My apologies for the length of this reply, but I felt the Lurkers and participants on this thread might be interested in some points raised in that discussion, which support the view that atheists are on a very shaky foundation if they appeal to science and math:
…So I imagine at the end of the day, having made such a “confession,” scientific materialists out there will have a great chuckle over my superstitious and quite ridiculous suppositions and myths.
What they may not realize is that I sometimes find myself chuckling over their superstitious and quite ridiculous suppositions and myths.
My favorite one these days is the theory of the “primaeval soup” out of which all biological life is said to have spontaneously arisen, out of the blind chemistry of inert matter, all on a random basis; and then organize itself for greater biological diversity and complexity on a random basis, under the guiding hand of the physical laws and Natural Selection.
In a nutshell, there are not a few problems with this theory, in light of recent discoveries/experiments in quantum physics, astrophysics, geology, microbiology, mathematics, probability theory, and information theory.
One big problem in another nutshell:
As Dean Overman writes in A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization (2003):
Think about it: Logically, ‘natural selection’ requires something from which to select. That means there’s a “there” there already.
Yet the theory seems to want to explain the problem of natural evolution of species, the rise in complexity, etc., etc., while leaving the problem of the origin or basis of life in total obscurity – resting blissfully on materialist ideology, and faith in the guiding (yet invisible) hand of materialist Natural Selection (which being a concept, is hardly a “material” thing…).
I have to leave it to the reader to figure out what this all means.
IMHO, the first pillar - random mutations - is already in jeopardy because the lack of mutability in regulatory control genes points to autonomous biological self-organizing complexity as a better explanation, i.e. evolution is not a directionless walk.
The second pillar - natural selection - has been placed in doubt (Wolfram) in that natural selection more often works against such a mechanism than for it.
And that is without even looking at the syntactic autonomy required for abiogenesis (Rocha) or the underlying physics of life v non-life (Pattee) or the information content necessary to sustain biological life (Yockey).
Finally, all of these efforts are set in the context of our understanding of the universe or multi-verse (Tegmark, Penrose, Ovrut) - which has a beginning - and the astonishingly improbable physical laws of this universe (Rees) - and moreover, the geometry or dimensionality of all that there is (Vafa).
He writes, "Highly complex structures require many instructions. A structure may be highly ordered, such as a crystal, but contain very few instructions." Order displays pattern, sequence. Indeed, very simple instruction sets (and even chaos) have been observed to produce regular patterns. But highly complex structures -- such as DNA -- are nonperiodic, seemingly random sequences. DNA is "complex" in the way a crystal is not: Its complexity means it can encode an astronomically vast number of instructions/information content to specify its structure and realize its function.
Overman is also very keyed into issues in particle astrophysics. He wrote:
"Because the formation of life requires the formation of a universe compossible with life, the case against accident as an explanation for life is satisfied completely by an examination of the probabilities involved in the fine tuning of particle astrophysics without regard to issues raised by molecular biology. When one couples the probabilities in physics against an accidental universe compossible with life with the molecular biological and pre-biological possibilities against the formation of the first form of life from inert matter, the compounded calculation wipes the idea of accident entirely out of court."
The statement comes in the book's conclusion. It seems to have been thoroughly well argued and documented throughout.
Of course, there are things that cannot be known for a certainty. Most cases, we have to be satisfied with the standard, "beyond a reasonable doubt." I think Overman makes an persuasive case against life arising by accident; but I'll be checking his thesis against future developments, new evidence, new discoveries....
I certainly agree with the author’s measure of complexity – which roughly corresponds to the Chaitin/Kolmogorov view that complexity can be measured as the size of smallest program which will produce the subject string.
Sadly, there is a tendency around here to dismiss the importance of Shannon entropy to biological information content. Instructions flow through biological systems like communications between devices and thus, Shannon is very relevant in my view. Shannon entropy is roughly the uncertainty of that flow, the successful flow is information.
Likewise, when we speak of order there seems to be a tendency here to observe that when the universe dissolves in the end, it will have achieved both maximum entropy and greatest order. That is an interesting observation but it doesn’t really tell us much about order in biological systems.
Randomness raises the same kind of issue. For instance, both pi and Chaitin’s Omega will generate a string which – if you were to select a chunk of it at a respectable distance – would appear to be random. In the case of pi that impression would be false. In the case of Omega after a certain number of positions, that impression would be true.
Or would it? … since in both cases, the number itself is a derivation of algorithm and thus, not random. I believe this is Wolfram’s counter-point, i.e. that all randomness is only pseudo-randomness.
Indeed, on closer inspection (especially in alternative bases) - most candidate number generating algorithms have a high degree of auto-correlation.
The order and complexity of biological information content is frankly stunning. But if the greater the entropy, the higher the order, then the less the opportunity for complexity. On its own then, complexity can only form in lower entropy, higher chaos. But is that rational? IOW, for a metaphysical naturalist [atheist] explanation to prevail it must have gone from chaos to complexity to order to entropy to more chaos, more complexity, more order, more entropy and so on.
In sum, if the initial conditions are not random - indeed, if there is no randomness apart from pseudo-randomness - then the metaphysical naturalism theory of origins fails.
The counter to actual randomness around here has been the Brownian motion, but that (like pi and Omega) is an effect and not a cause, i.e. the consequence of ongoing bombardment by atoms and molecules….
And this [notion of an accidental universe] is the rub. Because the physical constants that exist – that absolutely, positively must exist – for biological life to have formed in this universe are stunningly improbable.
The only defense the metaphysical naturalists have to this is the plenitude argument – everything that can exist does, in some parallel universe.
Even for the die-hards who hold on to the hope of plenitude, they are nevertheless stuck with a beginning – and for that, they have no defense!
Which [cleverly] leads me to question how you arrive at your "stunningly improbable" conclusion. I'll give you an example of what prompts my question. Let's say the lottery in your state has arithmetical odds against a particular numerical sequence of 50 million to one. Fine. Let's say you win. Great for you!
Nothing supernatural about it. Someone's always winning. After all, some combination of numbers comes up every week. We agree that your winning is no miracle. Now let's suppose you win again. And a week later you win again. And then again! Now that's "stunningly improbable" enough to trigger an investigation.
Anyway, in concluding that your streak of wins is "stunningly improbable," we have some understanding of the genuine odds involved, how many players there are, etc. We have experience with lotteries, week after week. We know something of which we speak. But -- here comes my point -- when it comes to universes, we know nothing but this one. So how can anyone conclude that it's "stunningly improbable"? Compared to what? Given the data we have, it may just as well be stunningly inevitable.
By the way, I think that either conclusion about the universe (improbable or inevitable) is consistent with divine creation. I have no ax to grind there, and that's not what prompts my response. I'm genuinely curious about the "stunningly improbable" conclusion. Personally, I just don't see it.
A bit more on this (I hope you can put up with me). If the universe, and life, were really "stunningly improbable," then this brings to mind a deity that interferes continuously with the natural order of things (whatever that might be) in order to bring about this "stunningly improbable" universe in which we find ourselves. When I think of a continuously interfereing deity, I can't help coming up with this kind of image: [picture of Charlie Chaplin]
Now this "Charlie Chaplin Modern Times" kind of deity, running around flipping switches, pulling handles, turning dials, adjusting mixtures of chemicals, tweaking relationships, etc., may be just what it takes to generate a "stunningly improbable" universe. It seems that way to me, but I don't know. My personal opinion is that a universe where things just had to turn out this way, complete with life, consciousness, intelligence, and free will, is a far more elegant, even sublime creation, than a Rube Goldberg situation that requires constant attention.
So, for what it's worth (don't tell me), I suspect that this universe, and life, and everything, isn't "stunningly improbable" at all.
The Universe is unlikely. Very unlikely. Deeply, shockingly unlikely.
"It's quite fantastic," says Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, waving a hand through the steam rising from his salmon-and-potato casserole...
In his newest book, Just Six Numbers, Rees argues that six numbers underlie the fundamental physical properties of the universe, and that each is the precise value needed to permit life to flourish. In laying out this premise, he joins a long, intellectually daring line of cosmologists and astrophysicists (not to mention philosophers, theologians, and logicians) stretching all the way back to Galileo, who presume to ask: Why are we here? As Rees puts it, "These six numbers constitute a recipe for the universe." He adds that if any one of the numbers were different "even to the tiniest degree, there would be no stars, no complex elements, no life." ...
Faced with such overwhelming improbability, cosmologists have offered up several possible explanations. The simplest is the so-called brute fact argument. "A person can just say: 'That's the way the numbers are. If they were not that way, we would not be here to wonder about it,' " says Rees. "Many scientists are satisfied with that." Typical of this breed is Theodore Drange, a professor of philosophy at the University of West Virginia, who claims it is nonsensical to get worked up about the idea that our life-friendly universe is "one of a kind." As Drange puts it, "Whatever combination of physical constants may exist, it would be one of a kind."
Rees objects, drawing from an analogy given by philosopher John Leslie. "Suppose you are in front of a firing squad, and they all miss. You could say, 'Well, if they hadn't all missed, I wouldn't be here to worry about it.' But it is still something surprising, something that can't be easily explained. I think there is something there that needs explaining."
Meanwhile, the numbers' uncanny precision has driven some scientists, humbled, into the arms of the theologians. "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine," contends Vera Kistiakowsky, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Rees offers yet another explanation, one that smacks of neither resignation nor theology. Drawing on recent cosmology- especially the research of Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde and his own theories about the nature of the six numbers- Rees proposes that our universe is a tiny, isolated corner of what he terms the multiverse.
The idea is that a possibly infinite array of separate big bangs erupted from a primordial dense-matter state. As extravagant as the notion seems, it has nonetheless attracted a wide following among cosmologists. Rees stands today as its champion. "The analogy here is of a ready-made clothes shop," says Rees, peeling his dessert, a banana. "If there is a large stock of clothing, you're not surprised to find a suit that fits. If there are many universes, each governed by a differing set of numbers, there will be one where there is a particular set of numbers suitable to life. We are in that one."
A review of the book to name the six numbers:
So what are the six numbers? One is the number of dimensions we live in: three. The rest are, at least at first sight, more obscure. For the record, they are N, the ratio of the strength of gravity to that of electromagnetism; epsilon, the ratio of mass lost to energy when hydrogen is fused to form helium; Omega, describing the amount of dark matter; lambda, the cosmological constant; and Q, related to the scale at which the universe looks smooth.
…Gravity. Suppose gravity was stronger or weaker than it is.
However, the efficiencies of nuclear reactions vary as a function of energy, and at certain critical levels a reaction rate can increase sharply - this is called resonance. It just so happens that there is a resonance in the three-helium reaction at the precise thermal energy corresponding to the core of a star... So if there was another resonance at work here all the carbon would be quickly processed into oxygen, making carbon very rare again. In fact, it turns out that there is an excited state of oxygen-16 that almost allows a resonant reaction, but it is too low by just 1%. It is shifted just far enough away from the critical energy to leave enough life-giving quantities of carbon untouched.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01o.html
Moreover, the Sun's circular orbit about the galactic center is just right; through a combination of factors it manages to keep out of the way of the Galaxy's dangerous spiral arms. Our Solar System is also far enough away from the galactic center to not have to worry about disruptive gravitational forces or too much radiation.
When all of these factors occur together, they create a region of space that Gonzalez calls a "Galactic Habitable Zone." Gonzalez believes every form of life on our planet - from the simplest bacteria to the most complex animal - owes its existence to the balance of these unique conditions.
Because of this, states Gonzalez, "I believe both simple life and complex life are very rare, but complex life, like us, is probably unique in the observable Universe."
2. Plentitude – everything that can exist, does in some multi-verse (Rees)
3. Anthropic Principle – without the right kind of physics, you don’t get physicists (PatrickHenry)
As a #1 – I consider #3 to be giving up. Conversely, as a #3 you might consider #1 to be giving up. But perhaps we can both agree that #2 ought to be pursued?
I see no hope for #2. It's kinda wishy-washy. And it's rather untestable. But #1 and #3 are also untestable, now that I think about it. It may be that we'll have to have a knife-fight to resolve all of this.