Posted on 09/29/2007 6:12:27 PM PDT by Tahts-a-dats-ago
This is where the game of pass-the-parcel winds up in a dead end--as, eventually, it must. A scientific theory is a falsifiable rule that relates cause to effect. If you push Dawkins and company far enough, you find yourself more or less where Aristotle was more than 2,000 years ago in stating his view that any chain of cause-and-effect must ultimately begin with an Uncaused Cause. No matter how far science advances, an explanation of ultimate origins must always--by the very definition of the scientific method--remain a non-scientific question.
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1 Cor 1:
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
The beginning is either magic or God.
This guy says that his analogy of the 100 switches has 2100 possible combinations. I get something just short of 1.27E30. Am I wrong or is he?
The 100 is supposed to be in superscript, as in 2 to the 100.
Probably a typesetting or AutoCorrect problem.
He probably means 2^100, i.e. 2 raised to the 100th power, that is 2*2*2....[100 times] or, as you mentioned, 1.26765E+30
Am I missing something here. Didn't Darwin put forward the idea in the "Origin of Species" that natural selection creates change in species? Why are the Creationists getting their britches tied in knots over this idea. He is not arguing the beginning of life, he is talking about change over time. Creation and evolution are two very different but not necessarily exclusive notions.
...If you push Dawkins and company far enough, you find yourself more or less where Aristotle was more than 2,000 years ago in stating his view that any chain of cause-and-effect must ultimately begin with an Uncaused Cause.
Alright, who is Dawkins?
The beginning is either magic or God.
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Nope! By definition there is cause before magic and God.
And creationists believe the same thing. Where we differ is that Darwin believed that natural selection gave rise to new species, and there is no proof of this.
If you don't know who Dawkins is, you are out of touch with the debate.
That is precisely the author's point.
Dawkins is one of the scientists who push the conept of evolution negating God (according to the author).
“Evolutionist” is a term used by creationists to include all scientists who disagree with them.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/creationist_age_earth.html
If nothing else, this article explained the concept of algorithms to me for the first time. I’ve heard the word all my life — well, at least since computers boomed into ubiquitousness in the 80s — but could never adequately explain what an algorithms is. Now I can.
Just a different timescale - what then again, you’ve got to figure its for a preliterate bunch of herders to develop the concept of billions - when the zero hadn’t been invented yet.
Creationists get their britches tied in knots because they read fixety of species as a corollary of a literal reading of Genesis.
Dawkins? An eminent biologist who gave up science to become possibly the loudest and most odious of the recent spate of apologists for atheism. He was a bit too doctrinaire as a biologist, too, to my way of thinking, and argued vociferously that Gould’s critique of the praxis of evolutionary biology’s ‘just so stories’ was wrong (by which Gould meant the inistence on finding an adaptive purpose for every observed trait to explain it, when coincidences of adaptive traits could themselves produce other traits—e.g. sleep and consciousness are both adaptive, but dreaming might not have any adaptive function, being merely consciousness while sleeping). In this, his atheism, and misperception that classical Darwinism provided a proof of atheism, colored his scientific judgement.
You know those raving, frothing-at-the-mouth, "everybody who doesn't believe like I do is insane" religious fundamentalists? Dawkins is the atheist version.
Much of what people do is done in the name of God. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Jewish shohets cut live animals' throats in his name. The achievements of religion in past history -- bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries, legally enforced resistance to each new piece of scientific truth until the last possible moment -- are even more impressive. And what has it all been in aid of?
I believe it is becoming increasingly clear that the answer is absolutely nothing at all. There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist and quite good reason for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.
I haven't seen the part where Dawkins says evolution disproves that God exists. Dawkins would believe God doesn't exist even if there were no biological sciences.
Of course he skipped over the achievements of the atheists. You know, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot,...
This sounds like something one of you recently posted.
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