Einstein's Cosmological Philosophy

[Presentation to Philosophy Club, The Villages, FL, 17 Dec 2010. Download the PowerPoint charts here]

Do I have any special qualifications for giving this presentation? Well, both he and I ride bicycles, and, Einstein in German means "One Stone" while mine (German spelling: Glücksstein) means "Lucky Stone" :^).

My main source is Walter Isaacson's excellent 2007 book, Einstein, His Life and Universe. I also used Einstein's own The World as I see It (1949) and Out of My Later Years (1950), and a number of online sources including Wikipedia Einstein and Cosmology, Wikiquote, Marxists.org, and Einstein's 1427 page FBI FOIA file.

POLITICS: Was Einstein a Socialist?

Let us get this out of the way at the outset. Yes, he was a socialist. In Why Socialism? (1949) he wrote "I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils [of capitalism], namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, … the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. … guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. …”

However, in that same article, he cautioned "The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"
His FBI FOIA file concludes that he "was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with thirty-four communist fronts between 1937 and 1954." IMHO the FBI was justified in denying Einstein access to classified A-Bomb information and investigating him for possible disloyalty.

Although the FBI did not discover it while he was alive, letters that became public in 1998 prove that Einstein had an affair with a Soviet spy, Margarita Konenkova, from 1941 until 1945. [Image added 24 December 2010, from Filosophando, click for larger version.]

If Einstein was alive today, I believe he would have realized, based on the subsequent history of Communism (Russia, China, ...) that his cautionary words, quoted above, were more valid than he thought they were when he uttered them in 1949. However, I also believe he would be a "social justice" western liberal/progressive and definitely not in tune with my politics.

SCIENCE: His Great Contributions
His first published paper, on the capillary forces of a straw (1901), and his second, on the thermodynamic equivalence of heat, work or particles (1902) were a non-distinguished prelude to his four amazingly breakthrough miracle year publications in 1905:

• The Photoelectric Effect (showing that light was composed of quanta rather than continuous waves, and which later led to the wave/particle duality of quantum mechanics, and for which he won a Nobel in 1921),



• Brownian Motion (kinetic theory of heat),



• The Special Theory of Relativity (that uniform motion is indistinguishable from rest, and the speed of light is the same for moving or stationary observers), and,



• The Equivalence of Mass and Energy (e = mc², and, since c, the speed of light in a vacuum is such a large number, and when you square it, it is much, much larger, a tiny abount of mass, m, is equivalent to a tremendous amount of energy, e, witness the Atom bomb)

Between 1907 and 1911 Einstein considered the equivalence of gravity and acceleration. He reasoned that a person in a closed box on Earth would, of course, experience normal gravity. However, if the closed box were transported to space, out of the influence of any nearby mass, and then accelerated to 32 ft per second squared, the person would feel the exact same effects as those of gravity on Earth.

In 1915 he published his General Theory of Relativity, showing that matter causes space-time to curve, which we experience as gravity. He predicted that the gravity of the Sun would cause the light from a star to appear to curve and this was confirmed by Eddington, during an eclipse of the Sun in 1929.

The presentation includes animated Powerpoint charts for:

• Relativity and Speed of Light (A bullet fired from a Gun on a moving train goes faster than from a stationary vehicle, yet a light beam fired from a Laser on a moving rocket does not go faster than from a stationary vehicle), and
  
• Einstein's Cosmology (Static, Oscillating, and Expanding Universes, as well as speculation on how Black Holes, predicted by Einstein in 1915, may, via Continuous Creation be the key to something like his Eternal Universe)

COSMOLOGY: Blunders or (Yet Unrecognized) Genius?
Einstein had certain strong expectations of Nature and the Universe (which, see below, he regarded as equivalent to Spinoza's God as well as his own). That led him to expect that the Universe would be static, neither expanding nor contracting, so it could be Eternal in some sense. So, in 1917, he included the Cosmological Constant (Λ) to counteract gravity. When Hubble showed that the Universe was expanding (1929), Einstein said the Cosmological Constant was his "biggest blunder" and, in that same year, adopted what is called the Friedman-Einstein oscilating Universe, which is Eternal in that the mass/energy is constant. When that became untenable, in 1932, he adopted what is called the Einstein-de Sitter Universe, which expands forever, but the rate of expansion slows down over time.

Current accepted truth is that the Universe not only expands forever, but the rate of expansion is increasing, not slowing down. (OY!) And that the Universe had a beginning in the Big Bang (OY! OY!) and it will have an end as the density of mass/energy approaches zero due to the accelerating expansion, and entropy goes to maximum (OY OY! OY!) In my presentation, I speculate (along with Fred Hoyle, Roger Penrose, and others) that black holes and multiple dimensions we cannot sense, may allow an Eternal Universe, with matter/energy continually recycled between the dimensions we can experience and the hidded dimensions, with density and entropy refreshed.

RELIGION: From Moses to Spinoza to Einstein
Young Einstein was the product of a secular family that acknowledge their Judaism. He said "As a child, I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud." So, he knew about Moses and the Rabbis, but, early on, became more enamored of Science and Spinoza. The presentation includes part of his 1920 poem to Spinoza (and in the Notes below the chart, the complete text in English and the original German), and his 1929 statement "I believe in Spinoza's God, Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." For Einstein, God and Nature were one, writing in 1921 "Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not. … Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse."
His dedication to determinism, in defiance of mainstream physics and the quantum mechanics whose foundation he had personally laid, was based on religious conviction that "God does not play dice with the universe" (1926). He also said, in 1931, "I am compelled to act as if free will existed …[on the other hand, I know] ‘a man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.’" [quoting Schopenhauer]

He thought scientists needed a type of faith that springs from the religious sphere: "science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. … the faith … that the regulations [for] the world of existence are … comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (1941) In 1931 he defined three stages of religious belief, going back to his Jewish roots and how they led him to what he considers a higher form of faith: "Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of [1] fear to [2] moral religion … but there is third state of religious experience … which I will call [3] cosmic religious feeling … which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image".
He used personal terms for God, "Dear God (die Lieber Gott) ... The Old One (der Alte) ... Lord God (Herrgott)", yet he wrote in 1949: "the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. …[but] I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of Nature and of our own being." and in 1931 "I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?"
Perhaps his best advice for scientists, and everyone else, is "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (1950)

Ira Glickstein

The Gaia Hypothesis - Three Levels of Interpretation

I posted my first Gaia Topic to this Blog back on Earth Day, April 2010.

This new Topic is based on a talk I gave to the Philosophy Club here in The Villages in Central Florida, 11 June 2010. You can download a PowerPointShow of the talk with animated slides and an audio narration Part 1 and Part 2. [Click hyperlink for the Part you want, then click on Open, wait for the file to download, then click on Allow, and crank up the volume for the audio as the slide show starts!]

In the 1960's, James Lovelock was tasked by NASA to help find signs of life on Mars. As a result of his work for NASA, he came up with what he called the Earth Feedback Hypothesis. This is the idea that the Biosphere, which is the sum of all biological life on Earth, has developed, following the accepted principles of Evolution and Natural Selection, in a way that controls the gasses in the atmosphere and moderates the temperature of Earth in a way that tends to promote life. He suggested that, if Mars or any other planet has or used to have life, it would have telltale signs in the form of certain gasses and other measureable and unique characteristics.

At the suggestion of a neighbor who happened to be a novelist, he changed the name of his theory from the Earth Feedback Hypothesis to the Gaia Hypothesis, after Gaia, the Greek Goddess of Earth.

The Gaia Hypothesis may be viewed at three different levels of interpretation, (1) Pure Science, (2) Purpose-Directed Organism, and (3) Grand Unification of Science and Religion.

1 - PURE SCIENCE - EARTH FEEDBACK HYPOTHESIS

Let us stick to the basics of the Earth Feedback Hypothesis and avoid any suggestion of goal-directed behavior by the Biosphere. Let us ignore any spiritual or religious meaning. At this level we have a straightforward scientific hypothesis. Namely, that standard concepts of the Origin of Life by random mixing of molecules and subsequent Evolution and Natural Selection will tend to generate feedbacks that modify the atmosphere and temperatures of the host planet in a direction that supports continuation of life on that planet.

In my talk, I discuss the well-known "Daisyworld" thought experiment where a planet is planted with light-colored daisies that grow best in warmer temperatures and dark-hued daisies that thrive in cooler temperatures. Daisyworld reacts to a warming Sun by growing more light-colored daisies that raise the albedo (reflectiveness) of the planet in a way that moderates the heating by reflecting excess Sunlight back into space. Conversely, if the Sun cools, dark daisies will become more abundant, reducing the albedo of the planet in a way that absorbs the limited heat of the Sun and thus moderates the cooling. Thus, Daisyworld acts as if it had as its purpose the preservation of life.

I make use of Douglas Hofstadter's idea (in his 1980 Pulitzer-winning book, Godel, Escher, Bach) to argue that an anthill is a complex system that may be considered an organism. Hofstadter calls it Aunt Hillary because the anthill behaves as if it had a purpose, namely the preservation of the anthill and the long-term welfare of the ants. Aunt Hillary is in a mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationship with anteaters. She calls one Dr. Anteater and welcomes his visits because he removes deadwood ants and generally improves the health of the anthill.

The ants are "farmers" who use cut leaves to grow the fungi they eat and "herders" of smaller insects called aphids that secrete a sweet liquid ants drink. Aunt Hillary's anthill is in competition and cooperative relationships with other anthills. They continually invade each other's territory, competing for resources. Should any anthill fail, that territory and resources would be invaded and settled by ants from other anthills.

Of course anthills and anteaters do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of the ecological system of a lake or river valley made up of a balanced set of bacteria, plants, insects, and animals that, over evolutionary time, have settled into a web-of-life and food-chain. I call this ecology Valerie. The valley ecology is complex enough to be considered an organism made up of thousands of species that are in competitive and cooperative relationships with each other and with neighboring valleys. Ecologies are continually invading each other's territory, competing for resources. Should any valley ecology fail, that territory and resources would be invaded by bacteria, insects, plants and animals from other valleys.

2 - PURPOSE-DIRECTED ORGANISM - THE GAIA (AS A GODDESS) HYPOTHESS

Once we agree that an anthill (Aunt Hillary) and a balanced ecology (Valerie) behave as if they are purpose-driven and goal-directed, we are tempted to ask if they are or may become sentient. Is Aunt Hillary the sentient Gaia of the anthill? Is Valerie the sentient Gaia of the lake valley?

The talk examines what we really mean by sentience, and what is required for a complex system to become sentient.

The only certain example of a sentient organism we can all agree on is you (and me and all the other human readers of this Blog). What makes us sentient? Well, it is the complex system of billions of neurons, biological cells that make up our brains and central nervous systems. If billions of cells, each of which is descended from single-cell bacterial life that lived independently eons ago, can be sentient by exchanging chemicals (neuro-transmitters and neuro-inhibitors to and from nearby cells) and electrical signals (pulses transmitted to and received from thousands of other cells near and far), what other complex system could be sentient?

How about billions of humans and other animals in the web-of-life? Humans have been trading ideas, food and other useful items with each other since tribal times. Thousands of years ago trade caravans transported ideas and products far and wide. We now have telephone and computer networks that interconnect nearly all humans on Earth. Could that complex system be sentient? Have we created a Gaia that is a sentient organism?

3 - GRAND UNIFICATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The figure below traces the development of religion and science and indicates how the Gaia Hypothesis may unite them.

What we call primitive religion begins with the idea that every tree and river and tribe has a god within it. We must supplicate ourselves before the god of the tree and thank it for granting us its fruits, and the god of the river for its water, and so on. If our tribe battles yours, and we win, it is because our tribal god is stronger than yours! This evolves into the Egyptian or Greek or Roman pantheon of gods. In the Greek system, the chief god Zeus, and the various gods of the seas, the wind, war, and so on live on Mt. Olympus and cooperate and compete as they rule over us. This evolves into the great Monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, where a Universal God in Heaven is separate from His creation.

Science develops as we study the natural world. First with telescopes to bring far planets and stars closer and with microscopes to peer into the smallest corners of things. This develops into Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and the theories of Evolution, Atoms, Quantum Mechanics, and so on.

It would seem that Religion and Science are incompatible - but, there is hope!

On the RELIGION side, several hundred years ago we see the development of Unitarianism - the belief in one God AT MOST. Some of the founders of the American experiment were "Nature's God" Deists who believed that God Created the Universe and the Laws of Nature and then let it all play out on its own, with no miracles beyond that Original Creation. We also have Pantheists, such as Spinoza and Einstein (and me, your humble Blog administrator) who believe the Universe is God.

On the SCIENCE side we have James Lovelock and his Earth Feedback Hypothesis.

Put them all together and put them into a neat box and they point to the Gaia, the Goddess of the Earth!

Scientists can think of Gaia as a complex interactive system that may or may not be sentient, but who, at least, behaves as if She is sentient. Folks who are seeking a more spiritual solution can think of Gaia as a sentient, purpose-driven organism who came into being through the totally natural processes of Evolution and Natural Selection. Literal believers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam or any other established religion can snicker a bit and thank their God for gifting at least a small bit of Faith to their benighted brothers.

Ira Glickstein

THE GOD DELUSION

Unlike Christopher Hitchens's "god is not Great", written from an historical/literary point of view "THE GOD DELUSION", by a respected biologist, contains actual science-based arguments.

Evolution of Memes

Richard Dawkins previously wrote "The Selfish Gene" (1976) where he introduced the word "meme" (from "mimeme" derived from the Greek "mimeisthai" which means "to imitate"). The word "mneme" was used by others in a similar way as early as 1927 (from the Greek mimneskesthai" which means "to remember").

A meme is the cultural equivalent of a gene. Dawkins wrote: "DNA is a self-replicating piece of hardware. Each piece has a particular structure, which is different from rival pieces of DNA. If memes in brains are analogous to genes they must be self-replicating brain structures, actual patterns of neuronal wiring-up that reconstitute themselves in one brain after another."

The etymology of the word "meme" itself is an excellent example of the evolution of the cultural equivalent of genes. “Meme” is one letter shorter than “mneme” and far easier to pronounce. A challenge arose in 1980 when E.O. Wilson introduced a new word, "culturgen" for the same concept. That word has all but died out as “meme” survived and replicated in the natural human selection process. Clearly, the word “meme” is the “fittest” (best fits into the human cultural environment and brain structure).

A Personal God IS a Delusion – But is it a Useful Myth?

Although I agree with Dawkins that the concept of a personal God, external to the Universe, is, strictly speaking, a delusion, I am surprised at the vehemence with which he attacks it. He minimizes the significance of the fact that the various religions which survived and reproduced over millennia and encompassing the belief systems of billions of people are the “fittest” beliefs (best fits into the human cultural environment and brain structure, regardless of whether or not they are literally true). As such, they must have provided some real benefit to believers and the societies that promoted and still cling to religious beliefs.

About half-way through the book, he finally acknowledges, however grudgingly, the facts. He writes [pg 163 …166]:

[W]e should ask what pressure or pressures exerted by natural selection originally favoured the impulse toward religion. … Religion is so wasteful, so extravagant; and Darwinian selection habitually targets and eliminates waste. …no known culture lacks some version of the time-consuming, wealth-consuming,hostility provoking rituals, the anti-factual, counter-productive fantasies of religion.

David Wilson and Group Selection

Dawkins searches, in vain, for rational explanations for the survival of the God delusion. He mentions David Wilson [pg 170] a colleague of Howard’s and one of my favorite professors at Binghamton University who Dawkins rightly calls “the American group-selection apostle”.

Group selection makes the claim that groups, including religious associations, which promote cooperative, altruistic behaviors, survive at the expense of less religious groups. While I accept multi-level selection (gene level and meme level), I am not sure that true, pure altruism exists and have gone round and round discussing this with Wilson.

David Wilson has an annual “Darwin’s birthday” event at his home that my wife and I have attended. He gave me a plastic knock-off that is like a “Jesus fish” but this one has feet and the word “Darwin” on it. He also gave me a copy of his excellent book, Unto Others .

I agree with Dawkins that what appears to be altruism is actually kin selection (favoring those with common genes) or reciprocal altruism (helping others of the same or different species in return for a benefit). In complex human society it is often difficult to know who is kin or who may provide a reciprocal benefit, so we generalize the concept and indoctrinate our children to help all older people, cooperate with all neighbors, and so on. That is an “accidental” side-effect of kin- and reciprocal altruism, but it never-the-less benefits those societies who imprint generalized cooperative behaviors, so long as altruism is not taken too far.

Dawkins ultimately rejects group selection and is left with the only remaining alternative, that religion is an unintended byproduct of something else. What is this “something else”? Well, he concludes [pg 174-176] it is “obey the tribal elders … For excellent reasons related to Darwinian survival, child brains need to trust parents, and elders whom parents tell them to trust.”

Religion as a “Mind Virus”

Religion, Dawkins asserts, is a mind virus that feeds on the need for a child to obey elders without question, just as computer viruses are based on the need for a computer to follow instructions. The implication is that all societies of the past have had the mentality of children. With the advent of the age of reason we have the opportunity to grow up and reject religion once and for all. I find that “logic” kind of haughty and simple-minded.

Perhaps, with the rise of science and modern technology and so on, literal belief in a personal God is no longer as adaptive as it was in the past. In coming centuries, we humans may modify our beliefs to something like what Dawkins calls the “Einsteinian religion”, or the “Gaia” of Lovelace, or some other science-based concept of that unifying thing we all feel that is larger than all of us.

Scientists who Invoke "God" - Is such Belief Genuine Religious Feeling?
Dawkins knocks Stephen Hawking [pg 13] for ending his A Brief History of Time with a reference to God. Hawking wrote:

However, if we discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable by everyone, not just by a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God.” [Emphasis added]

Dawkins, quoting only the phrase I have highlighted, criticizes Hawking for being "dramatic (or was it mischievous?)".

Dawkins includes Einstein’s famous references to religion and God [pg 15]:

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists ….

God is subtle, but not malicious … God does not play dice …
Did God have a choice in creating the Universe?

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.

What I see in Nature [notice uppercase “N”] is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

Is Scientific Pantheism “Intellectual High Treason”?
Dawkins, in a statement worthy of Anne Coulter, dismisses [pg 19] the metaphorical use of the word “God” by scientists as “intellectual high treason” because it deliberately confuses the distinction between the personal God of “supernatural religion” with the Pantheistic God of “Einsteinian religion”.

It is amazing to me that the originator of the idea that memes evolve in a way similar to genes can be so blind to what is happening! Memes evolve by building upon previous memes. The pagan “rebirth of the Sun” winter solstice meme evolved into Christmas when early Christian authorities co-opted that time period for the birth of Jesus, and, later, when Jewish authorities glommed onto that same time period and elevated Chanukah to a higher significance than it originally claimed. Similarly, IMHO, the traditional supernatural God meme is evolving into a more naturalistic Pantheistic meme. Perhaps the Gaia idea that the Earth biosphere has developed some sort of Global Consciousness will ease the transition. Perhaps it is even true!

Dawkins Quotes Carl Sagan:

A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe [note upper case “U”] as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.

Perhaps, when Sagan talks of a new religion, he is describing the naturalistic yet genuine religious beliefs of Hawking and Einstein and Spinoza. It seems to me it is better to believe in something than in nothing. Sagan also wrote:

In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decided this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed. [Emphasis added]

Scientists are in the same boat with religious believers when they conclude the Universe (like the God of literal believers) always existed! Where did all that energy and matter come from? Where did all the wonderful Laws of Nature that scientists struggle to discover come from? Like the religious believers who say that God always existed, and He created the Universe, scientific believers, in Sagan’s words, “save a step” and assume the Universe always existed! The origin of the Universe is, like the origin of God, an unanswerable question.

Bashing the God of the Old Testament

According to Dawkins [pg 31], the OT God is “… jealous and proud of it; a petty , unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Mischaracterizing Intelligent Design

Dawkins mentions intelligent design (which he calls “creationism in a cheap tuxedo”) on nine pages of this book, but he does not appear to understand it. Intelligent design proponents claim the origin of life on Earth by purely random processes is highly improbable and therefore conclude the initial biological cells were planted here on Earth by some extraterrestrial designer. After that, some of them accept the scientific explanation that something like evolution and natural selection took over and resulted in the wide variety of species on Earth. That theory, per se, is certainly possible. Life on Earth may have been planted by some visiting alien life form. Of course, this raises the question of the origin of the alien life forms.

I, like Dawkins, believe life originated on Earth through un-directed mixing of atoms and molecules. Though highly improbable from a statistical point of view, it seems clear to me that life originated by random chance either here on Earth (or on some other planet in the Universe and was later seeded here).

Dawkins Agrees “Chance is not a solution”

On the positive side, Dawkins [pg 119] realizes that, given those first primitive biological cells, subsequent evolution was anything but a random process.

... the greater the statistical improbability, the less plausible is chance as a solution: that is what improbable means. But the candidate solutions to the riddle of improbability are not, as is falsely implied, design and chance. They are design and natural selection. Chance is not a solution, given the high levels of improbability we see in living organisms, and no sane biologist ever suggested that it was.” [Emphasis added]

Dawkins Belief there is “A generalized process for optimizing”

He goes on his apparently subconscious defense of pantheism [pg 139]:

It is clear that here on Earth we are dealing with a generalized process for optimizing biological species, a process that works all over the planet, on all continents and islands, and at all times. … if we wait another ten million years, a whole new set of species will be as well adapted to their ways of life as today’s species are to theirs. This is a recurrent, predictable, multiple phenomenon, not a piece of statistical luck recognized with hindsight. [Emphasis added

Dawkin’s “generalized process for optimizing” is Omnipresent (“all continents and islands … all times”), Omnipotent (“whole new set of species”) and Omniscient (“as well adapted to their ways of life as today’s species”). Change it to “Generalized Optimizing Device” and we have our familiar Pantheistic “GOD”. QED :^)

Opposition to Homosexuality by the “American Taliban”

In another passage worthy of Ann Coulter, Dawkins [pg 289] notes the Afghan Taliban punishment for homosexuality was execution by being buried alive and compares that to a statement by what he calls the “American Taliban” Rev. Jerry Falwell who said “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” One does not have to agree with Falwell to recognize Dawkins’s analogy as an awful exaggeration.

Ira Glickstein

Teaching Intelligent Design

What is the basis of "Scientific Intelligent Design"?



Intelligent Design (ID) is a teleological (purpose-driven) explanation of the origin and development of biological life on Earth. In its more recent "scientific" form, ID makes use of science-based arguments, mainly "irreducible complexity", to argue that some designer must have created the first biological cells because they could not have originated on their own.

Some ID proponents are prepared to believe that, after the origin of those first cells, something like neo-Darwinian evolution and natural selection took over and resulted in the wide diversity of life forms on Earth. However, they believe the evolutionary process is not without purpose. The intelligent designer had some purpose in mind when the initial biological cells were designed. Even if the various species were not designed per se, the designer of the original biological cells knew the laws of nature and how those cells would inevitably evolve into current-day species. Mainstream science is critiqued for believing advanced life forms evolved by undirected, blind chance and for no purpose at all. If there is no purpose what is the reason for life, for ethics? Why should we continue to live? See:http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf and http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/

What is the basis of Darwinian Evolution?



The basis of Darwinian evolution is that more complex life forms originate when a random mutation or crossover of genes occurs and the resultant life form happens to be both more complex and have a higher survival/reproduction rate than the less complex form. Darwinian evolution and natural selection are central to mainstream science and all standard science courses

What is the basis of "Irreducible Complexity"?



"Irreducible complexity" argues there is no viable life form below that of the most basic biological cell. Therefore, there is no way that that first biological cell could have evolved from something simpler. Thus, there must be some "intelligent cause" rather than the "undirected process" of evolution, at least for the origin of the most basic biological cells. ID proponents demand scientific study of what they call "origins science". The want ID to be included in science classes.

Why not teach both Darwinian and ID explanations in science classes?



ID rejects any purposeless explanation, at least for the initial origin of the most basic biological cells. ID concludes there must have been some "intelligent designer" and the clear implication is an intelligent supernatural being (e.g., "God"). Mainstream scientists reject ID as a religious belief that has no place in a science class.

I accept mainstream science ...

I totally accept the mainstream scientific explantion of both the origin and evolution of life on Earth. Although no scientific experiment has completely duplicated the process of origin of life, I accept the current explation that traces origins from random mixing and chemical reactions in self-reproducing autocatylitic cycles that happened to be confined in porous rock or clay or lipid (fat) molecules. Autocatylitic cycles have been demonstrated in the laboratory.

As a result of the autocatylitic cycle process, some primitive type of self-reproducing RNA originated and that lead to the origin of RNA's first cousin, self-reproducing DNA. Given RNA and DNA, even in their primitive forms, it is possible for a life form that is not yet a biological cell to survive and reproduce in porous rock or clay or lipid molecules. RNA codes for the production of proteins and this must have lead to the first biological cells that produced their own membranes and were thus freed of dependence upon porous materials. At that point, standard Darwinian evolution and natural selection took over.

but ... I favor mention of ID in science classes

Although you might expect me to oppose teaching ID in science class, I think it deserves some mention. Why ???

1) According to Gallup polls, over 40% of our fellow Americans believe God created human beings pretty much in their current form as recently as 10,000 years ago. An additional nearly 40% believe God guided evolution over a longer period. That means four out of five Americans accept God as Creator, Designer, and/or Guider. Fewer than one in seven accept the mainstream scientific explantion that God had no part in the process. Hard as this is to believe, it is a fact to be contended with. "Head in the sand" won't work!

2) What better place than a science class to demonstrate use of the scientific method to evaluate ID vs Darwin? Give the best possible arguments for ID, using examples directly from their textbooks. Do the same for Darwin and then ask the hard questions. For example:

• If ID is true, the first biological cells on Earth were designed and brought here by alien space travelers or by God.

1. If the former, how did the alien space travelers originate? Perhaps they evolved through a Darwinian process on some other planet? If so, Darwin got the process right but the planet wrong! Perhaps meteors harboring live biological cells were flying through space and seeding life on various planets including Earth? How did life originate on the meteors? If not by some Darwinian process, life always existed on those meteors! Does that make any sense?


2. If the latter, how did God come into existence? Did God design and create Himself or was it a Super-God who created Him, and so on with Super-Duper-Gods all the way up? You say God always existed? Does that make any sense?

3) Even though flogiston was a discredited idea, I learned about it in science class! It was a great lesson in the scientific method! Early scientists weighed a piece of wood, burned it, and then weighed the ashes. Sure enough, the ashes weighed less than the original wood, which proved that the fire and heat was due to the flogiston leaving the wood. QED. Then, some smarter scientist repeated the experiment in a closed chamber. The results were just the opposite. Oxygen from the air combined with the carbon from the wood producing energy and carbon dioxide, which is why the ashes plus the smoke weighed more than the original wood.
4) Same story about the discredited idea the Sun and stars rotated about the Earth or that maggots were generated spontaneously on dead meat or that alchemists could change lead into gold and all those other early science myths. The best way to demonstrate the scientific method is to ... uh ... demonstrate the scientfic method!
5) Given the Gallup poll results, it is highly likely a student will be exposed to "scientific" ID by his or her family, friends, neighbors, religious leaders, and even some politicos running for president of the USA. Shouldn't they understand what is behind the ID concept and know the pros and cons? We push sex education in the schools to counteract information students are bound to pick up on the streets. Isn't understanding Darwinism as important?
6) Any responsible social sciences curriculum should include information about alternatives to democracy, including discredited forms of government such as monarchies, theocracies, fascism, communism, and so on. In each case, a fair presentation should be made of the arguments for that form of government, historical examples of widespread prevalence of that form, and examples of problems.
7) Darwinism has nothing to fear from ID! The arguments for a naturalistic chemical origin of life (autocatalytic cycles, RNA, DNA, ...) and neo-Darwinian evolution and natural selection are very strong. Scientists have been studying the laws of nature and properties of energy and matter for quite some time and are always discovering new things about them. We believe the laws of nature are Universal, the same in every corner of the Universe. We believe those laws and material properties guarantee that, over billions of years and with billions of stars and planets, life was bound to come into existence without any external intelligent designer. So, it is quite natural and totally expected that life came into existence, and here we are on Earth to prove it. Where did those complex laws of nature and matter/energy come from? How did they originate? Well, they always existed! (OOPS)

Ira Glickstein

god is not Great

god is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens is an easy read - that man can really write! I found it interesting but full of irrelevant information and cheap argumentative tricks.

I know the scriptures are the writings of humans without the benefit of modern scientific educations. I know they have been translated and edited by humans for thousands of years. I am not a literal believer. Therefore, the rather obvious lack of scientifically verifiable content in holy books does not surprise me at all.
Hitchens claims (page 8) that religion has retarded development of civilization. On what evidence? None that I could find. The very fact that all societies and great civilizations of the past have been infused with what many of us judge to be irrational spiritual belief seems to argue for the benefit of religion for their survival and spread. If religion retards civilization, one would expect non-believing societies, free from religious retardation, to have been most successful. Can anyone cite an example? History proves the opposite!
Hitchens relates how he was asked by Dennis Prager if, approached by a bunch of men on a dark evening in a strange neighborhood, he would be less worried about his safety if he knew they were coming out of a prayer meeting. He spouts (page 18) a litany of cities (Belfast, Beirut, Bombay, ... "and that is only the B's") where, during certain times in recent and ancient history he would be less confortable if confronted by men exiting a religious meeting. Hitchens lives in Washington, DC and spends most of his time away from home in New York, London, Los Angeles, and so on. What would any honest person's answer be to that question?
He goes out of his way to trash both Mother Teresa (page 145+) and Ghandi (page 182+).
Hitchens was a Marxist before he lost his faith in that hopeless cause. He supported Trotsky who was exiled and later murdered by Stalin. One wonders if Hitchens would still be a Marxist had Trotsky turned the tables and eliminated Stalin.
Based on experience of loss of faith in Marxism, he laments (page 153) the pain he knows his book is inflicting on the religious faithful. I wonder if he is simply jealous of their faith? Like a kid whose balloon has popped, he savors the experience of popping everyone else's balloon.
He misquotes Rabbi Hillel, one of our most influential Jewish scholars, claiming Hillel stated the Golden Rule in the postitive version (page 213): "Treat others as you wish to be treated." In fact, even the slightest research would have shown that Hillel used the negative version favored by most Jewish scholars. Hillel wrote: "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
He has an entire chapter entitled "Is Religion Child Abuse?" and concludes it is much worse (page 217) "'Child abuse' is really a silly and pathetic euphemism for what has been going on; the systematic rape and torture of children ..." He cites cases where children have indeeed been abused by priests of various religions, but that is an argumentative trick. If some Englishmen rape and torture children would it be right to say English civilization is all about rape and torture of children?

In a Comment to a previous Topic I noted Hitchens's reaction to what he calls "Hannukah" (he can't even spell it wrong the "right" way "Hanukkah" as major media do :-(

"Hannukah" is, in his words, a "vapid and annoying" holiday where "the Jews borrow shamelessly from Christians in the pathetic hope of a celebration that coincides with 'Christmas'".

Sorry it annoys Hitchens, but our grandchildren and children and fellow Jews northwest of Boston were anything but "pathetic" a couple weeks ago as we joyously lit the Chanukah candles and consumed more than our share of latkes. In a multi-generational recognition, Vi and I and our family had the honor of lighting one of the candles at a multi-congregation event in Chelmsford, MA.

The Maccabees, the heros of our Chanukah story of religious freedom, were, according to Hitchens, "forcibly restoring Mosaic fundamenalism against the many Jews .. attracted by Hellenism." In doing so, they sired "the stench of Calvin and Torquemada and bin Laden ... a poisonous branch that should have been snapped off long ago."

Hitchens apparantly believes it would have been better for monothesim to have been wiped out by Hellenists in 165 BC because that would have prevented the excesses of Christianity and Islam!

Again, on what historical basis can that claim be founded? The Maccabee revolt was in response to the Syrian Greek effort to replace our monotheistic God with their pantheon of gods. To that end, the Temple in Jerusalem was forceably Hellenized. The success of the Maccabees restored a more traditional Judaism to that area, made the Greeks and later the Romans more tolerant of religious diversity in their empires, and set the stage for the later development of Christianity.
Would western civilization have been better off with a pantheon of Greek gods?
I think the case is clear that western civilization is an amalgam of Judeo-Christian and Greek/Roman civilizations and each of those components makes it strong. Had the Judeo-Christian element been left out, I think eastern civilization and religion (i.e., Ghengis Khan) might have wiped us out. Would the world have been better off? I don't know. However, Hitchens seems to hate western civilization so much that he might prefer whatever would have followed from a Mongol success.

On the positive side (at least for me as a Pantheist) he notes Leslie Orgel's comment (page 84): "... evolution is smarter than you are." (Orgel was an associate of Francis Crick, DNA pioneer.)

He also writes (page 165) "... people can be better off believing in something than in nothing, however untrue that something may be."

Ira Glickstein

What Atheists Kant Refute - Limits of Human Reason

Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene and several other highly popular books, recently wrote The God Delusion, regarded as an anti-religious, atheist manifesto by some. I (Ira) am currently reading that book and plan to post a new Main Topic when I complete it.

In an email, Stu provided the following link "What atheists Kant refute" from the Christian Science Monitor. Dinesh D'Souza is interviewed regarding a series of anti-religious books by Dawkins, Dennett, and Hitchens. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1017/p09s06-coop.html. That led to an email exchange between Stu, Joel, Howard and Ira. Rather than limit that exchange to a small, private group, here is an edited version for the enjoyment of readers of this Blog. I hope it generates lots of cross-discussion!

EXCERPTS FROM CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR STORY

Reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable.

Opinion editor Josh Burek talks with Dinesh D'Souza about atheism.

Religion has faced formidable foes in its history. But atheism hasn't generally been one of them – until today. A recent string of bestselling books has put believers of all stripes on the defensive. Religion, say authors such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, is an unreasonable form of blind faith, often leading to fanaticism and violence. Reason and science, they contend, are the only proper foundations for forming opinions and understanding the universe. Those who believe in God, they insist, are falling for silly superstitions.

This atheist attack is based on a fallacy – the Fallacy of the Enlightenment. It was pointed out by the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant erected a sturdy intellectual bulwark against atheism that hasn't been breached since. His defense doesn't draw on sacred texts or any other sources of authority to which people of faith might naturally and rightfully turn when confronted with atheist arguments. Instead, it relies on the only framework that today's atheist proselytizers say is valid: reason. The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know – reality itself. This view says we can find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. It holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.

In his 1781 "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. Kant showed that human knowledge is constrained not merely by the unlimited magnitude of reality but also by a limited sensory apparatus of perception.

Consider a tape recorder. It captures only one mode of reality, namely sound. Thus all aspects of reality that cannot be captured in sound are beyond its reach. The same, Kant would argue, is true of human beings. The only way we apprehend empirical reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that this five-mode instrument is sufficient? What makes us think that there is no reality that lies beyond sensory perception?

... Notice that Kant's argument is entirely secular: It does not employ any religious vocabulary, nor does it rely on any kind of faith. But in showing the limits of reason, Kant's philosophy "opens the door to faith," as the philosopher himself noted.

Kant exposes the ignorant boast of atheists that atheism operates on a higher intellectual plane than theism. He shows that reason must know its limits in order to be truly reasonable. Atheism foolishly presumes that reason is in principle capable of figuring out all that there is, while theism at least knows that there is a reality greater than, and beyond, that which our senses and our minds can ever apprehend.

IRA'S RESPONSE

I agree with Dinesh D'Souza that our five senses are insufficient to apprehend the whole truth of the world. However, I don't trust our "faith" sense to fill in that lacuna reliably. D'Souza's book is titled What's So Great About Christianity, and, if it is a pean to traditional Christianity I don't necessarily think it will satisfy me. On the other hand, if he makes the point that religion in general (when not too fundamentalist or radical) is of net benefit to civilization, and that, via Christianity, civilization and society has been uplifted, then I would buy it!

As it happens, I am currently reading Dawkin's The God Delusion and, so far, (about 70% into it) am not overwhelmed (even though I respect Dawkins and enjoyed a couple of his other books). Perhaps I will find some meat in the book as I go further, but, so far, he is demolishing arguments for a God external to the Universe who created it and is interested in day-to-day activities of individuals and regularly manipulates His Creation. The idea of a "personal God", while quite common to the average "Joe and Jane" is, IMHO, so flat that it does not need further attack.

He acknowledges Einstein's pantheistic God and quotes Hawking and others who use the term "God" in that vein. Dawkins then makes an incredible charge (worthy of Ann Coulter :^) when he says (p19):

... I wish that physicists would refrain from using the word God in their special metaphorical sence. The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking ... God of the Bible... Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, AN ACT OF INTELLECTUAL HIGH TREASON. [EMPHASIS added]

I checked the index and could find no reference to the "Gaia Hypothesis" that we humans (and other life in the biosphere) are, by our role in evolution and natural selection, creating some sort of meta-consciousness that does wield some overall power and intentionality at the whole Earth level. That concept is part and parcel of a pantheistic belief an God and, if true, fully worthy of the use of the term "God". I hope he gets to it.


HOWARD'S RESPONSE

Dinesh D'Souza’s argument that our five senses are insufficient to apprehend the whole truth is a misleading half-truth about science. One can argue that all the sciences began by going beyond the natural senses with measurement devices. Chemistry began with the analytic balance, biology with the microscope, physics with the telescope. Spectroscopes, particle detectors, radiation detectors, scanning electron microscopes, atomic force microscopes and dozens of other instruments go many categories and many magnitudes beyond our senses from the highest energies and smallest particles to almost to the entire detectable universe. Science also explains why things exist beyond our knowing, that is, beyond the event horizon and black holes.

The panentheist definition of God is the totality of whatever exists (the "ground of existence") in the broadest possible sense of “exists’ including what we can never know. My opinion of Dawkins is that he is a brilliant polemicist but not a reliable authority on either religion or science. Right or wrong, I think his motive is winning arguments, and he is good at it. He could also have been a great preacher or maybe an insurance salesman.

JOEL'S RESPONSE

Thanks for the reference, Stu. It's interesting to me that Dinesh D'Souza is trying to make something out of nothing. The trouble with quoting old philosophers is that they are often deprived of essential knowledge that any school child has today. Kant wrote in a time in which there was no remote sensing and man had to depend on his own immediate sensing capability. This gives one a very restrictive idea of what can be known by the senses and what actually exists. He also misrepresents science as very narrow and restrictive in its view.

First of all, science places no limit on what might be invisible to us and our sensory surrogates. It only requires that the unsensible world be consistent with the sensible world in any place
they make contact. It we use D'Souza's tape recorder analogy, I would say the following. If you postulate that an invisible, unfeelable, unsmellible, etc. tree falls in a forest next to the tape recorder, then the tape recorder should at least hear a sound which is consistent with the existence of such a tree, even if the tape recorder can't "see" the tree fall. The science establishment has demonstrated that it is willing to seek out hypothetical things that are normally invisible. Remember that scientists hypothesized the existence of the neutrino based upon seeming violations of Conservation of Momentum and Energy. The particle was actually "seen" only after the the design of an experiment, expenditure of millions of dollars and tons of steel from old battle ships (if I remember correctly). Believers in the invisible world of religion can't even propose a consistency experiment.

I understand, even if I don't agree with, authors like Dawkins. It seems as though we still have terrible global clashes over religion. In Dawkins' mind and that of others, such clashes will continue as long as humans are willing to be motivated by a blind faith that makes them intolerant of those who don't also admit that unverifiable truth. In a sense, Dawkins is acting out of political ideology rather than science. I think that Ira's laisser-faire policy is the right one. Aggressive atheism (or pantheism) is not the way to fight aggressive religion.