Posted on 01/23/2014 9:19:28 AM PST by Heartlander
One can at least point a direction by now. I began this series by asking, what has materialism (naturalism) done for science? It made a virtue of preferring theory to evidence, if the theory supports naturalism and the evidence doesn't. Well-supported evidence that undermines naturalism (the Big Bang and fine tuning of the universe, for example) attracted increasingly speculative attempts at disconfirmation. Discouraging results from the search for life on Mars cause us to put our faith in life on exoplanets -- lest Earth be seen as unusual (the Copernican Principle).
All this might be just the beginning of a great adventure. World-changing discoveries, after all, have originated in the oddest circumstances. Who would have expected the Americas to be discovered by people who mainly wanted peppercorns, cinnamon, sugar, and such? But disturbingly, unlike the early modern adventurers who encountered advanced civilizations, we merely imagine them. We tell ourselves they must exist; in the absence of evidence, we make faith in them a virtue. So while Bigfoot was never science, the space alien must always be so, even if he is forever a discipline without a subject.
Then, having acquired the habit, we began to conjure like sorcerer's apprentices, and with a like result: We conjured countless universes where everything and its opposite turned out to be true except, of course, philosophy and religion. Bizarre is the new normal and science no longer necessarily means reality-based thinking.
But the evidence is still there, all along the road to reality. It is still saying what the new cosmologies do not want to hear. And the cost of ignoring it is the decline of real-world programs like NASA in favor of endlessly creative speculation. It turns out that, far from being the anchor of science, materialism has become its millstone.
But now, what if the ID theorists are right, that information rather than matter is the basic stuff of the universe? It is then reasonable to think that meaning underlies the universe. Meaning cannot then be explained away. It is the irreducible core. That is why reductive efforts to explain away evidence that supports meaning (Big Bang, fine-tuning, physical laws) have led to contradictory, unresearchable, and unintelligible outcomes.
The irreducible core of meaning is controversial principally because it provides support for theism. But the alternative has provided support for unintelligibility. Finally, one must choose. If we choose what intelligent design theorist Bill Dembski calls "information realism," the way we think about cosmology changes.
First, we live with what the evidence suggests. Not simply because it suits our beliefs but because research in a meaningful universe should gradually reveal a comprehensible reality, as scientists have traditionally assumed. If information, not matter, is the substrate of the universe, key stumbling blocks of current materialist science such as origin of life, of human beings, and of human consciousness can be approached in a different way. An information approach does not attempt to reduce these phenomena to a level of complexity below which they don't actually exist.
Materialist origin of life research, for example, has been an unmitigated failure principally because it seeks a high and replicable level of order that just somehow randomly happened at one point. The search for the origin of the human race has been similarly vitiated by the search for a not-quite-human subject, the small, shuffling fellow behind the man carrying the spear. In this case, it would have been well if researchers had simply never found their subject. Unfortunately, they have attempted at times to cast various human groups in the shuffler's role. Then gotten mired in controversy, and largely got the story wrong and missed its point.
One would have thought that materialists would know better than to even try addressing human consciousness. But materialism is a totalistic creed or else it is nothing. Current theories range from physicist Max Tegmark's claim that human consciousness is a material substance through to philosopher Daniel Dennett's notion that it is best treated somewhat like "figments of imagination" (don't ask whose) through philosopher Alex Rosenberg's idea that consciousness is a problem that will have to be dissolved by neuroscience. All these theories share two characteristics: They reduce consciousness to something that it isn't. And they get nowhere with understanding what it is. The only achievement that materialist thought can claim in the area of consciousness studies is to make them sound as fundamentally unserious as many current cosmologies. And that is no mean feat.
Suppose we look at the origin of life from an information perspective. Life forms show a much higher level of information, however that state of affairs came about, than non-living matter does. From our perspective, we break no rule if we assume, for the sake of investigation, that the reason we cannot find evidence for an accidental origin of life is that life did not originate in that way. For us, nothing depends one way or the other on demonstrating that life was an accident. We do not earn the right to study life's origin by declaring that "science" means assuming that such a proposition is true and proceeding from there irrespective of consequences. So, with this in mind, what are we to make of the current state of origin-of-life research?
Editor's note: Here is the "Science Fictions" series to date at your fingertips .
Dogma.
Dogma.
No................. Truth(truth)..................
i.e. proven.. tested.. modeled.. built.. displayed.. well argued.. and historical.. even moral or fair...
It always is, according to who's telling it.
It always is, according to who’s telling it.
Raised eyebrow.... Well DUUUGH!..
It is a concept - kinda like “evolution dogma” when the theory is treasured as if a religion.
I don’t get the feeling of “dogma” from evolutionists..
It like a yarn to me... a legend... they tell a story..
Like a Car salesman... weaving a Tale..
They are “selling” something.. some call it preaching..
But not preaching dogma, it’s like; pay me now or pay me later..
Like they have already won the haggle...
Like; What Do I have to Do unload this piece of crap on you TODAY..
They do back up and admit they haven’t the all the facts to make the sale.. then change the subject..
BUT fix a few minor scratches and you’ll have a cherry vehicle to base your life on..
The envy of all your intelligent friends.. (wink wink)
If you are afoote or have a lame dogma, it can appear tempting..
If you have a better dogma then you’re crutches will do just fine...
Ah, a sales pitch. That’s one to think about!
Lots of money going around...
“This phrase should be used until it becomes threadbare...”
Spirited: Agreed. However, it remains to be seen if whether most Americans really care about the truth. For many years concerned culture-watchers have been pointing to a lack of moral outrage on the part of most Americans toward the evils that have been over-taking our society for the past 60 years or so.
The repetition of a catch phrase until it's "threadbare" can be seen over and over again in commercials.
Likewise, calling an unborn baby a "fetus" eventually gets people to think abortion is not murder. Ditto for calling Jews, Gypsies and such "untermenschen" (under men) in Hitler's Germany.
The repetition of a catch phrase until it’s “threadbare” can be seen over and over again in commercials.
Like Stalin/Hitler said... “A lie repeated over and over again will be believed.. “ (as if it was the truth)...
Same goes for the “Truth”........ repetition works...
even with the truth challenged.. i.e. the lazy... or apathetic..
Good point.... apathy to truth... signals confusion...
Could be “the People” do indeed have a givernment that matchs THEM... NOW...
How could be any other way when (most) public schools have taught socialism for many decades..
And harsh-ed founding concepts... and the founders..
The current givernment(S) seems to match the voters..
With little outrage over voter fraud and corruption at the highest levels..
i.e. Federal, State and Local.. even school boards..
Sort of like, “The YEC industry”...
If you mean the Religious Industry, I agree...
In some places religion is indeed an Industry...
A business, a club, even a franchise, like Sams Club..
Designer Gods are SOLD like chicken McNuggets...
or force fed like with Islam or other Othodox dogma’s...
Who knows What to believe..?..
Would seem to be hopeless IF it weren’t for a real God..
That answers prayer to a truly seeking heart..
The spiritual mine field is dangerous to the apathic... or lazy..
The precious pearl of truth is available.. for the right price..
All can afford it.... but some are stingy... or greedy..
Does indoctrination work if you know you're being indoctrinated?
Does indoctrination work if you know you’re being indoctrinated?
Yup.... they call it Newspapers and Media news departments..
AND........ PBS, NPR and Academia..
been goin’ on for a long time, you need to get out more..
Indeed.
Not buying this idea of brainwashing people into salvation.
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