OK, One Final Eclipse Post . . . unless those DI guys Say Something Irresistibly Funny Again!

I wasn't planning to write anything else about the eclipse, but some things just have to be shared. As I mentioned just yesterday, two of the Discovery Institute (DI) fellows are covering the eclipse via Facebook. Well one of them, Jonathan Witt, had a post today that I just had to laugh at. This post isn't so much about the eclipse, but the workings of the theological mind. Here's his post, if you want to read the whole thing: "I Witnessed the Perfect Solar Eclipse in Missouri. Amazing!"  Here's the part that cracked me up (underlines are mine):

" . . . I got into a conversation with a family . . .. I asked them what they thought of the odd fact that the moon fit just perfectly over the sun. Not too small that it never covered it. No so large that it covered too much of the sun and thereby blocking the corona. This meant the corona was beautifully visible during a perfect eclipse. 

The family chewed on the question for a moment. A couple of them seem a little puzzled. What was I getting at? Perhaps I hadn’t phrased it well. I know I hurried the question. Finally one answered that, well, the sun and moon fit perfectly because the moon was much closer than the sun, so that made up for the sun being so much bigger. 

Yes, of course. The sun was 400 times bigger, but the moon was 400 times closer than the sun. But I had hoped they would wrestle with the question of final causes. What was the deeper explanation for why we had been allowed, on rare occasions, to enjoy something that has dazzled humans for ages and, in recent generations, helped scientists to discover and test some truly amazing things about our universe?"

He asks them a relatively simply question and then he is disappointed in the answer because they didn't go for what he calls the 'deeper explanation'.  By 'deeper' he really means 'theological' explanation.  He was disappointed because they didn't voluntarily add a layer of unnecessary deitification to their perfectly satisfactory answer.

I don't know if 'deitification' is the right word, but the idea fits.  Everything the DI looks at is filtered through their Bible-colored glasses and when they find someone who doesn't look at things the same way, they just tune them out and continue on, adding their religious viewpoint like Jonathan did here.  I wonder what the family in question really thought of Jonathan?  I am a little surprised he didn't start preaching the DI party line..  He also said in his post:

"Many who have described the viewing of a perfect solar eclipse say it as borders on a religious experience, people of many different religious faiths and of no religious faith. What best explaining that feeling?"

Yet he didn't seem to be able to find any of the 'many', did he?  He only mentioned speaking to one family and yet he says 'many' as if it had any real meaning.

I do have to ask, just what makes something a 'religious experience'?  Is there anything empirical that helps make that determination? No, it's just another opinion.  I mean who can contradict you if you say you have had a religious experience?  You do learn, especially when you live in a apartment, that hearing "Oh God!" coming through the walls does not necessarily mean an actual religious experience.

I stood with approximately 30 people during the height of the eclipse, looking through a pinhole viewer, sharing several eclipse glasses and discussing the eclipse.  Jonathan would have been horribly disappointed in all of us because not a single one voiced anything along the lines of 'deeper meaning'.  No one cried out in fear or supplication either.

You know, with how often the DI tries to hide their theology behind ill-fitting lab coats, popular press articles and books, they never seem to really stray far from it.  Jonathan shows us this as he ends with a firm nod to his religion and an affirmation why the DI will never be able to convince anyone they aren't a religious ministry:

"I am convinced that the best explanation for that feeling of reverence is that there is a maker worthy of reference at work here. And I’m convinced that this explanation — design and not chance — is both the most imaginative, the most reasonable explanation. 

Today I was not alone in giving praise to the maker of sun and moon for a perfect solar eclipse. Hallelujah!"

He's convinced, even though no one in the DI, or anywhere else, has offered one shred of evidence that such a maker, not only exists but set up things as the DI wants to believe they set things up.  Imaginative?  Maybe, but hardly reasonable.  I will take the family from Jonathan's own experience.  He asked them a question and they gave back a perfectly reasonable response . . . only it wasn't reasonable by his standards.  Without the insertion of some reference to a deity, he doesn't find that reasonable.  So, let me get this straight.  Unless you look at 'deeper explanation', any answer isn't reasonable?  Why is that?  We have thousands of scientific answers that we make use of on a daily basis and not one single one of them requires the invocation of a deity.  Wouldn't you consider something that works, and works well, pretty damn reasonable?

But he's convinced!  Why?  It's simple, he cannot rationalize a world without a deity running the show.  That's it, his disappointment at the family shows that.  He doesn't understand how you can look at the world without a deity in the mix.  To him 1+1 doesn't just equals 2, it equals 2 because a deity permits it.  He cannot comprehend how anyone sees the world without needing a deity.

But he's convinced -- and also disappointed because not everyone is looking at things as he does.  You almost feel sorry for Jonathan . . . well not really.  Tell me, Jonathan, how would adding in the opinion that a deity did something do to that family's enjoyment of the eclipse?  Like most efforts to add theology into science, it doesn't do anything other than complicate things with non-answers.  Just like the DI's claims about Issac Newton, there isn't a point in any of Newton's work where you can say "and here is where God did this".  Religious beliefs do not add to our understanding of the universe, it inhibits.

It inhibits some people from asking questions, and others from seeking answers.  It has been used many times to stop scientific inquiry in it's tracks.  Imagine where we would be if every time someone tried to do something new, or look at something differently there was a Jonathan telling us that one deity or another doesn't agree and we should stop.  Look at all the world's religions, I am sure pretty much anything we do will be against one or more of them.  Religion can paralyze us, if we let it.  We would be at the mercy of perfectly natural events, without any understanding of them.  We would probably be still standing outside of our first cave, because someone in the group didn't want to irritate one deity or another.

Without a shred of evidence, Jonathan and Co. want us to place his religious beliefs into everything we do -- whether or not we agree with them and also whether or not they add anything.  If not, then he'll be disappointed.  Well I hope he is prepared to live with lots and lots of disappointment.

Is the Universe an Awful Waste of Space?

You know the Discovery Institute can pretty much take anything and turn it into a binary set, either it supports Intelligent Design (ID) or it doesn't support ID.  Case in point this little missive from one of my favorite ID sources, little davey 'klingy' klinghoffer and the DI site: Evolution 'News' and Views (EnV) 'Objection to Intelligent Design -- Universe Is Too Big, with Too Much "Wasted Space"'.

The DI has taken an old comment of Carl Sagan's and tried to turn it into a strawman critique of ID and then they demolish the strawman and claim another victory for ID.  The original quote: 

"The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space." (Carl Sagan: Contact)

It was from Sagan's book 'Contact' and also used in the movie of the same name. It is an interesting thing to say and something that has provoked a lot of thought.  Now, did Sagan state it as an argument against God?  Not that I recall, but I might have to re-read Contact to make sure.  But in all honesty, whether you want to adhere to the Creationist explanations or the scientific explanations, if we are the only life in the universe, it is pretty wasteful, isn't it?

Of course, waste is an opinion, a point of view, right?  Think about an 8 oz glass with 4 oz of wine.  To some the glass is half-empty, to some others it's half-full.  To an engineer, it's too much glass and to a very good friend of mine, it's not nearly enough wine.  So whether or not you consider the entire Universe wasted space is pretty much an opinion, one that I happen to agree with, but it's still an opinion. 

But before going any deeper, I would like to point something else out, something the DI likes to pretend isn't important.  Yes, my single favorite topic when discussing the DI, their religion.  The original article klingy is referencing included this quote, one he didn't use for some reason:

"It’s a strange question, isn’t it? Chances are it’s never even occurred to you. But I like it anyway, not because it’s an especially profound thing to ask, but because it leads to some really encouraging thoughts about God’s greatness, His power, His glory — which He wants to share with us all, even though He doesn’t have to. God can afford that, too."

In fact, the article mentions God 15 times in a very short article.  The source is a website called 'The Stream', which, if you haven't guessed, is a faith-based news site.  Yes, if the DI, and their pet version of Creationism is not a religious proposition, why is klingy using an article that is very specific about its intent, and it's certainly not science.  So, as usual, klingy, and the DI, use religion and religious sources of information, but any religious connotation is supposed to be ignored?

OK, off my favorite soapbox for now.  You know me, I'll probably mention it again.  What I do find interesting is that klingy seems to go out of his way to avoid using the word 'God'.  Does he think he's fooling anyone?  Seriously?

OK, back to klingy's article, which is nothing new, like this:

"this argument points to the unique fitness of the universe and of our planet for upright bipeds like ourselves. The whole thing appears set up for us, and only for us."

Ah yes, the privileged planet argument, also frequently put forth by the . . . DI.  Yes, this is nothing more than a restatement of a premise they have yet to support with anything . . . anything at all.

What I don't get is how they don't realize how self-limiting this argument is, especially when you consider how little of the Universe we have explored yet.  The instance we do discovery any form of life, especially one very different to us, this whole argument is flushed.  In my opinion this argument is nothing but an expanded God-Of-The-Gaps argument.  Think about it.  What justification do they make with this argument?  That we have yet to discovery life anywhere else, in other words . . . a gap.  But like all gap arguments, as soon as we learn something new about the subject, it's done.  To an ancient Greek, Apollo might have been the answer, but it's done.  To close-minds like kennie ham, Creationism is responsible for everything . . . aside from a cultural/political argument, it's done!  That's what will happen to the whole privileged planet argument.

I'm sure Creationists will survive, they will simply evolve new arguments, after all, isn't Intelligent Design an evolution of the Creation Science argument?  Nothing new, just a change to try and make it sound less religious.  It hasn't worked well, but it is an evolution, much as they probably hate that being pointed out.

Then klingy does something pretty common for the DI and their mouthpieces.  He tries to claim any opposition is using tactics that, in reality, the DI is using.  Look at this:

"ID critics often end up playing the role of naïve theologian: What they "seem to want is a metric with The Human Body as God Would (or Should) Have Made It at one end of the measuring stick."

Yes, some ID critics have looked at the human body and determined that if the human body was designed by a deity, that deity is a lousy designer.  But who is really telling God what he/she did or did not do?

Isn't that what Creationists do every day?  Look at the DI, or any of the Creationists groups.  They repeatedly say "An Intelligent Designer/God Did This!" and offer no actual support, just the usual conjecture and wishful thinking.  At least when ID is criticized, the rationale for the criticism is offered so you can understand it. 

Even back to the original argument, is the Universe mostly wasted space?  I don't know . . . yet.  But one day we will know more and more.  It we are the only life that exists, or that ever or will ever exist, then I will consider it a huge waste of space, regardless of what religious rationalization the DI wants to spin on it.