Heh!
So far, I think it's going better than most crevo threads at this stage... but it's still early.
Posted on 03/02/2002 5:10:54 PM PST by Karl_Lembke
Heh!
So far, I think it's going better than most crevo threads at this stage... but it's still early.
Uh, you're not one to talk. "Irreducible complexity" is Behe's thing. Dembski's routine is "specified complexity". (Why is it evolutionists generally know both evolution AND creationism better than creationists do?)
My #73 was a real question though, if you have the time.
Thanks,
-ksen
That's just simple statistics 101.
Is all knowledge scientific?
Maybe not in a strict sense but knowledge is gathered empirically, thus everything we know is permanently tested by reality. Further you have to determine what is true but how do you accomplish this if there is no compelling evidence that backs it up. Of course it may be true that a deity (maybe even the Christian God) was the cause for the big-bang but I've seen no evidence that confirms this and you even said in an earlier post that it is practically impossible to obtain such evidence. It may also be true that a teapot shaped asteroid circles Epsilon Eridani but there is no evidence that confirms this.
I'm aware of the meaning of stochastic.
Being human, I'm also aware of the meaning of presumption.
What we're discussing is first causes. Was there a cause to the Universe, or was it acausal?
If something or someone caused the Universe, then the order and structure we see in mathematics and the sciences would be interpreted as design.
If nothing caused the Universe, then we would see that order and structure otherwise.
Space-time doesn't inform us either way.
"Materialistic science" is fine in its domain. It become arrogance when it forgets that it is but a twig on the branch called "natural philosophy" and pretends that it is the trunk of the tree of universal knowledge.
Advanced in WHAT? It is possible to be technically wealthy and morally bankrupt.
Reality being defined as what... Space-time?
And tested how, by the limitations of our material senses and/or the instruments we use to extend them?
For that matter, how do we test any definition of reality?
Further you have to determine what is true but how do you accomplish this if there is no compelling evidence that backs it up?
I confess, it's a mystery.
Everything outside of space-time is a guess, from the standpoint of science.
This is like saying 'if things evolve, then intelligent design must be prohibitted'- like they are mutually exclusive...
What it says to me is that evolutionary changes (like bacteria growing resistant) is ONE HECK of an INTELLIGENT DESIGN mechanism... (how's that for slam-dunking it back into their faces...?)
Fine. Bring it on. That's the way science works, according to the principle of "put up or shut up." Should you genuinely succeed in toppling evolution as a scientific theory, or replacing it with some creationistic theory (which momentous shift in scientific thought will obviously be objectively demonstrable in the content of the professional scientific literature) I pledge to be right there by your side insisting that the victorious creationistic theory be taught and the vanquished evolutionary theory be excluded. I promise to do that even if I should personally happen to remain an evolutionist.
I don't think you guys really understand that, with possibly a few exceptions, we evolutionists are not committed primarily to evolutionary theory, or to any particular theory, but rather to science more generally, and/or to the maintenance of the highest possible academic and scholarly standards in education.
I expect most, if not all, of the evolutionists here would agree that if evolutionary theory was genuinely replaced or abandoned in science (as opposed to some antievolutionary view being forced into curricula by means of popular and political pressure tactics) that would be a good and most wonderful thing, as it could only mean that a major advance or correction in our understanding of nature had occurred.
Don't misunderstand. I don't believe for a minute that evolution will be replaced, unless by some view that substantially subsumes it (as Einstein's relativity subsumed Newtonian dynamics). I am completely convinced, after examining a great deal of creationist literature to the best of my ability as a scientific layperson, that the whole movement is based on delusion and wishful thinking, at best; but I would be most happy and excited to be proven wrong!
What I assuredly am NOT happy about is creationists (and ID'ers) trying to make an end run around the process of peer review and testing which any genuine and successful scientific theory must endure. This is bad because it sets precedence for a bar-lowering, wishy-washy intellectual relativism that makes it that much easier for liberals to get their nonsense and corrosive, PC, feel good fluff into the curricula.
The way it works is that your idea FIRST prevails in the market place of scientific ideas (that is, it is adopted and productively used or implicated by working scientists in their ongoing research) and THEN, as a CONSEQUENCE of the FACT of its being a part of science, it is included in science curricula.
You guys just got the process backwards is all. Although the truth is, IMHO, that creationists will never put their ideas forward for real scientific review. This is not just because the ideas are not up to snuff, but also because the possibility of success in science requires that your theory be subjected to the risk of failure. Creationists will simply never be willing to run that risk. This is why creationists and ID'ers are angling for their ideas to be included in curricula on the basis of a kind of intellectual affirmative action, as a "balance" to evolution. Putting creationism into the curricula due to a policy of "fairness," "balance," or whatever, gives creationists what they desire: Guaranteed success and immunity from failure. Unfortunately (for them) that's not the way real science works.
I don't even think it's that.
More like fear and confusion. Take the Christian Creationists... They seem to feel that if there were apes in the family tree, that Jesus' mother couldn't have been a virgin. It's a miracle either way, so what's the big deal with a literal six day Creation?
We were in a (very) tangential discussion about what better commandments God should've given the Jews. At least I think that's what it was about. As I say it was very off-topic!
The theory of evolution is an interesting issue. It's one of the great half-truths of all time. People who have some scientific knowledge believe the entire theory, while a growing group of people with advanced scientific knowledge now doubt a large part of this theory. I fall into this camp of doubters. The scientific arguments against the complete theory of evolution are extremely powerful and absolutely convincing to people who really understand the sciences of biology and chemistry. The scientific arguments are too lengthy to discuss here, although I may attempt a discussion at a later date. I have a chemistry degree from the Univ. of California and I studied biochemistry and biochemical evolution in great detail. Let me assure you that at the biochemical level the "Theory of Evolution" completely falls apart. How then do you explain the existence of life on earth in all its many forms?
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