OK, the style and flow of this may be a bit raw for some...but it is quite creative.  This video is apparently being debated on the net - Is this a slam against atheists or believers?  One cannot know, but one can laugh.  Rated POCBlog PG-13.

(HT - Uncommon Descent)

Apparently Richard, I am an atheist, I am smarter than you and wish I could be the theists worst nightmare, Dawkins slipped into a recent pre-screening of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled.  For those not familiar with the upcoming release here is a super trailer for the film.

The Discovery Institute Press release has all the details about Dawkins' crash of a screening in Minnesota.  Interestingly enough, it appears Dawkins might believe in design after all...only by aliens.  This thesis is actually becoming quite popular today. Really.

Here is the release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS CONTACT: ROBERT CROWTHER
DISCOVERY INSTITUTE
(206) 292-0401 X107
ROB@DISCOVERY.ORG

Richard Dawkins, World’s Most Famous Darwinist, Stoops to Gate-crashing Expelled
by Bruce Chapman, www.evolutionnews.org

Like many films im pre-release, Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is being selectively screened around the country to develop a buzz.

There is a growing fear by the producers that Darwinists may be trying get into the showings to make bootleg copies (for the Web?), possibly in hopes of damaging the commercial value. Others may be crashing because they want to trash it before it even gets reviewed by the media. P.Z. Myers, who was not let into a showing last night in Minnesota, probably falls in the latter category.

Amazingly, the best selling Oxford scientist/author Richard Dawkins also crashed a showing of Expelled in Minnesota last night and he not only was let in, but introduced at the end of the showing.

Dawkins apparently acknowledged that he had not been invited and did not have a ticket. A sophomoric side to his ideological is thus revealed.

Dawkins, understandably is nervous about this film, among other reasons because Ben Stein has him on camera acknowledging that life on Earth may, indeed, have been intelligently designed, but that it had to have been accomplished by space aliens! This is hilarious, of course, because Dawkins is death on intelligent design. But it turns out that that view applies only if it includes the possibility that the designer might be God.

Myers, of course, relished being expelled from Expelled, but objective observers know that Myers is the most vociferous advocate of expelling Darwin critics from academia. Not from movie pre-screenings where he wasn’t invited, mind you, but from their jobs. Too bad the film doesn’t show (and I wish it had), his promotion of advice to attack teachers and professors who dare question Darwin’s theory. The whole point of Myers is that he is a take-no-prisoners, crusading atheist scientist who has made it his purpose in life to harass people who disagree with him. Dawkins turns out to be his buddy and mutual admirer.

Frankly, I wish the producers would have a special pre-release screening for the Darwinists who are interviewed in the film — and invite some of the rest of us who have seen their depredations up close. We’d be glad to debate right there.

Among other things, I’d like to read some of the Darwinists’ statements and charges back to them and ask them to defend themselves. One of the most preposterous is that the well-funded’ Discovery Institute is funding this film! ( 1-They seem to have far more money available to them than we do, and 2-We are saving our pennies for the upcoming Broadway musical comedy, Darwin’s Folly.)

I have to say something else, personally. I have been sandbagged by one TV and documentary crew after another. So have Discovery-affiliated scientists. The interviewers all say they just want to understand the issue. Going in, they are quite clear about definitions, for example, and only start using Darwinist definitions of our positions when they report. They never provide questions in advance and even if they say they will stick to science questions and public policy, almost all sneak in questions about personal religious beliefs. Then, of all the footage, guess what gets on TV or in the documentary?

So it really is pathetic of Dawkins, et al to complain that when they were interviewed for Expelled they didn’t know that the film was inherently unfriendly. These are interviewees who received pre-agreed questions, signed release forms after the interviews were conducted, and actually got paid for their time.

I am getting more excited about Expelled myself and can’t wait to see the finished version. I suspect I’ll wish that the film was twice as long and had twice as much from Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, et al. From what I already have seen, they really expose themselves as the anti-intellectual, bullying poseurs they are — small men who above all are afraid of a fair contest.

###

 

Shocking, ground breaking new research announced in the New York Times.  Read the shocking news here - Maternal Instinct Is Wired Into the Brain. 

BusinessWeek has a couple of interesting articles on renewable energy sources.  The first is about China's investment in wind and other technologies which are growing at a massive rate. The second is about processes to create biodiesel from certain types of algae...the title is pretty pithy as well - Here comes pond scum power.

In the same vein I saw a new wind turbine design that looks pretty interesting if it actually works.  It is called the Maglev wind turbine - see graphic below and click here for a description  of a company who is actually working on this.

There will be a day where we will not be a world dependent on petroleum resources for energy.  Some people will also get rich in the process of developing and deploying new technologies...economic opportunity and environmentally friendly sources of energy sound like a good marriage to me. 

As one who is moving to NJ next year, this one sounds cool, but perhaps a bit far fetched. 

This coming January I will have the wonderful privilege of studying with a very unique scholar with a unique name.  January 14-18 I will be in Louisville, KY to take a class simply entitled "Origins" taught by Dr. Kurt Wise.  This is a class I have looked forward to for several reasons.  '

First, I did my undergraduate studies in Applied Science and Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  I became a follower of Jesus during my sophomore year at UNC in the middle of my studies in the hard sciences.  The questions surrounding the Scriptures view of history, science and the nature of the cosmos became important for me at this juncture as well as my interests in Christian Apologetics. During my studies at UNC I immersed myself in some young earth creationist literature for a brief season but over time evolved to more of an old earth, recent Adam creationist yet firmly maintaining that the first 11 chapters of Genesis were a trusted, though not comprehensive, view of human creation, sin and early migrations.  I would say I have stayed somewhat abreast on the discussions between theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, intelligent design theorists and literary framework views.  The interesting thing about my upcoming class is that Dr. Wise is in fact a young earth creationist...and one of considerable intellectual talent.

Dr. Wise did his undergraduate studies in geology at the University of Chicago, a masters in geology at Harvard along with a Ph.D. in Invertebrate Paleontology, also at Harvard University.  His doctoral work was actually supervised by the late Stephen J. Gould, quite the proponent of various evolutionary explanations of life.  Wise has even drawn the attention and disdain of the high priest of the new atheism Richard Dawkins who said the following of Dr. Wise:

Wise stands out among young earth creationists not only for his impeccable education, but because he displays a modicum of scientific honesty and integrity.

And then of course the following: 

Kurt Wise doesn’t need the challenge; he volunteers that [that he is a six day, young earth creationist who believes the Bible), even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence. This leaves me, as a scientist, speechless. I cannot imagine what it must be like to have a mind capable of such doublethink. It reminds me of Winston Smith in struggling to believe that two plus two equals five if Big Brother said so. But that was fiction and, anyway, Winston was tortured into submission. Kurt Wise—and presumably others like him who are less candid—has suffered no such physical coercion. But, as I hinted at the end of my previous column, I do wonder whether childhood indoctrination could wreak a sufficiently powerful brainwashing effect to account for this bizarre phenomenon.

So I have the upcoming privilege of spending 8 hours a day for five days with this highly credentialed scientist and young earth creationist.  My biggest question is whether Dr. Wise will consider me Mr. Foolish if I do not accept the 6 day creationist conclusion...and will I care.  I look forward to the reading and discussion ahead and will enjoy engaging all of these issues in the coming weeks as I do the reading...and he did just assign some reading.  He did go to Harvard after all. 

For those interested here are the books on the list for my class in Origins:

• Miller, Keith B., editor, 2003, Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 528 p.
• Ross, Hugh, 2006, Creation as Science: A Testable Model Approach to End the Creation/Evolution Wars, NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO, 291 p.
• Wise, Kurt P., 2002, Faith, Form, and Time, B&H, Nashville, TN, 287 p.

Biochemist and intelligent design proponent Michael Behe was on Colbert Report recently.  Not much depth here, but it is fun and I'm glad Behe went on.  Just a few seeds put out there cannot hurt.  Most Americans don't think as much about science so having this on Colbert probably exposed some people who normally are not asking certain questions. Here is a link to the 5 minute video. 

On a similar topic - Intelligent ID the Future interviews Walt Ruloff, executive producer of the coming documentary Expelled. 

Well, I took the book The Physics of Christianity with me on vacation in late July looking forward to a refresh of some of my undergraduate course work at UNC Chapel Hill and to see how a contemporary Physicist integrates his scientific work with the doctrines of the Christian Faith. Let me be honest up front that I only got about half way through the work and was tracking with it at a level of investigation to review the book here on the blog. To be frank, I simply didn't finish the book...as it got more and more bizarre as I read on and we ran out of vacation time.

It begins with some big claims that all of the discoveries of modern physics confirm the Christian narrative and its categories. The existence of God as the first cause of the universe, the triunity of this God and beliefs such as the resurection of the dead and eternal life. All fine and dandy. What followed was a pretty approachable discussion of some modern physics. General relativity, quantum mechanics and the standard model for particle physics were all on the docket. I will say that for the uninitiated it will be difficult reading. I did 3 years of a BS in Physics before switching to Applied Computer Science and I found the reading accessible. I kept thinking...you need at least some basic understanding of physics and an analytic mind to follow this.

After the general introductions the book just started getting odd. The singularity at the beginning of this universe, the singularity at the end of this univers and the singularity which began the "multiverse" becomes "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" - The quantum reality of the multiverse and tunneling theory become the means by the multiverse Jesus walks through walls and rises from the dead. Most bizarre was that the resurrection and eternal life become us uploading into supercomputers buried deep in bedrock safe from nuclear blasts. We'll live forever singing Kum Ba Yah in the matrix. No kidding. And I thought being banished to Chiron Beta Prime would be a ride.

Here is an example of someone fully trained and convinced in his own field (Physics) and wandering around in one he clearly does not understand (theology). I applaud Tipler's boldness and zeal and certainly his theories are very interesting if you are a fan of sci-fi. Yet the Christianity of this book was unrecognizable once Tipler's theory of everything had its way.

One final note - here is a full review of the book by Canadian Journalist Denyse O'Leary - something I am unable to do as I did not have the time to finish the work as vacation was a bit short this summer. I wish Tipler the best in his efforts to integrate Physics and faith - a much needed enterprise.  I would only suggest having some theological dialog partners and perhaps reading a few simple catechisms along the way.

Frank Beckwith has an interesting post over at First Things regarding atheist Richard Dawkin's assessment of Harvard trained paleobiologist Kurt Wise.  What is interesting is that Dr. Wise is a professor at Southern Seminary (I am currently at Southern taking a class) and a young earth creationist.

What is interesting about the Beckwith piece is that he takes to task Dawkin's lament about Wise "wasting" his talents as human being and intellectual.

Beckwith rightly calls into question Dawkin's lament of Wise in light of his atheism.  In an atheistic worldview there is no "proper use" of human faculties at all - people just do what they want with no warrant or "ought" that people could be held to.  Perhaps Dawkins does not like that Wise does not believe as he does - but an atheistic worldview has nothing to offer human beings in terms of normative function.  There is simply nothing we ought to conform to.  Now in terms of a biblical view, one can certainly waste the gifts and talents given by God.  It seems like Dawkins is stealing the cookies off the theistic shelves.

Ben Vastine, a friend here on the POCBlog and graduate student in engineering at Texas A&M commented on some recent reading he had been doing in Allistair McGrath's Scientific Theology series.  I asked him if he had any article length summaries of his position and he passed one on to me.  Though I should be reading seminary books for class next week (apologies Kasey) - I found this little morsel very stimulating.

The article is found here.  I found his reflection on how our view of "nature" is not worldview neutral to be fascinating.  Here is a brief quote:

Nature is a construction of the reader, reflecting her theoretical precommitments; it is not an autonomous reality, which can be the objective basis of theoretical reflection. Suggestions such as these radically undermine the plausibility of worldviews which hold that ‘nature’ is an objective reality, capable as functioning as the basis of a worldview. If anything, ‘nature’ is itself the outcome of a worldview. Without an ontology of nature, the concept has little value in critical intellectual discourse. It is for this reason that Christian theology offers a specific reading of nature, regarding it as God’s creation, and insisting that it is only in this manner than the notion of ‘nature’ can be given any intellectual stability. 

Interesting for those who get all geeked up about theological method (all 3 of you).  I would be interested in his project of "scientific dogmatics" - or stating the beliefs arrived at by his methodology - but as he concludes the article. That is perhaps for some other day.  He uses the insights of postmodernism to critique enlightenment certainty which poses as if it exists without philosophical worldview.  I found this good.  But postmodern insight often throws a mass of babies out with some dirty bathwater.  I would however love to ask him his view of escaping the postmodern rabbit hole.  For me, the revelation of God in Scripture and in Jesus Christ - and the attending biblical worldview, ground a view of reality that allows a robust realism to persist.  From Ben's comments, I think this would be Dr. McGrath's position - which should be no shock.  It has been the position of Christian philosophy for centuries - ontology grounds our pursuit of knowledge.  And Christian ontology gives ground to rationality, science, and an ethic that does not shift with the sands of time.

Al Mohler has a fascinating article discussing the research of two Yale psychologists up on his blog today.  One of the more interesting quotations is the following:

Our intuitive psychology also contributes to resistance to science. One significant bias is that children naturally see the world in terms of design and purpose. For instance, four year-olds insist that everything has a purpose, including lions ("to go in the zoo") and clouds ("for raining"), a propensity that Deborah Kelemen has dubbed "promiscuous teleology." Additionally, when asked about the origin of animals and people, children spontaneously tend to provide and to prefer creationist explanations.

Just as children's intuitions about the physical world make it difficult for them to accept that the Earth is a sphere, their psychological intuitions about agency and design make it difficult for them to accept the processes of evolution.

I recommend reading the post.  Science should proceed from observations in the world, which form hypothesis, which are tested.  But not anymore.  Conceptual philosophy is grafted onto all conclusions where even the most counterintuitive constructs must be accepted...why? Because this is the way it has to be if there is no purpose, no design, no God...we ought to listen to these kids...

Some scientific opinions today would have you believe the following:

• There isn't a conscious entity, which is not your brain, that IS you
  
• That the appearance of design in the world is an illusion
• That the experience of moral reality is the creation of a herd of apes...or philosophers.
  
• That belief in God is for silly, superstitious folks that have yet to pull up their metaphysical bootstraps
• That there is no transcending death

Sad...there is another way

Peter Singer, the famed (or infamous) "ethicist" from Princeton University has another wonderful meditation out on life and death.  Singer is somewhat of a hero to some and a demon to others for his views on the termination of babies who have severe problems at birth and perhaps up to two years of age...only if the parents "want to" of course.  Singer is a utilitarian at heart and in his thinking. By that I mean he is a consequentialist in terms of his ethical reasoning.  He makes decision about right and wrong based on his understanding of whether suffering will be limited and happiness extended.  Now you may ask "how does one know the future and what a decision will or will not bring?"  Welcome to the wonderful world of consequentialism.  Let me give you some examples in a dialogue:

Lifescape 1

Doctor No: Your baby's chromosomes are abnormal, you will have a child with down's syndrome.  What would you like to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] this means lots of trouble for us, lots of money we will have to spend to care and raise this child - that will quell our happiness and quality of life.

Doctor No: Most children with downs life very painful lives and die very young.  What would you like to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] Well, that child will suffer, will not be very happy...after he will not be "normal" and bullies will pick on him.  He will not have high self-esteem because people are mean.  I think we want a do-over.

Lifescape 2

Doctor No: You baby is severely deformed and mentally retarded.  He will probably only life a few years and will need constant medical attention from the highest of professionals.  We are not sure if he will be in pain or not, but his quality of life will not be anything like a normal human being.  What would you like us to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] This is very hard, what will our lives be like with this child.  But what is the right thing to do?  We need some expert advice

Captain Singer Ethical Crusader: Well, it may be ethical to "end the suffering" of severely challenged human like creatures if it will alleviate suffering and promote the welfare of the parents, and not burden society's resources.

Parent Unhappy Now: Do you mean kill the baby?

Doctor No: Well, kill is a very loaded term, we like to say alleviate suffering for the common good.  To help society with unwanted burdens and make everyone's life better.  In reality, this is a very good thing you are doing for all involved.

Parent Sick to Their Stomach: We just don't know what to do...

Now Dr. Singer is weighing in on another potential problem we are seeing due to the advance of neonatal care and intensive units.  The survival of babies severely premature.  It is coming more common that children are surviving birth into the lower twenty week range (the range where abortions often take place).  Dr. Singer has written an op/ed piece over at the Council for Secular Humanism about one such astounding case (which people this is good by the way) of a girl named Amillia:

In February, newspapers hailed “miracle baby”Amillia, claiming that she is the earliest-born surviving premature baby ever recorded. Born in October at a gestational age of just twenty-one weeks and six days, she weighed only 280 grams, or ten ounces, at birth. Doctors did not expect Amillia to live, as previously no baby born at less than twenty-three weeks had been known to survive. But, after nearly four months in a Miami hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit, and having grown to a weight of 1,800 grams, or four pounds, doctors judged her ready to go home.

These cases are problematic for Singer and like minded utilitarians.  You see, the care just to attempt and save one of these little ones is: 1) very expensive to society 2) will be very hard on parents and their happiness 3) should many not even be attempted in Singer's opinion.  So Singer's solution to this "problem" we face is to highlight research from out of the land of Australia which proposes a "gray zone" where doctors (see Doctor No above) should consult the parents on their "options" whether to treat the baby or not.  Now, we in no way can save every child - of course some will die with or without this care.  But what is troubling is Singer's disdain for the sentiment in America, that we ought to try and save everyone, despite the cost.  Some revealing portions of his essay.

 

In the United States, although the American Academy of Pediatrics states that babies born at less than twenty-three weeks and weighing less than 400 grams (14.2 ounces) are not considered viable, it can be difficult to challenge the prevailing rhetoric that every possible effort must be made to save every human life.

Emphasis added

So trying to save even the most hopeless cases is based only on rhetoric (empty, vacuous thinking, that has no basis in Singer world).  The essence of his reasoning is found in this paragraph.  I will highlight much of the sloppy thinking and crystal ball future predicting nonsense of some utilitarian reasoning:

In these circumstances, what should doctors—and society—do? Should they treat all children as best they can? Should they draw a line, say at twenty-four weeks, and say that no child born prior to that cut-off should be treated? A policy of not treating babies born earlier than twenty-four weeks would save the considerable expense of medical treatment that is likely to prove futile, as well as the need to support severely disabled children who do survive. But it would also be harsh on couples who have had difficulty in conceiving and whose premature infant represents perhaps their last chance at having a child. Amillia’s parents may have been in that category. If the parents understand the situation, and are ready to welcome a severely disabled child into their family and give that child all the love and care they can, should a comparatively wealthy, industrialized country simply say, “No, your child was born too early”? Bearing these possibilities in mind, instead of trying to set a rigid cut-off line, the workshop defined a “gray zone” within which treatment might or might not be given, depending on the wishes of the parents.

So here we are again - in the gray zone of life and death decisions which Singer says lands "on the wishes of the parents."  However, this is not very accurate.  We spent a week in the Neonatal Intensive care with our son Thomas in August, and I saw these very children. Tiny, precious, human persons.  In these scenarios the parents listen to the doctors. The parents are at one of the most vulnerable and most influenced places in their lives.  Saying it is "up to the parents" is a bit misleading as the parents will very much be influenced by the counsel from doctors and ethicists on these situations.  The question is which worldview will be brought to bear? The one who sees that all life is of equal value and dignity and worthy of our time and effort to love an nurture?  Or the one who thinks certain humans should survive based on their mathematical "good for society" calculations.  Some are amazed when they read of the eugenics movement which was common among intellectual elite less than 100 years ago in western culture.  We should not be surprised, as the seeds of that same thinking are alive and well today. It is found in the gray zone - a world created by people who desire to determine what kinds of persons shall live or die.  

(HT - thanks to Tim Dees for pointing me to the essay)

For those of you who may not be aware of this site, I wanted to highlight it.  Uncommon Descent is a collaborative blog put out by William Dempski and his intelligent design peeps. Dempski has always been an interesting guy to me as he is highly trained (PhD in Philosophy, another PhD in Mathematics, and even slipped in an MDiv while he was at it) and he is quite bold in speaking on stuff. He always seems to be starting some sanctified trouble somewhere...

A few interesting posts to wet the appetite:

• Gigantic Bacteria has 300 Times More DNA than Human Cells
  
• Michael Behe comments on Richard Dawkins - the bull dog atheist from across the pond
• Darwin dissed by doctors, and a design revolution continues at MIT - interesting
• Another Icon of "Bad Design" goes down - a brief discussion on the retina of the vertebrate eye
  

 A good feed to subscribe to to keep up with the discussion.

Many people have been told the story of that wonderful prehistoric ape named Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis).  Found some 33 years ago in Ethiopia, she has been the cuddly ancestor we descended from long ago on the African plains.

Well, just when you want to feel safe in knowing that favorite monkey you came from...news comes back that Lucy is no ancestor at all.

• Piltdown man - a hoax
• Nebraska man - a pigs tooth
• Lucy - an extinct ancestor of gorillas

Now, I am not making any claim today about evolution, but I will note that the science behind many claims has shown to be well "specious."

KASPAROV AND DEEP BLUE
by Tim Dees 

It was roughly ten years ago that the final Kasparov-Deep Blue match took place.  If you don't remember, that match was the second of two matches that pitted the world's greatest chess player against an IBM supercomputer, nicknamed Deep Blue.  In the first match, the computer put up a strong challenge, but eventually crumpled. 

The second match, however, went quite differently.  The IBM programmers made demands that Kasparov found tough to accept, such as the ability to tweak Deep Blue's software between games.  Kasparov eventually relented.  During the match, Kasparov noticed that the computer was making moves of exceptional creativity and originality.  He had never seen a computer make such moves before.  He accused the programmers of cheating, either by using a human to make some moves, or by reprogramming Deep Blue in mid-game.  To prove they were cheating, Kasparov asked to see the log files.  The programmers refused.

To this day, Kasparov maintains that the Deep Blue programming team swindled him.  But the more interesting thing is that both Kasparov's earlier win and later loss against Deep Blue demonstrates something profound about the human mind. 

When a programmer teaches a computer to play chess, he essentially has it analyze every possible board state.  So it takes every possible move and analyzes it based on the fallout from that move.  This takes enormous processing power.  That's why Deep Blue had to be a supercomputer, and that's why computers have gotten better at chess as they've gotten faster.  But the human mind works nothing like that.  The brain has nowhere near the processing power to compute trillions of possible board states.  So it must be playing by some other system, and a system that is far smarter than anything we've come up with on a computer.

There are other games, however, for which we understand how the brain works.  Backgammon, for instance.  In backgammon, a computer that uses the same processes that Deep Blue used (looking at each possible board state given trillions of possible moves) will lose to a below-average player consistently.  In the 1970s, however, computer scientists started using neural networks to play backgammon.  Neural networks are systems that work very much like neurons in the brain.  After using the neural network programming, the machine was still terrible at backgammon.  But then the programmers tried something different: they allowed the computer to play a few hundred games to train the neural network to play the game.  After that, the computer could handle even the best opponent. 

Neural networks can run on slow computers (like the brain), so computers have gotten no better at backgammon since the '70s.  But neural networks have been unsuccessful at playing chess.  So we're still left wondering what's going on in Kasparov's brain.

 

---

Comments Requested - I would love your thoughts on the relationship of brains to computers, and the differences between minds, consciousness and computational machines.  Also, if anyone has knowledge of pattern recognition vs. sequential processing, that would be cool as well.

 

Well those rational guys who worship Darwin seem to have learned to have fun

I'm not sure where these guys are from (appears to be grad students and profs) but they love the koolaid they are drinking.  Hey, you can't knock them for trying.  I know all the scientists who believe in intelligent design now feel utterly and finally refuted.  Funny stuff.

(HT - Uncommon Descent)

Now, if they are wrong about the whole God thing - I think they might be compelled to watch with the Almighty upon their departure from this world. In a little YouTube window no doubt. A fearful thing.

Some interesting stuff around the net so I thought it was a good time to put together a little bundle.  Kasey and I were in Memphis all weekend with family so the blog has been a little slow.  Thanks for asking Greg :)

General News 

Marriage is on the down in France (shocker, right?) It seems that the French are disposing with the notion of lifelong commitment.  Here is the article from the Washington Post.  Another little tid-bit which shows up in the article is about the tax structure in France.

In France, the greatest financial and tax incentives target the number of children a couple has rather than the parents' marital status.

France, like other European states, needs to give people healthy incentives to have kids.  If something does not happen to make the Europeans reporoduce, the Islamic invasion - stopped by ideas and swords in medieval Europe - will happen without much resistance from the aging, non reproducing, socialist leaning European populations.  The ending of the article is also aw bit ironic...

On Science - The New Atheism

It seems like there was a recent evangelistic rally for unbelief which took place out west in California.  Check out this site - the videos on the home page are priceless, here is the link: Beyond Belief 2006.  The New York Times ran an article on it as well...probably a good starting point.

Here is a description of the event from the conference web site.

Just 40 years after a famous TIME magazine cover asked "Is God Dead?" the answer appears to be a resounding "No!" According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, "God is Winning". Religions are increasingly a geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Fundamentalist movements - some violent in the extreme - are growing. Science and religion are at odds in the classrooms and courtrooms. And a return to religious values is widely touted as an antidote to the alleged decline in public morality. After two centuries, could this be twilight for the Enlightenment project and the beginning of a new age of unreason? Will faith and dogma trump rational inquiry, or will it be possible to reconcile religious and scientific worldviews? Can evolutionary biology, anthropology and neuroscience help us to better understand how we construct beliefs, and experience empathy, fear and awe? Can science help us create a new rational narrative as poetic and powerful as those that have traditionally sustained societies? Can we treat religion as a natural phenomenon? Can we be good without God? And if not God, then what?

This is a critical moment in the human situation, and The Science Network in association with the Crick-Jacobs Center brought together an extraordinary group of scientists and philosophers to explore answers to these questions. The conversation took place at the Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA from November 5-7, 2006.

Harmless for now; my hope is that these dudes don't get violent like the militant secularists of the 20th century (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot). 

Technology

The big news of the week is the PS3 launch...lots of interesting stories out there about people buying them just to sell on EBay.  Reviews have not been great so far. 

Oh yeah, the Zune launched this past week as well. Does anyone care?  You can read an interview with the richest dude on earth commenting on the zune here.

Continue reading "POC Bundle - 11-21-06 - The French, Atheism, and PS3s (and Zunes)" »

There is a brief discussion of science and faith over at Scientific American.  It is a bit facile, but nonetheless highlights some recent works in the debate. 

I plan to review a couple of books here soon which touch on the faith/reason, faith/"science" questions.  I am just so stinkin tired from lack of sleep and a full load in ministry, that it has been a bit tough to get to.

The two books are:

• iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It- the biography of inventor Steve Wozniak - I am 1/2 way done with this one
  
• Is Belief in God Good, Bad or Irrelevant? - I have finished this one.

As expected there is a bifurcation between faith/science with the slant of the article towards materialism.  Anyway, I will believe in good science and sound doctrine...and I do think that keeping the two together makes a world of difference in understanding our human experience.

It seems that DNA is far more complicated and intricately configured than we originally thought - see Scientists Say They’ve Found a Code Beyond Genetics in DNA - New York Times. So much so that the author of this article slips into "design talk" towards the end:

Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nucleosome code.

It is hard not to see design with interconnected coding which produces a certain designed functionality. In any other world we would say "Someone made this to work like that!" - Yet we still know better.

I found this article on preserved Dinosaur soft tissue to be very interestling. I have always been intrigued by the dinosaurs and this research holds great promise for us learning even more.

LInk - Dinosaur Shocker

(HT - Uncommon Descent)

Physicist John Barrow had a message for Richard Dawkins, Darwinianism's current bull dog...His comment:
 

“You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you’re not really a scientist. You’re a biologist.”

Link over at Uncommon Descent - Uncommon Descent � Barrow to Dawkins: “You’re not really a scientist.”

A friend sent me this link - file under kooky, spooky, wacko, misguided, strange, evil, sick...did I say wacko?

Apparently an ecologist, Eric R. Pianka, thinks there are too many of us around here on planet earth, and apparently thinks there are some good ways to get rid of a bunch of human primates in one fell swoop.  One he apparently recommended was airborn ebola to knock out a bunch of people. Save the planet, kill the people.  Strange Logic. This is a result of a worldview gone madly consistent, where human beings are no longer unique in the cosmos and are secondary to other concerns.  Ideas...yes, they matter.

Here is the link: Meeting Doctor Doom.

(HT - Georfrey Lessel)

The nature and makeup of human beings has long been the source of questioning wonder and curiosity. Just what are we? What is the nature of consciousness? Are you human beings merely bodies and brains or is their something that our forebears and many today call the soul? The very fact that we do think, ponder and wonder about such things is in itself a truly amazing phenomenon, unique in what we know about the created universe. In this book, The Science of the Soul, Kevin Favero, an electrical engineer by training, tackles a unique question. Is there good scientific evidence for the inference that human beings have supernatural souls as well as physical bodies?

What is at stake in this debate is very important. If there is no soul, no transcendent reality, no god; if matter/energy is all that IS, then what do we lose? A quote from the Center for Naturalism will help demonstrate what is at stake

Naturalism as a guiding philosophy can help create a better world by illuminating more precisely the conditions under which individuals and societies flourish, and by providing a tangible, real basis for connection and community. It holds that doctrines and policies which assume the existence of a freely willing agent, and which therefore ignore the actual causes of behavior, are unfounded and counter-productive. To the extent to which we suppose persons act out of their uncaused free will, to that extent will we be blind to those factors which produce criminality and other social pathologies, or, on the positive side, the factors which make for well-adjusted, productive individuals and societies. By holding that human behavior arises entirely within a causal context, naturalism also affects fundamental attitudes about ourselves and others. Naturalism undercuts retributive, punitive, and fawning attitudes based on the belief that human agents are first causes, as well other responses amplified by the supposition of free will, such as excessive pride, shame, and guilt. Since individuals are not, on a naturalistic understanding, the ultimate originators of their faults and virtues, they are not deserving, in the traditional metaphysical sense, of praise and blame. Although we will continue to feel gratitude and regret for the good and bad consequences of actions, understanding the full causal picture behind behavior shifts the focus of our emotional, reactive responses from the individual to the wider context. This change in attitudes lends support for social policies based on a fully causal view of human behavior.

Center for Naturalism Internet Site, accessed April 10th 2005. Emphasis Added.

In a naturalistic view there is no person who is responsible for their faults or virtures and therefore no one is truly deserving of praise or blame. We then must configure reality, through politics or force, to “make people” the way we want them to be. One ought to question the one who says he has the ability to "control environments” in order to control the behavior of others. This has been envisioned by many who have taken a naturalistic view as utopian scheme after utopian scheme has oppressed people for the last several hundred years.

If naturalism/materialism is true, then many questions arise. How is matter “good”? How does a purposeless universe give rise to purpose? How does non conscious matter give rise to true meaningful human volition? How do we know that the bumping together of matter and energy in our brains arrives at anything that we would call “true”? These questions find no satisfactory answer from within a naturalistic framework and rightly put the worldview in question.

Favero’s effort in this book is to provide an argument that falsifies naturalism; a most worthwhile pursuit. For if there is something that is beyond matter and energy, indeed supernatural (i.e., beyond or outside nature), even our own souls, then truth, free will, and morality become very meaningful. Now we turn to the argument presented in The Science of the Soul and the attempt to infer the existence of souls from science and logical thought.

The Thrust of Favero’s Argument

The thrust of Favero’s argument for the existence of souls is laid out in the introductory chapter. His basic thesis is that if matter/energy is all that exists, then this matter/energy must by necessity interact according to the laws of physics. We know of no matter that has a mind of its own and decides what it will do autonomously. All matter/energy must follow a natural course including that which makes up human beings. All that we are, our brains and central nervous systems, must up operate by predetermined natural laws. It is then a logical implication that human beings do not have free will. Favero argues that if it can be shown that human beings do indeed have free will, then this volition requires an explanation that is not natural, which is not operating according to the laws of nature. In logical short hand his argument is this:

• If matter/energy is all there is then there is no free will
• There is Free Will
• Therefore matter/energy is not all there is

It is a valid Modus Tollens argument

• If P then Q
• Not Q
• Therefore Not P

With
P = Matter/Energy is all there is and Q = There is No Free Will

With the conclusion being not P = “it is not the case that matter/energy is all there is.”

The bulk of the evidence he then marshals is necessarily in support of the premise that we do indeed have free will. He then argues that the source of the free will we have must come from something other than matter/energy operating according to the laws of Physics. Hence his conclusion, the reality of free will demands a super-natural source, which we call the human Soul.

Support in the Sciences

The middle section of the book is a survey of various scientific fields and their contribution or detraction from the idea that human beings have free will. Each chapter surveys a discipline of science and interacts with the nature of human free will from the perspective of that discipline. The four covered are biology, quantum physics, philosophy and science (soul-brain interface), and mathematics. I will treat each section briefly in turn.

In the chapter on Biology he lays out several views, theistic evolution, special creation, and intelligent design without saying definitively which view he holds. His only contention is that each view does not contradict the existence of supernatural souls and the reality of free will. Only the naturalistic/deterministic evolution of matter + time + chance is incompatible with free will. One of the chapter’s strengths is that all who believe in the soul will find their view fairly represented, yet I did find it a bit contrived that God would at some moment make a pre-Adamic hominid into a “real human” by putting a soul there after the purely natural process of evolution. I think the secularist and some of religious persuasions will find difficulty with such a scenario.

The chapters on Quantum Physics and the Soul-Brain Interface I found to be fascinating and very helpful. Following the work on Sir John Eccles, Favero’s discussion is about how certain quantum phenomena could be the mechanism by which the Soul works out its decisions in the brain. I found this to be a refreshing attempt at explaining in scientific terms what happens as the conscious soul thinks and acts through the brain and the central nervous system. He is very clear that attempts to explain free will by saying quantum reality is the source of such volition are destined for failure. Again, if matter/energy is all there is, then it must follows the rule or laws of physics, even if the probabilistic rules of quantum mechanics. Though quantum fluctuations, and the bundling (or collapsing as some prefer) of the wave function of the electron may be the mechanism of free will, it could never be the source. I find this line of thinking to be a great frontier of study in the science of consciousness.

The final supporting chapter dealt with the discipline of mathematics. The discussion here centered around non-computational aspects of human thinking, namely insight and intuition. This chapter closely follows the work of Roger Penrose in his mathematical study of human thinking. Penrose, though a naturalist himself, stands out against the reduction of human thinking to be analogous to that of a digital computer (see Dennett and Kurzweil). Penrose demonstrates that there are “noncomputational” aspects of our thought that a computer can simply not perform. If one finds halting problems, tiling problems and Gödel’s Theorem of interest (and I must admit I loved this chapter) then the chapter on Math will be a delight.

Weaknesses of the Book

Overall I found the book interesting and a helpful debate on this issue of human anthropology. I did however see a few minor drawbacks. First, the writing style was sometimes a bit redundant with the same thing said in various places. At first this appeared to me a strength, yet I found myself thinking, “you said this already, several times.” Reinforcement is helpful, but after a few repetitions I felt like we were beating the proverbial dead horse. Second, there were a few anachronisms in the history of philosophy that I feel could be corrected. One example is on page 43 where the following statement was made:

During the Age of Reason in the 1600s and 1700s (also known as the Enlightenment), some scientists and philosophers identified the ability to reason as the characteristic that separates humans from other animals.

This is true, but this idea was present in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and many thinkers much earlier than the Enlightenment. This is not a huge mistake, but can appear a little incomplete. Finally, I noticed a few of the quotations in the book were not footnoted (see quotation from Weinberg on page 253). This was rare as the documentation in the book was otherwise fantastic. These minor drawbacks aside, I now turn our attention to the many strengths I found in the book.

Strengths of the Book

The strengths of the book were many and the following are those which I found outstanding. First, Favero lays out well all the implications in the denial of free will in great detail. He clearly shows the effects on law, morality, relationships, even one’s own internal life, when free will is denied. He connects a denial of free will with naturalistic assumptions or presuppositions about the world rather than a scientific or phenomelogical demonstration that human beings lack free will. In other words, people deny free will because of bias, or prejudice against non-material explanations of the world. The inconsistency of materialists denying free will yet then appealing to people to make choices, decisions, etc. was brought out with clarity and force by direct quotations from the literature. Secondly, the author has clearly done his homework. His survey of the relevant literature was copious and the bibliography is an invaluable resource for those interested in the mind/body problem and physicalist debate. The minor footnoting problem aside, the book is very well documented and expansive in its handling of the subject matter. Third, Favero made great effort to make the work accessible to the layperson. In this goal I think he partially succeeded. For those with any scientific background, even a few college courses, will be able to work through the book. Yet to fully grasp some of the concepts a cursory knowledge of some of the sciences is helpful. Fourth, he makes a great distinction between theological determinism, the idea that God predestines and brings about certain things and naturalistic determinism. The former view supporting some manner of real choice and free will while maintaining God as an active chooser and actor in the world and the latter being a completely closed system of cause and effect with no room for free will in us or in God. This discussion, though brief (see pages 39,40), qualifies “free will” enough where one who holds libertarian free will or theological compatibilism could be in concord with the main argument of the book.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I really enjoyed The Science of the Soul and its contribution to the debate on the mind/body problem from a scientific point of view. I was greatly encouraged by the level of research and effort put forth by the author and enjoyed some of the mind puzzles brought forth in the book. The study of consciousness, the nature of humanity, and the resulting societies we will create based upon such knowledge is of utmost importance. People have long assumed they had a self, a soul, which is the true person which they are. This is now questioned in the halls of learning and many are asleep as to the debate and the consequences of wrongly assessing human nature. I thank Mr. Favero for bringing forth the debate with both rigor and passion which is seen clearly in a quote from the book’s conclusion.

It is my hope:

• that all people can recognize there is overwhelming evidence that leads to the conclusion that they have supernatural souls;
• that this recognition and the hope for eternal life will help relieve at least in part the depression and suffering experienced by some people;
• that belief in a supernatuality reality and a supernatural Being is a source of healing for guilt
• that people will realize how wonderful free will, life, and existence are; and
• that these realizations will result in an attitude of awe and thankfulness and will renew the joy of living in many people.

Finally, I hope that a recognition that each human soul is made in the image of a spiritual God will help human relations at all levels and lead to a spiritual millennium.

The Science of the Soul, 325 

To this I would only add that these are possible and described by the term “salvation” in the Christian Scriptures. A great truth of the Christian worldview that souls need redemption, reconciliation to God, forgiveness from sin, and thereby be set free to love God and one another. And such was purchased on the executioner’s cross where the Son of God, by his own free will, gave his life as a ransom for many.

The book may be purchased directly from: http://www.scienceofsouls.com/ 

William Dempski has a post recording Alvin Plantinga's thoughts on Judge John Jone's arguements against Intelligent Design being science. You can read the post here.

If you happen to be new to Plantinga the wiki on him is a good place to start. Many of his works are linked here.

Here is the link from Uncommon Descent Uncommon Descent � Alvin Plantinga on Judge Jones’s Decision

An article from the UK has some strange reasoning about a Turkish family that walks on all fours.  Apparently, some scientists think that studying these modern humans may explain something of our evolution from quadraped to the bipedal folks we are today. I guess if we go and find the people who still climb trees and swing in the branches we would make similar conjectures...very strange logic in my opinion.  Here are a few excerpts

An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.

Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.

The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, 'bear crawl' on their feet and palms. Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise. Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.

Two of the daughters and a son have only ever walked on two palms and two feet, but another son and daughter sometimes manage to walk upright.

The five can stand upright, but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed.

To read the rest of the article continue here.

HT - Geoffrey Lessel

A new book is soon to hit the streets following the emergence of the contemporary Intelligent Design Movement.

Looks like one for the wish list

For more info see: Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson And the Intelligent Design Movement edited by William A. Dembski, forward by Rick Santorum,

There is currently a case going to court in California about the legality of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine.This agency was created by Proposition 71, a voter initiative to allocate 3 billion in public funds towards controversial stem cell research. A little more on Prop 71:

Proposition 71 authorized the agency to dole out an average of $300 million in research grants each year over 10 years, but 15 months later the agency has yet to hand out a dime because of its legal troubles. The lawsuits have scared off lenders, who won't buy the institute's bonds until the litigation is resolved.

The resolution passed with a 59% vote and was designed to get state funds towards embryonic stem cell research in light of the Bush Administration's withholding of federal dollars toward embryonic research. It should be interesting to see the outcome of this case, though I am assuming that Prop 71 will hold as law. The essence of the challenge from two private groups is as follows:

"The act delegates the disbursal of huge sums of public money to the unfettered discretion of an institution whose governing board and working groups are unaccountable to the public,"

For those interested in the development of embryonic stem cell funding in America, this is a case to watch as several other state governments have considered similar efforts.   

AP Story: Calif. Stem Cell Agency Fights for Life - Yahoo! News

William Dempski has a good analogy posted about Intelligent Design and Crop Circles...ET walketh among us.

Uncommon Descent » ID Applied to Crop Circles'

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My friend Ben Vastine sent a good read on Thermodynamics and Evolution by a Mathematician at Texas A&M

Sewell_EvolutionThermodynamics_012304.pdf (application/pdf Object)

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I received the question on POC blog a while back - I thought it worth an entry:

Question Do you think God Created any other universes? If he could create this one in seven days I think he would have done several others?

"Great question. THe hard part about the question of multiverse is that it is impossible for us to verify. Let me explain. Say God did create a bunch of other universes, lets for example say 10 of em. These universes would have their own space/time fabric, perhaps different physical constants etc. The problem is that we could have no knoweldge of them. We could not observe them because they would be uterly other. If God did create them, he would have to 'tell us so' because we could not infer them from this created universe. And to my knowledge God has not spoken in such a manner. 'Hey Reid, Universe ZENON is cool' - I have never heard anything like that from God - and if I did, I would think I was crazy before I believed it was God talking. What I do know is this - this universe has been created. Before it existed, prior to the big bang, nothing existed - then all things were brought into existence. So in my book, the cause of this universe must be: 1) uncaused 2) personal - decided to create 3)powerful and intelligent - well, look at this universe 4) timeless or eternal - for the creator existed before ther was any time - that is hard to even say - but 'before' here is metaphysically or logically before time. This God, visited this universe in the person of Jesus of Narareth (Read John 1) and revealed"

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There is an interesting post over at Uncommon Descent on the relationship of science to the humanities. Is our culture scientifically ignorant due to the teaching of the humanities or is or culture scientifically ignorant due to its anti-intellectual, anti-truth, anti-knowledge worldview that has flowed from the educational establishment.

For one, I would argue that our culture is woefully ignorant of both science and the humanities. We don't know calculus and we do not know Plato and we do not know Shakespeare. We know the bus (aka Jerome Betis), playdo, and Britney Spears.

It is not a high time for the American intellectual. Secular, Christian, or otherwise.

Link -
Uncommon Descent -- If only people knew more science

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I can see how this could benefit people in some cases, but it sure is weird and I can imagine some very weird applications of this sor t of thing down the road.

Link - First Face Transplant Patient Recovering - Yahoo! News

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A couple of summary articles on interesting looking stem cell research. This process takes adult cells (skin in this case) and coax them into hybrid cells which behave the pluripotent capability of embryonic stem cells. This is better path than the murky moral bog of using embryos as harvest farms for therapeutic materials.

• Washington Post Article - Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells
• Top right of Science Now Home (8/23/2005) Short summary

Some basic 411 on stem cells for those who are interested.

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It seems that the Roman Catholic Church's views on evolution are, well, evolving. It appears that the Roman Church is moving towards the Intelligent Design Position rather than strict NeoDarwinian Synthesis of natural selection and genetic mutation.

See Post by Michael Behe at Intelligent Design the Future - The Catholic Church and Evolution

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There is a great article in Nature Magazine as to the nature of designed objects in the real world - things designed by human minds. The article articulately describes how the laws of physics seem to do nothing in predicting things which will be caused by human minds. This is a problem for those who hold that the world is just a set of determinate arranged matter. The minds of people continually do things, create objects, etc .in ways that cannot be predicted by physics showing the order that mind imposes onto the natural world. Paul Nelson of the Discovery Institute rightly sees the implication. If teapots have design imposed upon it by a mind, how much more the higher complexity and design of cells, DNA...

You can read Nelson's post at the ID Blog at Intelligent Design the Future - Teapots today...cells tomorrow?

Interesting factoid - I just read a printout of this article in class here at Southern Seminary. Bill Dempski sent it to our professor this morning and he sent it around class - I of course hogged it for a few minutes to read it - smile.

Oh for the manifest wisdom in making cells and human minds to be known and marveled at in the world.

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Interesting discussion going on about research being done at Michigan State. The skinny is that we can "program" computers to simulate evolution. Once certain system is designed it "evolves" on its own. Very interesting stuff - but didn't someone design the computer to be a system that worked intelligently before we began simulations on it? Hmm...

Articles about the Research covered in the scientific media:

• The New Scientist
• National Geographic
• Discover Magazine - I read this article a month or so ago when I was procrastinating in the library :)

Great reply from the Discovery Institute guys at Evolution News & Views. I would write my own in depth review, but why? I have other things to do today...

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