Eugene Curry and Garret Merriam Debate Does Science Point to the Existence of God

[@Pawg_Alf]

Welcome back, I was afraid you'd left us for the real world for good

[@malchir4036]

Let me predict how this is going to go before watching: the theist isn't going to argue any science at all, he's going to argue kalam and try to connect it to the big bang, and the argument from design with lots of preaching.

[@malchir4036]

+Angelus Dobari I even got the order right because that's how it is in the scripts you can buy at apologetics class.

[@TheSkaffen]

The atomic and cellular underpinning of physical and biological systems, clearly show that the complex universe *emerges from* simpler systems. - It is a bottom-up universe, not top-down. Hydrogen *to* humans.

[@tingoorensis]

Well done Garret and Eugene, I can see you're both very knowledgeable and yet more so for the humble, civil, approach which made this debate very informing, interesting and thought provoking... which should be the entire point! In this format we don't have to suffer so much dogma and polarisation, your civil approach allowed the product of reason to become transparent instead.

[@tn9711]

Welcome back!

[@Josh-su1us]

huge fan of all your lectures and your side of this debate - some constructive criticism - i think you need to slow down your delivery quite a lot

[@TheBlidget]

I'm just now (over a year later) watching the last half of this debate. I must say you really wreaked him in the Q&A section.

[@TheBlidget]

by this I mean the directed Q&A

[@Konsaki]

Opening Argument Delivery Critique: During your opening argument/discussion, I found it very hard to latch onto the points you were trying to make due to 2 main reasons: you were constantly stuttering or you jumping out of your point to either thank the audience or make a preemptive defensive statement. I will not claim to be a master at debating, though I have myself experienced the stress of speaking to a nominally hostile crowd, but I would recommend finding a way to clear up these impediments to your delivery.

[@thijsjong]

The fine tuning argument again. Sigh. And the assumption that the universe has a beginning. Yes it is backed up by science. The big bang is to me just how far we can reconstruct time and space into the past.

[@ianyboo]

Eugene presented arguments that boiled down to "here is a fact about the universe that we don't have an explanation for, this points to 'god' as a possible explanation..." which is as clear a god of the gaps style argument as I've ever seen. the question is, how can Eugene not see what he is doing? He seems like a really intelligent and thoughtful guy but his arguments are almost painful obvious "gods of the gaps"

[@Ansatz66]

+Ian G "Here is a fact about the universe that we don't have an explanation for, this points to 'god' as a possible explanation..." That's not what Eugene was doing. Instead, Eugene was cherry-picking a few features of God that seem to correspond to something that science has discovered. In the case of the Big Bang, he was very successful at that. Whether the Big Bang was really the beginning of the universe or not, it certainly styles itself like a beginning for the universe, and theists have been saying that the universe had a beginning for many thousands of years. That forces us to ask if theists somehow knew that the Big Bang was out there to be discovered, or if it was just a lucky guess. If they knew, then we surely have to rule out the possibility of ancient astronomers somehow discovering it thousands of years before the invention of the telescope. That leaves us with either a supernatural revelation or a visit from advance extraterrestrials. On the other hand, we wouldn't need much luck to guess that the universe had a beginning. The universe either had a beginning or it was infinite in the past, so it's a multiple choice question with only two answers. Suppose you flipped a coin and I correctly predicted that the head side would be up. Does that point to me having a supernatural revelation about the coin flip? If not, then how many coin flips in a row would I have to predict before you'd start seriously considering the supernatural? What Eugene is doing is jumping to the supernatural on the basis of one coin flip, but at least it's not totally ridiculous. The fine-tuning argument is far worse than an argument from ignorance. Fine-tuning actually illustrates how science contradicts the existence of God. When Eugene says that life could not exist if the strength of gravity were different, he is implicitly saying that God does not exist. Obviously God could arrange for us to exist if gravity were different. Perhaps there would be no stars in the universe, but God could obviously give us electricity, heaters, grow lights, and whatever else we need to survive without stars. Every time science says that something is impossible, science is also saying that God is not real, since all things are possible for God. To be fair to Eugene, we should take a more generous view of what science is saying. Instead of saying that life could not exist without the fine-tuning of the universe, let's suppose that science is saying that the universe is fine-tuned to be exactly where it needs to be for life to exist without divine intervention. That way science isn't denying the possibility of miracles, but on the other hand it's now saying that we live in exactly the sort of universe that we would need for our form of life to exist without God. If we assume that God does not exist, then we have to expect that we'll find we live in a universe that does not require God, and Eugene has helpfully drawn attention to the fact that we find exactly that in the fine-tuning of the universe. Eugene's final argument is the exact opposite of an argument from ignorance. He's arguing that the universe is rationally transparent. In other words, the fact that we find ourselves able to understand everything points to a universe designed by a mind akin to our own minds. The blazing obvious problem with this argument is that we don't understand everything; the universe is full of mysteries. What little we understand even now has taken us many thousands of years, and for most of that time we didn't even have the concept of science. It's like painting a fence with a toothbrush; you can do it, but it is clearly the wrong tool for the job and it will make the work long and hard.

[@itsjustameme]

Haha - got around to watching the rest of the debate. During the back and forth when he said that the "aliens created the universe" hypothesis was an ad hoc hypothesis to counter theism I almost choked on my tea. To me theism is a ridiculously and toe-crindingly ad hoc hypothesis to begin with - more or less on par with saying that the missing underwear in my drawer is proof of the underpants-gnome, because an underpants-gnome is just the sort of thing that would steal my underwear.

[@bonnie43uk]

Eugene's arguments did have an element of logic to them from the view of a non scientific person listening to him, it sounds plausible for some kind of deistic God to have a hand in this, although it's not something I'd subscribe to. It gets a lot lot harder to agree with his view though when you add the characters of Yahweh and Jesus into the mix of the vastness of the universe. I liked the rainbow analogy aswell, if we'd have accepted the biblical view of why there are rainbows and not investigated further, we'd still be living a pretty basic existence. Honest doubt and inquiry has taken mankind beyond our planet. Good shout out for Wild strawberries.

[@TheBlidget]

sisyphus do you do public debates often?

[@Sidnelsom]

Why do you sound so nervous on this debate? Its great that you are back posting videos!

[@Galakyllz]

+Sidnei B. I agree, he did seem a bit nervous. Maybe it's been a while since he's done public speaking. Either way, I still enjoyed the debate.

[@itsjustameme]

Oh man - this guy you are debating is the master of after-rationalization. He started out pretty OK by explaining how one could empirically investigate a hypothesis and then he went on to revisit a number of the cases where the religious hypothesis he is backing had been disconfirmed CLAIMING that it had been a perfect match every time.

[@derre98]

As an atheist, I think the theist did unusually well in this debate, or perhaps the atheist just didn't do well enough, it's a bit matter of perspective ofc. I think the beginning of the universe and the rational transparency are not good arguments, but the fine tuning argument which was perhaps the most convincing one should have and could have been debunked better. I'm less interested in reverse arguments from atheists as I don't feel they are necessary, but debunking theists arguments I find somewhat worthwhile. The pi-argument is cool, I've thought about it before myself as well. The funny thing is that to fair extent science is actually done from armchairs and who's to say it can't go all the way. Theoretical physics has always gone a long way from a very few empirical observations. Maybe the only thing we actually need to observe is where we are now relative to the whole (and that's what the experiments in some sense are in fact doing), because our mind can only tell us what the universe is like, not where we are now. Then the counter argument goes that if the universe brings forth consciousness because it's necessary, one is 2/3 of the way to the ontological argument because one is saying personhood is written into the fabric of logic itself. I have no problem with this. I would only say it's necessary that a universe which supports computation will eventually evolve deterministically into a state where it has units computing something we today call consciousness. Nothing to do with god.

[@themaverickfan]

welcome back!! GAAAAAH

You need to make more videos dude...

[@tiberiusvetus9113]

Fine tuning is already 100% expected on naturalism. It cannot be any more expected on theism. So even if fine tuning is 100% expected on theism, it is of no consequence from a Bayesian perspective.

[@jessesipprell]

+Tiberius Vetus Is it expected on naturalism? I suppose it depends on your definition of "expected". The mathematics underlying fine tuning are empirical facts (apparent fine tuning is an interpretation of the facts), and we don't currently have models that explain all of these facts. For example, the ratio of the strength of the electromagnetic force to the strength of the gravitational force between any two protons. Whether or not it is finely tuned, we lack a testable theoretical model that explains why it is invariant or bounded to a maximum value (yet we know it must be bounded) so therefore it is "unexpected". Unexpected in a fashion similar to the way the orbital precession of Mercury was unexpected prior to Relativity; we knew that the actual precession differed slightly from what was predicted by classical mechanics as an observable fact, but we could not offer a testable explanation for that state of affairs.

[@daleg.9673]

Eugene made convincing arguments that went largely unrefuted, while Garret played the inoffensive opponent who does not argue so well that he seriously challenges the beliefs of the audience.

[@brendarua01]

+Dale Eugene only made analogies. Analogy and Metaphor can shine a light on things. But they can mislead. And they are not proof. In this sense there is nothing to refute. But you may well feel unsatisfied by Garret's efforts.

[@Starcrash6984]

I think Eugene Curry won this hands down. He clearly has much more debate experience, and it shows in his organization and pacing. I think both sides' arguments had serious flaws, but being an atheist, I'd rather pick on Eugene's. Eugene Curry was a Texas Sharpshooter. It was interesting to see him try to make predictions about what science could discover about God, because I don't think anyone would have predicted what we found. As all of us atheists have encountered, there are theists who object to all of these conclusions _precisely because_ they contradict what they would predict given their worldview. The fundamentalists I know think the universe is thousands of years old, that life was created within a week after that, and think that God can't and shouldn't be "reasoned", and they predict that science will prove these eventually. If he wasn't a sharpshooter, then he'd agree that the God hypothesis was a bad one before science validated any of these conclusions he used as an example. The findings of natural philosophy before the Renaissance would have supported the atheists worldview as more likely than the theistic. But I doubt he'd believe that. We should expect that -- as he pointed out, atheistic scientists probably didn't come to that conclusion due to the science. As he didn't point out, theistic scientists also probably didn't come to their conclusions due to the science; it simply doesn't lead one to believe in God.

[@ianyboo]

Anyone else catch that Eugene constantly said "he" when talking about the existence of a god? Does this mean that there are goddesses out there that his god can potentially mate with? Is Eugene a polytheist? Eugene also talks about "the universe" as if ours was the only one. How did he determine that this was the only universe? We used to think there was only one planet, only one sun, only one moon, and only one galaxy. But we were wrong in *every single case.* For Eugene to assert that there is only *"one universe"* after so many past failures from others asserting similar kinds of things seems monumentally myopic.

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

+Ian G The multiverse hypothesis is brought up later on in the debate.

[@ianyboo]

SisyphusRedeemed it was a great debate, I'm going to watch it again later with my wife. Thanks for sharing it! Also on a semi-related note have you read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? (check it out if you have not, it's written by Eliezer Yudkowsky the founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, I think you would really enjoy it)

[@Carutsu]

+Ian G "Anyone else catch that Eugene constantly said "he" when talking about the existence of a god? Does this mean that there are goddesses out there that his god can potentially mate with? Is Eugene a polytheist?" No quite, most christians would talk about god as a he. No polytheism required

[@denyswilliams7439]

Garret is back, we're saved -- haha. I thought Eugene was really measured: what a talented speaker. If only he could be turned to the dark side...

[@brendarua01]

The universe evinces design by committee if it was designed at all. As a member of too many committees i am certain of that much ;)

[@ianyboo]

I just finished watching this debate for the second time with my wife, really fantastic stuff. Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig have a similar on KZbin that is also worth checking out for anyone interested.

[@Sinnessa]

+Ian G That's one of my fave debates. W L Craig was totally out of his depth against an actual physicist. A physicist that just so happens to be a fantastic communicator of physics, too.

[@boumbh]

1:29:09 Pi, like e, i or 1 is not variable. It’s a well defined real number. I understand your point but I think it’s elusive and does not counter the argument. I know that I know nothing. What is wrong about thinking that the unlikeliness of our existence is irrelevant (in this debate) given that we actually exist?

[@drfoxcourt]

Where in the Bible does it say that the Universe is existentially dependent on God (Specific wording required, not cheating by bending "In the beginning was the word, and the word was God." into a logical syllogism, since 'the word' is not 'God')? Furthermore, the question of what 'caused' the Universe is not solved by the big bang theory. Without time, which we assume to have an end point at the point where the mathematics fails, there can be no cause. The best we can say is that we don't know. God is an assumption not in evidence.

[@MindOfFoolio]

TBH, I don't think you did a good job here.. You should've stressed how the facts Eugene brought don't point to a God because they make unwarranted assumptions, yet you presented it as if he did make warranted assumptions but that they just don't prove 100% that God exists if only future scientific discoveries can prove and disprove certain facts and assumptions. Eugene even summarized the debate as such and although he's wrong philosophically and scientifically, I can't blame him given the way you've presented things. I recommend watching how Sean Carrol debates Craig for example.

[@synchronium24]

+Foolio Which of Eugene's assumptions do you think are unwarranted? (I am an atheist. Not that it should matter.)

[@itsjustameme]

Finally I find it incredibly disingenuous that Eugene hammers string theory so hard for being unfalsifiable while at the same time holding to a hypothesis that is at least as if not more unfalsifiable. How does one test the validity of the god hypothesis? Like you have repeatedly pointed out believers have a tendency to move the goalposts every time we gain new understanding about the universe and at present they have moved them so far out of the field that I'm having a hard time thinking of thinking up a way to test the hypothesis.

[@morpheuskibbe]

YOU LIIIIIVEEEEE

[@rationalmartian]

I think Garret was a little too nice, and it left Eugene in a position where he couldn't employ the level of dishonesty that they usually tend to. Though he did throw in a little in his closing. I was particularly taken almost at the end of his closing, where he said, "well, we'll look at and use the science we have now and if it changes in 50 years, we'll think again...blah blah blah. Where as IF he were actually being honest, he would have finished it, and said; "if in 50 years it changes, we will find another gap or anomaly to shoehorn our idea of a deity into, all over again, as theists have done since time immemorial". The gall and temerity, to say that and seriously not expect people to realise. But too be fair. Eugene was one of the most honest and reasonable I have heard in quite some time.

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

+rationalmartian The debate was at a seminary, and the audience was entirely people from the local religious community. I place a premium on civility, but I was also taking my audience into account. Were it more of a mixed crowd I may have been a bit more aggressive (but still civil.)

[@GeneticJulia]

+SisyphusRedeemed That explains why you keep saying that god can still be meaningful in your life :P You were both very nice to each other. Perhaps a bit overly so, but given the situation that makes sense.

[@Bonko78]

+rationalmartian I also think he was a bit too endearing and overly cautious not to offend anyone. Civility is certainly a virtue however, and it did seem to rub off on Eugene, which is a good thing. But it was a shame that the conversation in the middle wasn't longer. In fact, I would have preferred the whole interaction to be in the format of a conversation instead of a debate. It makes me so impatient to listen in silence to point after point that I would want to refute. I admire Garrets patience and fortitude here.

[@pizzasandwich5879]

I think that there was a problem with the fact that general probability was allowed as a means to trojan horse the god hypothesis. If the only alternative possibility is purely statistical random chance, then sure, it's implausible. But as an explanation of any event, purely random chance is unfathomable as a description since we have mechanistic processes. I feel like you should have dismissed that outright, and also dismissed the Big Bang as the origin model on the basis that within the Planck dimensions, the physical models break down and fail to provide us any further information. We don't just not know what happened at T=0, we don't know what happened in the subminutia of what happened prior to T=0. On that basis, the most reasonable conclusion is "I don't know," not "God had to absolutely and positively be the creator of the universe." I think if you had pressed that better, you wouldn't be faced with his closing statements at 1:15:45. Also, as far as his metaphor of a glass breaking upstairs and finding the glass shards, we're talking about an event that happened 13.7 billion years ago. That's complete reaching. It's far more reasonable to withhold making a conclusion about something that happened 13.7 billion years ago when all matter in the universe was compressed into a tiny singularity than it is to speculate about something that you heard happening upstairs 10 seconds prior with observable and obvious after effects. It's called a standard of evidence, and it's why criminal courts tend to employ beyond a reasonable doubt standards.

[@HumblyQuestioning]

It's not that these theistic arguments aren't convincing, it's that they seem ridiculous and almost completely detached from the scientific method. For example, on theism god can literally do anything including suspending or breaking any scientific law. So even if the many constants cited by fine tuning were different there is no reason to believe god couldn't just do magic and make life identical to what we see in this universe, regardless of constants. So the on theism, the probability of life is 1 on an infinite number of universes with wildly different constants than our Universe. This predicts absolutely nothing. Or that something has a beginning implies…a creator? A virtual particle pair has a beginning so it has a creator? Then comes the near complete lack evidence in the form of prediction. Jesus in alien civilizations? That's a practically untestable hypothesis to avoid the conclusion atheism is true. And Luke Barnes? If I recall he all but concedes he presupposes god as a means to avoid going to hell and using ex post facto reasoning to maintain his otherwise nonsensical belief. I appreciate the good natured chat but I personally view theism as a cancer on modernity.

[@neoskeptic]

Surprised to see that you are a supporter of string theory as string theorists have not been able to confirm most of their predictions, at least at this moment in time.

[@tdsdave]

+futureskeptic Yeah me aswell. To my mind nothing about string theory is confirmed , chap called Woit even wrote a book, "Not Even Wrong", suggesting that string theory was un-falsifiable. He mentions Guth but inflation is an extension of relativity. He mentions bruising on the CMB from other universes which has not found, even the gravity waves polarisations from inflation "expected" in the CMB not found..

[@Paxmax]

OMG it was some weak theist arguments, and Garret... whew man you are way too nice and charitable for being in debates! Pots breaking? Oh rly? Many ppl have first hand experience in pots breaking, how many ppl have positively experiences in watching a sigularity form... develop... recombinate... seeing all energy disperse evenly... and the possible demise of space/time/big rip Answer:none! Crash a pot inside a amazon indigenous primitives hut and ask him to elaborate on what he heard, what it was, and how he expects the floor to look like. If indigenous says: was a wooden bowl cracked in two that held grinding pebbles now strewn about his huts floor... so he is fricken wrong wrong wrong! Nope, it was a pot made by brittle orange clay for holding dirt moist in a flower arrangement for decorative purpose! If you then press the amazon about god existance he'll tell you to quit smoking the wrong leaves and just get back to standing on the dirt floor like the rest of us.

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

+Paxmax I place a premium on civility. Elbow-throwing debates are really good at energizing the people who already agree with you, and triggering the limbic systems of the crowd, but not so good at honestly exchanging ideas. You can't persuade someone if you're condescending towards them. Tell someone they're an idiot and they won't listen to anything you have to say--even if it's true that they are an idiot. It's also worth noting that debate was at a seminary, and the audience was entirely people from the local religious community, so I was also taking my audience into account. Were it more of a mixed crowd I may have been a bit more aggressive (but still civil.)

[@Paxmax]

SisyphusRedeemed ah, alright! On that civility note you hit top score! =o) nice to see you back!

[@boumbh]

1:29:09 Pi, like e, i or 1 is not variable. It’s a well defined real number. I understand your point but I think it’s elusive and does not counter the argument. I know that I know nothing. What is wrong about thinking that the unlikeliness of our existence is irrelevant (in this debate) given that we actually exist?