Eugenics, boo! (Therefore God?)

Moving right along, Chapter 18 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God is "Science, Eugenics, and Bioethics" by Richard Weikart. And just like the previous one, this chapter presents no evidence or arguments for God. It seems to be a history of the eugenics movement, with a barely concealed subtext that portrays science as immoral, mentioning Darwin whenever something needs to be labelled as evil. Weikart's essay, however, is not without equivocation:

Eugenics, at least as an organized movement, died out in the mid-twentieth century for a variety of reasons. Biological determinism was in decline in the mid-twentieth century, especially in the fields of psychology and anthropology, but in many other fields too. Also, critics of eugenics were able to capitalize on the shoddy quality of some of the science underpinning eugenics. Nazi atrocities brought eugenics into greater disrepute. Finally, the call for freedom of reproductive choice that accompanied the Sexual Revolution in the 1960s contradicted the compulsory measures advocated by earlier progressives. (p 99.)

Some ambivalence about freedom there, I see.

Not that any of this matters when considering the evidence, or indeed arguments, for God. These chapters, from Chapter 8 up to this one, are in the section titled The Question of Science. I had expected something related to science (something scientific) to be put forward as evidence for God. It's not an unreasonable expectation, I think, that each of the 50 chapters in a book with the strapline "50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science" should actually attempt to do what the cover promises. Whatever your views on eugenics — morally or historically — they have no direct bearing on evidence or arguments for God.

I'm beginning to think that the title of this book is merely a dishonest ploy to present arguments not for God, but against Darwin. Christians of a certain kind seem to be obsessed with Darwin.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952927

Oh look, numbers! (Therefore God?)

I thought we had already reached the height of irrelevance in Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God, but I was mistaken. Chapter 17 of this book — that purports (it's in the title) to provide evidence for God — is "Evolutionary Computation — A Perpetual Motion Machine for Design Information?" by Robert J. Marks II. It includes a discussion of the monkeys-and-typewriters idea:

The story, theoretically plausible, says that if enough monkeys pound out random letters long enough, all of the great texts in history will eventually result. If enough monkeys pound out random letters for a long enough time, all of the great texts, such as Moby Dick (1,170,200 characters), Grimms Tales (1,435,800 characters) and the King James Bible (3,556,480 letters not including spaces) will eventually result. The finiteness of the closed universe, however, prohibits this. (p 93.)

Notice the throwaway line in the last sentence — we have not established that the universe is either finite or closed. Be that as it may, we are actually talking about chance events, and there's nothing to prevent these "great texts" being the very first sequences these monkeys hammer out. Unlikely but not impossible. It is, however, irrelevant to the matter of God (evidence for).

This chapter contains a lot of numbers, which may be relevant to "evolutionary computation", but what they have to do with God I've no idea.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952931
Also downloadable as a PDF from the Australian Intelligent Design Network:
http://www.idnet.com.au/files/pdf/Evolutionary%20Computer%20Simulations.pdf

Amusing faux pas in Robert Marks' "Biosketch": "He has over 300 publications. Some of them are very good." And some of them aren't?

Skepticule Record: Dr. Paul Curzon at Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub

Dr. Paul Curzon's talk on artificial intelligence on 12 May (the second talk of the evening) included several demonstrations requiring audience participation. He concluded with some conjuring to illustrate his own research into the "human-computer interface".

Audio is available in the Skepticule Record podcast feed here:
http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/05/skeprec-003-20110512.html

(A new Skepticule Extra episode will be available shortly.)

Burnee links for Sunday

Rees and the Templeton - steve's posterous
Steve Zara's take on Templeton's influence:

"Templeton prostitutes science, insisting it can be tarted up and will give faith a good time. It's an Indecent Proposal, allowing science to get screwed for a round million."

New Statesman - Why Dawkins disappoints
Daft title, but interesting article focussing on the default belief position in the UK. (And I still think Dawkins is right not to debate William Lane Craig. "Oxygen of publicity" and all that — those of us who have seen through his theatricals will let Craig get on with his sideshow tour of the UK, and ignore it.)

The Jesus Gap - steve's posterous
Theology is not Steve Zara's favourite subject.

Kenan Malik's essay on why we should oppose torture
This is an insightful take on the difference between rigid moral laws, and moral guidance.

Why won’t Richard Dawkins debate William Lane Craig? « Choice in Dying
Eric MacDonald's very thorough analysis.

High School Student Stands Up Against Prayer at Public School and Is Ostracized, Demeaned and Threatened | Belief | AlterNet
Greta Christina looks at what happens when the chips are down. (Hear from Damon Fowler, the high school student at the centre of the affair, on the latest Non-Prophets podcast.)

Evidence against evolution isn't Evidence for God

Micro-evolution, macro-evolution — it's just a matter of degree. At least, that's what I've always understood. The distinction between species is often described as a question of breeding. Males and females of different species can't interbreed (and produce fertile offspring). But I also understand that the difference between species isn't necessarily that clear cut. In fact it can be almost arbitrary, as a visit to the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre and Cocoon will confirm.

Chapter 16 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God is titled "Limits to Evolvability" and is written by Ray Bohlin. It's all about how evolution cannot account for different species, how mutation cannot introduce additional genetic information, and how natural selection cannot produce all the different forms of animal life. It's all pretty tedious stuff that I've seen before in creationist literature, and I hardly need to go into why it's all mostly nonsense.

The fact that Bohlin has written this chapter, and it's in a book that purports to provide "evidence for God", really shows the creationist's hand. We have several lines of argument that attempt to show why evolution by random mutation and natural selection is impossible, which spawns the inevitable question: why are creationists so dead set against evolution? The answer is that evolution, if correct, removes the need for a sustaining creator god. Evolution shows how the complexity of organic life on this planet came to be, and it didn't require a god to do it. The creationist's god, who was once thought to be actively engaged in constant tinkering and routine maintenance, has nothing left to do. He's superfluous. The Earth — indeed the Universe — can get along quite nicely without an interventionist god. But the creationist can't let that be the case — evolution can't be right!

So presumably that's why we have creationists. Evolutionary theory contradicts scripture, therefore in the mind of a creationist it must be incorrect. The creationist must therefore work backwards from this conclusion to disprove evolutionary theory — hence this chapter. The irony is that even if Bohlin could disprove evolution he wouldn't have proved God.

But what I want to know is this: if Intelligent Design proponents evolved from creationists, why are there still creationists?

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4truth.net
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952921

"Tippler's Bane" — Evelyn Wang's creepy mushroom story now available

I'm famous again (at least a little bit). A new horror short story by Evelyn Wang, entitled "Tippler's Bane", is now available at Pseudopod, the weekly horror podcast. It's narrated as a two-hander by Eve Upton and me.

If you'd like to hear a creepy horror story about twenty minutes long, go and take a listen. At the time of this writing the version available may have some issues with Eve's part of the narration, but I understand Pseudopod have anticipated this and will post a revised version if enough people go over to the Pseudopod discussion forum and encourage them to do so.

It's only the second time I've shared narration of a short story — the other was "Are You Ready For the End of the World?" by Danny Adams, which I narrated along with Tee Morris in March 2006, for Escape Pod.

Incidentally if you're at all interested in short genre audio fiction you really should subscribe to the three Escape Artists podcasts: Escape Pod (science fiction), Pseudopod (horror) and PodCastle (fantasy) — for all of which I've narrated at one time or another.

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UPDATE 2011-06-01:
An alternative version of the story is now available from the Pseudopod website (the mushroom lady is now more audible):
http://media.libsyn.com/media/pseudopod/Pseudo231a_TipplersBaneAlternate.mp3

Burnee links for Thursday

I was wrong: BioLogos promotes Jesus, not evolution « Why Evolution Is True
There are many who think Templeton is a corrupting influence on science. Jerry Coyne is one of the fewer who are prepared to say so in unequivocal terms.

Bollocks! « Carmen Gets Around (II)
Carmen d'Cruz articulates a growing dissatisfaction with the media's shallow treatment of the Harold Camping Apocalypse affair.

Wrong, root and branch; wrong at every cell and molecule; wrong to the core : Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers points out that the (regrettably ongoing) Camping affair is but a symptom of the unjustified weight given to theological nonsense.

Temple of the Future : Unbelievable – When Morality Becomes Literary Criticism
In the light of a recent Premier Christian Radio Unbelievable? discussion James Croft examines the difference between religious and secular morality.

British Centre for Science Education: Creation Watch - Richard Fangrad in Oxford - Creation Ministries International
This talk was in a church, so was Richard Fangrad preaching to the converted? Not entirely, otherwise this report wouldn't exist. But I suspect that the majority of the audience believe the Bible is true to a degree, and some of them might welcome the idea that the Genesis story is confirmed by science. (It isn't.)

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: How the New Rapture Date Was Calculated
I've already stated how I think things went down, but Crispian Jago has a more likely explanation.