Posted on 10/07/2005 7:48:04 PM PDT by Heartlander
In 1999 someone posted on the internet an early fundraising proposal for Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture. Dubbed the “Wedge Document,” this proposal soon took on a life of its own, popping up in all sorts of places and eventually spawning what can only be called a giant urban legend. Among true-believers on the Darwinist fringe the document came to be viewed as evidence for a secret conspiracy to fuse religion with science and impose a theocracy. These claims were so outlandish that for a long time we simply ignored them. But because some credulous Darwinists seem willing to believe almost anything, we decided we should set the record straight.
1. The Background
2. The Rise of an Urban Legend
3. What the Document Actually Says
Following are the document’s major points, which we still are happy to affirm:
A final thought: Don’t Darwinists have better ways to spend their time than inventing absurd conspiracy theories about their opponents? The longer Darwinists persist in spinning such urban legends, the more likely it is that fair-minded people will begin to question whether Darwinists know what they are talking about.
Read the Wedge document for yourself, along with a more detailed point by point response and clarification of falacious allegations.
You stated above that "there are study tools all the way from hard to soft". What are the "hard study tools" that may be used to investigate supernatural causes? Are you now saying that these tools don't, in fact, exist, and that you are simply speculating that such tools may exist at some point in the future?
Okay, then, let's examine this on a more hypothetical level, and proceed one step at a time. What, in your view, constitutes a "supernatural cause"?
Another weakness in the theory, in addition to the origin of life question, is the criticism leveled by ID.
There really is not enough time granted to arrive at the observed complexity of life.
Since I consider an "organizing principle" to be an intelligence, then I saw "natural selection" as a naturally occurring form of "intelligence" that could account for the complexity of life as we see it.
It is not a sufficent "organizing principle," however, and another must be found.
I was talking about the variety of tools that available for doing any kind of research.
Now I see where your misunderstanding came about.
It is a position statement. But, it is also logical.
Therefore, not empty.
Not often. Duke University ran a rather serious program of investigation into paranormal phenomena -- ESP and such -- for many years. The essential thing found was that the more careful the controls, the more difficult it became to see anything significant in the data.
I seriously wonder about this myself, A-G. Is the theory a kind of "Procrustean bed" into which evidence is "forced" to fit? Further, parts of it seem to have a mythical quality -- e.g., the Common Ancestor.
People will scream that I use the word "myth" in connection with anything scientific. But myth is actually a technical term in philosophy, and some myths are "true" -- or as close to "true" as one can get without direct evidence. And it is the lack of direct evidence that explains how myths arise. Myths are conjectural logoi, or "stories" that explain, or give an rational, reasonable account of broad sectors of reality, or even of total reality (e.g., cosmologies of every description). And as Plato indicated by his term, aletheia logos, some myths are "likely stories." That is to say, there is a high probability that such myths are actually true.
If we are to have a history of science, we absolutely would have to include the great Greeks, including the pre-Socratics.... FWIW
Thank you so much for your penetrating analysis!
Softer sciences are still legitimate.
If it isn't empty, let's see something. Give an example of something that is true and real and ignored by science.
You must be easy to please, my friend. :^)
microbiology prior to the microscope.
Of course they are, but you are changing the subject. Every time science investigates paranormal phenomena, we get the same result. As experimental error is controlled, the phenomenon diminishes.
And geology, astronomy and cosmology. Do you distrust them as well?
On the one hand, there is no complete record
There never is, whether one is dealing with archaeology, geology, cosmology or evolutionary biology. That is simply the reality. Rather than throwing up our hands and saying, "there isn't a complete record, therefore we can't draw any conclusions", we instead form the best hypotheses to explain the evidence at hand. These hypotheses are disprovable; a pre-cambrian rabbit fossil would disprove evolution immediately. So far, the theory of evolution is the best explanation of the evidence. Those who disagree are relying on the absence of a complete record as a means to disregard evolution are simply disregarding the evidence which is extant.
On the other hand, because it is treated as a blueprint for a whole range of disciplines which can be empirically tested (DNA, etc.) - the repeating challenge is whether the conclusions being drawn are "kluged" - made to fit the blueprint or orthodoxy of a presumed continuum?
It is treated as a blueprint because it is the best explanation for the evidence. Should a better explanation come along, the theory would be supplanted. It should be noted, further, that DNA evidence supports the theory of evolution.
Biology insists on a preferred status, an autonomy among the sciences
I see no evidence of this.
In my view, biology (et al) should become as epistemologically pure as physics and math - and not go into any investigation with presuppositions which are not required for the investigation at hand.
Biology and physics are not mathematics. And physics itself certainly is not "epistemologyically pure".
Drop scientific materialism ... to remove the presupposition of methodological naturalism.
That is the heart of the matter. Science should stop being science.
Science is a method for investigating material phenomena. It is concerned with what is directly or indirectly observable, testable and falsifiable. Supernatural causes are simply outside its purview. To try to turn science into metaphysics is to remove precisely what has made it so effective a tool for investigating and understanding the universe.
paranormal.....is that ghosts & esp; levitation and such?
Not at all, js1138. Eric Voegelin has suggested that history is the story of the emergence or unfolding of Being, preeminently of human being. The point is the writing of it is based on human contemporary accounts. All of which truly resonates for me. This hardly would make me a "postmodernist." My affinity with the great classical Greeks seemingly has innoculated me against that "disease."
This really is KEY, xzins! Thank you ever so much for mentioning it!
It is fascinating that you say I have made an assumption when I say that "matter in all its motions" cannot address mathematical questions and yet you seem to accept that matter has not yet been created or detected in laboratory experiment.
Ordinary matter in the standard model is presumed to be the Higgs field/boson which is yet undetected. Only ordinary matter meets the needs of "matter in all its motions" presumptions.
The indirect effects of the Higgs (or whatever it might be) include the connection of the mass of the W boson to those of the quarks. The top quark, with a large mass, has a detectable impact on the W whose magnitude of impact depends on the (yet unobserved) Higgs. Without it, the W’s mass would be significantly lower.
But even if we find the Higgs, all the mysteries are not solved. Whereas the Standard Model would be self-consistent, it would make the Higgs mass very large whereas the indirect evidence is that it is not large. The Standard Model itself would still have no particles to explain dark matter or dark energy – it would only address ordinary matter, the 5% of the critical density of the universe.
Hence, much of physics already is looking at the standard model as a component of a more encompassing theory, supersymmetry. The remaining 70% of critical density is dark energy which appears to be accelerating the universe but cannot be studied in laboratory conditions (positive gravity).
Thus, the state-of-the-art theories involving matter are based on geometries whether supersymmetry, string theory or other dimensionality. IOW, at the root matter is a manifestation of geometry. That was also Einstein's instinct and dream - to transmute the base wood of matter to the pure marble of geometry.
you: And your evidence for this is?
The only way to avoid the void is to prove up an infinite past. From my post on another thread:
Many other scientists were disturbed by the implication of a beginning and did some kluging of their own. In 1927, Georges Lemaître suggested that the expansion had stalled and resumed at various points due to gravity. At the time, Arthur Eddington was past his peak and already formulating ideas which seemed “kluged” to fit his own concept of the way things ought to be. For instance, he sought to unify quantum mechanics with relativity and gravity by what seemed to be a numerological analysis of fundamental constants. Also around the same time he disputed Subrahmanyan Chandrasehar’s model of gravitational collapse of stars/black holes suggesting that the collapse would be stopped. Of course, Chandrasehar was proven right and won a Nobel prize for this work.
And concerning cosmology, Eddington likewise resisted a beginning by stretching Lemaître’s theory to infinity. Both theories were disproven in the 1970’s by Vahe Petrosian who showed that a hesitating universe would confine galaxies and quasars to certain spatial limits which observations show have been exceeded. Moreover, further analysis shows that quasi-static periods over a trillion years would guarantee the formation of galaxies followed by a near immediate collapse of the universe to its original singularity.
Thus the past eternal models for a unique universe died. But the theological implications were not lost – because a beginning requires an uncaused cause, i.e. God.
Jastrow, R. 1978. God and the Astronomers. New York, W.W. Norton, p. 116.
Linde famously concludes that a universe can be created in a laboratory (chaotic inflation) with a hundred-thousandth of a gram of matter which would create a small chunck of vacuum (negative energy of the gravitational field) which would blow up to the galaxies we observe. It would however usually not be noticeable since the new universe would curve into itself making it about the size of an elementary particle. [Holt, Jim “The Big Lab Experiment” Slate May 19, 2004]
In sum, the Linde theory proposes that the Planck size region which expanded (quantum fluctuation) to our universe was merely a part of some larger pre-existing region of space/time. The presumption is that there would be no beginning of this process and no end thus allowing for an infinite past.
But of a truth the multiverse only moves the goalpost by regression to an undetermined beginning – not infinity - because the model requires the pre-existence of space/time itself which was likewise made. Physical causality is a fatal flaw to theories which rely on pre-existing geometries.
The ekpyrotic model suggests that this universe came about from the collision of 2 pre-existing three-dimensional branes in a space with an extra (fourth) hidden spatial dimension. Again, the snag is that the dimensions (geometry) must be pre-existing. There is also the presumption of pre-existing physical laws including causality itself.
The ekpyrotic model led to the cyclic universe model which suggests the universe (space) will expand and then crunch back and expand again but time marches on. It is considered a ‘weakness’ in the theory that there had to be a beginning of time.
The issue of a beginning is theology and philosophy as well as science since it leaves one wondering why there is something rather than nothing and how anything can emerge from nothing at all. Those questions remain regardless of cosmology.
In the theological sense, one may also wonder how God could exist in nothingness – timelessness and spacelessness. Here we can turn to mathematics to grasp a concept that might help: the number zero v null.
One could meditate about a line of all possible numbers. Zero would be at the center. Negative numbers would proceed in one direction –1, -2, -3 on to infinity. Positive numbers would proceed in the other direction 1, 2, 3 on to infinity. But if one were to reverse direction by decimal extensions counting from 1 and –1 towards zero, reducing by half (or any percentage less than 100) each time - the number would continually be smaller but the process would never arrive at zero.
The same may be said of decimal extensions in other scenarios (such as the extension of 1/3) but zero is unique because it serves as a placemarker, e.g. 201 means there are no tens. Not that “tens” don’t exist, but for this particular number there are no tens.
But null is much more than a placemarker – it is more like the zero we can identify but not approach. To use the 201 example, if we were to state 2_1 we would be saying that tens do not exist at all.
With regard to physical reality, null is infinite non-existence – empty, void. This is the context of a beginning, of Creation – not merely zero spatial and/or temporal dimensions but null itself – no physical laws, no physical constants, no causality, no energy/matter, no physical object or event. Consequently, no phenomenon, no mathematics, no logic, no reason, no qualia, no autonomy, no language, no universals. When everything else is removed, at null, “all that there is” is God Himself – thus the beginning and existence is an act of His will.
Jewish mystics use a Hebrew term for this state to describe God as creator: Ayn Sof. The term basically means “no-thing” - One without end from which all being emerges and into which all being dissolves.
In Athens, Paul used their own Greek philosophy/poetry to convey the meaning for Christians:
Vaas, Rudiger Time before Time
To which you replied:
Not at all, js1138. Eric Voegelin has suggested that history is the story of the emergence or unfolding of Being, preeminently of human being. The point is the writing of it is based on human contemporary accounts. All of which truly resonates for me.
I have put a copy of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion on reserve for you at the library.
As has been repeated endlessly on these threads, the theory is about the origin of species, not the origin of life. That field of study is called abiogenesis, not evolution. To call evolution "incomplete" because it doesn't account for the origin of life is like calling hydrology incomplete because it doesn't account for the origin of water.
I strongly doubt that methodological naturalism, given its materialist premise, has a way to engage such questions, let alone answer them. I think you're right that such questions fall into the purview of philosophy (metaphysics) and theology. Prior to the "Cartesian split," science included such questions within its purview. But methodological naturalism took care of that! :^)
And what success has philosophy had in answering those questions?
Theology, OTOH, can claim to answer those questions, because it begins with untestable and unfalsifiable axioms, and proceeds from there to draw its conclusions. Of course, the conclusions depend entirely upon the axioms one accepts as a starting point, and since these axioms are unfalsifiable the entire enterprise collapses into an argument over which presumptions must be accepted as true. Which explains why there are hundreds of competing theologies, each claiming to have the truth.
And the evidence for this is?
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