I have never before seen Krauss debate, but the physicist opened up explaining he did not particularly like them. I was shocked to discover that Krauss’ entire opening statement revolved around criticizing Craig’s well-known arguments as “God-of-the-gaps.” He also mentioned that quantum mechanics demonstrates that physics does not conform to the laws of logic (thus, in my view, demonstrating a fundamental equivocal misunderstanding of the term “logic.” It does not mean, as Krauss here seems to suggest, “common sense” or “what we would expect.” This is the most charitable view as the only other sense he could mean is that it is reasonable to assume reason does not apply to physics, while also giving us a reason, which is self-contradictory.). He also suggested God cannot be the grounds of objective morality since God can’t will evil things to be good.
[…]In Craig’s second rebuttal he again focused the debate topic. Craig does this to show both what he has argued and to show that the rebuttal was not at all relevant to the topic at hand. I wished he had discussed more cosmology and why inflationary models require an absolute beginning, but he at least mentioned these rebuttals. He completely tore apart the Humean argument against miracles by pointing out that he did not have the probability calculus back in that time. Craig seemed perfectly comfortable by this point and not at all rushed; however he had fewer points to argue against as Krauss was defaulting to “desire” as a motivator over scientific evidence.
By the time of Krauss’ second rebuttal, he was struggling for words. He seemed to have run out of things relevant to say. He did eventually get going, but made such contradictory statements as “there is no purpose in the universe.” As Ryan Hedrich said to me during the debate, “There’s no meaning, no purpose, and yet there he is, arguing away for God only knows what reason (literally).”
And he even reviews the Q&A. This is a really good review.
In this post you can find links to the audio, video, and my snarky summary on Krauss’ speeches.
William Lane Craig made 5 arguments for the existence of God:
the contingency argument
theargument from the origin of the universe (kalam)
the argument from cosmic fine-tuning
the moral argument
the argument from the miracle of the resurrection
These arguments went unrefuted during the debate.
Lawrence Krauss’s case
Lawrence Krauss made the following arguments in his first speech
Dr. Craig is a professional debater
Dr. Craig is not a scientist
Dr. Craig is a philosopher
Disproving God’s is a waste of my valuable time
Dr. Craig has the burden of proof to show evidence
My job is not to present any evidence
I think that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a nice slogan, but I have no evidence for it
I don’t like that God doesn’t appear on Youtube, therefore he doesn’t exist
I don’t like that God didn’t appear to humans until recently, therefore he doesn’t exist
I don’t like that the stars didn’t come together to spell “I am here”, therefore God doesn’t exist
Dr. Craig has to supply extraordinary evidence, because my favorite slogan says he has to
Dr. Craig talks about logic, but the universe is not logical
Dr. Craig doesn’t have any arguments, just things he doesn’t like
Dr. Craig doesn’t like infinity, and that’s why he believes in the Big Bang cosmology
Dr. Craig doesn’t like chance, and that’s why he believes in cosmic fine-tuning
Dr. Craig doesn’t like rape, and that’s why he believes in the ontological foundations of morality
If people believe in logic, then they can’t do science
The things that science discovers contradict the laws of logic
For example, Dr. Craig doesn’t like infinity, so he believes in the experimental measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation
For example, Dr. Craig doesn’t like chance, so he believes in the fine-tuning of the gravitational constant for the formation of stable stars
Quantum mechanics shows that the universe is stranger than you think, therefore all of Craig’s arguments are false
My t-shirt says 2 + 2 = 5, therefore all of Craig’s arguments are false
Atheism may look ridiculous, but it’s true, and if you don’t like it, too bad – because the universe is very strange
Accidents happen all the time, so that explains the cosmic fine-tuning
We all have to convince ourselves of 10 impossible things before breakfast, and atheism is impossible, so you need to convince yourself of it
I don’t know about the Big Bang, so Dr. Craig cannot use the Big Bang to to prove the universe began to exist
I don’t know about the cosmic fine-tuning, so Dr. Craig cannot use the fine-tuning of cosmological constants to prove the fine-tuning
I don’t know anything about science, so Dr. Craig cannot use science in his arguments
Dr. Craig says that the universe is contingent because it began to exist 13.7 billion years ago based on the state-of-the-art scientific evidence for the Big Bang creation out of nothing from 1) red-shift of light from distant galaxies, 2) cosmic microwave background radiation, 3) helium-hydrogen abundances, 4) experimental confirmation of general relativity, 5) the second law of thermodynamics, 6) radioactive element abundances, etc., but how does he know that? I don’t know that
It’s fine not to know the answer to scientific questions like whether the universe began to exist, it’s more exciting
Thinking that the universe began to exist based on 6 pieces of scientific evidence is the “God-of-the-Gaps” fallacy, it’s intellectual laziness
But all kidding aside, the universe actually did begin to exist 13.72 billion years ago, exactly like Craig says in his argument
I could argue that God created the universe 4.5 seconds ago with all of us sitting believing that we heard Dr. Craig, and how could you prove me wrong? It’s not falsifiable
Universes can spontaneously appear out of nothing, and in fact they have to appear out of nothing
Nothing is unstable, and space and time can come into existence out of nothing, so that’s not a problem
Our universe could have appeared out of a multiverse, an unobservable, untestable multiverse that I have no way of observing or testing, but which was in fact created by none other than the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
The universe is not fine-tuned for life, and no scientist says so, especially Martin Rees, the atheist Astronomer Royal, and every other scientist
What if God decided that rape was OK, would it be OK? God can change his moral nature arbitrarily, can’t he?
Would you have any preference as to whether I was born an atheist baby or a Muslim baby?
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ second speech:
We don’t understand the beginning of the universe
We don’t understand whether the universe had a cause
Steven Weinberg says that science makes it possible to be an atheist, so therefore the universe didn’t begin and didn’t have a cause
It’s just intellectual laziness to say that the universe came into being 13.7 billion years ago, and that things that come into being of nothing have a cause
Dr. Craig is an expert on nothing, ha ha ha!
There are multiple versions of nothing, there’s nothing, and then there is something, which is also nothing if I want it to be
There was no space, there was no time, and then the space create the empty space
I’m going to give Dr. Craig a break
At least in the nothing there were laws like F=ma, and those laws created the empty space, because descriptions of matter that does not even exist yet can create space out of nothing
Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin are good friends of mine and I talk to them all the time, unlike Dr. Craig
Alan Guth and Alexander Vilenkin don’t mention God in their scientific papers, therefore the universe didn’t begin and didn’t have a cause
Maybe there is a multiverse that cannot be observed or tested? And my unscientific speculations are a refutation of Craig’s scientific evidence for the fine-tuning
Dr. Craig just doesn’t like my speculations about the unobservable, untestable multiverse, and that’s why he believes in the Big Bang cosmology
And if you let me speculate about an unobservable, untestable multiverse, then maybe the inanimate invisible universes reproduce and compete for food and mutate like animals and then there is natural selection so that the finely-tuned universes survive and now we’re in one!
My cool animation of blue goo mutating proves that the multiverse is real! Empty space is not empty!
Darwinism, which is a theory about the origin of species, explains the cosmic fine-tuning that occurred at the moment of creation
The unobservable, untestable multiverse universes all have different laws, I believe
We don’t know what the right answer is, but we are willing to look at any possibility, as long as the possibilities we look at are not supernatural possibilities, because I am not giving up my right to recreational sex outside of marriage!
The discovery of the origin of the universe could be an accident, I don’t know if the universe began to exist or not, maybe all the six scientific evidences are wrong because if I don’t like the evidence we have, so I’ll just wait for new evidence to overturn the evidence we have which I don’t like
Maybe there are other forms of life that are unobservable and untestable that are compatible with a universe that has no stable stars, no planets, no elements heavier than hydrogen, no hydrogen, no carbon, etc.
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ third speech:
Dr. Craig is stupid
Why should we even care about Dr. Craig’s arguments and evidence, we can just count the number of scientists who are atheists and decide whether God exists that way – I decided everything based on what my teachers told me to believe – I needed good grades to make money so I could move out of my bossy parents’ house and have fun!
What quantum mechanics shows is that virtual particles come into being in a quantum vacuum, and then go out of existence almost immediately – and that is exactly like how a 13.7 billion year old universe came into being in a quantum vacuum, and we’re going to disappear very soon
Space and the laws of physics can be created, possibly, if you accept my speculations about an unobservable, untestable multiverse
I don’t like the God of the Old Testament, especially his prohibition on drunkenness and fornication, therefore he doesn’t exist
Groups of people can decide what they think is good and evil, like the Nazis and slave-owners did, and then that becomes good for them in that time and place, and that’s what I mean by morality
Not knowing things is really exciting! Dr. Craig is not really exciting because he knows things – phooey!
Here are the arguments in Krauss’ fourth speech:
If you will just grant me an observable, untestable multiverse, then there must be some universe where intelligent life exists
Infinite numbers of things exist everywhere in nature, you can see lots of infinite collections of things, like jelly beans and bumblebees and invisible pink unicorns
I don’t like the fine-tuning, but if my speculations about the multiverse are proven true, then I won’t have to learn to live with the fine-tuning
Inflation, the rapid expansion of the universe which occurs at some time after the the origin of the universe (t = 0), explains the absolute origin of time, space, matter and energy out of nothing that occurred at t = 0
Physical processes that develop subsequent to the creation of the universe at t > 0 can explain the fine-tuning of quantities that are set at t = 0
Morality is just a bunch of arbitrary conventions decided by groups of people in different times and places by an accidental process of biological and social evolution, but that practice over there by those people is objectively wrong!
1 Cor 15:3-7, which most scholars, even atheists like James Crossley, admit is dated to within 3 years of the death of Jesus, is actually dated to 50 years after the death of Jesus
The historical case for the resurrection made by people like N.T. Wright in their multi-volume academic works is on par with the story of Mohammed ascending to Heaven on a horse
Here’s a bio from his faculty page at Baylor University:
Walter Bradley (B.S., Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin) is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor. He comes to Baylor from Texas A&M University where he helped develop a nationally recognized program in polymeric composite materials. At Texas A&M, he served as director of the Polymer Technology Center for 10 years and as Department Head of Mechanical Engineering, a department of 67 professors that was ranked as high as 12th nationally during his tenure. Bradley has authored over 150 refereed research publications including book chapters, articles in archival journals such as the Journal of Material Science, Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites, Mechanics of Time-Dependent Materials, Journal of Composites Technology and Research, Composite Science and Technology, Journal of Metals, Polymer Engineering and Science, and Journal of Materials Science, and refereed conference proceedings.
Dr. Bradley has secured over $5.0 million in research funding from NSF grants (15 yrs.), AFOSR (10 years), NASA grants (10 years), and DOE (3 years). He has also received research grants or contracts from many Fortune 500 companies, including Alcoa, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, Shell, Exxon, Boeing, and Phillips.
He co-authored The Mystery of Life Origin: Reassessing Current Theories and has written 10 book chapters dealing with various faith science issues, a topic on which he speaks widely.
He has received 5 research awards at Texas A&M University and 1 national research award. He has also received two teaching awards. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Society for Materials and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the largest organization of Christians in Science and Technology in the world. He is President elect of the ASA and will serve his term in 2008.
Below, I analyze a lecture I chose from the hundreds of public lectures he has given all over the world on the integration of Christian faith with other public, testable areas of knowledge. In this lecture, entitled “Is There Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer?“, Dr. Bradley explains how the progress of science has made the idea of a Creator and Designer of the universe more acceptable than ever before. (It’s a little different from the one I posted earlier in the week, and now I have summarized it so people can discuss it without having to watch the lecture).
1. The correspondence of natural phenomena to mathematical law
All observations of physical phenomena in the universe, such as throwing a ball up in the air, are described by a few simple, elegant mathematical equations.
2. The fine-tuning of physical constants and rations between constants in order to provide a life-permitting universe
Life has certain minimal requirements; long-term stable source of energy, a large number of different chemical elements, an element that can serve as a hub for joining together other elements into compounds, etc.
In order to meet these minimal requirements, the physical constants, (such as the gravitational constant), and the ratios between physical constants, need to be withing a narrow range of values in order to support the minimal requirements for life of any kind.
Slight changes to any of the physical constants, or to the rations between the constants, will result in a universe inhospitable to life.
The range of possible ranges over 70 orders of magnitude.
Although each individual selection of constants and ratios is as unlikely as any other selection, the vast majority of these possibilities do not support the minimal requirements of life of any kind. (In the same way as any hand of 5 cards that is dealt is as likely as any other, but you are overwhelmingly likely NOT to get a royal flush. In our case, a royal flush is a life-permitting universe).
Examples of finely-tuned constants and ratios: (there are more examples in the lecture)
a) The strong force: (the force that binds nucleons (= protons and neutrons) together in nucleus, by means of meson exchange)
if the strong force constant were 2% stronger, there would be no stable hydrogen, no long-lived stars, no hydrogen containing compounds. This is because the single proton in hydrogen would want to stick to something else so badly that there would be no hydrogen left!
if the strong force constant were 5% weaker, there would be no stable stars, few (if any) elements besides hydrogen. This is because you would be able to build up the nuclei of the heavier elements, which contain more than 1 proton.
So, whether you adjust the strong force up or down, you lose stars than can serve as long-term sources of stable energy, or you lose chemical diversity, which is necessary to make beings that can perform the minimal requirements of living beings. (see below)
b) The conversion of beryllium to carbon, and carbon to oxygen
Life requires carbon in order to serve as the hub for complex molecules, but it also requires oxygen in order to create water.
Carbon is like the hub wheel in a tinker toy set: you can bind other elements together to more complicated molecules (e.g. – “carbon-based life), but the bonds are not so tight that they can’t be broken down again later to make something else.
The carbon resonance level is determined by two constants: the strong force and electromagnetic force.
If you mess with these forces even slightly, you either lose the carbon or the oxygen.
3. Fine-tuning to allow a habitable planet
A number of factors must be fine-tuned in order to have a planet that supports life
Initial estimates predicted abundant life in the universe, but revised estimates now predict that life is almost certainly unique in the galaxy, and probably unique in the universe.
Even though there are lots of stars in the universe, the odds are against any of them supporting complex life.
Here are just a few of the minimal requirements for habitability: must be a single star solar system, in order to support stable planetary orbits, the planet must be the right distance from the sun in order to have liquid water at the surface, the planet must sufficient mass in order to retain an atmosphere, etc.
The best current atheist response to this is to speculate that there may be an infinite number of unobservable and untestable universes. (I.e. – the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it)
1. The progress of science has shown that the entire physical universe came into being out of nothing (= “the big bang”). It also shows that the cause of this creation event is non-physical and non-temporal. The cause is supernatural.
Atheism prefers an eternal universe, to get around the problem of a Creator having to create the universe.
Discovery #1: Observations of galaxies moving away from one another confirms that the universe expanded from a single point.
Discovery #2: Measurements of the cosmic background radiation confirms that the universe exploding into being.
Discovery #3: Predictions of elemental abundances prove that the universe is not eternal.
Discovery #4:The atheism-friendly steady-state model and oscillating model were both falsified by the evidence.
And there were other discoveries as well, mentioned in the lecture.
The best atheistic response to this is to speculate that there is an unobservable and untestable hyper-universe outside our own. (I.e. – the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it)
1. The progress of science has shown that the simplest living organism contains huge amounts of biological information, similar to the Java code I write all day at work. This is a problem for atheists, because the sequence of instructions in a living system has to come together all at once, it cannot have evolved by mutation and selection – because there was no replication in place prior to the formation of that first living system!
Living systems must support certain minimum life functions: processing energy, storing information, and replicating.
There needs to be a certain amount of complexity in the living system that can perform these minimum functions.
But on atheism, the living system needs to be simple enough to form by accident in a pre-biotic soup, and in a reasonable amount of time.
The minimal functionality in a living system is a achieved by DNA, RNA and enzymes. DNA and RNA are composed of sequences of proteins, which are in turn composed of sequences of amino acids.
Consider the problems of building a chain of 100 amino acids
The amino acids must be left-handed only, but left and right kinds are equally abundant in nature. How do you sort out the right-handed ones?
The amino acids must be bound together using peptide bonds. How do you prevent other types of bonds?
Each link of the amino acid chain needs to be carefully chosen such that the completed chain with fold up into a protein. How do you choose the correct amino acid for each link from the pool of 20 different kinds found in living systems?
In every case, a human or other intelligence could solve these problems by doing what intelligent agents do best: making choices.
But who is there to make the choices on atheism?
The best current atheistic response to this is to speculate that unobservable and untestable aliens seeded the earth with life. (I.e. – the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it)
The problem of the origin of life is not a problem of chemistry, it is a problem of engineering. Every part of car functionality can be understood and described using the laws of physics and chemistry. But an intelligence is still needed in order to assemble the components into a system that has the minimal requirements for a functioning vehicle.
Conclusion
In all three areas, scientists expected that the data would be consistent with atheism. First, scientists expected that life could exist even if the physical constants and ratios were altered. The progress of science said NO. Second, scientists expected that the universe would be eternal. The progress of science said NO. Third, scientists expected that the origin of life would be simple. The progress of science said NO. Why do some people resist the progress of science and cling to the religious dogma of materialism?
WINTERY KNIGHT 