By the way, I don't particularly like Dawkins, but I accept the mountain of evidence in support of the Theory of Evolution.
One big difference between me and you is that if scientific evidence or observation emerged that totally discounted the ToE, my whole world or belief system would not come crashing down. It would actually be pretty exciting!
But you guys CANNOT accept the ToE no matter what logic, observation or evidence tells you because it conflicts with your pre-established belief in a 6,000 year old collection of books. Science seeks to find answers to questions and to ask more questions. You guys have a pre-established answer and are only looking for validation. No matter what the facts are, they have to be shoehorned into your pre-conceived notion.
Science doesn't purport to have all the answers. That's what religion does. Science is trying to find the answers to their questions. Science's fondest wish (if one can anthropomorphize an intellectual discipline) is to find more questions from its answers.
There is a big difference between 'evidence' and the interpretation of it.
(Ya get more grants this way ;^)
My first reaction to this statement was to think: “Ah, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black!” But it’s really not that simple, LiberalGunNut.
The problem that I have with the neo-Darwinist position is it reduces evolution to a premise that cannot be demonstrated: i.e., a common ancestor that no one has ever seen whose origin is never explained. It assumes the world of nature is thoroughgoingly materialistic and naturalistic, that everything that exists and the universe itself ultimately reduces to the material and nothing more. In short, for the typical Darwinist today, the scientific method of observation, falsification, and replicable experiments is the “touchstone of truth” for evaluating the reality of everything that exists; that to which the method cannot be applied — and there are domains of reality that are simply not susceptible to direct observation, that cannot be “objectified” into directly testable data — is assumed to be an illusion, false.
But to me, there is no way the empirical, “naturalistic” approach of Sir Francis Bacon, who arguably is the father of the modern scientific method, can suffice for all questions that man has about the universe and his place in it.
And I think Lord Bacon would agree with this assessment. I offer as evidence the following prayer, attributed to his authorship,* which if he actually did write it would demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that Bacon was more than just one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, that he was, in fact, an extraordinarily multi-faceted thinker of soaring genius and profound spirituality:
Jesus Mihi OmniaSir Francis Bacon was evidently no materialist reductionist, as your typical neo-Darwinist is these days. It seems pretty plain to me that he did not reduce the world to the capacity of his own mind, that he realized human intellect is not “the measure of all things.”
Oh Thou everywhere and good of all, whatsoever I do remember, I beseech Thee, that I am but dust, but as a vapour sprung from earth, which even Thy smallest breath can scatter. Thou hast given me a soul and laws to govern it; let that fraternal rule which Thou didst first appoint to sway man order me; make me careful to point at Thy glory in all my wayes, and where I cannot rightly know Thee, that not only my understanding but my ignorance may honor Thee — I cast myself as an honourer of Thee at Thy feet, and because I cannot be defended by Thee unless I believe after Thy laws, keep me, O my soul’s Sovereign, in the obedience of Thy Will, and that I wound not conscience with vice and hiding of Thy gifts and graces bestowed upon me, for this, I know, will destroy me within, and make Thy illuminating Spirit leave me. I am afraid I have already infinitely swerved from the revelations of that Divine Guide which Thou hast commanded to direct me to the truth, and for this I am a sad prostrate and penitent at the foot of Thy throne. I appeal only to the abundance of Thy remissions O God, my God. For outward things I thank Thee, and such as I have I give unto others, in the name of the Trinity, freely and faithfully…. In what Thou hast given me I am content — I beg no more than Thou hast given, and that to continue me uncontemnedly and unpittiedly honest. Take me from myself and fill me but with Thee. Sum up Thy blessings in these two, that I may be rightly good and wise, and these, for Thy eternal truth’s sake, grant and make grateful.
*James Phinney Baxter, (1831–1921), scholar and man of letters, attributed this prayer to Sir Francis Bacon on the basis of exhaustive comparative textual analysis. Baxter also accepted the increasingly well-documented theory that Bacon was (among other things) a Rosicrucian adept (and a Freemason to boot), and thus had acquired habits of secrecy, of concealment regarding what he was thinking and what he was up to.
One of Baxter’s major contributions to the literature of the world was an important learned study of the Bacon–Shakespeare controversy. This was published in 1915 under the title of “The Greatest of Literary Problems” and continues to elicit much discussion among scholars today. (Baxter was a major proponent of the theory that Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare’s works. On the basis of the exhaustive evidence he presents, I personally think he may be right.)
First, telling me what I cannot accept based on a little correspondence between us is extremely naive. I don’t reject the ToE unless you consider neo-Darwinism and the ToE one in the same (see Dawkins et al.). For science to exclaim that there is no other reason other than ultimately purely natural causes for; mankind’s existence, morals, intelligence, the beauty we see, love, and our consciousness - is exponentially more naïve then your statement due to how it reduces our very being (especially with science having infinitely less knowledge with the limited correspondence it has had with our universe and the limits science now imposes).
It is one thing to say we are made up of natural matter and materials, but entirely different to say that we are the ultimate result of the aforementioned with both meaning and purpose being an imaginary construct within our ‘material mind’.
One big difference between me and you is that if scientific evidence or observation emerged that totally discounted the ToE, my whole world or belief system would not come crashing down. It would actually be pretty exciting!
This, again, is naïve. I at one time allowed myself to view the world through the eyes of purely and ultimately natural causes. I became a Christian and my belief system ’did’ come crashing down (and hard). But, I must admit, it is very exciting.
Merry Christmas to you and your family LiberalGunNut.
And Betty, Merry Christmas to you and your family. (We will have a house full of young and old this year - pray for us;-) May God’s blessings continue to be with you (I hope that you guys have great success with your book)