Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University known for his staunch opposition to teaching creationism, found himself in the unfamiliar role of playing the moderate. “I think we need to respect people’s philosophical notions unless those notions are wrong,” he said.
“The Earth isn’t 6,000 years old,” he said. “The Kennewick man was not a Umatilla Indian.” But whether there really is some kind of supernatural being — Dr. Krauss said he was a nonbeliever — is a question unanswerable by theology, philosophy or even science. “Science does not make it impossible to believe in God,” Dr. Krauss insisted. “We should recognize that fact and live with it and stop being so pompous about it.”
His debate with William Lane Craig is very interesting, I'm sorry for the poor quality of the recording but it's worth struggling to understand. You might want to watch the video, even though the audio quality is even poorer.
I'm disappointed in his arguments against Craig because so many of them devolve into the most banal of threadbare atheist tropes. His beginning by using the recent line that Craig "is a professional debater" sets the tone. Apparently an articulate professor of philosophy who is an expert in the philosophy of time (which physics has consulted) and on cosmological arguments which are a central issue in the topic Krauss agreed to discuss is to be dismissed because he is experienced in debating these topics.
TIME OUT: I'm going to promulgate one of those instantly created blog rules, you can call it "Anthony's Law" if you want to.
"Anyone who resorts to discrediting their opponent on the basis of her or his proven competence loses the debate."
I also was disappointed in the derisive tone that Krauss resorted to when argument failed him, as it so disappointingly did several times. At times Krauss approached the very pomposity he decried.
Considering the role that Krauss has had in current controversies in cosmology, a subject about the physical universe that has generated widely divergent sets of beliefs, some of them strongly and heatedly asserted as being part of science, only to be pushed aside, he might have thought twice about resorting to the absurd argument that Christians don't believe in Baal or Zeus QED : no God.
If physicists can have strongly divergent beliefs about the physical universe and not hold that physics is discredited by those, why should people having greatly divergent beliefs about religion invalidate the subject matter of religion? Considering that the universe is asserted to be governed by physical laws that are known, and that God is usually held to transcend not only physical law but human understanding, there is far more of an excuse for divergent ideas about God over time. Consider the length of time that people have been addressing God and the physical universe, I don't think that the pre-classical and classical period ideas about the universe need to be addressed by contemporary physics anymore than than pre-classical ideas about God which aren't found useful need to be addressed by 21st century Christianity. Thinkers in the 21st century are not responsible for the ideas of people in the past except those ideas which they adopt.
Krauss seems to be entirely unprepared to discuss the philosophical issues that Craig refers to and seems to not realize their relevance to thinking about physics and their relevance to persuasion for or against the topic of the discussion. That's something that is all too common with physicists today, it hasn't always been true. I think that contemporary education in science might have specialized most scientists out of competence in addressing issues relevant to religious thinking. He began in the worst possible way by asserting, as atheists generally do, that the onus is on religious believers to prove their case when that is an absurd stipulation. You would think that the rejection of atheism by the majority of people would prove that the majority doesn't accept that stipulation and there is no persuasive reason presented for them to accept it.
Most absurd of all for a scientist to hold, he parrots the "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" line popularized by Carl Sagan. Considering the extraordinary claims regularly made by physics for the past century, including many claims within cosmology that other cosmologists reject as extraordinary, you can be certain that he would reject that requirement made within his own subject matter. If he would like a good example, he should consider the decades long controversies concerning black holes in which he is a prominent participant. Not to mention the wildly controversial and divergent string-M theories, multi-universe theories etc. that constitute a prominent part in contemporary scientistic antagonism against religion.
It is one of the most basic ideas that you cannot require a higher level of evidence against one part of science than you do of other parts of science without calling the legitimacy of the less stringently controlled science into question. Scientists, especially those who hold the creed of scientism, regularly claim the mantle of reliability for their work. Scientism, such as Krauss seems to be veering into, claims that it is the only legitimate means of discovering the truth. I hate to have to break it to such scientists, they are not going to convince people that the frequently changing, wildly swinging holdings of cosmology, hardly universally held by specialists, to a lesser standard of evidence than people judge their own experience by.
Who does Krauss want to determine what constitutes an "extraordinary claim" in his branch of physics and who does he want to determine what level of "extra-ordinariness" of evidence that he and his colleagues will have to meet in their work? If the claim is "extraordinary" where is the limit of the requirement of necessary evidence and who sets that limit?
If he wants to address extraordinary holdings of scientists that have no evidence whatsoever to support them he could address the evolutionary dogmas of Richard Dawkins. Some of the things he has promulgated, "selfish genes" "memes" are entirely baseless, undemonstrable and, especially in the case of memes, illogical.
Marcello Truzzi, the man who Sagan ripped off his most famous line from, became skeptical of it with time, friends of his say that before his death he was planning on debunking it. It's too bad that scientists like Krauss don't think the issue through, especially in reference to their own work.
Another embarrassment is Krauss' accusation that Craig is trying to find God in the gaps when he obviously isn't. It's clear when he does this that Krauss doesn't even understand the argument he's engaged in. I've found that to be a common tactic of atheists who can't handle the argument they are having, they try to argue what they think they can. By the way, God of the gaps is an idea that was first brought up by and its use in argument for God condemned by Henry Drummond, an evangelical lecturer, almost a hundred years ago.
I think this debate might have been one of the biggest reasons that Richard Dawkins chickened out of defending his most famous book. If you look at the new atheist discussion of that event you can see lots of absurd stuff said about it. If Krauss wants to be associated with that kind of reasoning, he's free to do that. The extent to which the culture of science is willing to accept the kind of ideological clap trap of the new atheism as intellectually respectable will be the extent to which those of us who look at it from the outside will be required to take that culture seriously. As it is, I've got a lot less respect for it than I used to have, these days. I no longer take what scientists say on the basis of their credentials. That is due to professional lapses and intellectual dishonesty among many of them which are not corrected by their scientific peers. Maybe scientists should consider that they hold a lot of the reputation of science in their own hands and they don't do a lot for it by associating with the new atheists. If they don't take responsibility for the reputation of science in the wider world, no one else can. It's a big mistake to leave that to the boys of scientism on the blogs.
Update: I've got to mention one extraordinary idea that seems to be ubiquitous in the science-religion brawl. Science was invented to study the physical universe, it restricts its methods to the observation, measurement and analysis of aspects of the physical universe. Professional scientists study the physical universe with methods that exclude anything that can't be processed with its methods and tools.
There is no reason to believe that the most brilliant physicist or biologist would be able to address anything asserted by religion except any physical claims made in religion. Science doesn't give its practitioners competence or expertise to address ideas about the supernatural, morality or any other non-physical aspects of reality. A scientist of the prominence of Lawrence Krauss has no more ability to address religious ideas by virtue of their science than a plumber can using his knowledge of plumbing or a store clerk can with their professional competence. Time after time, when eminent scientists address competent thinkers in religion, they are at a total loss and often betray angry frustration by their inability to force compliance with their opinions on the basis of their credentials. Maybe if they understood the basis of science better and especially the limits of its subject matter they could save themselves a lot of self-imposed aggravation.
There is a philosophical basis to science. I find most people who want to "defend" science have a hard time understanding that simple fact, or even accepting it. Science, as they understand it, is concerned solely with "truth." Though how you define "truth" without reference to philosophy (at a minimum) never seems to occur to them.
ReplyDeleteIt's a classic example of Godel's theorem of incompleteness. Science (whatever form it takes) can formulate questions it cannot answer. If science is going to establish truth, Pilate's question becomes quite relevant, and then I ask the scientist: "If I say I love my wife, is that the truth?" And how would science establish it?
Or, to make it simpler, if I say I feel pain, is that the truth? And how would science establish it? Prove to me the areas of my brain that should "light up" fail to? So my pain is "all in my head"? And where, pray tell, is that?
I generally conclude that Wittgenstein was (more or less) right, and it's all a matter of language games. Certainly the people telling me science alone can establish "truth" have no idea what they are talking about.
Or even what they mean by "truth."
Krauss became friends with Christopher Hitchens. He became a Hitch wannabe. He's no Hitch (r.i.p.). The difference is that Krauss isn't half as well read, and while an agressive advocate of his positions, Hitch was very dignified, waitied his turn, often let his opponents hang themselves, and was rarely an ass. When he did get angry, he was usually on the defensive--representing those whom he felt were oppressed or abused by religious bigots or despots. Krauss is just a dick. He cuts people off and is otherwise rude when he's up against a wall and can't argue his way out. Hitch never crumbled like that under pressure or resorted to name-calling. It's too bad. Krauss is obviously a top mind in his field, but he should leave debating up to those like Sam Harris who can hold their own. He's just a whiny prick who should stick to cosmology. Gives a bad name to atheists, anti-theists, and agnostics.
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