It’s well worth mentioning that Plantinga’s argument is 18 years old or so, and it has failed to convince any naturalist in the mainstream groups of naturalists (Dennett et al). Unusual, considering that it is supposedly such a powerful argument in it’s explanatory content. Nonetheless, having watched this series of videos, it has become clear to me that Plantinga’s EAAN (Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism) as just as flawed as other theological musings such as the slippery old Cosmological Argument.

Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s “Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism” – Link:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p … C36901BCEE

Before we can even begin to account the myriad flaws and fallacies of the EAAN’s reasoning and supporting arguments, it is already plain to see that the argument is unworkable. Plantinga is a strong advocate of Theistic Evolution and argues that if God created Man “In his own Image”, by means of biological evolution, then our cognitive faculties would be reliably tuned to truth. However if naturalistic (i.e., non-theistic) evolution is true our faculties would be unreliably tuned to “mere survival”. I find EAAN to be incoherent.

Plantinga argues that evolutionary naturalism is unjustifiable because our accumulated mountains of evidence for it (as well as our cognitive processes for testing/assessing this evidence) would not be trustworthy in the absence of God, the source of absolute truth. He then argues that traditional theism is more defensible on the grounds that our minds were designed by God. His argument falls apart because it intrinsically begs the question. If Plantinga conceded that this rather small point of his was indefensible, then the entire argument would fall flat on it’s face. Now, I will try to squeeze in some of my more detailed thoughts on the actual videos.

Part 1

03:15 (3 minutes and 15 seconds)

:

“And then when I use the word ‘naturalism’, what I really mean is … the belief that there’s no such person as God, or anything like God”

Here it would be well worth noting that Plantinga is making an implicit reference to Positive or “Strong” Atheism rather than naturalism. Positive Atheism being, as everyone knows, taking an epistemically positive stance in the form of atheism, with the positive assertion that a God or gods do not exist. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that Plantinga misunderstands both atheism as it is most commonly understood, as well as misrepresenting naturalism. Naturalism could be better defined as empirical-ism, meaning that it only accepts things on the basis of material, tangible evidence, and all evidence is still subject to be changed, or to be shown false. God, the supernatural “realm” in general, and so forth, all fall into the class of ideas and entities that are wholly unknown given naturalism. Vague, untestable, and unfalsifiable, and thus not subject to naturalistic modes of inquiry.

03:24 (3 minutes and 24 seconds)

:

“Naturalism is stronger than atheism. Naturalism entails atheism … but atheism doesn’t entail naturalism; you can be an atheist without rising to the heights of – or sinking to the depths of (whatever you think is appropriate) – naturalism…”

Here he goes again with his broad and unqualified statements about what “naturalism” means. One is tempted to think that this is a deliberate falsification, and not a mistake. It would have been more technically accurate and indeed, honest – if Plantinga had mentioned that “naturalism” in the context of theistic/antitheistic arguments, exists as two differing stances. One is an epistemological position, while the other is an ontological position. Namely: Metaphysical Naturalism, and Methodological Naturalism.

Methodological Naturalism:

“Methodological naturalism (‘MN’) is the commitment of scientific investigation in practice to studying only naturalistic causes and explanations. Boudry et al. observe, though, that there are really two types of MN:

Intrinsic methodological naturalism (IMN) is the a priori philosophical commitment to not even consider supernatural explanations (see the authors’ definition of “supernatural” below). As Boudry et al. state in a forthcoming paper, under IMN ‘science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue.’ This is the view expressed by people like Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, and Rob Pennock. It also appears to be the official position of the National Center for Science Education and the semi-official position of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.

Provisional (or pragmatic) methodological naturalism (PMN),’a provisory and empirically grounded commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations, which in principle is revocable by extraordinary empirical evidence.’ As the authors note:

According to this conception, MN did not drop from thin air, but is just the best methodological guideline that emerged from the history of science (Shanks 2004; Coyne 2009; Edis 2006), in particular the pattern of consistent success of naturalistic explanations. Appeals to the supernatural have consistently proven to be premature, and science has never made headway by pursuing them. The rationale for PMN thus excludes IMN: if supernatural explanations are rejected because they have failed in the past, this entails that, at least in some sense, they might have succeeded. The fact that they didn’t is of high interest and shows that science does have a bearing on the question of the supernatural.”

Source: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com … ernatural/

Metaphysical Naturalism as detailed by Wikipedia:
“Metaphysical naturalism. also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those required to understand our physical environment by mathematical modeling. It is occasionally referred to as philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism. Methodological naturalism however, refers exclusively to the methodology of science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation.
Metaphysical naturalism holds that all properties related to consciousness and the mind are reducible to, or supervene upon, nature. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, it rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.”

The latter, (Metaphysical Naturalism), is an ontological position, and deals with reality rather than with descriptions of reality, as does the former. Metaphysical, or Philosophical, or more appropriately Ontological Naturalism, deals with the nature of reality, and can be thought of as an extension to Methodological Naturalism. Essentially, it takes Methodological Naturalism, an essential bedrock axiom of scientific inquiry, and extrapolates it positively, to evoke belief in the non-existence of the supernatural. Or rather, that we live in a mechanistically physical reality governed by natural laws. It can be thought of in the same way that Strong Atheism is an epistemologically burdened claim, pertaining to the non-existence of God. But that’s another topic (again).

And contrary to Plantinga’s oversimplification; the naturalistic stance on the existence of God is far more of a vague one. MethodologicalNaturalism (explicitly) – does not directly deny the existence of one or more gods, like Metaphysical adaptations of naturalism do (implicitly). Methodological Naturalism, a key to scientific discovery; merely withholds judgment on the existence or non-existence of a class of “things” of which god(s) are only a part of. Namely, the group that includes the supernatural, and transcendental entities… Supernaturalism in Science should be out-ruled in principle, anyways. As such then, the Atheist vs. Theist debate in this context, and the relevance of the position of the atheist, is not so much the simple statement that there are no gods (which I believe to be an accurate statement), but rather, it is more of a pragmatic sentiment on the knowability or unkowability of the existence of God, in which case, we may as well reject the notion of gods in principle, until physical proof of it’s (or “their”, if we were to include polytheistic religions); existence.

I needn’t mention Plantinga’s later statement about the beliefs of Hegel, as I do not dispute them. The next sentence is a brief statement about the natural evolution of conscious living beings, and it’s place as part of Metaphysical Naturalism, simplistically defined, that is, as well as it’s technical relevance to the ins and outs of the rest of his argument. He also presents a brief summary of the structure of his argument(s).

04:22 (4 minutes and 22 seconds)

… “Evolution is often thought of as kind of a pillar in the temple of naturalism, if indeed naturalism has a temple. But… I want to argue that they don’t fit together. I want to argue that … one can’t sensibly be both a naturalist, and… accept… evolution (as evolution is ordinarily thought of), and that they conflict with each other. They go against each other. The conjunction of the two – naturalism and evolution – I want to argue … shoots itself in the foot! Or as a more complex, learned sounding way of putting it: is self-referentially incoherent. “

I wondered whilst listening to this when he would get to the point, instead of tautologically repeating the same line four or five times! 

Of course, Plantinga himself has in fact shot himself in the foot as well. As I said, the argument has certainly not convinced me, and it has yet to convince any serious naturalist in the thinking world, or anyone on this forum for that matter. Additionally, it’s good to see Plantinga showing his Platonic Colours again, to some degree.  Plantinga has previously made apparent his Platonic Idealism, meaning that he believes that ideas represent some kind of absolute reality, and we can see examples of this cropping up all over his argument if you look hard enough, as in his Reformed Epistemology.

06:20 (6 minutes and 20 seconds)

“So according to theism; belief in God, we human beings have been created by a wholly good, all powerful, and all knowing being, namely God, who has … created us in his own Image, made us like him… who has aims and intentions – he intends certain things – and can act in such a way to accomplish those aims. That’s part of what it is to be a person …”

I trust you will all see the conflict of definitions here, as Plantinga struggles to keep his terms straight. He starts off by using the generic and unqualified term “theism”, a label which does NOT only apply to the Abrahamic Versions of god(s), but applies moreover, to any ’God’, or gods! And then he proceeds to ”qualify” that statement with what is clearly a description of the far more specific – namely – the Judeo-Christian Monotheistic God, and even goes on to allude to the Judeo-Christian myths and mythologies about the creation of the world and universe, such as God creating man in his own image. He also assumes that this God is personal. And so, it ultimately becomes clear that although he uses the very broad term “theism”, what he is really talking about is the Christian God. It seems very strange to me that a sophisticated philosopher such as Alvin Plantinga could confuse his terms in such a bizarre way. It is not the first time he has done this, and we’re not even through with the 1st vide ( represented by*Part 1* – in huge bold green).

09:09 (9 minutes and 9 seconds)

“In brief here’s how my argument will go …

I’ll argue that … if naturalism and evolution were both true, if that conjunction – that pair of propositions – were both correct … then it would be improbable that our cognitive faculties – memory etc. – are in fact reliable …”

This is a truism! The overwhelming majority of naturalists accept this, and so do I! It is not merely “improbable”. It’s a fact. It is empirically verifiable, and well documented, that all of those cognitive functions are highly unreliable! How reliable were the inductive assumptions of old worldy (lol) religions about their gods and deities? How accurate were the Romans and Greeks’ perceptions on such things, with their dozens of gods?? The god of war, the god of fire, the god of… sewage.  Or the Aztecs who had little objections to cutting peoples’ hearts whilst still alive, and sacrificing their parts to their gods? Not to mention the fact that the people were generally acquiescent to this rather obscure fact.

Here is one, rather random example of how our cognitive faculties can fail us: the McGurk Effect. A mysterious perceptual illusion that takes place because your senses, namely vision and hearing, conflict. This is an example of one of the flaws of our cognitions and precognitions.
It seems almost as though Plantinga is trying to assert that our everyday thinking and cognition about the world and universe is reliable and truthful. “Sadly” depending on your perspective, all of the available evidence seems to favour the opposite conclusion: that it’s unreliable, and based on limited perceptual knowledge. Heck, human beings can only ever understand their surroundings to the extent that they can ask “what am I doing now?” — by which time “now” is long, long gone. 

If Plantinga is attempting to argue that human cognition is somehow perfectly reliable from his viewpoint, and there is no good reason to believe that it is, and good reasons to believe that it isn’t…. then his entire argument will collapse. Rather, the question here is whether or not certain cognitive faculties would be favoured by evolution via natural selection, and which of those faculties can be counted on to produce truthful perceptions of the world.

Next will be the final point I deal with in this video.. but there’s still 5 more….

09:36 (9 minutes and 36 seconds)

“Well once you see that … then once you accept [both] naturalism and evolution, then you now have a defeater for that proposition. For this proposition that your cognitive faculties are reliable…a reason to give that proposition up… a reason not to believe it. And once you have a defeater for that proposition – that your cognitive faculties are reliable, then you also have a defeater for any proposition that you take to be produced by your cognitive faculties…. [ ... ] so then you also have a defeater for naturalism and evolution itself. “

1. If we had to reject all of our belief simply because they might be wrong, then Plantinga’s religious beliefs stand to the same principle as the evolutionary naturalist. Assuming that Plantinga’s reasoning is correct. Unfortunately, it’s not …

2. It is not simply evolution that allows for the possibility of error.

Plantinga seems to be highlighting the fact that has been growing in my mind for quite a while. That all of our faculties, and all knowledge is but axiomatic in it’s nature, no matter how certain we are. Science operates on the possibility of error, as does much else.

Plus, Plantinga also seems to be committing to an implicit fallacy of equivocation, by assuming that all of our cognitive faculties as he puts it, are equal and equally worth mentioning. They are not. It’s pretty evident that some of these functions have been honed to a sharper degree by natural selective pressures, such as vision. In humans, we have full colour vision, and forward-facing eyes, probably one of the most advanced visual systems in the living world. Our olfactory cognition however, is seriously weak compared to other animals such as dogs and cats, as is our hearing, the senses that are usually most acutely tuned in most placental mammals other than primates.

And as for religious beliefs. . .

For an explanation of the cognitions that may lead to religion, I present for your approval, a video made by Dr. Andy. Thomson. According to Thomson, a robust and comprehensive account of religious thinking and beliefs can be arrived at in terms of our species’ biological evolution. God does not exist in our experience; we ascribe an interpretation to our intuitions, but these intuitions are byproducts of brain functioning that can be understood in evolutionary terms. Dr. Thomson: “Religious beliefs are just the extraordinary use of everyday cognitions, everyday adaptations: social cognitions, agency detection, precautionary reasoning. Religious beliefs are a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms designed [by evolution] for other purposes.”

Dr. Andy Thomson: Why We Believe in Gods

I post this as an example of how religion, may in fact have been “designed”, or created as an artifact of evolution, as an adaptation. Thomson provides robust evidence that religious belief is the result of cognitive mechanisms used in unusual ways, and even presents evidence that religious beliefs and/or misassumptions are present even in newborns.  Fascinating indeed …

Part 2

Plantinga now proceeds to quote Thomas Aquinas on the nature of God and it’s “relationships” with human cognitions.

00:14 (0 minutes and 14 seconds)

“Since human beings are said to be in the image of god in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect … they’re in the image of God because they’ve got an intellect – they can understand and know – such a nature, one with an intellect, is one most in the image of God in being able most to imitate God. So he thinks of this err … ability to “know” on our part is perhaps the most important aspect of the image of God, in human beings…”

Now I will dissect the flaws in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology”, and discuss the axiomatic nature of knowledge. Plantinga almost appears to argue that our experience of the world is somehow supernatural, and citation is needed there, methinks.

01:21 (1 minute and 21 seconds)

“Most of us would think [ ... ] that at least a function of our cognitive faculties would be to provide us with true beliefs. That’s what they’re for. And we would normally think that when they’re functioning properly, when there’s no dys/mal – function, that for the most part, that’s what they do … Of course it’s true that err… let’s say err… if there are five different witnesses to an auto[mobile] accident, you might get five different stories. But there will be an underlying level of agreement … “

Is it not dangerous to simply assume that your beliefs are reliable from the outset, when you have no reliable means of demonstrating this? Also note how Plantinga simply assumes that his beliefs about the world/universe are true, and then qualifies his statement with the spurious phrase “for the most part”…. It turns out that he cannot claim to know absolute certainty, anymore than methodological naturalists. It seems that Plantinga is no longer talking about his naive notions of objective truths and realities, but is instead simply stating that apparently: Evolutionary Naturalism has a lesser probability of truth than Evolutionary Supernaturalism (in his view).

02:40 (2 minutes and 40 seconds)

“There would be agreement that there are indeed such things as automobiles… that [beings] use them to accomplish their purposes, which in the case of automobiles – normally – involves going somewhere… That automobiles won’t work well on the surface of the moon or the bottom of the ocean, that if you drop one out of a helicopter it will ordinarily fall down, rather than ascend… and so on…”

According to gravity, a car, not like objects such as sheets of paper, or parachutes, will fall through the air, like humans, at around 30-35 ft, per second per second. Once dropped, the car’s speed terminally accelerates to the point of terminal velocity wherein the medium (air) with which the car is traveling through, prevents further acceleration under gravity. Thus, all of Plantinga’s examples of these “truths” of the world and universe are pragmatic facts about reality, rather than philosophical musings.

Whether or not cars can drive on the moon or underwater is a semantical conundrum about how to define “car”. For example, do Lunar-rovers count as “cars”??

The same is true of cars driving underwater, since some of them can. It is also worthy of note, the kind of truth we are discussing here. It is truth about physical objects and entities such as cars, and alike. This kind of truth, as I briefly mentioned in the introduction can be labeled as empirical, and rational.

This is empirical knowledge because it is knowledge that comes to us through the senses, and as I have said in the past, I subscribe to the view that all is mere conjecture if it is not applicable via empiricism. There is still no one single ”truth”, though, (in spite of the method by which we acquire “truths”).

I like how William S. Burroughs puts it in his essay “On Coincidence” in ‘The Adding Machine’: “Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple statement of fact.”

Aside from the inductive nature of experience (which some Popperians ignore); we have a curious tendency of by-passing perspectivisms, which bundle their own truths in them. Surely, this deferring of perspective has a pragmatic function, but no more than the practical concrete representations of abstract or ideal mathematical shapes.

Every thing experiential is valuative and evaluative and generates differences, such that they may be comparable but not identical. In other words, the most that can be enjoyed is equivalence alone about pertinent facts. Even more, as a consequent, truths are paradigmatic and their constituent elements cannot be separated from the system in which it is contextualized, not unlike a field. Hence, a positivist’s referent is qualitatively not the same as an idealist’s, nor naturalists’ from supernaturalists’, nor a blind person’s from a schizophrenic’s, nor mine from yours, and so forth.

All that can be arrived at is the set of interacting truths, manifested as claims about perception communicatively, to produce yet another amalgam of truths, ad infinitum. This is not a classical dialectic being spoken of here, since there is not teleological point to it (only teleological paths within it.)
Empirical and Rational observation is our most finely tuned faculty, and is at the root of both science, and scientific naturalism. 

03:05 (3 minutes and 5 seconds)

“So our assumption is that when our faculties are functioning properly, though not always, such as when they’re are wokring at the very limit of their ability such as in contemporary physics and cosmology for example, that – for the most part – they will produce truth when they’re functioning properly … “

If it is really the case that our cognitive faculties as Plantinga says, were designed by the creator of the universe, ‘God’, to produce truth, then why do our cognitive faculties all have such a well established founding for error, at least so it would seem? I mentioned the McGurk effect earlier, but there is also the Monkey Business Illusion, visual trickery and many others. Plus: the Homo S Sapiens’ history of scientific error??

03:24 (3 minutes and 24 seconds)

“But isn’t there a problem here for the naturalist? Or at any rate, for the naturalist who thinks that we’ve arrived on the scene after some billions of years of evolution, by way of natural selection, genetic drift, and other blind processes [ ... ] working on sources of variation like random genetic mutation, [ ... ] if that’s the way you think of it then shouldn’t it come as somewhat of a surprise that the cognitive faculties are in fact reliable?”

Isn’t there a problem here for the supernaturalist who falsely asserts that our cognitions are reliable and truthful? Plus, we have still yet to establish what Plantinga means here by “truth”. .. ???
If it is Plantinga’s contention that our cognitive faculties are god-given functions, and were designed by him, to, as I said earlier, produce truth, then why is it so evident, to repeat myself, that our ancestors made such a volume of mistakes, and so on? Our cognitive faculties are rarely if ever fully reliable. And also, Plantinga seems to argue that if both evolution(ism) and natural(ism) were both true, then the probability of reliable cognitive functions coming about are low. Apparently though, it IS low, since humans are only one species in the history of life. And also, the only example of a finely tuned cognition that he has given us so far, is our perceptual observations of cars.

06:15 (6 minutes and 15 seconds)

“If Darwinism is correct, if Evolution is correct, or if the conjunction of evolution and naturalism were correct, then the ultimate purpose of our cognitive faculties would surely be survival … or perhaps survival by way of reproductive age, or to maximize reproductive fitness. So if they have a purpose then that’s what it is. Their purpose ISN’T to provide us with true beliefs, it’s to maximize fitness. …”

Yes. Our cognitive faculties only exist at all because of their predictive power. For example, eyes and the visual system is something that is said to have evolved independently among animals some 40 times throughout Earth’s history, as have many of the other senses, even though the eyes are probably the most pronounced one. And what is more, there are oceangoing invertebrates such as octopus and squid that have eyes on a par with the sharpness of our own. Or nautilus, with it’s sophisticated pinhole camera eye, as Dawkins phrased it so succinctly.

Evolution did NOT give us cognitive faculties to arrive at the most probable truths, nor is evolution a process with purpose or intent. It just plows on. “It” gave us cognitive faculties for survival purposes, as Plantinga has already said. And given the fact that not only can we only expect a certain number of our beliefs to be accurate and subject to revisions at any time, and there are far more ways to be incorrect in one’s beliefs than to be correct, how does Plantinga recognize the false points of his beliefs, if he believes that his cognitive faculties were designed by the all knowing creator of the universe to generate truth(s)? How could such cognitions ever be proven false, if Plantinga’s reasoning is sound?

Nevertheless, I am not alluding to post-modern theories of truths with my claims, but rather, I am simply stating that there are truths to be found using the vagaries of our perceptions, but it will not be the kind of truth that Plantinga would accept with his puerile clinging to certainty and security. All he is doing here is assuming the truth of his beliefs with no form of evidence, and his actual beliefs in question are meanwhile vague and immeasurable by any empirical means. While we can be very sure that cars and tables and chairs and such, exist, and that all of these objects have the properties that we commonly associate with them despite that we can only ever arrive at them through our limited perceptions. But; since are perceptions are highly unreliable, this is a very tentative form of ‘truth’, no matter how much you guys might protest! 

We do not know that our current model of the world and universe and its formation, is really accurate in an absolutist or 100% certainty form. But the reason for that is because knowledge is axiomatic, and this is the way science now works, as a discipline and practice, through the principle of falsifiability, brought about by Karl Popper et al. Methodological Naturalism is simply pragmatic in it’s assumptions. It does not have to be certain in the same way that religious beliefs always have to. It only has to assume that it’s current picture, such as in scientific discovery, is more accurate, and more factual than any previous model.

I will skip the entire 3rd video, since he seems to spend the whole vid making baseless probability calculations, and quote-mining. So here’s the 4th video debunked.

Part 4 (skipped 3rd vid)

05:47 (5 minutes and 47 seconds)

“By virtue of their content as well as their neurophysiological properties; and are also adaptive [to survive]. What then is the probability here of this possibility that their cognitive faculties are reliable? Well here I have to say, not as high as you might think. Beliefs don’t causally effect behaviours just by themselves, it’s beliefs and desires, and other factors that do so together. [ ... ] So, Imagine that Paul is a prehistoric hominid, and the emergencies of survival cause him to display tiger-avoidance behaviour. [ ... ] There would be many behaviours that [may be] appropriate, fleeing for example. Or climbing a steep face – assuming that tigers aren’t that great at rock-climbing … or crawling into a hole too small to admit the tiger [if] it is a large tiger. Or leaping into a handy lake. Now … when I wrote this I was under the impression that tigers, like house cats, don’t like water. [ ... ] But in fact that turns out to be false. “

In this particular example, Alvin Plantinga admits that by not realizing on his part, that tigers can swim, and in fact, thrive in lakes and rivers, because of bizarre reasoning, assuming that tigers behave in a similar fashion to that of cats that are domesticated, and then changed his belief to the correct stance, after having learned more about it, Plantinga has now highlighted the flaws in this argument against naturalism. Naturalistic Evolution did not simply give us false or failing beliefs and desires. It gave us beliefs that most appropriately matched with the observed empirical data as you might call it, for our survival. And this IS important! And this is exactly why our cognitions may have been at least in some sense geared towards “truth” to a revisable degree, is exactly because of these survival advantages that come attached to discovering these “truths”, by virtue of our highly complex cerebral cortexes also “designed” by evolution. Plantinga’s beliefs about tigers not liking water may very well have got him brutally killed, if the situation occurred when he was faced with a tiger.

Plantinga’s tiger-illustration actually hits the nail quite well. He admits that his logically fallacious reasoning lead him to the erroneous conclusion as he later found out, that tigers are like other cats that he was familiar with. And at some time later, someone or other may have demonstrated to him that tiger in fact DO live in waters, such as rivers, and as such, Plantinga’s belief-forming mechanisms were shown to be false, and he had to change them in accordance with the empirically observed facts.

This illustrates the fact that beliefs are malleable and can change as new evidence comes along. And it’s that new evidence that matters, too. That is to elucidate the fact that beliefs are based on evidence, and few things are simply “self-evident”, as proposed by Evidentialist Foundationalism, in philosophy. Beliefs are not things that we merely accept because of the “fact” (LOL) that they were designed by god or gods to produce truths about the world, but we accept our beliefs based on empirically or rationally based justification for those beliefs, relating to the universe that we can observe. This also goes to demonstrate the rather glaringly obvious fact that the naturalistic world and universe is the first axiom of logic in regards to uncovering truths in reality, rather than God-given precepts, as Plantinga believes.

In his tiger illustration, Plantinga lists 3 possibilities of how a pre homo s. sapiens like hominid that he called “Paul”, could end up trying to run away from a tiger. His 1st possibility is that he would for some reason like to be eaten, but when faced with a tiger, giving in to his instincts, presumably runs away hoping for a better prospect, if he isn’t killed. The 2nd example, is that Paul may be led to believe that the tiger is in fact a large and friendly cat, which he wants to stroke … but apparently also believes that the “best” way in which to pet it is to run from it. The 3rd point is one we would all obviously concur with, from both our instincts and our educated standpoint as humans. That Paul believes that the tiger could damage or kill him, and he runs to prevent that from happening.

• 1.) So there is thus a conundrum in expaining how Paul’s false belief could naturally arise by evolution, if both evolution and theism are true. Given the fact that God could have designed the beliefs to ensure that they matched with reality. If Paul wants to be eaten by a Tiger, but then runs hoping for a better prospect, how is it possible for Paul to determine the prospects, in Plantinga’s mind?Whatever the causal reasons are for this avoidance-of-tigers behaviour, Plantinga cannot adequately explain how it could be inferred from observation, OR how it could be acquired as a new belief from experience or cognition, by virtue of our “unreliable”, according to Plantinga, Cognitive Faculties.  This, if true, can only be, under Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology, a ”properly basic” belief about reality, and thus his argument is ultimately self-refuting to Plantinga’s broader epistemological positions, if this argument is truly taken to its inevitable conclusions.
• 2.) In the second example of Paul with his bizarre desire to cuddle and to pet the tiger, there is the same logical problem as before, but with added connotations. There are plenty of people who do in fact rather like the idea of cuddling up to a tiger, and some have in the past with relatively no injury. So what would stop a prehuman hominid like Paul from realizing this point?
• 3.) Finally is the false assumption that running away from a tiger is somehow a good or productive means of avoiding a tiger, when it is not., given the fact that tigers can run in excess of 35 mph, while the fastest humans humans can only run a 25 mph or so. And the fastest of tigers may average at 50 mph. As such, it would be more productive to use tools and weapons to fight the tiger, and shift your chances of survival a little.Thus, it seems that Plantinga can only use examples that never actually evolved, in order to prove his case. Plantinga in the 5th video then presents a hideous number of bizarre examples that are not really worth addressing. He spends his time endlessly repeating himself. BUT:Part 6 (skipped 5th vid)02:33 (2 minutes and 33 seconds)
  “The traditional theist on the other hand has no reason to doubt that his faculties are reliable, or that it is the purpose of our cognitive system to produce true beliefs. “

This is nothing short of a spectacular article of faith! Again, he is using the generic and unqualified term “theism”, and is not clear on what he means when uses the word “God”. It seems that he means the Judeo-Christian philosophy. But …. his term ‘theist’ applies to anyone who believes in God or gods. How does he know that a Demonic God could not exist and deliberately make our cognitive faculties Unreliable? Who is to make that judgement, and what is it’s significance if it is true? His whole argument would collapse, and so it seems that his entire argument is based on fundamentally flawed use of terms, and falls flat on it’s face on it’s first premise, that our faculties are reliable and truthful. Thus this argument is invalid, and is not a compelling argument against Evolutionary Naturalism. Thanks for reading.

Out-sources:

“Evolutionary argument against naturalism: An argument proposed by Alvin Plantinga (henceforth EAAN), which purports to show that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating and hence cannot be rationally accepted. In addition, Plantinga argues that theism does not face self-defeat in the same way that naturalism does. In what follows, I shall descrive EAAN and outline some of the main objections to it.
To begin with, let ‘N’ stand for metaphysical naturalism, the claim that there is no God and nothing like God; let ‘E’ stand for the view that human cognitive faculties have evolved by way of the mechanisms that are studied by contemporary evolutionary theory; and let ‘R’ stand for the claim that the beliefs produced by those cognitive faculties are for the most part true.
EAAN has three stages, each of which involves defending a certain premise:

(1) P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable (meaning that we cannot determine whether it is low or high). Call this the Probability Thesis.

(2) Anyone who accepts N and E and the Probability Thesis has a defeater for R. This is the Defeater Thesis.

(3) Anyone who has a defeater for R has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs.

From these premises, it follows that anyone who accepts N and E and the Probability Thesis has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs, including his belief in metaphysical naturalism. But one who is a naturalist must accept E (it is, says Plantinga, the only option for the naturalist when it comes to explaining the diversity of life). Hence, naturalism is self-defeating. Let us see how these three premises are defended.
Plantinga defends the Probability Thesis by inviting us to consider the case of a hypothetical population of creatures on a planet a lot like earth, formed by blind, undirected evolution, and to assume that naturalism is true. What is P(R/N&E) specified, not to us, but to them? Plantinga notes that, when we consider this hypothetical population, there are four possibilities:

P1: There is no causal connection between belief and behavior.

P2: Beliefs are the effects of behavior but are not among the causes of behavior.

P3: Beliefs do causally affect behavior, but not by virtue of their content.

P4: Beliefs do causally affect behavior in virtue of their content.

Plantinga then says that, since these four possibilities are jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive, the probability we want to assess, namely P(R/N&E), is given by the following weighted average:

P(R/N&E)
=
P(R/N&E&P1)P(P1/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P2)P(P2/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P3)P(P3/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P4)P(P4/N&E).

The Probability Thesis is then justified by estimating this weighted average. P(R/N&E&Pi) is estimated as low for i = 1, 2, 3, because in these cases beliefs will be invisible to natural selection and so there will be no selection pressure towards their being mostly true. It seems, initially, as though P(R/N&E&P4) is going to be very high, but Plantinga contests this estimate by presenting examples of beliefs which are false but which, when combined with strange desires, lead to felicitous action. In the latter case, Plantinga concludes that the probability will be at best moderately high, not very much more than a half.
It now remains to estimate the probabilities of the form P(Pi/N&E), for i = 1, 2, 3, 4. Here, Plantinga thinks that, because of the enormous difficulties that naturalists (almost all of whom are at present materialists) face in avoiding P3, P(P3/N&E) is very high. Now, P1, P2, P3, and P4 are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, and their respective probabilities sum to 1. Thus, each of P1, P2, and P4 must be estimated as having low probability on N&E. Plantinga claims that a reasonable estimate of the probabilities leads to an estimate of P(R/N&E) as being somewhat less than a half.
Plantinga grants, however, that estimating probabilities in this sort of context is a dubious business. So he concedes that it would be proper to take the relevant probabilities to be inscrutable to us, leading to the conclusion that P(R/N&E) is inscrutable to us. In this way, Plantinga arrives at his conclusion that P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable.
In his self-profile in this volume, Plantinga has given a new argument for the Probability Thesis, which does not consider different possibilities for the relation between belief and action, and which supports the stronger conclusion that P(R/N&E) is low (rather than the conclusion that it is low or inscrutable).
The Defeater Thesis is defended by appealing to hypothetical cases that, it is claimed, are clearly analogous to the case of the naturalist in EAAN. Since, in these cases, the subject has a defeater for R, the same is true of the naturalist who accepts the Probability Thesis. Two hypothetical cases that have tended to predominate in discussions of EAAN are The Case of the Cartesian Demon and The Case of the Drug XX. The former is described below, and a version of the latter is described in Plantinga’s self-profile in this volume.

The Case of the Cartesian Demon
Suppose a man comes to believe that he is the creation of a demon that, as imagined by Descartes, is immensely knowledgeable. Suppose that he also comes to believe that this demon is not particularly concerned with making his creations cognitively reliable, and on at least some occasions has been quite pleased to make them unreliable, and moreover has made them unreliable in such a way that they continue to think of themselves as paragons of reliability, being unable to detect the cognitive disaster that has befallen them. Thinking about this, the man comes to the conclusion that P(R/D) is low or inscrutable, where R is specified to himself, and D is the proposition that the man has been created by the demon. Then the man has a defeater for R.
Plantinga defends the third premise by arguing that, if the naturalist has a defeater for R, this generates a defeater for the rest of his beliefs as well. The reason is that all of the naturalist’s beliefs are products of his cognitive faculties, which constitute their source. Once the reliability of that source comes into question, so do the beliefs generated by the source. Moreover, the defeater for R that the naturalist acquires cannot itself be defeated, since everything that could be a defeater-defeater is itself subject to defeat. To support this, Plantinga says that to rely on one’s cognitive faculties to form a defeater-defeater of the defeater one has for R would be like trusting a man to tell you he is not a liar when you have already been given excellent reasons to doubt his honesty.
Let us now consider some objections to EAAN. Most of the controversy regarding the argument has focused on the Defeater Thesis. There has been one main worry that critics have had about this claim. The objections to it that we shall describe are manifestations of this worry, which can be expressed as follows: what exactly is the connection between the naturalist’s acceptance of the Probability Thesis on the one hand, and her acquisition of a defeater for R on the other? One of the most natural expressions of this worry is the Perspiration Objection

The Perspiration Objection
The probability that the function of perspiration is to cool the body given (just) N&E is also low. But surely it would be absurd to claim that this gives the naturalist a defeater for this belief. Thus, it is also absurd to claim that the naturalist has a defeater for R in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
There is no defeater in the perspiration case because the naturalist has other evidence for his beliefs about the function of perspiration, beyond just N&E. So could not the naturalist appeal to other evidence for his beliefs about R? This thought leads naturally to the Total Evidence Objection for EAAN.

The Total Evidence Objection
The naturalist has many other beliefs besides N&E. The probability of R relative to N&E conjoined with these other beliefs is quite high. Thus, the naturalist need not have a defeater for R in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
Many philosophers (including Plantinga) hold that, in addition to propositional evidence, beliefs can also be warranted in virtue of non-propositional evidence. This leads to yet another objection, due to Michael Bergmann, which we can call the Non-propositional Evidence Objection.

The Non-propositional Evidence Objection
Even if R has low probability on all the available propositional evidence, the naturalist could still have non-propositional evidence for R which makes it rational to continue to hold on to R. Hence, the naturalist need not have a defeater for R merely in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
These objections comprise just a small sample of the arguments against EAAN that have appeared in the published literature on the argument. Many of these, along with Plantinga’s responses to them, are articulated and discussed in Beilby (2002 [Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument]).”

(“Evolutionary argument against naturalism,” by Omar Mirza. In A Companion to Epistemology, 2nd ed., edited by Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, and Matthias Steup, 351-354. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.)

As for the technical term “defeater” –

“Following Pollock (1986), we can distinguish between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. Intuitively, where E is evidence for H, an undercutting defeater is evidence which undermines the evidential connection between E and H. Thus, evidence which suggests that you are a pathological liar constitutes an undercutting defeater for your testimony: although your testimony would ordinarily afford excellent reason for me to believe that your name is Fritz, evidence that you are a pathological liar tends to sever the evidential connection between your testimony and that to which you testify. In contrast, a rebutting defeater is evidence which prevents E from justifying belief in H by supporting not-H in a more direct way. Thus, credible testimony from another source that your name is not Fritz but rather Leopold constitutes a rebutting defeater for your original testimony. It is something of an open question how deeply the distinction between ‘undermining’ and ‘rebutting’ defeaters cuts.

Significantly, defeating evidence can itself be defeated by yet further evidence: at a still later point in time, I might acquire evidence E″ which suggests that you are not a pathological liar after all, the evidence to that effect having been an artifice of your sworn enemy. In these circumstances, my initial justification for believing that your name is Fritz afforded by the original evidence E is restored. In principle, there is no limit to the complexity of the relations of defeat that might obtain between the members of a given body of evidence. Such complexity is one source of our fallibility in responding to evidence in the appropriate way. ”

(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-defeasible

Of course, Plantinga did not need to reveal his bizarre ignorance of philosophy, metaphysics, biology, and Palaeoanthropology, by using his equally bizarre tiger examples. There are excellent examples of definitively false beliefs that have lead to better outcomes than ones that are “true”, to whatever standard. Take the placebo effect. Its not just a change of perception, it has measurable effects. Of course, Plantinga is not going to use real-world examples in his lecture, because his own beliefs are not based on anything real, and needs his Christian beliefs to appear at least somewhat more likely to be true at the end of his lecture. As I said, what kind of evil and disingenuous being would create us to have false beliefs? Then again, how could we disprove such a notion…? But if we don’t look at the examples of genuinely beneficial false beliefs that actually exist, and judge their value, we will fail to understand how false beliefs themselves can evolve. Plantinga sets himself up to fail in understanding false beliefs, and does so via a very selective attempt at looking at all the available evidence. Beliefs are part of an evolutionarily unique way of avoiding becoming trapped with mere instinctual mechanisms. Thus we need to examine not only whether or not the conclusions themselves are sound, but whether the method by which we arrive at them is also sound, be they mathematics, logic, deduction, induction, empiricism, abstraction, metaphysics, etc. What we’ve done with our scientific models is to produce a predictive instrument designed to weed out false theories and apprehensions, and it is through this method that it can be seen that Plantinga’s arguments can be seen to be invalid. That is why he want’s to destroy naturalism, even at the methodical level …

This book is a must read for anyone who is slightly apprehensive about reading books on complex physics due to it’s mathematical nature. Greene steers clear of any complex jargon, and explains ideas clearly an concisely, though you might find his use of characters from the Simpsons, and the X-files to explain relativity and quantum physics etc. somewhat patronizing (I certainly cringed a little bit at first, but I got used to it).

For example, he employs Lisa and Bart Simpson to explain Einstein’s theory of special relativity. He asks us to imagine Lisa shooting a laser off into the distance, and Bart chasing it on his high powered skateboard. The skateboard can travel 500 million miles per hour, whilst the laser travels at 670 million miles an hour. From Lisa’s stand point she would say that the beam of light was speeding away from Bart at 170 million miles an hour, however when Bart returns he states that the speed of the light was racing away from him at 670 million miles per hour. “If Lisa had been able to see Bart’s watch as he sped along at 500 million miles per hour, she would have seen that it was ticking about two-thirds as fast as her own,” he writes. The conclusion is stunning: the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time – an amazing truth, but I think it could have been explained without having to invoke Bart and Lisa Simpson!

Greene takes you through classical Newtonian physics, to the strange and counter intuitive realms of relativity and quantum physics (subjects I’d previously found daunting, but was surprised to find that I could actually grasp the basics of it and even explain it to people after reading), before asking questions about the nature of time at the level of both the Einsteinian and the quantum, moving on the origin of the universe, string theory and M-theory, and finally the prospects of teleportation and time travel.

Though the chapters themselves are quite long, each chapter is divided up into several parts under subheadings, so it’s an easy book to pick up and put down again, without feeling too lost. There’s plenty of illustrations, to aid your understanding of some of the concepts that he explains (this is particularly helpful when it comes to the quantum physics).

All in all, I would highly recommend this book to someone who, like me who initially feels challenged by physics and cosmology. It’s a really clear and easy to understand book, and you will find yourself being thrilled by many of the strange and wonderful concepts that it takes you through. If you’re already well versed in physics and cosmology, you will probably find the explanations and analogies in this book too patronizing and laboured, but for someone who feels daunted by the subjects covered, it is a perfect book to give you a basic grasp of the laws that govern the universe we live in. The Fabric of The Cosmos is an inspiring and enlightening read.

Rating: 9/10

Review by: Laurens

A recent story in the Dominion Post (Commercial benefits lacking in GE trials) reveals the genetic engineering trials being carried out by Crown Research institutions have lead to very few commercial gains. Plant and Food and AgResearch have paid over half a million dollars in application fees to ERMA and only one of the trials has resulted in royalty generating IP. To those familiar with New Zealand’s restrictive requirements for GE research, this outcome is hardly a surprise.

Despite decades of safe use around the world, GE and GMOs remain contentious issues in New Zealand. The regulatory environment alone makes it difficult to carry out even basic research, let alone the commercial research which scientists are now being criticised for not producing. Anti-GE spokeswoman Claire Bleakley decries that the benefit of GE research being completed in New Zealand is lost to the overseas companies. But if private companies are the only ones paying for the research to be carried out then it makes sense they are the ones who reap the economic benefit. Basic funding for GE research is simply not available in New Zealand, the funding bodies know there is little chance any innovation made will be allowed to be used.

If New Zealand wants its scientific organisations to produce applied science using GE technology then it must:
1) relax the regulatory environment so that research time and money is not being consumed navigating expensive legislation
2) fund GE projects so the IP is not captured by overseas companies
3) open the New Zealand market to GMOs so that the benefits of this technology can be accrued here

There is very little risk and huge benefits to allowing GE research to be conducted more freely. The longer New Zealand clings to the anti-GE label, the more we miss out on the exciting commercial opportunities. Rather than be GE-free, let’s free GE!

Cross-posted from IndoctrinatingFreethought.blogspot.com

But what a false picture this is!

Firstly, a proper definition of what a “Dark age” is has nothing to do with morality, One may condem what a certain society did at a paticular time period but that does not alter the fact of how “In Dark” or “In Light” the society in question to acedemia is. The Ancient Greeks, and paticularly the Spartans for example, practiced what could be described as a primitive form of eugenics.

And you can Condem them for that if you please, however as already stated it does not alter how “Dark” the society supposedly was. This is made all the more so because ancient Greek eugenics occured in a period of “Light”. The period of Aristotle and Plato. This is important because there was an actual “Ancient greek dark age” which lasted approximately 1200BC –800 BC. However it is my belief that, as we discover more about that time perion, such a “Dark” description for it will dwindle away into acedemic obscurity, regardless of the perceptions of the popular mind.

This is because the correct definition of a Dark age is simply put a time period that contemporary acedemics know relatively little about. Perhaps out of a lack of investigation, but mostly because of a lack of primary sources from said time and place. Hence the idea that the events of a certain period would seem “dark” to us compared to how much “Light” acedemia has shed with both what came before, and what came after the relevant time period.

Now correctly definied can we apply the Dark ages definition to say, Europe in the 1100′s or the 1200′s or the 1300′s or later? I don’t think so! Do acedemics know relatively little about any time period after say the 1100′s? I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say that, that is indeed the case. Even Wikipedia will tell you many modern scholars who study the Middle Ages tend to avoid the term “Dark ages” altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.

A case study, Let’s take my home country for example. “Merrye olde England” as the nostalgics call it, because for a good while and even up until the middle part of the 20th century, there was an actual brief interlude in our chronology that actually was called “Dark”. This was Circa 450AD to about 550-600AD.  Here’s a quote.

“For a better part of a century this darkness covers British history, lighted only at intervals by a momentary gleam from archaeology, … we are thus almost ignorant of every vital detail upon the very turning-point of our destiny, when Britain was conquered by the races which, if not making the majority of it’s population, have assuredly determined [our] language, structure of society, and national character. This darkness is felt the more, when we consider the evidence at our disposial [which the author goes on to describe as essentialy being "distant" from the time and place in question]” – Keith Feiling, “A History of England (1950)”, p21.

For Esmé Cecil Wingfield Stratford, this time period was “A Century and a half of almost complete darkness”, although he gives us an undated end to this so-called dark age. “The conversion to Christianity, that was the end of the dark age in Britain”. See his book, “The Foundations of British Patriotism (1939)” p27 and p31 for more details

But this time period was not “Dark” because there was a lack of investigation going on. On the contrary, scholars in the mid 20th century were studying what was going on back then, but they just couldn’t put certain dates onto certain events. As F.M Stenton in 1943 puts it…

“The Chronology of the period, has been studied intensively, but there remains an embarrasing number of incidents of which the the date has not yet been fixed” – preface from the Oxford History of England Vol II, “Anglo-Saxon England”, vi.

If that was the way things appeared back then in the middle of the 20th century, what about today? Well if Dan Snow’s 2009 BBC 4 documentary series “How the Celts Saved Britain (Unfortunately not available for you all on Youtube)” is anything to go by. Esmé Cecil Wingfield Stratford’s point would appear to still generaly hold true, perhaps minus some of the darkness. For you see our understanding of the relevant time period [like our understanding of other time periods in general], has grown much deeper over the last 60 odd years. And as to his point about Christianity, Snow claims something (can we say similar?) which is indeed quite interesting. That “bound up with the spread of Christianity from Ireland [to Britain] is the spread of modernity” [Quoted from the Daily Telegraph]

Ok so, that’s one side of my understanding, that the notion of a 1000yr long European Dark age is i consider essentialy to be a myth. Even the very [and proper] definition of what a Dark age is makes it so and it would appear that it was Christianity that saved the British isles from it’s 100 to 150 yr long “Dark age” if we can call it Dark in the 21st century. But what about Christianity in General, The religious element to Middle age society? 

Well i am not really a fan of the Conflict thesis on it’s own, Sure one can cherrypick examples of “opposition”, as John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White did in the late 1800′s and make sweeping conclusions out of it, but to do so ignores a larger picture and one could say alot can come down to as much to political circumstance and location as much to anything else. I am aware that in the ottoman Empire there is a different story than to what happened in Europe, in that the Clergy there did contribute heavily there to snuff out Scientific development. If there is one thing that explains the decline of the islamic world relative to it’s European counterpart, it is that the scientific revolution did not really happen there at all, despite Istanbul being not too far away from Christian Europe, and despite the great traditions of Muslim Science from the days of the 10th century Abbasid Caliphate [So far as the Conflict thesis is concerned, Context is key]. There’s an interesting figure by the name of “Ibrahim müteferrika”, it was he that persuaded the Sultan to allow the printing press in 1729, think of how much later that was than in Europe. One of his first publications was titled “Rational basis for the politics of nations” wherby he argued that..

“The ottoman Empire’s failure to adopt European methods of Governence and Scientific exploration was the root of it’s inability to compete geo-politically” – Tim Jacoby and Michael Mann, “Social Power and the Turkish State”, p67.

In other words, at his time of Writing, the European states were governed by the principles of Reason and the Ottoman Empire was not. How did this come to be? Arguably the first Turkish politican to really get the idea that Science is key to progress was perhaps “Mustafa Kemal Atatürk”, a secularist in Turkish politics and the founder of modern Turkey.

As far as i understand, Reason’d politics in Europe first really came to be in a time period known as the renaissance, that great flowering of the Arts, Science and Political philosophy. But you cannot have a flowering without a bud, and that bud came out the scientific work after the time of Charlemagne, which was not so much concerned with original investigation as it was with the active study and investigation of ancient Roman scientific texts, and it was this investigation which paved the way for the later effort of Western scholars to recover and translate ancient Greek texts in philosophy and the sciences, and it was out of this that reason began to emerge. So in essence one could say Medieval Christianity created the conditions ripe for that “Explosion in Art and Science, and reason and political philosophies”. [There was also the case that "The spread of Christianity in the Carolingian era had a beneficial effect on medical knowledge and treatment. Several of the church fathers expressed interest in medicine. Some of them even knew something about it" - John P. Mckay, Bennett D. Hill, and John Buckler, "A History of Western Society" p246.] But here’s an interesting question, perhaps one of you can help answer it. regarding the “revival of ancient learning” in the 12th and 13th centuries [again created by the conditions of the scientific work after Charlemagne], at the height of Medieval Christendom, what happenes to the idea that medieval Christianity was not “interested” in reviving all the Greco-Roman wonderfulness in the first place?

Nonetheless, To call the 12th and 13th Centuries a  time of “superstiton, ignorance and Barbarism”, with the commonly used misnomer of “Dark ages [with all the negativity that alone entails] being applied to it is not a correct one.

“But this [image just described] is a caricature, the acceptance of which has proved an obstacle to an understanding of the Middle Ages as they really were. It is true that the early centuries of the Medieval period, LIKE [my emphasis] those of late antiquity, saw a great deal of political and social turmoil. It is true that literacy and learning, in this early period, were in a state of decline. But an account that fails to acknowledge differences among geographical regions and change over time cannot do justice to the complex medieval reality. An accurate account will reveal that learning grew from small beginnings in the early Middle Ages to become a thriving industry in the later Middle Ages; that important scientific achievements emerged during this period; and that the church and it’s theology maintained a relationship to the natural sciences far too complicated to be captured by simple black and white categories such as adversaries or allies. Unquestionably some portions of the classical tradition gave rise to suspicion, hostility, and even ecclesiastical condemnation. However such cases were exceptional; Far more commonly, critical reflection about the nature of the world was tolerated and even encouraged. In their quest to understand the world in which they lived, medieval scholars employed all of the resources at their disposial, including inherited scientific ideas, personal observation, rational influence and religious tradition. And they did so with as much integrity as one finds today in the average university professor and with far less interference from the church than the caricature [that many hold to] of the middle ages would suggest” – “David C. Lindberg, “The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon, and the Handmaiden Metaphor”, in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, ed. “When Science & Christianity Meet”, p8.

Overall, i would say that the relationship between Science and religion was a fruitful one, certainly not a “Cozy” or “perfect” one, but they had a better relationship than the one that the conflict thesis suggests.

“While some historians had always regarded the Draper-White thesis as oversimplifying and distorting a complex relationship, in the late 20th century it went under a more systematic reevaluation. The result is the growing recognition among historians of science that the relationship of religion and science has been much more positive than is sometimes thought. Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule. In the words of David Lindberg … “There was no warfare between Science and the Church. The story of Science and Christianity in the middle ages is not a story of suppression nor one of it’s polar opposite, [complete] support and encouragement. What we find is an interaction exhibiting all the variety and complexity, with which we are familliar in other realms of Human endeavour; Conflict, compromise, understanding, misunderstanding, accomadation, dialouge, alienation, the making of common cause, and the going of seperate ways” (pp70-71). What Lindberg writes of Europe can be said to describe much of Western History. Evidence that the relationship between Science and religion has exhibited a multiciplity of attitudes, reflecting local conditions and particular historical circumstance, has led John Brooke to speak of a ‘complexity thesis’ as a more accurate model than the ‘Conflict thesis’. But while Brooke’s view has gained widespread acceptance among professional Historians of Science, the traditional view remains strong elsewhere, not least in the popular mind.” – Gary Ferngren, “Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction”, p. ix – x.

And that sums it up for me. As to that graph in the beginning, well i think it’s rhetorical nonsense, and not an accurate picture of what really went on back then.

The doctor prescribed my Dad some pain killers that my Mum promptly set off to collect. Whilst doing so she, being the caring sort she is, asked if there was anything else she could get that would help with my Dad’s discomfort. The helpful pharmacist recommended something that she stated she had used many times herself and my Mum, being the caring but rather un-skeptical sort she is, promptly purchased a pack of 12 Relief-Xtra Magnetic Plasters. Later when she informed me of this fact she admitted to not being exactly surprised by my reaction.

The Relief-Xtra Magnetic Plasters are basically small ceramic magnets mounted on circular plasters which are said to produce a magnetic field with a strength of 800 GAUSS. They are, of course, just one of many products that you can buy that fall under the heading of Magnetic Therapy, a pseudoscientific alternative medical “treatment” with, dare I say it, not a jot of evidence supporting its efficacy.

Now I am no expert on this sort of thing and will admit that 800 GAUSS sounded pretty impressive to me, and clearly the manufactures agreed as it is one for the main selling points on the box. Having no idea how strong this was I did a simple experiment. I placed one of the magnetic plasters on a metal surface and turned it upside-down. It stuck. Next I placed a single piece of paper between the magnet and the metal surface and again turned it upside-down. This time it did not stick. I repeated this a few times and the best result I got was the magnet hanging on for a few seconds as I rotated the surface past the 90 degree mark. So clearly 800 GAUSS is not the strongest of magnetic fields. For comparison a similar sized fridge magnet selected at random from my Mum’s vast collection effectively held ten times as many bits of paper, at which point I stopped counting. So the magnets used in these plasters are at least ten times weaker than those on your fridge and barely strong enough to make it through a single sheet of paper. Kind of makes you wonder how they are meant to make it through flesh and muscle to ease the pain in my Dad’s aching knees?

But of course even if the magnetic fields produced by these plasters were strong enough to make to where they were needed the evidence that they would actually have an effect once they got there is pretty much non-existent. Research shows that magnetic fields of equivalent and higher strength have no effect upon blood flow, contrary to one of the main claims put forward by proponents of magnetic therapy. Further more additional research on similar magnetic therapy devices shows that beyond “non-specific placebo effects” magnets are ineffective in the management of pain caused by arthritis, the specific issue for which they were recommended to my Mother. Robert Park, in his 2000 book Voodoo Science, summed it up perfectly when he said “Not only are magnetic fields of no value in healing, you might characterize these as “homeopathic” magnetic fields.” They don’t do anything and they are too weak to do so even if they did.

But believe it or not my frustration here is not aimed at the people who produce these completely ineffective products, as least not this time, nor at my Mum for buying them and certainly not at my Dad for walking around with two of them stuck to his knee. No my frustration is aimed squarely at Boots, the UKs most recognised and trusted pharmacy chain, for stocking, promoting and, in this case, directly recommending a product that is simply not up to the purpose for which it was sold. In fact, and this is unsurprising if you know anything about advertising laws, even the people who make this product do not claim it actually does anything. In fact the only claims made on the box are that magnetic therapy is recognised by modern science, has been used for thousands of years and that you should notice some undefined benefits after 24 hours. It makes no claim to treat pain of any sort, let alone arthritic pain. As with implied support from GPs when a trusted company like Boots sells a product like this they are, whether they intend to or not, conveying a message to their customers that the product works, that it will do what it is being sold to do and that it, like Boots themselves, can be trusted. This is simply not the case when it comes to magnetic therapy, or almost any alternative health care products for that matter. Less than two years ago Paul Bennett, a spokesman for Boots, stood up before a committee of MPs and told them that they sell homeopathic products basically because people buy them and not because they actually work. I strongly suspect something similar is going on here.

Further Reading:

Magnet Therapy: A Skeptical View

Magnet therapy doesn’t work

Magnet Therapy: Positive or Negative?

Students could choose between four options to describe their view on this relationship.

1. Conflict – I consider myself on the side of religion
2. Conflict – I consider myself on the side of science
3. Independence – they refer to different aspects of reality
4. Collaboration – each can be used to help support the other

Categories three and four were lumped together into a ‘non-conflict’ answer.

Of this sample 83% of the students were religious. Unsurprisingly then, this means that 86% of the respondents went with non-conflict (69%) or sided with religion (17%). That leaves 17% non-religious students, 14% of whom sided exclusively with science. Given the large proportion of Christians in the US and that most are not of the fundamental variety, meaning they will have their science and eat it too, this seems a fairly straight-forward result.

Interestingly by their junior year, 73% of those who had originally sided with religion had come to adopt a non-conflict or pro-science position. This shift perhaps reflects the secularising effect of education. However, 47% of those who had originally picked science had also shifted their position. Not as large of a percentage of those who changed from a pro-religion stand-point but a substantial proportion of students. Even when the researcher looked into the data for only science students, the moderating effect of education was still present. Apparently, learning more about science decreased the view that science and religion were in conflict.

What I would have liked to be able to look at is the detailed data for both the independence and collaboration viewpoints instead of having them lumped together in a single category. If it’s correct that more education promotes a more secular viewpoint I would expect to see the ‘independence’ category increase. Whereas if education was actually supporting religion, I would expect to see a growth in the number of students picking ‘collaboration’. With the data in their current form, it’s impossible to make such judgements.

1. SHEP is funded by the Templeton foundation; any true sceptics will now hum the Jaws theme.

Scheitle, C. P. (2011) U.S. College Students’ Perception of Religion and Science: Conflict, Collaboration, or Independence? A Research Note. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 50(1), 175-186.

NASA’s release: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/dec/HQ_10-320_Toxic_Life.html

So, how do you think this will affect the search for life elsewhere? It might not be life on Titan (as some speculated the news release might be about), but it’s still pretty cool.

Forum topic for convenience: http://forums.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6453

This strange claim is put forward by David Oates who runs an organisation called Reverse Speech Technologies. Reverse Speech is the idea that when we talk normally our subconscious minds encode messages into the words we choose that can only be identified by recording what we say and playing it backwards. These backwards messages are said to contain the true meaning of what we said as well as always speak the truth. Amongst the various uses for Reverse Speech Oates claims that Reverse Speech can be used to detect lies. Well them sound like fighting words to me and so I have put together a very simple experiment to test that claim. And that’s where you guys come in.

In order to test this claim I have put together a video, well technically two videos but who’s counting, that contains five statements, four of which are factual and one of which is a complete fabrication. After each statement is played you will hear it again only this time in reverse. If the claims of David Oates are accurate then you should be able to hear in the reverse versions of the five statements clues as to whether they are truthful or not. Once you have decided which of the five statements you believe is the false one then all you need to do is vote for that statement in the poll that you can access from a link in the information box below the second part of the video. Unlike my pervious experiment the results of how people have voted and the details of which statement is in fact the false one will be accessable immediately so you don’t have to sit around for ages waiting for me to make another video explaining how everything went.

Ok so it is not as sexy as testing psychic powers or debunking homeopathy, however as far as I can tell this is the very first time this specific pseudoscientific claim has been tested which means you will be a part of something no one has ever done before. To get involved, and I hope you will, go watch this video and simply follow the instructions you will find there. Sorry my video presentation is somewhat less than dynamic, that is really something I have to work on.

Legislators in San Francisco are set to introduce new laws requiring all mobile phone retailers to post radiation emission level notices next to all the handsets they sell. Tony Winnicker, spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, claims that this “is a modest commonsense measure to provide greater transparency and information to consumers” and the proposal, which passed with a vote of 10-1, is likely to get its final approval next week despite the fact that there is NO EVIDENCE that mobile phones cause any harm to humans.

The idea that mobile phones can cause brain cancer is a widely held misconception that has long been shown to be false by that pesky spoiler of fun known as “peer reviewed scientific evidence”. For example a study conducted in Denmark, and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, looked at the effect of RF radiation on 420,000 mobile phone users over a 13 year period. They looked for any sign that mobile phone use caused an increase in a wide variety of different cancers and related conditions. The results were pretty conclusive:

Risk for these cancers … did not vary by duration of cellular telephone use, time since first subscription, age at first subscription, or type of cellular telephone (analogue or digital). Analysis of brain and nervous system tumors showed no statistically significant [standardized incidence ratios] for any subtype or anatomic location. The results of this investigation … do not support the hypothesis of an association between use of these telephones and tumors of the brain or salivary gland, leukemia, or other cancers.

In fact the very idea of mobile phones causing cancer makes very little sense. Mobile phones do not use ionizing radiation, nor do they use oscillating frequencies like those found in microwave ovens. As such that pretty much rules out any plausible way by which your mobile could conceivably cook your brain. But not only is there no reason to believe that there is any danger from mobile phones in the first place, there is also disagreement regarding whether the new legislation will accomplish its goal of better informing the public.

“Rather than inform, the ordinance will potentially mislead consumers with point-of-sale requirements suggesting that some phones are ‘safer’ than others, based on radio frequency emissions,” said John Walls, vice-president of public affairs for the CTIA.

By hey, why should we listen to those scientists and their “evidence” when it is much easier to put a pointless and confusing law in place to help ease our irrational misgivings regarding things we don’t really understand? The only people I see benefiting from this new law are those people selling products that claim to protect you from the radiation coming from your mobile. So well done San Francisco, you have created a law that helps the purveyors of pseudoscience. Nice one.

However, you develop an unfair bias of a newspaper when you peruse it mainly to find new nonsense to write about in your blog. You ignore all rational articles about politics\current affairs\crossbows to the face and concentrate only on articles that guarantee a spout of vitriol frothy enough to incur a transparent sense of self-righteousness. And as a result, your perception is that the chosen paper exists only to print stories about religion, druids and the supernatural. Unfair, since the Metro regularly dishes out reasonably informative articles about modern science and astronomy.

My last fodder was about druids fixing roads, and it’s hard to have sympathy for a publication that will indulge itself with such asinine balls. But almost the next day, indeed it could have been the next day, the Metro printed this. Our very own Phil Plait, who I have happily if briefly met (and who disillusioned me slightly by expressing a certain reserve for District 9, damn it Phil when will you see that guys in alien power armour are the next Casablanca) blogged about a photo of a lunar rock that had rolled into a crater. The Metro picked this up and wrote the small piece to which I just linked.

They could have taken Phil’s approach, which was “OMFG space is awesome and beautiful”. And they sort of did. But they also titled the article “Proof that golf-playing God shot a hole-in-one on the Moon?”

Facedesk.

Why, why would you do this? What manner of journalist would take a story about a lunar event of some rarity and make it into terrifyingly inept pun-based  pseudoscience? Am I only this annoyed because I loathe religion? No, I don’t think I am. The image itself deserved a tone of joyous solemnity (and sure, Phil played with a few golfing metaphors himself before getting into the science of it; I imagine the Metro stole the idea.) But that wouldn’t have been enough to make a prominent article; only invoking God could elevate the story into something worthy of News. Not content with printing stories about supernatural druidical assholery, they feel the need to take stories of astronomical wonder and create supernatural assholery. ” . . . this picture suggests that the Almighty could have had a round or two on the grey course – and even scored a hole-in-one.” What? You can almost hear the satisfied smirk as it drips off the journo’s face and congeals in the folds of his Armani tie.

You were so close to redeeming yourself, Metro. Now I hate you hate you hate you.

Print news, fine. Even if that means factually reporting on nonsense, fine. But taking science and jokingly inserting God? I will end you. With sticks.

The commercialisation of research has exploded in the fields of biomedical science and biotechnology, with industry poised to make millions, scientists are all too happy to take a cut of the action. However, money is a powerful motivator and researchers now have an added incentive to find certain result. The result which favours whatever corporation provides the funding. If scientists are being influenced by their source of funding, then it should be apparent in their results. Industry funded projects should find positive results more often than non-profit funding. Indeed, taking the example of pharmaceutical research, that is what we find.

Many scientific journals require the submitting authors to declare any conflicts of interest, for example being funded by the same company who owns the patent on the drug in question. Several statistical analyses have been done on the outcomes of these studies and the results should not be surprising to anyone who understands the effects of bias. In 2001 an analysis of 314 drug trials found that non-profit funded research was 3.5 times more likely to find a negative result than industry sponsored trials¹. A 2002 study of 159 articles in the British Medical Journal, which requires that funding be declared, found that the authors’ conclusions were significantly more positive in trials funded by for profit organisations compared with trials without competing interests (mean difference 0.48, P=0.014)². A 2004 study showed that in 158 drug trials published in five leading medical journals results favoured industry funded studies by an odds ratio of 1.9³. Finally, in 2003 a review selected 37 of the most rigorous studies and pooled their data. They found a statistically significant odds ratio of 3.6 favouring industry funded research⁴. This review also found that industry funding was associated with restriction on publication and data sharing if the results were negative.

One point to make about these analyses is that they are correlative only, causation could not be determined. Although the quality of the studies was controlled for (often poorer quality in industry funded trials) one possible explanation is that industry interests somehow pick pharmaceuticals that are more likely to succeed in trials. I can’t imagine how they would know beforehand which drugs have better prospects, but it is a possibility. More likely, however, is that the scientists performing these studies are influenced by the commercial factors at play in their research. These results are very reminiscent of ‘tobacco science’ where, for example, 94% of industry funded inquiry found no harm from second-hand smoke compared to just 13% of non-profit funded research. If correct, this interpretation is quite troubling. First, it means that consumers are being bombarded by new pharmaceuticals which are of questionable value over the old versions and in some cases, downright dangerous. Second, the reputation of science for impartiality and following evidence is being ruined by commercial interest by both outside companies and the scientists themselves. When the commercial bias of scientists is revealed, say through a drug recall or hidden financial contributions, the public starts becoming suspicious of these intellectual elites. In fact, the commercialisation of research could be contributing to the distrust of science, the growing interest in alternative medicine, and the rejection of genetic engineering.

Believe it or not there was a time when industry and academia where more or less separate. Scientists with relevant expertise might be given an honorarium to help overcome a particular problem or speak on a certain topic, but that was about it. Funding was largely provided by governments and scientists were free to explore myriad lines of inquiry, whether it might lead to a practical application or not. Even when there research could be commercialised, the scientists themselves would rarely have much to do with it. Their results were given away into the public domain. In 1954, Jonas Salk developed his vaccine against polio, when asked whether he would patent it he found the idea ridiculous replying, “Could you patent the sun?” Unfortunately, this attitude is found rarely in the field of biotechnology. Many exotic genes and interesting methods are often patented by the researchers who first discover them either preventing further inquiry or driving the cost of research even higher. This also makes the funding of science less attractive to the public sector that now sees less return for its investment.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any solutions for the problem. I just think the commercialisation of research makes an important contribution to the growth of science denialism and was worth highlighting. Patent law clearly needs a complete overall. I dislike attempts to own parts of nature – “to patent the sun” – but companies do need protection for their intellectual property. Similarly, industry funding research is having a negative impact on the impartiality of science, but there is no denying the benefits that have emerged from such partnerships. Perhaps blinding individual scientists to the source of their funding and preventing patents on natural products could go some way to removing this troubling commercial bias from academic scientists.

1. Yaphe J, Edman R, Knishkowy B, Herman J. The association between funding by commercial interests and study outcome in randomized controlled drug trials. Fam Pract. 2001 Dec;18(6):565-8.
2. Lise L Kjaergard & Bodil Als-Nielsen. Association between competing interests and authors’ conclusions: epidemiological study of randomised clinical trials published in the BMJ. BMJ 2002;325:249 ( 3 August )
3. Bhandari M, Busse JW, Jackowski D, Montori VM, Schünemann H, Sprague S, Mears D, Schemitsch EH, Heels-Ansdell D, Devereaux PJ. Association between industry funding and statistically significant pro-industry findings in medical and surgical randomized trials. CMAJ. 2004 Feb 17;170(4):477-80.
4. Justin E. Bekelman, AB; Yan Li, MPhil; Cary P. Gross, MD Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research: A Systematic Review JAMA. 2003;289:454-465

[Item] or [practice] nullifies or negates the effects, presence, activity or consequences of [entity], [energy], or [phenomenon]. How can you tell? Because absolutely nothing is happening, and so the [item] or [practice] is a legitimate success. This stone keeps away bears. You can tell because you don’t see any bears around here . . . yes, this stone IS for sale. How expensive? Completely.

 This kind of non-logic is still happening today, and not only is it still happening but it’s actively endorsed by government bodies. Welcome to Austria, where a hitherto fatality-laden length of motorway near Salzburg has been fixed. By magic.

Druid Ilmar Tessman has blamed the high accident rate on a local mobile phone mast, which spreads “negative radiation over 120-200 miles.”

The accident rate has been reduced to zero in two years by the use of standing stones and magnets, apparently. Responding to scientific skeptics who say “Whatever can’t be measured does not exist” (Dr Georg Walach, Leoben University), Tessman says “If you ask me to give you a scientific explanation, I can’t. I just know it works, and even critics can’t argue with our success rate.”

Guess what? They can. I find it bogglingly, numbingly depressing that such nonsense is tolerated, let alone invested in as a valid solution. Instead of subjecting such findings to further research – and think about it, if you genuinely were sure that cheap edifices of stone, plastic and magnets could prevent car accidents surely you’d research the hell out of it, given that it represents a new stage of physics – this coincidental nonsense is simply allowed to continue. Drivers on these dangerous roads, whose risk factor has not been reduced in the slightest by these druidical interventions, will drive thinking they’re safe. I’ll tell you for free what reduced the rate of accidents – coincidence. People happened not to die for two years running, which is hardly surprising on a well known accident black spot. The more notorious the area becomes, the more careful drivers will be on it. Makes sense, I feel. But now? Drivers will think that elemental magic protects them from harm, and will quite possibly drive more dangerously as a result.

Grow up, world. If Tessman has truly stumbled on a new arena of scientific endeavour, don’t you think he should write a few papers on the subject?

You can find on the internet, today, people who genuinely think they have psychic or telekinetic powers. Imagine the new depths of Tessman’s delusion now that he’s been told he can fix road traffic fatalities. It’s cruel, when you think about it.

These facts show there is, at least, a kind of ‘brute compatibility’ between science and religion; a single person can hold both ideas simultaneously. However, the obvious counter to ‘brute compatibility’ is to point out that in certain cases the findings of science conflict with specific religious claims about the nature of the world. For example, if you claim that the world is 6,000 years old, science says you are wrong. According to empirical data, the world is more like 4.5 billion years old and anyone who says the scientific evidence shows otherwise is simply mistaken. Because science can only conflict with specifically defined religious claims, I call this ‘specific incompatibility’. Although this type of incompatibility is important, and probably accounts for a large proportion of science’s moderating impact on religion, it does not completely contradict all types of religious claims. Again, this answer is too superficial; the original question is asking something more fundamental – are religion and science incompatible at the deeper, philosophical level?

Here we must start with a rigorous understanding of the exact nature of science, its epistemological limits, and the assumptions it makes. First science assumes that the universe exists and is, broadly speaking, observer independent. This assumption avoids the problem of solipsism, where I could construct an argument based on the idea that the universe is simply a figment of my (hyperactive) imagination. The second assumption brings in causality, scientists must assume that causes and effects are empirical (observable and measurable) and, more importantly, natural. That these causes must be empirical is fairly self-explanatory. If we cannot observe and measure we cannot draw any inferences, offer any explanations, or say anything at all about them! Basically, we would not be able to do science. Less clear might be why science can only approach natural causes rather than supernatural ones.

Let’s use an example to help highlight the problem of supernatural causes. A nice set of evidence for evolution is that of the fossil record. Without going into too much detail, the arrangement and transitions of different fossil types is empirical evidence for evolution occurring in the real world (the universe out there). However, along comes a supernaturalist, and he to us “yes, I agree with your observations and measurements of the fossil evidence, however God (or other supernatural cause) made it so the fossil record appeared to support evolution but in reality the theory is wrong.” This is a serious and unsolvable problem for science and it can be applied to any other explanation or conclusion derived from methods based on the two assumptions above. If supernatural causes occur, the best of verifiable, empirical science will frequently give the wrong answer. If God (et al) always makes the observed and measured evidence look like it is supporting the wrong conclusion no appeal to empiricism can save a scientific theory – by definition. This is why science must reject supernatural causation and become methodologically naturalist at the outset. Without this assumption we would not be able to do science.

Methodological naturalism, therefore, means that science cannot ever make a judgment on supernatural claims. Science assumes that supernatural causes don’t exist and gets on with its job of figuring out the observable universe. As religion, for the large part, is based on such supernatural claims (God caused the universe, Karma causes ill luck, Boobs cause earthquakes) science has very little to do with the majority of religious assertions. I call this ‘philosophical compatibility’, as an understanding of the philosophy of science shows that science and religion are not in conflict. I accept that in specific cases religious claims may contradict with the findings of science and in those cases religion is wrong, but we can always take the step back to the philosophical level and show that such ‘contradictions’ may not be problematic if we allow for supernatural causes.

There’s one last level I want to discuss and that is ‘metaphysical incompatibility’. Working from science and its assumption of methodological naturalism one might take the eminently reasonable position of philosophical naturalism – supernatural forces positively do not exist in the real world. Note that this is not a scientific position but a metaphysical one, albeit one informed by scientific understanding. Science is insufficient to get us to philosophical naturalism, the move also requires reason and logical arguments (examples would include the argument from suffering of which I am fond). Philosophical naturalism is in clear contradiction with a metaphysic infused with religious supernaturalism. There is also a secondary incompatibility at this level but Feynman said it best so I’m going to turn the last word over to him:

“As a matter of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe – both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion.”

And that is the heart of the science/religion incompatibility in a nutshell.

For every person who applies good skeptical thinking and basic scientific understanding in their everyday lives there are at least three people who religiously check their horoscopes on the way to visit their local homeopath. In the recent election for example I discovered that my local MP supported making homeopathy available on the NHS and one of the smaller parties had climate change denialism as part of its manifesto. Something is seriously wrong with that.

So what can we, as hardened and, if I may say so, devilishly attractive skeptics, do about it? How can we help to make the general public more skeptical and more science literate? Well I am sorry to say that I don’t have an answer. I’ve been trying to do my small part by working on a “beginners guide” style book about skepticism but it is not as though that has never been done before. As such my thoughts have recently turned to smaller things, which brings me to the point of this post. I have a question for you.

If you could give one bit of advice, drop one bit of knowledge or just make one suggestion to the general public or someone new to skepticism then what would it be?*

Maybe we can’t influence the world as a whole, but perhaps we can start sowing little seeds of logical and rational thinking. I like to think of this as bulletpoint skepticism. Little catchy easy to remember pieces of information that can change the way people thing. For example simply knowing about something like pareidolia makes it less likely that you will be convinced that you’re really are seeing the virgin Mary in your breakfast cereal.

Anyway it is just an idea that I had, not sure if it is a good one or not or even if I have explained it at all well, but I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with. Plus I haven’t posted anything in ages and felt that I really should put something up. All these newbies are starting to make me look bad.

* Be warned, if you come up with something great I am so stealing it for my book.

When travelling from Heathrow to central London last week upon my return to the UK, I picked up a couple of papers to catch up on the happenings of the prior six weeks. Amongst everything, the article that interested me most was actually in the Metro (for all you non-Londoners, it’s hardly a diamond mine of current affairs commentary, sort of the written version of MSN News). It was about the call of 255 National Academy of Science members (including 11 Nobel laureates) to end the media persecution of climate science. Remember how countless news organisations (…and Fox) reported the deliberate distortion of data, supposedly revealed in private emails leaked from the Climate Research Unit? Remember how a modicum of actual research revealed that the entire controversy boiled down to nothing but misunderstandings and desperate lies by deniers of anthropogenic global warming? Well, 255 scientists recently signed a letter to Science expressing their concern at how these lies damage the reputation of science in the public eye. The letter, which can be read here, should in my opinion be propagated far and wide, and I am somewhat disappointed that many papers only quoted the odd word from it, rather than reproducing it in full. As such, I am placing a copy in this post to display my support.

Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. Whensomeone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial—scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory ofevolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations ofheat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels.

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

P. H. Gleick, R. M. Adams, R. M. Amasino, E. Anders, D. J. Anderson, W. W. Anderson, L. E. Anselin,M. K. Arroyo, B. Asfaw, F. J. Ayala, A. Bax, A. J. Bebbington, G. Bell, M. V. L. Bennett, J. L. Bennetzen,M. R. Berenbaum, O. B. Berlin, P. J. Bjorkman, E. Blackburn, J. E. Blamont, M. R. Botchan, J. S. Boyer,E. A. Boyle, D. Branton, S. P. Briggs, W. R. Briggs, W. J. Brill, R. J. Britten, W. S. Broecker, J. H. Brown,P. O. Brown, A. T. Brunger, J. Cairns, Jr., D. E. Canfield, S. R. Carpenter, J. C. Carrington,A. R. Cashmore, J. C. Castilla, A. Cazenave, F. S. Chapin, III, A. J. Ciechanover, D. E. Clapham,W. C. Clark, R. N. Clayton, M. D. Coe, E. M. Conwell, E. B. Cowling, R. M Cowling, C. S. Cox,R. B. Croteau, D. M. Crothers, P. J. Crutzen, G. C. Daily, G. B. Dalrymple, J. L. Dangl, S. A. Darst,D. R. Davies, M. B. Davis, P. V. de Camilli, C. Dean, R. S. Defries, J. Deisenhofer, D. P. Delmer,E. F. Delong, D. J. Derosier, T. O. Diener, R. Dirzo, J. E. Dixon, M. J. Donoghue, R. F. Doolittle, T. Dunne,P. R. Ehrlich, S. N. Eisenstadt, T. Eisner, K. A. Emanuel, S. W. Englander, W. G. Ernst, P. G. Falkowski,G. Feher, J. A. Ferejohn, A. Fersht, E. H. Fischer, R. Fischer, K. V. Flannery, J. Frank, P. A. Frey,I. Fridovich, C. Frieden, D. J. Futuyma, W. R. Gardner, C. J. R. Garrett, W. Gilbert, R. B. Goldberg,W. H. Goodenough, C. S. Goodman, M. Goodman, P. Greengard, S. Hake, G. Hammel, S. Hanson,S. C. Harrison, S. R. Hart, D. L. Hartl, R. Haselkorn, K. Hawkes, J. M. Hayes, B. Hille, T. Hökfelt,J. S. House, M. Hout, D. M. Hunten, I. A. Izquierdo, A. T. Jagendorf, D. H. Janzen, R. Jeanloz,C. S. Jencks, W. A. Jury, H. R. Kaback, T. Kailath, P. Kay, S. A. Kay, D. Kennedy, A. Kerr, R. C. Kessler,G. S. Khush, S. W. Kieffer, P. V. Kirch, K. Kirk, M. G. Kivelson, J. P. Klinman, A. Klug, L. Knopoff,H. Kornberg, J. E. Kutzbach, J. C. Lagarias, K. Lambeck, A. Landy, C. H. Langmuir, B. A. Larkins,X. T. Le Pichon, R. E. Lenski, E. B. Leopold, S. A. Levin, M. Levitt, G. E. Likens, J. Lippincott-Schwartz,L. Lorand, C. O. Lovejoy, M. Lynch, A. L. Mabogunje, T. F. Malone, S. Manabe, J. Marcus, D. S. Massey,J. C. McWilliams, E. Medina, H. J. Melosh, D. J. Meltzer, C. D. Michener, E. L. Miles, H. A. Mooney,P. B. Moore, F. M. M. Morel, E. S. Mosley-Thompson, B. Moss, W. H. Munk, N. Myers, G. B. Nair,J. Nathans, E. W. Nester, R. A. Nicoll, R. P. Novick, J. F. O’Connell, P. E. Olsen, N. D. Opdyke, G. F. Oster,E. Ostrom, N. R. Pace, R. T. Paine, R. D. Palmiter, J. Pedlosky, G. A. Petsko, G. H. Pettengill,S. G. Philander, D. R. Piperno, T. D. Pollard, P. B. Price, Jr., P. A. Reichard, B. F. Reskin, R. E. Ricklefs,R. L. Rivest, J. D. Roberts, A. K. Romney, M. G. Rossmann, D. W. Russell, W. J. Rutter, J. A. Sabloff,R. Z. Sagdeev, M. D. Sahlins, A. Salmond, J. R. Sanes, R. Schekman, J. Schellnhuber, D. W. Schindler,J. Schmitt, S. H. Schneider, V. L. Schramm, R. R. Sederoff, C. J. Shatz, F. Sherman, R. L. Sidman, K. Sieh,E. L. Simons, B. H. Singer, M. F. Singer, B. Skyrms, N. H. Sleep, B. D. Smith, S. H. Snyder, R. R. Sokal,C. S. Spencer, T. A. Steitz, K. B. Strier, T. C. Südhof, S. S. Taylor, J. Terborgh, D. H. Thomas,L. G. Thompson, R. T. Tjian, M. G. Turner, S. Uyeda, J. W. Valentine, J. S. Valentine, J. L. van Etten,K. E. van Holde, M. Vaughan, S. Verba, P. H. von Hippel, D. B. Wake, A. Walker, J. E. Walker,E. B. Watson, P. J. Watson, D. Weigel, S. R. Wessler, M. J. West-Eberhard, T. D. White, W. J. Wilson,R. V. Wolfenden, J. A. Wood, G. M. Woodwell, H. E. Wright, Jr., C. Wu, C. Wunsch, M. L. Zoback

It’s incredibly dismaying to see that phrases such as “Mike’s Nature Trick” are still being passed around by members of special interest groups to confuse the public and generate unnecessary, unproductive controversy and ‘debate’ amongst people who, frankly, don’t have a clue. It seems awfully hard to convince people of the accuracy of the scientific consensus, and very easy to generate dissent predicated on ignorance and apathy. As such, I ask you, my fellow Leaguers, not to forget all of the news organisations who unethically stoked the flames of distraction last November, and continue to piss in the well of knowledge at the probable expense of future generations. Remember how they lied, and be sure to use this as an example if your future opponents ever attempt to cite them as credible scientific resources. In the battle for public ideas, those past records of dishonesty will, I hope, remind the public to listen to the scientists when it comes to scientific matters, and not Bill O’Reilly.

The other paper I picked up was the Independent, wherein I found a heated, but utterly worthwhile opinion piece by Johann Hari on the subject. He’s known for having a short fuse when it comes to climate change denial, and I’m sure many denialists love to paint him petulant, but he makes a good point and makes it well. I certainly recommend reading it.

Deniers – apologise for Climategate.

Around 300 of these scientists (both religious and non-religious) were followed up in more in-depth interviews. Many scientists had the view that religion was not a topic for discussion amongst their colleagues and chose to keep their faith hidden. Others had unorthodox views of religion – not believing in God while still identifying as a catholic, for example. Only 2% identified their beliefs as ‘fundamental’ or ‘evangelical’. The best news was that none of the interviewees though intelligent design (creationism) should be taught in classrooms.

Interestingly, the results of this survey indicate that learning about science does not seem to cause people to lose their religious beliefs. Most of these scientists had already come to their religious point of view before engaging into higher education. The biggest predictor of a scientist’s religion (or lack thereof) was still the religion of their parents.

I think this survey has revealed some heartening information about the scientific community (at least in USA). Scientists that are also religious already understand the tensions between science and faith, and how to resolve them. These religious scientists are also more likely to be accepted into faith-based communities and have the best chance of imparting good scientific information. As long as they are not to scared to ‘come out’ to their colleagues, there is a great opportunity for some useful dialogue in the science vs. religion debate.

Ecklund, Elaine and Christopher Scheitle 2007. ‘Religion Among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics.’ Social Problems 54: 289–307.

Most of you probably know me already, or have at least argued with me over some trivial detail in an unimportant thread. I’ve been here since the earliest days of the League of Reason and it’s become one of my favourite online communities. I hail from New Zealand which is a nicely sized nation in the South Pacific. I consider myself very lucky to have been born surrounded by all this natural beauty – see Lord of the Rings for your walk in the local park. I’m still finishing my university education but have so far completed a degree in biotechnology.

I’m a lifelong atheist but it wasn’t until the final years of college that I got into scepticism. I’m a member of the NZ skeptics and do what I can to help out on worthy causes. I might as well pimp the new sceptical podcast: The CUSP . If I have to choose a label I’d go with freethinker because I think that best sums up the way I (want to) approach new information and ideas. I’d also like to consider myself a fierce proponent of all things scientific and have done my best to inform people on matters involving evolution, global warming, vaccines, homeopathy, and other alternative medicines.

Enough of what you agree with me about, where can we have an argument? I think objective morality exists, GM agriculture is a good idea, and support the wars on Iraq and Christmas. Threads can be found around the LoR and other sites in which I (attempt to) defend these positions. I love to read and would probably class myself as a bit of a bibliophile. Whether you agree with my positions or not, I hope my blog posts will make you think about current issues facing atheists, freethinkers, and sceptics and that you get something out of them.

Before I came to this site I had never heard of Carl Sagan so I’ll finish with a quote from him that goes right to the heart of my philosophy: “It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” I think that’s exactly right.

Blog: Indoctrinating Freethought
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aught3 and http://www.youtube.com/user/Belikescopes

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

Well that certainly sounds, er well, “logical” to me. But the best thing about this insane story is that it makes a claim that is scientifically testable, and oh so wonderfully so. Jen, over at the awesome Blag Hag Blog, proposes that we do just that.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

Now that is what I call science. So come on ladies, this is your chance to get involved in a grass roots scientific experiment. Sure there is a slim chance that you may accidently destroy a city or two, but I for one am willing to take the risk. As Jen said, come Monday it will be time for a Boobquake.

As I anticipated would happen, Rabbitpirate beat me to laying the first League blogstone on the subject of Simon Singh and his sudden victory. Since I’m not a petty man/as good as Rabbitpirate, I’d love to see him do a longer musing on the subject without the dilution that my opinions would create. However I just wanted to highlight one thing.

Quoting from the BCA’s press release, “The BCA has considered seeking leave to take this matter to the Supreme Court and has been advised there are strong grounds for appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment. However, while it was right to bring this claim at the outset, the BCA now feels that the time is right for the matter to draw to a close. ”

Isn’t that beautiful? The legal equivalent of saying “I could smash your face in, I could . . . any time I wanted . . . only I’m not going to. Any time. But now I’m going home.” For “been advised there are strong grounds for appeal” read “quick, save face ANY WAY WE GODDAMN CAN.” And what’s the best way to save face? Lie. If there were truly strong grounds for appeal the BCA, an organisation that has happily made a decent, genuine, intelligent and (I’m fortunate to know this from personal experience) really lovely man suffer tremendously for years, would without hesitation appeal to continue. Of course they would. Singh said mean*, hurtful** and unfortunately absolutely true things about them so they responded with petty legality. If there was the slightest chance the case could be pursued, don’t you think the BCA would go for it? Just to hurt Simon? 

I love seeing people forced to back down after attempting to use laws to censor dissenting voices. We’ve all had our run-ins with DMCAs on Youtube, but Singh has become the poster boy for hope and reason against the odds. And as the BCA sidles grumbling into the shadows, we can only hope that libel laws everywhere face a swift dissolution.

Rabbitpirate? Over to you, sir.

* “You are all frauds”

** “Your mothers are ladies of questionable moral integrity”

The other day someone I work with mentioned that they believe that there is a real difference between the memories of men and women. Now this didn’t sit right with me and so rather than try to argue with him based upon nothing but my personal opinion I thought I would do an experiment to see if I could get a more definitive answer.

And this is where you lot come in. In order to test this I have made a youtube video and all you need to do is watch it and then answer six simple questions about what you saw. That’s it. Now hopefully if I can get enough people answering the questions then when I correlate all the answers they will actually mean something. That said this is the first time I have ever done anything like this so it could all go terribly wrong. Ah well that’s science for you. Anyway I predict that, once everything is added up, there will be no real difference between the memories of men and women, though we may see a difference when it comes to the ages of those involved.

So help me out. Go watch the video and tell other people to watch it and answer the questions as well. I am aiming for at least a hundred answers but the more the merrier.

Click here to join the experiment.