Re: [asa] Dawkins and PZ Myers and their 'attitude'

George,

Thanks for the link to your article - I'll look it up.

But ...

The fact remains that many people are reading TGD and using it against
Christians. The fact that the book comes up as a topic of conversation
surely leads to opportunities for evangelism - to talk about our faith, etc.

BTW, has anyone pointed out that Dawkins' argument that "God" would have to
> be complex in order to create a complex world is just Dembski's supposed
> "conservation of information" notion in atheist garb?
>
>
I hadn't thought of it that way, but it strikes me that Dawkins's argument
is pretty silly. I think Dawkins's premise is that God must be more complex
than us to have created us. I actually think it's a false premise to assume
that you have to be more complex than what you create in the first place.
We haven't done it yet, but I don't think it's inconceivable that given the
rise in computer power, that one day someone will write an evolutionary
simulation in a computer that will give rise to "virtual" entities inside
the computer that are more complex than us. However, we as "programmers"
are at a different level of reality than the entities that exist within the
software simulation. I think Dawkins wants to reduce it all to one level.
In the radio broadcast, he suggested that a Designer must be more complex
than us, and so it must also have evolved, and as it's more complex, then it
is even more unlikely than us. But his premise right at the start is that
this material world in which things evolve is the only one there is. But he
then wants to use this to "prove" the non-existence of God (or to be more
precise, to demonstrate the near impossibility of God). But the thing he's
trying to prove is the premise he's assumed in the first place.

I think this argument is wrong for the same reason that the Design argument
is wrong. When Paley stumbles upon the watch on the heath, the only reason
he is justified in assuming it had a watchmaker is that he knows that
watchmakers exist - there is independent empirical evidence of them - one
has seen a man making a watch. But no-one has seen God zapping a flagellum
into existence, so the analogy breaks down. The Design argument presumes
the existence of God from the start. By the same token the Dawkins argument
for the non-existence of God presumes the non-existence of God. Both sides
are flawed in assuming what you're trying to prove in the first place. (I
think there's some name for that logical fallacy, but the name escapes me
for the moment).

Iain

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Received on Sat Apr 7 16:27:34 2007