Giberson: science has its limits (ergo Jesus?)

July 16, 2011 • 4:38 am

Oh dear, I thought—and I guess I was foolish to think—that when Uncle Karl Giberson left both Eastern Nazarene University and BioLogos, he would stop publishing religious apologetics.  He has not.  The latest is at HuffPo, “Is free will a mystery?”  Don’t worry, it’s not mainly about free will, though it does link to some of our discussions here; it’s about “realities” that are beyond the purview of science.

Responding to my earlier remark that nothing influences our actions beyond our genes and our environments, Karl says:

Many scientists share this view. They reject as unreal anything that can’t be caught in the scientific net. By these lights, nothing transcends science. Fish that cannot be caught in the scientific net do not exist. Free will, morality, and God cannot be caught in the scientific net so they must be fantasies conjured by naïve humans to meet psychological needs.

Such Spartan views of knowledge trouble me, despite my great appreciation for science. Human beings are finite creatures and it seems unreasonable to insist that no realities exist beyond those caught in our scientific nets. Or worse, to suppose that all realities must be such that their scientific descriptions are the only ones possible. Science constantly surprises us by pushing out its frontiers, and even rearranging what we thought was familiar.

You see where he’s going here.  Because science hasn’t yet answered some questions (or can’t with certainty, because we lack either the tools or—as with the origin of life—weren’t there), there must be other “realities” beyond science.  I wonder what “realities” he’s talking about?  Could it be . . . . Jesus?

And who among scientists insists that “no realities exist beyond those caught in our scientific nets”?  I am glad to admit that there are realities out there not caught in those nets. But how can we verify the existence of such “realities” except with science (defined broadly as the use reason and empirical observation)?

Giberson says, “I hasten to add that this is not an argument that a ‘religious way of knowing’ will accomplish what science cannot.”  But given his history, and the fact that this piece appears in the HuffPo “Religion” section, I find it hard to believe that he’s not arguing on some level for faith.  After all, what he dwells on in the last part of his piece—the beauty of physics equations, the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics, and the very comprehensibility of the universe—are things that he’s previously implied constitute evidence for a (Christian) transcendent being.

And his comment on “free will” seems to me almost incomprehensible:

Is it possible that free will represents another type of boundary to our knowledge? Between the determinism understood so clearly on one end of the spectrum, and the quantum indeterminism on the other — neither of which can accommodate any meaningful concept of free will — lies a theoretical no-man’s land where those two incompatible aspects of our world overlap. I wonder if determinism and indeterminism represent two explanatory categories into which so much can be fit that we are too quick to assume that these categories are all-encompassing. And, since free will fits in neither category, there can be no such thing.

First of all, biological determinism and quantum interderminism are not incompatible, just as Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics are not incompatible. They are different ways of describing different levels of the world.  Further, Giberson he neglects the fact that many people—I’m not one of them—see “free will” as something perfectly compatible with determinism. That idea, in fact, is the essence of “compatibilism.”

But underneath it all—I grant that I’m presuming here—is Giberson’s answer to what lies in the cranny between determinism and indeterminism: the God-given soul.

Yes, science doesn’t understand everything, and some things we will never understand.  But we are slowly approaching an understanding of the material basis of behavior.

As for that other stuff, well, I like to quote Richard Feynman:

“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”

Perhaps I’m being unfair to Karl here; perhaps he really is struggling to make sense of these issues, and his faith is slipping away.  I hope so! But in the interim he’s still feeding HuffPo readers sly suggestions that there might be a Holy Ghost in their machines.

 

New book: Bible doesn’t say what it says

July 15, 2011 • 8:49 am

Today’s Review-a-Day from Powell’s (originally in The New Republic) involves a new book about the Bible: The Bible Now, by Richard Eliot Friedman and Shawna Dolansky.  The reviewer is Adam Kirsch, an editor for The New Republic, who summarizes the contents thusly:

[Friedman and Dolansky] have set out to explain “what the Bible has to say about the major issues of our time,” in particular “five current controversial matters: homosexuality, abortion, women’s status, capital punishment, and the earth.” Some people turn to the Bible for guidance, they observe early on, “because … the Bible is the final authority and one must do what it says.” But as secular academics, Friedman and Dolansky recognize that the Bible was written by historically situated human beings, with various political and religious agendas. They belong to the other category of Bible-seekers, they say, those “who do not believe that the Bible is divinely revealed, [but] turn to the Bible because they believe it contains wisdom — wisdom that might help anyone, whatever his or her beliefs, make wise decisions about difficult matters.”

But the book appears to be a postmodern way of excusing what the Bible says by claiming that it really meant something else.  Kirsch takes this apologetic pretty much to pieces. Here’s his analysis of how the authors deal with homosexuality, as unambiguously condemned in Leviticus 20:13 (“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them”).

The first chapter of The Bible Now is devoted to homosexuality, and it is not long before Friedman and Dolansky run into Leviticus 20:13. It is easy to sympathize with their embarrassment. Here the Bible is saying something they obviously regard as cruel and retrograde, something they would not hesitate to brand as homophobic in any other situation. What to do? Well, “for one thing, one must address the law in its context.” Turning from ancient Israel to Assyria, Egypt, and Greece, Friedman and Dolansky observe that these other Near Eastern societies generally had nothing against homosexual acts as such. They reserved their odium for the passive partner in anal sex, the man who was penetrated. A “Middle Babylonian divination text” instructs that “If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers”; on the other hand, Plutarch writes, “We class those who enjoy the passive part as belonging to the lowest depths of vice.”

Never mind that these texts were written more than a thousand years apart, in two very different civilizations, neither of which was Israelite. Friedman and Dolansky use them to establish “the wider cultural context” of Leviticus, from which it follows that “what the authors of Leviticus … may be prohibiting is not homosexuality as we would construe the category today but, rather, an act that they understood to rob another man of his social status by feminizing him.” Why, then, does Leviticus, uniquely among ancient Near Eastern law codes, prescribe death for both partners in homosexual acts? Friedman and Dolansky argue, quoting another Bible scholar, that it is because Leviticus “emphasizes the equality of all. It does not have the class distinctions that are in the other cultures’ laws.”

This is a remarkable performance. Before you know it, a law that unambiguously prescribes death for gay men has been turned into an example of latent egalitarianism. Friedman and Dolansky imply that it was not homosexuality the Bible wanted to condemn, but the humiliation of the passive partner. And since we no longer think of consensual sex acts as humiliating, surely the logic of the Bible itself means that homosexuality is no longer culpable: “The prohibition in the Bible applies only so long as male homosexual acts are perceived to be offensive.”

But wait: doesn’t Leviticus also say, in Chapter 18, that “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination”? Here too, Friedman and Dolansky have a reassuring response. “The technical term to’ebah,” they write, is usually employed in the Bible not for absolute moral laws, but for cultic taboos: “an act or object that is not a to’ebah can become one, depending on time and circumstances.” Maybe homosexuality was once to’ebah, but “why do people assume that things relating to God must be absolute and unchanging? Even for a person who believes in God wholeheartedly, why should that person assume that God is never free to change?”

By this point, the game has been pretty well given away. . . Their treatment of Leviticus is nothing but a masterful example of twisting the text to make it say what they prefer. What licenses this kind of reading is the principle that “God is free to change,” that is, to change his mind about what is offensive and inoffensive, good and evil — but only, it seems, in ways that bring him more in tune with the views of people like Friedman and Dolansky (and, I hasten to add, myself).

There’s more, and Kirsch did a great job.

Christians are better off admitting that God was simply wrong than trying to twist the Bible’s words in such an unconvincing way.  After all, the Old Testament God also accepted slavery, the slaying of adulterers, and the stoning of nonvirgin brides.  As Kirsch notes, today’s morality stems not from the Bible, but from the Enlightenment (and, I would add, from sentiments evolved in our ancient ancestors).  No Christian or Jew can make a tenable argument that morality comes from God.  I’ve written an essay on this that should appear soon.

Jason Rosenhouse: there’s no good theology

July 15, 2011 • 7:46 am

I’m not a chess fan, and don’t know much math, but I do love Jason Rosenhouse’s website when he goes to town on creationism or religion.  And he’s got a doozy this week: “Where can we find the really good theology? Part one.”  His starting point is theologian Edward Feser’s critique of my approach to theology, and my response yesterday.  But Jason has engaged in his own “theology project,” and has been underwhelmed:

Since then I have read a fair amount of highbrow theology. I have read my share of Augustine and Aquinas, Barth and Tillich, Kierkegaard and Kuhn, just to pick a few names. I have read quite a lot of Haught and Ward and Swinburne. I did not go into this expecting to be disappointed. Conversion seemed unlikely, but I expected at least to find a lot of food for thought. Instead, with each book and essay I read I found myself ever more horrified by the sheer vacuity of what these folks were doing. I came to despise their endlessly vague and convoluted arguments, their relentless smugness towards nonbelievers, and, most seriously, the complete lack of any solid reason for thinking they weren’t just making it up as they went along. I thought perhaps I was just reading the wrong writers, and that I would eventually come to the really good theology. But I never did.

I came to see theology as a moat protecting the castle of religion. But it was not a moat filled with water. No. It was filled with sewage. And the reason religion’s defenders wanted us to spend so much time splashing around in the moat had nothing to do with actually learning anything valuable or being edified by the experience. It was so that when we emerged on the other side we would be so rank and fetid and generally disgusted with ourselves that we would be in no condition to argue with anyone.

I’m starting to realize Jason is right, but, rank and fetid, I press on to become familiar with the opposition.  But he’s now been cleansed in the blood of the Dawkins, so go read his post.

I’ve just noted that Jason has posted part 2 of his critique, also very nice:

But this is just getting silly. Even the most ardent religious fundamentalist does not claim there is no knowledge behind science or that scientists routinely just make stuff up. They might demur from a particular scientific consensus, but they usually bend over backward to emphasize their great love for science. That is because they can see as well as anyone that science produces tangible results. They have no problem with the idea that consistent predictive accuracy (among other characteristics of good science) is a sound reason for accepting a scientific idea.

What science brings to the table in this discussion is a set of investigative methods that everyone regards as legitimate. That is precisely what theology lacks. There is no compelling answer to be given to the question, “How do you know “’original sin’ refers to anything real?” let alone “How do you know that Smith’s understanding of original sin is right and Johnson’s is wrong?”

Or, as Stephen Hawking put it more tersely: “Science will win because it works.”

Hypnotoad!

July 15, 2011 • 4:42 am

From Conservation International comes the announcement of the rediscovery of a toad long thought extinct:

The Sambas Stream Toad, or Bornean Rainbow Toad as it’s also called (Ansonia latidisca) was previously known from only three individuals, and was last seen in 1924—the same year Vladimir Lenin died, and Greece declared itself a republic.  Prior to the rediscovery, only illustrations of the mysterious and long-legged toad existed, after collection by European explorers in the 1920s.

Initial searches by Dr. [Indranell] Das and team took place during evenings after dark along the 1,329 m. high rugged ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, a natural boundary between Malaysia’s Sarawak State and Indonesia’s Kalimantan Barat Province. The team’s first expeditions proved fruitless in their first several months, but the team did not give up.  The area had barely been explored in the past century, with no concerted efforts to determine whether the species was still alive. So Das changed his team’s strategy to include higher elevations and they resumed the search.

And then one night, Mr. Pui Yong Min, one of Dr Das’s graduate students found a small toad 2m up a tree.  When he realized it was the long-lost toad, Dr. Das expressed relief and near disbelief at the discovery before his eyes.

The discovery is part of  the Global Search for Lost Amphibians, which is run by Conservation International (CI) and the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group (ASG), with support from Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC). It sought to document the survival status and whereabouts of threatened species of amphibians which they had hoped were holding on in a few remote places. The search – a first of its kind – took place between August and December 2010 in 21 countries, on five continents, and involved 126 researchers.”

You can see the list of the “top ten wanted amphibians” at National Geographic (two have since been found).  Here are three that I remember when they were not yet extinct (or rare):

A type of gastric brooding frog, the likely extinct Rheobatrachus vitellinus had—or has—a unique mode of reproduction: Females swallowed their eggs, raised tadpoles in their stomachs, and then gave birth to froglets through their mouths (pictured above).

Last seen in 1985, the Australian frog is one of the ten species that conservationists most hope to find during a first ever global search for lost amphibian species.

Last seen in 1989, Costa Rica’s golden toad [Bufo periglenes] is perhaps the most famous of the “lost amphibians“—virtually extinct animals that may be eking out an existence in a few scattered hideouts, conservationists say.

The “stunning” Jackson’s climbing salamander [Bolitoglossa jacksoni] was said to have disappeared from Guatemala in 1975, conservationists say. (Read how salamanders may soon be “completely gone” in Guatemala.).  Two individuals of the species—considered “data deficient” by IUCN—have been found during recent fieldwork, but more specimens are needed to confirm a viable population, according to Conservation International.

Quote of the week

July 15, 2011 • 4:03 am

From the site David’s Slingshot, “The arrogance of not arguing“:

I’m going to point out something that tends to get papered over: accommodationalism [sic] isn’t just insulting to the Gnu Atheists; It is insulting to believers, on a profound level. Oh sure, accomadationalism will call out Gnus for being jerks (because of honest engagement with ideas)—but then it will ask for us to understand that even if something isn’t true, maybe those weak minded saps over there need that mental crutch, we don’t, of course, but no need to make others miserable with difficult thoughts and logical discussion, and we should understand that all it will result in is stripped internal gears and headaches. Bull and shite.

If a belief is true, those who believe in it have nothing to fear from it being subjected to a free marketplace of ideas. No argument, no logical or empirical process will show a true belief to be false. And if a belief is false, how can you—without arrogance—claim it is better for others to believe it?

What is “choosing”?

July 14, 2011 • 11:33 am

I’m posting here the first four definitions of the word “choose” (in order) in the Oxford English Dictionary

1.     trans. To take by preference out of all that are available; to select; to take as that which one prefers, or in accordance with one’s free will and preference.

2.    with inf. obj.: To determine in favour of a course, to decide in accordance with inclination. to choose rather : to resolve (to do one thing) in preference (to another).

3.   The notion of a choice between alternatives is often left quite in the background, and the sense is little more than an emphatic equivalent of, To will, to wish, to exercise one’s own pleasure in regard to a matter in which one is a free agent.

a.  esp. with inf. To think fit, to be pleased (to do so and so). not to choose (to do a thing): not to be pleased and therefore to forbear.

b. To wish to have, to want. vulgar.

4.  

a.  1.a intr. or absol. To exercise choice  to make a selection between different things or alternatives.

b. To exercise one’s own pleasure, do as one likes, take one’s own way; esp. as an alternative to something suggested and rejected. Obs. or dial.

At least two of these definitions seem to involve the notion of “free will” that I adhere to, that is “one could have made another decision at the moment of choice,” while others simply refer to the act of choice as making a selection between alternatives, which could be thought of as simply the “appearance of choosing freely.”

The point, of course, is that how one uses the word “choice” itself has implications with regards to free will.

Irishman decries accommodationism

July 14, 2011 • 8:40 am

I don’t know the Irish Times, but I am surprised that an anti-accommodationist editorial has appeared in such a religious country. It’s “On the meaning of life,” by Paul O’Donoghue, founder of the Irish Skeptics and a clinical psychologist. Perhaps some of you met him at the atheist meetings in Dublin.

He doesn’t pull any punches, either.  He starts by describing Martin Rees (unfortunately misspelled “Reese”) and his Templeton Prize, and winds up like this:

It is often implied that without belief in a God there can be no moral compass. Having attended the World Atheist Convention in Dublin in June, I certainly saw no evidence of this. Many moral issues were thoroughly discussed and debated and at the end of the congress, the Dublin Declaration on Secularism and the Place of Religion in Public Life was launched. It is an optimistic and enlightening document.

It is short, and well worth reading and debating. It promotes tolerance and respect for people of all religions and none, so long as respect is shown for the rights and freedoms of others. It argues for a secular, democratic State with no privileges for any religion and a reliance on reason and evidence in decision making and policy formation.

It argues that children should be educated in critical thinking and that science should be taught free from religious interference. The former seems eminently sensible, as credulity constitutes the default mode in human beings.

Thinking about why it is that so many scientists are non-believers, it seems to me that there is great difficulty in maintaining a materialist scientific viewpoint that has explained so much in such a short time, while simultaneously accepting the revelatory and supernatural nature of religious beliefs.

Scientists are trained sceptics and critical thinkers, and perhaps the only way to cope with these opposing world views is never to marry them. To apply scientific thinking to the claims and practices of religion is to open up to rational enquiry dictates and revelations that by definition must be totally accepted on blind trust – the essence of faith. Scientists obviously don’t do faith very well compared to the rest of the population.