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"I just wanted to give you an invitation for a conversation where I answer all your questions and thoughts about evolution so you stop spewing nonsense and maybe save yourself some embarrassment. "
I received this communication from this individual that reached out.
Laying out the context for this thread.
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Science and Nature
This is Norman Wildberger's personal website where he expresses his unusual opinions: https://njwildberger.com/
There is a lot to unpack here, so I'll highlight a few important things:
- Debate with Daniel Rubin: He links to this on the homepage of his website. Rubin was incredibly respectful of Wildberger's ideas, ideas which I suspect most mathematicians would dismiss as nonsense pretty quickly. I appreciate that Rubin was willing to do this, because while I do not agree with Wildberger, it only grants more credibility to conspiratorial quacks when they are ignored by experts. One issue with this "debate", however, is that Rubin gave Wildberger most of the talking time and did not push back very much. He did, however, outline his objections more clearly in another video, which Wildberger neglected to link to or mention on his website. (At least that I could find. Feel free to correct me on this.) It can be found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnepxZ-ZZOI
- Modern math compared to religion: Wildberger asserts that modern math is in some sense religious, believing in things on the grounds of faith alone. I might respect his objections a bit more if he didn't do this, since many of his other objections are at least understandable, but this assertion that mathematicians so desperately want their beliefs to be true, and that they don't have any real arguments is absurd, and potentially harmful. The assertion is baseless, and it paints mathematicians as complete fools, rather than the geniuses that many of them are.
- Conspiratorial wording: Wildberger uses a lot of conspiratorial wording such as "delusion" and "blindly accept." In this way, he appeals to people who are conspiratorially minded, and who want to feel like they are smarter than the experts. This idea of a widespread delusion is simply nonsense. Mathematicians do not blindly accept statements such as "...and then taking this to infinity..." and they frequently question the meaning of this sort of statement when applied to a context in which it has no formal definition or where its application cannot be justified. They don't simply search for evidence which agrees with their preconceived notions (as Wildberger would suggest) either. Take, for example this paper: https://vixra.org/pdf/1208.0009v4.pdf. A mathematician as described by Wildberger would blindly accept its conclusions, nodding their heads every time "as n goes to infinity" is mentioned. In the real world, however, any credible source will tell you that the problems that this article claims to solve remain unsolved. This is because a real mathematicians questions the use of limits in this paper, and recognizes it as invalid.
- The impact of Wildberger's conspiratorial wording: This is what really caused me to lose any remaining respect I had for Wildberger. Many of his followers hold the belief that modern math is a complete waste of time that does nothing for society. A trip to fantasy land that mathematicians get paid to take. This is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, it makes it seem as though mathematicians don't actually do anything, negating the sheer amount of work and effort that math takes. Secondly, it has lead many of his followers to believe that if mathematicians could only wake up, our technology would be drastically better, and millions of lives could be saved. (One look at the comments on one of his posts reveals just how many of them believe all of these things.) The irony in this is that without the concepts that Wildberger rejects, he wouldn't be making these blog posts on a computer, nor would we understand nearly anything of what we do today about the universe. Switching to Wildberger's ultrafinist math would kill, not save millions.
- "Are mathematicians scientists?": The short answer is no. They aren't supposed to be. Science uses inductive reasoning. Math uses deductive reasoning. Science can change with new evidence. Math is not evidence based, and proofs are set in stone. Science uses experimentation to draw conclusions. Math uses abstract deductive proofs. Science is observation based. Math is done in the abstract, and you can't observe abstract objects in the same way that you can observe physical ones. According to Wildberger, however, the approach of science is the only valid one. This completely misses the point of math, which brings us to my next point.
- Model vs. match: Mathematicians do not assert their axioms as objective truths. Math is not intended to be part of the physical world. Math, like any field of study, should be judged by its usefulness, regardless of how that usefulness arises. Math allows us to model things in reality, but it is not itself part of physical reality. It is a model, not a match, and that is the way it is supposed to be. This is because the physical world can be somewhat of an enigma. In theory, we shouldn't be able to make any predictions at all, because we don't know, for example, that just because F = ma this one time, that F will equal ma the next time we apply force to an object. The equation "F = ma" wasn't found in some deep dark cave signed "Creator of the Universe," we just observed that this equation is consistent with our observations. This is the beauty of math: Our mathematical models can make predictions about something without us actually needing to see it. That is why math is not observation based. Because that would defeat the purpose. Sure, the fact that math exists separately from the physical world means that it doesn't always match the physical world, but that is okay. No one is claiming that everything in math has a counterpart in reality.
- The law of (logical) honesty: Wildberger's law of honesty is a good one. The issue is that it is a moral principle, not a logical one. Not pretending to do something you can't is good life advice, but for the sake of logic, considering theoreticals is incredibly important and useful, and there is no problem with it. Wildberger says that this law of honesty invalidates a question such as "If you could jump to the moon, would it hurt?" I have no issue answering this question: Yes, it would. In fact, you would definitely die. You would accelerate incredibly quickly through the earth's atmosphere and into space, and if you weren't already dead, you would find yourself in the vacuum of space where your blood would boil. Wildberger would suggest that this wouldn't happen, because no one can jump to the moon anyway. My response to this is that it is possible to talk about what would happen if one were to jump to the moon, even if that won't happen. Why is it important to be able to use theoreticals though? No one really cares about what would happen if they could jump to the moon, but considering theoreticals can be very important. Wildberger agrees that it has been proven that there is no rational number equal to the square-root of 2. What exactly is this proof? Well, feel free to look it up if you want the details, but to summarize, it begins by assuming that the square-root of 2 can be written as a fraction, and demonstrates that this leads to a logical contradiction. That's right, we are not only imagining that we can do something that we can't, but we are using that assumption to prove that we can't by showing that it leads to a logical contradiction. It is undeniable that if the assumption that something can be done leads to a logical contradiction, it cannot be done, and yet under Wildberger's "law of honesty" (at least as he applies it) this sort of proof by contradiction is invalid.
Obviously, this does not address everything that Wildberger has to say, as he has said a lot, so if there is something specific that you want me to address, feel free to point it out.
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Miscellaneous
You may be wondering why this topic about Evolution is not in the Science Forum, but here in the Religion Forum. Bare with me.
For the longest time, I was apathetic to Evolutionary Theory. It didn't speak to me. I come from a Physics/Mathematics background. So the whole thing didn't look serious to me. From someone who studied things like Quantum Mechanics, Gravitation & Particle Physics, evolutionary ideas looked too mechanical, too naive, too archaic. No maths. The world we commonly encounter in our daily lives is minimally energetic. That's why it looks as if things are mechanical, as if things affect each-other, as if we understand the parts of a problem, then we can understand the problem. In another highly energetic world the things we think of as common sense would become completely uncommon. That is the quantum realm, the femto-world, where things are highly energetic for their sizes, weird shite happens. The world is not a a large reductionist structure, it's a weird mysterious enigma. Evolutionary postulates, however, are reductionist champions. That's why they never made much sense to me. But they always held some romance to them. Maybe I just don't get it yet, maybe I'm not seeing what all these people are seeing. This, until I read Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker. This book completely changed my mind about Evolution. I thought I was in for a scientific adventure. What does the icon of Evolution have to say? To my astonishment, this was no book of Science. This was not terrible Science. The few psychiatry papers I read before were terrible. The alien articles I read were terrible. This was simply not Science at all, rather Literature, of the Myth genre. The entire premise of the book is: 'Evolution is true, therefore let's imagine how it happened'. A genesis story of creation with a materialist mythology. Hence the title, Imagination... I mean... Evolutionation.
For a theory which has been systematically & consistently taught for decades across the globe as a core science curriculum, Evolution fails spectacularly in gaining support. Despite all the promotions, the majority of people outside Europe & East Asia do not believe in mainstream Evolution. In the US, only 20% of Americans believe in the mainstream claims of Evolution, whereas 40% deny it, despite the decades long totalitarian tyranny the evolutionary narrative exerts over the country's education & academic arenas. The evolutionationists believe that it's the fault of the Church. In truth, it's the fault of the theory itself. The Church could not thwart antithetical scientific ideas about the cosmos from spreading when it had absolute power over the people. It is of highest absurdity that the Church would be able to thwart sensible scientific ideas when in a time where it is of ultimate powerlessness in state & academic institutions. Very few people insist on denying things they see with their eyes & realize to be true in favor of their dogmas. Certainly, the idea is simply not that compelling. The evolutionary narrative is a failed narrative. It had all the chances in the world & all the powers of the state to gain support, yet it barely managed to.
For those of you who subscribe to this mythos. Before you get your panties in a wad, this has nothing to do with Creationism. I'm Muslim, the truth of Evolution does not add to or diminishes from my faith. In fact, the earlier theories of evolution emerged from the Muslim world. Ikhwan Safa taught that life progresses from plants to monkeys to humans. Ideas which have been adopted by many among the Mutazilites after them, eventually making it into Europe in early 19th century. Such is an idea which has been circulating in the Muslim world for over a thousand years, yet barely being able garner any serious support. Disgraceful! Maybe in 500 years we'll have a quantum theory of biology. But for now, this evolutionary story may very well be all that we can muster. That said, if you're a Christian, why do you believe in this evolutionary story while you have a more compelling life story in the Bible? If you're a naturalist, what makes you believe in the truth of this story knowing that it's unscientific?
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Religion