Deconstructionalism: the fallacy of science and the Q gospel

Deconstructionalism is the fundamental philosophy found in academia and has found favour largely due to the success of following this approach in understanding evolution, chemical composition and even much physics.
The philosophy is simple: that all things can be deconstructed into parts, and that by understanding these parts, one can understand the whole.
In evolutionary biology, this philosophy worked well with an approach of comparing individual features of animals and then grouping them into like animals based on the type of feet (hoof, claw, gripping hand) and along with other features, creating a family tree of animals. Without deconstructionalism, the “family tree” would have been viewed as just a way of categorising animals. But deconstructionalism, says the whole is the sum of its parts – parts that can be viewed separately as having their own properties and behaviour. As such when we see the “same part” in two animals, we can see that the two parts must be related some how – even if the whole animals are clearly very different and not (obviously) related.
Likewise, a similar approach has worked fantastically in chemistry: first grouping chemicals into similar types and then by using various techniques, demonstrating that they are composed of the same basic parts (e.g. Oxides – contain oxide, Carbonates have similar chemistry, that group X, elements have similar properties. Again, the great step forward was to understand that chemical were composed of constituent parts, and that these could be the same in apparently very different compounds.
In Physics, the behaviour of objects that appear chaotic, was seen to be the sum of individual facets: mass, volume/density for gases, temperature, etc. The behaviour of the whole, could (in large part) be predicted from the behaviour of one facet. A man dropped from 100m, whilst they move and shout differently from a lead weight, they will reach the ground at a time almost entirely based on the laws of gravity. Their behaviour is determined from only one facet and not from the whole.
Likewise, a similar approach has worked wonderfully in archaeology. Small pot sherds have been found, classified into “types” and by working out the context (i.e. layer in the ground) from which they come, they can be linked in date to other things and from this – and because humans are constantly changing fashion, it has been possible to date many sites just by small bits of pottery.
The method of comparing features or looking at individual facets, then classifying, identifying “parts”, modelling the behaviour of parts or facets and then  recreating the characteristics of the whole has been hugely successful to such a degree it is now ingrained as very much “THE WAY TO WORK” in much of academia.
And yes, simply knowing & understanding the behaviour of the parts, has been tremendously successful in so many areas of academia, because in many many areas, the behaviour of the whole can be determined from the behaviour of the parts.
So, how can it go wrong?

The Q-Gospel

A very good example is in divinity. Here scholars recognised that three of the books of the new testament (Mark, Matthew and Luke) were not only very similar but in many instances they used exactly the same Greek. As such it is clear that either one was copied from the other, or that they were copied from a single source.
So, based on the same approach as the evolution of animals that:

• Simpler means earlier
• That common features meant a common ancestor
• That lack of commonality was due to development after a “common ancestor”

Divine scholars came to the same conclusion that worked so well in evolutionary biology: that all the phrases that contained the same Greek, must come from a common “primitive” ancestor.
And they named this “common ancestor” … well because so much of Matthew and Luke derive from Mark and because Mark is the “simplest” book, it was deemed Mark was “the common ancestor”. But this could not explain all the other material which was common between Matthew and Luke but was not in Mark. So, then they concluded that what did not “come from mark” must have come from another primitive “ancestor” which they named  Q.
However, when I looked at the issue, I came to a simple conclusion. Mark is a translation of an earlier version probably written in Aramaic (or Hebrew). This is because in some places, Mark gives almost the same phrase twice – which appeared to me to be a translator giving two possible translations of a phrase.
And because we are told by early writings, that Matthew was the earliest book, it seemed highly likely that Mark was an early translation of Matthew. So, rather than getting more complex as the “evolutionary approach” required, Mark was actually a cut down version of Matthew. But why was he missing some key passages? The reason are pretty obvious (to anyone but a ivory tower academic):

1. They were not available in the original
2. They were available in the original – but were not considered worthwhile translating and so left out
3. They were available in the original – but did not need translating

In other words: if only the divine scholars had used a bit of human psychology, they’d know that most people try to avoid unnecessary work. As such in many instances they will tend to translate LESS than the original.
A good example of a passage that I think was originally Greek is the beatitudes (Chapter 5 of Matthew). The Greek is just shear poetry! And having looked at some supposedly “original Aramaic” versions I’m not at all convinced. So, it appears Mark already had a Greek version of the Beatitudes – or the version of Matthew he had was missing the Greek passages. It’s also likely (given it was hand written) that he skipped any passages that did not make sense to a Greek audience (who did not understand the culture of Judea) . He probably also made a few mistakes, copied translation notes verbatim (so duplicated where alternative translations were given).
Thus is seems a likely scenario, is that Mark was translated from a copy of an early version of Matthew which had translation notes. This early version must have still been very much a “scrap book” of text s – which we are led to believe were collected by Matthew – possibly one passage at a time. These might have originally been letters, or accounts written down by each community. But as Greek was the common language of the area and even Jewish communities used Greek (Synagogue is a Greek work) the works Matthew collected would be in the local languages of Greek and Aramaic.
The Greek texts, being a common language in the first century in the area of the early church were probably widely circulated. However, the Aramaic texts were probably only in circulation in Judea.
What Mark appears to have done, is written down a version of the translated texts – probably using translation notes on a copy of Matthew brought to an area which wrote Greek (which includes Rome) where someone who did not have the best Greek called Mark wrote down a translation of the (Non-Greek) parts of Matthew.
Mark probably hoped someone with better Greek would eventually “do the job properly”, but for some reason his remained the only copy. This strongly suggests something prevented further translations. Perhaps the owner simply went away, but why not come back? More likely, the original was confiscated and destroyed leaving Mark’s humble attempts the only one easily available to that community.
This situation was finally remedied when the writer of Luke obtained another copy of Matthew, Mark and perhaps other texts, to create a “full version”. This time the writer was fluent in Greek and created the flowing language that was more suited to the growing affluence and prowess of the church.
But it appears Luke’s translation did not suit everyone, and eventually (at a late stage when it was deemed prudent to emphasise certain theological points) Matthew was finally translated “in full” (although we’ll never know exactly how much was left out and how much added in that final version).
Whilst the origin of the bible is an interesting side point, the main point is that academics because of their belief that “simpler is earlier” and that “what is common points to some ancestry” were driven to invent a completely bogus “Q gospel” for which there is not the slightest evidence and which common sense dictates against.
Instead, it is quite conceivable that the original – far from being the simplest – was the most complex. That is to say, a scrap book filled with stories in many languages, many different and overlapping stories and not particularly in chronological order. And that rather than becoming more complex, as the “evolutionary” approach demands, that the gospels, started out in a very complex form and then got simpler (at least when Mark was produced). That far from adding material, Mark wrote a condensed, shortened version of Matthew’s “multi-lingual scrapbook”

The Fallacy of Science

As a scientist, I was taught the approach to any problem was to break it down into its parts, to understand those parts, and then to understand “the whole” from the individual workings of the parts. And to be fair, in many instances that approach worked well for me.  That is until I bought a motorbike in the first year of university and using the approach … I took it apart to understand what the horrible noises were … I worked out that every bearing of the motor was wearing (as it would) … but I couldn’t replace them all and so identifying the parts in most need of replacement I put it back together. That solved one problem … but then others appeared … perhaps because I could never work out where those odd washers left over went.
I sold that bike, got another … that had very much the same issues … I took it apart, fixed what I could and it still kept making the noises. I sold it got another … I took that apart … it never worked quite the same again despite my increasing professionalism (as shown by the lack of spare washers at the end!)
Finally, … I bought a bike and never took it apart. Strangely it kept working with far fewer problems when I left it alone than did all the rest, even when I became very proficient at taking them apart and putting them back together again.
What I learnt from that exercise was:

1. That the very act of “deconstructing” the bikes was detrimental and no matter how good the parts I put back, the “operation” of taking the bike apart was likely to create more problems.
2. That a good “bike” is not just a load of good parts, put together, but instead the “whole” is more than the sum of the parts – it also how the parts are formed back into a whole. The whole thing has to fit together as a whole which is far more complicated than just the parts would suggest.

In other words, in many areas of life, you should not focus on the parts that make up something, but instead should look at and treat a problem as a whole. I’d call this a “wholistic” approach.
What fundamentally distinguishes a “Wholistic” approach from that taught in science, is the ability to make decisions without all the information on how each individual part works. In science, it is required to deconstruct the problem, identifying how each little part works, and then to assume the whole works as the sum of the parts. And if you don’t have all the information you need: you are told you must get it.
But in a wholistic approach (one adopted by engineers, doctors, … and a host of people who for various reasons can’t take apart the machine/person to examine its parts) decisions must be taken by targetted investigations, only delving in with intrusive costly/damaging procedures when absolutely necessary.
In other words, in a wholistic approach, whilst you are encouraged to seek all the information you can, it is accepted that in real world situations, information is limited and at times impossible to obtain within the constraints imposed, so decisions MUST be made with partial information (and even at times _almost no information!)
The “deconstructional approach” cannot work on complex systems which would be destroyed by being taking apart to their parts. In systems like the human, the deconstructional approach requires a form of “autopsy”. And that never helps the person who is dead! It only helps us, when we are dealing with knowledge that is common to a class of objects (or beings) so that dissecting the “copse” of the “dead”, will tell us about the functioning objects.
So, we can use a deconstructional approach to work out the blood flow around a typical heart by taking a corpse apart. But we cannot do the same to the typical patient to work out why they have heart burn!
The “wholistic” approach – by the nature of the problems it is used for is based on the minimal of intrusive and destructive investigation, (like doctors). And unlike the deconstructional approach which demands full information, it can be used when the problems we are addressing are unique to one machine or person when we cannot destroy the machine/person just to “fix” the problem.

The fallacy of science

The fallacy is not that the deconstructional approach fails – indeed, it is arguably one of the greatest achievements of humanity that (engineers most likely) invented this method. The fallacy is that it is the only way to gain knowledge, and that it is the best approach by which to make decisions – particularly in “one-off” situations where we cannot take apart the “patient” to “fix” them.
But how many times, as they present another botched and obviously ridiculous climate prediction, have we heard “scientists” claiming that because their predictions are based on the science that “THEY MUST BE RIGHT“.
What they fail to understand, is that the people laughing at them – also base our views on the science, and that science tells us very clearly they are wrong. They are wrong, not just because of their myopic cherry picking of the data and inability to see the wider picture, but because time and time and time again they claim “they must be right” but the proof of the pudding in REAL SCIENCE is that time and time and time again they have proven to be wrong.

Butterflies

But to the academics ingrained with this deconstructional approach and never had a real job outside academia, it is impossible to see that any approach could be better.
The simplest way to explain to them why predictions fail in a complex systems, is because of what became known as the butterfly effect: a flap of a butterfly’s wing could affect the weather many weeks later.
However, in any real world complex system, there are immeasurable numbers of these butterfly effects. And there always exists a period of time after which the exact state of the system cannot ever be known to any arbitrary measure of accuracy (unless the system is bounded in some way – in which case obviously it must be within its boundaries).
In general, that means in any real world system that large changes will occur due to things too small to measure. Or to turn that around: there will always be large changes that occur that cannot be traced back to their ultimate cause. To an academic tutor in the deconstructional philosophy this is like red rag to a bull: that systems cannot ever be understood completely!!

20th century warming – “it must have an explanation”

This is why those who have little experience outside academia and from a scientific education just don’t understand climate. Things can and do happen without it being possible to work out the cause – at least in a real world situation where we effectively only have “one patient”. Things will happen for no apparent cause. But this drives academics with little real world experience bonkers. Because they have been taught since they entered University that anything happening to the whole, “MUST” have a cause … they MUST MUST MUST be able to say what CAUSED CAUSED CAUSED it.
Academics just can’t accept the answer doctors and engineers accept daily: “we don’t know” – but we’ll make the best decision we can.
They could not accept the answer I was given about my 5 day stay in hospital “Some times we just don’t know what caused it”. Likewise when the same doctor tells those academics “we just don’t know what caused the twentieth century warming … but it seems to be under control so … don’t worry unless it happens again” … they go bonkers!
Indeed, such is the compulsion of academics to find a cause – even when no sane person would look for one, they are well known for coming up with “diagnosis” when there is no evidence. Take e.g. what happened before the Big Bang: a subject fit for any divinity class, but hardly fit for anything but idle coffee break chatter in science.

Summary

It has become increasingly clear to me, that whilst academia has been very successful in understanding some areas of knowledge, that this has come at the expense of developing a philosophy of how to approach problems of knowledge which I call “deconstructionalism” – which focuses on the parts of the system in the belief the whole is just the sum of the part. This is to be contrasted with the approach used by practitioners like engineers and doctors I call a “wholistic” approach: one that would like to know everything a deconstructional approach could give them, but which has to work in a real world where we cannot know all the functional details of e.g. a patient, or where time and cost prevent detailed investigations in engineering.
A Deconstructional approach demand full knowledge – and in problems like climate, those using this approach often falsely claim full knowledge in order to assert that they must be in charge and take the important decisions. In contrast, a wholistic approach is based on real world situations where full knowledge is lacking and instead of a drive to gain more and more knowledge, the practitioners must be trained and skilled to make effective decisions based on the partial knowledge that features in most real world problems.
Wholistic approaches, therefore have to