This is the essence of a comment I wrote in reply to a someone elses comment in my blog. I think it is relevant here.

Reformed Theologians tend to take an extremely negative view on a sinners ability to reason properly. When I first read their arguments for this I was less than impressed. They were basically arguing that all sinners are by thier very nature irrational and incapable of properly rational though.

While I still disagree with the extreme position interactions with guys like this are slowly moving me to a more moderate version of the Reformed position.

I guess my position is that:

1. We are made in the image of God, a part of being made in His image is that we are cognitively capable of logical though. God is orderly and has made our minds orderly. So things like the principle of non-contradiction are instinctive (that something cannot be both a and not a).

2. The fall has corrupted us and placed us in rebellion against God. This has an effect on our minds. While it does not effect our ability to think logically, it does effect our ability to affirm certain notions. So man can still think logically enough to build a space shuttle, but can't accept the premise that God exists.

3. Therefore people are normally more or less rational (though this is a reduced rationality from what we would have in our glorified state IMO). However people will think irrationally when it comes to God.

Obviously I might be overstating the reformed theologians initial position above but the point remains, when confronted with a Sophie's Choice like you mention metaphysical naturalists are doomed to, well, positions like Susskinds which, to me, seem far more faith based than any ID theory.
matt | Homepage | 12.15.05 - 3:42 pm | #

Hey Dave, does Susskind's new book present a problem for ID? I don't understand?
Benjii | 12.16.05 - 7:59 pm | #

I think Susskind's prediction is only pseudo-testable. It can only be contradicted in principle if the universe is positively curved. If it is flat, we'll never be able to falsify k
Jacob Yoder | 12.16.05 - 10:44 pm | #

Benji,

No, not at all.
David Heddle | Homepage | 12.16.05 - 11:25 pm | #

k
Jacob Yoder | 12.17.05 - 9:53 am | #

so it turns out that the comment section isn't the best place to use the less than symbol. "k less than 0" is what I've been trying to write.
Jacob Yoder | 12.17.05 - 9:54 am | #

If it is flat, we'll never be able to falsify k(less-than)1

Jacob,

Lenny's answer to the expanding universe is an outside influence from other parts of the multiverse, but that's not even close to being occam's choice, since there are much simpler ways to accomplish the same thing without the need for external influences.

How's does the idea of him being flat-out wrong sit with you?

~

Benny, if you take away Mr. Susskind's assumption that a multiverse can exist, then his statements about the appearance of design makes a strong case for evidence for design in nature. That's because you can't lose the significance of the implication that we are not here by accident if you don't have an infinite number of possible universes to do that with.

If you make a leap of faith, then you can believe that god is the designer, but like I've said... natural cause is by default the observed causal mechanism for phenomenon in our universe, so you can't assume that anthropic structuring isn't part of a physical process that produces humans for some specific purpose in that physical process.

Evidence for natural design, cannot infer intelligent design without direct proof, nor can it be interpreted as evidence for god without an unfounded leap of faith.
island | Homepage | 12.19.05 - 4:48 pm | #

It's also an unfounded leap of faith to decide that without multiple universes that we are not here by accident. You simply can't make that assumption. The best you can say is that we were here, we don't know if it was by design or not, but we can't really investigate the former, so we will try to show the latter as well as possible.
GCT | 12.20.05 - 9:03 am | #

Being an extreme lightweight with regard to physics, I hope I won't annoy anyone, but I've often wondered if the search for a unifying theory in and of itself doesn't represent an implicit belief in intelligent design. If it does not, then why would such a theory exist. If the universe (I like the original meaning of the word - everything that exists) is simply a lucky accident resulting from myriad random events, why would one expect to find a unifying theory?
Karen Norrell | Homepage | 12.20.05 - 5:06 pm | #

Karen,

You are spot-on. A fundamental theory, when coupled with fine-tuning, is very ID friendly. Susskind recognizes this--which is one reason he finds himself in the very odd position (for a physicist) of arguing against the goal of a fundamental theory.
David Heddle | Homepage | 12.20.05 - 5:48 pm | #

No, actually Mr. Heddle has it wrong here. A unifying theory or not says nothing about the existence of god. It either exists or it doesn't independent of whether god exists or not. Mr. Heddle's insistence on marrying his god concept to science disserves both in my opinion. Science is completely separate and defined to be that way, else it would have no utility.
GCT | 12.21.05 - 8:27 am | #

GCT is correct that science can't prove God's existence. Science **presumes** the existence of the natural world and the regularity of its laws. You can't use a system of thought (i.e., science) to prove its own founding presumption.

Additionally naturalistic science excludes final causality (purpose) ***by assumption***. Again, this means such science can't prove God, but neither can it disprove.

On the other hand, since we are human beings whose minds are not limited by the procrustean constraits of science (e.g., do you have to establish *empirically* whether your family loves you? Or even that they exist?), it is less than a baby-step from the data science provides to the properly *philosophical* conclusion of the existence of a provident Creator.

David, thanks for the very good post. You've done some good research here. I'm hoping to post my own review of the book in not too distant future and will link back here.

LG
Lawrence Gage | Homepage | 02.26.06 - 4:40 pm | #

LG,
Science does not "presume" or "assume" anything. Naturalism is not presumed, it is imposed on us by the natural world. Science is open to supernatural hypotheses, tests, etc. but until someone can come up with a way of testing for or using the supernatural, it remains a non-starter for science. That does not mean that it is simply presumption.

By the same token, science does not assume there is no purpose. Science does not address the issue for the same reason as above.
GCT | 02.27.06 - 8:13 am | #

Susskind's book is my first forray into the realm of physics (I'm a biologist), but the parallels are remarkable with regard to explaining design in nature. Paley's watchmaker has always been the frontline defence for ID folk - the existence of an artefact with form and structure MUST imply a watchmaker; so must the same be true of nature. Darwin, of course, turned this metaphor on it's head. From randomness order emerges on its own. Maybe this isn't relevant but everyone's comments so far remind me much of debates I've had with students about ID.
Hugh
Anonymous | 09.17.06 - 2:16 pm | #