From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Jul 04 2002 - 13:27:04 MDT
I write reviews for a hobby, and sometimes they get published. Here what I
wrote about Taner's book. In the acknowledgements, this list gets a thank
you, so well done, all.
I think it's good! Congratulations, Taner, and please quash pride and feel
free to abridge the review for an entry into the Skeptic Bibliography. And
best wishes for a joyous wedding and marriage.
I will be putting a shortened form of this review onto the book's Amazon
page. If you wish to put up some positive votes for my review, they will
counter the inevitable negative ones from you-know-who.
---Rob
------
There is an ancient joke from the days of computer punch cards. Technicians
finally wired together the most powerful computer in the world. Super-fast
and with every sort of knowledge in its memory banks, it was set to answer
any question. As an initial test, the techs decided to give it the biggest
question of all, the one people have been working on for as long as they
have been thinking: "Is there a God?" The tech typed in the question, the
rows of lights blinked on and off and the reels of tape ran through.
Finally the paper tape reeled out of the computer with the answer typed on
it: "THERE IS NOW."
Taner Edis has the answer to the big question, and he is qualified to submit
an answer, given the amount of thinking he has done on it. A physicist, he
has for years run the cerebral and entertaining e-mail Skeptic Discussion
List (see www.csicop.org/bibliography/list.html), which is devoted to the
discussion (read "debunking") of such topics as astrology, psychic powers,
creation "science," miracles, and more. So you can probably guess where he
stands: There are thousands of gods you don't believe in, and chances are he
believes in even fewer than you. In _The Ghost in the Universe: God in the
Light of Modern Science_ (Prometheus Books), his first book, he tells why he
thinks that a naturalistic view, based on science, is a better explanation
for what we experience in the world than any reach for spiritual answers.
It is clear, wide-ranging, and intelligent, and it brings in topics from
philosophy and science explained at a level accessible to readers with no
expertise in those fields. It perhaps will swing no one from the spiritual
camp, but those who wish to stay within it with intellectual vigor will do
well to examine the arguments here.
Refreshingly, this is not just another examination of religion versus
science. Edis starts with an admission that accepting that the world is a
godless, accidental place seems crazy and against common sense, but it is
one that has had more evidence for it as the centuries have gone by. He
begins with the philosophical arguments about God. The proofs are here: "A
perfect being must exist, since if it did not, it would not be perfect.
Having made God pop into existence by sheer force of logic, we now break out
the champagne." This is the sort of proof atheists have been poking holes
in for years. I doubt that anyone suddenly starts believing in any god
because of such a proof, but as Edis points out, the equivalent disproofs
(for instance, "No perfect deity can create evil") are not likely to turn
anyone into a nonbeliever. Edis is skeptical that we will gain much
knowledge from philosophical arguments one way or the other, but would do
better to examine the idea of a universe with God as the main actor; this is
the sort of God in which many people believe, the one who created and
maintains the universe.
Unfortunately for such beliefs, discoveries in physics, astronomy, and
biology have given such a God less and less to do. The skill of God in
using circles, the perfect shape, as the path of planets around the sun used
to be much admired, until it was discovered that they did not move in
circles. Then the godly miracle was that all the planets revolved around
the sun in the same plane, perfection compared to having them zip over and
under like cartoon pictures of The Atom. Physical laws, however, dictate
that just this near-planar alignment should occur. The Newtonian revolution
turned many intellectuals into Deists who thought that God had started the
Universe, only to let it run on without further interference. The argument
that there has to be a first cause God is a strong one that withers under
quantum physics. We are used, in day to day life, to examining causes and
effects, but we are guilty of looking only in our own scale of neighborhood.
In the quantum world, things happen without being caused, and the Big Bang
was a quantum event; the chain back to the first cause is broken.
Of course Evolution is covered, in only a chapter, which shows that Edis's
book is about much more. Life is surely complicated, but it does not need a
guiding hand. It needs randomness. The randomness can be harnessed to
ratchet up to increasing complexities. This is not a godly randomness; we
cannot conclude that a god has made the randomness just so, for not only
would that be causal design and therefore not really random, but more
importantly, the inference that such a god is tinkering in such a way cannot
improve our understanding of how the world works. Physics has shown our
world as a framework for random accidents; it is not a purposeful place.
But our purpose is essential in the views of scriptural history, and
generally people do not believe in a god derived from natural science but
one from scripture. One of the strong points of Edis's book is that he is
not only well acquainted with Bible scripture, but with Quranic scripture as
well. The archeology that is currently showing the lack of historical
accuracy in the Old Testament stories is not emphasized, but more
importantly, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian history are demonstrated to be
human creations. The stories in the scriptures were not historical
accounts, but tales with a theological point. It is clear that such figures
as Jesus and Mohammed had some sort of religious experience, but so do those
who, for instance, gain wisdom by astral travel to other planets. Religions
are built on supernatural explanations of these experiences, and historical
accidents involving national might and economics take over to make them
influential.
We could accept that a God was present and pushing the world along if there
were some interruption in the natural flow, some miracle or paranormal
event. The eagerness to believe in such events is very high, but the
evidence is extraordinarily low: "Those of us who are stubborn skeptics,
well, we get along without magic. And late at night we sometimes wish we
could still storms and read minds." Wishes are insufficient; psychological
and neurological evidence indicates that our brains are engaged in examining
an unmagical world, and spirits, souls, or direct contact with some ultimate
reality are all equally unlikely.
Edis discusses the idea that science is overrated; the fundamentalists have
been saying this for a long time, and have recently gotten support in this
particular idea (although they might not like to acknowledge it) from
postmodern philosophy. Belief in science may just be a social construct
arbitrarily chosen, with no inherently better ability to explain the world
than an equally arbitrary fundamentalism. Edis shows that there is not a
transcendental guarantee "out there" that reason, evidence, and
replicablility are the best way of looking at the world, but there still are
no real competitors. Similarly, he sees no transcendent moral reality, no
good and evil "out there"; morals instead are a product of our genes and our
social, collective effort to live together and incorporate conflicting
interests.
Believers should be grateful that they have such a gentle critic. It could
only be a fundamentalist of insecure faith who would accuse Edis of trashing
religion. In fact, in intelligent opposition, Edis has shown a great deal
of respect for the religious view. He also reveals himself to be a fan of
the stories religions tell, because they can explain a good deal about
ourselves. Most will think that this will be giving the stories too little
credit, but as he repeatedly says in acknowledging how little certainty we
have, it is good enough. His book is certainly good enough to benefit
believers and nonbelievers alike.
--
Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, [Cochise County] Arizona (USA)
Primary: < fortean1@mindspring.com >
Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com >
Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html >
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