Darwin at 200: A Liberator Like Lincoln

The Atlas Society - The Center for Objectivism ^ | 2/12/2009 | Edward Hudgins

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

I go between atheism and agnosticism. I don't straight-jacket myself with definitions, too strictly. I don't see any convincing arguments for a god or God.

However, I can only be proven wrong, by divine intervention. For now.

[GoLightly]

Darwinism has had a destructive impact on the education & practice of the soft sciences. Rather than doing the scientific the way it's supposed to be done, disproving hypothesis & theories, allowing evidence to speak for itself, we find attempts to plug all evidence into the current model.

[GoLightly]

I don't see any convincing arguments for a god or God.

That's a fair statement & if you'd led with it instead of what you did, I wouldn't have taken the time to kick the soap box that you'd climbed onto from under your feet.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Sorry for that!

:^)

[GoLightly]

Edit, scientific method

(Hunt & peck sux)

[GoLightly]

I used to be an evolution believer, ready to scoff at those who brought up their religious beliefs in science class. Life experience & exposure to different thinking cured me, making me a skeptic of the evolution storyline. I haven't gotten so open minded that my brains have fallen out, but the emotional attachment that I see in those who embrace evolution set off alarm bells.

Life, even its most simple form, hands off life to non-living matter. I find that to be evidence of something unseen. It, whatever it is could dwell beyond the universe that we can detect. Therefore, belief that there's more to this existence than that which can be quantified is a rational belief. For me, *it* is of God. For an agnostic, it could be something extra-natural. My way or the agnostics way would leave inquiry open to possibilities, making way for each thinking of ways to detect it.

[Ed Hudgins]

I'm not in a university biology dept. (are you?) so I can't comment first-hand on your point. But from what I do see in my readings and discussions, there is pretty lively debate in the field.

Today, for example, in light of new fossil evidence and discoveries, new questions and debates concerning evolution have arisen. In recent decades Stephen J. Gould postulated what is described as a “punctuated equilibrium” view that holds that evolution is not a smooth process but proceeds in fits and starts. This view is opposed by anthropologist Richard Dawkins and others. It is still an open question concerning which view is correct or whether both views contain elements of truth.

But if you mean by “plugging into the current paradigm” that folks in the biological sciences don't take seriously those who are pushing a religion agenda, cherry-picking evidence, etc. then they have good reason for their attitudes since, by definition, ultimate religious beliefs are not based on reason and a critical approach to knowledge but, rather, on faith.

[Cedric]

I go between atheism and agnosticism.

Neither is really gonna do ya any good.

So, in that sense, you're kidding yourself by making a distinction.

[MyTwoCopperCoins]

Neither is really gonna do ya any good.

Well, your superstition is only going to give false meaning to your entire life.

I'd rather err with reason, than blunder with falsehood.

[Ed Hudgins]

You must appreciate that many who “argue” most for religious beliefs, quoting the Bible and the like, at some level or other abandon reason and a critical approach to knowledge. It's as impossible to talk with them at least on many particular religious matters as it is to have a rational discussion with Osama bin Laden, a Klansman, a Stalinist and the like. In fact you should check out Eric Hoffer’s classic book The True Believer, which does a fine job of analyzing the mindsets of such individuals.

As I suggest in my piece, when I witness this sort of irrationality, it strikes me as a tragic and terrible waste of human ability and human minds.