Books in the News

Here is a debate/interview between Alister McGrath and Richard Dawkins:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626&q=richard+dawkins+interview&total=76&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=8

Richard Dawkin's seems to come out on top.

Wow, I didn't know about that SEP article. I thought Wikipedia's entries on those issues were bad (despite some serious attempts on my part to convince some of the editors on the discussion pages, only some of which made some progress). But I think this is actually worse, and it's from someone who has no excuse.

It's funny to hear anti-ID people complaining that the main ID tactic is a bait-and-switch when one of the most common anti-ID moves is to define creationism very broadly so ID counts as creationism but then to rely on a completely different understanding of creationism so that creationists must deny evolution in order to make it come out that ID is necessarily opposed to evolution. Similar moves appear regularly.

It's funny that he concludes by saying that creationism is scientifically confused, because the confusion seems to be largely a result of what he does with the term.

Here's one for Ruse: "Blurbs like that make me embarrassed to be a book publisher."

And we should all be listening to Ruse, who in this letter calls "evolutionism" (new term?) a "secular religion." (That's not a stale talking point or anything...)

"Now don’t be grumpy - You may want to try to extricate yourself, since you are certainly losing ground fast in the evolutionary community that I am in touch with.” — I am a full professor with tenure at a university known chiefly for its prowess on the football field, living out my retirement years in the sunshine - I have no reputation to preserve, and frankly can say and do whatever the f**k I want to without sinking further.

Now, for the record.

I am a hard-line Darwinian and always have been very publicly when it did cost me status and respect - in fact, I am more hard-line than you are, because I don’t buy into this meme bullsh** but put everything - especially including ethics - in the language of genes. I stick to this and my next book - which incidentally starts by quoting you approvingly on the world importance of selection - goes after the lot - Marxists, constructivists, feminists, creationists, philosophers, you name it.

Look it up — http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052182947X/qid=1140387259/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-1428663-3883125?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

It is true that I condemn or at least want to point to evolutionism, which I do think functions as a secular religion - but never have I said that Darwinian evolutionary theory is anything but a genuine theory - I am the guy who stood up in Arkansas and said this when all of the fancy philosophers would not have any part in the fight, and who got slammed afterwards by Larry Laudan, Ernan McMullin, Philip Kitcher, and others, because of my stand.

Second, I have no more belief than either you or Dawkins - I call myself a sceptic because I think that atheism is unprovable, but I don’t believe in the trinity or whatever - and have never concealed this, especially not to the Templeton people, to whom one might think I would suck up.

Third, I would defend to the death the right of you and Richard Dawkins to say what you like - I would print those bloody cartoons, believe me - if Richard gets caught on that sh*t Tony Blair’s laws to placate Muslims, the first thousand dollars to his defence fund will come from me.

Fourth, I thought your new book is really bad and not worthy of you - I agree that the Times review was loaded (although funny) - I tried in my review in Nature to express my disapproval but in a way that left us both with respect.

Fifth, I think that you and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design - we are losing this battle, not the least of which is the two new supreme court justices who are certainly going to vote to let it into classrooms - what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues - neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas - it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims - more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.

Ok, enough preaching for a Sunday - I really like you and Richard, but my liking for you and respect for what you two have done matters not a bit with respect to what I think that I, Michael Ruse, should do - I would be ashamed of myself if I thought and acted otherwise.

Michael"

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-ruse-dennett-briefwechsel-the-clash-between-evolution-and-evolutionism/

Moreover, Ruse is still trying to advocate Gould's non-sensical NOMA. Ophelia Benson explains:

"There are several dificulties with that passage, and with the tactic it proposes (the same tactic Stephen Jay Gould urged in his equally rhetorical, equally unconvincing book Rocks of Ages). One is that, as we've just noted, the dichotomy it asserts is in fact, frankly, bogus. That 'Science tries to tell us about the physical world and how it works. Religion aims at giving a meaning to the world and to our place in it' implies that those are complete and exclusive characterizations: science tries to tell us about the physical world and does nothing else. Religion aims at giving a meaning to the world and does nothing else. But it is simply not true that religion does not try to tell us anything about the physical world. It (certainly in its theist instantiations) tells us there is an omnipotent and omniscient deity who created this physical world, who heeds and sometimes answers prayers, who knows and cares all about us. A god who created the physical world can't very well be radically separate from it. Saying otherwise is merely a kind of escape clause."

OUCH! Is right. You guys can keep Ruse.

As a service to your readers could you please explain why Ruse's article on "Creationism" is so "deplorable."

Devin, I've posted my reasons for not thinking very highly of the article separately. They may not be Trent's, but I imagine he will agree with some of them, and perhaps he can add any more he had in mind.

"A god who created the physical world can't very well be radically separate from it. Saying otherwise is merely a kind of escape clause."

There's wishful thinking going on in this claim, but it isn't on the side of the theists. Look no further than the previous sentence.

"It (certainly in its theist instantiations) tells us there is an omnipotent and omniscient deity who created this physical world, who heeds and sometimes answers prayers, who knows and cares all about us."

But which of those things requires a God that is at all obvious? Omniscience and omnipotence are traits (ones that philosophers still explore the possibilities of) - they do not demand immediate action. Neither does knowing or caring about someone (I know and care about the Pope - must he know this?) Creating the physical world is, of course, quite an event - but it's also one far in the past. Answering prayers.. even before we get into how prayers may be "answered", it's worth wondering just how any actual God's intervention could be tested and verified, even if it were true. How does one know they're in the presence of God, other than by faith - even while being showered with miracles?

There is no escape clause - just a common-sense recognition of the fact that "God" is well and truly beyond us as a whole, even if not in part. That someone may be irritated at the limitation of science does not do away with the limitation.

Joseph A,

I think the main point Benson is making is this:

The NOMA theory rests on a lie: the notion that religion doesn't (at least in its popular and "onto-theological" forms) make certain truth claims about the reality of the world around us.

It certainly does, though. For example, the age of the earth, the substance of certain materials (transubstantiation), the existence of "places" (heaven and hell; how else can they be characterized?). In this way, science and religion are not "Non-overlapping magisteria," they are in direct conflict.

I would even go further than Benson. To say, as you do, that it is not an escape clause, but a "common-sense recognition that "God" is well and truly beyond us as a whole, even if not in part," is a meaningless sentence. God being outside of the physical world, and being beyond our comprehension are two completely different things (one could easily think of something within the physical world and beyond our comprehension).

You say that "someone may be irritated at the limitation of science (but) that does not do way with the limitation." I'm not completely sure what idea this sentence is combating. Where do you find the attempt to "do away with the limitation" of science. Scientists will be the first the qualify the extent science can go, but they distress when someone attempts to place something (God, most commonly) in that great mystery without any proof. Limitations in science are fine, theists trying to fill in the gaps is simply absurd.

Devin Carpenter,

Certainly, you can have a given theist with a claim that steps into the boundaries of science (Of your examples, I'd say YEC arguments re: age of the earth is the only one that truly qualifies), just as you can have a scientist who makes data do (a)theological work where it doesn't apply (Steven Weinberg remarking how the more we study the universe, the more it looks pointless. I'd love to see how one measures the point/pointlessness of, say, a photon, or the Milky Way).

But the extent of any overall conflict is surprisingly limited - Benson threw out a handful of examples, but they all fell flat. There are certainly YECs denying science just as there are atheists abusing science, but there are also many theists who accept both the old age of the earth and common descent. That some theists hold onto the young age of the earth should be no more damning of religious-at-large than the resistance to quantum weirdness by many scientists should be damning of scientists-at-large. Religious are not religion, just as scientists are not science.

As for my meaningless sentence - it used to be meaningless to speak of something as being 'outside of time', but now we realize that, as incomprehensible as it seems, it can no longer be ruled out as impossible. Nevertheless, I never argued that God was utterly absent from the physical world; I said that God was incomprehensible in whole, though not in part. Whether God is inside or outside the physical world (or both, as in Berkeley's thoughts, I think) doesn't matter insofar as the incomprehensibility goes. How does one test the incomprehensible?

Re: Scientists and the limitation of science - Nonsense. "Scientists" are not a monolithic group who automatically know or even respect the boundaries of science. Carl Sagan offered up 'The universe is huge and Earth is small' as a scientific discovery that cast doubt on God - probably the single greatest example of a very adept scientist making a fool of himself by not recognizing which data can do what. Nor do all, even most theists seek to fill in the gaps of science with God; they see the world, both in day to day life and in discoveries in the laboratory, through the perspective of a believer. So they see teleology in evolution, purpose in the cosmos, and life in their future. Irritating to atheists, yes. But in conflict with science? Much as some wish, no.

As for my meaningless sentence - it used to be meaningless to speak of something as being 'outside of time', but now we realize that, as incomprehensible as it seems, it can no longer be ruled out as impossible.

When was that? Given that the English words in that sentences didn't even exist until hundreds of years after Augustine articulated the view of divine atemporality, I can't understand when it would have been that people should have thought of that statement as meaningless.

I also don't see how it follows that the statement was actually meaningless but later meaningful. Did you mean that it was once regarded as meaningless and then no longer regarded so? Or did you really want to say that the statement had no meaning (at a time when the words did have meaning) and then gained a meaning? I'm not sure how that could be.

Jeremy Pierce,

I only meant that the idea of atemporality or being external to this universe was or could have been once regarded as a meaningless idea, or at the very least proposed as impossible. Of course, there were people arguing that it was meaningful and possible as well - I would argue that these people are the ones whose views have been bolstered by our discoveries with regards to the nature of the universe.

I should have said that arguing such a thing as meaningless may have carried more (scientific) weight before the 20th century.

Joseph,

I still find that strange. It wasn't until the last quarter of the 20th century that theistic philosophers began departing from the tradition atemporal view of God. Outside process theology you just didn't see much in the way of temporal views of God at all. This is true of science-focused philosophers in the modern period as well, including Leibniz and Newton. They disagreed on the nature of time, but they would not have countenanced the idea that God is temporal.

I could see maybe the logical positivists saying that kind of thing, but that's already the 20th century, and they'd say it about God in time as much as about God outside time. I'm not sure which people you're thinking of who would have found it meaningless.

Jeremy,

Are you saying that the possibility of atemporal being (Not any specific being (God) but of existing outside of time) was without objection since conception? I find that hard to believe and could have sworn I had learned otherwise, but I'm also probably not as learned with regards to the history of this subject as you - if so, I'll cede that point.

Perhaps I'm confusing it with the idea that the universe could have had a beginning, or that time itself could have had a beginning. Either way, I'm grateful for the correction here.

It wasn't without objection, or you wouldn't have open theistic views, and there were occasional views of that sort. But most theistic philosophers were atemporalists until the revival of philosophy of religion in the 1980s, and I don't think the objections even included the idea that atemporality is meaningless. That wasn't the sort of thing atemporalists spent much time dealing with, so I very much doubt it was a major issue. I believe Kretzmann and Stump's paperr "Eternity" was the first full-blown attempt to defend against that objection.

The issue of whether the universe had a beginning or could have had no beginning was very important at certain times in the history of philosophy. It was hotly debated in the time of Aquinas.

I don't think any of those discussions involved questions about whether atemporality is even possible, though. Platonists have always held that forms are outside time, for instance, and I don't think the Aristotelian dominance in Aquinas' time led them to declare the Platonic view meaningless.

Jeremy,

Well, consider me corrected, then. Always glad to learn something new, especially when it comes to.. ah, theistic philosophy? If it's not obvious, I'm a neophyte with some of this. :)