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Friday, November 17, 2006

Unequal bias

FREDK SAID:

“No Steve, your bias dismisses all science that goes against your theology. Your argument isn't really a scientific argument at all, but a theological argument dressed up in pumps and a wig.”

And your argument isn’t really a scientific argument at all, but an atheological argument dressed up in pumps and a wing.

“All bias are not ‘equal’. Yours commits you to a one way street that must reject all evidence to the contrary or forces you to re-evaluate your 'worldview'.”

I agree that not every bias is on an epistemic par. For example, the bias of naturalistic evolution commits one to evolutionary psychology, which undercuts rationality.

So, yes, I reject global scepticism. So, yes, I reject any self-refuting worldview. So, yes, I reject a worldview which torpedoes the necessary truth-conditions without which nothing can be known.

As such, naturalistic evolution isn’t even a live option, although we can still debate the point. Do you have an argument to show that evolutionary psychology does not commit intellectual suicide?

“It does not, unless you play mental gymnastics and dismiss outright mounds and mounds of dovetailing information from multiple disciplines of science.”

To *say* that I play mental gymnastics and to *show* that I do so are two different things. You have a very revealing habit of intoning rationalistic rhetoric as a substitute for rational argumentation.

“Again, you are playing intellectually dishonest games.”

Another assertion in lieu of an argument.

You see, unbelievers like you aren’t really concerned with reason and evidence—otherwise you’d be using reason and evidence.

Instead, you’re only concerned with projecting a rationalistic image. For you, it’s all about keeping up appearances. A poor man’s Russell.

“Why don't you just rest your argument on faith? That is a much more honest and respectfull approach.”

What makes you think that *you* get to define faith? The Bible does not oppose faith to reason. Rather, the Bible only opposes faith to sight.

It is dishonest and disrespectful of you to think that you get to redefine Biblical faith by superimposing your extrabiblical values on Scripture.

Moving along:

“But I think you are missing the point of the "brain" thing. Some wit and ingenuity make up for a whole lot of fangs and brute force. If we look at very primitive tribes in areas where lions hunt, do we see the humans snuffed out, sent off to local extinction because of their sorry capabilities? I don't think that's what you'd find, even in tribes with the most primitive, stone age tools/weapons. The point being that the larger brain works to prevent being "in the cage" -- at a tactical disadvantage -- in the first place. Hunting/traveling/dwelling in groups is an extraordinarily powerful defense mechanism, especially if you have the other advantages that (proto-)humans did.”

No, you’re missing the point of your own argument. This is how you originally framed your argument:

“Third, and which should be so obvious that the original poster appears not to have thought things through before posting this, even without the defensive capabilities of living/traveling/hunting in coordinated teams or using weapons, the enlarged brain itself is the ultimate survival weapon.”

So your original appeal to the “brain thing” as a “meta-weapon” or “ultimate survival weapon” explicitly left out the social dynamic of teamwork.

I was commenting on your own version of your own argument. Is there some reason why you can’t keep track of your own argument?

“New finds may be only 350,000 years old. You'll have to clue me in how 350,000 is different from 400,000 years ago in a meaningful way to the discussion.”

Okay, let’s spell it out:

1.You referred me to an article. So I’m commenting on the material you referred me to. Answering you on your own level.

2.The antiquity of the spears is crucial to your argument. You’re the one who’s accentuating the date, not me.

3.However, one of the issues that immediate crops up in the course of this article (or articles, since there are several online versions) is the dating methodology.

4.The question at issue is not limited to the results. Rather, the issue is with the dating methodology which is yielding the results.

5.I’m not the one who brought up the dating methodology. The article itself brought up the issue of the dating methodology—you know, the article you yourself referred me to?

6.The article admits that absolute dating techniques were not applied to the artifacts.

7.So, in the absence of absolute dating techniques, how were the artifacts dated? Why date them to 400,000 years rather than 40,000 years or 4,000 years or 400 years?

8.What the article goes on to suggest is that some sort of relative dating technique was employed in lieu of absolute dating:

“Of the animal bones at the site, most of them from horses, many have incisions and fractures typically produced during butchery, the German archaeologist says. The material probably dates to 400,000 years ago, based on its position in a soil layer sandwiched between deposits of previously identified ice ages, he adds.”

9.Does this allude to ice core dating? If so, which ice core dating technique was used?

To my knowledge, ice core dating involves several different techniques, not all of which are used in every case. What is more, there are many variables which affect the reliability of ice core dating in any given case.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/icecore/review.php

For example, I once asked a scientist with a doctorate from MIT what he thought of ice core dating. I think I said that according to conventional reasoning, ice core dating was analogous to dendrochronology, viz. the seasonal layers were analogous to annular tree rings.

He told me that tabulating the layers was unreliable beyond about 2000 layers (as I recall) because the cumulative weight compresses the lower layers.

That’s not the only technique, but that’s one technique. Assuming that ice core dating was use in dating the spears, which technique was used?

“And please, don't make me go over the whole discipline of dating.”

I’m not planning to, and I don’t need to.

For purposes of this thread, I can stipulate to geological time scales. The problem this poses for you is that the amount of time separating one fossil find from another makes it difficult, to say the least, to establish lineal descent or compensatory adaptations at the time they’re needed.

So I don’t need to challenge geological time scales in the course of this thread. I’m arguing internally on the basis of your own operating assumptions.

“I'm happy to discuss details about this case or that.”

Fine. Proceed accordingly.

“I suggest none of the questions about overlap or timing in terms of ‘descending from trees’ matters, in light of the spears. If we find (proto-)humans crafting spears as part of their routine 400,000 (or 350,000) years ago, what else do we need to know. Early man was *not* at the disadvantage you offered. You have him naked, caged with a lion. The reality was that he had a huge mental advantage, a huge technology advantage, and a significant strategic advantage in his social and group-coordinated modes of operating.”

Half a roof doesn’t keep the rain out. You keep equivocating over the identity of “early” man. But, according to evolution, the identity of “early” man is fluid.

The fact that cavemen might have the weaponry and teamwork to repel natural predators is beside the point. That’s is just one segment of the evolutionary trajectory. For the (proto-) human species to survive, you need a continuous series of viable intermediates.

Invoking hundreds of thousands of years (or more) makes the case harder, not easier. How much time between the loss of natural defense mechanisms and encephalization? How much time between encephalization and the invention of weapons or rudimentary speech to facilitate teamwork?

If you have a big gap anywhere along the timeline, between the loss of his natural defense mechanisms and the development of compensatory adaptations, then “early” man, during that interval, is left defenseless.

You’re the one who’s committed to gradualism, not me. You’re the one who has to stretch out the process, not me.

Unless there is an overlap between the loss of natural defense mechanisms and the acquisition of compensatory adaptations, then early man, at that segment of the evolutionary continuum is at the mercy of natural predators.

Pointing to a later phase in the continuum is irrelevant. Every stage needs to be covered by one or the other for “early” man to survive in the face of predation.

My argument is building on your own assumptions. You own timeline. Your own admission of the need for some sort of defense mechanism.

For some reason you seem to think you can gloss over these elementary, common sense questions with half-baked answers.

“What I am saying is that these advantages on the whole represent an overwhelming position for man, and man has pulled away in terms of the ‘dominance’ gap comcomitant with his growing brain, technology and organizational skills.”

*Once* early man has acquired these survival advantages, yes. How did he survive before he acquired these survival advantages?

Why do you find it so difficult to ask yourself such as simple question? Is it because your bias in favor of the theistic evolutionary compromise inhibits you from questioning of your own position?

“I'm still not clear on how amenable you are to evidence from "secular" science sources, so I won't go on at length here (happy to elsewhere if it matters)”

I’m still not clear on how amenable you are to the need for specific evidence to substantiate specific claims.

“Here’s a quote from a New Scientist article a couple years ago:

‘Early humans evolved the anatomy needed to hear each other talk at least 350,000 years ago. This suggests rudimentary form of speech developed early on in our evolution.’

Here's the link:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6053”

How do you justify the leap from “hearing” to “speech?”

Many animals have acute hearing, but only human beings speak to each other.

Once again, the evidence you cite is not specific to the claim you make. For some reason you continually fail to see the need for a specific match between the level of the evidence and the level of the claim.

In order for your claim to be evidentially warranted, there must be a point of correspondence between the specificity of the evidence and the specificity of the claim. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that rule of evidence?

As Jacob Neusner likes to say, you don’t know what you can’t show. And that is certainly true when it comes to reconstructing the distant past.

“I'm too lazy to go dredge it up for this comment (especially not knowing what credit conventional sources receive from you), but I remember reading a paper that documented the skull of homo habilis showing am enlargement/bulge in the area of the brain that houses speech functions in humans (Brocah area?).”

As I’ve already said more than once by now, to establish encephalization you first have to establish lineal descent. You do have a noncircular argument for lineal descent?

The Darwinians keep telling me about the overwhelming evidence for evolution, but as soon as I ask for specific evidence to corroborate specific claims, it’s like pulling teeth to extract the information.

And what they do cough up falls far short of the mark. Can you do better?

“Wilma. Ok you lost me there.”

Try Fred Flintstone’s significant other.

12 comments:

  1. And your argument isn’t really a scientific argument at all, but an atheological argument dressed up in pumps and a wing [sic].

    Well, how about this?

    I've laid out the best case that ID Creationists can come up with, and point-by-point rebuttals and refutations of the claims.

    I wouldn't even dirty my brain with reading YEC stuff. Yes, that's an "unequal bias". I'll gladly admit that my free time won't be wasted reading the PRATTs and canards of young-earth creationism.

    As such, naturalistic evolution isn’t even a live option, although we can still debate the point. Do you have an argument to show that evolutionary psychology does not commit intellectual suicide?

    Do you have an argument that it does?

    You presups always get things arse-backwards. The burden is on the claimant, pal.

    The question of whether evolution is "truth-directed" or "survival-directed" does not impinge upon an argument that natural processes cannot produce a brain that processes reality and uses logic.

    Survival is logic-dependent, after all. Is that so hard to see? Brains that don't comport with reality, and logical truths, won't be likely to survive long, will they?

    Illogical brain: Water or poison, doesn't matter which I drink! Tools, what the crap are they? What for?

    Survival fitness?

    You've basically rambled on and on about the faulty idea that fangs and claws and strength shrank before brainpower and socialization and tool-making had adequately developed. Is that idea evidenced? No.

    But don't ever let facts get in the way of a good speculation.

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  2. Daniel, do you think YEC is absolutely untenable?

    Say, for the purposes of the question, that God did indeed create a mature and fully developed earth. Could this not explain why the earth appears so old in your scientific research?

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  3. I think the question of a mature-appearing young earth had been posted already. If you check the archives a few weeks back, I'm sure it was brought up.

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  4. Daniel, do you think YEC is absolutely untenable?

    Say, for the purposes of the question, that God did indeed create a mature and fully developed earth. Could this not explain why the earth appears so old in your scientific research?


    Anything's possible. But I have no good reason to think so. The amount of different lines of evidence that would have to be very...strange...such as isotopes that decayed just because God wanted them to? And you realize that decay produces energy, right? A friend of mine has done some calculations on the radiation energy that would've been put out had all the decay occurred in 6000 years, and shows the problem with global T -- see it here

    And of course there are multiple other questions about natural geological processes -- glaciation, paleosol formation, etc., that we know take a loooooong time.

    And of course starlight and relativity questions...

    The list goes on and on. Yes, God could've done *all that* to make us think the earth was old, (I indicate tacit deception here b/c God would've foreknown the conclusions scientists would reach from this evidence, even if God didn't want them to) which of course is a lingering question -- why would God create the earth and universe to "look" old when they weren't? Just to test our faith?

    It just doesn't make sense to me.

    Or to Christians like Hugh Ross.

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  5. Hey Steve,

    In reading your response to FREDK, I noticed that you started repsonding to me. It must just be an oversight, but it looks like you have my words attributed to FREDK in your post. I'd appreciate it if you'd make it clear who is saying what.

    On that theme, may I gently suggest some formatting relief for your posts? I totally appreciate your willingness to engage on this, and it's an interesting dialog springing up here, but I am really struggling to keep track of who is saying what. In involved exchanges like this, some visual clarity can really help. May I plead for block quotes, or different colors, or maybe just italics?

    No time for more comments than just that now, will post a response later this afternoon.

    Best,

    -Touchstone

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  6. Touchstone said...
    Hey Steve,

    In reading your response to FREDK, I noticed that you started repsonding to me. It must just be an oversight, but it looks like you have my words attributed to FREDK in your post.

    *************

    "Moving along" was the transitional phrase from FREDK to your material.

    It's context dependent, as part of an ongoing thread and combdox dialogue.

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  7. Steve,

    In my original post/comments, I suggested that you were highly familiar with all manner of theological argument and exegetical frameworks, but unfamiliar with physical sciences, a dysjunction that I believe is both inreasingly common and destructive in evangelical circles.

    I believe the 'Adam and Evolution' post reflected either a) unfamiliarity with mainstream science or b) wholesale rejection of it, based on the understandings that mainstream science brings to the table on the question of (early) man's capabilities. It isn't particularly important to know if the reason was a) or b) right now, but I think a good way forward would be to ask:

    What do you believe is science's position on:

    1. Increased brain capabilities for hominids in the last 1-2MM years.

    2. Technological capabilities for hominids in the same period.

    3. Social organization for hominids in the same interval.

    Without requiring a treatise from you (It could be very high level summaries), we can see whether or not you are, in fact, "divorced from science", as I suggested earlier. We can check what your "overview" of these key survival features looks like against the testimony of the science community.

    It hardly helps matters to assault dating (relative or absolute) here regarding spears. Asking me for a treatise on the dating hermenuetic isn't fruitful as *I* wasn't the one doing the dating -- the researchers were. Whether I concur with the dating isn't meaningful. What's at issue here (I suggest) is that right or wrong, you are at complete loggerheads with mainstream science.

    You may be right, and all of science wrong.

    But the fact remains, you, and many of your peers, stand in general opposition to the methods, findings and conclusions of mainstream science.

    In saying that man is a non-viable competitor on the survival playing field, you, you are manifestly departing from the fundamental understanding of the related physical science communities.

    If you dispute this, then your "review" of what you believe to be the relevant scientific evidence for hominid capabilities (brain power, tools, group behavior) can be a useful way of resolving the dispute. We can check it for agreement or disagreement with the published material on each subject.

    Does that seem a fair way to proceed?

    -Touchstone

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  8. Touchstone asked Steve:
    ---
    What do you believe is science's position on:

    1. Increased brain capabilities for hominids in the last 1-2MM years.

    2. Technological capabilities for hominids in the same period.

    3. Social organization for hominids in the same interval.
    ---

    The answer to all of those questions cannot be scientific, Touchstone. Those are historical questions, not scientific questions.

    The scientific method, after all, requires both observation and prediction; two things that cannot be done regarding the past.

    As such, my position (not necessarily Steve's, of course), is that science says nothing in response to your questions. To ask what science says is to invoke the scientific method, which cannot be applied to things that are unobservable or unpredictable.

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  9. Calvindude,

    I'm sorry but that's not even a remotely workable epistemic perimeter for science. If you don't believe me, go ask your local scientist. I think if you happened to pick a cosmologist to ask, he'd be surprised to understand that he wasn't, after all, a scientist, and that since his field of cosmology was by definition the study of past events, he could have nothing to say scientifically on the origins of the cosmos.

    Areas of science that study past events and mechanisms work on the understand that past events and processes affect the events and processes that came after them. We weren't there to observe the Big Bang, but the Big Bang hypothesis(a theory now!) came with some implied predictions. If the Big Bang idea was correct, then we would expect to find evidence of the cooling of the hot plasma of photons, electrons and baryons. If Big Bang happened the way science supposes, there should be cosmic background radiation throughout all observable space.

    George Gamow made this prediction in the 1940s (maybe 50s?), making an epistemic assertion that would provide a measure of validation (or falsification) for Big Bang Theory. I believe Gamow guess that the average background temperature would be about 5 or 6 degrees Kelvin.

    It wasn't until several decades later after Gamow's prediction that the cosmic background radiation was measured with fine precision -- currently something like 2.75K. Although do one was there to observe it, we have strong indirect validation of the theory. Science is always tentative, but predictions like this are ones that are completely non-obvious, fairly unique to that model (CBR doesn't make any sense in Steady State Theory, for example) and as I've said, confirmed by observation.

    So, if we imagine that man's ancestors evolved in certain ways, there are natural implications about what evidence and clues we might find to either validate the idea, or falsify it. Antrhopology, geology, paleontology and biology all get invoked to formulate a model --- a theory -- for how things happened. Over the past 150 years we've accumulated an enormous amount of evidence and clues that tell us what to make of our hypotheses. Some of Darwin's ideas were spectacularly wrong, but the core predictions that proceed from his theory have been even more spectacularly matched by the witness of God's creation.

    -Touchstone

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  10. Touchstone said:
    ---
    I'm sorry but that's not even a remotely workable epistemic perimeter for science.
    ---

    You obviously haven't read anything on the Scientific Method then.

    Your ultimate problem is you confuse sciencism with science itself.

    Scientists, by necessity, use philosophy. They are not pristine nor free from philosophical biases in any sense of the word. Science requires observation, predictability, experimentation, and verification as a bare minimum. None of these things can be accomplished in the past.

    Instead, the scientist is imposing current conditions onto the past (which may well be a correct thing to do--but which must be established from other means than science because science itself can only deal with what is observed now).

    In other words, science must be grounded first in a philosophy. It is not possible for science to function as a complete philosophical method. In fact, at most, science can only be an epistemological method--and even then it cannot be the only epistemological method for the scientist as the scientist cannot use the scientific method to verify the scientific method (not just because it would be circular reasoning, but also because a method of thinking isn't something that can be observed emperically etc.).

    In short, people who rely on "science" grant it far too much explanatory power than it has. Scientists are just as much religious toward their method as any theist is toward his God. To pretend otherwise is simply to display philosophical ignorance.

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  11. Just to clarify further, when I said:
    ---
    and even then it cannot be the only epistemological method for the scientist as the scientist cannot use the scientific method to verify the scientific method
    ---

    this shows that the scientific method isn't the only epistemological method used by the scientist because the scientist presumably knows that the scientific method is correct. In other words, something else provides his epistemology for how he knows that the SM is accurate other than the SM itself.

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  12. CalvinDude,

    I wasn't suggesting that the scientific method was used to "bootstrap" the scientific method. The scientfic method isn't even an epistemic framework in and of itself. It's simply a part of the larger epistemology of science, which is what I was driving at when I said the science certain includes and values direct observation, but isn't at all limited to that.

    Methodological materialism is the presuppositional framework for science. The scientific method is just a set of carrots floating in the soup of methodological materialism that is science.

    Also, scientism is the belief that science is the only and authortitative epistemology in life. Scientism doesn't claim that science is perfect. Rather it discounts all competing epistemologies. As someone who has a personal, supernatural knowledge of his Creator, I joyously and enthusiastically embrace an epistemology that scientism would reject. This knowledge of my Savior transcends scientific epistemologies in my life, something scientism would consider anathema.

    You can read more about scientism at the Wiki entry for it:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

    -Touchstone

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