Thursday, July 16, 2015

What if science can duplicate a miracle?


Elliott Sober is a leading secular philosopher of science:

These comments have not addressed the question of how we would ever know that an event is a miracle. It isn’t hard to know that an event is awe-inspiring and that it presently cannot be explained by science. But how can we know that science will never be able to explain it? And how are we to know that an event is the result of God’s intervening in nature? Many religions endorse the idea that the dead coming back to life is a miracle in this last sense. Atheists often claim that it is impossible for the dead to come back to life, but maybe the science of the future will show that they are mistaken. Perhaps mere human beings, armed with a  technology that is more powerful than the one we possess, can do the trick. If future scientists discover how to bring the dead back to life, they will be following in the footsteps of Newton and Darwin. 
http://www.slate.com/bigideas/are-miracles-possible/essays-and-opinions/elliott-sober-opinion

That's deeply confused. In principle, it might be possible for advanced technology to replicate some biblical miracles. But that misses the point: since this hypothetically advanced knowledge didn't exist in Bible times, it would take a miracle to produce the same effect absent scientific intervention.

Even if, in principle, scientific intervention could sometimes produce the same effect as divine intervention, that explanation is hardly a substitute for divine intervention in cases where no such scientific intervention did or could exist. 

9 comments:

  1. They'd simply posit that on rare occasions the processes required to replicate the science occurred naturally by some as-yet unknown mechanism, but to just give the scientists more time and they'll figure out how.

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  2. I think you misunderstood Sober. His point is that it may be possible, even on naturalistic grounds, for someone to come back from the dead. It is true that to first and second century persons, this would be miraculous; but if it is possible given naturalism, then the explanation by appeal to the miraculous would be the incorrect explanation.

    The real problem for Sober is that there are a bunch of other related claims to the one he is thinking of. Like the fact that the person predicts his own death and resurrection; the fact that this person also ascends into the sky. The fact that this person claims to be the Son of God. Yes, correct predictions of wildly unlikely things is possible given naturalism. Yes, strong winds can lift people up very high, even improbably high given naturalism. Yes, there can be crazy persons who think they are the Son of God, given naturalism. But the probability of all of this in one person given naturalism? Much less probable than given theism, and all quite likely given Christianity.

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    1. I think Sober misunderstands the concept of miracle.

      "His point is that it may be possible, even on naturalistic grounds, for someone to come back from the dead."

      There are limitations to that claim, even on naturalistic grounds. If a corpse undergoes too much necrosis, no technology, however, advanced, can revive *that* body.

      If, moreover, the mind is the product of the brain, and the brain undergoes too much necrosis, then even if you could restore the body, you can't restore the mind. The restored brain would be a clean slate. The memories would be gone.

      "It is true that to first and second century persons, this would be miraculous; but if it is possible given naturalism, then the explanation by appeal to the miraculous would be the incorrect explanation."

      How does the second clause of your statement cohere with the first clause? Even given naturalism, that's not naturally possible in the 1-2 centuries. Therefore, a naturalistic explanation isn't a viable explanation in that context.

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    2. The way I read Sober is as denying the statement, "that's not naturally possible in the 1-2 centuries." I read him as saying that it may be possible. And then he goes on to say, with that secularist dream for ever advancing scientific progress and wonder, that perhaps a future science will be able to replicate this improbable event into a common occurrence. It is a move that allows him to not change positions were he forced to admit (via argument) that someone came back from the dead.

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    3. Seems to me Sober is defining a miracle as an event which, as a matter of principle, can't happen naturally. But that's a defective definition.

      For instance, there are diseases which are currently curable, given modern medical treatment. If, however, you live in a Third World backwater where you lack access to the necessary treatment, and you are healed in answer to prayer, that would still be miraculous. In some cases, what counts as miraculous or non-miraculous can vary in time and place.

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  3. "Atheists often claim that it is impossible for the dead to come back to life, but maybe the science of the future will show that they are mistaken. Perhaps mere human beings, armed with a technology that is more powerful than the one we possess, can do the trick. If future scientists discover how to bring the dead back to life, they will be following in the footsteps of Newton and Darwin."

    1. Just for starters, Sober doesn't begin to remotely argue for how the scientific discovery and explanation for a purported miracle like raising the dead to life would be analogous to the scientific discovery and explanation for a purported scientific theory like neo-Darwinism or one of its key presumptions such as universal common descent. Or, say, to the far more empirically established theories Einstein's Annus mirabilis papers demonstrated. Isn't Sober's point essentially an attempt at a science of the gaps argument?

    2. For example:

    a. Take the cell. The cell is commonly regarded as the basic unit of life. We can break the cell further down into its various components such as organelles including nucleus. The typical cell nucleus houses DNA. Secular scientists (among others) have long regarded and argued for DNA as a sort of blueprint or computer program containing the "source code" of life. Genetic code.

    However, DNA itself is not identical to genetic code. Rather, DNA contains the genetic code. And this genetic code is universal. It's universal because virtually all known organisms (with some apparently minor variations) use or have used this genetic code in one way or another.

    But from where did this genetic code itself come? What is its origin? It would be circular to argue DNA originated from DNA itself.

    b. What's more, the genetic code isn't mere random information but sophisticated and specific information. Yet what precursors could have caused the sudden arrival of such sophisticated and specific information?

    As such, this pushes the question back a step or two. As people like William Dembski have argued, there seems to be something even more fundamental, not just to DNA, but perhaps to the nature of the universe: sophisticated and specific information. (By the way, I'm not necessarily suggesting someone like Dembski is correct. It is a reasonable possibility though.)

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    1. c. It's further argued this sophisticated and specific information is not reducible to the physical or material.

      I think we have to change gears for a minute to tease this out a bit better. Consider this sentence. It could be argued this sentence is reducible to computer text, which in turn is reducible to the relevant data (among other things) encoded by a programming language(s) involved in its composition and processing. This sentence is reducible to bits and bytes. That's the general idea.

      Nevertheless, while this sentence may be reducible to 0s and 1s, what's not reducible to 0s and 1s is the fact that this sentence carries and conveys meaning. There's a semiotic dimension which seems to transcend the underlying 0s and 1s of this sentence. How do we explain the semiotic dimension of this sentence solely in terms its physical elements, its bits and bytes? Otherwise, the semiotic dimension apparently is not reducible to the physical or material.

      Back to DNA and information. It's one thing to argue DNA is sophisticated and specific information, which in any case most secular scientists would presumably agree with. But it's quite another thing to argue DNA, this sophisticated and specific information, is reducible to physical mechanisms alone (i.e. matter interacting with the laws and forces of physics, and as Jacques Monod argued "chance and necessity"), for how could physical mechanisms alone account for DNA's semiotic dimension? The fact that AGCT (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine) are not mere molecules, but (when arranged in a certain linear sequence in relationship to the rest of the genetic code as well as cellular environment) convey information which is meaningful, etc.?

      Or perhaps to put it according to Hollywood's admittedly looser if more poetic way of speaking, in the movie Gattaca: "There's no gene for the human spirit."

      d. If all this is true, then it's difficult to see how any future science, no matter how advanced, could clear this hurdle. If there's something which is not reducible to the physical or material, and if there's something which transcends the physical or material universe, then at best future science could add a means by which to raise the dead to life, but future science could not substitute or otherwise undermine or overcome the possibility that a bona fide miracle was worked by a miracle-working being one might call God.

      3. Also, it's not as if resurrection only involves re-animating formerly animate physical objects. It would also have to consider other things like mind and consciousness and intelligence, to which I alluded above as well.

      4. And these are just a couple of hurdles among many hurdles to clear en route to science successfully replicating miracles like raising the dead to life.

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    2. For a brief synopsis, I think these are my main points:

      * How is the scientific discovery and explanation for a miracle (e.g. raising the dead to life) analogous to the scientific discovery and explanation for neo-Darwinism, general and specialty relativity, etc.?

      * At best future science could add a means by which to raise the dead to life, but future science could not undermine or overcome the possibility that God raises the dead to life too. It's sort of like Jannes and Jambres in Pharaoh's court. Just because they could sometimes work miracles doesn't mean God can't work (superior) miracles.

      * It's not as if resurrection only involves re-animating formerly animate physical objects. Resurrection would likewise have to consider other things like "re-animating" mind and consciousness.

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  4. I can imagine the future governments using this technology to repeatedly reanimate and execute its political and idealogical enemies for sport.

    Plus some people die horrible, mutilating deaths. Reanimation would be excruciating, death would be preferable.

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