Posted on 11/29/2012 7:56:08 PM PST by kathsua
The new standard for teaching science in public schools should prohibit teaching religious beliefs like evolution as if they were the equivalent of scientific theories.
Science should be defined as using experimentation and observation to discover information about physical reality. Explanations of what happened in the ancient past cannot be verified using experimentation and observation.
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Contrary to a popular myth pushed by those who want to make science a substitute for religion, science has yet to produce a new explanation for the development of life or the origin of the universe.
The idea that the universe came out of a black hole (the "Big Bang" theory) became popular in the 20th century, but it is hardly a new explanation. An account attributed to the biblical patriarch Enoch (Noah's great-grandfather) first described an event in which "all of creation" came out of an invisible object with a fiery light inside (i.e., a black hole) thousands of years ago. Many cultures use the word "egg" to describe the object the universe came out of.
The idea of one species changing to another, particularly the idea of humans being related to apes, was around long before Charles Darwin wrote his "Origin of the Species." Darwin was reluctant to say we are a monkey's grandchildren, so he just suggested that we are distant cousins. The ancient Tibetan religion had no such inhibitions and claims that we are descended from monkeys.
Evolutionists ignore the fact that humans use gradual changes to develop complex equipment. Development of biological life through gradual changes implies that an Intelligence developed life.
Actually, that question is one for you to answer because I do not believe that everything is going to remain as it is.
God is going to be creating a new heaven and new earth.
Revelation 21:1-4 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Now I do realize that this will be dismissed off the cuff, but my evidence that there was a change in the natural laws which governed the universe when mankind fell, and my evidence that they will change again is more than any one scientist has to offer. No scientist has the least proof that things have always been the same and will continue to do so, so my something, whether you like it or not, is more than your nothing.
Every time a transitional fossil is found it creates the need for two more transitional fossils. It's the perfect ruse for those who are anti-science and ignorant.
Words can certainly be ambiguous when precise communication is not the objective.
”Constrained meaning contributes to clarity and coherence and minimizes opportunities for obfuscation and sophistry.”
Have you a charge to lodge, Boyo? Speak up! Don’t be coy.
Why are you so frightened of Creationism ... a fundamental belief of Christianity ... that you have to resort to the destruction of all the norms and conventions of communication and meaning to assuage your fear?
And a handful of those claimed to be transitional is not thousands upon thousands as Darwin proscribed for negating his theory.
I have no fear of creationism. I believe in divine creation, and I believe that it’s possible that life was created with the ability to evolve.
You fail to address the implications of your own argument, as expected. You're right, I have no "hard scientific proof...that all the physical laws have always operated as we observe them to do now." I have no hard scientific proof that they operated yesterday as I observe them to do now, much less that they'll operate the same way tomorrow. (That would be--horrors--extrapolation.) So are you really advocating that we teach science that way--"here's what we observe today, kids, but don't count on it doing the same thing tomorrow"? Or that we make students reconfirm every relevant physical law every day before they move forward in their lessons?
If you're not arguing that we shouldn't act as though physical laws behaved in the past and will behave as they do now--if you're not willing to live that way yourself--then you're just engaging in empty dorm room philosophizing. Of course, what you're really doing is asking us to let you suspend particular physical laws at a particular point in the past to accommodate your religious beliefs.
So, you don’t subscribe to the “Creationism is Useless” meme?
Then why attribute comments by me as “pejorative”?
I don't think that probable transitional fossils cause any problem for the theory of evolution. Fossils provide expected sparse snapshots of a branching model of evolution. There are more probable transitional fossils for species that leave a greater number of recoverable fossils, than those that don't, which meets expectations.
How does your model of biology hold up to your high standard of conclusive proof?
Because they were. You can disagree with the conclusion, but the end doesn’t justify the means.
Isn't that how most films are written these days? Find a formula and fill in the blanks?
I hadn't seen your second post when I wrote my previous answer. So you do think that physical laws changed in the past and will change again at some point in the future. That's really fine with me (though I note that passage doesn't say anything about physical laws changing). I don't see it as a basis for teaching science, though.
Also, by referring to your evidence that there was a change in natural laws at some point in the past, when mankind fell, I guess you're acknowledging that the events you believe happened before the fall could not have happened under known natural laws. That's something, anyway.
The statement, "All science is a “God free” explanation", itself is not a statement of science - it is a philosophical statement about science. Is it therefore nonsense and nonscience? I don't understand what you are saying.
Cordially,
Actually no. When "Creationism" is mentioned, 83% of the time, what is being referred to is YESC - Young Earth Special Creationism - a doctrine from the teachings of Ellen G White. And until the 60s held doctrinally only by the 7th Day Adventists and those sects, such as the Russellites and Armstrongites, which broke off from them.
Even today the majority of Creationist (ie Young Earth Literal Creationist) organisations show Six degrees of Degrees of Benjiman Franklin Allen in being established by members of the Deluge Geology Society founded in 1937 by Adventist Benjiman Franklin Allen.
It's very American origins are why YESC is a peculiar American belief, not supported by any mainsream Christian Church outside the US (and few within it).
Support?
Actually Yes (you are afraid).
"All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator . . ." comes from a little earlier than 1960 (even before 1776).
I know of no Christian who does not hold, as a fundamental belief, that God is the creator of Mankind and the Universe. Do you know of any that do not?
If you have a quarrel with a particular branch of Christian belief ("YESCs"), then specify, and stop slandering a whole religion.
The laws appear to be constant; every time we test them (and there isn't a lie by the experimenter, the experiment was well-executed, and there were no systematic errors) they appear to hold; and other things act as we predicted given our (interim) knowledge of the laws -- if the things don't act as predicted, we seek to refine the model.
All of this is different from saying "the laws are absolute and MUST be, and have been, inviolate from all time and all places"; and (by extension) "there must never have been, therefore, even the possibility of external (supernatural) interference"; and (by 2nd level of extension) "there must never have been, nor could there ever have been, any such thing as the supernatural."
The last one, you see, is the metaphysics; and though such a stance is *consistent* with the experiments, it is by no means the only such philosophical holding consistent with them. But by a happy coincidence, it is the only holding which bids fair to remove any transcendent claim from universally-required sexual morality, and at the same time stroke the intellectual pride of its adherents. If you want to dig through the quote-miners, you can find places where they pretty much admit to the same. (Exercise left for lurkers and other participants.)
The other problem is the confusion over the meaning, not of the word "is" (as per Bill Clinton -- this "is" Free Republic, after all), but of the word "why" : methodological naturalism seeks mechanistic, functional causes -- with the aim of being able to *predict* (and then, therefore, to control) nature (*)
Whereas the other meaning of the word why is "motivation" (as when a girl asks, "But why did he ask my sister on a date when he's been seeing *me* for the last six months?"). For this motivation, the ancient philosophers turned first to theology, then to what became the natural sciences, in the aim to understand the Creator better by studying his masterpiece, creation(+). For example, Tycho Brahe would dress in formal wear suitable for an appearance with VIPs when looking through the telescope -- a sign of respect echoed in older days in the US when people would dress up in their Sunday Best to see the doctor. For a good chronicling of the change between the two versions of "why" try reading the book Galileo's Daughter which is a semi-novel/semi-documentary book revolving around real letters that the real Galileo exchanged with his children.
(*) C.S. Lewis (who was professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Oxford, then Cambridge) had a pretty good discussion of this, in The Abolition of Man:
"Nothing I can say will prevent some people from describing this lecture as an attack on science. I deny the charge, of course: and real Natural Philosophers (there are some now alive) will perceive that in defending value I defend inter alia the value of knowledge, which must die like every other when its roots in the Tao are cut. But I can go further than that. I even suggest that from Science herself the cure might come.
I have described as a `magician's bargain' that process whereby man surrenders object after object, and finally himself, to Nature in return for power. And I meant what I said. The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead.
If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe's Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. `All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command' and `a sound magician is a mighty god'.3 In the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to use as a mistress for pleasure what ought to be a spouse for fruit.4 The true object is to extend Man's power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work;5 but his goal is that of the magician. In Paracelsus the characters of magician and scientist are combined. No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power; in every mixed movement the efficacy comes from the good elements not from the bad. But the presence of the bad elements is not irrelevant to the direction the efficacy takes. It might be going too far to say that the modern scientific movement was tainted from its birth: but I think it would be true to say that it, was born in an unhealthy neighbourhood and at an inauspicious hour. Its triumphs may have-been too rapid and purchased at too high a price: reconsideration, and something like repentance, may be required. "
5. Filum Labyrinthi, i.
(+) Think of this as the difference between attempting to get to know Seurat by analyzing his paintings: the style, colours, composition vs. getting to know him by analyzing his paintings: the chemical composition of the paint, geotemporally fixing him by knowing the physical makeup of the canvas, where and when such canvasses were produced and sold, and so on. It's the old "connaître vs. savoir" problem.
There are several cans of worms here, which I don't have time to get into at the moment...
Cheers!
When someone is stupid enough to criticize a scientific theory as a God free explanation, explaining that NO scientific theory includes God seems a valid response.
Thoughtful post, and I will try to answer in the same spirit.
I don’t really disagree with much of what you write. But first, it seems to me that it applies to all sciences. Perhaps there was a time when heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones. But having said, okay, that law was maybe not inviolate in all times and all places, where do we go from there? Is anyone looking for evidence that that was ever true? Would it even be possible to find such evidence?
My objection to metmom’s position isn’t that she (I think metmom’s a she) holds open the possibility that things may not have always worked the way they do now. And it’s not that she insists that things worked differently at a certain point in the past, in the particular ways required to validate her personal beliefs. It’s that she seeks to dismiss a whole branch of science—several of them, actually—because they don’t accommodate those beliefs, and she labels those who practice and accept those branches of science ‘anti-God” and “atheist.” Not only that, she wants her “things were different at a certain point in the past, in particular ways, even though we have no ‘hard scientific evidence’ of it” story taught alongside the current-law-based story. But only for that one branch of science, as far as I can tell—I haven’t heard her arguing that the “heavier objects used to fall faster” story be given equal time, even though her reasoning would lead to that position as well.
I like your Seurat metaphor. Let me offer one based on another great artist, Bill Watterson. Suppose the question was, Why are old photographs and movies only in black and white? Some might try to answer that question by investigating the chemical and molecular aspects of film, the properties of light, the history of technology, and so on. Others might just offer the answer Calvin’s dad did: “Because life back then really was in black and white.” What would you do with that answer? Would you give it equal weight to the answer the other people came up with, because sure, maybe things *could* have been different in the past? What if the people offering that answer dismissed the first group of investigators as frauds who only ignored the Real Answer because they got grants for their work? Would that help?
The passage refers to the fact that the natural universe will change again. The passage that indicates that creation changed in the past is Romans 8:20-22. I can post it if you don’t want to look it up yourself.
What I read it as saying is that entropy entered in at that point and things began to decay and head towards disorder.
As far as the rest, I don’t know if the events that occurred before the fall could have happened under different natural laws. Speculating on that is simply a mental exercise that accomplishes nothing so is not worth wasting time over, IMO.
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