ID Gets Its Day in Court
Journalists are so enamoured of the Scopes trial that they just keep rewriting the story everytime evolution and religion show up in court. The latest reenactment is just getting underway in a Pennsylvania courtroom. Biologists just don’t seem to get any respect outside the classroom; the adversarial drama of the courtroom is their fight for vindication. Likewise, the ID proponents, who just can’t get mainstream biologists to take them seriously, see the courtroom as their chance to squeeze some legitimacy from one of the few public institutions that is forced to consider the merits of their position. Anyone’s guess whether the gospel of biology will defeat the gospel of creationism in this round of the ongoing struggle for the hearts and minds of young biology students.
Evo-ID Smackdown
Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District goes to trial today in Pennsylvania.
Trackback by LDS Science Review — September 27, 2005 @ 8:17 am
Anyone interested in some of the science behind intelligent design should take a look at “Just Six Numbers” by an astrophysicist named Martin Rees. I’m not sure whether he’s a theist or not, but he points out that there are some EXTREMELY improbable and absolutely fundamental characteristics of the universe that make its existence even possible. Things like the balance between the mass of matter and the expansion rate of the univers, that is balanced so that it did not implode immediatley after the big bang, without time for stars to form and create the heavier elements, nor was that rate so fast that matter was spread too thinly for any stars to form. Or the balance between atomic forces that hold a nucleus together, as opposed to it collapsing. Some of these very fundamental characteristics could be changed by one part in a trilion trillion trillionth, and the whole universe would never have existed as we know it. As Rees points out, when you look at the liklihood of all six of these fundamental characteristics occuring by chance, it would be something like you winning the lottery every single day for the rest of your life, only even a lot less likely.
Then of course, you’d have to read “The Bigger Bang” which posits an innumerable number of universes sort of nested within each other (Hmmm… there is no kingdom in which there is no space and there is no space in which there is no kingdom, either a lesser or a greater one…. wonder where that came from?). That book argues that since there is an innumerable number of universes, then eventually one of them had to have all of these particular characteristics in place so that intelligent beings could start wondering about why they even exist at all.
I think astrophysicis is a very religious enterprise and though I have no math background at all, I do read a lot on the topic that’s written for the lay audience.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 9:38 am
Jesse, one of the things you have to remember is that evolution and modern astrophysics are built around the idea that our reality had to adapt to whatever the fundamental constants turned out to be in our universe. So learning that our reality fits those constants perfectly doesn’t imply that the constants were designed for us–it might just mean that we came to fit the constants…
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — September 27, 2005 @ 12:15 pm
Ah, but the point about the constants is that there are these fundamental brute facts about the universe, such as the balance between the gravitational, strong, weak and electromagnetic forces, that make it even possible for matter to exist as we know it. These forces didn’t just evolve from some pre-existing state of affairs. They are fundamental. And the thing is, the precise nature of these fundamentals doesn’t seem to be required by anything at all. There is no logical reason that we, in our limited way, can see that they should be balanced so carefully that even less than microscopic variances in those fundamental characteristics would have established conditions under which intelligent life couldn’t exist as we know it.
It’s not that our reality adapted to come to fit those constants, it’s that those constants are required for us to even exist at all, let alone do any adapting, that they are so astronomically improbable and that there seems to be no rational reason for them to have the values/relationships that they do in the first place. And those values are extremely odd, they’re not nice neat 1:3 ratios, or the golden mean or something like that.
It is this that I think deserves some attention in schools, the fact that these fundamental characteristics are so astounding, so astonishing, so unexpected and inexplicable. If find that it increases my belief in God.
But then, as I pointed out, there are theories that posit an infinity of universes, so, eventually, some universe had to have all of these incredibly improbably and inexplicably weird characteristics so that intelligent life could arise and we shouldn’t wonder that we’re here. We’re here because we happen to be inside that fluke of a universe. So there you go, God doesn’t exist after all.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 12:50 pm
Jesse, the key phrase is “matter as we know it.” With different constants, a different package.
Comment by RoastedTomatoes — September 27, 2005 @ 12:58 pm
These forces didn’t just evolve from some pre-existing state of affairs.
Actually, they very well may have…The anthropomorphic principle.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 27, 2005 @ 1:01 pm
Jesse, here’s another can of worms: If God is responsible for the fundamental parameters of the universe, then in what sense can he be corporeal?
Comment by will — September 27, 2005 @ 1:08 pm
Yes, different constants would yield a different package. For example, if gravity was much weaker, relative to the electromagnetic force it would be incapable of compressing hydrogen into heavier elements (as happens in the core of stars) and releasing the energy that comes out in the form of protons, i.e., there would be no stars. No stars means no supernovae that scatter heavy elements around the universe that then coalesce into planets whereon carbon based, self-aware lifeforms such as you and I can then develop to have discussions of such events on silicone-based machines such as computers. In other words, different constants = different package = no intelligent life. Is a universe that’s simply a soup of hydrogen atoms capable of producing intelligent life? Good question. It certainly would NOT have produced us.
Back to the question, what is it that set up the balance between the gravitational and electromagnetic forces in such a fine tuned way as to allow for the development of stars that will go supernovae and seed the universe with heavier atoms, resulting in you and I? The odds of this, and other fundamental characteristics of the basic forces and particles being so finely tuned as to allow us to exist is, to me, simply astounding. And also extremely beautiful and elegant and immensely aesthetic and spiritually inspiring.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 1:11 pm
Sorry, make that “photons” not “protons.”
Oh, and J. Stapley, as I understand it, the “anthropic principle” is a philosophical construct that simply says more or less what I’ve been saying, that the universe is incredibly finely tuned to support life as we know it and that even tiny variations in its fundamental characteristics would make it impossible for us to even exist.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 1:13 pm
Will:
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever.
I do think that D&C 88 and 93 and 131 and Abraham have some very interesting things to say about spirit and matter and light and glory, that make me scratch my head when reading the physics stuff. That said, I don’t think scriptures are really ever meant to be taken as some sort of textbook on creation. Seems to me God is more interested in us learning how to be nice to each other and understand our dependence on Christ, than in learning precisely how the universe ticks, though that latter entreprise is, in my view, really just studying a different aspect of God.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 1:17 pm
Actually I think the Anthropormorphic principle argues the opposite. It says that the laws are the way they are because they’d have to be for us to be observing them. In the weak form it doesn’t say anything about that being a special state of affairs. We just happened to have evolved and we consider ourselves special so when we look at the universe we see what happened to produce us. But it’s no more special than dealing a full house in poker. We assign the meaning to the cards and thus from a more “objective” perspective any particular hand is of equal worth. We merely decide a full house is more significant.
The evolving model arises from Linde universes that I mentioned before. Lee Smolin in particular has argued that because each new universe forms from a prior universe this allows a kind of evolution-like situation to occur. Further, one can argue that there would be an infinite number of universes. So it is actually quite expected that a universe with our laws be around.
Comment by Clark Goble — September 27, 2005 @ 1:27 pm
I think “will” is right. The question of why we live in an apparently fine-tuned universe is not answered by the mormon concept of God, who also seems to live in the same universe. Instead it would perhaps argue for the existence of some sort of incomprehensible Ueber-Intelligence, an idea that mormon theology has often ridiculed.
Nate Oman posted about this a couple of weeks ago at T&S.
http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php?p=2583
Comment by ed — September 27, 2005 @ 2:20 pm
Yeah, the evolving universe theory does make room for a universe with the particular laws of physics that we experience to eventually occur. If there’s an infinity of universes, it’ll eventually happen.
But it all seems so amazing. I mean, if you were put in front of a firing squad with a trillion executioner, and each executioner was given a couple trillion bullets and they all used every last piece of ammunition and all of them missed you every single time, wouldn’t you start to think that something was up?
Yeah, it’s all because our minds are teensy tiny and can’t comprehend things like infinite possibilities and occurrences and such, but it still seems pretty amazing to me. It’s like a million monkeys with a million typewriters not only banging out “War and Peace,” but the entire contents of the Library of Congress. Guess my mind is just too teensy to become cynical.
Even if someone takes a completely atheistic approach to this information, I can’t help but think that they must experience some sort of aesthetic response, something like seeing the grand canyon, only much more awe inspiring.
This is the sort of thing I think is worth mentioning in schools, just to give students an idea of how beautiful the universe is, how, based on a few fundamental characteristics, this colossal variety, this explosion of beauty resulted. Plus, I think it a much more compelling argument for design than, for instance, an insistence that evolution is only a theory (’cause it’s a pretty darn good theory, backed up with LOTS of solid evidence).
But maybe my take on things is just pushing the whole argument back one step and I am, in essence, saying that evolution (even evolution of universes) is just not sufficient, when really, it very well could be.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 3:36 pm
Ed:
Re-read D&C 88. I think that lays out a pretty “uber-intelligence” concept of God. I think we sometimes ignore the grandeur of that depiction of God because we are told that He has a physical body (although with regard to precisely what kind of physical body He has and what its attributes are we are pretty much left in the dark). It’s just easier for our particular brains to think of Him as a human being, so I think we sometimes ignore the D&C 88 self-description He gives us.
In some ways, what that section says is right in step with traditional Christianity’s version of God.
Comment by Jesse — September 27, 2005 @ 3:40 pm
I’m obviously not an atheist, but atheists do have experiences of awe at the beauty and complexity of the universe.
In fact, as I read him, Richard Dawkins thinks that religion can actually detract from a sense of awe by putting things into neat boxes and glossing over interesting issues. To an extent, I think he has a point.
Comment by Jared — September 27, 2005 @ 4:20 pm
Jesse, I would definately read Jareds posts on the ID debate in Utah. The Proffesors that testified did a really great job of explaining whe design is not desirable, even for creationists.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 27, 2005 @ 7:07 pm
Jesse,
You are right about D&C 88 (which dates to 1932). I’m not sure I understand what it is supposed to mean or how it can be reconciled with Nauvoo-era or later teachings.
Comment by ed — September 27, 2005 @ 10:03 pm
Ed, could you clarify what you see as the conflicts?
Comment by Clark Goble — September 27, 2005 @ 10:27 pm
Well, like I said, I don’t really understand what D&C 88 is talking about, so there might well be no contradiction.
But as I understand them, the Nauvoo-era teachings speak of a God who is within space and uses physical laws (some of which, of course, are unknown to us). Also, mormon teachings have explicitly rejected a God without ‘”body, parts, or passions” (whatever that means) as being incomprehensible and therefore inadequate.
D&C 88 says the “light of Christ” is “the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne.” One way to interpret this is that all physical laws come from Christ, but this would seem to contradict later teachings. Another interpretation might be that the light of Christ is some mystical power that is prior to Christ, but to which he has access. It’s not clear, though, whether there is some higher ueber-intelligence behind this power, or why this power is named after Christ.
You may well have a better interpretation. Either way, though, I’m not sure how intelligent design of a fine-tuned universe is explained by (later) mormon theology.
Comment by ed — September 27, 2005 @ 10:59 pm
I think Blake Ostler has a great explanation of it in his book The Attributes of God. I don’t necessarily agree with all his perspectives. But he does explain it well.
One traditional way to understand D&C 88 is that God can communicate with all things. He knows what they are and for many of them can utilize them as he wills. Thus he can do all things. Yet he’s still bound by the other things being self-existent at some ultimate level. So God is in and through all things, in that he sets up this communication ability.
A way to think of it is as an electric field affecting charged iron fillings. The electric field is in and through all things and is tied to their power to move. Yet that doesn’t mean that the electric field is independent of law.
Comment by Clark Goble — September 27, 2005 @ 11:18 pm
Clark:
That analogy of the electric field is generally how I think of God in my own head. Given that LDS scriptures are pretty clear on the uncreate nature of spirit and matter, I tend to think that their fundamental natures constitute the laws God works with and can’t, ultimately, change. It is odd that D&C 88 and 93 equate spirit/truth/intelligence/glory/the spirit of Christ/law, as if they were all one thing. And Christ says “I am the law” and “I am the light” and God is the Light that shines through everything. I think these are literal statements, not just metaphorical.
From our human experience and perspective, that’s a pretty wild thing to say. Something along the lines of my claiming that I am “The Force” from star wars. Don’t mean to be too flip, just to point out what an odd statement this is. To me, it just makes it obvious that we really DON’T intuitively grasp what’s going on in the universe at a deep level. It’s sort of like how we’re all moving through time and space relative to each other and to every other object, but we just aren’t aware of it because we’re incapable of being aware of objects that are moving near the speed of light with respect to us. Our bodies just limit what we can comprehend and focus on. Maybe this is a good thing too. Keeps us focused on learning how to be nice to each other.
Comment by Jesse — September 28, 2005 @ 8:49 am
J. Stapley:
Where’s Jared’s post. Couldn’t dig it up and am curious. Thanks for pointing it out.
Comment by Jesse — September 28, 2005 @ 9:02 am
Here is Jared’s post on the matter.
Also, here is David Bailey’s paper, that is quite good.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 28, 2005 @ 9:24 am
Wow — this topic is generating more discussion than I would have anticipated for such a tame little post. You may be interested in this recent post on the ID issue by a San Diego law prof who is more attuned to the public policy perspective than the strictly scientific issue. Quick summary (rather liberally construed): If Dawkins gets to strut his atheistic materialism under the banner of biology, ID should get to strut its theistic creationism as well. Few dispute that the biologists have the biology right, it’s the politics that bedevil the discussion, and the biologists either have a tin ear for that or are just playing stupid rather than grappling with those difficult issues.
Comment by Dave — September 28, 2005 @ 10:02 am
J. Stapley:
Thanks for the links! Both those papers were really interesting. I very much agree with Jared’s objection to ID on the basis of it being a sort of throwing up of the hands and saying, “Let’s not do any more research on X.” Seems a foolish thing to do.
I’ve thought a lot about what sorts of experiences in life are pretty much available to everyone, regardless of when or where they are born. Seems to me that those sorts of things are what we ought pay most attention to.
Gaining a completely correct and fully detailed understanding of how the universe ticks is not one of those things, because, to this point, that understanding has been incomplete and generally limited to a pretty exclusive group of fairly educated folk and probably always will be. I’m not saying that struggling to understand and striving to test and study is not important, but that in terms of our personal growth and what we do with our individual lives, the knowledge may not be so important as the process itself and what we learn about ourselves by engaging in that process. That experience is available to anyone, at any time and in any place.
It’s sorta like how even if I lived in a society that believed that the world was a flat disc on the back of four elephants, who in turn stand on a gigantic, space-traveling “star” trutle, I would still have the opportunity to choose to be kind and thoughtful and loving, as opposed to cruel and selfish and oppressive (and yes, I am a Terry Pratchet fan).
Comment by Jesse — September 28, 2005 @ 11:27 am
I doubt Dawkins does much strutting in high school biology classes. (I didn’t hear about him until my senior year at BYU when one of my professors recommended The Selfish Gene.)
His books are popular science–something that ID advocates can–and do–also publish.
Comment by Jared — September 28, 2005 @ 7:47 pm