Tag Archives: Science

Podcasts

Brian Auten interviews Dr. Angus Menuge on philosophy of mind

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Click here for the interview. It’s up at Apologetics 315!

Details:

Today’s interview is with Dr. Angus Menuge, Professor of Philosophy  at Concordia University, and author of Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science. He talks about his background and work, the philosophy of mind, what reason (or reasoning) is, what materialism is as a worldview, things excluded from a materialistic worldview, methodological naturalism and materialism, accounting for free will, materialistic accounts of reason, the epistemological argument from reason, the ontological argument from reason, finding the best explanation for reason, problems with methodological naturalism, implications of materialism, practical application of the argument from reason, advice for apologists, the International Academy of Apologetics, and more.

If what Dr. Menuge says in this interview is true, and I think it is, then a person who believes in materialism can neither ground free will nor rationality! So atheism wouldn’t really be freethought so much as it would be… un-free… non-thought.

In case people don’t want to listen to the podcast, then I’ve got some things for you to read below.

The ontological argument from reason

Dr. Menuge presented a paper at the real Evangelical Philosophical Society conference for students and professors of philosophy, and you can download the paper here in Word format. (here’s a PDF version I made)

Here is the introduction to the paper that Dr. Menuge read at the EPS conference:

The argument from reason is really a family of arguments to show that reasoning is incompatible with naturalism. Here, naturalism is understood as the idea that foundationally, there are only physical objects, properties and relations, and anything else reduces to, supervenes on, or emerges from that. For our purposes, one of the most important claims of naturalism is that all causation is passive, automatic, event causation (an earthquake automatically causes a tidal wave; the tidal wave responds passively): there are no agent causes, where something does not happen automatically but only because the agent exerts his active power by choosing to do it. The most famous version of the argument from reason is epistemological: if naturalism were true, we could not be justified in believing it. Today, I want to focus on the ontological argument from reason, which asserts that there cannot be reasoning in a naturalistic world, because reasoning requires libertarian free will, and this in turn requires a unified, enduring self with active power.

The two most promising ways out of this argument are: (1) Compatibilism—even in a deterministic, naturalistic world, humans are capable of free acts of reason if their minds are responsive to rational causes; (2) Libertarian Naturalism—a self with libertarian free will emerges from the brain. I argue that neither of these moves works, and so, unless someone has a better idea, the ontological argument from reason stands.

The paper is 11 pages long, and it is helpful for those of you looking for some good discussion of one of the issues in the area of philosophy of mind.

You may also be interested in Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological argument from reason, which is related to this argument. It shows that even to have the ability to think, you have to have a certain anthropology and you have to have mental faculties that are designed for reason, not survival.

Methodological naturalism

Dr. Menuge also wrote an article entitled “Is methodological materialism good for science?”.

Intro:

Should science by governed by methodological materialism? That is, should scientists assume that only undirected causes can figure in their theories and explanations? If the answer to these questions is yes, then there can be no such thing as teleological science or intelligent design. But is methodological materialism a defensible approach to science, or might it prevent scientists from discovering important truths about the natural world? In my contribution to The Waning of Materialism (Oxford University Press, 2010), edited by Robert Koons and George Bealer, I consider twelve of the most common arguments in favor of methodological materialism and show that none of them is convincing.

Of these arguments, perhaps the most prevalent is the “God of the gaps” charge, according to which invoking something other than a material cause is an argument from ignorance which, like a bad script writer, cites a deus ex machina to save our account from difficulty. Not only materialists, but also many Christian thinkers, like Francis Collins, worry that appeal to intelligent design commits the God of the gaps fallacy.

As I argue, however, not only is an inference to an intelligent cause not the same as an inference to the supernatural, it is a mistake to assume that all gap arguments are bad, or that only theists make them. If a gap argument is based solely on ignorance of what might explain some phenomenon, then indeed it is a bad argument. But there are many good gap arguments which are made both by scientific materialists and proponents of intelligent design.

So how do you make an argument like that?

As Stephen Meyer has argued in his Signature in the Cell, intelligent design argues in just the same way, claiming not merely that the material categories of chance and necessity (singly or in combination) are unable to explain the complex specified information in DNA, but also that in our experience, intelligent agents are the only known causes of such information. The argument is based on what we know about causal powers, not on what we do not know about them.

Since the inference is based on known causal powers, we learn that the cause is intelligent, but only further assumptions or data can tell us whether that intelligence is immanent in nature or supernatural. It is a serious mistake to confuse intelligent design with theistic science, and the argument that since some proponents of design believe that the designer is God, that is what they are claiming can be inferred from the data, is a sophomoric intensional fallacy.

If you think this is interesting, then do have a listen to the podcast. Dr. Menuge is not an ordinary academic – he is very direct. He calls materialism “a catastrophe” in the podcast! Not a shrinking violet.

Commentary

Book review of “The Cell’s Design” by Fazale Rana

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J.W. Wartick reviews “The Cell’s Design” by biochemist Fazale Rana.

Excerpt:

The first line of evidence comes from the machines in the cell. Again, Rana’s approach is analogical, rather than negative. The machine-like nature of the flagellum, along with other motor-like cellular functions presents an argument: “Organisms display design. Therefore, organisms are the product of a creator” (86).

The case doesn’t rest merely upon molecular machines. Rather, that is but one of the many lines of evidence. Rana draws out the implications of several “chicken-and-egg” paradoxes. These include the “mutual interdependence of DNA and proteins” (99), the origin of proteins themselves (100ff), and more (105ff). These systems present a kind of “irreducible complexity in which the system depends on the system to exist” (108).

Other elements of design are present in the cell as well. Aquaporins intricate and detailed workings illustrate the design that is present in the system (111ff). Other detailed, intricate designs (such as collagen, mRNA, and the breakdown of proteins) hint at the need for a designer. But the reasoning is not only supported by the details, it is also bolstered by the structural composition of the cell (126ff). The analogy of cells to machines is strengthened further by the quality control systems within the cell (198ff). Again, the reasoning is analogical–these things are designed, therefore they need a designer.

“Information can’t be separated from the activity of an intelligent agent” (142). The numerous examples of information in the cell lead to the inference of an agent. But it is not only the information’s presence that hints at a designer. Here Rana’s case really builds on and develops the work of other ID theorists. The information alone could be enough to infer an agent, but one must also account for the fact that cellular information follows rules like syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (144ff). It is not merely information, it is the use of that information and the rules governing that use that strengthen the case for an agent behind the information.

It never hurts to know a lot about cosmology and biochemistry, those seem to be the best areas for offensive science apologetics.

I have this book and a later book by Rana called “Creating Life in the Lab” sitting on my ironing board (which is where I put all my to-read books) . Maybe it’s time for me to start reading those and posting book reviews.

Podcasts

BBC London radio interviews William Lane Craig

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Brian Auten from Apologetics 315 tweeted this interview. It was uploaded by the always excellent BirdieUpon.

Dr. Craig did a GREAT job on that interview, sounding very clear and intelligent. The host was laughing with him.

And while you’re having fun with that, read this:

Here at the Unofficial W. L. Craig Public Relations Office LLC we have uncovered news which is very concerning to us. We uncovered information that Dr. Richard Dawkins likes to top pumpkin flavored ice cream with sautéed portobello mushroom, Top Ramen noodles, eggs, and grated pickles. Apparently, Dr. Dawkins thinks the obtaining of this state of affairs results in a good tasting ice cream. He has even defended his right to make and eat said ice cream concoction.

We find this a disgusting view to hold, and we are shocked, revolted, and horrified that a person who claims to be a descent human being would engage in such ice cream apologetics. We understand that Dr. Craig has claimed in many of his books that matters of taste are not objective matters of fact that obtain in the universe. We understand that Dr. Craig has claimed that in this universe there is no objective fact of the matter regarding whether Dr. Dawkins’s tastes in ice cream are any better or more correct than Dr. Craig’s—who happens to like, through God’s instantiation of certain circumstances, peanut butter and chocolate ice cream. However, this is quite beside the point. For we are completely abominated, bothered, disenchanted, displeased, disturbed, grossed out, insulted, irked, nauseated, offended, outraged, palled, piqued, put off, repulsed, revolted, shocked, sickened, unhinged and upset by Dr. Dawkins’s subjective tastes in ice cream. Dr. Craig doesn’t care if this has absolutely nothing to do with whether Dr. Dawkins’s argument that the design argument implies that God must have had a designer is a good argument or not. Dr. Craig doesn’t care that this has absolutely nothing to do with the soundness of the Kalam cosmological argument. Those concerns are petty when placed next to Dr. Dawkins’s disgusting tastes in ice cream. His statements on ice cream are so yucky as to nullify discussion about whether belief in God as such is a mind virus.

In light of these most heinous facts, we cannot, and will not, debate such a scurrilous individual as Dr. Richard Dawkins. We ask, would you shake hands with a man who could eat something like that? Would you share a platform with him (imagine if he passed gas)? Dr. Craig wouldn’t, and he won’t. Even if he were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, he would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty and head to the nearest ice cream shop.

And if any of Dr. Craig’s colleagues find themselves browbeaten or inveigled into a debate with this deplorable apologist for mushroom, noodle, egg, and pickle topped pumpkin ice cream, our advice to them would be to stand up, read aloud Dawkins’s recipe as quoted above (maybe even show the picture), then walk out and leave him talking not just to an empty chair but, one would hope, to a rapidly emptying hall as well, as we all make our way to Cold Stone Creamery for a proper ice cream.

I found it here on the Analytic Theology blog. So what was the point of that? The point of that is that Richard Dawkins is complaining at Dr. Craig for being evil and immoral, but he doesn’t have any way to make distinctions between good and evil in his own worldview.

Look at what Dawkins says:

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

(“God’s Utility Function,” Scientific American, November, 1995, p. 85)

So what was that whole “I’m not going to debate you because you’re evil and so is genocide” thing? It makes no sense. But he says it anyway, because that’s how atheists like Dawkins are. They don’t have any way to ground morality on their own view, and then they complain about God and Christians failing to act morally. It’s ridiculous.