by Graham Veale
The judge was not convinced that anyone could be that unlucky, and the jury opined that there was a simpler explanation available. The justice system concluded that Smith murdered each woman for money. One man motivated by greed was more likely than chance to produce these deaths; and certainly more likely than a rather unusual form of epilepsy which only occurs when the sufferer encounters warm water after writing her will. Smith was convicted of murder.
Fast forward one century. Between late October and early December 2006, five young women, all prostitutes and victims of Britain’s drug culture, were murdered in the city of Ipswich. Police immediately went on the hunt for a serial killer. It was much more probable that a serial killer was responsible for all five deaths, than a vast criminal conspiracy. And even though these young women were likely to have been assaulted by clients every week, it was simpler, and more probable, that one man had escalated to murder than five different men during the same time period. 9
Steve Wright, a dockside worker was quickly apprehended; but he maintained that he was innocent. No direct physical evidence established that Wright was involved in violent activity. (In the defence’s terms, there was no ‘smoking gun’.) Wright admitted to soliciting all five girls—so he had an explanation for the forensic evidence that linked him to the five victims. Finally, there was one other suspect, who had been arrested by police before Wright was charged. This suspect admitted to knowing some of the victims, and he had no alibi.
But after the first killings, the Police used Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras to record all the vehicles frequenting Ipswich’s red light district. That, and CCTV evidence, put Wright in the vicinity of each girl just before she disappeared. Wright had solicited the five girls in the exact order they had died. In fact, CCTV footage showed one of the girls getting into his car on the night that she died. Whoever disposed of the bodies had local knowledge, and Wright was a local man. He drove past the brook where two of the bodies had been found on his way to work. Forensic evidence tied him, and no-one else, to all the murdered girls; DNA evidence tied him to three of the girls. And blood from some of the young women had been found on his jacket.
Wright was the ‘common denominator’ in the disappearance and murder of all five women. By far, the simplest explanation before the jury was that Steve Wright was guilty of murder. To suggest that a series of coincidences had produced the evidence against Wright was needlessly complicated. The jury found the simplest explanation the most powerful: Steve Wright was found guilty of murder. If juries could not use the simplest explanation to account for the evidence, at least one serial killer would be walking free.
Away with the Fairies
Let’s do a quick stocktaking. We judge what hypotheses are worth considering by checking them against our background knowledge. We can also compare our hypothesis to theories that have turned out to be true in the past. Our best theories tend to be simple. So we want a hypothesis that is simple and coherent. And theism is certainly a simple hypothesis. One God of limitless, loving power is the foundation of everything else that exists
But is simplicity all that we need? Or should we seek for something more? Consider ghosts. These are non-physical beings (although they would have a spatial location and so, unlike God, would not transcend the physical world). Unlike the FSM, we can give ghosts a fairly simple description: disembodied agents with intentions similar to our own. So if there’s no evidence against their existence, and no reason to think that they’re impossible, should we remain agnostic about their existence? Can we believe in poltergeists and ghouls?
No, because there’s no point in believing in a hypothesis just because it is simple. A simple and coherent hypothesis is a good place to start. But there’s simply no point in believing in a hypothesis unless it explains something. A hypothesis must have explanatory power. Hypotheses have explanatory power if they lead us to expect various observations; particularly observations that would be unlikely to occur if the hypothesis was false. This is what we mean by evidence. 10
Consider the Ipswich serial killer Steve Wright. Given the extensive use of police surveillance, if Wright was the killer we would expect to find evidence that linked him to the murdered girls. We also would expect to find that he had some local knowledge, given where the bodies were hidden. Wright matched the criteria perfectly. On the other hand, if Wright was innocent, it would be extraordinarily unlikely to find that he solicited the five murdered girls in the order they disappeared.
‘Nessie the Plesiosaur’ has very little explanatory power. Yes, there have been numerous sightings of odd creatures in the loch. But we would expect to find odd sightings and sonar contacts given the murky conditions of Loch Ness. Even trained observers can mistake a log or a wake for something else. We have already mentioned that the steep sides of the loch create strange sonar contacts which could be mistaken for large moving objects. And the photographic evidence is either ambiguous (Rine’s photographs) or a fake (e.g. The famous ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’). The ‘Plesiosaur Hypothesis’ is a complex theory with little or no explanatory power.
Theism claims that the universe has a personal cause. 11 If we believe in God we should expect to find evidence of purpose in the universe. Is there evidence of purposive activity in our universe? Does our universe contain the type of order that agents bring about? Does it have features that a rational agent would value? Absolutely! God accounts for the order that we see in our universe. God explains why the universe has conscious living knowing beings. God explains why good and evil are as real and as important as electromagnetism or gravity. God explains why humans crave purpose and meaning. We’ll examine these arguments in more detail as the book progresses.
This highlights why it is wrong to compare God to invisible pixies and fairies. These examples just postulate one more entity or class of entities in the universe which don’t explain anything. If theism can play an important role in explaining our universe we should take it very seriously indeed; we should not waste our time pondering crude caricatures. We might also note that meaningless and trivial stories (like the belief that invisible fairies dwell at the bottom of the garden) are so disconnected from the real world that it isn’t only impossible to provide evidence for them. It is impossible to provide evidence against them. So it is very interesting that evidence can count against theism.
If there is a God worthy of worship, why does he allow suffering? Why is the living world so wasteful—what was the point of making those marvellous dinosaurs, just to wipe them out? Why is it not clear which religion provides the best way of approaching God? Now theists have different responses to this counter-evidence, which we’ll discuss in chapter seven. But what is important to note is that it is counter-evidence. If it is possible to provide evidence against the existence of God, then theism is not a meaningless fairy tale.
Nothing in this chapter proves that God exists. I have only argued that theism is a simple hypothesis which could have explanatory power; and that the probability of God’s existence isn’t so ridiculously low that we can ignore evidence for his existence. The infantile antics of the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s followers shouldn’t make theists pause and reconsider their worldview. But the FSM did provide an excuse to show that the concept of God is meaningful and worthy of attention.
* * *
5 Bobby Henderson’s full letter to the Kansas School Board can be read at: www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/ (Retrieved 16th Sept 2011).
6 See ‘Probability and the Presumption of Atheism’ by David Glass. A version is available at www.infj.ulst.ac.uk/~dvglass/Research/PresumptionAtheism.pdf
7 Nessie is taken rather seriously at her home site: www.nessie.co.uk. But before you dive in, be sure to watch the excellent 1999 PBS documentary ‘The Beast of Loch Ness’. A transcript of the broadcast is available www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2601lochness.html
8 See Richard Swinburne’s ‘The Existence of God’ (Oxford: 2004), especially chapters 1–6. An excel
lent introduction to the various analyses of a good explanation can be found in Timothy McGrew’s article ‘Toward a Rational Reconstruction of Design Inferences,’ Philosophia Christi 7 (2005): 253–98.
9 The tragic tales of Bessie Mundy and the Ipswich Serial Killings are both discussed with sensitivity and intelligence in Paul Harrison and David Wilson’s ‘Hunting Evil: Inside the Ipswich Serial Murders’(Sphere:2008).
10 Swinburne discusses the nature and meaning of evidence ‘The Existence of God’ 52–72; Elliott Sober’s discussion in Evidence and Evolution is brief and informative (Cambridge: 2008), 1-7.
11 Christians believe that God is not a single, isolated person; rather, God is three co-equal, co-eternal persons sharing the same essential nature.
2
Science Falls into a Gap
The great triumph of Humanity I had dreamed of took a different shape in my mind. It had been no such triumph of moral education and general co-operation as I had imagined…Its triumph had not been simply a triumph over Nature, but a triumph over Nature and the fellow-man.
HG Wells ‘The Time Machine’
He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools
Every prophet’s life follows a certain pattern. He learns that sacred laws have been broken and that a great and terrible judgment must follow. But the multitudes will not listen to his warnings; only a small band of faithful witnesses are ready for the impending apocalypse. Even in an age of declining biblical literacy this story seems familiar, partly because Old Testament epics survive in disaster movies. But in the disaster movie the prophet is nearly always a scientist. The Almighty is relegated to a bit part; Science takes the place of Jehovah.
In ‘Jaws’ a marine biologist cannot persuade the townsfolk of Amity that a Great White Shark is feeding on tourists; the mayor refuses to close the beaches. Dennis Quaid’s paleo-climatologist in ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ warns a complacent and scientifically illiterate Vice President about an impending cataclysmic climate shift. In ‘Earthquake’ and ‘The Towering Inferno’ Charlton Heston and Paul Newman play architects whose technical expertise is ignored by greedy construction firms, with devastating consequences.
In Science Fiction the scientist emerges not merely as a prophet, but also as a saviour. In ‘Independence Day’ Jeff Golblum’s MIT educated technician realises that the aliens are hostile. He then defeats the invaders by downloading a computer virus onto a flying saucer’s (IBM compatible) computer. Contrast this with HG Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’ in which the aliens are destroyed by bacteria—‘slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.’
Where does popular culture’s faith in Science come from? Brian Silver, in The Ascent of Science 12, notes that in 1834 the French physicist Arago was asked to explain why the French government should continue to financially support the development of the Sciences. What practical benefits had science brought the French people? Arago paused for a moment, and then offered the only example that came to his mind: the lightning conductor.
The first industrial revolution was profoundly transforming Arago’s world, but science could take very little of the credit. Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, James Hargreaves, and John Kay were inventors and entrepreneurs—not scientists. Perhaps Arago’s comment was a little unfair to James Watt and Eli Whitney, but the fact remains that both men were primarily engineers and inventors—men searching for practical solutions to practical problems. Neither man studied nature in a detached manner through the method of experimentation.
But then God said ‘let Faraday be’, and all was taxable light. Electric power replaced steam power, and the power of the machine replaced the power of man and beast. It was science that ushered the new world of the second industrial revolution. It was probably at this stage that a new mythology became firmly rooted in popular culture. Science would uncover all mysteries, technology would build on the wisdom of science, and we would build a new heaven and a new earth.
It is easy to see why we treat science with such respect. As science progresses it not only provides answers; it provides solutions like penicillin and lasers. But the success of science causes many thinkers to get carried away. For many intellectuals the physical sciences are as good as the academy can get. In turn, this strengthens our culture’s belief that science can solve every practical and social problem. It also leads many writers to assert that science can answer every existential question.
This faith in the significance of science is summed up neatly by blogger Greta Christina:
Atheists care about science because science provides an alternate method for understanding reality…Science is a method for perceiving the world that relies, not on authority and intuition, but on rigorous examination of evidence and a willingness to question any theory. When it comes to understanding the world, science offers an alternative to religion: not merely different answers, but a different way of asking questions. Science doesn’t disprove religion. It simply makes it unnecessary. Which is why it’s relevant to atheism...and why atheists care about it so much. 13
For Greta Christina science not only replaces the prophet and the saviour, science replaces religious thought altogether. This belief in the powers of science borders on blind faith. It may be true that the physical sciences have been very successful in finding out how the physical world operates. But it doesn’t follow that the physical world is the only thing that exists! Important answers about meaning, purpose and morality could be missed if we restrict ourselves to the teachings of science.
New Atheists like Greta Christina, Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers seem committed to Dogmatic Scientism. They argue that we should only believe what the physical sciences teach us; that the physical sciences will eventually provide answers to every question worth asking, and provide the only hope for human flourishing and progress. Now Dogmatic Scientism is a big claim. It’s attempting to tell us how to reason about life, the universe and everything. Scientific theories usually avoid claims of this scope. So Dogmatic Scientism doesn’t seem very scientific. It seems more akin to philosophy or theology.
Worse, Dogmatic Scientism does not follow from any scientific theory. It is not the result of any scientific experiment. And there is no reason to suppose that Dogmatic Scientism will be included in the completed physical sciences (what science will tell us when scientists have answered every scientific question.) In fact, the turbulent and sometimes revolutionary history of science should make us hesitate before we predict what the completed physical sciences will look like.
In other words, if you believe Dogmatic Scientism you have a problem. You’re telling others that they should only believe what science teaches. But science doesn’t teach Dogmatic Scientism in any of its theories or experimental results! So, others shouldn’t believe Dogmatic Scientism, and neither should you. Opposition to Dogmatic Scientism logically cannot be identical with opposition to science in general. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, literature, history and philosophy teach us that scientific explanations are not the only explanations in town.
Calling All Agents…
Scientific explanations deal with impersonal objects and laws of nature; we observe and measure how some events regularly follow others. We then use our knowledge of these regularities to explain some state of affairs. For example, we can explain why Mars is in its present location by describing the solar system, where the planets have been recently and Newton’s laws of gravity. Or, scientific explanations can explain objects by breaking them down into their constituent parts to understand how they form structures. So we can see how atoms form molecules, and how molecules can form cells.
But there is more to our world than the impersonal; we cannot understand or predict human activity without talking about persons and purposes
. We don’t need scientific knowledge of another person’s brain states to explain their actions. We need only think of ourselves, and others, as persons (or agents) who have purposes and can act on them 14. These concepts are coherent, clear, and plausible and they generate good and useful predictions. It’s very difficult to know what else we should ask from an explanation.
Some thinkers would insist that we are wrong to treat humans as agents. They argue that every human is a product of his genetic nature, of his environment, and of his life experience. We do not choose how our brain and nervous systems react in different situations. Like everything else in the universe, we’re just caught up in a chain of cause and effect. On this view of humans, we do not control our actions; events just happen to us. We are not agents; our nervous systems just act and react.
But without a belief in agency we cannot hold people accountable for their actions. If an aeroplane crashes because it lost a wing, we don’t blame the aeroplane. There’s a clear scientific explanation that appeals to events, and only events. Once that wing goes, the law of gravity takes over. One event causes another, and the aeroplane inevitably falls to the ground. However, we might blame the plane’s manufacturer if he used inferior material to maximise profits. He formed a purpose and acted on it.
We can illustrate the difference between a scientific explanation that appeals to events and a personal explanation that appeals to agency by considering the children’s film ‘The Iron Giant’. Set at the height of the Cold War, Brad Bird’s award winning film re-imagines the children’s novel by poet Ted Hughes. A young boy, Hogarth, discovers a giant robot near his home on the coast of Maine. The audience gradually becomes aware that this machine has been sent to attack our planet; however, when it crash-landed it sustained serious damage to its skull. This seems to have wiped its programming, transforming it into a rather placid and friendly behemoth.