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Sunday, October 29, 2006

Redeeming science-1

DANIEL MORGAN SAID:

“It is an unfalsifiable argument to claim that God made everything such that it looks 4 BY old, etc. “

Several problems:

1.A claim can be true, and still be unfalsifiable.

Indeed, any true claim is, by definition, unfalsifiable. Only a false claim can be falsified, so only a false claim is falsifiable.

2.So the real question is whether a given claim is verifiable, not whether it’s falsifiable.

3.There are indirect as well as direct methods of verification.

4.Falsification is a criterion for scientific theories. But unless you subscribe to logical positivism, then the verification principle is not a general, epistemic criterion.

Indeed, the verification principle came to grief in part because it was too restrictive even for scientific purposes.

2.The claim of mature creation is not that God made everything such that it looks younger than it really is.

Rather, the claim is that God made a fully functioning universe. One “incidental” consequence of mature creation is that natural artifacts will appear to be older than they really are as judged by “ordinary” natural processes.

Continuing:

“But it also indicates a sort of deception if this same God wanted us to believe that things weren't old.”

I’ve been over this ground many times before:

1.Natural artifacts have no intrinsic appearance of age, whether new or old. That’s a purely contingent relation. It’s a judgment we render from experience, based on the ordinary processes of nature, when we extrapolate from the present to the past.

2.Danny believes that that universe is about 14 billions years old. He would appeal to the scale of the universe as measured in light years to arrive at this figure.

But one incidental consequence of this dating technique as that distant objects appear younger than the really are, due to the time-lag in the transmission of light from there to here. We see an image of what it used to be, not of what it is today.

So, if we were to apply Danny’s criterion to Danny’s own claim, then we should deny that the universe is 14 billions years old since Danny is appealing to “deceptive” evidence.

Shame on you, Danny! Naughty, naughty boy! No wonder we Christians suspect the morals of militant unbelievers!

3.This is not just an argument from analogy. The very question at issue is the age of the universe, and the methodology for arriving at such a date. So Danny’s criterion directly undercuts his own appeal.

4.As I’ve also pointed out on several different occasions, it is anthropomorphic to simply equate a naturally occurring, periodic process with a “clock.” The natural function of a periodic process is not to tell us the time.

Now there’s nothing wrong with our attempting to put it to such a use. But to say that there would be something deceptive about a periodic process giving us a false reading when it was never designed to performed such a function is really pretty childish.

By Danny’s logic, fingers were made for keyboards, noses were made for crack cocaine, ears were made for orchestras, and necks were made for gold chains. For, otherwise, the Creator would be deceiving us.

Continuing:

“I think the problem is starting with Scripture, then digging to find evidence to support different conjectures. Why not start with observation? People without the Bible for thousands of years would've done just that -- looked at things without that bias. And, these people would've surmised the same things that modern science has -- that the idea of an earth completely deluged, and all plant life and animal life refilling the earth, some time around the first kingdom of Egypt, is just silly.”

Since I’ve discussed the flood on several occasions, I won’t repeat myself yet again. But let’s take a different example of someone who has an extrascriptural starting point, and then goes digging to find evidence to support his preconception.

I’m going to quote something from Ernst Mayr. And who is he? Well, according to no less an authority than Stephen Jay Gould, on the dust cover of this very book, Mayr is “the world’s greatest living evolutionary biology.”

According to Mayr, “The most convincing evidence for the occurrence of evolution is the discovery of extinct organisms in older geographical strata,” What Evolution Is (Basic Books 2001), 13.

But on the very next page, he registers the following caveat:

Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series. New types often appear quite suddenly, and their immediate ancestors are absent in the earlier geological strata. The discovery of unbroken series of species changing gradually into descending species is very rare. Indeed the fossil record is one of discontinuities, seemingly documenting jumps (saltations) from one type of organism to a different type. This raises a puzzling question: Why does the fossil record fail to reflect the gradual change one would expect from evolution?” (14).

He goes on to harmonize the “factual” claim with the actual state of the evidence by saying that only a small fraction of organisms are ever fossilized. Of that fraction, only a further fraction are accessible.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this explanation fully accounts the state of the evidence.

At most, this would only prove that the fossil record is consistent with evolutionary theory. What it would not prove is that the fossil record implies evolution.

His leap of logic from consistency to implication is viciously circular. If we already knew, as a result of the evidence, that evolution was a fact, then we would be justified in harmonizing the fact of evolution with apparent evidence to the contrary.

But when the “most convincing” evidence for evolution” is the very evidence that “fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect from evolution,” then it’s fallacious to first appeal to the fossil record to establish the “fact” of evolution, then offer a harmonistic expedient to square the actual state of the record with the “fact” of evolution.

That would only be valid if, on the one hand, he had direct, unambiguous evidence for evolution while, on the other hand, apparent evidence to the contrary came from a different source.

But when it’s the same source for both, his procedure is tendentious. For the factuality of evolution is only as convincing as the most convincing evidence for evolution. And if the “most convincing” evidence “fails to reflect what one would expect from evolution,” then we can hardly stipulate the “fact” of evolution as an unquestionable benchmark, and then relativize all counter-evidence to yield right-of-way tto that absolute datum.

Mayr then proceeds to shore up the fossil record with other lines of evidence. But, by his own admission, these are less convincing lines of evidence.

So did Mayr abide by Danny’s dictum? No, he began with his foregone conclusion, made selective appeal to the evidence, then attempted to explain away the contrary evidence. A sterling example of what happens when you don’t begin with Scripture.

Continuing:

“But then, he goes on to imply that laws are ‘real’...”

In the way that he (Poythress) defines scientific laws?

Continuing:

“If there is a God, there seems to be no need for ‘laws’ at all.”

Depending on the definition, I agree. But is Danny interacting with the definition offered by Poythress? Or his own?

Continuing:

“I would turn this argument on its head and point out that a natural universe requires uniformity (let's not get into induction, please) and natural law to be feasible, and to bring about life.”

One of the problems here is that Danny is acting as if natural laws were abstract universals or platonic forms, subsisting outside of space and time, such that a physical universe will merely “exemplify” a set of natural laws.

But if one is a materialist, then a natural law does not exist over and above its concrete instantiation. Rather, a natural law is a physical law, inseparable from a physical universe. More precisely, a natural law is simply a label we use to designate certain natural forces or constants, and not a form of extrinsic scaffolding, which holds everything in place.

3 comments:

  1. The quote from Mayr...isn't this what's known as 'punctuated equilibrium'?

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  2. Claiming that the myriad tools that science uses to estimate the earth's age might actually be misleading w/o some serious science to back it up is as frivolous as the claims of those you take to task for positing outlandish hypotheticals (evil demons, parallel universes, brains in vats etc.).

    If you have good reasons to question the methods science uses to estimate the age of the earth, let's hear them, but appealing to a completely unsupported hypothetical does nothing to advance your argument.

    If the scientific evidence for an old earth is solid, but the bible leaves little room for such a hypothesis, then the charge of deception is not unreasonable.

    Besides, Calvinist's don't rule out the possibility of deception when it is directed at retrobates, right?

    Andrew

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  3. Steve,

    Because we've covered some of this ground before -- in your admitting that you are a "scientific anti-realist", I see my efforts to argue along the lines of realism to be rather frivolous. However, I'll make a few clarifications:

    1.A claim can be true, and still be unfalsifiable...only a false claim is falsifiable.

    No this is wrong, when my claim refers to the process of scientific falsification.

    What I mean is that it is impossible to scientifically even evaluate the claim for truth-value, not that it is impossible to show it false. I mean there is no method by which we can show, either way, whether the "creation is young with an appearance (in all respects) of age," or whether the "universe is old, and appears as such."

    2.So the real question is whether a given claim is verifiable, not whether it’s falsifiable.

    We typically consider these two things equal with respect to the scientific method, which proceeds by falsifying hypothetical explanations to observational phenomena.

    3.There are indirect as well as direct methods of verification.

    I would love to hear how we could scientifically differentiate between a "mature appearing" universe/earth and one that really is that old.

    4.Falsification is a criterion for scientific theories. But unless you subscribe to logical positivism, then the verification principle is not a general, epistemic criterion.

    The verification principle is one part of demarcation, and is basically where I stop in trying to argue the veracity of a scientific claim.

    Rather, the claim is that God made a fully functioning universe. One “incidental” consequence of mature creation is that natural artifacts will appear to be older than they really are as judged by “ordinary” natural processes.

    I think you're equivocating. Did God make trees that bore rings to show seasonal aging? Did God make stars in all different stages of stellar evolution? Did God make the earth with telltale statigraphic formations bearing hallmarks of erosion that requires long periods of time? Did God make every isochron pair of radiometric isotopes "pre-decayed"? Did God make it such that the lowest strata always bear the most primitive fossils, and the progression of complex forms matches the prediction of evolutionary theory? etc., etc., etc...

    1.Natural artifacts have no intrinsic appearance of age, whether new or old. That’s a purely contingent relation. It’s a judgment we render from experience, based on the ordinary processes of nature, when we extrapolate from the present to the past.

    A judgment based on the perfect convergence of all those lines of evidence I outlined above, along with more I didn't mention.

    2.Danny believes that that universe is about 14 billions years old. He would appeal to the scale of the universe as measured in light years to arrive at this figure.

    The most precise dating (13.7) comes from the most precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which fit the mathematical models of general relativity and the standard model of cosmology perfectly.

    But one incidental consequence of this dating technique as that distant objects appear younger than the really are, due to the time-lag in the transmission of light from there to here. We see an image of what it used to be, not of what it is today.

    So?

    So, if we were to apply Danny’s criterion to Danny’s own claim, then we should deny that the universe is 14 billions years old since Danny is appealing to “deceptive” evidence.

    As I pointed out above, there is more than just the distant starlight problem for YEC. The CMB, and isochrons involving the heavier elements with half-lives of millions or billions of years come into play for the age of the earth, as well as geological processes, etc.

    What we see in space is not only the light transmitted from stars years ago, but the stages of their development. A perfect example of the "deception" charge is supported by supernovae, one of the most recent and patently obvious examples of which is SN1987A, at 167,000 +/- 4,000 years away. Supernovae remanants (SNR) go through four characteristic stages of their life cycle. We can see these life cycles at different places in the universe. God didn't just make the starlight in transit, God made it transmit an image of SNR's in different stages of their life cycle...

    Shame on you, Danny! Naughty, naughty boy! No wonder we Christians suspect the morals of militant unbelievers!

    So do I get to call you a "militant Christian"?

    3.This is not just an argument from analogy. The very question at issue is the age of the universe, and the methodology for arriving at such a date. So Danny’s criterion directly undercuts his own appeal.

    AnswersinGenesis offers an insight into arguments about "appearance of age" with respect to astronomy, and they conclude:
    "God created the starlight on its way: this suffers grievously from the fact that starlight also carries information about distant cosmic events. The created-in-transit theory means that the information would be ‘phony’, recording events which never happened, hence deceptive."

    In another article, regarding the basic uniformity of the laws of nature, AiG concludes:
    "The laws of nature are uniform. They do not (arbitrarily) change, and they apply throughout the whole cosmos. The laws of nature apply in the future just as they have applied in the past; this is one of the most basic assumptions in all of science. Without this assumption, science would be impossible. If the laws of nature suddenly and arbitrarily changed tomorrow, then past experimental results would tell us nothing about the future. Why is it that we can depend on the laws of nature to apply consistently throughout time? The secular scientists cannot justify this important assumption. But the Christian can because the Bible gives us the answer. God is Lord over all creation and sustains the universe in a consistent and logical way. God does not change, and so He upholds the universe in a consistent, uniform way throughout time"

    First, the "deception" is only present if we assume a Person behind it, whereas extrapolating things from observation and models has nothing to do with deception. Indeed, this is another subject in which we stumble upon the idea of induction and uniformity. If lightspeed is not held as constant, then we don't observe the stars "as they were".

    I suggest you clarify what you mean here. Are you referring to verifiability? You understand that physicists can model what they observe, such that verification comes from the basic laws of physics, right? They see the SNR life cycles, which confirm what the physics already describe about massive bodies collapsing and expanding, with the elemental composition we observe and measure (that's an area in my specialty -- atomic emission spectra). So are you saying that the observations don't verify the physics? The models don't fit all the data? What?

    4.As I’ve also pointed out on several different occasions, it is anthropomorphic to simply equate a naturally occurring, periodic process with a “clock.” The natural function of a periodic process is not to tell us the time.

    If the speed of light is constant, then it doesn't matter what its "function" is.

    Now there’s nothing wrong with our attempting to put it to such a use. But to say that there would be something deceptive about a periodic process giving us a false reading when it was never designed to performed such a function is really pretty childish.

    Childish, indeed. Scientists are so naive sometimes about the way the universe works. It's the priests and mystics that are "grown-up" enough to reveal the Truth about things to us.

    The purpose of natural processes has no bearing on whether or not they are uniform and may be extrapolated based on induction. Their purposes have nothing to do with whether or not the span between events correlates accurately to the "clock". You don't seem to offer an argument that makes sense of why all the convergent evidence (described above) converges on science's estimate but not on 4-10K years...

    Why do all the "clocks" seem to point to the same origin?

    By Danny’s logic, fingers were made for keyboards, noses were made for crack cocaine, ears were made for orchestras, and necks were made for gold chains. For, otherwise, the Creator would be deceiving us.

    Poor analogy. We see fingers, noses, ears, necks, etc., in other animals. The fact that we have homologous structures with them that we employ for new and different functions doesn't change the biological function that we observe for all of the other animals in nature.

    But when the “most convincing” evidence for evolution” is the very evidence that “fails to reflect the gradual change one would expect from evolution,” then it’s fallacious to first appeal to the fossil record to establish the “fact” of evolution, then offer a harmonistic expedient to square the actual state of the record with the “fact” of evolution.

    That would only be valid if, on the one hand, he had direct, unambiguous evidence for evolution while, on the other hand, apparent evidence to the contrary came from a different source.


    Ever find a Cambrian rabbit? Why not? Ever find animals with "modular" bits and pieces from the different phyla? Why not?

    I will take this famous "29 evidences for common descent" and point to the specific lines of evidence that are independent from, but converge with, the observation of increasing complexity in the fossil record, by marking them with two carets ">>":

    Part I. A unique, historical phylogenetic tree

    >>1. Unity of life
    >>2. Nested hierarchies
    >>3. Convergence of independent phylogenies
    * Statistics of incongruent phylogenies
    >>4. Transitional forms
    * Reptile-birds
    * Reptile-mammals
    * Ape-humans
    * Legged whales
    * Legged seacows
    5. Chronology of common ancestors

    Part 2. Past history

    >>1. Anatomical vestiges
    >>2. Atavisms
    * Whales with hindlimbs
    * Humans tails
    >>3. Molecular vestiges
    >>4. Ontogeny and developmental biology
    * Mammalian ear bones, reptilian jaws
    * Pharyngeal pouches, branchial arches
    * Snake embryos with legs
    * Embryonic human tail
    * Marsupial eggshell and caruncle
    >>5. Present biogeography
    >>6. Past biogeography
    * Marsupials
    * Horses
    * Apes and humans

    Part 3. Evolutionary opportunism

    >>1. Anatomical parahomology
    >>2. Molecular parahomology
    >>3. Anatomical convergence
    >>4. Molecular convergence
    >>5. Anatomical suboptimal function
    >>6. Molecular suboptimal function

    Part 4. Molecular evidence

    >>1. Protein functional redundancy
    >>2. DNA functional redundancy
    >>3. Transposons
    >>4. Redundant pseudogenes
    >>5. Endogenous retroviruses

    Part 5. Change

    >>1. Genetic
    >>2. Morphological
    >>3. Functional
    4. The strange past
    >>5. Stages of speciation
    >>6. Speciation events
    >>7. Morphological rates
    >>8. Genetic rates

    So 2 / 29 are "discounted" by your accusation of circularity based on the aspect of observation of the fossil record.

    Mayr then proceeds to shore up the fossil record with other lines of evidence. But, by his own admission, these are less convincing lines of evidence.

    It would be completely unconvincing if all of these 29 lines of evidence didn't converge on the same conclusion of common descent.

    In the way that he (Poythress) defines scientific laws?

    Directly before my quotation from the footnote on p.266, he was discussing methodological naturalism. Quote (p.265):
    He says that “by definition” the supernatural “can violate natural laws.” In so doing he does not reckon with a genuinely Christian worldview. In a Christian worldview, as we have seen, “natural laws” are shorthand for God’s word, which is never violated. Exceptions to regularities that human beings observe all have a rational purpose within the plan of God, and all conform to his word.

    Talk about circularity. The question is, how does one justify uniformity or induction within a worldview in which God can/does whatever God feels like (that brings God glory, or whatever), which sometimes has included the suspension/breaking of natural law and promises remain for a future suspension/breaking of natural law (eg the prophets of the revelation).

    I don't really understand how he escapes a vicious circularity within his own definition -- we know natural law by observation, it is a secondary cause of God's primary cause, it is not broken, per se, because it conforms to God's Word (which is still God, according to John 1:1, right?).

    My point is that you have no good reason to suppose that there is such a thing as natural law, aside from observation and induction, which are falsified by belief in the miraculous and definitions such as is offered here.

    One of the problems here is that Danny is acting as if natural laws were abstract universals or platonic forms, subsisting outside of space and time, such that a physical universe will merely “exemplify” a set of natural laws.

    But if one is a materialist, then a natural law does not exist over and above its concrete instantiation. Rather, a natural law is a physical law, inseparable from a physical universe. More precisely, a natural law is simply a label we use to designate certain natural forces or constants, and not a form of extrinsic scaffolding, which holds everything in place.


    I was offering an internal critique, in which the natural laws would be basically just as you described, yes? These "natural laws" are the "instantiation of God's mind," or something?

    And so the question is, again, why do the existence of natural laws not evidence a natural universe, whereas in a supernatural universe, there is no reason to suppose them, need them, or invoke them?

    To refer back to another AiG article:
    If God had not made a mature, fully functioning creation, He would have needed to constantly use miracles to sustain and perfect His creation, which would not reflect well on either His power or His creativity or His wisdom. What would we think of an engineer who designed and made a machine that he constantly had to tinker with to make it work, to keep it functioning and to eventually be what he originally designed and intended it to be? He would certainly be considered a incompetent engineer. (link)

    This is ridiculous and fallacious. Why would God want, need, or care to make a "machine-like" universe which ran on its own, if it brought God more glory to constantly interact with the Creation? This sounds exactly like the sort of thing an atheist would be chided for doing -- saying how/why God would or wouldn't do something.

    In referring back to the earlier article by AiG on uniformity, this argument works both ways, doesn't it? You can argue on one hand that the universe's uniformity is "evidence of God's design", and then deny uniformity when it suits you in order to maintain your beliefs about the method by which we should establish science.

    My point is that there is no other option than natural law in a natural universe. There are other options in a supernatural universe, and thus we have to wonder how silly/superfluous it is to conclude natural laws are "evidence of design". In employing Ockham's Razor, who gets cut the deepest?

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