The Greater Miracle

I just came across something composed by Hume that's relevant when debating those of a religious viewpoint. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume writes: In other words, always choose the lesser miracle. Hume goes on: In discussions here we often find ourselves asked to accept claims of miracles. For example, "How could a dispirited group whose leader had just been crucified suddenly become joyous and enthusiastic while proclaiming that their Lord had risen unless it had really happened?"For another example, "Life's complexity is too great to have arisen by chance random events, and the unique conditions of Earth are too special for life to have just happened naturally, and so God must have been responsible."But application of Hume's Maxim requires the dismissal of all claims like these. Which is more miraculous: that a crucified man returned to life and then rose bodily to heaven? Or that the apostles lied, or that the Gospels are fiction, or some other similarly mundane explanation? By the maxim of the least miraculous, we rule against the resurrection and the ascension.And concerning life's complexity, which is the more miraculous: that an unseen God created the earth and life upon it? Or that the same natural forces we observe every day formed the earth and life? By Hume's maxim we must conclude in favor of natural processes.I wonder what those of religious persuasion think of Hume's Maxim.Is it science?--Percy

I think the key issue people identified is that Hume's Maxim would have no impact on those immersed in miraculous thinking. Even though many miraculous thinkers would probably embrace it enthusiastically, they'd reach opposite conclusions from us. They'd reason, "What's the lesser miracle: that the apostles would lie, or that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven? Why, that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven is obviously the lesser miracle, so that must be what happened."Such logic probably leaves many of us speechless or at least amazed that people who think like this are capable of not only making their way through life, but of actually using a computer. I find myself constantly amazed at how effectively ICR and the Discovery Institute use the Internet. Shouldn't they be sitting on high stools copying scrolls by hand?But I think all of us hold many contradictory beliefs. For example, I believe that I have reached my current high station in life (i.e., webmaster for this website) through diligence and hard work, but I also believe that it's the result of an accident of birth and geography that made me a child of a professional family in one of the wealthiest and best educated countries in the world. I somehow also believe that had I instead been born in Eritrea the son of goat herders that I would still have experienced personal and professional success instead of becoming a victim of the tumultuous events there. Yeah, right.So how do we deal with the contradictory thinking that all of us are heir to when it is displayed by Christians in discussions here regarding matters relevant to the debate? I notice we didn't have any luck talking RAZD, presumably one of our own, out of his special pleading arguments in the recently concluded Pink Unicorn discussion. How can we think we'd have any better luck with Christians? Contradictory thinking again?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Probably very few who are familiar with current scientific thinking about abiogenesis think that life required an unlikely chemical accident. In a sense this would be a type of special pleading. Just as science does not believe that man holds a special place amidst life on this planet, nor that our planet occupies a special place at the center of the universe, science does not think that life itself is the beneficiary of some special formative event. Approximately 99.99999999999% of the universe is hostile to life. I have no idea how many 9's I should actually have used. If we weren't here and the most intelligent form of life on the planet were chimpanzees, are chimps still too sentient to have come about through an "undesigned and unguided evolutionary process?"If your answer is that even chimps are too intelligent to be the result of evolution, then what if mammals weren't here and the most intelligent form of life on the planet were iguanas. Are they still too sentient to have come about through an "undesigned and unguided evolutionary process?"If your answer is again yes, then what if reptiles weren't here and the most intelligent form of life on the planet were sea bass. Are they still too sentient to have come about through an "undesigned and unguided evolutionary process?"You can see where I'm going here. Once the first primitive nervous system has evolved, what's to prevent further evolution of increasing capability and complexity? The chimp brain is smaller and simpler than our own, but it's still built on much the same plan as our own. What shortcoming of evolution is there that precludes the addition of more neurons and emergence of new functions for the new regions? I'll add the observation that the regions of the brain dedicated to sight are quickly adopted by other functions like sound and touch. Wouldn't evolution select those individuals with natural variations that led their very slightly larger brains to use the new brain matter in advantageous ways? This is the old "If I can't explain it, it's a miracle" position. This has been man's approach from the beginning of time, and it's why over time we've found less and less for God to do. At one time God caused weather and earthquakes and moved the Sun across the sky, but now we understand these things and much else, so what is left for God to do? It's no coincidence that for people like yourself the list of God's tasks is identical to the list of things for which we do not yet have scientific explanations, a list that grows shorter every year. Can you really have any confidence in a list that has to be revised downward so frequently? (At least it's not like the creationist list that includes many things for which we've long had scientific answers.)--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Interesting assertion, but not relevant. Whatever reasons you think there might be for things that happen, it's just matter and energy obeying laws that control everything that happens. This is true of everything on the planet today, and it was true billions of years ago. Whatever role chance plays today in what happens today, it was no different then.--Percy

You've had a number of replies to your last two messages (this one I'm replying to and your next one), and they pretty much say what I'm going to tell you. Science isn't in the business of proving things. Science can no more show you proof that matter and energy is all there is than that the sun will rise in the morning. Science makes explanatory generalizations about the world (called theories) from the available evidence. All science can tell you about your speculation that there are unseen and unknown forces at work is that there is no evidence for them.That doesn't mean they don't exist, but it does put them in the same realm as green dragons, the flying spaghetti monster, immaterial pink unicorns, and the celestial teapot. Not everything we can imagine is something that exists.Bringing this back to the topic, we understand that when you apply the Hume Maxim about accepting the lesser miracle to the question of the origin of life that you choose the miracle for which there is no evidence, but could I ask you to play Hume with a different question: Is just one of the world's religions right, or are they all wrong?--Percy

Oh good God, are we doomed to be haunted by Gould's ghost forever! Let me draw an analogy with gravity. That there has been gravity and that there is still gravity is a fact. But for example, that time slows down in a gravitational field according to certain mathematical equations is a theory.In a similar manner, that evolution has happened and is still happening is a fact. That evolution is due to descent with modification combined with natural selection is a theory. I understand your position, but how's it working for you? Have any researchers identified phenomena that can only be explained by unknown and unseen forces?Interestingly enough, the answer is yes, they have, repeatedly, and they've all been resolved in favor of natural explanations.But a new force has recently been uncovered through our discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. There is no known force that could cause this, so science speculates that there is a force called dark energy that is stretching out the cosmos. Experiments that would more directly detect or measure dark energy (rather than just inferring its existence based upon observations of its effects on the universe) are being designed as we speak.The history of science is one of resolving one mystery after another. In the entire history of science, not one mystery has ever been resolved in favor of unknown and unseen forces, and we expect this record of all scientific mysteries resolving to natural explanations to continue with dark energy. When it comes to the natural versus the supernatural, the natural has won about 12 million times in a row. This is one reason why we have so much difficulty fathoming the thinking of those who believe the possibility of a resolution of some scientific mystery in favor of the supernatural is the lesser miracle. It feels very much like a flaw in thinking, a victory of wishful thinking over rationality and logic.Concerning application of the Hume Maxim to the world's religions, I couldn't discern a clear statement of your position. Would it be correct to say that you believe the lesser miracle is that some religious beliefs are true rather than that none are true?Actually when I say it that way I would have to agree that it's very unlikely that there are no religious beliefs that are true, but that includes beliefs like the Biblical history of Palestine, and I believe that though the Bible is an imperfect and biased record, there is a not insignificant amount of its history that is accurate. And some religions include beliefs that are in perfect agreement with science.But we can agree we're not talking about those types of religious beliefs, right. We're talking about unknown and unseen forces and things of this nature that contradict science. So if we stick strictly to a context that only includes religious beliefs that contradict science, would it still be correct to say that you believe that the lesser miracle is that some religious beliefs about such things are true? Even though science has never resolved anything in favor of such a belief?--Percy

In other words, you see in the universe some quality that requires an "intentional agent," but you do not see in the "intentional agent" itself an even greater amount of this same quality. As I said before, this is the type of thinking that suggests to me a failure of rationality and logic. Well yes, of course, miraculous thinking is just another example of the camel's nose. Once you've accepted the possibility, how do you know what's a miracle and what's not. In order to remain fair and unbiased you can't just ascribe miracles to anything you can't explain, plus it would make the miraculous an ever shrinking realm as science expands our knowledge. A balanced approach would hold that anything that happens could be miraculous, from the mundane to the truly, uh, miraculous. With no way to distinguish the miraculous from the non-miraculous, you've got two choices. Either everything's miraculous, or nothing.--Percy

You are mistaken if you believe there is any resemblance between your type of evidence and scientifically valid evidence. You have no reliable methods for establishing the correspondence between your type of evidence and the real world. That's why you can say things like, "You can draw your conclusions and I'll draw mine," and not see the irony. Not only will Rrhain draw different conclusions from you, so will those just like you who also accept subjective approaches to evidence.Your approach leads to no consensus, and it is only through consensus (many people perceiving the same thing the same way) that our knowledge of the real world becomes reliable. Or stating it another way, knowledge is unreliable and can't be shared when everyone creates their own "truth," which is the approach you endorsed with your "You can draw your conclusions and I'll draw mine" statement.Your approach isn't just you and Rrhain drawing different conclusions, but everyone drawing different conclusions. It's interesting if you can have confidence in conclusions that only you accept, but no one else could have confidence in your supposed knowledge. This is the lack that science remedies.That's why Rrhain uses the example of falling off a building. The "truth" that you will fall is an actual for-real truth, because it is true for everyone. But a statement like, "Reason had to come from somewhere," is not a truth because there's no consensus around it, and there isn't even a hint of any effort to formulate the statement in an objective way where you could be sure everyone is making the same interpretation.There are probably few phenomena which cannot be approached both scientifically and subjectively. You can ask, "What is love?", and the scientific answer could examine brain responses to thoughts of loved ones, while the subjective answer could describe feelings of love. But the scientific answer would be objective and reliable because any scientist with suitable equipment could make the same measurements of brain response and there could be no disagreement, while a subjective discussion of the nature of love would never end and certainly never result in consensus.--Percy

I think you missed the point. I was responding to this from your Message 73: This implies that a great deal of scientific evidence isn't objective, and that is not true. In science evidence is not accepted until it has been established that it is true for everyone, which means that any qualified individual with the proper equipment can gather the same evidence. What science establishes is true applies to everyone, and whether they believe it or not makes no difference.Your method, on the other hand, does not lead to conclusions that are true for everyone because they are personal subjective truths. It is irrelevant if there are questions science cannot answer. Such questions cannot have objective answers, but that doesn't mean that you should switch to subjective approaches to get your objective answers. That won't work either. If science cannot produce an objective answer, then nothing can.Your Einstein example was mistaken. This is off-topic so I'll be brief. Einstein accepted the evidence of QM. What he rejected was some of the implications of the theory, for example, what he called "spooky action at a distance" when referring to entanglement. He didn't deny evidence, he just believed QM to be an incomplete theory, that we'd eventually uncover hidden variables that would render the behavior of entangled particles deterministic, and he certainly never "initially rejected a great deal of QM."I think the issue you were actually trying to raise when you mentioned Einstein is the fact that there is much in science that lacks a consensus, and of course that is true. A consensus cannot develop until sufficient objective evidence is gathered and interpreted. Uh, yes, that's what I said. I'm getting the feeling you didn't really follow most of what I said.--Percy

Science tries to determine what is true for everyone everywhere throughout the universe. Theories that are subjective, that vary from one individual to the next according to world view, cannot be considered scientific.There is therefore no similarity between science and your subjective evidence and methods, which is what you claimed in Message 73: You can use your world view to make personal decisions about what God did and didn't do, but this is your subjective opinion and bears no resemblance to science, because it is not something that is true for everyone, and you don't even have the goal of discovering things that are true for everyone. You're on a journey of exploration for beliefs that seem right to you, as many of us are, and that's fine, but stop comparing it to science. There's no resemblance or similarity whatsoever.--Percy

Hi GDR,You logic contains a direct contradiction. First I say that scientific theories are not subjective: Then you state the exact opposite: But you say about my completely opposite claim: Care to try again? Then stop claiming your approach bears any similarity to science.--Percy

You're confusing what are primarily scientific speculations in the popular press with true science. The soft sciences like psychology, sociology and some parts of economics can also have subjective components, the most famous perhaps being Freud's theory of the id, ego and superego. These fields are often subdivided into bodies of thought because the subjective components makes broad consensus impossible. I think there are legitimate comparisons that can be drawn between your thinking and these areas (the popular scientific press and the soft sciences), but only to a point. For instance, psychology is one of the most mathematical of the sciences, and large segments of it are rigorously scientific.So if you want to claim that theories developed with your approach would be similar to Dawkins' memes in having a subjective component then it really wouldn't be worth arguing about. Dawkins is far more structured, logical and insightful in his thinking (he surpasses all of us in this regard, obviously), but so what. At heart both your ideas lack the necessary scientific underpinning. In other words, by drawing such comparisons you're only making our point for us.That's why Rrhain and I have been careful to present examples with no subjective components, because a central goal of science is to exclude subjectivity and thereby any theories that are true for some people and not for others.In a sense the true scientific pursuit is similar to tacking against the wind when sailing. How is it that one can sail into the wind? Seems contradictory and impossible. In the same way one can ask how is it that subjective creatures like human beings can arrive at objective conclusions, but that's what the scientific process makes possible. Science tacks into the wind of subjectivity in order to establish objective realities. Your approach does not do this, and it has no similarity to science whatsoever. For this reason, any claims you make of establishing something that is true of reality are fatally flawed.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Chose a better word at one place in the text.Edited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : Typo.

You've been wrong about this before. You stated you agreed with me just before you made a statement I could never agree with. No one said subjective views are wrong. The problem with subjective approaches is that they don't lead to knowledge that is true for everyone regardless of world view. That's the advantage that science has over subjective approaches. You cannot legitimately characterize scientifically established theories as subjective in this sense.--Percy

You do realize, I hope, that you're running around in circles: You're on a similar merry-go-round regarding other issues, too: Maybe I'll step off your merry-go-round for a while and just watch.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I somehow missed this post in favor of memes as legitimate science, let me comment now.You're arguing that memes is too a scientific theory. If by this you mean that it is a broadly accepted interpretation of data that scientists believe represents something true about the real world, then no, it is not an accepted scientific theory.But if you instead mean that there is a community of scientists working to establish memes as a broadly accepted scientific theory, then this isn't true, either.Even worse for your case, even if memes were currently a legitimate area of scientific investigation, it belongs in the field of psychology, one of the soft sciences. While some areas of psychology are rigorous and are attempting to establish things that are true about reality, other areas like psychoanalysis are incredibly subjective. Memes are definitely not on the rigorous side of the fence.But just the fact that you're arguing the point means that you're missing the key issue. At any given time within science there will always be theories (they should more properly be called hypotheses, but let's not quibble about labels) striving for legitimacy. Some will make it, some won't. Maybe one day memes will make it, maybe not. But the important point that we keep making to you is that science strives for objectivity, which means discovering principles that are true for everyone everywhere regardless of world view or the model car that they drive or their favorite sports team or anything else.In other words, the problem isn't with your ideas but with your use of an approach that doesn't strive for objectivity. If your approach cannot identify any aspects of ID that are impossible to ignore, then you don't have objective knowledge. Whether or not you believe in gravity, you'll still fall down and not up. You have to find those things about ID that whether we believe in ID or not still happen. With evolution, whether you believe in speciation or not we can still show you examples of speciation. You need the equivalent for ID. Whether I believe in an IDer or not, if you can produce the IDer then it doesn't matter what I believe. Of if you can find life that can't be fit into our hierarchical classification system and so must have had a non-evolutionary origin then it doesn't matter what I believe. That's what objectivity means.Unfortunately for science the consequences of denial are almost never as severe as for things like gravity, inertia and so forth. You can believe that the Big Bang never happened or that there's no such thing as plate tectonics and still live a full and healthy life. Or you can go the other way and believe in things that don't exist like homeopathy or talking to the dead or miracles, and except for the waste of money you'll again suffer no consequences. What difference could it possibly make if you want to believe that it's ESP and not coincidence that your Aunt Ethel called just as you were thinking of her? Just don't make the mistake of thinking that these are things that are objectively true of reality--Percy