Friday, 14 February 2014

Explaining science to Creationists


Creationists often base their criticisms of science with some kind of fallacious  argument.  Here are some examples from a religion discussion board...

PART 1
Overall list of Creationist misunderstandings of science

#
Creationist representation of science
Actual science
1
The universe was created by chance
Universes, like rainbows or snowflakes, are not created “by chance”. Universes can occur naturally, or they can be created artificially.
2
Science has failed to prove there is no God
Science cannot disprove the existence of gods, or any other unfalsifiable concept, and therefore doesn’t try to. According to science, it's possible that our universe could have been created artificially.
3
The odds of the existence of a stable universe capable of supporting life are incredibly small
There is no way to calculate such odds. A hypothesis that the odds are 99.99% is just as valid.
4
If the physical constants which define our laws of physics were just slightly different, our universe would be unstable and would not exist.
Changing the constants which define the laws of physics results in different types of universes, some stable, some not.
5
The precise values of the physical constants which define the laws of physics show that the universe is “fine tuned” for life
We cannot assume that the carbon based life we see on Earth is the only possible type of life. We cannot assume that the universe we see is the only type of universe. Natural selection results in life that is fine tuned for the universe, not vice versa. More in fine tuning here
6
It is not possible for consciousness or self awareness to appear by natural means
Evidence shows that through the processes of evolution, such as natural selection, consciousness appeared as a brain function approximately 200 million years ago in the primitive cerebral cortex of early mammals.
7
There are many things that science cannot explain
The reason science exists is because there are many things that science has yet to explain.
8
Science cannot explain “transcendent reality”
“Transcendent Reality” cannot be defined and therefore cannot be explained. Reality is reality, and science is in the process of explaining the aspects of reality that are falsifiable. Defining the concept of "transcendent reality" as things that science cannot explain is a circular argument.
9
Transcendent phenomena are beyond the limits of science
Transcendence in the religious sense is not a matter for science. In the sense of things beyond our everyday experience, science and mathematics are discovering and explaining transcendent phenomena all the time
10
Science cannot explain consciousness & self awareness
There are many aspects of the mind still to be explained by science and many that have been explained. Neuroscience is making discoveries on an almost daily basis, especially since the advent of neuro-imaging. This is perhaps the most fruitful areas of science in modern times. There is currently no evidence of a supernatural aspect to the mind.
11
The existence of our universe is unlikely according to the laws of physics
See #3. Also note that although the laws of physics are a very powerful way of describing nature, they are a human invention. (See 2.9)






PART 2
Some more misunderstandings of science from a religion discussion board...

2.1 - Only a god can create a universe
Within a few generations we will have particle accelerators capable of creating universes. If our universe has a creator it could be a highly advanced alien life form in another universe. Is that life form a "god"? Depends how you define god. The hypothesis for naturally occurring universes is based on evidence, but it is of course a hypothesis.

2.2 - The multiverse concept can never be proven
The multiverse hypotheses (there are several) are not all unfalsifiable, which is why they are currently being tested. Religious Apologists seem unaware of this, but typically Creationist websites tend to be at least 25 years behind the research. The multiverse is also supported by Occam's razor because it is the simplest and most elegant explanation for several observed facts and questions in quantum physics and cosmology. It is also a religious concept - God, heaven, hell etc. require a multiverse. So there is general agreement on the multiverse as a plausible concept, whether one is religious or not, for different reasons.

2.3 - The Parameters of the universe are too tight to have arisen by chance
Most scientists recognise that what Creationists refer to as "tight parameters" are not tight at all.

2.4 - The improbability of the existence of life on Earth is evidence that God exists
The creationist argument for the so-called improbability of life is based on the amount of carbon in the universe. Creationists claim this is too much of a "coincidence" hence their argument that the existence of life on earth (i.e. carbon based) cannot have occurred naturally. A different set of physical laws would result in a different form of life. Using creationist logic, we would have to assume the Antarctic had been fined tuned for the Emperor Penguin, and Venus had been fine tuned to ensure a surface temperature of 900 °F and an atmosphere consisting mainly of sulphuric acid.

2.5 - The physical laws of the universe are obviously fine tuned for life
One can't state that physical laws are "fine tuned for life" as if it was a fact. It's a hypothesis advocated by "Intelligent design" (that can never be tested), and there are rational explanations for why those laws are the way they are. Note what's being said here - fine tuning is not impossible - it's a hypothesis. It's not fact. More in fine tuning here

2.6 - Reality is beyond the purview of scientific processes to quantify, measure and analyse
It is wrong to assume that science is limited by a "purview" because until science runs out of explanations we can't know what its purview is. It is also a fact that science, and in particular mathematics and theoretical physics, make discoveries that are beyond human imagination. Therefore it's true to say the purview of science is greater than the purview of human beings.

2.7 - Transcendent Reality is beyond the purview of science
The problem here is the definition of "transcendent reality" which actually seems like a fancy way of referring to anything that's unfalsifiable. Therefore "transcendent reality" could include Thor, fairies, and invisible dragons. In short - the creationist argument is circular: The concept of "transcendent reality" is invented and defined as an aspect of reality that science cannot explain. This is then used to prove that science cannot explain transcendent reality!

2.8 - Natural selection cannot explain everything
Of course not, but there's a weird thing about natural selection that's been noticed fairly recently. Darwin applied it to biology, and obviously biology didn't make an appearance on earth until 10 billion years after the big bang. But it's been discovered that natural selection has applications outside of biology including cosmology - it's starting to look as if natural selection is a fundamental law of existence.

2.9 - The Laws of physics show the universe is unlikely
Or perhaps they show the universe is inevitable! The laws of physics are a powerful concept, invented by human beings, and enable us to describe nature in a mathematical way. What's interesting is the basis of those laws - and that is symmetry, as discovered early in the 20th century by Emmy Noether. So for example, the "law" of conservation of energy is actually is a direct consequence of time translation symmetry. (Noether's discovery also led to new laws of physics).

So, the laws of physics are created by us, due to our necessity to have a description of the universe that is independent of a viewpoint. Furthermore, the symmetries that lead to the laws of physics are exactly the same as those for a universe that was empty. The implication is that the universe is just a special arrangement of nothing. The laws of physics are the laws of nothing!


3 - More on Fine Tuning

If the force of gravity were a few per cent weaker, it would not squeeze and heat the centre of the sun enough to ignite the nuclear reactions that generate the sunlight necessary for life on Earth. But if it were a few per cent stronger, the temperature of the solar core would have been boosted so much the sun would have burned out in less than a billion years - not enough time for the evolution of complex life like us. In recent years many such examples of how the laws of physics have the appearance of being "fine-tuned" for us to be here have been reported. Some religious people claim these "cosmic coincidences" are evidence of a grand design by a Supreme Being. However, such assumptions are easily demolished.

A general mistake made in search of fine-tuning is to vary just one physical parameter while keeping all the others constant. But it's more likely that there are intimate links between all physical parameters. A change in one may be compensated by a change in another.

Astronomer Fred Hoyle discovered that vital heavy elements can be built inside stars only because a carbon-12 nucleus can be made from the fusion of three helium nuclei. For the reaction to proceed, carbon-12 must have an energy level equal to the combined energy of the three helium nuclei, at the typical temperature inside a red giant. This has been touted as an example of fine-tuning. But, in 1989, astrophysicist Mario Livio showed that the carbon-12 energy level could actually have been significantly different and still resulted in a universe with the heavy elements needed for life.

The most striking example of fine-tuning appears to be the dark energy - or energy of the vacuum - that is speeding up the expansion of the universe. Calculations show it to be 10,120 bigger than quantum theory predicts. again - Creationists use this as an example of fine tuning, but this prediction is made in the absence of a quantum theory of gravity, when gravity is known to orchestrate the universe.

Even if some parameters are extremely unlikely, this is easily explained if ours is just one universe in a "multiverse" - perhaps an infinite number of universes, each with different physical parameters. We would then obviously have ended up in a universe where the laws of physics appears to be fine-tuned to life because, well, how could we not have?! Creationists will argue that by invoking a multiverse, physicists are going to extraordinary lengths to avoid God. But physicists have to go where the data lead them. And, currently, there are strong hints from string theory and the standard picture of cosmology to suggest that the universe we can see with our biggest telescopes is only a small part of all that is there.

4 - Science vs Religion
Any kind of argument or competition between science and religion seems pointless. They are completely different "magisteria" to quote Stephen Jay Gould. And yet creationists seem intent on arguing against science and misrepresenting it., or using science to demonstrate the existence of God (this is scientism).  Intelligent Design is a striking example of this, and pursues an agenda to demonstrate that evolution is impossible.

The Intelligent design movement is an embarrassment to scientists in the field of evolution and it's also an embarrassment to the church. Here's an interesting view from Catholic News

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0600273.htm



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