Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter (foreword by Rupert Sheldrake)

The new edition of Chris Carter's excellent book "Parapsychology and the Skeptics" will be available in March 15, 2012 with a new title "Science and the Psychic Phenomena: the Fall of the House of Skeptics".

This book is a must read for any person interested in the science of parapsychology and psychic research and how "professional skeptics" (=materialistic pseudoskeptics or materialistic ideologues) behave in order to suppress the scientific evidence which refutes materialism.

Stay tuned for more information on the new edition of this book.

Is God a Delusion? The Debate That Never Was: William Lane Craig vs Richard Dawkins? Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (October 25, 2011)

Richard Dawkins was invited by the Oxford student Christian Union to defend his book The God Delusion in public debate with William Lane Craig. The invitation remained open until the last minute. However, Dawkins refused the challenge and his chair remained empty. Craig then gave a lecture to a capacity audience on the weaknesses of the central arguments of the book and responded to a panel of skeptical academics. The event, which was chaired by atheist Prof. Peter Millican, was part of The Reasonable Faith Tour 2011 sponsored by UCCF, Damaris & Premier Christian Radio.

Debunking the UFO Debunkers - Stanton Friedman lecture

Nuclear Physicist-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear powerplants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian provinces and 18 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC, his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005. Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 3rd printing. His newest book, also co-authored with Kathleen Marden, is Science Was Wrong released in June 2010.

A brief comment about atheist Stephen Law's "the evil god challenge".

Atheist philosopher Stephen Law has written some technical and non-technical articles defending the so-called "evil god challenge", according to which the amount of good that we observe in the world is conclusive evidence that an "evil god" doesn't exist. The challenge (for theists) would be to explain why, in a similar fashion, the amount of evil that we see in the world is not conclusive evidence against the existence of a "good God".

Note that Law is not arguing for the existence of the evil god. He's simply saying that the reasons we have to reject the existence of the evil god are, mutatis mutandis, the same reasons we have to reject the existence of a good God. Therefore, the challenge to theists would be to explain why they accept the existence of a good God but reject the existence of an evil god.

In order to avoid misrepresentations of Dr.Law's argument, let's quote his own summary of the challenge: I simply take the evil god hypothesis (without arguing for it at all) and ask - is this god not pretty conclusively ruled out on the basis of the good we see? And if the answer is "yes", then I ask: "So why should we consider belief in a good god significantly more reasonable than this empirically ridiculous belief? That's the challenge I'm asking theists to meet.

Several problems affect Dr.Law's argument:

1-As Willian Lane Craig argued in his debate with Dr.Law, his challenge assumes that theists infer the "goodness" of God on the basis of an inductive survey of the good in the world. Therefore, the existence of the good would provide evidence for a good God. (Likewise, the existence of evil would provide evidence against the same good God).

But this is not the case. According to classical theism, God is by definition the most perfect being and this includes moral perfection. It implies that the notion of an "evil god" is incoherent, a contradictio in abjecto (similar to a "good Satan" or a "happy hell").

2-Dr.Law's argument assumes that the evil God hypothesis predicts a world without the amount of good we observe. Therefore, the evidence for the existence of the amount of good we observe is "conclusive evidence" against the existence of evil God hypothesis.

In the same inducitve way, the evidence for the evil that we observe is conclusive evidence against the hypothesis that God is good (because this hypothesis predicts, according to Dr.Law's implicit assumption, a world without the amount of evil that we actually observe. Therefore, the observation of such an evil is conclusive evidence against the hypothesis of a good God).

Note that Dr.Law's argument assumes that both hypotheses (the evil God and the good God) are empirically equivalent in regards to the existence of evils and goods in the world so whatever empirical reason you can pose against the evil God could be used to refute the good God too.

Again, it shows that Dr.Law's argument depends crucially on the assumption that the "goodness" of God is inferred by induction. Given that the world is morally ambiguous (it includes many evils and goods), induction cannot decide in favor of the evil God above the good God, or viceversa, and the evidence could be used both to refute the former as the latter.

3-As mentioned above, theists don't consider that the property of "goodness" is something that we infer by induction and observation of the world. Rather, God is good because metaphysically he is the most perfect being. (We could express this as a conditional: IF God exists, then he IS good. In the same way, if Satan exists, then he's BAD. If triangles exists, they have 3 angles and so forth.)

Talking of a "evil God" is so incoherent as talking of a "good Satan" or a "Christian atheist". Law arbitrarily misuses (or misunderstands) what theists conceived as "God".

Instead of talking of a "evil God", Law should talk of an "evil designer" (this is a logically coherent concept). And in this case, I agree that by observation of the world (and inductive inference from this) alone, it is not possible to discern if the designer of the world is an "evil designer" or if it is God (because the world is morally ambiguous).

4-At most, Dr.Law's challenge suggests the dificulty of using induction to discern an "evil designer" from God as the designer of the world. But his argument doesn't prove that God is in a metaphysical par with such an evil designer and therefore that the evidence for the evil is conclusive evidence against God in the same way that the existence of the good is conclusive evidence against an evil designer.

We could summarize Dr.Law's challenge in this way: "On inductive grounds, the morally ambiguous evidence that we observe in the world renders the hypothesis "An evil God exists" empirically on a par with the hypothesis "A good God exists", because the the good we observe refutes the former and the evil we observe refutes the latter".

The implication (and ultimate motivation of Dr.Law's argument) is that whatever argument we use to accept (or reject) the existence of a good God is, mutatis mutandis, a reason we could use to accept (or reject) the evidence for an evil God. He wants to create a stalemate regarding the hypothesis of God's existence, forcing theists to accept that the evidence for an evil God is so good (or so bad) as the hypothesis of a good God. Empirically they're on a par.

This is the "Dr.Law's challenge" for theists.

An again: the essential flaw of Dr.Law (mentioned by Craig in his debate and which Dr.Law couldn't refute) is that his entire challenge is based on the assumption that the moral properties of God are inferred on purely empirical-inductive survey of the evidence in the world and that given the evidence is morally ambiguous, both hypotheses (the evil God and the good God) are on a par.

Dr.Law strongly denies this. When I posed these arguments to him in Edward Feser's blog, Dr.Law replied: "Again no. I don't suppose the moral properties of god are inferred on empirical-inductive grounds. Obviously.

But I do assume that we can reasonably rule out SOME God hypotheses on empirical grounds. As indeed, does everyone, until that is, the penny drops... when suddenly they get hyper-skeptical like Craig did on the night.

Which is your prerogative too. But you'd better have a justification for that radical and highly counter-intutive degree of skepticism (that what we observe can gives us no clue AT ALL about the moral properties of god/s - good, bad or otherwise). Craig didn't. "

Note that he denies the contention that the moral properties of god are inferred by induction based on observation. But then he contradicts himself when he later concedes "But you'd better have a justification for that radical and highly counter-intutive degree of skepticism (that what we observe can gives us no clue AT ALL about the moral properties of god/s - good, bad or otherwise"

Then, are the moral properties of God based on observation (and hence, inferred by induction) or not? Which is Dr.Law's actual position?

In other words, he denies that the moral properties are inferred by induction of the observable world, but then suggest that our skepticism about the moral properties of God are unjustified because intuitively we recognize that the observation of the world (and the inductive inference based on it) DOES tell us something about the moral properties (good, bad or whatever) of God.

But our skepticism about the implications (to the moral properties of the designer) based on the moral evidence provided by the world is justified because the world is MORALLY AMBIGUOUS. The moral evidence is simply insufficient to settle the question about the moral properties of the designer (this is why theists in general don't appeal to this evidence to argue for God's moral properties. Rather, they defend different versions of the moral argumen showing that the existence of an objective, human mind-independent moral order, and hence of the evil as the antithesis and violation of that order, proves that God exists). You get a lot of good in this world, and a lot of evil too. How the hell, on pure inductive grounds, are you going to infer God's moral properties in a world with such a ambiguous evidence?

In other words, the evidence of the world actually tell us one thing, namely: that no rational conclusion about God's moral properties is possible based on such an ambiguous evidence. This is why theists don't infer God's "goodness" on purely inductive grounds, because on inductive grounds the only reasonable conclusion about the moral properties of God is skepticism. The skepticism about this point is a consequence of the ambiguity of the evidence, not an arbitrary assumption by the theist.

Let's consider an analogy:

Suppose that you're testing a parapsychological claim (let's say telepathy). And you get 100 technically correct and competently done studies, 50 of which gave positive evidence for telepathy and 50 of which gave negative evidence. Are justified in inferring that "telepahty exists" or "telepathy doesn't exist" based on such an evidence? Obviously not, the evidence is ambiguous, it includes positive and negative support alike, and from this evidence the only reasonable position is agnosticism/skepticism: we don't know, based on such studies, if telepathy exists or not.

Note that in this case your skepticism about the claim "telepathy exists" is not a purely arbitrary assumption, but a consquence of the existence of ambiguous and conflicting evidence supporting the claim.

Likewise, the the world is morally ambiguous (it includes good and evil), how the hell are you going to infer God's moral properties from this alone? Unless you assume that a good God must necessarily create a physical world in which the amount of good be superior than evil, then the ambiguous evidence would provide evidence against such a God.

But in theism, our lives are not limited to this one (the life on Earth is just a infinitesimal part of our overall existence, which extends beyond this life to the afterlife). Therefore, even if the amount of evil in this world were superior than the amount of good, it could be the case that in the afterlife the amount of good were infinitely superior to any finite evil that we experienced in this finite physical life.

This is why I agree with Craig that Law has the burden of proof regarding the claim that God cannot have any morally permisible reasons to enable the evil in this finite world. As far I know, no atheist philosopher has provided such reasons.

So, the skepticism regarding the designer's moral properties inferred by induction and observation alone is not arbitrary nor counter-intuitive, but that it is based on the fact that the finite world that we observe is morally ambiguous, so no inductive survey of the world can settle the questions about the moral properties of the designer.

Therefore, that God is good is not a matter of induction, but it is essential to the concept of God as the most perfect being. Hence, if such a being exists, then he IS good.

Hear the recent Craig vs Law debate here:

Why is there something rather than nothing? Intellectual genius Richard Dawkins responds the fundamental question of philosophy!

To be fair, you have to realize that Richard Dawkins is not a philosopher, he's a zoologist. So, Dawkins' response is completely out of his intellectual training and expertise.

What is astonishing to me is that Dawkins has not been able to recognize the fallacy of his answer (It suggests either intellectual dishonesty or simply stupidity on his part, or both). He seems to believe that has gotten a knock-down argument against the existence of God (or God as an explanatory hypothesis).

Oxford Atheist philosopher Daniel Came (being academically trained in philosophy) comments on Dawkins' main argument (which he repeats in the above video in a modified version in order to response the fundamental question of philosophy):

Dawkins maintains that we're not justified in inferring a designer as the best explanation of the appearance of design in the universe because then a new problem surfaces: who designed the designer? This argument is as old as the hills and as any reasonably competent first-year undergraduate could point out is patently invalid. For an explanation to be successful we do not need an explanation of the explanation. One might as well say that evolution by natural selection explains nothing because it does nothing to explain why there were living organisms on earth in the first place; or that the big bang fails to explain the cosmic background radiation because the big bang is itself inexplicable.

As Came's realizes, if Dawkins' argument were correct, then:

-Natural selection explains nothing because it doesn't explain why there were living organisms on earth in the first place.

-The big bang theory explains nothing because the big bang itself doesn't have any explanation.

I'd add the following couple of examples:

1-In 1983/84, when HIV was discoveried and the HIV theory of AIDS was formulated, the origin of HIV was unknown and hence unexplained. Therefore, the HIV theory of AIDS explains nothing! Or to use Dawkins' phraseology and stupid way of thinking: "Even if HIV were postulated to exist, it doesn't explains absolutely anything because you left without an explanation of HIV itself." (Is it a good scientific or philosophical objection to the HIV theory of AIDS? Do you need an explanation of HIV itself in order to conclude, if the evidence is good, that HIV is the "probable cause of AIDS" as Robert Gallo declared in 1984? Obviously not. Only atheists like Dawkins and his "fans" would accept such an intellectually ridiculous and spurious objection, what tell us something about the psychology of atheists and their intellectual powers).

2-After his debate with John Lennox, Dawkins was interviewed and asked about the origin of life on Earth. Dawkins reportedly said that "he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet."

Now, using Dawkins' own assumptions in his argument against God, we could say "Dawkins, your alien creationist hypothesis doesn't explain absolutely anything because the aliens in question remain themselves unexplained"

Reflecting hard and in a charitable way about Dawkins' argument, I've concluded that Dawkins is stupid in the literal sense of the word (stupid = very dull in mind). He's simply incapable of sophisticated intellectual thinking and even of recognizing obvious fallacies. He's stupid. (And by extension, I assume until proved wrong that most of Dawkins' "fans" are stupid too, because it is irrational and stupid to be an intellectual fan of an intellectually stupid person).

I've found a similar stupidity in other atheists (remember the "What caused God" objection posed by some of them against the cosmological argument), and this "atheistic stupidity pattern" strongly suggest something about the psychology of hard-core atheists. This why currently I'm convinced that hard-core atheists have a kind of intellectual and cognitive impairment, which makes them incapable of thinking rationally.

Their intelligence only reach to the most superficial level on difficult topics.

I'll comment more on the psychology of atheists in future posts.

Richard Dawkins supports infanticide of innocent babies with incurable diseases

Euan Squires and the quantum mechanics arguments for God's existence

The late agnostic physicist Euan Equires wrote in his book "The Mystery of the Quantum World" two plausible scientific arguments for God's existence based on quantum mechanics (or more exactly, two technical ways in which God could play a role in quantum mechanics. A more formal argument in this line, and reply to potential objections, would require a more detailed philosophical-conceptual analysis, which I'll develop in future posts).

Squires' first scientific argument is this:

Quantum theory offers at least two possible roles for a ‘God’, where we use this term for a being that is non-physical, nonhuman, in some sense superhuman, and is conscious. The first role is to make the ‘choices’ that are required whenever a measurement is made that selects from a quantum system one of the possible outcomes. Such a God would remove the indeterminacy from the world by taking upon himself those decisions that are not forced by the rules of physics. Although expressed in nontraditional terms, this is reasonably in accordance with the accepted role of a God. He would be very active in all aspects of the world, and would be totally omnipotent within the prescribed limits. Prediction of his behaviour from the laws of physics would be impossible (note that we are not permitting any hidden variables in this chapter), although from both the theological and the scientific viewpoint we would want to believe that there were reasons for at least some of the choices; otherwise we would be back with random behaviour and the God would not have played any part. It is interesting to note that this role might even permit ‘miracles’, if we were to regard these as events so highly unlikely that they would be effectively impossible without very specific, and unusual, ‘divine’ choice. For example, according to quantum theory, there must be a small, but non-zero, probability that if I run into a wall, then I will pass right through it. This is a special case of the potential barrier experiment and the wavefunction on the left-hand side, corresponding to transmission, is never quite zero. Then, however small the probability for transmission might be, a God would be able to select it as the outcome, if he so chose. (pp.66-67)

According to this first argument:

1)God could intervene making the choices required each time a measurement is done in order to select an specific outcome (note that, as Squires realize, this would refute the indeterminism which is thought to be esssential to QM, at least in the standard orthodox interpretation. I think the refutation of indeterminism in this level is reasonable because, if God exists, his creation couldn't be dependent on wholly random phenomena in the quantum level).

2)God's essential attribute of omnipotence would be preserved (so, making full justice to the classical concept of God). Other attributes like non-physicality, consciousness, superhuman, etc. are preserved too. (Note that no one of God's attributes implied in this argument conflicts with the classical attributes that theology posits as belonging to God).

Rather, these attributes strongly suggest that we're not dealing with an human-like form of consciousness, but with consciousness with superlative attributes which have been typically reserved to God as the ultimate perfect being.

3)Even miracles would be possible, again vindicating the classical concept of God who intervenes, by his own decisions, in events in this world.

I think this argument could be developed in detail and in a logically rigurous way.

Squires' second argument (which is largely independent of the first one) is this:

The second possible role for a God to play in quantum theory is more relevant to our principal topic. God might be the conscious observer who is responsible for the reduction of wavefunctions. Whether, in addtion, he also decides the outcome of his observations, as in the above paragraph, or whether this is left to chance is not important here. What is important is the fact that God must be selective-he must not reduce all wavefunctions automatically, otherwise we meet the same problem that we met when discussing modifications to the Schrodinger equation in $3.7: the reduction that is required depends on the observation that we are going to make. If, for example, a reduction to figure 16 is made, then there will be no possibility of interference, whereas a human observer might decide to do the interference experiment. It is therefore necessary that the God who reduces wavefunctions, and so allows things to happen in the early universe, in particular things that might be required in order for other conscious observers to exist, should know about these other observers and should know what they intend to measure. God must in some way be linked to human consciousness. (pp.67-68. Emphasis in blue added)

This argument is, in my view, stronger than the first one. But Squires doesn't formulate it in its strongest version. In my opinon, the possible theistic implications of Squires' second argument are more obvious when we asked for the reduction of wavefunctions of the universe as a whole (and hence, previous to the existence of human or extraterrestial (conscious) beings).

We could argue like this:

1-Concious observation is needed to the reduction of the wavefunctions in the origin of the universe.

2-Human (and alien, if they exist) concious observers are posterior to the origin of the Universe (i.e. the concrete physical world existed before the emergence of human or alien consciousness)

3-Therefore, human (and alien) conscious observers are not the cause of the reduction of the wavefunctions in the origin of the universe (the latter is previous to the emergence of human and alien beings).

This implies that a nonhuman, non-physical consciousness is the cause of the reduction of the wavefunction of the whole universe.

It points out to a being which is:

1-Non-physical (since it is the cause of the physical world). Note that if this being were physical (embodied), then we are confronted again with the problem of which conscious observation produced the reduction of the wavefunctions necessary to the existence of his physical body.

2-Timeless (since it is the cause of the universe, and hence of physical time). Being "timeless", it is argueably eternal, since eternity has been classically understood as either 1)Existing in each point of time; or 2)Existing independently of time (i.e. as trascendent regarding to the physical time).

3-Spaceless (since it is the cause of the universe, and hence of the physical space)

4-Conscious (otherwise, not reduction of the wavefunction would be possible).

5-Intentional (since such consciousness cannot reduce all the wavefunctions simultaneously, but only some of them selectively which implies concrete intentions. If conciousness without intention were sufficient to collapse the wave function, then the selectivity mentioned by Squieres would be inexplicable. This point seems to refute some of the versions of "universal consciousness" who see it as purely impersonal consciousness, "all are one" and other argueably unintelligible slogans common in some mystical, Hegelian, Wilberian, and new age circles).

6-Personal (given point 5), since essential to a person is the property of having ends, desires, purposes and intentions (all of the which implies selectivity regarding specific ends or purposes). It is not a purely undifferentiated or impersonal consciousness (whatever it means), but a personal consciousness. We are dealing with a non-physical being which is a person with concrete purposes and intentions.

All the above properties seem to be much like the personal God as understood in classical theism. Again, crucial to the argument is the implication that it is not mere "consciousness" in any undifferentiated, impersonal, collectivistic or mystical sense, but argueably a "personal consciousness". And this cannot be human consciousness, since the concrete universe that we're trying to explain preceded the emergence of humans and other conscious beings (e.g. intelligent physical aliens, if they exist).

It could be replied that perhaps multiple spirits or souls existed before the origin of the universe; and they were responsible for the creation of the universe (this is the view of L.Ron Hubbard and some others) but who argue for this polytheistic view has the burden of proof that it is the case, and moreover Occkam's Razor suggests that positing ONE personal being (instead of an arbitrary number of particular beings) as the responsible for the origin of the physical world is more parsimonious than positing many gods or god-like entities.

So, it seems we have two plausible and very good scientific arguments for God's existence based on quantum mechanics, being the second one far better than the first one.

Atheist philosopher (a sophisticated defender of atheism) Quentin Smith comments:

According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the wave function needs to be collapsed by something outside the system being measured. The wave function of the universe, accordingly, needs to be collapsed by something outside the universe. Now most versions of the Copenhagen Interpretation regard the observer (often explicitly identified with consciousness) as what collapses the wave function. In this respect, the cosmological application of the Copenhagen Interpretation may reasonably be thought to posit God (or a disembodied person who has superhuman attributes) outside the universe. Indeed, it seems to be the best scientific argument for God which is present in the twentieth century science. (Theism, Atheism and the Big Bang Cosmology, p. 325. Emphasis in blue added)

So, if the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM (which sees consciousness as that which collapses the wave function) is true, then we have a purely scientific argument for the existence of God.

In order to deny this conclusion, atheists would have to challenge the Copenhagen Interpretation (an interpretation which they endorse when criticizing the causal principle "whatever begins to exist has a cause", because they falsely think that indeterminism posed by that interpretation implies non-causality regarding the origin of contingent substances. But this endorsement open the door to a new and independent argument for God's existence, so atheists seem to be caught in a kind of dilemma in this point).

Truth-seekers will follow the evidence whenever it leads; hard-core atheists and naturalistic ideologues will follow the evidence except when it refutes atheism (in this case, they become highly skeptical of current scientific theories... as an example, see atheist philosopher Peter Millican's skeptical arguments on contemporary scientific cosmology in his recent debate with William Lane Craig).

In future posts I hope to develop even more these arguments and consider what kind of objections (and replies to the objections) could be posed against them.