1. A Scientific Hypothesis?

good morning everyone good afternoon good afternoon I'm Mary Ann Talbert I'm director of studies in philosophy at the Department for continuing education which is putting this thing on I'm delighted to see so many people I've discovered actually that the one thing the the word God is good for is getting people in so I've been thinking I might wear any lecture I give will be God and philosophy and maths or something before we start I need to just a couple of housekeeping things one is you'll have noticed the cameramen over there on the side there and they're making a podcast of the whole weekend which will then be put up on something called iTunes U on the University site on iTunes U so you'll be able to get a hold of it and listen to it again aren't you lucky if you haven't caught everything the first time but I've been asked to ask you if you mind your voices being recorded your if you do mind your voices being recorded if you have a question come and ask me during the break rather than ask it here because otherwise willy nilly it will be recorded but your face won't be recorded so so you will remain anonymous and I think that's it for housekeeping other than to introduce Stephen law who's sitting down here who when I said how would you like me to introduce you he said as master of the universe of course silly me but in between times he's also a senior lecturer I'm told these days at Heathrow College in London and he's also editor of a magazine called think which is aimed I think it sixth formers is that right general public but but non philosophers generally people who are interested in philosophy so you might be interested in his magazine think and there's something else you do your Provost of the Center for inquiry oh good well we'll have a big poster tomorrow and I'm going to turn the lighting slightly now can you still make notes and can you see the screen is that about right good okay in that case let's get started oh I'm sorry it's other people recording it as well okay I'm going to start by telling you where I'm coming from and also how I intend to proceed okay well cards on the table I believe in God that I was an atheist till about seventeen years ago and later on today or maybe tomorrow you're going to find out why I'm no longer an atheist because I'll be telling you and it's rather important that you recognize that I don't hold a brief for any particular religion I'm not a Christian not Urdu I'm not a Muslim I don't belong to any organized religion at all the other thing is you may think this is a bit odd when I'm standing up here talking to all of you about my believer I never proselytize they're quite a few people in the audience who know me quite well now and they would be the first to tell you that I never proselytize the reason I'm doing this is because having read Dawkins book and talked about it quite often with Stephen I just find the arguments so appalling in them that I wanted to do this so I don't think of it as proselytize I think of it as doing philosophy but you can make your own minds up okay so that's where I am I would love to demonstrate that God definitely exists but I can't do that anymore than talking's can demonstrate that he definitely doesn't exist so you won't be getting sadly or if you do it'll be inadvertent and I'll publish it and we'll I'll give you a cut okay my aim and this is my only aim is to give you reason this is over my two lectures not in this one lecture here over my two lectures I want to give you reasons questions strengths of Dawkins arguments against the existence of God and what I'm going to do is I'm first going to identify his argument and set it out logic book style that's literally how it will be set out in a logic book and then I'm going to show that it's deductively valid which is a good thing in an argument then I'm going to argue that although it isn't obviously true Dawkins first premise but strengthens because it's actually not very plausible as it stands I'm going to accept that and I'm going to use it to show why I reject his second premise so although we have a deductively valid argument we have at least one premise that is I think demonstrably not true not saying it is demonstrably false but it's demonstrably not true so okay now we've got to get this to get anything at all about Dawkins argument this is the famous God hypothesis I'll let you read it for yourself but it most of you I think we're not sorry some of them would you like to be in the front row I'm sure somebody would swap afterwards okay I'll read it out and there's a superhuman supernatural intelligence that deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it including us okay that's the god hypothesis and the whole of Dawkins argument turns on that hypothesis so here's his argument set out logic book style premise 1 the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis premise to the truth of the god hypothesis is highly improbable conclusion it's highly improbable that God exists I think you can see that that's that's a deductively valid argument in that if the premises are true the conclusion will also be true okay so if you accept the premises you have to accept the conclusion as a matter of reason so I think it's a deductively valid argument and for that in that sense it's a good argument da da da da let's not repeat myself okay so if the god hypothesis is both a scientific hypothesis and highly improbable then it's also highly improbable that God exists okay that's Dawkins argument does anyone want to question my analysis of Dawkins argument before I move on well actually that doesn't matter at this point in the arguments I certainly want to defend Dawkins against that because he hasn't I haven't yet given you his arguments for either of these claims and I'm about to do so so I think at the moment we should just take them I mean all I've said so far is that if these premises are true the conclusion will also be true I haven't said these premises are true so you're not committed to believing that at the moment religion no I'm sorry he says quite categorically and I've got the book here and I'll look it up for you over the break if you like it is a scientific hypothesis he he makes that claim quite categorically and in those words so ok moving on if these are both true then it's also highly probable that it's very improbable that God exists so my aim is to look briefly whether we should believe that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis and I suspect that Stephens going to address that one as well he did last time we talked maybe not okay well maybe not so briefly and then I'm going to concentrate in this lecture and on the net in the next whether we should believe that the god hypothesis is highly improbable okay so quickly I'm going to look at whether God the god hypothesis I'm gonna start tripping over that any minute God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis and then I'm going to look at whether it's highly improbable okay so we're looking at premise one we're forgetting about premise two we're just looking at premise one is the god hypothesis a scientific hypothesis okay here's documents Dawkins argument for this he says the god hypothesis is either true or false and it's made so by a scientific fact okay that's the first part of his argument second part of his argument is the universe with a god in it it's very different from a universe without a God in it and for Dawkins the satisfaction of these two conditions suffice is for it to for the god hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis so let's have a look at the first one the god hypothesis is either true or false so let's go back to it here we are there's a superhuman supernatural in diligence that deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it including us well it certainly looks as if that's either true or false doesn't it would anyone would anyone disagree with that no this this is the claim the whole claim and the claim is that this claim is either true or false and that looks to be true now it is also true that parts of it could be true or false yeah but but we're looking at the whole claim rather than parts of it okay so I think we'll we'll given that it is true or false the other part of it though is that it's made true or false by a scientific fact says Dawkins I'm just going to put a big query beside scientific fact because I'm not entirely sure what a scientific fact is as opposed to another sort of fact so we'll come back to that I think so it's certainly true or false and I think it's probably made true by a fact but whether it sorry made true or false by a fact in other words there is a fact about the universe that makes it the case that that is either true or false whether that fact is a scientific fact i I'm less happy about but I'll give him that just at the moment okay secondly what was his second claim so we've given him that it's either true or false and I've also said it's definitely made true by a fact whether it's a scientific fact let's leave it open the universe with a God in it is very different from the universe without a God in it well I'm inclined definitely to give him that one aren't you I mean if God exists it's a very different universe from the universe from in which God doesn't exist it may not be different in all sorts of ways that we would know for example we don't know whether God exists not so from our point of view the universe is the same whether he exists or not if that makes sense but the fact is it is a very different universe if he does exist to the universities if he doesn't exist should we give him that yep okay good so satisfaction of those two conditions no okay it's the same point is this gentleman's down here in in that you're what you're suggesting is that part of it is true and part of it isn't true but we're not different in its provenance a bit like the Leonardo that was painted by Leonardo and the one that wasn't painted by Leonardo okay they might not be different to look at but they're different in terms of their provenance goodness I've never shut you up so quickly one more question then I'm going to move on because otherwise I'm well I think there are a lot of counterfactuals that would be different for example if God exists then he could answer our prayers would be true if God exists what magic might be true if God doesn't exist sorry that's bad example I don't have any problem with it so if you have the words there is P then the difference is whether P exists or not and and that is a difference isn't it an if P in this case is God that's quite a serious difference okay I'm sorry say that's again because it was your curse in this series of lectures and actually I may as well do it now and get it over with is this there's a huge difference between people believing pea and peas being the case what's your name sir David David believes Maryanne is wearing yellow I knew this would happen okay we're just going to believe leave it at that it's yellow right yellow now look there's one sentence here and one sentence here now could that be true the big Center says one sentence Marion is wearing yellow embedded in another sentence David believes Mary Ann's wearing yellow yeah okay could David believes Mary Ann's wearing yellow be true whilst Marion is wearing yellow be false yep okay could David's believes Mary Ann's wearing yellow be false whilst Mary Ann is wearing yellow is false yeah that was true yesterday actually wasn't it both of them okay good today and now I've lost track could that be false when that's true yep and could they both be true I think was the last one okay so the the thing is what makes that sentence the embedding sentence true is David and his beliefs and what makes the embedded sentence true it's me and what I'm wearing okay and the truth values of the two differ quite independently don't they so it might be that everybody in here believes that God exists but God doesn't exist okay or it might be that everyone in here doesn't believe that God exists and he does exist do you see what I mean so actually it's not our beliefs about God that are important the important difference here it's God himself we're not getting into that one either right okay do we understand why Dawkins believes that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis yep okay and he thinks that it's satisfaction of these two conditions suffices to make it a scientific hypothesis now I think that Dawkins is right I mean the few little niggles there but I'll give him all of them I think he's right to claim that the god hypothesis is either true or false and this it's made so by a scientific fact i-i've put brackets around the scientific scientific just to indicate that I'm not happy about that and I believe that's as well that the universe with a God in it is very different from the universe without but I don't think satisfaction of these conditions suffice is to show that it's I until here are three other hypotheses that also satisfy Dawkins condition none of which is a scientific hypothesis okay you might or might not have heard Bishop Berkeley philosopher Irish philosopher he believes that to be is to be perceived now you may think this is a completely potty belief but actually it's very well argued for and it's much more convincing that might think but let me try and explain what he meant by it he believes that we could have no reason for believing that anything exists that didn't depend on our perceptions of it okay so why David you believe I'm wearing yellow why you can see I'm wearing yellow yeah okay why do we believe these chairs of blue we can see them why do you think that there's carpet on the floor answer I can feel it and so whenever whenever we justify a claim about anything of that kind about the physical world at all we appeal to our perceptions but we don't we want to say things like well bangle is not there all sorts of this table would be here even at midnight when nobody's looking at it what are you saying here Berkeley is saying more what you're saying is if I were here at midnight I would see the table okay so he's not a feeling appealing to an actual perception but we're still appealing to a counterfactual perception in other words a perception that's contrary to fact not an actual perception but one that we might have believe me and you are going to have to believe me here because we I can't go through these three huge theories in the five minutes I've got for the time but Berkeley was saying this in response to somebody called Locke who believed that the world the physical world exists and is as it is as what Berkeley would have called mindless substance it exists separately from us and has nothing to do with our perceptions and Berkeley didn't believe that he believed and said that to be is to be perceived now the difficulty with Barclays theory is that it is not an empirical theory could you give me any reason for believing that something exists that doesn't involve perception could you empirically test the claim that to be is to be perceived the theory of black holes will not perceive their actions no absolutely not but of course you'll relight your belief that exists relies on your perceptions of the things that you believe are caused by it so just as you see the the trails in a Wilson cloud chamber that tell you the atoms are there and you don't see the atoms themselves may be demonstrating how out of data I am here but you see you still in that sense see the atom because you see the effects of it so that's not a counter example good try we do have perceptions of things that don't exist give me an example well actually I was just going to say it's not what we perceive that's misleading and of course that's not true it is what we perceive is misleading but we it's our beliefs that are misled mirages do exist but they don't exist as what we think they are so whereas I'm climbing through the desert towards this Mirage of an oasis I falsely believe that there's an oasis in front of me there isn't what there is in front of me is a mirage or maybe it's in my brain I don't I don't know where it is but is this a dagger I see before my face well is it no it's a hallucination of a dagger my belief that it's a dagger is false the hallucination is there it may not be there it may be in here but do you see what I mean it's no what is believed to be perceived ie the dagger is not there what is perceived ie the hallucination is there right okay I think I've established my point well enough the fact is there is no empirical test you can do to see whether Berkeley is right or wrong okay so this is supposedly a scientific hypothesis but it couldn't be falsified or confirmed by science it couldn't be that's because it's a philosophical hypothesis here's another one the right action is the action that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number well okay is there a scientific test that we could do for that is there anything that that could a an experiment we could conduct that would show us that the right action is the action that leads to the greatest happiness the greatest number there isn't is there and and one of the reasons there isn't is is that the right well we could actually we could cobble together an experiment by giving you an instrumental definition of right we could say that or and happiness we'd have to do and happiness rather than all happiness wouldn't we so we could say something like oh okay the the action that most people in this room would say was right it's also the one that would produce the grace happiness number taken on on a poll of people in this room and how happy they say they are do we think that this is a decent empirical test this hypothesis you think it's one as it stands that isn't an exultation it says it's an assertion no because that's an assertion the way it sports I agree I could make it an exhortation but as I haven't I've made it an insertion therefore it's either true or false which sorry can I stop you can I've run here I think enough people can hear do you see where this is going do you think that it's a reasonable test of the utilitarian claim again I I think it totally misses the point a quick what the gentleman was suggesting because he has quite a nice soft voice so I'll just make it louder if I can you divide a population into two and you give a certain amount of food aid to one lot and slightly less same amount of both in one lot you give everybody food both groups as many people ok the second group you only give actually said I'm going to stop you there because I don't know about anyone else but I I cannot see that this is a test of this claim the this is a claim about the the morally right action is the action that leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number you could okay we can say it's this true and we can put forward less questions to test it so for example you would test that by finding any action that you think is morally right and which doesn't lead to the greatest happiness the greatest number or that does lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number but isn't morally right so we can test that by thought experiments so what if I had suggested you know I I'm very rich you didn't know that did you but now you do I'm very rich and in my dying breath I make ray promise to give all my money to a cat's home and there he is left my body and he's thinking a cat's home she must be joking I'm gonna give it to the local Children's Home now he's broken a promise so you might wants to say that this is an immoral action that's going to lead to the greatest happiness of the greatest number is this a counterexample to utilitarianism but we don't need to answer that because we're not conducting a scientific experiment here are we we're conducting a thought experiment this is what philosophers do when they want to test an entirely universal claim like this once again this is not a claim that can be empirically tested I do see hands up but I'm just going to move on a bit because I'm slightly worried about time I'll come back to the two people I saw in a minute and finally the one I'm going to look at is the future will always be like the past well this is Hume Hume believes that any empirical experiments you do is always going to rest on the principle of the uniformity of nature the principle that the past will be sorry that the the future will be like the past so if every swan you've ever seen has been white you might extrapolate from that to think the next one I see will be white and then if you see a Black Swan you'll know that you were wrong okay but you see another white Swan and that's going to confirm your impression or confirm it to some extent and so on every experiment that you could ever do rests on the principle of the uniformity of nature if a causes bead and the next a will cause the next B and so on so again can we test this empirically well no we can't and the reason we can't is because every single empirical experiments must rely on this okay you cannot cannot put together an experiment that doesn't rely on this therefore this is not itself testable by science yes but if you're going to try and experiment show this you're going to have to rely on that change being predictable in some way aren't you well no maybe it won't be i I mean with this the the principle of the uniformity of nature doesn't say nature is uniform it says we must assume nature is uniform so free we are none of us know whether we like rustles chicken rustles chicken this it was a farmer's chicken and every day in the history of the life of this chicken that farmer had come out in the morning and fed it and this morning farmer comes out the chicken goes Moo breakfast runs off and gets its neck wrung well how do we know that we're not in that position when it comes to the Sun rising in the morning answer we don't we assume that nature is uniform it may not be but that's not the point the point is in order to conduct any experiment we've got to assume that it is so again this is another hypothesis that satisfies Dawkins so ok none of those hypotheses is a scientific hypothesis they're all philosophical hypotheses and that's why they're not testable in Dawkins way let me just finish this point and I'll come back to the three people I saw asking questions ok so I gave you three hypotheses they all satisfy Dawkins two conditions none of them as a scientific hypothesis they're all philosophical hypotheses and the difference is that where is the truth or falsehood of scientific hypotheses can be established by observation and experimentation and I put truth or or falsehood in brackets there because those of you who know about science will know that popper argued very successfully that actually science can't confirm theories what it does is falsify them so whether we say true or is irrelevant actually if we're going with Dawkins argument we ought to say true but actually it's vacation of a hypothesis that we're really concerned with so where is the truth or falsehood of scientific hypotheses can be established by observation and experimentation that of philosophical hypotheses can be established only by reason and argument so I think well actually no this is a good time and the people I saw a young woman there that's why the reason I don't like the word scientific fact is it could be just a straightforward question begging arguments which is that science can establish it if science can't establish it it doesn't counts as a fact in which case Dawkins is begging the question but I didn't want to attribute to him the question begging objection I just wanted to say let's leave out the word scientific here because what really matters is that it's a fact if you add scientific it begs the question whereas if you take scientific out it doesn't beg the question okay think think about it and come back to if you don't like it okay let's take two two putative falsifications of the hypothesis I had up there so the gentleman says that the weak government in this is rare okay the Whig government in 1832 thank you for providing that did try that so presumably what they tried to do was create policies that produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number okay because they believed it was the right thing to do okay and what you're saying is that those policies would it were disaster and that shows that this is wrong okay who thinks that that's a falsification or sorry who doesn't think this is a falsification of this theory put your hand up oh okay would somebody like to explain why it's not a falsification this theory yeah I I mean I just I hardly know where to start actually unwrapping that because and they believe that this was the right action but they may have been wrong they may have believed that the poor law was going to produce the greatest happiness the greatest number and they were wrong neither of these things is a test of that whole sentence this is a claim about morality about what the right action is so it can't be tested by an empirical claim like that secondly you say that the reason the Sun rises in the morning is because the laws of nature say that it must okay well it's true that in the past the laws of nature have always made the Sun Rise every morning and because we believe that the laws of nature tomorrow are going to be exactly the same as the laws of nature today we believe that the Sun will rise tomorrow but why do we believe that the Sun will rise tomorrow answer we believe in the principle of the uniformity of nature why do we believe that laws that make the Sun Rise tomorrow will continue to be the same tomorrow answer because we believe in the principle of the uniformity of nature it's entirely circular to try and justify one regularity on the basis of another regularity because the regularity then again needs to be justified and it'll be based on that again any attempt you make to justify the principle of uniformity of nature will be circular I guarantee it two bites that cherry not allowed one one more question than others i-i have a whole line of argument that i've got to get through and i don't want to go back to a bit of an earlier bits the argument when i've got on to this bit i promise i'll come back to you and deal with this question when i finished the presentation can i do that thank you okay um so to go back to where i was here so i've said that the hypotheses satisfied Dawkins conditions but none of them is a scientific hypothesis they're all philosophical hypotheses and the difference is that the truth and falsehood of scientific hypotheses can be established by observation and experiments whereas philosophical hypotheses can be established only by reason and argument so I think a better way and this is where I'm going to strengthen Dawkins first premise because that as it stands I don't think it's it's very good I I think there are too many reasons for dismissing it so let's strengthen it by giving him this a better way of characterizing a scientific hypothesis would be as a claim the truth or falsehood of which is demonstra by observation or experiment okay that would make a hypothesis a scientific hypothesis and on this account of a scientific hypothesis the god hypothesis would be a scientific hypothesis only if it could be shown to be true or false by observation or experiment okay so the question then becomes could the god hypothesis be shown to be true or false by observation or experiment okay do you see where I'm getting to do you see why I'm asking the question good now many would argue and Dawkins deals with them at length in his book many would argue that the god hypothesis is simply not the sort of claim that could be tested empirically okay that because it's maybe appears it's a philosophical hypothesis or maybe because all sorts of reasons they would think okay Dawkins rejects their claims and I'm going to concede that to Dawkins I'm quite happy to give in this and say I will accept premise one the idea that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis as long as we interpret scientific hypothesis in in my terms because that's frankly just a much better way of doing it than Dawkins suggests so I accept for the sake of argument premise one of Dawkins argument the claim that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis a hypothesis that could be shown to be true or false by observation or experiment okay are you all with me I accept Dawkins first argument first question to one well as Dawkins doesn't question that let's not question it ourselves either because it would take us into a completely different realm so that let's he takes it to be coherent and so am i taking it to be coherent we can argue about that in the question and answer session at some point if you like okay one other question there was in reality the well God's being timeless would be a relevance to the claim that the future is like the past because God's outside time so they'd still be past and future insides time even if God were sitting outside time on your past and is present and so on I'm sorry I'm I don't feel qualified to comment on that so I won't write okay I'm going to move on to the second premise so if you remember let's just go back and have a look at the argument there's the argument the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis and what I'm doing is I'm accepting that but slightly changed it's on a slightly different interpretation but I'm accepting that that is true the argument is deductively valid so if there's anything wrong with it it's got to be here okay that's the premise that I'm going to argue against in the rest of this lecture and in the lecture this evening after dinner okay so let's go back so I'm looking at premise two now Dawkins says that the god hypothesis is highly improbable because it's highly probable that science will eventually make God redundant okay that that's his claim it's highly probable and I'm sorry about all these probable bits we all know that Dawkins is absolutely certain that God doesn't exist but the fact is he counts use it in this terms because it matters to him enormous ly that he's not seen as does he's seen as skeptical in everything which i think is fair enough so and I'm happy to go along with that okay the god hypothesis is highly improbable because it's highly probable that science will eventually make God redundant okay though Dawkins doesn't distinguish them they're in fact two ways in which science make might make God redundant firstly science could make God redundant by making every theory that postulates the existence of God either scientifically respectable or scientifically redundant okay so two ways in which God could be made redundant the the theory that postulates God is either made scientifically respectable or scientifically redundant so what do these mean let's have a look okay to make a gods postulating theory scientifically respectable would be to eliminate God from the ontology of that theory that would mean that the theory we'd be shown to be capable of doing its explanatory work without God so what's this mean well let's have it let's have a look okay every theory postulates the existence of there is things okay so let's say you see sickness in cows and you postulates magic and witches and things like that as an explanation of how sickness in cows arises now what you're doing there is you're constructing a theory that postulates the existence of magic and of witches okay do you see or you see tracks in a Wilson cloud chamber and you postulate the existence of atoms to explain the tracks that you see so what a theory tries to do is it tries to explain things that are observable and by appeal to things that are lying behind so that are not observable and then it will give some sort of characterization of these things and that characterization is going to be what the thing must be like if it's to do the job that the theory says it has to do ok so if you're going to explain cows becoming sick by appeal to witches and magic well actually by appeal to witches how do the witches make the cows sick answer magic easy isn't it so here you have two postulates and if you want to make the theory scientifically respectable you could say well hang on magic that's not very respectable is it in scientific terms what is this magic matter let's get rid of the magic let's say that cows make sorry witches make cows sick by putting poison into their drinking water ok so magic has become putting poison into the drinking water and and so the theory has become respectable see what I mean so if we can get a theory is that postulates gods as an explanation for something and what we do is we say well actually we don't need God because we can do all this explanatory work by means of these other things here perfectly scientifically respectable things not God ok you see what that would be so it would be to eliminate an ontology by the way I should have said an ontology is a list of things that exist so some of you in this room probably have God on your ontology some of you don't have God on your own phone some of you have fairies on your ontology perhaps and others don't some have ghosts and so on it's your list of the things that you believe to exist so every Theory has its ontology and included on that ontology in sorry in that ontology will be all the things for theory postulates as existing and if God is one of them and we don't think God is scientifically respectable and let's say we don't then we'll want to make if we keep the theory but try and find something else that'll do the explanatory work other than God we can get rid of God the theory is fine okay the second way of showing that God is redundant is to to make it scientifically sorry I'm God postulating theory scientifically redundant is to eliminate the whole theory and with it and you need to appeal to God and we do that by replacing it with a theory that makes no mention of God so if you like in the first case we save the theory but get rid of God and in the second case we get rid of the theory completely see what I mean I'm God with it so in each case God becomes redundant but in the first case because the theories be made scientifically respectable ie God's been junked on the theory and the second case because we got rid of the theory completely okay see the difference okay dorkiness reason so just to remind us of where we are actually on remind myself of where we are as well so Dawkins has claimed that science will eventually make God redundant I've said that there are two ways in which he might do that by making it respectable or making it redundant it doesn't matter which of those ways you choose but what Dawkins is saying is that science will eventually do that with every theory that postulates the existence of God and his reason for saying that it's an inductive reason induction goes back to the principle of the uniformity of nature if this has happened this way many times in the past you will expect it to happen again in the future and so Dawkins believes that science has often in the past succeeded in making God postulate Theory's redundant possibly by making them respectable and he thinks that science will continue to do this in the future until there are no gods postulating theories left ok so God will become completely redundant and for example science has undoubtedly shown that there's no need to postulate God to explain thinking the existence of things like the bacterial flagella is it flange Allah does anyone know how to pronounce that Langella is it thank you the bacterial flagella motor this is done completely satisfactorily by Dawkins theory of evolution I had to happen once didn't it it will happen again I'm sure before the ends of the session ok Darwin's theory of evolution actually you can forgive me for that one couldn't you ok what he says is that people who believe in God postulate God's on it and he he's very rude to their jobs witnesses in and actually I had to run the other day who gave me a leaflet and it's still in there it is amazing actually in the leafless it says how could this amazingly complex thing have come apart except by design answer easy evolution I mean the evolution is just the no-brainer here once you understand how evolution happens the idea of complexity arising from simplicity over eons of time is just a no-brainer it works it explains this and explains it in a way that fits with our other theories it's a very satisfying explanation so I for one completely accept that we don't need God to explain the evolution of the bacterial I've forgotten already Flagler no sir so Dawkins is right to claim that science has succeeded in making many gods pasta 1830 the theories respectable or redundant and I think he's undoubtedly right I think that science is going to continue to do this it's there's no doubt whatsoever that science is just pushing down barriers in all sorts of ways and we'll continue to do it and good on it but this is a very long way from the claim that it's highly probable than every theory and notice I'm emphasizing every fear every theory that postulates the existence of God will eventually be shown by science to be respectable or redundant and I'm a slightly tempted to refer to something somebody once said to me which was if you imagine the monkey up halfway out the tree on the way to the moon and he's saying nearly there he's about to hit a principled reason why he won't get much further so far it's worked very well but and I think that to claim on the basis of past experience that science will show every theory every god postulate in theory to be respectable or redundant well okay here's the question I'm going to ask which is is there any God postulating theory is such that it's unlikely that science will ever make it respectable or redundant and I'm going to answer yes there is I think there is such a theory and therefore I've got to answer three questions firstly I've got to say what this theory is secondly I've got to say why we think it's God postulating because they'll be quite a few people who won't agree with me that it's God postulating so I'll have to offer some defense of that and thirdly I need to say why we should why we should think it's unlikely that science is ever going to make it respectable or redundant so Mayans in the rest of this lecture two minutes before we then have questions is to answer these questions very briefly just so you have the outline of my argument then I'm going to introduce two objections to my answers they'll they'll be very obvious objections you'll see of them yourself as we go through and then in my lecture next next lecture I'll fill out my argument by responding to those objections okay so all I've got two minutes left so I'm not going to go into the arguments and if you ask me about the arguments I will go into in the next lecture I I won't be able to answer your question because I'll tell you to wait but I'm going to answer the questions briefly introduce two objections and then fill out the arguments by talking about those objections in the next lecture okay here are my brief answers so firstly what is the theory that postulates God and is such that it's unlikely that science will ever make it respectable or redundant answer its folk psychology which I'm going to call F P because all these beginning to get me down it's the theory we use when we attribute mental states to each other in our attempts to make each other intelligible so when somebody puts their hand up I think that they they have a question for me they want to ask you a question and they believe that by putting their hands up and they intend to make me respond to their question okay so the attribution of beliefs desires intentions etc is as a sort of folk psychology it's an attempt to explain our behavior each other's behavior by the attribution of theoretical states like beliefs desires intentions and so on that's folk psychology and that's the theory that I believe is both God postulating and such that science there's reason to think science won't ever make it respectable or redundant okay why is it God postulating I think it's God postulating because it's use essentially depends on the assumption that we're rational believers of truths and lovers of the good that's a quote from the person who taught most about this particular theory okay why does folk psychology depend on the idea that we're rational well just very quickly because remember I'm not filling in the argument now but whereas our explanations of the physical world depend on the principle of the unity of nature our explanations of each other not UNCF nature you know what I mean uniformity of nature our explanations of each other depends on the principle of charity as its called so if what's your name kirinda if kirinda says something that I think oh my god that was stupid I can think two things there I can think oh my god that was stupid guren does stupid I'm not going to talk to him anymore oh I'm going to think oh my god that sounded stupid but grenda's intelligent rational person that you prefer that one do therefore I must have misunderstood him okay kirinda why did you say that I mean truly that's not right I mean as I get to know you better I'll say Dorinda you must be mad what why do you believe that and the altmer your reason and then we can have a jolly good arguments and sort of that and what we're doing in doing that is cooperating in the search for truth but in order to cooperate in the search for truth I've got to not dismiss what he says because he's mad because he's irrational instead I think as Klein said my interlocutors silliness is less likely than my bad interpretation and the assumption of rationality underlies the use of folk psychology in the way that the assumption of the uniformity of nature underlies science that's what I'm going to claim okay but I've got the third question to do yet okay so in doing this it postulates things that I believe and I will explain are very difficult if not impossible to explain without appeal to God so why do I think that science is never going to make folk psychology respectable or redundant okay I think there are inductive reasons for believing that it's unlikely science will ever make folk psychology respectable okay so inductive reasons every attempt that's ever been made in the past has failed and I think that we will continue to fail because I think like the monkey up the tree we're about to hit a principled reason for failure so those are inductive reasons and I think it's unlikely that science will ever make folk psychology and redundant and that's because I believe we really are rational believers of truth and lovers of the good and I'll need to explain a lot more about that obviously later on so that's the outline of my answers to the questions and I'm now going to give you the two objections to my claim which you've probably already come up with and the discussion of these objections will have to wait till the next lecture okay objection one is nonsense coursesites it's going to make folk psychology scientifically respectable yeah belief over a belief is going to become a neural state or something like that of course it's going to make science folk psychology scientifically respectable okay objection to the science will probably make sense folk psychology scientifically redundant it will show us that we don't need beliefs desires etc psychological states those are the two objections and in my lecture next lecture I'll explain why neither of those objections succeeds in establishing Dawkins second premise and I will therefore give you reason for thinking that Dawkins argument is not as good as you might otherwise have thought which is what my aim was good Oh right questions kirinda irrelevant all we need is one theory oh no listen if I say everyone in this room is is it's going to stay tall that's such a bad example isn't it okay everyone in this room is wearing red and down here I've got someone wearing blue isn't that enough for belief that my claim that everyone is wearing red is false you only need one if you make a universal claim you only need one counterexample no you're absolutely right and I'll finished by saying that even if my arguments are established this this shows only that there are serious problems with making set f be scientifically respectable or redundant it doesn't show that that means we won't ever know you're quite right but I can I mean Dawkins can no more establish his inductive argument than I can establish mine but what I hope I'll do is give you good reasons for believing in mine just as Dawkins gives you reasons for believing in his notice I left out the word good all right yes we've come against who would like to look for where Dawkins says page 25 okay you believe that the first premise that I've got here is both false and not what Dawkins says okay and and do you think it's false because you think the god hypothesis is a philosophical hypothesis I I completely agree with you that if the god hypothesis is a philosophical hypothesis not a scientific one then science is whistling in the wind if it tries to disprove it completely agree I actually left it rather open I said I agreed I accept talking's first prayers for the sake of argument I think actually there are quite good reasons for saying that the good god hypothesis isn't a philosophical hypothesis but I have accepted for the case of argument that it is and I completely and utterly disagree with you that Dawkins doesn't think it is a scientific hypothesis and I'd like to find it's a my wad well near but that's just what I say whereas we're looking for what Dawkins says look I can't find my reading glasses so you've had it I'm sorry will we'll have to put that argument on one side I'm very happy to have it with you it's another time but I absolutely am a certain and it's not often as a philosopher I get to say this so let me say it again I am certain that Dawkins believes that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis I am really certain of that I enjoyed that what does he say yes but he also says it more definitely National oh yes right okay bill you had your hand up nobody on the next side I then went on to say I think these things can only be explained by appeal to gone ah no I know I haven't but that's one of the things that I agree with you it's very important but but that's well I didn't say that I think people are rational any more than I said that I think the universe the nature is uniform what I said was just as we have to assume that nature is uniform in order to conduct a scientific experiment so we have to assume that someone is rational in order to attribute beliefs and desires to them so I didn't actually say that we are rational and in fact one of the things I'm going to question in my next lecture is whether we are rational but but I did say and I continue to say that we have to assume rationality if we if we're going to understand each other nobody must speak to me during the break by the way otherwise I won't have any voice for this evening connotation of it earlier okay these all could be outside of time if God could be always outside of time there were also outside of space what kind of existence I don't really need to answer that question I can just say I don't know I mean I I'm no expert on God and I believe in him but but I think oh you're gonna hate this I think his nature is mysterious I do think he's outside time no he's not a material thing no but that actually I don't think you're a material thing either but well this is why some people believe that the god hypothesis isn't a scientific hypothesis but but I've said that I'll go along with Dawkins for them for that in thinking it is and also we mustn't forget that it's not just what is that can be seen it's also the effects of that thing that can be seen so even if something's outside space-time maybe its effects can be seen within space-time and therefore do you see what I mean chance so the fact I know a few people's names incidentally shouldn't intimidate those of you whose names I don't know because there are lots of people here who've come to wind me up is that fair enough they're members of the philosophical society I can't remember the exact corner but you had somewhere that scientific hypothesis is true our force and I'm assuming there you're doing that literally literally true absolutely true or absolutely false well I think Dawkins is certainly assuming by valence which which is interesting yeah and I'm going along by valence is just by valence says that any sentence that you have is either true or false that there aren't any truth value gaps nor is there any third truth value what I'm trying to make is that unless I'm mistaken was generally agreed that the only areas domains where there is absolute five valence truth values are logic or perhaps mathematics would you get into science or less probability okay in some fairly obvious things the probability it may be asymptotically close to being one but it is never 1.0 absolutely but I still think if you say the probability of P is 58% or something then that's going to be either true or false so by valence holds anyway so P is true okay the truth of P is 58% probable let's say that is either true or false so by valence holds when you go to a point where you are saying that then better are the logic after was something like work therefore no actually I cannot stop you Charles because it's not me assuming by events it's it's Dawkins himself and actually I I have quite a yen for intuition ISM in mathematics and therefore against by valence but but I'm prepared to accept by valence for the sake of argument here and when you think how horribly complicated the argument would cut become if I translated it into probabilistic terms even though I'm sure it could be done I think your sympathize well interestingly I I would disagree with the I'd argue on dog inside for that one he says at one point that he believes that chemists will within the next few years create life in the laboratory and I think he's probably right yeah no I mean he actually in inaccurate and objection to that he would say that even very improbable events do happen occasionally and that the the development of life from non-life was maybe a very improbable event but it happens and it happens here and we know that because here we are oh no they haven't no no certainly not saying they have but but he thinks they will and I I'm not as worried about that as I am about various other things he says both Dawkins and I haven't taken that on board because Dawkins claims that the god hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis which he believes to be false and it's a it's a scientific hypothesis that actually there are a lot of things in it I'd quarrel with but for the sake of arguments I I am saying I believe to be true so neither of us is saying that it is true or false Dawkins is saying that science will show that it's false and I'm saying that science will not show that it's false so we're both entirely consistent with a with a thoroughly Pope Arian line on falsification promise you well here is a fax that you will never be able to make well I agree that if you base your argument for the existence of God on the existence of miracles then you're going to have find that very sterile arguments almost immediately I agree but but that's not the argument I'm making and in fact nothing anywhere near that argument because I'm not sure I even believe in miracles so so I I completely agree that the miracle argument is there is a no-hoper the argument I'm going to give is completely different I think that the debate about what counts as scientific is of course underlying everything here because the two objections I'm going to look at ie folk psychology can be made respectable and folk psychology can be made redundant both going to rely on what recounts are scientifically respectable and what we can to scientifically but I think I'd better go through those arguments before we talk about the discussion underlying them if you see what I mean but please don't take me for someone who says I'm glad you asked that question because there are two objections that Dawkins would put to my case quite independently I mean there one is that he would say that I'm bringing the argument from personal incredulity ie I can't see how anything could possibly explain this except God therefore God okay and the other one is the God of the gaps which is oh look there's something that science can't explain therefore God must exist okay I hope you'll agree after my presentation that although I am saying that there's a gap that can't be filled by science mine is not a knee-jerk God of the gaps argument I'm not saying there's a gap God will fill it I hope you'll also although I am saying I can't see how science will ever explain this I hope you'll agree with me at the end of my lecture tonight that this is not a knee-jerk argument from personal incredulity and with that promissory note I'll have to leave you because I I can't go into the arguments now because we've only got five minutes left is that fair enough Dawkins pour scorn on a test that was done there was a control group and another group of people in hospital and the first group were prayed for the control group weren't prayed for and it was the question was did the ones who were prayed for get better any quicker and you'll be surprised to hear the answer is no yeah well and this shows that all right okay yes you're right I'm talking about that yes oh my god if I'm being prayed for I must be really ill I mean I think that is just I I'm sorry I just I can't take that seriously neither can Dawkins well I still think it's I still can't take it seriously one objection is there are too many variables but I just ah no David no well that may be a question you're interested in it's not one I'm looking at here I think if you really could show scientifically that prayers are not answered I mean I don't think you could but even if I mean well then why can't I just be a dist you know that God exists but he doesn't intervene I mean lots of people artists yeah yeah there was a question in the middle there was somebody I I did see you but there was someone who wasn't you sitting behind asking a question no oh right okay that's a good thing in a question Patrick and then given the arguments do you mind if I look at that later on because I think I mean I think actually something that seems likely to say later cuz I'm sure no I think that will come up later if you think sorry you said just know I believe in here's mysterious things you said and Dawkins refers to Einstein hmm no no and there's a lot of people now that work in the field complexity of stroke Outland but i'm not scientific reductionism sorry if they're not scientific documents and this there's something more than science there are other ways to know the world and they are desperately trying to avoid the work I saw something very funny about that the other day I lost that tomorrow because if I if I tell you because the god I believe in it's actually not very like a lot of other people's gods and I'm in talking in these lectures as if I believed in the God that everyone else believes in and because that's what Dawkins is doing yes I will yep yep one time for one more question try to get to talking define very narrow well I I'm not trying to prove another type of God except I mean you're quite right I mean God God I meant Dawkins then right now I've lost my thought now yeah okay there are lots of different arguments for the for the existence of God several of them tend to be the goddess theoretical entity argument that's the only argument we're dealing with here because actually that's the gods that sorry that's the argument for God's existence that Dawkins takes seriously but of course there are lots of other arguments for the existence of God and nothing that said here this weekend by me anyway is going to say anything against those arguments I actually I I'm actually quite sympathetic with the idea that God is a theoretical entity so I don't have a problem with that but you're quite right there are lots of other he's argue against the personal God personal God ie one that intervenes and yeah yeah yeah I mean I mean I think that's it said that in the god hypothesis didn't it so that the god hypothesis encapsulate what's Dawkins arguing against and what I'm arguing I'm not arguing for I'm arguing against Stalkings arguments against it if you see what I mean right that's it time for coffee

Channel: University of Oxford

Views: 15,003

Rating: 4.3584905 out of 5

Keywords: philosophy, atheism, Richard Dawkins, god, god delusion, logic, theism, religion

Id: wGrFm6q1REM

Length: 89min 58sec (5398 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2010