On Missing the Point

Luke over at Common Sense Atheism wrote another post ('On Changing the Subject') about our ongoing debate over Richard Dawkins' Ultimate 747 argument. So here's my response to him. Before you read this, it will be important for you to have already read the following posts (as well as The God Delusion):

Me Dawkins 747: A Response to Luke

Luke Rescuing Dawkins' Main Argument Index

Me Luke Misses the Mark Again

Luke Who Designed the Designer?

Me Re: Who Designed the Designer?


OK, so Luke begins by quoting philosopher Richard Chappell:

"Non-philosophers] seem incapable of focusing on a particular argument. They don’t realize that the only way to make progress is one step at a time. They tend to want to tackle everything about an issue all at once. So half-way through an argument, they will suddenly demand that you address some completely different point.

"…They constantly fail to understand how a point (e.g. an analogy or thought experiment) fits in to a particular argument, and instead insist on applying it more broadly – and then objecting when this irrelevant application fails!"

And Luke comments: "I feel Chappell’s pain. Which is not to say I haven’t inflicted it on others at times. But allow me my rant." Indeed, I think now is just such a time when Luke is inflicting said pain on us, as we shall see.

Luke states: "Some readers (like Ryan at AIG Busted, whom I read and respect) said my response to Dawkins was 'inadequate' because it didn’t fully engage his larger argument from complexity. But of course! In that first post I only intended to show that one of Dawkins’ assertions was false."

I responded that way because it appeared to me that Luke thought his first objection to Dawkins' argument was fatal to it. I must have misunderstood him.

Luke Again: "Later, I wrote that even when Dawkins’ argument is reformulated to be logically valid, it still misses the mark because it aims to disprove a contingent God, not a necessary one, but of course theists believe in a necessary God. So Dawkins’ argument, if successful, would disprove a God that nobody believes in. Whoopty-do.

"Ryan responded that I was 'just as wrong as he was before.' Why? Because theists aren’t allowed to just suppose that God is a necessary being. Apparently, Ryan thinks that the arguments in favor of God being a necessary being fail.

"That’s a fine critique to make, but it’s changing the subject. The point is that Dawkins attacks a God that nobody believes in. Whether or not theists have good reasons for believing in a necessary God is another subject."

I'm not sure if everyone believes in a necessary God, and this is a point I'll return to later on. For now: What I was trying to point out is that one of the response to Dawkins (God is not improbable because he is necessary) is a failure. How is it that addressing a response to Dawkins' argument is 'changing the subject'? It isn't. I interpret Dawkins' argument as showing that God has an extraordinarily low initial probability. I admit that it is possible that some being who possesses the characteristics of ominpotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence (and all the other traditional attributes of God) may also possess the characteristic of necessary existence even though we don't see how that could be. But that point doesn't help the theist out much because the mere possibility is definitely not a probability. In fact, it is a huge improbability, as I tried to show in my post here.

Luke again: "Then, even though I had explicitly defined the scope of the 'Who designed the designer?' objection I was refuting, Ryan took a different interpretation of the 'Who designed the designer?' response and then showed how my rebuttal doesn’t apply to that interpretation. Well, duh! I was refuting something else!"

Luke was addressing an interpretation of the "Who designed the designer?" question which no one holds to. When someone asks "Who designed-?" they aren't really saying that every explanation must be explained. What they are saying is that, when a theist tries to explain the human eye with God because the eye looks designed, he isn't offering a compelling argument because if all 'specified complexity' has to have an explanation then that would include God, and if some 'specified complexity' does not need an explanation then the eye might be one of those things, hence the argument isn't compelling. Asking "Who designed the designer?" is a good way to get theists to recognize that even they don't think every complex thing was designed, and hence they have no authority to tell atheists that their worldview is empty if it leaves complex things unexplained, hence the argument from design holds no weight in the atheism/theism debate.

As I said, Luke was arguing against a position that no one really holds. Is it irrelevant for me to point that out? If so, then Luke's comments about Richard Dawkins attacking a definition of God that no one believes in is just as irrelevant.

Does anyone believe in a contingent (non-necessary) God?

I think they do. Richard Swinburne is one prominent example. Besides him, I think most believers (who are not philosophers or theologians) have not explicity decided whether they believe God is necessary. The necessity of God is not (to my knowledge) found anywhere in the Old or New Testaments. In fact, "I am that I am" seems, if anything, to imply that God is a brute fact.

Who Designed the Designer?

Luke (over at Common Sense Atheism) after writing a couple of posts attempting to refute Richard Dawkins (which I responded to here and here) has now written a post trying to refute a very similar rhetorical atheistic question. When a theist tries to argue for God he will often point to things (like the human eye or bacterial flagellum) which appear to be designed. Atheists often reply to ths in the following way: "Yeah, it could be designed, but then who designed the designer? Was God designed by a SuperGod™? Was SuperGod™ designed by an UltraGod™?" Here are some of Luke's thoughts on that reply:

“God did it” is generally a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad “explanation” for complexity or, well, pretty much anything. “God did it” does generally fail as an explanation.
But it does not fail merely because the theist has no explanation for his explanation (God)...

Let us ask ourselves what would happen if we required that a successful explanation must itself be explained.
This would lead immediately to an infinite regress of explanations. We would need to have an explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation, and an explanation of the explanation of the explanation of the explanation… on into infinity. And thus, we would never be able to explain anything.
Moreover, this is not how science works. Examples from physics are the most obvious. In order to explain certain quantum phenomena, scientists have posited the existence of dozens of invisible particles with very particular properties that yield predictable results. These have been some of the most successful explanations in all of scientific history, yielding the most accurate experimental results we have ever achieved. And yet we have no explanations whatsoever for the particles that we have offered as explanations for the quantum phenomena.

I'm basically in agreement with Luke: I do not believe that people have to explain explanations. However, I think that some atheists, when they ask the question "Who designed the designer?" have something a bit different in mind that Luke isn't understanding. When someone asks "Who designed the designer?" what they have in mind is that the theist is getting to postulate a highly specific and complex entity with no justification whatsoever. The argument from design itself seeks to take some highly specific and complex entity (the eye, the flagellum, etc.) and explain it with God. But if the theist is allowed to postulate a highly specific and complex entity with no justification, then why can't the atheist simply postulate an eye or a wing without any justification or explanation?

Here's a good analogy to illuminate this further: Suppose that I win the lottery. Luke hears about this, and decides that he will explain my winning not as the result of chance, but as a result of conspiracy. He comes up with a theory about how I could have cheated and rigged the lottery in my favor. His theory explains nothing more than the theory that I won the lottery by chance. Furthermore, the initial probability or a priori probability that his theory is correct can be calculated, and the odds of it happening are one in a billion. The theory that I won the lottery by chance, however, has an a priori probability of one in a million. Now the question is: which theory should we prefer? Obviously, the chance hypothesis, because it is more probable. But let me ask this question: what if the conspiracy hypothesis and the chance hypothesis had the same a priori probability of being true (one in a million)? And what if Luke started a new blog, Common Sense Lottery Conspiracy, in which he tried to convince people of his conspiracy theory on the grounds that it was too improbable that I had won by chance?

Now suppose PZ Myers reads Luke's blog and comments: "Hey, if you get to postulate a highly improbable theory to account for Ryan's winnings, then why not just propose that he won by chance? Your argument gets us nowhere because the argument from improbability does not reveal to us why one theory should be preferred over another."

This analogy, I think, mirrors the situation with the design argument. Let me tell you what I mean: Most of us are familiar with the fine-tuning argument, that is, the argument that life cannot exist in the universe unless the physical constants have very specific values (out of all possible values, the majority of which will not support life) which are very improbable, and God explains that improbability: God intelligently designed the universe so it would allow life to exist.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend like it is has been conclusively proven that are form of life is the only kind that can exist, that our universe is the only one that exists, that only one extremely specific and improbable set of physical constants allows life even though many sets are possible (as far as we know). Let's suppose that the probability of a fine tuned universe occuring by chance comes out to 1 in 10^100. Now, would it be OK to infer God as the explanation of this phenomenon?

No. The chance explanation of the fine-tuning has an initial probability of 1 in 10^100, as we've said. But what is the initial probability of the existence of God? I'm inclined to think that it is very, very, very low. And if I am right then the fine-tuning argument for God cannot work because we cannot know whether or not the a priori probability of God is better than the a priori probability of a fine tuned universe coming about by chance, and so the argument from design cannot work. Here's an excerpt from an unpublished essay I've written which explains this:

"Consider the number of possible minds. Although I do not know the total number of possible minds, I think we can safely say that it is incredible high, based on the billions of unique human and animal minds that have existed and the possible minds of gods, spirits, and fictional characters that man has conceived of.

"Now, if we are considering positing a single spiritual mind as an inexplicable brute fact, what are the odds that this mind would be anything like the mind of God? I suggest that we apply the principle of indifference and assign each possible mind the same likelihood of existing uncaused. When we do this, it seems that the probability of God’s existence would be much less than one in ten billion (after all, there are six billion unique human minds in existence today, plus the minds of chimpanzees, gorillas, other intelligent animals, and fictional characters and invented gods that occupy the space of possible minds).

"There is another, more important worry: would this random, uncaused mind even be coherent and intelligent? I am very skeptical of the notion that it would be. I do not believe that coherency and/or intelligence is a feature of most possible minds. After all, the minds we observe around us are a very small subset of the total number of possible minds. Human and animal minds arise from brains that are non-randomly constructed from genetic material which has been fashioned by natural selection, which has surely tended to eliminate lack of intelligence and lack of coherency: the mentally disabled have a very low chance of passing on their genes. If you can imagine a mind that would result from a randomly constructed brain, you can understand my doubts about whether this mind would be coherent and intelligent. Of course, that is not an exact analogy, for a spiritual mind does not arise from a physical brain by definition. However, if you can imagine the mind that would result from a randomly constructed brain, if the mind in question was generated by a material medium like the brain, then my thought experiment should illustrate the same point.This leads us directly to the conclusion that the existence of God is a priori very improbable if it is admitted that God is a contingent and highly complex being."

Now, one could try to get rid of the improbability of God by defining him as necessary (I've talked a bit about that here). But then if you can simply assert that God is necessary or define him as necessary then why couldn't someone say the same thing about a life friendly universe?

Creationists Just Can't Catch a Break

First, Mike Dunford blogged on How We Know That Most Species Are Extinct and Why the Fossil Record is so Incomplete.

Then Ed Brayton caught William Dembski denying being a creationist and later admitting that he was a creationist.

And Jeffrey Shallit smashed Stephen C. Meyer on his latest book.

It hasn't been a good week for creationists.

Human Evolution and Common Disorders

From Sciencedaily:

"The subtle but ongoing pressures of human evolution could explain the seeming rise of disorders such as autism, autoimmune diseases, and reproductive cancers, researchers write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Certain adaptations that once benefited humans may now be helping such ailments persist in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- advancements in modern culture and medicine...

"Autism and schizophrenia may be associated with the over-expression of paternally or maternally derived genes and influences, a hypothesis advanced by Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University.

"Maternal and paternal genes engage in a subtle tug-of-war well into childhood with consequences for childhood development, as posited by David Haig, George Putnam Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard.

"Humans may be susceptible to allergies, asthma, and autoimmune diseases because of increased hygiene, according to Kathleen Barnes of Johns Hopkins University. Without being exposed to intestinal worms and parasites, as our ancestors were, our immune systems are hypersensitive.

"Natural selection still influences our biology, despite advances in modern culture and medicine. Stearns found that natural selection favors heavier women and reduces the age at which a woman has her first child."

Sixteen Sexiest Female Atheists

Luke over at Common Sense Atheism has made a post featuring sixteen luscious pictures of the sixteen sexiest female atheists. These pictures are not work-safe or school-safe. They're not pornographic, but they're damn close (ie Jennifer Love Hewitt naked but covering up with a bed sheet). After looking at those pics I'm not an atheist anymore... I believe in the existence of sixteen gorgeous sex goddesses.

A History of Venomfangx

I couldn't resist posting this series of vids. This is an excellent, brutally honest history of venomfangx:

On VenomFangX

Most of you who don't live in a cave are on youtube and know who Venomfangx is. Venomfangx (hereafter VFX or Shawn) is that very weird, brainwashed kid who makes videos about young earth creationism, thinks that the earth is (literally) the center of the solar system, falsely reports other people's videos to youtube, and so on. Well, it turns out that Shawn's nonChristian and level headed father has been keeping an eye on him, through reports from certain atheists on youtube. And one of them has made a video about this issue. From what I can tell it sounds like Shawn is not just weird and delusional, but actually mentally ill.