Posted on 08/26/2005 8:57:58 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
My mother says she is a Darwinist. I’m not sure of all the things that could or should imply. I take it to mean the she does not believe that the Cosmos and all that it contains is the result of the will of a Supreme Being. Nature just exists and that is all there is to it. Asking what is the purpose of human existence is a nonsense question. It has no meaning. As we have no conscious origin, we have no conscious destination. Hence no purpose.
This idea is quite troubling to many humans as we are quite reluctant to attach no meaning to the thoughts and desires coursing through the synapses of our brains. And so, for most of human existence, the idea that there was no God was a heresy to be condemned, punished, reviled, tortured and even burned at the stake.
When our social institutions evolved to the point where asking such a question wasn’t as quite as painful or harmful to one’s health, science, in the sense that we use today, began to blossom. And it bloomed because of its explanatory power, its predictive power. If you combine A, B, and C – bingo! – you get D. And no one had ever seen, heard or thought of D before!
One of the best and most widely known examples of this is Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc^2. Exactly what this means is not, for the purposes of this discussion, important. What is important is that this conclusion results from a very simple postulate. Namely, that the speed of light is constant relative to an observer – hence the term “relativity” theory. The other postulate is that we are only dealing with non-accelerated frames of reference. That means constant velocities and no gravitational fields. Hence the term “special” relativity. General relativity, dealing with accelerated frames of reference, is, both conceptually and mathematically, a great deal more abstract and difficult. And, unfortunately, I’m not one of those privy to its secrets.
We still believe, given compliance with the postulates, that the mass-energy equivalence equation is an accurate description of physical reality. For someone with an undergraduate’s knowledge of physics and fair skill with the calculus, it isn’t even very difficult to derive. But that is not the reason for its endurance. Our “faith” in this equation is borne out by innumerable observations, experiments and even a couple of unfortunate events in Japan that took place just about sixty years ago. Though the details of specific processes may, to some extent, still elude us, we have an explanation for the enormous energy levels and extreme duration of the power generated by stars. It was this question that stumped some of the greatest scientific minds of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Einstein’s answer still has no competing theory and it does not leave unanswered questions as to its validity lying about unaddressed.
The same cannot be said of evolutionary theory. There are unanswered questions. Evidence that does not fit. “Facts” that have proven illusive or false. Fabricated evidence. Explanations that are logically incomplete. Jerry-rigged computer models – oops! – sorry, that’s global warming. Result? A competing theory, Intelligent Design or ID, has been proposed as an alternative to Darwin’s rumination. Is this “unscientific” as many wail and gnash in their haste to keep “God” out of science? No. It’s an alternative hypothesis. A competing theory. Not religion. Not superstition. Not a conspiracy by those pesky right-wing, Christian fundamentalist – fundamentalist Christians, if you prefer. A proposed theory. This is how science advances. If one never questions, there are no answers to be had.
If you would like to bone-up on the fundamentals of ID, I suggest that you read Dan Peterson’s piece in the American Spectator, “The Little Engine That Could...Undo Darwinism.” He gives a rundown of the main players in the ID debate along with their academic backgrounds and achievements as well as the main arguments supporting their positions. For an opposing view by a man of science in the field of evolutionary theory, read Jerry Coyne’s offering in the New Republic Online, “The Case Against Intelligent Design.” This was at one time linkable without a subscription as I have a copy saved. But alas, one now seems mandatory.
Based on my brief acquaintance with the subject, there seems to be two fundamental lines of argument used by ID theorists. The first is that which asserts the probability of the complex molecules that form our DNA occurring by chance is infinitesimally small and therefore unlikely to have ever happened by chance. This is the argument put forth by the mathematician and physicist William Dembski.
Michael Behe, who popularized the flagellar motor found in e. coli and other bacterium as an example of intelligent design, is a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. His arguments are based on the concept of irreducibly complex processes or structures as opposed to those that are cumulatively complex. Those that are irreducibly complex do not lend themselves without great difficulty to explanation by a theory of evolution. For Darwin himself stated that if one could show that a blind, incremental process could not explain a natural phenomenon, his theory would fall apart.
Darwin’s theories are being questioned, but here we are not talking about religious zealots making the inquiry. We’re talking about real, live, grown-up scientists, who, because of our advancing knowledge of the molecular basis of life, and not just bible stories, are asking legitimate and profound questions that are undermining the basis of Darwinism. And they’re not doing so with the desire nor intention of substituting scripture for textbooks. God, as the Jews or Christians or even Muslims perceive Him, is not being offered in place of Darwin.
What is? Good question. I’ll ask my mom. She always had the answers.
You have invoked scripture in a science thread… Why?
"A.I. – where does this come from?
Genetic Engineering – where does this come from?"
People. The existence of intelligent design among people is not under dispute. This says nothing about the processes that led to life and that shaped the evolution of that life through time.
There is no evidence that intelligent design existed before people.
" You have invoked scripture in a science thread… Why?"
Because you are lying about what someone said here. And you know it.
Beyond this, how could science answer the question differently if it found evidence to the contrary?
ALL scientific theories only work with natural, material causes."
Scientific proof is based on showing that something is a fact by repeating the event in the presence of the person questioning the fact. There is a controlled environment where
observations can be made, data drawn, and hypotheses empirically verified.
Now if the scientific method was the only method of proving something,you couldn't prove that you went to first hour class this morning or that you had lunch today.There's no way you can repeat those events in a controlled situation.
(from More Than A Carpenter, by Josh McDowell)
Using this criteria, is a "scientific theory" scientific or is it just an idea a scientist has?
Did you invoke scripture?
But you and I know that there is scientific research in A.I. and genetic engineering. What is the evidence and research for material consciousness coming ultimately from mindlessness?
A commandment? From where?
The ID theory does not need to invoke the supernatural and I’ve been saying this all along.
"A commandment? From where?"
Good God, say what scripture he quoted or I will be forced to assume you a blithering idiot. And a liar. He brought up God; that is not the same as bringing up scripture. There have been concepts of God outside of the Bible.
I could take out your stomach and prove if you had lunch today or not; a blood glucose measure would be a good alternative also- although less definitive."
Sure you could, but that would be legal proof and not scientific proof.
Look, I asked you a question point blank if ‘you’ quoted scripture. Do 'you' want to answer?
You are obviously diverting our discussion and I have said many times now that ‘he’ can answer 'his' question.
Fine… If you insist on playing this game than current biological science is atheistic and it is just to dishonest to say it…
There are ‘scientists’ such as Richard Dawkins, William Provine, David Barash, Stephen Pinker, Jacob Weisberg, Sam Harris, and many other people who use evolution to tear apart Judeo-Christian beliefs and replace them with atheistic beliefs from science. Where is the cry from the scientific community about this mixing of religion and politics? Who sets the criteria that allows this to happen without recourse? Beyond this, any Freeper who participates in scientific discussions and religious discussions has seen first hand that the atheistic Freepers in the science forums attack Christianity in the religious forums. But I digress, let’s get back to our ‘non-religious’ and ‘non-political’ scientists’.
National Center for Science Education gives teachers lessons on how to ‘reconcile’ science and religion. Think about that… The NCSE is against religious views in science if they include any intelligent design but yet they advocate the mixing of the two according to the rules they have established.
But what does Dick Dawkins say?:
The same is true of many of the major doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. The Virgin Birth, the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Resurrection of Jesus, the survival of our own souls after death: these are all claims of a clearly scientific nature. Either Jesus had a corporeal father or he didn't. This is not a question of "values" or "morals"; it is a question of sober fact. We may not have the evidence to answer it, but it is a scientific question, nevertheless. You may be sure that, if any evidence supporting the claim were discovered, the Vatican would not be reticent in promoting it.Either Mary's body decayed when she died, or it was physically removed from this planet to Heaven. The official Roman Catholic doctrine of Assumption, promulgated as recently as 1950, implies that Heaven has a physical location and exists in the domain of physical reality - how else could the physical body of a woman go there? I am not, here, saying that the doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin is necessarily false (although of course I think it is). I am simply rebutting the claim that it is outside the domain of science. On the contrary, the Assumption of the Virgin is transparently a scientific theory. So is the theory that our souls survive bodily death, and so are all stories of angelic visitations, Marian manifestations, and miracles of all types.
by Richard Dawkins
I wonder if ‘Richard’ would “enlighten” us with a political view?
Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.
by Richard Dawkins
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