Huge, Flying Rocks In Space vs. Carl Sagan’s Dragon In The Garage
Posted in Astronomy, Logic, Philosophy, Science on | 7 minutes | 27 Comments →
So, seasoned readers and veterans in philosophical, scientific, or religious debate are surely familiar with the astronomer Carl Sagan's famous and hypothetical dragon in the garage argument:
"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage."
Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me", you say, and I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle – but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon", you ask.
"Oh, she's right here", I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon".
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints. "Good idea", I say, "but this dragon floats in the air". Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. "Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless", I say. You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. "Good idea, except she's an incorporeal (bodyless) dragon and the paint won't stick!"
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now what is the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? You're inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
With all due respect to the late Mr. Sagan, although it contains an eminent truth, this argument is also eminently bunk. Now I agree that the inability to invalidate a hypothesis does not prove a competing hypothesis true. However, the following line is correct only in the extremely limited scope
of validating a scientific hypothesis (and even then can break down):
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless..
I hear too many skeptics and atheists cite this passage
foolishly thinking it somehow counters religious claims or the
existence of God. There are several reasons this is incorrect, but first let me counter with my own little story, custom-tailored to address Mr. Sagan's area of expertise: Astronomy.
Pretend it's sometime before the 1800's.
"There are huge, flying rocks that can kill us all any moment now.."
Suppose at that time, I made such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself, right? We've seen shooting stars for centuries and imagined them gods descending upon the Earth, but no real evidence of these huge, flying rocks. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say, and I point to the night sky. You look, seeing only the standard Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and Orion's Belt, arrayed fantastically against the rest of the majestic night sky, but no huge, flying rocks.
"Well, where are these huge, flying rocks?" you ask.
"Oh, they're out there," I reply, looking sheepishly upward. "I neglected to mention that we can't see them, because they're so far away – they are in space."
After a chuckle, you propose using advanced tools to test my claim, so we look through a pair of binoculars. Still, nothing, and I maintain that they are too far away to see through binoculars. Next, we peer through our telescopes. Still, nothing, and I maintain that they are even so far away telescopes cannot see them.
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now what is the difference between invisible, imperceptible, huge, flying rocks and no huge flying rocks at all? What does it mean to say that huge flying rocks exist in space?
Well, I opine that we could not debate the veridic worthlessness of huge, flying rocks without them. Prior to the discovery of
Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, the existence of asteroids could not be tested, and was immune to disproof. At that time, all attempts to persuade you of unfalsifiable flying rocks would have been on account solely of my say-so, and surely I would have become a mockery to some. Sure, my claim might have been veridically worthless in the context of any particular laboratory or field hypothesis, but notice this in no way relates to whether the objects of my claim exist, or possess worth or relevance, in actuality.
Hence,
1) When applied to religion and metaphysics, the argument is out of scope. Imperceptibility and influence-ability are not intrinsic or necessary
properties of worth or relevance except in the limited sense of validating a scientific hypothesis. Imperceptible realities can still exist, possessing immense worth and relevance, but such realities cannot be objectively evaluated, confirmed, accepted, or rejected.
2) Skeptics who advance this argument against faith-based imperatives present the illusion that veridic worthlessness is tantamount to absolute worthlessness. Such is incorrect. Asteroids had worth and relevance before we verified their existence. Objective perceptibility is not a mandatory prerequisite of worth or relevance, in science, religion or metaphysics. Even if we grant God as imperceptible and beyond influence, such does not preclude God's worth or relevance.
3) I object philosophically, because to say a
construct is irrelevant is to assign a reasonable value to it, but how can one assign
any reasonable value to a construct they can neither perceive nor influence? In exactly the same way the believer asks the skeptic to take God for granted, to say something we can't perceive or influence is worthless is a hidden given, a free lunch.
4) Lastly, I object empirically,
because as noted before, such is not born out in the real world. Before the 1800's, the concept of asteroids as intra-space
objects that could collide into Earth was 100% imperceptible and 100%
beyond influence, yet also 100% relevant to the point that we could not
debate their relevance without them. Similarly, prior to its discovery, plate
tectonics was also 100% imperceptible, and it still remains 100% beyond
influence, yet it is also a certainly relevant reality.
In closing, Carl Sagan's dragon in the garage is not a persuasive argument for atheism. Even if a spiritual realm existed that was 100% isolated from the material realm that does exist, such cannot preclude its relevance or worth. It could very well be that some spiritual realm <i>is</i> our post-mortem destination where any of numerous potential variables could be determined by our actions on Earth.
Wouldn't such a reality be imperceptible, unfalsifiable, and beyond influence, yet 100% relevant?
mike
says...I think your analogy is significantly flawed. Sagan’s invisible dragon is unfalsifiable in principle. In your example, asteroids are unfalsifiable only in practice. That’s a pretty big difference. Even in your illustration, the asteroidist (?) is not claiming that the asteroids are invisible — they are just too far away. When presented with a hypothetical, say, given great leaps in optics or space travel, the asteroidist would concede that the asteroids could be seen — a claim which is practically unfalsifiable at the time, but falsifiable in principle.
Being objectively perceptible (by which I assume you mean falsifiable) in principle is certainly a prerequisite of scientific worth.
Things that are unfalsifiable in principle are veridically worthless to science. I completely agree with you that there is a philosophical possibility that there are objective truths that are unfalsifiable in principle. I have no problem with a deistic god, even one that maintains an afterlife for us. I remain an agnostic atheist with respect to such gods, because I think belief in anything which is principally unfalsifiable is not rational.
And in the sense you’ve describe (that our actions here could possibly affect some afterlife outcome), sure, such a god would be “relevant” to us. But I don’t think it’s rational for such ideas to inform our beliefs, so I would classify those ideas as “irrelevant with respect to belief.”
I don’t know you well enough to have a complete picture of your beliefs, so sorry if this is a gross caricature. But it seems like your main defense of your beliefs (at least in this post) is “well, the god/afterlife I believe in is not logically impossible“. If so, then I guess we agree completely on that point.
PS: perhaps there may be some uncertainty about whether a hypothesis’ unfalsifiability is in principle or in practice. String theory, for instance, may or may not be falsifiable in principle. So perhaps the judgment of “in practice” or “in principle” can only be made in retrospect. Still, in science, practically unfalsifiable hypotheses don’t linger for thousands of years without seeing any progress.
mike
says...One thing I missed:
You’re onto something here, but aren’t you also assigning a value to an imperceptible non-influencing thing?
Anyway, If I wanted to be super careful about this, I would say that I “don’t assign any value” to things which are unfalsifiable in principle — in contrast to “assigning a value of zero” as you suggest. These things are “irrelevant” in the sense that they cannot be ascribed any relevance, not in the sent that their relevance has been determined to be zero.
OK, this is getting way too philosophical for my taste. ;)
cl
says...You said,
Fair enough. Let’s examine the evidence.
I disagree.
1) That we can’t falsify something doesn’t preclude its falsifiability.
2) What is and is not falsifiable at any given time is 100% dependent on technology. Hence, falsifiability itself is a relative construct.
3) Define unfalsifiable in principle.
And given a stronger hypothetical, wouldn’t the dragonist or the theist similarly concede that the dragon or God could be seen?
I don’t use objective perceptibility synonymously with falsifiability. A thing can be directly imperceptible yet still have worth and relevance in science.
That you say such is the most respectful way you could possibly put such a statement so feel free to ask anything, anytime.
In this post, I wasn’t trying to defend my beliefs as much as posit the fallacies in an argument commonly proffered to rebut them.
Again I disagree. They are veridically worthless only in the limited scope of validating a hypothesis. The validation of hypotheses is not the whole of science.
Well, that’s fair and perhaps where we differ. To me, unfalsifiability does not preclude rationality. I mean how can we really say that as humans, simply because we can’t falsify something, that it cannot be rational? To me that’s an open doorway to overconfidence. I say anything which is not rational is not rational.
I don’t mean to… Do you mean in the asteroid analogy? Or with belief in God?
BTW, if I suggested ‘zero’ in the piece it’s a typo. NULL is more appropriate; zero retains quantitative value.
Mike
says...I think this is one of the problems with analogies (Sagan’s dragon analogy), that it is just an analogy. I read Sagan’s analogy as implying that whenever the visitor to his garage suggests a line of empirical verification, Sagan does (and will always) find a weaselly explanation out of it. I interpret Sagan in his story as never allowing for his dragon to be falsified.
This is where my reading of the story differs from yours, I guess. I can’t speak for the theist, but I don’t think Sagan will ever admit a feasible way for the dragon to be seen or otherwise validated.
In response to your 3 points, I would define the following terms:
Falsifiable in practice = there is a series of experimental observations which are currently possible with current technology, and an outcome which has not yet been ruled out by accepted understanding of the world, whose occurence would contradict the idea in question.
Falsifiable in principle = given hypothetical future advances in technology, development of the theory etc, the idea becomes falsifiable in practice.
I’ll concede that it’s not the best definition. The hypothetical future advances must be “reasonable” in some sense. Something that will never be falsifiable in practice is unfalsifiable in principle. This definition is absolute, but since it demands perfect knowledge of the future, our assessment of whether something is unfalsifiable in principle is subject to current knowledge.
I don’t know what you mean by this — there are other steps in the scientific method, but ultimately scientific knowledge (“scientific truth” if you will) is subservient to experimental observation, the mechanism of validating hypotheses.
Maybe I was unclear in distinguishing between “X” and “belief in X”. If X is unfalsifiable in principle (maybe even in practice, I haven’t thought about it), I think that belief in X is not rational. I’ll happily concede that perhaps X is in fact true, so X itself might be “rational” if that’s your definition. But in my opinion, only falsifiable beliefs are rational to hold.
It seemed to me that you had said “hey, you can’t assign value to these imperecptible things” because I had implicitly deemed them valueless, while at the same time arguing (throughout the post) that these things did in fact have value.
jim
says...First off, if indeed there was absolutely no evidence of ‘falling rocks’ which were later proven to exist, then by definition your prediciton would fall into the category of ‘lucky guess’. it’s happened before…no big whoop.
The point I believe Mr. Sagan is trying to make is encapsulated in the last sentence of the quote: “What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.” Let try another example-
I tell you I am Superman. You immediately set about trying to disprove my assertion. You ask if I can fly. I tell you “Yes, but I don’t feel like showing you right now. Anyway, your disbelief would probably preclude you from actually being able to see me fly.” You prick me with a pin, and you see me bleed. I tell you “Well, that’s because you’re projecting your expectations, creating a delusion. The fact is, I really am NOT bleeding.” You point out that many of my supposed powers contradict the laws of physics as they are currently understood. I say “Yes, as they are CURRENTLY UNDERSTOOD…but, you don’t know everything, now do you?” You find a piece of kryptonite, hold it near me, and nothing happens. I explain “Kryptonite works in mysterious ways.” You point out that Superman is a comic character, whose history can easily be traced as such. I reply “My arch enemy, Lex Luther, despising me as he does, built a time machine, went into the past and created DC comics in an effort to discredit my true existence.” And so on. After you’ve exhausted your repertoire of disproofs, and I’ve answered all of it in this fashion, is it then logical that you should believe my claim to be Superman, or to even seriously consider it?
Sagan’s ‘dragon’ argument isn’t a bid for absolute proof of God’s nonexistence; rather, he’s demonstrating that at some point unbased claims become spurious, and irrelevant. Furthermore, regarding your asteroid argument, the idea that rocks fall from outer space is just a logical extension of facts which we actually do experience in the real world, i.e. rocks are known to exist, big rocks exist in space (the moon, for instance), and rocks fall. Conversely, the idea of God’s existence is mainly predicated on the fact that some people a long time ago said so, and taught subsequent generations to believe so, along with people’s tendency to explain things along anthropomorphic lines.
I’ll agree that there’s no such thing as absolute proof, but for the reason that proof requires, indeed entails, the agreement of the parties in question. For instance, a mathematical proof is probably the closest thing we can offer as an absolute demonstration of truth, yes? But for a mathematical proof to retain its validity, every single value for every single factor must be stringently agreed upon. Change one value, and the ‘proof’ falls apart. And when we leave the rarefied world of pure mathematics and begin to apply reason to the real world, things get quite a bit more complicated, very quickly. What I guess I’m saying is that we’re stuck with making the best case we can, appealing to common sense when we can, attempting along the way to honestly assess our own prejudices, as well as those ‘gaps’ where we’re tempted to force-fit poorly thought out concepts and creeds.
And then, of course, we die…and none of this will matter. LOLOL! But in the meantime, we gotta do sumpin’!
Thanks for the space. Again, nice blogging!
cl
says...Mike,
I got that feeling as well, and I realize he appears to be speaking mainly in the context of empiricism. Even if that’s the case, then Sagan proposes a class of objects which are absolutely unfalsifiable in principle. I don’t put God in that class of objects. To this end you later note,
and here’s a good point,
I agree completely. ‘Subject to current knowledge’ = ‘100% relative’ and I also feel that science as a whole represents the very literal overthrow of subjective knowledge which often gets masqueraded as objective knowledge. At this point, for me a question arises; How many times has science proved or done something once thought unfalsifiable? Falsifiability is a relative construct, and it’s relative to the sum of the human body of knowledge.
I agree. What I meant was that the most rudimentary steps of science are not validation but questioning.
I don’t fully agree, but I thought you said you weren’t good at making philosophy arguments?
Makes sense to me.
Fair enough. You might think this is a cheesy argument, but what about love? In what ways is love a falsifiable belief? Or conversely, do you grant my position that love is 100% irrational?? :)
Okay I see what you mean now but it’s not special pleading I swear. I don’t think we can declare them valueless or valuable, on the basis of reason or empiricism. My argument is only that the very real potential exists for any object in question to actually possess value. For example, when I said that asteroids and plate tectonics were valuable, it was to show that falsifiability is relative for one; and that we have real-world examples of things that seemed unfalsifiable in principle at one time, yet had great worth.
Mike
says...I don’t consider myself to be.. but I much prefer talking about philosophy of science than philosophy of reliigon ;)
Great question, but I have no idea. There have often been technological advances which have previously deemed “impossible” by crusty old naysayers, but nothing immediately springs to mind as going from unfalsifiable speculation to falsifiable. Actually, string theory may eventually fall into that category.
Are you asking me something along the lines of “prove love exists?” That would certainly be cheesy. Are you asking whether loving someone is an irrational behavior? Then the answer is no. Or are you asking whether you can prove that someone loves someone else? I don’t know.
cl
says...Mike,
Falsifiability increases in proportion to technology, was my point. Pre-1800’s many things were not falsifiable that are today.
As far as the love thing, yes, that’s a cheesy argument.. I wasn’t asking you to prove love exists. You said,
So, do you love people or not? I would imagine you do. On what grounds is love a falsifiable belief then? Or conversely, is love an irrational belief to hold?
mike
says...I think there is a level of indirection that is missing here. Loving someone is not a belief about a truth claim. It is an emotion.
On the other hand, whether or not X loves Y is an empirical claim. To the extent that you are able to define love in terms of its expected effect on actions, hormones, physiology, etc, then yes it is falsifiable. Similarly, it is certainly rational to believe that the emotion of love exists, or that X indeed loves Y.
To the extent that you define love as a subjective experience or feeling or emotion, then asking whether love exists doesn’t seem to me like a falsifiable statement.
Since it is hard to define love without involving both observable effects and subjective experience, the concept is not cut-and-dry. If you’ll forgive my tautology, the aspects of “love” which are falsifiable are falsifiable, and the unfalsifiable aspects are unfalsifiable ;)
As an analogy, think about the color red. It is not irrational for you to believe that I see the color red, or that red exists. It is not irrational to say “that shirt is red”. These are empirical parts of the definition of red as a particular range of EM wavelengths. However, if I wonder whether the color red looks the same to me as it does to you (i.e., our experiences of red), it’s unfalsifiable. So is “red” falsifiable/rational?
cl
says...Hey! How did we end up with you asking the same question I asked you?? :) Really though, we’re turning the corner headed towards Qualia Drive, and I don’t really want to go there.
At any rate, you appear to argue that loving God is falsifiable, but believing God exists is not, and I assume you would say that even if loving God is falsifiable, such is still irrational, because there’s no evidence that the object of one’s love actually exists.
Am I anywhere close to on target?
Mike
says...I only pull out the best rhetorical tactics for you! ;)
I think you’re fairly close. Though again, there is a level of imprecision in treating “loving X” and “believing X exists” as things of the same type.
And you’re right, loving X usually entails that you believe X exists. So to that extent it’s irrational.
And as for god’s existence being unfalsifiable, it surely depends on how you define it. Its actions in the real world can make it falsifiable. For instance, a god who created the world 6000 years ago is falsifiable. A god who intercedes in response to prayer is falsifiable. I don’t know which is better, to believe in an unfalsifiable god or an already-falsified god! ;)
cl
says...Certainly. I’m not sure they are things of the same type. I see a distinct difference.
I’m not so sure even of those. That the world is 6,000 years old appears to be a quite falsifiable claim, but I don’t think that makes any alleged creator falsifiable by default.
As for intercessory prayer, I completely disagree that such a God is falsifiable, for many reasons. Something as simple as the placebo effect greatly confounds those silly little prayer experiments.
cl
says...Certainly. I’m not sure they are things of the same type. I see a distinct difference.
I’m not so sure even of those. That the world is 6,000 years old appears to be a quite falsifiable claim, but I don’t think that makes any alleged creator falsifiable by default.
As for intercessory prayer, I completely disagree that such a God is falsifiable, for many reasons. Something as simple as the placebo effect greatly confounds those silly little prayer experiments.
cl
says...Certainly. I’m not sure they are things of the same type. I see a distinct difference.
I’m not so sure even of those. That the world is 6,000 years old appears to be a quite falsifiable claim, but I don’t think that makes any alleged creator falsifiable by default.
As for intercessory prayer, I completely disagree that such a God is falsifiable, for many reasons. Something as simple as the placebo effect greatly confounds those silly little prayer experiments.
Mike
says...The claim that being prayed for has an effect on health is most surely falsifiable. If the claim is falsified, then so is the existence of any God that enacts the claimed behavior.
I’m surprised you mention the placebo effect as if it is some barrier to falsifiability. Controlling for placebo effect is trivial, and many experiments have done so (link, link, link). When you do control for placebo, the result is unsurprising, at least to me.
Of course, “God intercedes in response to prayer, or in response to no prayer, at his own whim” is unfalsifiable. But it is the same as saying “God intercedes at his own whim”, which admits that prayer makes no difference.
Boy, this conversation has sure decided to take the scenic route ;)
cl
says...I disagree strongly. If I pray right now that you would experience health benefit X, and you don’t, such does not entail that the existence of any God has been falsified.
I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and learned as well. I’m quite glad you and that guy jim found my blog.
Mike
says...We still disagree here. Again you have brought up a scenario that is no barrier to falsifiability (first the placebo effect, and now a single sample point experiment). Of course a single sample point will not falsify anything (especially regarding health). This is why medical science does not deal in anecdotes. However, large-scale studies show that being prayed for has no effect on health. This falsifies any god who is claimed to consistently intercede in response to prayer.
Of course it is possible to weasel out of this claim with special pleading (especially concerning the “consistently” part, his will being mysterious, etc),
but I have tried to encapsulate the specific claim that I think is falsified. Besides, the special pleading concedes my claim — that there is no god who consistently “answers” prayers in a way that prayer could be said to have any effect on anything.
If you don’t think this follows, then in what sense could a god who consistently answers prayers in the above sense be said to exist? Of course you cannot falsify the deistic concept of god, but you can falsify its purported observable properties/behaviors/actions, and this might be the source of our disagreement. But if X is defined as “a thing that does Y when Z happens”, and Z happens and Y doesn’t happen, then X doesn’t exist.
More concretely, in my experience, quite a lot of people seem to believe that praying will help things work out “better” than not praying. I would consider such a belief falsified. Which isn’t to say that “no god exists, QED”, but that at the very very least, this particular concept of their god is baseless. I classify this as: the god they think they are praying to (the one who is supposed to answer the prayers) does not exist.
mike
says...It just occurred to me that there might be some confusion with the use of “any”. I see two ways to interpret what you’ve said:
Completely agree.
Other interpretation:
This is the interpretation I disagree with. The god whose definition entails events that don’t happen, that god is falsified.
If only we could speak in first-order logic, then we could avoid confusion when using a quantifier and a negation. ;)
cl
says...mike,
I’m aware of that, and still disagree though. For the sake of not getting into anomalous evidence, let’s grant that large-scale studies do show that being prayed for has no effect on health. You argue that such falsifies any God claimed to consistently intercede in response to prayer. Such falsifies only an unrealistic god of the magic lamp variety, and there are too many confounders to say such falsifies all or even any other gods. How do we know the people in these studies prayed with correct faith? Correct motive? On what grounds are we justified to expect instantaneous results, if you are? Etc. etc. God is not alleged or obligated to do what man wants, when man wants, for the reasons of man. Perhaps these tests are ill-motivated to God?
Seems logical, but I don’t accept that definition, though. God is not alleged or obligated to do what man wants, when man wants, for the reasons of man. It’s not special pleading IMO, just a concession of the possibility that God is not a magic lamp.
For you maybe it has been. But such is not a falsifiable belief in any logically valid, quantifiable form, IMO.
Because not all prayers get answered? I don’t think that logically follows.
**I just noticed your subsequent comment. You did in fact see what I was getting at in the first point. I disagree with the second interpretation as well, because in my example we have falsified at least one god, of my self-styled magic lamp variety.
I Googled ‘First-order logic’ and I’m so tired it almost fried my brain :)
jim
says...cl:
I think you’re overlooking Mike’s qualifier…
“Of course, “God intercedes in response to prayer, or in response to no prayer, at his own whim” is unfalsifiable. But it is the same as saying “God intercedes at his own whim”, which admits that prayer makes no difference.”
…which is the sort of God you’re positing when you say that God isn’t a ‘magic lamp’. However, if the contention IS that God DOES answer prayers in a readily demonstrable fashion, and considering the tens of millions making up the cross section of humanity that can be included and studied, then God can ABSOLUTELY be falsified.
My problem with your argumentation here is that you’re ignoring many of the descriptors for God that might box you in. Instead, you’re opting for an open-ended ‘something’ with no concrete qualities, describing him through negative phrasing such as “well, who says He’s this, or that? Maybe He’s something else.”
All well and good, I suppose; only, this line of reasoning seems suspiciously like a shell game to me. If you don’t accept Mike’s syllogism because of questions about definitions, then I’d ask to you to offer some of your own. Because right now, this all boils down to “Disprove ‘x’ exists. Can’t do it, can you?”
As Sagan points out, this is exactly the mode of contention used by the homeowner with the supposed invisible dragon living in his garage. The conversation could drag on forever, even embracing purely logical absurdities. “My dragon is bigger than the garage he’s in! Oh, except he’s not! He’s also kind and evil at exactly the same time! So watch out!!” But can you see that, by backing away with endless qualifiers and ‘what ifs’, the homeowner is deconstructing what it means to be a dragon. At what point does ‘dragon’ become synonymous with ‘thin air’? From a purely speculative, open-ended position, perhaps never. But from a practical standpoint, the whole thing eventually becomes the case of a sophist playing word games, as well as an exercise in futility on the part of the skeptical neighbor. That’s Sagan’s point.
jim
says...Just a little afterthought, playing off what you said in the original post:
“With all due respect to the late Mr. Sagan, although it contains an eminent truth, this argument is also eminently bunk. Now I agree that the inability to invalidate a hypothesis does not prove a competing hypothesis true. However, the following line is correct only in the extremely limited scope of validating a scientific hypothesis (and even then can break down):
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless..
I hear too many skeptics and atheists cite this passage foolishly thinking it somehow counters religious claims or the existence of God.”
First of all, I’d like to differentiate between ‘religious claims’ and ‘the existence of God’. Take a specific claim like ‘God heals sick Christians who pray for healing’. Even if we allow that this is a general statement, and doesn’t apply in every single case, there is an inference in the statement itself that, given the literally hundreds of millions of Christians in the world, obvious miraculous healing should be happening all over the place…at least thousands per day around the world. But in fact, the evidence runs entirely to the contrary (in the studies I’ve seen, anyway). Furthermore, the cases of truly miraculous healings of the unambiguous sort, the kind without naturalistic explanations, simply do not exist. For instance, there should be innumerable examples of lost limbs being grown back; and yet, there’s not a single verified instance. This is veridical proof that biblical claims of God’s intervention in the world (regarding claims of healing) are false…demonstrably so.
As far as the ‘existence of God’ is concerned, of what value are claims about a being whose attributes are unrecognized and unrecognizable in the world we can understand? Yes, he may exist, and yes, he might even punish us for being blind to something which by difinition we cannot see for reasons we don’t understand. But why would ANYBODY buy that?
I’ll tell you why. Because this amorphous deity living in the alternate universe of ‘what ifs’ isn’t where the idea of God comes from. Rather, God is a superstitious explanation invented a long time ago for things people just didn’t understand. God actually has a quite prosaic and naturalistic origin; he arose like a blade of grass through the cracks of man’s ignorance, and that’s still where he survives today. Problem is, the cracks got narrower, and it became increasingly necessary to pinch God off, and posit His existence in the sky above the sidewalk. That’s why the more sophisticated Christian apologists do an end around as far as scientific inquiry is concerned, more and more concentrating on the ontological and epistemological side of the equation. It’s safer! LOLOL!
cl
says...jim,
Good points. I’ll have to address your concerns about miraculous healing via prayer and its relation to falsifiability in a subsequent comment so I can be thorough.
Overall, the point of my post is to show that by limiting belief to that which is falsifiable, we omit potential realities that can and do affect us. Asteroids were real and affected us the entire time they enjoyed the same amenability to inquiry as Sagan’s dragon. Falsifiability is 100% relative to human knowledge and technology, and it goes without saying that falsifiability is not an intrinsic property of existence or worth. Our ability or inability to falsify something bears nothing on its existence or its worth. This is not an argument for the inferiority of a rational epistemology, either.
I still disagree. Too many confounders. How can we be sure those who prayed did so with correct faith? Correct motive? Were they all praying to the same God? We can falsify gravity precisely because it works like a magic lamp. IOW, gravity is predictable. To say God is falsifiable is to say God is readily predictable.
Well cut me some slack, I am a mortal trying to define God after all.. :) Seriously though, as such, that’s why I feel safer stating what I believe God is not – not to keep protecting my dragon from inquiry or moving shells, so to speak. Although I do think God can prove God to man, I don’t think that God is falsifiable in the way we commonly use the term. So how might I provide you with something about God that you can falsify? You can inquire of my dragon, just not with tools as such that you can then box my dragon and show him to our other neighbor. So analogously, I am Sagan’s neighbor to the tee, in that whenever you or Mike propose a test, I say, “Well, what about objection X, Y, or Z…” However..
Sagan’s conclusion is that such a construct is veridically worthless, but veridic worthlessness does not preclude existence or worth. That’s what I’m getting at. Sagan implies that something we cannot prove via physical tests is worthless, and I disagree. To this end, you note
The realm where proofs and falsifiability operate is not the only realm with value, IMO. And I’m not necessarily appealing to another mystical realm. Intuitions are equally veridically worthless, yet are they without worth? That we can’t box God does not preclude God’s value, if that’s reasonable.
Possible. It’s also possible that at those times where you allege man invented God, that God or gods perhaps were actually there. In fact, I find it implausible that God would arise in the way you suggest. A common atheist argument is that without all this indoctrination, scripture, tradition, etc. there is absolutely no rational evidence to point one towards God, right? How could we have thought it up? Where or by what would the first peoples have possibly conceived of God or gods at all? How or why might such an idea occur without a precedent in reality to motivate it, so to speak? What would have prompted the first persons to think, “Hey, there’s another realm and other beings?”
At the prompt of all these stupid Walmart holiday consumermmercials, I tried to counter myself with Santa Claus. We made up Santa, right? Where did we get the idea of Santa? From Saint Nick, Saint Nick from X, then X from Y, then eventually just some fat guy with beard who hooked up the local kids with some gifts. But if there was never a fat guy with a beard, would we have made up Santa? Lastly, if God does not exist and never did, doesn’t such undermine or at least directly confront the argument for the validity of human senses??
PS – my apologies for not dropping into your blog more. I intend to. I’ve been so busy with school, crap, etc. and I spend alot of time arguing on that site daylightatheism.org, so usually by the time I get to my own blog, I’m spent. Like now. So sorry for being a bad blog friend.. :)
jim
says...cl?
No probs about the blog. I’m writing a book right now, so I’m not really active over there, anyhow. It’s sort of an autobiographical underview of the antinatalism thing…scheduled out for late next year, if things go well. Actually, this dialogue and others I’m having on the net are providing some good transistion material I’ve been looking for. So, thanks!
I’d like to hit on a few points you’ve made:
“I still disagree. Too many confounders. How can we be sure those who prayed did so with correct faith? Correct motive? Were they all praying to the same God? We can falsify gravity precisely because it works like a magic lamp. IOW, gravity is predictable. To say God is falsifiable is to say God is readily predictable.”
This is like trying to argue there’s no American workforce, because on any day you can find people who didn’t go to work. Of course there are variables, instances where healing might not occur for one reason or another. But in the big picture, God’s miraculous presence via healing would be blatantly obvious to the most dedicated skeptic. Instead, we have no evidence at all beyond the ancedotal which, when looked into, usually falls apart immediately. Here is a case where God SHOULD be predictable from the bird’s eye view, according to His own supposedly revealed texts. Sorry, but you’re just equivocating here.
“So how might I provide you with something about God that you can falsify?”
Easy. Just offer up some evidence of the same kind of supernatural manifestations that the bible is replete with. Miraculous transformations of matter, like water into wine. Unambiguous, mass healings in believers-hell, I’m not asking for everybody to be healed, to allow for God’s more ‘mysterious purposes’. I’ll take a tenth of one percent! LOL! Empty out a children’s cancer ward…just one! Or, how about some cases of instant translation across distances ala the Star Trek transporter, like that guy in Acts. Fish into loaves. Walking on water. After all, God’s people are supposed to be channeling God’s power, at least to some extent, no? Give me more time, and I could think of a hundred more things. I’m looking for consistency in the observable world with promises God has made ABOUT His presence IN the observable world. That’s all.
“Where or by what would the first peoples have possibly conceived of God or gods at all? How or why might such an idea occur without a precedent in reality to motivate it, so to speak? What would have prompted the first persons to think, “Hey, there’s another realm and other beings?”
This is easy. People make things. It’s a natural question to ask, “Well, then, who made the world?” It’s a category error fueled by anthropomorphism, but an easy one to make. Of course, there aren’t any world makers walking around, so we create a realm in our imaginations of a place where one exists, and the legend grows from there.
“We made up Santa, right? Where did we get the idea of Santa? From Saint Nick, Saint Nick from X, then X from Y, then eventually just some fat guy with beard who hooked up the local kids with some gifts. But if there was never a fat guy with a beard, would we have made up Santa?”
In a sense, you’re making my own argument for me here. Indeed, there is no Santa; he is a construct built out of existing source material, and given breath by our imaginations, our longings, our feelings towards one another, etc. God is much the same, only…whereas Santa Clause is a small ‘g’ god, created mostly for the simple needs of children, GOD is more sophisticated, encompassing not only concerns about love, charity, hope and the like, but also the dark areas of the human psyche, such as revenge, and sheer meanness. Do you think it an accident that Jehovah is always depicted as an old, stern man with a beard? He’s not only the father. He’s also the archetypal Tyrant-King, modeled after earthly rulers, but given ultimate power over the whole universe.
As for this part:
“Lastly, if God does not exist and never did, doesn’t such undermine or at least directly confront the argument for the validity of human senses??”
No, but it DOES demonstrate the remarkable aptitude humans have for misinterpreting information received by those senses, and for personifying almost EVERYTHING…casting human traits upon the canvas of the insensible universe, as it were. Astrology is a great example of this, btw, and is most likely the grandfather of all these religious traditions (animism being the grandmother, but that’s for another post…LOLOL!)
As usual, thanks for the space. Really nice talking with you. BTW, did I ever tell you I was a Christian minister throughout most of my twenties? Another subject, another time, perhaps.
cya!
cl
says...jim,
I’ll totally buy your book. Who’s publishing? Hopefully you won’t clown my arguments too hard. ;)
I can do that with enough cheap whiskey! Drink at X, wake up next minute at Y.
I’m not so sure. This seems to only account for myths that involve creator-gods.
I’m not so sure. Of everyone in the American workforce that is not currently off the clock, all are currently on the clock, right? It’s Boolean, either/or. Of all the people who prayed in those studies (and we’re both really shooting ourselves in the foot with laziness for not citing some actual studies), did they all pray to the same God, for example? Furthermore, as an ex-minister, surely you’re familiar with God’s attitude towards those who demand signs, right? This is the same thing the Pharisees continually did with Jesus. The Bible clearly states that when we test God and demand signs, no signs will be forthcoming. Of course, this only undermines prayer experiments, and doesn’t account for the total lack of miraculous occurrence you argue. It does, however, seem to guarantee that we won’t get much better than anecdotes.
Statements like the following inherently affirm unbelief in their very asking: “If God does exist, why doesn’t God come down here right now and perform miracle X, Y, or Z for everybody?”
If God is not falsifiable as scripture maintains, I can’t be faulted for equivocation when asked to demonstrate God’s falsifiability, can I?
I agree, and that’s an important distinction. I still find it more plausible that God or gods were on Earth at one time, and all the current mess simply results from our remarkable aptitude you note. Just like when you pass the note in class and everyone adds a sentence.
I don’t think I got to everything I wanted, and I’m going to address the miracle thing in greater detail soon… just swamped right now. But as usual, good points and thx for coming thru..
jim
says...Thanks for the reply, cl. We’ve probably dug about as deep as it gets for the time being, so I’ll wait for your next installment.
My publisher is NineBandedBooks, and the working title is ‘Caught in the Jaws of Ouroborus: Confessions of an Antinatalist. I doubt I’ll be addressing religious arguments per se, but a discussion of quasi-universal presuppositions like belief in God is a good jumping off point for me to address the idea that life is axiomatically ‘good’, and my disagreements with that premise. Especially given my background, seeing that the book is somewhat autobiographical.
Anyhow, I’ve enjoyed the discussion, as well as your level headed approach. I pretty much bounce back and forth between you and evangelicalrealism, when I’m not writing the book…or writing poetry, thus AVOIDING writing the book. Procrastination is my middle name…hehehe! Hope to chat again soon.
Take care.
Mike
says...Just chiming in here.. I’ve never heard of anti-natalism before. Interesting.
I won’t add anything else, other than a suggestion for a future post. Concerning falsifiability of God, I wonder what you (cl) think of this verse from John, which on the face is a pretty straight-forward falsifiable claim, and was the first thing that came to my mind.
Brad
says...I’ve never really viewed Sagan’s Invisible Garage Dragon as an argument for atheism, I’ve only interpreted it as a demonstration of why unfalsifiable beliefs, in the absence of any supporting evidence, cannot be rationally accepted as true. In terms of culture wars and intellectual discussions, I think Sagan’s scenario represents an attitude of asking for sufficient and reasonable evidence.
Great counterscenario, by the way. Asteroids in the 1800s are a clear example of how unfalsifiable notions can turn out to be found true. And of course, unfalsifiable notions can be worth investigating and relevant to our interests, too. (We didn’t know about plate tectonics way back when, but they were surely affecting us or the history of our home planet.) I also think many people might confuse ‘unfalsifiability’ with complete ‘un-connectedness’. A celestial teapot, if it exists, would have no bearing on our past, present, or future, perceptible or otherwise, and so such a notion is worthless and irrelevant. (Well, except for being put up for comparison with superstition.) On the other hand, whether or not there is a god, and what kind of being this god is, could have significant effects on us, whether in the past leading up to our existence, within our daily lives, somewhere in our futures, or some combo of these.