Evolution, Intelligent Design

Is Darwinian Evolution Falsifiable?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

I have long suspected that it is not.  I was listening to another Unbelievable? podcast the other day which featured a debate between ID proponent Michael Behe and ID opponent Keith Fox – both are biochemists.  During the discussion Behe talked about the longest running lab experiment to test the effects of Darwinian evolution on E. coli.  Professor Richard Lenski has been growing trillions of E. coli over more than a decade and he has produced tens of thousands of generations.

According to Behe, the net effect of natural selection and random mutation on the E. coli has been mostly to break biological systems that were already in place.  No new complex systems have been formed by Darwinian evolution in the experiment.

Keith Fox agreed with Behe’s assessment of the experiment, but claimed that it did not prove anything about the limits of Darwinian evolution to produce complex new biological systems (which is a central claim of Darwinists).  Behe asked Fox, “If this experiment doesn’t prove anything about Darwinian evolution, then what kind of lab experiment could falsify Darwinian evolution?”  Fox’s answer: none.

According to Fox, lab experiments can never replicate the natural selection pressures that E. coli or any other organism face in the natural world.  These pressures can not be simulated in a lab.  It seems that the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection must be assumed – they cannot be falsified by experimental biology.

What we have here is an unfalsifiable theory.  No matter what experiments are run to test Darwinian evolution, the results can never, according to Fox, disprove its ability to generate new biological systems.  Aren’t scientific theories supposed to be falsifiable?  Am I missing something?

Atheism, Philosophy

Atheist Physicist Roger Penrose on Reality

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this morning, Unbelievable?, where the two guests were atheist physicist Roger Penrose and Christian theologian Alister McGrath.  In a fascinating exchange, the host, Justin Brierley, asked Penrose if reality could be reduced to matter.

I expected Penrose to say “yes” and was shocked when he said “no.”  In fact, Penrose said that he tends to divide reality up into three realms: consciousness, the material world, and mathematics.  Penrose, if I understood him correctly, said that these three slices of reality are all intertwined but also distinct from each other.  Penrose seemed to be saying that a reduction of all reality to matter was mistaken.

In fact, Penrose went on to explain that as a physicist, the more he discovers about matter, the more it looks like mathematics!

What is so interesting about Penrose’s comments is that he recognizes that consciousness and mathematics are not explained by the material world, which runs very much counter to the standard atheist dogma.  Mathematics, according to Penrose, seems to exist as an objective reality outside the material world.  He didn’t venture to offer a theory as to where mathematics has come from, but he is clearly disdainful of the materialist reduction program.   How refreshing.

Evolution, Philosophy

Does Evolution Give Us True Beliefs?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

If our minds developed solely due to the process of Darwinian evolution, then how can we trust that our minds give us true beliefs about the world?  This is a nasty problem for atheistic naturalists, because if they cannot argue convincingly that evolution gave us minds that generate true beliefs, then they cannot argue that atheistic naturalism is true.

Evolution is only concerned with survival, so the evolutionist must somehow convince us that most of our beliefs about the world are true because they help us survive.  But there are many examples we can give where that connection breaks down.

Philosopher Louis Pojman, in his book What Can We Know? ,  relates the research of John Garcia and his rats.  Garcia and his co-workers “performed experiments on rats in which the rats were fed distinctively flavored water or food and then given high doses of radiation, inducing sickness.  After a single exposure to radiation, the rats developed a strong aversion to their aforementioned distinctively flavored water or food.  Even if the radiation is given as long as twelve hours after eating the food or water, the aversion pattern follows.”

In this example, the rats believe the food and water make them sick, but they are wrong.  It seems that this aversion pattern is the result of natural selection to aid in survival.  Evolution has caused the rat to have untrue beliefs in order to survive.  Pojman notes that humans follow this same pattern when we become sick after eating a particular food, and then are often repulsed by that food for the rest of our lives, even though the food had nothing to do with us getting sick.

Pojman also explains that:

False beliefs may positively procure survival.  Inducing beliefs that great spirits are protecting members of the tribe may enable these members to surmount dangerous obstacles that would otherwise destroy them.  Consider two tribes, the Optimists and the Accuratists, who go to war.  They are relevantly similar in every way except that the Optimists believe that if they die in battle (especially sacrificing themselves for their mates), they will be rewarded with an afterlife of unparalleled sensuous bliss, whereas the Accuratists, tailoring the strength of their beliefs to the strength of the available evidence, believe that in all likelihood this life is all they have, that death is the final cessation of consciousness.  The Optimists are more likely to win; the Accuratists more likely to flee or submit to an inferior settlement.

As long as our beliefs enable us to reproduce more successfully, they may have nothing to do with truth.  Pojman quotes Pat Churchland, “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing.  The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

Darwin himself had fears about evolution giving us true beliefs:

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.  Would any one trust in the conviction of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

Perhaps the belief that atheistic naturalism is true is nothing more than a genetic mutation which survives in a small number of advanced primates.  If you’re an atheistic naturalist, you may never know.

Atheism, Evolution, Morality

What Kind of Morality Could Evolution Have Given Us?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Most atheists appeal to the process of Darwinian evolution as the source of our moral instincts, but this idea poses some intriguing questions.  What if humankind had evolved in different circumstances, in different environments?  One could imagine a different set of moral instincts having developed in humans.  What about other animals?  We see different behaviors in them based on their evolutionary history.  Let’s look at some examples.

Philosopher William Lane Craig draws our attention to John Hick.  He “invites us to imagine an ant suddenly endowed with the insights of socio-biology and the freedom to make personal decisions.”  Hick writes:

Suppose him to be called upon to immolate himself for the sake of the ant-hill. He feels the powerful pressure of instinct pushing him towards this self-destruction. But he asks himself why he should voluntarily . . . carry out the suicidal programme to which instinct prompts him? Why should he regard the future existence of a million million other ants as more important to him than his own continued existence? . . . Since all that he is and has or ever can have is his own present existence, surely in so far as he is free from the domination of the blind force of instinct he will opt for life–his own life.

Why should the ant go against his evolutionary instincts?  His instinct for suicide is for the good of the ant-hill and has been placed into him by evolutionary processes.  If humans had likewise evolved with an intense instinct to immolate ourselves, would atheists tell us we ought to immolate ourselves or would they say we ought not?  If we ought not, then why not, given our evolutionary instincts?

Darwin himself recognized this problem.  He said, “If men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering.”

If morality is derived from evolution, and evolution gave our females moral instincts to kill their brothers, would the atheist say that this is behavior is right?

Philosopher Mark Linville notes that “wolves in a pack know their place in the social hierarchy.  A lower ranked male feels compelled to give way to the alpha male.”  If we imagine that there were wolf moral philosophers, would they not draw the inference that justice is inequality, that wolves ought to give way to those higher in the social hierarchy?  After all, this is what evolution gave them.  Would atheists agree with the wolf philosophers?

In the rest of the animal world, we see animals eating their young, we see males aggressively forcing themselves on females sexually, and we see animals violently taking things from each other.  If evolution has caused all of these behaviors, then how would the atheist call any of these behaviors wrong if humans had evolved these same instincts?

Here is the problem in a nutshell.  Atheists must say that evolution has given us moral instincts as they cannot invoke any kind of moral standard that comes from outside the natural world.  But evolution has given the animal kingdom all sorts of instincts that atheists would want to say are wrong.  In order for them to say these instincts are wrong, however, they must invoke a moral standard that transcends evolution, but they don’t believe that a transcendent standard exists.

Either atheists must admit that a moral standard exists outside and above evolution, or they must accept the fact that they cannot rationally call any behavior wrong that evolution has produced.  Which way to go?

Atheism, Morality

Where Is Ultimate Justice on Atheism? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

On atheism, there is no guarantee that evil will ever be punished or that good will ever be rewarded.  Philosopher William Lane Craig quotes Richard Wurmbrand’s comments on the state torturers in Soviet prisons who understood this all too well:

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The Communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.’ I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflected on prisoners.

Since death is the end, there is no reason to not live a purely self-centered life focused on fulfilling your desires, whatever they may be.  Atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen laments:

We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view, or that all really rational persons should not be individual egoists or classical amoralists. Reason doesn’t decide here. The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . . . . Pure practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.

Craig answers the atheist who might say that we should be moral because it is in our self-interest:

Somebody might say that it is in our best self-interest to adopt a moral life-style. But clearly, that is not always true: we all know situations in which self-interest runs smack in the face of morality. Moreover, if one is sufficiently powerful, like a Ferdinand Marcos or a Papa Doc Duvalier or even a Donald Trump, then one can pretty much ignore the dictates of conscience and safely live in self-indulgence.

On atheism, sacrificing for others seems utterly irrational.  Craig concludes, “Acts of self-sacrifice become particularly inept on a naturalistic world view. Why should you sacrifice your self-interest and especially your life for the sake of someone else? There can be no good reason for adopting such a self-negating course of action on the naturalistic world view.”

Why not be self-indulgent and live for yourself?  Under atheism, there is no rational answer to that question.  All you can appeal to is your moral emotions and instincts, which means the moral life nowhere intersects with reason.  Just do it if you feel like it.  Otherwise, don’t.

Atheism, Morality

Where Is Ultimate Justice on Atheism? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Nowhere, as far as I can tell.  Consider this scenario.  A young man grows up and forms radical political beliefs.  Upon reaching his 30’s, he seizes political power in his country.  He remains in power throughout his entire life.  During his reign, he routinely lies, cheats, steals, murders, and rapes.  Since he is in total command of law enforcement and the military in his country, nothing can be done to punish him for his crimes.  At the age of 93, he dies a peaceful death in his palace.

In what sense, on atheism, has justice been given to our dictator?  After all, he led a morally corrupt life and was never punished or held accountable for anything he ever did wrong.

Let’s look at another example.  This time a young woman feels a calling to feed the poor in a distant country.  At the age of 25, she travels to this impoverished land and begins to selflessly aid the people living there.  Because of her ethnicity, the government begins to persecute her.  She is jailed, beaten, raped, and then murdered by corrupt government authorities and dies at the age of 35.

In what sense, on atheism, has justice been given to the young woman?  After all, she led a morally virtuous life, selflessly helping others, and for her efforts was persecuted, tortured, and murdered.

Since, on atheism, there is no afterlife, then there is no chance for justice to be given anyone after they die.  Death ends any chance for justice to be properly administered.  There isn’t anyone who isn’t angry at how the dictator died peacefully at a ripe old age while never paying for any of his numerous crimes.  There isn’t anyone who isn’t also angry that the young woman died violently, never being rewarded properly for her selfless acts.

On atheism, all we can say is, “Oh well.  That’s life.”  But it’s even worse than that, because I cannot see how the atheist can rationally tell anyone to be selfless and help the poor and not become a ruthless dictator.  It seems that the dictator led a life filled with pleasure, that he flourished, that he accomplished many of his personal goals, and that he suffered very little.  The young woman led a life filled with suffering, was not able to accomplish all of her goals, and lacked many of the pleasures that life can offer.

If there is nothing beyond this life, then how can the atheist tell anyone not to be a dictator, if the opportunity arises?

Bible Interpretation, Difficult Bible Passages, Theology

Was the Mosaic Law Meant to Be Permanent?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

No, it wasn’t.  Not only does the New Testament book of Hebrews make clear that it was temporary, but the Old Testament itself promises a new covenant in Jer. 31 and Ezek. 36.  Should we completely ignore the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament where the Law is found, as hopelessly irrelevant for Christians today?

Not exactly.  The Torah does contain timeless commands that reflect God’s nature, but it also contains temporary laws that are directed at a deeply sinful people living in a flawed culture during a specific period of time in history.

Philosopher Paul Copan describes the situation in his book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God:

When we journey back over the millennia into the ancient Near East, we enter a world that is foreign to us in many ways.  Life in the ancient Near East wouldn’t just be alien to us – with all of its strange ways and assumptions.  We would see a culture whose social structures were badly damaged by the fall.  Within this context, God raised up a covenant nation and gave the people laws to live by; he helped to create a culture for them.  In doing so, he adapted his ideals to a people whose attitudes and actions were influenced by deeply flawed structures.

At the beginning of the Torah, God lays down the ideals for mankind in Gen. 1 and 2.  According to Copan, those first two chapters “make clear that all humans are God’s image-bearers; they have dignity, worth, and moral responsibility.  And God’s ideal for marriage is a one-flesh monogamous union between husband and wife.”  But the subsequent historical narrative, as recorded in the remainder of Genesis, and then Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, is characterized by humanity’s precipitous fall into moral degeneracy.

How did God choose to move Abraham and his flawed descendants in the right direction?  After all, they had moved far away from the ideals laid down by God in the Garden.  We find in the Torah that God decided to meet them where they were, to accommodate imperfect, human-created social structures in order to move his people in the right moral direction.  Thus, the Mosaic Law (starting in Ex. 20) ends up being focused on a specific people living at a specific time.

Copan elaborates on God’s plans:

We know that many products on the market have a built-in, planned obsolescence.  They’re designed for the short-term; they’re not intended to be long-lasting and permanent.  The same goes for the the law of Moses: it was never intended to be enduring.  It looked forward to a new covenant (Jer. 31; Ezek. 36).

Copan quotes biblical scholar N. T. Wright: “The Torah is given for a specific period of time, and is then set aside – not because it was a bad thing now happily abolished, but because it was a good thing whose purpose had now been accomplished.”

Atheism, Evil, Pain, and Suffering, General Apologetics

Are Atheists Angry at God?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

An interesting article published on CNN’s site the other day claims that many people are angry at God, even atheists and agnostics.  The article, entitled, “Anger at God common, even among atheists,” raises a lot of interesting questions.  Who gets angry at God and for what reasons?  According to the article, “People get angry at God all the time, especially about everyday disappointments, finds a new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.”

It continues, “It’s not just religious folks, either. People unaffiliated with organized religion, atheists and agnostics also report anger toward God either in the past, or anger focused on a hypothetical image – that is, what they imagined God might be like – said lead study author Julie Exline, Case Western Reserve University psychologist.”

Why do people get angry at God?

Anger at God can strongly resemble feelings you may have against another person, Exline found. God may seem treacherous or cruel when bad things happen, just like another individual might. Your anger may fester even more when there’s no good reason for the negative event, such as a natural disaster or a disease, to occur. And strong, longstanding negative emotions of any kind can lead to physical ailments.

Is being angry at God bad for you?

Moreover, distress at God is associated with mental health symptoms. Exline and colleagues found that among cancer survivors interviewed once and then again a year later, those who were angry at God at both points in time had the poorest mental and physical health. But the study cannot prove whether anger at God made them feel worse or that feeling worse made them more angry at God.

One other fascinating tidbit from the article: “In studies on college students, atheists and agnostics reported more anger at God during their lifetimes than believers. A separate study also found this pattern among bereaved individuals.”

These findings about atheists and agnostics are not surprising to Christian apologists, who speak with atheists and agnostics regularly.  Many atheists are deeply bitter and angry toward God.  I have been shocked sometimes by the ferocity with which they attack religious beliefs.  There is almost a sense that they have been betrayed by a loved one.

This has always startled me, as my experience with God has been completely the opposite.  I have never been inclined to blame God when bad things happen, and I count myself fortunate for feeling that way.  As we Christians  seek to build relationships with atheists, we need to be aware of this psychological dimension of anger behind some of their statements and try not to become angry ourselves.  Our anger will only stop the relationship from forming, just as atheist anger drives them away from God.

Morality

Does Gambling Promote the Common Good?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Lately I’ve been seeing more advertising for the North Carolina State Lottery.  I guess lottery revenues aren’t where they need to be to fund state initiatives.  When the NC legislature legalized the lottery, the taxpayers were assured that all lottery revenue would go to the education budget, but as soon as the recession hit a couple years ago, that promise went out the window – entirely predictable.

The state lottery has got me thinking about gambling again.  Is gambling  good for society?  Does it promote the common good?  Not according to an article written in First Things by journalist Maura Casey.  Below are a few excerpts from the article, which I recommend reading in its entirety.

How are things in Las Vegas, Nevada, the gambling capital of America?

Las Vegas, then and now, struggles with high rates of suicide, dropouts, childhood problems, and low educational attainment. Later studies again confirmed those early concerns: In 1997, a study of death certificates in Reno, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City found those cities had suicide rates that were up to four times higher than in cities of the same size where gambling was not legal.

How about Connecticut?

A friend of mine told me that to escape the burdens of motherhood she would go to the casinos at 2 A.M. to gamble until 6:30 A.M., when she would go back home and get her kids ready for school. Until the day she didn’t go home in time—unable to stop playing the slots. A worried state legislator called to tell me her husband emptied her sixteen-year-old son’s college fund to gamble at the casinos. A bank manager told me about a customer who inherited $1 million and—aided by using the ATM machines at the casino to withdraw money—gambled it all away. A woman who worked at my daughter’s day care moved her family to Florida in a desperate attempt at a geographic cure after her husband drained money from his ten-year-old’s savings account and couldn’t stop going to the area casinos.

More on Connecticut:

Several men have held up banks to get more money to gamble. And the region around Connecticut’s casinos has suffered significant rates of drunken driving, which the state has only begun to acknowledge is due in part to the free alcohol that flows to gamblers. Two fatal drunken-driving crashes this spring made the link impossible to minimize. In one of them, Daniel Musser allegedly drove the wrong way down Interstate 395 after getting drunk at Mohegan Sun casino. His car struck a van carrying Connecticut College students en route to the airport to bring medical supplies to sick children in Africa. The crash killed twenty-year-old Elizabeth Durante, a premed student who had led the campaign on campus to help the less fortunate. A second fatal crash by a Mohegan Sun patron one month later led the casino to reduce, from three to two, the number of free drinks an hour available to gamblers.

Are state or local governments concerned?

Most of all, government has become predatory in its use of gambling as a worry-free method of increasing revenue without raising taxes. Indeed, the states have moved from granting permission to cheerleading. Government boosterism has legitimized gambling, eroding what few moral scruples remained on the part of average people against engaging in a behavior that, just a few decades ago, would have been considered largely unacceptable.

What about slot machines?

Along the way, the casinos paid for considerable research into how to increase the length of time gamblers stay at the machine—since the longer that patrons play, the more they lose and the more casinos profit. The chairs at slot machines are ergonomically designed to be comfortable, with no hard edges that could decrease leg circulation, Schull observes. Screens slant at 38 degrees to prevent slouching. Game controls are within easy reach, as are computerized menus to have food and drink delivered without leaving the machine. Some have television monitors to keep players from exiting the area to catch their favorite shows. Slot machines have many different themes, mimicking game shows, cartoons, or favorite sitcoms. The sound of jingling coins, the bells, the volume of noise, the flashing lights are all designed to encourage patrons to play, and play, and play.

Maura Casey, in the article, provides other interesting data on casinos and their impact on the regions where they are located.  For me,  I must admit that I’ve never understood the attraction to gambling.  I’ve never enjoyed casinos, and I’ve always found slot machines to be incredibly boring.  My friends who gamble tell me how much fun it can be, and that they are careful to limit their losses, but I just don’t get it.  After reading Maura Casey’s article, I really don’t get it.

Atheism, Philosophy, Religion, Skeptics

Who Are the Free Thinkers?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Many skeptics of  Christianity proudly point out that they are “free thinkers.”  This expression used to confuse me, as I consider myself a free thinker, but clearly I could not be one in the same way the skeptic means it.  After talking to several skeptics, I discovered that “free thinker” is mostly a synonym for “atheist.”  The general idea seems to be that religious people are trapped in their thinking by the family and culture they were born into, whereas atheists are not – they are free to think as they please.

If you were born into a Christian family and culture, then it is natural for you to believe Christianity.  If you were born into Hindu-dominated India, it is natural for you to believe Hinduism.  Wherever we are born largely determines what kind of god we believe in, according to the free thinkers.

For skeptics, a person becomes a free thinker when they escape the chains of their family and culture.  I don’t know what atheists call themselves when they grow up with atheist parents who live in a non-religious community.  It seems like they’re trapped in their thinking just like the religious folks, but that’s a topic for another time.

There are two points I want to make about this idea of being born into your religion.  First, skeptics of Christianity do us a favor when they point out that many Christians have never questioned what they were taught growing up.  It is true that many Christians have merely taken on their parents’ beliefs without any reflection of their own.  Often this can lead to a shallow faith that collapses at the first signs of trouble.  Additionally, the Bible is quite clear that a person is never physically born into a saving relationship with God.  The decision to embrace Jesus Christ is a personal one that cannot be made by one’s parents.  Growing up in a Christian home absolutely does not guarantee a person’s salvation.  It is truly dangerous to take on your parents’ beliefs without thinking about them for yourself.

Second, we have to be clear that just because a person takes on the beliefs of her parents or surrounding culture does not mean that those beliefs are false.  Even free thinking skeptics admit that many things their parents taught them are true.  The source of a person’s beliefs have nothing to do with the truth of those beliefs.  I may be told that God exists by a genius or by a moron – it doesn’t matter when it comes to the truth of God’s existence.  In fact, philosophers long ago spotted the error in confusing the source of a belief with its truth – they call it the genetic fallacy.

So, to Christians, I say think about your beliefs for yourself.  Weigh the claims of your faith.  Apply your mind to its teachings.  If your parents were Christian, that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t guarantee you a relationship with God.  You have to do that on your own.

To skeptics, I remind them that the source of a person’s beliefs have nothing to do with the truth of those beliefs.  If a free thinker is someone who has critically examined the beliefs given him by his parents and community, then there are plenty of Christians who are free thinkers and plenty of atheists who are not.

A Christian Apologetics Blog