Magic Statistics

Like macht over at prosthesis, I don't know why Richard Dawkins is so popular as an apologist (not to say evangelist) for philosophical materialism masquerading as science. To judge by his introduction to the latest issue of Natural History Magazine, he's a sloppy thinker. Perhaps he thinks he's so scintillatingly brilliant that he doesn't have to be precise and thoughtful. Or maybe, as macht says, Dawkins is philosophically naïve. Whatever the reason, it's hard for me to understand why anyone who does not already agree with him would find this latest piece at all persuasive.

This is from his opening paragraph:

The world is divided into things that look as though somebody designed them (wings and wagon-wheels, hearts and televisions), and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics (mountains and rivers, sand dunes, and solar systems). Mount Rushmore belonged firmly in the second category until the sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved it into the first. Charles Darwin moved in the other direction. He discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics—the laws according to which things "just happen"—could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design. Charles Darwin moved in the other direction. He discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics—the laws according to which things "just happen"—could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design. The illusion of design is so successful that to this day most Americans (including, significantly, many influential and rich Americans) stubbornly refuse to believe it is an illusion.

First off, Prof Dawkins posits a dichotomy: "The world is divided into things that look as though somebody designed them . . . and things that just happened through the unintended workings of physics", which he then promptly rejects: Darwin "discovered a way in which the unaided laws of physics . . . could, in the fullness of geologic time, come to mimic deliberate design." So, there are things that at one and the same time "look as though somebody designed them" and "just happened". He's not off to a good start.

Then, Prof Dawkins repeatedly commits the fallacy known as "begging the question", or assuming what one has to prove. He says the laws of physics work "unaided" and in an "unintended" fashion, causing things to "just happen". How does he know this? He doesn't say. Does he expect us to believe him just because he says so?

The same goes for his labeling as an "illusion" the belief that things that "just happened" are designed. On what basis does he conclude that is indeed an illusion? If he wants to persuade someone who is not predisposed to agree with these assertions, he must offer some argument or evidence. He offers neither.

The whole article is based on those unsubstantiated assertions, so there's really nothing else that needs to be said. Either you agree with Prof Dawkins before he writes word one, or you don't. His "argument" amounts to: Take my word for it and if you don't, you're being unscientific. If this is the best in reasoned persuasion that philosophical materialism can offer, then it's got a problem.

And that's a bad thing. Unlike the United States, Canada has no public confirmation process for Supreme Court judges. If the federal Cabinet decided to nominate Mike from Canmore to our Supreme Court, the public has no recourse. There is no provision for public scrutiny of appointees. We wouldn't even be informed until it was a done deal. The PM is perfectly free to appoint any political crony warm body, and there's no one to say otherwise. As Ted Byfield points out:

For years, our judges have simply been appointed by the minister of justice. Who they are, what they think, how they have ruled on key issues in the past, what if any church they belong to — all highly relevant questions to the decisions they will be called on to make — these things are considered none of the public's business.

They're strictly confidential. Only once they're in office do we discover answers to these questions. There they make the laws — quite literally make the laws that we are to live under.

Given that the Supreme Court is now the ultimate governing body to which all other branches of our government defer, shouldn't the public have some say in who gets to wield that power? If not, the question has to be asked: In what sense is Canada a democracy?

The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution claims that evolution of living organisms happens as natural selection acts on random genetic mutations. But what does it mean to say that the mutations that form the basis for Darwinian evolution are "random"?

Some proponents of Intelligent Design reject neo-Darwinian evolution because of the common belief that saying something is random is equivalent to saying it is unplanned and unguided. This belief, I suggest, is mistaken. To say some process is random says nothing about whether it is planned or not. In the context of scientific mathematics, randomness is a technical term that neither includes nor implies such common understandings as "haphazard", "aimless", or "lacking plan or purpose". These form no part of the scientific or statistical definition of "random".

Randomness is a mathematical property that means one (or more, depending on the situation) of the following: "uncorrelated", "unbiased", "unpredictable". This is how the word is used in statistics, mathematics, and science, including scientific discussions of biological evolution.

As a statistician, I deal with randomness all the time. In sample surveys, for example, randomness in selection of respondents is a highly desirable—indeed, essential—property that we take great pains to realise. Our surveys are painstakingly planned and implemented with the highest degree of technical proficiency we can muster. Randomness in my line of work doesn’t just happen: we have to prepare carefully in order to achieve it. Randomness, one might say, is a question of design. (I’ll return to that later.)

In this connection, Dr Stephen M. Barr of the University of Delaware has written an excellent article entitled "The Design of Evolution" in a recent issue of First Things. The complete text of the article is available here, and I commend it to everyone interested in the evolution-creation controversy. Dr Barr offers two analogies to illustrate statistical randomness:

My children like to observe the license plates of the cars that pass us on the highway, to see which states they are from. The sequence of states exhibits a degree of randomness: a car from Kentucky, then New Jersey, then Florida, and so on—because the cars are uncorrelated: Knowing where one car comes from tells us nothing about where the next one comes from. And yet, each car comes to that place at that time for a reason. Each trip is planned, each guided by some map and schedule. Each driver’s trip fits into the story of his life in some intelligible way, though the story of these drivers’ lives are not usually closely correlated with the other drivers’ lives.

Or consider this analogy. Prose, unlike a sonnet, has lines with final syllables that do not rhyme. The sequence those syllables form will therefore exhibit randomness. But this does not mean a prose work is "unguided" or "unplanned". True enough, the writer did not select the words with an eye to rhyming them, imposing on them that particular kind of correlation. But the words are still chosen. So God, though he planned His work with infinite care, may not have chosen to impose certain kinds of correlations on certain kinds of events, and the motions of the different molecules in a gas, for example, may exhibit no statistically verifiable correlation.

This leads to the conclusion that statistical randomness is by no means incompatible with God’s governance of His creation through divine Providence. To God, nothing is unplanned. God may simply have chosen to allow events to proceed through natural processes that appear to us to be uncorrelated or unpredictable.

To return to my professional experience again: a common technique used to contact respondents in surveys conducted by telephone is random digit dialing. How are the telephone numbers generated? I hope no one is surprised when I say that we do not instruct our interviewers to close their eyes and hit a few buttons on a touch-tone phone. Rather, a computer program is written to generate lists of random telephone numbers, which are handed to the interviewers with instructions to dial them sequentially until a genuine number is dialed. We have found that it takes, on average, about ten randomly generated telephone numbers to find one useable number for survey purposes.

This brings up another interesting perspective on this randomness business. Computers, even hand calculators, can generate random numbers. But computers can only work on the basis of instructions, i.e., they need an algorithm. Computers are exceedingly deterministic: they do exactly what they’re told—nothing more and nothing less. Given knowledge of the algorithm, the entire list of computer-generated numbers is perfectly predictable. So, strictly speaking, computer-generated "random" numbers are not random. It’s just that the algorithm is so inventive and so extremely complicated that the result is close enough to random that the numbers are uncorrelated, as far as can be detected with the computing power available. To be precise, some mathematicians call such lists of numbers "pseudo-random".

The professor of the first statistics course I ever took once said something like, "With enough data points and enough computing power, everything can be predicted". He was referring specifically to economic phenomena, but what if those random genetic mutations that form the building blocks for evolution aren’t really random, but biologists just don’t yet have enough data points and computing power to tell? What if God has used an extremely complex and intricate algorithm to generate "random" mutations? If so, then maybe some day, if the Lord delays his return, when more data observations have been gathered, and computers are millions of times more powerful than they are now, some biologists will announce that they have discovered hither-to unknown correlations in genetic mutations. They may be able to reveal a fantastically complicated algorithm to account for such correlation between mutations.

If that ever happens, Einstein will once again have been proven right when he said, "God does not play dice with the universe".

I realize that quantum physics, about which I know very little, has something to say about this. However, I've reached the limits of my scientific knowledge.

This cartoon by Matt appeared in the Daily Telegraph a few days ago. Matt was referring to the leadership campaign of the UK Conservative Party, but it could apply almost as well to Yukon. A by-election has been called for the vacant Copperbelt seat. I don't actually live in Copperbelt, but the constituency boundary is right across the street.

That's too close for my comfort. For those who are interested, this page is the portal to maps of Whitehorse ridings. (I live in Whitehorse West.)

The collect for today, the 23rd Sunday after Trinity, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O God, our refuge and strength, who art the author of all godliness; Be ready, we beseech thee, to hear the devout prayers of thy Church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A member of the Order of the Knights of St Edmund is threatening to call down divine wrath on British chain store Debenhams if it goes ahead with a planned shopping centre in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Alan Murdie, who has instructed solicitors to serve notice to Debenhams and the property developer, warns:

Unless they withdraw unconditionally all their plans for redeveloping the Cattle Market site by the close of business on Friday, November 18, and vow publicly never to set foot in Bury St Edmunds again, we will have no choice but to summon divine vengeance upon them.

On the feast day of St Edmund, November 20, there will be a denunciation, a cursing. Through prayer, the knights will summon the avenging saint. Once more, the ancient curse of St Edmund will be invoked to smite our enemies. And then, it will rest in God's hands.

Those hell-bent on wrecking the town may suffer insanity. They may suffer destruction of property, loss of fortune, extinction of line, drying up of the vital juices … death. May the Lord God have mercy on their souls.

The knights claim to have royal authorisation to invoke such sanctions against barbarians who would destroy the town's character: "They were formed on the order of William the Conqueror to protect the town and St Edmund's Abbey with its shrine to St Edmund, the martyred Anglo-Saxon king of East Anglia." Henry VIII officially disbanded the order when he dissolved the monasteries, but the knights claim that the first victim of the ancient curse of St Edmund was Henry himself, who is said to have gone mad with syphilis, screaming hysterically as he died.

Debenhams says they're not worried. But if the order's forewarning comes to pass, this could usher in a whole new dispensation in civil lawsuits.

Prof Alister McGrath, former atheist, notices this weekend's World Congress of the International Academy of Humanism in upstate New York. The meeting's theme, "Toward a New Enlightenment", is not a good sign for atheism's vitality because the Enlightenment is over.

The real issue, however, has to do with atheism being trapped in a time warp. Atheism is a superb example of a modern metanarrative — a totalising view of things, locked into the world view of the Enlightenment.

So what happens when this same Enlightenment is charged by its postmodern critics with having fostered oppression and violence, and having colluded with totalitarianism? When a new interest in spirituality surges through Western culture? When the cultural pressures that once made atheism seem attractive are displaced by others that make it seem intolerant, unimaginative and disconnected from spiritual realities?

The obvious answer would be for atheism to undertake a reformation — to examine itself in the light of its failings, and direct towards itself the negative criticism it has until now automatically fired off at anything religious.

The Enlightenment is over, the world has changed, and atheism must change as well. But that is not the answer they are looking for in upstate New York. Instead, they want the Enlightenment all over again.

I used to be an atheist myself, when I was young and foolish. Thinking back on it now, I realise I was walking around with blinders on.

via titusonenine.

Douglas Farrow of McGill University says that Canadians should refuse to recognise C-38, the bill legalising same-sex marriage, as a valid law and refuse to co-operate with its requirements. Prof Farrow argues that C-38 is illegal legislation and therefore not binding.

Firstly, he points out neither the Canadian constitution nor Canadian legal tradition accepts what is known as the positivist theory of jurisprudence–the view that a law is valid simply because it is passed by a duly constituted authority. The preamble to the Canadian constitution appeals to the classical tradition, which holds that, to be valid, a civil law must not be unjust and must not exceed the authority of the body enacting the law. (Prof Farrow mentions that Pierre E. Trudeau appealed to the classical view in arguing for legalisation of homosexual activity.)

[T]here is nothing in Canada’s constitutional documents that compels us to accept the positivist view. When, therefore, the government asks the Supreme Court whether Parliament may change the definition of marriage, and the Supreme Court answers in the affirmative, it must be asked whether the court itself is acting lawfully. Who, in other words, gave the court this power? On the positivist view, such a question arises only in connection with arguments about the division of powers. On the classical view, it arises as a question about natural law and about the limits of state authority. And on the classical view the state has no authority or power, in either its legislative or its judicial arm, to alter the fundamental meaning of marriage or to make the family as such a creature of the state.

C-38 represents a crisis for the Canadian state in part because it brings us to a decisive point in the process of replacing the classical view with the positivist, a point of no return. If the state can redefine "marriage," not to mention "parent" and "parent-child relationship," there is virtually nothing it cannot redefine. There are no more givens.

The classical view, despite being eroded and derided, has not yet been officially rejected. Canadians, therefore, are not obliged to accept the state's re-definition of marriage just because the government passes a law enacting such a re-definition. Canadians can decide that C-38 is ultra vires and act accordingly.

Prof Farrow goes on to argue that, according to both Christian faith and liberal political theory, the family is the fundamental unit of society; the family exists prior to and above the state. The liberal state comes into being for the purpose of serving the family's political needs. To enact C-38 is to reverse the natural relationship between the family and the state, make the family a creature of the state, and remove the natural barrier and limit to state intrusion and authority.

In sum, C-38 must not be recognized because it attacks and marginalizes the state’s main competitors, faith and the family, which provide a home for natural rights. It thus threatens to subjugate and absorb civil society itself. To recognize C-38 would be to hand over to the state what does not belong to it, and so to cultivate tyranny. That this handing over is demanded in the name of equality rights only makes it a more cynical exercise of illegitimate power.

The complete article is available as a pdf document here. Douglas Farrow is on the steering committee of Enshrine Marriage Canada.

Today at Mere Comments, Anthony Esolen blogs a similar recent article by Prof Farrow.

St Clement Danes Church is found in The Strand a short walk east of St Mary-Le-Strand. A church has stood at the site for at least 1000 years. Like St Mary-Le-Strand, St Clement Danes is now located on a traffic island in the middle of the street.

By the time the Romans withdrew from England, Christian worship had already taken root among the people. About AD 800, Danish warriors began sailing up the Thames, killing and pillaging and terrorizing the inhabitants as they went. In 878, King Alfred the Great finally overcame the Danes. The leader of the Danes, Guthrum, was baptized and agreed to terms of peace. Alfred allowed those Danes with English wives to settle in this area of present-day London. It is believed they took over an old wooden church already in place there.

During the reign of King Canute (1017-35), son of a Danish king, a small stone church dedicated to St Clement was built. St Clement was the patron saint of mariners and, since the Danes were sea-faring people, their church was given his name. Eventually it became known as St Clement of the Danes. To find out more about St Clement, Bishop of Rome in the late 1st century, click here.

The present church, originally built between 1680 and 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren, was one of 52 London churches built by Wren to replace those destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The new building incorporated the base of the ancient tower. In 1719, a spire was added by James Gibbs, a pupil of Wren. In the 18th century St Clement Danes was a popular church in a very fashionable neighbourhood of London. Among its famous parishioners were Edmund Burke, James Boswell, David Garrick, and Samuel Johnson. (A photo of Dr Johnson's statue, located outside the church, is posted here.)

By the 19th century, London society had moved on the West End, and St Clement Danes was neglected for a time. In 1889, however, the interior was completely restored and a new series of stained glass windows installed, returning the church to its original beauty.

On the night of 10 May 1941, in one of the last air raids of the Battle of Britain, St Clement Danes received a direct hit. Flames roared through the ancient woodwork, and by morning the church lay in ruins. For several years the shell of the church stood empty and unused. It was then that the Air Council proposed to the Diocese of London that the Royal Air Force be permitted to rebuild St Clement Danes as a perpetual memorial to those killed in RAF service during World War II. The proposal was accepted and restoration was complete by 1958. St Clement Danes was reborn as the central chapel of the Royal Air Force.

The floor is inlaid with about 1000 RAF and Commonwealth air force squadron and unit badges, and books of remembrance commemorating the dead of both World Wars are displayed in glass cabinets along the aisles.

The photo at left shows the centre aisle of the nave, covered in badges representing RAF units past and present. Each is hand-carved in Welsh slate.

(As always, click on photos for larger views.)

The beautiful 17th-century carved pulpit, at right, is believed to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. It survived the destruction of 1941 because it had been removed to the crypt at St Paul’s Cathedral for safe-keeping when war broke out.

The altar is made of oak. Above is a reredos of two large panels showing a painting in gold of the Annunciation. Immediately above that is a carving of a pelican, an ancient symbol of self-sacrifice.

Set high in the east wall are three stained glass windows. The centre window shows Christ in glory; on the north side, the Madonna and Child; on the south, a Pieta.

The photos I have posted do not fully reflect the overall focus of the church. The pulpit, altar, and windows are, to me, the most beautiful and uplifting features. But St Clement Danes is really a building dedicated to war heroes. The first thing one sees upon entering the front door is a huge floor medallion of the Commonwealth Air Forces. The back and side aisles of the sanctuary are lined with glass cases filled with medals and books of names of those who died in war. One of these cases is even engraved with a portion of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which I thought incongruous for a Christian church. RAF and similar flags hang from the gallery. For this reason, Irving Hexham writes in The Christian Travelers' Guide To Great Britain:

In many ways the church is a nostalgic monument to national glory and a shrine for an ancestral warrior cult based on an essentially pagan civil religion overlaid with a veneer of Christianity.

Blunt words, but I think he has a point.

I’m certainly not opposed to honouring those who died for the cause of freedom. My father served in World War II. I do think, however, that the focus of a Christian church should be worship of God. St Clement Danes, as impressive and stirring as its memorial may be, can be accused of obscuring that focus.

More information on this church can be found here and here.

Links to all my blog posts about British churches and Christian sites can be accessed through the box located at the top of the page. 

The task of the pastor used to include giving godly advice or spiritual direction, but we rarely hear of those nowadays. Instead, clergy are up to their eyeballs in counselling. The counselling approach generally assumes that the church exists to meet the needs of Christians. Thus, biblical evaluations, if they are not passed over altogether, are filtered through the "insights" of psychology—pop or otherwise. This therapeutic perspective overlooks or ignores fundamental aspects of human nature, such as the tendency to desire what is contrary to God’s will. This is what John wrote of in his first letter:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

The Rev Dr Peter Toon recalls that the church used to call such inordinate desire concupiscence. Now there’s a word I haven’t heard for ages.

The reason why the word concupiscence, and associated words such as mortification and sanctification (not to mention "original sin," lust and chastity) are not common in modern preaching and teaching, retreat addresses, devotional and spirituality books, is that most of our pastors and congregations (ourselves) either do not believe in the presence of concupiscence, or we choose to think and live as though it is not what the apostles and saints have said it is. That is, being enlightened through modern scientific discovery and study, we see fulfillment of desire as more often than not the true development of our natures rather than the way into sinfulness – thus the emphasis on self-realization and associated themes.

The refusal to accept chastity as a virtue, together with indulgence in sexual excess, have often been used to illustrate the presence of concupiscence in the soul. In parts of the contemporary Church in America and Europe, one does not have to look far to find such and to find it as boldly proclaiming itself as good and holy! However, in the abundant evidence in our midst of over indulgence in food, in alcohol, in drugs, in pleasure and in a variety of pursuits to satisfy the self, concupiscence cries out for recognition. Those who do not see it and recognize it for what it is are fools, for, as John puts it, "the world is passing away, and so is its desire; but he who does God’s will abides for ever."

The 77s sing a great song about concupiscence: The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes and the Pride of Life. Here are some of the lyrics:

Well, I see something and I want it
Bam! Right now!
No questions asked
Don't worry how much it costs me now or later
I want it and I want it fast
I'll go to any length
Sacrifice all that I already have
And all that I might get
Just to get
Something more that I don't need
And Lord, please don't ask me what for

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

It’s so excruciatingly true. Clergy who "counsel" troubled souls to fulfil their felt needs are not doing them any favours.

Steve Whitney, pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church, West Sacramento, has posted a bunch of Bible content examinations. Each of the 18 tests has seven categories of multiple-choice questions: Pentateuch, Historical Books, Prophets, Psalms and Wisdom Literature, Gospels, Acts and Pauline Letters, Rest of the New Testament. Each question is hyper-linked to the Bible passage with the correct answer. These tests were used to prepare seminary students for ordination exams, so they are not easy!

via Drell's Descants.

The province of Alberta is going to pay people for living there. It sounds like a poor imitation of Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend. Alberta is giving residents a one-time payment of $400, while Alaska gives an annual payment to each of its residents. This year's dividend is $846, down from $1963 in 2000. (All amounts are in the respective country's currency, which means that this year's Alaska dividend is equivalent to about $1000 Canadian.)

Inevitably, some joker has made up fake versions of the Alberta cheques, emblazened with the slogan "Screw You, Rest of Canada". There are six in the series. A friend from Alberta sent me the lot by e-mail this morning. The whole series is here. I've posted the best one, but not the whole series because this is a family blog (sort of). Consider yourself forewarned.