Massimo Watch 3.13.10

Massimo certainly provides a target rich environment.

Does Massimo Pigliucci really not understand what Paul Davies is saying?

Or is he playing a simplistic game of misdirection? Massimo quotes a couple of lines from a Public Radio radio broadcast, then goes ballistic over them. Oddly, he completely misinterprets their meanings and charges angrily down the path, backwards. Let’s just take three of Massimo’s charges.

According to Massimo,

“…this bizarre statement by Paul Davies:

“We know this [the Big Bang] is now 13.7 billion years ago. Einstein's theory of relativity says this was the origin of time. I mean, there's no time before it. And Augustine was onto this already in the fifth century because he was addressing the question that all small children like to ask, which is, ‘What was God doing before he created the universe?’”

The quote stops here and Massimo is off and running:

“Are you serious? So Augustine gets credit for the theory of relativity because he asked the rather obvious (and totally unconnected to relativity) question of how god was spending his non-time there before time was created? (Wait, does that question even make sense?)

To me this appears to be a classical misdirection. Surely Massimo recognizes the “Who Made God” conundrum along with its answer, which is that time did not exist before the Big Bang, so existence before that does not contain cause and effect relationships, such as the proposed infinite regress of “who created whoever created whoever created…. God”. The “who made God” conundrum is a meaningless defense for Atheism. And the defense is based in Physics, not Metaphysics. This mis-direction Massimo applies is this: Davies gives Augustine credit for the theory of relativity. This is clearly not the case.

Further down in the post Massimo quotes Davies as having said that, in effect, the indeterminancy of quantum existence allows a chance for “God to insert his hand” and to inject certainty into particular cases that He might wish to control Himself. This is completely misunderstood by Massimo, who complains,

“First of all notice the totally vacuous and non committal ‘if you want to insert the hand of God.’ Davies is saying nothing of substance, again. And, once more, we’ve got bad metaphysics emerging straight out of his fluff: so if god works through quantum mechanics, do we have Pseudo-Random Design of the universe? If he needs to tweak the laws of physics (which, presumably, he put in place to begin with), does that mean that he is not after all omnipotent? Or is he trying to hide from a super-god who doesn’t want him to mess around with creation? What, exactly, is Davies saying here?”

Clearly Davies is saying that a deity has an obvious “back door” in the physical constitution of mass/energy which is now apparent in the physics of quantum behaviors, and which could be used to control certain events in a non-natural way. This is so obvious that it appears that Massimo is in a mis-directing mode rather than actually mis-understanding. The existence of a physical lever that might be tweaked by a deity has no bearing on the omnipotence of that deity, especially if the deity wanted it that way in the beginning.

And then Massimo makes the obligatory claim that Physicists should not make ventures into Metaphysics… completely ignoring his own credential failures. In fact, in a previous post Massimo takes on the definition of art. Does he have a fourth PhD in Art, too?

But more to the point, both of these arguments are based in Physics, not in Metaphysics. Massimo’s charge is simultaneously baseless and off base. Is it possible that Massimo doesn’t even recognize Physics when he sees it?

Here is a third obvious misinterpretation by Massimo:

”Here is Davies again:

“For me the crucial thing is that the universe is not only beautiful and harmonious and ingeniously put together, it is also fit for life.”

Ingeniously put together? By whom? And by what criterion of “ingenuity?” The universe seems more like an empty mess to me, with a lot (and I really mean a lot!) of stuff going on that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the supposed pinnacle of creation, us. I find the anthropic principle not only philosophically untenable and scientifically silly, but an egregious example of the tendency of human beings to vastly overestimate their place in the cosmos.”

This comment by Davies was in regard to the order seen in the universe, wherein the universe is put together with mass/energy that obeys laws which imbue the mass/energy with orderly behavior within space and time. The fact that the universe looks like an empty mess to Massimo certainly says volumes about Massimo, not about the universe. Massimo’s claim that the comments by Davies were regarding the Anthropic Principle is only partially valid. Davies points out the obvious: that the eaarth sustains life, and that it is possible that many other locations in the universe could sustain life, too. Is this incorrect, as Massimo seems to claim? Did Davies claim that the universe was "designed for humans?" Of course not.

And Massimo's final statement is not proof one way or the other of the validity of the Anthropic Principle, it is merely a denigration of it, an ad Hominem attack with no substance, unless vitriol is a substance.

Perhaps Massimo was just too overheated with indignation that people with actual physics credentials were allowed onto Public Radio, to notice the logical errors in his analysis. Perhaps.