[matmat]

SillyBily, on Nov 20 2007, 05:46 AM, said:

I propose to finesse intelligent design and squeeze evolution for what it's worth and see what happens

so long as it's a progressive squeeze.

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on Nov 20 2007, 05:21 AM, said:

You can always argue that evolution/science doesn't explain why the universe is there, religion does.

You are missing the point. Invoking a 'god' as an cause of the universe merely places the unexplained back one step: it doesn't explain anything at all: all religions say that you can't understand or explain the creation of the 'god': it is 'ineffable'.

So religion, in 'explaining' creation, merely hides the 'we don't know' in the form of the god, rather than the universe. Atheists prefer a more honest approach: if we do not yet understand the universe, it may be because we simply haven't worked it out yet (altho personally I lean to the 'our brains probably cannot understnad the concepts anyway, because of the limitations inherent in the way our brains work': which is not an invocation of mystery but a fear that we ain't smart enough).

[jdonn]

mikeh, on Nov 20 2007, 09:05 AM, said:

Fluffy, on Nov 20 2007, 05:21 AM, said:

You can always argue that evolution/science doesn't explain why the universe is there, religion does.

You are missing the point. Invoking a 'god' as an cause of the universe merely places the unexplained back one step: it doesn't explain anything at all: all religions say that you can't understand or explain the creation of the 'god': it is 'ineffable'.

So religion, in 'explaining' creation, merely hides the 'we don't know' in the form of the god, rather than the universe. Atheists prefer a more honest approach: if we do not yet understand the universe, it may be because we simply haven't worked it out yet (altho personally I lean to the 'our brains probably cannot understnad the concepts anyway, because of the limitations inherent in the way our brains work': which is not an invocation of mystery but a fear that we ain't smart enough).

In other words, it's not an argument, it's a cop-out.

[han]

barmar, on Nov 20 2007, 01:35 AM, said:

Hannie, on Nov 19 2007, 06:16 PM, said:

I also think that having a basic understanding of religion enhances one's understanding of how humans work and having some basic knowledge of christianity is necessary to understand some of western history. As such, I think that the basics of christianity has to be taught at schools in the US.

In that context, religion should be taught as part of Social Studies and History, not Science. It's certainly important to understand how religion has shaped society and impacts culture. But in a public school it would be inappropriate to teach the precepts of any particular religion as if they're true.

Of course. When I say teaching I never mean preaching.

[han]

mikeh, on Nov 20 2007, 09:05 AM, said:

(altho personally I lean to the 'our brains probably cannot understnad the concepts anyway, because of the limitations inherent in the way our brains work': which is not an invocation of mystery but a fear that we ain't smart enough).

This is a very interesting comment, to me it is much more interesting than the religion discussion (which seems similar to talking about whether ghosts and dragons exist and this should be taught in science classes).

I can think of three other approaches:

alternative 1: We are smart enough but it is very complicated and we are not there yet.

alternative 2: The universe cannot be described in "simple" rules.

alternative 3: Our limited observations can never lead to a sufficient understanding of the universe.

I don't really believe in (1) but who knows.

While (2) sounds similar to what you lean to, it really isn't. With "simple" I don't mean "something that we can understand" but rather "something that can be written in a finite text". (3) is also different. Maybe both (2) and (3) hold, which doesn't exclude the theory that we are not smart enough of course.

It would be interesting to hear what matmat thinks about this topic.

[Winstonm]

matmat, on Nov 20 2007, 05:59 AM, said:

SillyBily, on Nov 20 2007, 05:46 AM, said:

I propose to finesse intelligent design and squeeze evolution for what it's worth and see what happens 

so long as it's a progressive squeeze.

Evolution is a stepping stone squeeze.

ID is a pseudo squeeze.

[matmat]

Hannie, on Nov 20 2007, 12:37 PM, said:

It would be interesting to hear what matmat thinks about this topic.

matmat's brain is too small to comprehend the options listed by Han.

I tend to think that we're certainly smart enough to explain (in a consistent manner) the phenomena that we have/will observe or simulate.

The science that we can do in lab has the greatest chance of being fully comprehended (case 1). So i'd expect, in principle, for areas such as medicine, chemistry etc to be fully or nearly fully understood at some point (doctors/chemists can feel free to bash me here). Areas where we are left to studying phenomena as they occur in nature without being able to try to influence them, reset them, and so forth, I am a lot more skeptical about figuring out. Geology and astronomy come to mind here. Sure we can study rocks, lava flows, but why is the Earth's magnetic field flipping? I know we are pretty sure the earth has a partially liquid Fe/Ni core but i get the impression we don't exactly know what it is doing and can't really do much experimenting to examine it -- we can try to discern its nature from the magnetic field fluctuations, but that's about it.

The question is, is there a fundamental limit there (case 3) to what can be seen? That certainly seems to be the case.
One of the simpler examples I can think of in physics/astro is something called cosmic variance. Seems that the things in the universe are statistical in nature and most rules we write down are trends/guidelines with large error bars. The problem, you see, is that we can only observe one universe, (actually more like a melon-ball shaped scoop carved out around the earth) and don't have the ability to repeat the measurement on another instance of a universe to knock down our errors. Then again, perhaps someone will come up with a way to observe other universes

We are certainly getting better at observing things that are available to us (take a look at results from the WMAP probe -- the giant slurpie cup). We're trying to study the universe using light of all sorts of EM wavelengths, neutrinos, cosmic rays, gravitational waves etc. but each of those methods has limitations (either to do with detector physics or with how those signals are emitted and propagate and are absorbed). Now, of course it could be that our current understanding of these issues is poor and someone will come around and figure out a fundamentally better way of doing things, but at this point it seems unlikely.


so to sum up, it is somewhat field dependent, but mostly (3) some of (2) and a little bit of (1)

(I wish I knew what i was talking about...)

[han]

matmat, on Nov 20 2007, 02:55 PM, said:

(I wish I knew what i was talking about...)

Does anybody?

[kenberg]

This has always seemed like mostly unneccessary conflict to me. Folks (Creationists) who wish to maintain that the Universe, animals, man, etc were created in a six day period some 5,000 years ago are in a true conflict with science. Folks (Intelligent Design advocates) who want to maintain that evolution was set in motion by an Intelligent Designer are not, or need not be, in a conflict. It comes down to dinosaurs. The first group rejects the notion that dinosaurs walked the Earth a million years ago because, among other reasons, the Earth wasn't here. The second group accepts the existence of dinosaurs and believes that they were Intelligently Designed dinosaurs, presumably wiped out when an Intelligently Designed meteor hit the Intelligently Designed Earth. No problem. "Today children, we will Intelligently Disect an Intelligently Designed frog."

Many scientists believe that God was behind it all, and almost no one would tell them that they cannot believe this and remain scientists. Few if any scientists, however, have thought of submitting a proposal to the National Science Foundation for research money to prove or disprove the existence of God. It simply isn't a scientific issue. There really is no need whatsoever to try make it a scientific issue. When I was in college a half century ago, quantum mechanics was hot stuff and there were those who would tell me that if I would just look at the Schroedinger equation correctly I would see that God exists. No. And it won't work with Biology either.

[doldridg]

mrdct, on Nov 19 2007, 01:11 AM, said:

Hannie, on Nov 19 2007, 12:49 AM, said:

mrdct, on Nov 19 2007, 12:46 AM, said:

Evolution is not a water-tight theory and like 'Intelligent Design' it can't be definitively proven.

There is not a single scientific theory that can be proven. That doesn't make it any less science. And it doesn't make creationism any more science.

But it also doesn't make evolution any more plausible than 'Intelligent Design' so why shouldn't both theories be taught in school?

The problem with creationism in most of its political forms today is that it is spiritual fraud. For example, stating that evolution is an "unproved theory" is skirting the edge of false witness unless you also point out that it is an observed fact. The body of theories attempting to explain that fact will always be subject to revision. Darwin didn't invent evolution. It was already well-known to exist in his grandfather's day. What Darwin did was propose a natural explanation for it.

The historic churches both of east and west have far less trouble with this science than do some of the more vitriolic Protestant communions.

I think that's because our authority derives from a continuous living tradition stretching directly back to the apostles and not from some reading of scripture. We don't reject scripture, but we are the tradition that preserved and wrote it and we reserve the interpretation of it (at least for our own communions) to our own councils, to which it is also subject for content.

We do not subscribe to sola scriptura because it is not taught in scripture and was rejected early in our tradition. As a doctrine it fails its own test of authenticity. That doesn't mean we reject scripture, just that we reject the superstitious notion that, if reality (God's creation) disagrees with scripture (as interpreted) then it must be reality that is wrong. At no point does scripture actually claim that Genesis 1 or 2 were intended as a literal, scientific history, so those claiming that they must be taken that way, despite contradictions between them and between them and physical reality are proposing a private interpretation. They certainly have a right to do so in their churches, homes and even private schools. But I reject their claim to having the right to sneak their heresy (by my lights) into the back door of my church by falsely calling it science and by indulging in no small amount of untruth about science and politically forcing school teachers to spout their canned lies for them at government expense.

And, as a priest of God (not Roman Catholic--my branch of the tradition objects to the idea of any single man other than Jesus Chist being infallible under any circumstance), it is my sad duty to warn some of the purveyors of the lies that they are literally risking hellfire in so doing.

And for the record, there is no scientific theory of intelligent design. The proponents even admit this themselves. What they are peddling in the echoes I read is warmed-over Morrisite anti-evolution propaganda, much of it dating back to the 1960's. Don't get me wrong. My own creed states that God the Father Amighty is creator of all things, seen or unseen. My problem with anti-evolution propagandists is that I see evolution all around me and therefore conclude that God created it. I don't subscribe to the theological idea that God's sovreignty is magically repelled by words like random. Faith in God is best demonstrated by learning to pray effectively, discerning God's actual will and then praying for His help in doing it, not by tilting at windmills.

Sorry if this is getting to be long. I do sometimes preach. But this is a mesage that needs to be preached. Genesis provides us, in allegorical form, with some very important insights into our relationship with God. But as a source of literal natural history, it's a complete bust.

[blackshoe]

doldridg, on Nov 20 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Sorry if this is getting to be long. I do sometimes preach. But this is a mesage that needs to be preached. Genesis provides us, in allegorical form, with some very important insights into our relationship with God. But as a source of literal natural history, it's a complete bust.

Thank you, sir, for the voice of reason.

[Varange]

Religion and creationism are equally bat *****.

It's sad to see all this mental effort wasted on obvious nonsense.

[Codo]

Varange, on Nov 21 2007, 12:36 PM, said:

Religion and creationism are equally bat *****.

It's sad to see all this mental effort wasted on obvious nonsense.

I am so happy to here this great and valuable statement. Now I will give up my religion at once to become such a smart guy like you.
Thank you.

[barmar]

Hannie, on Nov 20 2007, 01:37 PM, said:

I can think of three other approaches:

alternative 1: We are smart enough but it is very complicated and we are not there yet.

alternative 2: The universe cannot be described in "simple" rules.

alternative 3: Our limited observations can never lead to a sufficient understanding of the universe.

I don't really believe in (1) but who knows.

While (2) sounds similar to what you lean to, it really isn't. With "simple" I don't mean "something that we can understand" but rather "something that can be written in a finite text". (3) is also different. Maybe both (2) and (3) hold, which doesn't exclude the theory that we are not smart enough of course.

It would be interesting to hear what matmat thinks about this topic.

I don't see a problem with (1). In fact, I think one of the best lessons you can learn about science is that we're never "there yet". As we learn more, we generally also raise new questions, so it's a never-ending journey where we keep on learning more details.

(2) depends on what you mean by "simple". If you're hoping for the unified field theory to be as simple as E=mc^2, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction", or Maxwell's equations (I don't know them offhand, but they easily fit on a T-shirt), I don't think it's likely. But if we ever do figure out the "theory of everything", I'll bet it won't be much more complex than quantum chromodynamics. Everything always seems more complicated before you understand it. But once the scientists and mathematicians get their heads around a new discovery, they've always been able to find a bunch of simple rules to explain it. So if past results are any indicator, we have the intellectual capability to describe just about anything in nature.

(3) is where the biggest problem may be. Cosmologists are able to speculate about many explanations of nature. But they've also figured out that we don't have the technology to tell which hypotheses are true. E.g. if they want to understand what the universe was like in the first instants after the big bang, they need particle colliders with a certain amount of energy; but they know that we're not even close to being able to construct such colliders, and it might be infeasible for many years, possibly forever.

One thing, though: evolution as a general theory is NOT struggling against any of these problems. Scientists are still struggling with a few details, such as precisely how life got its initial spark in the primordial soup. But testable hypotheses are published on a regular basis, and I'm confident that we're within decades of figuring it out. They're basically just dotting the i's and crossing the t's of the theory.

[mikeh]

doldridg, on Nov 20 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Sorry if this is getting to be long.  I do sometimes preach.  But this is a mesage that needs to be preached.  Genesis provides us, in allegorical form, with some very important insights into our relationship with God.  But as a source of literal natural history, it's a complete bust.

You write as someone with whom it would be a true pleasure to have a long conversation, even tho it appears that we have very different ideas about origins.. you are a theist and I an atheist. Thank you for your post.

I still think that the idea of invoking a creator, of the type that you suggest, is both unnecessary and of limited utility.

It seems to me at least possible that the human question: 'why?' is meaningless...in terms of origins of the universe. We instinctively want an answer, and 'god' is both a perfect and useless answer, since it begs the question of god's origins. If god's origins are outside of whatever it is we are speaking of, be it the universe, the multi-verse, or wherever these began, then we are simply putting the question one more step removed, and by labeling the box 'god' avoiding the need to admit this.

As I say, I suspect that you have a thoughtful answer to this somewhat sophomoric argument, and we'd go from there, if we ever had the occasion.

[Winstonm]

A concern of mine is the increasing power of the fundamentalist movements worldwide - when watching the Nova show the thing that struck me most was the spiteful tone of Pat Robertson's statement. It made no sense to hear such hostility against the citizens of a community who were only trying to uphold constitutional law.

It is a dangerous group who makes the claim that a rejection of their ideology is the equivalent of a direct rejection of god. It is the same as equating themselves as god. As such, whatever they do is automatically justified and any opposing view is villified.

Robertson might as well called the Dover citizens "infadels" for opposing his views.

[luke warm]

mikeh, on Nov 21 2007, 11:39 AM, said:

doldridg, on Nov 20 2007, 06:00 PM, said:

Sorry if this is getting to be long.  I do sometimes preach.  But this is a mesage that needs to be preached.  Genesis provides us, in allegorical form, with some very important insights into our relationship with God.  But as a source of literal natural history, it's a complete bust.

I still think that the idea of invoking a creator, of the type that you suggest, is both unnecessary and of limited utility.

why do you think that and would you still think it if it was true?

Winstonm, on Nov 21 2007, 12:47 PM, said:

A concern of mine is the increasing power of the fundamentalist movements worldwide

why are you concerned? what is it you fear?

Quote

It is a dangerous group who makes the claim that a rejection of their ideology is the equivalent of a direct rejection of god.

dangerous in what way?

[jdonn]

lukewarm lol. He made points and explained them. You quoted only the points without the explanations, then asked him to explain them!

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Nov 21 2007, 02:05 PM, said:

lukewarm lol. He made points and explained them. You quoted only the points without the explanations, then asked him to explain them!

i don't think so... iow, what is the danger? if he means that someone will be called an infidel, that doesn't seem dangerous to me... if calling someone an infidel leads to other things, what things? iow, what does he see as the end result, in terms of danger?

i'd also take issue with your "he made points" statement... he certainly made assertions, but i think that's a different thing

[Gerben42]

Quote

why are you concerned? what is it you fear?

That these people become too much influence. That they will limit the freedom of the normal people. That they will start wars because they "know" they are right. Fundamentalists of any faith are dangerous, and those who have the most chance to neutralize them are those of the same faith but without the fundamentalism. If they stand up to these dangerous people, they will lose their support.