).
The Main Argument:
Let 'N' stand for the relevant tenets of Naturalism; let 'E' stand for the
relevant tenets of Evolutionary Biology; let 'R' stand for the claim that
human cognitive faculties are reliable on the whole; and let 'C' stand for a
complex proposition that describes what cognitive faculties human beings
have. By abstract faculties (AF) I refer to the cognitive faculties that are
involved only in the production of theoretical beliefs-including beliefs
in theoretical logic, math, science,and metaphysics. I simply assume
that there are such faculties.
' The Main Argument as applied to E (a parallel argument applies to N and
C):
(Step 1) P(R(AF)/N&E&C) « 1/2 (that is, it is very improbable that human
abstract faculties would be reliable, given that they have evolved by
natural selection).
(Step 2) N&E&C (The argument is addressed to someone who accepts
Philosophical Naturalism (N), Evolutionary Biology (E), and some agreed
description of our cognitive faculties (C).)
(Step 3) I believe E based on AF.
(Step 4) I have no other basis for believing E (i.e., no other basis that
does not make use of the abstract faculties).
(Step 5) Steps 1-4 are not themselves subject to defeat.
(Step 6) My belief E is irrational.
Steps (l)-(4) give the agent to whom the argument is addressed a prima facie
defeater for E. Because Steps (l)-(4) are themselves undefeated, they
actually defeat E.
Example #l: The Genetic Hallucinogen Blocker Example. To reconstruct BT's
reasoning, let HCH ("H causes hallucinations") stand for the statement: In
95% of subjects one dose ofH causes severe hallucinations within one hour of
taking it. Let ISH ("I swallowed H") stand for the statement: One hour ago I
[i.e.,
BT] swallowed one dose ofH. Let R(PF) stand for the statement: My perceptual
faculties are reliable. Let TC stand for the statement: I am typing on my
computer (TC).
(Step 1) P(R(PF)/HCH& ISH) =. 05 « 1/2. (probability of reliable
perceptual faculties is low, thus he grants Plantinga's first
postulate--grm)
(Step 2) HCH & ISH
(Step 3) I believe TC based on PF.
(Step 4) I have no other basis for believing TC,
(Step 5) Steps (l)-(4) are not themselves subject to defeat.
(Step 6) My belief TC is irrational.
Additional Information for Example #l: Let 5GBH (5% genetic block to H)
stand for the statement that 5% of the population has a gene which produces
a protein that blocks the effects of drug H. Let fflGBH stand for the
statement: I [i.e., BT] have the genetic block to H. Suppose also that BT
has plenty of
evidence, Y, that his perceptual faculties are reliable when he is not under
the influence
ofhallucinogenic drugs. Then, in light of BT's total evidence, he would also
be able to take
the following step:
(Step 1-1) P(R(PF)/HCH & ISH & 5GBH & IHGBH & Y) » 1/2
Example #2. First Example of the Tardy Revelation.
[BT has no knowledge
of Gene Block. the Dr. Calls and tells him that he has the genetic blocker
to the drug. Talbot thinks this gets him out of the problem and allows him
to have an assurance that he is not hallucinating. Most of the audience
didn't agree that the call from the doctor would be proof of a lack of
hallucination. The call itself could be a hallucination--grm]
He gave other examples that I won't go into such as:
Example #3. The Antidote Example.
Example #4. HA invades the food chain.
Example #5. The Second Example of the Tardy Revelation.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution
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