A Moral Maze — of science and morality (BBC Radio 4)

On Wednesday BBC Radio 4 concluded the present series of the Moral Maze, its weekly live panel discussion on topical issues of morality. Unlike most other radio discussion panels, the Moral Maze adopts a cross-examination format, calling witnesses one by one to be quizzed by the regulars. As it's a live show, things can sometimes get a bit heated. (This also depends on which of the regulars are on the show in any given week, and who is chairing the panel — David Aaronovitch has temporarily replaced Michael Buerk for the latter part of this series. Melanie Phillips' more incendiary views often spark fireworks, though she wasn't on this week.)

The topic on Wednesday was science and morality, and two of the witnesses were Giles Fraser and Jerry Coyne. Fraser doesn't seem to have learned from his encounter with Sam Harris (but Fraser's views appear remarkably ill-defined at the best of times, especially on Thought for the Day). He impaled himself categorically on one horn of the Euthyphro dilemma by stating that God's morality is not intrinsic to God but external to him (which surely makes him less of a god). But theology has never been Fraser's strong point.

Jerry Coyne dealt patiently with his interrogators' questions, but clearly could have used more time to develop his responses. In some ways he was an untypical choice for this topic (maybe they couldn't get Sam Harris), but nevertheless he did well.

The audio can be streamed from the Moral Maze website or direct from iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b011jv8m
Check out Jerry Coyne's two posts on his blog Why Evolution is True:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/i-iz-on-moral-maze-today/
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/moral-maze-podcast/

Burnee links for Thursday

I am lectured in logic by a man who believes in invisible magic men in the sky : Pharyngula
P. Z. Myers picks up on the tautology of Intelligent Design terminology. (Michael Behe is guilty of this too: he talks about "a purposeful arrangement of parts" — apparently oblivious to the fact that he's begging the question. "Purposeful", or "full of purpose", to Behe means it must be designed. Of course, if you define something as being the result of design, you're not really making a logical deduction in saying it must have been designed. As I've said before, things that are red in colour are coloured red. Not a world-shattering deduction, merely tautology.)

Answers in Genes: Show me the Sausages!
All very fine and dandy, but show me the sausages.

Craig v Krauss « Choice in Dying
Eric MacDonald examines William Lane Craig's arguments in his debate with Lawrence Krauss, and finds nothing there.

Ye Olde “Atheism is a Religion” Canard : EvolutionBlog
Atheism is not a religion.

Adam and Eve: the ultimate standoff between science and faith (and a contest!) « Why Evolution Is True

"The purpose of BioLogos is to show that there can be harmony between mainstream science and evangelical Christianity."

Before you can show such a thing, that thing has to be true. 2 + 2 = 5

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