I see that Barry Arrington is blogging up a storm lately over at Uncommon Descent. It’s all his usual silliness–bad arguments coupled with denunciations of anyone who dares disagree with him–but this post was eyebrow-raising even for him.
The set-up is this: Arrington is in the habit of making big bold claims about what is possible and what is not. Sometimes his readers challenge him to back up those claims. These challenges are met with insults and condemnations.
In the present instance the claim is that the brain cannot be a fully naturalistic organ because mere chemicals cannot be the cause of abstract images. He writes:
[T]he physical chemicals in the brain are incapable of producing the mental images in the mind. There is a vast, unbridgeable ontological gulf between physical things and mental things. Therefore, we can rule out, in principle and a priori “chemicals” as a cause of “thoughts.”
Skeptical readers might want some justification for that “vast, unbridgeable, ontological gulf” remark. Arrington’s post is actually a response to a commenter named Popperian who asked for just such a justification. Arrington is happy to oblige:
If I say we can rule out a priori “pile of bricks” as a possible cause of “imaginary unicorn” because it is logically impossible for a pile of bricks to cause an imaginary unicorn, it is absurd to stamp your foot and say “You’ve committed the error of inductivism, because it’s poss-i-bool; it’s poss-i-bool!”
Bare, unsupported claims of possibility will not defeat my a priori claim. You are the one asserting possibility, so it is your burden to demonstrate possibility by outlining a plausible mechanism for how a pile of bricks could cause an imaginary unicorn. And if you can’t even begin to do so, my claim is unrefuted.
The same goes with my claim that we can exclude “chemicals” on an a priori basis as being a cause of “mental images.” Again, the bare assertion “it’s poss-i-bool; it’s poss-i-bool” gets you nowhere. If you say it’s possible, then show us; until then my claim stands unrefuted.
So that’s how it works! One person makes a bold, unsupported claim that something is impossible, and suddenly everyone else is burdened with the responsibility of proving him wrong. That’s how crackpots think. Scientists and philosophers take a different approach. In our world you first have to prove that your assertions are worth taking seriously before you can demand that other people refute you.
We could offer a few challenges to Arrington’s assertions. Phrases like “a priori” and “logically impossible” do not mean what he thinks they mean. We certainly do not know a priori that piles of bricks do not form images of imaginary unicorns, and it is not logically impossible that they do. It is instead an empirical fact that they do not, one we feel confident about precisely because we thoroughly understand their physical and chemical structure.
I do not know how the chemical reactions and electrical firings inside my head lead to mental images, but there is copious evidence that they do and zero evidence that anything non-physical is involved. As one of Arrington’s commenters pointed out, ingest the right chemicals and imaginary unicorns will be the least of the wonders you behold. Meanwhile, Arrington and his fellow travelers can’t even begin to explain how any non-physical mindstuff interacts with the brain to produce mental images.
The situation, then, is this: Everything we understand about the brain has come from diligent, hard-working scientists doing good ol’ materialist science. There is ample evidence that the brain is purely physical and no evidence (frequent discredited creationist ramblings notwithstanding) for anything else. Then here comes Arrington to say, “It is logically impossible for chemicals to produce mental images. I have declared it so!” And to anyone who has the temerity to ask why he would assert such a thing he replies, “You’re an idiot! It is for you to explain why I am wrong.” Charming.
I have dwelled on this because Arrington is the leader of the premiere ID blog, and his argument here is representative of ID generally. Real scientists point to the copious physical evidence for evolution, and to the consistent successes obtained by applying evolutionary thinking to their research problems. ID folks fight them tooth and nail on it. They say “How do you know random mutation and natural selection can produce significant evolutionary change? Give us a mutation by mutation account of what happened and then we’ll believe you.” Scientists mostly say no thank you and return to their work. They suggest the ID folks come back when they have something helpful to say.
But when they are preaching to their choirs, when they are strutting around lying about their accomplishments, their standard of proof declines precipitously. Here they will make the boldest and most audacious claims about what is possible and what is not, with almost nothing in the way of argument to back it up. That is why conversations between ID proponents and scientists often fall into the same rut:
ID PROPONENT: It is impossible for irreducibly complex systems to evolve gradually.
SCIENTIST: Not true. Here are several ways they can evolve.
ID PROPONENT: You’re just speculating. We win!
Or this:
ID PROPONENT: The genome contains complex specified information. That cannot be the result of evolution.
SCIENTIST: How do you know it contains complex specified information in the idiosyncratic, incoherent sense you have defined?
ID PROPONENT: It’s obvious! Evolution is refuted!
Or maybe this:
ID PROPONENT: The second law of thermodynamics and the no free lunch theorems refute evolution.
SCIENTIST: Actually, you are not applying those results properly. Here’s why…
ID PROPONENT: Stop ducking the question. Intelligent design is the only possible explanation!
Arrington is the perfect ID front man. He is so upfront about his craziness and mendacity that he ably strips away ID’s pretensions of being anything intellectually serious.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NmHxI2
I see that Barry Arrington is blogging up a storm lately over at Uncommon Descent. It’s all his usual silliness–bad arguments coupled with denunciations of anyone who dares disagree with him–but this post was eyebrow-raising even for him.
The set-up is this: Arrington is in the habit of making big bold claims about what is possible and what is not. Sometimes his readers challenge him to back up those claims. These challenges are met with insults and condemnations.
In the present instance the claim is that the brain cannot be a fully naturalistic organ because mere chemicals cannot be the cause of abstract images. He writes:
[T]he physical chemicals in the brain are incapable of producing the mental images in the mind. There is a vast, unbridgeable ontological gulf between physical things and mental things. Therefore, we can rule out, in principle and a priori “chemicals” as a cause of “thoughts.”
Skeptical readers might want some justification for that “vast, unbridgeable, ontological gulf” remark. Arrington’s post is actually a response to a commenter named Popperian who asked for just such a justification. Arrington is happy to oblige:
If I say we can rule out a priori “pile of bricks” as a possible cause of “imaginary unicorn” because it is logically impossible for a pile of bricks to cause an imaginary unicorn, it is absurd to stamp your foot and say “You’ve committed the error of inductivism, because it’s poss-i-bool; it’s poss-i-bool!”
Bare, unsupported claims of possibility will not defeat my a priori claim. You are the one asserting possibility, so it is your burden to demonstrate possibility by outlining a plausible mechanism for how a pile of bricks could cause an imaginary unicorn. And if you can’t even begin to do so, my claim is unrefuted.
The same goes with my claim that we can exclude “chemicals” on an a priori basis as being a cause of “mental images.” Again, the bare assertion “it’s poss-i-bool; it’s poss-i-bool” gets you nowhere. If you say it’s possible, then show us; until then my claim stands unrefuted.
So that’s how it works! One person makes a bold, unsupported claim that something is impossible, and suddenly everyone else is burdened with the responsibility of proving him wrong. That’s how crackpots think. Scientists and philosophers take a different approach. In our world you first have to prove that your assertions are worth taking seriously before you can demand that other people refute you.
We could offer a few challenges to Arrington’s assertions. Phrases like “a priori” and “logically impossible” do not mean what he thinks they mean. We certainly do not know a priori that piles of bricks do not form images of imaginary unicorns, and it is not logically impossible that they do. It is instead an empirical fact that they do not, one we feel confident about precisely because we thoroughly understand their physical and chemical structure.
I do not know how the chemical reactions and electrical firings inside my head lead to mental images, but there is copious evidence that they do and zero evidence that anything non-physical is involved. As one of Arrington’s commenters pointed out, ingest the right chemicals and imaginary unicorns will be the least of the wonders you behold. Meanwhile, Arrington and his fellow travelers can’t even begin to explain how any non-physical mindstuff interacts with the brain to produce mental images.
The situation, then, is this: Everything we understand about the brain has come from diligent, hard-working scientists doing good ol’ materialist science. There is ample evidence that the brain is purely physical and no evidence (frequent discredited creationist ramblings notwithstanding) for anything else. Then here comes Arrington to say, “It is logically impossible for chemicals to produce mental images. I have declared it so!” And to anyone who has the temerity to ask why he would assert such a thing he replies, “You’re an idiot! It is for you to explain why I am wrong.” Charming.
I have dwelled on this because Arrington is the leader of the premiere ID blog, and his argument here is representative of ID generally. Real scientists point to the copious physical evidence for evolution, and to the consistent successes obtained by applying evolutionary thinking to their research problems. ID folks fight them tooth and nail on it. They say “How do you know random mutation and natural selection can produce significant evolutionary change? Give us a mutation by mutation account of what happened and then we’ll believe you.” Scientists mostly say no thank you and return to their work. They suggest the ID folks come back when they have something helpful to say.
But when they are preaching to their choirs, when they are strutting around lying about their accomplishments, their standard of proof declines precipitously. Here they will make the boldest and most audacious claims about what is possible and what is not, with almost nothing in the way of argument to back it up. That is why conversations between ID proponents and scientists often fall into the same rut:
ID PROPONENT: It is impossible for irreducibly complex systems to evolve gradually.
SCIENTIST: Not true. Here are several ways they can evolve.
ID PROPONENT: You’re just speculating. We win!
Or this:
ID PROPONENT: The genome contains complex specified information. That cannot be the result of evolution.
SCIENTIST: How do you know it contains complex specified information in the idiosyncratic, incoherent sense you have defined?
ID PROPONENT: It’s obvious! Evolution is refuted!
Or maybe this:
ID PROPONENT: The second law of thermodynamics and the no free lunch theorems refute evolution.
SCIENTIST: Actually, you are not applying those results properly. Here’s why…
ID PROPONENT: Stop ducking the question. Intelligent design is the only possible explanation!
Arrington is the perfect ID front man. He is so upfront about his craziness and mendacity that he ably strips away ID’s pretensions of being anything intellectually serious.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1NmHxI2
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