Installment #2:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/furth...carroll-debate

I haven't read this yet but he seems to address the Boltzmann Brain issue. This was one of two science issues that I've been waiting for WLC to clarify. The other one, and the one that concerned me most, is BGV, which I assume will be addressed soon.

Might you be talking about this blog post? When reading that, did you think Carroll was being 'philosophical'?

Ross is a crackpot when he does his silly calculations for the appearance of intelligent life. He bases this on the (unspoken) assumption that it could only arise on a planet which was an exact replica of earth, based on variables for which he has no idea of the range or frequency of their values.

Ross is a crackpot when he says Moses got thirteen creation events in their exact correct order, and the odds against him doing so randomly are one in six trillion (Ross absolutely adores citing really, really, really long odds). To allow Moses to be right about the creation order, where the sun is said to be created after the earth, Ross concocts a dense cloud covering the earth, so that the sun was actually created first, but was not visible for a while. To explain why Moses says plants (3rd day) were created before the sun (4th day), Ross further refines his dense cloud so that it became partly translucent on the third day, allowing photosynthesis, then disappeared completely on the fourth so the sun could become discernible.

Ross is a crackpot when he says--and I'll have to do a rough paraphrase here, because I haven't found it in writing, but I've heard him say it many times on a radio program--that (some fact of the Universe; Ross doesn't always cite the same one) the Universe is 18 trillion, trillion, trillion (repeat "trillion" seven or eight times") times more exact/complex than anything ever created by a human, so the creator must be 18 trillion, trillion (etc...) times more intelligent, knowledgeable, creative and powerful than the smartest human beings.

Ross is a crackpot when he does his "hermeneutics" and calls it science.

Ross is also a crackpot when he artificially inflates his really, really, really long odds by making them totally random, ignoring built-in dependencies. (Is even the most ignorant lout going to say plants, animals, fish, insects, or man were created before there was an earth to house them? Are the size and distance of the moon and tidal forces all independent variables? )

I know I've mentioned it before somewhere, but it is rather remarkable that Moses got so much of the creation order right. Just the very counter-intuitive idea of placing man last is mind-boggling for a man of that time period.

I've not seen you actually demonstrate how Ross is a crackpot here, but you sure do like the word.

To be fair to Moses, he should hardly be blamed for the things he got wrong, since he was only the secretary.

I guess it depends on how you define crackpot (in the scientific [Edit: arena], as Carroll used it).

Would he be a crackpot if he stated clearly that the scientific evidence could never contradict the words of the Bible? What if he said he would believe in a young earth (if that's where his interpretation of scripture led) in spite of his Doctorate in Astronomy?

Why do you think it's very counter-intuitive to place man last? Don't the Sumerian and Babylonian creation myths--written before Genesis--have man created after the animals?

Disagreeing with someone doesn't make them a crackpot. Ross speculates a lot but I doubt you can cite one single logical or factual error he's made, whereas I've given two by Carroll and Craig shows several more logical errors. Furthermore, I doubt there's anyone more in line with mainstream physics and astronomy than Ross, and he spends some of his time criticizing genuine crackpots, without resorting to insults to do so.

Edit: The blog you cited is the reference I meant. My reading of that indicates that Ross spoke in the science vs. religion portion. Now get serious. If he was speaking on that topic why does Carroll expect him, as he indicates in the rest of that crackpotty rant, that Ross would limit himself only to settled science. As to whether he was being "philosophical" or not, the point is he was being illogical, irrational and mean - so I think I was correct in judging him likely to he a crackpot in philosophy.

Edit edit: One other point. Even if Ross is a genuine, loony, irredeemable crackpot, Carroll was illogical to judge him so on the basis he gave. Carroll himself admits he knew nothing of Ross before the event and so his remarks are based solely on what he gives as evidence.

Edit edit edit: BTW, though I'm somewhat skeptical of the way Ross uses probability, he's not the only one. Roger Penrose(famous British crackpot mathematician) calculated the odds of a universe conducive to life occurring by chance to be 10^10^123.

I think Carroll was well prepared for what WLC normally brings to this type of debate, and had some points and counterpoints that left Craig scrambling and sounding very shaky.

Not sure if Carroll established truth value for naturalism, but he did bring up some scientific points that WLC couldn't refute. I'm interested in reading WLC's post debate comments when he's had more time to process everything.

Isn't his argument about Moses and the creative events a logical error? I don't know, it seems that you're using a very tight, "philosophical" sense of logic for Carroll, but a loose, colloquial sense for yourself. I'd certainly call Ross's argument 'bad logic' in a lay sense.

Ross concludes that the odds against Moses accidentally getting the order exactly correct are six trillion to one. Why is he mentioning that specific number if he doesn't mean for his audience to come away with it as specific proof of Moses' inspiration? If he isn't being dishonest, isn't he making a logical error? (I'm not trying to set up a false dichotomy; if there's a third explanation, I'm all ears.)


I don't think 'settled science' is Carroll's issue. He seems to spell it out--and possibly give a sort of definition of crackpot when he says:

Maybe I'm just being thrown by the fact that "crackpot" is an informal word to describe a subjective opinion, so I'm not sure how it led to:

I don't understand why not. He gave an example of one of Ross's arguments from the conference, and said it was an example of crackpot science. He then gave a further example from Ross's site.

I'll take these one at a time. You said:

Ross has some scientific justification for saying there was a very thick atmosphere over the earth during its early days. He also can reasonably interpret the verse on the 4th day as the sun and moon appearing in the sky because of the thinning of the atmosphere, not their creation. Verse 1 says that God, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth - do you really think Moses was so stupid he would have forgotten that by the time he came to the events on the 4th day? And there are many plants that don't need direct sunlight to use photosynthesis - many can do so with artificial light.

At any rate, none of this would be a logical error. I tend to agree with Ross' interpretation here, but Genesis has always been one of the hardest books for theologians. Augustine, for instance, constantly revised his thoughts on what it means and was still working on it when he died - and he didn't have modern cosmology to take into account. There are many sane, knowledgeable, perfectly rational people who have wildly different views of the meaning of the creation accounts in the Bible. None of them are crackpots.

Edit: OK, 5 minute of Google produced this:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.U3Lxdihrsig

I don't know if the science is correct or if it will be completely different tomorrow. The point is there is scientific evidence for Ross' view.

I'm not competent to evaluate the science discussed in this debate. My impression was that Carroll raised some objections to science positions that WLC was justified in believing are mainstream and that WLC attempted to deal with them. He may not have been prepared for all of them but that may have been because Carroll was just lobbing speculations at him that were coated by a lot of advanced scientific jargon but don't have any real substance.

It was interesting to me and a little concerning that WLC took so long to discuss the debate. I think the reason for the delay is because the subject matter is so difficult and Carroll got into a lot of very esoteric technicalities, and WLC wanted to review the transcript and be as comprehensive and precise as possible.

I doubt the question will ever be settled about who was right and who was wrong on the science itself. I do think WLC will have a fair amount of authority on his side for his position and that much of what Carroll presented as valid counter arguments will be seen as little more than speculation. But very few people will be able to defend an argument for either side simply because very few people really know what the heck they were talking about.

On what basis do you think this?

Quite honestly, it seems to me that most of the atheists who have rushed in to declare Carroll the "winner" have done so because he dazzled them with technical gibberish, followed by repeatedly claiming that "Craig just doesn't understand the the science," and they believed him.

WLC is obviously very familiar with the issues beyond a popular level. Read any of his books that deal with science and you will find copious footnotes to support his statements. I also believe he has access to professionals who help him understand the science. I've never seen anyone show that anything he said is flat wrong - many disagree, but he can cite secular authority for his positions. One recent example occurred in the Krauss debate - after the debate WLC demonstrated that he had personally contacted Vilenkin and that Krauss' representation during the debate was fraudulent. I'm not saying that the science involved is always correct, but that WLC doesn't make speculations or statements without solid references.

I'm pretty sure Sean Carroll is familiar with the issues several levels beyond WLC here though. And that came through in the debates where WLC ignored certain points or objections made by Carroll. My own view is that WLC may research and latch onto an idea that he thinks fits in with, for example, the Kalam argument, but his lack of knowledge in the field shines through when questioned by someone who has this knowledge. That may be the reason why it is taking WLC so long to address fully the points from Carroll's blog post.

Also, you haven't explained why much of the counter arguments presented by Carroll will be seen as little more than specualtion.

It seems rather backwards that you claim WLC will be seen as having authority on his side for his position whereas the person who is an actual authority, Carroll, won't.

But that isn't what he's saying--at least, it's not all he's saying. Ross doesn't just need a thick atmosphere (which the earth did have at times), he needs one thick enough to block out the sun (I believe the phrase Ross used was "cloud mass"), and it needs to last for a couple billion years, according to the time frames Ross assigns to the creative days, dissipating to translucency at a specific time, and disappearing completely at another. There isn't scientific justification for this.

Well, the Bible says God "made" the sun and moon on the fourth day, but yes, I didn't mean to say that Ross thinks the sun was created at this time, just that his explanation for the apparent problem requires many unsupported scientific claims.

Well, I don't think the writer had your ideas of heaven and earth in mind. The ancient Hebrews seemed to share the same basic cosmology as the Egyptians, Sumerians, and Babylonians. When they said "the heavens" they didn't mean our notion of outer space, filled with stars. Genesis says there was a firmament (a solid dome in early cosmologies) separating the waters above from the waters below. In the empty space between the waters, under the vault of the sky, were placed the sun, moon, and stars. Within this cosmology it would have made perfect sense for the Genesis writer to say the heavens and earth were created at one time, and the stars at a later time.

I don't think Carroll was calling him a crackpot because he has an interpretation of Genesis. I'm not sure Carroll had anything specific in mind, but if so, it seems to be what I quoted earlier, that Ross has a pre-determined conclusion that the data must fit, and that he twists evidence to meet that conclusion, and calls what he's doing science.

I think your conclusion is just wrong. Just because it says "haze" and "blocked the sun" doesn't mean it's scientific evidence of Ross' claims. The duration and ending of this atmosphere are off by billions of years.

This is reminiscent of something he said recently. He was a guest on a radio talk show and he said he'd spent the weekend reading 2,000 pages of scientific journals and was there to present an article and how it proved God or disproved evolution or something. He told the host that he has certain symbols he uses. If an article presents good evidence for his theology it gets a mark, but this article was fantastic so it got a different, special mark. I'm sure we'll differ in our interpretations of that, but it seems really quote-miney to me.

BTW, Ross' explanation for horse and whale transitions... "God loves whales and horses." He created them and loved them, but knew they didn't have the right stuff to survive for long, so each whale and horse transition we see is a new creation to replace the one that just went extinct. This stopped when Eve was created.

Here's a summary of Ross' position:

http://www.reasons.org/blogs/take-tw...there-be-light

No one is claiming certainty about the details of the early earth. Ross is making an interpretation of the Bible, there's nothing in science to contradict it and some evidence that supports it. He could be wrong. It could be that Genesis is saying something completely different. But making the interpretation he does doesn't make him a crackpot.

I'm sure it is, and it ought to be, otherwise why bother getting a Ph.D. in astronomy. Which, by the way, is what his doctorate is in, though he lists all of these as research interests:

http://preposterousuniverse.com/cv.html

Perhaps WLC has cosmology as a research interest - after all, he has TWO Ph.D.'s

You're welcome to your view but I have yet to see anyone actually show where WLC is wrong. To do so you have to deal with WLC's comments about Carroll's allegations.

For instance, his two arrow direction of time model of the universe is uniquely his own and even he says it's probably wrong. Also, he claims the BGV doesn't mean inflation requires a beginning in time but Vilenkin says it does. In the letter from Vilenkin Krauss presented V. says there is a way around a beginning, but, IIRC, he also said in the part Krauss deleted that it would require a model that doesn't work, or something like that.

I think WLC has authority on his side because what he presents is conventional, mainstream cosmology but Carroll seems to be floating all kinds of creative science. Nothing backwards about it.

I'm not sure that's the yardstick you want to use. A part of what Craig references is conventional and mainstream. Other parts (like his view of time(?)) are not.

I would love to see anyone debate Craig on the A and B theories of time. Anyone.

As far as I know Craig has never published any cosmological research.

Here's the problem. Craig presents mainstream scientific views about the Big Bang. Fine. He then infers from those views a conclusion about the existence of God that most experts who developed that science reject. Now, how are we supposed to understand this?

1) Maybe those scientists don't actually understand their theories (and so are unable to correctly judge their implications). That seems ridiculous (not even Craig would claim to have a better understanding of the science than the scientists).

2) Maybe they aren't that good at reasoning: that is, maybe they understand the science fine, but aren't very good at seeing its philosophical implications. There are a couple of problems here. First, most philosophers, including philosophers of science (who would seem most directly qualified) also reject this implication. Second, the reasoning for the Kalam Argument isn't very hard--an intelligent amateur can understand it, so it seems unlikely that physicists, who are perhaps the smartest scientists, are unable to.

3) Maybe scientists are biased about religion questions and so can't be trusted to be objective in evaluating the implications of the Big Bang for the existence of God. Okay. This is of course possible, but there is no evidence given for this claim. Furthermore, it would seem then that religious thinkers, especially apologists like Craig, are at least as likely to be biased on this issue, so why should we believe them either?

This was funny

#3:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/still...carroll-debate