Evolutionism

The Suicide of Thought

G. K. Chesterton

Evolution is a good example of that modern intelligence which, if it destroys anything, destroys itself.  Evolution is either an innocent scientific description of how certain earthly things came about; or, if it is anything more than this, is an attack upon thought itself.  If evolution destroys anything, it does not destroy religion but rationalism. . . . It means there is no such thing as a thing.  At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything.  This is an attack not upon faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about.  You cannot think is you are not separate from the subject of thought.

Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am.”  The philosophic evolutionist reverses and negatives the epigram.  He says, “I am not; therefore I cannot think.”  [G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works. Volume I: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Blatchford Controversies.  (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 239f.]

Rational Irrationalism

Quantum Mechanics and the Big Bang

The reviewer for the Dallas Morning News must have been having a bad hair day.  He or she declared that Leon Lederman’s The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question (New York: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006) was “the funniest book about physics ever written.”  If that were true, physics must be world’s apart from sophisticated humour.  Closer to the truth is Lederman’s penchant for geeky humour, which often falls flat and is overdone.  Hardly humorous, unless the author was engaged in self-parody, which would be another matter entirely. 

But, humour aside, as a book about particle physics, Lederman’s The God Particle is pretty good.  It covers all the usual “stuff”.  The micro-world of the atom is counter-intuitive and abnormal (as far as our human experience is concerned).  Federman writes

So forget about normal; expect shock, disbelief.  Niels Bohr, one of the founders, said that anyone who isn’t shocked by quantum theory doesn’t understand it.  Richard Feynman asserted that no one understands quantum theory.  (Op cit., p. 143f)

 The overwhelming impression for the non-specialist lay reader is of extreme complexity in the micro-world of matter.
  The “standard model” started out, with Rutherford, proposing that the atom consisted of two components (a nucleus, plus electrons).  Today, says Lederman, we have in the atom

 6 quarks, 6 leptons, 12 gauge bosons and, if you want to be mean, you can count the antiparticles and the colours, because quarks come in three shaded (count 60)  But who’s counting. (Op cit., p. 63.)

It is possible that behind all this complexity will be found a “pristine symmetry” which will reduce it all to some more fundamental, more simple, more basic particles.  This is supposed to be the Higg’s boson, recently claimed to have been discovered by the CERN collider in Switzerland. 

In addition, the behaviour of sub-atomic particles can turn out to be weird.  Quantum mechanics, says Federman, has problems:

This issue has to do with the wave function and what it means.  In spite of the great practical and intellectual success of quantum theory, we cannot be sure we know what the theory means  Our uneasiness may be intrinsic to the mind of man, or it may be that some genius will eventually come up with a conceptual scheme that makes everyone happy.  If it makes you queasy, don’t worry.  You’re in good company.  Quantum theory has made many physicists unhappy, including Planck, Einstein, de Broglie, and Schrodinger. (Ibid., p. 185.)

At the end of his book, Federman contemplates the Big Bang.  It is unknowable.  It is the materialist’s idolatrous substitute for the Creator God.  But the ultimate creator is the eternal laws of physics.  This is not a paradox; it is evading the question and clutching at straws.

We can try to imagine the pre-Big Bang universe: timeless, featureless, but in some unimaginable way beholden to the laws of physics . . . .

It is comforting to visualise the disappearance of space and time as we run the universe backward toward the beginning.  What happens as space and time tend toward zero is that the equations we use to explain the universe break down and become meaningless.  At this point we are just plumb out of science.  Perhaps it is just as well that space and time cease to have meaning; it gives us the possibility that the vanishing of the concept takes place smoothly.  What remains?  What remains must be the laws of physics.  (Ibid., p. 402.  Emphasis, ours)

The necessity of eternal laws of physics, as here propounded by Lederman, is not an antinomy (an apparent contradiction between two equally valid principles).  To propose that laws eternally exist in a void of meaningless nothingness is irrational–pure and simple.

Unbelief’s Best Shot

The Mother of Invention

We recently began perusing The God Particle by Leon Lederman.  The author is a Nobel winning particle physicist with a gift for whimsical prose.  The intent of the author is to provide the lay person with a rough  general knowledge of arcane particle physics.  The book consists of a journey through the history of physics in general and particle physics in particular.

Lederman is a materialist.  All that exists is atomic particles and space.  So far, so good.  Below is his description for the layman of how it all began.
 

The matter we see around us today is complex.  There are about a hundred chemical atoms.  The number of useful combinations of atoms can be calculated, and it is huge: billions and billions.  Nature uses these combinations, called molecules, to build planets, suns, viruses, mountains, paychecks, Valium, literary agents, and other useful items.  It was not always so. 

During the earliest moments after the creation of the universe in the Big Bang, there was no complex matter as we know it today.  No nuclei, no atoms, nothing that was made of simpler pieces.  this is because the searing heat of the early universe did not allow the formation of composite objects; such objects, if formed by transient collisions, would be instantly decomposed into their most primitive constituents.  There was perhaps one kind of particle and one force–or even a unified particle/force–and the laws of physics.

Within this primordial entity were contained the seeds of the complex world in which humans evolved, perhaps primarily to think about these things.  You might find the primordial universe boring, but to the particle physicist, those were the days!  Such simplicity, such beauty, however mistily visualised in our speculations.  [Leon Lederman, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What Is the Question? (New York: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 [1993]), p.3]

Lederman is honest enough to give a hat tip to the speculative nature of the Big Bang theory (“there was perhaps one kind of particle . . . “).  This is materialist cosmology at its best–that is, the best that it can do.  Faced with these limitations and with a cosmology that can only proceed if it builds upon a theory of meaninglessness and randomness lying at the root of everything, Lederman cannot avoid “calling” upon concepts and realities that lie completely at odds with a random beginning upon which “evolution” worked its magic.  At the beginning of everything, he suggests, there was perhaps one kind of particle or a unified particle/force and the laws of physics. 

Pardon me.  How did the laws of physics get into this supposedly brutally random universe?  The self-deceit, the intellectual dishonesty is hard to credit.  These are school boy errors and inconsistencies, but necessary for materialist particle physics to maintain its Unbelief.  And, as we know, necessity has always been the mother of invention. 

Now it is one thing for scientists in general and particle physicists in particular to be faced with the unknown, when current hypotheses fail or paradigms reach their limitations or gaps in knowledge force agnosticism.  That we all expect.  It is part of the human condition, and the joy of inquiry.  Those who do not wrestle with what they don’t know will never enjoy the “eureka” moment of discovery.  As Lederman himself observes, there are times when the hair stands up on the back of the neck when conducting experiments in particle physics. 

But it is quite another thing to clasp irrationality and fundamental rationalist-irrationalist dichotomies to one’s bosom, insisting upon them, making them central to one’s understanding of all reality, merely because one’s religious world-view demands it and nothing else “makes sense”.  It’s curious indeed to see a leading particle physicist resorting to such just-so stories. 

Supercilious Schtick

Hegemonic Liberals

The New Zealand Labour leader, David Shearer has been getting a lot of schtick.  He has confirmed his belief that New Zealand needs to take taniwha seriously.  For our non-Kiwi readers, taniwha are, according to Maori, mythical spirit monster which dwell in the lands, seas, and rivers.  They need to be placated at appropriate times and places, lest they become angry and do damage. 

This from Patrick Gower at TV3 News:

Labour Party leader David Shearer has long-held beliefs that taniwha must be respected when it comes to Maori and their interests in water. His views can be traced back to his master’s thesis, and he stands by them today.  Water has been the big political issue of the year, but when Mr Shearer was first asked who owned it he didn’t know.

But it turns out Mr Shearer has a degree of expertise on the issue – a master’s thesis in fact. It was called Between Two Worlds, Maori Values and Environmental Decision-Making.  In his thesis he advocated that “the belief in taniwha or spiritual pollution…while they may appear irrational to many…cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant”. It’s a belief he still holds today.  

“I absolutely stick by that,” says the Labour Party leader. He says we should acknowledge taniwha. “We have been doing that for the last 20-something years when we have made decisions around water.”

Our interest is not so much on what Shearer believes–if he is someone who holds to superstitious animist nonsense, so what.  That’s par for the course for a modern, rationalist politician who is both a socialist and an egalitarian.  As such, idiocy doth become him.  Rather, our interest has been piqued by those superstitious rationalists who are rejecting Shearer’s position.

Take, for example, David Farrar, who opines sarcastically:

Well I don’t think we should acknowledge or give any credence to taniwha. Such spiritual nonsense should play no part in our laws or decisions.

This from a chap who has gone on record supporting homosexual “marriage” on the grounds that homosexual desires are a combination of genes and conditioning.  Since homosexuals are what they are, they need to be allowed to be what they are: ergo, homosexual “marriage” must be respected and accommodated in law.  One wonders why Mr Farrar takes a different view when it comes to Maori who believe in taniwha. 

Since Maori belief in taniwha has to be a combination of genes and nurture on what basis does Mr Farrar reject such beliefs as “spiritual nonsense”.  If enlightened social policy according to Mr Farrar requires recognition of homosexual “marriage”, why not taniwha? 

This is the same Mr Farrar who imperiously tells us that abortion is not murder because, because . . . . he said so.  Yes, we inquire, but why?  Because the “thing” inside the mother’s womb depends upon the mother and has no independent existence.  And this is important because?  “Because I said so–so there!”

The supercilious arrogance of Unbelief is a fearsome sight to behold.  Rational argument and principles come down to nothing more than bias, cant, and superstition.  As any good post-modernist will tell you, Maori perspectives are just as valid as white, middle class, liberal, male perspectives.  Mr Farrar’s attempt to use law to ram his particular narratives down the throats of those he disagrees with–whose views he happens to consider “superstitious nonsense”, denying them the right to be reflected in law or decisions–is nothing more than arrogant, intellectual hegemonic imperialism. 

When Unbelief magically conjures up sky hooks on which to hang its prejudices, disguised as ethical or rational precepts, the only sound worthy of attention is the laughter of Christians mocking those who profess to be wise, but cannot help playing the fool every time they get on the field. 

Fly, You Fools!

 Unbelief’s Dirty Little Secrets

The Bible says that the fool is one who denies God’s existence: “the fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God’.”  (Psalm 14:1).  At first glance this statement on its own does not allow us to declare with certainty that all Unbelievers are therefore fools.  To draw that conclusion would entail us falling into the fourth form logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.  The subsequent declarations in Psalm 14, however, put the matter beyond dispute: all Unbelievers are indeed fools.

1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
    there is none who does good.

² The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man,
    to see if there are any who understand,
    who seek after God.

³ They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
    there is none who does good,
    not even one. (Psalm 14: 1-3)

On the other hand, Unbelief confronts us with an array of arguments to the opposite: it is the Believer who is foolish and ignorant. Is Belief and Unbelief destined, then, to pass like ships in the night.  Not really.  Unbelief at its most honest candidly acknowledges its own foolishness.
 

Take, for example, the knowledge which comes to us from our senses.  Can we have any knowledge apart from our senses?  Many rationalists would say not.  Yet knowledge and truth from our senses can never be verified by Unbelief, because “proving up” such empirical knowledge relies upon–you guessed it–the senses.  The circle is vicious.  The Unbeliever can never step outside his sense perception to prove the truth of what he is sensing.  We simply cannot step outside our senses to compare the visual images behind our eyes with the objects “out there”.  As Mitch Stokes puts it, “We can’t even check to see whether there is and ‘out there’ out there, to see whether there’s an external world.”  We cannot provide “evidence” for the existence of the external world without employing the very senses we are supposedly attempting to authenticate.  The circle is very tight and incredibly vicious.  Many Unbelievers prefer not to think about it.  It becomes a guilty secret, locked away in the family cupboard, that nobody talks about in polite society lest Unbelief has to face up to how foolish it really is. 

Stokes goes on to cite the enfant terrible of Unbelief:

David Hume–one of the towering inspirations of contemporary atheism–conceded that we really have no good reason to believe that the world outside of us resembles the perceptual images inside us.  Perhaps there isn’t an “external” world; it’s hard to say.  This, he said, is the “whimsical condition of mankind”.  [Believers might rather, more accurately say “the foolish condition of mankind”.]  And the twentieth-century American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine said that the Humean condition is simply the human condition.  Our senses–like us–are destined to remain within the boundary of our skin.  Their limitations are ours. 

This goes for all the ways we form beliefs, for all our cognitive faculties, whether memory, introspection, or even reason itself.  We can never step outside these belief-forming mechanisms to independently verify (sic) their reliability.  [Mitch Stokes, A Shot of Faith to the Head (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012), p. 21.]

These limitations are the condition of being a finite creature.  Unbelief means these limitations operate as a vicious circle.  Jean Paul Sartre once observed that unless a fact or point of data or a value has an infinite reference point, it has no meaning.  Hume had already proven that it also has no verification.  Unbelief is foolishness itself.  Or, as Paul puts it, Unbelief professes to be wise, but becomes progressively foolish.  Paul knew his Psalms. 

But Hume was even more destructive of his own.  Stokes goes on:

Speaking of reason itself, Hume has a magnificent argument for what he considers, because of his evidentialism, the flimsiness of inferences we might attempt to make about the surrounding world. It’s one of the best arguments in all of philosophy. 

Hume recognized that we all expect, for example, the sun to rise tomorrow.  he then asked what only a philsopher or child could ask: Why do we expect this?  The answer is, because the sun has always risen.  But Hume notices that this would only count as a good reason if we knew that the future will resemble the past. . . . (T)he argument or reason for believing that the sun will rise tomorrow must be something like this: the sun has always risen in the past, and because the future will resemble the past, the sun will rise tomorrow.  . . .

Hume followed his evidentialism where it inevitably led: he concluded that we’re irrational in believing that the future will resemble the past.  After all, we have no non-circular argument for it; there’s no evidence to support it. And once this belief goes, so must our belief that the sun will rise tomorrow–and for any other belief about things in the world we have yet to see.  (Ibid., p. 21f)

Can anyone actually live like this?  No.  Herein, then, is the foolishness of Unbelief: it cannot deal with the world as it really is; it cannot known for certain what the world is like; its irrationalisms constantly bubble up like Rotorua mud pools.  But Unbelief ignores its irrationality because it has to.  “Our instincts are just too strong for philosophy to overcome.  We’re irrational, but it keeps us alive.  A world of whimsy.”  (Ibid., p. 23). 

Now Hume attempted to escape this dilemma by agreeing that senses lead one into a vicious irrational circle from which there is no escape.  But reason, not human experience, that’s another matter.  Not at all.  It’s just that every bolt hole that Unbelief scurries into has the same dilemmas, the same paradoxes, the same irrationality.  How does one verify one’s reasoning?  By reason.  The Humean paradox remains.  Unbelief is riddled, shot out of the skies with the scepticism that always attends the finite creature basing all upon the foundation of himself. 

    The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
    there is none who does good. (Psalm 14:1)

Universal Acid

Explanations Come to an End–Somewhere

One commentator animadverting upon the post entitled The Unintended Consequences of Homosexual “Marriage” had this to say, after quoting from the post:

“The endgame is that only Christians and the Christian faith have certain and solid foundations for knowing anything. Only Christian epistemology is rational and coherent and true. Everything else is sinking sand.”

Thats (sic) a conceit of enormous proportions John. Besides, putting the words “rational” and “coherent” any where (sic) near the bible or the word “faith” is oxymoronic.

Our trusty commentator, xchequer is naturally talking up his own book here.   He alleges that the “Bible” and “faith” represent a contradiction in terms with “rational” and “coherent”.  Alleges, mind you.  Not argues.  Nevertheless what he says is a helpful illustration of the all-to-common mindset of Unbelief: shout loudly, slur your opponents, and never go near a rational argument.

We, for our part, have alleged that all non-Christian epistemologies are sinking sand; only Christian epistemology is rational, coherent, and true.  It’s a strong claim.  Nevertheless, it’s one we are prepared to argue for.  Rationally.