Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin is widely quoted as saying that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”. Again, this was a rhetorical preliminary to explaining how the powerful illusion of design actually comes about by natural selection. The isolated quotation strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear.
The deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda ranks among the many unchristian habits of fundamentalist authors. But such Telling Lies for God (the book title of the splendidly pugnacious Australian geologist Ian Plimer) is not the most serious problem. There is a more important point to be made, and it goes right to the philosophical heart of creationism.
The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right, then, the alternative theory; ‘intelligent design’ wins by default.”
Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say: “Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’ll have to go to the university library and take a look.” No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
I once introduced a chapter on the so-called Cambrian Explosion with the words: “It is as though the fossils were planted there without any evolutionary history.” Again, this was a rhetorical overture, intended to whet the reader’s appetite for the explanation. Inevitably, my remark was gleefully quoted out of context. Creationists adore “gaps” in the fossil record.
Many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by more or less continuous series of changing intermediate fossils. Some are not, and these are the famous “gaps”. Michael Shermer has wittily pointed out that if a new fossil discovery neatly bisects a “gap”, the creationist will declare that there are now two gaps! Note yet again the use of a default. If there are no fossils to document a postulated evolutionary transition, the assumption is that there was no evolutionary transition: God must have intervened.
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
Richard Dawkins, FRS, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. His latest book is The Ancestor’s Tale
The resurrection is evidence of the deity. As Jesus said, "I and the Father are one."
Yes. Intelligent design requires intelligence, and intelligence requires an entity to express it.........
As is exactly the same case for the Norse account of creation.
You also fail to recognize that my faith is not based upon whimsical reports spun out of a fertile imagination, but the well-respected testimony of others.
...I have equivalent testimony from well-respected historical figures in greece, rome, and Stockholm, I have written holy works describing these alternative creation theories, and I have subsequent historical evidence bearing witness to the authenticity of the documents.
Lastly, your compass must be out of whack where the mental processing of propositional data is concerned.
What in thunder is "propositional data"?
Obviously you are not alone in your judgements, but you err.
Obviously, you need a lesson in the nature of forensic evidence, and probably a refresher in tools of reasoning, if you think "propositional data" means anything substantive.
Deceit is equally apparent on the side of scientists who operate from an agenda which is outside of science. Such as was seen in the Miller-Urey amino acid experiments regarding the origin of life on early planet earth.
Your post didn't attempt to prove a resurrection. It attempted to prove that, at a minimum, the apostles thought they saw something extraordinary. It didn't accomplish even that (the worse analysis that can be made is that the gospels were fabrications), but I silently conceded the point because it's irrelevant.
Uh huh. Well, that makes you about the most reticent christian I've ever run across. I'm curious as to which part of the bible proscribes spreading the word of God to heretics and unbelievers. Does this mean all the Jesuits are bound for hell?
You're operating with definitions, then, that I'm unfamiliar with. I think my post was pretty generic. It would apply to any event eyewitnessed in history.
I merely stated, with minimal regard for supporting the contention, that "intentional misleading" as a motivation for the apostles was ruled out. Likewise, I stated that "unintentional misleading" is the worst one could charge against them.
We just went a round on this, but apparently, like most creationists, you have no problem reiterating a childishly pitiful arguement without responding sensibly to its rebuttal. Please cite the deceit pulled off by Urey in his experiment, so that we can take the case to the proper authorities and ruin Urey's scientific career.
The one from 2000 years ago before we had Photoshop.
What is the point of posting this? Were you actually hoping to bait me?
Shalom.
This is true, but it is a far cry from saying the supernatural has no place in scientific inquiry, which was the assertion I was addressing. If nothing else, scientific inquiry must recognize that the supernatural is beyond its scope. This gives the scientist much more freedom than saying scientific inquiry must presume there is no supernatural.
Shalom.
If you had seen Jesus walk on water, and He was not now on the water, how would you test it?
Shalom.
Shalom.
Do you know why?
1) Those, who wrote the second and third gospels, would have improved the literary form of the Greek in the borrowed verses. They would not have deliberately corrupted the Greek.
2) Mark's Gospel (allegedly written by a disciple of Peter in Rome) is in 'poor Greek' when compared to that of Matthew and Luke.
3) So Matthew and Luke must have borrowed from Mark.
4) This shows that Mark wrote prior to the other two (i.e., Markan priority).
5) Matthew the Apostle (an alleged eyewitness of the public life of Christ) would not have borrowed from a non-eyewitness when forming the basis of his account.
6) This indicates that (an alleged) Matthew the Apostle did not write the Gospel named after him. It must have been composed by an unknown person at a later date, using Mark's Gospel as a basis and adding additional material from other sources.
7) As the Gospel ascribed to Luke also improved on Mark's Greek, he must also have written late. This means the author could not have been a companion of Paul.
8) These findings of modern literary analysis show that the ancient historians were in error. They are not therefore a reliable source for the historical claim that the fourth Gospel was by (an alleged) John the Apostle, eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus..
9) As none of the authors of the Gospels were Apostles or their companions, their writings cannot be seen as accurate accounts of what (an alleged) Jesus said and did.
10) The authors must have been unknown writers, living at late dates, expressing their beliefs in the form of stories.
That's the "worse" analysis.
The statement that there is no evidence that Saul saw Jesus before the Crucifixion is not akin to saying that there is evidence Saul did not see Jesus before the Crucifixion.
Differences in details in a story are normal. Saul's recounting of the details of the days post-resurrection is slightly different than that of other men. This is normal. Saul had a different viewpoint and a different audience. If Saul's version were in lock-step (or even if the Gospels were in perfect agreement) we might have to presume a conspiracy.
Shalom.
I doubt it. I asked for evidence deities, not for evidence that people believed in deities. I would hope you can understand that.
I think my post was pretty generic. It would apply to any event eyewitnessed in history.
No, it wouldn't. Many eyewitness accounts match corroborating or contradictory physical evidence.
I merely stated, with minimal regard for supporting the contention, that "intentional misleading" as a motivation for the apostles was ruled out.
Except, it hasn't been ruled out. Even if one did rule it out, that is still not evidence for deities; that is evidence for apostles believing in deities.
Likewise, I stated that "unintentional misleading" is the worst one could charge against them.
No, it's not. The worst one could charge is that the gospels are outright fabrications that bear little connection to reality.
Evolution, by the way, is not a new scientific theory. It simply is atheism disguised for political reasons, under a new name.
Yes, namely people who are capable of observing, testing, and critically assessing evidence about the universe, whether it is preached to them by evolutionists, or self-evident as revelaed by the so-called laws of nature.
. . . the universe is larger than science.
Of course it is. but science does not have anything to observe but the known universe, which operates in a meanful enough way to be observed, comprehended, described, and assimilated to a small degree by the human mind, all of which is decent evidence that the universe is a designed entity.
It is not routinely observed that scientists are terribly delinquent in policing their own a priori assumptions. . .
Am I to conclude from this that science is incapable of bias? Is it incumbent upon science to declare that only "natural" explanations are qualified as explanatory of the universe when the word "natural" only means what is commonly known and observed? Is that not like choking a horse while urging it to run? You have demonstrated well that you fail to police your own a-priori assumptions. As I said, I hope you are not a professional scientist or a teacher.
PS. And there is also an additional variable to add to your two of whether any eyewitness accounts were truthful or untruthful (T v NT) and whether that was knowingly or unknowingly so (K v UK). The additional variable is whether the interpretation of what, if anything, had been seen was correct (C) or Incorrect (I). That gives you eight possibilities.
I am inquiring about the personal nature of the entity, or entities in question. Get it? "Personhood," not "cause" or "means."
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