Sabine Hossenfelder Promotes Determinism

We’ve Learned Nothing Since Laplace

Yesterday theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder became the latest in a long line of smart people to make the absurd claim of determinism (see blog or video), and that therefore there is no such thing as free will. This silliness traces at least as far back as Laplace and is based on the idea that any system evolves from time point 1 to time point 2 according to the laws of nature. As Hossenfelder puts it:

These laws have the common property that if you have an initial condition at one moment in time, for example the exact details of the particles in your brain and all your brain’s inputs, then you can calculate what happens at any other moment in time from those initial conditions. This means in a nutshell that the whole story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the big bang. We are just watching it play out.

The first problem with Hossenfelder’s sophism is that it is non empirical. We experience free will continually in our personal experience. Hossenfelder’s claim amounts to a denial of untold mountains of evidence. Hossenfelder’s predictable solution is anti-realism. The problem, according to determinists such as Hossenfelder, is that our experience is uniformly false. We may think we have free will, but that is nothing more than an illusion.

But why is that true? Hossenfelder makes the Humean appeal to the laws of nature. They show how systems evolve deterministically, so therefore the data from our personal experience must be false. Hossenfelder fails to see the unjustified leap she has made. She has declared the laws of nature to be authoritative without justification.

Hossenfelder has identified a conflict: our experience says one thing, and the laws of nature say the opposite. Something must give, and Hossenfelder unilaterally and without justification concludes that the laws of nature win out. The fallacy is reminiscent of Hume’s argument against miracles that John Earman demolished twenty years ago.

As if sensing a problem Hossenfelder attempts to justify her leap. She explains that “These deterministic laws of nature apply to you and your brain because you are made of particles,” and that “we know that brains are made of particles.” Furthermore, “the laws of nature that we know describe humans on the fundamental level.” But rather than saving the theory, Hossenfelder is merely digging deeper into the fallacy, as she simply begs the question. These are all non-empirical truth claims that are beholden to the assumption of determinism. She simply asserts these claims, but why should we believe any of them are true?

Yet Hossenfelder is supremely confident in her finding. Drop this free will nonsense, she warns, or “you will never understand how the universe really works.” This is the classic intellectual necessity argument, so common in the evolution literature. In this case it is determinism that is required for scientific progress and truth.

This brings us to the second problem with Hossenfelder’s determinism, which is her many truth claims. As she explains above, “the whole story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the big bang.” But if that is true then Hossenfelder cannot know anything. Everything she has typed out was, well, pre-determined by some initial conditions and some blind natural laws.

Why should Hossenfelder think for a moment that anything that occurs to her has any correspondence to truth? Above she made the classic intellectual necessity argument but, in fact, it is precisely the opposite. Her determinism undercuts her many truth claims, and knowledge in general.

There would be no reason to think anything we ever generate has any particular truth value. For instance, I could decide to type 2+2=5. In fact, there I did it. But of course, Hossenfelder would say that sentence was all preordained. She also would say it is not true. So certainly preordained sentences are not necessarily true. In fact, for Hossenfelder our notions, thoughts, commitments, and conclusions are merely a consequence of the arrangement of particles in our heads. Why should we think they would be true, if there even is such a thing?

Hossenfelder’s conclusion, that “the whole story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the big bang. We are just watching it play out” is fitting. For it is the ultimate in meaningless, trivialization of the profound. She is mired in the absurd. Hossenfelder is the best and the brightest—a cutting edge theoretical physicist. The wisest that the world has to offer and look where she has landed. As Paul informed the Corinthians in the introduction of his first letter to them, God made foolish the wisdom of this world.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

New Book: The Fossils Prove Evolution

Upside Down

We have seen here and here that a new book co-authored by evolutionist Dennis Venema is influenced by the mythical Warfare Thesis. The book, for example, informs readers that the basic issue of the seventeenth century Galileo Affair was “the veracity of the new science, and its perceived threat to biblical authority.” As we saw, this is the false, evolutionary rendition of history. The Warfare Thesis is a myth, and the Galileo Affair is perhaps the favorite example for evolutionists.

After framing the discussion with this bit of Whig history, Venema introduces scientific evidences which he believes make evolution to be compelling. He begins with the fossil record. This is a bit surprising given how badly the theory fares on the fossil evidence. Later in the book Venema will state that according to evolution truly new features should be rare:

One of the things evolution predicts is that seldom will any feature in an evolutionary lineage be truly “new.” [37]

This is an example of an evolutionary prediction that has gone terribly wrong, and the fossil record gives a plethora of examples. As we have explained many times, the general character of the fossil record is precisely the opposite of what evolutionists had expected. Rather than the traditional evolutionary tree pattern of new species gradually appearing over time, the fossil record reveals the exact opposite. The strata show several bursts of new species appearing on the scene, followed by a winnowing.

This is upside down.

Like a Christmas tree, you have a wide berth of branches and twigs at the bottom, or beginning, and over time there is a narrowing as the species are lost to extinctions. Rather than a tree becoming increasingly wider over time from narrow beginnings, the strata often reveal the opposite pattern. Of course it is far more complicated than this simple analogy, but what is important is that the fossil record reveals so many “explosions” of new species. The so-called “Cambrian Explosion,” (yes, it is called an “explosion”) is the most famous, but there are several others. In these events, new species appear abruptly in the fossil record. Not only do a great many “truly new” features appear, entirely new lineages appear as well.

Clearly, the fossil record repeatedly falsifies this prediction of evolution.

In a great example of confirmation bias, evolutionists often downplay the importance of these fossil data and the falsifications they present. In fact, sometimes these are ignored altogether.

And so it is with Venema’s treatment of the fossil record. He appeals to the general pattern of the fossil record, and to the specific example of the evolution of cetaceans.

His primary example of why the fossil record is such strong evidence for evolution are the cetaceans.

A collection of fossils can be arranged from land mammals to whales, which is precisely what evolution needs since whales are mammals. The idea is that mammals first evolved on land, and then certain species made their way back into the water, thus introducing mammals to marine environments.

Venema agrees that some of these fossil species may not be in the actual lineage leading to modern whales. That is good because the literature often illustrates these species as forming a clean, simple, lineage, from ancient mammals to modern whales.

While one may draw a line between the fossil species, the fact is there are many species suggesting more of a bush than a branch, and any such line is imposed onto the data rather than read out of the data.

And if these species did arise from evolution, and if the modern whale did arise from such a land-to-sea transition then, as usual, it would be quite a mystery. For a great transition, including the loss of hind limbs, grinding teeth and pelvises and developing a host of new features must have occurred relatively quickly.

The new features include the fluke tail with its unique vertical propelling motion, the huge filter-feeding jaw, and the ability to give live birth and raise its young in the marine environment. The latest entry to the community could swim, dive and feed better than most fish and sharks. All sorts of evolutionary scenarios can explain why the whale acquired such advanced skills, but they are speculative. The whale’s aquatic prowess does not refute evolution, but it raises the question of how we can be so sure about the purported evolutionary change that is supposed to have created the whale.

Why then are evolutionists so taken with the patterns of the fossil record, and examples such as the fossil sequence that is supposed to lead to the whale? Yes, it provides a good sequence, but there are many questions of just how random mutations could accomplish such heroics. And there are the many other aspects of the fossil data that are problematic, such as the many “explosions.”

These are serious evidential problems, and it would seem the fossils would be the last thing to which evolutionists would appeal. What’s going on?

The answer is, as usual, that the evolutionist’s certainty comes from metaphysics, not science. The idea is not that the whale-like fossils prove evolution directly, but that they disprove any notion that God created them independently. Therefore they must have evolved. Venema makes several such arguments. Here is one of his passages:

Of course, some might argue that it simply pleased God, as Creator, to create a series of unrelated species at this time in earth’s history that happen to suggest an evolutionary relationship. Many Christians find this plausible; but note how this type of argument cannot ever be ruled out by additional evidence. Any additional such species we find in the fossil record would then merely be more separate species that God elected to create at this time. This explanation also leaves scientists bereft of a hypothesis to test with further research. If the species we observe in the fossil record are the direct, special creations of God, then we will not necessarily find a pattern in the fossil record. Faced with such an explanation, a scientist would not have the ability to make predictions about what should be found in the fossil record at certain times. [13]

Here Venema makes two strong arguments. First, the text highlighted in blue above is the classic argument from the intellectual necessity of evolution. Science, as Venema argues, won’t work with creationism. Venema explains that such creationism (i) is not vulnerable to the evidence, (ii) makes it impossible to form testable hypotheses, and so (iii) leaves scientists unable to make predictions.

These are arguments from the philosophy of science that mandate evolution. We must have evolution in order to do science properly. Creationism must be ruled out, regardless of the scientific evidence.

These metaphysics render the scientific evidence irrelevant and, ironically, make evolution (rather than creationism) untestable and not vulnerable to the evidence. Fossil species appearing abruptly in the strata don’t matter when your philosophical argument makes creation untenable. As usual, the evolutionary argument is guilty of the very criticism is casts.

Second, the text highlighted in red above is theological. It is an age-old argument about how God would create the world. Rather than using patterns which appear arbitrary to us, God should fill the design space randomly.

Venema goes on to make the usual evolutionary arguments that the patterns we observe are unlikely. The evolutionary premise here is that the alternative to evolution is a random design of the species. For example, Venema writes:

The probability of mammalian characteristics (such as having hair and feeding their young with milk, as well as a number of defining skeletal characteristics) arising in a separate, unrelated lineage is a pretty big stretch. [14]

This argument hinges entirely on random design being the sole alternative to evolution. Either the species are designed randomly, or it’s evolution. This reasoning dates back centuries and, as Venema has explained, entails beliefs about how God would create the world. In other words, it is religious.

What if God would not necessarily create the species randomly? In that case, the evolutionist’s powerful argument absolutely fails. It would be fatal to the entire position.

In other words, the evolutionary argument entirely hinges on a silly, strawman claim about God.

In my studies of the arguments for evolution, I find they fall into two broad categories: philosophical arguments about man, knowledge, and science; and religious arguments about God. In typical fashion, Venema has appealed to both these long-standing categories of strong arguments for evolution.

If the evolutionist’s premises are correct, then evolution is a no-brainer. We must be evolutionists—regardless of the scientific evidence. The species arising from random causes, such as mutations, makes no sense scientifically, but would be a must. As usual the religion and philosophy steer the science.

This new book is yet another example, in a long line of works going back to Darwin and before, of how evolution is our modern day mythology. New species appearing out of nowhere. Fantastic designs arising from random mutations. And all of this mandated to be a fact. If you cannot see a problem with this, then you must be an Epicurean.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

OOL and Science’s Blind Spot

Organic matter forms tar, biochemical bonds are unstable in water, pathways are entropically uphill, RNA enzymes tend to degrade

The problem with science is not that the naturalistic approach might occasionally be inadequate. The problem is that science would never know any better. Science’s blind spot is that it has no way of determining whether a phenomenon is naturalistic. You might think that scientific failures would provide a pretty good hint. If love defies logic then maybe there is something more to it. But for evolutionists failure merely indicates the problem is not yet solved. See the catch? Anything that defies explanation is automatically placed in the “Research Problem” category. So naturalism can never be false. It is untestable. Here is an example of this metaphysical mandate:

What God did is a matter for faith and not for scientific inquiry. The two fields are separate. If our scientific inquiry should lead eventually to God … that will be the time to stop science. [Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson, Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution, p. 291]

But how could their inquiries possibly lead to God if they make the assumption up front that “What God did is … not for scientific inquiry.”? If one is searching only for mechanistic solutions, then that is what one will find. God is ruled out from the beginning.

Evolution makes naturalistic explanations not simply the first choice, it makes them the only choice. And one can always contrive naturalistic explanations if one tries hard enough. The theory of evolution is an outstanding example of this. We are told that life must have arisen spontaneously, even though we don’t have any idea how it happened.

Consider, for example, the origin of life problem. Evolutionists say it is a fact that the most complex thing we know of—life—arose spontaneously. And yet from a scientific perspective this claim makes no sense. It is simply uncontroversial that science does not reveal the spontaneous origin of life to be a fact. Here is Steve Benner’s rundown of some of the basic problems:

We have failed in any continuous way to provide a recipe that gets from the simple molecules that we know were present on early Earth to RNA. There is a discontinuous model which has many pieces, many of which have experimental support, but we're up against these three or four paradoxes, which you and I have talked about in the past. The first paradox is the tendency of organic matter to devolve and to give tar. If you can avoid that, you can start to try to assemble things that are not tarry, but then you encounter the water problem, which is related to the fact that every interesting bond that you want to make is unstable, thermodynamically, with respect to water. If you can solve that problem, you have the problem of entropy, that any of the building blocks are going to be present in a low concentration; therefore, to assemble a large number of those building blocks, you get a gene-like RNA -- 100 nucleotides long -- that fights entropy. And the fourth problem is that even if you can solve the entropy problem, you have a paradox that RNA enzymes, which are may be catalytically active, are more likely to be active in the sense that destroys RNA rather than creates RNA.

Once again the science contradicts the dogma. Evolution is scientifically absurd but then again, it never was about the science in the first place. As Oxford professor and Anglican priest Baden Powell explained a century and a half ago, there are certain ground rules that science must obey:

So strong is the inductive assurance of this, that we may safely allow any such apparent exceptions to await their solution without in the least influencing our opinion of the soundness of the broad principle of the continuity of physical causes: a principle of that truly philosophical character which no exception in detail can subvert, or render, in some form, inapplicable or unfruitful. No inductive inquirer can bring himself to believe in the existence of any real hiatus in the continuity of physical laws in past eras more than in the existing order of things; or to imagine that changes, however seemingly abrupt, can have been brought about except by the gradual agency of some regular causes. On such principles the whole superstructure of rational geology entirely reposes; to deny them in any instance would be to endanger all science.

[…]

But however little we know of the laws or causes of these changes, one thing is perfectly clear, the introduction of new species was a regular, not a casual phenomenon; it was not one preceding or transcending the order of nature; it was a case occurring in the midst of ordinary operations going on in accordance with ordinary causes. The introduction of a new species (however marvellous and inexplicable some theorists may choose to imagine it) is not a solitary occurrence. It reappears constantly in the lapse of geological ages. It recurs regularly in connexion with those changes which determined the peculiar characters we now distinguish in different formations. It is part of a series. But a series indicates a principle of regularity and law, as much in organic as in inorganic changes. The event is part of a regularly ordained mechanism of the evolution of the existing world out of former conditions, and as much subject to regular laws as any changes now taking place.

In other words, not only does science lack the tools to test its assumption that all causes are strictly naturalistic, it consciously rejects any such possibility from the beginning. So it doesn’t matter how many scientific paradoxes and absurdities come with evolution, it must be a fact.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

When I Pointed Out the Absurdity an Evolution Professor Gave Me Pushback

More Religion and More Denials

Perhaps the biggest myth in today’s origins debate is that evolution is the result of good, objective scientific research. And so anyone who would reject evolution’s mandate that the world arose spontaneously must be religious while those who, on the other side, insist on our modern-day Epicureanism are simply all about science. In order to prop up this myth we must tell ourselves that all those scientific arguments against evolution are nothing more than disingenuous ploys by those religious rascals, and that all those religious mandates for evolution also don’t matter because they are nothing more than helpful explanations offered up by the secular good guys. Both of these are false of course. The significant scientific problems with evolution are not contrived, they are real. And the religious mandates for evolution are not a sidebar, they underwrite evolutionary thought. Without them there would be no evolution. So maintaining this myth requires some effort. We must deny the obvious scientific problems while at the same time presenting evolution as good science. And we must deny any religious mandate while at the same time proclaiming our metaphysical certainties that require evolution. I repeat this sad state of affairs not only as a public service, but also because two convenient examples presented themselves yesterday. Let’s look at the first one.

First, an evolution professor told me I was all wrong about this. This professor had made the non scientific statement that “the gap in understanding of the molecular evolution of eye components is all but closed.” You can read about this here.

But when I pointed out that this was another example of religion driving science the professor pushed back. That was before he made his religious pronouncement for evolution. Here is what he wrote:

“Religion drives science and it matters,” Is completely false, and opposite to the truth. Throwing up our hands and saying “God did it” gets us no farther, gains us nothing. … “Godddidit” gets us nowhere. With that attitude, we’d all still be hunter-gatherers allowing our fates to be determined by superstitions.

That, in case you didn’t notice, is a religious argument. And it’s not just any religious argument. It is one of the dozen or so metaphysical pillars that motivated evolutionary thought and justify it to this day.

Evolution’s metaphysical arguments and mandates fall into two broad categories, one about God and one about man. I use the labels “Greater God” and “Intellectual Necessity” for these two categories and you can see my phylogeny here.

The professor’s argument, that appealing to special divine action is not allowed, is a classic religious claim squarely within the various Intellectual Necessity traditions such as the seventeenth century Protestant doctrine of cessationism, religious rationalism and deism, all of which eschewed miracles.

In the eighteenth century various versions of the argument were heavily promoted by Lutherans on the continent and Anglicans in England. By Darwin’s day any such “Godddidit” explanations were increasingly out of vogue and at Oxford Baden Powell gravely warned that they would “endanger all science.”

And so not surprisingly this Intellectual Necessity of evolutionary thinking was a recurring theme for Darwin in his formulation and justification of his new theory. Later in the nineteenth century Joseph Le Conte at Berkeley continued the theme:

the origins of new organic forms may be obscure or even inexplicable, but we ought not on that account to doubt that they had a natural cause, and came by a natural process; for so to doubt is also to doubt the validity of reason

The very validity of reason was at stake and in the twentieth century evolutionists continued to issue their metaphysical warnings for the Intellectual Necessity of their theory.

And so when the professor insists that “Godddidit” gets us nowhere and would lead to primitive superstitions, he is simply regurgitating the same old metaphysics that evolutionists have been proclaiming for centuries.

That, after assuring us that religion certainly does not drive science, and that any such thinking is “completely false, and opposite to the truth.”

Right. Completely false.

Of course the professor is an evolutionist. Of course he believes that the eye, and everything else for that matter, arose spontaneously. His religion requires it. Only religion could produce such absurdity.

That evolution is a scientific theory is the biggest myth in today’s origins debate.

This Just In: Everything Came From Nothing and if You Don’t Agree You Know Nothing

Evolution professor Lawrence Krauss is now saying that the universe, and everything in it, came from nothing. Not only that, but there are probably billions and billions of universes that have spontaneously arisen. Occasionally a universe happens to have all the right properties for life to arise spontaneously within it, and that would be us.



Krauss, a theoretical physicist and head of The Origins Project at Arizona State University, is not the first evolutionist to defy the age-old wisdom that something does not come from nothing. World-famous physicist Stephen Hawking popularized the idea in a recent book he co-authored entitled The Grand Design.

Krauss and Hawking use gravitational theory and quantum mechanics to argue that, in fact, such spontaneous creation is all but inevitable. Their narratives appeal to graduate-level physics which most people do not understand, but the basic idea of a strictly naturalistic creation story goes back centuries.

The intellectual necessity of naturalism

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the rise of modern science and the Enlightenment, the urge for strict naturalism was promoted by various Christian traditions. Both in England and on the continent, Christians were refining a range of theological views that required science to describe the world’s origins strictly in terms of natural law. The dozen or so views that emerged fell into two broad categories. One category dealt with the divine attributes while the other dealt with epistemology and man’s knowledge. For short, we may refer to them as the “greater god mandate” and the “intellectual necessity” for naturalism.

In each category a foundational theological view supported various specific arguments for naturalism. One argument from the intellectual necessity view, which became more clear in the eighteenth century, was that special divine action (or primary causation) interfered with scientific progress, or even made science impossible.

As Baden Powell had insisted, all of science depends on the principles of uniformitarianism. Darwin’s confidant J. D. Hooker was more direct. Though he found special creation and evolution at an empirical standoff, neither theory with a clear advantage, he opted for the latter for its “great organizing potential.” It was not that evolutionary theories were “the truest,” he wrote to William H. Harvey in 1859, “but because they do give you room to reason and reflect at present, and hopes for the future, whereas the old stick-in-the-mud doctrines … are all used up. They are so many stops to further inquiry; if they are admitted as truths, why there is an end of the whole matter, and it is no use hoping ever to get any rational explanation of origin or dispersion of species—so I hate them.”

A law-like origins of the world, on the other hand, supported the accrual of knowledge. Darwin enunciated this view when he explained that acceptance of his theory of evolution was less important than the rejection of special divine action:

Whether the naturalist believes in the views given by Lamarck, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, by the author of the ‘Vestiges,’ by Mr. Wallace or by myself, signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been created immutable: for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field open to him for further inquiry.

The rejection of special divine action was equated with scientific progress. Here Darwin extrapolated his metaphysical argument to arrive at the ultimate proof against creation. His main point, that no creator ever would have intended for this world, was now protected against counter arguments because such counter arguments would be unscientific.

Darwin repeatedly used metaphysical arguments against creation to prop up evolution, but now he declared that counter arguments would be out-of-bounds since they were unscientific. Darwin correctly observed that creation and its supporting arguments hinge on one’s concept of God, but he conveniently forgot that arguments against creation equally hinge on one’s concept of God. For Darwin, it was fair game to argue against creation but not for it. Thus, evolution was the correct scientific conclusion. In fact, what good science required was a naturalistic explanation, regardless of what particular explanation was used.

Since Darwin this theological argument has gained strength. For Niles Eldredge, the key responsibility of science—to predict—becomes impossible when a capricious Creator is entertained:

But the Creator obviously could have fashioned each species in any way imaginable. There is no basis for us to make predictions about what we should find when we study animals and plants if we accept the basic creationist position. … the creator could have fashioned each organ system or physiological process (such as digestion) in whatever fashion the Creator pleased.

In his text Paul Moody explains that without strict naturalism one does not have an explanation at all:

it amounts to saying, ‘Things are this way because they are this way.’ Furthermore, it removes the subject from scientific inquiry. One can do no more than speculate as to why the Creator chose to follow one pattern in creating diverse animals rather than to use differing patterns.

Likewise Tim Berra warns that we must not be led astray by the apparent design in biological systems, for it “is not the sudden brainstorm of a creator, but an expression of the operation of impersonal natural laws, of water seeking its level. An appeal to a supernatural explanation is unscientific and unnecessary—and certain to stifle intellectual curiosity and leave important questions unasked and unanswered. ” In fact, “Creationism has no explanatory powers, no application for future investigation, no way to advance knowledge, no way to lead to new discoveries. As far as science is concerned, creationism is a sterile concept.”

Lawrence Krauss and the intellectual necessity

And so it is not surprising to hear Lawrence Krauss, at the 3:14 mark in the above lecture, rehearse the same, centuries-old, intellectual necessity theology in support of his conviction that something, in fact the entire universe, just happened to spontaneously arise from nothing:

I am going to a talk about our modern picture of cosmology and how it has changed our view of the universe—the past and the future, and in some sense how that picture is clearly remarkable. And far more remarkable than the fairly tales that are made up in most religious situations.

But the key point is mystery. That is one of the things that makes science so special I think. It is that scientists love mysteries. They love not knowing. That’s a key part of science. The excitement of learning about the universe. And that again is so different than the sterile aspect of religion where the excitement is apparently knowing everything, although clearly knowing nothing.

There you have it. Without naturalism there is not only no excitement, there is no knowledge. We are left “apparently knowing everything” but “clearly knowing nothing.” Given this truth, then of course, we must have evolution.

Everything came from nothing and if you don’t agree, then you know nothing. Religion drives science, and it matters.

Fine Tuning and the Intellectual Necessity

You have probably heard about the multiverse--the idea that the universe is really a large number of universes. The multiverse helps to explain why our particular universe seems so special. Our universe seems to be a finely tuned machine and the evolution of life would require low probability events. Is our universe special? The multiverse helps to deflect such thinking. If there is a large number of universes, then perhaps each has a different set of natural laws. And perhaps intelligent life can only be supported by a very particular set of laws. So the only life forms that would exist to observe their universe would be those that live in special universes. Presto, we're not special and fine tuning and evolution are explained.

There is, however, another type of fine tuning that evolutionists have not explained. In addition to physics and biology, philosophy is also fine-tuned. I suspect it can also be explained with the multiverse, but we need to start keeping a list of all the little things we sweep under the multiverse rug. Philosophy is fine-tuned in the sense that evolutionary theories of origin are both (i) fact and (ii) intellectually necessary. Let me explain.

On the one hand, evolutionists say they know that evolution (of one sort of another) is a fact, every bit as much as gravity is a fact. Life and all the species arose strictly by purely naturalistic processes. If you doubt this, it is equivalent to doubting the existence of gravity. It is remarkable that evolutionists have this level of certainty, but keep in mind they are very smart people.

On the other hand, evolutionists say that evolution (again, of one sort of another) must be assumed in order to do science. We saw how evolutionary thinkers, from the Joseph LeConte in Darwin's day to PZ Myers today, have illuminated this requirement. Here is another example from another evolutionist, Barbara Forrest:

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. ... I examine the ID movement’s failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims.

In other words, in order to avoid "intractable epistemological difficulties" and get along with the business of doing science, evolution is a must. So, evolution is both a fact and intellectually necessary. These are two independent properties. It didn't have be this way. We could live in the universe where evolution is not a fact, but yet intellectually necessary. Or we could live in the universe where evolution is a fact, but yet not intellectually necessary. Either way things would be very confusing. I'm glad we're not stuck in one of those universes. Thanks to the multiverse, there are options. We live in a universe that is finely-tuned for truth, and full of evolutionists to explain this to us.

Joe Felsenstein: Just Look at the Evidence

As a follow-up to his earlier comments that design is not a legitimate scientific hypothesis, evolutionist Joe Felsenstein adds this comment:

Thanks to Cornelius Hunter for quoting my comment at Panda's Thumb in its entirety, without emendation (he did add some emphasis, in color, but not in a way that changed my meaning).

My comment was not responsive to the origin of T-urf13 but was intended as a response to many other comments Hunter has made on this blog (and at Uncommon Descent) in which he argues that one cannot predict what a Designer would do, and thus that arguments that she would not make bad design are invalid.

As should be clear from my statement, I was pointing out that this makes the hypothesis of a Designer not a scientific theory, and thus not a credible alternative to naturalist explanations.

Oh, and it should be clear that naturalism does *not* create an "intellectual necessity" of evolution. There are explanations that might be advanced that are not evolutionary but are natural. It is the evidence, not simply naturalism itself, that is the basis for concluding that life has evolved.

Unfortunately these misrepresentations are typical of evolutionists. Not only are evolution's metaphysical arguments from dysteleology, or bad design, perfectly valid, they can also be quite powerful. Felsenstein's strawman that we say otherwise would be bizarre if it wasn't so common.

Next Felsenstein explains that his message is that he thinks that the hypothesis of a Designer is "not a scientific theory, and thus not a credible alternative to naturalist explanations."

Yes, that is precisely the point. The intellectual necessity is a metaphysical argument for naturalistic explanations. As with all the dozen or more metaphysical mandates for evolution, the argument attacks design or creation using non scientific premises that a design or creation advocate would not recognize.

Felsenstein next writes that "naturalism does *not* create an "intellectual necessity" of evolution." Of course it doesn't and it is a wonder that Felsenstein arrived at such a backward reading. The mandates for naturalism and evolution come from religious and philosophical traditions entailing non scientific premises.

Evolutionists consistently mischaracterize criticism to convert serious problems into so many strawmen to knockdown.

Finally Felsenstein appeals to the evidence. Evolutionists are notorious for their claims that the science proves evolution to be a fact. But such proofs always rely on metaphysics. The number of evolutionists who have explained how the science proves evolution is precisely zero.

And, to forestall the usual response, no one is misunderstanding what "fact" means. Evolutionists say their theory is a fact as much as is gravity or the round shape of the earth. That is an absurd claim which, not surprisingly, has never been justified scientifically.

I have tremendous respect for Felsenstein's smarts as a scientist and the quality of his work. But so often we see world-class scientists appear foolish propping up evolution. Religion drives science and it matters.

Joe Felsenstein: De Novo Genes Trumped by Metaphysics

Evolutionist Joe Felsenstein sounded a familiar note recently when he appealed to evolution's intellectual necessity in response to scientific criticism. I pointed out here that the blind evolution of the de novo gene T-urf13 is highly unlikely. In typical fashion, the evolutionist completely ignored the scientific issue at hand and skipped straight to the metaphysics. There are about a dozen metaphysical arguments mandating evolution. They fall into the two categories of theology and philosophy and provide the foundation of evolutionary thought going back several centuries. You can see my reconstruction of the evolution of evolutionary thought here. There is much cross fertilization between these traditions which form a sort of tapestry in the history of thought. Of course these arguments are not scientific, but they are extremely powerful. They are why evolutionists confidently know their theory must be true. Therefore empirical evidence is not an epistemological problem, but merely a scientific problem. No observation can harm our knowledge that evolution is a fact. Hence Felsenstein goes straight to the underlying philosophy:

A simple way to state the problem with Cornelius Hunter’s argument is that he is arguing that a Designer could do anything, so a Designer cannot be refuted by any observation. He is happy to have thereby refuted all the people who point out bad design.

But he doesn’t get it that what he has just done is to admit that the hypothesis of a Designer is not science, as it predicts every possible result. If you predict every possible outcome, the ones that are seen and the ones that are not, then you have not predicted anything!

Unless you have some information about the Designer’s intentions, her powers, how frequently she acts, and where, and on which organisms and which phenotypes, you ain’t got nothin’, no scientific hypothesis at all.

In other words, not only is evolution true, it also is necessary for proper science. That's convenient.

This argument that strictly naturalistic explanations are mandated in the historical sciences traces back to the nineteenth century before Darwin though, as with several of evolution's metaphysical planks, it gained momentum from Darwin's theory as much as it fueled Darwin's theory in the first place.

Darwin's main concern was that people accept evolution. Which subhypothesis of evolution one accepts, explained Darwin, "signifies extremely little in comparison with the admission that species have descended from other species, and have not been created immutable: for he who admits this as a great truth has a wide field open to him for further inquiry."

Evolution was needed for scientific research as that was yet another spot where creation failed. As he wrote in Origins:

On the ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it is;—that it has pleased the Creator to construct all the animals and plants in each great class on a uniform plan; but this is not a scientific explanation.

As Darwin’s friend J. D. Hooker put it, if theories of divine creation are "admitted as truths, why there is an end of the whole matter, and it is no use hoping ever to get any rational explanation of origin or dispersion of species—so I hate them."

Thirty years later evolutionist Joseph Le Conte argued that the origins of new species, though obscure and even inexplicable, must have a natural cause. To doubt this, he warned, is to doubt "the validity of reason, and the rational constitution of organic Nature." For Le Conte divine creation was not rational. Evolution, he triumphantly concluded, "is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain."

Needless to say this metaphysical sentiment only grew stronger in the twentieth century. Evolutionists, under the guise of science, continued to issue this non scientific mandate for evolution. As Niles Eldredge wrote more recently:

But the Creator obviously could have fashioned each species in any way imaginable. There is no basis for us to make predictions about what we should find when we study animals and plants if we accept the basic creationist position. … the creator could have fashioned each organ system or physiological process (such as digestion) in whatever fashion the Creator pleased.

Felsenstein's metaphysic is nothing new. It falls into well defined clade in the history of evolutionary thought. Of course there is nothing wrong with metaphysics, per se. But let's not pretend we're doing science.

Myers and Krauss: An Intellectual Convergence

That insightful Wall Street Journal piece by Lawrence Krauss is already bearing dividends. For PZ Myers it was just the thing, as it helped crystallize for him just why it is that religion is wrong. It is good to see our leading intellectuals converging on these important findings.

Krauss' ironclad, air tight reasoning and logic had to be moving, but of course none of what Krauss wrote was new for Myers. He certainly has made similar arguments. In his recent LA Times piece Myers issued his groundbreaking epiphany that an all-powerful, benevolent being would never have created this universe. Obviously there is no god and religion is wrong, but what is amazing is how evolutionists know so much about god. We knew evolutionists were experts at things that exist, but they are also experts at things that don't exist.

And like Krauss, Myers is not religious. After all, they believe religious beliefs are all wrong (at least those beliefs they don't agree with). And that's a good thing, because it allows them to see things so clearly. For instance, Krauss' piece also helped Myers see anew evolution's intellectual necessity. If we really want to do science, and do it right, Myers and the evolutionists remind us that strictly naturalistic explanations such as evolution are absolutely mandatory. Fortunately, evolution also happens to be true. That's amazing.

Fine Tuning and the Intellectual Necessity

You have probably heard about the multiverse--the idea that the universe is really a large number of universes. The multiverse helps to explain why our particular universe seems so special. Our universe seems to be a finely tuned machine and the evolution of life would require low probability events. Is our universe special? The multiverse helps to deflect such thinking. If there is a large number of universes, then perhaps each has a different set of natural laws. And perhaps intelligent life can only be supported by a very particular set of laws. So the only life forms that would exist to observe their universe would be those that live in special universes. Presto, we're not special and fine tuning and evolution are explained.

There is, however, another type of fine tuning that evolutionists have not explained. In addition to physics and biology, philosophy is also fine-tuned. I suspect it can also be explained with the multiverse, but we need to start keeping a list of all the little things we sweep under the multiverse rug. Philosophy is fine-tuned in the sense that evolutionary theories of origin are both (i) fact and (ii) intellectually necessary. Let me explain.

On the one hand, evolutionists say they know that evolution (of one sort of another) is a fact, every bit as much as gravity is a fact. Life and all the species arose strictly by purely naturalistic processes. If you doubt this, it is equivalent to doubting the existence of gravity. It is remarkable that evolutionists have this level of certainty, but keep in mind they are very smart people.

On the other hand, evolutionists say that evolution (again, of one sort of another) must be assumed in order to do science. We saw how evolutionary thinkers, from the Joseph LeConte in Darwin's day to PZ Myers today, have illuminated this requirement. Here is another example from another evolutionist, Barbara Forrest:

Intelligent design creationism (ID) is a religious belief requiring a supernatural creator’s interventions in the natural order. ID thus brings with it, as does supernatural theism by its nature, intractable epistemological difficulties. ... I examine the ID movement’s failure to provide either a methodology or a functional epistemology to support their supernaturalism, a deficiency that consequently leaves them without epistemic support for their creationist claims.

In other words, in order to avoid "intractable epistemological difficulties" and get along with the business of doing science, evolution is a must. So, evolution is both a fact and intellectually necessary. These are two independent properties. It didn't have be this way. We could live in the universe where evolution is not a fact, but yet intellectually necessary. Or we could live in the universe where evolution is a fact, but yet not intellectually necessary. Either way things would be very confusing. I'm glad we're not stuck in one of those universes. Thanks to the multiverse, there are options. We live in a universe that is finely-tuned for truth, and full of evolutionists to explain this to us.