Posted on 12/03/2004 3:48:38 AM PST by snarks_when_bored
But that's what scientists have said all along! Fatalis is accusing scientists--Weinberg, anyway--of saying the opposite, that there is no God. But at some point it behooves us to stop objecting to that canard, as we run the risk of protesting too much.
-just more hope and faith... -backward looking with eyes open to history does not contravene fact that forward looking into the future is blind... --unless Weinberg a clairvoyant he simply makes unprovable predictions that he touts as proofs for whatever he posits... -he builds a house of cards...
You ask:
"there is nothing apparent at present that requires resort to supernaturalism in the ongoing scientific inquiry into the source and functioning of the human mind."
I can only ask in return, what would that evidence look like?
Reductionists mock creationists for stipulating that something extremely complex is evidence of supernatural design. I would agree with the creationists, but I bring God to the discussion. You see?
The scientific reductionist brings his lack of spiritual experience to bear on all of his "scientific evidence" and concludes: "there is nothing apparent at present that requires resort to supernaturalism."
OK, but both are merely opinions and as far as I can tell, science cannot be used to get outside of itself.
Well, your statement is vague. It could either mean:Most creationists are impervious to evidence and argument, or:
All creationists are impervious to most evidence and argument.
I have specific problems with both of these statements.
The position of 'largely' before 'impervious' rules out the second interpretation. And to expand on my statement, where are the articles published by ID writers in peer-reviewed journals of biology and paleontology? Where are the compilations of the evidence that would force reasonable evolutionary theorists to abandon their views on how life developed? I've asked on earlier threads for links to such articles and compilations of evidence, but have received no responses.
And I must insist that "that's not uncommon, these days" is in fact a generalization. Perhaps it's supportable by evidence on FReeper threads, as you say, but it's a generalization nonetheless.
H-m-m-m, I read Weinberg's statement like Fatalis did.
When Weinberg starts out by saying,
"It used to be obvious that the world was designed by some sort of intelligence," it's hard not to come to the conclusion that he's trying to debunk the existence of a Creator.
Weinberg says he doesn't see any need for God by looking at science. Well that's a dopey statement.
Is science is a God-neutral endeavor or not?
He states that he has not seen a need for God, yet by making that statement he implies that he would know what that "need" would look like, if he saw it.
So far nobody has been able to tell me what such evidence would look like.
I know why however, hee hee.
Given that history, Weinberg's doesn't seem to be 'blind faith' at all, but rather a reasonable take on what future investigation might show.-just more hope and faith... -backward looking with eyes open to history does not contravene fact that forward looking into the future is blind... --unless Weinberg a clairvoyant he simply makes unprovable predictions that he touts as proofs for whatever he posits... -he builds a house of cards...
If you're making the philosophical point that induction is always unsupported, and that it's not reasonable to even suppose that the Earth will continue to rotate and bring the Sun back into view tomorrow morning, then you're using a definition of 'reasonable' that's so strict that it leads to solipsism. I wouldn't care to follow you there. On any reasonable view of what 'reasonable' means, the remarkable successes of scientific investigation over the last 400 years do in fact make it not unreasonable to hope (and expect) that consciousness, too, will yield up some of its secrets as we go forward.
The scientific 'house of cards' is sturdily constructed. One refuses to live in it at one's own peril.
I think the point of the article is that battling the theory of evolution has become a well-funded business.
The problem is this: most religions make claims about what happens, or has happened, in the natural world (Jesus arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, evolution didn't occur, that sort of thing). These purport to be claims of fact about the natural world. So either science has to cede to religion the right to assert, without proof, the truth about certain special aspects of the natural world, or else science has to proceed on its own towards the determination of what is and what is not the case in the natural world. This is a conflict, and wishing it away won't make it go away.
Note, too, that it's a factual claim that there's a soul which inhabits a human body, and this soul is immortal and leaves the body upon death. This is either true or it isn't. And, I would argue, just saying it's true doesn't make it true.
Weinberg IS saying that there is no God and he is using science to advance his own Philosphical Materialism.
Faith and Reason interview - Steven Weinberg
" I went on to say that if there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that -- in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves."
Later in the same interview,
" I think that part of the historical mission of science has been to teach us that we are not the playthings of supernatural intervention, that we can make our own way in the universe, and that we have to find our own sense of morality. We have to find our own sense of what we should love. And I would hate to have those gains made by science vitiated by a misguided reconciliation with religious life."
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-body.html
As Clinton would attest [it] depends upon which definition of reasonable is reasonable. The Earth being flat was quite a reasonable assumption -until proved round...
I'm not sure it's true that "the Earth being flat was quite a reasonable assumption". Consider the implications of that position. If the Earth were flat, it would either stretch to infinity in all directions (which might have been true, but would not have been reasonable to suppose since it would have lacked the support of additional evidence—nothing else in nature appears to be infinite), or else it would arbitrarily stop at some distance away from the observer (which is also not reasonable, since one would then have to postulate an irrational arbitrariness in nature—why does it stop here rather than there?).
For further fun on such questions, read the Antinomies in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
There are extreme problems on both sides and scientists like Weinberg insist on poaching territory not belonging to science. Because of this its easy for Christian parents to view not just their theological positions as harmful but also to dismiss anything else they have to say.
If these conflict with your personal beliefs about the universe, that's a shame, but that's not the same thing as saying they deny all possibility of a creator.
"we are not the playthings of supernatural intervention, that we can make our own way in the universe"
Are you suggesting that assertions about purpose are the product of scientific evidence? Having purpose in the universe sans "supernatural intervention" is a theological position. One that denies that the God that most Americans are familiar with exists.
Hard not to? In all candor, I can't make the stretch at all, even if I try. That you find it effortless amazes me. It most certainly is not obvious to me that anything in the natural universe is designed. That's true whether or not there's a creator--and I believe there is one.
When Weinberg says that it used to be obvious, what he means is that we used to be so ignorant, everything looked like magic. We know better, now. If you insist that there's magic there, it must hide in the gaps in our knowledge, but those gaps continue to shrink. (Personally, I don't think God hides in the gaps. I think God lies in plain sight in the impersonal (universal-impartial) laws themselves. It's not the stuff we can't explain that demonstrates God: it's the stuff we can explain.)
Weinberg says he doesn't see any need for God by looking at science. Well that's a dopey statement.
Well, if that's what he's saying, don't blame Weinberg for the dopery, blame Laplace. When Napoleon took exception to his treatise on celestial mechanics because it didn't invoke God to move the spheres, Laplace replied that he had no need of that hypothesis to explain the motions. Well, he didn't!
Is science is a God-neutral endeavor or not?
It is in general, but it can't be held responsible for the demise of any specific belief. If someone's religion vitally depends upon the world being flat, and science discovers that it is not flat, there's really no point in crying foul. The universe is the way that it is, and not how we would wish it to be.
To say that science doesn't reveal a purpose is not the same thing as saying there is no purpose. To say that IF there is no purpose to the universe, we still have a purpose, is not a scientific statement but Weinberg's opinion, and I stronly agree with it.
One that denies that the God that most Americans are familiar with exists.
Insofar as "the God most [insert culture here] are familiar with" behaves in a manner contradicted by the discoveries of science, he, she or it must be denied. Again, science is under no requirement not to contradict the specific beliefs of specific religions.
Thanks for the ping!
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