Category: debate

Two debates on science vs. faith: Craig vs. Caroll and Craig vs. Krauss

August 24, 2014 • 12:58 pm

I’ve been meaning to put these up for a while, but finally got around to it. I haven’t yet watched either debate yet (one is actually supposed a “discussion”), but now I will. Be aware: each debate is about two hours long. They’re worth watching, I hear, because although Craig is an accomplished debater and rhetorically skillful, the scientist on the other side supposedly got the best of him. Watch and judge for yourself.

First, Sean Carroll vs. William Lane Craig on “God and Cosmology”, Greer-Heard Forum of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, February 9, 2014:

I’m especially proud of Sean for this, as everyone said he mopped the floor with Craig and, after all, Carroll is the Official Website Physicist™. You can see his post-debate reflections, posted on his website, here.

Second, a “discussion” between Lawrence Krauss and William Lane Craig at Adelaide’s City Bible forum, which took place on August 20 of last year. The topic given on the website is “the big questions of Life, the Universe and Nothing.”

h/t: Susan

May 7: Sean Carroll and Steve Novella to debate the woomeisters on life after death

April 30, 2014 • 10:22 am

Make a note on your calendar: on May 7, one week from today, physicist Sean Carroll and doctor/podcaster Steve Novella will be debating Eben Alexander (author of Proof of Heaven) and doctor Raymond Moody (author of Life after Life) on the issue “Death is not final.” It’s an Intelligence-Squared debate that will be live-streamed at this site starting at 6:45 Eastern U.S. time. The moderator is John Donvan from ABC News.

These debates take a poll on the issue before and after the debate, and you can cast your vote here. At this moment, the results are mostly “against the motion,” meaning “against the notion that Death is not final”—the materialist stand:

Screen shot 2014-04-30 at 12.03.07 PM

Sean seems to be getting more into the debate game these days, and after his sterling performance against William Lane Craig, I have no problems with him doing one.  Certainly he and Novella will be having a look at Esquire’s recent article that largely debunked Alexander’s claims of a near-death experience (and a visit to heaven), making Mr. Proof of Heaven look pretty much like a charlatan.

h/t: Derek

Karl Giberson debates Stephen Meyer about evolution

April 23, 2014 • 12:50 pm

Over at The Daily Beast, Karl Giberson reports on a debate he had with Intelligent Design (ID) advocate Stephen Meyer in Richmond, Virginia: “My debate with an ‘intelligent design’ theorist.” (For some reason the article is headed by a picture of Sarah Palin.)

The topic of their debate was “Should Christians embrace Darwin?” and of course you already know which positions were taken by Giberson and Meyer. (You can read the IDer’s own take on the debate over at Evolution News and Views, though I hate to give them clicks.)

You have to hand it to Karl to go up against a fellow Christian in public, but what he should have realized, and finally did after the debate was over, is that this isn’t the way to resolve the conflict. After all, if you’re debating what Christians should do, presumably in front of a Christian audience, is touting the evidence (something that Karl apparently did) going to change people’s minds? I’d suspect that to do that, one would have to convince Christians that evolution doesn’t have the dire implications they think it does. The problem is, of course, that it does have those implications: naturalism, evolved moral tendencies, humans aren’t special, natural selection is wasteful and painful, there’s no evidence for a human “soul,” and so on. End of story.

According to the Evolution News and Views account, Meyer used an ID version of the Gish gallop, something guaranteed to flummox his opponent, and refused to engage Giberson’s presentation of the fossil evidence—evidence that is, of course, very strong:

Steve clarified the several definitions of evolution and put common descent to one side as a “secondary argument” and not the focus of the debate. Then he described some problems with neo-Darwinian theory. He told about Francis Crick’s revelation to biology in the 20th century and presented the origin of biological information as the central mystery to be explained. He discussed the combinatorial problem for the selection/mutation mechanism, sharing Douglas Axe’s work on the rarity of functional proteins in sequence space. He explained epigenetic information — the information beyond DNA and stored in cell structures — that plays a crucial role in the formation of animal body plans.

Now what audience is going to understand stuff like that, especially if Meyer avoids confronting the tough questions? Karl notes the same thing:

I have no idea how Intelligent Design theorists explain humans with tails. And apparently Stephen Meyer doesn’t either, as he completely ignored this point. In his book, Signature in the Cell, he offers a “prediction” that all such examples of bad design will turn out to be “degenerate forms of originally elegant or beneficial designs” (p. 491).

To be sure, Karl did make some telling points, but they appear to have gone over the head of the audience. As he recounts:

The many interesting examples that dominate the ID discussion—the little tail on the bacterium, our eyes or our blood-clotting mechanism, the explosion of new life-forms in the Cambrian period—are just snapshots of things in nature. They are not “evidence” for anything and won’t be until the ID theorists develop a theory of how their “designer” works. Once they provide a well-articulated version of their central claim, we can decide whether or not our eyes—or our tails— support their theory.

I mentioned in the debate that I thought this difficulty—acknowledged as it was by other ID theorists—was the deepest and most interesting challenge facing ID. But Meyer assured me that this is no longer an issue and that they now had a theory, although whatever it is appears to remain a well-kept secret. I objected that, as a physicist with a Ph.D who had studied some real theories—quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism—ID did not remotely resemble any other theory in the natural sciences and was thus hard to see how it might work. The response was that ID was under no obligation to satisfy the expectations of the scientific community for what a theory should look like.

And right there, to a scientist, is the huge failure of ID. They have no predictions (only criticisms of accepted evolutionary theory and facts), and they have no theory. The statement that “ID was under no obligation to satisfy the expectations of the scientific community for what a theory should look like” is an explicit admission that intelligent design is not science.  It doesn’t have to make predictions, it doesn’t contain a coherent group of propositions about how the designer operated—it doesn’t have to play by the rules of science. If the audience had its wits about it, at that point they should have realized why ID can’t win in the courtroom.

But the debate wasn’t about which “theory” was right, but about what view Christians should accept. And to many, that means accepting what they find congenial, and then rationalizing it. Here’s one example of that from the Evolution News and Views article:

A few interesting questions came up in the Q&A afterward. One audience member asked both speakers how they thought life began. Giberson was frank in saying he doesn’t find any presently available explanation satisfactory. At some point, someone will find the answer, he mused. Meyer suggested making an inference to the best explanation, given what we do know about the origin of information.

I wonder what that “best explanation” is? Could it be. . . God? 

Karl’s summary of the debate is sad. He seems to have truly hoped that this debate would provide an opportunity for some interesting scientific questions to be addressed objectively. Instead, he appears to have been steamrollered by Meyer’s slick and dismissive arguments. But what did Giberson expect? If materialism (the despised heart of Darwinism) is at issue, Karl, Christian or not, is going to be thrown under the bus. And so he left Richmond, a sadder and wiser man. As he says:

And so we see why debates accomplish so little. The Virginia audience left that night having learned little about ID, as Meyer’s presentation was very technical, although anything but “chock full of evidence.” My rather serious claim that ID had no theory and thus no evidence at all was dismissed, not addressed. The ID folk are now assuring their readers that their guy won; my defense of evolution was apparently pitiful: “Where was the new evidence?” the reviewer asks. “Where were the cutting-edge studies supportive of [my] view?” Such questions seem profoundly irrelevant, given that evolution has been an established scientific theory for many decades. The theory is long past needing new evidence and new discoveries are never presented as offering new “evidence” for evolution, any more than new photographs of the earth from space provide “new evidence” for its shape.

I could have told him that. Meyer is under no obligation to address Giberson’s issues: creationists always put their opponents on the defensive. That, plus the inability to resolve complex scientific issues in an hour on stage, the overweening influence of rhetorical abilities, and the issue of giving creationism unwarranted credibility by engaging them, is why I and many other evolutionists simply refuse to debate these folks. Yes, evolution is true, and Giberson is welcome to present that evidence to Christians in his own talks and writings. That might work a bit, as it has for me, but what won’t work is telling evangelical Christians to accept evolution because it’s compatible with their faith.

Get the popcorn: Sean Carroll goes at it hammer and tongs with William Lane Craig—livestreamed tonight!

February 21, 2014 • 9:02 am

I’m sure we’ll all be rooting for Official Website Physicist™ Sean Carroll as he begins his two-day series of debates and discussions with William “Kill the Canaanites” Craig this evening. And you can watch tonight’s debate live (see below). The topic is whether modern cosmology gives any evidence for God, and you can read all the preliminaries here.

As Sean said on his website yesterday (my emphasis):

Tomorrow (Friday) is the big day: the debate with William Lane Craig at the Greer-Heard Forum, as I previously mentioned. And of course the event continues Saturday, with contributions from Tim Maudlin, Alex Rosenberg, Robin Collins, and James Sinclair.

I know what you’re asking: will it be live-streamed? Yes indeed!

Fun starts at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. (Corrected from earlier goof.) The format is an opening 20-minute speech by WLC and me (in that order), followed by 12-minute rebuttals, and then 8-minute closing statements, and concluding with 40 minutes of audience questions. Official Twitter hashtag is #GreerHeard14, which I believe you can use to submit questions for the Q&A. I wouldn’t lie to you: I think this will be worth watching.

Sean seems to be actually raising expectations for his performance, for his post continues:

I want to make the case for naturalism, and to do that it’s obviously necessary to counter any objections that get raised. Moreover, I think that expectations (for me) should be set ridiculously high. The case I hope to make for naturalism will be so impressively, mind-bogglingly, breathtakingly strong that it should be nearly impossible for any reasonable person to hear it and not be immediately convinced. Honestly, I’ll be disappointed if there are any theists left in the audience once the whole thing is over.

That sounds like a bit of a joke given that there will be many WLC supporters in the audience, but maybe he’s serious.

h/t: Peter

Ham/Nye debate archived

February 10, 2014 • 5:27 am

Reader Verotchka informs me that, if you missed the live debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye last week, it’s been archived here in high-def, so you can watch in full screen and even download it. (You have to identify yourself as a human by typing in the code they give you, but that’s no problem.)

On the other hand, if you missed the debate originally you probably had a good reason, and won’t want to watch it now. And I must admit that the thought of Ham’s face filling my 30-inch screen makes my stomach quail. Still, for the record. . .

Debate postmortem III: BioLogos weighs in, but not helpfully

February 8, 2014 • 9:37 am

The people at BioLogos have weighed in with a group reaction to the Ham/Nye debate on evolution. “Ham on Nye: Our take,” which gives the separate reactions of six associates.

BioLogos has always fascinated me because it’s an organization that has immense potential for cognitive dissonance. While dedicated to helping evangelical Christians accept evolution—an admirable task—they insist at the same time on adhering to evangelical Christianity. In other words, they promote science with one hand and promote superstition with the other. They don’t experience the discomfort of cognitive dissonance because they’re believers, and it always mystifies me how smart people can retain such primitive superstitions. (Yes, I know that reader Sastra tells us, via Michael Shermer, that smart people are better at deluding themselves!)

At any rate, I’ll summarize a few of BioLogos’s reactions. The first is from Jim Stump, the content manager for the site:

So no amount of evidence about the age of the universe will convince [Ham] otherwise. The argument instead needs to focus on his interpretation of Scripture before he’ll even consider the science. If Nye’s naturalism is accepted, then it isn’t reasonable to think that God has any role in the world today. So no amount of quoting Bible verses to him will be effective. Perhaps his concerns about suffering and Christian exclusivism need to be addressed before he’ll even consider a Christian view of creation.

At BioLogos we are not just seeking to defend what seems reasonable to us, but we’re seeking truth from Scripture and from the natural world to form a coherent picture of God’s action in the world.

Here Stump falls into the same trap as did Ham, except the issue is not the age of the earth but naturalism. Stump, like Phillip Johnson and other Intelligent Design advocates, sees the enemy of religion not so much evolution, but materialism and naturalism—in other words, the rejection of the supernatural. So what evidence would it take to convince Stump that there is no evidence for the supernatural, aka God?  And why would “concerns about suffering” move anybody towards Christianity? If anything, they should move people away from that faith, for no Christian God would allow such undeserved suffering.

In the second paragraph, Stump is acting precisely like Ham. While Ham’s a priori commitment is to Biblical literalism, Stump’s is to a theistic god (“God’s action in the world”).  Science has no a priori commitment to any truths about the universe, and whatever “truth” Stump has managed to squeeze from scripture is countermanded by the “truths” wrung from the Qur’an by Muslims, or from the Book of Mormon by the Latter-Day Saints. In his whole critique of Ham, Stump seems oblivious to the fact that he is in fact behaving identically to Ham: evincing an unscientific commitment to an a priori religious belief, and then determining to hold onto that belief no matter what the facts may show.

***

From John Walton, a “BioLogos advisor”:

The only comment that I want to make in that regard is that it was evident that Ken Ham believed that all evolutionists were naturalists—an identification that those associated with BioLogos would strongly contest.

Again, those BioLogos adherents who aren’t naturalists are aligning themselves here perfectly with the Wedge Strategy of Intelligent Design, which is to oppose materialism and naturalism as the true enemies of Christianity.

Walton also decries Ham’s Biblical literalism because Ham simply isn’t reading the Bible as it should be read: as a document reflecting the limited understanding of its writers:

I commend Ken Ham’s frequent assertion of the gospel message. His testimony to his faith was admirable and of course, I agree with it. I also share his beliefs about the nature of the Bible, but I do not share his interpretation of the Bible on numerous key points. From the opening remarks Ham proclaimed that his position was based on the biblical account of origins. But he is intent on reading that account as if it were addressing science (he truly believes it is). I counter by saying that we cannot have a confident understanding of what the Bible claims until we read it as an ancient document. I believe as he does that the Bible was given by God, but it was given through human instruments into an ancient culture and language. We can only encounter the Bible’s claims by taking account of that context. . . What appears to Ham as a “natural” reading, is extremely debatable if one attempts to read the text of Genesis as the (God-inspired) ancient document that it is.

So where, exactly, does Walton get the idea that he, and not Ham, knows that although the bible is written by humans, it was somehow “given by God”? What’s the evidence for that? And why is the story of Genesis so obviously wrong but the story of Jesus so obviously right? The reason is, of course, that science has disproved Genesis but not Jesus. But of course we have no evidence at all, save in that book, of any “Jesus” who was the son of God, worked miracles, and was resurrected. Other scriptures, like the Qur’an, are also reputed to be “given by God.” Why does Walton think they’re wrong?

Those like Walton who cherry-pick the Bible, winnowing what they see as truth from metaphor, need to tell us on what basis they’re proceeding. If they argue that anything in the Bible not disproved by science is true (like the story of Jesus), then they’re on very shaky—and unscientific—ground. For one thing, they’d have to accept all kinds of dubious stuff like Lot’s wife being turned into a salt pillar, and the remarkable longevities of Moses and his peers, as being “true.”

Finally, Walton admits, that he, too, could never change his mind about certain foundational truths of the Bible; they’re just different truths from the ones accepted by Ham:

When Ham was asked what it would take to change his mind, he was lost for words because he said that he could never stop believing in the truth of the Bible. I would echo that sentiment, but it never seemed to occur to him that there might be equally valid interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis, or maybe even ones that could garner stronger support.

Right there Walton has lost all his credibility as a supporter of science.

***

Dennis Venema is BioLogos’s “Fellow of Biology,” which I think means he’s the guy in charge of all the biology at the site. And he makes some good points about what ammo Nye could have used against Ham. Venema says, for instance, that Ham should have been challenged with the observation of “vestigial genes”: genes that aren’t functional in a species because they’re inactivated, but are functional in relatives. The inactive genes for making yolk proteins in humans, an example Venema cites, is in fact something I mention in my book. It would be hard for creationists to deal with these, as they clearly show evolutionary transitions between “kinds.” (A bird is certainly in a different “kind” from a human!) Venema might have added that transitional fossils like Tiktaalik and the feathered theropod dinosaurs are just as hard for creationists like Ham to explain, for they also show transitions between “kinds,” however broadly one defines that term.

Venema also mentions how Ham dismissed the work of Rich Lenski and his colleagues showing the evolution of new functions in the bacterium E. coli. But Ham and other creationists (though not IDers, who argue that evolution can’t produce “new information”) might accept that work as showing mere “evolution within kinds.” Reader Jim has informed me that both Lenski and his colleague Zachary Blount, who did the citrate-evolution studies, have published rebuttals of Ham’s assertions; you can find them here, here and here.

Finally, Venema gives us his recipe for converting evangelical Christians to evolution:

. . . overall I had the general feeling what is really needed for the conversation on evolution among brothers and sisters in Christ is twofold. First and foremost, evangelicals need a deeper understanding of the Bible, especially the Ancient Near Eastern context and setting of the original audience of Genesis (for which I am glad for the work of others with expertise in that area, such as my colleague John Walton). Secondly, evangelicals need a deeper understanding of how science works in general, and specifically how the lines of evidence for evolution converge on a robust picture of how God used this means to bring about biodiversity on earth.

I’m amazed that Venema thinks this will work.  He wants to tell evolution-rejecting Christians that a). the Bible is a human document and doesn’t necessarily convey scientific truths, since those weren’t known when it was composed; and b). that there is lots of evidence for evolution, evidence that denies the story of Genesis and—though BioLogos won’t admit it—the historicity of Adam and Eve. But BioLogos has been doing these things since its inception. It hasn’t worked, and won’t, for Christians have already heard that stuff and rejected it.

***

Finally, the new president of BioLogos, Deb Haarsma, weighs in, and in an unfortunate way. Among other things (which include praising Ham for pointing out that “the scientific method grew out of the Christian context of medieval Europe”), she says this:

Our belief in the Bible and Jesus is more fundamental than our views on science. When Bill Nye referred to religion as a source of social connection and comfort for millions, I wished that he had a deeper understanding of what Christianity is all about. Our faith is much more than a social club; it’s about absolute truth and salvation from sin through Jesus Christ.

What does “more fundamental” mean? Does that mean that if evidence cropped up showing that there was either no historical Jesus or that Jesus was really an apocalyptic preacher who was neither divine nor the son of God, she would reject her Christianity? I doubt it. Her Christianity, like that of BioLogos itself, is a given that no evidence could dispel. And yet it’s certainly evidence-based, for she says that her religion is “about absolute truth.” It’s the way that people like Haarsma find that truth, through dogma and revelation, that make science and religion incompatible.

If Haarsma’s statement means what I think (I’d love to ask her to explain it), then she, too, has no credibility when pronouncing science and religion compatible.

h/t: Lou Jost