God particle found

This is so cool. The Higgs-Boson particle has been discovered.

In physics terms, evidence for a new particle requires a “3-sigma” measurement, corresponding to a 1-in-740 chance that a random fluke could explain the observations, and a claim of discovery requires a 5-sigma effect, or a 1-in–3.5 million shot that the observations are due to chance. In December representatives of the two experiments had announced what one called “intriguing, tantalizing hints” of something brewing in the collider data. But those hints fell short of the 3-sigma level. The new ATLAS finding met not just that level of significance but cleared the gold standard 5-sigma threshold, and CMS very nearly did as well, with a 4.9-sigma finding.

So let the jokes begin:

-- The Higgs-Boson particle was recently found herding two of each kind of subatomic particle into a subatomic boat of some kind.

-- The scientists who discovered the Higgs-Boson particle announced today that its first commandment was "Thou shalt not misuse the name of the Higgs-Boson particle in the science/religion conflict."

-- Scientists have successfully detected a Higgs-Boson particle but were unable to determine if there were any others. There is one Higgs-Boson particle and the Large Hadron Collider is its prophet.

-- It has been determined that the Higgs-Boson particle used to be a lowly electron, but it died and was resurrected.

Yeah I know, they suck. Supply your own in the comments.

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Proof Positive

Last night I left a few comments on another blog that reported the news that a German court had declared it illegal to circumcise children under the age of consent. The comments on the blog veered to several side issues, one of which was condemnation of religions that practice circumcision. This led to a couple of commenters making the claim that atheism is not disbelief in God, it's merely the absence of belief in God. I've written about that before so I challenged them to define what the "absence of belief" is and how it's different from withholding belief (agnosticism) and disbelief (atheism as it has been understood historically and today). The "absence of belief" position was popular in the mid to late 20th century among some atheist philosophers, but they eventually abandoned it because they couldn't define it. Their motive for suggesting it was that if one simply lacks a belief then they (allegedly) do not share any burden of proof: the burden is entirely on the person who claims that God exists. If you assert that God does not exist, however, then you're making a claim to knowledge and so must shoulder the burden of proof just as much as the theist does. So the "absence of belief" position is basically an attempt to think whatever you want without having to go to the trouble of having reasons or evidence for it.

This led to someone else making a statement that is popular among atheist laymen. He wrote, "You can't prove a negative." I responded, "You can't? Why not? I can prove negatives. Who told you that you can't prove a negative?" Really, negatives are proven all day long and are very easy: you can prove that there is no full-sized elephant in your room right now. You can prove that, under normal conditions, if you drop a pencil, it will not fall up instead of down. These are perhaps silly examples, but proving negatives is one of the most common things to prove. Here's a more realistic case. Many scientists and philosophers of science follow Popper in claiming that science cannot prove anything it can only falsify. Science cannot prove "if A --> B" because A and B may just be occuring together by coincidence. However science can falsify "if A --> B" by finding an example of A occurring without B. If we accept this account then not only is it possible to prove a negative, it means that science only proves negatives.

Now I suspect the atheist who says you can't prove negatives is really thinking something else. Perhaps he's thinking that while you can prove negatives about observables you can't prove negatives about unobservables, like God. But of course this is false as well: you can prove that God did not just create a full-sized elephant in your room right now. The atheist may counter-respond that if we appeal to God we can make any absurd qualification we want. Maybe God just created a full-sized invisible elephant in your room right now. If you object that part of your anti-elephant proof is that your room is not big enough for an elephant, you can maybe qualify it further. But these attempts are non-starters. Absent the specific qualification that the elephant is invisible (or any other ad hoc qualification) the phrase "a full-sized elephant" by itself would mean that the elephant in question is visible (or lacks the ad hoc qualification). I think the people who make this objection are thinking something along the lines of: the concept of God has been repeatedly qualified to render it immune to disproof. It used to refer to a physical person-like object, but then when that became philosophically and scientifically untenable it was upgraded to a non-physical person-like object, etc. This seems to presuppose a naive view of the origin and development of religion which was common in the second half of the 19th century. Certainly, the theistic concept of God has developed -- as it should -- but it is not clear to me that this has been a series of ad hoc qualifications like, "Well, well, maybe he's just invisible!" At any rate, atheism is guilty of the same thing, so it strikes me as a tu quoque argument.

Or perhaps the atheist is thinking you can't prove a universal negative. That's a more respectable claim: to say there are no X's would seem to require that one had searched all of reality and determined that no X's exist. Even more, it would seem to require that one had searched all of reality simultaneously: otherwise, perhaps the X's were somewhere other than where you were looking at each particular moment; maybe they moved around so that they were always behind you or something. Unfortunately, this claim is still false. It assumes the only way you can prove something is via observation, that is, through scientific methods. This is scientism and scientism is a naive and foolish position. To make the most obvious point, you can prove things via logic -- specifically you can prove universal negatives via logic. If something contradicts a law of logic then it is impossible and cannot exist anytime, anywhere. If the atheist challenges the laws of logic we can simply point out that science presupposes the laws of logic. Once you've abandoned logic you've abandoned science (not to mention knowledge and rationality). However, this has a limited application. That's why this objection is more respectable: in many cases you can't prove a universal negative. It's only when the universal negative contradicts a law of logic that it can be disproven.

A third possibility: perhaps the atheist is defining "prove" in the logical sense. You can give an argument for something, you can demonstrate that something is more likely true than false, you can even show that it is very probably true. But a logical proof is an absolute proof. It cannot fail to be true (or, conversely, fail to be false). It holds of all possible worlds. But of course, this was already dealt with: to prove a universal negative via logic is to prove it absolutely.

Finally, I would just like to point out that the claim "You can't prove a negative" is a negative. So by its own lights, it can't be proven. This doesn't necessarily render it invalid, since there are many things we can know that we can't prove. However, it does mean, at the very least, that the person who claims you can't prove a negative must give us a reason for thinking why you can't prove a negative. This is likely to lead to one of the three possibilities above.

(Updated to add a point and clean up some awkward phrasings.)

Update, 12 July: On the definition of agnosticism, a point raised in the comments, see here.

(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)

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Historians on their books

A cynic might conclude that - far from being one of humanity's greatest achievements - the Internet is in fact a seething mass of banality, pornography and contemptible dribble. There is something to be said for this view but occasionally you come across a site that redeems the entire project. One such is 'New Books in History' - a podcast series which interviews historians and talks to them about their latest work.

Highlights include Adrian Goldsworthy on the fall of the Roman Empire, Robert Gellately on Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, Norman Stone on World War One, Brett Whalen on Christendom and the apocalypse in the Middle Ages and  Mark Mazower on Hitler's Empire. Probably the most engaging speaker is the chain smoking, Scottish Tory Norman Stone, whose pupils over the years have included  Niall Ferguson, Andrew Roberts, Richard Overy and Orlando Figes. You can find another one of his lectures here, this time on Turkey (where he is now based).

There's also Jay Rubenstien's 'Armies of God - The first Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse' which is very good & highly readable. Hopefully I will get around to posting a review of it shortly.

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Another Orlando Figes row

One year on from 'review-gate' another row involving Orlando Figes is brewing and this time it's his Stalin-era book 'The Whisperers' which has come under fire. The Torygraph reports that:

..a Russian publisher has refused to publish a translation of Figes' history of the Stalin era, The Whisperers, which explores the suppression of the family in the USSR, because it apparently contained inaccuracies and factual errors.

Varvara Gornostaeva, head of the Corpus publishing house, said that during a pre-publication check they found a "huge number of inaccuracies and factual errors," and if they didn't fix them then it could bring about serious displeasure to some of the gulag victims and their families.

Allan Massie appears to think the book was pulled for sinister motives. He writes in a piece entitled 'How Orlando Figes is being silenced by the ghost of Stalin' that:

Anna Piotrovskaya, executive director of Dynastia, the publishing house which holds the Russian Rights, explains the cancellation as follows. Publication “would definitely provoke scandal and result in numerous objections, either to the factual inaccuracies contained in the book, or to the misrepresentation of the original transcripts of the interviews, especially considering the complexity and the sensitivity of the topic to Russian society”.

It is the last part of that sentence which is perhaps the most significant, especially since Figes has offered to correct any mistakes and amend what are judged to be misinterpretations, and since Alena Kozlova, head of Memorial’s archive, while expressing concern about some mistakes, praises the book and says that Figes “really shows the atmosphere of the time”.

If it is indeed thought to do this, then, given “the complexity and sensitivity of the topic to Russian society”, it is not surprising that publication has been cancelled. For “Russian society”, one may choose to read “the Kremlin”. The Putin regime has been engaged in a gradual rehabilitation of Stalin. It has no desire for Russians to be reminded once again of the Stalinist crimes. If you ask the questions “who benefits from stopping publication and who might be harmed by publication?” it is not difficult to come up with the answer.

Not so fast say Peter Reddaway and Stephen F. Cohen writing in 'The Nation' - 'The reasons had nothing to do with Putin’s regime but everything to do with Figes himself.'. They proceed to list the errors in 'The Whisperers' which include:

§ To begin with an example that blends mistakes with invention, consider Figes’s treatment of Natalia Danilova (p. 253), whose father had been arrested. After misrepresenting her family history, Figes puts words in her mouth, evidently to help justify the title of his book: Except for an aunt, “the rest of us could only whisper in dissent.” The “quotation” does not appear in Memorial’s meticulous transcription of its recorded interview with Danilova.

§ Figes invents “facts” in other cases, apparently also for dramatic purpose. According to The Whisperers (pp. 215-17, 292-93), “it is inconceivable” that Mikhail Stroikov could have completed his dissertation while in prison “without the support of the political police. He had two uncles in the OGPU” (the political police). However, there is no evidence that Stroikov had any uncles, nor is there any reason to allege that he had the support of the secret police. Figes also claims that for helping Stroikov’s family, a friend then in exile was “rearrested, imprisoned and later shot.” In reality, this friend was not rearrested, imprisoned or executed, but lived almost to the age of 90.

§ Figes’s distortion of the fate of Dina Ielson-Grodzianskaia (pp. 361-62), who survived eight years in the Gulag, is grievous in a different respect. After placing her in the wrong concentration camp, he alleges that she was “one of the many ‘trusties’” whose collaboration earned them “those small advantages which…could make the difference between life and death.” There is no evidence in the interviews used by Figes that Ielson-Grodzianskaia was ever a “trusty” or received any special privileges. As a leading Memorial researcher commented, Figes’s account is “a direct insult to the memory of a prisoner.”


Orlando Figes replies at the bottom of the article. I'm not sure if Putin's regime have a vendetta against Figes but his fellow academics certainly do!


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Fressellian logic and why anything exists

We start our journey here where Bill Vallicella, aka Maverick Philosopher, characterizes seven possible responses to Leibniz's question why does anything exist rather than nothing? A very interesting post in its own right and highly recommended. Then he followed up on that post with another regarding one of the positions, rejectionism, which is the view that the question is nonsensical. The main question of that post is whether Wittgenstein, who "was struck with wonder at the sheer existence of things" was paradoxically a rejectionist. Embedded in that post, however, was a challenge: "translate 'Something exists' into standard logical notion [I think he means notation]. You will discover that it cannot be done." The standard logic Vallicella's talking about is the combination of Frege and Russell which he calls Fressellian logic, standard first-order predicate logic with identity. According to this logic, existence = instantiation. His argument -- his challenge rather -- is to ask, what exactly is the property being instantiated when something exists?

The challenge was then accepted by David Brightly at Tilly and Lola. Here is his reply:

And as a Fressellian I accept the challenge. That property is Individual aka Object, the concept at the root of the Porphyrean tree. We can say 'Something exists' with ∃x.Object(x), ie, there is at least one object. Likewise ∀x.Object(x) (which is always true, even when the box is empty) says 'Everything exists' and its negation (which is always false) says 'Some thing is not an object'. But both these last are unenlightening---because always true and always false, respectively, they convey no information, make no distinction, are powerless to change us.

Then Vallicella responds again in yet another post summarizing his objection wonderfully, and then going over Brightly's response, and his counter-response. He demonstrates, to my (untrained, non-Fressellian) satisfaction that "Something identical with itself is a man" does not mean the same thing as "A man exists", and substituting Brightly's "Individual aka Object" for "Something identical with itself" does not seem to solve the problem. However, this is not my field so I'll just conclude by saying I think something exists.

(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)

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Columbus and Bugs

A year and a half ago I wrote a post excoriating those who think that Columbus was trying to prove the Earth is round, and speculated that they may have gotten their information from Bugs Bunny. I have recently rediscovered another Bugs cartoon that offers some further evidence that the earth is round without scurrilously linking it to Columbus' voyages, and I've updated the previous post accordingly.

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Quote of the Day

The only text from classical antiquity quoted by H. Blumenberg in Die Genesis der kopemikanischen Welt in which the central position of the Earth amounts to a privilege is from Seneca: "That you may understand how she (viz. Nature) wished us, not merely to behold her, but to gaze upon her, see the position in which she has placed us. She has set us in the center of her creation, and has granted us a view that sweeps the universe (circumspectus)." [De Otio V, 4, in Moral Essays]

At first blush, it looks as if we are reading black on white that man is in the place of honor, and that this place is the center. But a closer look shows that this position hardly redounds to man's advantage. On the contrary. For grammar and in reality, the subject is not man, but nature. What Seneca says is that nature wants to have a spectator, so that she can reveal the plenty of her treasures. The place of man in the middle is scarcely a privilege he could boast of. It bears witness to the almighty producer, nature, who wanted to receive applause and managed her theatre so that her admirers would receive comfortable seats.

As far as my knowledge goes (and it does not go as far as I wish), Freud's contention can be propped up by one text and by one text only. I know of only one mediaeval thinker who confused the two meanings of centrality and grounded an alleged greater worth of man on the fact that his home in the universe, namely the Earth, is located in the latter's center. This thinker lived at the beginning of the 10th century in Bagdad. He was the Jewish theologian and apologist (mutakallim) Saadia Gaon (882-942). He becomes interesting for us because he is utterly out of tune with the rest of the mediaeval concert. I quote a passage from his masterpiece, the apologetical tract Book of Beliefs and of Convictions:

Though we see that the creatures are many in number, nevertheless, we need not be confused in regard to which of them constitutes the goal of creation. For there exists a natural criterion by means of which we can determine which one of all the creatures is the end. When, then, we make our investigation with this criterion as a guide, we find that the goal is man. We arrive at this conclusion in the following manner: Habit and nature (binya) place whatever is most highly prized in the center of things which are themselves not so highly prized. Beginning with the smallest things, therefore, we say that it is noted that the kernel is more precious than the leaves. That is due to the fact that the kernel is more precious than the leaves, because the growth of the plant and its very existence depend upon it. Similarly does the seed from which trees grow, if edible, lodge in the center of the fruit, as happens in the case of the nut. But even if a tree grows from an inedible kernel, this kernel is located in the center of the fruit, as is the case of the date, no attention being paid to the edible portion, which is left on the outside to preserve the kernel. In the same way is the yolk of the egg in the center, because from it springs the young bird and the chicken. Likewise also is the heart of man in the middle of his breast, owing to the fact that it is the seat of the soul and the of the natural heat of the body. So, too, is the power of vision located in the center of the eye because it is by means of it that one is able to see. When, therefore, we see that this situation appertains to many things and then find the earth in the center of the heaven with the heavenly spheres surrounding it on all sides, it becomes clear to us that the thing which was the object of creation must be on [om. v.1.] the earth. Upon further investigation of all its parts we note that the earth and the water are both inanimate, whereas we find that the beasts are irrational. Hence only man is left, which gives us the certainty that he must unquestionably have been the intended purpose of creation.

Thus, we have in Saadia and, apparently, in Saadia only, a clear example of an anthropocentrism grounded on a geocentric cosmology. Let me first underline some points:

1) Saadia does not support a naively teleological world-view. This is shown by what he explains, not without some emphasis, about fruits, like dates or apricots, the aim of which is to be looked for in the kernel, not in the edible rind, and which is not edible for man. Natural phenomena are not seen from the point of view of human use, but in themselves.

2) The cogency of the reasoning is somewhat undermined by a [sic] unavowed shift in the criterion. Saadia begins with the thesis, gained by way of induction that nature puts what is more important in the center. In this way, he can make plausible that in the universe, too, we have to look for what is most precious in the center. This should lead us to surmise that the Earth is the jewel of the universe. But when Saadia looks at the Earth, he silently gives up his criterion of centrality and introduces a second point of view, i.e. life. This enables him to discard the elements, because they are lifeless. Finally, he adds a third criterion, or reason. This enables him again to discard the animals on behalf of man alone. The criterion of centrality would not suffice. It is not enough, when what must be proved is the greater worth, not of the Earth, but of man. The alternative reading I mentioned above ("the Earth" instead of "on the Earth") may be the trace of the misgivings that dawned on the mind of some copyist who wanted to simplify Saadia's argumentation.

Furthermore, we will have to point out, on the other hand, that Saadia's contention did not remain unchallenged. On the contrary, later thinkers blamed him for according too much worth to man. They did that without their pulling their punches. The most famous -- and at the same time the most outspoken -- of Saadia's critics was probably the highly learned globetrotter and Biblical scholar Abraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167), whose rationalistic cast of mind is well-known. The clearest passage I could find is a long digression in the second version (shittah akhereth) of his commentary on the Torah, more precisely in his commentary on the first verse of Genesis. The context is a general critique of anthropomorphism, and especially of the idea according to which man is more worthy than than the angels -- a critique that we can find elsewhere in Ibn Ezra. He mentions the tiny size of the Earth. In the universe, it is hardly more than a geometrical point, i.e. a point without dimensions. He then submits Saadia's two examples (the core in the apple and the yolk in the egg) to harsh criticism:

The argument he mentions, i.e. that what is most worthy n the fruit of the apple-tree is the pip, which maintains the species, is no proof either. For this (viz. the apple) is a compound, which the heavens are not. Moreover, the fruit of the apple-tree is more worthy when it comes to actual existence than what is potentially. What he (Saadia) contends, that the chick comes to being from the red part of the egg, i.e., from the yolk, is false, because the yolk is a food for it.

We can distinguish three arguments in Ibn Ezra's critique:

a) We must tell compound things from simple ones. What holds for the former does not necessarily hold for the latter. In realities that are all in one block, like heavens, it does not make sense to distinguish between the aim and the means towards it.

b) Even if we stick to fruit as an example, we should reverse the order of value that Saadia supposes. For the core, that contains the fruit only potentially, cannot be the final aim.

c) In the case of the egg, the yolk, that undoubtedly lies in the middle, is not the seed, but some sort of pantry for the chick.

Unfortunately, Ibn Ezra's critique does not deal with the relationship between the central position of a thing and the increased worth it is supposed to possess. This is all the more surprising in that he could have poked fun at Saadia without the slightest difficulty. The latter relies on the principle that the content is more important than the container. Now, this principle is diametrally [sic] opposed to another, more commonly admitted principle, i.e. the container is more worth than its content. By not remaining with this principle, Saadia gave critique an easy opening.

Rémi Brague
"Geocentrism as a Humiliation for Man"
Medieval Encounters 3 (1997): 187-210
(footnotes omitted)

(cross-posted at Agent Intellect)

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Contra Stenger

Here is a paper from arxiv by Dr Luke Barnes of the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich entitled 'The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life'. This focuses on the manifold errors of one Dr Victor J. Stenger. It is probably the best & most detailed discussion of the problem I have yet seen and is well worth a look; as is the blog he contributes to with 3 other cosmologists entitled 'Letters to Nature'.

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P'd off

Just when you think the ‘Jesus Myth’ controversy couldn't get any more surreal, out pops a paper from Stephen Law, a philosopher at theUniversity of London entitled “Evidence, miracles, and the existence of Jesus“ in which he concludes that the historical Jesus did not exist.  He does this by laying out two principles – P1 that if you get a series of extraordinary claims (i.e miracle stories without extraordinary evidence you have good reason to be skeptical and P2:

Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.

I'm a little confused with how this works as a foundational principle for ancient history. For instance, of the Emperor Vespasian, the Roman historian Tacitus writes:

Among the lower classes at Alexandria was a blind man whom everybody knew as such. One day this fellow threw himself at Vespasian's feet, imploring him with groans to heal his blindness. He had been told to make this request by Serapis, the favourite god of a nation much addicted to strange beliefs… A second petitioner, who suffered from a withered hand, pleaded his case too, also on the advice of Serapis: would Caesar tread upon him with the imperial foot? At first Vespasian laughed at them and refused. When the two insisted, he hesitated. .. With a smiling expression and surrounded by an expectant crowd of bystanders, he did what was asked. Instantly the cripple recovered the use of his hand and the light of day dawned again upon his blind companion. Both these incidents are still vouched for by eye-witnesses, though there is now nothing to be gained by lying.

Does this mean we should deny the existence of Vespasian? Should we also deny the existence of Augustus because (according to Suetonius) he was sired by Apollo in the form of a snake. Now of course there is – by most standards – good independent evidence for both these historical figures – but as we have seen with the myther controversy, all of it can be dismissed as interpolations using the same methodology. Many other figures from history have miraculous occurrences sprinkled through our sources for them and could similarly be dismissed as fabricated.

Law concludes:

‘Our two prima facie plausible principles – P1 and P2 – combine with certain plausible empirical claims to deliver a conclusion very few Biblical scholars are willing to accept….

4. (P2) Where testimony/documents weave together a narrative that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims, and there is good reason to be sceptical about those extraordinary claims, then there is good reason to be sceptical about the mundane claims, at least until we possess good independent evidence of their truth.

5. The New Testament documents weave together a narrative about Jesus that combines mundane claims with a significant proportion of extraordinary claims.

6. There is no good independent evidence for even the mundane claims about Jesus (such as that he existed)

7. Therefore (from 3, 4, 5, and 6), there’s good reason to be sceptical about whether Jesus existed.

. . . So, our empirical premises – 2, 5 and 6, – have some prima facie plausibility. I suggest 2 and 5 have a great deal of plausibility, and 6 is at the very least debatable’

I think at this stage I have to present my own set of principles:

1) The Gavin Menzies principle – history and the methodology of historical research should be the art of historians who are properly qualified in their fields. Philosophers, English professors and retired submarine commanders can popularise, but beyond that should STFU (especially if they are 'introducing a new paradigm') .

2) The Egregious Jargon principle – history should remain free of the type of meaningless twaddle I have witness over the past few weeks – this would include Bayes probability theorem, obscure Marxist terminology, postmodern waffle, p’s q’s I’s brackets and other the other assorted excel formulas that seem to be creeping in. 

3)The James the Just principle – People that don't exist don't tend to have flesh and blood brothers (whose existence is multiply attested). 

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The Jesus Wars

Those among us who remember the old Richard Dawkins forum will recall the ‘What can we possibly infer about the historical Jesus?’ thread; a near thousand page epic which outlived the demise of its host and gained a new lease of on the – inaptly named – rational skepticism discussion site. The exchange featured an assortment of ‘cut n paste’ cranks, goggle-geniuses and their hangers-on being given a vigorous and sustained intellectual beating by a Tasmanian Devil (the author of Armarium Magnum and historyversusthedavincicode.com). The general thrust of the thread was one side arguing that the historical Jesus never existed and that the Gospels describe an essentially fictitious person. This has never been a very popular theory in academia. In his ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ for example, the historian Maurice Casey remarks:

‘This view is demonstrably false. It is fuelled by a regrettable form of atheist prejudice, which holds all the main primary sources, and Christian people, in contempt. This is not merely worse than the American Jesus Seminar, it is no better than Christian fundamentalism. It simply has different prejudices. Most of its proponents are also extraordinarily incompetent.’

Despite its perceived shortcomings the Christ Myth theory appears to have found widespread popularity on the Internet and among the New Atheist movement. As a result the New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman has authored a book entitled ‘Did Jesus Exist?’, answering very much in the affirmative.

This seems to have gone down like a lead balloon among the dawkinsia and his views have been criticized by, among others, Richard Carrier, Ophelia Benson, Jerry Coyne, Eric McDonald and P Z Meyers (who proclaimed ‘Carrier cold-cocks Ehrman’, ‘It’s simply bad history to invent rationalizations for an undocumented mystery figure from the distant past’- which, as a principle sounds like it would invalidate most of the field of Ancient History). Some of these, like Ophelia's are fairly mild critiques which take Ehrman to task for making statements that are too unqualified. The weirdest comes from Jerry Coyne who attacks Ehrman for being greedy for putting his blog behind a paywall (it's for charity stoopid!). The most vehement and hard hitting attacks have come from Richard Carrier - both here and here. Ehrman has begun to respond on his blog here and in his latest posting has linked to a rant by historian of religion and humanist advocate Robert Joseph Hoffman. Hoffman writes that:

This little rant (and it is a rant, I acknowledge and I do not apologize for it: somebody’s got to do it) will be followed next week by three essay-length responses to Richard C. Carrier’s ideas: The first by me, the second by Professor Maurice Casey of the University of Nottingham, and the third by Stephanie Fisher a specialist in Q-studies. We will attempt to show an impetuous amateur not only where he goes wrong, but why he should buy a map before starting his journey. Other replies will follow in course, and we invite Carrier, his fans, and anyone else interested in this discussion to respond to it at any stage along the way.


I have to say I am glad to see academics using the Internet to reach out to the general public and engage in debates like this. The fact is that that with the growth of the world wide web there has been a democratization of information. As a result, the type of fringe theories that would previously have been confined to obscure sections of the bookstore or self published works flogged at public events are now easily available and can  proliferate with astonishing speed. In an environment like this we need much more input from the real experts. The alternative is a public forum dominated by amateur crank-pots. 


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