Louisiana rolls back The Enlightenment.

[Guy-jin]

I read the The God Delusion and was greatly disappointed. I wanted him to challenge my faith with something new and provocative, but I found nothing new in his book.

Maybe because you had read The Blind Watchmaker first? :wink:

As a devout atheist, I'm not a fan of Dawkins when it comes to his more recent rantings about God and theists as a group.

That said, The Selfish Gene should be required reading for all high school biology students.

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

There is too much similarity in DNA across the species to make a strong case for multiple origins.

We share 50% of our DNA with banannas, 40-50% with cabbage, and 60% with a fruit fly, for example. It is unlikely that life originating in two independent locations would take exactly the same path to producing DNA this similar.

Certainly we have a common ancestor with bananas and cabbage, but all life including Archaea and Bacteria may not necessarily have one distinct ancestor.

 

[n2_packers]

A heated discussion on the finer points of theory, evolutionary biochemistry and the virtues and flaws of religeon?!? AND on a site devoted to huge cocks?!! I am so turned on right now.

I have to ask, why are the two (creation, evolution) mutually exclusive? Evolution is not only an efficient, but an elegant system for promulgating life. It proves nothing about whether God does or does not exist. One more time... it proves NOTHING about the existance of God.

If God went back to make humans from scratch, he would be reinventing the wheel. Frankly, I don't think God would be so keen on wasting prescious time and effort as certain religeous biggots would have us believe. The only thing the Book says God did differently with man was to breath something into him.

If whether or not God made your body from scratch is the lynchpin of your faith, you have some serious fuckin' problems. For those that propagate this notion that the goal of science is to disprove the existance of God or that God made the universe and us in seven earth days- you are offensive to me. Once you've mastered science as it is understood at the junior high level, i'll be happy to have a civilized discussion. Until then, do us all a favor: stop parading your ignorance around and shut the fuck up when it comes to things that you just don't understand and listen for a change.

The fine, upstanding people of LA are doing a disservice to their children on the level of the one done to the Spanish during the inquisition. You can passionately proclaim your darkness and ignorance, but it is still just darkness and ignorance.

"Once I have known the mind of God, the rest are all details." -Einstein

"And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." -JC

 

[Calboner]

I have to ask, why are the two (creation, evolution) mutually exclusive? Evolution is not only an efficient, but an elegant system for promulgating life. It proves nothing about whether God does or does not exist. One more time... it proves NOTHING about the existance of God.

You know that; I know that; God, if there is one, knows that; but tens of millions of people who are wedded to the idea that the Bible is a literally true historical narrative -- an idea of rather recent and, I believe, specifically American origin -- don't know it and cannot admit it without their heads exploding.

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

 

[JustAsking]

Maybe because you had read The Blind Watchmaker first? :wink:

As a devout atheist, I'm not a fan of Dawkins when it comes to his more recent rantings about God and theists as a group.

That said, The Selfish Gene should be required reading for all high school biology students.

Another good book is Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. I found these books useful in resolving my internal theodicy debate between the Physicist/Engineer in me and the Christian in me.

It might sound strange, but requiring that God must play a role in something like evolution is not healthy for one's faith. The only way for a scientist to have faith in God is to acknowledge the lack of need and the lack of evidence for God interacting with the world.

 

[B_spiker067]

Now you lost me. Are you suggesting that we teach our children in science class how science only deals with independently verifiable and repeatable observations of natural processes except in the case of the Biblical story of creation?

Wouldn't you have to extend the Creation lesson to the creation myths of all the world's religions? How would you handle the lab section on the Great Turtle in the Navajo story?

Finally, would you include the Flying Spaghetti Monster or not? If not, then by what criteria would you exclude it? The point here is that at the moment there are no scientific theories that challenge ToE. Creationism is a religious belief. It doesn't belong in science class.


Oh, yes, I wonder if you could read my post about the Civil War theory and comment on that. I am trying to say something about the nature of fact and theory.

I think with the questions I've put forth and with the answers supplied I can assert that The Theory of Evolution at some point cannot be taken back to its beginnings. In a similar fashion to which The Big Bang Theory (even mathematically) can't make it back past a few seconds after the Big Bang.

And yet atheists and disbelievers assert that creation can somehow be sufficiently explained in scientific terms to, in a matter of speaking, justify it all (i.e. creation). There is a measure of hubris and intellectual dishonesty in that. These people (Dawkins et al) have asserted some kind of intellectual superior position in the the discussion of creation (divine or by chance) that is simply untrue even scientifically.

Adamant believers are disconcerted by this since so many of them pay for that public education that tries to inculcate that idea in their young.

Science far from kills [G|g]od(s) and that should be taught in some part in a philosophy of science lesson. It need not address any divine creation story with specificity. It merely needs to state factually that science cannot create nor ultimately explain creation. Science to this point can only describe creation.

******************************
People use to say that the pyramid structures of various cultures implied that aliens visited all these cultures and imparted them with the idea of pyramidal shaped buildings. Actually, pyramids are the natural shape to build things large in primitive architecture. Try it on a beach in the sand. Which is easier to recreate with only a bucket, the Twin Towers or the Egyptian pyramids? "Scientists" have been on a holy war implying that life is simple and a natural occurence that given the nature of matter life has to happen (i.e. no creator required). That life is as natural as the repeated nature of pyramid building. I agree and disagree with this.


Can man create life in this manner? Can he grab some molecules and walk up to some hot spring and toss those molecules therein and have life spring forth, observe it under a microscope? Not in a lab but out in nature - no gene sequencers or replicators allowed. Can he take those re-adjusted molecules and somehow drive further evolution and advance that life form from say some simple cellular format that then has a nucleus?

There is much that speaks against random chance creation even given billions of years when man is unable to replicate with facility the beginnings of life without the use of any lab (well really the very limited use of a lab).

**********************************

The anthropogenic explanation of global warming is a gas (haha). Now that more people are disbelieving in global warming being man made (including a number of climatogists) I still think that using renewable energy sources is a good idea. Because if global warming isn't man made the price of a barrel of oil sure is and we can't live like that. :0)

**********************************

Could you repost that explanation of the book of Job you did some time ago? It was excellent. I need to share it with a friend who has cancer.

Plus, you should know that I use use your line when defending evolution. That it would be a perverse God to fool mankind by creating false evidence in man's natural journey of discovery.

**********************************

You want to speak to the nature of fact and theory? Explain how the mechanism of evolution is a fact that has been given auspices of theory that explains life created without a God. The mechanism by which life moves forward since created 5,000 years ago can be a fact. It has not and probably never will extrapolate backwards to the begining of life some number of hundreds of millions of years. And not because millions and millions of years ago the process was simply not recorded by a bunch of scientific historians

 

[JustAsking]

I think with the questions I've put forth and with the answers supplied I can assert that The Theory of Evolution at some point cannot be taken back to its beginnings.

This is a "straw man argument". The Theory of Evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life. It is a theory that explains the diversity of life after it started. The fact that it fails to explain abiogenesis does not prove that there is no naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. Abiogenesis is another field of study that has accumulated on its own an amazing body of work.

Before anyone denies it exists, you should know that there is plenty of accessible material from those that are popularizing the findings of the scientific community. By the way, here is an example of science at work on abiogenesis. In the video you can see that although this is all speculation, biochemists have accumulated a large body of possibilities in the area of self-replicating organic molecules and how they can structure themselves into cell-like stable entities and then reproduce themselves. After watching this video, would you advise the scientific community to continue with this or to just give up?

In a similar fashion to which The Big Bang Theory (even mathematically) can't make it back past a few seconds after the Big Bang.

This is an "appeal to ignorance", which is a faulty rhetorical device that says, "if we are currently ignorant about some aspects of X, then we will never understand X". This is the exact opposite of how science works, which is, "if we are currently ignorant about some aspects of X, then its time to get to work in understanding X."

And yet atheists and disbelievers assert that creation can somehow be sufficiently explained in scientific terms to, in a matter of speaking, justify it all (i.e. creation). There is a measure of hubris and intellectual dishonesty in that. These people (Dawkins et al) have asserted some kind of intellectual superior position in the the discussion of creation (divine or by chance) that is simply untrue even scientifically.

This is a common complaint amongst Creationists that on this subject there is some kind of conspiracy where scientists all around the world are studying evolutionary and abiogenesis biology simply to disprove the existence of God because they are atheists with an agenda.

This comes from a layman's confusion between what is called methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. Philosophical naturalism is a kind of religious belief that says that there is nothing outside of the universe of purely natural processes. You might call it "scientism".

Methodological naturalism is not a belief, rather it is simply part of a discipline. As part of the scientific method, merely as part of the discipline, when confronted with a body of unexplained evidence, a scientist assumes that it can be completely explained by natural processes and gets to work trying to discover it. This is what a scientist has to do, because otherwise he is not doing what he is paid for.

This is also true for other disciplines, though. For example, in a court of law, any arguments involving divine intervention are not admissable. Why is that? Is it because everyone in the criminal justice system are militant atheists? No, it is because the moment you invoke supernatural intervention, there is no way to prove or disprove anything. So the law simply follows a discipline of methodological naturalism because it is incapable of doing anything else.

If there actually is divine intervention, the legal process is blind to it. It falls outside their jurisiction. How could a court of law deal with a defense that says, "I submit to the court that although my client was alone in a room with the murder victim, standing above him with a bloody knife in his hands, that a supernatural demon appeared, committed the murder, caused the knife to appear in my client's hands, and then disappeared, leaving no evidence that it existed."

You see, even if this was true, a court of law would be incapable of dealing with it within the discipline of how law is praciced. Since there is no way to test the demon murderer hypothesis, there is no way to surmise if it is true or false. It is, by definition, an untestable unverifiable assertion. So the legal system uses methodological naturalim because it can't work with anything else, not because all those involved with law are militant atheists.

In science, when we encounter an unexplained phenomenon, there is no special signal or signpost that says, "Sorry guys, there is no natural explanation for this.!" Lacking that, a scientists simply gets to work on it. This goes for biology and biochemistry as much as any other observed natural phenomenon. There is no bat signal that says, "Sorry, but cells come about through supernatural means, so give it up, guys." There might be a group of religious people who feel that way, but there is nothing tangible that allows a scientist to discern that a natural explanation for somehting is impossible.

In the case of Richard Dawkins and some others I can think of, I agree with you to a point. First of all, Dawkins is a prominent evolutionary biologist and his work in that ared should be appreciated. However, when Dawkins expounds on the subject of organized religion, he is not representing the scientific community. He is working outside his field of professional expertise, so he is simply an articulate guy writing a book about his opinion on organized religion. You might say that on the subject of religion, Dawkins is not speaking "ex cathedra".

 

[JustAsking]

Adamant believers are disconcerted by this since so many of them pay for that public education that tries to inculcate that idea in their young.

Yes, but not all adamant believers. In fact 1.8 billion of the approx. 2 billion Christians in the world belong to denominations whose doctrines embrace science and recognize ToE as the best explanation for the diversity of life on the planet. Many of those denominations fund large and prestigious universities and teaching hospitals where the latest state of the art biological research and medical practieces are conducted and taught. It is only a small group of Biblical Literalists who would like to substitute received knowledge (meaning knowledge that comes only from an old book) for science in public schools. The fact that they pay for public education does not give them the right to substitute nonsense for scientific fact. And what about the people who believe in FSM? Should they also have their say in science class? They pay taxes, too.

Science far from kills [G|g]od(s) and that should be taught in some part in a philosophy of science lesson. It need not address any divine creation story with specificity. It merely needs to state factually that science cannot create nor ultimately explain creation. Science to this point can only describe creation.

I agree with your first two statements. A good philosophy of science course is sorely lacking in public education. And it would not violate the establishment clause for such a class to talk about the difference between religous faith, religous received knowledge, and empirical knowledge. I would support that for sure.

I don't agree with your last two statements however. There is nothing to suggest that science will run out of runway when it comes to finding a natural explanation for how the universe was created. I happen to believe that it will, but my belief on that is not a scientific one. It is an article of faith that only has standing with me personally. In that it is an article of faith, it offers no guidance to anyone else in terms of proof that the universe was not created through discoverable natural processes. And again, the fact that we cannot create life in a laboratory does not mean that we won't. That is simply an argument from ignorance, which as I said before, has no standing.

Finally, what you are suggesting is that faith and science are incompatible, which causes you to relegate all articles of faith to those areas where we lack scientific knowledge. This is called the "God of the Gaps". I personally, don't subscribe to the God of the Gaps, becuase that God gets smaller every year with the decrease in the gaps in our understanding of the universe. I suggest you take your faith and remove it entirely from relying on scientific explanations either for or against. That way it isn't relegated only to the gaps.

******************************

People use to say that the pyramid structures of various cultures implied that aliens visited all these cultures and imparted them with the idea of pyramidal shaped buildings. Actually, pyramids are the natural shape to build things large in primitive architecture. Try it on a beach in the sand. Which is easier to recreate with only a bucket, the Twin Towers or the Egyptian pyramids?

Sorry, all I get from this is clicks and buzzing.

"Scientists" have been on a holy war implying that life is simple and a natural occurence that given the nature of matter life has to happen (i.e. no creator required). That life is as natural as the repeated nature of pyramid building. I agree and disagree with this.

No, scientists are merely going about their business practicing methodological naturalism. Dawkins might be on a holy war, but when it comes to religous concerns, Dawkins is just a guy with a hobby. Scientists merely practice their discipline much like your accountant practices his discipline. Each of their methodologies leave out supernatural notions because they are not useful to their discipline. In fact, for every militant atheist scientists who publishes on this topic, I can probably find more Popes who publish on the status of science and its almost sacred mission to reduce misery and suffering in the world.

Can man create life in this manner? Can he grab some molecules and walk up to some hot spring and toss those molecules therein and have life spring forth, observe it under a microscope? Not in a lab but out in nature - no gene sequencers or replicators allowed. Can he take those re-adjusted molecules and somehow drive further evolution and advance that life form from say some simple cellular format that then has a nucleus?

Argument from ignorance. Thanks for playing our game,though.

There is much that speaks against random chance creation even given billions of years when man is unable to replicate with facility the beginnings of life without the use of any lab (well really the very limited use of a lab).

More appeal to ignorance, but with the added bonus of the phoney Creationist argument that anything that happens in the lab is disqualified.

There is nothing that speaks against the creation of life through natural processes. And the overwhelming evidence of evolution shows that random chance coupled with natural selection is one of most powerful biological forces on the planet. You might find it hard to believe, but once again, personal incredulity from any given individual is not part of the scientific method.

Could you repost that explanation of the book of Job you did some time ago? It was excellent. I need to share it with a friend who has cancer.

Surely, spike. I would love to see that posting help someone deal with cancer. It would be particularly useful if he thought his cancer had something to do with God's will for him. Job is good at dispelling notions like this. I just have to figure out how to find old postings, though.

By the way, spike, I really enjoy conversation with you. You are passionate and interested in what you are talking about. And you love a good debate. I hope you are not offended by my rebuttals.

 

[JustAsking]

Certainly we have a common ancestor with bananas and cabbage, but all life including Archaea and Bacteria may not necessarily have one distinct ancestor.

This is fascinating, Chunder. I would be surprised if this were true, because I would expect two different origins to take two very different evolutionary paths. Can you recommend something to read about this?

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

This is fascinating, Chunder. I would be surprised if this were true, because I would expect two different origins to take two very different evolutionary paths. Can you recommend something to read about this?

Nah, I've just read what I wrote. It's bullshit, haha. I was talking about the difficulty in classifying a tree of life because of the horizontal gene transfer process, which of course was not really what you were talking about at all.

Shouldn't try talking about something so complex while tired.

 

[MarkLondon]

I was never that fond of Dawkins' writings. The Selfish Gene was part of the socio-biology movement concurrent with Thatcher-Reagan revolution in politics and economics whose fruits we are now beginning to reap. As an atheist, I'm embarrased by some of his rantings on religion. The Blind Watchmaker was OK, though, as an explanation of how complexity can arise from simplicity.

I much preferred reading Stephen Jay Gould, he had a more humble approach to biology and evolution. e.g. Life's Grandeur reminded me not to be so dismissive of bacteria, lol.

The book I most regret not buying was a victorian (1880s) family bible on sale in an Exteter antique shop. It was a large book that had the biblical text laid out on the page, with wide margins containing explanatory notes on the historical and cultural circumstances, as then understood, of the writings in the main text. An encycopedia of the bible, if you like. It combined faith and the science of it's time. Four generations of a family had inscribed their names on the title page.

The nearest modern book I've got to that is A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

 

[Calboner]

I personally, don't subscribe to the God of the Gaps, becuase that God gets smaller every year with the decrease in the gaps in our understanding of the universe. I suggest you take your faith and remove it entirely from relying on scientific explanations either for or against. That way it isn't relegated only to the gaps.

Just quoting to improve the likelihood that people reading this thread will read this particular passage. Wise words.

 

[JustAsking]

Nah, I've just read what I wrote. It's bullshit, haha. I was talking about the difficulty in classifying a tree of life because of the horizontal gene transfer process, which of course was not really what you were talking about at all.

Shouldn't try talking about something so complex while tired.

Actually, no, I think it is more germain to what I was saying than you think. I would boldly make the claim that the DNA and RNA record of living creatures allows us to make a very accurate tree of life. However, I never made the connection endosymbiosis (what you were referring to, where genetic material from one species can be injected into the genetic material of another, like a virus in a cell, for example) would interfere with the accuracy of that, though. So if that part is very germaine.

I don't think it supports multiple origins, however, because each separate origin would take an extremely different evolutionary path going forward. They all probably wouldn't even have DNA as the genetic nucleotide. But this is just speculation from me as a complete amateur.

I was never that fond of Dawkins' writings. The Selfish Gene was part of the socio-biology movement concurrent with Thatcher-Reagan revolution in politics and economics whose fruits we are now beginning to reap. As an atheist, I'm embarrased by some of his rantings on religion. The Blind Watchmaker was OK, though, as an explanation of how complexity can arise from simplicity.

I much preferred reading Stephen Jay Gould, he had a more humble approach to biology and evolution. e.g. Life's Grandeur reminded me not to be so dismissive of bacteria, lol.

The book I most regret not buying was a victorian (1880s) family bible on sale in an Exteter antique shop. It was a large book that had the biblical text laid out on the page, with wide margins containing explanatory notes on the historical and cultural circumstances, as then understood, of the writings in the main text. An encycopedia of the bible, if you like. It combined faith and the science of it's time. Four generations of a family had inscribed their names on the title page.

The nearest modern book I've got to that is A History of God by Karen Armstrong.

It was Gould's popular writing that got me interested in this subject. As for complexity rising from simplicity, no one does that subject better than Daniel Dennett in his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. That book rocked my religious faith and that disturbed me because I thought my faith was finally not relying on any remaining incredulity about scientific explanation. This is a very shakey foundation for faith.

Reading Dennett's disabused me of that notion and convinced me that even a habitable universe could come about through the massive random creation of universes all with different properties, some of which are not even stable. With that, you can toss the Anthropic Principle right out the window.

This book convinced me that my faith was not yet irrational enough and it was more from "God of the Gaps" than I thought. I think I have finally worked it out now to the level of irrationality that it requires. Faith is only truly stable when it is completely irrational, because at that point it is immune from empiricism.

I know you don't subscribe to this at all, but I am guessing that you can see the logic behind it. It's tough being an Enlightenment Christian who is not in denial about anything.

 

[morsecode]

you guys are WRONG!, peanut butter is where it's at

 

[B_spiker067]

Yes,
...
I hope you are not offended by my rebuttals.

:smile:

You keep trying to paint with this brush that does not apply. I've already said what my opinion is of ToE.

What I've been talking about is:

1) That ToE is being falsely used to do away with a need for a creator by most people who profess atheism or disbelief.

2) ...

I guess I'll leave it at that.

edit:
I'll add one last thing. If people coming from the public school system are using their ToE education to kill God, then science there is being taught extremely poorly.

 

[JustAsking]

:smile:

You keep trying to paint with this brush that does not apply. I've already said what my opinion is of ToE.

What I've been talking about is:

1) That ToE is being falsely used to do away with a need for a creator by most people who profess atheism or disbelief.

2) ...

I guess I'll leave it at that.

Spike,
Ok, you gave your position very succinctly. Thanaks. And I don't disagree except for the generalization that scientists have this as their main agenda.

1) Many scientists, including evolutionary biologists are people of faith, and they hold the same position on evolution/creation as do most of the mainstream Christian denominations in the world: that there is no conflict.

2) If your #1 was your poiint, then why are you posting so many bogus creationist arguments.

 

[B_spiker067]

Spike,
Ok, you gave your position very succinctly. Thanaks. And I don't disagree except for the generalization that scientists have this as their main agenda.

I don't think I've said this has been scientists main agenda.

1) Many scientists, including evolutionary biologists are people of faith, and they hold the same position on evolution/creation as do most of the mainstream Christian denominations in the world: that there is no conflict.

2) If your #1 was your poiint, then why are you posting so many bogus creationist arguments.

I'll add one last thing. If people coming from the public school system are using their ToE education to kill God, then science there is being taught extremely poorly and any scientist would want to remedy that.

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

I don't think it supports multiple origins, however, because each separate origin would take an extremely different evolutionary path going forward. They all probably wouldn't even have DNA as the genetic nucleotide. But this is just speculation from me as a complete amateur.

Sure, I agree it is unlikely. But you have to be careful not to let probabilities skew things too much. If something like this can happen once then it can happen twice.

Reading Dennett's disabused me of that notion and convinced me that even a habitable universe could come about through the massive random creation of universes all with different properties, some of which are not even stable. With that, you can toss the Anthropic Principle right out the window.

Indeed, the question you sometimes hear "How come the laws of physics happen to be just right for us to exist, isn't that extremely unlikely?" is completely misguided. If they weren't as they are we wouldn't be here to contemplate them at all.

I find your view on faith very interesting as it's basically the same as mine. I just don't share your faith with you. I wish other religious people would all see that a scientific viewpoint is not the same as an atheistic one.

 

[JustAsking]

I don't think I've said this has been scientists main agenda.

Yes, I know. I just wanted to make that point.

I'll add one last thing. If people coming from the public school system are using their ToE education to kill God, then science there is being taught extremely poorly and any scientist would want to remedy that.

Yes, I get that. Except besides Dawkins and a few others, I don't see this happening. Please name 3 more people who you see are actively campaigning against religion by using ToE arguments.

What I do see is the very real and verifiable fact that some 22 states have recently had legislation proposed by right wing republican legislators to introduce religious notions into the publc school science curriculum. (my state is one of them. Lousiana is another.) Since the literal version of specific creation is bad science and even worse theology, any mainstream Christian would want to remedy that.

By the way, n2_packers, welcome to LPSG. Yes, sometimes you can find a lively debate on just about anything on this site. I think it is the wide diversity of people or perhaps it is the water. But there are a lot of interesting conversations here. Please stick around and contribute often.

 

[B_spiker067]

Yes, I get that. Except besides Dawkins and a few others, I don't see this happening. Please name 3 more people who you see are actively campaigning against religion by using ToE arguments.

Memory at the moment isn't facilitating this challenge. But the point is?

What I do see is the very real and verifiable fact that some 22 states have recently had legislation proposed by right wing republican legislators to introduce religious notions into the publc school science curriculum. (my state is one of them. Lousiana is another.) Since the literal version of specific creation is bad science and even worse theology, any mainstream Christian would want to remedy that.

You'll have to explain the 'worse theology' bit.

But if you are complaining about this backlash by the evangelical class it is because science (textbook writers?) allowed the idea to promulgate that evolution is a god killer. Any number of h.s. grads and dropouts and many college graduates say that ToE kills God when they explain why they are atheists or disbelievers. I'm not justifying the backlash, I'm just explaining it.

So tell me at what point in time did God evacuate himself from the universe and let creation run uninterrupted as it were (what did you call it, knossis)? Do you believe in miracles? Does God answer your prayers? I only ask in order to probe the nature of your faith.

I think the guy who sat down with a Bible and read all those "who begat who's" in the Bible and extrapolated the age of Earth from that (5,000 yrs.) would have better spent his time getting laid by his wife.

But as a self-described person of faith who are you to say that it in fact wasn't all spontaneously created 5,000 , 10,000, or 1M years ago? Fossil record and all. I don't feel that that is true. Billions of years is a more Romantic scale that far better appeals to me, but what do I know? :0)