Reviews by Hubie Goode: Does Science Make God Obsolete?

Does Science Make 
God Obsolete?

No, because Science and God are just different names for the same creative force. God and Science are the same force if they have the same attributes. Are they both Universal? - yes. Eternal? - yes. Unchanging? - yes. The source of right living; love and freedom? Etc. - Yes. So, if they have the same attributes, then, they are the same entity and to say one is obsolete is to say they are both obsolete.

Thank God that we don't have to choose between God and Reason as to which is supreme. To believe they are one and the same is to have beliefe both are supreme. Goodbye Science and Religion split. God and Reason are different names for the manifestation of the same force: the Law of Identity; the Universal Constant; the Fifth Force of the known five forces that construct and explain all existence. This Law is the source of logic, reason, science, art, music, philosophy, health and happiness -which means: God is the source of all this goodness.

God is Science - can be expressed as A=A, which is also known as the Law of Non-contradiction. A=A is the mother and father of all equations; the equations that explains the workings of the Universe and all within. Now, God, like Science, can be described by a mathematical equation. A=A, God, is necessary, universal, eternal, infinite and explains all matter and human action. A=A unifies all the forces and brings together all things in a single mathematical scheme that explains every fundamental process in nature. It is the "elegant simplicity underlying the diversity of the Universe," that Timothy Ferris writes about.

A short cut to the proof of this proposition is to ask how does the Law of Identity, A=A, explain the origin of the Universe and not make God obsolete in the process? And the answer is: The Law of Identity created this infinite Universe by creating an infinite list of laws by which the Universe constructed itself - an infinity of information informed the creation of an infinity of matter - by law.

The laws of Identity are: 1st law - Identity proceeds existence. What something is, is determined by its attributes. 2nd law - Every existent seeks to maintain its existence and resists change. This is the source of the Force. 3rd law - Two or more "things" may combine to create a new "thing". This the Law of Creation. 4th law - The creation of each new "something" creates the time to run the cycle of creation and the space that it moves into. 5th law - An entity emits energy as it changes what it is. This is the source of the Weak Force. 6th law - No two enties are identical. (The source of infinity.) 7th Law - Only one entity may occupy the same space in the same time. 8th Law - Energy equals mass, times the speed of light, squared. 9th Law - A=A creates an infinity of laws.

Creation of The Universe from the Void According to the Laws of Identity, or, How something come from nothing.

Obeying these Laws, the Universe came into existence. The first Law: Identity proceeds existence, and for the Void to exist it must have attributes. The attributes of the Void were: it is necessary and unique. Then, complying with the 2nd Law, a new existent was created: the Force of the void's presents, whose attribute is: An entity that seeks to maintain what it is. We now have two existents! The Void and the Force (of its Identity.) Next, according to the 2nd Law: Two or more existents may combine to make a third - and so, the Void and The Force combined to create a third existent - the Weak Force. And next the Void combined with the Force and the weak force, and created the fourth existent, the Strong Force. Then the Void combined with the Force of its existence, the Weak Force and the Strong Force and created a 5th existent: the Electro-Magnetic force. Finally, all five forces combined to create a sixth unique force: the Force of Gravity - then, these 6 combined to create a 7th unique existent and so, combining and creating, on and on, for a long, long time, creating an infinity of unique existents - existence is information. This is the mechanism of creation that spawned an infinity of unique existents. A vast universe was created by this continuous ribbon of information, unbroken and containing all the information of the five forces. Each new existent unique in the sense that a new existence was created at the end of each cycle of creation. At some time in space this unbroken ribbon of information reached a critical mass and collapsed in on its self condensing into a tiny ball before it exploded in a "Big Bang" and spewed fragmented bits of information containing all the forces in each bit of information back into space where these bits of information combined according to the laws of identity and became pre-matter: the building blocks of the Universe.

(Did you guys get all that?)

GOD is REASON, a novel by James Rushing, is a love and adventure story of struggle against oppression and the startling discovery that the evil ravaging their city is self-inflicted. Please visit http://GODisREASON.com for more information.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Historicity of the New Testament Part 5

Historicity of 

the New Testament

Part 5

When we consider the things that we have already covered, then the authenticity and the authorship of the New Testament can be considered firmly established. General accuracy can also be established as well as their internal consistency as confirmed by linguistic and archeological studies. This CAN and HAS been done by intelligent and considered studies.

Skeptics and those who choose to be atheists have however, sought to escape the impact of these studies by charging the writers with fraud, and the text with muddy antiquity, that is to say, they have thrown their hands up in surrender as to any truth being retained based solely on the number of years that have past since the writer’s inception. Their contention is that the writers were interested in being the leaders of some new religious and/or political movement and they conspired to create a type of “Superman” who would fulfill the Savior and Messiah position that was promised for hundreds of years by their ancestral writings. As representatives, the main proponents would then exercise authority and power of the one they supported.

Such a supposition, however, belongs to the school of straw grasping and pandering to those with the weakest intellectual ability to direct for themselves any cognitive investigations independent of so called “outside expertise”. 

Let’s take a look at discrediting these notions.

1) The conspiracy involves such a large number of people, of such diverse backgrounds, that a collusion on the part of all concerned is not even remotely possible. There were at the least eight different writers involved, not to mention a great deal of associated colleagues, and these wrote and lived at widely scattered times and places over a period of about 1500 years. (Considering all texts, not just the New Testament.) Watergate WAS a conspiracy, and look how quickly the whole thing fell apart.

2) Evidences of collusion are noticeably absent in the writings. Each writer gives his own independent witness, writing from his own perspective. On the surface, they often appear to contradict each other, and these contradictions are resolved by close study and cross examination of the testimonies. Many would point to this a evidence of irrelevance, but one cannot find the truth in these testimonies without following the course of rigourous testimonial investigation. To simply pass a casual judgement is to treat the subject with less than it requires and will ultimately say more about the investigatior’s own desire to know the truth than it does about the truth contained within the various testimonies themselves. 

3) Rather than containing their writings to generalities or perhaps only to individual experiences, a practice that would sufficiently evade long term investigation, the records instead team with public events and dates and places well known by the world at the time. 

4) An honest and candid reading of the New Testament texts does not lead one to fraudulent conclusions. The very atmosphere of the writings is drenched in the sincerity of the writers. If any of the writings are merely a wicked deception, then they are the texts of the greatest con men ever born to Earth. Con men who were eventually executed, almost to the man, for what they knew was really a lie, or perhaps as a result of their own mental instability, despite the absence of insanity that mad men usually display. Quite the feat to accomplish for what appears on the humanistic surface to have been all in vain. 

5) This willingness for the authors to suffer and die for what they knew is crowning proof. For they killed no one in some public outrage against the machine, but charged forward for the betterment of mankind itself while causing no harm, only to find martyrdom at the end of their ministries. John, of course, outlived them all, as was hinted at in the very scripture words of Christ himself, but he too found exile, if not martyrdom at the end of his life. Men die for unworthy causes that are a lie all the time, Nazi Germany being a prime example, but none of those men would have admitted they they knew it was all a lie. Those that did, either extracted themselves or they fought the cause. Unstable people fighting for a cause have an unfortunate habit of taking innocents with them in their drive to prove or defend their cause. It simply is not realistically possible, nor logically possible, that all these men would have sacrificed their lives, both the life itself and also their one and only voyage of life upon this Earth, for some grand illusion. 

The writers of the New Testament were sincere, intelligent men, firmly convinced of what they wrote. But were they just wrong? Were they victims of mass delusion? Were they unstable, easily convinced of their own emotional perceptions? Were they the biggest suckers since the audiences of P.T. Barnum?  Were miracles that they reported about simply a mass hallucination or mass suggestion? Were their minds just playing tricks on them?

One has to consider that the events were:

1) In the open. Crowds of people often surrounded them, and only a few miracles were done in hidden privacy. The feeding of the five thousand is reported in all four Gospels. 

2) Reported in a great variety of times and places, by many different people of diverse backgrounds. Mass delusion is never reported in this way.

3) Written up by men not regularly associated with hallucinations or a lack of credibility. Paul was a highly educated Levite, with a careful and  articulate mind. His writings bear this out. Luke was a physician and detail oriented historian. Matthew was a politician and tax assessor. James was the leader of the early church in Jerusalem. 

4) Accepted by great numbers of people who, due to the intense persecution of their faith, would have been highly motivated to make every effort to make sure the claims of the early Apostles about the person of Christ were accurate. If the Apostles had been nothing more than deluded fanatics, you and I would have never been sitting here discussing this today. When everyone died, that would have been the end of it. 

So what about the character of Christ himself?  Was he the greatest deceiver ever known?  More in Part 6.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Historicity of the New Testament Part 4

Historicity of 

the New Testament

Once it has been established that the writings of the New Testament are authentic historical documents, written by contemporaries and often eye-witnesses of the events described therein, we can then examine the persons and events with confidence so that the real nature and purpose can be ascertained. This is not the time for examination of elusive theological or philosophical questions, but the point of inquiry that deals with facts determined by objective investigation.

At this point, divine inspiration is a question for another time. The concern at this point is rather, whether or not the New Testament presents Christ as divine in origin and essence, or perhaps instead, as truly and only human.

If we find in the writings that he is indeed shown  to be deity, then there are a few options that need to be considered. Was this all just a big plot? Were the writers involved in a long term subterfuge to enable themselves to be leaders in some new religious movement? Or were they under the influence of some mass delusion? Did they think Christ was God only because they needed and wanted to believe and were experiencing a kind of group mental aphasia? If they were deceived, did Christ intentionally deceive them? Or perhaps he too was under a deception, either by the persuasion of others or from his own suffering at the hands of some mental illness that we can only guess about. We can study these possibilities within the writings themselves, once they have been found to be verified with authentic dates and authorship. Therefore, armed with intelligence and not just blind hope, we can decide objectively whether or not Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God and the only way to salvation, as Christians believe. 

It is, of course, not possible to free oneself from  subjective factors on an issue like this. Even though we may be able to prove that all the witnesses to stated events agree on the ground floor concept behind the deity of Christ, one can still choose on his own initiative not to believe it. And ultimately, even with glaring evidences on both sides of this kind of issue, it is always a final decision for the person as to whom they are going to believe.

To any argument, a further question or objection can always be devised, if a person is clever enough, and there are many clever ones out there. Even though we can back an objector into a corner from which there is no escape, the person can always become emotional and avoid the issue anyhow, or perhaps delay a decision until further thought can be applied. They can also take a kind of refuge and satisfaction in the position of many who do not believe also, or perhaps simply stand on an issue of relevance. On the other hand, if you are a person who is interested in solid Christian evidence on this subject, there is plenty to go around for everyone who will lend an ear. 

So let’s get started next time in part 5.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Historicity of the New Testament Part 3

Historicity of 

the New Testament

Part 3

Authenticity of the events of the New Testament have been verified by the close examination of the internal consistencies of the writings and also by external investigations into the history and archaeology of the time. The books often make claims concerning their own authorship and it is a bit presumptuous of critics to deny these claims due solely to their own position against the supernatural. Paul, for instance, always begins his letters with his own name, and each epistle contains many incidental allusions which support this claim. William Pauley’s : Horae Paulinea, is an example of a classic book that has taken great pains to correlate the many incidental occurrences which prove Paul to be the author of his own writings. 

Likewise such studies on the writings of Peter and John and others, also prove those authors to be the actual writers. Epistle events often tie in with earlier historical records of the lives of these men as recorded in the Gospels and Acts. Peter’s experience at the Mount of Transfiguration and Paul’s stoning at Lystra, are two excellent examples of this sort of connection among Biblical books. Linguistic evidence also matches author with writing, as is evident in the writings of John. The Gospel of John, the epistles and Revelation all have the same striking vocabulary use which points to John as author.

Archaeological evidence also plays a huge part in solidifying the confirmation of New testament authorship. The book of Acts is a big influence on this avenue of discovery as it deals with the spread of the Gospel in the first 30 years after the Resurrection of Christ. It mentions places, customs, events and times of the Roman, Greek and Jewish worlds of the day. If the book were a compilation of uncertain traditions brought together long after the actual events, or even if, let’s say, Luke was a sloppy writer, there would be an abundance of factual mistakes in the book. 

The opposite is so incredibly true that archeologists have found themselves amazed as to Luke’s specificity in his writings. Archaeologist, Sir William Ramsey, who has done extensive research into the historic plausibility of the Gospels has been quoted as saying: “Luke is an historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy, he is possessed of the true historic sense... In short, this author should be placed among the very greatest of historians.”

1 William Ramsey, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953) p. 80

Not to be missed is the fact that this same author, Luke, is also the major contributor of the fullest account of the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ.

The other books of the New Testament do not lend themselves as readily to archaeological investigations as does the book of Acts, however, descriptions of Jerusalem, Judea and Sumeria, and also references to customs and political situations, are frequently confirmed by scientific and historical research. There is in fact, NO statement in the New Testament that has been unequivocally refuted by the studies of history or science, even after all this time. This fact in and of itself, is darn near amazing.

So what does all this imply? What does it all mean for you and me? More on this next time in part 4.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Entropy Rules

If Entropy Had a Face

Entropy Rules

When we think about entropy, do we really know just what it is? Do you even care? Well, you might, it just might help to understand what entropy is and what it is not in relation to our very existence.

The word entropy is all about a certain mathematical quantity that is important when considering the origins of our very existence and the beginnings of the universe itself. In order to understand changes in our world it is important to be clear and accurate as to the definition and reality of entropy in our lives. 

Entropy is basically the mathematical quantity that allows scientists to measure the way physical systems change. No matter what they subject, everything in physical existence experiences the changes brought about by entropy. In the “First Law”, mass and energy are conserved. In the “Second Law” the entropy of any physical system increases with the passage of time. Think of it as a cosmic bell curve, when something is begun, it has a slow rate of decline, but as time passes, the rate of decline increases proportionately. This applies to every physical system. 

Entropy was coined by scientist Rudolf Clausius when he sought to describe an unusual mathematical quantity that he had discovered. This was a differential whose integral vanished around a closed path. (?) In 1896 Ludwig Boltzman recognized a close relationship this quantity and the way gas molecules move at differing speeds. He showed that molecular velocity distribution  had all the observable properties of “entropy”.  This discovery in the early days of its study lead to the idea of entropy being all about heat exchange.

Entropy is simply the name of a mathematical expression that measures the degree to which energy becomes less available for proper work to be performed over time. Entropy always increases  due to time passing and the energy that is available to do “useful” work is lost to a form that is not useful for work.

As an example, air in a balloon can be pressurized to effect an outside physical construct. Air just spread out in a room can do nothing, as there is equal pressure from all sides and a null state is achieved. 

Early in the twentieth century, it was believed that nature moved in one direction, from order to disorder. But this was a mistake of observation. When water turns into steam, it only appears to have become disordered. But why does nature move in this seemingly one way direction?

Scientists believe that everything is made from atoms. There are 92 useful kinds, and “building blocks” or molecules are the result of different combinations of atoms. Water is made from hydrogen and oxygen atoms and the more the water is heated, the more violent actions there are among molecules crashing into each other, creating greater disarray among them. Ice tea, for instance, has a greater amount of molecular order than hot coffee.

Entropy, however, does not automatically transfer into a meaning of disorder. The mistake is that disorder and entropy are the same thing, and that as time goes by, disorder is created from order. 

Imagine an ice cube, slowly melting, as the heat rises and the ice absorbs the heat, the molecules become more and more active within the water. Is this disorder being created? What about the object that supplies the heat? If you are using a match to melt the ice, then as the heat goes out from the match, the match becomes more ordered, because the state that heat exists in, one of “disorder” is transferred to the ice. 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that total entropy must increase. But this doesn’t require that disorder increase. So there you have in the example of the ice melting, and the match getting cooler, that the disorder of the heat condition is merely transferred, but the total amount of order and disorder on both counts increases and decreases respectively. There is NO lasting state of disorder. 

Entropy has nothing to do with disorder. Many people believe erroneously that indeed it does have everything to do with disorder. There is, of course, a correlation, but not an identification.  When it rains, you use an umbrella to counteract the falling rain. But if you stayed home when it rains, the umbrella does not get wet. Therefore, there is no direct correlation between rain and  your umbrella. 

The identification of disorder and entropy has led to a silly thing called negentropy. This is an assumption that negative entropy exists and balances things out in order to allow ordered life to be able to appear. Negentropy is flawed in many ways. Order and disorder are NOT automatically identified with entropy. It violates one sided conservation laws. There are also mathematical flaws, the function describing our intuitive notion of disorder is unique when positive. 

Despite all this, there are those who have tried to use negentropy as an explanation in describing how life was begun by natural processes. Life, however, is complex, not ordered. The conditions needed to create life by a natural process require a loss of complexity. Ice is ordered and not complex because it is made up of millions of tiny units that are identical to each other. If we describe one, we will describe them all. When ice turns into water, the information needed to describe ice is actually less than that of the water’s description, because the atoms now move in independent fashions not seen in the ice state.   Life is more like water, we need vast amounts of information to describe life because of its complexity, and therefore negentropy is just plain wrong.

The more ordered something is, the less complex it is. Living cells are highly complex structures. It requires vast amounts of information to describe a living cell. To explain life’s origins, we must explain the source of information contained within each cell. Whatever brought life into being did not lose information but created it. Entropy that  relates to the creation of life is concerned with the information inside of nucleotides along DNA strands, not the distribution of levels of energy. 

Life itself is not ordered, it is complex. An increase in the organization of a structure requires the systematic increase in information. Information is not produced by natural processes in the degree that is necessary to produce life. 

So let’s take a look at this in brief...

1) The Second Law of Thermodynamics require entropy to increase. 

2) Entropy is not disorder.

3) Negentropy cannot be identified with disorder.

4) Ordered molecules present less information.

5) Living cells are not ordered - they are complex.

With the passage of time, the world becomes less focused for the observer. This deterioration manifests in the act of having less available energy for useful work. Useful work requires directed motion in space. Over time, motion continues unobserved and thus less information is gathered for the description of whatever the object of focus used to be. I understand, that sounds like words  strung together for no reason, but this is because of wrong perceptions about the nature of our perceived reality. 

Basically, because of our limited states in reality, we will always lose information, never gain it. Therefore all measurements will yield incomplete information, uncertainty increases with the passage of time. Entropy is this uncertainty. 

Entropy is the way we measure the degree to which we observe the deterioration of energy into less useful forms over time. Decay corresponds to the progressive decline of an observer’s  ability to extract useful work from the system due to an increasing uncertainty as to objects from the past he once was certain of. Blah, blah, blah.

Entropy is the loss of information used to describe an object, and involved in its inception. It is NOT a move toward disorder and energy loss. Matter is transformed, energy is transferred. Disorder is actually an illusion of the limited perspective.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Clever Hans, Apes and Bees, and Communication Part 3

Clever Hans, Apes and Bees,
and Communication
Part 3

If you missed part 2 you’ll need to scroll down or select from the links on the side bar.

Hey, Hey We’re the Monkees

You can talk to these Monkees----->

The idea that apes have no linguistic ability is only a recent discovery compared to the overall history of the study. We now know that they are merely cleverly mirroring the human intelligence of their trainers. The breakthrough came when a young chimp named Nim was trained with sign language. In the beginning it appeared that the chimp was indeed using signs in a language form, but later when video taped alone by himself, it became obvious that the chimp was merely using signs when prompted by the trainer and the signs never appeared at any other time. The chimp also never added any of its own signs to the mix or developed them beyond the original programming.

You can talk to these Animals----->

This underscored the information obtained from the experience of Clever Hans. Animals have a unique ability to observe and interpret human expression, and this ability borders on the supernatural. The next time you see a stray dog and think in terms of whether or not they will “smell fear”, consider more deeply the effect that simple turns of your head or body may convey to the animal, and also even small expressions of the face. Can you convince a pit bull that you love dogs? You might need to one day. But hopefully not.

One must consider the extent of the educational advantage gorillas like “Koko” have had in learning the way that they do. When we think about over crowded classrooms for our children where there is one teacher to maybe 40 students and these apes have had teams of 30 to 40 teachers trying to teach them to use language, one can see how highly developed even a gorilla with a 40 I.Q. can become due to the ability to mirror human intelligence. Mentally retarded patients at the Georgia State Retardation Center were also given these same techniques and amount of attention, and it was noted that they were much easier to teach than the chimps.

The study of child language and the human brain has even gotten stranger in recent times. According to the website www.reversespeech.com, babies who babble are actually talking backwards and from the right brain. Not only this, but we humans actually have a speech that comes from our right brains which is only picked up in the subconscious and is received in reverse. I am not sure just what to think of all the findings of Doctor John Oates, who is developing this science, but the website is an amazing trip to go through, and that is all I will say.

And There’s More....

In the beginning, back in 1661 when Samuel Prepys first encountered a baboon, the idea of apes being able to developed language grew and became an accepted avenue of investigation for many years right up until the 1960’s and 1970’s. There were, of course, many false positives that came from the studies, including exercises where chimps were taught to communicate with one another. Their success rate reached an impressive 95%. But those experiments used word symbols with a computer and when turned off, the communication rate dropped off the map. Apes have no ability to form thoughts into language but a huge ability to mirror the communications of humans, and without the humans, there is no “Dr. Zaius”.

Ahh but what about Dolphins???? Doesn’t Flipper have clout???

In the early 1960’s this idea of an animal having language was also applied to dolphins. The simple mistaken intel about dolphins having a larger brain than most was another true revelation of man’s hubris. It was believed that perhaps size mattered when it came to brains and dolphins might even be smarter than mankind. (There are many New Agers who promote that dolphins are actually evolved Atlanteans or Lemurians from long ago in the Earth’s history.) There is no dolphin mystique, plain and simple. Dolphins speak to each other in the same way all animals do.

Due to apes being believed to be intelligent and capable of language, one has to wonder why they were never taught to clean their own cages. No apes have ever cleaned up after themselves, or even have been taught to do so, they are after all... animals. Animals only work, prepare food and clean up after themselves when they are directed to do so by humans. This is undeniable. Humans are able to force animals to work due to their God given dominion over the planet, and man's ability to retain and transmit information over time. One would think that this ability would have made a greater difference over the history of mankind, with respect to man’s basic internal self. We have trains, planes and automobiles, internets and space shuttles and more medical advancements than at any time in history, but man is basically the same as he has always been. The fact that animals who act like humans, because they do what they see humans doing, can be mistakenly given powers of intelligent language production, is further proof of an age old hubris that has blinded mankind for his entire history.

Animals are incapable of creating day dreams and imaginations. Humans alone have the ability to learn and understand information relegated to him from the past. We can certainly understand the story of Christ and also make a decision based upon the information gained within that story, despite the fact that we have never been to that point in time. Animals have no idea what any of that means, and that makes us superior to the animal. Mankind alone has the capacity for the “Word”.

Word Up

Why should man alone, among all known life forms, be the only one that can disseminate information from the past and then transmit that information into the future? There is an absolute disunion between ourselves and everything else on the planet. Your house cat is happy their entire life just being a cat. Your trees in the backyard never gain the desire to travel to the south of France. If man were not around, had never been around, the earth would indeed look like a different place today. Nature would own everything, there would never been imbalance, even death would just be part of the circle of life. And yet the earth is vastly different because of mankind’s presence. If he were just an example of evolution, then that balance would be maintained, nature would have it no other way. But man is made in the image of his Superior Creator, and nothing else is.

Is there any evidence that relates the distinctive attribute of mankind with the word and the creation of human beings? Mankind alone has a unique strand of DNA with a particular string of nucleotide bases which allows a unique informational specification. The language cortex in the left hemisphere of the brain from whence speech comes is a direct difference of mankind in relation to the rest of creation.

Humans also assign meanings to verbal utterances. This depends not only on the words used but also on the state of mind and knowledge of those using language. It has been discovered that at birth the human child has an innate ability to understand the spoken word. This ability is genetically traceable to the informational specification along the DNA strand which echoes human life which, therefore, came into existence at the time human life was created.

If the divine attribute of man’s creator is “The Word”, then the human capacity to perpetuate a moral code through time itself, from the past long ago and then into present day and then beyond, is itself an overlaying shadow of the moral image overlaying all generations of human life. Man is life’s singular moral species with access to an eternity. The “passport” is a message that only mankind can receive. Our ability to choose whom we shall believe among all information received is our solitary ability and responsibility that neither ape, horse, bee or dolphin can make.

Terrace H. et. al. “On the Grammatical Capacity of Apes” in Nelson K. ed. Children’s Language (1980) v.2 Gardner Press (NY)
Chevalier-Skolnikoff S. “The Clever Hans Phenomenon, Cuing and Ape Signing: A Piagetian Analysis of Methods for Instructing Animals.” Annals of the New York Academy of Science
Gardner B. & Gardner R. “Comparing the Early Utterances of Child and Chimpanzee.” On Child Psychology (1974)
Gish S. Quantitative Analysis of Two Way Communication Between Captive Dolphins (1979)
Romans 9:16

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Clever Hans, Apes and Bees, and Communication Part 2

Clever Hans,
Apes and Bees,
and Communication

Part 2

If you missed part 1 you’ll need to scroll down or select from the links on the side bar.

Damn Dirty Apes

What really happens if animals DO learn some sort of language? In this case it means that human intelligence has succeeded in releasing animals from instincts they received at birth. This of course also leads to the possibility that animals could eventually learn to use this language to communicate with one another. If enough time is allowed, it is not hard to imagine that animals could indeed begin to resemble humans in the way that they communicate. Then, after this fact, the animals could begin to inform us of how their present state of affairs is the result of “adverse” evolutionary circumstances. If conversation then became common, laws against discrimination and in favor of equal opportunity could then be developed to protect animals from environmental factors that victimize them into a disadvantaged position relative to human beings.

They’d acquire rights.

Despite the fact that humans differ on many levels from animals, it would be easy for people to be blind to the fact that a division between man and animal was God given. Many seem to feel that except for human culture and education, it’s man’s mind that is indeed not so different from the apes, not the other way around. If indeed an ape was exposed to human culture, would the natural progression be an ape that has acquired human qualities? This kind of reminds me a little bit of “King Louie” from the Disney movie “The Jungle Book”. Interestingly enough Louie’s complaint was that he didn’t know the secret to fire; fire being a kind of power in this instance, and that does indeed sound like a human trait. But that’s NOT science, people.

The factual content on this matter is hugely diverse from what would be popular culture and wishful thinking. I seriously doubt that any orangutan in any zoo sits around all day imagining any other relationship between man and ape than the one he enjoys everyday. Imagination often leads to invention, and we’ve seen no inventions from the ape species - ever! If there is any difference between the two minds, that of man and that of ape, then it is by human choice and not by necessity. Science today will tell you that there is no common ground between ape and man that can be bridged naturally. Monkeys haven’t changed in all the time of their existence and yet mankind has landed on the moon in the same period of time. The belief that special circumstances produced a difference that can now be overcome with special engineering is to invent happenings of the past that are in fact unknown, and still unexplained and also beg to be accurately reproduced as only the superior mind of man can accommodate. This special circumstances belief is also a direct contradiction of the current evidence on the subject.

Primordial Snooze

Up until the 1980’s it was believed that apes could indeed be taught a language eventually. Many experiments had been done before this time with apes as varied as Austin, Sherman and Lana. They were taught to label different foods and tools. The fourteen year old chimp, Sarah, was said to be able to congnitize specific problems and even think her way into a solution. There were also six wild born chimpanzees that were said to prove an affinity for spatial memory organization. Paper marking tests were devised three years after “social conditions” were believed to determine the rates at which the chimps approached “hidden distant goals”. Language between chimps and children was at this time believed to be comparable.

How new indeed is the idea that animals can acquire language? It’s actually a very old concept. In 1661 Samuel Pepys wrote that it was his opinion that apes could indeed be taught a language. He devised this information from his first time encounter with a baboon. In 1885, Sir John Lubbock wrote that rather than trying to teach animals our ideas, it might be a better idea to produce a code of signals that allow the animal to impart his ideas to us. Twenty years later, and influenced by the academic antics of a horse named Clever Hans, a psychiatrist revealed that animals can think in human ways. They can also express ideas in human language.*

* Lubbock J. Note on the intelligence of the dog (1885) British association for the advancement of science.
Prepys S. in Marx J. (1980) op. cit.
Wolff G. Die denkenden Tiere von Elberfield und mannheim :456 (1914) Suddeutsche Monatshefete, Berlin

Just the Facts Mam’

Due to the fact that science is all about observable data, and any data that is not observable is something else entirely, and not science, the only facts we can truly devise from all this is that animals consistently prove that they are indeed organic machines energized by instincts. In the absence of human intelligence, animal behavior expresses itself under a dictatorial genetic system that imposes common controls from generation to generation. This is why the language experiments required training so structured as to be logically equivalent to teaching a child to swing through trees while supporting him with cables, harnesses and nets. The idea of training animals to complete tasks for rewards is not all that new at all. This has been successfully done with pigeons and even worms. This does not however lead to any kind of language use. All sign behavior can indeed be so mechanistic that it can be duplicated on a computer.

The language of the chimp, Lana, is attributable to only two basic processes called paired associate learning and conditional discrimination learning. Therefore as a practical matter, a computer can be programmed to simulate the alleged language of the chimp. This in turn reveals the mechanistic behavior of the animals themselves. Animals never act illogically against their programming unless mankind sticks his nose in the mix. (Of course, I speak of healthy animals.) Any animal rights person will inform you that elephants never sway back and forth while they stand in one spot, and yet you can witness this in any zoo in America. This “swaying” is actually a mental/emotional problem brought on by captivity.

A Horse is a Horse is a Horse of course

All of this brings up a very good question: Why are there so many highly intelligent people who believe that apes have the ability to use signs in a way that is characteristic of true language? How were these folks influenced into believing that animals can do things they really can’t do? This is mostly due to an ability that animals DO have. Believe it or not, apes have actually fooled human beings, really smart human beings, too. Although, the apes are not actually cognizant of their ability to do so. But there is a trotting horse called Clever Hans who can illustrate this idea for us.

Clever Hans couldn’t speak like the Mr. Ed of TV fame, but his owner was so captivated by his seeming intelligence that he went so far as to give the horse the benefit of a high school education. People came from all over the land to see the horse perform his amazing intelligence “tricks”. Clever Hans could solve very complex mathematical problems, and this astounded audiences. He could also solve non-math problems as well.

When given a math problem, Hans would paw the ground with his hoof. Yes and no answers were solved with a shake of the head left and right or else up and down. (yes and no). He could also name colors. If asked to find the color red, he would pick up a red rag, or a green rag for green and so on. Many people of the day investigated the horse; the owner, the people who had seen the horse perform. No one could discover the source of the intelligence that the horse displayed, this included Calvary men, psychologists and well known scholars.

One day however, after years of amazing feats by the horse, a person asked a question of the horse whose answer was unknown by the questioner or anyone physically close to the horse. Suddenly Hans was an idiot. Not only did he not know the answer, but it became alarmingly obvious that he had never known any answer to any question ever given to him.

Years of constant familiarity between the horse and his teacher enabled the horse to pick up the slightest signs and movements of the trainer’s head and body. At each demonstration, when asked a question, the horse was able to view, with his “jungle” eyesight and wider visual scope, the slightest unconscious movements of his trainer’s body. The trainer knew which rag was red and would naturally face the red rag in some small way either with his eyes or his head or his body, and therefore the horse would then grab a red rag. If asked a math question, the trainer would lean slightly forward while the horse pawed the ground and then when the correct number had been reached, the trainer would relax. All this happened imperceptibly to the humans in the surrounding viewpoint. But animals see these things. (In much the same way as a cat or dog knows a human who likes or dislikes a cat or dog.) Likewise with head movements, the horse might see the trainer blink, or move his head slightly, perhaps even a raising of the chin, and this would tip off the horse to answer in a pre-trained way to either a yes or no question.

Animals see things you and I do not, and it has been discovered that head movements can be perceived at well under a hundredth of an inch. Without the seeming superior intelligence of mankind, animals have been given an almost superpower advantage that man knows only a little about. The interpretation of this gift in human terms has lead many to believe that similarities between man and animal are only a bridge that needs to be gulfed, but in essence, they possess something quite different than what we assume they must have.

Cats and Dogs, cats and dogs. I was just thinking about dinner tonight.

About this time, as you can imagine, pet owners everywhere were revealing their special family members as being oracles of wisdom. In the next thirty years after Hans, there were as many as 70 pet owners who appeared on the popular circuit hoping for a chance at stardom with “Arnold” the pig and such. The problem behind each of those animals was the ubiquitous presence of its master. Without Jimmyjo Bob or Peggy Sue, Arnold knew nothing. This was something new, the connection between masters and their pets, and science moved forward to study this effect with the removal of the human element involved. An animal’s ability to recognize and interpret a human’s smallest movements due to its ultra sensitive and unseen perception fueled the so called discoveries of language possibilities that were then reported. Animals know their trainers and owners and also their expectations. They then combine this with their superior sensory organization and history is made.

But what happens when we pull the human element out of the equation?

More on this in Part 3.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Clever Hans, Apes, Bees and Communication

Clever Hans, Apes,
Bees and Communication

Whether we realize it or not, we are all cognizant of a rather unique talent that is inherent in mankind. Namely that mankind is capable of receiving, supplying and transmitting the written word. This has been going on for thousands of years. We’ve seen temple walls embossed with hieroglyphics, drawings along the sides of inner walls of caves, and lunar calendars engraved on bones. These are all evidence of humans synthesizing abstract elements and placing them into ordered composites, to be followed by written records that contain and communicate information that would otherwise be unavailable.

Mankind has this talent to lift himself up and outside of the time frame of his birth, and many would feel that this is indeed a unique circumstance germane to mankind and only mankind. If this is so, then how can we explain experiments that offer evidence of an ability in animals for the capacity for language, mathematical concepts, and even forming simple sentences? Haven’t we seen the fact that dolphins are capable of language? Haven’t we seen the videos of chimpanzees forming simple sentences with plastic symbols, or computer generated tokens? If the “word” is unique to mankind, then how can animals also posses it?

The ability to pass on information beyond one’s own locus of control and into the next generation is an ability that belongs solely to mankind. There has never been an animal that gathered information beyond it’s hard wiring and then passed it along to their descendants. Yet in recent years there are those who have made some impressive strides and amazing claims in the field of animal communication. Even orangutangs have been described as being “all too human”. This would seem to imply that if we were to give monkeys the benefit of human education and culture, that human qualities would be further developed.

There once was an ape named “Lana” who is said to have done this back in the 1970’s. A computer based language was developed that was targeted at seeing if indeed an ape could learn language. It was all very basic, symbols were created for a keyboard, and Lana had to type the symbols in an order to receive a banana, or some such thing. The results of this study seemingly proved that indeed an ape could use symbols in communicating its wants and needs.

That's NOT Lana --->

Sarah was a chimpanzee who preceded Lana and was given plastic symbols to organize into language. Evidence suggested that indeed Sarah could really form sentences out of the arrangement of plastic symbols. Scientists even went so far as to report that Sarah had a vocabulary of about 130 words and her work revealed actual sentence structure.

Supposedly, Sarah understood the use of verbs, adjectives, conditionals, and even compound sentences. Until the 1980’s, these concepts were considered canon. But in latter years the research has been shown to have been premature, and today we now accept that apes are indeed NOT capable of language. To understand this, let’s contrast their so called language with the waggle dance of the scout bee.

Say it ain’t so, Doctor Dolittle!

Honeybees are genetically able to perform rapid movements known as a “waggle dance”. A scout bee finds food outside of the hive and then returns and relays the information to the rest of the hive. It does this by moving in a circle if the food is less than 300 feet from the hive. It moves in a figure eight motion if the food is more than 300 feet from the hive. (Studies have been done!) The faster the bee moves, the farther away the food is. Also, the direction of the scout bee’s body with respect to gravity inside the hive reveals the direction that the bees must fly outside the hive with respect to sunlight. (Stop laughing, see for yourself.*) If the scout bee’s body is pointed upward, the bees fly toward the sun; if his body points downward, they are to fly away from the sun. So what happens on cloudy days you might ask? The bees have a back up mechanism. The bees remember the sun’s previous diurnal course in relation to landmarks that are local to the hive. The shape of the pattern traced out in the dance, together with the speed of the bee and the orientation of its body with respect to the gravity inside the hive, all serve to communicate information to the other bees as to the distance and direction of the flight they must take to reach the food. (Face it, for this to be explained by evolution is impossible since it would have taken so long for this system to develop that bees would have died out long before hand.)

* Dyer F. & Gould J. Science (1981) 214:1041 nov 27.

The important thing to take away from all this is that when a scout encounters a flower, the waggle dance is not something that it intellectually assimilates. A bee can see through 8,000 individual lenses in its eye with which it sees in all directions at once. Its reporting to the hive is totally an instinctual act where it automatically does the waggle dance. This act of communication is the direct result of DNA preprogramming which contains the information the bee needs to make the whole hive survival possible, and this includes knowledge of gravity and the presence of the sun. The bee doesn’t make instant cognition of this, of course, it just simply is the way things are for them.

Keep in mind also that every time a bee leaves its hive, it only takes as much honey with it as it needs to reach the flowers that the scout bee has reported. To return alive to the hive, they must use the sugar from the flower that they find. No 401K plan for these workers. If you see a bee limping along on the sidewalk, you are looking at a doomed creature who didn’t receive the message properly or was interfered with and will soon succumb to starvation.

The instructions for the waggle dance are imbedded inside of the bee’s genes. Even young bees raised outside of the hive understand the waggle dance. Despite its sophistication, the waggle dance actually exists of a small number of moves.

Consider for a moment the parallels here of the message of God. Only one bee comes from outside the hive with information on how to get to the flowers that will provide continued life for the hive. Any other bee with information will not be correct and will doom the whole hive. If an Eagle were to be flying over the flowers and then transmogrified into a bee in order to give the proper information for reaching the flowers, you would then have a “re-telling” of the Biblical story.

What did the Elephant say to the Ostrich? Apparently nothing.

In all places among the animal kingdom, communication is shared among members of the same species with no interference from mankind at all. In the case of apes, however, the new ingredient is added, namely: humans. Human intelligence is used to interpret if indeed apes are capable of using language. Necessarily, the studies are done in such a way that requires apes to interact over periods of time with human intelligence and expectations.

Where the scout bee tells other bees in the hive where the food is with genetically controlled body odors in conjunction with instinctive body movements, in the language experiments human intelligence attempts to teach apes the use of language with words created by the use of tokens on a computer screen or plastic symbols. But the ramifications are profound if you and I engage in such activity and actually teach these animals “language”.

More on this next time.