God: The Failed Hypothesis

[Al Moritz]

God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor Stenger

Subtitle: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist

Here is a devastating critique of the book by the eminent cosmologist George Ellis:

physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/27736

[Al Moritz]

Stenger's arguments are sometimes laughable, such as his assertion that "nothing is unstable". This is philosophical and logical nonsense. Nothing has no properties. True nothing is, after all, nothing. And if he means the physical "nothing" of the quantum vacuum, well, that is not nothing, it is a field.

Also on the apparent fine-tuning of the laws of nature Stenger entertains fringe opinions, which are outside mainstream science. Prominent atheist and agnostic cosmologists, such as Hawking, Rees, Davies, Suesskind, Linde, Vilenkin and even Weinberg, all know too well that the apparent fine-tuning is a serious issue, and how vanishingly small the odds for life are if the constants change just a bit.

Atheists rightfully scold believers when they follow fringe movements outside mainstream science, such as the anti-evolution Intelligent Design movement. I fully support their efforts. Yet as demonstrated by the strong resonance of Stenger's writings in the atheist community, atheists are, ironically, just as prone to follow fringe opinions outside mainstream science, as long as they snugly fit into their world view.

It just goes to show that, contrary to their loud assertions, many (in my experience, most) atheists do not follow the evidence. They just follow their own prejudices.

[eckadimmock]

Strangely enough, a a recent survey suggests that 12% of them believe in Jesus!

[bjorn]

I for one have never understood how someone can believe that something that is not, can do anything.

Or as Aristotle would have put it:

To sense that what is not is able to make what is, is nonsense.

[humphreyclarke]

The prof has a new book coming out called 'Quantum Gods'

www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/dice.html

He seems to be promoting some kind of 'Nihilist Cosmology' in this one:

The model in which the universe is made of matter and nothing else and had a spontaneous, uncaused, natural origin from a state of chaos equivalent to “nothing” agrees with all the data. As a state of the universe, “something” is more natural than “nothing.” So we appear to have good evidence for a universe that came about spontaneously, without cause, from nothing. The laws of physics also came from nothing. The structure of the universe emerged from nothing. Indeed, we can view that structure, including Earth and humanity, as forms of frozen nothing.

So in the beginning there was a bit fat nothing. Then suddenly - from this nothing - spontaneously erupted space-time, laws of physics and matter, all suspiciously fine tuned to allow the existence of concious observers. I preferred the one about the giant Mbombo vomiting up the sun, moon, and stars.

[Al Moritz]

Agrees with all the data? What data? I suppose after smoking enough of atheist mental pot you can make up any data to agree with.

[bjorn]

Saying

"equivalent to “nothing”"

is equivalent to say to not nothing.

Or a cop out as Thomas would have said.

[humphreyclarke]

"What data? I suppose after smoking enough of atheist mental pot you can make up any data to agree with."

I think I need some of this atheist mental pot as, for some reason ,I feel uncomfortable with the idea of an infinite number of universes with infinite copies of me. I really should just accept it as it is a far more reasonable hypothesis than God, plus it has diagrams and footnotes and stuff.

[unkleE]

Apr 4, 2009 9:45:14 GMT Al Moritz said:

Stenger's arguments are sometimes laughable, such as his assertion that "nothing is unstable". This is philosophical and logical nonsense. Nothing has no properties. True nothing is, after all, nothing. And if he means the physical "nothing" of the quantum vacuum, well, that is not nothing, it is a field.

Yes, John Polkinghorne writes: "in quantum theory, when there is 'nothing' there, it does not mean that nothing is happening" (Science and Christian Belief)

And Martin Rees says this: "Cosmologists sometimes claim that the universe can arise 'from nothing' - but they should watch their language, especially when addressing philosophers. We've realised ever since Einstein that empty space can have a structure such that it can be warped and distorted. Even if shrunk to a 'point', it is latent with particles and forces - still a far richer construct that the philosophers' nothing." (Just Six Numbers)

Also on the apparent fine-tuning of the laws of nature Stenger entertains fringe opinions, which are outside mainstream science. Prominent atheist and agnostic cosmologists, such as Hawking, Rees, Davies, Suesskind, Linde, Vilenkin and even Weinberg, all know too well that the apparent fine-tuning is a serious issue, and how vanishingly small the odds for life are if the constants change just a bit.

Yes, I lost respect for Stenger after he produced a model that claimed to show that the universe was at least 50% probable to have lasted long enough to allow life to form, yet I read Penrose (1 in 10^10^123), Smolin (1 in 10^229) and Susskind (accuracy to 119 decimal places) produce infinitessimal numerical probability estimates, sometimes for just some of the fine-tuning constants.

[syzygy]

I'm doubtful about the idea of God as hypothesis. If that's what God is, then you need a model to explain how to go from the hypothesis to predictions about God's effects. That would give you an immensely complex God, which contradicts the conclusions of most theologians and also makes God's existence more improbable than improbabilities God is meant to explain.

But there may be more kinds of rationality than scientific, and then surely thoughts about God belong to one of the other kinds, among which I would also include art criticism, ethics, and philosophy. I haven't come across even an attempt at a scientific proof that rationality is limited to science, though that seems to be implied in most scientific criticisms of theology.

I think an interesting study could be made comparing the kind of thinking Thomas Aquinas uses in his proofs for the existence of God with the scientific method. I doubt that God for Aquinas would have been a hypothesis with which to make predictions that would be testable by experiment or observation. Of course, on the hypothesis that God does not exist, Aquinas would have predicted that there would be no universe to observe. (But that would be to assume beforehand that at least one of his proofs was valid.) Anyway, de facto that's a pretty hard observation to make.

On the other hand, suppose one did make the observation that there is no universe. Would that prove that there is no God? Not if you're thinking of the Christian God, for whom creation is a free choice that might have been otherwise.

The whole idea of freedom in God makes prediction of any of God's effects impossible. That's what's wrong with scientific studies of the efficacy of prayer. God's existence does not enable us to predict that there will be scientific gaps that only God can fill. Does God's non-existence mean that there can be no such gaps? Not at all. The universe could be simply absurd, impervious to logic, with gaps all over the place.

Personally, I think a universe that is not absurd is a better witness (not a scientific concept) to the existence of a divine, omniscient, omnipotent creator than one that has gaps. In an absurd universe even a miracle would prove nothing. Actually, I look forward to a scientific "Theory of Everything."

[bjorn]

Precisely

A great (not merely good) book on this is Feser's The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism - www.amazon.com/Last-Superstition-Refutation-New-Atheism/dp/1587314517/

Even if a bit angry and arrogant (just to keep the new atheists off from reading it and in stead making silly complaints), it is extremely illuminating.

[humphreyclarke]

In case anyone is interested I was taking a look at this 'scribd' site last night and found someone had uploaded Stenger's book on here. (James you might want to be a bit wary of this site when your book comes out as it is something of a haven of copyright infringement)

www.scribd.com/doc/4103187/God-The-Failed-Hypothesis-How-Science-Shows-That-God-Does-Not-Exist

I have to say it is really poor, though occasionally interesting. I found myself chuckling through various sections. Anyone who has read Barr's 'Modern Physics and Ancient Faith' will remember that he makes a lot of the various symmetries in the laws of physics and the way complex rules have simple origins as evidence of design. Stenger seems to think that these are evidence that the universe is not designed, and if it is design, the designer must be of limited intelligence. Don't quite know how he works that one out.

Much of the book, as George Ellis has pointed out, is actually bad philosophy. Certain (highly selective) scientific facts are marshalled but many other inconvenient ones are left out. The fine tuning section is utterly misleading. The cosmological constant for example is mentioned but he quickly moves on to something else without discussing it properly.

I found this bit on the 'bad design of the human body' to be the most hilarious:

'Olshansky, Carnes, and Butler show what a properly designed human would be like. She would have bigger ears, rewired eyes, a curved neck, a forward-tilting torso, shorter limbs and stature, extra padding around joints, extra muscles and fat, thicker spinal disks, a reversed knee joint, and more. But she would not be very pretty by our present standards.'

Olshansky, Carnes, and Butler clearly need to get out more.

P.S

Here are the full grisly details. Basically if we were built to last we should look like a cross between an elf and a hobbit. Methinks the authors have something of a 'Lord of the Rings' fetish.

eebweb.arizona.edu/Michod/Classes/182/182%202006/Better%20human%20design.pdf

[jamierobertson]

Good Lord, that's one dreadful SciAm article. The entire premise is undone by the telling little paragraph:

<i>"Suboptimal design of the upper respiratory and digestive systems makes choking a risk for older people. A simple rearrangement would have fixed that problem, <b>albeit at the cost of several trade-offs</b>"</i>

This isn't a properly designed human body - it's a human body that MAY bring some survival benefits once you get past the first 50 years, with unknown difficulties before then and goodness knows how many potential complications afterwards. Every intervention I've made as a doctor, even with a positive result, runs the risk of making something else go wrong - and that's not bad design, it's just logic and the nature of a complicated system!

[humphreyclarke]

On the plus side, just doing a comparison with myself

Shorter limbs and stature - Check, i'm about 5.6

Bigger ears - Well maybe not that big but bigger than average

Extra padding around joints - Check; the result of too many pints of lager.

Arguably I have the perfect body; Olshansky, Carnes, and Butler wouldn't have to do too much redesign on me.

Here's another great one from Stenger:

'The argument from evil starts with the empirical fact that evil (bad stuff) exists in the world (a scientific statement) and shows that a god who is at the same time omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient—the 3O God—cannot exist.'

So if I say that X is evil, that is a scientific statement is it?. Think there might be a few issues with that.

In the next section he gives some phenomena which might confirm the 'God hypothesis'.

Natural events might follow some moral law, rather than morally neutral mathematical laws. For example, lightning might strike mostly wicked people; people who behave badly might fall sick more often; nuns would always survive plane crashes.

Why stop there. If the God hypothesis were true, the Pope would be able to fire bolts of lightning at sinners, Benedictine monks would be able to levitate and the Archbishop of Canterbury would be immortal.

So far this is a contender for the worst book I have ever read.