Posted on 04/28/2008 12:01:40 PM PDT by Delacon
But you can't just dismiss the science as saying it's Godless. True, science doesn't look to God for an answer. It will try to prove the 2+2=4 every single time without looking for a supernatural explanation for that.
Science is wholly unequipped to test or even postulate supernatural explanations for anything. If it did, there would be no science. Sir Isaac Newton's apple would fall to the ground because God wanted it to. No further investigation is necessary.
God could be behind the Big Bang or not, or He could be behind the origin of life (which is what I favor until I see any evidence to the contrary), or he could be behind the physical rules of the universe that made Darwin's concept the most likely explanation for the origin of species (which I also believe).
You and I see this differently in that we can see the same things, and you believe one side is saying God can't be involved, and I see that He could be involved in every single step.
That's a matter of philosophy and religion, and there is nothing wrong about arguing about that. That's a good thing. We have a chance of making each other smarter by doing that.
We might, I don't know, disagree whether the Creation story in Genesis is literal or alleghorical. But I don't think we disagree that God's hand is all over where we are now. If we're worried about God, He can take care of Himself, and I don't think it's required that everyone believe EXACTLY the same thing about our origins to know Him.
I have to tread carefully here, lest I be misunderstood, but both the ancient Iraelites and the Nazis saw themselves as superior to other people. Both acted upon that belief.
Enjoy the movie, and I look forward to hearing your comments afterward.
And the folks who are doing so are generally so completely devoid of scientific arguments to use against the theory of evolution that they can only resort to name calling.
Let me put it this way, when a “family” straps bombs to a child and marches him into a cafe to murder innocent men women and children, and the entire culture condones it, then THAT culture has destroyed itself, and Israelis have every right to defend themselves.
And I can see no evidence anywhere that Israelites hated God and/or mankind in such as a way as to behave as this.
Yet we still have such a culture seemingly locked into 7th century thinking right now behaving such a way.
Nazis were what Israelites were fighting.
And yes, I see Israeli culture then and today superiror to such an abomination.
“I’m sorry to say this, as someone who also used to like reading and watching Ben Stein, but arguing that science is to blame for the Holocaust and should therefore be rejected is completely nutty. Science and the fruits of science can, have and will continue to be misused by evil people, but that doesn’t make the science invalid or scientific inquiry respsonsible for those misuses.
Stein has gone around the bend.”
Well said.
It’s why the crevo threads at FR have been so traditionally difficult for the forum.
This one really hasn’t been that bad in comparison to those in past years. Of course, many of the former participants on one side were unceremoniously booted from the forum.
But I’m not sure how you ever resolve an argument between two sides, one of which says “Well, it is what it is”, and the other side who insists “Nope, it has to be what I want it to be.”
There can be some common ground there, but it’s going to be fairly rare, I think.
I suppose I was misunderstood, because I wasn’t addressing the modern state of Israel or current geopolitics in any manner.
I’m not sure you can compare the Philistines or Amalekites of those days to current Palestinians at all.
So never mind. This side discussion can go nowhere.
But scientists are human beings with biases, even hatred that poisons science.
IF “science” doesn’t find any purpose to me that’s Godless. It’s not a bad word or evil it just IS simply Godless!
On the otherhand, if a scientist sees something differently than another and sees creation, purpose, intelligent design, that doesn’t mean they see what they see the WRONG way, it simply means they have a wholly different perspective!
The same is true of religion, history etc.
For instance...someone stated 2/3 of scientists are believers...the number isn’t important but they naturally see God in all aspects of their beings. There’s no magical switch believers turn off when they’re in a laboratory, therefore they see God in all that is in all that they do, see feel touch, experience. There’s no way to somehow REMOVE God from science therefore.
We can argue all day and forever about God’s existence, and rather or not all they see and experience and smell and do is simply imagnied, but there’s no way to really know that, as you say to prove one way or the other, so until it can or can not be proved it therefore isn’t “right” or “wrong” or “real” or “unreal” perception.
I’m sure the reverse is true for the reverse situation...no matter how hard a person tries, let’s say he can go to church, yet simply not see any possibility of God! Therefore, there’s no way to say he’s “wrong” if he doesn’t see God!
Current science isn’t some magical vacuum as we perceive it.
Put it this way, would there be “science” if there was no life to be found anywhere, ever?
Science isn’t some pristine and perfect entity with a neutral and natural mind of it’s own, it’s a tool of infallible human beings to assist in them understanding the many facets of perception in the world around them, but certainly not all, and not even close.
I think there could be some cases where violence isn’t necessarily a bad or evil thing in other words.
If a man came into your home with a gun and you killed him protecting your family, I for one would see the need.
And yet there are some who would say YOU were the bad guy
‘cause the other guy is dead, can’t apeak for himself, you planted the gun, he was only hungry, a product of evil America...OMG there’s literally a million excuses!
People go to jail for doing such a thing and they weren’t even at fault, for all kinds of wrong reasons, all over the world.
Just like we would think it harsh if a kid had a hand lopped off for taking an apple, it’s again all about perception isn’t it?
If you were born and raised in Japan, a Japanese, once your brain perceived WW2, the very first thought in your mind would probably be Hiroshima (and/or Nagasaki).
But if you were American, it may more likely be Pearl Harbor.
That’s the way I see science, either with or without God’s fingerprints (with or without purpose).
“Enjoy the movie, and I look forward to hearing your comments afterward”
I’ll make a point to share them with you! (BTW, what’s ‘Dog Gone’ about?)
I’m seriously thinking about Iron Man tomorrow or this weekend though, my son is chomping at the bit...and most likely I’ll see Stein’s movie alone ‘cause no one in my family cares too much about culture wars and politics etc.
SMART! :)
Science isn’t about perspective, unless you’re getting into the Theory of Relativity. Any scientist, Christian, Hindu, Atheist, or whatever, should be able to look at the same set of evidence and reach the same scientific conclusion.
Now it’s true that someone trained as a scientist who is Hindu can look at the same piece of bacteria as an atheist and assert the conclusion that he’s looking at the reincarnation of his grandmother. But he will have interjected something into his decision-making that is non-scientific.
Again, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. That bacteria might be his grandmother. But science will not agree with his conclusion because it’s not based on anything anyone else can test or verify.
You can and must remove religion from scientific study or there is no such thing as science. Yet even that is a qualified statement. Certainly the most fundamentalist Christian and avid atheist could work together to map the human genome, because they would be problem-solving in a task-oriented project without drawing any conclusions to the task bigger than that.
But once a scientist suggests that the only answer to an unsolved mystery is God, you need to fire him. That’s not the default answer, and he could give that answer to any question posed to him. If that answer is good enough for you, then you have no need for science at all.
The day I signed up at FR, I was really really pissed at Bill Clinton, although I forget the exact incident that prompted me to make the leap to making my first post.
My first thought of a screen name was Damn It, but I sensed that might be too harsh a name for the forum, and that my mood might not always be one of fury towards Bill.
Doggoneit was the G-rated version of my first inclination, and thus I signed up as Dog Gone.
No dogs were lost in the making of this screen name.
Garbage. The poster I responded to claimed "science is a religion". That is easily refuted by the fact that Congress was delegated the power to promote science, whereas it was forbidden to promote religion. An assertion was made, the assertion was rebutted.
As it was, you would seem to be perfectly content to leave the impression that Congress has virtually unlimited powers to promote science and the useful arts could you have gotten away with that misperception.
You have no basis for saying that I was trying to leave such a misperception. The Constitution is not an obscure reference, and it makes no sense to think I would attempt to get away with such a thing when it is so easily refuted.
You're just being flat out dishonest, IMO.
That’s true, it SHOULDN’T be, but I don’t know how it’s possible! They SHOULD be able to, but I’ve already proven beyond a shadow of doubt that they don’t. Not always and quite possibly more frequently than we know!
I’m relativly sure it’s been done, but we can’t know that. HUMAN conclusions be they scientific or what have you, couldn’t by definition BE “perfect”. There’s some potential for having overlooked something. I think.
Maybe this is because I work in medicine, you know where things are “sterile”? How is it possible for ANYTHING to be perfectly “sterile”? Not shooting blanks, but the kind without potential “pathogens/foreign agents”. One can heat something to thousands of degrees, but a pathogen may be there science has yet to detect.
I’ll give you yet another case: how about scientists studying the effects of red wine...surely you’ve heard of the benefits of anti-oxidants, and of course there’s alcohol, grapes (sucrose), etc. and their effects on the human body (and mind).
Is it good for you, bad, good, bad...the data’s hard to keep up with...just like drugs & other foods, to the point I don’t even listen anymore cause it changes all the time and may not even be “right” in the first place!
Now let’s say one of the dozens of scientists working on this research had a parent die from liver cirrhosis due to alcholism.
Let’s say another’s great uncle owns a vineyard.
You can see how either could come to biased conclusions outside of science that they might not even be remotely aware of, and no one else on the team could either!
You might say, well one or two will be over-ridden by all the others outcomes, etc., but add to that all the others’ unknown biases OR what if one or both of those two were in charge of the team? Then POLITICS begins to effect outcome!
BTW, I see this in nursing decisions that make ME sick! Let alone doctors putting feeding tubes into dying people in a CRAZY misunderstood ‘first do no harm’ idiocy run off the rails OR another way to get yet another payment for an unneeded procedure from medicare!
HEY! Examples with not a thing in the world to do with God/religion btw!
It occurs to me that you and I are virtaully on the same page, working towards a conclusion of sorts, yet not concensus, just from a different angle! :)
But once a scientist suggests that the only answer to an unsolved mystery is God, you need to fire him. That’s not the default answer, and he could give that answer to any question posed to him. If that answer is good enough for you, then you have no need for science at all.
>>>>>Agreed, I would posit that the opposite is also true, someone that submits there’s “no place for God” in science or that a scientific mystery CAN NEVER EVER BE God, is EQUALLY sadly mistaken and disingenuine! :()
I suppose I was misunderstood, because I wasn’t addressing the modern state of Israel or current geopolitics in any manner.
>>>>>>>No, I was, that’s all.
Just illustrating how a culture can be so self-destructive as to negatively effect those around it.
Naziism was an ideology, not a culture.
There may have been cultures for instance in the Amazon that LITERALLY ate itself to death, out of existence.
I believe you understand that there are good scientists and bad scientists. There are good doctors and hopefully fewer bad doctors. But yes, they exist.
Bad scientists are less likely to last long because the of the peer review process and the entire Scientific Method. I forget how long ago, but maybe 20 years ago a couple of scientists made worldwide headlines with their discovery of “Cold Fusion.”
The trouble was that nobody else could recreate what they did. It was probably the most recent version of the Piltdown Man fraud.
But it wasn’t church ladies who exposed the Piltdown Man fraud, keyboard warriors who exposed the Cold Fusion fraud. It was other scientists. The scientific method not only expects, but demands that your conclusions be checked and verified by other experts in the same field, published for comment and then perhaps accepted as a new finding.
Doctors kind of are subject to Board and State investigation if they get enough complaints, so it’s not the same process at all.
Your red wine example is an interesting one, because you’re right about how the discussion went.
But keep in mind that it is very hard for the public, much less our stupid MSM, to detect a true scientific conclusion from a “rent a guy with a science degree” and an opinion to issue a press release. Having a science degree doesn’t mean that you even agree with the scientific method. It means you got the answers right on the test questions you were given.
At any given time, there is bad science out there. This is especially true in any BRAND NEW TOP OF THE NEWS HOUR thing that will interest you. Hence your red wine example.
Parts of the Einstein’s Theory of Relativiy are being tweaked today, and that’s been around over 100 years, but the tweaks are at the edges. Nobody has blown a hole through it, and it’s mostly been confirmed. The Theory of Evolution is older than that, and the same is true.
That’s an uncomfortable fact for some to accept, but it is what it is. I have trouble understanding how I could travel at the speed of light from earth for 20 years, and return, and it would be (oh, I’m going to screw up here...) maybe 50,000 years after I left. But the Theory of Relativity shows that to be true (but probably not my dates).
Once something has been out there for decades and subjected to rigorous examination by people much more specialized in the various aspects of this, we need to say, it is what it is, even if we don’t understand it fully, or we’re not entirely happy about it.
Yes, I can’t disagree with any of that, only add that as infallable imperfect human beings, we simply HAVE no way to verify, through our understanding, if scientific principles are truly “accurate” in the end. It may well be just the best we can do.
Take the scientists that believed the earth was flat.
We knew it was round long before we could take pictures of it from space to determine it was round. Same for the sun rising in the east, setting in the west. I don’t think anything will happen in the future EVER to change our knowledge of an earth that revolves around the sun, or comes up in the east, sets in the west.
But how could we ever know we completely misread something considered definitive, agreed upon, concensus of science and just got it all wrong because, not by any bias or “bad” scientists but because of inherent human limititatons?
Like a dog that watches television and barks at a cat he sees on TV, he’s convinced the cat is actually somewhere behind the screen, in the box...SOMETHING more tangible, yet forever limited to ever know there’s no cat in the vicinity.
God may well have created far more intelligent beings that might look at us like we look at dogs & chuckle that, I don’t know, can’t understand we’re traveling back and forth in time, but simply aren’t aware and never going to BE aware of it! Perhaps we’re able to do such a thing in our dreams...and are actually DOING it, but can’t ever understand that we are, because we’re always dreaming and unconscious when we do and there will never ever be any possible way to overcome that limitation.
Something like that knowledge would turn virtually all we know about science on it’s ear!
We MIGHT uncover new data or understanding or whatever, but there’s no guarantees that we ever will, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so either. We’re perhaps just designed to never understand so much out there that exists, not in this life, or ever, and we have to accept THAT possibility as well! We not only don’t know it all, we might NEVER!
It would be logical to assume that 1000 years from now, assuming we don’t destroy ourselves, or be destroyed, that we’ll learn some things that will make something we think of as common agreement that will seem alot like the flat earth scenario, because we simply learn as we go along.
Maybe we regain ancient lost science and levitate?
Sounds nuts, but a kid in the 1800’s dreaming of space travel sounded insane and foolish too.
What if we were created to experience 3 dimensions and no more, but other life forms are?
I just think it’s impossible to assume what is or isn’t science, pseudo-science, science fiction, etc.; based on the limted knowledge we now exhibit we know of it!
I don’t think it’s so much good or bad scientists or doctors as much as it is flawed, imperfect human ones, with various opinions and perceptions, biases, and limitations, etc.
True for all human endeavors, philosophy, religion, science, and for all we know are still in their ultimate infancy.
I could be way off and we’re nearing the end too.
Time will tell, but probably long after we’re gone.
Yes, it is what it is, as we NOW understand it. I guess my whole point is limited human understanding sure isn’t perfect and never will be, and subject to change from one moment to the next.
Red wine, is it good for you?
Regardless of the MSM, it’s still the scientists telling us if it is or not, which is the whole point...influenced by alot of things other than science! It’s hard indeed to tell what’s science with a few people able to answer questions correctly and get science degrees, our instant gratification society WHICH IS MY POINT! Defining science is still too much all about concensus or who has what degree, who ha what motive or how pure it is...there’s simply NO WAY TO AGREE!
I’ve often told patients I could tell them I might feel differntly tomorrow about their pain control based on newly gathered data, or even how something strikes me in a different way, which is difficult for people to grasp...just like when a patient yanks out a catheter and one nurse might put it right back in while another won’t, but there’s no “right” or “wrong” in coming to such a decision either way, you could make a choice either way, based on experience, or all kinds of variables and things, or outside influences.
Indeed we often hear nursing, medicine itself is a combination of art and science! Yet they are science degrees, not art agrees!
We even have a relatively new branch in nursing called “pastoral nursing”, because believers have been able to improve their well being, comfort etc. based on their faith and belief system and prayer.
There’s ceratinly enough data supporting it, and people might cringe if that’s called science, but hey, whatever works for people, and I doubt if they care if others are adamant about that not being science!
I also wouldn’t think there’d be alot of success in trying to get “science in nursing degrees” changed to “art or religious degrees in nursing” for pastoral care nursing either!
Mr. Derbyshire has a good follow-up on the Corner:
Against the Fall of Dark [John Derbyshire]
No, David. "The world is truly revealed as upside-down and backward" when intelligent young Jews sign up to the anti-science crusade.
One of the best reasons to be a philosemite in our time is sheer gratitude at the disproportionate contribution Jews have made to the advance of Western civilization, and to our understanding of the world, this past two hundred years. The U.S.A. dominated the 20th century in culture and technology, to the great benefit of all mankind, in part because of the work done in math and science by the great tranche of pre-WW2 immigrant Jews from Europe.
Now you have joined up with people who want to trash the scientific enterprise and heap insults on one of the greatest names in intellectual history. For reasons unfathomable to me, you and Ben Stein want to sneer and scoff at our understandings, hard-won over centuries of arduous intellectual effort. Don't the two of you know, don't Jews of all people know, where this anti-intellectual agitation, this pandering to a superstitious mob, will lead at last? If you truly don't, I refer you to the fate of Hypatia, which you can read about in my last book (Chapter 3), or in Gibbon (Chapter XLVII). You new pals at the Discovery Institute no doubt think Hypatia got what she deserved.
Civilization is a thin veneer, David. Reason and science are bulwarks against the dark.
I am sure you know the fine speech that Robert Bolt put in the mouth of Sir Thomas More, but "people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed":
More … What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More (Roused and excited) Oh? (Advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Bolt's More understood a thing you and Stein don't understand, the thing that Waugh credited Kipling with understanding in that quote I posted earlier in the week, and that Adolf Hitler (hey, you started the reductio ad Hitlerum), in his own way, and of course from the other side of the Wall, also understood.
You and Stein are playing a dangerous game, a game that Jews should be the very last to play. The ADL, for all its faults, at least understands that.
I really, seriously wonder how much of a future the U.S.A. has. We are sinking into a bog of mediocrity, frivolity, superstition, and ignorance. When even Jews join the parade of folly, it's hard to keep hoping.
Yesterday (thanks! to a generous friend who got me in) I had the colossal privilege of watching Kurt Masur conduct Anne-Sophie Mutter in rehearsal. While Tchaikovsky's wonderful music filled the hall I found myself thinking, as I always do: How long shall we have this? How long will it last? How long before it is all swallowed up in the great grinning, jeering maw of hip-hop, the worship of worthless "celebrities," reality TV, Oprahified politics, and "intelligent design" — junk religion meets junk science? How long have we got?
Our civilization is on the way out. I hope it at least outlives me, but I am less and less sure it will. I'll be damned if I won't go down fighting, though.
He's visited the crevo threads!
Hogwash
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, altogether deals with the right to intellectual property, and in no manner touches upon the establishment of religion. Its authority is confined strictly to patents and copyrights (ironically enough, including the copyrighting of religious materials). The continuing controversy over what constitutes an establishment of religion stems from the conflicting interpretations of portions of the First Amendment. The ultimate outcome of that controversy can have no influence on a constitutional clause enabling the issuance of patents and copyrights
You claim that you can’t possibly be arguing that Clause 8 grants to Congress virtually unlimited powers to promote science, yet you continue to refer back to the clause with the fascination of a mouse transfixed by a snake. Likewise you admit that the Feds have no power to fund or regulate education, yet you suggest that I am ducking the “challenge” of an issue you have already conceded. You switch arguments more frequently than the costume changes in a one-man show.
That's correct. But the point is, Congress was empowered to promote science. Therefore, the other poster's claim that "science is a religion" was not shared by the Founders. Your attempt to read more into my words is an act of deceit, IMO.
You claim that you can't possibly be arguing that Clause 8 grants to Congress virtually unlimited powers to promote science, yet you continue to refer back to the clause with the fascination of a mouse transfixed by a snake.
The other poster claimed "science is a religion" - I.8.8. is my evidence against that assertion. I need to keep referring to it as part of my argument to counter your dishonesty.
Likewise you admit that the Feds have no power to fund or regulate education, yet you suggest that I am ducking the "challenge" of an issue you have already conceded.
Your postings have given me doubts about your truthfulness. I was hoping to see whether you held a principled view of I.8.3. IOW, it was a character test.
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