Took a little work, but the spark of human willpower was ultimately able to overcome the stubborn resistance of technology, and the video from our science/religion debate at Caltech on Sunday is finally up. Michael Shermer and I took on Dinesh D’Souza and Ian Hutchinson. Short version: we won, but judge for yourself if you want to sit through all two hours.
The Great Debate: "Has Science Refuted Religion?"
YouTube comments — always an enlightening read — seem to be mostly about Dawkins and Hitchens, although I don’t remember either of them being there.
@4. unspiek, please explain “noncupatory.” I cannot find either it or “cupatory” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
I do appreciate the compliments, even correcting for the fact that they come from a sample of people already reading our blog. 🙂
I’d be willing to do more debates, if the conditions were right (which they aren’t always).
My friends, here’s my best argument against science, let me know what you think:
Science is a bad idea, because the truth about our universe is so horrifying and toxic to human minds that it will drive us to nihilism, despair and self-destruction. In such a universe, in which truth itself has no inherent value, it is therefore better to believe comforting myths which make our lives bearable. If it isn’t stopped, the reckless march of science will drive us all mad or to technological destruction, just as Lovecraft prophesied:
“Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species — if separate species we be — for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.” –H.P Lovecraft, Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family
This has been beaten down to death at this point but I will point it out once again – there is a fundamental epistemological incompatibility between faith and science and since all religion is based on faith, religion is 100% incompatible with science. It’s not that complicated, once you start believing things on faith, things that are not supported by evidence, you have firmly moved into anti-science territory.
Note that this incompatibility arises when we (correctly) define science as a set of proper epistemological practices developed over time to help us understand the world around us, not as simply the knowledge derived following these practices as mot people (erroneously) think.
1. As I said above, faith is inherently anti-science and that’s an irreconcilable conflict.
2. Understanding of evolution is 100% incompatible with the religious idea of a God that has intervened in it, which in turn is an inseparable part of all religions even in their softest form. Only a strictly deist view of God is compatible with evolution but that’s not the God of any religion (and there is no evidence for him either and there can be no evidence for him in principle, the interventionist God can at least in principle be detected by those very interventions).
Merely saying that you accept the fact of evolution is not enough, because if you claim that God intervened to create humans or that God created the universe and had the appearance of humans planned all the time as Francis Collins does, you run into an irreconcilable conflict with the neutral theory of molecular evolution as currently understood, i.e. you deny the theory. This gets rather technical which is why even people like Francis Collins who should know better either don’t realize it or are able to sweep it under the rug and get away with it, but basically on the molecular level the process of evolution is truly random, that is well established and supported by lots of evidence, and if you posit that God directly intervened or had it all set up from the beginning, you deny that fact. And if you posit that God intervened, that’s essentially creationism anyway, just not of the truly crazy young earth kind.
You say in “Why almost all Cosmologists are Atheists” that :””The essence of materialism is to model the world as a formal system, which is both unambiguous and complete as a description of reality.” I don’t think that is true. I don’t think you or anyone else imagines that such a description is something people can produce. Physicists do lots of work to figure out how different aspects of the world work and to fit those descriptions into the larger scientific framework. But you will never get a full and complete model of the universe. You won’t even get a complete model of a cup of soda pop. The goal of theoretical physics isn’t a complete description of reality but rather to reduce the percentage of physicists that are theoretical physicists by developing theories that work well enough for everyone.
Well, I think a well-formed debate would have been Religion vs. Atheism or Science vs. non-Science. I don’t get people who want to hijack Science to further their philosophical assumptions about reality. Then, they are SHOCKED when people reject Science.
Having said that, D’Souza is a bad debater. I don’t know about you, but beating D’Souza is a piece of cake. Try other theists.
‘All religion is based on faith’ – I disagree.
It really would nice to see a William Lane Craig debate, but I think that it is likely he might not agree to it seeing as how he likes to be the expert in cosmology in the room.
Atheism is very much a part of science. As I said above, science is methodologically incompatible with faith, therefore you can not be a good scientist and believe in God in the absence of evidence for his existence. So science is inherently atheistic if one defines it as a method for understanding the world and not just a body of facts about it
But even then, that body facts is the main reason people do not believe in God, because it not just contradicts the majority of the factual claims about the world that holy books make, but it makes them look just stupid for how disconnected from reality they are. Then believers have two choices – either dig in their heels and deny all science or start doing some very fancy footwork and goalpost moving to make it seem as if their holy books are “metaphorical” in those parts that have been shown to be false by science, but the rest is still true.
The only reason there are so many people trying to divorce atheism from science is political – they are afraid that if the two are seen as inseparable, the majority of brainwashed religious fanatics in society will get scared and funding and societal support for science will dry up. Which may or may not be true, but the problem is that it is short-term, and ultimately self-defeating thinking that ignores the larger reality that in the long run there is no running away from the battle between rationality and superstition, it will have to be fought and won, and religion will have to be pretty much completely eradicated, if that same society is to survive into the future. But they either don’t see it or are too horrified by the thought; the main thing that characterizes people like Chris Mooney, Eugene Scott and the rest is shallow thinking and/or intellectual cowardice.
I enjoyed the debate, and particularly Sean’s performance. Great job! Sean’s answers to Ian’s cross-examination questions were all awesome.
Speaking of performance, it is frustrating how much the outcome of a debate depends on the debating skills of the participants. Sometimes, having facts on your side even seems like a liability because it commits you to a particular position.
On the other hand, the religious debaters seem to be happy to change positions as convenient. When asked about the best evidence for Christianity, Ian brought up the supposed historic evidence for divinity of Jesus. When pressed on it, he goes for a cheap and easily refutable point (New Testament has withstood years of analysis), but won’t commit to defending the position and when uncomfortable will instead retreat and defer to “lots of other evidence”.
The ‘great debate’ hasn’t even started yet, but it’s getting close!
For the first wholly new interpretation for two thousand years of the moral teachings of Christ is published on the web. Radically different from anything else we know of from history, this new teaching is predicated upon a precise, predefined and predictable experience and called ‘the first Resurrection’ in the sense that the Resurrection of Jesus was intended to demonstrate Gods’ willingness to real Himself and intervene directly into the natural world for those obedient to His will, paving the way for access, by faith, to the power of divine transcendence. Ultimate proof!
Thus ‘faith’ is the path, the search and discovery of this direct individual intervention into the natural world by omnipotent power to confirm divine will, Law, command and covenant, while “correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries.” So like it or no, a new religious teaching, testable by faith, meeting all Enlightenment criteria of evidence based causation and definitive proof now exists.
Nothing short of an intellectual, moral and intellectual revolution is getting under way. To test or not to test, that is the question? More info at http://www.energon.org.uk,
http://soulgineering.com/2011/05/22/the-final-freedoms/
Excellent job on both sides! Sean, especially well done.
As a preacher’s kid with a scientific turn of mind, this was a special pleasure. I watched all 2 hours + and loved every minute of it. No one struck a “killing” blow (which was a bit of a bummer), but then again, I suspect that was never in the cards.
Also, this was the first formal debate I’ve seen. That too was a revelation. Unlike political “debates” this was fair and respectful. It was a revelation (nothing religious meant :).
A job well done by all. Of course, we all know that God doesn’t exist regardless of the whooplaa (just kidding).
“Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.” -David Bohm
I wish I had an Internet connection reliable enough to load two hours of video without service interruptions that terminate the transmission. In my numerous attempts to load the above video, I’ve managed a record of eleven minutes (video time, not load time).
It’s beyond my comprehension why, even in 2012, if an Internet connection is interrupted in the middle of downloading a Youtube video, mp3 file, or similar item, the item does not automatically resume downloading where it left off as soon as the connection is restored. Surely it can’t be that difficult for the people who program browsers, in cooperation with the people who program online video players etc, to implement it so that it does. It sounds so easy, such an undemanding thing to ask, merely a matter of passing index numbers around. So why I can’t I have a more robust Internet?
Science vs Religion? Science and Religion!
Dinesh makes an error in stating that the Jewish religion is the only one to claim God created the heavens and earth from nothing. This is not explicit. Genesis says only that God created the heavens and the earth, and then proceeds to describe how earth was created from a formless, water-filled chaos. He then creates a vault or firmament to separate the waters above from the waters below, and pushes back the waters below to form hard ground. He then goes on to affix the stars to the firmament. Science has definitely refuted this scenario.
Dinesh’s claim stems from the way Christians interpret the first line, because it does not explicitly state that God created the heavens and the earth from an earlier state, especially if we conclude that ‘in the beginning’ means in the beginning of the created earth, rather than in the beginning of existence itself. The truth is that the ancient Hebrews who wrote this stuff down simply did not think things through to the philosophical depth that later readers had to if they were to assume it is a true story in light of current evidence.
Dinesh again makes an error in stating there is no scientific explanation for his desire to make tea, the ‘why’ to explain the boiling water. From the chemical balance of his body, the firing of synapses, the contraction of muscles, while it is all way to complex to immediately grasp, is never the less scientifically understandable without invoking supernatural intention. The question ‘why’ is only applicable to events caused by intelligent beings. There are many events, from volcanoes on Io to supernovas in M31 which have no ‘why’, only causes. It is not until intelligence arises that there is any need for a ‘why’ or that ‘why’ makes logical sense to ask. And a human need for a ‘why’ is in no way evidence that there is a ‘why’, only that psychologically we find it hard to deal with the fact that stuff just happens.
In the end, has Science refuted Religion? No. It hasn’t. It also has not refuted unicorns and leprechauns. Science has only made Religion unnecessary to explain what we see. Science has definitely refuted some specific religious beliefs, but Religion is far too slippery to be refuted. If Science refutes one interpretation of religious scripture, one only has to reinterpret it. Take Mark Ch13, for example, which clearly describes Christ’s return within the lives of the apostles. And yet Christians do not read it this way.
(Aside to Dinesh: Please do not try to explain away Atheism as anger at God. It just does not fly, with so many atheists and agnostics who continue to participate in their church because they enjoy the social aspect and ceremony, family harmony, etc. My own primary reason for not believing is because when I did try to maintain belief, it simply felt like a childish game of pretend. I did not choose Atheism. I admitted it.)
Very well done, Sean.
Sean,
You guys did a fantastic job, but there was one point I was a bit disappointed you guys didn’t really hammer on. Dinesh and Ian both claimed that there were several questions beyond the epistemic boundaries of science, like…
– Where did the universe/laws of physics come from?
– What happens to us when we die?
– What is the meaning of life?
All these types of questions are predicated on assumptions, like…
– The universe/laws of physics had to have come from something else
– Something happens to us when we die
– There is a meaning to life
I would have simply asked them what their basis was for making these assumptions. I don’t think they would be able to give a straight answer.
Matt Dillahunty would have destroyed both of these buffoons.
Sean Carroll Says:
“I’d be willing to do more debates, if the conditions were right (which they aren’t always).”
Hi Sean,
May I propose a focused written debate that could be more like an engaging dialogue? For example, I support belief in an animate first quasi-cause: http://theoperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/12/first-quasi-cause-uncaused-timeless.html
I cannot find an atheist or agnostic to serious dialogue with me about the. I would appreciate your help.
Cheers,
James
James– To be honest, given my schedule these days one of the major factors in “conditions being right” is that the debate would have considerable bang for the buck — i.e. it wouldn’t take that much time commitment, but it would reach many thousands of people. It’s hard to imagine a written debate of any sort fitting that model, unless it was in the NYT or something. You might check out one of the atheist/secular/skeptical discussion boards.
Sean,
I understand your desire about “bang for the buck.” And I see a dilemma. For example, if we had a dialogue, then the only way the dialogue might make the NYT is if I proved you wrong and successfully supported a reasonable conjecture of an animate first quasi-cause who deliberately kicked off the beginning of time from eternity with a long-term plan for resolving the problem of evil.
Incidentally, I checked out various atheist discussion boards, but they never give me an academic response. And some non-theists see me as engaging instead of stubborn.
Do you think that you could quickly refute my mere 1,140 word icebreaker or would that take a large portion of your time? I could copy and paste it below for you if your comments accept comments up to 1,200 words.