http://www.newscientist.com/article/...the-brain.html
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Schwartz and Beauregard are part of a growing "non-material neuroscience" movement. They are attempting to resurrect Cartesian dualism - the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally different kinds of things, material and immaterial - in the hope that it will make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul. The two have signed the "Scientific dissent from Darwinism" petition, spearheaded by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, headquarters of the intelligent design movement. ID argues that biological life is too complex to have arisen through evolution.
In August, the Discovery Institute ran its 2008 Insider's Briefing on Intelligent Design, at which Schwartz and Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon at Stony Brook University in New York, were invited to speak. When two of the five main speakers at an ID meeting are neuroscientists, something is up. Could the next battleground in the ID movement's war on science be the brain?
Well, the movement certainly seems to hope that the study of consciousness will turn out to be "Darwinism's grave", as Denyse O'Leary, co-author with Beauregard of The Spiritual Brain, put it. According to proponents of ID, the "hard problem" of consciousness - how our subjective experiences arise from the objective world of neurons - is the Achilles heel not just of Darwinism but of scientific materialism. This fits with the Discovery Institute's mission as outlined in its "wedge document", which seeks "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies", to replace the scientific world view with a Christian one.
Do these people realise how flawed their 'scientific' hypotheses are? It's beginning to look like they pour through history to find (flawed) philosophical arguments for the sole purpose of launching attack after attack on Darwinism.
For those who don't know, this is the main line of Descartes’ reasoning, spoilered out for people who just want to skip to the conclusion.
I cannot be sure of anything, there may be a malignant demon controlling all my senses, all my perceptions. The world may be a lie and I wouldn't know it, because the demon's illusion is so absolute. I need to find a base of logic to rebuild all human knowledge on before I can be sure of anything...
(So far so good, Cartesian Doubts are really well thought out and do challenge all preconceived beliefs we had about ourselves and the world we live in)
There is one thing I can be sure of however, that I exist. How do I know this? Because the very matter I can doubt my senses means there must be something separate to my senses, separate to my perceptions that I can rely on; my ability to think.
So I think therefore I am, Cogito Ergo Sum.
(So far so VERY good, this is Descartes' true gift to the pursuit of knowledge; however from here it all takes a rather doubtful turn...)
But how can I rebuild human knowledge from the fact I am a thinking being? Well there is one other thing I can be sure of; I perceive. What I perceive and sense may all be lies but it DOES happen, I have an idea of a triangle in my head, it has three sides and the sum of its internal angles is 180 degrees, I do not have to ever have seen a triangle to work this out, for it is a mathematical rule which is both clear and distinct. Therefore it is a clear and distinct perception.
(O.K. Mathematical logic used here...all well and good so far, but how do you generalise mathematical knowledge to qualative concepts?)
Therefore anything I can clearly and distinctly perceive to be true, must be true.
(Wait, what? How do you make that jump in logic?)
Clear and Distinct Perceptions cannot be seen as false, they are not subject to the demon doubt, as God is perfect and wholly good, and as such would not allow anything I clearly and distinctly perceived to be false.
(Erm....could this be the most literal case of Deus Ex Machina in literary history? He just literally pulled God out of the machine to fill the gaping whole in his logic!)
God's existence can be justified using a simple train of casuistic thought; like the triangle I have a clear and distinct perception of my God, he is a perfect being. To exist is more perfect than to not exist, this is obvious, what is more perfect? A blueprint or a device (Assuming the blueprint is 100% correct for the device). As existence is perfection, God would have to exist, for he is wholly perfect. Therefore God exists.
(Setting aside the ontological flaws, there is a big circular leap in his logic, to support the idea of Clear and Distinct Perceptions he invokes God and to support the idea of a perfect God he relies on knowing what God is THROUGH a Clear and Distinct Perception. This is further confused by the fact that EXISTENCE IS NOT A PROPERTY, BY DEFINITION A THING MUST EXIST!)
Now we have Clear and Distinct Perceptions down (Hah...) let us do another rapid leap of logic, as the Cogito states: All I know I am is ‘a thing that thinks’, this is good ya? So I clearly and distinctly perceived that I am a thing that thinks, in fact ALL I am is ‘a thing that thinks’. Since God is no deceiver this cannot be wrong.
So as a thinking being I am of a completely separate substance from my body, and could exist without it. Ergo Cartesian Dualism.
The fact that Intelligent Design enthusiasts are using such a flawed argument really says something about how desperate they are.
If only Appeals to Ignorance didn't work so well on ignorant people.
