Ask the Atheist

It's been a little while, and the Crazy Australian has in fact conceded that chance can at least produce something which we recognise as information. This Australian says, good on him.

This question is a common creationist approach. The application there is that information in a genome is not seen to increase after random recombinations. The response is that new information can take the form of a decrease in data as well as an increase (my usual example is that the valuable information each week on Big Brother is who will leave the house) so a recombination, which is partly both, is definitely an increase in information.

Completely random threads of information would indeed be unlikely to come to anything meaningful. Consider that, by the way: information, as defined in a computational sense by those who wish to manipulate, compress and optimise it, need not be meaningful in any sense other than representing the data of which it is comprised.

A bit of real-world pressure makes all the difference; this is the very core of natural selection. Changes to a genome which are harmful, ambiguous or negligible tend to die out when the living beings carrying them are outbred by beings carrying directly beneficial changes. It doesn't matter what the information in the genome means as such. Only survival value is of importance, and as it happens, information coherent enough to represent blueprints for complex structures like wings and stomach acid has substantial survival value.

You know, the real answer to this question is really extremely simple. Yes, chance can produce information, if there is such a thing as information. Chance can produce anything, given the right conditions. That's what chance means.

Applied to anything real, though, the true question is, "Can chance consistently produce information?" That's a little hairier, but it's moot when applied to evolution. Natural selection is not a chance process. It mines the random element of mutation for new genetic material, but the selection itself is the original Survival of the Fittest.

It's like rolling fifty dice and only picking out the fours, fives and sixes. You're guaranteed a fairly high average score per selected die. The game of evolution is rigged in favour of life.

- SmartLX

Well, in response to the OP, when people say such things in that manner, it usually means that they are unfamiliar with evolution in its entirety, and are employing intuitive and naive notions in order to attempt to discuss complex scientific theories. Since our intuition is often at odds with said complex scientific theories, they will run into some problems doing this. Several days ago I decided to read the mission statement of the Flat Earth Society. It was only a few paragraphs, not enough time for me to vomit, and the spelling and grammar were, um...different. Anyway, they railed on for a bit about the evil scientific conspiracy and the supposed dogmatic, quasi-religious nature of science, and then presented their argument for the Flat Earth (if the Earth is round then how come Australians stand upright? They should be upside down).

Obviously this is complete nonsense. There are no "directions" in space. The notions of "up" and "down" are meaningless. They are applied in daily life only relative to the ground on which one is standing. It is a non sequitur to say that people on the North pole should stand upright and those on the south one upside, and everyone else should stand at some slanted angle. Yet intuition tells us so. I wouldn't listen to intuition however, it's useless. Relative to the ground on which an Australian is standing, he is upright. Relative to the ground on which an American is standing, he is also upright. So is everyone else, because that is all motion and position are, they are relative concepts that are only judged in a frame of reference relative to other bodies. The argument the FES put forth above is identical to arguing that if the Earth was moving relative to the Sun at thousands of miles per second, why we do not feel this. The answer is obvious, because if we are standing on the Earth, we are travelling at precisely the same speed, and hence relative to the Earth, are not moving at all.

I picked the most ludicrous example I could find to illustrate a point. When people use intuition to try and understand scientific ideas, they will fail, and this will usually result in using childish language to attempt to mock something regarding which they have precisely zero understanding. In the irritating moving Expelled, Michael Ruse and Richard Dawins explained, in simple language that even someone with cognizance deficiences on the order of magnitude that Ben Stein possesses could understand, which is impressive. They were explaining how elaborate molecular synthesis could form on the backs of rocks, and how piezoelectricity could allow for the assembly of small scale elabore metabolism. They also explained Autocatalysis and clay theory, and the possibility of the synthesis of organic molecules in mud, or water, because of the dipole effect and the high concentrations of organic molecules. Of course, Ben Stein, who knew precisely nothing about primordial biochemistry, electrical organometallic chemistry, or molecular biology , laughed and returned to the point throughout the movie. "MUD"!! (Laughing) "ROCKS"! It was all very Hovindesque in delivery. Of course, this ridicule was all the man could muster, because he was relying on intuition and childish language to try and understand (actually, that's not true. He obviously wasn't trying to understand at all. He was trying to ridicule) something that clearly shot straight over his head. How can one present a serious critique of that which their sum knowledge total is negative (in addition to no knowledge, being in possession of disinformation)? It is incredibly easy to try and fuck up when trying to understand complicated scientific concepts. ("If Relativity is true, how come I can't go and visit my dead relatives?" ).

With respect to evolution, the problem is in some cases greatly exacerbated. There is a lot of potential for complete misunderstanding here. An equally stupid argument could be concocted by reversing the currently employed "Second Law of Thermodynamics" argument to become "If SLOT is true, how come we have all these ordered systems like biology"? One way I find that misunderstanding often springs forth is when people try to use metaphorical ideas and concepts to try and explain ideas. If the laws of thermodynamic are to be understoon in terms of "progressing towards disorder" and evolution, which despite having no implicit direction has, as a general rule of thumb, constructed more complex entities as a function of time, is creating "order", then someone naive can imagine that there is a problem. Such explanations rely on childish and metaphorical understanding of thermodynamics concepts that cannot be understood in any way whatsoever without complete familiarity with the equations. My point is, when people either try to rely on intuition, or a very meager amount of knowledge, the idea that they can "critique" a concept based on this foundation is ludicrous. THe brutal and undeniable fact is that the number of creationists who can give me a single sentence, working, accepted scientific definition of biological evolution, without consulting wikipedia, is utterly negligible.

- Deluded God
Rational Response Squad (more responses posted here)

There are passages of the Koran which do seem to refer to aspects of modern science. That's because they're vague as all get out and, as the carpet example shows, enough creative interpretation can make anything fit the old writings.

The Islamic creationist lobby is very active in certain countries, for example Turkey. Sometimes it even collaborates with the Christian creationist lobby to fight evolution. Evolution contradicts the Koran too, and even if it didn't Muslims regard the basic timeline of the Bible as accurate. They fight evolution to preserve the inerrancy of their core texts, just like the creationists we're used to.

The anti-evolution claims and arguments in Islamic creationism are interchangeable with the Christian ones. On public access TV here in Australia, a Muslim host presented a Christian creationist video with no qualms.

The difference is that there is no equivalent to the Intelligent Design movement in Islamic creationism. While some of the arguments aren't religious in nature, there's no attempt to present creationism as a secular scientific theory. There's a far more honest and direct effort to defeat evolution and replace it with the Koran's version of events.

This is not surprising as church-state separation isn't always a constitutional issue outside of the United States. Turkish school curricula are under direct religious assault, as in many countries. There's no need for such contingency campaigns as "critical analysis of evolution" and "teach the controversy". Those only came about in America when the initial Intelligent Design movement was blocked in court. Intelligent Design itself was only conceived in 1987 when Christian creationism in schools was ruled unconstitutional.

- SmartLX

From the development of the eye to the beauty of a waterfall to the exact value of the gravitational constant, theists may claim that anything natural with any quality to it whatsoever must have been deliberately crafted with humanity in mind. This is the Argument from Design.

Even if it were correct, it's a terribly egotistical way of looking at the world. And even if it were proven to be correct, no religion would have any basis upon which to claim that the designer or creator was its particular god or gods.

The basic answer to the argument from design is that there is no substantive evidence for it and therefore 1. to assume design in the presence of alternative theories supported by substantive evidence is putting one's head in the sand and 2. to assume design even in the complete absence of alternative theories is an argument from ignorance.

Beginning with evolution and the development of intelligent humans, there is a huge amount of geological, genetic and observed evidence to support the currently held view of the "tree of life". Evolution of subspecies is observed all the time, and contrary to a common objection whole new species have been seen to emerge, and recently. (This article on speciation has some examples.)

Contrary to another creationist talking point, there are tons of known transitional fossils. Contrary to Kirk Cameron, these don't look like half of one animal joined to half of another (like his famous Croco-duck). They're more like what you get if you morph a whole picture of one into a picture of the other, but stop halfway.

To dismiss evolution as a useless series of random changes is an argument from personal incredulity, which is a type of argument from ignorance. It's also wrong. The mutations are random, but only the beneficial mutations tend to be passed on by sheer survival and procreation skills. Evolution doesn't just try random things and get it right every time, it tries everything and goes with what works. It's like trying to hit a dartboard by spraying the whole wall with a machine gun. You'll miss a lot, but you'll hit it too.

Intelligence came about because at every stage in the development of primates, the ones who are just that little bit smarter than everyone else will always have the advantage. Over millions of years, it all adds up. Along with this comes morality (since good deeds are often rewarded), an appreciation of beauty (since it helps if what's pleasing to the eye is usually not diseased, poisonous or dirty) and emotions (to motivate us to do what's helpful to us and others).

Going back to the origin of life, abiogenesis as it was called could have occurred by a number of different chemical processes. So far scientists have used electricity (lightning) and a replica of the ancient atmosphere to create amino acids, which are pretty close. With a whole world full of chemicals being blown and washed into each other and billions of years to work, there was ample time and material for the components of the first replicating organism to slowly accumulate. The huge odds against this often given by folks like Hoyle generally assume that they all had to come together at once, which they didn't. Once one little bit of DNA was off and running, evolution and exponential growth took over.

Before we tackle the whole universe at once, let's consider Earth. Someone might claim that God put Earth exactly where it needed to be relative to the Sun so that liquid water and therefore life could form. We now know, however, that there are a lot more planets out there, and probably huge numbers of undiscovered ones. It's not that Earth was placed where liquid water could form. Rather, liquid water only forms on planets of the right temperature and Earth happened to fit the bill. Lots more planets might. This is called the anthropic principle: places aren't made for humans, humans just have a chance of turning up in hospitable places. Even on Earth there are many places we can't survive, like inside volcanoes and kilometres under the sea. So, we didn't emerge from there. Big surprise.

The largest design claim has to do with the fundamental constants of the universe. Six major ones are usually mentioned: those pertaining to gravity, electromagnetism, spatial dimensions and other less famous concepts. As is repeated endlessly, the slightest difference in any of them might result in matter being unable to form or stay together. This is the "fine-tuned universe" argument.

The problem is that even if this is true, there could still be other values of the constants which support matter. Perhaps instead of changing one or two slightly, you need to shift four of them by a huge amount. Considering that some of the constants could even be negative, you've got an infinite six-dimensional sample space in which to test hypothetical universes. We may never know whether our values are the only valid ones. Or, we may stumble upon another valid combination and that'll be the end of this argument.

Besides, the anthropic principle applies again if you consider the theory of a multiverse. If there are multiple (perhaps infinite) universes each with its own set of constants, of course we're going to turn up in the universe with a friendly combination. Other life forms may be thriving in universes where we wouldn't last for a second, and understanding how would require us to re-learn physics from scratch.

Contesting the argument from design is hard work, because to be most effective you need to know the going theories for whatever phenomenon is in question. I've tackled the most common ones, but be prepared for just about anything useful or pretty to be presented as direct evidence for gods. Then you need only find out where it really came from.

- SmartLX

I've answered this argument a lot on this site, but I think it deserves a summary question. My aim is make this a reference for any subsequent "origin" questions.

The Cosmological Argument or Argument from First Cause is the proper form of the common argument that the universe must have been deliberately created, and you can't get "something from nothing". It predates Christianity, as Plato and Aristotle had their own versions.

That's the first issue with the argument: it only attempts to prove the existence of a Creator. It is therefore a deist argument, so when a theist uses it to prove a specific god with no further logic it's a step too far. Keep an eye out for this.

The basic premise that everything finite requires a cause is the least controversial part, but even this isn't rock solid. Possible exceptions are found in quantum mechanics, where particles move about in a probabilistic fashion. Until observed, a particle may be anywhere in a small area, and in a sense is everywhere in the area. When you observe it, it picks one spot and stays there. This is of course a gross oversimplification, but the point is that there's no known force moving the particles around. There may actually be no cause as such, and the universe may be far more spontaneous than we think.

Even "something from nothing" is plausible according to a related theory that "nothing" is really a quantum foam from which matter may emerge. This is purely theoretical at the moment (it makes mathematical sense, but there's not much physical evidence), but it's worth remembering that science is actually considering ways like this in which matter could just pop out of "nothing". It can't be dismissed entirely.

Causality may also be irrelevant if time wasn't linear at the beginning, if it had a beginning. An effect must follow its cause, but this is meaningless if chronological order hasn't settled down yet.

The universe is widely regarded by lay people (who aren't young-earth creationists) to have begun with the Big Bang. This may seem counterintuitive - how can something be created by an explosion instead of destroyed? - but it was no ordinary explosion. All the matter and energy in the universe was compressed into a singularity, a point so small it had no volume at all. (Absurd as this sounds, it happens today with large amounts of matter in the centres of black holes.) Then it expanded outwards, and it's still expanding to this day. Once the matter was in that singularity, nothing was created or destroyed, only distrubuted.

How did the matter get in there? Was the Big Bang the true beginning, or a continuation of something else? We haven't a clue. A god is one hypothesis. Other universes, with their own separate systems of time and space, are another. The quantum foam is an outside chance. Who knows what else we haven't thought of.

I like the idea of a multiverse, an eternal group or series of universes setting each other off. It's got one up on gods because it's multiple instances of a known object. We know there's at least one universe (this one), while we don't have a single example of an established god. If you see a huge cabbage patch where the whole crop's been eaten, and you find one fat little rabbit in the corner, do you assume that Bigfoot must have done most of the damage? No, you wonder where all the other rabbits are hiding.

The theory of expansion and contraction, of many Big Bangs and Big Crunches, has fallen apart recently with the discovery that the expansion of the universe is apparently accelerating. That means it will never return to the singularity, and it is not cyclical in the way we thought. That doesn't stop it from being cyclical in other ways, for example stretching until it tears a hole and then draining out to somewhere else.

The point is that if you do accept that everything finite must have a cause, something must be eternal. Either it's the universe/multiverse, or it's a god. There are many theories, and potentially many more, which allow for an eternal universe which needs no cause. Therefore an eternal god is not the only option, and anything which says so is a poor attempted proof of its existence.

- SmartLX

Note: The argument that a god created the universe based on the universe's nature, order, awesomeness, etc. is not related to causality. It's the Argument from Design, which is next on the GBA hitlist.

The Ontological Argument strikes me as the equivalent of trying to win a lawsuit on a technicality. It's a full-blown a priori attempted proof which assumes only that a perfect being is conceivable. I won't argue this point, because although definitions may differ everyone gets some image in mind upon hearing the phrase "perfect being".

The thrust of the argument is that it's greater and more perfect to exist than not to exist. Since God in theory is the greatest and most perfect thing ever, He must exist.

The most obvious problem is that the argument is not the least bit specific about which God exists. Even if the argument were unassailable and the existence of a god were proven, we would still know absolutely nothing about the god's identity or nature. Jumping immediately from the existence of a god to the existence of your god is an unsupported assertion.

If you really wanted to be annoying, you could argue that since the argument can be used to prove the existence of multiple mutually exclusive gods (say, the God of Abraham and Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrian faith) it's obviously a flawed argument. The theist reply is of course the above point that the argument makes no comment on the god's identity and most religions just have the wrong guy, but it's a good way to make people think.

The real problem is the premise that to exist in reality is greater and/or more perfect than to exist only in the mind. Something which doesn't exist isn't more perfect than something which does, but it isn't less perfect either. It has no qualities by which this can be judged. An apple which doesn't exist isn't red, but neither is it purple. Therefore it can't be redder or less red than a real red apple.

Existence isn't a property as such either. Even if it were, it wouldn't necessarily be a positive property, or something a perfect being must have. Something destructive like an earthquake might be better if it didn't exist.

There are plenty of objections along these lines by a great many people, the most famous being Bertrand Russell and Immanuel Kant. As stated in the question, there are also a great many rephrasings of the argument which try to circumvent these objections.

The net result is that major apologetic organisations have advised that the Ontological Argument in its current forms does not stand up to scrutiny, and other arguments like the Transcendental and Cosmological Arguments (the favourites) should be used instead.

That doesn't stop a lot of YouTubers from reciting obscure forms of the Ontological Argument and expecting them to be invincible. Look it up, and enjoy the logical knots both sides get themselves into when discussing it.

I always worry when someone uses this argument, because it may mean a few things. Maybe they don't think people have the intelligence to fully comprehend such a complex-sounding argument and will accept it by default. Maybe they haven't read the objections and don't expect anyone to look them up. From a big-picture perspective, they're using a less well known argument thinking it will take people by surprise, not considering that it's less well known for a reason. It just plain doesn't work.

- SmartLX