Ohio's Critical Analysis of Evolution

Critical Evaluation of Evolution ^ | March 2004 | Ohio State Board of Education

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . said he had disproven the cleric's speculation by a "reductio ad lapidum".

Yeah. That's one of the reasons I reject Scientology.

[Elsie]

"Science is a way of seeking principles of order in the universe."

I agree with this statement. Do you?  Yes

"Science, as an intellectual activity, encompasses observations about the natural world that can be measured and quantified, and the ideas based thereon can be tested, verified, falsified, or modified."

I agree with this statement. Do you? Yes, but tested, verified, are VERY important!

"Scientists, when speaking about scientific finding, do not speak in absolutes as is done in the name of religion."

I agree with this statement. Do you? Yes

 The word "impossible" is an absolute, is it not?  Yes; and so is done in the name of religion."

[Elsie]

Pretty much my interpretation too.

If, in the front of the book, you guys interpret it that way, how do you interpret what Luke and Paul write, later in the book?

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Acts 17:26

  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

 

 

Romans 5:12

  Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--

 

 

Romans 5:15-19
15.  But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
 16.  Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
 17.  For if, by the trespass of the one man,death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
 18.  Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
 19.  For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

[Elsie]

How would you for instance, verify the claim that our universe has been created last Thurday with all our memories, appearance of age, etc.? And how can you tell that the date of creation wasn't instead on Thursday two weeks ago?
This scenario may be true after all but it is simply not falsifiable and therefore it ain't science.

 

Oh, just about the same way as this one.................

 

How would you for instance, verify the claim that our universe has evolve from a speck, 15 billion or so years ago, etc.? And how can you tell that the date of creation wasn't instead 16 billion years ago?
This scenario may be true after all but it is simply not falsifiable and therefore it ain't science.

[Elsie]

...the problem is that we cannot tell one way or the other simply because we don't have any other universes (which have been designed resp, not designed) as a reference.

You are absolutely right here. All we can do is to look at the world that surrounds us, and make judgement calls.

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What we have to be sure of is that we do not have an idea of how something happened, before we examine the evidence, for that may taint our conclusion. Now we also know that THIS is highly unlikely, but at least by being AWARE of it, we may then be on guard for it.

Jury selection can play a bIG part in the outcome of a trial.

[Elsie]

"....every man a liar."


;^)

[Elsie]

...it seems to me that you are frustrated because you can't prove you're correct when it seems so obvious to you.

Which is exactly the same feeelings the "E" people have, for exactly the same reason!

Why oh WHY can't these "C" folks see the TRUTH??

[Fester Chugabrew]

It's still my opinion that God wants us to have to make the "leap of faith" - to believe in Him even though we can't quantitatively prove His existence.

Science wants us to make leaps of faith, too. If the validity of every hypothesis were dependent solely upon proven (or even provable!) facts, there would be no such thing as a hypothesis.

[js1138]

I don't know what all the fuss is about the "Fall." Eating of the forbidden fruit only gave man knowledge of good and evil. Before that, man was, like the animals, blissfully unaware of the distinction. I've always looked at this as an allegory for the development of consciousness in hominids.

One of my favorite bits of fringe speculation is the theory that people didn't associate sex with babies until they started domesticating animals. This may have been within the last 10,000 years, which would coincide with the age of the earliest religious stories.

[js1138]

Science wants us to make leaps of faith, too. If the validity of every hypothesis were dependent solely upon proved (or even provable!) facts, there would be no such thing as a hypothesis.

The difference is that science is an iterative process: observe, speculate, test, repeat.

Another feature of science is that old theories seldom get proved wrong. They just become special cases of a larger theory that explains more data. For example, the Copernican solar system has many advantages over the earth-centered universe, but didn't really work computationally. In short, it failed a key test. More speculation occurred: orbits are elliptical. This speculation subsumed the sun-centered system and predicted data better.

But why would anything follow an ellipse when everyone knew intuitively that circles are the most natural shape. Enter gravity, and the equations that describe it.

At each step in the way there is a refinement in the explanatory power of the theory, without overturning centuries of observational data. This applies to relativity also. It is a refinement in the theory of gravity that explains extreme cases. Relativity is not needed at all to navigate within our solar system.

Faith is believing without evidence, and regardless of comments to the contrary, the standard interpretation of "Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test," is that you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, and it is sinful to try.

Science does not deal with why the world is. It deals with how the world is. It is not attempting to prove or disprove the existence of God. It is examining the way things work.

Centuries ago people, including astronomers, took quite literally the statement that the sun rose, traveled overhead, and set, then hurried back to its starting place. There is no internal evidence in the Bible to dispute this interpretation. Now that science has given us a different visual image of what is happening, we can look at the Bible and say, "Oh, that's just a figure of speech." But it wasn't a figure of speech until the discoveries of science forced that interpretation.

The current battle over evolution is the same thing all over again. Science has forced a reevaluation of the way we interpret Genesis. Most people, including most Jews and a lot of churchgoing Christians, have decided we must interpret Genesis as a parable. That does not mean the moral lesson is untrue, but it means that you do not have to assume Genesis is a science textbook.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Faith is believing without evidence . . .

Perhaps by your definition. But faith cannot exist without evidence of some kind. There must be a proposition before faith can make it's leap. Faith is always based on a propsiton, a hypothesis, if you will. And a hypothesis is normally rooted in the intelligent world - a world that is well-organized and, to my reckoning, real.

. . . the standard interpretation of "Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test," is that you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, and it is sinful to try.

Now that's a new twist. Use a passage of Scripture that acknowleges the existence of God to cobble up some moral prohibition against proving the existence of God. Do you realize how preposterous your statement is? What? Is Scripture in this case an authoritative source for you?

[BMCDA]

How would you for instance, verify the claim that our universe has evolve from a speck, 15 billion or so years ago, etc.? And how can you tell that the date of creation wasn't instead 16 billion years ago? This scenario may be true after all but it is simply not falsifiable and therefore it ain't science.

Uhh? Are you serious or is this just a joke?
We verify this claim by observing the universe and what we observe so far (CMBR, redshift of distant objects) is highly consistent with the big-bang model.
However, if you don't believe me you can ask a more authoritative source like RadioAstronomer.
I'd also recommend this website for additional info: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/intro.html

[balrog666]

I do not think it would be reasonable to make such a claim, and would certainly not attempt to verify it. I would, on the basis of what I perceive to be factual data, point to artifacts which, to the experience of most observers, date beyond last Thursday.

Isn't that the exact point we make to the YEC-ists?

Clearly the two beliefs, YEC-ism and Last Thursday-ism, are equally indistinguishable, both intellectually and philosophically. And equally indefensible with respect to any material evidence.

[js1138]

Whether scripture is authoritative or not is beside the point. If you are a believer you are prohibited from asserting that this occurrance or that occurance will prove or disprove the existence of God. In short, you are prohibited from using the scientific method to prove or disprove the existence of God.

By extension, science and its findings are irrelevant to the question of the existence of God.

[js1138]

Perhaps by your definition. But faith cannot exist without evidence of some kind. There must be a proposition before faith can make it's leap.

this evidence is generall provided by witnesses. But you are not allowed to try to replicate a miracle or assert that the absense of divine intervention proves anything.

In short, you are not allowed to use scientific reasoning to prove or disprove the existence of God.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Clearly the two beliefs, YEC-ism and Last Thursday-ism, are equally indistinguishable, both intellectually and philosophically. And equally indefensible with respect to any material evidence.

Perhaps, but why should evolutionism fall outside the same indefensible proposition? In other words, what makes "one-billion-yearism" any less susceptible to the fact that our observation of time is limited?

[Fester Chugabrew]

Whether scripture is authoritative or not is beside the point.

Then why did you quote it to MAKE a point?

[js1138]

Our "observation of time" is limited to the immediate present. All references to the past are based on memory, evidence, and interpretation of evidence. Individual memory is compelling to the individual, but in fact is not particularly reliable. Any police training group can happily demonstrate that witnesses frequently fail to recall key elements of an event correctly.

Over the centuries we have developed correctives for human memory -- methods of gathering evidence and interpreting evidence.

There is an interesting tidbit along those lines. Married couples remember thei own past better when they are together than when they are apart. Having multiple sources of evidence is better than having a single source.

[js1138]

There is a difference between being correct and being sef consistent. You are reasoning like a democrat here.

In five minutes I was able to find half a dozen articles backing up my interpretation of that scripture. I think before you respond to me again you should consider finding a Christian writer of Biblical scholar who supports the notion that God can be experimentally demonstrated. That IS what "testing" means, performing an experiment.

If you look at the original incident that led to this prohibition you will see that there was a scientific experiment performed to test for the presence of God. It worked, too. This incident must have caused a bit of trouble for later leaders, because later scripture specifically prohibits trying to repeat this experiment.

I have posted extensive links to this story on this thread. I'm not going to post them again.

[Right Wing Professor]

Would you care to mathematically corroborate the number of cases where "some complex objects self-assemble from random components without intelligence or design" vs. the number of cases where complex objects otherwise exist?

Doesn't matter. As long as there is one instance where a complex object self assembles, the assertion that complexity requires design is refuted.