Author: Papa Giorgio

An Introduction To Ruth

Published by Papa Giorgio

From BIBLE STUDY TOOLS, a quick “5 Essential Lessons You Need to Know from the Book of Ruth”

…1)  God is concerned about all people regardless of race, nationality, or status.

Ruth was not a Jew. She was a Moabite. Even though many discriminated against her, God loved her just the same. God does not discriminate, and He loves all people just the same.

2)  Men and women are both equally important to God.

God cares about men and women all the same. We are all one in His eyes. While most false religions that have been constructed over the centuries often elevate men and dishonor women, Christianity is the one religion that consistently honors men and women at the same level. There is no difference in His eyes.

3)  There is no such thing as an unimportant person in God’s eyes.

At a surface level, few saw Ruth as an important person. She was from Moab, which was a nation that originated from an incestuous encounter between Lot and one of his daughters (see >Genesis 19:30–36). She was a poor widow. She was living in a foreign land away from her birth family. 

But God saw her as important and His plan for her life culminated in her becoming a part of the lineage of Jesus (as the grandmother to King David). God’s plan typically involves using people who are considered to be underdogs or unimportant or unimpressive from man’s perspective. His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

4)  God uses “little” things to accomplish great plans.

What an amazing plan God had for a series of “little” things that all added up to important pieces in God’s big plan. God intended for Ruth to be a part of the story of the lineage of Jesus. So, He pulled together events such as the famine, Naomi’s relocation to Moab, their return to Bethlehem, Boaz’ bloodline, and many other events just to ensure that Ruth could be a part of His plan. And God does that same thing in our lives today!

5)  God has a Redeemer in place who can rescue us from the devastation of our own sin.

God has a Redeemer for our lives, too, and His name is Jesus. Boaz was a type (prophetic symbol) of Christ and His redemptive work in our lives today. You see, we are all desolate as a result of our sinful natures. We are empty, just as Naomi was empty and devastated after she had lost everything and returned to Judah. Our sin has rendered us empty and desolate spiritually.

But Jesus is willing to redeem us. He wants to rescue us from the penalty of our sin. And all we have to do to be rescued is to call on Him in faith and ask Him to save us (Romans 10:13). My hope is that you are one of His redeemed. If you are not, my hope is that you will call on Him right now and ask Him to save you once and for all from the consequences of your sins!…

EVERY WOMAN IN THE BIBLE

RUTH AND NAOMI’S ROLE IN SCRIPTURE

Ruth was a Moabitess who married an Israelite. Her husband’s family had left Judah during a famine and migrated to Moab. There all the men of the family died, leaving three women alone and helpless: Naomi, the mother-in-law, and Ruth and Orpah, her daughters-in-law. The women were helpless for a simple reason. Property was owned by men, not by women. With no men left in the family, the women lacked any means of support.

Only one course of action seemed open to Naomi. She would return to Judah and seek aid from her relatives. Naomi urged her daughters-in-law to return to their fathers’ households, where they would be supported until they could remarry. Orpah followed Naomi’s advice, but Ruth insisted on staying with her mother-in-law. The loyalty and support she offered Naomi proved to be the turning point in her own life.

EXPLORING RUTH’S RELATIONSHIPS

The Book of Ruth is a rich source of insights into healthy interpersonal relationships. It reminds us that even during the dark days of the judges, godly men and women could and did live blessed and happy lives.

Naomi and Ruth’s relationship with God (Ruth 1:9–17). Ruth’s relationship with God began the way that most relationships with Him do. Ruth came to know and value someone who knew Him well. For Ruth, that person was Naomi.

Naomi spoke easily about God because He was real to her. We see this in the blessing she gave her two daughters-in-law after Naomi had decided to return to Judah: “The Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband” (Ruth 1:9). Naomi clearly loved her daughters-in-law and loved God. In loving she became the bridge over which Ruth passed to faith.

When Naomi urged the two young women to go home and find new husbands, Orpah turned back. However, Ruth refused to return home. She truly loved her mother-in-law and would not desert her.

The biblical text clearly shows that Ruth realized that this decision called for a faith-commitment to Naomi’s God. When Naomi continued to urge Ruth to return home, Ruth expressed her commitment in unmistakable terms.

“For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The LORD do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).

The order in which Ruth expressed her commitment is significant. In Old Testament times Israel alone had a covenant relationship with God. Ruth, aware of this relationship, pledged that “your people shall be my people,” fully aware that in committing herself to God’s covenant community she was also committing herself to Israel’s God.

Ruth’s decision to stay with Naomi was also her commitment to God. Ruth had chosen “the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings you have come for refuge” (Ruth 2:12).

Ruth’s relationship with Naomi. The first chapter of Ruth makes it clear that Ruth deeply loved and appreciated her mother-in-law. That love was expressed in a loyalty that surpassed all other ties. Rather than return to her father’s home, and stay in her own country, Ruth chose to accompany Namoi into an uncertain future in a strange land.

To see how Ruth’s commitment to her mother-in-law continued to work itself out is fascinating. For Ruth, Judah was a strange land, with unfamiliar customs. But in Naomi Ruth had a mentor, and she wisely followed her advice. The two women had returned at harvest time. Old Testament Law provided that the poor and landless could gather food in fields owned by others. That law said, “When you reap the harvest in your field, and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands” (Deut. 24:19). Naomi sent Ruth out to gather grain that the harvesters missed, a process called gleaning.

Gleaning was hard work, but for the poor each kernel of grain was precious. And Ruth “continued from morning” until late in the day gathering food for Naomi and herself.

Later, after Ruth’s modesty and virtue had won the admiration of one of Naomi’s relatives, Naomi explained to Ruth the law of the redeeming relative. When a man died childless a near relative could marry his widow. The first son produced by the couple would be given the name of the dead husband and inherit his estate. Hearing of the admiration of such a relative for Ruth, Naomi urged Ruth to approach the man and ask him to take on the redeeming relative’s responsibility.

Ruth allowed herself to be guided by her mother-in-law in the selection of a potential husband. Although Naomi’s choice was neither young nor especially handsome, Ruth realized that he was a man of quality, and she followed her mother-in-law’s advice.

In every way Ruth showed herself to be loyal, hard-working, sensible, and responsive to Naomi’s advice. Clearly Ruth had a deep respect for Naomi, as well as a real love for her mother-in-law.

Ruth’s relationship with Boaz. It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of a woman’s reputation. Long before Boaz met Ruth or knew her by sight, he had heard good things about her.

In the small farming community it was impossible to keep secrets. Everyone knew that Naomi had come back from Moab and that she was accompanied by her daugher-in-law, Ruth. They knew of Ruth’s choice to commit herself to Naomi’s people and their God, and they had formed definite opinions about her character. When Boaz first met her he was able to say,

It has been fully reported to me, all that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you have left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and have come to a people whom you did not know before (Ruth 2:11).

Well aware of her good qualities, Boaz treated her favorably. He invited her to eat with his harvesters, told her to glean with his own servants, and instructed the young men not to molest her. That this instruction was necessary reminds us of how dangerous life could be for a woman alone in the era of the judges. Boaz even instructed his harvesters to be sure to leave handfuls of grain for Ruth to collect.

When Naomi learned of what had happened and realized that Boaz was a near relative of hers, she felt that God was opening a door for Ruth. She instructed Ruth to continue to work in Boaz’s fields through the barley and wheat harvests. When the several weeks of the harvests had passed, Naomi took Ruth aside and explained her concern for Ruth’s future security.

As a near relative, Boaz was qualified not only to marry Ruth but also to reclaim the lands of Naomi’s husband. So Naomi told Ruth how to approach Boaz.

During the harvest season workers often slept outside in the fields. Naomi told Ruth to go at night to the place where Boaz was sleeping and lie down at his feet. Some have taken this as an attempted seduction. However, the position Ruth took was symbolic and a request that Boaz take her under his protection as a wife. Boaz clearly understood the symbolism and promised to do as she requested, “for all the people of my town know that you are a virtuous woman” (Ruth 3:11).

Before Boaz could marry Ruth he had to obtain the permission of a man who was an even nearer relative of Naomi. When Boaz explained that to redeem the fields of Naomi’s dead husband the man would also have to marry Ruth, the man declined. He already had grown sons. If he should father more than one son with Ruth, he would have to provide for them from the estate he intended to reserve for his first family. With this claim disposed of, Boaz married Ruth.

The marriage was blessed with a son, and that son became the grandfather of King David and an ancestor of Jesus Christ.

RUTH: A CLOSE-UP

Ruth is one of Scripture’s most attractive women. She was a woman with a marvelous capacity for love and loyalty. While Ruth was decisive and ready to risk an uncertain future out of loyalty to Naomi, she was far from headstrong. She was wise enough to follow Naomi’s advice, ready and willing to work to support the two of them. Ruth quickly established a good reputation in her adopted homeland and won the approval of all who knew her. Her reputation rather than her physical attributes first won the admiration of Boaz, who responded by treating her graciously. The relationship that grew between them was founded solidly on the mutual appreciation of each for the good and gracious qualities of the other.

While Ruth truly is a love story, it is far from those romantic novels that emphasize passion and physical attributes. Ruth’s and Boaz’s love grew out of their commitment to values far more significant than mere good looks.

NAOMI: A CLOSE-UP

Naomi’s name, “pleasantness,” is suggestive. She cared for her daughters-in-law and earned their love and loyalty. Even Orpah, who chose to remain in Moab, wept when she left Naomi to return home. We can sense in Naomi an especially generous spirit. Although alone, she urged her daughters-in-law to think of their own future rather than Naomi’s welfare. Back in Judah, Naomi felt a deep responsibility to Ruth and determined to “seek security” for her, “that it may be well with” you (Ruth 3:1).

We should hardly be surprised that Naomi was such a powerful influence in Ruth’s life. People who truly and selflessly love others have a tendency to draw those others to them and through them to the Lord.

RUTH AND NAOMI: EXAMPLES FOR TODAY

  • Naomi is a wonderful example of how to evangelize. She didn’t try to talk Ruth to faith. Instead she loved Ruth and lived a life that Ruth recognized was worth emulating. Ruth wanted the peace, character, and loving-kindness she saw displayed in her mother-in-law’s life.
  • Naomi shows us how to be a gracious in-law. We don’t know whether Naomi had counseled her sons against marrying out of their faith. We do know that she loved both her daughters-in-law enough to put their welfare above her own. Eventually she even loved Ruth to faith in God.
  • Many parents hesitate to offer advice to adult children. While we cannot force our will on them, we can share our thoughts and our wisdom with those willing to listen. When advice is given lovingly and with respect for our children’s independence, it will often be welcomed.
  • Naomi is a glorious reminder of how God can make one of the least likely to be remembered into someone who will never be forgotten. When we feel insignificant we can remember how God used a starving widow to win a woman to faith who became an ancestress of Jesus Christ.
  • Ruth reminds us that character does count. Good men are more concerned about finding a godly spouse than a sexy one!

Sue Poorman Richards and Larry Richards, Every Woman in the Bible (Nashville, TN: T. Nelson Publishers, 1999), 105–107.

BAKER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BIBLE

Ruth (Person). Moabitess and the widow of Mahlon, the son of Naomi and Elimelech, who were Ephrathites from Bethlehem living in Moab because of a severe famine in Judah. Upon the death of Elimelech and Naomi’s two sons, Naomi returned to Bethlehem with her daughter-in-law Ruth during the time of the barley harvest (Ru 1:4–22). While gleaning in the barley fields of Boaz, Ruth found favor in his eyes (2:2–22). She later married Boaz, when he, serving as nearest kin to the childless Naomi, purchased Naomi’s estate to keep it within the family (4:5–13). Ruth is mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy of Christ as the mother of Obed and the great-grandmother of David (Mt 1:5).

RUTH, BOOK OF

Author and Data. The author of the book is unknown. The question of authorship has particular connection with the date of writing, and a few clues provide at least an “educated guess.” The book must have been written sometime after the beginning of David’s reign. The reference of 4:18–22, which pertains to the historical significance of Ruth as David’s great-grandmother, bears this out. Since foreign marriages were not approved in the Book of Ruth, it scarcely could have been written during the period in which Solomon began his policy of foreign marriages. Also, David’s close friendship with Moab might have prompted someone in his kingdom to write the book, thus presenting objective rationale for David’s actions (see 1 Sm 22:3–5). Consequently the author may have been someone close to David, possibly Samuel, Nathan, or Abiathar.

This view is not without its critics, however. Some scholars consider the opening statement, “in the days when the judges ruled,” to demonstrate the late composition of the book. However, such a phrase need not refer to an extensive period. In today’s world one might use a similar phrase in reference to conditions at the beginning of the 20th century. The dates of the judges probably comprise a period of about 300 years, beginning with the judgeship of Othniel and concluding with that of Samson, though Samuel also served as a judge. If the genealogical information is complete in 4:18–22, the events took place during the life of David’s great-grandfather and mark the birth of his grandfather. Allowing a 35-year generation span, the events would have taken place somewhere about the turn of the 11th century bc, or about 100 years before David’s birth.

Purpose. The book’s purpose is closely related to its date of composition. Assuming an early date, that is, one close to David’s lifetime, its principal thrust must be the authentication of the Davidic line. The book may be considered as a justification for including the godly Moabitess in the nation of Israel.

Content

Introduction (1:1–5). Driven by famine, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, cross the Jordan to stay for a period of time in Moab where there was sufficient provision. The two sons, after marrying Moabite women, die, and their father dies as well. Naomi is left a widow with two foreign daughters-in-law.

Return to Bethlehem (1:6–22). Hearing reports from Bethlehem that the famine had ended, Naomi makes preparations to return. Both of her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, accompany her for at least a portion of the journey. Probably thinking of the problems which might be encountered by them as foreigners in Judah, Naomi strongly urges the girls to stay in their own land. Both of the young widows refuse, but Naomi presents the facts. First, she is not pregnant, so the chance of a younger brother fulfilling the levirate responsibility is not imminent. Second, she has no prospects of remarriage and consequently no prospect of further children. Then, she also notes that even if the first two conditions were met immediately, the possibility of their waiting was impossible. Orpah is persuaded and kisses her mother-in-law good-bye.

But Ruth “clung to her” (neb). The verb, having the connotation of being glued to something, is the same verb used of marriage (Gn 2:24). Ruth demonstrates her serious intentions by making five commitments. In essence, Ruth renounces her former life in order to gain a life which she considers of greater value. At this point, she is contrasted with Naomi, who had encouraged both of them to return to Moab and its gods (1:15). But Ruth decides to follow the God of Israel and his laws. Ruth’s appeal to the God of Israel was more than equal to Naomi’s pleas, and the two of them return together.

Their arrival in Bethlehem is traumatic for Naomi. Having left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons, she returns empty. She tells her friends to call her “Mara” (bitter). But she has returned at a propitious time, the beginning of the harvest season.

Reaping in the Fields of Boaz (2:1–23). The first verse of the chapter provides the setting for the narrative which follows, introducing Boaz, a wealthy relative of Elimelech.

Ruth volunteers to glean the fields, to follow the reapers and pick up the insignificant amounts left behind. Gleaners were also permitted to harvest the grain in the corners of the fields, a provision for the poor contained in Yahweh’s Law (Lv 19:9,10).

She happens to come to the field of Boaz. As he visits this field, he notices Ruth, inquires about her, and learns her identity. His overseer reports that she has industriously worked the fields from early morning until that time. Boaz, attracted to her because of her loyalty and concern for Naomi, graciously makes additional provision for her. She is given a favored position in reaping, directly behind the main body of reapers. Further, she is to receive water which has been drawn for her by the young men—an unorthodox arrangement.

Ruth, falling before Boaz in a gesture of great humility and respect, asks why as a foreigner she should be accorded such favor. Boaz gives two reasons, her kindness to her mother-in-law, and her spiritual insight which led her to seek after Israel’s God, “under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (neb).

She is also given a place at the reapers’ table and, upon Boaz’s orders, returns to the fields—this time to reap from the unharvested grain. At the end of the day she returns home to Naomi and tells her of the day’s events. Naomi informs Ruth that Boaz has the right of redemption. Ruth returns to his fields until the end of the harvest season.

Relying upon the Kinsman (3:1–18). Naomi advises Ruth with regard to approaching Boaz as a goel, or kinsman-redeemer.

The plan suggested by Naomi seems peculiar, yet some thoughts may give a certain colouring to it. (1) Naomi seems to have believed that Boaz was the nearest kinsman, being ignorant of the yet nearer one (v 12). Consequently, according to Israelite law (Dt 25:5ff.), it would be the duty of Boaz to marry Ruth to raise up seed to the dead. (2) The general tone of Naomi’s character is clearly shown in this book to be that of a God-fearing woman, so that it is certain that, however curious in its external form, there can be nothing counselled here which really is repugnant to God’s law, or shocking to a virtuous man such as Boaz, otherwise Naomi would simply have been most completely frustrating her own purpose. (3) Her knowledge by long intimacy of Ruth’s character, and doubtless also of that of Boaz by report, would enable her to feel sure that no ill effects could accrue (Sinker, Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Ruth, p 283).

His response to Ruth’s actions demonstrates his gentlemanly concerns for her. He explains the situation of not being the nearest kinsman, but promises that he will take care of the necessary procedures the next day. Protecting her reputation, Boaz sends her home before daylight. Naomi, wise in these matters, succinctly predicts of Boaz, “He will not rest until he has settled the matter today” (neb).

Redeeming the Inheritance (4:1–21). Boaz goes to the place of business, the city gate. The city gate area comprised the forum of the city where the public affairs of the city were discussed. Boaz indicates that he wishes to discuss a matter of business with the nearer kinsman. Ten of the city elders act as witnesses. Beginning with the property matter, Boaz inquires whether this nearer kinsman is willing to acquire the property for Naomi, including the traditional stipulation, “On the day when you acquire the field from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabitess, the dead man’s wife” (neb). The nearer kinsman is unwilling because to marry Ruth would inevitably cost him some financial loss, since he would have to divide his own property with any son of his born to Ruth. Thus he relinquishes his rights by the custom of taking off his shoe. Significantly the shoe was symbolic of the land rights which belonged to the inheritance. So Boaz takes the part of the kinsman-redeemer.

The marriage of Boaz and Ruth produces a son who, under Israel’s laws, is reckoned as Naomi’s child and heir.

Teaching. The Book of Ruth traces the lineage of David to the Messiah. The completion of that line is in Matthew 1 and finds its focus in Jesus.

A second teaching is the beauty of God’s grace. A foreigner, even a Moabitess, can be linked with Israel’s blessing.

Theologically, the concept of kinsman-redeemer as a type of Messiah is clearly evident. He must be a blood relative, have the ability to purchase, be willing to buy the inheritance, and be willing to marry the widow of the deceased kinsman.

And finally, the love which Ruth shows becomes a pattern of devotion, a woman of whom it was said to Naomi, “your daughter-in-law who loves you is better to you than seven sons.”

Bibliography. A.E. Cundall and L. Morris, Judges and Ruth; G. Gerleman, Ruth; R.M. Halo, The Theology of the Book of Ruth; A.R.S. Kennedy, The Book of Ruth; C. Lattey, The Book of Ruth.

Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, “Ruth (Person),” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 1871–1873.

Has Jim Carrey Come To Know Jesus Christ As Savior? (No)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Carrey has struggled with depression, and in the past has said (among other things),

  • “I’m a Buddhist, I’m a Christian, I’m a Muslim, I’m whatever you want me to be. It all comes down to the same thing. You’re in a loving place or you’re in an unloving place, if you’re with me right now you cannot be unhappy, it’s not possible.”

But what about this more recent video? Has he encountered Christ? Or is he speaking from a Buddhist perspective? (I say he is speaking as a Buddhist.) His claim about suffering leading to salvation (grace) is very Biblical (see here). Here is Jim discussing the issue at HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES:

BTW, Father Gregory Boyle could be a fan of THOMAS MERTON… another “taboo” in my mind’s eye.

…Jim Carrey was raised a Catholic. He later switched to Presbyterian and attended church in early 1990s. He has been connected to Kabbala, Scientology, Christianity, and Transcendentalism.

But Jim Carrey has been opaque about his religious beliefs. Recently he has spoken about God and faith. In particular, he focused on forgiveness. Demonstrated by a speech he gave at HomeBoy Industries, a rehabilitation program for convicted felons. The speech has been seen 184,000 times.

He mentioned God, but his message was about forgiving oneself in order to be able to have a full life. He does not preach nor mention a particular denomination while giving the speech. He also talked about God in a short video he made about painting. He mentions searching for God and how it influences his art.

This led to several groups claiming that he was clearly demonstrating a deep faith in Christianity. But let’s not get carried away. He has mentioned Jesus as an inspirational figure, but he has also used Buddha and the works of Eckhart Tolle, a famous New Age philosophy as significant figures in his personal and spiritual journey. “I’m a Buddhist, I’m a Muslim, I’m a Christian. I’m whatever you want me to be. It all comes down to the same thing.”

[….]

He mentioned God, but his message was about forgiving oneself in order to be able to have a full life. He does not preach nor mention a particular denomination while giving the speech. He also talked about God in a short video he made about painting. He mentions searching for God and how it influences his art.

This led to several groups claiming that he was clearly demonstrating a deep faith in Christianity. But let’s not get carried away. He has mentioned Jesus as an inspirational figure, but he has also used Buddha and the works of Eckhart Tolle, a famous New Age philosophy as significant figures in his personal and spiritual journey. “I’m a Buddhist, I’m a Muslim, I’m a Christian. I’m whatever you want me to be. It all comes down to the same thing.”

It empowers groups to claim to have an A-list celebrity as a member. It creates visibility and appeals to a particular faith. But an individual’s faith is a deeply personal issue. We should not put labels on someone because it is convenient. It disregards their understanding and does not properly acknowledge an understanding. Respect for an individual is what Jim Carrey speaks about. Shouldn’t we listen a little better?

(WORLD RELIGION NEWS)

Here is more of Jim Carry trying to convince one mind through his mind that no mind’s exist”

Jim Carrey explains to the tee the Buddhist philosophy as proposed by ALAN WATTS in this following explanation of the above:

The Metaphysical Assumptions of the “Scientific Method”

Published by Papa Giorgio

In a recent online conversation someone just assumed the knowability of science and the universe without knowledge of the history behind such an assumption. After posting the statement and my quick response, I will include other longer excerpts from a few sources both explaining this a bit more and defending the challenges to these assumptions, such as “this makes ‘science’ too easy.”

Enjoy:

Sean said this:

➤ What do you mean justify it? How do I justify that we assume nature is uniform? Because that’s how it has been so far, and it shows no signs of changing.

A great response would have been that he is ASSUMING arguments from theism in this regard:

Indeed, there are certain philosophical presuppositions that must be assumed in order for science to be considered an effective, worthy endeavor:

✧ The external world is real and knowable.
✧ Nature itself is not divine. It is an object worthy of study, not worship.
✧ The universe is orderly. There is uniformity in nature that allows us to observe past phenomena and to understand and predict future occurrences.
✧ Our minds and senses are capable of accurately observing and understanding the world.
✧ Language and mathematics can accurately describe the external world that we observe.

(Via Explore God)

The atheist or Eastern worldview could not have advanced science under their worldviews auspices… and these assumptions from the Judeo-Christian faith are what made scientific advancement flourish so well in the West.

NOT TO MENTION that the falsely defined attributes of Quantum Mechanics to undermine logic are shown false in that we can know many things not only in logic but also in science… thanks to healthy presuppositions.

And in another article by Explore God, we have this [again] short summation that is explained further below it:

Modern science depends on some key assumptions derived from Christianity:

  • Belief in the rationality of the universe. Scientists believed the universe was orderly and uniform because it was created by a God who was rational and ordered.
  • Belief that mankind was created in the image of God. Since God is rational, man is rational and able to reason. Since man exists in an orderly universe, he is able to trust his senses, employ his reason, and understand the world.

Science begins with the conviction that the universe is knowable, that it is ordered, that sensory perceptions can be trusted, and that reason and rationality correspond to reality.

Here are the promised ~ longer ~ explanations to the above and how such assumptions were the foundations of Christian theology and it’s influence of the scientific revolution [this is also related to the myth behind “Islam’s Golden Age“]. The first study is by Dr. Henry Schaefer, who is [past?] Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia…

  • and a prolific scholar with over 750 scientific publications to his credit. In this lecture, presented at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He starts by showing that the theistic worldview of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science. He goes on to name many modern scientists and Nobel prize winners, including Charles Coulson, John Suppe, Charles Townes, Arther Schawlow, Alan Sandage, Donald Page, R. David Cole and Francis Collins, whose religious faith is an integral part of who they are as scientists. The video concludes with an exclusive interview with Dr. Schaefer where he discusses why a Christian worldview is more compatible with the findings of modern cosmology than a purely naturalistic and materialistic worldview. (www.arn.org)

~MORE RESOURCES~

On this episode of ID the Future, host David Boze examines the plight of Dr. Daniel Shechtman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals, who had previously suffered much rejection and ridicule for threatening the consensus of the scientific establishment. Listen in and consider the parallels between Shechtman’s once-heretical science and the modern-day rejection and scorn of the ID movement.

Has Modern Science Become Dysfunctional?

WASHINGTON, DC – March 27, 2012 — The recent explosion in the number of retractions in scientific journals is just the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of a greater dysfunction that has been evolving the world of biomedical research say the editors-in-chief of two prominent journals in a presentation before a committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) today.

“Incentives have evolved over the decades to encourage some behaviors that are detrimental to good science,” says Ferric Fang, editor-in-chief of the journal Infection and Immunity, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), who is speaking today at the meeting of the Committee of Science, Technology, and Law of the NAS along with Arturo Casadevall, editor-in-chief of mBio®, the ASM’s online, open-access journal.

In the past decade the number of retraction notices for scientific journals has increased more than 10-fold while the number of journals articles published has only increased by 44%.  While retractions still represent a very small percentage of the total, the increase is still disturbing because it undermines society’s confidence in scientific results and on public policy decisions that are based on those results, says Casadevall.  Some of the retractions are due to simple error but many are a result of misconduct including falsification of data and plagiarism.

More concerning, say the editors, is that this trend may be a symptom of a growing dysfunction in the biomedical sciences, one that needs to be addressed soon.   At the heart of the problem is an economic incentive system fueling a hypercompetitive environment that is fostering poor scientific practices, including frank misconduct.

The root of the problem is a lack of sufficient resources to sustain the current enterprise.  Too many researchers are competing for too little funding, creating a survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all environment where researchers increasingly feel pressure to publish, especially in high-prestige journals.

“The surest ticket to getting a grant or job is getting published in a high profile journal,” says Fang.  “This is an unhealthy belief that can lead a scientist to engage in sensationalism and sometimes even dishonest behavior to salvage their career.”

Funding is just one aspect of a very complex problem Casadevall and Fang see growing in the biomedical sciences.  In a series of editorials in the journal Infection and Immunity they describe their views in detail, arguing that science is not as healthy as it could be or as it needs to be to effectively address the challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.

“Incentives in the current system place scientists under tremendous stress, discourage cooperation, encourage poor scientific practices and deter new talent from entering the field,” they write.  “It is time for a discussion of how the scientific enterprise can be reformed to become more effective and robust.”

The answers, they write, must come not only from within the scientific community but from society as a whole that has helped create the current incentive structure that is fostering the dysfunction.  In the editorials they outline a series of recommended reforms including methodological, cultural and structural changes.

“In the end, it is not the number of high-impact-factor papers, prizes or grant dollars that matters most, but the joys of discovery and the innumerable contributions both large and small that one makes through contact with other scientists,” they write.  “Only science can provide solutions to many of the most urgent needs of contemporary society.  A conversation on how to reform science should begin now.”

Here are two short videos by MIT nuclear scientist, Ian Huthinson (PDF Bio) discussing scientism:

(Above videos) What is science? And how can we bring the answer to bear on the question of whether science and faith are at war with each other? Ian Hutchinson, professor at MIT and author of “Monopolizing Knowledge,” shares his take at The Veritas Forum.

Faith in science?

So, we’re told, liberals trust science more than conservatives do. The implication — freely peddled in much news coverage — is that conservatives are either dumber or more politicized than liberals. This fits in neatly with a narrative established in screeds like Chris Mooney’s 2005 book, “The Republican War Against Science.” The only problem is it’s not true.

Consider an interesting new study by Gordon Gauchat, a postdoctoral fellow in sociology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The folks at Inside Higher Ed summarized it this way: “Just over 34 percent of conservatives had confidence in science as an institution in 2010, representing a long-term decline from 48 percent in 1974, according to a paper being published today in American Sociological Review.” The report also noted that in 1974 conservatives were likelier to trust science than were liberals.

So what does that mean?

Gauchat points out, correctly, that you can’t lay the blame at the feet of biblical creationists and anti-evolutionists, who were no less common in 1974. Nor is sheer ignorance responsible, as the decline in trust rose with education. Instead, he suggests that it’s the increasing use of science as ammunition for big-government schemes that has led to more skepticism.

There’s probably something to that, but if you read the actual paper something else becomes clear. Despite the language in the coverage, it’s not science as a method that people are losing confidence in; it’s scientists and the institutions that purport to speak for them.

Gauchat’s paper was based on annual responses in the General Social Survey, which asks people: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” One institution mentioned was “the scientific community.”

So when fewer people answered “a great deal” and more answered “hardly any” with regard to “the scientific community,” they were demonstrating more skepticism not toward science but toward the people running scientific institutions.

With this in mind, a rise in skepticism isn’t such a surprise. Public skepticism has grown toward most institutions over the last several decades, and with good reason, as a seemingly endless series of scandals and episodes of dishonesty have illustrated.

In fact, given that Americans have grown broadly more skeptical of institutions in general, it’s not surprising that conservatives are more skeptical of scientific institutions than they were almost 40 years ago. What’s surprising is that liberals have grown less skeptical over the same period. (Perhaps because scientific institutions have been telling them things they want to hear?)

Regardless, while one should trust science as a method — honestly done, science remains the best way at getting to the truth on a wide range of factual matters — there’s no particular reason why one should trust scientists and especially no particular reason why one should trust the people running scientific institutions, who often aren’t scientists themselves.

In fact, the very core of the scientific method is supposed to be skepticism. We accept arguments not because they come from people in authority but because they can be proven correct — in independent experiments by independent experimenters. If you make a claim that can’t be proven false in an independent experiment, you’re not really making a scientific claim at all.

And saying, “trust us,” while denouncing skeptics as — horror of horrors — “skeptics” doesn’t count as science, either, even if it comes from someone with a doctorate and a lab coat.

After a century of destructive and false scientific fads — ranging from eugenics to Paul Ehrlich’s “population bomb” scaremongering, among many others — the American public could probably do with more skepticism, not less.

If scientists want to be trusted, perhaps they should try harder to make sure that those who claim to speak for science are, you know, trustworthy. Just a thought.

~EXCERPTS~

  • J.P. Moreland and William Lane Criag, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2003), 346-350.

SCIENTISM

Scientism, expressed in the quotation by Rescher at the beginning of the chap­ter, is the view that science is the very paradigm of truth and rationality. If something does not square with currently well-established scientific beliefs, if it is not within the domain of entities appropriate for scientific investigation, or if it is not amenable to scientific methodology, then it is not true or rational. Ev erything outside of science is a matter of mere belief and subjective opinion, of which rational assessment is impossible. Science, exclusively and ideally, is our model of intellectual excellence.

Actually, there are two forms of scientism: strong scientism and weak scient­ism. Strong scientism is the view that some proposition or theory is true and/or rational to believe if and only if it is a scientific proposition or theory; that is, if and only if it is a well-established scientific proposition or theory that, in turn, de­pends on its having been successfully formed, tested and used according to appro­priate scientific methodology. There are no truths apart from scientific truths, and even if there were, there would be no reason whatever to believe them.

Advocates of weak scientism allow for the existence of truths apart from science and are even willing to grant that they can have some minimal, positive rationality status without the support of science. But advocates of weak scient­ism still hold that science is the most valuable, most serious and most authorita­tive sector of human learning. Every other intellectual activity is inferior to science. Further, there are virtually no limits to science. There is no field into which scientific research cannot shed light. To the degree that some issue or be­lief outside science can be given scientific support or can be reduced to science, to that degree the issue or belief becomes rationally acceptable. Thus we have an intellectual and perhaps even a moral obligation to try to use science to solve problems in other fields that, heretofore, have been untouched by scien­tific methodology. For example, we should try to solve problems about the mind by the methods of neurophysiology and computer science.

Note that advocates of weak scientism are not merely claiming that, for ex­ample, belief that the universe had a beginning, supported by good philosophi­cal and theological arguments, gains extra support if that belief also has good scientific arguments for it. This claim is relatively uncontroversial because, usu­ally, if some belief has a few good supporting arguments and later gains more good supporting arguments, then this will increase the rationality of the belief in question. But this is not what weak scientism implies, because this point cuts both ways. For it will equally be the case that good philosophical and theologi­cal arguments for a beginning of the universe will increase the rationality of such a belief initially supported only by scientific arguments. Advocates of weak scientism are claiming that fields outside science gain if they are given scientific support and not vice versa.

If either strong or weak scientism is true, this would have drastic implications for the integration of science and theology. If strong scientism is true, then the­ology is not a cognitive enterprise at all and there is no such thing as theological knowledge. If weak scientism is true, then the conversation between theology and science will be a monologue with theology listening to science and waiting for science to give it support. For thinking Christians, either of these alterna­tives is unacceptable. What, then, should we say about scientism?

Note first that strong scientism is self-refuting (see chap. 2 for a treatment of self-refutation). Strong scientism is not itself a proposition of science, but a sec­ond-order proposition of philosophy about science to the effect that only scien­tific propositions are true and/or rational to believe. And strong scientism is itself offered as a true, rationally justified position to believe. Now, propositions that are self-refuting (e.g., There are no truths) are not such that they just hap­pen to be false but could have been true. Self-refuting propositions are neces­sarily false, that is, it is not possible for them to be true. What this means is that, among other things, no amount of scientific progress in the future will have the slightest effect on making strong scientism more acceptable.

There are two more problems that count equally against strong and weak sci­entism. First, scientism (in both forms) does not adequately allow for the task of stating and defending the necessary presuppositions for science itself to be prac­ticed (assuming scientific realism). Thus scientism shows itself to be a foe and not a friend of science.

Science cannot be practiced in thin air. In fact, science itself presupposes a number of substantive philosophical theses which must be assumed if science is even going to get off the runway. Now each of these assumptions has been chal­lenged, and the task of stating and defending these assumptions is one of the tasks of philosophy. The conclusions of science cannot be more certain than the presuppositions it rests on and uses to reach those conclusions.

Strong scientism rules out these presuppositions altogether because neither the presuppositions themselves nor their defense are scientific matters. Weak scientism misconstrues their strength in its view that scientific propositions have greater epistemic authority than those of other fields like philosophy. This would mean that the conclusions of science are more certain than the philo­sophical presuppositions used to justify and reach those conclusions, and that is absurd. In this regard, the following statement by John Kekes strikes at the heart of weak scientism:

A successful argument for science being the paradigm of rationality must be based on the demonstration that the presuppositions of science are preferable to other presuppositions. That demonstration requires showing that science, relying on these presuppositions, is better at solving some problems and achieving some ide­als than its competitors. But showing that cannot be the task of science. It is, in fact, one task of philosophy. Thus the enterprise of justifying the presuppositions of science by showing that with their help science is the best way of solving cer­tain problems and achieving some ideals is a necessary precondition of the justifi­cation of science. Hence philosophy, and not science, is a stronger candidate for being the very paradigm of rationality.[1]

Here is a list of some of the philosophical presuppositions of science: (1) the existence of a theory-independent, external world; (2) the orderly nature of the external world; (3) the knowability of the external world; (4) the existence of truth; (5) the laws of logic; (6) the reliability of our cognitive and sensory facul­ties to serve as truth gatherers and as a source of justified beliefs in our intellec­tual environment; (7) the adequacy of language to describe the world; (8) the existence of values used in science (e.g., “test theories fairly and report test re­sults honestly”); (9) the uniformity of nature and induction; (10) the existence of numbers.

Most of these assumptions are easy to understand and, in any case, are dis­cussed in more detail in other parts of this book. It may be helpful, however, to say a word about (9) and (10). Regarding (9), scientists make inductive infer­ences from past or examined cases of some phenomenon (e.g., “All observed emeralds are green”) to all cases, examined and unexamined, past and future, of that phenomenon (e.g., “All emeralds whatever are green”). The problem of induction is the problem of justifying such inferences. It is usually associated with David Hume. Here is his statement of it:

It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this re­semblance of the past to the future, since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular, that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that for the future it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the na­ture of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence, may change without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes, and with regard to some objects. Why may it not happen always, and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of ar­gument secures you against this supposition? My practice, you say, refutes my doubts. But you mistake the purport of my question. As an agent, I am quite sat­isfied in the point; but as a philosopher who has some share of curiosity, I will not say skepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference.[2]

We cannot look here at various attempts to solve the problem of induction ex­cept to note that inductive inferences assume what has been called the unifor­mity of nature: The future will resemble the past. And the uniformity of nature principle is one of the philosophical assumptions of science.

Regarding (10) (the existence of numbers), in general, if we accept as true a proposition like The ball on the table is red, we thereby are committed to the ex­istence of certain things, e.g., a specific ball and the property of being red. Now science uses mathematical language much of the time and such usage seems to presuppose that mathematical language is true. This, in turn, seems to presup­pose the existence of mathematical objects (e.g., numbers) that are truly de­scribed by those propositions. For example, the proposition Two is an even number seems to commit us to the existence of an entity, the number two (whatever our analysis of numbers turns out to be), which has the property of being even. The same theory of truth used outside of mathematics (the corre­spondence theory) applies within mathematics as well. Now the debate about the existence and nature of numbers is a philosophical one, and thus stating the debate and defending the existence of numbers is another philosophical task presuppositional to science.

There is a second problem that counts equally against strong and weak sci­entism: the existence of true and rationally justified beliefs outside of science. The simple fact is that true, rationally justified beliefs exist in a host of fields outside of science. Many of the issues in this book fall in that category. Strong scientism does not allow for this fact and therefore should be rejected as an in­adequate account of our intellectual enterprise.

Moreover, some propositions believed outside science (e.g., Red is a color, Torturing babies for fun is wrong, I am now thinking about science) are better jus­tified than some believed within science (e.g., Evolution takes place through a se­ries of very small steps). It is not hard to believe that many of our currently held scientific beliefs will and should be revised or abandoned in one hundred years, but it would be hard to see how the same could be said of the extrascientific propositions just cited. Weak scientism does not account for this fact. In fact, weak scientism, in its attempt to reduce all issues to scientific ones, often has a distorting effect on an intellectual issue. Arguably, this is the case in current at­tempts to make the existence and nature of mind a scientific problem.

In sum, scientism in both forms is inadequate. There are domains of knowl­edge outside and independent of science, and while we have not shown this here, theology is one of those domains. How, then, should the domains of sci­ence and theology be integrated? To this question we now turn.

[1] John Kekes, Tic Nature of Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1980), p. 158.

[2] David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp. 51-52 (sec­tion 4.2 in the original).

This example comes from Lambert Dolphin’s online library and is an article entitled, “Christianity and the Birth of Science,” by Michael Bumbulis, Ph.D. The actual article is much larger, but this is a great example of the assumptions assumed by the scientific revolution:

a. A belief in an “only God.” This belief had two major implications. Only a lofty and vigorous monotheism could instill a sense that there existed a being so powerful that He created ALL there is to create. Pagan gods were too often seen as PART of nature. The birth of science needed a God bigger than that. Secondly, this God was a personal God with a will. Just as He willed certain moral laws, He could be perceived as willing laws of nature. In fact, this type of assumption/perspective actually turned into an apologetic argument, where theologians and scientists would argue the laws of nature implied a Lawgiver. Whether or not the argument if valid is irrelevant. I’m simply highlighting how the medieval mind would easily see it from the opposite angle – a Lawgiver implied laws in creation. Pagan gods were simply not seen as Lawgivers.

b. A belief in a rational God. This belief has a major implication. A rational God would create a rational creation, a creation that would turn out to be ultimately intelligible. Thus, all one had to do was uncover what was there waiting to be uncovered. One didn’t have to worry that such searching would be in vain. No one worried about a deceiving god. Or a creation that was ultimately an illusion.

c. A belief that the Universe was created ex nihilo. This belief had several major implications.

i. If the universe was created, it is not eternal. Thus, it was also not necessary. Since it need not exist, there must be a reason why it exists. Furthermore, since it could have existed in another form, there must be reasons why it existed in the form that it does. A contingent universe arouses curiosity. A necessary universe does not.

If a Christian is curious about Creation and God’s reasons for creating what He created, the obvious place to start is by studying Genesis. Whether or not one interprets Genesis as metaphor, myth, or history, one big truth arises from this account – ALL is creation. That is, the earth and the bird are every bit creation as the stars and the sun. It’s this type of insight which enabled folks like Buridan (see below) to describe heavenly motions in terms of terrestial motions. It’s hard for us modern folks to appreciate how radical it was to describe the movement of the heavens as being like a man jumping or a smith’s wheel turning. But this was a crucial step. And it was a crucial step that helped to get around Aristotle’s philosophy.

ii. It is true that the Bible doesn’t clearly distinguish between the natural and the spiritual. But some type of distinction is assumed, otherwise, the miraculous would be meaningless. The distinction the Bible makes is between the Creation and the transcendent Creator. And this is a distinction which was very important to the birth of modern science. Pagans made no such distinction. A tree would never be studied because a tree was a divine representation! And Eastern religions could care less about the tree, as it was either an illusion or a distraction. But in Christianity, the tree was desacralized. Thus, it could be studied. And since it was made by a rational Creator, a Creator who instructed us to “subdue the earth,” the impetus was there to study the tree. Why? Because it didn’t necessarily exist. It was made and thus need not exist. Thus, to understand the tree, one couldn’t deduce its existence from first principles, one had to actually “take it apart” and figure out how it worked. And since God was rational, it was thought that the tree would ultimately be intelligible.

This distinction between Creation and God was essential to science. For it is this very distinction that is behind what we now call the “natural” and the “spiritual” (anyone who can see this relationship will clearly see how science is indebted to Christianity). That is, if you simply remove God from the picture, Creation becomes the Natural. And God is over there in the “Spiritual.” But this distinction was not commonly found among the worlds religions. Their views were inherently monistic and pantheistic. As Francis Bacon would write:

“For as all works do shew forth the power and skill of the workman, and not his image; so it is of the works of God; which do shew the omnipotency and wisdom of the maker, but not his image; and therefore therein the heathen opinion differeth from sacred truth; for they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be an extract or compendious image of the world.” Bacon would add that this pantheistic view resulted in “the greatest arrest and prejudice of further discovery.”

iii. Another simple implication is that a creation implies an act of creating. This would be an important point of speculation for medieval philosophers, and their speculations would turn out to be important in the birth of modern science.

d. If you are going to think God’s thoughts after Him (as Kepler said), you’d better have reasons for believing this could be done. Part of this reason stemmed from the belief in a rational God. But also important was the belief that man was created in the image of God. This belief enabled folks to trust their own reason, as their ability to reason was not only viewed as a gift from God, but it was also a way in which humankind reflected God. Furthermore, the Incarnation was also probably relevant. For if God became man, then maybe the chasm between Man and God wasn’t so huge. So maybe it wasn’t so absurd to think God’s thoughts after Him. After all, a Muslim would never dare to “think God’s thoughts after Him,” as God was viewed to be totally different from humankind.

e. Almost all cultures throughout history have had a cyclical cosmology. This makes sense. We live on a spinning globe which is in turn spinning around the sun, and this produces natural cycles on earth. And its these cycles that led to a cyclical cosmology (just as appearances also led to Geocentrism). But this cyclical view is not fertile ground for science. Science entails the notion of progress, a belief that we can progress towards a state where we understand nature. The Christians inherited from the Jews a sense that was most “unnatural,” a sense that stemmed from revelation – cosmology is linear. That is, God created and works through history. For example, His delivery of the Israelites from Egypt would never happen again, so it must be retold. The Christians inherited this spirit. Their history became as follows: Creation – the Fall – the coming of Messiah- the death of Messiah – the birth of the Church – the return of Messiah. It was a linear view where history was progressing towards a goal. This linear thinking was important to science. Why? Intellectuals from cyclical world views tend to think “there’s nothing new.” Instead of looking for something new, they look to the wisdom of ancients who represent a Golden Age. But the Christian could say, “Hey, maybe the ancients didn’t know everything. Maybe there is something new to be learned, something that has NEVER been known before.” And to find this new material, they need look no further than Creation, for the Author of the Bible (who shows his intentions in linear fashion) is also the Author of Nature.

To see the importance of linear thinking, consider how cyclical thinking stunted the birth of science in Greece. Let’s consider one of the greatest Greek philosophers, Aristotle. Aristotle attempted to explain the world in typical Greek fashion. Aristotle postulated a law (in “On the Heavens”) which stated that the rate of at which falling bodies speed toward the center of the earth, or its surface for that matter, was determined by their weight. Aristotle said that if two bodies were dropped from the same height, the one with twice the weight as the other would reach the ground twice as fast as the lighter one. This law was simply accepted. And how odd this is! Any construction worker would have observed that this was not true. Anyone could have tested Aristotle’s claim with a very simple experiment -climb a house and drop two objects of differing weight. But no Greek ever seemed curious enough to simply test this claim! Why was this? Why were they so blind to such basic science?

Well, we have to understand Greek cosmology. For them, the universe existed as an eternal cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth. This cyclical view of nature prevented the birth of science. For one thing, the notion of an eternal universe went hand-in-hand with the notion of a necessary universe. Aristotelian physics was simply taken to be necessarily true and known through introspection. It seems intuitively obvious that heavier objects would fall faster than lighter objects. But the Greek mind never thought to test it. And what a simple test it is! Furthermore, the cyclical view of nature eliminates the perspective of progress. And without the belief in progress, there is no need to look further once you think you have it all figured out. Aristotle endorsed, in a manner-of-fact way, the idea of eternal cycles. One way he did this was to make reference to cultural history. He explicitly stated that inventions familiar to his contemporaries had been invented in innumerable times before. But he did add that the comfort provided by the technical brand of those inventions available in his time represented the highest level they are capable of providing. This attitude also hindered science. If reality exists as a series of eternal cycles, the tendency is to think either one is at the bottom, and a hopeless, inward perspective develops, or one is at the top (as Aristotle thought), and complacency develops. Greek success with mathematics, coupled to their cosmogony, led them to think they could deduce reality and questioning those deductions by silly experiments was unthought of.

Unfortunately for Christendom, Greek philosophy was merged with Christian theology. And this, more than anything else, is what caused the birth of modern science to be delayed. The break with Aristotle stemmed from Christian theologians who questioned Aristotle’s self- evident truth of the eternal universe. Their theology taught otherwise, that the universe was created ex nihilo. This teaching was formally and solemnly declared in 1214 as the Fourth Lateran Council (although is was debated a long time prior). The declaration essentially stated the truth of our finite creation, but said we could only know this from revelation. This declaration freed Christian thinkers as they began to reinterpret the world simply by assuming as fact the temporality and contingency of the universe.

[I often think Christians fail to realize that Big Bang cosmology represents a very powerful confirmation of their Christian faith. Every world view (including atheism) other than that shaped by Judaism and Christianity has proclaimed the Universe is eternal. In the thirteenth and fourteenth century, Christian philosophers took the bold step in denying that matter and time was eternal, something taught by all the great Pagan and Muslim philosophers. Yet they acknowledged that their denial could not be proven true, that it stemmed solely from their faith. And modern science has now corroborated their position!]

f. Finally, the Christian religion did indeed place emphasis on moral behavior and a concern for Truth. Both of these are important to science. Science is, after all, an attempt to uncover the Truth about the world. Science is committed to the notion of objective truth, truth that exists apart from individual belief. Since Christianity placed emphasis on this type of truth (in contrast to many forms of paganism), this religious attitude could easily be extended to the physical world. As for moral behavior, science depends on truthful reporting and honest experiments.

In addition to all these consensus assumptions, there is one more relevant point. Not only did the Bible provide a consensus on some basic assumptions about the world, assumptions important for the birth of science, but the very perspective about the book was important. God was viewed as the Author of the Book and the Book spoke of Truth. But for these Christians, God was also the Author of Nature. Yet, Nature was simply another book written by God in another code. The early scientists often used the metaphor about the *book* of nature. Seeing Nature as a *book* meant there were intelligible truths that could be uncovered with study. This whole attitude was already placed inside these men by their Christian religion’s attitude toward the Bible. For them, Nature wasn’t an illusion, Nature wasn’t evil, Nature wasn’t the playground of a myriad of gods or fairies, Nature wasn’t simply “matter and space.” Nature was a Book! And it was a book with containing new material from the Author of the Good Book. So uncovering new truths, uncovering God’s thoughts, was actually a religious endeavor!

Many of the founders of modern science were in fact amateur theologians. And their theology constituted important background belief for their endeavors. Let us consider two examples, Kepler and Pasteur.

Arno Penzias (1978 winner of the Nobel Prize in physics and co-discoverer of the cosmic background radiation) makes a very interesting point concerning Johannes Kepler. Speaking about the scientific goal to find the simplest answer possible (a philosophical principle which of course stems from a Christian theologian -see below), Penzias says:

“That really goes back to the triumph, not of Copernicus, but really the triumph of Kepler. That’s because, after all, the notion of epicycles and so forth goes back to days when scientists were swapping opinions. All this went along until we had a true believer and this was Kepler. Kepler, after all, was the Old Testament Christian. Right? He really believed in God the Lawgiver. And so he demanded that the same God who spoke in single words and created the universe is not going to have a universe with 35 epicycles in it. And he said there’s got to be something simpler and more powerful. Now he was lucky or maybe there was something deeper, but Kepler’s faith was rewarded with his laws of nature. And so from that day on, it’s been an awful struggle, but over long centuries, we find that very simple laws of nature actually do apply. And so that expectation is still with scientists. And it comes essentially from Kepler, and Kepler got it out of his belief in the Bible, as far as I can tell. This passionate belief turned out to be right. And he gave us his laws of motion, the first real laws of nature we ever had. And so nature turned out to redeem the expectations he had based on his faith. And scientists have adopted Kepler’s faith, without the cause.”

The other example concerns Louis Pasteur, a devout Christian who nailed down the germ theory. In this case, we can see the clear contribution of his Christian theology. Pasteur lived in a time when belief in spontaneous generation still persisted. Many biologists in his day believed microbes could spontaneously appear from chemicals and this was thought to be the cause of illness. This disagreed with Pasteur’s religious beliefs and theological beliefs involving Creation, so he set out to prove it false. And he succeeded with some clever experiments that are still taught in modern biology texts. Since Pasteur proved that microbes didn’t spontaneously appear from previous chemical states, he argued that illness must be caused by the transfer of microbes from one person the the next. Pasteur’s views and work influenced another Christian scientist/physician at the time, Joseph Lister, who then developed antiseptic surgery. So like it or not, the germ theory and modern surgery owe a great deal to the theological motivations that led to the rejection of spontaneous generation.

  • David S. Dockery and Gregory Alan Thornbury, eds., Shaping a Christian Worldview: The Foundation of Christian Higher Education (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2002), 131, 137-138.

…If science is the modern way to knowledge, let us review how science works. Science begins with the assumption that the universe is knowable, regular, predictable, and uniform. This is an assumption that cannot be confirmed by the scientific method. If the universe were capricious, the scientific way of knowing would not work. A traditional view of science is that scientists go about their business in an objective, empirical, and rational manner.’° The view was proposed by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) in Novum Organum (1620)…

[….]

When one considers the history of modern science and its contributions to knowledge, one sees that there were many areas of the ancient world that could have been home to our modern way of knowing. The ancient Greeks provided many concepts that are important to our modern way of knowing: observation (Aristotle), theory (Plato), mathematics (Pythagoras), astronomy (Ptolemy), and technology (Archimedes). The ancient Chinese made great discoveries: gunpowder, the compass, papermaking, the rocket, silk production, and accurate astronomy records. Yet neither culture was where modern science developed. Why? Science begins with the assumption that the universe is know­able, regular, predictable, and uniform. To the ancient Greeks, the capricious behavior of gods and goddesses made nature unpredictable. The ancient Chinese were never convinced that humans could understand the divine code that rules nature. Modern science developed in a culture that had a window that saw the universe as knowable, regular, predictable, and uniform. The Christian faith provided such a window.

The Christian belief in a Creator provided the basis for the assumption that the universe was really there and had value. Such an idea would be antithetical to a worldview such as Buddhism. The Christian faith provided the basis for the assumption that nature could be studied since it was a creation of God, not a god itself who might retaliate against too much probing or curiosity. The Christian view of God as a moral lawgiver also encouraged them to look for natural laws. The Christian faith in an eternal and omnipresent God led to the assumption that any natural laws would be uniform throughout the universe. Thus, the Christian faith had provided a window that saw the universe as knowable, regular, predictable, and uniform.

Experimental science was encouraged by the belief in cre­ation ex nihilo. The concept of creation ex nihilo meant that God was not constrained by preexisting matter since he created the universe out of nothing. Thus, rational deduction will not provide the details of the universe; one must actually do the observations. Christian belief in the Fall of mankind in the garden of Eden encouraged Christian scientists to develop technology to help alleviate the destructive effects of the Fall. To the Christian, the faith in a Creator God presented nature as another avenue for discovering information about God. As Francis Bacon stated in 1605:

Our saviour saith, “You err, not knowing the scrip­tures, nor the power of God”; laying before us two books or volumes to study, if we will be secured from error; first the scriptures, revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing the power; whereof the latter is a key unto the former: not only opening our understanding to conceive the true sense of the scrip­tures, by the general notions of reason and rules of speech; but chiefly opening our belief, in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of God, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon his works.

Thus, faith encouraged the study of nature.

  • Bradley Monton, Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, (Peterborough, Ontario [Canada]: Broadview Press, 2009), 62-64.

FOLLOWING SUPERNATURALISM MAKES THE SCIENTIST’S TASK TOO EASY

Here’s the first of Pennock’s arguments against methodological naturalism that I’ll consider:

allowing appeal to supernatural powers in science would make the scientist’s task too easy, because one would always be able to call upon the gods for quick theoretical assistance…. Indeed, all empirical investigation beyond the purely descriptive could cease, for scientists would have a ready-made answer for everything.

This argument strikes me as unfair. Consider a particular empirical phenomenon, like a chemical reaction, and imagine that scientists are trying to figure out why the reaction happened. Pennock would say that scientists who allow appeal to supernatural powers would have a ready-made answer: God did it. While it may be that that’s the only true explanation that can be given, a good scientist-including a good theistic scientist—would wonder whether there’s more to be said. Even if God were ultimately the cause of the reaction, one would still wonder if the proximate cause is a result of the chemicals that went into the reaction, and a good scientist—even a good theistic scientist—would investigate whether such a naturalistic account could be given.

To drive the point home, an analogy might be helpful. With the advent of quantum mechanics, scientists have become comfortable with indeterministic events. For example, when asked why a particular radioactive atom decayed at the exact time that it did, most physicists would say that there’s no reason it decayed at that particular time; it was just an indeterministic event!’ One could imagine an opponent of indeterminism giving an argument that’s analogous to Pennock’s:

allowing appeal to indeterministic processes in science would make the scientist’s task too easy, because one would always be able to call upon chance for quick theoretical assistance…. Indeed, all empirical investigation beyond the purely descriptive could cease, for scientists would have a ready-made answer for everything.

It is certainly possible that, for every event that happens, scientists could simply say “that’s the result of an indeterministic chancy process; there’s no further explanation for why the event happened that way.” But this would clearly be doing bad science: just because the option of appealing to indeterminism is there, it doesn’t follow that the option should always be used. The same holds for the option of appealing to supernatural powers.

As further evidence against Pennock, it’s worth pointing out that prominent scientists in the past have appealed to supernatural powers, without using them as a ready-made answer for everything. Newton is a good example of this—he is a devout theist, in addition to being a great scientist, and he thinks that God sometimes intervenes in the world. Pennock falsely implies that this is not the case:

God may have underwritten the active principles that govern the world described in [Newton’s] Principia and the Opticks, but He did not interrupt any of the equations or regularities therein. Johnson and other creationists who want to dismiss methodological naturalism would do well to consult Newton’s own rules of reasoning….

But in fact, Newton does not endorse methodological naturalism. In his Opticks, Newton claims that God sometimes intervenes in the world. Specifically, Newton thinks that, according to his laws of motion, the orbits of planets in our solar system are not stable over long periods of time, and his solution to this problem is to postulate that God occasionally adjusts the motions of the planets so as to ensure the continued stability of their orbits. Here’s a relevant passage from Newton. (It’s not completely obvious that Newton is saying that God will intervene but my interpretation is the standard one.)

God in the Beginning form’d Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles … it became him who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it’s unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature; though being once form’d, it may continue by those Laws for many Ages. For while Comets move in very excentrick Orbs in all manner of Positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, some inconsiderable Irregularities excepted, which may have risen from the mutual Actions of Comets and Planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this System wants a Reformation…. [God is] able by his Will to move the Bodies within his boundless uniform Sensorium, and thereby to form and reform the Parts of the Universe….

A scientist who writes this way does not sound like a scientist who is following methodological naturalism.

It’s worth noting that some contemporaries of Newton took issue with his view of God occasionally intervening in the universe. For example, Leibniz writes:

Sir Isaac Newton and his followers also have a very odd opinion concerning the work of God. According to them, God Almighty needs to wind up his watch from time to time; otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient foresight to make it a perpetual motion.”

Note, though, that Leibniz also thought that God intervened in the world:

I hold that when God works miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace.

Later investigation revealed that in fact planetary orbits are more stable than Newton thought, so Newton’s appeal to supernatural powers wasn’t needed. But the key point is that Newton is willing to appeal to supernatural powers, without using the appeal to supernatural powers as a ready-made answer for everything.

Pennock says that “Without the binding assumption of uninterruptible natural law there would be absolute chaos in the scientific worldview.” Newton’s own approach to physics provides a good counterexample to this—Newton is a leading contributor to the scientific worldview, and yet he does not bind himself by the assumption of uninterruptible natural law.

Man With The Golden Arm ~ Eliminating Chance Statistically

Published by Papa Giorgio

REFORMATTED

This is a large excerpt from a book worth reading in total, The Design Inference, by William Dembski. It is a classic in I.D. literature, whether you are a skeptic of Intelligent Design, or not:

1.2 THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

[p. 9>] 

Even if we can’t ascertain the precise causal story underlying an event, we often have probabilistic information that enables us to rule out ways of explaining the event. This ruling out of explanatory options is what the design inference is all about. The design inference does not by itself deliver an intelligent agent. But as a logical apparatus for sifting our explanatory options, the design inference rules out explanations incompatible with intelligent agency (such as chance). The design inference appears widely, and is memorably illustrated in the following example (New York Times, 23 July 1985, p. B1):

TRENTON, July 22 — The New Jersey Supreme Court today caught up with the “man with the golden arm:’ Nicholas Caputo, the Essex County Clerk and a Democrat who has conducted drawings for decades that have given Democrats the top ballot line in the county 40 out of 41 times.

[p. 10>]

Mary V. Mochary, the Republican Senate candidate, and county Republi­can officials filed a suit after Mr. Caputo pulled the Democrat’s name again last year.

The election is over — Mrs. Mochary lost — and the point is moot. But the court noted that the chances of picking the same name 40 out of 41 times were less than I in 50 billion. It said that “confronted with these odds, few persons of reason will accept the explanation of blind chance.”

And, while the court said it was not accusing Mr. Caputo of anything, it said it believed that election officials have a duty to strengthen public confidence in the election process after such a string of “coincidences.”

The court suggested — but did not order — changes in the way Mr. Caputo conducts the drawings to stem “further loss of public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.”

Justice Robert L. Clifford, while concurring with the 6-to-0 ruling, said the guidelines should have been ordered instead of suggested.

Nicholas Caputo was brought before the New Jersey Supreme Court because the Republican party filed suit against him, claim­ing Caputo had consistently rigged the ballot lines in the New Jersey county where he was county clerk. It is common knowledge that first position on a ballot increases one’s chances of winning an election (other things being equal, voters are more likely to vote for the first person on a ballot than the rest). Since in every instance but one Caputo positioned the Democrats first on the ballot line, the Republicans ar­gued that in selecting the order of ballots Caputo had intentionally favored his own Democratic party. In short, the Republicans claimed Caputo cheated.

The question, then, before the New Jersey Supreme Court was, Did Caputo actually rig the order of ballots, or was it without malice and forethought that Caputo assigned the Democrats first place forty out of forty-one times? Since Caputo denied wrongdoing, and since he conducted the drawing of ballots so that witnesses were unable to observe how he actually did draw the ballots (this was brought out in a portion of the article omitted in the preceding quote), determining whether Caputo did in fact rig the order of ballots becomes a matter of evaluating the circumstantial evidence connected with this case. How, then, is this evidence to be evaluated?

In trying to explain the remarkable coincidence of Nicholas Caputo selecting the Democrats forty out of forty-one times to head the ballot line, the court faced three explanatory options:

[p. 11>]

Regularity: Unknown to Caputo, he was not employing a reliable random process to determine ballot order. Caputo was like some­one who thinks a fair coin is being flipped when in fact it’s a double-headed coin. Just as flipping a double-headed coin is going to yield a long string of heads, so Caputo, using his faulty method for ballot selection, generated a long string of Democrats coming out on top. An unknown regularity controlled Caputo’s ballot line selections.

Chance: In selecting the order of political parties on the state ballot, Caputo employed a reliable random process that did not favor one political party over another. The fact that the Democrats came out on top forty out of forty-one times was simply a fluke. It occurred by chance.

Agency: Caputo, acting as a fully conscious intelligent agent and intending to aid his own political party, purposely rigged the ballot line selections to keep the Democrats coming out on top. In short, Caputo cheated.

The first option — that Caputo chose poorly his procedure for selecting ballot lines, so that instead of genuinely randomizing the ballot order, it just kept putting the Democrats on top — was not taken seriously by the court. The court could dismiss this option outright because Caputo claimed to be using an urn model to select ballot Iines. Thus, in a portion of the New York Times article not quoted, Caputo claimed to have placed capsules designating the various political parties running in New Jersey into a container, and then swished them around. Since urn models are among the most reliable randomization techniques available, there was no reason for the court to suspect that Caputo’s randomization procedure was at fault. The key question, therefore, was whether Caputo actually put this procedure into practice when he made the ballot line selections, or whether he purposely circumvented this procedure to keep the Democrats coming out on top. And since Caputo’s actual drawing of the cap­sules was obscured to witnesses, it was this question the court had to answer.

With the regularity explanation at least for the moment bracketed, the court next decided to dispense with the chance explanation. Hav­ing noted that the chance of picking the same political party 40 out of 41 times was less than 1 in 50 billion, the court concluded that…

[p. 12>]

“confronted with these odds, few persons of reason will accept the explanation of blind chance.” Now this certainly seems right. Nev­ertheless, a bit more needs to be said. As we saw in Section 1.1, exceeding improbability is by itself not enough to preclude an event from happening by chance. Whenever I am dealt a bridge hand, I par­ticipate in an exceedingly improbable event. Whenever I play darts, the precise position where the darts land represents an exceedingly improbable configuration. In fact, just about anything that happens is exceedingly improbable once we factor in all the other ways what actually happened might have happened. The problem, then, does not reside simply in an event being improbable.

All the same, in the absence of a causal story detailing what happened, improbability remains a crucial ingredient in eliminating chance. For suppose that Caputo actually was cheating right from the beginning of his career as Essex County clerk. Suppose further that the one exception in Caputo’s career as “the man with the golden arm” —that is, the one case where Caputo placed the Democrats second on the ballot line — did not occur till after his third time selecting ballot lines. Thus, for the first three ballot line selections of Caputo’s career the Democrats all came out on top, and they came out on top precisely because Caputo intended it that way. Simply on the basis of three bal­lot line selections, and without direct evidence of Caputo’s cheating, an outside observer would be in no position to decide whether Caputo was cheating or selecting the ballots honestly.

With only three ballot line selections, the probabilities are too large to reliably eliminate chance. The probability of randomly selecting the Democrats to come out on top given that their only competi­tion is the Republicans is in this case 1 in 8 (here p equals 0.125; compare this with the p-value computed by the court, which equals 0.00000000002). Because three Democrats in a row could eas­ily happen by chance, we would be acting in bad faith if we did not give Caputo the benefit of the doubt in the face of such large probabilities. Small probabilities are therefore a necessary condi­tion for eliminating chance, even though they are not a sufficient condition.

What, then, besides small probabilities do we need for evidence that Caputo cheated? As we saw in Section 1.1, the event in question needs to conform to a pattern. Not just any pattern will do, however. Some patterns successfully eliminate chance while others do not.

[p. 13>]

Consider the case of an archer. Suppose an archer stands fifty meters from a large wall with bow and arrow in hand. The wall, let us say, is sufficiently large that the archer cannot help but hit it. Now suppose every time the archer shoots an arrow at the wall, she paints a target around the arrow, so that the arrow is positioned squarely in the bull’s-eye. What can be concluded from this scenario? Absolutely nothing about the archer’s ability as an archer. The fact that the archer is in each instance squarely hitting the bull’s-eye is utterly bogus. Yes, she is matching a pattern; but it is a pattern she fixes only after the arrow has been shot and its position located. The pattern is thus purely ad hoc.

But suppose instead that the archer paints a fixed target on the wall and then shoots at it. Suppose she shoots 100 arrows, and each time hits a perfect bull’s-eye. What can be concluded from this second scenario? In the words of the New Jersey Supreme Court, “confronted with these odds, few persons of reason will accept the explanation of blind chance.” Indeed, confronted with this second scenario we infer that here is a world-class archer.

The difference between the first and the second scenario is that the pattern in the first is purely ad hoc, whereas the pattern in the second is not. Thus, only in the second scenario are we warranted eliminat­ing chance. Let me emphasize that for now I am only spotlighting a distinction without explicating it. I shall in due course explicate the distinction between “good” and “bad” patterns — those that respec­tively do and don’t permit us to eliminate chance (see Chapter 5). But for now I am simply trying to make the distinction between good and bad patterns appear plausible. In Section 1.1 we called the good pat­terns specifications and the bad patterns fabrications. Specifications are the non-ad hoc patterns that can legitimately be used to eliminate chance and warrant a design inference. Fabrications are the ad hoc patterns that cannot legitimately be used to eliminate chance.

Thus, when the archer first paints a fixed target and thereafter shoots at it, she specifies hitting a bull’s-eye. When in fact she repeatedly hits the bull’s-eye, we are warranted attributing her success not to beginner’s luck, but to her skill as an archer. On the other hand, when the archer paints a target around the arrow only after each shot, squarely positioning each arrow in the bull’s-eye, she fabri­cates hitting the bull’s-eye. Thus, even though she repeatedly hits the…

[p. 14>]

bull’s-eye, we are not warranted attributing her “success” in hitting the bull’s-eye to anything other than luck. In the latter scenario, her skill as an archer thus remains an open question.2 (jump)

How do these considerations apply to Nicholas Caputo? By se­lecting the Democrats to head the ballot forty out of forty-one times, Caputo appears to have participated in an event of probability less than 1 in 50 billion (p = 0.00000000002). Yet as we have noted, events of exceedingly small probability happen all the time. Hence by itself Caputo’s participation in an event of probability less than 1 in 50 billion is no cause for alarm. The crucial question is whether this event is also specified — does this event follow a non-ad hoc pattern so that we can legitimately eliminate chance?

Now there is a very simple way to avoid ad hoc patterns and gen­erate specifications, and that is by designating an event prior to its occurrence — C. S. Peirce (1883 [1955], pp. 207-10) referred to this type of specification as a predesignation. In the archer example, by painting the bull’s-eye before taking aim, the archer specifies in ad­vance where the arrows are to land. Because the pattern is set prior to the event, the objection of ad-hocness or fabrication is effectively blocked.

In the Caputo case, however, the pattern is discovered after the event: only after we witness an extended series of ballot line selec­tions do we notice a suspicious pattern. Though discovered after the fact, this pattern is not a fabrication. Patterns given prior to an event, or Peirce’s predesignations, constitute but a proper subset of the pat­terns that legitimately eliminate chance. The important thing about a pattern is not when it was identified, but whether in a certain well-defined sense it is independent of an event. We refer to this relation of independence as detachability, and say that a pattern is detachable just in case it satisfies this relation.

[p. 15>]

Detachability distinguishes specifications from fabrications. Al­though a precise account of detachability will have to wait until Chapter 5, the basic intuition underlying detachability is this: Given an event, would we be able to formulate a pattern describing it if we had no knowledge which event occurred? Here is the idea. An event has occurred. A pattern describing the event is given. The event is one from a range of possible events. if all we knew was the range of possible events without any specifics about which event actually occurred, could we still formulate the pattern describing the event? If so, the pattern is detachable from the event.

To illustrate detachability in the Caputo case, consider two pos­sible courses Nicholas Caputo’s career as Essex County clerk might have taken (for simplicity assume no third-party candidates were ever involved, so that all elections were between Democrats and Republi­cans). In the one case — and for the sake of argument let us suppose this is what actually happened — Caputo chose the Democrats over the Republicans forty out of forty-one times in the following order:

(A)  DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Thus, the initial twenty-two times Caputo chose the Democrats to head the ballot line, then the twenty-third time he chose the Republi­cans, after which for the remaining times he chose the Democrats.

In the second possible course Caputo’s career as county clerk might have taken, suppose Caputo once again had forty-one occasions on which to select the order of ballots, but this time that he chose both Democrats and Republicans to head the ballot pretty evenly, let us say in the following order

(B)   DRRDRDRRDDDRDRDDRDRRDRRDRRRDRRRDRDDDRDRDD

In this instance the Democrats came out on top only twenty times. and the Republicans twenty-one times.

Sequences (A) and (B) are both patterns and describe possible ways Caputo might have selected ballot orders in his years as Essex County clerk. (A) and (B) are therefore patterns describing possible events. Now the question detachability asks is whether (A) and (B) could have been formulated without our knowing which event occurred. For (A) the answer is yes, but for (B) the answer is no. (A) is therefore detachable whereas (B) is not.

[p. 16>]

How is this distinction justified? To formulate (B) I just one mo­ment ago flipped a coin forty-one times, recording “D” for Democrat whenever I observed heads and “R” for Republican whenever I ob­served tails. On the other hand, to formulate (A) I simply recorded “D” forty times and then interspersed a single “R.” Now consider a human subject S confronted with sequences (A) and (B). S comes to these sequences with considerable background knowledge which, we may suppose, includes the following:

(1) Nicholas Caputo is a Democrat.
(2) Nicholas Caputo would like to see the Democrats appear first on the ballot since having the first place on the ballot line signifi­cantly boosts one’s chances of winning an election.
(3) Nicholas Caputo, as election commissioner of Essex County, has full control over who appears first on the ballots in Essex County.
(4) Election commissioners in the past have been guilty of all manner of fraud, including unfair assignments of ballot lines.
(5) If Caputo were assigning ballot lines fairly, then both Democrats and Republicans should receive priority roughly the same number of times.

Given this background knowledge S is in a position to formulate various “cheating patterns” by which Caputo might attempt to give the Democrats first place on the ballot. The most blatant cheat is of course to assign the Democrats first place all the time. Next most blatant is to assign the Republicans first place just once (as in (A) — there are 41 ways to assign the Republicans first place just once). Slightly less blatant — though still blatant — is to assign the Republicans first place exactly two times (there are 820 ways to assign the Republicans first place exactly two times). This line of reasoning can be extended by throwing the Republicans a few additional sops. The point is, given S’s background knowledge, S is easily able (possibly with the aid of a personal computer) to formulate ways Caputo could cheat, one of which would surely include (A).

Contrast this now with (B). Since (B) was generated by a sequence of coin tosses, (B) represents one of two trillion or so possible ways Caputo might legitimately have chosen ballot orders. True, in this respect probabilities do not distinguish (A) from (B) since all such sequences of Ds and Rs of length 41 have the same small probability of occurring by chance, namely 1 in 241, or approximately 1 in two…

[p. 17>]

trillion. But S is a finite agent whose background knowledge enables S to formulate only a tiny fraction of all the possible sequences of Ds and Rs of length 41. Unlike (A), (B) is not among them. Confronted with (B), S will scrutinize it, try to discover a pattern that isn’t ad hoc, and thus seek to uncover evidence that (B) resulted from something other than chance. But given S’s background knowledge, nothing about (B) suggests an explanation other than chance. Indeed, since the relative frequency of Democrats to Republicans actually favors Republicans (twenty-one Rs versus twenty Ds), the Nicholas Caputo responsible for (B) is hardly “the man with the golden arm.” Thus, while (A) is detachable, (B) is not.

But can one be absolutely certain (B) is not detachable? No, one cannot. There is a fundamental asymmetry between detachability and its negation, call it nondetachability. In practice one can decisively demonstrate that a pattern is detachable from an event, but not that a pattern is incapable of being detached from an event. A failure to establish detachability always leaves open the possibility that detachability might still be demonstrated at some later date.

To illustrate this point, suppose I walk down a dirt road and find some stones lying about. The configuration of stones says nothing to me. Given my background knowledge I can discover no pattern in this configuration that I could have formulated on my own without actually seeing the stones lying about as they do. I cannot detach the pattern of stones from the configuration they assume. I therefore have no reason to attribute the configuration to anything other than chance. But suppose next an astronomer travels this same road and looks at the same stones only to find that the configuration precisely matches some highly complex constellation. Given the astronomer’s background knowledge, this pattern now becomes detachable. The astronomer will therefore have grounds for thinking that the stones were intentionally arranged to match the constellation.

Detachability must always be relativized to a subject and a subject’s background knowledge. Whether one can detach a pattern from an event depends on one’s background knowledge coming to the event. Often one’s background knowledge is insufficient to detach a pattern from an event. Consider, for instance, the case of cryptographers trying to break a cryptosystem. Until they break the cryptosystem, the strings of characters they record from listening to their enemy’s communications will seem random, and for all the cryptographers know…

[p. 18>]

might just be gibberish. Only after the cryptographers have broken the cryptosystem and discovered the key for decrypting their enemy’s communications will they discern the detachable pattern present in the communications they have been monitoring (cf. Section 1.6).

Is it, then, strictly because our background knowledge and abil­ities are limited that some patterns fail to be detachable? Would. for instance, an infinitely powerful computational device be capa­ble of detaching any pattern whatsoever? Regardless whether some super-being possesses an unlimited capacity to detach patterns, as a practical matter we humans find ourselves with plenty of patterns we cannot detach. Whether all patterns are detachable in some grand metaphysical sense, therefore, has no bearing on the practical prob­lem whether a certain pattern is detachable given certain limited back­ground knowledge. Finite rational agents like ourselves can formulate only a very few detachable patterns. For instance, of all the possible ways we might flip a coin a thousand times, we can make explicit only a minuscule proportion. It follows that a human subject will be unable to specify any but a very tiny fraction of these possible coin flips. In general, the patterns we can know to be detachable are quite limited.3 (jump)

Let us now wrap up the Caputo example. Confronted with Nicholas Caputo assigning the Democrats the top ballot line forty out of forty-one times, the New Jersey Supreme Court first rejected the regularity explanation, and then rejected the chance explanation (“confronted with these odds, few persons of reason will accept the explanation of blind chance”). Left with no other option, the court therefore accepted the agency explanation, inferred Caputo was cheating, and threw him in prison.

Well, not quite. The court did refuse to attribute Caputo’s golden arm to either regularity or chance. Yet when it came to giving a positive explanation of Caputo’s golden arm, the court waffled. To be sure, the court knew something was amiss. For the Democrats to get the top ballot line in Caputo’s county forty out of forty-one times, especially…

[p. 19>]

with Caputo solely responsible for ballot line selections, something had to be fishy. Nevertheless, the New Jersey Supreme Court was unwilling explicitly to charge Caputo with corruption. Of the six judges, Justice Robert L. Clifford was the most suspicious of Caputo, wanting to order Caputo to institute new guidelines for selecting ballot lines. The actual ruling, however, simply suggested that Caputo institute new guidelines in the interest of “public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.” The court therefore stopped short of charging Caputo with dishonesty.

Did Caputo cheat? Certainly this is the best explanation of Caputo’s golden arm. Nonetheless, the court stopped short of convicting Ca­puto. Why? The court had no clear mandate for dealing with highly improbable ballot line selections. Such mandates exist in other legal settings, as with discrimination laws that prevent employers from at­tributing to the luck of the draw their failure to hire sufficiently many women or minorities. But in the absence of such a mandate the court needed an exact causal story of how Caputo cheated if the suit against him was to succeed. And since Caputo managed to obscure how he selected the ballot lines, no such causal story was forthcoming. The court therefore went as far as it could.

Implicit throughout the court’s deliberations was the design infer­ence. The court wanted to determine whether Caputo cheated. Lack­ing a causal story of how Caputo selected the ballot lines, the court was left with circumstantial evidence. Given this evidence, the court immediately ruled out regularity. What’s more, from the specified im­probability of selecting the Democrats forty out of forty-one times, the court also ruled out chance.

These two moves — ruling out regularity, and then ruling out chance — constitute the design inference. The conception of design that emerges from the design inference is therefore eliminative, as­serting of an event what it is not, not what it is. To attribute an event to design is to say that regularity and chance have been ruled out. Refer­ring Caputo’s ballot line selections to design is therefore not identical with referring it to agency. To be sure, design renders agency plau­sible. But as the negation of regularity and chance, design is a mode of explanation logically preliminary to agency. Certainly agency (in this case cheating) best explains Caputo’s ballot line selections. But no one was privy to Caputo’s ballot line selections. In the absence of…

[p. 20>]

an exact causal story, the New Jersey Supreme Court therefore went as far as it could in the Caputo case.4 (jump)

[….]

[p. 22>]

1.4 FORENSIC SCIENCE AND DETECTION

Forensic scientists, detectives, lawyers, and insurance fraud investiga­tors cannot do without the design inference. Something as common as a forensic scientist placing someone at the scene of a crime by match­ing fingerprints requires a design inference. Indeed, there is no logical or genetic impossibility preventing two individuals from sharing the same fingerprints. Rather, our best understanding of fingerprints and the way they are distributed in the human population is that they are, with very high probability, unique to individuals. And so, whenever the fingerprints of an individual match those found at the scene of a crime, we conclude that the individual was indeed at the scene of the crime.

The forensic scientist’s stock of design inferences is continually increasing. Consider the following headline: “DNA Tests Becoming Elementary in Solving Crimes.” The lead article went on to describe…

[p. 23>]

the type of reasoning employed by forensic scientists in DNA testing. As the following excerpt makes clear, all the key features of the design inference described in Sections 1.1 and 1.2 are present in DNA testing (The Times — Princeton-Metro, N.J., 23 May 1994, p. A 1):

TRENTON — A state police DNA testing program is expected to be ready in the fall, and prosecutors and police are eagerly looking forward to taking full advantage of a technology that has dramatically boosted the success rate of rape prosecutions across the country.

Mercer County Prosecutor Maryann Bielamowicz called the effect of DNA testing on rape cases “definitely a revolution. It’s the most exciting development in my career in our ability to prosecute.”

She remembered a recent case of a young man arrested for a series of three sexual assaults. The suspect had little prior criminal history, but the crimes were brutal knifepoint attacks in which the assailant broke in through a window, then tied up and terrorized his victims.

“Based on a DNA test in one of those assaults he pleaded guilty to all three. He got 60 years. He’ll have to serve 271/2 before parole. That’s pretty good evidence,“ she said.

All three women identified the young man. But what really intimidated the suspect into agreeing to such a rotten deal were the enormous odds —one in several million — that someone other than he left semen containing the particular genetic markers found in the DNA test. Similar numbers are intimidating many others into foregoing trials, said the prosecutor.6 (jump)

Not just forensic science, but the whole field of detection is in­conceivable without the design inference. Indeed, the mystery genre would be dead without it.7 (jump) When in the movie Double Indemnity Edward G. Robinson (“the insurance claims man”) puts it together that Barbara Stanwyck’s husband did not die an accidental death by falling off a train, but instead was murdered by Stanwyck to…

[p. 24>]

collect on a life insurance policy, the design inference is decisive. Why hadn’t Stanwyck’s husband made use of his life insurance pol­icy earlier to pay off on a previously sustained injury, for the pol­icy did have such a provision? Why should he die just two weeks after taking out the policy? Why did he happen to die on a train, thereby requiring the insurance company to pay double the usual in­demnity (hence the title of the movie)? How could he have broken his neck falling off a train when at the time of the fall, the train could not have been moving faster than 15 m.p.h.? And who would seriously consider committing suicide by jumping off a train mov­ing only 15 m.p.h.? Too many pieces coalescing too neatly made the explanations of accidental death and suicide insupportable. Thus, at one point Edward G. Robinson exclaims, “The pieces all fit together like a watch!” Suffice it to say, in the movie Barbara Stanwyck and her accomplice/lover Fred MacMurray did indeed kill Stanwyck’s husband.

Whenever there is a mystery, it is the design inference that elicits the crucial insight needed to solve the mystery. The dawning recog­nition that a trusted companion has all along been deceiving you (cf. Notorious); the suspicion that someone is alive after all, even though the most obvious indicators point to the person having died (cf. The Third Man); and the realization that a string of seemingly accidental deaths were carefully planned (cf. Coma) all derive from design in­ferences. At the heart of these inferences is a convergence of small probabilities and specifications, a convergence that cannot properly be explained by appealing to chance.

Notes

2) The archer example introduces a tripartite distinction that will be implicit throughout our study of chance elimination arguments: a reference class of possible events (e.g.. the arrow hitting the wall at some unspecified place): a pattern that restricts the reference class of possible events (e.g.. a target on the wall); and the precise event that has occurred (e.g., the arrow hitting the wall at some precise location). In a chance elimination argument, the reference class, the pattern, and the event are always inseparably linked, with the pattern mediating between the event and the reference class, helping to decide whether the event really is due to chance. Throughout this monograph we shall refer to patterns and events as such, but refer to reference classes by way of the chance hypotheses that characterize them (cf. Section 5.2). (back)

3) This conclusion is consistent with algorithmic information theory, which regards a sequence of numbers as nonrandom to the degree that it is compressible. Since compressibility within algorithmic information theory constitutes but a special case of detachability, and since most sequences are incompressible, the detachable sequences are indeed quite limited. See Kolmogorov (1965), Chaitin (1966). and van Lambalgen (1989). See also Section 1.7 (back)

4) Legal scholars continue to debate the proper application of probabilistic reasoning to legal problems. Larry Tribe (1971), for instance, views the application of Bayes’s theorem within the context of a trial as fundamentally unsound. Michael Finkelstein takes the opposite view (see Finkelstein, 1978, p. 288 ff.). Still, there appears no getting rid of the design inference in the law. Cases of bid-rigging (Finkelstein and Levin, 1990, p. 64), price-fixing (Finkelstein and Levenbach, 1986, pp. 79-106), and collusion often cannot be detected save by means of a design inference. (back)

[….]

6) It’s worth mentioning that at the time of this writing, the accuracy and usefulness of DNA testing is still a matter for debate. As a New York Times (23 August 1994, p. A10) article concerned with the currently ongoing 0..1. Simpson case remarks. “there is wide disagree­ment among scientific experts about the accuracy and usefulness of DNA testing and they emphasize that only those tests performed under the best of circumstances are valuable?’ My interest, however, in this matter is not with the ultimate fate of DNA testing, but with the logic that underlies it, a logic that hinges on the design inference. (back)

7) Cf. David Lehman’s (1989, p. 20) notion of “retrospective prophecy” as applied to the detective-fiction genre: “If mind-reading. backward-reasoning investigators of crimes —sleuths like Dupin or Sherlock Holmes — resemble prophets, it’s in the visionary rather than the vatic sense. It’s not that they see into the future; on the contrary. they’re not even looking that way. But reflecting on the clues left behind by the past, they see patterns where the rest of us see only random signs. They reveal and make intelligible what otherwise would be dark.” The design inference is the key that unlocks the patterns that “the rest of us see only Iasi random signs.” (back)

William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Estimating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge Press, 1998), 9-20, 22-24.

Career Ending Humor (Monty Python)

Published by Papa Giorgio

POWERLINE has an excellent post about making jokes and today’s PC-culture:

Monty Python fans may remember the long sketch about the “lethal joke” that was so funny you would die from laughter, and which was weaponized for battlefield use in World War II… [below/right]…The sketch culminates in the worldwide banning of jokes of mass destruction through the Geneva Convention, but it seems the University of Oregon takes the idea seriously. Get a load of this story:

British conductor sacked by US music festival after ‘innocent’ joke with his African-American friend was labelled racist

An acclaimed British conductor has been fired from a prestigious American music festival after a seemingly innocent joke he made to a black friend was labelled racist.

Matthew Halls was removed as artistic director of the Oregon Bach Festival following an incident in which he imitated a southern American accent while talking to his longstanding friend, the African-American classical singer Reginald Mobley.

It is understood a white woman who overheard the joke reported it to officials at the University of Oregon, which runs the festival, claiming it amounted to a racial slur.

Shortly after Halls, who has worked with orchestras and opera houses across Europe and the US, was told by a university official his four year contract, which was to have run until 2020, was being terminated………..

(Read It All)

Dinosaur Syndrome: Big Hearts, Small Brains

Published by Papa Giorgio

Senator Rand Paul gives a passionate speech about how congress should send money to Hurricane Harvey survivors but shouldn’t increase the debt to pay for it. Paul makes the case that the US should stop sending money to foreign countries before we pay for our problems. Paul believes Congress continually votes with their hearts and not their heads.

Dr. Lawrence Kruass Caught Lying (+Krauthammer)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally Posted November 2013

The second part is the ongoing debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Lawrence Krauss. This ends the debate — effectively — any discussion of Craig’s use of the BGV Theorum. Two places to go to read the dialogue of this debate ending in full — which shows Dr. Krauss to be intentionally misrepresenting Dr. Vilenkin’s work. The first place to go is of course one of the principle players site, Dr. Craig (above and below):

The second place to go has a good summary and bullet point addition to the above, and where I found this nugget… which shows Dr. Kruass apparently wanted to hide what he knew was, a) a trouncing of himself in a public debate (yes, Dr. Craig is that good), b) willfully trying to hide his willful miss-characterization of Dr. Vilenkin’s work, or c), both.

  • (Via Wintery Knight) ~ “UPDATE: Dr. Craig reports that Dr. Krauss refused to let the organizers live-stream the three Australia debates, as well as refusing to let the Australian Broadcasting Corporation live-broadcast the three debates.”

Wow. As an ex-con, and someone who has raised boys that are actively wanting to be in law enforcement ~ (the oldest is part way done getting into the Sheriff’s … although he may be going active duty soon if they accept him into EOD, versus if he is going to stay in the airwing of the Corp as a reservist) ~ I know intimately what covering up a lie looks like. Dr. Krauss fits the criteria — fidgeting with which drink he is going to choose while Dr. Craig responds, to his mannerisms setting up the email, to his trying not to have the debate go public — he is truly “busted”!

(The description for the video below) In a mention of his interview with Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager revisits the insanity of recent positions within atheistic cosmology. The astrophysicist Dennis Prager refers to, Lawrence Krauss, who was recently shown to be dishonest in a public forum on this very issue

Child Abuse – Child Changes Mind On Sex Change (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

See my page on TRANSGENDERISM where many change their mind after receiving counseling.

The DAILY CALLER has more:

…..Gender dysphoria is considered by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to be a “mental disorder,” while the World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes it as a “mental illness.”

“You wish you could just change everything about you, you just see any girl and you say I’d kill to be like that,” Mitchell says in the interview.

Mitchell received support from his mother to begin transitioning, and after taking hormones, he began to grow breasts.

“In the beginning of 2017, teachers at school began to refer to him as a girl which triggered Mitchell to question if he had made the right decision,” the independent added.

After reflecting on the decision to become a girl, Mitchell decided that he no longer wanted to be a girl.

“I began to realize I was actually comfortable in my body. Every day I just felt better,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell has stopped taking female hormones as he attempts to go back to being a boy and is expected to have surgery to remove the breasts he grew during his time as a girl.

GAY PATRIOT chimes in as only VtheK can:

…Maybe the caring adults in this kid’s life should have sought out mental health resources to help learn to love and accept his physical body. Gender dysphoria is, after all, a condition of the mind, not the body.

Especially among children, whom adults don’t trust to make any serious life choices unless there is a sexual proclivity attached to them. Adults don’t trust children to take an Ibuprofen tablet when they have a headache; but they are allowed unrestricted access to abortions and body altering hormones.

Transgenderism, uniquely among identity disorders, is treated by indulging the delusions of the person that their body is something other than it really is. We don’t treat people who feel they should be disabled by disabling them. We don’t treat anorexic people by helping them starve. We don’t treat people who think they’re Joan of Arc by burning them at the stake.

I think the  reason… the reason no one will admit to… is because unlike those other disorders, transgenderism is considered sexy and kinky. I have no proof, it’s just a feeling. Progressives identify with transsexuals because it seems like a kinky fetish. They’re into that.

And there are real world consequences to treating transgender dysmorphia like a disorder of the body instead of the mind. Suicide rates among post-operative transgendered people attest to this. But the point is, progressive societies are less concerned with helping people with body identity disorders than they are about feeling good about their feelings… and getting turned on.

A DACA Run (5-Uploads Via My YouTube)

Published by Papa Giorgio

White House Press Conference – DACA Question — A reporter tries to get a definitive response on a complicated issue. The BEST advice to Dreamers? Don’t rob a liquor store.

One person commented via my YouTube:

  • Giorgio is on FIRE today. thanks for bringing us this content

Your welcome.

Lisa Kennedy Montgomery (just “Kennedy”) is asked about the “Constitutionality” of DACA on Fox News’ show, “Outnumbered.” Her answer was short and to the point.

John and Ken bring some sanity to the issue of DACA and show the insanity of California politician on the matter.

In the 9-6-17 “Briefing,” Dr. Mohler explains the differences between “dumb and Constitutional,” and, “right and not Constitutional.” Jonathan Turley’s article that Attorney General Jeff Sessions quotes is his testimony before Congress (PDF). For more on Reagan and his dealing on this same issue, listen to this upload of Larry Elder discussing the Latino/Hispanic vote:

Dennis Prager discusses what Trump did versus the media’s view of the issue. As usual, the Leftist media is hyperventilating.