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The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science

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If Francis Crick, William Dembski, Michael Ruse, Alan Guth, Roger Penrose, Howard Van Till, and all their friends all got together for a discussion, what would they talk about? No need to speculate - this book, The Nature of Nature, contains papers from all of these top scholars as well as many others. Just listing out the big names in science that contributed to this volume would be a more than adequate review.

It turns out that all of these scholars are focused on the "big questions" of life - where did we come from? what is the nature of consciousness? what is the nature of ethics? what is the nature of nature itself?

While these questions all sound philosophical, this book focuses on scientific approaches to each question. The book, at over 900 pages, is impossible to summarize in such a short review. However, I will say that on every question, there are multiple perspectives offered, giving the reader a broad view of the ways which each question can be approached.

For instance, on the nature of the mind, there are essays from Nancey Murphy, who gives an explanation as to how the mind can function as a purely physical entity, John Tooby, who provides an evolutionary explanation of the mind's organization, and Henry Stapp, who argues for a dualism between the mind and the brain coordinated at the quantum level. Similar discussions are had about the origin of life, the origin of the universe, the the nature of mathematics, and the nature of nature itself.

I recommend this book to any person who wants to take a deep look at life's deepest questions. There are no shallow arguments here. If you are a scientist, a theologian, or an interested layperson, this volume provides a host of scholarly papers examining life's most meaningful questions from a number of directions.

The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science is a compendium of the leading scholars in the area of science and religion, including three Nobel laureates, who weigh in on the following question: is the universe self-existent, self-sufficient, and self-organizing, or is it instead organized by a reality that transcends space, time, matter, and energy? When the book came in the mail I was surprised at its mammoth size. It reminded me of Stephens Jay Gould's The structure of Evolutionary Theory book. The Nature of Nature has the same large page size and about as many pages as Gould's book. In contrast to Gould's book, The Nature book is more readable and I did not note any almost full page single sentences as Gould's book contains. As I leafed through The Nature I realized this is not a book that one would normally read straight through, so I selected chapters of interest, as most readers will likely do, in my case mostly those in the area of my graduate work, cell biology. The chapters by Drs Behe, Axe, Meyer, Rana and others reviewed some of their earlier work and responded to criticism. As a whole their chapters served as an excellent succinct summary of their main ideas and past publications. Axe's chapter on Protein folding helped inform me about the latest research in this critical area, one that I have not kept up much with since graduate school. The chapters by critics of Intelligent Design were, judging by the ones that I read, excellent selections that helped the reader understand both sides of the controversy over origins and Naturalism. The number of chapters on each side of the book's theme were close the equal, and the collection for this reason will be valuable no matter which side of the controversy one favors. Michael Shermer argued in his chapter that "experiment after experiment reveals the same answer: we [humans] are a fluke of nature, a quirk of evolution, a glorious contingency" (page 455). This conclusion was echoed in several other chapters. The friendly debate between Alvin Plantinga and his critics was a model of the best of a debate undertaken to focus on the issues and eschew personal attacks. Highly recommended and indispensable to understand the current cultural war between theists and naturalists.

This is a big book. You can use it as a paperweight in a windstorm or a stepstool, but its 963 pages contain an encyclopedia of debate about one of the most critical issues of our time: what exists, and how do we know? Can reality be subsumed in the material categories of particles and forces? This critical question, assumed in the affirmative by Darwinists, is at the fountainhead of all human belief and action. In The Nature of Nature, the question is expanded into numerous sub-questions, each treated by respectable, knowledgeable scholars from various viewpoints and realms of expertise.

That's part of its value. As science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein said, "I never learned from a man who agreed with me." Your opinions, if defensible, will be strengthened by exposure to contrary points of view. Mine have been; in fact, reading in this book some of the best that my philosophical opponents could deliver has been like a good workout, temporarily fatiguing, but afterward, producing that warm rush of confidence. I especially enjoyed wrestling with Ronald Numbers and Christian de Duve and am convinced in my own mind that I found their weaknesses. I also enjoyed watching the closely-matched fight between Plantinga andTalbott over whether naturalism is self-refuting (the latter, I'm convinced, assumed what he needed to prove). That's one way to enjoy this book; see it as a contest to the ideological death between prize fighters.

Don't expect to take this dense, heavy book to the train station or read it at one sitting. Instead, browse the table of contents, then read the introduction to each section. There are 7 parts and 41 chapters, by 36 contributors (including 3 Nobel laureates), writing cogently and sometimes passionately, providing hundreds of references and endnotes. (Some of the best material is in the endnotes.) Don't be daunted by the voluminous text; find a part that interests you, and dive in. You don't have to read it in order. Each chapter is self-contained, and each section is well rounded. After sufficient coverage, you will have learned a lot about history, philosophy, science, and theology, and will understand why the intelligent-design-versus-naturalism debate is not going away any time soon.

The Nature of Nature is also a monument to academic freedom. With its roots in the Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information and Design at Baylor University that was quickly shut down by intolerant evolutionary professors in 2000, the book resurrects and augments presentations that editors William Dembski and Bruce Gordon intended for its "Nature of Nature" conference to provide. They are to be commended for keeping the dream alive for 11 years and bringing this compendium of scholarship to reality.

Darwin himself argued that "a fair result can only be obtained by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." Here it is; the necessary, if not sufficient, condition for what Darwin hoped for: "a fair result" about, in this case, a fundamental, timeless question, pregnant with societal ramifications. Engage.

This book is derived from many a symposium on the same matter and it writes like a "who-is-who" especially in areas such as physics and quantum mechanics. The book is over 900-pages in length and I am still reading different essays contingent upon the section of specialty. There is some repetition here in that, although a respective essay fails to state that it is borrowed from previous writing or book, can be dismissed as repetition is a manner of habit for learning. Like the first reviewer, I confess that I have not completed the entire book. I had also wished that Don Page, Fr. Robert Spitzer, and John Sinclair had made contributions--the same goes for Susskind, Lederman, Brian Greene and Kip Thorne.

Weinberg's essay seemed somewhat disengaged and "Dawkin's-like" in spirit as someone of Weinberg's intellectual caliber could have written something that does not come off like he is bothered to even attend or deliver his paper. At a recent unnamed event, Weinberg did not know what the "M" in M-theory stood for although Ed Witten's intellectual acumen matches Weinberg's acumen (and perhaps surpasses it), and Weinberg was also oblivious to the fact that Paul Steinhardt himself had largely agreed that his updated "Cyclic Ekpyrotic Scenario" that deals with membranes (or "branes")) is not able to work. Weinberg not only appealed to the first Ekpryrotic Scenario (model) when Steinhardt recognized that the BVG theorem renders a cyclic universe past incomplete. (These embarrassing misstatements for such an intelligent man hearken back to Einstein's last days at Princeton).

The book is fantastic and a marked "purchase for personal library" for those who are engaged in these natters. There is much more to say, such as fine-tuning versus multiverse, the neo-Darwinian synthesis with design, cosmology versus cyclic models, pre-big bang scenarios, multidimensionality, the ontic foundation for morality (with an essay by Michael Ruse who is always a delight to read), and even the historian Ronald Numbers makes a contribution. For those that do not know these names, these guys are the cream-of-the crop, which is why you must purchase this book. If there are matters over your head, then I would suggest reading the chapters on cosmology in William Lane Craig's "Reasonable Faith," who happens to be another contributor along with Bill Dembski and Michael Behe.

There are several overviews of the naturalism-antinaturalism controversy, including volumes edited by P. K. Moser (Contemporary Materialism: A Reader) and W. Lane Craig (Naturalism: A Critical Analysis). However, The Nature of Nature is presently the largest on the market (almost 1000 pages). It contains an up-to date and comprehensive account of the spectrum of the current debate among English-language writers. Many known philosophers and philosophising scientists are represented, with addition of the known populariser and skeptic M. Shermer. The volume covers both naturalism as such and principal areas of scien-tific research where the overwhelming impact of the naturalising trend has left the greatest impact. Naturalism is obviously rooted in three basic provinces of philosophy: ontology, epis-temology, and value theory. The contributions included in the volume focus rather on the sec-ond root. In this respect, varieties of methodological naturalism are succinctly explained in an essay by Ernan McMullin.
There are separate chapters on general problems of naturalistic science, its philosophical foun-dations, biological information, cosmology, evo-psycho, scientific ethics and even mathemat-ics. The latter has long been regarded as "Platonic by definition", and therefore immune to naturalising influence. Despite this widespread notion, Philip Kitcher sketches something called naturalistic constructivism. He tries to avoid problems caused by the Platonic approach by conflating truth and justification. In fact, his proposal reduces to a historical-pragmatist epistemology of mathematics. Some chapters summarise earlier proposals by their authors, as in the case of Hameroff's and Penrose's explanation of consciousness based on "orchestrated space-time selections". Similarly, B. L. Gordon and W. A. Dembski restate their known counter-Darwinian argument based on a concept of substantialisation of information.
Some authors probe the limits of naturalistic explanations, as does Behe in the case of mo-lecular biology or W. Lane Craig in the case of the origin of the Universe. Conceptual prob-lems with e.g. fine-tuning notwithstanding, a summary by G. Gonzales of fine-tuning and habitability in various space-time scales is noteworthy. Anyway, fine-tuning, still regarded by some as pseudo-problem proved to be a genuine question for physics. B. L. Gordon supplied an essay targeted at the fashionable "multiverse cosmology" based on string theory. The au-thor joins a growing group of physicists disgusted by string theory because its speculative character, lack of empirical support and metaphysical unsoundness. In sum, essays on cosmo-logical topics seem especially well-written.
The struggle between naturalism and antinaturalism could hardly be separated from other phi-losophical controversies, as the one between contingency and the doctrines of purpose/design (the recent Intelligent Design doctrine being a typical example; see the essay by S. C. Meyer). The collection as a whole proves that the outcome of these debates is far from being decided.

If only I had more time to read the rest of the articles in this significant compilation. I confess that I have not read all of The Nature of Nature, but what I have studied has been excellent. It has been particularly helpful for our research group which is investigating the philosophical implications and the most effective methodology for applying reverse engineering techniques to natural systems. The restrictions of methodological naturalism are being questioned in this regard since reverse engineering studies necessarily draw from all pertinent sources of information, including possible metaphysical considerations. Thank you for collecting and publishing these various knowledgable viewpoints on the role of naturalism in science.

As much as I wanted to give this 963 page compendium of 41 essays but four stars, I find that I have no choice but to give it five stars. The editors --- both advocates of the, in my view untenable, Intelligent Design hypothesis (hereafter ID) --- do a great job presenting many differing, primarily philosophical / theoretical science / theological / cosmological views including ones antagonistic to their own. Most of the articles would be candidates for a journal of philosophy or history of science.

An addition of a common glossary might have helped the various authors reconcile differing definitions while making it easier on the student. Michael Behe, for example, uses Ernst Mayr's very odd definition of "evolution" which seems to be a conflation of the modern trivial "biological change over time" with the caveat that time is measured in eons. With such a definition we have the oxymoron of Old Earth Creationists seemingly also being considered as "evolutionists." (Personally I tend to avoid using "evolution" and use "Evolution" when the core idea of common descent is intended. Richards (1992) attributes the first use of "evolution" as associated with Darwin to Herbert Spencer. In my Euclidean view, it seems reasonable --- even considering how unreasonable and deficient the English language may be at times --- to expect all arguers to be able to agree on (1) definitions and also on 2) underlying facts (i.e., empirical data); and (3) while arguers may not agree on each others underlying assumptions, all ought to at least be aware of what those assumptions are.

In any case, if you value the millenniums old philosophical discussions surrounding origins of lives and species (plural) issues, then you would relish this selection of essays by modern day philosophers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and historians. Did the natural world originate and is it understandable solely by natural means? Or is an indiscernible mind, a cosmic consciousness, ultimately responsible for the natural world --- a world that presumably requires other than natural means of understanding? What is natural? What is supernatural? You will find few conclusive answers in these pages but you may be quite enlightened and challenged by the wide range of modern thinkers, some well known and some not so well known. The entrenched ideological dogmas of naturalistic Evolutionists (believers of common descent) and modern advocates of Intelligent Design (believers in the necessity of at least some supernaturalistic interventions) are well represented in these essays.

While there is some grouping of combatants that engage in back and forth arguments, a great deal more of such dialogue would be useful. Bruce L. Gordon's "A Quantum-Theoretic Argument Against Naturalism," for example, begs for a reply that suspected quantum fields relevant to consciousness ---- if discovered ---- would be no less embraced by natural science than are known fields: gravity, the strong and week nuclear forces, etc. Natural science, as indicated in some of the book's other essays, is not limited to known laws and discoveries.

In his essay, "Balloons on a String: A Critique of Multiverse Cosmology," I find myself in more agreement with Gordon than I do his antagonist, Steven Weinberg. In this essay, Dr. Gordon broke the apparent secret rules regards the apparent secret code of conduct of mathematicians who write for the public. Gordon actually provided the reader with some actual mathematics! In this case, Dr. Gordon provided interesting mathematics dealing with the otherwise seemingly top secrete Hartle-Hawking quantum cosmological supposed "wave-function of the universe." I have been thinking that Kurt Godel's ON FORMALLY UNDECIDABLE PROPOSTIONS OF PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA AND RELATED SYSTEMS (1931) also demonstrates the validity of Gordon's position and of a theistic view (or, perhaps more correctly, a deistic view).

Of course, no amount of rebuttal will unseat entrenched ideologues, especially those who have staked out their positions in numerous articles and/or books over many years and even decades. ID philosopher Stephen C. Meyer thinks there can be no naturalistic explanation for the information encoded in DNA. Rather, Meyer hypothesizes intelligence as being responsible for such origins. But even if true that there might be some (epigenetic or environmental?) intelligence (field?), what does one do with that supposed knowledge? Meanwhile, naturalists make ever more progress with their long established research programs. (See Shapiro (2011) for a discussion of the genome as a read-write information storage system.)

Meyer and fellow IDer William Dembski are also committed to statistical arguments, i.e., the supposed statistical impossibility of the complexities of life having arisen totally by natural means. Such arguments are reminiscent of the old arguments of Creationists that have also long been refuted but to no avail. This element of ID theory, also advocated by Michael Behe, has often been refuted along the same lines as writers in this volume also do. Christian de Duve (p.346) notes, for example, that the time element, billions of years, is generally missing in such impossibility statistics. A favorite consideration of mine (I am not an Evolutionist but rather a Naturalistic Parallelist) is one that is suggested by the title of Fazale R. Rana's "Molecular Convergence: Repeated Evolution or Repeated Designs?" (p.460. Rana's ideas of repetitious global developments of chemical entities follows the well known mathematical realities of laws of nature. Evolutionists (and IDers as Rana) are yet to see that such globalism is ultimately a refutation of Evolution ---- a hypothesis that necessitates an unwarranted commitment to singularities. Thus, in this concluding paragraph of Rana's I would substitute "universal application of the laws of nature" for his "intelligence." (p.481):

"The tendency of engineers and designers to reuse the same designs provides insight into the way that intelligence [think mathematical laws of nature] might have played a role in biological history. If human engineers reutilize the same techniques and technologies when they invent, it's reasonable to expect that ANY intelligent agent [or non-intelligent process] would do the same. If life stems from the work of an intelligent cause [or from the non-intelligent laws of nature], then it's reasonable to expect that the same designs would repeatedly appear throughout nature. Use of good, effective designs over and over again would reflect prudence and efficiency [or the constraints, contingencies, and necessities of nature and natural forces]."

Where Rana envisions supernaturalistic design (implying continuing involvement of a designer), Naturalistic Parallelism sees natural mathematical implementations of the well known laws of nature, perhaps in conjunction with some laws which are yet to be discovered. (It seems, however, doubtful that additional laws are needed.) That is, NP Theory recognizes, as do most natural scientists as well as many religious congregates, the anthropic nature of the universe. That is, the laws and constants of nature appear to be precisely fine-tuned to enable human existence. (Such "appearance" of fine tuning is not seen, in my view, as causal but rather merely a discription of the reality of nature. See Stenger 2011 whose book I have also reviewed.)

The essay by Douglas D. Axe, "The Nature of Protein Folds: Quantifying the Difficultly of an Unguided Search through Protein Sequence Space" is certainly refutable by those more expert than I. Axe's call for an intelligence is obviously of dubious necessity. When Axe begins by writing the following he surely has a far different understanding of how proteins are constructed than is mainstream thinking:

"The [elucidation of the genetic] code [in the 1960s] had made it clear that the vast set of POSSIBLE proteins, each of which could conceivably be constructed by genetic mutations, is far too large to have actually been sampled to any significant extent in the history of life. Yet how could highly incomplete sampling have been so successful?"

Do genetic researchers typically think that proteins are constructed via sampling of genetic mutations? Axe seems to think that the only means by which the possibilities regard acceptable proteins can be originated and selected is via some unidentified intelligence acting in some unidentified manner. But clearly there are naturalistic explanations regards the manners in which proteins are manufactured in the cell. (See, for example, Shapiro (2011) and Goodsell (2009); the latter provides some marvelous depictions regards the ongoing workings of cells and how proteins are made.) It seems to me that Axe would find it much more productive to search for these than to explore some unknown and unexplainable intelligence. Or, if one really wishes to possibly discover some (in my view, naturalistic mathematical and probably unnecessary) field associated with possible intelligence, the works of quantum physicist Amit Goswami (2008) and biochemist Rupert Sheldrake (2009) might be of interest. Goswami's posit is for a morphic resonance associated with quantum mechanical morphogenetic fields and for what Sheldrake terms "a hypothesis of formative causation." Good luck on that research!

Similarly, Michael J. Behe seems to think that the only tool in Mother Nature's tool box over the eons has been random chance for which he and other IDers would substitute some intelligent agent. Behe concludes his essay, "The Limits of Non-Intelligent Explanation in Molecular Biology," with this statement (p.440):

"Recent evolutionary data at the genetic level on astronomical numbers of organisms in species from widely varying branches of life have shown that any process based on randomness cannot explain the complex, coherent, integrated features of the cell, such as molecular machinery. Therefore, the evolution of life was not a random process."

But where is the researcher who believes that the developments of life over the eons were due solely to a random process? Again, like the Creationists before them, IDers continue to maintain the false belief that naturalists admit only to chance while ignoring necessities. One wonders who is the congregation to whom IDers are preaching? One does appreciate that Behe, at least, recognizes and responds to some of the criticism against his arguments. More such direct engagement with opposing views would certainly be useful.

The ideological mind set of hard-core Evolutionists, just as that of Supernaturalists, can't be easily unseated either despite evidences and arguments as presented by Rana above. I had high hopes for Christian de Duve (p.346) in his "Mysteries of Life: Is there 'Something Else'?" De Duve begins his essay with this very acceptable statement:

"Science is based on naturalism, the notion that all manifestations in the universe are explainable in terms of the known laws of physics and chemistry. This notion represents the cornerstone of the scientific enterprise. Unless we subscribe to it we might as well close our laboratories. If we start from the assumption that what we are investigating is not explainable, we rule out scientific research."

Unfortunately, de Duve's argument quickly developed to include a now standard false ideology of Evolutionists (p.347):

"Modern biological knowledge has revealed another capital piece of information: all known living organisms are descendants from a single ancestral form of life. Already suspected by the early evolutionists, this view has been further bolstered by the close similarities that have been detected at the cellular and molecular levels among all analyzed living organisms, whatever their apparent diversity. Whether we look at bacteria, protists, plants, fungi, or animals, including humans, we invariable find the basic blueprint mentioned above."

Of course, it is reasonable to expect that naturalists would reject the supernaturalistic arguments based on "revelations" regards apparent design from prior to Darwin or with current IDers. But what such naturalistic ideologues are also ignoring is my modified argument of Rana's above and by others not included in this work. Stuart Newman, for example, proposes DPMs (dynamic patterning modules) as significant entities which ultimately lead to common designs. Newman sees DPMs as sort of a biological equivalent of a periodic table of the elements. (See Newman 2008; also see in Muller 2003.) Of course, Hox genes have become of common knowledge among researchers over recent decades. These also provide a universal commonality of design and function. Interestingly, in his forward to the current work, Steve Fuller writes (p.xv):

"[P]hylogeny may come to be understood as a prototype for, so to speak, a periodic table of biological elements, whereby the macromolecules of the genes are correlated with the expression of traits that may recur at several moments and in different creatures in natural history. In retrospect, Darwin's evolutionary approach to taxonomy may come to be seen as a temporary diversion from the original strategy put forward by Carolus Linnaeus in the eighteenth century to classify life forms according to a design-based logic [...]"

In any case, certainly there is no reason to hang on to the rigid ideology of a singularity of origins. Indeed, in the view of NP Theory, gazillions of origins with commonalities of apparent design is the more likely scenario. A poet might sing, 'As quantum entangled light beams did shine, so too did long strings of molecules climb.' Also, consider not just the long DNA/RNA molecules but also the many common complexities within each of the several cell types. (Whether or not singing, dancing, and poetry came prior to, during, or after cellularization is yet to be determined.) Further, consider the global common biochemistry in conjunction with the global individual cellular developments and the common feedbacks to these developments of the complex cellular machinery. Consider even that cellular walls might be sources of information. Sameness does not require common ancestry but rather common conditions of origins and repeated processes of manufacture is the more likely scenario of origins and continued developments. Look deeply into a cell. See the enormous opportunities for epigenesis, i.e., information external to the DNA/RNA molecule. Consider symbiogenesis, whole genome duplications, horizontal gene transfers, etc.

All in all, THE NATURE OF NATURE: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF NATURALISM IN SCIENCE is a good collection of essays relevant to the battle of the opposing philosophical approaches. My review is far from comprehensive and I look forward to further study and considerations of the material and other essays not yet read. There is one minor annoyance with the apparent ongoing discussion between the philosophers Alvin C. Plantinga and William J. Talbott. While I was finally able to jump ahead one essay and discover that EAAN is short for Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, and while I do understand that N&E is short for Naturalism and Evolutionism, one is left to decipher on his own "P(R/N&E) is low." What exactly is P and why are they multiplying it by Reliability divided by N&E? Apparently Plantinga and Talbott have well taught each other over the years. While one is able to eventually follow their arguments, they might have made it easier on the reader. It could well be that the statement is a probability statement, i.e., 'The probability of reliability given naturalism and evolution is low.' But since there is no way that one can even imagine that one could measure either naturalism or evolution, the statement is obviously of dubious scientific value. (My own understanding of natural history leads me to reverse the first abbreviation to NAAE, Naturalistic Arguments Against Evolution. NAAEs obviously do provide for scientific explications.)

In addition to placing the primary assumptions external to, rather than internal to, the natural world --- a primary beef that IDers have regards philosophical naturalism seems to be the perceived failure of naturalists to be teleological, i.e., to recognize and express man's purpose or purposes in their scientific endeavors. (Apparently, mere survival and receiving paychecks isn't enough purpose for teleologists.) Interestingly, Shapiro (2011) accepts that even individual cells are teleological, i.e., goal oriented toward survival, growth, reproduction.

Previously, if it weren't for the Creationists, Evolutionists would have had no one else to challenge their underlying assumptions and deep seated beliefs. But eventually the dialogue ended and each epistemology became its own paradigm. One might be curious to know how religious fundamentalists who have been attracted to Young Earth Creationism (Y.E.C.) in the past and may now support ID can accept the non-denial of a pre-Adamic animal morphological history for humans that IDers tend not to have a problem with. (Behe, for example, has accepted the notion of common ancestry and the tree-of-life.) Polarization of the opposing world views as based on man's supposed natural history is evident even in the socio-political realm. Commentary of those ideologues who make their living from political polarization doesn't hesitate to mention the supposed moral debasement, emanating from their animal origins, of the other side.

Regards scientific reality, I have often wondered if biochemist and Y.E.C. advocate Georgia Purdom's congregates might be more aware of the facts of natural history than is the typical Evolutionist just out of high school. Even considering the mythological basis of belief regards origins, Purdom's skepticism regards tree-ring dating nevertheless has been interesting. One might wonder how long Purdom can maintain her stance pitting biblical revelation and mythology verses her own empirical science. (See Purdom at AnswersInGenesis website.)

In any case, now naturalists have the IDers to deal with. Personally, I find the epistemological approach of ID similarly lacking. But with or without Y.E.C., the rise of ID will perhaps at least provide renewed dialogue and a more reflective and responsible view of nature by Natural Historians as discovered and explained by scientists, mathematicians, and others. The arguments put forward beg for continued discussions and resolutions unless what many see as absurdities on either side are to continue on endlessly. All parties would do well to examine their entrenched beliefs and assumptions and be willing to step away from untenable ideas.

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NOTE: Regards the probability statement mentioned above by Plantinga and Talbot, I received, via Amazon, the first 4 lines of an email from a longer comment by Mark D. who apparently latter deleted said comment. Mark reminded me to consider Bayesian probability and stated that it is common for philosophers to use classical Bayesianism for unmeasurable entities. But obviously, it would seem to me, this is unacceptable in terms of attempting to arrive at scientific truth-value. Keith M. Parsons in his GOD AND THE BURDEN OF PROOF: PLANTINGA, SWINBURNE, AND THE ANALYTIC DEFENSE OF THEISM (1989) also provides the formula and an interesting discussion of Bayesianism. See also at Wikepedia. The primary problem comes regards 'e' and especially 'k', the background information, and also what are known as conditional probabilities. These factors, allow for all sorts of subjectivity to enter into the results and, to that extent, negate viable scientific reasoning. I tend to agree with Mario Bunge who --- in his "In Praise of Intolerance to Charlatanism in Academia" in THE FLIGHT FROM SCIENCE AND REASON edited by Gross, Levitt, and Lewis (1997, p.103) --- writes:

"When confronted with a random or seemingly random process, one attempts to build a probability model that could be tested against empirical data; no randomness, no probability. Moreover, as Poincare pointed out long ago, talk of probability involves some knowledge; it is no substitute for ignorance. This is not how the Bayesians or personalists view the matter: when confronted with ignorance or uncertainty, they use probability --- or rather their own version of it. This allows them to assign prior probabilities to facts and propositions in an arbitrary manner --- which is a way of passing off mere intuition, hunch, or guess for scientific hypothesis. In other words, in the Bayesian perspective there is no question of objective randomness, randomization, random sample, statistical test, or even testability; it is all a game of belief rather than knowledge.

"This approach contrasts with science, where gut feelings and wild speculations may be confided over coffee breaks but are not included in scientific discourse, whereas (genuine) probabilities are measured (directly or indirectly), and probabilistic models are checked experimentally. Think of models of radiative and radioactive decay, Brownian motion, gene mutation, or random mating. [....]"

In addition to the subjectivity involved with Bayesianism, ones definitions and assumptions are also crucial. This would seem to go to a point made by Victor J. Stenger in his THE FALLACY OF FINE-TUNING: WHY THE UNIVERSE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR US (2011) which I have given a 5 star review, q.v. Stenger has a chapter on probability and, while apparently not totally rejecting Bayesianism himself, Stenger does make this interesting statement:

"In the 2003 book THE PROBABILITY OF GOD: A SIMPLE CALCULATION THAT PROVES THE ULTIMATE TRUTH, physicist Stephen Unwin attempted to calculate the probability that God exists. Unwin's result: 67 percent. Tufts University physicist Larry Ford has examined Unwin's calculation and has made his own estimate using the same formula. Ford's result: 10 [to the minus 17] percent."

Ford uses different probabilities for the various different assumptions involved that are inputs to the final calculation.

According to Wikepedia Bayesian statistics is widely used in science and engineering. One can't help but wonder if Bayesianism is the reason, at least in part, that even unbiased researchers can't tell us from one month to the next if a particular vitamin supplement is good, bad, or indifferent in terms of overall health; or why it is that buildings and engineered products such as can openers don't endure as long as they should; or why other products are allowed to be built to minimum standards (and maximum profit) and later needing to be recalled (at great expense to society); etc.

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Some references regards apparent design in nature:

Baryshev, Yurij & Pekka Teerikorpi. 2002. Discovery of Cosmic Fractals. World
Scientific; River Edge, NY. 373pp.

Bergson, Henri. [1911], 2011. Creative Evolution. Henry Holt & Co. [[...]] 211pp.

Berstein, Jeremy and Gerald Feinberg; eds. 1986. Cosmological Constants: Papers
in Modern Cosmology. Columbia Univ.; NYC. 328pp.

Bohm, David [1951], 1979. Quantum Theory. Dover; New York. 646pp.

_____, 1980. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge; NYC, 284pp.

Carnap, Rudolf. 1966. Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Dover; NYC;
1995 by Martin Gardiner. 300pp.

Carroll, Mark. Organelles. 1989. Guilford Press, NYC. 201pp.

Carroll, Sean B.; Jennifer K. Grenier; and Scott D. Weatherbee. 2001. From DNA
to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design. HHMI &
Univ. of Wisc.; Malden, MA. 214pp.

Cohen-Tannoudji, Claude; Jacques Dupont-Roc; and Gilbert Grynberg. 1992. Atom-
Photon Interactions: Processes and Applications. IWiley; NYC. 656pp.

Coveney, Peter and Roger Highfield. 1995. Frontiers of Complexity. Fawcett
Columbine; NYC. 462pp.

Cracraft, Joel and Michael J. Donoguhue; editors. 2004. Assembling the Tree of
Life. Oxford Univ. Press; New York. 576pp.

Darling, David. 1993. Equations of Eternity: Speculations on Consciousness,
Meaning, and the Mathematical Rules that Orchestrate the Cosmos. Hyperion;
NY. 190pp.

Fayer, Michael D. 2010. Absolutely Small: How Quantum Theory Explains Our Everyday
World. AMACOM. NY. 383pp.

Gilder, Louisa. 2008. The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics was Reborn.
Knopf; NY. 443pp.

Gogarten, Maria B. et al. (eds.). 2009. Horizontal Gene Transfer: Genomes in
Flux; Vol.532. Humana Press; New York, NY. 551pp.

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I have no idea why this book is so cheap. 17 bucks gets you over 900 pages of some of the best philosophy of science essays you can find all in one volume. I assume that because it bears the names of ID proponents (as editors) that the book will be passed over and ignored. That's a shame because so many of the essays have little do with ID, creationism, or public education. Rather, it puts things like naturalism (methodological and metaphysical), origins (biological and material), theism (and atheism), realism (and anti-realism), space, time, energy, and information under the scholarly microscope. Featuring essays from Alvin Plantinga, Alvin Goldman, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Michael Williams, Robert Koons, Alan Gluth, Steven Weinberg, William Talbott, Michael Tooley, William Lane Craig, Evan Fales, Henry F. Schaeffer III, and Simon Conway Morris, the volume is one-stop shop for instructors, reading groups, and researchers interested in how science and theology intersect. Get it before it goes out of print.