Women, Evolution, and Rape: Rejoinder Part 2
25/01/11 21:43 Filed in: Human Nature
This is a continuation of an earlier post.
4. Claim 2: “"When the costs of being sexually victimized are highest," reason these investigators, "women should shift their perceptions to decrease false negative errors at the expense of making more false positive errors. Thus, we predicted that women perceive men as more sexually coercive at fertile points of their cycle than at non-fertile points.”” Here, aside from the question about the definition of rape raised in point 1 above, we must also ask, Is this fact a result of evolving to avoid rape or is it, rather, a result of cultural interpretations of rape in our own society? Women might be told that men are likely to rape them because they are sexually attractive or because they are more fertile, but that does not mean that rapists are more likely to attack during those times. In other words, despite the historico-evolutionary aspects of rape, we must also consider how culture influences a person’s interpretation of the pictures of men shown. Here we have a question of data and interpretation.
5. Claim 3: “At least two studies have demonstrated that women at the peak of their fertility are less likely than their peers to have engaged in high-risk activities such as walking alone in a park or forest, letting a stranger into the house, or stopping their cars in a remote place over the preceding 24 hours. Importantly, as German investigators Arndt Bröder and Natalia Hohmann established, ovulating women are not less active in general—they're still busy shopping, going to church, visiting friends, and so on—but they avoid doing those things that make them sexually vulnerable.””
First, a question on the data. Do we also include in this “high-risk activities” being alone with a spouse? Presumably, if women are raped when they are fertile for penetration, then husbands would be the ones more likely to rape them. So being around a husband would also count as a risky behavior.
Second, here we have a question of how we define “high risk activities.” How are these high risk activities coordinated with being alone? Perhaps ovulating women are more social than non-ovulating women, and so the issue isn’t high risk activities, but solitude versus social engagement.
Third, the reader of my blog was right to suggest that “it doesn't seem too tough to imagine straying far from the center of a small social group (say a hunter-gatherer camp) would manifest as not walking through a park at night in a modern context.” Issues of interpretation of the date remain.
6. “Ovulating women are more racists.” In this case, the experimenters note that what has been selected against is engagement with out-group males, and race may be interpreted as a sign of an out-group male. Here, the theory asserts that women avoid those who may not have the same social values and controls as those of their in-group.
Given the question over the biological basis of rape, this conclusion becomes all the more difficult to defend. Biologists and social theorists have shown that skin color varies more within a “race” than between “races.” This means that skin coloration would be used to identify in-group members rather than out-group members.
The authors of this particular study, however, note that cultural associations may be as informative of behavior as evolutionary elements. If we accept this point, however, then we must also bring into play the element of cultural understandings of rape. Once we do that, though, it becomes unclear how rape and ovulation are tied together at the biologico-evolutionary level rather than at the cultural-sociological level. In other words, the interpretation of the data is too in question to make the claim that women have evolved to protect themselves from sexual assault.
4. Claim 2: “"When the costs of being sexually victimized are highest," reason these investigators, "women should shift their perceptions to decrease false negative errors at the expense of making more false positive errors. Thus, we predicted that women perceive men as more sexually coercive at fertile points of their cycle than at non-fertile points.”” Here, aside from the question about the definition of rape raised in point 1 above, we must also ask, Is this fact a result of evolving to avoid rape or is it, rather, a result of cultural interpretations of rape in our own society? Women might be told that men are likely to rape them because they are sexually attractive or because they are more fertile, but that does not mean that rapists are more likely to attack during those times. In other words, despite the historico-evolutionary aspects of rape, we must also consider how culture influences a person’s interpretation of the pictures of men shown. Here we have a question of data and interpretation.
5. Claim 3: “At least two studies have demonstrated that women at the peak of their fertility are less likely than their peers to have engaged in high-risk activities such as walking alone in a park or forest, letting a stranger into the house, or stopping their cars in a remote place over the preceding 24 hours. Importantly, as German investigators Arndt Bröder and Natalia Hohmann established, ovulating women are not less active in general—they're still busy shopping, going to church, visiting friends, and so on—but they avoid doing those things that make them sexually vulnerable.””
First, a question on the data. Do we also include in this “high-risk activities” being alone with a spouse? Presumably, if women are raped when they are fertile for penetration, then husbands would be the ones more likely to rape them. So being around a husband would also count as a risky behavior.
Second, here we have a question of how we define “high risk activities.” How are these high risk activities coordinated with being alone? Perhaps ovulating women are more social than non-ovulating women, and so the issue isn’t high risk activities, but solitude versus social engagement.
Third, the reader of my blog was right to suggest that “it doesn't seem too tough to imagine straying far from the center of a small social group (say a hunter-gatherer camp) would manifest as not walking through a park at night in a modern context.” Issues of interpretation of the date remain.
6. “Ovulating women are more racists.” In this case, the experimenters note that what has been selected against is engagement with out-group males, and race may be interpreted as a sign of an out-group male. Here, the theory asserts that women avoid those who may not have the same social values and controls as those of their in-group.
Given the question over the biological basis of rape, this conclusion becomes all the more difficult to defend. Biologists and social theorists have shown that skin color varies more within a “race” than between “races.” This means that skin coloration would be used to identify in-group members rather than out-group members.
The authors of this particular study, however, note that cultural associations may be as informative of behavior as evolutionary elements. If we accept this point, however, then we must also bring into play the element of cultural understandings of rape. Once we do that, though, it becomes unclear how rape and ovulation are tied together at the biologico-evolutionary level rather than at the cultural-sociological level. In other words, the interpretation of the data is too in question to make the claim that women have evolved to protect themselves from sexual assault.
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Women, Evolution, and Rape: Rejoinder Part 1
24/01/11 20:58 Filed in: Human Nature
A reader asked concerning an earlier post on rape what exactly I was objecting to in this article. I appreciate his (and your) reading my post and asking a question. He was right to challenge me to provide a more thorough analysis of the claims made in the original article. In my earlier post, I challenged mainly the definition of rape in the article: “rape will be defined throughout this article as the use of force, or threat of force, to achieve penile-vaginal penetration of a woman without her consent.” Clearly, if one does not accept this definition, and I see no good reason to do so, then one will question the more general facts collected and the interpretation of those facts. I will use this post to respond to the particular claims raised. To wit...
1. Consider, first off, the data collected. All of the date centers around the ovulation of the woman. Thus, claim one is that women are stronger during ovulation, because they are more likely to be raped at that time. But, if we do not accept the definition of rape, then why should we link female strength of ovulation with a evolved response to rape. The same question can be asked about estimating a man’s possibility as a rapist, avoiding safe place during ovulation, and “racism” during ovulation. So, to begin, I question the link of these facts -- assuming, of course, that these are indeed facts -- to an evolved response to rape.
2. Part of the explanation behind evolution and rape is that men who raped were more likely to impregnate women than men who did not rape. Therefore, we have more rapists in our male population now than in the past, because rapists have outproduced men. If this were true, then we would see a corollary in the female population. It would be women who were susceptible to rape who tended to reproduce -- thus producing more women who were similar susceptible to rape. So, it should be the case, following the logic about rapists in the male population, that women-susceptible to rape -- that is, women who are weaker not stronger, women who are not careful about classifying men as rapists, women who are more prone to visit “unsafe” places, and women who are less racists -- would be more prevalent in the general female population today. The way the article is written, however, is that either most or all women are just the opposite. The facts as presented in the article, then, contradict the idea that women have evolved to defend themselves against rape when rape is defined in any way.
3. Claim 1: Ovulating women show greater strength then non-ovulating women. The author writes: “Only the ovulating women who read the sexual assault scenario exhibited an increase in handgrip strength. Ovulating women who read the control passage and nonovulatory women who read the sexual assault material grasped with the same intensity as before.” Increased strength coordinated, then, when two events presented themselves: ovulation and exposure to a sexual assault scenario. I have no reason to question the data itself, but I would question the interpretation. Why should researchers link increased strength with fear of or defense against rape? Consider, for instance, that some studies show that men become more aroused when exposed to sexual assault material. Could not women who are ovulating show increased strength, not because they are afraid, but because they too would like to be in control? (NB: I am not claiming here, and never would claim, that women are turned on by the idea of being rape. Rather, I am suggesting that women might be turned on by the idea of being in control of the sexual encounter.) Would it not make more evolutionary sense to suggest that women have increased strength when they are ovulating so that they can beat other women at mating with the “prime” male of the species?
Further, it is not enough to show that ovulating women exposed to sexual assault scenarios are stronger than ovulating women shown neutral scenarios. Shouldn’t we also compare their strength to ovulating women who are exposed to violent scenarios without rape or sexual assault involved? And, what was the nature of the sexual assault material: male on female, male on male, female on male, or female on female? These questions must be answered and investigated before making the claim that women have evolved greater strength as a response to the threat of rape, especially given the questions raised in point 1 & 2 above.
I will continue this discussion in a separate post tomorrow looking at the other three claims the study makes....
1. Consider, first off, the data collected. All of the date centers around the ovulation of the woman. Thus, claim one is that women are stronger during ovulation, because they are more likely to be raped at that time. But, if we do not accept the definition of rape, then why should we link female strength of ovulation with a evolved response to rape. The same question can be asked about estimating a man’s possibility as a rapist, avoiding safe place during ovulation, and “racism” during ovulation. So, to begin, I question the link of these facts -- assuming, of course, that these are indeed facts -- to an evolved response to rape.
2. Part of the explanation behind evolution and rape is that men who raped were more likely to impregnate women than men who did not rape. Therefore, we have more rapists in our male population now than in the past, because rapists have outproduced men. If this were true, then we would see a corollary in the female population. It would be women who were susceptible to rape who tended to reproduce -- thus producing more women who were similar susceptible to rape. So, it should be the case, following the logic about rapists in the male population, that women-susceptible to rape -- that is, women who are weaker not stronger, women who are not careful about classifying men as rapists, women who are more prone to visit “unsafe” places, and women who are less racists -- would be more prevalent in the general female population today. The way the article is written, however, is that either most or all women are just the opposite. The facts as presented in the article, then, contradict the idea that women have evolved to defend themselves against rape when rape is defined in any way.
3. Claim 1: Ovulating women show greater strength then non-ovulating women. The author writes: “Only the ovulating women who read the sexual assault scenario exhibited an increase in handgrip strength. Ovulating women who read the control passage and nonovulatory women who read the sexual assault material grasped with the same intensity as before.” Increased strength coordinated, then, when two events presented themselves: ovulation and exposure to a sexual assault scenario. I have no reason to question the data itself, but I would question the interpretation. Why should researchers link increased strength with fear of or defense against rape? Consider, for instance, that some studies show that men become more aroused when exposed to sexual assault material. Could not women who are ovulating show increased strength, not because they are afraid, but because they too would like to be in control? (NB: I am not claiming here, and never would claim, that women are turned on by the idea of being rape. Rather, I am suggesting that women might be turned on by the idea of being in control of the sexual encounter.) Would it not make more evolutionary sense to suggest that women have increased strength when they are ovulating so that they can beat other women at mating with the “prime” male of the species?
Further, it is not enough to show that ovulating women exposed to sexual assault scenarios are stronger than ovulating women shown neutral scenarios. Shouldn’t we also compare their strength to ovulating women who are exposed to violent scenarios without rape or sexual assault involved? And, what was the nature of the sexual assault material: male on female, male on male, female on male, or female on female? These questions must be answered and investigated before making the claim that women have evolved greater strength as a response to the threat of rape, especially given the questions raised in point 1 & 2 above.
I will continue this discussion in a separate post tomorrow looking at the other three claims the study makes....
Evolution and Rape: Women's Defense
14/01/11 18:27 Filed in: Human Nature
I’m not sure what to think about this article by Jesse Bering. Bering is an evolutionary psychologist at Queen’s University Belfast.
I suppose the first thing that struck me is the use of the word rape. The article deals with “scientifically verified” evidence that women have evolved to protect themselves against rape. Bering quickly dismisses the idea that science leads to moral justification of rape, because that conclusion relies on the naturalistic fallacy. Women, it seems, are stronger during ovulation, are more cautious in where they go, are more distrusting of men, oh, and on top of it all, are more racist.
Underlying this notion, however, is the idea that rape involves reproduction. This belief has been discounted over and over again: rape is about power, not reproduction. Men rape women to show they have power over them. This is why men rape older women who can no longer reproduce, or rape women who they then kill.
Further, the idea that women evolved to be more cautious about going out or letting men back into their apartments does not seem to me to be able to hold water. Evolution does not work over short periods, and women have only been able to do many of the “unsafe” things in the last few hundred years.
Moreover, the idea that women classify some things as safe or unsafe must have cultural context. Who defines what is safe or unsafe for women? This “scientific” research seems loaded with cultural and personal values that are purely sexist.
I’m sure we will hear much more about this in the future. What we should pay attention to is the underlying politically and culturally conservative agenda that much evolutionary biology supports. While Bering quickly dismisses the idea that showing men have evolved to rape and women have evolved to defend themselves against rape, his dismissal seem hollow. If claims like this were made in a court as “scientific” we know exactly what the result would be: the rapist would get off because he obeyed an evolutionary instinct and the woman failed to obey hers.
Bering also insists on his innocence because the evidence comes from a gay man who “wouldn't know what to do with an ovulating woman if she came with instructions.” This form of argument is the reverse of the ad hominem. Just because one is gay does not mean that one cannot be misogynist. Or simply mistaken about biology, politics, and ethics.
Or, as most evolutionary biologists are, wrong about human nature.
I suppose the first thing that struck me is the use of the word rape. The article deals with “scientifically verified” evidence that women have evolved to protect themselves against rape. Bering quickly dismisses the idea that science leads to moral justification of rape, because that conclusion relies on the naturalistic fallacy. Women, it seems, are stronger during ovulation, are more cautious in where they go, are more distrusting of men, oh, and on top of it all, are more racist.
Underlying this notion, however, is the idea that rape involves reproduction. This belief has been discounted over and over again: rape is about power, not reproduction. Men rape women to show they have power over them. This is why men rape older women who can no longer reproduce, or rape women who they then kill.
Further, the idea that women evolved to be more cautious about going out or letting men back into their apartments does not seem to me to be able to hold water. Evolution does not work over short periods, and women have only been able to do many of the “unsafe” things in the last few hundred years.
Moreover, the idea that women classify some things as safe or unsafe must have cultural context. Who defines what is safe or unsafe for women? This “scientific” research seems loaded with cultural and personal values that are purely sexist.
I’m sure we will hear much more about this in the future. What we should pay attention to is the underlying politically and culturally conservative agenda that much evolutionary biology supports. While Bering quickly dismisses the idea that showing men have evolved to rape and women have evolved to defend themselves against rape, his dismissal seem hollow. If claims like this were made in a court as “scientific” we know exactly what the result would be: the rapist would get off because he obeyed an evolutionary instinct and the woman failed to obey hers.
Bering also insists on his innocence because the evidence comes from a gay man who “wouldn't know what to do with an ovulating woman if she came with instructions.” This form of argument is the reverse of the ad hominem. Just because one is gay does not mean that one cannot be misogynist. Or simply mistaken about biology, politics, and ethics.
Or, as most evolutionary biologists are, wrong about human nature.
Giffords' Shooting and Politics
11/01/11 19:24 Filed in: Human Nature
Much has already been written about the shooting in Arizona of Gabrielle Giffords and many others. I think, however, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has one of the more interesting and thoughtful pieces on this incident. Stewart, like the rest of us, I imagine, is disheartened. He is also thoughtful. One thing he points out, and I think he is correct, is that trying to find one direct line of cause from something Sarah Palin said or from some violent video game to Jared Loughner’s shooting spree is pointless. It cannot be done.
Human motivation, and this is what is at the center of this subject, is much too complex to pick out one cause and effect line for any event. We often ask, why do two people who were abused when they were younger end up being different -- one turning into an abuser and the other not? These sorts of questions rest on the premise that Stewart is questioning: that one cause leads to one effect or, more appropriately, one effect has one and only one cause.
My friend, Grant, pointed this out when he wrote, “Every time there's a shooting the left says ban guns & rhetoric & the right says ban video games & be less permissive. Yet there are more permissive 1st World countries with more guns per capita & the same games & divisions. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper?” Every time we try to find some concrete evidence for how something causes some other thing, we look for a direct cause. Perhaps we need to think more clearly about this and look more deeply. We are trying to use the methods of math and science and apply them to society and human action. This approach cannot work. It is an approach that is more and more accepted in our country and trumpeted by people working in evolutionary psychology who try to link human aggression to what human life was like 10,000 years ago in the Serengeti.
This fact is why it is wrong for political parties -- and the Left and the Right are both doing this -- are trying to lay the blame of the shooting at each other’s feet. Political parties are still playing politics in the face of this tragedy partly because, I suspect, they can’t help themselves and partly because of this underlying belief that every event has one and only one cause, when human motivation is much more complex. This point is why we need a much better account of human nature than has hitherto been provided.
We have to think more broadly, as well. Why there so many gun crimes and murders in the United States? We can see something about our culture, here. Something that might clue us in about why Loughner went on a shooting spree, how he was able to purchase a gun when he was known to be mentally unstable, and why he went after this particular group of people. But there won’t be an easy answer here.
And one thing that we -- you and I -- have to do is something that the political rhetoric refuses to do and won’t allow us to do -- question who and what we are as a society.
Human motivation, and this is what is at the center of this subject, is much too complex to pick out one cause and effect line for any event. We often ask, why do two people who were abused when they were younger end up being different -- one turning into an abuser and the other not? These sorts of questions rest on the premise that Stewart is questioning: that one cause leads to one effect or, more appropriately, one effect has one and only one cause.
My friend, Grant, pointed this out when he wrote, “Every time there's a shooting the left says ban guns & rhetoric & the right says ban video games & be less permissive. Yet there are more permissive 1st World countries with more guns per capita & the same games & divisions. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper?” Every time we try to find some concrete evidence for how something causes some other thing, we look for a direct cause. Perhaps we need to think more clearly about this and look more deeply. We are trying to use the methods of math and science and apply them to society and human action. This approach cannot work. It is an approach that is more and more accepted in our country and trumpeted by people working in evolutionary psychology who try to link human aggression to what human life was like 10,000 years ago in the Serengeti.
This fact is why it is wrong for political parties -- and the Left and the Right are both doing this -- are trying to lay the blame of the shooting at each other’s feet. Political parties are still playing politics in the face of this tragedy partly because, I suspect, they can’t help themselves and partly because of this underlying belief that every event has one and only one cause, when human motivation is much more complex. This point is why we need a much better account of human nature than has hitherto been provided.
We have to think more broadly, as well. Why there so many gun crimes and murders in the United States? We can see something about our culture, here. Something that might clue us in about why Loughner went on a shooting spree, how he was able to purchase a gun when he was known to be mentally unstable, and why he went after this particular group of people. But there won’t be an easy answer here.
And one thing that we -- you and I -- have to do is something that the political rhetoric refuses to do and won’t allow us to do -- question who and what we are as a society.
True Grit
10/01/11 22:17 Filed in: Popular Culture
I took the opportunity to watch the Coen brothers’ version of True Grit yesterday. I think I remember seeing the John Wayne version way back when, but I don’t remember much about it. I did, however, read the book by Portis before seeing the latest movie.
Stanley Fish has also commented on the recent installment. He concludes that True Grit is a religious movie. Religion in this movie I “is everything, not despite but because of its refusal to resolve or soften the dilemmas the narrative delivers up.” That dilemma, according to Fish, is that Grace is given freely -- arbitrarily -- by God regardless of whether one is good or bad in life. Mattie our heroine, for instance, loses her arm and lives as a spinster after avenging her father’s death. Fish does not consider, as one commentator on his blog points out, that “Justice is mine saith the Lord,” which could mean that Mattie is bad, just as bad maybe, as Ned Pepper or Tom Chaney, who killed her father. And, I think it is quite clear throughout the novel and the movie that Rooster Cogburn is no saint.
Fish’s conclusion hinges on his interpretation of a particular sentence that the book and movie share. Fish writes
“The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.”
Fish sees two ways of understanding how “grace” is free: either one can go up to the lunch line and get it or God gives it to whomever God wants regardless of whether the person deserves it or not. Because Mattie’s world is so hard, and things just happen to good people and bad people, Fish concludes that grace is given indiscriminately by God to whomever God chooses. In many ways, this interpretation is quite Augustinian. Augustine makes it quite clear that if God must give grace to those who deserve and cannot give grace to those who do not deserve it, then we violate the Divine Will. God’s Will cannot be bound by our logic. God gives grace to whom God deems to give it to, good or bad. In this sense, the Coen film and the Portis novel are, not only religious, but Augustinian and protestant.
Yet, I would suggest that a third way presents itself for understand freely. Perhaps we don’t go to the lunch line to pick up grace if we want, and God does not give it to just anyone. Perhaps God gives grace to everyone at judgment day. Portis’ novel clearly depicts the harshness of life and the insight that we know from the Book of Job that the good often suffer and the bad often are rewarded. Yet, grace need not be given in this life, which is what I think the novel truly depicts. Grace is free, but everything else you have to pay for.
Of course, we know that isn’t true either. But perhaps rethinking our conception of grace might help us accept that fact of the present world.
Stanley Fish has also commented on the recent installment. He concludes that True Grit is a religious movie. Religion in this movie I “is everything, not despite but because of its refusal to resolve or soften the dilemmas the narrative delivers up.” That dilemma, according to Fish, is that Grace is given freely -- arbitrarily -- by God regardless of whether one is good or bad in life. Mattie our heroine, for instance, loses her arm and lives as a spinster after avenging her father’s death. Fish does not consider, as one commentator on his blog points out, that “Justice is mine saith the Lord,” which could mean that Mattie is bad, just as bad maybe, as Ned Pepper or Tom Chaney, who killed her father. And, I think it is quite clear throughout the novel and the movie that Rooster Cogburn is no saint.
Fish’s conclusion hinges on his interpretation of a particular sentence that the book and movie share. Fish writes
“The springs of that universe are revealed to us by the narrator-heroine Mattie in words that appear both in Charles Portis’s novel and the two films, but with a difference. The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.”
Fish sees two ways of understanding how “grace” is free: either one can go up to the lunch line and get it or God gives it to whomever God wants regardless of whether the person deserves it or not. Because Mattie’s world is so hard, and things just happen to good people and bad people, Fish concludes that grace is given indiscriminately by God to whomever God chooses. In many ways, this interpretation is quite Augustinian. Augustine makes it quite clear that if God must give grace to those who deserve and cannot give grace to those who do not deserve it, then we violate the Divine Will. God’s Will cannot be bound by our logic. God gives grace to whom God deems to give it to, good or bad. In this sense, the Coen film and the Portis novel are, not only religious, but Augustinian and protestant.
Yet, I would suggest that a third way presents itself for understand freely. Perhaps we don’t go to the lunch line to pick up grace if we want, and God does not give it to just anyone. Perhaps God gives grace to everyone at judgment day. Portis’ novel clearly depicts the harshness of life and the insight that we know from the Book of Job that the good often suffer and the bad often are rewarded. Yet, grace need not be given in this life, which is what I think the novel truly depicts. Grace is free, but everything else you have to pay for.
Of course, we know that isn’t true either. But perhaps rethinking our conception of grace might help us accept that fact of the present world.
Careful of Deistic Proofs
07/01/11 18:43 Filed in: Human Nature
A recent Colbert Report episode demonstrated why is so difficult for religious, even - or maybe especially - the pope, to talk about science. I found it amusing, as I am sure you will too, to watch Bill O’Reilly argue that he could not explain how tides come in and go out or how the sun “comes up and goes down.” As Colbert elegantly says, O’Reilly knows God exists because he can’t explain things.
If we Christians insist on trying to use God to explain the mechanical workings of things we will lose the debate and we will misunderstand God, ourselves, and nature. God is the cause of nature, but that does not make Him the efficient cause of everything in nature, except in the way I explained in a previous post on the big bang.
I also want to point out that proofs for God’s existence are generally inductive. The only deductive argument I know of is the Ontological Argument in its various formulations. As Thomas says, however, we cannot grasp the idea of God, so the Ontological Argument does not work for us. The proofs Thomas gives us are all inductive: which means that they lead to the conclusion that God exists but they do not demonstrate the way mathematics proofs demonstrate a conclusion. Inductive arguments are never definitive.
This point proves important if you are familiar with Dawkins’ The God Delusion. In there, Dawkins recounts Thomas’ proofs and says that Thomas asserted he proved God’s existence deductively, then Dawkins goes on to how that they are inductive arguments that prove nothing. First, as I’ve already said, Thomas admits that they are inductive arguments. Second, inductive arguments to prove conclusions. If they did not, we would know no science and we would never be able to convict someone of a crime.
In short, proof does not come in one flavor, and philosophers, theologians, and news pundits should be more careful when they argue for God’s existence or for anything else.
If we Christians insist on trying to use God to explain the mechanical workings of things we will lose the debate and we will misunderstand God, ourselves, and nature. God is the cause of nature, but that does not make Him the efficient cause of everything in nature, except in the way I explained in a previous post on the big bang.
I also want to point out that proofs for God’s existence are generally inductive. The only deductive argument I know of is the Ontological Argument in its various formulations. As Thomas says, however, we cannot grasp the idea of God, so the Ontological Argument does not work for us. The proofs Thomas gives us are all inductive: which means that they lead to the conclusion that God exists but they do not demonstrate the way mathematics proofs demonstrate a conclusion. Inductive arguments are never definitive.
This point proves important if you are familiar with Dawkins’ The God Delusion. In there, Dawkins recounts Thomas’ proofs and says that Thomas asserted he proved God’s existence deductively, then Dawkins goes on to how that they are inductive arguments that prove nothing. First, as I’ve already said, Thomas admits that they are inductive arguments. Second, inductive arguments to prove conclusions. If they did not, we would know no science and we would never be able to convict someone of a crime.
In short, proof does not come in one flavor, and philosophers, theologians, and news pundits should be more careful when they argue for God’s existence or for anything else.
God's Big Bang
06/01/11 19:39 Filed in: Human Nature
A lot of people have begun commenting on Benedict XVI’s claim about God being behind the Big Bang.
First, it should be clear that the Catholic Church has accepted evolution since the 60’s. One of the key texts on this was written much later, with John Paul II’s “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth.” In this article, JP II repeated the Thomistic claim that truth from different areas -- especially science/natural philosophy and religion -- cannot contradict each other. They have to be reconciled in some way. Thus, Genesis, as we now know, does not tell the literal story of creation, but explains the meaning of creation. All Catholics must accept evolution as true or risk becoming irrational -- that is, not Catholic.
Second, how we explain God’s action in history must adhere to our understanding of God as unchanging. God is creator. Being a creator means that all of creation depends on God for its existence. Without God, there would be nothing. That truth, however, tells us nothing about “how” God created the universe. It would be mistaken to think of creation as a particular event. Creation is an unfolding of God’s creative power -- it is a sustaining act. Thus, Benedict is right to claim that "In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth.” Creation points to God -- in its beauty, design, and very existence.
This point, however, means that the watchmaker argument isn’t quite right. The watchmaker argument works by analogy. If you were to be walking in the desert and found a watch, its complexity would make you think that someone had created it. Things just don’t fall together randomly in such an organized fashion. On the one hand, this argument proves sensible: if we see the complexity of the universe as a whole, it’s more intelligible to think that it came together from some intelligence rather than randomly. However, we must resist the idea that because things in the world that are complex are created by an intelligence, then the universe as a whole must be created by an intelligence. This way of argument is known as the fallacy of composition. Just because every brick in a wall is six inches by four inches by three inches does not mean that the wall itself is six inches by four inches by three inches.
What we confront when we look at creation with the eyes of science - that is, with the eyes of a mind questioning the order and workings of all that there is -- is a fact that raises the question: why is there anything at all? Science cannot answer this question. Religion can. But neither should contradict the other. They should support each other in humanity’s quest for meaning.
First, it should be clear that the Catholic Church has accepted evolution since the 60’s. One of the key texts on this was written much later, with John Paul II’s “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth.” In this article, JP II repeated the Thomistic claim that truth from different areas -- especially science/natural philosophy and religion -- cannot contradict each other. They have to be reconciled in some way. Thus, Genesis, as we now know, does not tell the literal story of creation, but explains the meaning of creation. All Catholics must accept evolution as true or risk becoming irrational -- that is, not Catholic.
Second, how we explain God’s action in history must adhere to our understanding of God as unchanging. God is creator. Being a creator means that all of creation depends on God for its existence. Without God, there would be nothing. That truth, however, tells us nothing about “how” God created the universe. It would be mistaken to think of creation as a particular event. Creation is an unfolding of God’s creative power -- it is a sustaining act. Thus, Benedict is right to claim that "In the beauty of the world, in its mystery, in its greatness and in its rationality ... we can only let ourselves be guided toward God, creator of heaven and earth.” Creation points to God -- in its beauty, design, and very existence.
This point, however, means that the watchmaker argument isn’t quite right. The watchmaker argument works by analogy. If you were to be walking in the desert and found a watch, its complexity would make you think that someone had created it. Things just don’t fall together randomly in such an organized fashion. On the one hand, this argument proves sensible: if we see the complexity of the universe as a whole, it’s more intelligible to think that it came together from some intelligence rather than randomly. However, we must resist the idea that because things in the world that are complex are created by an intelligence, then the universe as a whole must be created by an intelligence. This way of argument is known as the fallacy of composition. Just because every brick in a wall is six inches by four inches by three inches does not mean that the wall itself is six inches by four inches by three inches.
What we confront when we look at creation with the eyes of science - that is, with the eyes of a mind questioning the order and workings of all that there is -- is a fact that raises the question: why is there anything at all? Science cannot answer this question. Religion can. But neither should contradict the other. They should support each other in humanity’s quest for meaning.