Why People Believe What They Do

Steve: You're doing really interesting work. You've decoupled sort of, "Is evolution true?", you know, "What are problems with evolution?", from people's interpretations of whether or not they accept evolution. Regardless of evolution itself, we're just talking about the psychological profiles of how you come to either accept or not accept evolution. Some of that work is yours and some of it you're very well familiar with from other people; so let's talk about some of the basics and some of the surprises about the people who accept and don't accept evolution and their reasons for it.

Lombrozo: Sure. So I think one of the most surprising findings has to do with the relationship between understanding the basics of evolutionary theory and accepting it as our best account of the origins of human life. So most people, I think, [or] in particular scientists, tend to think that if people reject evolution and in particular evolution by natural selection, it's because they don't understand it very well; they don't really understand what the theory is telling us. But in fact, if you look at the data from psychology and education, what you find is either no correlation between accepting evolution and understanding it or very, very small correlation between those two factors, and I think that's surprising to a lot of people and in particular to educators and scientists.

Steve: Yeah, it was surprising to me when your data were presented. So what [does] that mean for, you know, education in the country? What should people be thinking about if they have a desire to have evolutionary theory be more accepted by more people?

" And because, since the 1960’s forward, measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding – that there was a beginning of real space and real time – we know that there was creation ex nihilo."

No. There is no such thing as ex nihilo creation. The physics of this world arise out of a more fundamental physics as a phase change. That fundamental physics the physics of this world arises out of always existed.

" All physical cosmologies (inflationary theory, cyclic, imaginary time, multi-verse, ekpyrotic, etc.) require space and time for physical causality.

The geometric dimensions of this world apply to the physics of this world only, not to any other. If you are going to talk physics, keep in mind that the fact that this 4d world arose out of a more fundamental physics of higher dimension. It did not arise out of nothing as in the nonscientific claim of ex nihilo by virtue of the conservation of energy.

Your definition of "rational reality" evidently involves circular reasoning. From your previous post (emphasis mine:)

One cannot project the math/physics of the present universe onto prior universes when it is convenient and then not, when it is not convenient.

And most physical cosmologists recognize this and consider the failure to explain the beginning of real space and real time as a weakness of their theories, e.g. Steinhardt's cyclic, Hawking's imaginary time.

To find a closed cosmology, you must move away from the physical to the pure math or theology.

Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe is closed precisely because it is not physical, i.e. that what we perceive from a perspective inside 4D is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist outside of both space and time.

His cosmology is radical Platonism.

A Christian would not call it "mathematical structures" but Logos which is a Name of Jesus Christ, God the Creator. Logos is the Greek word which translates to Word and also to logic.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4

To God be the glory, not man, never man!

That question implies that the system had to have been created by a ‘who’, but there’s nothing to prove that it had to have been a ‘who’.

And there's nothing to disprove it either. As I'm sure you're already well aware. You're ostensibly just expressing your own personal preference in the matter (e.g., there is no God, no "Mind" at work in Nature).

Yet science is still left with the problem of accounting for a natural source of biological information, while at the same time denying the idea of mind or consciousness as necessarily involved (based on what we can directly observe). Indeed, the hard-core materialists out there insist that "mind" is merely an epiphenomenon of physical processes in the brain. It has no other reality; by this definition, it cannot stand as a cause of anything in nature.

And yet human observations over a range of some five+ millennia up to now would seem to confirm that we have no evidence of intelligence or any of its products (ideas, codes, languages, information, etc.) apart from thinking minds. Over the past several decades, the generation of information and its subsequent successful communication in biological systems has been increasingly recognized as indispensable to biological organization and function.

At the same time, science cannot explain how simple matter can generate the type of information that we routinely associate with the idea of a genetic code. In other words, DNA, a material molecule, is a code-bearer. It is not itself the code, and again it remains to be seen how a material molecule all by itself can acquire the attribute of intelligence which is at the basis of all forms of "coding" for successful communication in the natural world.

AussieJoe, if you have an explanation of how an inorganic material molecule — a simple physical system — can get together with other physical objects just like itself, and then somehow bootstrap itself spontaneously into a living, sentient entity which then acquires knowledge about how to configure itself in synch with all the other molecules into a complex living system, I'd be so very glad to hear it. Certainly Darwin's theory is completely silent on this point.

For one thing, Darwin himself never even heard of the gene. Darwinian evolution theory, at bottom and to this day, bears all the hallmarks of nineteenth-century scientific presuppositions. The legacy continues in the basic approach of molecular biology nowadays, which evidently continues to believe that whole living systems can be explained entirely by the mechanistic behavior of their parts.

BTW, it may interest you to know that the Unmoved Mover, the uncaused First Cause, is a philosophic, and not preeminently a religious idea. The entire case for the necessity of an uncaused First Cause is based on pure logic. You can read more about this Here.

" Your definition of "rational reality" evidently involves circular reasoning."

Rational reality means reality is logical. The fact that it is logical not only allows it to be described by mathematics; it allows it to exist!

Re: The geometric dimensions of this world apply to the physics of this world only, not to any other. If you are going to talk physics, keep in mind that the fact that this 4d world arose out of a more fundamental physics of higher dimension. It did not arise out of nothing as in the nonscientific claim of ex nihilo by virtue of the conservation of energy.

" One cannot project the math/physics of the present universe onto prior universes when it is convenient and then not, when it is not convenient."

There is no such projection. The fact that this universe has it's own gemetric structure, which differs from that from which it arose as a phase change, does not mean that 4d structure exits in the higher physics. It can be understood by noting this world appears as a phase change. That phase does not exist in the phase from which it changed from. The energy did though.

"most physical cosmologists recognize this and consider the failure to explain the beginning of real space and real time as a weakness of their theories, e.g. Steinhardt's cyclic, Hawking's imaginary time."

There is no general failure. The lack of knowledge refers to the particulars.

" To find a closed cosmology, you must move away from the physical to the pure math or theology."

No. Reality is reality and is neither math, nor theology, nor does it arise from either of those.

" Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe..., i.e. that what we perceive from a perspective inside 4D is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist outside of both space and time."

Nevertheless, those physical structures are a part of the 4d which arose as a phase change. Those "other structures" are not what they arose from.

"Logos which is a Name of Jesus Christ, God the Creator. Logos is the Greek word which translates to Word and also to logic."

God is a person. Logic is a set of objects with properties and the relationships between them. A person is not logic.

" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4"

This passage refers to a person. It says all things that were made were made by Him. It may be hard to grasp, but nevertheless, reality is and was not made.

Rational reality means reality is logical. The fact that it is logical not only allows it to be described by mathematics; it allows it to exist!

The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences (Wigner) is like God’s copyright notice on the cosmos.

Again, a phase change is physical. It requires space, time and physical causality to occur – it requires preexistence of a "from" phase state.

In the absence of space, things cannot exist.

In the absence of time, events cannot occur.

Physical causality requires both space and time.

In your argument, each of these is taken as a "given."

But they are not axiomatic in physical cosmology, cosmology, philosophy or theology.

So if you wish to embrace them as your core beliefs, then you are certainly free to do so.

But they do not constitute objective truth by virtue of your belief in them.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. – John 1:1-4"

This passage refers to a person. It says all things that were made were made by Him. It may be hard to grasp, but nevertheless, reality is and was not made.

No, God IS. That is His Name, I AM.

What you call “reality” is merely a part of the Creation.

Man is not the measure of God.

I’m heading out now, but will check back later this evening.

In fact, what you find is that if you do a task like the one I described with preschool children with the Alzheimer's disease patient’s—so [if you] ask them, “Why is there rain? Is there rain because water condenses in clouds or is there rain so that plants and animals can grow?”—they will also prefer the teleological option much more often either than healthy young adults or their age matched controlled participants who are the same age as the Alzheimer's patients but don't show signs of Alzheimer's.”

His question makes no sense. Why is there rain? cannot be answered by his first option. watervapor condensing into clouds and being precipitated describes "HOW" there is rain, not why. The second option describes why there is rain. To water the Earth. Oddly enough the rain cycle is a wonderful example of intelligent design.

" The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences (Wigner) is like God’s copyright notice on the cosmos."

There's nothing unreasonable about it. Reality is logical. Mathematics provides the tools for the logical representation of reality.

" Again, a phase change is physical. It requires space, time and physical causality to occur – it requires preexistence of a "from" phase state.

A phase change is physical yes. It requires preexistence of a from phase state yes. Now note that the space time you are refering to is a result of the phase change. It didn't exist before that.

So... "In the absence of space, things cannot exist."

The things in this world did not exist, because this world did not exist.\

"In the absence of time, events cannot occur."

Time for this world started when the phase change occured. Time in general already existed, because it's a dimension of reality and in particular, that reality from which this world arose out of.

" Physical causality requires both space and time."Causality is an element of reality. It is not necessary for any particular world to exist in order for causality to exist. If the space-time of this world is required for causality, how did God cause creation?

" In your argument, each of these is taken as a "given.""

No. The only given is A=A. IOWs, the conservation of energy holds.

" What you call “reality” is merely a part of the Creation."

No. Creation is only a subset of reality. Reality includes all that is.

"Man is not the measure of God."

Gen 1:26-27

" Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God was the blueprint for man. Note that the rational sentient being man is equivalent to God according to this passage, except for having a beginning. There are no other exceptions. That's acknowledged by the words of God Himself: John 10 33-36
"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'[Psalm 82:6]? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?

No. Creation is only a subset of reality. Reality includes all that is.

Nope...exactly backwards logic: reality is a subset of creation. (see my tagline).

Look at it this way...I have a woman now that’s 98 and hallucinating. It’s very real to her, she even talks to a fellow by the name of Paul in her room that’s not there. She even understands she’s hallucinating and asks if he and certain other peole, things, events are real...

anyway, it’s clear that the hallucinations are not reality, and we and even she understands this. Dreams could just as well fall under this category, as well as liberal thinking.

Nevertheless, the hallucinations or...NON-reality she experiences are present, existing outside reality, just like dreams, liberal logic, etc. are all experienced and all are a subset of God’s creation.

Reality must be interfaced with via intelligence in order to define it, experience it, measure it, etc...and like our mind, reality is given to us by our creator.

God could have chosen to remain alone in His reality, thus only HE would experience reality via His mind, but if He were not in existence, there would BE no reality, as it were.

There is nothing greater than God, certainly nothing in His own creation is greater than God and reality as humans are able to understand it, is a subset of His wonderful creation.

Nothing is greater than or “above” God. Nothing outside God exists without His creating it. Reality is fully and wholly dependent on God, not the other way around.

The machinery that gives rise to the intelligence is inherent in the physics an intellegence exists in. That means, given some particular physics, the machinery that supports the functions of intelligence will arise by self assembly.

How? What makes you so sure about this?

What scientific evidence do you have to support your conclusions?

You're stating this with a great deal of certainty. Presuming that you're human, just like the rest of us, where did you garner this information that seems to have escaped the rest of us?

If the machinery which gives rise to intelligence self-assembled, then the machinery becomes the creator and hence replaces God.

All you've done is replaced God in the universe with a machine as an explanation of how intelligence arose.

No. The 4d space time of this world is emergent from a higher physics. It appears as a phase change. If you wish to deny that the higher physics always existed, then you must deny the principle of conservation of energy and also claim that A≠A. IOWs null =something. That's not a possibility if you wish to work with a rational reality.

Just some questions. From whence did the "higher physics" emerge, of which our 4D space/time is itself an emergent "phase change?"

I can readily accept the idea that what we see in our 4D world may well be just a manifestation of a higher-dimensional physics beyond the direct observational ken of human beings. But God is likewise beyond the direct observational ken of human beings. It seems in effect you are trying to put higher dimensional physics in place of God. If so, I gather that it would be okay with you if I were to ask (as other people ask with respect to God — i.e., what caused God?), what is the cause of this higher-dimensional physics?

To allege that people who do not ascribe to your cosmology hold that "null = something" is to entirely miss the point of what "null" means — which my dearest sister in Christ Alamo-Girl has been at such pains to explain to you and me.

To conclude that critics of modern scientific epistemology are holding that "null = something" is to invert what "null" actually means to such critics. Which is to say: null = absolute nothingness. Granted, such a thing as absolute nothingness is utterly beyond formulation by the human mind itself. In effect, your proposal that people like me think that "null = something" is to say that "bad thinkers" like me magically convert nothing into something — which is precisely what I cannot logically do.

Thus it seems to be you who falsely proposes that A≠A is what characterizes the thinking of people like me. If anything, we seem to be the people that gets this issue "right": Nothing cannot ever be anything, left to its own powers — of which it has none; for nothing does not exist such that it can have power or powers of any description whatsoever.

At least it seems you attribute a great deal of mental confusion to people like me, whose main difference from your own position (it seems) is that we do not believe that one can rationally reduce the world to the size of one's own mind and personal preferences. You go on to speak of the conservation of energy; but there's nothing in your proposal that seeks to answer the question of the origin of energy.

As to something as having been "always existing," it ought to be clearly obvious that there is no way in which you can support that claim on the basis of observation and experience. Temporally situated as we are, we do not see the whole of time. If there was a "beginning," we didn't see it. If there was no beginning, there was nothing to see. Such questions cannot look to direct observation for their answers, no matter how "rational" we think we are, or how "rational" we think the world is.

But if the world is in any sense rational, from whence did it get its ratio? You evidently seem to believe that this ratio is the "higher physics." Which to my way of thinking is simply to beg the question. Evidently you believe this "higher physics" is eternal.

Well, fine. Call this "higher physics" eternal if you want to. I'd say universal is the better descriptor of the situation. Still, for the world to be what it is, and not some other way, it must itself have had a cause. The logical requirement of a first unmoved (i.e., uncaused) mover to explain the phenomena of reality holds logically whether the universe is "eternal" or had a beginning in time.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this question, spunkets!

Re: No. Creation is only a subset of reality. Reality includes all that is.

" Nope...exactly backwards logic: reality is a subset of creation."

If your claim was true, then God's not real. ... but you knew that: "God could have chosen to remain alone in His reality, thus only HE would experience reality via His mind, but if He were not in existence, there would BE no reality, as it were."

"see my tagline: Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation."

Science is a rational method created by a sentient rational being that's used to know and understand physical reality.

"the hallucinations or...NON-reality she experiences are present, existing outside reality, just like dreams, liberal logic, etc. are all experienced and all are a subset of God’s creation."

God did not create dreams, or anyone else's thoughts, or actions. They belong to and are created by the individual that gave rise to and caused them.

"Reality is fully and wholly dependent on God, not the other way around."

The physics of God's world provide for the machinery of the sentient rational being that He is. The physics of this world that He gave rise to, provided the physical machinery that provided for the functions of sentient rational being in this world. That included His own functions in the person of Jesus.

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