Random Chance, The God of the Gaps and Science of the Gaps...

[Scuba Pete]

This is a response to http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/atheism-2/68736-random-chance-god-gaps.html which is in an area which I am not allowed to post in. Yes, I noticed it AFTER i posted in there, so this is my continuation of it:

However, what causes random chance is known,

Then it ceases to be "random". It is now, by your definition, calculated chance.

At issue is the philosophical question about the EXTENT of man's ability to fully understand all phenomenon.

The "God of the Gaps" argues that God will completely disappear when (not if) we understand everything. It is based on the assumption that since man has replaced many God myths of the past with scientific explanations, then all such God beliefs are myths and will ultimately be exposed in the same manner.

"Science of the Gaps" is the deification of science. It's the belief that ALL unexplained phenomenon, WILL be conquered by science at some point. A main underpinning of this, is the concept of "random chance" as the impetus for much of the cosmos. The adherents compare random chance to theistic beliefs of creation, and seeing no difference they substitute "random chance" where the theist would put God. IOW, they circumvent the scientific process with a cop out and thus inhibit science in the long run. This is the very thing they claim a belief in God does, and so they are either hypocrites or they have unintentionally provided proof that they are a religion unto themselves.

 

[rojse]

This is a response to http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/atheism-2/68736-random-chance-god-gaps.html which is in an area which I am not allowed to post in. Yes, I noticed it AFTER i posted in there, so this is my continuation of it:

Then it ceases to be "random". It is now, by your definition, calculated chance.

You should have sent me a PM, I nearly missed this.

Even if we might know what effect causes random chance to occur, we either cannot model it, because it truly is random, or it is too complex for us to model at this moment. The example I will use is radioactive decay, but only because I cannot think of a better example at this moment. Let us say that we have a radioactive sample with a half-life of 100 years. Now, there is a fifty percent chance that any atom will decay after that 100 years. We know what causes radioactive decay, but we can't precisely predict whether an individual atom will decay in that one hundred years or not. However, we can use mathematical models to predict the possibility that it will.

Now, God-of-the-gaps proponents would say something like "oh, God decides when radioactive atoms decay", or some other statement that really does not solve any problem for us. By using chance to predict what will happen, we can at least say "we don't know precisely which radioactive atoms will decay yet, but we can at least predict that half of them will go in 100 years".

Now, if we removed every aspect of random chance from science, making every thing completely predictable, wouldn't that mean that we have no free will?

 

[Scuba Pete]

Think about it: no one ever claims to believe "God of the Gaps". That is put ON them by those trying to poke holes in theism.

As for decay, the chance it truly not random; you just don't fully understand the mechanism yet.

In Scuba Diving we have to deal with Dive Tables which are designed to keep us from getting "bent" (Decompression Sickness). For the most part, these dive tables were predicated on the work of Haldane and thousands of hours of dive times by both British and American divers.

The "Navy" tables were then given a %10 buffer to make them ultra safe for recreational diving and still we have a number of "undeserved" hits. Divers complain bitterly when they get one of these, because they are usually well within the tables.

However, recent advances in barophysiology has shown that there are many other conditions, such as hydration, smoking, Patent Foramen Ovales as well as others that can cause people to get bent with very little exposure to depth. Consequently, I refuse to call these "undeserved", but rather "unexplained hits".

The big difference here is that the scientists I have met researching barophysiology do not believe that their science will EVER predict DCS (Decompression Sickness) %100. They realize that there are too many factors on any given day that will predispose you to DCS.

Many who use Science to contend that God is a myth simply have an unrealistic view that Science can and will explain EVERYTHING!

 

[yossarian22]

Think about it: no one ever claims to believe "God of the Gaps". That is put ON them by those trying to poke holes in theism.

As for decay, the chance it truly not random; you just don't fully understand the mechanism yet.

I can prove that the process is truly random. I can test every variable you give me, but eventually you will run out of variables that could possibly affect the probability of an atom decaying. And we will be left with the fact that we cannot predict which atom will decay first better than random chance. Hence, we consider the process random.

Appealing to hidden variables is useless because we don't know what the variable is, so we can't test it. We will look for it, but maybe our data refutes the possibility of a lurking variable. So we are open to the possibility, but we have solid evidence telling us that this process is entirely random.

Many who use Science to contend that God is a myth simply have an unrealistic view that Science can and will explain EVERYTHING!

Wow. You realize that everybody is different, so a generalized table can never be 100% accurate. If somebody bothers to get a specific table made for them, then one day it will be 100% accurate, or so close that it does not matter.

 

[BucephalusBB]

I can prove that the process is truly random. I can test every variable you give me, but eventually you will run out of variables that could possibly affect the probability of an atom decaying. And we will be left with the fact that we cannot predict which atom will decay first better than random chance. Hence, we consider the process random.

Appealing to hidden variables is useless because we don't know what the variable is, so we can't test it. We will look for it, but maybe our data refutes the possibility of a lurking variable. So we are open to the possibility, but we have solid evidence telling us that this process is entirely random.

So your solid evidence is dismissing variables we can't test? :slap:

 

[Scuba Pete]

So we are open to the possibility, but we have solid evidence telling us that this process is entirely random.

Random as in unexplained. Don't let the idea of things being random STOP serious inquiry into science. (Boy! Does that sound familiar??? )

If somebody bothers to get a specific table made for them, then one day it will be 100% accurate, or so close that it does not matter.

No. You miss the simply staggering number of variables that could never be quantified in a table. The only SURE method of doing this would be to test the source. Unfortunately, our body has been divided into 12 tissue groups, which off-gas and on-gas Nitrogen at different rates. Blood and cerebral fluids have a half time of about 5 minutes. Bones have a half time of over 4 hours, while muscles and other tissues have a half time somewhere between the two. Tables do their best to track all of these tissue groups, and dive computers do the same thing. But without actually measuring arterial gasses as well as those dissolved in other tissues, tables are nothing more than a SWAG (Scientific Wild Assed Guess).

For those who are NOT familiar with barophysiology, a tissue half time is the time it takes to absorb half of the pressure difference between the tissue and the gas that is being breathed. As we descend in the water column, the pressure exerted on our bodies increase by one atmosphere every 33 ft of salt water. So at 33 ft the partial pressure of Nitrogen is 1.58atm as opposed to the partial pressure of nitrogen in atmospheric air which is about 0.79atm. Blood will absorb half the difference (about .4 atm) in five minutes and in the next five minutes it will absorb half of what is left (about 0.2atm) and continue on absorbing only half of the difference until it reaches an equilibrium which we call "saturation". Typically, saturation for any given tissue is reached in @ 6 cycles.

Now a good friend of mine recently had a DCS hit. In fact, he had three of them in one year. To put that in perspective, I have been diving since 1969 and have never had ONE. He described these DCS hits as being COMPLETELY random and blamed luck for the occurrences. However, one of the Doctors on ScubaBoard picked up on this and asked him to have some specific tests done for a PFO (patent foramen ovale) and BINGO! He had one! Ah, now those random hits didn't look so random anymore! A bit of heart surgery to close the PFO and my friend is as right as rain! He hasn't been bent since!

The list of factors that remain unquantified for DCS in divers includes age (elasticity of the cells), cold, core temperature of the diver, health, physical activities, physical fitness, fat index, hydration, drugs in the body, the quality of the air, ad nauseum. DAN (Divers Alert Network) has done numerous studies and continues to do these studies, and still there are a number of divers who will undergo DCS, not because it is random, but because we simply don't understand it well enough that it appears to be random.

So, as my friend Jay pointed out: quite often the word "random" is Scientificese for unexplained. You don't have anyway of measuring just how random something is except for that feeling in your gut. That's the same feeling that let's me know that God did it. It's your Science of the Gaps that's just another way of describing FAITH.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I can prove that the process is truly random. I can test every variable you give me, but eventually you will run out of variables that could possibly affect the probability of an atom decaying. And we will be left with the fact that we cannot predict which atom will decay first better than random chance. Hence, we consider the process random.

This is classic! You really need to step back and listen to yourself. (And thanks for proving my point.)

 

[Scuba Pete]

As an aside, the only accurate way to measure arterial Nitrogen is using doppler analysis (sonar). Unfortunately, while this can be used on some of the tissues in the body, it's simply not portable enough to dive with. While tables and dive computers are only SWAGs, they are best thing we currently have.

 

[SimonCross]

Good Morning Scupa Pete

It has been a while since I have beento the forum.

Glad that I am back

This is a very good debate, but in my view science as I see things are there all there is to know science today no room for anything else. God Is Infnite Consciousness and how on earth you can place science with such awsome God Consciouness is beyond me Scupa Pete!
Science says anything and I have read of those who challenge the main consensus and are swept under the carpet so that must say something?

But this is only a humble Christian view.

With Blessings

SimonCross:thud:

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

This is a very good debate, ...
God Is Infnite Consciousness and how on earth you can science debate such awsome God Consciouness ...

Gee, thanks. :slap:

 

[fantome profane]

As for decay, the chance it truly not random; you just don't fully understand the mechanism yet.

Be very careful. You are dangerously close to invoking the “hidden variables of the gaps”.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Be very careful. You are dangerously close to invoking the “hidden variables of the gaps”.

Not a chance!

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The "God of the Gaps" argues that God will completely disappear when (not if) we understand everything. It is based on the assumption that since man has replaced many God myths of the past with scientific explanations, then all such God beliefs are myths and will ultimately be exposed in the same manner.

Actually, "God of the Gaps" is fundamentally a characterization in support of an argument, not an argument per se. A rather good presentation is that of Professor Barbara Forrest:

For the philosophical naturalist, the rejection of supernaturalism is a case of "death by a thousand cuts." Since its inception, methodological naturalism has consistently chipped away at the plausibility of the existential claims made by supernaturalism by providing increasingly successful explanations of aspects of the world which religion has historically sought to explain, e.g., human origins. The threat faced by supernaturalism is not the threat of logical disproof, but the fact of having its explanations supplanted by scientific ones.

Paul Kurtz correctly perceives the implications of methodological naturalism in evolutionary biology, viz., the implications of the fact that the methods of studying humans are fundamentally the same as those of studying the rest of the natural world: The more knowledge of human biological existence yielded by the reliance upon methodological naturalism, the less need or justification for supernatural explanations. Kurtz says, "The new critics of Darwinism properly perceive that, if the implications of Darwinism are fully accepted, this would indeed mean a basic change in the outlook of who we are ...." This is because modern evolutionary biology is the product of Darwin and his successors' exclusive reliance upon methodological naturalism. Indeed, the problem for non-naturalist philosophies is that science, with its historical track record of explanatory success, has progressively crowded out non-naturalist explanations of the cosmos. This expansion and confirmation of scientific knowledge, combined with the absence of any other reliable methodology, results in the increasing marginalization of non-naturalistic world views.

The gaps in scientific knowledge which have historically functioned as entry points for divine creativity are considerably narrower than they were just a generation ago. Every expansion in scientific knowledge has left in its wake a more shrunken space of possibilities from which to infer the plausibility of supernaturalism. Science is yielding an increasingly expansive and supportable picture of continuity between humans and other life forms, and between living organisms and the rest of the cosmos from whose elements, such as the carbon produced during the evolution of stars, these organisms are constituted. The more expansive the continuity, the firmer the foundation for the inference from methodological naturalism to philosophical naturalism, and the less plausible the non-naturalistic explanations.

Since philosophical naturalism is an outgrowth of methodological naturalism, and methodological naturalism has been validated by its epistemological and technological success, then every expansion in scientific understanding lends it further confirmation. For example, should life be genuinely created in the laboratory from the non-organic elements which presently comprise living organisms, this discovery would add tremendous weight to philosophical naturalism. Should cognitive science and neurobiology succeed conclusively in explaining the phenomenon of human consciousness, mind-body dualism would be completely undermined, and philosophical naturalism would again be immeasurably strengthened.

For philosophical naturalism, this is better than logical entailment, which would make it the only permissible conclusion of methodological naturalism. Relationships of logical necessity need not reflect any state of affairs in the world, whereas expansions of empirically verifiable knowledge always do. The known world expands, and the world of impenetrable mystery shrinks. With every expanse, something is explained which at an earlier point in history had been permanently consigned to supernatural mystery or metaphysical speculation. And the expansion of scientific knowledge has been and remains an epistemological threat to any claims which have been fashioned independently (or in defiance) of such knowledge. We are confronted with an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible.

[Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection, Philo, Vol. 3, No. 2]​

For many of us, the argument for preternatural agency is simply uncompelling. What others see as evidence for God we consign to the realm of mystery, pausing occasionally to note that this realm has shrunk considerably in breadth at the hands of methodological naturalism.

Depth? That's a far, far different question ...

 

[SimonCross]

Greetings
As to Dawin?
That seems to be the way today and even Darwin on his death bed was not so sure of his ideas? I feel that there is more to life, and have you ever felt that something more to life that you cannot put your finger on? That is intuition? Something that main stream science seems to sweep under the carpet. I feel that science today are not as far as would seem.

With Blessings

:help:Simon Cross

 

[Scuba Pete]

I feel that science today are not as far as would seem.

I am reading your words, but they do not seem to create a coherent thought. Could you please clarify or restate your premise for us? As it sits, all I get is "God is good and science is bad". I am sure that this is a gross simplification of what you are trying to state.

 

[yossarian22]

So your solid evidence is dismissing variables we can't test? :slap:

Learn to read. I'm dismissing variables whose existence we do not know. Not merely variables that we do not know of directly, but variables that we cannot infer from the data.

Random as in unexplained.

And I reject that interpretation. Lurking variables can easily be detected. You are the ones appealing to variables we can't see. Give me charts and I can successfully argue for or against a lurking variable.

Don't let the idea of things being random STOP serious inquiry into science. (Boy! Does that sound familiar??? ) No. You miss the simply staggering number of variables that could never be quantified in a table.

Every variable can be put a table. Even categorical ones. I could test whether the color blue has an effect on spontaneous decay if you so desire.

Meaningless words
then
The list of factors that remain unquantified for DCS in divers includes age (elasticity of the cells), cold, core temperature of the diver, health, physical activities, physical fitness, fat index, hydration, drugs in the body, the quality of the air, ad nauseum. DAN (Divers Alert Network) has done numerous studies and continues to do these studies, and still there are a number of divers who will undergo DCS, not because it is random, but because we simply don't understand it well enough that it appears to be random.

You are describing a chaotic system that we cannot accurately model, NOT randomness. There are very few processes that I will argue that are random, and this is not one of them.

So, as my friend Jay pointed out: quite often the word "random" is Scientificese for unexplained.

Except your example is meaningless. Science does not consider many processes random. We describe systems as complex or chaotic far more often. Random means something else entirely.

You don't have anyway of measuring just how random something is except for that feeling in your gut.

Did you not understand my post?
Random is a meaningless word unless you relate it to something. Until you understand that, there is no point in continuing this discussion.

And Jay, I believe the point of the contention was a comparison to a baseless God of the Gaps? I am not going to argue that randomness is not just a mere stopgap measure for science. I just do not consider it baseless at all.

edit:

It appears that this whole "Randomness of the gaps" bit was the 'atheist' appeal, in which case my post does not really apply. Appealing to randomness for abiogenesis or the origins of the universe is fundamentally baseless and no more meaningful than a God of the Gaps.

I am going to stick by my point that, in many cases, the moniker of "randomness" is not as baseless as a God of the Gaps. We can prove an instance of randomness using any meaningful definition of the word proof. We might be flat out wrong, but that is a meaningless objection.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Lurking variables can easily be detected.

You should make a million dollars easily identifying all of them.

There are very few processes that I will argue that are random, and this is not one of them.

Well, you seem to be able to identify variables that have eluded scientists for decades, if not longer. Your faith in yourself is exceptional!

Did you not understand my post?

The rate at which you are asking readers if the read/understood your post is NOT random. Perhaps you should work on clarity rather than being bombastic!

Random is a meaningless word

We finally agree.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And Jay, I believe the point of the contention was a comparison to a baseless God of the Gaps? I am not going to argue that randomness is not just a mere stopgap measure for science. I just do not consider it baseless at all.

Believe what you wish. You've managed to persistantly and religiously misunderstand and distort the original question.

 

[Willamena]

For many of us, the argument for preternatural agency is simply uncompelling. What others see as evidence for God we consign to the realm of mystery, pausing occasionally to note that this realm has shrunk considerably in breadth at the hands of methodological naturalism.

Depth? That's a far, far different question ...

So, if I understand correctly, its "breadth" is regarded as the number and variety of ways it can be used to excuse phenomena? What is its "depth"?

 

[Willamena]

Learn to read. I'm dismissing variables whose existence we do not know. Not merely variables that we do not know of directly, but variables that we cannot infer from the data.

What your evidence tell us is that we've stopped looking. It tells us nothing about random chance.