Let's analyze "Defeaters: The Problem of Science" - a sermon by Joe Coffey

[Chris OConnor]

To get the ball rolling with this I'll point out the first point at which he starts to make inaccurate statements.

Starts around 2:28

"They'll look at me and say, 'You don't believe in evolution do you?' And if you have someone that is like that...that is the barrier for why they cannot even consider the claims of Jesus Christ...because of that...you need..."

I take issue with the wording here as it starts with the assumption that Jesus exists and the Bible contains his words. As an agnostic atheist I don't have a problem with the "claims of Jesus" as much as I have a problem with the claim that Jesus actually existed and that the Bible contains his true words. As we all know the Bible was primarily written by people that never even met Jesus decades after Jesus was supposedly crucified. So I'm not uneasy about the "claims of Christ" as much as I am about the claim that Christ even existed or said or did the things the Bible says he said or did.

[stahrwe]

I guess I'll just come right out and tell you guys why I care so much about this particular sermon. Some of my family members attend this church and one of them encouraged me to watch this sermon video because they thought their pastor was effectively using science to support intelligent design and belief in a deity.

So I watched the video several times and found myself feeling all sorts of emotions. This pastor clearly isn't literate in the various sciences he touches upon in the sermon. He got his info from possibly http://www.icr.org/ or maybe http://www.answersingenesis.org/. Most of us are familiar with these pseudo-science websites, but the people attending this church are probably brand new to most of this material. What upset me more than anything is knowing that the majority of the people attending this sermon are going to watch and assume this pastor actually knows what he's talking about. In fact the family member that directed me to the video sermon seemed somewhat confident that if I only watched the video I would see that science really does support belief in an intelligent designer.

Joe Coffey name drops and throws around various science terms as if they are second nature to him. But while watching I kept hearing him attributing beliefs to scientists that I know they don't possess. I knew Stephen Jay Gould personally, have read most of his books and hundreds of his essays. Gould didn't believe as Coffey said he believed, yet the majority of the people watching this sermon are not going to know this. Coffey is either lying or ignorant. To be honest I don't know which one it is. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he spent a few hours on the creation research websites and then brought back that nonsense to regurgitate (with charisma, confidence and authority) to his parishioners.

Coffey does so much wrong in this sermon that it had my blood boiling. Right or wrong I get deeply upset when people employ conniving means to get ignorant people to believe in bullshit. Not everyone has the time, energy or intellectual capacity to study these subjects as we do here on BookTalk.org. Most people rely on figures of authority, such as Joe Coffey, for their education. So in my opinion this guy is committing an intellectual crime and possibly even breaking a commandment by lying.

I'm not always good at being gentle. When someone is so wrong that it makes my skin crawl I struggle to talk softly and respectfully. But not all of you are so easily aroused as me so I'm hoping on getting some of you to help me bullet-point the logical fallacies and scientific inaccuracies so that they can be shared with Joe Coffey.

How will he react? Will he react at all? I don't know. On the surface he appears to be a pretty nice guy. I don't see him as a confrontational or overly arrogant pastor. So if we approach this respectfully maybe he will acknowledge at least some of his errors. From experience this probably won't happen, but isn't it worth a try?

I think you are putting too much emphasis on the science part. Coffee isn't a scientist he is merely using some discussion points about science and relating it to philosophy and religion. I suspect that you will get little response from him because he says in the beginning that he isn't interested in arguing the creation theory. But invite him to debate on BT. If you have church members in your family he might be receptive.

I liked the visual aids. The shovel was interesting and the carrot cake looked pretty good.

As for getting your blood boiling when you see Gould and science misrepresented, that's how I felt during the TEoG discussion with Wright's treatment of the Bible.

[stahrwe]

To get the ball rolling with this I'll point out the first point at which he starts to make inaccurate statements.

Starts around 2:28

"They'll look at me and say, 'You don't believe in evolution do you?' And if you have someone that is like that...that is the barrier for why they cannot even consider the claims of Jesus Christ...because of that...you need..."

I take issue with the wording here as it starts with the assumption that Jesus exists and the Bible contains his words. As an agnostic atheist I don't have a problem with the "claims of Jesus" as much as I have a problem with the claim that Jesus actually existed and that the Bible contains his true words. As we all know the Bible was primarily written by people that never even met Jesus decades after Jesus was supposedly crucified. So I'm not uneasy about the "claims of Christ" as much as I am about the claim that Christ even existed or said or did the things the Bible says he said or did.

Hey, I already kicked the ball at 1:10pm, see above.

[Interbane]

Starts around 2:28

"They'll look at me and say, 'You don't believe in evolution do you?' And if you have someone that is like that...that is the barrier for why they cannot even consider the claims of Jesus Christ...because of that...you need..."

I see nothing wrong here Chris. Evolution may very well be a barrier to considering such claims, depending on what those claims are. It's an objective, truthful barrier to accepting certain false claims; it rules out alternative 'hypotheses'.

I know what you mean though, reading between the lines. But you left out the part where he says something along the lines of "so you need to reject Evolution to accept Christ". Indeed, the two are mutually exclusive, but you don't choose one over the other based on "desire", you choose based on available evidence. In which case, we choose evolution.

I can't view the video here at work. When I get home later perhaps.

[Chris OConnor]

...that IS the barrier for why they cannot even consider the claims of Jesus Christ

In my case this is a false statement. With or without the proof of evolution I still reject the authenticity of the Bible.

Better wording would have been "...that may be the barrier for why..."

There are many other barriers.

[Dexter]

In order to procrastinate, I gave it a listen:


He talks about how early scientists were believers in God (around 10:45 on), implying that God was somehow an integral part of the theories they were building, but God had no part of the explanations of the natural world they discovered. Their explanations were all naturalistic, or else we wouldn't be talking about it as the birth of modern science.

He says that science is a tool that can be used to bolster the claims of the "naturalism plus" philosophy (around 14:45). But they are not using science as a tool. Give us one example. Science has only disproved their claims, and is usually ignored for that reason.

He says that "matter and energy haven't always existed." (17:40) First of all, as stahrwe points out, I'm not sure if scientists would agree with that formulation. Second, scientists may not have any conclusive theory about what happened at or before the Big Bang, but now you're using the "God of the Gaps" argument -- there's some gap in scientific knowledge, so therefore God exists. Do you really want to argue that since the law of conservation seems not to hold before and after the Big Bang, therefore God exists? Isn't it rather convenient that this law is now being held up as inviolable (even more so than scientists would), while other scientific claims are being ignored?

As for the law of entropy, it's hard to pinpoint his exact claim because he jumps around a bit, but he seems to want to question how complexity can arise if entropy is always increasing. But here I don't think there is even a gap -- unless you want to talk about the Big Bang again. Living creatures for example, delay their approach to maximum entropy, but as part of a larger system, entropy still increases, such as turning food into waste and heat.

"A single living cell is wildly complex" (24:24) Yes, that is why evolution is an amazing phenomenon. This is where his argument really goes wrong -- it's not "random choice" or a "random process" (25:45) -- he neglects to mention natural selection, and you certainly can't understand evolution without it. Mutations may be random, but natural selection isn't -- this refutes his entire line of argument.

He says there are genetic boundaries that naturalists never expected to find (28:50), such as you can't make a dog as small as a grasshopper or a dog with wings -- and "that's a problem," presumably meaning a problem for naturalists. But why is it a problem? Why would limits to a certain type of physical structure be something unexpected?

Evidence on transitional fossils (30:13). He says that Darwin predicted them and that the evidence is poor. But this is a creationist myth -- there are hundreds of fossils (not a "handful") of transitional forms between fish and amphibians, between birds and reptiles, between land and sea mammals, not to mention apelike human ancestors. None of this makes sense from a creationist perspective. He cites Stephen Jay Gould as saying his theory is that transitions happened so fast it left no evidence (30:50) -- I think this is at best a distortion of his view. I happened to just be reading Jerry Coyne's "Why Evolution is True" -- recommended reading on the evidence.

[Interbane]

Around 3:50 he mentions how scientists are looking in the wrong book for how old the universe is and such. The evidence is not a book. Documentation of the evidence is within science books, but not the evidence itself. The books point to experiments and physical evidence, which is all able to be duplicated and seen for yourself. The same is not true of the bible.

Around 4:40 he mentions that the details about the age of the Earth and what Genesis says aren't important.

Stephen Jay Gould says :"No scientific theory can pose any threat to religion. With these two great tools of understanding operate in totally separate realms." Many philosophers would disagree. NOMA comes under attack when we see that from evolutionary biology we can see the origins of morality. That is an overlap. "The Code for Global Ethics" by Rodrigue Tremblay is a great book on how humanist morality should supplant any sort of biblical morality.

Around 7:00 he sets up Gould's argument as a straw man by saying evolution works by random chance. Dexter mentioned this also. It's not random chance. There are very specific selection pressures in operation. The mutations are the "brainstorming", but the selection pressures filter out all the garbage, leaving the fittest mutations.

Around 7:40 he says the 4 questions are inextricably connected. They aren't, because they are categorically different. The first question is answered by an explanatory theory, the other three are teleological and superfluous. Religion does not answer those questions either, it only pretends to.

At 9:30 he talks about Naturalism, and explains it in an educated way. Then he goes on to commit the bare assertion fallacy by stating that there is also "Naturalism plus". He doesn't support this assertion.

At 10:20 he says science was originally a part of Naturalism Plus. It wasn't. Practicing scientists may have believed in supernatural things, but those were beliefs which were distinctly different from the science they practiced.

At 15:30 he asks if the existence of god is reasonable based on scientific data. The answer is no. There is no need for that hypothesis with the data we have. I wouldn't say it's unreasonable, but it certainly isn't reasonable. The question begs an agnostic answer. A 'yes' answer here would make you a deist, but that is far removed from believing in a personal god.

At 17:07 he says the theory of relativity was proven to the 4th decimal point. Theories aren't "proven". Immediately afterward, he says relativity became more of a law than a theory. The difference between the two is a matter of type, not of degree. It's silly to suggest the theory was "upgraded" to a law. He seems to only have a superficial understanding of the philosophy of science.

At 17:40 he talks about the big bang and how it defies the first law of physics, the law of conservation. Read here for why he's wrong.

At 18:55 he says nothing ever goes from disorder to order. Dexter mentioned this. I'd love to have heard someone in the audience shout "what about snowflakes?!?"

I stopped at 20:00.

[johnson1010]

2:23
Faith vs evidence. Not set out exclusively in relation to creation vs evolution. This is the difference between confidence and faith.

Faith is the belief in a thing or expectation where the evidence is non-existent, or runs against the thing being believed.

Confidence is an expectation built on the experience of cause and effect and predictive behavior.

So, when I say that I need evidence, I mean for any reason to act. What I will eat for dinner, what kind of tire I should buy for the winter, how to train my dog, and what my understanding of the universe is. Fundamentally, if you make a choice, you should have good reason to make that choice with a reasonable expectation of success, or some outcome.

Why do primitive cultures believe that a rain dance will be productive? If the rain dance is performed and there is no impact on the weather, then obviously it is the lack of proper etiquette in the execution of the dance that is at fault, not the fact that people are trying to solve a crop hydration issue through the gyration of bodily appendages, rather than a sound irrigation infrastructure.

I demand that there be good reason to do the things I do, and expect no less from those around me.

4:27
Do not get side tracked on some tangent that is not important.

Fundamentally, dismiss the claims of the bible, leave them out of the equation until such time as you have convinced your convert to come on board. Once the suspension of disbelief is in play, they will rationalize these issues away themselves.

The problem with religion is of course that it makes claims about the world which are demonstrably un-true. The issues sited at this point in the video are important, because they are part and parcel of the belief system and they are demonstrably false. This is an obvious indictment of the entire enterprise and one that must be overcome to gain new adherents from free thinkers.

Either these items must be addressed and demonstrated to be possible in the world, or they must be described as a useful plot point in an allegorical story. For the first view of these items to be true, it requires the suspension of physical rules which have been observed by all non-partisan observers for the entire course of human history.

There are instances of miraculous activity recorded in other documents besides the monotheistic holy books, and all documents of this sort are recognized as works of fiction. The miraculous events are plot points used to drive a narrative.

To objectively categorize individual items you must do so by an observation of their common characteristics, those features shared by every member of a collective and only by them. This is how those traits become diagnostic and directly indicative of unique groups.

The fact that the bible contains supernatural events places it with others of its kind as a work of fiction. A resurrection and bodily assent into heaven, for instance has not ever been recorded in any document which is not broadly categorized as a work of fiction.

Considering that any form of Christianity has at its heart the teachings of the bible, it must be concluded that any advancement towards the acceptance of Christianity tacitly implies that these supernatural events must be confronted. Where these events disagree with the readily observable patterns and behaviors of the world it must be concluded that it is the document which is at fault, and not the actual activity, behavior, or characteristic which is being observed.

5:02
Why is it so important. (the distinction between evolution and creation)

An understanding of the world that approximates the actual state of the world is necessary for the successful execution of our will. The most used and obvious way to obtain relevant data is through observation, rather than baseless speculation. Speculation does have its place, especially in those instances where direct observation of a thing is not possible. In all cases where direct observation is possible, baseless speculation must cede to evidence. It is readily apparent that having a true understanding of the state of things is a superior position to a “best guess” scenario.

Christianity attempts to assert baseless speculation over an abundance of readily observable data, available world-wide, which is blatantly in contrast with the statements of Christianity on the truthfulness of creationism. A true understanding of taxonomy and descent with modification leads us to a wider more complete understanding of the interconnected nature of biology with limitless ramifications in all forms of human culture.

5:40

Stephen J Gould quote.

People throughout the centuries have routinely given religion a break. In large part due to the sensitivity of the religious observer who has not historically been generous when dealing with non-believers. Persecution, banishment and death were not off the table, and in large portions of the world, are still in the offing.

Many great minds have filled the holes in their understanding with one god or another, only to have a scientist to come through later and explain that problem with no need of invoking the divine. Where there is still much to be learned about the workings of the brain and the subsequent social structures associated with it, it is clearly subject to natural laws and cause and effect. The intricacies of these mechanisms will be discovered in time and god will once again be shown the door on that gap.

7:10

Not quite a complete grasp on the function of evolution. Over reliance on the notion of randomness.

Take for instance the nerve for the larynx. A nerve that must travel only some 5-6 inches in the human body to go from the brain to the larynx. Instead that nerve travels all the way down our spine to mid-chest, where it loops through the plumbing of the heart and returns up the front of the body to the larynx, traveling close to 3 feet. This same structure exists in the Giraffe. Only in that animal, the nerve should really only need to travel 12 inches or so, instead it travels down the length of the neck entangles itself with the structures around the heart, and travels back up the neck to the larynx. A distance of more than 15 feet.

Why is this structure fundamentally the same in both humans and giraffes, and indeed all animals? If they had all been created independently, or had gotten this nerve through random parallel mutation there is every expectation that these nerves would have come to be in different ways and with much more efficient routes.

They follow convoluted routes in us, but in fish, which have no necks to speak of, that nerve forms a quick little “C” shape from the back of the brain to the gills, passing right through some structures of the heart. Shortest, most economical path. Through descent with modification, known as evolution, that nerve remained as necks developed. If mutation were truly random then there would be no reason not to expect that an entirely new nerve might have surfaced to serve the same purpose while re-routing to avoid this unnecessary entanglement. This perplexing structure is readily explained by descent with modification, while “alternative” explanations fall well short.

Evolution builds on complexity, it doesn’t assemble whole complex structures on the spot. A favorite analogy I have been working with lately is that evolution is NOT like a bag full of letters, which you shake then dump on the table fully expecting a complex sentence to emerge. Evolution is like a small sentence which is copied billions of times, sometimes adding a letter, or removing a letter, or moving a letter to a different place to form new sentences. Over time that sentence says something much different than what it started out saying.

7:21

Where did I come from
Where am I going
Why am I here?

These questions start from a premise that asserts that there should be a subjective answer to them. The universe is not obliged to pander to our inflated sense of self worth. There are many objective answers to why we are this way, where we are going and where we came from, but no subjective answers. We demand subjective answers about these questions because of the lone conceit that we believe ourselves to be special in a way that transcends our connection to the physical universe.

This is an ecstatic assertion borne from our lack of perspective and the fact that we can only experience the world from a perspective which perceives itself to be the center of all things. This is a simple illusion brought on by the fact that physics limits our perception to a radius that originates from our most sensitive receptive node, the human head. There is no correlation of our perceived importance and the fact of our existence. We will and we have died in our trillions and the earth has not noticed. Billions of years from now the light from our sun’s death rattle will reach a planet inhabited by sentient life and they will have no idea that there once was a planet there called earth.
You are an animal whose impact on the world is limited by your very temporary life-span, the reach of your influence, and the barriers of your language.

10:00

Distinction between natural and supernatural.

If at any point the supernatural world is meant to interact with the natural world, then it is by that very interaction a part of the natural world. If it does NOT interact with that world, the world in which we exist, then in what way is it meant to exist at all?

10:30 ish
People who believed in god invented science.

At its most basic level, science is NOT about beakers and litmus papers and physics labs, or even alchemy. The most basic level of science is making a prediction about the world, testing it, abandoning the predictions which fail, or refining the successful ones so that they can be relied upon.

The first gatherer who remembered where the berries will ripen next spring was using science.

Observation: berries grow here. Prediction: berries will be here again. Experiment: go see if the berries have returned.
It is no mistake, however, that the societal leaders of any culture found that they had the time on their hands to specialize in a study of the world and refine ways of understanding it. They had workers to take care of their basic needs which freed them up to work on more esoteric matters.

Attempting to link this activity with any particular religion or belief system is disingenuous. Stone henge, the pyramids, the spy glass, fire, the wheel, the study of cosmic motion, magnetic compasses and a vast blizzard of other scientific advances were created in cultures that had no affiliation with Christianity at the time of their creation and they did not suffer for it.

Christianity was not the father of science and can claim no particular hand in shaping the use of science. In fact you will see a direct correlation to the decline of scientific knowledge and the increase in religious activity, whether it be the fall of the library at Alexandria, the squandering of scientific knowledge in Baghdad, or the aptly named “dark ages” dominated by superstitious clergy which set our species back a thousand years. It is not unreasonable to imagine that had the penchant for valuing evidence for reason to act rather than faith, we might well be colonizing mars right now. Think where we will be in a thousand years of scientific advance. That might have been us now.

It must be stated again that religious life was and still is the default mode of raising a child in our cultures, so tight is the yolk of superstition.

Isaac Newton did not do what he did because of his religious affiliation, however when his true insights of the world failed him, he did invoke the divine to explain further mysteries. Famously, a mystery that would later be unraveled by another scientist, Laplace, who, when asked by Napoleon what role god played in the construction and maintenance of the heavens, replied. “I had no need of that hypothesis.”

Religion is the blanket thrown over our ignorance. Science is the arm which lifts it, to expose what lies beneath.

more later. sleep now.

[DWill]

Amazing job, johnson.

[stahrwe]

Frankly, the criticisms I have seen so far are, in a word, 'lame'. The only 'gotcha' one was the one I pointed out and even that one is understandable. If I were Cofey and you came to me with these objections I would reply, "Is this all you have?"