Philisophical

Flushing Out the Bias in Confirmation Bias

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Confirmation bias is a phrase that has been become a popular way of challenging people who disagree with us.  It might be used as a shield or a weapon in uncomfortable conversations… you know what I mean.

Once the confirmation bias phrase is deployed, the substance of any conversation is effectively deflected down the rabbit hole of who is or is not personally biased.

The funny thing is – we all have them. Biases I mean. We tend to be very aware of them, but not necessarily in ourselves. Most likely we aware of the biases (or what we think are biases) in others. Perhaps, less stridently, we are aware of our own.

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Atheism and Freethinking

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Photo by Tim Butterfield

Photo by Tim Butterfield

Atheists like to call themselves freethinkers. Many of them have thrown off the shackles of religious and cultural bondage, and escaped the herd mentality, the taboos of religion and even culture, and pride themselves in their independent thinking and daring to strike out from the shores of conventional thought. New Atheism is even religious about it, but that is a topic for another day.

It seems that atheism and freethinking go together, at least by the declarations of the atheists I have known and read. But do they go together?

Can they go together?

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Reblogging Darwin’s Blind Spot

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Photo by Ken Gortowski

Photo by Ken Gortowski

I recently read Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen C. Meyer, and I highly recommend it. I have touched on another aspect of Darwin in my own writings, something that Gerald M. Vershuuren calls “Darwin’s blind spot”.

I previously highlighted an aspect of Darwin’s thinking in Random Thoughts on Evolution that seem to undermine his own theory. Darwin expressed skepticism about the value of his own “inward convictions” (that there is purpose in the world) as quoted from a letter he wrote July 3, 1881, to William Graham who posited that natural laws imply purpose in life, the following:

I cannot see that there is then necessarily any purpose. Would there be purpose if the lowest organisms alone destitute of consciousness existed in the moon? But I have had no practice in abstract reasoning and I may be all astray. Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

The fact that he could not trust his inward convictions follows fairly naturally from his theory that all life has evolved, including mankind, from lower life forms. It strikes me as ironic, however, that Darwin’s skepticism stopped with his inward convictions and did not extend, also, to, the conclusions of his mind.

I do not mean to suggest at all that Darwin was not highly intelligent, a genius in fact. I simply hold out that Darwin’s conclusion about his inward convictions should have also caused him to doubt the processes of his mind as well, including his construct of the evolutionary theory .

My point is this: if Darwin could not trust his inward convictions, being the product of a mind derived from lower life forms, what confidence should Darwin have in the “rational” conclusions of that same mind, it being the derived from irrational, random processes?

Vershuuren takes the analysis further in Darwin’s Blind Spot.

A Cosmological Argument for God

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Clouds over Connelly's & Utz's

A Cosmological Argument for God:

  • If the universe began to exist, then the universe has a cause
  • The universe began to exist
  • Therefore, the universe had a cause

To suppose that something sprang into being, uncaused out of nothing is worse than believing in magic, according to Dr. William Lane Craig. If a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you start with the magician, as well as the hat. Magicians, rabbits and hats combine to trick our minds with illusion, but we know it is an illusion. We know the reality is belied by what we think we see.

Call it intuition. Call it something else. Our observation fails sometimes to provide us the complete picture, but we “know” the reality nevertheless.

Lawrence Krauss makes the case for the universe arising out of nothing. But, when he talks about nothing, he is not talking about absolutely nothing. His “nothing” is actually vacuums of energy. Something can hardly be nothing. David Albert, the philosopher of science, and Ph.D. in quantum physics, calls Krauss’s argument “wrong”, but I dare say it does not take a Ph.D. to know that Krauss cannot be right.

Krauss’s nothing, like the rabbit pulled out of a hat, simply begs the next question: where did the vacuums of energy come from? And, if the answer is simply other vacuums of energy (like other Big Bangs, or other universes, or aliens), you know what the next question will be. This reasoning is an infinite series of regress. It is an exercise in avoiding the only other plausible possibility.

The scientific evidence suggests that the reality we know had a beginning. The Big Bang theory, the expanding universe, the second law of thermodynamics, the radiation afterglow and other observations all suggest that the universe had a beginning. Tufts Professor, Alexander Vilenkin, claims to have discovered, after 35 years of tracing the universe back in time, that, prior to the beginning of the universe, there was not another universe, or aliens or anything; “there was nothing, nothing at all, not even time itself.“

That, indeed is a tough pill to swallow for a scientific and intellectual community that desperately wants “something” to have always existed. Anything will do, as long as it provides an alternative to the conclusion that an uncaused Causer, an unmoved Mover got the ball rolling. That we are left with no satisfactory explanation but that some intelligence designed the universe (itself being infinite and outside of time, space and even matter) is inescapable.

Many an honest atheist concedes this point:

“Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say “supernatural”) plan.”

(Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, “Cosmos, Bios, and Theos,” page 83)

“An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”

(Dr. Francis Crick, biochemist, Nobel Prize winner, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, pg. 88)

“There are only two possibilities as to how life arose; one is spontaneous generation arising to evolution, the other is a supernatural creative act of God, there is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with only one possible conclusion, that life arose as a creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God, therefore I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”

(Dr. George Wald, evolutionist, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University at Harvard, Nobel Prize winner in Biology.)

“Darwin’s theory of evolution is the last of the great nineteenth-century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudians and Marxism into the Nether regions, and I’m quite sure that Freud, Marx and Darwin are commiserating one with the other in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather.”

(Dr. David Berlinski, Ph.D from Princeton, Philosopher and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture – a self-described secular Jew)

As to the argument that there is no reason to endow the cause of the universe with any of the properties normally ascribed to God, this is the response:

What properties must the cause of the universe possess? According to Dr. William Lane Craig, the cause of the universe must have the following attributes:

  • The cause of space and time must transcend space and time
  • It must, therefore, be spaceless and timeless
  • It must, therefore, be changeless and immaterial
  • Anything that is timeless must be unchanging (anything that is material is always changing, at least at the atomic and molecular level)
  • Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused because there cannot be an infinite regress of causes
  • It must be unimaginably powerful
  • It must be personal (implied by timelessness and immateriality)

The only candidates are unembodied minds or abstract objects (like numbers), but abstract objects do not stand in causal relation to anything. The number 7, for instance, has no effect on anything. The cause must be, therefore, an unembodied mind. This is implied by the origin of an effect with a beginning from a beginningless cause.

How else could a timeless cause give effect to a temporal beginning? If the cause were a mechanical effect of necessary and sufficient conditions, then the cause could never exist without its effect. When the cause is given, the effect is given as well; they must exist together. The cause of water freezing is temperature below zero centigrade. If the temperate was always zero from eternity past, then any water existing would be frozen from eternity. It would be impossible for the water to begin to freeze at any finite time in the past. If the cause is permanently present, the effect is permanently present as well.

In the case of the universe, how can the cause be timeless and permanent and the effects only begin a finite time ago?  The only way is for the cause to be personal, endowed with freedom of the will who could spontaneously create a new effect without any prior conditions. Thus, not only is there a transcendent cause, but a personal creator.

Those are the characteristics of God.

This is taken from a “talk” that Dr. William Lane Craig gave at Oxford University in England. You can follow the link to hear the entire presentation given in a creative way.

All We Are is Dust in the Wind?

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Kerry Livgren

Dust in the Wind by Kansas was an anthem of my youth. “Don’t hang on, nothing last forever but the earth and sky.” It has the air of youthful wisdom: live for the moment; you only live once! “All we are is dust in the wind.”

I have seen photos of my grandfather in the 1930’s, when he was a youth. There was a certain exuberance in his eyes, a seize-life-by-the-tail attitude behind that shock of curly hair. It was a tough time, but you would not know it by the youthful grin.

My grandparents lived frugally and modestly, but they enjoyed life. My grandfather worked at one place his whole life. He walked to work every day. They had one car. He began as an office boy for Kroehler Furniture in Naperville, IL, and he retired as the head auditor of the whole company. He worked hard. He prepared tax returns during “tax season”. My grandmother was the mother hen, caring for everyone, making the meals, cleaning, always moving. They loved each other clearly. They went dancing every Friday night with a local “dance club” and played bridge in a local bridge club. They probably enjoyed family gatherings the most, and they took many vacations in their later years.

I noticed, even as a young child, that they found joy in the smallest of details, and they could talk about the mundane matters of life, like the price of gas or how the last hand of Pitch (a family card game) played out, as if they were discussing treasures and archeological finds. It was not just small talk. They found thrills in the little things of everyday life. They looked back with fondness and forward with brave anticipation, and they lived in the moments in between.

I am not sure they thought much about the meaning of life. At least, they never talked about those things. They talked about everything else. They went to Catholic mass every Sunday. I think they found meaning in everything they did, but I am not sure they could have, or would have, defined that meaning. They just lived it.

“[T]here is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.” (Eccl. 3:13)

That pretty much sums up what I remember of my grandparents. I believe they saw life for the gift it is, toil and all, and found happiness in it as the writer of Ecclesiastes suggested we should thousands of years ago.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die….” (Eccl. 3:1-2)

My last memories of my grandfather were grim. He had the excruciating pain of cancer in his eyes. He bravely faced it, without complaint, like he ventured into adulthood in the middle of the Great Depression. My grandparents, my father’s parents, lived every moment in their lives; they drank life up, but the end of life came hard. Cancer took my grandfather in a short cruel time, and my grandmother lapsed into the pain of loneliness and memory loss, slowly fading over years into her last days.

Now they have peace from that pain; but the joy of their lives is gone now – “dust in the wind”.

There is “a time to be born and a time to die” and what happens in between is like “dust in the wind” as the 1970’s Kansas anthem goes. The life we live is real in the moment, but the moments go by all too quickly, and they are just wisps of memory that will fade out of mind when we are gone.

One response to that reality is to chase the thrills of life while we can. I saw a man recently at a community event who I knew years ago. He seemed old when I first met him, but he was living the thrill life, wearing the bandanas still that he wore in his youth that hid the grey balding crown under the weathered face of a biker who had seen more than his share of good times. He had lived hard and fast. When I saw him recently, the bandana still covered is is white frock of hair, but he was noticeably much older. When he caught my eye again, a couple of hours later, it was due to the commotion caused as he stumbled out of a port-a-potty. He fell to the ground and was unable to get up. Four or five men helped him with difficulty to his feet where he swayed unsteadily, dazed, a distant look in his eyes. He was taken away by ambulance.

I am reminded of another white-haired man nearing the end of this life. He sits in the third row at church every Sunday with his wife and a number of younger family members, a different mix every week. Every week when the singing ends and people are excused, he makes his way to a chair in the hall and sits there waiting for eyes to meet his, to offer his hand in greeting, to engage in conversation. He has a quick wit and wry smile. He will joke and offer a story from his long life. Stories of his wife, filled with humor. Stories of WWII, which he fought in the Pacific. Most people pass him without making eye contact, but he is content. His family is his legacy. He has an air about him that he knows where is going. The path is now short.

Is it better to stumble into the great beyond or to walk gracefully, contentedly into it? What hope is there in this life? The writer of Ecclesiastes offers this: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart….” (Eccl. 3:11)

If God has put into eternity into our hearts, the fleeting and seeming meaninglessness of this life would be a cruel joke if there was not something better beyond.

Kansas is still singing Dust in the Wind, at least for now. The group is noticeably aged. Their individual songs will come to an end, as each of our songs will end, at least for now. The song may be an anthem for youth anticipation, but it hardly seems anthem-like as the days of life wane.

Kerry Livgren, the original lead guitarist for Kansas, became a Christian in 1979, after Kansas introduced Dust in the Wind to the world. Here is an interview from 1980. Livgren has continued to make music, among other things, but he found the Creator in the days of his youth, and he has lived a different life ever since. (http://www.numavox.com/us.htm)

Remember your Creator

in the days of your youth,

before the days of trouble come

and the years approach when you will say,

“I find no pleasure in them”

….

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,

and the golden bowl is broken;

before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

and the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,

and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

When the dust of our bones returns to the earth, those who remembered the Creator in the days of their youth and throughout life will gladly submit their spirits to the God who gave them life. If all we are is dust in the wind, we might as well live for the momentary thrills and stumble into our graves; but if God, Himself, placed eternity in our hearts, we await a different ending…. and a new beginning.