#53803: — 12/15  at  12:06 PM
I did have one creationist accuse me of being close-minded and refusing to even consider supernatural explanations.

How exactly DO you consider supernatural explanations? Other than thinking "It sounds insanely improbable but technically nothing can be said to be impossible."
After saying that, what can you possibly do to "consider" it that isn't really just daydreaming up ghost stories?

#53804: — 12/15  at  12:23 PM
ID is about design without a designer. If anyone can explain to me how design arising without a designer is not a supernatural event, I'd appreciate it.

#53808: Anthony Mohen — 12/15  at  12:45 PM
I don't think it's a matter of close-minded. It seems like the demands of scientific inquiry, of uncovering evidence and making predictions, etc.., simply require naturalism. So you're right to say that this would remove any potential alternatives from the realm of the supernatural, but I've always taken this to be an essential aspect of a scientific approach to these questions. If he wants to just ignore that approach and entertain supernatural alternatives, fine, but then he shouldn't go and complain at science lectures about close-mindedness (especially given his own apparent close-mindedness about the need for evidence to support his claims).

Of course, I was always confused about what would count as a supernatural in the first place. If the definition is just something like "defies explanation in terms of natural phenomena", then it's a transparent rejection of science, lacking any rational justification.

#53811: Keith — 12/15  at  01:02 PM
More to the point, how would apply a supernatural explenation to a natural system? Without magic wands or voodoo dolls, I mean.

#53817: Jeremy — 12/15  at  01:38 PM
ID is about design without a designer. If anyone can explain to me how design arising without a designer is not a supernatural event, I'd appreciate it.

I know what you're saying, but it came out kind of funny. An ID supporter would take a Dawkins quote about how we all look designed but actually aren't and plug it in as proof with your post that it could have happened. I, personally, am unable to figure out how to make that logical leap sound believable, but I've heard them rationalize stuff that would make L. Ron Hubbard's head spin.

#53823: — 12/15  at  03:01 PM
I think some of us feign not understanding the creationists or IDers. I think the creationist who gave PZ guff at the talk was basically intelligible (though inconsistent). I guess it boils down any explanation for the existence and diversity of life on Earth has a limited number of "explanation types":

Naturalistic
- Evolution as we do it today (modified Darwin + genetics)
- Lamarckian evolution
- full-out random mutations (no selection)
- Guys from space did it and then cleared their tracks.
- Some other imaginative naturalistic theories

Supernaturalistic
- God the father of the Christian bible did it all.
- Some other gods did it (many to choose from).
- Some non-divine magical force or entity did it.
- Some other way that our puny minds cannot comprehend.

If we examine and explore these categories, at least two things pop up.

First, there is some "room" within both naturalistic and supernaturalistic accounts in terms of which is the correct explanation. For naturalists, it could have been a Lamarckian story that is correct (though it turns out it is not). For supernaturalists, it could be that it is not the Christian God that made the species but the account is actually the Norse myth of origins. Or faeries. So the PZ guff-giver at the talk was wrong: just because our current account of evolution may be wrong doesn't mean we immediately must bounce to the supernatural category.

Second, whether one even allows there to be a supernaturalistic category says much about how one's belief engine runs. Someone like PZ finds the concept of supernatural to be an ill-formed concept, like the concept of a spherical cube. The guff-giver somehow allows for the idea of supernaturality--magic, really--to work in his view. The statement, "God just did it." actually suffices for him. The "just" is thought-terminating. For PZ, there is no "just" to any explanation, each thing can be analyzed into its causal components.

Call the guff-giver a stupid creationist if you want, scoff, mock, and end it there. But you're missing a valuable and fascinating story of how beliefs work, a better understanding of which is crucial in bringing this world closer to rationality.

#53828: — 12/15  at  03:28 PM
Exactly. Back in 9th grade chemistry class it came out that I was an atheist. The class (in an honors school!) turned on me and demanded I explain myself, demanded I explain how the universe came to be.

I mentioned the big bang theory, and they demanded to know "what started it? Something had to come before, someone had to create it, it couldn't just get there on its own."

I answered with "who created God? where did he come from?" to which they responded angrily "nobody had to create him, he's GOD!"

Not just a conversation stopper, but a thought stopper, a reasoning stopper. Closed-mindedness.

#53831: — 12/15  at  03:47 PM

#53828: craig — 12/15 at 03:28 PM
Exactly. Back in 9th grade chemistry class...

You should have invited them over to your place after class to play poker, with one additional rule: you get to cheat, they don't.

#53835: — 12/15  at  04:41 PM
Since we can assume, to a close approximation, that all IDers are really Biblical literalists, one one side we have a naturalist who believes in 'touchable' evidence; and on the other we have a creationist who accepts everything in the Bible as evidence.

Until fairly recently, the creationist's was the default position for everybody.

Supernatural explanations were once called (in a famous book) 'Evidences of Creation.'

Professor Myers and Meyer do literally live in different universes.

#53837: — 12/15  at  05:01 PM
Professor Myers,

I think you have misunderstood that creationist's argument.

Living things have characteristics (goal-directed behavior,functional interdependence of many different parts, high information content, irreducible complexity etc.) that in our experience only arise from the actions of intelligent agents (or from other things with the same characteristics, as in reproduction). It is for this reason that Dawkins defines biology as the "study of complicated things that appear to have been designed for a purpose".

In explaining the origin of the first living thing, we can either appeal to an intelligent agent, or only to unintelligent causes. The first seems more likely, not only because of the dismal failure of all explanations which only appeal to unintelligent causes, but also because the characteristics of living things are typical of the artifacts produced by intelligence.

It's a general principle of common sense and science that similar effects are produced by similar causes. Thus, from marks of wisdom and intelligence in the effects, we can infer wisdom and intelligence in the cause, absent evidence to the contrary. In the case of abiogenesis, there is NO evidence to the contrary, and so IDists infer that an intelligent cause was somehow responsible.

I'm not trying to defend ID explanations of abiogenesis. My point is that ID arguments are not MERELY gap arguments: they also rely on the principle that from marks of intelligence and wisdom in the effects, we can infer intelligence in the cause.

#53842: Jim Harrison — 12/15  at  05:41 PM
Living things are not very much like the artefacts we produce since living things are not tools. A cat is in the business of being a cat, not in the business of suiting anybody else's purposes.

If you're really going to apply an 18th Century-style argument such as "similar effects are produced by similar causes," you'd have to conclude that whatever produced living things, it sure wasn't the likes of us. But the principle is childish. I've caused many pancakes in my time, for example, but I'm certainly not sweet nor, unfortunately, thin.

#53843: Davis — 12/15  at  05:41 PM

It's a general principle of common sense and science that similar effects are produced by similar causes.
Thus, from marks of wisdom and intelligence in the effects, we can infer wisdom and intelligence in the cause, absent evidence to the contrary.

That's definitely not a principle of science, and not even a principle of common sense. Moreover, the first statement seems to mean that if two effects are similar, then their causes are similar -- that's definitely not true in science (e.g., chaotic dynamical systems), though it's vaguely reasonable-sounding. Your second statement, on the other hand, relies on an argument that is more along the lines of "an effect must be similar to its cause," which is totally unreasonable as a general principle even outside of science. Or have you never done something that had the unintentional effect of hurting someone else, physically or emotionally?

#53846: — 12/15  at  06:48 PM
My answer to anyone saying that I have a bias against the supernatural is,"Yes, I do." I then go on to explain that every time that a supernatural explanation has been proposed for the last few thousand years to explain phenomenon, it has always, 100% of the time, been wrong. Furthermore, naturalistic explanations have always, 100% of the time, been right.

Why wouldn't I be prejudiced against an explanation that has been unable to produce a correct answer, ever?!?

#53848: Jim Harrison — 12/15  at  06:56 PM
From a marketing point of view, the appeal of the supernatural results from its implausibility. A rational religion wouldn't be very sexy. So, depending on how you look at it, the believers can't win or can't lose. Either they find some rational evidence for the Creator, in which case they lose because the Creator becomes just another boring part of the machinery of the universe and win becaue they've turned out to be right or they don't find such evidence, in which case they lose because they're wrong and win because the more impossible their ideas, the more attractive to the majority of potential adherents.

#53849: Ronald Brak — 12/15  at  07:01 PM
"There are problems with abiogenesis." So I guess that means that God must have done it. There are also problems with understanding cancer, so I guess that God does that too. I can't understand a damn thing about quarks, so I guess atoms are held together by the infinitely multiple tiny fists of God. In fact there are problems with the U.S. administration's rational for the invasion of Iraq that I can't understand, so God must have been behind that all along.

I'd feel less scared if that last sentence didn't seem to ring true.

#53850: Sean — 12/15  at  07:14 PM
Physicist are the coolest! I sure hope that IDer was just an interloper, not an actual physicist. But there are crazy ones.

#53852: — 12/15  at  07:32 PM
Logan,
The short story is that those arguments don't make sense.

The (very) long story is, argument by argument:

"Living things have characteristics (goal-directed behavior,"

Goal-directed behaviour is a consequence of the organism in independent action, not some outside agent (creator) behind some curtain.

"functional interdependence of many different parts, high information content, irreducible complexity etc.)"

There is no such thing as irreducible complexity. There is no successful definition and consequently no observations of this out-of-the blue invented idea.

The naive attempts to make a definition relies on the false assumption that lowered noise (more complex signal) increases information content when the reverse is true.

"that in our experience only arise from the actions of intelligent agents (or from other things with the same characteristics, as in reproduction)."

Functional interdependence of parts and raised/lowered stored/emergent information content is explained and described by evolution long ago.

"In explaining the origin of the first living thing, we can either appeal to an intelligent agent, or only to unintelligent causes. The first seems more likely,"

Since all other phenomena we encounter in nature has been observed to have natural explanations, that is the default and other 'extraordinary explanations must have extraordinary evidence'.

"not only because of the dismal failure of all explanations which only appeal to unintelligent causes,"

Further, even though evolution as a fact and as theories concerns living things, the basic mechanisms (variation and natural selection) are applicable on other arenas, for example survival of chemicals in prebiotic chemistry. 'RNA worlds' are one natural hypothesis that would explain first life emergence from the prebiotic chemistry.

"but also because the characteristics of living things are typical of the artifacts produced by intelligence."

Of the characteristics you mentioned remains function and information content, which are related; function produces information content, and the function of the information is to produce function.

These two sides of the same coin are natural parts of both organisms and artifacts independent of origin; they must both have some function. The dfeault conclusion is not that there is a connection of characteristics, but instead that there need to be no connection. And again, for conclusions going against the default (and observed), see above.

"It's a general principle of common sense and science that similar effects are produced by similar causes. Thus, from marks of wisdom and intelligence in the effects, we can infer wisdom and intelligence in the cause, absent evidence to the contrary."

Davis explains why this is junk.

"In the case of abiogenesis, there is NO evidence to the contrary, and so IDists infer that an intelligent cause was somehow responsible."

They can only do that if their theory was concrete and had proven some facts. In the absence of that, and in the presence of the arguments above, they should infer something else.

#53853: — 12/15  at  07:43 PM

"that in our experience only arise from the actions of intelligent agents (or from other things with the same characteristics, as in reproduction)."

Functional interdependence of parts and raised/lowered stored/emergent information content is explained and described by evolution long ago.

I forgot to mention that we have plenty of experience of those characteristics emerging from studying evolution mechanisms in software and bacterial evolution.

#53855: John — 12/15  at  08:45 PM
Apropos of the Physics of Superheroes, and more connected with the biology you usually stick to, have you ever read the Larry Niven essay, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex?

#53857: — 12/15  at  09:54 PM
Is that Logan as in Wolverine? If so, Torbjorn and others have shown that your arguments are made of something a bit weaker than adamantium. Wet lettuce, perhaps.

#53858: Don — 12/15  at  10:26 PM
Logan, holy crap, who transported you out of 1832 England? Come join the rest of us, boy, in the 21st century. Next you're gonna tell us all about the Aether holding the universe together like jell-o.

Yes, and rocks produce rocks and trains produce trains, I get it. Sorry I doubted you.

#53859: Don — 12/15  at  10:30 PM
Tasdant says

"Call the guff-giver a stupid creationist if you want, scoff, mock, and end it there."

In the realm of science, that's exactly where it should end.

"But you're missing a valuable and fascinating story of how beliefs work...."

In the realm of science, so what? Personally I find it fascinating. But that's irrelevant to science. A "valuable and fascinating story of how beliefs work" is for other disciplines, like Philosophy or History, Anthropology or Psychology, Political Science or Theology. This is the ENTIRE point, the point the IDers and creationists don't get.

#53864: — 12/16  at  03:40 AM

Living things have characteristics (goal-directed behavior,functional interdependence of many different parts, high information content, irreducible complexity etc.) that in our experience only arise from the actions of intelligent agents (or from other things with the same characteristics, as in reproduction).

Exactly, Logan. And God is certainly a living thing (is He not?) and must be irreducibly complex, since we can't explain how He evolved (or can you?). Thus, God Himself must be the product of a Designer.

The best part is, we needn't throw science out with the bathwater- the Designer of God comes from another universe without irreducible complexity or skydaddies- She evolved there naturally, just as some impious biologists claim life on Earth did. Well, they'll soon have imps enough- in Hell!

For an exclusive interview with God's Designer, go here.

#53867: The Inoculated Mind — 12/16  at  04:31 AM
The charge of being closed-minded is often levied against rational people, like scientists are supposed to be. Closed-minded means that when the evidence is right in front of your face and incontrovertible, you will still refuse to change your mind. Closed minded does not mean that you must accept something sans evidence.
But we live in a largely faith-driven world, where people take what they have been told by authority figures for truth, or believe in outlandish things for anecdotal and purely unscientific reasons. Being rational, to them, means convincing someone else of something because they are convinced by it, not because some piece of evidence convinces them. And so when you don't accept their personal reasons, you are thought to be closed-minded. But rationally, arguments from personal experience or emotion don't hold up, you're waiting for objective evidence which they cannot give you.

Closed-mindedness is a popularly misused term, and those who use it are often instead the ones who are guilty. I find the best approach when accused of closed-mindedness is to turn it right around. Ask them what reasons they have for believing what they do, and what evidence would change their opinion. If they are open-minded, they will state claims that you could dispute. However, if they are closed-minded, they may make the truthful error in stating that there is nothing that could possibly dissuade them from their beliefs. Then there are the people in the problematic muddy zone around closed-mindedness, where they state unreasonable criteria that could never be met, like that they will believe global warming is happening only after we have studied a statistically significant number of planets like Earth that are having the same problem. This is hiding closed-mindedness behind a veneer of seeming open-mindedness.

I once wrote a column for a college newspaper, http://www.ktkgalaxy.net/forb/mind/2003/2003_03_05.html , about an experience I had with an astrologer who invited me on his radio show just to call me closed-minded. He made the mistake of revealing that he was closed-minded himself. He said that there could be no fact or facts that would make him reject astrology. Priceless.

We just need to figure out whether particular IDists are closed, muddy, or *gasp* open to evidence. I really doubt they'd tell, though.