Just picked this up, looking forward to reading it after hearing Mr. Barr on Dennis Pragers show last month.
Posted on 12/19/2003 7:47:15 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
G. K. Chesterton once told a story about "an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was an island in the South Seas."
The yachtsman "landed (armed to the teeth and speaking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the pavilion at Brighton." Expecting to have discovered New South Wales, he realized "that it was really old South Wales."
Chesterton was talking about the way in which we cast off the truths we learned as children, only later, if we are fortunate, to rediscover them as adults. What we dismissed as "simple" often turns out to be far more profound than we ever imagined.
According to Stephen M. Barr, a theoretical particle physicist at the University of Delaware, what's true about people is also true about science. In his new book, MODERN PHYSICS AND ANCIENT FAITH, Barr tells us that after the "twists" and "turns" that science took in the twentieth century, it, like Chesterton's yachtsman, wound up in "very familiar surroundings": a universe that "seems to have had a beginning . . . [and is] governed by laws that have a grandeur and sublimity that bespeak design."
Instead of man being merely the result of a "fortuitous concourse of atoms," we now know that the "universe and its laws seem in some respect to balance on a knife's edge" -- exactly what is needed for the possibility of life. A slight deviation here or there, and we wouldn't exist -- the anthropic principle.
These and other "recent discoveries have begun to confound the materialist's expectations and confirm those of the believer in God," writes Barr.
Notice, he said "materialist's," not "scientist's." As Barr makes clear, sciences like modern physics can and must be separated from materialism. Materialism is the belief that nothing exists besides matter, and it is a philosophical opinion. It may have, as Barr puts it, "[grown] up alongside science," but it's not science. Remember that, a critical point.
The assumption that you have to take a materialist worldview in order to do science is simply wrong. There's nothing about physics, for example, that assumes, much less demands, that view of the universe. In fact, many of the greatest scientists, like Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus, were religious believers.
Despite these facts, philosophical materialism has become so identified with science that scientists, and the general public, often have trouble telling them apart, which is why the discoveries that Barr describes come as a surprise, and their implications are resisted by many within the academy.
These implications aren't inconsistent with science, but rather with their dogmatic materialist worldview. Resisting these implications has required ingenious, almost fanciful, attempts to interpret the evidence in a way consistent with the materialist worldview.
Tomorrow I'll tell you about some of these discoveries and how they have "damaged the credibility of materialism." It's an important story about how science, far from being the enemy of faith, is only at war with those who, against the evidence, insist that England is "Tahiti."
Barr is definitely onto something. How many times have we heard that intelligent design theory isn't science simply because it allows for the possibility of a God, so it's religion? Yet those who hold to that are basically saying that if you find empirical evidence that leads to a conclusion, your research and thinking is only valid if the conclusion supports the (also religious) conclusion that there is no Creator. In other words, you aren't allowed to search for truth, only certain kinds of truth.
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Just picked this up, looking forward to reading it after hearing Mr. Barr on Dennis Pragers show last month.
Ivory bird displays ancient skill
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News Online science staff
A sculpted piece of mammoth ivory may be the earliest representation of a bird in the archaeological record. The 30,000-year-old figurine, found at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany's Ach Valley, depicts what looks to be a diving cormorant with swept-back wings.
It was found with carvings of a similar style - one shaped like a horse's head; the other is half-animal, half-human.
Experts have told the journal Nature that the figurines are among the most exquisite examples of early human art.
I've never heard that. I have heard it said that Intelligent Design really has no scientific or mathematical substance to it, and is just a Trojan Horse for creationism.
Admittedly, I was mostly referring to FR when I said that; I have seen evolutionists tell me and others many times on this forum that Intelligent Design is simply not science, period. Still, it seems to me that the statements I referenced are six of one and the ones you reference are a half dozen of the other; both allege that Intelligent Design has no scientific substance and is meant to promote religion.
I've never heard that.
I guess you don't read the crevo threads too carefully.
Not just 'us' but matter in any form. Apparently, according to GUTH, there could be an infinite number of universes with absolutely no connection or possibility of communication between any of them, and--this is the point--most of them would be totally empty. We would, of course, not exist in a totally empty universe, that is, in most universes. Special? No, there is no communication, so there is no relation.
Intelligent Design isn't science because it proposes no testable hypotheses, has no research agends, and has no predictions that could, even in principal, be falsified by evidence.
It is as if police, coming upon a case they can't solve with current procedures, declare that aliens did it.
Nice read. Could you ping me for more of the article?
I read of Stephen Hawking's being reluctant to take his theory of the beginning of time to its logical conclusion of God's input because he feared being discredited by his peers. The book was "God, Time, and Stephen Hawking" by David Wilkinson.
Nor do you. RWP is the crevo threads. And you are not.
I suggest you find a link to support your statement.
I hope you're missing a word there. Otherwise, it's an honor I don't want. :-)
OK, you are just a major contributer.
But the ignorant statement that triggered my post needs to be crushed. The troll who posted it will not find any creationist poster who has argued against ID on either religious or anti-religious grounds.
What he will find, if he has the courage to look, is that ID supporters loudly proclaim that ID has no religious implications at all.
Missed that. Isn't that the point, that the Designer is required?
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