The Dark Energy of Luke Barnes

Maybe I’m being a bit unfair with the title since the articles in question are attributed to more than just Luke, there are eight other authors:  Jaime Salcido, Richard Bower, Geraint Lewis, Pascal Elahi, Tom Theuns, Matthieu Schaller, Robert Crain and Joop Schaye.  However, as far as I know, the others aren’t Templeton Research Fellows – one of the articles has LAB (Luke A Barnes) but only LAB tainted with an association with Templeton.  And I note that there is a statement distancing that paper from Templeton (“The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation”.)  Oddly enough, the other article “The impact of dark energy on galaxy formation. What does the future of our Universe hold?”, despite having the same authors (admittedly in a different order), does not acknowledge that Luke is supported by Templeton.  Perhaps because Luke was not lead and Jaime Salcido didn’t want to have anything to do with Templeton if he could help it?

Anyways, I’m pondering not so much the paper as the raft of articles that are based on the papers, helpfully listed by Luke at Letters to Nature.  The spin of these articles varies somewhat, at least going by their headlines, from “Life in the multiverse could be commonplace” to “Bad information for the multiverse: it is nonetheless not going (sic)”.  Either life is teeming in the multiverse, or there’s no multiverse.

Interestingly, if you look at an example of the former – for example A multiverse may be hospitable to life:study – you will see that the scientist quoted is Jaime Salcido.  But if you take a look at an example of the former – for example Bad news for the multiverse: it's still not likely – the featured scientist is Luke Barnes.  There’s also a third spin, namely that there needs to be a “new law” for dark energy, which means that the article headline writer chose to focus on the words of Richard Bower – for example New Research Questions The Multiverse Theory, Calls For A New Law Of Dark Energy.

It looks very much like Barnes and Salcido have looked at the same data and Barnes has opted to interpret it as negating the multiverse (more on that in a moment) and Salcido has interpreted it as saying that life is probable no matter which universe in the multiverse you are in.  This would mean that we’re not that special and not even our universe is that special, as even one of the more Barnes-centric articles put it “That’s bad news for the multiverse, because it means there’s nothing particularly special about our universe - and no need for a multiverse to explain our existence.”  I’m pretty sure that Barnes wouldn’t be happy with that comment.

Barnes, you see, wants fine tuning, because that supports his god and as I have argued elsewhere, he’s a closeted apologist.  If we don’t need a multiverse to explain our existence, because our universe isn’t particularly special, then we don’t need Barnes’ god either.  If there’s evidence against a multiverse, that’s not going to bother real scientists because real scientists aren’t pushing an agenda.  Not that Barnes et al have come up with evidence against a multiverse, all they have is an argument that you don’t need to call on a multiverse to explain the amount of dark energy we have – as far as the star formation rate goes.  That’s alright, we don’t even know for certain that there is dark energy (see sceptical interpretations of dark energy related measurements – such as this).

Some of the articles present an argument that, if it comes from Barnes and/or Bower and isn’t merely a misinterpretation on the journalist’s part, is worryingly deceptive.  There is a suggestion, for example at Inquisitr, that the multiverse theory is there to explain (in part) the value of dark energy.  This is a ludicrous suggestion given that the multiverse has been suggested since as far back as 1952 and the term “dark energy” was only coined in 1998.  Additionally, it is argued that the multiverse simply falls out of string theory to the extent that if string theory is true then, necessarily, there is a multiverse.  String theory dates back to the 1940s, so again predating dark energy.

Basically, multiverse theory needs a fine-tuned value of dark energy to about the same extent as the value of dark energy needs a multiverse theory – namely, not at all.

Inference? What Inference?

From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.

Chapter 1, Book 1, War of the Worlds, HG Wells

I was curious, after listening to his appearance on Unbelievable, as to whether Luke Barnes would advertise it.  I wrote in Come on out, Luke!  Just admit it! about how I think that he should just come clean about being a theist (a Christian theist at that).  Earlier, in Luke Barnes Exposed, I wrote about how Barnes had stumbled in his interview with Luke Muehlhauser and basically admitted to being a theist and how his recent book basically confirms it (so it's a bit strange how he is so coy with Justin Brierley, but I guess he's got into the habit of maintaining the illusion of plausible deniability).  What I further noted was that the strange fact that Barnes doesn't mention his appearance on the Pale Blue Dot podcast, a fact that I ascribed to his stumbling admission to theism during that discussion.

So, I wondered, would he advertise, on his blog Letters to Nature, his appearance on Unbelievable in which he as introduced as a christian (twice)?

The answer is no.  No mention of it at all.  No mention of it coming up (despite it being recorded a week before being published) and no mention of it having happened (at time of writing, in the middle of week following - but he does seem to have mentioned it three weeks after I initially posted this article, that is a month after the episode was published).

I did notice, however, that Luke has written a piece on Sean Carroll's new book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.  Interesting, I thought, since Justin Brierley suggested that Carroll would be invited onto Unbelievable later in the year to go head to head with Barnes.  What a fortunate co-incidence!  (Note that while the episode was taped before Barnes' post went up, presumably the piece was written before, even though that too went up online the same day that Barnes posted about it, and Brierley may well have been oblivious.)

So, was this to be another arxiv paper, like his attack on Stenger?  No, this time it was going to be published by Inference: International Review of Science.

It was at this point that faint alarm bells started going off and I felt a jolt of adrenaline, that frisson that one feels at the beginning of a hunt.  Something wasn't quite right about this.  What was this journal that I had never heard of before?  And why does the word "inference" shoot up warnings for me?  And why does Barnes hasten to say that he did not choose the title?  Ah, it's called Good God!  Not a good start.

So I wandered over and looked at the About page (linked above).  Hm, interesting:

Although the editors have every intention of appealing to experts for advice, Inference is not a peer-reviewed journal.

We have no ideological, political, or religious agendas whatsoever.

So, it's a review, and/or a journal, but not a peer-reviewed journal.  And methinks they do protest too much (with questionable grammar) about their lack of agenda.  Why do they need to protest at all?  Taking a look at another open access on-line only journal (albeit peer reviewed), Science Advances (from AAAS), there's no mention of ideology, theology or agenda.  The word "ideology" does appear on their Statement on Scientific Transparency, Disclosure, and Responsibility, but in the context of unwelcome politicised and ideology-based intrusions into science.  There seems to be no need to declare that they are free of agenda.  Perhaps the intent, by the editors of Inference, is to imply that other journals are not free of agenda.

That word, "inference".  It still bothers me.

So, who are these people?  These editors who took Barnes' words and placed it below their own rubric, Good God!?  And who else has been published in this august journal?

Scanning down the list of editors, one name leaps out.  Contributing Editor, David Berlinski.  Early in the life of this journal, Jeffrey Shallit expressed misgivings about the Berlinski name appearing in the twitter feed associated with a new science journal, Mischa and Claire, and intuited that their father David was somehow involved (despite there not being any details of the editorial board available at that time).

So, Berlinski is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a contributing editor to the journal that Barnes decides as the vehicle for his review of Sean Carroll's new book.  Interesting.  What about other authors?  There's Michael Denton, of course, another senior fellow from the Discovery Institute.  Then there's Arthur Cody, about whom I could find very little, but who wrote a piece against materialism.  And Tyler Hampton … tennis coach?  The apologist's go-to man for the BGV, Vilenkin, is there, writing about the beginning of the universe.  Interesting indeed.

It can't be said that every single article has intelligent design leanings, but … it's still an interesting choice by Barnes.  We have more information to work with though.  Barnes highlighted three articles that he noted as contributing to his decision.  There was Vilenkin's article as mentioned above and what appears to be a perfectly normal article by Jean-Pierre Luminet on the notion of a Holographic Universe.

There's also a reference to an article by Gregory Chaitin, although it's unclear which one since he's written for Inference three times - I could point at An Algorithmic God, but it's possible that Chaitin did not choose the name and it's not the most recent article by him published at Inference.  The most recent is Doing Mathematics Differently which starts with two quotes from Leibniz.  Both are from Philosophical Essays, but they are strangely out of order and one is a fragment:

And if someone traced a continuous line which is sometimes straight, sometimes circular, and sometimes of another nature, it is possible to find a notion, or rule, or equation common to all the points of this line, in virtue of which these very changes must occur. For example, there is no face whose contours are not part of a geometric line and cannot be traced in one stroke by a certain regular movement. But, when a rule is extremely complex, what is in conformity with it passes for irregular.

Thus, one can say, in whatever manner God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in accordance with a certain general order. But God has chosen the most perfect world, that is, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena, as might be a line in geometry whose construction is easy and whose properties and effects are extremely remarkable and widespread. I use these comparisons to sketch an imperfect likeness of divine Wisdom and to point out something that can at least elevate our minds to conceive in some way what cannot be sufficiently expressed. But I do not claim to explain in this way the great mystery upon which the entire universe depends.

Then there are the contents of the issue of Inference that sit alongside Barnes' piece.  Two are notable.

First there's a "Critical Essay" by David Berlinski & Juan Uriagereka, The Recovery of Case.

This initially appeals to the linguist and grammarian in me, especially as a person who continues to use the words "that" and "which", both of which are often dropped in modern English and are thus easily confused.  However, I noted an odd slide towards the end, when their examples stopped being so quirky and quaintly awkward and took on a different flavour.  Regarding the awkwardness, the authors provide an example of a complementiser in the sentence "Trottweiler prefers for Agnes to keep quiet" instead of the more natural sounding "Trottweiller prefers that Agnes keep quiet".  The thing here is (that) for isn't a complementiser in the example, it's a preposition and it seems to have been backwards engineered into a sentence which just seems wrong.  The preposition for is the only one associated with the noun "preference".  I think a far better example of for, as a complementizer, would be in a sentence where for is used instead of because, "we all sang him a nice song for he's a jolly good fellow" but even then, it would be less awkward to simply use because.

The last two examples in the article aren't as quirky, instead they dip into the bible, there's something there about Sampson and Delilah and then one about Cain and Able.   That's not the main issue though.  The main issue is hidden at the end of the third last paragraph where the authors ask "if human beings are notable in their possession of Universal Grammar, what explains the acquisition of Universal Grammar by the human species?"

Michael Denton has an answer - it's not evolution (posted at a Discovery Institute web-site, although that might not be immediately obvious, you have to go to the bottom of the right hand bar to see their logo).  So, despite a promising start, this is merely an attempt to promote intelligent design.  No surprises there given that it's co-written by a senior fellow of the Design Institute.

Then there is an "Experimental Review" by James Tour, Two Experiments in Abiogenesis.

James Tour is a synthetic organic chemist who is notable for being a "scientific dissenter from Darwinism" and who signed a petition to that effect for the Discovery Institute.  It's interesting that he should be deployed to comment on a couple of experiments with implications with regard to abiogenesis.

What I am not suggesting is that Inference is a journal that is literally awash in Intelligent Design propaganda (by which I mean metaphorically awash).  Not at all.  What I am suggesting is that Inference is a journal that acts as a platform on which high-brow Intelligent Design propaganda can sit side by side with mainstream science.  Another journal which is peer-reviewed, and does not have an editorial board that includes a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, would be reluctant to publish the propaganda, but Inference seems to have no problems with publishing mainstream stuff that comes their way - because it aids their cause.

So, that word - inference - what was bothering me about it?  Two things really.  There's the common apologetic claim that they are using "inference to the best explanation", which sounds all scientific, except that it tends to stop at the first step (rather than going on to attempt falsification, prediction or hypothesis testing).  But inference in itself isn't a bad thing.  We all make inferences pretty much all the time.

I think what bothered me slightly and now bothers me somewhat more is the initially tenuous link to the Design Inference, a book by William Dembski - formally of, you guessed it, the Discovery Institute.  (His retirement from the institute and the ID community was only announced a couple of weeks ago, but his work on an ID book implies that he is not entirely retired.)

In earlier articles, I have written about Barnes' and his Templeton temptation.  That's bad enough, so I do hope that we are not about to see him fall into even worse company with the ID crowd.  There are plenty of other journals out there that Barnes could have sought out for publication.  Why did he choose this one?

Luke Barnes Exposed

I have been on Luke Barnes' case for years, trying to get him to admit to being a believer who is using his scientific credentials to drive a theistic agenda.  He's been slippery and difficult, maintaining a vestige of plausible deniability while pushing the "god did it" conclusion to the fine-tuning problem (or at least doing the opposite of damning with faint praise - perhaps praising with faint critique).

I have been listening to his interview on Pale Blue Dot and was ready to release a careful analysis of how he gave away his theism that day, but … there is now an even better example available.

Luke Barnes and Geraint F Lewis have released a book on fine-tuning and it would appear that while both agree that fine-tuning is a thing, a phenomenon that is worth considering, they disagree on the conclusions that we should draw from it.  There was no need for me to waste money on buying the book, since Google Books provided enough data to support my case.

On page 348, in the chapter "A Discussion Continued", there is this passage:

Geraint (continuing from page 347 which is not available, I've guessed the last word on that missing page): (To) you, the apparent fine-tuning of the properties of the Universe, the properties that allow you to exist as a living, thinking, active creature, is not an accident, not some random role of the dice in an inflating cosmology. To you, the conditions were chosen; the dials were explicitly set to allow your existence.

This universe contains good things, like free moral agents and all that they can do and learn and appreciate. The presence of these qualities is not accidental, but reflects the intent of the creator, the person who set the dials. How’s that?

Luke: That's about right. But I feel that you don’t buy the argument.

Geraint: Alas, I don't. I think that moral beliefs have arisen through our evolution and allowed us to survive and thrive in communities and clans. Anyway, all people appear to be a little amoral sometimes!

Luke: Don't confuse the question of how we got our moral beliefs with the question of what they are about. I got my eye-balls from evolutionary processes as well, but I believe them when they tell me that there's a tree over there. And certainly, knowing what is right to do is no guarantee of doing what is right. We aren't perfectly moral, but I think that we know enough to be able to think rationally about the idea of a morally perfect, necessary being.

So, after years of being coy, Luke has finally admitted to being a theist.

While I am happy about this admission, since it vindicates my suspicions regarding his motives over the years, it's a bit sad that I didn't manage to put out my claim that he had already accidentally admitted to being a theist back in 2010.  Then again, on the other hand, the piecing together of his accidental admission could easily have been waved aside by Barnes if he hadn't already tipped his hand in his book.

It is strange that Barnes, who obviously thinks that fine-tuning is an important topic, important enough to write a book about it, should give an interview for more than an hour on that topic (to Luke Muehlhauser) and then not mention that interview on his blog at all.  Barnes was mentioned in The Economist and that was worthy of a post on his blog, why not the podcast interview with Muehlhauser?

My answer is that in that podcast, 11 Responses to Fine-Tuning, Barnes accidentally admitted that he is a theist - a fact that, at the time, he did not want to be widely known.

The gaffe starts at about 60:04.

In the section prior (from 59:27), Barnes talks about a universe created by the god of WLC and says that "if that sort of universe is the way it really is", and then states that the right answer to existential musings (a long string of "why" questions, in which intention is presumed) would involve god.  Barnes claims that "this sort of idea is not an ad hoc idea" and launches into a quote from Saint Augustine; "in '(t)he ordinary course of nature in the whole of creation [will have] certain natural laws ... determining for each thing what it can do or not do'."

(Barnes had previously written out this quote in an article on the "Religion and Ethics" section of the ABC news site, a piece about the then upcoming debate between WLC and Lawrence Krauss.  The original translation of Augustine from which Barnes appears to be quoting reads: "The ordinary course of nature in the whole of creation has certain natural laws in accordance with which even the spirit of life, which is a creature, has its own appetites, determined in a sense, which even a bad will cannot elude. The elements of the physical world also have a fixed power and quality determining for each thing what it can do or not do and what can be done or not done with it.")

Then, from 60:04, Barnes says - "That's actually a quote from Saint Augustine in the 5th century AD.  So this is not an ad hoc idea that we came up with when we were faced with science.  That believers came up with."  Here he slipped up and accidentally revealed that he counts himself among the group "believers".

If only I had been aware of this earlier.  I would have been bashing him with it for years.

Oh well, at least he has finally come clean.  Will that put his Templeton at risk?

I ask this a little tongue in cheek, because it's quite interesting what authors he recommends to the podcast's listeners:

·      Paul Davies (Templeton winner)

·      Martin Rees (Templeton winner)

·      John D Barrow (Templeton winner)

·      John Leslie (Philosopher of Religion who Barnes suggests is a theist, although he's normally described as a pantheist, Leslie was involved in one event with Templeton - the same event that Richard Dawkins was involved with)

·      Barrow and Tipler (Barrow per above, the less said about Tipler the better)

·      George Ellis (Templeton winner, more recently a positive reviewer of Barnes' new book)

·      Robin Collins (theistic philosopher who has had two grants from Templeton to work on fine-tuning, also a positive reviewer of Barnes' book), and

·      William Lane Craig (not so involved with Templeton, or with fine-tuning come to mention it)

The involvement of Richard Dawkins at a Templeton workshop (Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life and Its Theological Implications) is odd.  Admittedly it was in 1998, well before "The God Delusion" (2008), but well after "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design" (1986, although the paperback edition was published in 1996), so while it was a decade before the beginning of the "Four Horsemen" idea, and "New Atheism" (and four years before the "brights" movement kicked off), it was also a decade after Dawkins had written against the notion of a god.  Why was Richard Dawkins at a workshop hosted by the immensely rich god-botherers at Templeton?  Did he not know who they were?  Did he think that he could persuade them from their folly?  Was he tricked into attending?

What is quite amusing is that, when you search the Templeton website, there are three mentions of Dawkins (only two of which are negative) but a search for William Lane Craig comes up blank, despite WLC's three exemplary essay awards and his various lectureships with Templeton, plus his attendance at the St. Thomas University Summer Seminar program together with Luke Barnes last year.  Luke Barnes gets one mention regarding the grant he got from them in 2015 to do two and a half years' work on fine-tuning.  The description of that project ends with this line:

Theology, too, has embraced fine-tuning as part of “natural theology … the pursuit of a thorough understanding of the intelligible tightly-knit structure of the world that science discerns” (Polkinghorne).

This is a strange comment, is it not, when the grant is filed under "Mathematical and Physical Sciences", rather than under the "Philosophy and Theology" category.  Well, it was odd … until Barnes revealed himself to be a theist.