John McLatchie, a celebrity ID-ist according to TSZ, and Alex O’Connor had a debate titled “Theism vs. Naturalism: Which is a Better Account of Reality?”
The actual debate starts at 14:08 with John McLatchie’s opening statement.
McLatchie’s “Evidence for Theism”:
- The Universe had a beginning.
- The fine-tuning of the laws of physics.
- The evidence of biological design.
- The evidence for the truth of Christianity.
McLatchie focuses on biological design in his opening statement first, and second on some scattered remarks on Christianity apparently from some Anglo-American evangelical angle.
This is boring because the title of the debate is “Theism vs. Naturalism” and none of McLatchie’s points are on theism. His first two points are cosmology, the third is biology and the fourth is Christianity. Evangelical Christianity is just one parochial/provincial form of theism, whereas McLatchie seems to care most about ID-ism which does not properly qualify as any sort of theism, even though McLatchie presents it as if it did.
ID-ism – as in McLatchie’s third point, evidence of biological design – is an argument about the nature of biology. The argument has no direct implications on theology, which is why it does not qualify as a theistic argument. Yes, biological organisms and their functions appear designed because they are complicated and purposeful, but this might mean that the designer is even more complicated, so who designed the designer? Richard Dawkins would agree that biology has hallmarks of design all over, but posits that the design is fundamentally derived from non-design. That’s how little connection biological design has to theism.
(As an aside, I recall that according to its advocates ID-ism was supposed to be sheer science, nothing sneakily religious or theological. The truth of course is that ID-ism was always meant as a sneaky way to get God into school textbooks and this is now – openly in a non-sneaky way – manifest in McLatchie’s presentation.)
The topic of theism requires properly a philosophical or theological approach, so luckily we have Alex O’Connor, a student of theology, who starts his opening statement at 34:25.
O’Connor’s first point against theism: “The inescapable God” (Psalm 139) is not a universal experience.
According to O’Connor, naturalism (atheism) would be a better explanation given:
- Hiddenness of God
- Geographical statistical arrangement of religious belief
- Problem of gratuitous suffering
I find the first point the strongest against theism. When a sincere seeker is not rewarded with results, it is a bummer for sure. However, there is a solution to it that O’Connor does not consider. Namely, some self-reflection is in order after a failed quest. You may think you are truly perfect and God should accept you as such, but are you really and should he really? In principle, God doesn’t have to obey your criteria or play according to your rules. Or, if you really are absolutely fabulous and wonderful, then there may be a better God in store for you instead of the geographical statistical average as per your local whereabouts.
O’Connor should really consider some self-reflection along those lines, because philosophy and theology are rather sophisticated pursuits, particularly when your intellectual level is above the average Joe. As for average Joes, O’Connors first two points weigh equally against atheism as against theism: Most interesting science and thoroughly matured atheism are as inscrutable for common folks as philosophically consistent theism and theology are. And you find more atheists in certain places and not in others, if that’s supposed to mean anything.
I leave O’Connor’s third point, the problem of suffering, be. In my opinion, the theists for whom the problem of suffering poses a problem are actually doubters, not believers. For me, the problem of suffering never was any sort of problem. But supposing that suffering is a problem, atheism doesn’t solve it. Atheism only asserts that gratuitous suffering is okay, “natural”. Which far from solves it.
In summary, the debate was more on topic by O’Connor, because his approach was properly philosophical. McLatchie’s ID-ism, as ID-ism in general, is basically off topic when it comes to theism. However, on this website ID-ism is very much the topic, so discuss.
Mods, fix Alex O’Connor’s name in the first sentence, please. Looks like I did not go all the way back to the start when revising, sorry.
Done
Excellent job!
I sense some ambiguity with the word “account” in the title. Does this mean a description of reality as we know it, or does it involve the processes by which reality as we know it has come to be? If the former, we need to be careful not to include in our description anything for which we lack any evidence. If the latter, does it matter whether the processes can be understood and modeled with useful accuracy?
In either case, is it important whether or not our account is subject to continuous test and amenable to change as needed? In other words, should reality be obliged to match our account, or vice versa? The very concept of “evidence” rests on this question, because our preferred account implies, constrains and informs the set of all things we can regard as evidence.
Flint,
Yes, the title of the video is poorly chosen. Neither theism nor naturalism is an account of reality. If the title had used “which yields a better account of reality?”, that might have been better.
“Account” means the same as explanation here. Your mistake, Flint and Neil, is that you are scientistic about a philosophical topic. Scientism is always a mistake, of course.
There seems to be a semantic problem here. To me, there is a difference between an explanation and a description. We know the sky is blue; that’s a description. But it’s not an account, and it’s not an explanation.
(I’m reminded of the famous Ring Lardner exchange:
“Daddy, are we lost?” he asked.
“Shut up!” he explained.)
Correct, there is a difference between an explanation and a description. But are we aiming at a description or an explanation? Are you happy with just a list of facts without any hint or indication of what ties them together, what leads from one thing to another thing? Particularly, when the topic includes big words like theism, naturalism and reality, can it be covered by stating some trivial facts like the sky is blue, without any explanation why it is blue?
Obviously, “sky is blue” is nowhere near the topic. Which is why I say McLatchie’s ID-ism is not on topic either.
Well, referring back to my first post, I was asking about process, by which I meant, “what leads from one thing to another thing?” No useful account of biology, for example, is possible without a fairly comprehensive grasp of evolutionary processes.
I’m not aware of any theistic understanding of real-world processes which is amenable to testing and, if necessary, rejection in favor of some better understanding. Similarly, I’m not aware of any useful understanding of reality which has any need of any gods. So perhaps I’m not actually concerned with the word “account”, but rather with the word “reality”, a place where there are no gods.
I quite agree that scientism is a mistake — though I would appreciate some clarification about what you mean by scientism. Since you are (if I understand correctly) a rationalist and a theist, I am pretty sure that you and I have different views about what scientism is, what kind of mistake it is, and how it should be avoided.
I say that because I don’t see any scientism in what Flint or Neil said. Neil made the innocuous suggestion that theism and naturalism are not themselves accounts of reality, but rather yield accounts of reality. (I confess I don’t see the distinction there.)
Flint’s point was that if we’re going to contrast theism and naturalism as accounts of reality, we had better have some secure grasp on the criteria of evaluation we’re going to use. (I wasn’t bothered by his use of “evidence” here.) And he rightly raises the massive question of whether we have any secure grip on criteria of evaluation that is wholly independent of the worldview that we are attempting to evaluate.
If we don’t, then the criteria are somehow internal to the worldview that we’re evaluating. But then we aren’t comparing the worldview with reality, but only explicating the story that the worldview would have us tell about itself. This give us at best a coherence theory of justification, not truth as correspondence.
If we do have a secure grip on worldview-independent criteria of evaluation, then we shall need to know what is the basis of that grip — how do we know that we have secured the right criteria for evaluation, and are we entitled to assurance that the criteria really are worldview-independent?
These lines of thought suggest to me that Flint was correct when he said:
because only if our account is revisable based on how we use it, are we entitled to any assurance the world is really getting a vote on what we say about it. That’s a standard principle of scientific methodology but I see no reason why we should not extend the same methodological principle to metaphysics.
Doing so would not collapse the distinction between science and metaphysics, and so it would not be “scientism” (if one thinks of scientism as collapsing that distinction, or thinking that science allows us to “overcome” metaphysics).
In the interest of intellectual honesty, I think we really should distinguish between “gods” and “God.” If we’re going to engage with theism as theists themselves understand it, this distinction is absolutely crucial. And if we want theists to engage with naturalism as naturalists understand it, and not with some crude caricature of their own imagining, we owe them the same courtesy — and perhaps even lead by example.
Well, OK. Perhaps also in the interest of intellectual honesty, we should distinguish between Abrahamic theists and, for example, Hindu theists. My reading is that Hindu theists can be just as devout as Muslim theists, while recognizing many gods (but six major gods).
I still don’t accept that naturalism invokes, or indeed has any use for, anybody’s god(s). But for the sake of honesty, I’ll say that naturalism has no use for God, Christian version. Because if I understand you correctly, although religion seems universal, the specific “theists themselves” we want to engage with are Christian. I guess if a devout Hindu shows up here, we should respect that person by using his own custom religious terminology. But the language of naturalism is universal (something to think about).
(I confess a personal weakness here: I have difficulty distinguishing one god from another, and my experience is that no two people worship the same one. So it’s hard to identify the One True God, though we can pretend to with careful capitalization. For sure, the Christian perspective is as confounding to me, as my understanding of naturalism is to them.)
Flint,
I’m happy to let devout Hindus and Christians discuss amongst themselves whether God, as meant by Christians, would be closer in meaning to Brahman or Brahma.
Regardless, there are in many religions — not just Christianity and Hinduism — an emphasis on the following idea: we can have knowledge of ultimate reality by following a procedure that builds up specific mental states and attitudes.
That is very different from attitudes taken towards ‘merely’ superhuman deities — finite, fickle, and fallible — such as Apollo or Odin.
I think recently there was some conversation on Jerry Coyne’s blog about the tension between the philosophical God and the layman’s God. And the problem was that the philosophical God, as described by what Coyne calls “sophisticated theologians” is too abstract and impersonal, perhaps closer to the Gods of Einstein or Spinoza. But the layman’s God, the personal one people converse with directly, closely resembles your “mere superhuman deity”, a God susceptible to anger, jealousy, favoritism, flattery and bribery. In other words, the God in whose image we are made, who answers prayer, performs miracles, and who promises eternal life in a heaven up above the clouds somewhere.
I’m probably expressing this all wrong, since I don’t have any clear notion of either one.
You’re making excellent sense to me. The obfuscation between philosophy god and layman god is a large part of the theist playbook. I think it is reasonable for the user of a phrase to respond to requests for clarification rather than rely on our ability to interpret.
From the OP:
Views of individual commenters do not necessarily represent those of TSZ (which don’t exist) or its founder or current admin staff. I wouldn’t call McClatchie a celebrity nor has he done much to earn that soubriquet.
No big deal, Erik, but where did you gain this impression?
I confess, I can’t imagine how theism could even be used to provide an account of reality. I’m not even sure what that is supposed to mean. It seems to me that theism is about, perhaps, providing some guidance on what people can and/or ought to do within reality, but I don’t see how it could be used to explain what reality is (which is what I think “account” means).
Perhaps a theistic account of reality is supposed to be something like, reality is a product of the mind of God. If so, I don’t find it all that informative or useful.
When I was very young I asked questions of those around me. As I grew a little older I noticed answers I received did not tally with reality as I observed it. I think that helped trigger my life-long scepticism in matters religious.
I think that’s completely right. There is a real tension between the God of the philosophers and the God of Scripture. Theologians like Maimonides and Aquinas attempted to reconcile them.
Personally I follow Spinoza in thinking that these two conceptions cannot be reconciled — one of them is the abstract ideal of metaphysicians, the other is the tribal god of the Israelites.
Perhaps part of the issue is whether one thinks that the question, “why is there something rather than nothing?” (or “why does anything exist?” or “why isn’t there just non-being?”) to be good questions, questions that are meaningful and worth asking — even though they cannot be answered by any science.
The impression that McLatchie is a celebrity ID-ist according to TSZ? I found here some years-old posts dedicated to him. I did not go past the heading of the posts, but there were more than one of those, so I hastily decided I can call him a celebrity. I myself never heard of him before and will not investigate any deeper.
It can be said that they are the same thing appearing as different to different people, like a colourful thing appears grey to colourblind. Most people go by their own direct experience, which is mostly the best way to go.
Holy crap. McLatchie as if he’s never heard any counterarguments to all of that bullshit.
Who is ID-ist Tayler? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDYJMC_N-c4 Not a celebrity apparently and not going to be after this.
As an aside, does any ID-ist have an answer by now why ID-ism is strictly a USA thing?
I have my own hunches about why this is the case, but I’d be interested to see what Intelligent Design supporters themselves have to say.
I’d guess it has something to do with how much we value intellectual freedom in the US, our love of freedom of inquiry, how anti-dogmatic we are, etc.
It’s all about the money. It is always all about the money.
American Christians will say that they worship God or that they worship Jesus. But what they really worship is the almighty dollar.
The Prosperity Gospel movement sure put an end to “Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. But I’m not how connected that is to the rise of the intelligent design movement.
In my opinion, a worldview cannot give you truth as correspondence. The world means universe here and there is plenty of dark matter in it that is subject to disagreement so that, insofar as we are talking about two people laying out their worldviews to each other, they cannot aim at truth as correspondence because the list of things to correspond to is limited. Moreover, given an atheist versus a theist, the atheist’s list of things is quite a bit shorter. So, coherence and completeness are the way to go.
Atheists often point to Occam’s razor to support a shorter ontology and fewer presuppositions. My counterargument to that is that according to Occam’s razor the shorter (or more elegant) *explanation* is preferable, but atheists tend to explain things away instead of really explaining. Just like Flint saying “there is a difference between explanation and description” and sticking to description. This fails the test of Occam’s razor, because it rejects explanations. Occam’s razor is about having an explanation, not claiming that a non-explanation or a hand-waving dismissal is good enough.
Using the word “evidence” while at the same time rejecting explanations and insisting that that is good enough to pass as science is definitely in the realm of scientism.
I think that worldview-independent criteria to evaluate a worldview cannot be had. For the same reason as above: We are talking about the universe. If you supposedly steer clear from any worldview while trying to evaluate a worldview, you simply lack the prerequisite inventory of concepts and standards for it. The criteria you pick, e.g. Occam’s razor to compare the worldview of an atheist to a theist’s worldview, already involve a worldview in themselves, or a preference of a particularly philosophy of science. Is your ideal the completeness of the account, the internal consistency and coherence, or, as you suggested earlier, “correspondence” which cannot be had in my opinion? Clearly depends on the worldview of the one making the pick.
Also it is useful to distinguish between gods (or concept of God) of laymen and God-of-the-philosophers. The latter is on some accounts surprisingly universal. For example as in classical theism.
The best “evidence” I’ve seen for theism is really just an inference from our own experience … we see a robot or other “smart” device and we INFER that an intelligence was required to design it. Likewise we see zillions of smart devices in Nature (organisms) and we also INFER that an intelligence was required to design those as well. If we had a naturalistic explanation, then this inference would not be so strong but we don’t. As James Shapiro, founder of the “Third Way of Evolution” movement puts it …
“Localized random mutation, selection operating ‘one gene at a time’ (John Maynard Smith’s formulation), and gradual modification of individual functions are unable to provide satisfactory explanations for the molecular data, no matter how much time for change is assumed. There are simply too many potential degrees of freedom for random variability and too many interconnections to account for.
…
It has been a surprise to learn how thoroughly cells protect themselves against precisely the kinds of accidental genetic change that, according to conventional theory, are the sources of evolutionary variability.”
shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro.1997.BostonReview1997.ThirdWay.pdf
Up to this point, I agree.
Here, I completely disagree. I look at organisms, and recognize that they could not possibly have been designed by an intelligence. Nature’s way is different.
I agree with you.
This is why, as I tried to say to phoodoo, the underlying issue is whether or not one even perceives organisms as designed. And that depends on one’s implicitly held conceptual framework. Phoodoo expressed sheer incredulity when I said that I do not even see organisms as designed. So there is no evidentiary basis (for me) that would allow a design inference to get off the ground.
Considering that I’ve been an amateur naturalist all my life and have a BA in biology, I don’t think the problem is my ignorance of molecular biology, physiology, anatomy, embryology, or ecology.
James Shapiro’s view is not representative of the current scientific consensus as his ideas of “natural genetic engineering” are not widely accepted. So yes, natural selection is still considered the only plausible explanation for (both complex and simple) adaptations by the scientific community.
Of course, you are still free to regard the intricacy of organismal structure as evidence for the existence of God (many non-creationists do), but it may be unwise to base your faith on science denialism.
Corneel,
Views held by the majority of the scientific community may or not be based upon good evidence. I prefer to look at the evidence itself as opposed to how many scientists believe this or believe that …
Yes, that is the usual response. In my experience, creationists get most of their talking points reading fellow creationist sources, rather than studying the primary literature. I believe I saw you endorsing Michael Denton’s book in another thread?
I don’t want to turn Erik’s thread into the nth discussion of ID creationism though, so I think I will leave it at this. You can have the last word here, if you like.
Corneel,
I agree that laypeople (such as myself) need to be cautious about which scientific experts we appeal to.
But from what I can tell from Shapiro’s article, his complaint isn’t about natural selection but rather about a specific view about what genes are and the role of genetic changes in causing heritable variation.
He is urging a less geno-centric view and a more cell-centric view, in which genes are one element in a complex dynamical system and not the master molecules that Monod or Dawkins take them to be.
For what little it’s worth, this more cell-centered view is gaining ground amongst philosophers of biology such as Susan Oyama, Daniel Nicholson and Lenny Moss, along with cell biologist Stuart Newman and a few others.
It has not yet gained many converts amongst experimentalists, to the best of my knowledge, largely because the more complexity one tries to account for, the harder it is to disambiguate between the variables you are trying to manipulate and the parameters you are trying to leave alone.
(There’s a lesson in there for all of us, I’m sure!)
Hi HMGuy, I guess you’re at a bit of a loose end while TR is suspended.
I think this is almost an intelligent position to take. But I see a few small problems. First, different conclusions can be drawn from exactly the same evidence. So long as one is not including falsehoods or selectively omitting uncongenial evidence, different conclusions can be equally defensible.
Second, drawing conclusions more likely to be correct often requires more than a layman’s understanding of the evidence. A scientist who has spent a lifetime learning all there is to know about some field is usually better at weighting and combining a welter of facts in forming a conclusion.
Third, views held by any scientist, whether or not in the majority, must be subject to experimental test to ratify or discard any view. When a book came out called 50 scientists refute Einstein (or something like that), Einstein said, Why so many? If I’m wrong, it only takes one. There are no scientific theories of anything in which any gods are a component, however minor. And this is largely because god-based “understandings” are simply not amenable to experimental test. If you see “good evidence” for any gods in explaining reality, you are wearing glasses that seriously distort your vision. (And here’s a hint: if your position is shared only by those who also share your religion, you’re not seeing evidence, you’re seeing what your faith requires you to see.)
“He [Shapiro] concludes that “Contemporary genomics has turned evolutionary theory upside-down.” and has fully documented these discoveries in other recent articles (Shapiro & Noble, 2021; Shapiro, 2021a, b).”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12304-021-09448-6
Like I said … we don’t have a non-ID explanation for life … so … the most reasonable inference is an Intelligent Designer who is far more sophisticated than human designers.
Even if it were true that we don’t have a non-ID explanation for life, saying your religion is the only possible alternative is a false dichotomy. If my religion required me to believe that 2+2=22, if I used your rationalization, I could argue that 2+2 does NOT equal 3, so 22 is the “only reasonable inference.” ID is neither reasonable nor is it an inference. It is a religiously based foregone conclusion, being force-fit to a deliberate misunderstanding.
As a footnote here, I read in Science News today that the Japanese have developed a very gentle process of analyzing molecules in asteroids, and have found adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil, along with various sugars (like ribose), phosphates and amino acids. These are all meteorites that have fallen to Earth within the last century. These, incidentally, are all the bases necessary to construct DNA and RNA.
Now, anyone willing to consider evidence would consider these findings suggestive. Could you?
Nonsense. I agree we don’t have any explanation for life’s origin on Earth. Though we have plenty of ideas and evidence for what happened in the 3.7 billion years or so that follow.
There is certainly no explanation that involved “Intelligent Design”. The whole movement is based on a fraud.
@ HMGuy
Just for background. Others may not be aware of the history.
ETA Erik tells me the link loads a very large file which may take too long to load.
You should warn people that there is megaloads behind the link (over 13M??!!). Even text mode browsers struggle to open this. I found Links2 works decently though.
The first post must be some classic. The points A to P are not any sort of hypothesis, it is just retelling the Bible. The guy evidently has no clue what a hypothesis is and how they work.
The last point, P, says “Scriptures should be the basis and starting point for all human activities from individual behaviour to family operation to nation building and governance of human affairs to scientific endeavors and the arts.” What is missing (or perhaps would be next point or perhaps is already implicitly in this one) is to state that American Founding Fathers were divinely appointed to create the Constitution as the beacon of Liberty etc. to all nations. Straight from Adam and Eve through Moses and Jesus to USA. The pinnacle of American messianic exceptionalist crackpottery. This idiocy only exists in USA (where I thankfully do not live).
I am not saying “my religion is the only possible alternative.” Please do not put words in my mouth. I am simply saying that in the absence of something better (more intellectually satisfying), the Design Inference is the best we have. Why? Because it’s based on our own experience with manmade “life-like” machines. To get to “my religion” requires a number of further steps beyond the Design Inference.
No we don’t. We have a bunch of atheist zealotry throwing mud at the wall to see what sticks. But not much is sticking. It’s an ad hoc mess.
Alan Fox, you may be correct that my “hypothesis” is not well structured … I dunno … all I know is that naturalistic “explanations” have failed miserably and the Design Inference is still the most reasonable one. I have not spent a lot of time walking through the steps from the Design Inference to Christianity but others have. As for this …
I don’t buy this crap at all so we are in agreement. I think that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in the late 1700s had a better system than we created. (Charles Mann “1491”)
Ah, OK, I’ll edit in a warning, thanks.
Oh my…this is just absolute silliness to me.
I have never looked at a smartphone or a robot or any other similar item and thought intelligence was required to design it. Rather, I’ve looked at my smartphone and acknowledged it’s specific human design and manufacturing process that is (ironically) easy to read about using said device.
Paley’s argument is, as noted in my essay The Blind Watch Dropper, ridiculously naive and fallacious. We know things like cars and watches and buildings and clothes and phones and so forth are designed because we know the human-design process. Further, we can actually see and evaluate the manufacturing evidence and results. The idea that any person can remove themselves from the knowledge that our man-made devices are man-made is absurd. We can’t just ignore our knowledge and understanding of these devices and suddenly become AMAZED at the intricacy and harmony of a given device’s workings if we happen to stumble upon one in the woods. Never mind that we now know that rocks aren’t a permanent fixture of the world, unchanging for an eternity a la Paley’s ignorance of actual geologic processes, we also know the difference between man-made objects and those of nature simply because we know the man-made manufacturing signs and nothing in nature has any sort of similar appearance at all.
Let me know when Shapiro can point to the tool used to manufacture these so-called “smart devices” in Nature…
If that were the case, Dave, you should be able to explain how it works. How do you apply the Design Inference? How do you use the explanatory filter? Can you calculate the amount of CSI (complex specified information) in, well, anything, preferably something vaguely biological?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_Inference
1998. Nearly a quarter of a century and still no hypothesis.
Wow. What a bunch of nonsense. Peirce would be aghast.
Kantian Naturalist,
There’s more (much more and some of it far from pretty 🥺 ) at another site which is offline at the moment. One thread where others school an unreceptive Dave in the intricacies of dendrochronology deserves a wider audience, if only as a cautionary tale, though I found it very instructive on the technology.
WHOA!! That is some nutty…stuff! Good trip down amnesia lane though. I recall reading some of AFDave’s stuff back in…like…2006? Good times!
So why the new moniker, AFDave? I’m just curious.