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Physicist Luke Barnes previews Craig-Krauss debate in Sydney, Australia

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First, a preview of the Craig-Krauss debate that took place yesterday from Sydney-based philosopher Luke Barnes, whom I’ve written about before.

Excerpt:

Krauss is in Sydney to debate the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” – the traditional starting point for an ancient argument for the existence of God. Kraus, of course, is a cosmologist, known in the field for his work on the cosmological constant and dark matter, and to the wider public for books such as The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing. Krauss’s opponent is the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. He has built a career around the philosophical defence of theism, and is best known outside academia for his many public debates with atheists.

I am, like Krauss, a professional cosmologist and astrophysicist. I’ve also interacted with a philosopher or two, and I’ve read a lot of Craig’s work. So I thought it might be opportune to offer a guide to the uninitiated.

[…]Krauss’s latest book claims that advances in science have shown that we can answer the question “why is there something rather than nothing?” without invoking God. His argument can be summarised as follows:

  1. The basic stuff of the universe, as we now understand it, consists of matter and energy, space and time, governed by laws of nature.
  2. Particles of matter correspond to certain configurations of quantum fields. There is a configuration that corresponds to no particles (the “vacuum”). A state with no particles can evolve into a state with particles. Thus, matter can appear from no-matter.
  3. The universe as a whole may have zero net energy.
  4. There are theories that suggest that that space and time themselves are not fundamental, but emerge from a state without space and time.
  5. The laws of nature may be stochastic and random, in which case there may be no ultimate laws of nature.
  6. Since we can imagine the universe coming from a state with no matter, no particles, no space, no time and no laws, something can come from nothing.

Krauss’s book was far from universally acclaimed. Fellow unbeliever and physicist-turned-philosopher David Albert wrote a scathing review for the New York Times. Krauss responded by calling Albert “moronic” and generally dismissing philosophy as a waste of time. I’d love to stick up for a fellow cosmologist, but I’m with Albert and my reasons mirror his.

Fundamental physics is, always has been and – unless it undergoes a major identity crisis – always will be about what the basic stuff of the universe is and how it interacts and rearranges. There is nothing deeper. Thus, there can be no answer within science as to where that stuff came from, why it is that type of stuff, why it obeys laws, why those laws, or why there is anything at all. All scientific explanations stop at the basic stuff.

This is why Krauss’s argument fails. Particles can appear from no-particles, not from nothing. The underlying field is always there. A state with zero energy is not nothing. There must first be a thing before we can measure its energy, even if the number we get is zero. A physical state with no space or time, however strange, is still not thereby nothing. A universe with laws that vary from place to place and time to time is clearly not the same as one with no laws at all. It just makes the laws more complicated. Step 6 makes an unjustified leap from “something from not-these-five-things” to “something from nothing.”

There must always be questions that science leaves unanswered. Naturalism posits that there is nothing but the stuff of science. Here, then, is the challenge for naturalism. To believe naturalism, one must believe that these questions are unanswerable. Not just unanswered, not just awaiting a breakthrough, not just an open research question. They must be non-questions, meaningless strings of words, nonsense cleverly disguised as the oldest and deepest questions mankind has asked about reality. Unfortunately for Krauss, to have any hope of doing that he’s going to need to put on his philosopher’s hat.

Dr. Craig posted his comments about the debate after it happened:

The dialogue last night with Krauss went really well! We largely avoided the personal attacks and finally focused on the philosophical issues. Krauss did not mount much of a defense of his claim that physics can offer plausible explanations of why something exists rather than nothing and did not seem to understand Leibniz’s argument, taking it to be about the temporal origin of he universe. Now on to Melbourne, where the dialogue will be moderated by none other than Graham Oppy!

You can also find a full review of the debate by someone who attended it here.

Excerpt:

Krauss decided not to primarily attack the premises of the contingency argument but rather the very nature of deductive syllogisms. To do this he presented the following syllogism (I admittedly did not get to write this down but this was the general idea):

  1. Mammals practice homosexuality.
  2. Craig is a mammal
  3. Therefore Craig practices homosexuality. (I honestly can’t remember the exact phrasing of the conclusion but you can see the general gist)

This shocked me. Not only was it an obviously invalid argument but it got a big laugh from the audience (who didn’t seem to see how bad it was). To Krauss’ credit he did at least say that the conclusion was obviously false (at least to his knowledge) but it struck me as very disrespectful. Krauss complimented Craig on being a genuinely nice guy but continued to make regular quips about his use of deductive logic and lack of intellectual honesty. He also attacked the second premise of the argument as obviously question begging.

Krauss concluded his last minute with personal E-mail correspondence between himself and Alexander Vilenkin concerning the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem, a piece of evidence that Craig often employs to demonstrate that the universe began to exist. Unfortunately there was a lot of text on the slide but the main point from Vilenkin seemed to be that the BVG theorem could break down if it turned out that a quantum theory of gravity held to be true. I look forward to this letter becoming public so we can have a better look at it. I was disappointed that Krauss did not raise this earlier or spend more time explaining it. Krauss appealed to evolution, the multiverse and the appearance of apparent “poor tuning” as a way of defeating the teleological argument. Clearly Krauss was conflating the teleological argument from cosmology with some sort of intelligent design argument for biological complexity; a forgivable error for a layperson but not someone of Krauss’ stature.

I am praying that Dr. Craig is able to help Dr. Krauss consider the existence of God respectfully and fairly, and I hope you will as well. I do admire Krauss for agreeing to have these debates. He’s not just having one debate or two debates, but several. And this is not the first time he’s debated Dr. Craig either. You have to admire the man’s willingness to defend his views. I think a lot of atheists in the universities are insulated from arguments like Dr. Craig’s, and they’ll stay insulated form them unless them make an effort to hear the other side.

News

New study finds highest-ever risk of breast cancer from abortion

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Life News reports on the latest studies confirming the link between abortion and breast cancer.

Excerpt:

A newly-published study shows the highest-ever abortion-breast cancer risk for women of any previously-published study on the link between the two.

A Bangladesh study published in the Journal of Dhaka Medical College on risk factors for breast cancer, led by Dr. Suraiya Jabeen, found a statistically significant 20.62-fold increased risk among women with abortion histories. The new study on the abortion-breast cancer link is by far the highest risk elevation reported among 73 published abortion-breast cancer studies.

Physical inactivity, being menopause, positive family history of breast cancer and history of induced abortion were found important risk factors,” the authors wrote.

Professor Joel Brind, a professor at Baruch College, City University of New York who is an expert on the abortion-breast cancer link, said the reason why the risk elevation is so high is because it’s “a measure of relative risk.”

Observing that women in Bangladesh have very traditional childbearing patterns that reduce breast cancer risk, he explained: “Almost all the women are married (97% currently married; the rest widowed) and with child by the time they are 20, and all of the kids are breastfed. Ninety percent had their first child at age 21 or younger (99% of controls did). They typically neither take contraceptive steroids nor have any abortions. Nulliparity (childlessness) or abortion before first full term pregnancy (both of which mean no breastfeeding) in a population in which breast cancer is almost unheard of, makes the relative risk very high.”

Brind continued: “Although the authors did not include a measure of their abortion link’s statistical significance, their raw data was complete enough to calculate a 95% confidence interval of 12.85-32.51, making abortion by far the strongest and most significant risk factor observed in these Bengali women. In plain English, women in this population who had any induced abortions were more than 20 times as likely to get breast cancer, compared to women with no abortions.”

According to the study, additional minor reproductive factors influencing breast cancer risk included: use of oral contraceptives (1.47-fold increased risk); early first birth at or before age 21 (0.35-fold reduced risk); having two or more children (0.29-fold reduced risk); and increased number of months spent breastfeeding (0.30-fold reduced risk).

Now let’s take a look at some of the previous studies.

Previous studies

Life News reports.

Excerpt:

A study in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention shows abortion increases the risk of breast cancer for women.

C. Yanhua of the First Peoples’ Hospital of Kunming in Yunnan province and his colleagues found the abortion-breast cancer association after comparing data from 263 cases of breast cancer and 457 controls without the disease. Their analysis covers the years 2009-2011.

The authors examined information on disease diagnosis, demographics, medical history, and reproductive characteristics of the patients involved and also looked at short menstrual cycle, old age at first live birth, never breastfeeding, history of oral contraceptive use, postmenopausal status and nulliparity to determine in abortion-breast cancer link exists.

They write that “multivariate model analysis revealed the significant independent positive associations with breast cancer of shorter menstrual cycle, older age at first live birth, never breastfeeding, history of oral contraception experience, increased number of abortion, menopause status, and nulliparities.”

“Number of abortion showed an increasing higher risk of breast cancer,” they added, while saying that women who had one live birth lowered their risk. “As far as women who had once a live birth, it showed decreased the risk of breast cancer compared to nulliparous.”

“This study showed an increased risk of breast cancer with times of abortion. The association between abortion and risk of breast cancer in a study in China showed that the risk factors of female breast cancer included abortion times more than two (Li et al., 2006),” they continued. “Another study found that risk was raised among women reporting at least one abortion, but no trend was seen with number of abortions (Heuch et al., 2008). In a meta-analysis study, pooled odds ratio for number of abortions greater than and equal three was statistically significant (95%CI:1.68-5.36) (Tao et al.,2011).”

“In conclusion, in this study the estrogen related risk factors of breast cancer included woman who had longer menstrual cycle, older age of first live birth, never breastfeeding, nulliparity, and number of abortions more than one. Therefore, it is recommended to women with these risk factors perform breast cancer screening tests earlier and regularly,” they said.

Previously, another study was published in Oxford University’s European Journal of Public Health, and the abstract is posted on the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health (aka PubMed).

Here are the results:

With statistical controls for number of pregnancies, birth year and age at last pregnancy, the combination of induced abortion(s) and natural loss(es) was associated with more than three times higher mortality rate than only birth(s). Moderate risks were identified with only induced abortion, only natural loss and having experienced all outcomes compared with only birth(s). Risk of death was more than six times greater among women who had never been pregnant compared with those who only had birth(s). Increased risks of death were 45%, 114% and 191% for 1, 2 and 3 abortions, respectively, compared with no abortions after controlling for other reproductive outcomes and last pregnancy age. Increased risks of death were equal to 44%, 86% and 150% for 1, 2 and 3 natural losses, respectively, compared with none after including statistical controls. Finally, decreased mortality risks were observed for women who had experienced two and three or more births compared with no births.

Life Site News adds more:

A single induced abortion increases the risk of maternal death by 45 percent compared to women with no history of abortion, according to a new study of all women of reproductive age in Denmark over a 25 year period.

The study found that each additional abortion is associated with an even higher death rate. Women who had two abortions were 114 percent more likely to die during the period examined, and women had three or more abortions had a 192 percent increased risk of death.

Elevated rates of death were also observed among women who experienced miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other natural losses. Among women with a history of multiple pregnancies, women with a history of both abortions and natural losses, but no live births, had the highest mortality rate.

Women who had never been pregnant had the highest mortality rate overall.

However, women with a history of successful deliveries were the least likely to die during the 25 years examined.

The study is the second record linkage analysis of Danish mortality data to be published this month.

The earlier study was limited to comparing mortality rates following only the first pregnancy outcome. It found that abortion of a first pregnancy was associated with a higher rate of death compared to death rates among women who delivered a first pregnancy. The higher death rate among women who had abortions persisted for each of the first ten years following the first pregnancy outcome.

[…]Dr. Reardon is the director of the Elliot Institute, which funds research related to abortion. He believes further research is needed to explore how the outcomes observed in this latest study may be influenced by abortion’s impact on natural pregnancy losses. A new population study from Finland, for example, has found that abortion is associated with higher rates of preterm delivery, low birth weight delivery, and perinatal deaths in subsequent pregnancies.

“We knew from our previous studies of low income women in California that women who have multiple pregnancy outcomes, such as having a history of both abortion and miscarriage, have significantly different mortality rates,” Reardon said.

”But this new study is the first to examine how each experience with abortion or miscarriage contributes to higher mortality rates,” Reardon observed.

“This is called a ‘dose effect’ because each exposure, or ‘dose,’ is seen to produce more of the same effect, which is what one would expect if there is a cause-effect relationship,” he said.

Reardon believes that a truer picture of the benefits of childbirth and the risks of abortion and pregnancy loss is now emerging because of a shift to more reliable record linkage studies. Such studies have been conducted in Finland, Denmark and the United States.

And another from Life News.

Excerpt:

A new study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention in February reported a very statistically significant increased risk of breast cancer for women with previous abortions as opposed to women who have never had one.

The study, consisting of 1,351 women and led by researcher Ai-Ren Jiang, reported a statistically significant 1.52-fold elevation in risk for women with induced abortions and a “significant dose-response relationship between (the risk) for breast cancer and number of induced abortions,” meaning the risk climbed with a higher number of previous abortions.

For premenopausal women who have had abortions, the numbers were relatively small, and the observed 16% risk elevation was not statistically significant. However, for those with three or more abortions, the risk climbed to a statistically significant 1.55-fold elevation.

“The results have revealed that induced abortion was related to increased risk of breast caner. Premenopausal women who had ≥3 times of induced abortion were at increased crude odds ratio (OR) (2.41, 95%CI: 1.09-5.42) and adjusted-OR (1.55, 95%CI: 1.15-5.68),” they wrote. “Postmenopausal women with a previous induced abortion were at increased crude OR (2.04, 95%CI: 1.48-2.81) and adjusted-OR (1.82, 95%CI: 1.30-2.54), and there was a significant increase trend in OR with number of induced abortions (p for trend: 0.0001).”

[…][A] Chinese study in 1995 by L. Bu and colleagues, including Janet Daling of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, reported a statistically significant 4.5-fold elevated risk among women with previous induced abortions who developed breast cancer at or before age 35, compared to older women (who experienced a statistically significant 2.5-fold elevated risk)

Here’s another study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), showing that excessive consumption of alcohol is a rish factor for breast cancer.

Excerpt:

Consumption of 3 to 6 alcoholic drinks per week is associated with a small increase in the risk of breast cancer, and consumption in both earlier and later adult life is also associated with an increased risk, according to a study in the November 2 issue of JAMA.

“In many studies, higher consumption of alcohol has been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. However, the effect of low levels of drinking as is common in the United States has not been well quantified,” according to background information in the article. “In addition, the role of drinking patterns (i.e., frequency of drinking and ‘binge’ drinking) and consumption at different times of adult life are not well understood.”

Wendy Y. Chen, M.D., M.P.H., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues examined the association of breast cancer with alcohol consumption during adult life, including quantity, frequency, and age at consumption. The study included 105,986 women enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study who were followed up from 1980 until 2008 with an early adult alcohol assessment and 8 updated alcohol assessments. The primary outcome the researchers measured was the risk of developing invasive breast cancer.

During the follow-up period, there were 7,690 cases of invasive breast cancer diagnosed among the study participants. Analyses of data indicated that a low level of alcohol consumption (5.0 to 9.9 grams per day, equivalent to 3-6 glasses of wine per week) was modestly but statistically significantly associated with a 15 percent increased risk of breast cancer. In addition, women who consumed at least 30 grams of alcohol daily on average (at least 2 drinks per day) had a 51 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared with women who never consumed alcohol.

The researchers also found that when examined separately, alcohol consumption levels at ages 18 to 40 years and after age 40 years were both strongly associated with breast cancer risk. The association with drinking in early adult life still persisted even after controlling for alcohol intake after age 40 years.

Binge drinking, but not frequency of drinking, was also associated with breast cancer risk after controlling for cumulative alcohol intake.

Now let’s take a look at some other factors that raise the risk of breast cancer.

Abortion and breast cancer

Many studies show a link between abortion and breast cancer.

Study 1: (September 2010)

Based on the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2/neu (HER2), breast cancer is classified into several subtypes: luminal A (ER+ and/or PR+, HER2-), luminal B (ER+ and/or PR+, HER2+), HER2-overexpressing (ER-, PR-, and HER2+) and triple-negative (ER-, PR-, and HER2-). The aim of this case-control study is to determine reproductive factors associated with breast cancer subtypes in Chinese women. A total of 1,417 patients diagnosed with breast cancer in the First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, China between 2001 and 2009 and 1,587 matched controls without a prior breast cancer were enrolled.

[…]Postmenopause and spontaneous abortion were inversely associated with the risk of luminal tumors. By contrast, multiparity, family history of breast cancer and induced abortion increased the risk of breast cancer.

Study 2: (March 2010)

OBJECTIVE: To explore the risk factors of breast cancer for better control and prevention of the malignancy.

METHODS: The clinical data of 232 patients with pathologically established breast cancer were investigated in this 1:1 case-control study to identify the risk factors of breast cancer.

RESULTS: The history of benign breast diseases, family history of carcinoma andmultiple abortions were the statistically significant risk factors of breast cancer, while breast feeding was the protective factor.

CONCLUSION: A history of benign breast diseases, family history of carcinoma and multiple abortions are all risk factors of breast cancer.

But wait, there’s more.

Birth control pills

Many studies showed that taking birth control pills caused an increased risk of breast cancer.

Study 1: (March 2003)

RESULTS: Among the youngest age group (<35 years, n = 545), significant predictors of risk included African-American race (RR = 2.66: 95% CI 1.4-4.9) and recent use of oral contraceptives (RR = 2.26; 95% CI 1.4-3.6). Although these relationships were strongest for estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) tumors (RRs of 3.30 for race and 3.56 for recent oral contraceptive use), these associations were also apparent for young women with ER+ tumors. Delayed childbearing was a risk factor for ER+ tumors among the older premenopausal women (Ptrend < 0.01), but not for women <35 years in whom early childbearing was associated with an increased risk, reflecting a short-term increase in risk immediately following a birth.

Study 2: (October 2008)

Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer (95% confidence interval, 1.4-4.3) and no significantly increased risk for non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.008). Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater for triple-negative breast cancer than non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.02 and 0.01, respectively).

All of this research shows that abortion is bad for women, but I also should mention that abortion is always bad for the unborn child, especially sex-selection abortions, which target women more than men.

Conclusion

The total cost for breast cancer treatment, which raises medical insurance premiums (private health care) or taxes (single-payer health care), has been estimated to be between $1.8 billion and $3.8 billion dollars. In addition, the government spends billions of dollars each year on breast cancer research. All of this spending is costing taxpayers a lot of money, as people demand more and more government funding of breast cancer research and breast cancer treatment (with either private or single-payer health care).

News

AF first sergeant faces reprisals from gay boss for refusing to affirm homosexuality

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Here’s the first one from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Monk has served as a first sergeant at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio since 2011. He recently returned from a deployment and discovered he had a new commander – an open lesbian.

“In one of our first meetings, she was talking about her promotion and she mentioned something about a benediction,” Monk told Fox News. “She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a bigot because he preached that homosexuality is a sin.”

“She then said, ‘I don’t know what kind of people actually believe that kind of crap,’” Monk said, recalling the meeting. “I knew I was going to have a rough time in this unit and I would have to be very careful what I said.”

That moment came when Monk was called in to advise the commander on a disciplinary matter involving an Air Force instructor accused of making comments objecting to gay marriage.

And then Monk had to advise his lesbian officer about someone who disagreed with homosexuality:

Seven people filed complaints about the remarks. It then became Monk’s job to advise the commander on disciplinary action.

“Her very first reaction was to say, ‘we need to lop off the head of this guy,’” Monk said. “The commander took the position that his speech was discrimination.”

Monk suggested she use the incident as a learning experience – a way to teach everyone about tolerance and diversity.

“I don’t believe someone having an opinion for or against homosexuality is discriminatory,” Monk told Fox News.

From that point, Monk said he was told that he wasn’t on the same page as the commander and if I didn’t get on the page they were on, they would find another place for me to work.”

“I’m being chastised about what’s going on,” he said. “I’m told that members of the Air Force don’t have freedom of speech. They don’t have the right to say anything that goes against Air Force policy.”

Monk, who is a devout evangelical Christian, said he met with the young instructor and told him that he was fighting for him.

“He was really concerned,” he said. “He said he felt like he was on an island – that he couldn’t be who he is anymore. He didn’t understand why somebody would be offended.”

The instructor was eventually punished by having a letter of counseling placed in his official file.

Monk soon found himself in a very similar position after his commander ordered him to answer a question about whether people who object to gay marriage are guilty of discrimination.

“She said, ‘Sgt. Monk, I need to know if you can, as my first sergeant, if you can see discrimination if somebody says that they don’t agree with homosexual marriage,’” he said. “I refused to answer the question.”

Monk said to answer would have put him in a legal predicament.

“And as a matter of conscience I could not answer the question the way the commander wanted me to,” he said.

I actually wanted to joint the military when I was young. But I knew that if I ever disagreed with my superiors on issues like abortion or gay marriage, that I would have trouble transferring my skills to a new career. I chose to go into computer science so that I could get my skills without being censored or sanctioned by teachers who didn’t agree with me. I wanted to avoid having to change who I was because someone else disagreed with me and wanted to push their views on me by exercising power. I had read about what atheists did to Christians in communist countries, and I didn’t want to be exposed to that. I knew that I had to choose a field where I could always take my skills and leave if I sensed danger.