On Wes Janssen - C. R. Drost
On Wes Janssen's "Skepticism Examined" Essays by C. R. Drost
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SKEPTICISM.
Skepticism is exactly what Janssen said, "a useful tool." But it is far more than that, it is an examination into our own uncertainty, an allowance of our own uncertainty to take precedence over belief. It is like this: there is your impulsive belief, and there is your impulsive skepticism, and a person is left to draw conclusions with a rationale that gets heavily biased by which impulse wins. Many curb their skepticism, and they cease dealing with the problem after both impulses have reduced themselves and these are the people with "faith," which is both to be praised and abhorred.
So what is the skeptic's impulse in these matters? One side tries fervently to believe, the other to disbelieve. The side that attempts to disbelieve is of concern right now, as it is still being established so I set out to catalog the skeptic's viewpoint on Wes Janssen's rebuttal letters.
THE GOD OF THE GAPS.
Wes Janssen has an unfortunate tendency to say "Nothing scientific explains this phenomenon, so God is responsible." The correct manner of approach to this situation is to say either "Nothing scientific explains this, so we are uncertain," or "Nothing scientific explains this, so other explanations are not useful."
It has never followed, in any argument that I have seen, that God's is responsible for those phenomena about which we are uncertain. For this argument to be valid in the creation of the universe, we would need to have a list of all possible things that could cause the universe's creation, we would need to know for certain that one of them did indeed cause creation, and we would need to know that every one of these, other than God, fails to explain creation. We are far from having the requisite list, at the least!
These arguments come from there being a gap in our understanding. The argument follows that the only way it can be reconciled is to assume a God. This is all nice and good, but only if God is the ONLY way to reconcile it... that is, we need to have perfect knowledge about a situation and test and reject all other reconciliations before this approach works. While it works for a true miracle like the parting of the Red Sea (which may or may not have happened), it does not work for a non-understood miracle like the creation of the universe.
I have heard the amount of information we have about the very beginning of the Big Bang to be "0", or alternately "none." As such, there are NO SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS to be made from it. The argument of God from the lack of our understanding has no scientific basis.
This is all fine and good, to make these arguments outside of science. But Janssen was attempting to make his points sound scientific, and in reality, there is no science to them. Science flourishes in the presence of data, perishes in its absence.
CAUSALITY.
Causality is an arbitrary measure, and does not deserve to be abused in this way by both sides of the argument.
When we say that A causes B, we mean a couple of things First, A comes before B. Second, whenever A happens, B happens. Third, no other things seem to predict B.
God causing the universe is a theory that cannot be confirmed to be causally true. We cannot verify that there was a God before the universe, that whenever the God does his creation-thing, that a universe is the result, and we can't say that anything about the prediction of the universe, because we don't have the ability to vary large amounts of different variables out of a complete variable list in a spaceless area, much less the computers needed to run regressions and chi-square tests on such an infinity of potential causes.
SPECIFIC REFERENCES WITH THESE IDEAS IN MIND.
Paragraph 2: While I won't take sides on the issue, it is quite true that if time began at the Big Bang (indeed, if time even exists!), then the definition of causality doesn't apply. We can't say A caused B if there was no sequence between A and B. You're both even thinking too abstractly about time... "before the universe existed" is a meaningless proposition. If there was a God to create the Universe, then time existed somehow outside the universe: and this goes against what either of you are talking about. When we say time didn't exist, we are implying that sequence doesn't exist, so everything "before" the Big Bang either happened at the instant of the Big Bang's conception, or the instant before. If God existed before that, then sequence existed before that, and then we have to ask, what happened in the sequencing before the Big Bang?
But to be more true to Janssen's writing, halfway down the paragraph he notes that science can not disprove a God-theory for creation. He fails to realize that THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY STEPS TOWARD PROVING GOD.
I think that the church went through a time where science kept telling it that it was wrong about certain things, to the point that now, when the related religions put God into an unfalsifiable box and say "can't touch this, science," they truly think they've made a large stride in proving God. God remains unproven, and the burden of proof remains on the one that wishes to prove... and perhaps this is even worse for religion. As religion has moved God into a place where His Influence cannot be tested, they have taken away the risk of His denial. Hooray, God can't be denied! Unfortunately, they've put God into a place where He can't be proven.
Paragraph 3-4: Percent ALWAYS means a ratio standardized such that its denominator is 100. Probability does not; ratio does not; chance does not; percent DOES. If your newspaper is saying that Team A has won .7 percent of their games, your newspaper is talking about winning 7 out of 1000. And this is why newspapers tend to put the % sign there... so that they say "70% of" or ".7 of" and don't mix the two. [Editor's Note: Janssen is correct--unfortunately. I check the Houston Chronicle's team rankings, and it does have a column "Pct" (presumably percent) and uses a 0 to 1 scale. A team that has won half of its game is listed as .500] Also, statisticians not only avoid misusing the word "percent," they also avoid misusing the word "percentile." A "percentile" deals with a deviation from a fixed point, and in any university, the technical writing requirements on scientists are sufficient to show them that this is not a mistake to be made (to say nothing about the comments a statistician would receive if misusing the word percentile!).
Paragraph 5: It is a stark lack-of-understanding and lack-of-respect for science that leads someone to apply evolution to God in an attempt to disprove Him, or applies God to exist where evolution does well, or argues that one is flawed based on the other. Science has, as its domain, the world that we can observe. Evolution is something that we can observe, on both a macro and microevolutionary scale. But since we can't observe the primordial oceans of the Earth, we can't go too far back to test and understand what the creation of life was. Here we have a place where God can have an influence... but anything can have an influence there! We don't know what happened, we have enough trouble finding it out--so all theories are equally void in this region. And the same happens in the belief of God because the Universe must be created... we don't know, so yes it is valid, and it's just as valid as saying "the universe came into existence without cause."
Paragraph 6: This is a tangential issue, and has nothing to do with any issue at hand.
Paragraph 7: I think that what Paul Jacobsen meant was clear enough. Does it follow that God would have some way to manifest in the universe? God is clearly a being in a sense that we can't intuitively "get" (a form of being that exists outside of sequence)... but Janssen's ideas showed that he understood as well. Still, Janssen demonstrates that he does not believe in a traditional God, and the question is... If God is aspectless and formless, then doesn't the effort to argue God's existence not matter, because from a practicable point God doesn't exist? The work wasn't so much arguing the possibility that the universe was created: it was arguing about Gods that have traits. If we say that God created the universe, then how does it follow that God is either good or just? How does it follow that God is intelligent? How does it follow that God is even omnipotent? We have only restated the starting assumption: the universe was created. God could be quite dumb, and could have been creating universes randomly, infinitely, in His world of no-sequence, until one that was suitable existed. And perhaps he only had a googolplex chances to do it: but one of them, when compounded enough, worked! The argument that "If the universe was created, then the universe was created" is both a truism and a meaningless circular proposition.
Paragraph 8: Jacobsen's website's purpose, at least to me, is as a scholarly resource. He isn't trying to insult God here... and what a dumb thing, to either praise or insult a God-type! For if he is omnipotent, your praise will not make Him grow, nor could an insult ever make him shrink! So this site has the same level of reason for existence that Janssen's essays do.
Final Paragraphs: These are questions for Jacobsen, and not me, to answer. Still, to say that you are doing the Lord's work has always been presumptuous. For if the Lord has work to be done, then the Lord is not a God! And if the Lord interested himself in the world, and were a God, then the world would be at His liking! There is no question about how much an unlimited God can do... and if it were an unlimited God's belief that Jacobsen "should be helped," then Jacobsen's own thoughts would be pushed in the direction that God wished to push!
CONCLUSION.
What can I say? 'Tis skepticism. I have my own beliefs, and I feel that after enough searching, not reading science journals, but actual SEARCHING, you either find the belief that is correct (more controversial), or the belief that makes you strongest (less controversial). In all reality, they're basically the same. And I believe that I've found my strongest belief, even as a long-time skeptic.
But it really kind of irritates me to see people try to "justify" their beliefs with science that doesn't apply, to make their idea seem scientific. It irritates me to see the "God of the Gaps" argument, which has too many holes in it to work (and worse, the "ontological argument," which is flawed from its outset).
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SKEPTICISM.
Skepticism is exactly what Janssen said, "a useful tool." But it is far more than that, it is an examination into our own uncertainty, an allowance of our own uncertainty to take precedence over belief. It is like this: there is your impulsive belief, and there is your impulsive skepticism, and a person is left to draw conclusions with a rationale that gets heavily biased by which impulse wins. Many curb their skepticism, and they cease dealing with the problem after both impulses have reduced themselves and these are the people with "faith," which is both to be praised and abhorred.
So what is the skeptic's impulse in these matters? One side tries fervently to believe, the other to disbelieve. The side that attempts to disbelieve is of concern right now, as it is still being established so I set out to catalog the skeptic's viewpoint on Wes Janssen's rebuttal letters.
THE GOD OF THE GAPS.
Wes Janssen has an unfortunate tendency to say "Nothing scientific explains this phenomenon, so God is responsible." The correct manner of approach to this situation is to say either "Nothing scientific explains this, so we are uncertain," or "Nothing scientific explains this, so other explanations are not useful."
It has never followed, in any argument that I have seen, that God's is responsible for those phenomena about which we are uncertain. For this argument to be valid in the creation of the universe, we would need to have a list of all possible things that could cause the universe's creation, we would need to know for certain that one of them did indeed cause creation, and we would need to know that every one of these, other than God, fails to explain creation. We are far from having the requisite list, at the least!
These arguments come from there being a gap in our understanding. The argument follows that the only way it can be reconciled is to assume a God. This is all nice and good, but only if God is the ONLY way to reconcile it... that is, we need to have perfect knowledge about a situation and test and reject all other reconciliations before this approach works. While it works for a true miracle like the parting of the Red Sea (which may or may not have happened), it does not work for a non-understood miracle like the creation of the universe.
I have heard the amount of information we have about the very beginning of the Big Bang to be "0", or alternately "none." As such, there are NO SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS to be made from it. The argument of God from the lack of our understanding has no scientific basis.
This is all fine and good, to make these arguments outside of science. But Janssen was attempting to make his points sound scientific, and in reality, there is no science to them. Science flourishes in the presence of data, perishes in its absence.
CAUSALITY.
Causality is an arbitrary measure, and does not deserve to be abused in this way by both sides of the argument.
When we say that A causes B, we mean a couple of things First, A comes before B. Second, whenever A happens, B happens. Third, no other things seem to predict B.
God causing the universe is a theory that cannot be confirmed to be causally true. We cannot verify that there was a God before the universe, that whenever the God does his creation-thing, that a universe is the result, and we can't say that anything about the prediction of the universe, because we don't have the ability to vary large amounts of different variables out of a complete variable list in a spaceless area, much less the computers needed to run regressions and chi-square tests on such an infinity of potential causes.
SPECIFIC REFERENCES WITH THESE IDEAS IN MIND.
Paragraph 2: While I won't take sides on the issue, it is quite true that if time began at the Big Bang (indeed, if time even exists!), then the definition of causality doesn't apply. We can't say A caused B if there was no sequence between A and B. You're both even thinking too abstractly about time... "before the universe existed" is a meaningless proposition. If there was a God to create the Universe, then time existed somehow outside the universe: and this goes against what either of you are talking about. When we say time didn't exist, we are implying that sequence doesn't exist, so everything "before" the Big Bang either happened at the instant of the Big Bang's conception, or the instant before. If God existed before that, then sequence existed before that, and then we have to ask, what happened in the sequencing before the Big Bang?
But to be more true to Janssen's writing, halfway down the paragraph he notes that science can not disprove a God-theory for creation. He fails to realize that THIS DOES NOT MAKE ANY STEPS TOWARD PROVING GOD.
I think that the church went through a time where science kept telling it that it was wrong about certain things, to the point that now, when the related religions put God into an unfalsifiable box and say "can't touch this, science," they truly think they've made a large stride in proving God. God remains unproven, and the burden of proof remains on the one that wishes to prove... and perhaps this is even worse for religion. As religion has moved God into a place where His Influence cannot be tested, they have taken away the risk of His denial. Hooray, God can't be denied! Unfortunately, they've put God into a place where He can't be proven.
Paragraph 3-4: Percent ALWAYS means a ratio standardized such that its denominator is 100. Probability does not; ratio does not; chance does not; percent DOES. If your newspaper is saying that Team A has won .7 percent of their games, your newspaper is talking about winning 7 out of 1000. And this is why newspapers tend to put the % sign there... so that they say "70% of" or ".7 of" and don't mix the two. [Editor's Note: Janssen is correct--unfortunately. I check the Houston Chronicle's team rankings, and it does have a column "Pct" (presumably percent) and uses a 0 to 1 scale. A team that has won half of its game is listed as .500] Also, statisticians not only avoid misusing the word "percent," they also avoid misusing the word "percentile." A "percentile" deals with a deviation from a fixed point, and in any university, the technical writing requirements on scientists are sufficient to show them that this is not a mistake to be made (to say nothing about the comments a statistician would receive if misusing the word percentile!).
Paragraph 5: It is a stark lack-of-understanding and lack-of-respect for science that leads someone to apply evolution to God in an attempt to disprove Him, or applies God to exist where evolution does well, or argues that one is flawed based on the other. Science has, as its domain, the world that we can observe. Evolution is something that we can observe, on both a macro and microevolutionary scale. But since we can't observe the primordial oceans of the Earth, we can't go too far back to test and understand what the creation of life was. Here we have a place where God can have an influence... but anything can have an influence there! We don't know what happened, we have enough trouble finding it out--so all theories are equally void in this region. And the same happens in the belief of God because the Universe must be created... we don't know, so yes it is valid, and it's just as valid as saying "the universe came into existence without cause."
Paragraph 6: This is a tangential issue, and has nothing to do with any issue at hand.
Paragraph 7: I think that what Paul Jacobsen meant was clear enough. Does it follow that God would have some way to manifest in the universe? God is clearly a being in a sense that we can't intuitively "get" (a form of being that exists outside of sequence)... but Janssen's ideas showed that he understood as well. Still, Janssen demonstrates that he does not believe in a traditional God, and the question is... If God is aspectless and formless, then doesn't the effort to argue God's existence not matter, because from a practicable point God doesn't exist? The work wasn't so much arguing the possibility that the universe was created: it was arguing about Gods that have traits. If we say that God created the universe, then how does it follow that God is either good or just? How does it follow that God is intelligent? How does it follow that God is even omnipotent? We have only restated the starting assumption: the universe was created. God could be quite dumb, and could have been creating universes randomly, infinitely, in His world of no-sequence, until one that was suitable existed. And perhaps he only had a googolplex chances to do it: but one of them, when compounded enough, worked! The argument that "If the universe was created, then the universe was created" is both a truism and a meaningless circular proposition.
Paragraph 8: Jacobsen's website's purpose, at least to me, is as a scholarly resource. He isn't trying to insult God here... and what a dumb thing, to either praise or insult a God-type! For if he is omnipotent, your praise will not make Him grow, nor could an insult ever make him shrink! So this site has the same level of reason for existence that Janssen's essays do.
Final Paragraphs: These are questions for Jacobsen, and not me, to answer. Still, to say that you are doing the Lord's work has always been presumptuous. For if the Lord has work to be done, then the Lord is not a God! And if the Lord interested himself in the world, and were a God, then the world would be at His liking! There is no question about how much an unlimited God can do... and if it were an unlimited God's belief that Jacobsen "should be helped," then Jacobsen's own thoughts would be pushed in the direction that God wished to push!
CONCLUSION.
What can I say? 'Tis skepticism. I have my own beliefs, and I feel that after enough searching, not reading science journals, but actual SEARCHING, you either find the belief that is correct (more controversial), or the belief that makes you strongest (less controversial). In all reality, they're basically the same. And I believe that I've found my strongest belief, even as a long-time skeptic.
But it really kind of irritates me to see people try to "justify" their beliefs with science that doesn't apply, to make their idea seem scientific. It irritates me to see the "God of the Gaps" argument, which has too many holes in it to work (and worse, the "ontological argument," which is flawed from its outset).
