Shermer on consciousness, free will, and God

July 13, 2018 • 10:00 am

The latest Scentific American has a short column by Michael Shermer on why he thinks consciousness, free will, and God are “insoluble mysteries”. Click on the screenshot to read the piece.


 

When I read it, I jotted down some thoughts that took issue with Shermer’s notion that all three are “insoluble”, and sent a few questions to Michael, whose answers I’ve put below the fold. I think he’s gone amiss with free will and God, but does have a point about consciousness. Excerpts from Michael’s article are indented, and he’s given me permission to quote his emails to me.

Here’s Shermer’s thesis from the Sci Am piece:

Are these “hard” problems, as philosopher David Chalmers characterized consciousness, or are they truly insoluble “mysterian” problems, as philosopher Owen Flanagan designated them (inspired by the 1960s rock group Question Mark and the Mysterians)? The “old mysterians” were dualists who believed in nonmaterial properties, such as the soul, that cannot be explained by natural processes. The “new mysterians,” Flanagan says, contend that consciousness can never be explained because of the limitations of human cognition. I contend that not only consciousness but also free will and God are mysterian problems—not because we are not yet smart enough to solve them but because they can never be solved, not even in principle, relating to how the concepts are conceived in language. Call those of us in this camp the “final mysterians.”

Well, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, this depends on what the meaning of “solved” is. I would contend that consciousness can in principle be “solved”, but not perhaps in the sense of how Shermer conceives of a “solution.” On the other hand, I think free will and God can indeed be “solved” scientifically: that is, we can get provisional answers about their existence or non-existence. And I think those answers are in. Let’s take the three areas in order:

Consciousness. Michael conceives of a solution as solving the “hard problem” of consciousness: what is it really like to be in someone else’s shoes, or the shoes of another species (most famously Thomas Nagel’s bat? And I agree with Shermer when he says this:

It is not possible to know what it is like to be a bat (in philosopher Thomas Nagel’s famous thought experiment), because if you altered your brain and body from humanoid to batoid, you would just be a bat, not a human knowing what it feels like to be a bat.

. . . By definition, only I can know my first-person experience of being me, and the same is true for you, bats and bugs.

That much is true, but if you conceive of the problem of consciousness, as I initially did, as “what are the neurological correlates that make somebody or something conscious?”, then that is in principle soluble. I asked Michael if he thought I, Jerry Coyne, was conscious, and if he did, didn’t that make the neurological solution possible in principle? (That is, just see what neurology goes with thinking that something else is conscious, or produce it using AI and using the same criteria we use when deciding that other people are conscious.) Michael responded by email:

I misunderstood your question: how do I know anyone else, much less a bat, is conscious. I don’t, and I can’t, through introspection or any other subjective form of experience. It is an inference to the best explanation that since I know I’m conscious, it is much more likely that the people around me with whom I interact are also conscious than that they’re not, and ergo by extension that everyone alive is conscious (with, of course exceptions for the truly brain dead), and by further extension across the phylogenetic tree other mammals are conscious, etc. I would even extend this to AI robots, when that day comes, if they exhibit similar characteristics to humans and other sentient animals: self-awareness, emotion, perceptive sensitive, responsive, thinking, and able to feel and suffer.

He then sent an excerpt about this from his book “The Moral Arc” which  I’ve put below the fold. I agree with him that I see no scientific way to experience the consciousness of another being, but disagree that the question he didn’t ask is also insoluble: whether we can find out what it takes to be conscious.

Free Will.  I think the answer is already in here. We do not have free will in the sense that most people conceive of it: as a libertarian, dualistic form of “I-could-have-done-otherwise” agency. Physics and determinism have solved this already, and neuroscience is buttressing the negation of this form of free will. One can, of course, define free will in a form that makes it compatible with determinism, but that’s a semantic solution, not a scientific one.  Michael’s contention in his article, below, is a bit confusing, and I’ve put the confusing points in bold:

Few scientists dispute that we live in a deterministic universe in which all effects have causes (except in quantum mechanics, although this just adds an element of randomness to the system, not freedom). And yet we all act as if we have free will—that we make choices among options and retain certain degrees of freedom within constraining systems. Either we are all delusional, or else the problem is framed to be conceptually impenetrable. We are not inert blobs of matter bandied about the pinball machine of life by the paddles of nature’s laws; we are active agents within the causal net of the universe, both determined by it and helping to determine it through our choices. That is the compatibilist position from whence volition and culpability emerge.

Yes, we act as if we have free will, but so what? The solvable question, which is an empirical and not a semantic one, has been solved. We may think we could have done otherwise, but we couldn’t have.  Michael’s claims that we are not inert blobs of matter but are “active agents” and “help to determine [the causal net of the universe] through our own choices” are claims that verge on dualism.

I know that Shermer is not a dualist, but this kind of language is deeply confusing. And what, pray tell, are the “certain degrees of freedom within constraining systems”? If that is not a nod to dualism—to I-could-have-done-otherwise-ism—I don’t know what is! “Degrees of freedom” certainly implies freedom of agency, which implies that we could have done other than what we did.

God. Michael makes a mistake, I think, when he thinks that the Sophisticated Theologians’™ idea of God has removed god from the realm of testability. His article says this:

If the creator of the universe is supernatural—outside of space and time and nature’s laws—then by definition, no natural science can discover God through any measurements made by natural instruments. By definition, this God is an unsolvable mystery. If God is part of the natural world or somehow reaches into our universe from outside of it to stir the particles (to, say, perform miracles like healing the sick), we should be able to quantify such providential acts. This God is scientifically soluble, but so far all claims of such measurements have yet to exceed statistical chance. In any case, God as a natural being who is just a whole lot smarter and more powerful than us is not what most people conceive of as deific.

I think that while Shermer is right that a theistic god is a testable god, he mistakenly conflates “supernatural” with “outside of space and time and nature’s laws”. To most people, God may be outside of space and time, and supernatural, and even be outside of nature’s laws, but still can interact with people and the universe. And if that’s the case, then one can make inferences about God’s existence. For example, God could be outside of space and time, and beyond our known laws of nature, but supernaturally answer prayers. He could, for example, answer the prayers of Catholics but not Baptists or Jews, which would give us evidence for God—evidence that Shermer says cannot exist. In Faith versus Fact I give more such evidence that could testify to the nature of even a removed and rarefied God so long as he interacts with the universe. Carl Sagan gave more possible evidence in his great book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God (read it!).

We have no such evidence, despite the fact that we could in principle. This all suggests that if a god really does exist, it does not interact with the cosmos, regardless of whether it’s outside space or time, supernatural, violates physical law, and so on. The only kind of god that’s truly a mystery and must remain so is a god that does not manifest itself in any empirically verifiable way. Michael’s email response to me (below the fold) does not clarify the issue.

Have at it!

 

Continue reading “Shermer on consciousness, free will, and God” →

Our World Cup Contest ends without a winner

July 13, 2018 • 8:30 am

Reader George, the Boss Honcho of the World Cup Contest, has some sad news. For the first time in our two contests, we don’t have a winner. George’s announcement (with a blurb for RUGBY at the end):

Sadly, it is over. When Belgium lost to France on Tuesday, the Second Quadrennial WEIT World Cup Contest ended without a winner. Four entries (out of an original 95) were still alive going into the quarterfinals. Down to two going into the semifinals. And now none. Fivethirtyeight gives France a 59% probability of beating Croatia and hoisting the FIFA World Cup Trophy (once the Jules Rimet Trophy). But little has gone to form in this World Cup.

In every prior World Cup, at least one of the teams of Argentina, Brazil or Germany made it to the semifinals. In 2014, all three did, along with the Netherlands. The participants in the Inaugural WEIT World Cup Contest in that year appeared to have the skills claimed by Nostradamus. This year, for the first time, none of the three made it and the contest ended prematurely. That does not mean that none of the semifinalists were picked by the contestants. Fifteen people picked France to be in the final (six to win), eleven picked Belgium (six to win), ten picked England (five to win), and one picked Croatia (to lose to Belgium). There were only two picks that had those teams playing each other – Belgium vs England, Belgium vs Croatia.

A shout out to deacjack who picked Croatia to make it to the final – and lose to Belgium. Also a nod to Martin C. who picked Belgium to beat England in the final. They will be playing for third place. [JAC: if Martin is correct and Belgium beats England, he’ll get a consolation prize.]

In a little more than four years, (November-December of 2022), the World Cup will be played Qatar. Go bribes!!! If PCC(E) still has ducks to feed, perhaps there will be a Third Quadrennial WEIT World Cup Contest. Not sure what ducks have to do with it. Better to have a contest for the 2019 Rugby World Cup which will be held in Japan (September-November). Rugby is a much superior sport to soccer. Hands are laid on the opponent with much more purpose. Also, no writhing on the ground in agony. And no one talks to the referee.

And remember, folks, the final, between Croatia and France, will be played Sunday at 10 a.m. Chicago time. (The third-place match will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m. Chicago time.) The probabilities below, which differ from those of Fivethirtyeight, appear on Fox Sports:

And the results from the Round of 16 on:

 

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 13, 2018 • 7:30 am

Reader Mark Jones sent us some lovely photos of butterflies. His notes and IDs are indented:

A few butterflies from the Sussex countryside:

Eurasian White Admiral (Limenitis camilla):

Ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus):

Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) feeding:

Marbled White (Melanargia galathea) on a Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum) I think:

Small Skipper (Thymelicus sylvestris) on a Dandelion (Taraxacum) seed head:

Meadow Brown (Maniola jurtina) on another thistle:

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus), two photos:

Another Ringlet:

Another Meadow Brown:

Friday: Hili dialogue

July 13, 2018 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, Friday, kicking back on Friday! Which seat can you take? Yes, it’s July 13, 2018: Friday the Thirteenth. To stave off bad luck, partake of today’s comestible, for it’s National French Fry Day. In Mongolia it’s the last day of Naadam, a big holiday for engaging in and watching horse racing, archery, and wrestling.

First Grania sent tweets from the news.  Yesterday FBI Agent Peter Strzok, who oversaw the beginning of the Agency’s Russia investigation, testified before Congress, where House Republicans tried to take him apart, even bringing up Strozok’s extramarital affair. If the video below is representative, Strzok acquitted himself well.

And Grania reports that, as Tr*mp visits London to talk to PM Theresa May, “the Brits are not happy”. To wit:

The “lad with the striped hat” is in the third photo:

https://twitter.com/makaveli0199/status/1017503459615170560

Back to This Day in History. On July 13, 587 BC, Babylon finished its siege of Jerusalem by destroying Solomon’s Temple. In 1793, revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday. On July 13, 1923, the Hollywood Sign was dedicated in the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. But it originally said this until a 1949 renovation:

On July 13, 1973, White House deputy assistant Alexander Butterfield revealed to the Senate the existence of Nixon’s tapes, which incriminated the Prez as a crook and ultimately led to his resignation. Exactly four years later, New York City experienced a 24-hour electrical blackout that caused widespread rioting, looting, and pandemonium.  On July 13, 1985, The Live Aid benefit concerts took place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other places.  Finally, exactly two years ago today, David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister of the UK, bringing aboard Her Brexitress Theresa May.

Notables born on July 13 include Julius Caesar (100 BC), John Jacob Astor IV (1864, died in the Titanic sinking in 1912), Kenneth Clark (1903), Paul Prudhomme and Patrick Stewart (both 1940), Harrison Ford and Roger McGuinn (both 1942), and Cheech Marin (1946). Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on this day include Jean-Paul Marat (1793; see above), Alla Nazimova (1945), Alfred Stieglitz (1946), Arnold Schoenberg (1951). Frida Kahlo (1954), Red Buttons (2006, born Aaron Chwatt), and Nadine Gordimer (2014).

Here’s a nice photo by Stieglitz:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hlli is exploring the little playground in the front yard:

Hili: There is nobody in this little house.
A: Did you check it?
Hili: Yes, but it still requires further investigation.
In Polish:
Hili: W tym domku nikogo nie ma.
Ja: Sprawdzałaś?
Hili: Tak, ale to jeszcze wymaga dalszych badań.

Some tweets from Heather Hastie: “Fallstreak holes” are plain WEIRD; have a look at the description and pictures on Wikipedia.

https://twitter.com/planetepics/status/1016925114666020864

Shaking hands with a groundhog (play video):

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1017059186277003264

Look at the size of this beautiful moth!:

Heather and my favorite parrot, the flightless kakapo, which are tended lovingly by New Zealand conservationists:

Kitten wants its treats:

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1017117643109748736

Watch this heartwarming (and catwarming) tale:

More kittehs: baby black panther (a melanic jaguar) learns to swim:

https://twitter.com/Elverojaguar/status/1016909730684469248

From Grania, who had to explain this tweet to me but assured me that most readers would understand it:

Re the Iranian woman arrested for dancing (what a country!):

How streets are oriented in major cities:

All one can say is, “Oy gewalt!”:

https://twitter.com/YouHadOneJ0B/status/1017483985923072000

The Brits will be buying these in droves this week:

More on this later: the opprobrium received by Scarlett Johansson’s decision to play a transgender man in an upcoming movie (she’s not trans, don’t you know?) A Business Insider columnist was fired for simply writing an editorial defending the actor’s decision:

Tweets from Matthew. The first is by a woman whose wish has been fulfilled. World Cup final this weekend!

Matthew notes, “It was the 100th bday of the RAF on Tuesday.. There was a flypast by planes from 1940 onwards. Here are the flightpaths – rather mesmeric.”

Matthew’s a big fan of Buster Keaton:

And a few more tweeets from Grania, the first showing The Way Things Should Be:

A lovely and weirdly-shaped moth:

Matthew’s comment: “What the internet is for”:

Truth spoken to power:

https://twitter.com/nick_pants/status/1017221141239357440

 

Courting tigers

July 12, 2018 • 2:00 pm

Tigers are my favorite big cat (Pallas’s cats are my favorite small one), and here’s a video from BBC Earth about courting tigers. It’s pretty anthropomorphic, and only an interlude in the solitary life of this species. Plus it looks a bit dicey with all the roaring and all; and on top of everything, mating lasts only a minute or so.  What a life!

 

 

 

h/t: Michael

William Lane Craig waffles on Adam and Eve

July 12, 2018 • 12:45 pm

I’m both amused and bemused by William Lane Craig’s latest “Monthly Report” on his Reasonable Doubts website, a report that deals with a “Creation Project” conference he attended. Click on the screenshot to see the report:

The meeting was a Dabar Conference called “Reclaiming theological anthropology in an age of science“, with the aim of  “orienting evangelical theologians to the relevant recent work in the natural sciences and to promoting scholarship in the field of the doctrine of creation.” In particular, it was convened to deal with the increasingly disturbing (to Christians) knowledge that Adam and Eve could not have existed as historical figures who were the ancestors of us all. This comes from population genetics, which tells us, given conservative assumptions about mutation rates, that the smallest bottleneck in our species in the last several hundred thousand years is at least twelve thousand individuals. That, of course, is greater than two (Adam and Eve) or eight (Noah and his family). Ergo, the human population could not have descended from either the Primal Couple or the Noah Clan.

This finding has cast into doubt the entire premise of Christianity: that we’re all afflicted with Adam and Eve’s original sin—a sin that can be expiated only by accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, whose Resurrection portends and suggests our own resurrection in the life to come. Here’s the conference agenda:

No topic within the doctrine of creation has been more unsettled by modern science than theological anthropology. Increased knowledge of the physical world has made traditional views of the human person more difficult to affirm—our minds do not appear to be quite as separable as previous ages believed. Is belief in the soul scientifically naïve? More recently, genetic research has raised new questions about our biological origins and whether belief in a historical Adam and Eve is warranted. But what exactly is at stake in affirming (or not) a “historical Adam”? What are we to make of original sin, for example, if one removes historical referentiality from the opening chapters of Genesis? In this third year of the Creation Project we’re seeking wisdom about the origin, nature, and ultimate purposes of human life.

The meeting, of course, was supported by Templeton: the Templeton Religious Trust (another investment of Sir John’s legacy, but separate from the John Templeton Foundation). The Dabar Conferences are, in turn, under the aegis of “The Creation Project”, also underwritten by the Templeton Religious Trust.

So, what does William Lane Craig think? His previous discussions (e.g., here) suggests he accepts the “microevolution but not macroevolution” form of creationism. That is, he admits that there might be change within a species, or even production of related species by splitting, but rejects the notion of the common ancestry of substantially different life forms, and argues that the whole process is guided by God anyway.

Here are several ways that Craig handles the “threat” to Christianity presented by population genetics vs. Adam and Eve. None seem completely satisfactory, even to Craig himself.

1). The Bible could be metaphorical, but only in part.  As he says (Craig’s words are indented, emphases are mine):

Vital to this question is understanding exactly what the Bible requires us to believe about the historical Adam, and so the contribution of Old Testament and New Testament scholars is absolutely vital. This question is not so cut-and-dried as most of us imagine. For example, one of the Old Testament scholars discussed the genre of literature represented by Genesis 1-11. Comparing these accounts to creation stories in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology, he finds in the biblical stories the same interest in what is called etiology(explaining something in the author’s present by telling a story about past prehistoric events) which is an earmark of myth. For example, we keep the Sabbath because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. He argued that Genesis 1-11 is of the genre of what he called “mytho-historical” writing—the stories are mythological but there is an underlay of historical events beneath the myth. If this is correct, then one cannot press the details of the stories (e.g., Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib, a walking, talking snake, etc.). Rather, it would be like seeing the motion of people behind a curtain: you can tell there are people back there, but you don’t really know what they’re doing.

This of course, simply means that the Genesis story might not be taken literally. In fact, if he admits that Genesis is largely mythical, it becomes hard to tell what it means. One thing is for sure: it’s become mythical only because science has disproven its assertions. Theologians of earlier eras, including Augustine, Aquinas, and various “church fathers”, certainly took the story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall, as literal truth. It’s up to Craig to explain to us why what was once fact is now myth.

2). The New Testament’s claims about Adam and Eve, and the meaning of their existence, might be literary conceits.

But what about the New Testament?  Paul surely believed in a historical Adam, didn’t he? That seems right, but does Paul’s argument in Romans 5 or I Corinthians 15 commit us to that belief? Some scholars think that Paul’s references to Adam are merely to the literary Adam of Genesis 1-3. For example, I might tell someone, “Jan is my man Friday.” Does that commit me to the reality of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday? Obviously not!

But how does he conclude that the “literary Adam” is not a “historical Adam”? Is Craig admitting that Adam and Eve are just as fictional as Robinson Crusoe and Friday? If so, then what is the meaning of Genesis, and are Romans and Corinthians wrong in telling us that Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, but Jesus and his crucifixion and Resurrection expiated our sins, and gave us the possibility of eternal life?

Here are the arguments of Paul to which Craig refers (again, my emphasis):

6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

. . . 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

. . . 18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

I Corinthians 15:

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

This seems pretty clear to me: Jesus’s coming, divinity, and resurrection gave us the possibility of eternal life by washing us free of the sin inherited from Adam. Indeed, if there is a non-negotiable belief inherent in Christianity, this is it. If Adam and Eve didn’t exist, then you have to find a reason why we’re all born sinful and need the ministrations of Jesus to be washed clean.

3). Maybe the population-genetic calculations were wrong. To obviate this, Craig claims that extra genetic diversity which hides the real bottleneck of Adam and Eve came from —get this—hybridization of Homo sapiens sapiens with our Neanderthal subspecies:

As I shared in our last Report, some scientific popularizers have claimed that the genetic diversity of the present human population could not have arisen from an isolated primordial pair. Joshua Swamidass, a geneticist from Washington University, who was at the conference, helped me to understand that this claim is completely wrong-headed. Rather what is at issue is the genetic divergence in the present population, that is to say, the mutational distance between alleles (= the variants in our genes that are responsible for various traits like eye color). These data present a severe challenge for a historical Adam and Eve more recent than 500,000 years ago. (But here’s a new wrinkle: Swamidass says he neglected to take account of the genetic contribution of Neanderthals and other archaic humans who interbred with homo [sic] sapiens and so have contributed to the human genome. He’s going to run new calculations to see if that makes a difference to the date.)

Given that the genetic variation in our own species contributed by Neanderthals is only about 2-3%, and none in Africans, I wouldn’t hold my breath to see if the “new calculations” reduce the bottleneck from 12,000 to 2!

Craig’s penultimate redoubt is this:

4). Well, even if the geneticists are right, and Adam and Eve didn’t exist as the Bible says, we can still confect a story from Genesis, even if the Bible be metaphorical:

If there was no historical Adam, then obviously we cannot be held accountable for his sin, nor did sin and death enter the human race through Adam. To a large extent, I think, the importance of this issue is going to depend on how committed you are to Catholic/Reformed theology. The doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin to us is not one that is clearly attested biblically. What is essential, I think, is affirming the universality of sin and the need of every human being of God’s saving grace. That doesn’t require a historical Adam. For me, then, the central theological issue raised by the historical Adam will be, not original sin or the Fall, but rather biblical inspiration and authority. Can we in a scientific age trust what the Bible teaches?

Here he’s simply making up stuff, picking and choosing the parts of the Bible he likes (universal sin, but not obviously inherited “original sin”, as well as “God’s saving grace”) and rejecting the parts he doesn’t like (Adam and Eve). And if that’s the case, what is the “authority” of the Bible? For if the Bible be but “inspiration” and not truth, how are we to be Christians? What are we to believe? The answer to his last question is clearly “no”. Evolution itself tells us we can’t trust what the Bible teaches.

In the end, if we interpret the Bible by how we’re “inspired” by it, then each person has their own dogma and there is no one way to be a Christian. After all, why couldn’t “God’s saving grace” be metaphorical, or even the existence and story of Jesus himself? Who gets to be the arbiter of Biblical truth?  In the end, it can be only science.

5.) Finally, for Craig Biblical interpretation comes down to “understanding how their original authors and audiences would have understood Biblical texts.”

Handling this issue will involve two components for me: biblical exegesis and scientific findings. What’s important is not to let the science guide one’s exegesis. One must set that aside and try honestly to understand these texts as their original authors and audiences would have understood them. Once that is done, then the challenge will be integrating them systematically with a scientifically informed view of the world.  I’ve got my work cut out for me!

Indeed he does, for he’s trying to understand what the Bible says by ignoring from the outset the empirical facts. First you figure out what the authors of these texts meant (note: here he’s almost admitting that the Bible was a human production not guided by God), filter that through the “inspiration” that you get from the metaphors that you discern, and then somehow twist the science into that interpretation. This is the reason, for instance, that Craig simply cannot buy the main parts of biological evolution: it conflicts with any form of creation by God. Indeed, I now have trouble deciding whether Craig is a traditional Christian rather than a Smorgasbord Christian who’s completely reinterpreting Christian doctrine.

As reader Mark, who sent me Craig’s link, remarked:

Oddly Craig doesn’t seem to think the story of the fall is central to Christian belief (or his belief anyway), so his concern is simply to shoehorn the science as we know it into his understanding of the Christian myths and legends. You can see from the second quote above that science is always the handmaiden to Craig’s beliefs, rather than the guide to them.”
Craig clearly is an odd duck (sorry for the insult to ducks) in so explicitly claiming that the Fall, and perhaps the Resurrection, aren’t so important at all. My questions are three: Dr. Craig, how do you discern what the Bible truly means given that you think that at least some of its claims are fictional? Second, why couldn’t the story of Jesus, his crucifixion, and his resurrection be just as fictional as the story of Adam and Eve which you appear to see as myth? Finally, why isn’t the claim that we can be saved only through God’s grace also a myth? Couldn’t that be a metaphor for simply living a good life and not hurting people?

Infinite Monkey Cage: Episode 100

July 12, 2018 • 8:45 am

The Infinite Monkey Cage, the entertaining BBC science and comedy show hosted by Robin Ince and Brian Cox, has just celebrated its 100th episode. You can hear the hour-long show at the link below; Matthew, who was in the audience. commented:

They have a couple of vicars on it, heaven knows why, one an ex rockstar who is always in the radio and the other doesn’t really seem to believe in the Bible at all. They got some snarky comments from Eric Idle and Alice Roberts. [JAC: One of Alice’s tweets is below.]

Here are the participants and those in charge:

To hear the show, click on the screenshot below and then the arrow at lower left:

There’s also a video version here (via @bbciplayer), but it’s not visible outside the UK. Matthew notes, “I’m in the front row next to Nick Lane next to Steve Jones. Virtually all the VIP audience members (= ex-panelists) were from University College London, but none of the panelists on this episode were.”