Demonstrations
A commenter at WEIT yesterday, strikingly named RPS, made a familiar point.
I eagerly await your demonstration that the claim “God exists” is false.
She later expanded.
As they say, you don’t know what you don’t know. I’d be perfectly happy with a clear demonstration of how “God” as commonly understood doesn’t exist.
The fact that it’s difficult to impossible to demonstrate conclusively that something doesn’t exist does not mean it’s reasonable to believe that that something does exist. It’s also not a good reason to believe that it does exist.
It’s possible to imagine an infinite number of things, none of which we can demonstrate conclusively not to exist. That doesn’t mean we should believe they all do exist.
Why can’t we demonstrate that “God” doesn’t exist? Because there’s nothing to demonstrate – to examine or investigate. There is no specificity to test. But that’s not a reason to think God does exist; it’s a reason not to. Things that exist have specificity.
If people (however many) say there’s an X but won’t and can’t say where, how, what, how much, or anything exact enough to peer review…then that’s a reason to think they’re bullshitting. It’s true that that’s not a demonstration that X doesn’t exist, but then it doesn’t need to be.
“God exists” does not qualify as a proposition that can be true or false, since it contains one meaningless word. I wouldn’t waste my time on it.
God is optimal in all things.
God created the universe.
The merit of an achievement is the product of (a) its intrinsic quality, and (b) the ability of its creator.
The greater the disability (or handicap) of the creator, the more impressive the achievement.
The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence.
Therefore, God does not exist.
Furthermore, the universe was created by non-existence.
How’s that?
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Wayne de Villiers. Wayne de Villiers said: Demonstrations – A commenter at WEIT yesterday, strikingly named RPS, made a familiar point. I eagerly await your d http://ow.ly/1b1SMf […]
Yeah, that’s kind of what I was getting at, too. It’s just one of the many tricks people use to put their opponent on the defensive. It’s very important to identify it as a trick, explain why and to scold the person playing it.
In Sagan’s words about the invisible dragon in his garage:
This also works with non-dragon hypotheses as well.
Oo, I have another proof!
1. God doesn’t exist.
I eagerly await demonstration this claim is false.
Professor X really does exist, but he has good reasons to conceal himself from us (which he is, of course, quite capable of doing with his amazing psi powers and all).
Why should I not believe the above? As far as I can see, Professor X has better reasons to conceal himself than God does.
Ahh, well claims are not hypothesis are they? An hypothesis, as far as I know, is not only a claim but an explanation. God is not an explanation but only adds greater mystery.
We were discussing this yesterday about ‘intellectual spaces’. Well you see, here is one example where a person asks reasonable people to apply scientific methodology onto an unscientific claim.
Instead, the person must make God a hypothesis, or scientific, or at least attempt to place it in the realm of knowledge, before it can be proved or disproved. It does not even measure up to any basic criteria of knowledge. In other words, they must put their beliefs into our intellectual space if they want something disproved.
But God already has a criteria of knowledge that belongs to a body of literature otherwise known as myth. Mythology is already accepted by the vast majority of believers for other gods. It is up to the believer to explain why God is not a myth or an exception. And that is itself a hypothesis open to proof or disproof.
To be fair, this was a response to a rather presumptuous statement beforehand:
“I’m hard pressed to think of a single significant religious claim that isn’t obviously false in an easily-demonstrable manner.”
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/chris-mooney-on-birthers/#comment-72786
Who wouldn’t take up such a generous offer to shift the burden of proof?
“Furthermore, the universe was created by non-existence”.
Prove that the universe was created – or was not created. Show your work.
I eagerly await your demonstration that the claim “invisible unicorns exist” is false.
1. I have a belief.
2. I believe that there are no criteria for belief in science or philosophy.
3. But one cannot prove a negative. Thus there still could be criteria for belief somewhere out there.
4. Therefore, as proposition 2 cannot be sustained, it should not have been made in the first place.
5. So please disregard it.
You missed the part where, when faced with a reply from Kevin pointing out that the universe was natural, she rejected this as not demonstrated, in effect reversing her own stance on proof.
It’s really kind of pathetic, when you think about it. Unable to pony up any positive evidence for the existence of a deity, so many people think that a lack of negative evidence (which could only be produced in stringent circumstances anyway) is a victory. But it can be directly compared to never even broaching the subject – no evidence either way. No points scored for either team signifies, well, nothing…
I have to wonder how often, when faced with the weakness of such arguments, any religious person ever starts to question what it is that makes them believe. There’s something about religious belief that negates the desire to find real answers.
God, with a capital G, as commonly understood is:
1: Omniscient
2: Omnipotent
3: Omnibenevolent
Theodicy has been trying to get around 1&3 for hundreds of years and failed. The existance of suffering rules it out, the fact that God is supposed to have created mankind knowing it would sin and how it would sin puts responsibility for said sins squarely on his shoulders – a bit like a bomb maker who sets up a bomb on a timer set by a randomnity table in a crowded mall doesn’t get to say the bomb had free will to explode as an argument to his innocence.
You cannot have an omniscient creator who is also omnibenevolent AND have sin. Christian theology on free will doesn’t get you out of this because with an omniscient creator – you cannot have free will. It will always turn out the way the creator knew it would.
Now you could have a God that is largely good and knows a lot. This is the way that polytheists get around this question because their Gods aren’t supposed to be perfect in knowledge and morality. But God as commonly understood, is supposed to be perfect in both and is thus even less logically tenable than the very belief systems Christians tend to write off as being primitive.
As for 2, that is undone by “Can God create a rock so big he can’t lift it?”
Can I ask what’s striking about the name RPS?
I would like detailed description of God ‘as commonly understood’ first.
Al:
I think about this constantly. It seems to me that many true believers don’t view it as an argument. (When someone questions their faith, it’s God testing them. Like Job.) In an argument, you weigh evidence; you consider that you might be mistaken; you might even modify your position as time passes and new evidence rolls in. People who truly believe things on faith cannot be swayed by earthly argument: here it becomes difficult for the rest of us to wrap our heads around what it means to believe something on faith. A noted apologist once said that even if irrefutable evidence were uncovered indicating that the gospels had been faked, he’d still believe that Jeebus is Lord. I literally have trouble comprehending how someone could make such a statement—but that’s because I assume evidence matters. The apologist’s statement is itself a tacit assertion that, when push comes to shove, evidence does not matter. Welcome to the World of Faith.
Does God’s evil twin exist? How would you know the difference between God and his evil twin? How do you know your leaders haven’t been taking instructions from God’s evil twin all these years?
Would you like to know more about Gnosis? Call this number, $5 a minute….
God’s evil twin has a goatee, duh.
No, silly, that’s Mr Spock.
“There’s something about religious belief that negates the desire to find real answers.”
They just enjoy believing it. Likely related to group identity.
Just a small point regarding comment No. 11. It is sometimes possible to prove a negative. “There is no jar of peanut butter in my fridge” is a negative statement, the truth of which can be ascertained by inspection.
Mike the Obscure:
“There is no jar of peanut butter in my fridge”
A very specific negative, to be sure. ‘Unicorns do not exist’ is a bit harder to nail down.
‘No fridge in the world contains a unicorn’ would be easier to test.
I commented on that thread that RPS was doing a useful function by setting language traps for atheist and thus demonstrating how theists try to ‘win’ arguments about God.
For one thing, that thread showed that a lot of us are still prone to falling into these traps.
I think it would be useful to have a top five or top ten theistic arguments and then provide the correct way to approach these arguments – for instance how to approach the question “Can you prove that God doesn’t exist?” or “How does atheism explain free will?”
Why is this argument ever considered appealing? Alister McGrath makes a similar claim in his book <i>The Twilight of Atheism</i>, suggesting that since one cannot prove the non-existence of God, the existence and non-existence of God are equiprobable, which of course is nonsense. And then Nicholas Beale comes along, and gives completely improbable probabilities to the existence of the (what did he call it?) LUC (Loving Universal Creator — well, something like that), all based on the fact that if ther is an LUC he would communicate with us (being loving, of course), and therefore that the probability of the resurrection is there heightened, since the LUC must have communicated somewhere….. Well, it’s all very circular. That was a discussion which went from bad to worse, as I recall.
Ian: ‘”No fridge in the world contains a unicorn” would not be easier to test.’ Once you check a fridge, it’s always possible that a unicorn chooses that one to dwell in. You would have to organise it so that every fridge in the world was being checked at the very same time, and you would also have to be sure that no one was telling a lie. Tall order.
I eagerly await your demonstration that the claim “Zeus exists” is false.
[…] Benson on the (non)existence of God: Why can’t we demonstrate that “God” doesn’t exist? Because there’s nothing to […]
Is the statement “Unicorns do not exist” an argument? I don’t think it is.
“There’s something about religious belief that negates the desire to find real answers.”
That’s because their religions tell them they have the real answers; all others are fakes. True believers don’t look for something they already found.
Sigmund at #23
Actually, this would be a handy thing to promote throughout the atheist/critical-thinking sphere of influence. I’ve seen it quite a few times, and a lot of time is wasted arguing from the forwarded premise, without considering if the premise is valid or not. I tend to view most of philosophy, and all of theology, that way.
The Index to Creationist Claims touches on it lightly – the invalidity of the original question is often pointed out. But we probably need it to be emphasized much more – it could save a lot of time, and kill some arguments dead in their tracks.
1. The Bible gives a clear cosmology in which God resides above the sky.
2. We looked.
3. We also checked a bunch of other stuff the Bible said and it wasn’t true.
4. QED.
And then, if they want to explain why these things aren’t relevant, we can have an interesting conversation about where they got their information, and whether the ways in which they’ve adjusted their theory to accommodate new information are the sorts of methods likely to lead to good results, or the sorts of methods likely to paper over previous unreliable ones.
Bruce Gorton:
Not only is omnipotence a logical impossibility, omniscience is physically impossible in our universe thanks to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the limits imposed by Relativity. Theists get very upset when you point this out and start wanking about God knowing the “true” position/momentum (or energy/time) states of particles, which hilariously misses the point about Heisenberg…
Just Al said: “Actually, this would be a handy thing to promote throughout the atheist/critical-thinking sphere of influence.”
I mentioned this since I’ve seen incredibly bright thinkers, such as Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers, tripped by smart theists posing these sorts of questions. Many of the questions could probably be answered properly if given a couple of minutes thinking but during an interview (in the case of Dawkins) or debate (in the case of PZ) it is often useful to have considered the possible questions beforehand and prepared an answer. I suppose it would be a little like the index to creationist claims but would be far more limited, which is why I suggested a top five or ten list rather than a wiki style index that combating creationism entails.
This is really why at least a semester of philosophy should be mandated as a part of high school education. Every modern society would be immeasurably better off if people didn’t continue to put forward completely ill-considered or illogical arguments.
Sigmund, quite. I saw your comment there and agreed with it. RPS made a fair point, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far. The often-implied next step is “therefore it’s reasonable for me to believe X exists.” I was trying to say why the next step is wrong. (I think RPS was implying it, but I’m not sure…)
Accent (@ #14) – it isn’t. That was a little joke about nondescript handles.
I would respond: “I am god. If you can’t disprove that, give me 10% of your money.”
If her response is, You look like a person, you feel pain, etc, I would reply that “So did jesus; I periodically take human form to stay in touch with my flock (and collect my tithes).”
As several have pointed out, it depends on a definition of god and a definition of exist. One could easily comment that my god exists in my imagination; everyone’s conception of god is different.
Tom, at #15, has a trenchant point. The fact that there are tens of thousands of sects shows that there is no “common understanding” of God or LUC, or whatever, and efforts to strip away differences until one arrives at an *essential* commonality inevitably reduce to Bruce Gordon’s argument at #13.
I believe it is Greta Christina who has a blog post or thread on “Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnibenevolent — choose any two.”
The true “commonality” of belief appears to revolve around ideas like “invisible, ineffable, unknowable,” and therefore, by common understanding, safely “unprovable.”
Once you narrow it down to the traditional god, which is the one worth disputing – the personal god who makes some kind of difference to humans and the world – then you can say more. You can say that a god who makes a difference to humans and the world would necessarily produce evidence of its own existence. Nobody has produced such evidence. That’s a good reason to conclude, however provisionally, that that god doesn’t exist.
Then you can narrow it more. The claim is that this god loves us. It loves us as a parent loves a child. Well, loving parents don’t hide from their children. That’s pretty much definitional as well as empirical. God is permanently hidden. That’s not a loving god – “love” and “permanently hiding” just don’t go together.
That may not be a demonstration, but it sure as hell convinces me. It would convince anyone in the case of parents, so why not in the case of “God”?
But the vast majority of religious people think there IS evidence of such an intervening God or Gods – the arguments from design and miracles. They are not taught that God is hiding, they are told he’s busy saving Chilean miners or Arizona politicians. The hiding God is the one reserved for awkward atheistic inquiries.
Hmmmmmm. Maybe not such a vast majority. Who knows? It turned out that “Mother” Teresa thought the bastard was hiding. Surely most believers at least realize “God” is not unhiding in the way that, say, living parents are. I mean they know they can’t just stroll into the nearest church or mosque and have a direct chat with “God.”
Egbert: (@ #27)
‘Unicorns do not exist’ as I recall would be a proposition, and only part of an argument; of the same order as ‘Christ turned water into wine’.
not forgetting of course:
“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof”
Is it without proof, or without evidence? I think it was without evidence.
Ophelia is correct: evidence. Only christians use “proof” in their god arguments. Meaning 100% certainty, which they appear to require.
“The fact that it’s difficult to impossible to demonstrate conclusively that something doesn’t exist does not mean it’s reasonable to believe that that something does exist.”
I agree. Indeed, I would have clarified that point yesterday but WEIT stopped accepting my posts (why have a Comments section if you’re going to censor dissent?).
I was merely responding to Prof. Coyne’s claim that Mooney’s rejection of birther arguments out-of-hand while his stance toward religion is respectful is inconsistent by noting the distinction between claims that are demonstrably false (e.g., birther claims) and claims that are not demonstrably false (e.g., certain religious claims such as “God exists”). On that basis, Coyne’s argument is obviously specious.
Hmm. That’s not the only basis, though. Prof. Coyne cited “another set of beliefs that is just as untenable” – which is different from demonstrably false.
What RPS said is an answer to the uncertainty I expressed in #34 – RPS was not implying the next step.
Correction:
“what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence”
Possible source Christopher Hitchens here: http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/
“Prof. Coyne cited ‘another set of beliefs that is just as untenable’ – which is different from demonstrably false.”
It seems to me beyond dispute that a set of beliefs that is not demonstrably false cannot be “just as untenable” as a set of beliefs that is demonstrably false.
That will be where we differ, then. I do realize I can’t demonstrate that god doesn’t exist, but I nevertheless think that belief that god (as commonly understood) does exist is untenable.
I think belief in Santa Claus is also untenable. Ditto ghosts, fairies, etc.
You meant that is demonstrably false at the end, yes?
Crossed out pending confirmation.
Thanks Felix. That’s much more…er…tenable. :- )
I think the issue, though, is that a belief that can be demonstrated easily to be false to anyone who looks seems like it would have to be more untenable than a belief that may still be untenable and that some people quite reasonably think is false, but that can’t be actually demonstrated to be false.
To be charitable to Coyne, though, part of Mooney’s post may well indicate that to the birthers it actually still is not demonstrable that Obama was born in the United States, because of the lack of documentation as per a specific certificate that supposedly was in the archives. That would put the two on equal grounds on the “demonstrable” count, at least for the purposes of the argument.
There probably is enough evidence of Obama’s citizenship, though.
Sure. I can see that, technically, and so can Prof Coyne, of course. It’s simple to demonstrate that certain small limited claims are false; it’s not so simple to demonstrate that goddy claims are false.
But given the whole thing, goddy claims seem to people who have pushed on them pretty damn untenable.
So, yes, in a way, but then again, no, not really.
:- )
“You meant that is demonstrably false at the end, yes?”
Yes. My mistake. Thank you for the correction.
I’ve seen Hitchens say that he was slightly modifying something someone else said (Sagan?) first. Apparently he’s used both versions—proof and evidence—at different times. Here’s a Free Inquiry piece in which he uses “proof.” http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_24_2.html
Ha – he seems to have done it there for the sake of a play on words – starting with being proof against something.
Ophelia,
One small comment, probably a nitpick: for Coyne’s and your argument to work, it has to be the case that it doesn’t just seem untenable to you, but is, in fact, in some way “objectively untenable”. The examples Mooney gives seem to clearly be such, and I think that there’s some debate over God.
Verbose, it’s a nitpick only in the sense that it makes a point I’ve already conceded – so it’s perhaps not so much a nitpick as just superfluous and over-insistent. I just said technically, yes, and added yes but then again no.
But “untenable” isn’t required to be objective. “Untenable” isn’t the same kind of word as prove or demonstrate. Or to put it another way, I do think goddy claims are “in some way objectively untenable.” There; that was easy.
@Andy
“I’ve seen Hitchens say that he was slightly modifying something someone else said (Sagan?) first. Apparently he’s used both versions—proof and evidence—at different times. Here’s a Free Inquiry piece in which he uses “proof.” http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/hitchens_24_2.html”
I agree with everything you say there, but for the record the Free Inquiry piece that you cite is February-March 2004 – Volume 24, No. 2 (http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/index_24.htm), whereas the Slate piece is October 2003.
I agree with Ophelia that the ‘evidence’ version is preferable.
That is all largely (wholly) immaterial. It would be good to have the original quote whoever made it.
“I agree with Ophelia that the ‘evidence’ version is preferable.”
The problem, I think, is that most of us typically think of “proof” as being definitive. However, “proof” can also be used as a synonym of “evidence.” Lawyers says things like “What’s your proof” or “What are your proofs” pretty routinely when referencing evidence rather than demonstration. Note the distinction between #1 and #2 in the link below.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proof
The “evidence” version makes more sense to me for our (Gnu) purposes. When debating things like the God question, the distinction between a mathematical/logical proof and a piece of evidence, is integral. We should use words as synonyms when the distinction between their meanings is unimportant. With respect to the God/religion debate, it’s often important. We frequently have to educate people about the difference between absolute mathematical certainty about something and the preponderance of the evidence leading to a particular conclusion.
Lawyers do that, it’s true, but I think of that as a special legal thing – one which doubtless misleads most of the public. I really try to avoid it, myself.
Looking for that Hitchens quote I found some great stuff here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikiquote/en/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens
Firstly, the following attributed to Sam Harris:
“Credit goes to Christopher Hitchens for distilling, in a single phrase, a principle of discourse that could well arrest our slide into the abyss: ‘what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. ”
Unrelated, but totally awesome, is this quote attributed to Pen Jillette:
“Nothing about Christopher Hitchens disagreeing with me depresses me. It means I’m probably wrong, I got a lot more thinking to do, but it never seems to me that he is disingenuous, it never seems to me that he is lying or scamming me and it never seems to me that he’s fucking crazy, we just disagree. In my idea of utopia, that’s how I want to feel about everyone I disagree with.”
Well, I cant find any mention of this quote without it being attributed to Hitchens. So maybe my memory of hearing it quoted with attribution was from the lips of Dawkins, Harris, Rushdie, Dennett, Myers etc. etc.
If you are talking about an ineffable, deist god, than the agnostic argument that we can’t possible know may carry some weight. I’m a little surprised, however, that nobody has mentioned Victor Stenger and his (I think) compelling arguments for the non-existence of god — specifically the xtian god.
The xtian god has very specific functions and capabilities attributed to it. It answers prayers, it heals the sick, it protects the threatened. Of course, in every study of these attributes, there is no evidence of anything more than random chance happening.
The suffering of one child in the world proves the non-existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god — not to mention horror of 10,000 children dying every day due to preventable causes.
If I claimed that I have elephants in my backyard, one would look for evidence — footprints, elephant sounds, piles of manure, branches torn off of trees, etc. Any reasonable person would come to the conclusion that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
I think Stenger’s arguments are useful for those who are confused by certain apologetic explanations of cosmological points (for instance the claims about the fine tuning of the various physical constants). Stenger’s argument that the absense of evidence of God is evidence of His absence is, however, unlikely to carry much weight with believers – which is probably why he is almost never included amongst the usual suspects whenever a “bad new atheists” article is published.
The idea is to disprove the claim that God does not exist, eh? That’s the conclusive demonstration. Let’s see RPS do that.
RPS is naughty.
RPS is a sock puppet. RPS has been here before, many months ago, under two different names. It stirred up a lot of trouble under one of those names – and went on to set up a blog which shortly featured a post on me under the banner from the old Looney Tunes cartoon series, on account of how, you see, I was loony tunes. Why was I loony tunes? Because this sock puppet – Signal in the Noise, it was – had turned up suddenly at the very time You’re Not Helping was also energetically slagging me off, and I suspected Signal had some connection with YNH.
Then YNH did a partial confession, then it was forced to do a much more complete confession, and it became clear that I wasn’t the one who was loony tunes.
Signal went silent just at that time, and hasn’t been heard from since.
RPS is very naughty.
“The idea is to disprove the claim that God does not exist, eh? That’s the conclusive demonstration. Let’s see RPS do that.”
I can’t (and never suggested otherwise). Conclusive demonstration (objectively) is unavailable to me with respect to most of the matters I think are important (politics, economics, aesthetics, morals, ethics, philosophy, etc.). I am more or less convinced as a subjective matter on all of them, but since the evidence (such as it is) is not conclusive, my viewpoints are subject to change. It’s even possible that I might be in error with respect to matters I think are conclusively demonstrated. If that turns out to be the case, I’ll adjust my views accordingly there too.
[“RPS” is not a new commenter but a sock puppet who has been here before. ed.]
So RPS is Tom Johnson returned?
Oh dear!
RPS, prove THAT isn’t true.
Re Stenger, and evil as evidence against the Christian god: It is easy enough for a Christian to respond that 1) the evil in this world isn’t all that bad because what’s really important is what happens to immortal souls, and 2) who we are mere humans to challenge god’s wisdom and morals – even the suffering is part of god’s plan for the world.
So, what we really need to argue against is dualism, without which the first argument becomes invalid, and the second is turned into a characterization of god as an evil, sadistic, arbitrary, petty tyrant.
Sigmund, no, I don’t think Signal/RPS was/is “Tom Johnson” – its IP is in the wrong place. But it was odd that Signal/RPS’s blog went silent exactly when “TJ” crashed and burned.
No! Ophelia, say it isn’t so! I find it exceptionally hard to believe that an apologist would resort to such crass behavior as disguising their identity to appear more influential in discussions. That would be unethical, and even an open admission that they didn’t have decent arguments and wanted to rely on the appearance of popular support. Only dishonest people with agendas would do such a thing.
I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Its… inconceivable.
I know, Al; isn’t it simply astonishing? And yet it is so.
@ Theo Bromine
“what we really need to argue against is dualism …”
I agree, but doesn’t that just take us back to a similar dilemma? Isn’t trying to disprove dualism just as problematic at trying to disprove the existence of god?
I find appeals to human empathy resonate in some xtians and the “god works in mysterious ways” argument tends to ring hollow. At least, it sometimes gets the wheels turning.
@James
I think that recent advances in cognitive neuroscience and related fields are a credible threat to dualism when direct links can be shown between behaviour and the physical/chemical properties of the brain. (My personal bias – for a number of years I was a very liberal Christian, which wasn’t too difficult as long as there was the background sense that everything would eventually come out all right, but which comes totally unravelled if it turns out that there is no immortality of the soul after all. And so I became an atheist.)
RPS is Signal? Hee.
Yup. It is funny, isn’t it.
The only thing to say, really, is “Sure. Right after you demonstrate conclusively that Russell’s teapot doesn’t exist.” Or perhaps Ra, the sun god.
RPS: OK, have it your way — how about proving for me that Odin does not exist? Or Zeus? Or Ahura Mazda?
Oh, that’s no use, RPS would just say of course that can’t be done either.
I doubt RPS will be saying anything though, since I pointed out that it’s a sock puppet, and naughty about it. (Naughty because its second instantiation was Signal in the Noise, and I had extensive and at times acrimonious dealings with it because it took a side in the “Tom Johnson”/You’re Not Helping matter. It’s naughty of RPS to conceal the fact that it’s Signal. I doubt RPS will come back.)