Posted on 10/12/2005 10:43:32 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
I don't know if any do or don't. I know of at least some that very much don't, like Dr. Hugh Ross, founder of Reasons to Believe and co-author of "Who Was Adam?" I'm not sure how you get from anything I posted that I ever said I knew of any particular scientist(s) that think that way. I was responding only to King Prout whose every reply to me gave me plenty of indication that HE seems to think that way. Maybe he doesn't, but constantly ignoring my philosophical arguments as if they weren't even there I saw as something of a clue. If I'm wrong about that, Mr. Prout, my apologies...
If it makes you feel any better, I didn't understand your point either.
Where did I say otherwise? But philosophy gives meaning to science -- and everything. Science at best can only answer "how", never "why".
Marx couldn't have said it better. And besides, everything in history books has an unduly magnified place by that standard. Hey, remember that history is written by the winners, e.g., those who did the "spurring".
But more to your point, I doubt you could find many people in any age who don't or didn't want to know what happens after you die. It's the most important question there is, and people never have to be "spurred" by a priestly class to wonder about it.
I would venture to guess that the average Mesopotamian citizen would have gladly ditched metaphysics in a quick second, if they could have ditched their God-Kings along with.
They would have gladly traded it for some other form of metaphysics, but I doubt nihilism would have been a palatable substitute for them, at least not for very long.
Can't prove there is no God because one can't Prove a Negative. You know nothing of logic or the thinking process, "evidently".
If you can't offer proof that this is so, then the best you could say is that "there is no evidence of such a thing as an a priori assumption". But you are stating this with such certainty that it would seem that you must have proof of the negative, "there is no such thing as an a priori assumption". If you do have such proof, then you have proved a negative, meaning it is no longer a fallacy that a negative can be proven.
But if you do not have such proof and continue to insist that it is a fallacy that a negative can be proven (thereby requiring you to retract your statement that there is no such thing as an a priori assumption), then the irony is made even thicker in that your statement that there is no such thing as an a priori assumption is itself an a priori assumption.
Anyway, here's a definition:
A priori is a Latin phrase meaning "from the former" or less literally "before experience". In much of the modern Western tradition, the term a priori is considered to mean propositional knowledge that can be had without, or "prior to", experience. It is usually contrasted with a posteriori knowledge meaning "after experience", which requires experience.
For those within the mainstream of the tradition, mathematics and logic are generally considered a priori disciplines. Statements such as "2 + 2 = 4", for example, are considered to be "a priori", because they are thought to come out of reflection alone.
The natural and social sciences are usually considered a posteriori disciplines. Statements like "The sky is usually mostly blue", for instance, might be considered "a posteriori" knowledge.
Provide "one iota" of evidence of the existence of a higher being.
You won't accept anything but physical evidence, and even if I could provide some evidence that would fit your criteria, it is extremely doubtful that you would accept it. It would have to be a hoax. The Vatican or some other "spurring" religious authority would have to have fabricated it somehow. But I were miraculously somehow able to clear that hurdle to your satisfaction, you would convince yourself that you misunderstood what you heard or saw when I presented such evidence to you.
If God himself stood before you and told you who He was, told you everything about your life that not only had you not told anyone else but that you couldn't even remember until He brought it up, then proceeded to perform in front of you one miracle after another that defied all explanation, you would then do everything in your power both consciously and subconsciously to convince yourself that you were somehow hallucinating through the whole ordeal. And it is an all-but mathematical certainty that you would succeed.
Your mind is utterly closed to the possibility of God so there is nothing that either I or God himself could do to convince you, short of robbing you of your free will to believe or disbelieve. The criteria of what the hardcore skeptic would accept as proof of God's existence is always deliberately designed to be un-meetable.
"...therefore everything is meaningless."
Non-sequitur. Only for you. Not for a rational being.
Then tell me why anything has any inherent meaning beyond what we make up in our own heads from one microsecond to the next. I should believe there is meaning in a Godless universe just because LogicWings says so? That would be...irrational...
So my only choices are nihilism or religion eh? You seem to have a pretty poor opinion of human imagination. Give 9 out of 10 people who didn't grow up saturated with religion a choice between cleaning the stove or attending church, they'll clean the stove. For 9 out of 10 guys, sticking pins through there eyelids is about a tie with attending church. For 9 out of 10 humans, not church-conditioned since childhood, at minimum, metaphysics is a boring, pointless exercise, maybe because it's inherently a boring, pointless exercise.
No doubt there are those who do, on the other hand, perhaps some people rise above their timid and fairly useless, if not dangerous self-absorptions, and find their human-world occupations are a sufficient substitute for obsessively cultivating their inchoate fears to the point where they become fair game for the next metaphysical con artist that comes along.
No, that's not my point. My point, which is apropos to this thread, is that if you teach an accredited class you bill as a science class, in that class, you should be teaching what the vast majority of scientists, and all the official institutions that represent scientists, think is science.
Pretty much, yeah. You nailed it.
You seem to have a pretty poor opinion of human imagination.
Not at all if there are only two things to "imagine". There is life and there is death. There is pregnant and not pregnant. There are no third options for either of these sets of choices but that is not evidence of a lack of imagination.
Likewise, life either has inherent meaning governed by an eternal transcendent moral code (and said code's Writer -- or Writers if you prefer) that exist outside our heads and independently of what anyone thinks of them; or we are just random collections of atoms that are worth nothing more than the chemicals these atoms form -- false "beings" who haunted by their deep down knoweldge that life has no meaning but are forced to pretend it does in order to find the strength to keep getting up every morning -- sort of like cranking the car radio up loud when you hear funny noises from the engine.
Is my imagination poor because I can't think of a third option? Maybe, but you have yet to make a case for one. In berating me for my "poor" opinion of the human imagination, you have yet to tell me what such an alternative might be -- unless you are saying (below) that the fact that people are bored with church and metaphysics implies a third option?
Give 9 out of 10 people who didn't grow up saturated with religion a choice between cleaning the stove or attending church, they'll clean the stove. For 9 out of 10 guys, sticking pins through there eyelids is about a tie with attending church. For 9 out of 10 humans, not church-conditioned since childhood, at minimum, metaphysics is a boring, pointless exercise, maybe because it's inherently a boring, pointless exercise.
It's a bit of a strange leap to suggest that being bored by something is automatic proof that it's meaningless or pointless. 9 out 10 of people are bored by all kinds of things -- like chemistry, politics, surgical techniques, free market economics, light infantry tactics, history, earthquake safety drills here in L.A., criminology, ambulance driving skills that ensure both speed and safety, etc., etc., etc., etc. But that doesn't make them meaningless or pointless. (If anything, it's evidence that 9 out of 10 people are mentally lazy and far too easily bored.)
So as you see, pointing out that many people are bored by church as a means of discrediting religion won't cut it. You'll have to find some other way.
I accept that people can find all kinds of different ways to pretend their lives have meaning, but if you're right and there is no God, then that (and everything else) is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, a "tale of sound and fury told by an idiot, signifying nothing". Everything ends the same way no matter what you do -- all these "human world occupations" are nothing more than digging holes in the ground and filling them up again until we wither and fall into one of those holes forever. Talk about "meaningless and pointless".
Also, you don't appear to understand that once you remove religion (aka God), there is no way to objectively say that anything anyone does is wrong, under any circumstances, ever. Every man is free to do what is right in his own eyes, to make up his own moral code that constantly changes with every impulse that strikes him. If a man's personal taste is sexual torture-murder of toddlers in his basement, than so be it. He's just another collection of atoms like us, finding its bliss before blinking out like a light forever. Who are we to judge? Why is doing such a thing "wrong" anyway? Because some other clump of atoms says so? If there is no God, there is no right and wrong -- only meaningless and pointless opinions.
But I digress. This "dangerous self-absorption" about life after death and the search for meaning beyond the far more preposterous make-believe that create-your-own-meaning types prescribe is built into all of us, and the history of the world overwhelmingly shows this. I think a far better case can be made that with the overall decline of religion in the West, we are far more dangerously self-absorbed and less community-oriented than ever. That some people "rise above" needing God means only that some people are better able to squelch this instinct better than others. Or more accurately it means that they have found a way to make something else their god, because they will worship SOMETHING, holy or otherwise. Usually it's themselves, the most dangerous of all forms of self-absorption...
More evidence that we're talking past each other. We're both to blame, but probably me more than you because what I was getting at was tangential.
It may surprise you to know that I am on the fence on creationism being taught in schools as a science. Certainly I don't want such a course to be just a thinly disguised bible study. But I'm reading Dr. Hugh Ross (founder of Reasons To Believe) and so far he has some interesting scientific insights on the creation story that could at some point make creationism a viable science topic.
But on one point, I'll agree with you and go you one better: in the spirit (so to speak) of the scientific method, what should be taught as science in the classroom should be what scientists know, not just what they "think". My point was never to say that metaphysics can be substituted for or is interchangeable with science -- you'd rightly hoist me on my own petard by quoting me on how I said that because science deals strictly with the physical, it cannot touch the metaphysical and thus is far too crude an instrument to comment one way or the other on God, like using my proverbial ruler to measure the pH balance of a pool.
Instead my point was to say there are disastrous consequences for humanity if we extend the level of skepticism necessary to be effective in the lab to every aspect of life because it robs life of its meaning and makes civilization impossible in the long run -- and that therefore it is impossible to entirely compartmentalize science and metaphysics from each other.
With that, I'm through with this thread with no hard feelings toward anyone. We're at a point where neither of us could make our points any clearer. But if you or anyone else wants to continue, you can send me a private message.
That's ok, I don't mind an analysis of right and wrong that is relative to, say, the continuing long term health of my culture.
Pretending there are absolute moral values divorced from human perceptions and concerns, has repeatedly proved itself dangerous and stupid. Ask the Anabaptists, and jews and witches how they felt about the church's absolute moral certitude, and the evil extremes of torture and degradation the conviction of absolute moral certainty gives one license to inflict on others.
From my point of view, I don't think you are even entitled to call a notion a moral precept, unless it is derived from observing what is good for your moral community. Example: how do you know the absolute moral precepts given in the bible have not been invented by Rigelian lizard people in order to fill us with christian good will and charity so that we are easy pickings when the lizard people return to harvest us for their dinner table?
There is probably nothing "known" in science, more securely than that evolutionary theory is an accurate, trustworthy thesis, ignorant lay-opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. There is no magic barrier between "think" and "know" in science. We only have a subjective spectrum of assumed certainty--evo is on the high end, and ID is on the low end, alongside cold fusion and perpetual motion, and crystal pyramid energy.
The tidal wave of scientific rigor threatening our shores has not reached my neighborhood.
because it robs life of its meaning and makes civilization impossible in the long run --
Kind of like it robs science labs of their meaning and civilization?
and that therefore it is impossible to entirely compartmentalize science and metaphysics from each other.
There is no great move afoot to do this. Science has widely acknowledged metaphysical foundations and problems. Theological metaphysics and science are not in conflict, they simply aren't much related to each other, except in the fevered imaginations of the Discovery Institute and its fellow travelers.
We used to call this a false dichotomy in rhetoric class. The common example is "either you are for me or against me". The utility for the arguer, if he can make this argument stick, is pretty obvious--if not the compelling logic. There are plenty of examples around, should you care to look, of people who are neither nihilists, nor theists, yet seem to be struggling along just about as well as anyone else.
Let's try to stay on track--what we are discussing is why it isn't necessary to teach ID in science class. You've made the case that theological metaphysics ought to be granted consideration in this regard. That is all I have attempted to refute. I have made no attempt, and do not intend to make an attempt, to suggest that metaphysical explanations for origins are ever going to be ruled out by science.
The somewhat unrelated subtext has come up that you are insisting that it is necessary to adopt theological metaphysics to maintain decency and civilization, and I have suggested that this is obviously self-serving and unlikely on the available historical evidence. In this regard, I would also suggest that I have not, therefore, attempted to discredit religion.
You seem to have some difficulty distinguishing between attacking and defending.
And what he seems to be saying is that the essence of "reasonable" involves the calculation of probabilities. Which is clearly absent. Which is also what Behe said in the quote above.
An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.That definition has the advantage of promoting research: to state clear, detailed evolutionary pathways; to measure probabilistic resources; to estimate mutation rates; to determine if a given step is selected or not. It allows for the proposal of any evolutionary scenario a Darwinist (or others) may wish to submit, asking only that it be detailed enough so that relevant parameters might be estimated. If the improbability of the pathway exceeds the available probabilistic resources (roughly the number of organisms over the relevant time in the relevant phylogenetic branch) then Darwinism is deemed an unlikely explanation and intelligent design a likely one.
The "pathway" by Matzke doesn't do any of that. The whole issue of irreducible complexity, using Behe's evolution based definition, really gets down to probabilities. How do we determine whether Matzke's pathway is reasonable in the absence of that? Almost anything can be at least possible but not necessarily probable. As Dembski said in my first post:
The scientific literature shows a complete absence of concrete, causally detailed proposals for how coevolution and co-option might actually produce irreducibly complex biochemical systems In place of such proposals, Darwinists simply observe that because subsystems of irreducibly complex systems might be functional, any such functions could be selected by natural selection.
Now he's claiming the TTSS is IC!
Sorry I don't see where he claims that.
As for Dembski's ad hominem,
It was not ad hominem, he was saying if Matzke is right then Franklin Harold doesn't know what he's talking about:
"But we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
Creationist: now there are two gaps, between land animals and Rhodocetus, and between Rhodocetus and modern whales! Your case has gotten even weaker!
I don't think that's an accurate representation of the creationist critique of whale evolution. Here's some discussion of that. A Whale of a Tale?
I can also positively assert there is no such thing as a square circle. When the terms of an abstract concept contain contradictory premises there is “no such thing”. There is no person who has lived a life without any experience which would be the predicate of an “a priori” concept. This is one of great fallacious mistakes of philosophy that still contaminates it.
" If you do have such proof, then you have proved a negative, meaning it is no longer a fallacy that a negative can be proven.
Sloppy Epistemology. Proving the existence of an assertion of a physical fact, which is what “Proving a Negative” is all about, as opposed to the proving of an abstract concept are not the same thing. The poverty of the arguments are pathetic.
But if you do not have such proof and continue to insist that it is a fallacy that a negative can be proven (thereby requiring you to retract your statement that there is no such thing as an a priori assumption), then the irony is made even thicker in that your statement that there is no such thing as an a priori assumption is itself an a priori assumption.
I don’t need to respond to this because your own response is too rich:
A priori is a Latin phrase meaning "from the former" or less literally "before experience". In much of the modern Western tradition, the term a priori is considered to mean propositional knowledge that can be had without, or "prior to", experience. It is usually contrasted with a posteriori knowledge meaning "after experience", which requires experience.
Yes, before experience.
For those within the mainstream of the tradition, mathematics and logic are generally considered a priori disciplines. Statements such as "2 + 2 = 4", for example, are considered to be "a priori", because they are thought to come out of reflection alone.
And this is the philosophical mistake. This is the self-contradicting definition: “they are thought to come out of reflection alone”. To restate this in the contra-positive – such knowledge could not have any dependence upon a posteriori knowledge. (That is the meaning of the word “alone”.)Prove That Negative !!! This is the fallacious mistake of philosophy that I referred to earlier. To prove the existence of the “a priori” one must Prove the Negative of “a posteriori” experience. All conceptualization is ultimately rooted in experience and it cannot be demonstrated otherwise. “A priori” knowledge is impossible, BY DEFINITION. It is an invalid definition.
You won't accept anything but physical evidence, and even if I could provide some evidence that would fit your criteria, it is extremely doubtful that you would accept it.
You cannot provide anything other than “physical evidence”. That is your problem, you want the acceptance of a scientific theory without the basis of any evidence at all.
But I were miraculously somehow able to clear that hurdle to your satisfaction, you would convince yourself that you misunderstood what you heard or saw when I presented such evidence to you.
This is where you guys always fall down. Having failed to make your case, you attack my psychology, telling me what I will and will not accept as evidence had you presented what you cannot present. This is where it always turns into personal attack.
If God himself stood before you and told you who He was, told you everything about your life that not only had you not told anyone else but that you couldn't even remember until He brought it up, then proceeded to perform in front of you one miracle after another that defied all explanation, you would then do everything in your power both consciously and subconsciously to convince yourself that you were somehow hallucinating through the whole ordeal.
This is where the whole fraud of ID falls apart for anyone who is willing to see. The issue here was supposed to be the validity of the theory of Intelligent Design and here we have a guy telling me what my reaction would be in the Presence of God. Think for a second how offensive the above statement is: “you would then do everything in your power both consciously and subconsciously to convince yourself that you were somehow hallucinating through the whole ordeal.”
What, you got a crystal ball? You think because of a handful of posts on a forum you have the right to judge me and tell me what I would do in a given situation? You have the slightest idea what I have actually experienced, what I have been through in my life and what I actually believe?
I thought ID didn’t have anything to do with “God” and “Creationism”. But what are you saying here? That is precisely what you are saying. “You must believe what I believe or God is going to Get Ya!”
And it is an all-but mathematical certainty that you would succeed.
How do you know?
Your mind is utterly closed to the possibility of God so there is nothing that either I or God himself could do to convince you, short of robbing you of your free will to believe or disbelieve.
How do you know? The sheer audacity of such statements floors me. The arrogance of thinking you know that somebody else’s mind is “closed” without even knowing that person is astounding. The Beam, buddy, The Beam.
The criteria of what the hardcore skeptic would accept as proof of God's existence is always deliberately designed to be un-meetable.
If this statement is true then Intelligent Design is “ deliberately un-meetable” and can never be science for that reason. And that, Parsifal, is THE POINT!!! That is the precisely the point you don’t want to admit, even though you clearly admit it here. Therefore, you are selling Creationism. Pure and simple.
Then tell me why anything has any inherent meaning beyond what we make up in our own heads from one microsecond to the next.
For you nothing. You don’t seem to understand life outside your own narrow definition of what meaning is. I can’t help that. That doesn’t mean that life doesn’t have meaning for those who believe differently than you do. (Although this is your arrogant inference.) Maybe just getting enough to eat and loving your wife and kids today is enough for some. Maybe making a billion dollars is sufficient for others.
I should believe there is meaning in a Godless universe just because LogicWings says so?
Never said this was a Godless Universe. In fact, I specifically said that this was impossible to prove and was an unwarranted assumption. But facts never get in the way of people like you.
That would be...irrational...
Haven’t convinced me you know what the term means.
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