A conversation with a long-winded rightwinger

[Greymalkin]

So, I recently sent an e-mail to a right wing commentator named Fred Hutchison. He writes these lengthy “Issue Analysis” pieces for RenewAmerica.us, a site related to Former Ambassador Allen Keys. I’ve been reading his articles for a while now and finally decided that I had to respond to his opinions. Anyway, I thought I would share this with all of you. I apologize, in advance for the length of this shit - it is a lot to get through.

A few links -
The original article and Fred's article archive at RenewAmerica.

Fred,

I have largely reprinted your article and added my own comments – those in the brackets – I apologize for the length, but it was about the easiest way I could think of doing this. Again, I thank you for your time.

The Revolt Against Reason: The Culture War and the Fight to Save Rationality

The culture war is part of a collision of two world views. Can the disagreements between these world views be settled through rational discussion? This can only happen if both sides are amenable to reason. If one side withdraws from the interaction of ideas and throws up defenses against reason, the possibility of authentic conversation is negated.

Before you go much further, consider this – that reason cannot be tied to one political ideology or worldview, because some one disagrees with you does not mean that they lack reason, only that they disagree. Reason, however is tied to logic and intellectual honesty. In order to have a claim to reason, one must argue with logic and honest, to make illogical, fallacious or dishonest arguments is to deny reason. One more thing, a quick definition of reason from Webster’s Dictionary –
1. A rational motive for a belief or action; 2. An explanation of the cause of some phenomenon; 3. The capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination; 4. The state of having good sense and sound judgment; 5. A justification for something existing or happening; 6. A fact that logically justifies some premise or conclusion

One of the assumptions in the works of the popular theologian Francis Schaefer (1912–1984) is that postmodern liberalism is in revolt against reason. The fatal turn against reason in the West, he believed, began over two centuries ago and has made intermittent gains since then. The present postmodern renunciation of reason has reached a high water mark of irrationality. I hope to offer an abbreviated history of the revolt against reason in another paper.

See my last comment. I must admit to wondering why Schaefer felt this, and what evidence he used to back this claim up. This is also a logical fallacy; it is sneaky form of an ad homonym – one in which a moral prerogative is attached to some ones beliefs and those are assailed rather than their actual position.

The Left is terrified of a thinking conservative's powers of reason, and some of them characterize our rationality as abusive, insensitive, and chauvinistic. For example, Richard Dawkins, the unofficial leader of the evolution movement, called Intelligent Design (ID) scientists "bully boys," in the 11/05 edition of Natural History. Dawkins offered no example of bullying, of course. The relentless rationality of ID scientists is indeed intimidating, in the sense that powerful ideas can intimidate the weak-minded. We might take pity on Mr. Dawkins, who feels "bullied" by ideas that clash with his own, except that he uses power and intimidation through the science establishment to silence the voices of dissent.

A few notes here – the first statement is an appeal to motive, you cannot speak to the motives and inner believes of others when you have no statements to that effect. As for the “relentless rationality of ID,” well, we discuss this further later on. I might also take this moment to caution you about the “all or nothing” approach you’re taking in describing liberals. The Left, as you put it is not a homogenous, single minded blob – neither are conservatives. As for Dr. Dawkins, maybe you should have read the entire article – he did in fact give some examples of the bad behavior and dishonesty of the creationists.

The false accuser of bullying is himself the chief bully boy of the evolution establishment. The waning of reason within that establishment makes possible the substitution of indoctrination and power for reason and persuasion. When men retreat from reason and authentic dialog withers, they resort to brutal tactics in their quest for power and their struggle to defeat their enemies.

I would agree that a debate or discussion can take place when one or more side refuses to debate honestly. I would also agree that there are a great many, liberals included, that are not honest, and whose arguments are illogical and lacking reason.

The Smile of Reason

The only thing we can do for the unreasoning Left, at present, is to appeal to them to come out of their hiding place of irrationality and meet us in the sunshine of reason. However, if they hug the darkness and refuse the light, we have the consolation that there are bystanders of moderate opinion who are listening to the debate and are open to our arguments if we frame them clearly and rationally. Conservatives must learn to think, speak, and write in a way that appeals to reason as understood by the moderate bystander.

Forgive me if I find that a tad patronizing. I must say, there are many “unreasoning” individuals on the right as well. Should we wish the same for them?

At the same time, we must resist the temptation to compromise our message or to dumb it down. Reason can be lost by the lack of cultivation of the intellectual powers. We must summon the drifting moderate to rise up to reason. If we sink down into a mediocre conceptual vagueness, supposing that a flabby message will reach a wider audience, the cause of reason will be lost. After a long period of self-indulgent cultural and intellectual dumbing down, many people are tired of being coddled, manipulated, and pandered to and are hungry for a message that will challenge them. Let us challenge those who are seeking truth, to ascend to reason.

As we challenge people with reason, we must let them know that ascending to reason can be a joyful experience. There is a quiet pleasure in reasoning, a delight in understanding, and a positive joy at that moment when one believes a concept to be true.

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976), Hungarian scientist turned British philosopher, offered persuasive evidence that the moment a scientist believes a proposition or model to be true, energy and excitement wells up within him and the knowledge becomes personal. The enchanted moment one believes a conceptual model to be true is like falling in love. One experiences the joy of reason.

Polanyi may very well have a point. However, taking pleasure in ones work – their theory or model or whatever – is not the same as experiencing joy in reason. After all, it is entirely possible to very pleased with a model that is completely without reason.

Both Descartes and Rousseau had a moment of light and euphoria when they were captured by a great idea upon which all their subsequent writing was based. Men who read the Principia (1687) of Sir Isaac Newton were sometimes filled with elation as Newton's ideas became understandable to them and they entered a new clarity of thought with joy. Alexander Pope, English essayist and poet wrote, "Nature and nature's light lay hid in night. / God said let Newton be! And all was light!"

The conservative who is enchanted by ideas compares favorably with the dismal gloom of the postmodern liberal who no longer believes in reason. Let us be happy warriors as we combat our doleful opponents. Allow men to compare our smile of reason with the frown of cynicism of our opponents.

Ok, I don’t find much relevance in this statement.

Lord Byron (1788-1824), an English poet of the Romantic movement, rejected both Christ and reason, twin renunciations that are very common among atheists. Byron had a dream that the sun was extinguished and wrote about it in a poem titled Darkness (1816), which is one of the most frightening poems in the English language. He called the darkness "the pall of a past world," in which men were falling into the dust gnashing their teeth and howling with terror. The two great lights of Christ and reason had gone out for Byron, and his dreams were tormented by the horror of a great darkness. In 1824, Byron, at age 36, wrote a poem that included this groan of despair: "The flowers and the fruits of love are gone. / The worm, the canker and the grief are mine alone."

Ok, this is another irrelevant statement, and it does not back up anything you have said before. You are neither arguing against Lord Byron, nor are liberals characterized by Byron’s beliefs.

Nowhere is the gloom of unreason deeper than in academia. I watch college students walking slumped as they gaze upon the sidewalk, and I wonder what they have to be sad about. If a professor has just extinguished the light of reason in them, they have a lot to grieve about. A part of their humanity has been crushed.

What? This is another statement that does not make sense.

The domination of powerful, elite institutions by postmodern liberals who hate reason is a grave danger to the Republic. No civilization that renounces reason can long survive. It is up to the conservative movement and doctrinally orthodox Christianity to rescue the floundering cause of reason. This is a battle that, with God's help, we must win.

A few notes – you keep stating how liberals “hate reason,” but so far you have not given much evidence to back that up, I seriously hope you correct this as this paper continues.

It is surprising how many issues in the culture war involve the revolt against reason by the Left. The remainder of this essay is concentrated mostly upon the invasion of irrationality into the fields of biology, physics, and law. In subsequent papers, I hope to extend this survey of reason and unreason to culture war issues with moral dimensions, and to the high arts and literature.

Institutional Science: Moving Away from Reason

Michael Polanyi explained how rationality must work in science, in his book Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (1958). He wrote that all knowledge involves the observation of order against the background of randomness. Allow me to modify this concept to say, all rational knowledge that a scientist or an engineer can obtain directly from their work in science or engineering involves the observation of order against a background of randomness.

Polanyi has interesting idea here, but knowledge, as far as science can go, comes from not so much observation of order against chaos, but rather from direct observation objective testing.

An artist or composer seeking harmony and beauty does indeed seek order in the midst of chaos. The great Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti used his chisel to free human forms that he imagined were trapped in the marble. He regarded the dusty debris he chipped off a block of marble as a random matrix of rock that trapped the statue people inside. His mission was to rescue the statue people and bring them into the light. One aspect of the grandeur of Michelangelo's sculptures was the triumph of reason they represented. However, his talent was not limited to reason. He used his aesthetic senses, his imagination, and his love of beauty. Therefore, we must avoid Polanyi's implication that no other kind of knowledge is available but the rational capacity to perceive order.

This is an interesting argument – disregard the opinions of a scientist based upon the opinions of an artist from six centuries before him. The argument has a problem. Michelangelo, though brilliant, was not a scientist, he did not know the scientific method, nor was he trying top do what science does.

Michelangelo's statues teach us that beauty is consonant with reason. Modern scientists have lost the love of beauty. Interestingly, scientists in the age of Kepler, Copernicus, and Newton were highly appreciative of beauty. The scientific instruments of that era looked like works of art. Reason, beauty, imagination, and faith prevailed in those enchanting and ennobling early days of science. Today, the beautiful child of science has grown into an ugly, cramped, and cynical adult, one who rejects beauty, faith, and reason.

Reason = beauty = imagination = faith? I don’t know if those are analogous terms.

Random Evolution

Darwin's original model of evolution by natural selection was more logical than the present evolution model. The survival of the fittest had a certain logic to it that helped to compensate for the accidental nature of the development of a species. However, the discovery of DNA in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick led to a crisis for the evolution model. DNA brought evolutionists to an unavoidable realization that natural selection can produce variations within a species (micro-evolution), but cannot change one species into a new species (macro-evolution). New information must be introduced into the genetic code (DNA) in order to produce a new species. Natural selection cannot provide this new information. Furthermore, the new information must be integrated harmoniously into an orderly new system of biological parts. Hence, a new species cannot be produced by natural selection alone.

Mirco-evolution vs. macro-evolution is a typical Creationist straw man of the theory of evolution.

The evolutionists revised their model to hypothesize that gene mutations provide the new information in the DNA for the evolution of a species. However, mutations are random and involve damage to the genes. The evolutionists have yet to explain how the new information is to be integrated into the orderly system of a new species. Every species represents a harmonious, orderly system of biological parts, and every species has a unique system all its own.

Two things, mutation does not equal damage (I will provide a definition of mutation in a moment.) Second, because evolution cannot necessarily explain everything, does not mean it is wrong.
The definition that I promised, according to Webster’s Dictionary –
1 Biol a. sudden change in a heritable characteristic. b. an individual or species characterized by such a change 2. a change or alteration as in form
Now, I don’t see damage or malfunction in that definition, I’m curious where you got that.

Gene mutations cannot design a system. The right information inserted into the wrong system is useless. The pancreas genes of a porcupine are worthless to a man because the human biological systems are different. A new system for a new species must have an orderly design--and each species has a unique design that represents a high level of order. According to Polanyi, a high level of order cannot come to being through random events. To assume that order can accidentally appear amidst chaos is to indulge in magical thinking and to deny reason.

Again, that is a straw man. Evolutionists are not making the arguments you ascribe to them. Also, do you realize that you have both agreed with Polanyi and disagreed with him – it’s not a problem I was just wondering if you’re aware of that?

Gene mutations are accidental changes in genetic information that occur randomly. Mutations represent damage to genes that usually result in pathologies or death. How can such contaminated and mangled data provide the basis for developing a new species? Can these fractured genes even be thought of as "new information"? Are they not corrupted old information? Are we to build a fresh new species from broken genes? One has to suspend the reasoning powers to go along with the post-DNA evolutionary model.

Only if one subscribes to your less than accurate definition of mutation and your less than honest description of evolution.

A mutation is a malfunction of the genetic code. A malfunction of sophisticated equipment disables the equipment, rather than making it more efficient. In the rare cases in which a mutation is not disabling, it can only move the system to a lower degree of order, not to a higher degree of order. In contrast, the assembly of an integrated system is always a move up in the degree of order, because a system embodies a higher level of order than a collection of parts. A table full of jigsaw parts resembles chaos, but the completed puzzle has order and presents a coherent picture that is printed upon the surface of the connected pieces.

Again, your definition of mutation is rather questionable.

Suppose one randomly selects a few jigsaw pieces from a table top, and he damages the pieces by cutting, tearing, and crushing. Then he scatters the damaged pieces amidst the pieces on the table. Now the puzzle cannot be solved. Just a few damaged pieces would introduce an incurable disorder that would defy the rational powers of the puzzle solver.

This is not an accurate analogy; evolutionary mutations are not the same as damaged puzzle pieces.

The evolution model holds that if one repeats the insertion of damaged parts often enough, perhaps millions of times, a new order will emerge with a new picture. Instead of a landscape painting revealed in the completed jigsaw puzzle, we will get a picture of a vase of flowers. This is nonsense, of course. Each new round of inserting damaged pieces into the puzzle will move the collection of pieces further in the direction of disorder, never in the direction of order. A million rounds of random damage to puzzle pieces will produce pure chaos. Instead of a landscape painting, one will get a grey fog.

Again, your analogy is less than accurate.

An accumulation of mutations can never create a higher degree of order, or a new species. A species will go extinct after the first few rounds of mutations, just as a jigsaw puzzle cannot be solved after a few rounds of damaged pieces. The reason why most species do not go extinct is that breeding outside of immediate family members introduces a fresh line of genes that can bypass the lethal mutations. Dual genders are God's plan to triumph over accumulating corruptions. It also works against the idea that evolution can proceed through mutations. Every time a creature breeds, his mutations are superseded.

Ok… that makes a lot of sense – how did you get to interbreeding again?

Just as the marriage of those who are not biologically related bypasses inherited mutations, the wholesome, stable, faithful marriage of a man and woman can shelter the children from the passing down of the accumulating moral corruptions of prior generations, and from the general wickedness of society. A "family curse" is passed down through weak and broken marriages, illegitimate sexual unions, and the marriage of close relatives. The shattering of marriages and the separation of sex from marriage leads to the accumulation of moral corruptions and psychological disorders in a society. The breakdown of the family must lead to increasing disorder in society.

Yeah – evolution by mutation obviously equals moral corruption. This is what is called a false analogy – you are making a comparison of two things that are not related.

Just as promiscuous sex must lead to social disorder, the accumulation of mutations must lead to pathological disorders and the extinction of a species. The evolutionists have yet to produce a single example of mutations that lead to macro-evolution--precisely because mutations cannot lead to a higher order. All the examples offered by evolutionists of change through mutations are variations within a species, and many such changes involve the introduction of a pathology. For example, thoroughbred horses are often psychotic, frequently sick, and prone to far more diseases than humans contract. Inbreeding to produce champion race horses results in a frail and unstable breed, due to the accumulation of mutations. However, no one can mistake a beautiful thoroughbred horse for any other species than a horse.

What does promiscuous sex have to do with this discussion? Further, this is yet another straw man of the evolutionary theory.

The evolutionist's vain search for "constructive mutations," if such a thing is possible, trains their minds to tune out order and to search for randomness. Polanyi's axiom--that all that scientists can rationally know is patterns of order against a background of randomness--directly contradicts what the evolutionists are trying to do their research. Therefore, working within the evolution model tends to make one less rational. One has to close down his rational powers and indulge in magical thinking to envision the emergence of order from disorder. Irrational people posing as rational people often cheat to get the desired results of their ill-conceived experiments. Evolutionists routinely report micro-evolutionary variations with a species as macro-evolutionary developments of new species--which is a fraud. However, they are not yet brazen enough to call a thoroughbred horse a new evolutionary species.

Again, this is only true if you accept an inaccurate version of evolution.

Meanwhile, Intelligent Design scientists are focusing their attention upon the order of complex integrated systems as the design of species. They are developing a new science of rationality. Just as the rational Polanyi moved from science to the philosophy of knowledge (epistemology), a new rational philosophy of human nature as a product of intelligent design is inevitable. Amidst the jungle of irrationality, rationality is making a comeback. Reason, as an innate faculty of human nature, cannot be suppressed forever.

Quantum Mechanics

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) was one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, a theory about atomic physics. Heisenberg made the assumption that atomic radiation was caused by particles. He studied these particles through "matrix mechanics," which is a statistical method. Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) concluded that radiation followed wave mechanics that measure vibration frequencies of electron matter waves. Both Heisenberg and Schrödinger had successful laboratory experiments. In 1926, Schrödinger published a paper that mathematically proved that matrix mechanics and wave mechanics give the same results. As it turned out, the mathematical correspondence of the two theories was not confirmed by experiment.

Niels Bohr (1885–1962), was a pioneer in the theory of the quantum structure of atoms that incorporates the idea that electrons can leap from one orbital shell to another. Bohr, who was Heisenberg's mentor, met with Heisenberg and Schrödinger for many hours to resolve the differences between the two men. Heisenberg, a young theoretical genius, was violently opposed to Schrödinger's ideas. Bohr, through herculean patience, and the help of Albert Einstein, eventually brought the two men to a compromise, which was to be called the "Copenhagen interpretation," or the "Copenhagen doctrine" (1927).

Einstein contributed the concept of simplicity as the essence of scientific realism, and coauthored with Bohr the "complementary doctrine," which posited that radiation behaves as both a wave and a particle, two aspects of the same phenomenon. However, Einstein walked away skeptical of Heisenberg's matrix mechanics based upon mathematical statistics, and said, "God does not play dice with the universe." Einstein was a philosophical rationalist and realist, and did not like the idea of an accidental universe. As a rationalist, Einstein sought orderly systems, and as a realist he believed that "things are really out there," and have objective existence.

Unfortunately, the complementary principle did not work. A researcher had to experiment with atomic radiation as either particles or waves, but never both. The outcomes of experiments were dependent on the tools of measurement, and the tools used to measure particles were different from the tools for measuring waves. The results of the two ways of measurement were always different, never the same.

Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, the four greatest pioneers of nuclear physics of the twentieth century, had met together and come up with a paradoxical and problematical compromise at Copenhagen. Were these great men guessing? Were they papering over an incurable conflict between Heisenberg and Schrödinger? Were they so dazzled with Schrödinger's mathematics that they were blind to the laboratory evidence? Was viewing radiation as both particles and waves a logical contradiction?

I honestly have to admit that I do not posses a great deal of knowledge on this matter. Still, I am curious how this is going to be tied into the rest of the article.

The Uncertainty Principle

Heisenberg's famous "uncertainty principle" also has stirred up a great deal of trouble and scientific doubt. Heisenberg was not able to reconcile the measurement of the position of an electron with the momentum (Momentum = Mass X Velocity). He said, "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is discovered, and vice versa." Obviously, knowing the momentum without knowing much about the position is not very helpful. Knowing about position without knowing much about the momentum or direction of rapidly spinning electrons is a questionable bit of information.

To make matters even more indeterminate, all the researcher can know through matrix mechanics is statistical probabilities. What is worse, Heisenberg concluded that the act of experimental observation changes what one is looking at. He called this the "uncertainty principle." Polanyi modified the uncertainty principle by insisting that it is not the observation that changes the phenomena, but the intrusion of the measuring tools. If you are measuring soft clay with a ruler, and the ruler leaves deep dents in the clay, the tool has corrupted the measurement.

Based upon these troublesome uncertainties, one might suppose that Heisenberg would be modest about drawing conclusions. Unfortunately, there was no modesty in Heisenberg's nature. He projected his uncertainties into a theory of science and into a philosophy. He denied the principle of causality--that every determinate cause in nature is followed by a resulting effect--and substituted probability. Polanyi agreed that the introduction of statistics rules out knowing about causality. However, unlike Heisenberg, Polanyi does not rule out the existence of causality. Therefore, Polanyi held onto rationality and Heisenberg cast it aside. It is extremely difficult to prove causality, but to deny that causality exists is irrational.

Heisenberg rejected philosophical realism and asserted that electron orbits in nature do not exist unless we observe them. Madness? Yes. The instant one denies that things are out there if he cannot see them, he has withdrawn from reason and has retreated into the illusions of solipsism and philosophical idealism. This denial that unobserved things are out there is a continuation of the fallacy of German philosophical idealism, which emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century. Heisenberg's version of this madness was a sort of intellectual chauvinism that usurps the role of creator and destroyer.

Can I ask you how you know something that you cannot test or observe?

The Destroyer of Worlds

We should not be surprised that Heisenberg was comfortable with chauvinistic, egoistic irrationality because he became a Nazi. He supervised a network of labs and attempted to produce an atomic bomb for Hitler. What must Heisenberg have been thinking? A phrase quoted by Robert Oppenheimer, as he witnessed the first atomic explosion at the Trinity site in New Mexico, June 1945, comes to mind. "I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds" (The Bhagavad-Gita).

Ahh, out comes the ad Homonym, his theories are not disproved because he was a Nazi. I might also mention that our space program came in no small part from Nazi scientists.

Niels Bohr, Heisenberg's mentor, was a Jew, and fled for his life from the Nazis. Ironically, Bohr's suggestion to Heisenberg that he should regularly test his theories with mathematics gave the German nuclear program a boost forward. What must Bohr have been thinking? Though the chosen people of Israel be destroyed, science must advance? Did science replace Jehovah as Bohr's God?

Now how did Bohr do anything wrong here?

Had it not been for Hitler's foolish tampering and meddling with Heisenberg's labs, and his policies that drove the Jewish scientists to America, Germany might well have been the first to get the bomb. Heisenberg and his team were more advanced in atomic theory that his American counterparts--but the Americans had better mathematicians and engineers, better funding and staffing, and fewer interruptions from the government. Hitler armed with nuclear weapons would have conquered or destroyed the world. His maniacal lusts and occult fantasies were war for the sake of war, world conquest, destruction, and death. "I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds."

Was the handsome young Heisenberg an evil genius, driven half-mad by his grandiose theories and dreams of glory? Of course he was. His denial of causality and the objective existence of natural substances and events undercut reason, a faculty designed to perceive order in nature. Reason helps to keep us sane, balanced, and modest. When Heisenberg let go of reason, and let in the dark forces of irrationality, he became unhinged.

Perhaps this statement is a tad melodramatic.

The release of the reigns of reason by powerful men is like releasing savage dogs who are straining at the leash. "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" (Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare). The shout "Cry havoc!" was once was a military call to unleash soldiers for pillaging and plundering, resulting in a violent state of anarchy and social chaos. One who relinquishes the reigns of reason and order can then let the mindless and ravenous "dogs of war" slip free from their restraining leash.

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle broke free from its leash and spread throughout Western culture. His wild, sweeping generalities--launched from a self-contradictory foundation--could never have become so popular if the Western cultural elites had not developed a bias against reason.

That is a rather unproven – and quite possibly un-provable – hasty generalization in itself.

Evolutionists hail the compatibility of random evolution with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The bias against reason continues to seep through Western science and culture.

Irrational Law

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had shrewd insights on rational and irrational law in a book review he wrote for First Things 11/05. The book he reviewed was "Law's Quandary," by Steven Smith. Scalia uses the book review to become a premier law professor once more, and to give us, his students, an invaluable lesson in the law.

Scalia gives examples in which jurists continue on a rational course even though they think they are following a theory of law that is irrational. One of Francis Schaefer's consistent themes was that postmodern liberals cannot live according to the assumptions they have made about the world. Their lives invariably are contradictions or compromises with their world view. The same is true of law. Jurists instinctively understand that if they consistently practice jurisprudence according to the irrational theories they learned in law school, the legal system would collapse and society would be cast into chaos. Therefore, a huge difference between practical jurisprudence and legal theory has evolved.

Perhaps some examples would make your point more clear. For both Schaefer’s comments about liberals and the comments about lawyers. It seems that there is an assumption here that is not really backed up, namely that bad or decisions are a product of a specific ideology and their personal lack of logic. Further, you have, once again, committed a fallacy – “Jurists instinctively understand…” is an appeal to an anonymous authority.

The stability and order of the American system of law and government allows for incremental judicial experiments with irrational law without inflicting fatal damage to the system in the short run. However, the damage can be cumulative and eventually crippling. The accumulating damage will continue until such time as rational law is restored. If the moderate judges on the high court would hearken to Scalia, the restoration of rational law could begin immediately.

Scalia says that the creation of law by judicial fiat is no law at all. It is arbitrary power in the guise of law. To refer to such usurpations as "law" is irrational. Rational law requires the discovery of law by the judge, not the invention of law by the judge. The judge discovers the law from the Constitution, statutes, and legal precedents.

I cannot disagree with this, however, it does seem that such accusations are often politically motivated (the reaction to Lawrence v. Texas, for example.) If a judge does “create” law rather than “discovering” it, both he and the nation have a problem, but if that accusation is made baselessly on political grounds, than it is the attacker that has the problem.

"Stare decisis" (to stand by things decided)--which means to follow the precedents of prior court decisions--only makes sense in a rational legal system where jurists discover the law. Under an irrational system where judges invent the law, stare decisis makes no sense. The law schools teach both judicial activism and stare decisis and do not seem to notice the contradiction. If liberal judges were to consistently invent the law ad hoc as they go along, the rule of precedent would cease. The last thing that those who are addicted to creating law want to hear about is legal precedent.

“If” would be the key word in that statement – you still must show where this has happened.

The great traditionalist conservative Russell Kirk celebrated the virtues of English common law, but he failed to notice a built-in contradiction evident to Scalia. Most of the body of common law came into being through decisions by local judges ruling on specific cases. Although the judiciary was creating law, the judges leaned heavily on precedent. As we have seen, stare decisis, and judges creating law is a contradiction. Scalia informs us that the English common law judges did not believe they were creating law. They thought they were discovering law. As Christians, they looked to an "overarching, omnipresent law," which would guide them in discovering the law in specific cases. They were willing to lean upon precedent because they had confidence that Christian judges who went before them were seeking to discover law, guided by a higher law that reigns above the earthly law.

A few things – stare decisis is not necessarily binding, it is a guide not an iron ball chained to the leg of a convict. Also, common law is a necessity, not all cases are the same and one law cannot take every possibility into account.

Liberals scoff at an overarching, omnipresent law and dismiss it as a cloudy, vague mysticism. Quite to the contrary, exploring the metaphysics of law requires a high order of intelligence, and brings forth the fruits of rational law. The metaphysical brilliance of James Madison, the author of the Constitution, enabled him to lay the foundations of the American system of rational law. In contrast, the liberal approach to ad-hoc legal decisions and the invention of law out of whole cloth brings forth legal opinions that are cloudy, vague, and self-contradictory.

Scalia explains the fascinating concept of retroactive law. Suppose a legislature passes a statute in the year 2001. Citizen Smith is accused of violating the law in 2002, but he argues that his action did not violate the law. A court convenes in 2003, and rules that Smith violated the law. Smith appeals to an appellate court in 2004, and claims that the court's opinion of 2003 created new law. To find him guilty of a law before the law existed violates the legal principle of ex post facto (after the fact). (For example, it is unjust for a court to find Jones guilty of playing dominos, if the law against dominos was enacted after Jones played the game for the last time.) The counsel for the government in the Smith case in the 2004 appeal argues that although the application of the court opinion of 2003 was applied retroactively to Smith's alleged violation of 2002, it did not violate the principle of ex post facto, because the court's opinion was a discovery of law (in this case, the statute passed in 2001), not a creation of law. In 2003, the court examined the legal principle of the law enacted in 2001, and interpreted that law to discover its application, and found Smith guilty. The appellate decision of 2004 rules against Smith. However, if the appellate court of 2004 determined that the lower court invented law in 2003, the ex post facto defense is valid and the appellate court rules in favor of Smith. The appellate court would have the option of striking down decision of 2003 as a legal precedent, if Smith's case had been against the legality of the decision, instead of the timing.

The hypothetical Smith case represents rational law. The rational judge can discern the difference between unjust ex post facto laws and just retroactive decisions. However, when judges invent the law as a matter of course, unjust ex post facto convictions will become the order of the day.

Some of the prisoners in Stalin's gulag were convicted on ex post facto law.

Suppose that a law was enacted against drinking schnapps after vindictive commissar Krazechev obtained a photograph of his enemy Innocentovich drinking schnapps. The Soviet kangaroo court accepts the photograph as evidence, ignores the timing of Krazechev's schnapps law, and sends Innocentovich to Sibera, even though he drank no schnapps after it became illegal. Hello arbitrary law. Farewell, reason, justice, and liberty.

While interesting, this does not really apply to the discussion.

Scalia explores at length the attempt by liberal judges to reinterpret the words of laws to make them say what they want them to say. Scalia promotes the logocentric view--that words carry meanings that do not change over the passage of time. Even if the judge cannot determine the objectives of the legislator, a study of words in their logical context is enough to reveal the meaning, if the judge is seeking to discover the law. If the judge is seeking to create law, he will have endless quibbles with words and reinterpretations of what the words really mean. Unfortunately, when words are drained of their meanings, we can have neither law, nor reason, nor order, nor even a reasonable conversation with those of an opposing point of view.

Scalia is wrong, word meanings do change over time.

Conclusion

We have examined the contamination of biology, physics, and law with irrationality. No area of modern culture has been left unmolested by the postmodern liberal revolt against reason. Every issue in the culture war has an underlying theme of reason versus unreason. Let us arm ourselves with the weapons of reason and develop our skills in the use of these weapons. The trend of the great dumbing down must be turned around sometime. I can think of no better time than now--when conservatives are in revolt against the nomination of an intellectually mediocre candidate for the Supreme Court.

God can deliver us from those dark forces that encroach upon the reasoning powers that he gave us and intends us to use. "God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, and of love and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7) "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." (1 Corinthians 4: 33)

It seems that your thesis is two fold – liberals hate reason and people that argue without reason shut down good debates – characterized by these two statements: 1) “One of the assumptions in the works of the popular theologian Francis Schaefer (1912–1984) is that postmodern liberalism is in revolt against reason…” and 2) “When men retreat from reason and authentic dialog withers, they resort to brutal tactics in their quest for power and their struggle to defeat their enemies.” While we can agree on the second point, the first, however I think that point gets lost in your attempt to prove the other one. That point is something that I cannot agree with. Yes, there are liberals (I am reminded of arguing with “animal rights” activists) that are less than honest and less than logical with their arguments, however there are also many conservatives that are guilty of the same behavior. Further, your examples have not backed up your thesis, as they represent your opinion and not fact. Even more objectionable, is the attacks on the reason of the left with arguments that are logical fallacies. I must express some dismay at such actions.

You are right – without reason a real debate id not possible, but your words would have more meaning if they came from a place of reason rather than from an assumption that you cannot back up.

Again, thank you for your time.

- Matt

Did I mention that he was verbose (well, not in his replys)? His response came came shortly:

Matt, Rather than arguing about every single point, Let me say that there is some degree of merit in some of your points, but also a lack of adequate understanding of history and the present state of unreason on the left wing of the liberal camp. I am writing a book to be called The Rise and Fall of Western Culture which will include the rise of reason in the 12th century and the decline of reason after 1800. About the left, All my life I have had conversations with lefties and atheists. The increasing inability of many lefties and atheists to conduct a reasonable, civil, sane conversation and to stay on point without defensiveness is amazing. I am personally convinced that the historical revolt against reason - of which Byron was one of the early casualities - has a lot to do with this. Now I invite you to pick out one of your objections so I can focus my attention on it. I cannot respond to 27 objections all at once. Fred

Ok, it is a tad dismisive, but largely friendly and willing and I did throw alot at him - so I sent this back to him:

Fred,

I cannot say that I see a “historical revolt against reason,” but I would agree that the modern world has allowed greater public access to increasingly extreme voices of all political persuasions. I generally do not consider history as a subject that I lack understanding in; however there is always room for self improvement. If you have any suggestions for reading and study, I would gladly hear them.

27 huh, I guess I did get a tad overdone. However, that was slightly necessary – it is not one point or even 27, that are the primary problem. It is the end of those points that is my primary objection. It is attacking the reason of the left with arguments constructed around logical fallacies, personal assumptions and those are backed up with only cursorily related information. This may be my ignorance, but it does seem like much the same actions that you are accusing the left of doing. But, you are right that I did put a lot out there, so let’s look at a specific example – your argument about mutations in evolution would be a good example of the problem. You begin with the concept that genetic mutation is synonymous with malfunction, damage or corruption in the genetic structure. From there, you argue that damaged genes cannot create something new. This is backed up with an analogy comparing mutated genes to damaged puzzle pieces. All of this culminates into rejection of the logic used by evolutionists.

Let’s look at some specific statements in question –
“The evolutionists revised their model to hypothesize that gene mutations provide the new information in the DNA for the evolution of a species. However, mutations are random and involve damage to the genes. The evolutionists have yet to explain how the new information is to be integrated into the orderly system of a new species. Every species represents a harmonious, orderly system of biological parts, and every species has a unique system all its own.”

Followed by –
“Gene mutations cannot design a system. The right information inserted into the wrong system is useless. The pancreas genes of a porcupine are worthless to a man because the human biological systems are different. A new system for a new species must have an orderly design--and each species has a unique design that represents a high level of order.”

And –
“Gene mutations are accidental changes in genetic information that occur randomly. Mutations represent damage to genes that usually result in pathologies or death. How can such contaminated and mangled data provide the basis for developing a new species?”

And –
“A mutation is a malfunction of the genetic code. A malfunction of sophisticated equipment disables the equipment, rather than making it more efficient. In the rare cases in which a mutation is not disabling, it can only move the system to a lower degree of order, not to a higher degree of order.”

And (almost done) –
“Suppose one randomly selects a few jigsaw pieces from a table top, and he damages the pieces by cutting, tearing, and crushing. Then he scatters the damaged pieces amidst the pieces on the table. Now the puzzle cannot be solved. Just a few damaged pieces would introduce an incurable disorder that would defy the rational powers of the puzzle solver.”

And lastly –
“The evolution model holds that if one repeats the insertion of damaged parts often enough, perhaps millions of times, a new order will emerge with a new picture. Instead of a landscape painting revealed in the completed jigsaw puzzle, we will get a picture of a vase of flowers. This is nonsense, of course. Each new round of inserting damaged pieces into the puzzle will move the collection of pieces further in the direction of disorder, never in the direction of order. A million rounds of random damage to puzzle pieces will produce pure chaos. Instead of a landscape painting, one will get a grey fog.”

The problem is that this argument is not logically correct. Mutation is defined in the following way by Webster’s Dictionary (I know that I said this before, but I think I should mention it again) -1. a. sudden change in a heritable characteristic. b. an individual or species characterized by such a change 2. a change or alteration as in form. Redefining mutation creates a false premise, that evolutionists believe that evolution happens through damaged genetic code. Now, I could be wrong, but I have not heard such a claim.

You go further, that genetic mutations are the catalyst for the evolution of something new from an original and asking how that is possible, given that something damaged will remain damaged. This continues the false premise and combines it with a common, but incorrect description of evolution – that is that evolution involves an existing species becoming a new species. Rather, evolution only intends to show modification and change within a species. As such this argument is a straw man fallacy.

These arguments are further combined with an analogy, likening mutated genes to damaged puzzle pieces. This is a false analogy because it begins from a false premise and compares two things that are not similar.

The last paragraph I have quoted brings it all to completion. From false premise by a faulty definition to a straw man version of the evolutionary theory to false analogy and finally, to your conclusion – that evolution by genetic mutation, as has been described is nonsense and the product of an illogical and unreasoning mind. However, a conclusion based on fallacies is not much of a conclusion.

This brings me back to my most basic objection – that attacking the left for their lack of reason with logical fallacies is no better than what you accuse the left of doing. Logic always trumps the lack thereof, if you wish to attack the “unreasoning left”, do it with logic not logical fallacies.

Again, thank you for your time and patience.

- Matt

Yesterday, he sent this response:

Matt, Francis Schaefer's "How then shall we live" talks about the revolt against reason as it occurred in historical stages. First major revolt against rational philosophy in 1750 - can send essay about it. Dissilutionment with Western heritage began in earnest after WWI. Some of the revolt was against closed-system determinism- blamed on rationalism. Materialists in science say that reason is an illusion - I can send source on this. Metaphysics was banned from most philosphy departments until about 15 years ago.
Evolutionists define mutations as random accidents and all agree that most mutations are harmful. They are relying upon the rare beneficial mutation for evolution. Evolutionist claim that new species appear through mutations and natural selection. However, Evey known example of change through mutations & natural selection or selective breeding are minor variations within a species. Evolutionists tell students that these minor variations are the beginning of the evolution of new species, however a) No example of evolution beyond a species has ever been observed, and b) the variations hit a brick wall at a certain point when the accumulation of mutations makes the creature sickly and unstable - as with race horses. Let me know if I failed to address your points. Fred

And I thought that his first response was dismisive. I haven't yet decided what I'm going to say now, but I will post it along with other updates as they come.

[anybody_mcc]

just nitpicking , the fallacy is ad hominem i think , not ad homonym ?

[Zero]

Just send him a lengthy explanation about evolution, and add at the end that he's wrong about his perceptions of it.

[wolveraptor]

Man, that guy just banged out an incredibly worthless and random tirade about liberals.
Evolutionists do NOT define mutations as random accidents. If I slipped and fell, would they call that a mutation? That's just retarded.
Cite talkorigins and the fossil record for examples of new species evolving from older ones. State that the evolution of a species doesn't require the addition of new info, but simply a re-arrangement of the sequence of genetic material. Cite Chimps and Humans, who have roughly the same amount of genetic material (perhaps with humans even having less).

the variations hit a brick wall at a certain point when the accumulation of mutations makes the creature sickly and unstable

Wrong. Variations that make the creature sickly and unstable are not passed on in the wild. Race Horses are domestic: in the wild a horse that sacrificed so many other attributes for speed would not breed. Human breeders reach that brick wall because they do not breed horses to survive, but rather to race.
In the wild, a constantly changing environment will continually spur variation until there is so much variation that the species could not breed with its ancestors to produce fertile offspring. Look at dogs and wolves. Wolf-dogs males are always infertile, just like Lion-Tiger males, but would anyone seriously dispute their genetic relatedness. That transition happened within the age of mankind, something rare for a long-lived, slow-to-change (by our standards) mammallian species.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Just to inquire, when you say re-arrangement, do you mean sexual shuffeling or something else, because my biotext states you can have as much suffeling as you want, but you will never have a new species. Or are you talking about something else? I always wanted to clarify this for myself.


PS: my text also says that you could have as much microevolution as you want, but it won't necessarily lead to speciation. I didn't get that.

[Wyrm]

There are also two sides to the evolution coin. There are the "random" mutations (random in the sense that a given mutation is that there is a fair amount of uncertainty whether the mutation is detrimental, neutral, or beneficial), and there is natural selection, which is not random.

That being said, I'd like to expand on the Quantum Mechanics part a bit:

Quantum Mechanics

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) was one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, a theory about atomic physics. Heisenberg made the assumption that atomic radiation was caused by particles.

No. The radiations that science knew about at this time (alpha, beta, and gamma radiation) were already known to correspond to particles (helium nucleus, electron, and photon). The last one, the photon, was shown to exist by Einstein's work with the photoelectric effect - Einstein showed that the photoelectric effect is inconsistent with light as a wave and entirely consistent with light as a particle. (As it turns out, it's also consistent with what we know the photon to be.)

He studied these particles through "matrix mechanics," which is a statistical method. Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) concluded that radiation followed wave mechanics that measure vibration frequencies of electron matter waves. Both Heisenberg and Schrödinger had successful laboratory experiments. In 1926, Schrödinger published a paper that mathematically proved that matrix mechanics and wave mechanics give the same results. As it turned out, the mathematical correspondence of the two theories was not confirmed by experiment.

Unneeded. Mathematical equivalency is determined completely by the mathematics, not by the physical results. Indeed, physical results are completely unable to distinguish between two theories that are mathematically equivalent, because mathematically equivalent descriptions give precisely the same answers (that's why they're mathematically equivalent).

Niels Bohr (1885–1962), was a pioneer in the theory of the quantum structure of atoms that incorporates the idea that electrons can leap from one orbital shell to another. Bohr, who was Heisenberg's mentor, met with Heisenberg and Schrödinger for many hours to resolve the differences between the two men. Heisenberg, a young theoretical genius, was violently opposed to Schrödinger's ideas. Bohr, through herculean patience, and the help of Albert Einstein, eventually brought the two men to a compromise, which was to be called the "Copenhagen interpretation," or the "Copenhagen doctrine" (1927).

The Copenhagen interpretation (not "doctrine") is just that: an interpretation of what the mathematics and the physics were telling them. It is totally made up, and carries no physical water.

Einstein contributed the concept of simplicity as the essence of scientific realism, and coauthored with Bohr the "complementary doctrine," which posited that radiation behaves as both a wave and a particle, two aspects of the same phenomenon. However, Einstein walked away skeptical of Heisenberg's matrix mechanics based upon mathematical statistics, and said, "God does not play dice with the universe." Einstein was a philosophical rationalist and realist, and did not like the idea of an accidental universe. As a rationalist, Einstein sought orderly systems, and as a realist he believed that "things are really out there," and have objective existence.

Unfortunately, the complementary principle did not work. A researcher had to experiment with atomic radiation as either particles or waves, but never both. The outcomes of experiments were dependent on the tools of measurement, and the tools used to measure particles were different from the tools for measuring waves. The results of the two ways of measurement were always different, never the same.

The results are physically different, indicating that something fundamentally funky was going on, and not just a breakdown of reason. Studies of cathode rays by J. J. Thomson showed that the electron was a particle. Yet diffractions experiments by George Paget Thomson (J. J. Thomson's son) showed that electrons were waves. Both got Nobel prizes for their respective discoveries. So who was right?

Both of them were! J.J.'s experiment was to detect whether the electron has particle-like properties. The result of that experiment says that electrons do. George's experiment was to detect whether the electron has wave-like properties. That experiment says that electrons have those properties, too. So an electron is a thing that, counter to intuition, has both particle- and wave-like properties. Obviously, if the electron was either a pure particle or a pure wave, then one of these experiments should've failed to detect the properties concerned. That both did is only "unreasonable" if you decide beforehand that the electron is either one or the other, and only if you consider the possibility that the electron is neither a particle or a wave, but an object with properties of both, do you find a way out of the contradiction.

We still call the electron a particle, but subatomic particles are understood nowadays to be objects with certain particle and wave characteristics, rather than what we now more properly call "classical particles", which obey Newtons' Laws but have no extent.

Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger, the four greatest pioneers of nuclear physics of the twentieth century, had met together and come up with a paradoxical and problematical compromise at Copenhagen. Were these great men guessing? Were they papering over an incurable conflict between Heisenberg and Schrödinger? Were they so dazzled with Schrödinger's mathematics that they were blind to the laboratory evidence? Was viewing radiation as both particles and waves a logical contradiction?

The answers to to these questions are "No," "No," "No," and "No." But I'll go beyond that into more detail.

Were these great men guessing?

No. They had philosophical differences which they needed to hammer out, but the physical results were undisputed.

Were they papering over an incurable conflict between Heisenberg and Schrödinger?

No. There were no incurable conflict because the theories agreed on the physical results, and in science, the physical results are the only way to distinguish between theories.

Were they so dazzled with Schrödinger's mathematics that they were blind to the laboratory evidence?

No. Schrödinger's mathematics (as well as Heisenberg's) were absolutely consistent with the physical results... that is, the laboratory evidence. The problem was with us silly humans who somehow thought that our experience with large particles somehow constrained Nature to certain ways of working. In truth, our intuitions were just no damn good when dealing with subatomic particles.

Was viewing radiation as both particles and waves a logical contradiction?

No. Because it was clear by then that neither concept represented the entire truth, but both concepts were useful for making predictions, so the concept that what we now call subatomic particles were both particles and waves was invented as a sort of a patch interpretation until something clearer came along.

The Uncertainty Principle

Heisenberg's famous "uncertainty principle" also has stirred up a great deal of trouble and scientific doubt. Heisenberg was not able to reconcile the measurement of the position of an electron with the momentum (Momentum = Mass X Velocity). He said, "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is discovered, and vice versa." Obviously, knowing the momentum without knowing much about the position is not very helpful. Knowing about position without knowing much about the momentum or direction of rapidly spinning electrons is a questionable bit of information.

To make matters even more indeterminate, all the researcher can know through matrix mechanics is statistical probabilities. What is worse, Heisenberg concluded that the act of experimental observation changes what one is looking at. He called this the "uncertainty principle." Polanyi modified the uncertainty principle by insisting that it is not the observation that changes the phenomena, but the intrusion of the measuring tools. If you are measuring soft clay with a ruler, and the ruler leaves deep dents in the clay, the tool has corrupted the measurement.

No problems so far.

Based upon these troublesome uncertainties, one might suppose that Heisenberg would be modest about drawing conclusions. Unfortunately, there was no modesty in Heisenberg's nature. He projected his uncertainties into a theory of science and into a philosophy. He denied the principle of causality--that every determinate cause in nature is followed by a resulting effect--and substituted probability. Polanyi agreed that the introduction of statistics rules out knowing about causality. However, unlike Heisenberg, Polanyi does not rule out the existence of causality. Therefore, Polanyi held onto rationality and Heisenberg cast it aside. It is extremely difficult to prove causality, but to deny that causality exists is irrational.

Heisenberg realized that if his uncertainty principle was correct, and by all indications it was conceptually sound and supported by the evidence (as it was a direct consequence of the developing quantum theory of the time), then your measurement instruments are governed by the exact same quantum uncertainty princple as small particles. The state of the system represented in position-momentum space is therefore can at best only an approximation of reality.

That Heisenberg's quantum mechanics kicks out probabilities, however, does not mean that it does not incorporate causality. Quantum theory (in which Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a consequence) does in fact incorporate causality through time-evolution operators: the systems evolve in unambiguous ways as time passes, and so quantum mechanics does indeed incorporate causality.

Heisenberg rejected philosophical realism and asserted that electron orbits in nature do not exist unless we observe them. Madness? Yes. The instant one denies that things are out there if he cannot see them, he has withdrawn from reason and has retreated into the illusions of solipsism and philosophical idealism. This denial that unobserved things are out there is a continuation of the fallacy of German philosophical idealism, which emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century. Heisenberg's version of this madness was a sort of intellectual chauvinism that usurps the role of creator and destroyer.

Is what Heisenberg personally thought relevant? Nope.

Whatever Heisenberg thought personally, what matters in rational discussions is what his theory states. That theory doesn't deny that there is an underlying reality, but rather that reality is so far removed from everyday experience that you'd better be prepared to have your world rocked. That means that cherished concepts like determining both position and momentum (along with other paired quantities) to arbitrary accuracy and that the observer can observe a system without disturbing it are not (and could not be) included usefully in quantum mechanics. Electrons still move in orbits around nuclei in Heisenberg's world, if the concepts of "move" and "orbits" are defined meaningfully for subatomic particles.

[Darth Wong]

Why does the Religious Right learn just enough about science to totally misrepresent it? It's not surprising that someone would do this to quantum mechanics, given the way it's routinely done to evolution.

[NecronLord]

Gah. I couldn't bring myself to read all of that article, it was just painful. In I rushed, seeing this thread, expecting some critique of a right-wing political policy, to either debunk or amuse myself with and out comes another freaking creationist. It's frankly embarassing to anyone holding any right-wing views to have these lunatics on the same side. It's like the average left-winger living in a world where left-wing rhetoric is controlled by Maoists.

[Adrian Laguna]

A word about the creation of new information. I believe that I have a great analogy to explain it to Creationists, but I wouldn't recommend using it in a debate until someone knowledgeble (I'm looking in your direction Mr. Wong) confirms that I haven't misundertood, misrepresented, or am just plain wrong about, something.

DNA is made-up of four basic proteins, adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). These four proteins contain all the information required to build a living being. Let's leave it at that for now.

There are twenty-six basic letters in the english language. These letters can be arranged to form words, and they can be re-arranged to form new and different words. The words can be arranged in different manners to form phrases and sentences, these in turn form pargraphs. The process continues until works of differing levels of length an complexity are created. It is easy to see that with just 26 basic building blocks one can create new information by simply changing the arrangement. Most of the possible arrangements don't make any sense and are useless, but there is a small portion that does make sense. A very simple example: " i see what i eat" One can re-arrange the words into "i eat what i see" This means something entirely different, new information could be said to have been created. One could remove parts of the new sentence and add different words made from the same basic 26 letters, "i eat all that is here".

Back to the DNA thing. By simply re-arranging the four "letters" A, T, C, G, different genes are created. Re-arranging of genes can create chromosomes. All of this contains the informaition that regulates the growth and life of a living being. Mutations, which happen at random, are basically the re-arranging, deletion, or addition, of genes or letters. Like when one re-arranges letters or words in the English language, most of the new things are useless and therefore detrimental to the living being. However, on occasion something that makes it easier for that being to survive in its environment. Give them several hundreds of thousands of years, and "new information" is created in the process.

[Adrian Laguna]

It sounded a lot more concise and clear in my head. Unfortunately it didn't come out too well. I think that my understanding of this "new information" thing the Creationists keep talking about is lacking something.

[Admiral Valdemar]

A word about the creation of new information. I believe that I have a great analogy to explain it to Creationists, but I wouldn't recommend using it in a debate until someone knowledgeble (I'm looking in your direction Mr. Wong) confirms that I haven't misundertood, misrepresented, or am just plain wrong about, something.

DNA is made-up of four basic proteins, adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). These four proteins contain all the information required to build a living being. Let's leave it at that for now.

Minor nitpick: those are nucleic acids, not proteins. DNA and RNA tend to code for said proteins coming about from amino acid or peptide chains, so already being one would be odd.

There are twenty-six basic letters in the english language. These letters can be arranged to form words, and they can be re-arranged to form new and different words. The words can be arranged in different manners to form phrases and sentences, these in turn form pargraphs. The process continues until works of differing levels of length an complexity are created. It is easy to see that with just 26 basic building blocks one can create new information by simply changing the arrangement. Most of the possible arrangements don't make any sense and are useless, but there is a small portion that does make sense. A very simple example: " i see what i eat" One can re-arrange the words into "i eat what i see" This means something entirely different, new information could be said to have been created. One could remove parts of the new sentence and add different words made from the same basic 26 letters, "i eat all that is here".

Back to the DNA thing. By simply re-arranging the four "letters" A, T, C, G, different genes are created. Re-arranging of genes can create chromosomes. All of this contains the informaition that regulates the growth and life of a living being. Mutations, which happen at random, are basically the re-arranging, deletion, or addition, of genes or letters. Like when one re-arranges letters or words in the English language, most of the new things are useless and therefore detrimental to the living being. However, on occasion something that makes it easier for that being to survive in its environment. Give them several hundreds of thousands of years, and "new information" is created in the process.

That analogy has been used before I should think. But it's a good way to get Laymen to see how genetic coding works. I don't see anything majorly bad with it since information relies on context rather than just content. The "junk" DNA we all possess as introns doesn't seem to be useful for anything now, but could have a long time ago, much like certain words have fallen out of usage in the English language.

[Greymalkin]

Why does the Religious Right learn just enough about science to totally misrepresent it? It's not surprising that someone would do this to quantum mechanics, given the way it's routinely done to evolution.

I don't really know, it's kind of like they study just far enough to "prove" their case or get some sort of "gotcha" moment in a debate and then just stop.

For me, it's not so much his poor (or biased?) understanding of science, but his poor understanding of almost everything he talks about - law, history, art etc. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my own understanding of science is limited, but that is not an excuse to B S your through an argument.

In some of his other articles he talks about art - with much the same understanding that he talks about science - and while I may have my difficulties with science, art is something I know. It becomes painfully obvious that he does not - transposing Abstract Expressionism with Impressionsim and a rather curious description of Romanticism.

As for my response to his latest e-mail - it goes some thing like this:

Fred,

Thank you for the suggestion, I will look in to it – also please do send that material, I would like to read it.

Could you also send me a source for mutations being harmful? I would appreciate it.

There is one point I would like you to address, that being this (from the my last e-mail) –

“The last paragraph I have quoted brings it all to completion. From false premise by a faulty definition to a straw man version of the evolutionary theory to false analogy and finally, to your conclusion – that evolution by genetic mutation, as has been described is nonsense and the product of an illogical and unreasoning mind. However, a conclusion based on fallacies is not much of a conclusion.

This brings me back to my most basic objection – that attacking the left for their lack of reason with logical fallacies is no better than what you accuse the left of doing. Logic always trumps the lack thereof, if you wish to attack the “unreasoning left”, do it with logic not logical fallacies.”

Thank you again,

- Matt

Any thoughts before I send it?

[Eleas]

Any thoughts before I send it?

Yes, one: this will probably give him what he percieves as the "out" he needs to withdraw from the debate in a self-righteous huff, and I predict he will do just that.

[drachefly]

I'd like to expand on the Quantum Mechanics part a bit:

The Uncertainty Principle

Heisenberg's famous "uncertainty principle" also has stirred up a great deal of trouble and scientific doubt. Heisenberg was not able to reconcile the measurement of the position of an electron with the momentum (Momentum = Mass X Velocity). He said, "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is discovered, and vice versa." Obviously, knowing the momentum without knowing much about the position is not very helpful. Knowing about position without knowing much about the momentum or direction of rapidly spinning electrons is a questionable bit of information.

To make matters even more indeterminate, all the researcher can know through matrix mechanics is statistical probabilities. What is worse, Heisenberg concluded that the act of experimental observation changes what one is looking at. He called this the "uncertainty principle." Polanyi modified the uncertainty principle by insisting that it is not the observation that changes the phenomena, but the intrusion of the measuring tools. If you are measuring soft clay with a ruler, and the ruler leaves deep dents in the clay, the tool has corrupted the measurement.

No problems so far.

Actually, there are, though minor.
The uncertainty principle is NOT the observer effect, in which the experimenter changes what is observed. The uncertainty principle simply points out that there is no physical state with standard deviations in the distributions of the position and momentum such that their product less than dirac's constant.

This follows directly from observations about the Fourier Transform. It is not about our ability to observe, it is about the nature of the particles themselves.

Also, it is nonsensical to say that electrons are spinning 'rapidly'. They have a quantum number, spin; but this does not correspond to actual motion.

This is critical to the point you make later, about the time-evolution operators: the state is unambiguous and nonrandom, and the evolution of that state is unambiguous and nonrandom. It is trying to shoehorn perfectly defined attributes into states that do not have them that creates trouble.

[Wyrm]

Yeah, I should've realized that. Your comments dredge up moldy stuff from the depths of my brain.