John Safran Proselytizes for Atheism

Oh, my belly hurts from laughing.

Watch John go door-to-door and try to tell people the "good news" of atheism at Youtube.

HT onegoodmove:

John Safran vs. The Mormons. Trading places is priceless. DVD available here

The Youtube clip is available for download here.

Also see other Safran vids on Youtube.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion, Humor

Thoughts on the "N-Word"

Back in May, CNN had a special debate on "The N-Word", contrasting the views of Prof. Michael Dyson against Dr. Bill Cosby, which I weighed in on. Given the recent antics by Kramer, I thought it germane to link to them.

My thoughts were basically reiterated by Earl Hutchinson at the HuffPo -- it is imperative that the black community stop using the N-word in order to see the extinction of this racial epithet:

The obsessive use of and the tortured defense of the word by so many blacks gave Richards the license to use the word without any thought that there'd be any blow back for doing it. He was terribly wrong and got publicly called out for it. The blacks that use and defend that word should be called out too. Who's willing to do that?

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Technorati tags: Culture, Racism

May the Lord Bless Thee, Harry Reid

Remember, PERA has a few more days of the lame duck session before it is effectively dead in the water. You know those pathetic Religious Right Repubs are pushing things like this hard before their chance expire on Jan 20, 2007. Thank Jesus for Harry Reid:

Senator Seeks to Protect Religious Freedom

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., is urging his colleagues to allow a vote on the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA) — a measure the House approved 244-173.

PERA would eliminate the awarding of attorneys' fees to groups that challenge religious displays on public property — many communities give in to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) after just a threat of litigation.

"The ACLU and others use these legal fees as blackmail against a community putting up a Nativity scene or having a Ten Commandments expression," Brownback told Agape Press.

Brownback filed PERA as an amendment to the Veteran's Administration Appropriations bill. But incoming Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used a procedural tactic to keep it from a vote.

Religious-liberty advocates say there may still be time to pass PERA before the 109th Congress adjourns.

Amanda Banks, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said it's important for people to call their senators and urge them to support a vote on PERA.

"This may be the best chance we have to pass another pro-family bill before Congress adjourns," she said. "It's crucial that senators hear from their constituents on this legislation right away."

Religious liberty my ass. This bill is the most blatant anti-1st Amendment piece of trash to be passed through the House in decades. It confers more power to the government, safeguarding the government from being scrutinized and penalized when they break the law and trample on religious liberties.

Want to know just a bit about this cock-knocker Brownback? Well...

when [Pat] Robertson was asked on ABC's "This Week'' who he thought might make a fine Republican nominee in 2008, he began his answer: "There's an outstanding senator from Kansas ...''

Enough said. If Pat Robertson supports this guy for president, all rational people should run like hell the other way.

On a related note, Dobson will be on Larry King Wednesday.
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Technorati tags: Politics, Religion

Lagging Coverage

The Alligator finally decided to cover Joey Johnsen with a front-page story on Friday. About time.

They did supply me with one thing I didn't yet know -- he did in fact graduate from UPenn.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

UF Campus Preachers - Part 1 of 2

If you've been a Gator long, you've probably come through Turlington Plaza and seen Joey Johnsen^[1], Michael Siemer, Tom Short, or Frank Zaccaro** (picture index below)-- our keynote campus preachers. But, you probably don't know their names, or much about the phenomenon of campus preaching generally. Allow me to enlighten you...or dirty your brain up a bit, depending on your perspective.

**UPDATE: Part 2 is now available (1/15/07)**

To begin, I have had a very interesting convergence of events that I want to share with you, and I'm seriously considering submitting an article to the Alligator, or some freethought mags and newspapers. The other day, I randomly met "Radical Bill", aka William H. Abney, as I was arguing with Tom Short^[2]. Bill came up and Tom actually knew him by name, although Bill is obviously a homeless man. The reason, I later came to find out, is that Bill is infamous for his antics involving campus preachers. Bill seemed to know the arguments of creationism well, and he thoroughly mocked Tom for believing "Bronze Age sheepherders" and Bill really stole the show for a few minutes. Tom went for a low blow, saying something about how Bill was poor, and Bill remarked back that the VA gave him money every month, and that he chose to live how he lives and is happy that way.

I never thought I'd randomly run into Bill only a few days later (perhaps a week ago) on the Plaza of the Americas. I ended up sitting in the grass with him and smoking a cigar and chatting for at least an hour. We talked politics and religion and he told me something of his life. He told me about the Danny Rolling years, and he told me about the Gainesville church fires in the early '90s, about his trips to Alaska, about things he'd seen and done. I really enjoyed meeting him.

It just so happens that Bill made it into the Florida Oral History General Collections as entry UF 302 on p.258. He was always involved in campus politics and demonstrations, and was apparently the archetype-antagonist of campus preachers on UF in his day. Who happens to have gotten his start here at UF, and met his wife here, facilitated by Radical Bill?

None other than "Brother Jed", humbly self-proclaimed the "foremost campus preacher" in the US; henceforth known as BJ (snicker). Bill told me that he introduced Jed to his wife Cindy Lasseter, and that she was quite "the disco whore" in her day, rarely sober, ever ready to shag, and certainly unholy. He told me that this chick and he were stoners and used to laugh at and mock the campus preachers, but that she had developed a crush on BJ, and asked Bill to introduce them. At the time, I had no idea who this BJ fellow was, and I thought that Bill might've been joshing me. It turns out he told the truth.

BJ is a rarity among his peers. He has his own Wikipedia article. He has written Who Will Rise Up?, which details his life and ministry. He also has an FAQ from an alt.usenet group made by people he's "touched" with his life's work. BJ is one of the first major traveling campus preachers, and probably has more nationwide name-recognition than any other. He also appears to have founded a "school" to train up others to follow in his footsteps. It appears that we have him to ultimately thank for training/inspiring at least two of our other campus preachers -- Frank Zaccaro and Tom Short. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to meet BJ yet, although he stars in the gallery of campus preacher pics compiled by past AASA members at UF, and I suspect he'll return some time.

BJ made it into Rolling Stone on March 27, 1986, in their special campus issue (issue #471 -- Bruce Willis on the cover), which had articles about politics and religion on campus from pp. 75-100. The title of his article was "Hell on Campus", by David Handelman. Radical Bill claims he was quoted in the article, and I have submitted an Illiad request to get a copy of the article. After seeing that Bill told the truth about Cindy (read the story she confirmed here, in Who Will Rise Up?, see section 7 -- "From Disco Queen to Gospel Preacher"), I suspect he's telling the truth about being quoted in the article. I'll have more details on that in part 2.^[3]

Youtube has numerous videos starring BJ; they have numerous videos of general campus preachers, as well. By far, the funniest video I saw of BJ and Frank Zaccaro (download the .flv HERE) involved a tirade about sex at the U of Oregon that went on and on about how lesboes use dildoes on each other and boys masturbate too much, which causes them to have premature ejaculation. He also promised that if the girls wanted a good orgasm, they should get a good Christian boy who doesn't masturbate and look at porn so much. Not exactly your typical Sunday sermon material, but certainly hilarious.

A blogger posted this video after the visit on May 31, 2006, one that made the newspaper front page there. Some Mizzou students have multiple videos of the same sort of nonsense on their campus, and student comments, dating from last fall's visit. An AAFSA member tells me that Jed practically camps out at Mizzou, and this seems quite reasonable, since he lives so close (near Columbia, MO).

His apprentice/companion Frank Zaccaro is the guy in the video (and here on-campus, hopefully it gets washed once in a while) with the "TRUST JESUS" T-shirt, and usually has this huge sign on a stick attached to a belt that he wears around his waist that says "YOU MAKE ME SICK" and lists: "Rebellious Women, Atheists, Abortionists...Wiccans" [the typical list]. One of the funniest comments on it is that he reviles, "The Cult of the Effeminate Intellect," which, he explained to me, meant "hippy-like 'God is all love' and mushy crap like that." I just thought he was a local, but no! I was talking to him on Tuesday (11/14/06), and I had no idea he was with Jed, or I would've asked him more questions.

One of the most interesting things about these guys, and their apparent organization, is the fact that other Christians probably revile them just as much, if not more, than many of us nonbelievers.

Many times I use the Turlington Plaza webcam to see if these guys are out there. It is obvious when they are, and have a large crowd, but sometimes they don't. A really good question that often comes up is -- why do I bother arguing with these guys?

1. I love to argue
2. They spew nonsense too often unchallenged
3. Some people will believe half of the crap they say without someone out there to make them back up their off-the-wall claims. Some of these claims include faulty statistics about gay people or atheists, or non sequiturs about science, eg Tom Short about evolution and Hitler etc.
4. I love to argue
5. They are quite entertaining
6. I love to get in "zingers" when they expose themselves -- like when they are condemning lust or sex or porn -- most recently, the best one I got off [no pun intended] was in the middle of Tom Short's railing against hypocrisy, which ensued after an argument with a liberal Christian he condemned, and during a pause for breath I asked, "When was the last time you looked at porn?" He paused, said, "It's been a while," stuttered, tried to get back on topic, and I said, "How long ago?" Tom stammered something about, "Well sometimes things pop up on your screen..." Zing!]
7. Garbage and lies being forceably pushed on / screamed at people as they peaceably go about their business is wrong; I counter it.
   
8. I know lots of people in their crowds want to challenge them, but are too shy or are afraid they don't know enough about the Bible, my boldness encourages others to join in the fray.
   

There are some really good suggestions out there for how to best deal with these guys. I really liked what the kids in the U of Oregon vid did -- they sang the Star-Spangled Banner to drown out the nonsense. It's a fun and non-confrontational way to show them their message of hate and ignorance is unwanted, and it discourages them a bit. Perhaps next time if a few people out there with me will join in, we can try this approach. Also, I advocate the approach outlined in this Mencken quote:

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by such learned dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe--that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power, and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent. —H. L. Mencken, Prejudices (fourth series)

I just joined a Facebook group protesting the Turlington preachers. You should, too!

Stay tuned for part 2, with more good stuff to come.

[1] I thought it fair to mention that some people are now defending Joey in the Alligator. His defense/dislike ratio is still pretty small, though.

[2] I believed I was the only blogger with articles on Tom at UF, but I was wrong -- the events of last fall, including the arrest of Christine Miller's dad, (see more on her here and here, and a letter from her dad on the situation here) got Tom in the blogosphere before me.

[3] Part 2 of this review will include anything I find interesting in this Rolling Stone article, phone interview details with Ruben Israel, an associate of BJ's; and possibly interviews with Frank Zaccaro and Brother Jed, if they respond to my emails as Ruben did.

Picture index:

1. Joey Johnsen (email)
   



2. Michael Siemer (email) (on the right with Moses/Elijah-beard, also see this pic from here)



3. Tom Short (email)



4. Frank Zaccaro (email)



5. Brother Jed (email) (gotta love that leather vest)

**It turns out that Frank's last name is not Warner, as I first thought from his email addy, but Zaccaro.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

Center for Inquiry

There's a WaPo article on the CFI's new DC thinktank -- the Office of Public Policy.

This office was mentioned at the summer conference at the CFI that I and 5 others from AAFSA attended in July. The CFI is by far the biggest and best institution to get things done and advocate freethought and secularism. I'm looking forward to reaping the efforts of their hard work.

Responding to ID -- A Review of Their Positive Arguments with Rebuttals

**UPDATE (2/9/07): See Ken Miller's Youtube presentation on the errors and problems with ID arguments**

Intro: I simply want to lay out a fair representation of the positive case for intelligent design (ID) in this article, and examine why the case has been ruled a failure by the greater scientific community. Because ID is so vague, eg defined by the Discovery Institute as,

The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Therefore, making an argument for such a claim is going to be difficult from the outset. "Some features"? "An intelligent cause"? We see the vagueness of the definition come back to haunt ID advocates in their inability to put forth convincing arguments which line up with "this is best explained by an intelligent cause" versus "random mutation/natural selection". For example, some of ID's cosmological arguments in The Privileged Planet (largely the anthropic principle) do not [obviously] fit this criterion.

And thus lot of what passes for "arguments" coming from ID/Creationism (IDC) these days against biology is simple: find some part of evolution that people don't know a lot about and say, "How do you explain X?!" This argument from ignorance is common among laypeople, because they don't know enough about the science to make positive arguments for the claims of IDC. Therefore, a great deal of the "noise" and political theatre of IDC is just critiques of evolution. As Judge Jones eloquently pointed out, there is a false dichotomy between showing someone else's explanation isn't good and proving your own case [not granting that the former has been done in the case of IDC]. Just because you do the former doesn't mean you've done the latter -- established evidence for IDC. I would call these critiques and arguments from ignorance negative in character, because they do not purport to demonstrate the truth of IDC.

However, there are some positive arguments for IDC, and they will be the focus of this review. I am going to go through and list the positive arguments (that I'm aware of), and link to strong rebuttals/refutations of those arguments.

Almost everyone already knows the basic arguments of IDC: "design detection" (DD) and "irreducible complexity" (IC). Generalized arguments, though very useful in philosophy, don't work in science. You have to pick particular examples (data) and use these to demonstrate your argument works. Until then, you haven't yet crossed the threshold of science. I'll pick back up on this at the bottom.

Responses to the claims IC are abundant, and here are layman-friendly resources to familarize onesself with the mechanisms by which scientists explain complexity and apparent IC: exaptation/cooption, scaffolding, gene duplications, etc:
1) Prof. PZ Myers' Powerpoint presentation, see slides 29-50
2) Prof. Dave Ussery's paper delineating the four different RM/NS pathways to complexity
3) Don Lindsay, How Can Evolution Cause Irreducibly Complex Systems?

Two particular systems are touted as crucial examples of IC: i) the blood-clotting cascade (BCC)/immune response; ii) the flagellum.

i) The IC arguments for IDC are the brain-child of Prof. Michael Behe, a biochemist at Lehigh U. The BCC arguments can be found throughout IDC websites. One of the most well-informed responders to these arguments is Andrea Bottaro. Last year, as more evidence came in that transposons were involved in the human immune response, Dr. Bottaro put together the pieces and completely refuted the claim of IC as it applies to BCC. How did Prof. Behe respond? By moving the goalposts -- not in any way denying the evidence, but demanding a mutation-by-mutation account of the pathways involved. Thus, he undercuts his own argument by rendering the burden of proof unattainable by any scientific pursuit.

Also see Matt Inlay's article on the supposed IC of the BCC. Matt rigorously examines different branches of the tree of life to demonstrate the fallacious nature of the claim by evidencing the reducible nature of the immune response.

The single best place for you to start in looking at IC as it relates to the immune response is here.

These technical papers, as well as others that can be accessed via this long bibliography on the subject, here, here, and peer-reviewed literature like this Nature review and via searches on PubMed and other scientific databases, decisively defeat the claim of IC as it relates to BCC or the immune response. Again, the very important thing to do is focus in on the specific systems that are being examined, and claimed as evidence, and force the burden of proof upon the claimant. In the cases of IC, these claims have been refuted by the research of biologists and biochemists, which have always shown evidence of cooption and homology of these systems -- completely undercutting the identification of IC.

ii) The evolution of the flagellum is probably the keystone argument of IC. IDC proponents use this system because they feel it is best compared to a "machine", is most difficult to reduce, and is the strongest evidence for intelligent design in biology. One of the most comprehensive resources on this argument is from a continually-updated paper written by NCSE staffer Nick Matzke. Another resource is the PandasThumb section here on flagellum evolution.

In addition, Nick Matzke got a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Reviews which unequivocally demonstrated, for the first time, that of the 42 proteins involved in the flagellar system of a particular bacterium, all but 2 of them had known homologs! This research involves doing BLAST-type searches in the genome of the bacterium being considered, and showing that the raw evidence of co-optation/exaptation is abundant -- there is no good reason to suppose that all 42 of these components originally had the function that they now do. See also Matzke's reader background page.

Moving on to the second prong of the "case for design" involves taking on those claims that design has been "detected" via mathematical research in IC or other biological systems.

iii) Design detection is the specialty area of William Dembski. Dembski took the "No Free Lunch" (NFL) theorems developed by David Wolpert and others (background with citations) and attempted to use these mathematical constructs to argue a few different things. One of his arguments was the the NFLs showed that evolutionary RM/NS would theoretically not be successful in the development of complexity. Although we can find numerous responses and refutations of this claim (here, here, here , here and see references here -- Wein 2002a,b; Shallit 2002; Rosenhouse 2002; Perakh 2001a, 2002a, 2002b, 2003; Young 2002; Orr 2002; Van Till 2002), I think it best to turn to the person who actually developed the NFL theorems in order to take Dembski to task for misrepresenting them and their implications. Wolpert almost immediately refuted Dembski's claims, and it took a few years before Dembski further tweaked his claims:

[David H. Wolpert] The values of the factors arising in the NFL theorems are never properly specified in his analysis. More generally, no consideration is given to whether some of the free lunches in the geometry of induction might be more relevant than the NFL theorems (e.g., those free lunches concerning "head-to-head minimax" distinctions that concern pairs of algorithms considered together rather than single algorithms considered in isolation).

Indeed, throughout there is a marked elision of the formal details of the biological processes under consideration. Perhaps the most glaring example of this is that neo-Darwinian evolution of ecosystems does not involve a set of genomes all searching the same, fixed fitness function, the situation considered by the NFL theorems. Rather it is a co-evolutionary process. Roughly speaking, as each genome changes from one generation to the next, it modifies the surfaces that the other genomes are searching. And recent results indicate that NFL results do not hold in co-evolution. [emphasis mine]

It may well be that there is a major mystery underlying the performance of some search processes that one might impute to the historical transformations of ecosystems. But Dembski has not established this, not by a long shot.

Dembski refined his arguments and published (2003) a response which attempted to show that even in co-evolutionary processes, that the NFL theorems do still hold. A great deal of the problem with Dembski's work is that it is all on his own website and books, and none of it in peer-reviewed literature. That means that mathematical laymen (like me and most of you) are often going to miss the subtleties in Dembski's articles that peer-review would immediately weed out. The most basic mistakes and differences between arguments by Wolpert and Dembski will be caught by other professional mathematicians and fixed in the MSS before publication. This keeps the "certitude" factor on the IDC side to a minimum, because while Wolpert's arguments are accepted by the mathematical community, which immediately lends substantial credibility to them, and evidences Wolpert's authority, none of this can be said for Dembski. An argument from silence may then be made that Dembski's work cannot clear the bar of legitimacy. Why else would he not want it published academically, if it is valid?

Dembski may possibly complain that he can't get his work published due to discrimination, but this complaint makes little sense: Behe has published work since he published his Darwin's Black Box, and Dembski's work, being mathematical in nature, need not even address the question of evolution directly. Therefore, if any case can be made about anti-creationist bias, it would be much more likely for Behe's work to be "censored", [as they love to claim (without evidence)] due to its intrinsically anti-evolutionary content, versus Dembski's abstract math. Dembski's work may or may not apply to biological systems. Behe's is directly about biology. Therefore, which is more likely to be "censored" by anti-creationist bias, and so does Dembski have any excuse for not publishing his work in a respected academic format?

Conversely, Wolpert has recently published, via peer-reviewed literature, about the co-evolution which accurately models biological systems:

Abstract: Recent work on the foundational underpinnings of black-box optimization has begun to uncover a rich mathematical structure. In particular, it is now known that an inner product between the optimization algorithm and the distribution of optimization problems likely to be encountered fixes the distribution over likely performances in running that algorithm. One ramification of this is the "No Free Lunch" (NFL) theorems, which state that any two algorithms are equivalent when their performance is averaged across all possible problems. This highlights the need for exploiting problem-specific knowledge to achieve better than random performance. In this paper, we present a general framework covering most optimization scenarios. In addition to the optimization scenarios addressed in the NFL results, this framework covers multiarmed bandit problems and evolution of multiple coevolving players. As a particular instance of the latter, it covers "self-play" problems. In these problems, the set of players work together to produce a champion, who then engages one or more antagonists in a subsequent multiplayer game. In contrast to the traditional optimization case where the NFL results hold, we show that in self-play there are free lunches: in coevolution some algorithms have better performance than other algorithms, averaged across all possible problems. However, in the typical coevolutionary scenarios encountered in biology, where there is no champion, the NFL theorems still hold.

Dembski has seized on this last sentence as evidence that he is right. It isn't true. Note that the problem here is still that the NFL theorems are about "algorithms averaged across all possible problems".

It is thus hardly convincing to say that the specific ecological "fitness landscapes", or "search space", is not beautifully searched by RM/NS versus a blind search. Simply put, in order to model biological systems properly, the algorithm itself would have to be altered such that it was not specific-target-directed [multiple positive adaptations are possible], such that each "score" improved the algorithm [the scope of the organism's ability to adapt further], and such that each "score" altered the competitiveness of the landscape [the domain in which fitness is evaluated, here, the ecosystem, which coevolves with the players]. This is the true nature of biological co-evolution -- as organisms adapt, the machinery by which they acquire adaptations itself adapts (consider that increasing surface area for sunlight is useless to animals, but not to plants), and the environment around them is full of other "game players", co-evolving just like them. This is, so far as I am able to tell, the definition of an "open algorithm" during the permutations. This is not what Wolpert has even considered at this point.

Dembski has not modeled a system in this way as of now. Thus, in the shortest way to respond to the "postive case" Dembski has laid forth, it is simply a strawman representation of biological evolution. Modeling real evolution in simple mathematical terms is probably one of the most daunting and complicated of tasks. The NFL theorems do not take into account an algorithm that itself adapts with increased fitness of the player, and changes the landscape with each successful target. Wolpert explained this in his earliest response to Dembski, and published his findings that take this into account w.r.t. NFL theorems. This intrinsic flaw is continually overlooked and undermines the positive case for design completely.

To his credit, Dembski's formalistic abilities are not in question. That is, his ability to evaluate a given model, and perform the correct analysis, is A-ok. The problem is the relevance and correlation of this model to anything resembling reality. "Let the reader judge," as Dembski says in response.

The real problem here is that Dembski has never addressed the most substantial critiques of his work. As Mark Perakh points out in this extensively referenced article (a good place to start for an overview of the status of Dembski's claims:

When encountering critique of his work, Dembski is selective in choosing when to reply to his critics and when to ignore their critique. His preferred targets for replies are those critics who do not boast comparable long lists of formal credentials – this enables him to contemptuously dismiss the critical comments by pointing to the alleged lack of qualification of his opponents while avoiding answering the essence of their critical remarks. (See, for example, Dembski’s replies to some of his opponents [3]) This type of behavior provides certain hints at Dembski’s overriding quest for winning debate at anycost rather than striving to arrive at the truth. For example, in his book No Free Lunch [4] Dembski devoted many pages to a misuse of Wolpert and Macready’s No Free Lunch (NFL) theorems [5]. (Some early critique of Dembski’s interpretation of the NFL theorems appeared already in [6 a, b]. A detailed analysis of Dembski’s misuse of the NFL theorems is given, in particular, in [6 c].)

Dembski’s faulty interpretation of the NFL theorems was strongly criticized by Richard Wein [7] and by David Wolpert, the originator of these theorems [2]. Dembski spared no effort in rebutting Wein’s critique, devoting to it two lengthy essays. [3] However, he did not utter a single word in regard to Wolpert’s critique. It is not hard to see why. Wein, as Dembski points out, has only a bachelor’s degree in statistics – and Dembski uses this irrelevant factoid to deflect Wein’s well substantiated criticism. He does not, though, really answer the essence of Wein’s comments and resorts instead to ad hominem remarks and a contemptuous tone. He can’t do the same with Wolpert who enjoys a sterling reputation as a brilliant mathematician and who is obviously much superior to Dembski in the understanding of the NFL theorems of which he is a coauthor.

Dembski pretends that Wolpert’s critique does not exist.

Dembski has behaved similarly in a number of other situations. For example, the extensive index in his latest book The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design [8] completely omits the names of most of the prominent critics of Dembski’s ideas.

We don’t see in that index the following names:
Rich Baldwin, Eli Chiprout, Taner Edis, Ellery Eels, Branden Fitelson, Philip Kitcher, Peter Milne, Massimo Pigliucci, Del Ratzsch, Jeff Shallit, Niall Shanks, Jordan H. Sobel, Jason Rosenhouse, Christopher Stephenson, Richard Wein, and Matt Young.

All these writers have analyzed in detail Dembski’s literary output and demonstrated multiple errors, fallacious concepts and inconsistencies which are a trademark of his prolific production. (I have not mentioned myself in this list although I have extensively criticized Dembski both in web postings [9] and in print [10]; he never uttered a single word in response to my critique, while it is known for fact that he is familiar with my critique; the above list shows that I am in good company.)

Thomas D. Schneider, another strong critic of Dembski’s ideas, is mentioned in the index of [8] but the extent of the reference is as follows:

"Evolutionary biologists regularly claim to obtain specified complexity for free or from scratch. (Richard Dawkins and Thomas Schneider are some of the worst offenders in this regard.)"

Contrary to the subtitle of Dembski’s book [8], this reference can hardly be construed as an answer to Schneider’s questions. Essentially, all the listed writers have asked Dembski a number of questions regarding his concepts. The absence of any replies to the listed authors makes the title of Dembski’s new book [8], sound like a parody. It should have properly been titled The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design. Of course we already know that Dembski is a stubborn purveyor of half-baked ideas [10]. Is he also of the opinion that selectivity in choosing when to respond to opponents and when to pretend they do not exist is compatible with intellectual honesty? [edit: Check out the article for the references: http://www.talkdesign.org/people/mperakh/perakh_ddq.pdf]

Welsley R. Elsberry has an impressive set of links (left sidebar) on Dembski's work and its ramifications. Mark Chu-Carroll has an entire section examining some of Dembski's work, Richard Wein has written extensively about the problems with it, also TalkDesign, as does TalkOrigins, on the NFL and his work in information detection, for more reading. Another awesome resource is the PandasThumb IDC archive. Furthermore, this post at the PT lays out some good refs on the background arguments of Dembski involving complexity via RM/NS:

1. Peter Schuster, How does complexity arise in evolution? Complexity, 2:22-30 (1996)
2. Christoph Adami, Charles Ofria, and Travis C. Collier Evolution of biological complexity, PNAS | April 25, 2000 | vol. 97 | no. 9 | 4463-4468
3. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, and Adami C, The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features Nature, 423:139-144 (2003).
4. Tom Schneider, Rebuttal to William A. Dembski’s Posting and to His Book “No Free Lunch”
5. Tom Schneider ev: Evolution of Biological Information Nucleic Acids Res, 28:14, 2794-2799, 2000

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As we discussed at our freethought group's 11/9 meeting, there are actually some good philosophical arguments in ID. Teleological and anthropic principle-type arguments certainly aren't invalid, although the veracity of their premises is, of course, crucial. However, they simply aren't science, or scientific arguments, without meeting some pretty strict criteria, and without going through the process of peer review, experiment, and eventual scientific consensus. As of now, they are completely philosophical in nature. That only means that ID still has to pass the standard hurdles before including itself into the scientific community as a valid idea to teach in science classes.

As Prof. Joe Meert pointed out at that night's meeting, Einstein didn't take out ads in newspapers asking people to write their congressional representatives to get relativity included in high school curricula. Einstein didn't try to get a relativity-sympathetic school board voted in, and include his ideas in high school textbooks. Einstein wanted legitimacy among his scientific peers and to establish his ideas via empiricism and the method of science, and then, he knew, getting into textbooks would follow. Those sorts of political tactics by IDCists are what undermines their claim to legitimacy in the scientific community. They want their philosophical verbiage smuggled into science classrooms since they can't get a single scientific argument going for them.

Conclusion: irreducible complexity fails as a critique against evolution, as the proposed systems have viable, published explanations for their evolution; and Dembski's work in design detection fails as it is a critique against quasi-evolution -- a strawman, which does not even intersect with the robust work done by geneticists and computer scientists in mathematically modeling evolutionary theory.

The good philosophical ideas intrinsic within teleological arguments is lost amidst the "culture war" that IDC's are waging against evolution and materialism, in their own words. Hopefully, once the dust settles, and cooler heads prevail, some of their ideas can be incorporated into places that they belong (history, philosophy, etc.), and continue to be excluded from the science classroom until they become scientific...hopefully.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Joey Johnsen, Campus Preacher Celeb

I've written a few times about Joey Johnsen (see list in paragraph 4), but he just keeps popping up in UF campus news. Joey was at the Wharton Business school at UPenn, and should've graduated in '05. I'm pretty sure he said he did finish, but I'm not positive [*Update: this article says yes, he did graduate*].

I mean, the guy looks harmless, even nice. How could he stir up so much anger?

At any rate, today (11/15) he was the lambasted (again) in the editorial cartoon for his preaching antics, as well as two letters to the editor: Sermons don't spread Christian message by Paul Moore, and UF preacher harasses captive audience by Fei Long. Paul had written in a letter published last Wednesday (11/8) on the same topic: Preacher needlessly attacks Krishnas.

Basically, Joey goes out and stands beside the Hare Krishna lunch table in a public square and preaches very loudly. The Krishnas have a huge line every day, and people are forced to stand for at least 5-10 mins in one place, so he's quite the opportunistic parasite. This has caused a bit of a recent ruckus with his mentions in the Alligator op-eds.

My recent interactions with him included the recent email debate about the lineage of Jesus, my correspondence with him on various issues, and my note about his previous appearances in the campus newspaper, including a column I sent in. As I said in my post about our correspondence, Joey is not new at campus evangelism. He did a lot of it while he was at UPenn as an undergrad, in their business program. He was involved in CCC (at least, their Fall retreats) and started a campus ministry called "Frontline" in which people would go, unsolicited and unwanted (in most cases), to dorm rooms to "witness" to others (my facts from article "On the Battlefield for Our Lord: Joe Johnsen Serves in Frontline", May 10, 2004).

I wonder how the Christians would feel if I went to some place where they were peacefully going about their business and loudly read relevant portions of Friedrich Nietzsche and Freud, calling believers in God "sickly" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, see GQS 3) and telling them religion is a psychosocial delusion (Freud). I'm sure they wouldn't be happy about it. But, tu quoque -- two wrongs don't make a right, I certainly don't have the same motive as Joey does -- hellfire, and I'm above that sort of nonsense.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

Did Jesus Come via Royal Lineage?

Although the topic of the genealogy of Jesus often comes up in discussions about Biblical errancy, the issue is typically, "How do you reconcile the two differing accounts in Matthew 1 and Luke 3?"

I want to look at a different question from these passages -- "Is the claim that Jesus came from the promised lineage a valid claim?" The answer is a resounding, "No." The reasons are simple: i) Jesus was listed as via Nathan in one genealogy; ii) Jesus was listed as via Jeconiah in [at least] one genealogy. These two things disqualify one from claiming the royal lineage.

The Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah, just in case you didn't know that. The reasons are multiple (see Messiahtruth.com for more), and typically rely upon the view that Christians misinterpret the Old Testament in order to make Jesus fit all these supposed "proof texts" that make him fit the supposed profile of the Messiah. One of the most obvious examples of an out-of-context prophecy, the Jews believe, is in Isaiah 7:14 -- the "prophecy of the virgin birth". The long and short of it is that the Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah on the grounds that he didn't fit the profile (both then and now).

One other objection that has plagued accepting Jesus as the Messiah is the issue of a problematic lineage. I do not mean by this the simple contradictions between Matt 1 and Luke 3. Rather, I mean by this that the Messiah would have to be a physical descendent of Solomon, and of the royal lineage.

I recently had an extended email discussion with campus preacher Joey Johnsen about this issue, and so I have a lot of Scriptures to quote and points to make. The two genealogical passages of interest are given in this link -- Matt 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38

It is obvious from a glance that these two genealogies have significant differences. Both Matthew and Luke purport to describe Joseph's lineage. However, the traditional Christian defense of this problem is that Matthew describes Joseph while Luke describes Mary. It should be noted that there is no real support for this contention, and thus it is more of an ad hoc hypothesis than a plausible alternative. The Jews (everywhere in Scripture) referred to themselves as "the house of" their father, not their mother. Luke names Joseph, not Mary. Therefore, the liklihood of this defense being accurate doesn't seem very high. In the same sense, Levirate marriages are sometimes cited to solve the problem, but again, the support for these concerning the characters in the genealogies is nil, it is purely an ad hoc speculation.

Therefore, there may be some "solution" to remove a blatant logical contradiction, but the solution is unevidenced and contrived in order to solve an obvious problem. It is not apparent, it is not supported within the Bible itself.

I will first quote the relevant portion of Matt 1:

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, 7Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, 9Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 12After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,

Note the clear mention of Jeconiah, Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, as grandfather, father and son.

Now Luke 3:30-31

the son of Levi, 30the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,

Note the clear mention of Nathan, not Solomon, as the son of David through whom the lineage continued. As a side note, v27 of the Luke account also mentions Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, as father and son, but it doesn't mention Jeconiah.

• First, let's look at Matthew and the Jeconiah issue (ii) in the intro
  

When we go back to the OT to learn about these fellows, and their lineage, we find something which should make all Christians stop and think for a moment. In Jeremiah 22:24-30 and Jeremiah 36:30-31, we see the following about Jeconiah and his lineage:

24 "As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "even if you, Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. 25 I will hand you over to those who seek your life, those you fear—to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Babylonians. 26 I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. 27 You will never come back to the land you long to return to." 28 Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know? 29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD! 30 This is what the LORD says: "Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah."

Jeremiah 36:30-31

30 Therefore, this is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night. 31 I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.'

How will Christians fix the issue of the royal lineage being broken through Jeconiah? We see in 2 Chr 36:5-14 (and elsewhere) that the lineage is transferred from Jeconiah, Johoiakim's son, to Zedekiah, Johoiakim's brother. Royal lineages always follow the children of that branch. If Joseph (in Matt 1) is descended from Zedekiah, even via the ad hoc Levirate marriage, he would be listed as from Zedekiah! There is no transfer from one branch to another unless the children of the other branch all die off (which is not the case here).

9 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD. 10 In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and brought him to Babylon, together with articles of value from the temple of the LORD, and he made Jehoiachin's uncle, Zedekiah, king over Judah and Jerusalem.

[note: there are some variant spellings of the name Jeconiah and Johoiakim, between Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, but in the verses I refer to, the people are the same]

You can read more about this curse, and if you agree with me that God doesn't lie, then you have plenty of reason to agree that the promises that God made about the throne of David do not apply to the lineage of Jeconiah. See Jer 22:24-30, 37:1.

It is explicitly stated in 1 Chr 3:15-16 that the royal lineage goes through Zedekiah:

15 The sons of Josiah: Johanan the firstborn, Jehoiakim the second son, Zedekiah the third, Shallum the fourth. 16 The successors of Jehoiakim: Jehoiachin his son, and Zedekiah. The Royal Line After the Exile

This story is confirmed in Esther 2:5-6:

5 Now there was in the citadel of Susa a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, 6 who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jehoiachin king of Judah.

Another place that we see the story confirmed is in 2 Kin 24:17:

17 He made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

Zedekiah is blinded. He watches his own children be killed by Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah (2 Kings 25:1-7; 2 Chronicles 36:12; Jeremiah 32:4,5; 34:2, 3; 39:1-7; 52:4-11; Ezekiel 12:12). No physical ties back to the Davidic throne can thus be established. This clearly contradicts 2 Sam 7:12-16, wherein David is promised that the throne would be established forever from his own body! From here, the kingdom of Judah is no longer ruled by kings. See here for more.

Some thinking Christians admit this is a serious issue. They propose solutions, like "Shealtiel, the son of Neri, must have in some way been adopted by Jeconiah when he was released from prison (Jer 52:31-34)". They believe this would get "around" the problem of the curse of Jeconiah's physical children (Jeremiah 22:24-30) while allowing the legal inheritance to go on through adoption. Then, they propose, when Shealtiel and Zerubbabel end up back in Israel, as governors (remember the Babylonians, then Persians, then Alexander, then Ptolemy...kept rule, Judah was never again sovereign), God "restores" their "royal" lineage [never mind that they are not kings, nor is Judah sovereign]. Is there evidence of this? No. A rich overview of the history of this period -- captivity and exile, can be found at the Jewish History Resource Center.

The question of whether God somehow "restored" this branch is a good one, indeed. If yes, then the passage in Jeremiah 22:24-30 is clearly false. That is unsettling, because if that is false, you are forcing yourself to admit that the Bible has false prophecies from Jeremiah in it. If no, then Jeremiah 22:24-30 is clearly true, and Jesus is part of a "cursed branch". Sometimes Haggai 2:20-23 is cited in support of the idea that the curse was somehow revoked (but somehow, some way, God didn't lie?). In this passage, supposedly Zerubbabel becomes heir to the Davidic throne again. However, Zerubbabel is never identified as king, only as "governor". The throne itself is no more. How could he be king when Judah was no more? [and this, by the way, contradicts other failed promises in Ezk 26, 29-30 about the fall of Egypt and Babylon and Judah's restoration] Of course, even if he was somehow restored as king, the question of how this could be true, in light of Jer 24, remains. One further difficulty here is that the lineage of Zerubbabel himself is a bit confused.

So if one is to ad hoc hypothesize/postulate (as some have) that God restored Jeconiah because he repented while in Babylon, and that somehow, he "adopted" a kid (Neri or Shealtiel) there is still the interesting fact that this is not mentioned; though in Manasseh's case, a curse was given and lifted, and it was mentioned (2 Chr 33); and given that Zedekiah's line is given the royal inheritance, as evidenced by the royal progression recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles above.

Lots of problems, plenty of speculative hopes to fix them, but no real evidence, no true answers.

Ergo Jeconiah's lineage is a "cursed branch" like that mentioned in Isa 14:19-20. Interestingly, the Hebrew used in Isaiah is "ke-natsar nith'av", which is the basis for "Nazar", and the basis for Matt 2:23.

19 But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot, 20 you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again...

• So if Matthew describes the lineage of Joseph, then Jesus had no legal claim to the throne of David, because Jesus is not from Zedekiah, but via Jeconiah, the wicked, the cursed.
  

Let's move on to the second genealogy in Luke 3

• Did Jesus have a legal claim to the throne of David through Mary, in Luke 3? Part (i) of the disqualification in the intro.
  

Now, let's look at those promises to David, and see how they tie in to Luke 3 and Nathan from 2 Sam 7:12-16 and elsewhere:

"12 When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. 15 But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. 16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me [b] ; your throne will be established forever.' "

Here Nathan (the prophet) was talking directly about Solomon. You can also see 1st Chr 17:11-14, so let's look at that parallel passage:

11And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. 12He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever. 13I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee: 14But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore.

Here we have the same promises, plus one extra thing (v14):

14 But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore.

Another reiteration of this can be found in 1st Chr 22:7-10:

7 David said to Solomon: "My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the LORD my God. 8 But this word of the LORD came to me: 'You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. 9 But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. 10 He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.'

God here specifies that it isn't just David's throne that will extend forever, but specifically Solomon's! That means that one cannot ignore Solomon's lineage in favor of another son of David -- Nathan. In the Lucan account, it is clear that Joseph (or Mary, either way -- thus Jesus) descended from Nathan, not Solomon.

• Jesus is therefore not an heir to the throne of David -- being either from Jeconiah or through Nathan disqualifies that.

Therefore, neither account gives a "royal lineage". Mary is not from Solomon. Joseph is through Jeconiah. These two things are incontrovertible.

That is even if I grant you that the verse 27 of Luke is somehow compatible with the idea that the Shealtiel and Zerubbabel weren't the same two people that are found in Matthew as being Jeconiah's son, even though they are the same father-son relationship, around the same time period, etc. If this was true (that Jeconiah was in both lineages), then you have a bigger problem:

27the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa,
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
the son of Neri (Luke 3:27)

Remember that generations were indeed skipped in these accounts, after all. It seems reasonable to believe that both Luke and Matthew were describing the same people here, but I will allow you this, just to keep the argument alive.

That is even if I grant you that the two accounts are of Mary and Joseph, again something you fail to prove, but only assume. No evidence from history or the Jewish tradition of genealogies supports going through the mother's house instead of the fathers. See, for example, in Numbers when the census was done. The Hebrews always went through the father's house. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that both Luke and Matthew, although very different, were trying to describe Joseph's lineage, not Joseph and Mary's.

So the real question is, why is it more reasonable to believe that Jesus is indeed of royal lineage, and if so, what basis do you have to believe it? From either account, one way or another, you are still stuck with the problem of Jesus' lineage not continuing the royal lineage. Looking back at those promises to David, whose kingdom do these Scriptures refer to? Solomon's? If so, then it is clear that the house and throne of Solomon were chosen, and not that of Nathan.

If Jesus, from Jeconiah, is in the lineage of Solomon (and son and grandson), then you are stuck with the "cursed branch" from Solomon -- an offshoot of his line that was cut off from the throne, and a throne (Judah) that was, for all intents and purposes, destroyed by Babylon forever with the end of Zedekiah. The rebuilding of the second temple, and the governorships of Judah that followed, can hardly be called "re-establishing the nation". Judah was gone. Her throne was no more, and the last legal claimant to the throne was Zedekiah.

Both accounts have problems. And although, as I admitted from the start, ad hoc hypotheses can be proposed, there is no evidence to support them, no good reason to believe them. Why would God not make it a simple matter of using the same genealogy in Matt 1 and Luke 3, and bypassing "cursed branches", and using Solomon and not Nathan? These questions remain vexing. Speculative Levirate marriages give us no substance, only obvious ad hoc hypotheses.

Perhaps these problems were noted by the early Christians, and that is why 1 Tim 1:3-4 says:

3As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer 4nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work—which is by faith.

What sorts of controversies, I have to wonder? I bet it's the controversy of whether or not Jesus is the Messiah due to the very discrepancies I'm pointing out above. The Jews were quite big on details regarding lineage, after all. And this is why it's one important objection they have to the claim that Jesus was the Messiah.
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

principe nuovo

Steve Hays has responded to my challenge regarding the problem of presuppositionalism and proof-burdens, as well as external evaluation of the veracity of presuppositions themselves, in a post cleverly titled Machiavelli Rises from the Grave. Like Machiavelli, I agree that a new prince, or principe nuovo, has a much tougher job than a prince who is descended from the royal line. The way this ties in is that the TAG is a sort of "new prince", and presuppositionalism (PS) is just the king's kid. While the TAG has to support its premises with argument, we see no such necessity with common, everyday PS.

In PS, one can either have an individually-directed claim, "you cannot account for X", or a generally-directed claim, "atheism cannot account for X", and in neither case is there some sort of burden of proof on the PS to make a real argument. Instead, the PS stands back, folds his arms, and waits for the defender to either have insufficient metaphysical arguments or incoherent ones to critique. End of story.

Steve accused me of trickery in referring to conceptual realism:

i) Does Danny subscribe to Cocchiarella’s solution? Of is this just one of those blocking maneuvers recommended by Witmer to silence the presuppositionalist if you can’t answer him?

To which I replied:

I find both his forms of conceptual realism (intensional/natural) completely consistent with physicalism as an ontology. As I was reading them (sections 6 and 7, respectively), I found he had put into words what I tried to describe long ago on this blog, when you brought up "pure" conceptualism, in which these abstractions don't exist apart from our minds at all. Therefore, your accusation is refuted by the evidence that I resorted to conceptualism in the past as an explanation of abstract explananda within physicalism.

Steve completely misunderstood this:

“Refuted” by what evidence? Yours or Cocchiarella’s? At the time, I was responding to your formulation, not his—since his formulation wasn’t on the table back then.

I'm referring to the accusation that I'm "employing a trick" via Prof. Witmer's advice by "falling back" to conceptual realism. I'm not claiming his worldview is refuted by my position.

The following exchange is from the newest thread, Steve's words in italics, mine blockquoted:

My purpose was to defend my own presupposition that physicalism is not incompatible with logic. Would you concede that conceptual realism is the solution? Do you admit that there is nothing absurd or incoherent in holding to physicalism and to one of Cocchiarella's forumulations for the explanandum of logic?
Presuppositionalism claims that all alternative worldviews are inherently and intrinsically self-defeating. Can you show this for someone who subscribes to physicalism and to conceptual intensional realism?

No, I wouldn’t concede any such thing.

1.He says that “as a socio-biological theory of the human capacity for language and though, conceptualism must presuppose some form of natural realism as the causal ground of that capacity.”

But this is circular reasoning. He first classifies conceptualism as a “socio-biological” theory, then says it must presuppose some form of natural realism. That may be a valid inference, given the classification, but he does nothing to justify his naturalistic classification in the first place.

So are you saying that humans can have language and thought without any natural grounding? Human thought and language do not supervene upon natural processes: chemistry, physics, matter...? Is he supposed to instead presuppose the existence of the immaterial spirit, and deny that thought or language (as we know them) supervene upon the physical? And if he did that, and said, "Conceptualism is a spiritual theory, which presupposes some form of supernaturalism..." is that not the same circular issue?

2.He then says “As universals that can be realized indifferent places at the same time and that might have no instances at all in the world, natural properties and relations are not in the world the way that concrete objects are, nor can they be considered to have an ‘objectual’ nature in any sense as well…the unsaturated mode of being of natural properties and relations…[is] somehow analogous to the mode of being of concepts. Thus, just as predicable concepts do not exist independently of the human capacity for language and concept-formation, so too natural properties and relations[s] do not exist independently of the causal structure of the world.

Several basic problems:

a) He admits the existence of unexemplified universals: “might have no instances at all in the world.”

How is that possible if the world is all there is?

Are you claiming that "unicorn-ness" and "Lochness monsterism" must be instantiated?

b) He then attempts to find a nook for them by claiming that the “unsaturated” mode of being of natural properties an relations is “somehow analogous” to the mode of being of concepts.

But this is an argument from analogy minus the argument? How does he unpack the “somehow”? He doesn’t. Just his sheer dictum.

c) Moreover, even if there were an analogy, it’s only as good as the analogue which supplies the point of reference. He claims that predicable concepts don’t exist independently of human concept-formation.

But that, again, is a raw assertion rather than a reasoned argument. Why should I accept the claim which undergirds the analogy?

So he fails on both counts. He (i) gives us an argument from analogy minus the argument. And he also (ii) fails to argue for the underlying analogue.

3. He then says:

“abstract objects…according to conceptual Platonism, ‘exist’ in a realm that transcends space, time and causality, and therefore that ‘preexist’ the evolution of consciousness…In conceptual intensional realism, on the other hand, the dependence is not merely epistemological but ontological as well.”

But if abstract universals are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then this will collapse back into the “ontology of conceptual idealism,” which is what he was trying to avoid—and for good reason.

They are ontologically dependent upon the substance of matter, which is the substance upon which consciousness supervenes.

Why do you think he is avoiding conceptual idealism? He is a Christian, a Catholic priest.

a) If abstract universals like the laws of logic are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then they lose their necessity and universality. They become descriptive rather than prescriptive or proscriptive. They can no longer distinguish logical reasoning from illogical reasoning, for they take human consciousness as their point of reference and point of departure.

b) Likewise, if abstract universals such as mathematical truths are causally dependent on the evolution of consciousness, then the universe did not exemplify any mathematical properties or relations prior to the evolution of consciousness.

In that case, the universe is evolving in relation to human evolution. The existence and structure of physical universe is, to that degree, causally dependent on human evolution.

c) Likewise, if mathematical abstracta are causally dependent on the evolution of human consciousness, then there can be no such thing as an actual infinite in math. You are thereby committed to finitism in math. But that is prey to a number of familiar criticisms.

Continuing with my own thoughts:

One could argue against this necessity in a few different ways, since as Walker points out, these transcendentals are "objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate". I am thinking that Scripture cannot meet this requirement, nor special revelation generally…When Xians argue that the Scriptures provide for us an OPMU for morality, how does this fare through Walker's filter?… I would argue that this consideration presents a substantial challenge to the claim that OPMU morality can be based upon divine revelation via Scripture. It seems that the criteria cannot be met in an attitude-independent fashion, given the errant supposed copies we have of an OPMU moral law.

Morgan simply confuses the order of knowing with the order of being. Moral “transcendentals” can be objective, prescriptive and metaphysically ultimate” even though our mode of epistemic access is not ontological objective or metaphysically ultimate.

And if our mode of epistemic access is neither ontological[ly] objective nor metaphysically ultimate, then from what position can you argue for their truth in these two areas? It seems like I could say that there is some phenomenon, X, that is OPMU. However, if I cannot access it epistemically in any OPMU fashion, then where is the argument that you can establish X as OPMU? Is it not necessary to have a complete and thorough knowledge of X in order to argue X is OPMU?

How do you know X?

How do you know X is OPMU?

What’s a transcendental argument? How do you mount such an argument? Good questions.

Although TAG is an indirect argument inasmuch as you are arguing for the existence of God by arguing from certain undeniable phenomena, the argument(s) for the identity of these phenomena as well as their theistic dependence will take the form of direct argumentation.

James Anderson has also disassembled the Van Tilian version of TAG into several subarguments.

http://www.proginosko.com/docs/IfKnowledgeThenGod.pdf

And these could be developed in more detail.

Interlocuter has responded to some of Anderson's arguments, which are good ones.

Oddly enough, Paul Manata has admitted that the "development" of the TAG from the PS position is not only premature for such an ability (to use it as an indirect argument for God), but he has admitted that it is only an assertion.

He points out that:
i) If X, then God
ii) X
iii) Therefore God

Supporting premise (i) is the problem, of course. Prof. Witmer talked about this a bit on Unchained Radio with Gene Cook.
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