quote:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
Shigosei- That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for!!! Thank you!

Andrew- You're too kind! You really don't need to go through that much trouble though. I kinda doubt she'd want to read a whole book, but I'll offer both in case she's interested.

If anybody has more links, I'd love to look at them.
 

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Posted by Perplexity'sDaughter (Member # 9668) on :
 
I have no problem believing in God and evolution either, Stihl1, and I would consider myself a "so-called religous person", being that I am a Christian.

I do think it's very possible that animals and plants have evolved over time to adapt to a changing earth. It wouldn't make sense if they didn't. Still, I do not believe we evolved from apes because, as I said, I'm a Christian and it doesn't say in the bible that we did.
 

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Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
 
Well if she ever expresses interest in a book, just ask. I'm sure I can find out which one it is; it'll just take time to dig out the stuff to figure out which book was about what.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?

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Originally posted by Perplexity'sDaughter:
Still, I do not believe we evolved from apes because, as I said, I'm a Christian and it doesn't say in the bible that we did.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?

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Originally posted by rivka:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?

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Silly mph. All right-thinking, TRULY religious people devoutly believe in evolution.

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It's a good thing you don't believe we evolved from apes, because evolution has never claimed we did.

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Silly mph. All right-thinking, TRULY religious people devoutly believe in evolution.

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That's not true. But what is true is that wrong thinking, supposedly religious people DON'T believe in evolution.

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Originally posted by Shigosei:

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It's a good thing you don't believe we evolved from apes, because evolution has never claimed we did.

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I think it does. Biologically, humans are apes--and so are chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons. The common ancestor of chimps and humans would probably also fall under the classification of apes. If I recall correctly, what evolution does not claim is that we evolved from monkeys.

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
be sure to remind her that Entropy does not in anyway debunk evolution.

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Originally posted by Samprimary:
NOTE TO CREATIONISTS: Never use the following arguments.

1. The theory of evolution is a theory, not a fact. It cannot be proven.

2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning. The fittest survive, and those who survive are the fittest? Hello?

3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time, so evolution could not have created more complex creatures over time.

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Why, because we might win the argument? While very simplistic and slightly misrepresentative of the actual arguments, those are very sound points.

edit:

1. Evolution is a theory, and just because it is believed to be a fact in the same way that the "theory" of gravity is a fact, does not mean that evolution has the same standing. It could be proven if it fulfilled the requirements that a theory must in order to continue to be viable. Among those requirements are falsifiability and predictions made by the theory coming true. But it has been rendered unfalsifiable and all of it's predictions have instead failed. See: intermediates in the fossil record.

2. Is that not circular reasoning? Is not circular reasoning a logical fallacy?

3. Entropy. Why does it not apply in this case?

So Creationists: Don't use these arguments. Well I just did. So let's see... usually the first thing I am told is that my arguments are stupid, and then when I ask why, I am told it is because I am an idiot. But since I have been pre-empted by Samprimary, I expect the next thing is that I am simply to be told that I am an idiot. This is going to be an efficient thread, I can tell. We might get through the whole bit about who's being more condescending and who's being more closed-minded all in one page!

[ February 20, 2007, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Reshpeckobiggle ]
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Reshpeckobiggle:
1. I'm not entirely sure what your argument is here. You specifically mention intermediates in the fossil record. The fossil record is incomplete, so there is no single unbroken timeline from single cell to modern lifeforms.

There are a great deal of intermediate steps, both within fossils and observable in micro-evolution today. As we do more research, we find more information. I don't see how lack of knowledge invalidates a theory. It simply means that we must keep learning and discovering.

2. If a bucket has a hole in it, nobody will use it to carry water. All buckets used to carry water have no holes in them. This may be circular, if you choose to call it that, but it doesn't invalidate the claim that people don't carry water in buckets that won't hold water.

3. When used as an argument against evolution, people mistakenly believe that the concept of entropy states that order cannot naturally arise from disorder. That is simply incorrect.

Entropy is the idea that within a closed system, the amount of free energy can never increase. Any reaction can, at best, be perfectly efficient, yielding the same free energy as it takes in. In reality, there are no perfectly efficient mechanisms, so the amount of free energy always goes down.

This does not mean that order cannot come from disorder, only that for order to come about, a source of energy must power the mechanisms that create that order.

In the case of the earth, the sun produces ample energy to run all the chemical reactions required to produce life.

In no way does evolution, or any process on earth, defy entropy.


One thing that upsets me about many anti-evolution arguments is that they rely on misunderstanding or misinformation. A more complete understanding of science will show that these arguments don't hold any more water than the buckets people throw away.

Personally, I feel that evolution is the best scientific explanation we have of the creation of life on earth, based on the information currently available to us. It is constantly being updated and improved, as we learn more.

It certainly isn't perfect, and there are gaps in information, but it does make a great deal of sense.
 

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Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
What I found to be fantastic reading on evolutionary biology was Stephen Jay Gould's series of essays he wrote for Natural History magazine. They're so so so so good! First of all he's a fantastic writer, and gets the concepts across really clearly, in an entertaining way. Secondly he's a great scientist. I get from his work an deep and abiding understanding of the what science is really about. He knows tons about the history of science, and about all the ways we have of fooling ourselves, from a study of how we've done that in the past. It is so clear and pure, like a clean breeze of truth.

Anyway, they've been collected into books for a while, and the first one is called "Ever Since Darwin". Check it out. I loved these!
 

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Posted by AvidReader (Member # 6007) on :
 
Samprimary, am I allowed to use the arguement that humans are in no way the fittest organism to survive? Drop a random human off in the woods with no supplies and we'd die within weeks. Wed on't have predator advantages like claws, fangs, or poison. We don't have prey adaptations like wide ranges of vision, thick hides, or camoflage. We're soft, squishy, and only survive becuase some of us figured out how to make tools that could deal with everything else on the planet better adapted than us. (Personally, I can barely use tools that come ready made.)

Another problem I have with macroevolution is the shift from asexual to sexual reproduction. How did we end up with a method of reproduction that couldn't exist until organisms developed the sex cells that served no useful purpose until after they had already evolved them?

Microevolution we can see in action. We can test it and use it to make predictions. Until macroevolution can do the same thing, it's just not science.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
considering that human civilization si what 50,000 years thats just a tad hard to do.

If one has no complaints on microevolution then in all honesty what can you argue against Macro? Its a simple matter of degree not of type, its still evolution except on a larger scale.

Actualy drop a physically fit and intelligent/resourceful human itno the wilds (like my former boss Chenoy) with say only a combat knife he would survive just find, it would not be pleasant but i would have no doubt that like the fictional Brian in a series of books by... *snaps fingers* Farley Mowat random fit people can and do survive against harsh conditions because:

1) We evoled to be smarter
2) We have opposable thumbs allowing us to manipulate our surroundings in ways animals cannot.
3) A sense of reasoning and sentiance that allows us on an order of magnatude work together in groups and achieve results better then even the closest natural competitore with the possible exception of ants.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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Entropy is the single most damning principle to evolution. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, just that there needs to be a principle that can counter the observable effects of entropy.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Entropy is the single most damning principle to evolution. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, just that there needs to be a principle that can counter the observable effects of entropy.

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Originally posted by AvidReader:
Samprimary, am I allowed to use the argument that humans are in no way the fittest organism to survive? Drop a random human off in the woods with no supplies and we'd die within weeks.

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We're soft, squishy, and only survive becuase some of us figured out how to make tools that could deal with everything else on the planet better adapted than us.

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Originally posted by AvidReader:
Samprimary, am I allowed to use the arguement that humans are in no way the fittest organism to survive? Drop a random human off in the woods with no supplies and we'd die within weeks. Wed on't have predator advantages like claws, fangs, or poison. We don't have prey adaptations like wide ranges of vision, thick hides, or camoflage. We're soft, squishy, and only survive becuase some of us figured out how to make tools that could deal with everything else on the planet better adapted than us. (Personally, I can barely use tools that come ready made.)

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quote:

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Another problem I have with macroevolution is the shift from asexual to sexual reproduction. How did we end up with a method of reproduction that couldn't exist until organisms developed the sex cells that served no useful purpose until after they had already evolved them?

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Microevolution we can see in action. We can test it and use it to make predictions. Until macroevolution can do the same thing, it's just not science. [/qb]

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But since I have been pre-empted by Samprimary, I expect the next thing is that I am simply to be told that I am an idiot.

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READING FROM "FIFTEEN ANSWERS TO CREATIONIST NONSENSE" by Scientific American

1. Evolution is only a theory. It is not a fact or a scientific law.

Many people learned in elementary school that a theory falls in the middle of a hierarchy of certainty -- above a mere hypothesis but below a law. Scientists do not use the terms that way, however. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses." No amount of validation changes a theory into a law, which is a descriptive generalization about nature. So when scientists talk about the theory of evolution -- or the atomic theory or the theory of relativity, for that matter -- they are not expressing reservations about its truth.

In addition to the theory of evolution, meaning the idea of descent with modification, one may also speak of the fact of evolution. The NAS defines a fact as "an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as 'true.'" The fossil record and abundant other evidence testify that organisms have evolved through time. Although no one observed those transformations, the indirect evidence is clear, unambiguous and compelling.

All sciences frequently rely on indirect evidence. Physicists cannot see subatomic particles directly, for instance, so they verify their existence by watching for telltale tracks that the particles leave in cloud chambers. The absence of direct observation does not make physicists' conclusions less certain.

2. Natural selection is based on circular reasoning : the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest.

"Survival of the fittest" is a conversational way to describe natural selection, but a more technical description speaks of differential rates of survival and reproduction. That is, rather than labeling species as more or less fit, one can describe how many offspring they are likely to leave under given circumstances. Drop a fast-breeding pair of small-beaked finches and a slower-breeding pair of large-beaked finches onto an island full of food seeds. Within a few generations the fast breeders may control more of the food resources. Yet if large beaks more easily crush seeds, the advantage may tip to the slow breeders. In a pioneering study of finches on the Galápagos Islands, Peter R. Grant of Princeton University observed these kinds of population shifts in the wild [see his article "Natural Selection and Darwin's Finches"; Scientific American, October 1991].

The key is that adaptive fitness can be defined without reference to survival : large beaks are better adapted for crushing seeds, irrespective of whether that trait has survival value under the circumstances.

9. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that systems must become more disordered over time. Living cells therefore could not have evolved from inanimate chemicals, and multicellular life could not have evolved from protozoa.

This argument derives from a misunderstanding of the Second Law. If it were valid, mineral crystals and snowflakes would also be impossible, because they, too, are complex structures that form spontaneously from disordered parts.

The Second Law actually states that the total entropy of a closed system (one that no energy or matter leaves or enters) cannot decrease. Entropy is a physical concept often casually described as disorder, but it differs significantly from the conversational use of the word.

More important, however, the Second Law permits parts of a system to decrease in entropy as long as other parts experience an offsetting increase. Thus, our planet as a whole can grow more complex because the sun pours heat and light onto it, and the greater entropy associated with the sun's nuclear fusion more than rebalances the scales. Simple organisms can fuel their rise toward complexity by consuming other forms of life and nonliving materials.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

quote:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?

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quote:

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Originally posted by twinky:

quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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so-called religious people

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You don't think they're really people?

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Absent context, doesn't that actually imply that they aren't really religious?

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quote:

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If you start with the assumption that there cannot be well-reasoned, scientifically sound arguments on the Creationist side, then you are not being fair or honest.

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Why don't you come clean with her and admit that is your real agenda? And while you're at it,why don't you re-examine your own arbitrary assumptions

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even 5 seconds of searching on google give me plenty of counter arguements.

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A Creationist Scientist is a contradiction in terms as far as I am concerned

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quote:

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Unless I'm mistaken (and if I am, I'd love to be shown that I am), none of of the ancestors of the human are considered monkeys.

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You are presumably thinking of the hominids - erectus down to australopithecines. And you're right, none of these are monkeys, as they have no tails. But that only takes us back ten million years or so. Before that, human ancestry is rather difficult to reconstruct, but I believe that at some point we have tree-living ancestors with tails. (If nothing else, humans are still born with tails, on occasion.) As far as I'm concerned, if it lives in a tree and has a tail, it's a monkey, although a zoologist might pick nits.

quote:

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Evolution proponents, you may as well give up on evolution not being a theory. It is. Admit it. Then go on to say, "So's gravity. So's the idea that germs cause disease. So's the view that the earth goes around the sun. This is not a bad thing."

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quote:

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Five seconds of google searching can give you counters for practically any argument, regardless of the validity of the original argument.

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Blayne was no doubt using a bit of shorthand for "good counterarguments that will convince anybody who is both honest and intelligent."

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I have yes doubts that he meant that.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 

 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
If I'm in error, all you have to do is correct me.
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
I think he just did. Nothing says a correction has to be gentle.
 

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Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Occasional:
"honest and intelligent" bringing it right back to calling Creationists idiots - exactly as some here have said is the main argument used when nothing else works to the Evolutionists advantage. What I find funny is the idea that "if they would just listen, everyone would believe in Evolution." Guess what? Just because the arguments are convincing (even overwhelming) to the Evolutionists doesn't mean they are to others.

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Evidence, or lack thereof, is in the eye of the beholder. There is no universal signs that say THIS IS A FACT! One person's facts are another persons folly. Get used to it.

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Originally posted by Tarrsk:
This "evidence is in the eye of the beholder" stuff is nothing more than equivocation, trying to appeal to anti-intellectualism to avoid having to admit that experts in a field might actually have more valid opinions about their conclusions that you do.

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Why can't you look it up on your own? It'd take you no more effort to find it then it would me and, as I've already said, I've linked it many, many times on Hatrack.

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Originally posted by MrSquicky:
Scott,
I disagree. What I said was not uncivil and it wasn't meant to be conducive to discussion, but rather as an urging for Will to avail himself of the vast resources of the web. Also, I think promoting self-education is actually a good thing. I gave Will with exactly what he needed to do the same Google search I would. I don't see why I should be responsible for doing even more in directing Will towards this information. The burden of time and effort should, in my opinion, rest largely on the ignorant person, unless the informed one can access the information much quicker, which is not true in this case.

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Your refusal to help people along even just a little bit gives one the impression that you do not care very much for the truth you are trying to present.

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Except, as I've said, I've presented this information many times on this site. I am confident that you or Will or whomever would be able to find accurate information on this topic with a simple Google search or by looking at my previous posts. I do care about the truth and it would be my hope that Will would care enough to take some simple steps towards educating himself about an area that he is now ignorant of.

Also, I've got to wonder how "Here's what you are looking for. You could Google it or look at the earlier threads were I linked and addressed this at greater length." constitutes refusing to help people along even a little bit. Could you explain that to me?

[ February 20, 2007, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
Can we just assume that Will was asking for a link on the genetic stuff rather than the whale stuff, was provided with the link, and the whole debate is moot?
 

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Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 

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* Samprimary, tell us about macroevolution being witnessed, and all those other verbs.

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As much as I employ search engines, I still think there are problems with using them without any referral or direction first given.

Camus: Will still has to read the material, and that constitutes far more work then just linking the material, but YMMV

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You are in effect trying to find some way to convince your sister that it is stupid to believe in Creation, and that she has to believe the way you do. Why don't you come clean with her and admit that is your real agenda?

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And while you're at it,why don't you re-examine your own arbitrary assumptions, daring to test them against the responsible and well-reasoned Creationist side of the debate?

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I actually have read a Creationist book. I found it tiring because it began with its end. Instead of trying to build up a solid scientific framework supporting Creationism, it mostly just took pot shots at evolution. Overall, I found it very unconvincing. All of my science credits in college (Genetics, Dinosaurs, & Biospheres) have touched on Evolution and what I have seen has been convincing.

Most Creationists will agree that microevolution occurs- we can replicate it in laboratories. I don't think it's even a little bit of a stretch to say that if you gave a species millions of years, it would go through many small changes (microevolution), and it's quite likely that eventually the species would be different enough that it couldn't mate with a subject from the inital species. I have yet to hear a well reasoned agrument that negates this.
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
There is no valid reason I can think of to give equal treatment to two sets of information when one has more validity than another. You wouldn't teach someone that 2+2=22 and let them decide on their own if they want to believe that it's 4, or if they'd rather go with 22.

There are certain facts about evolution, about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, about natural selection, etc. which are as close to the truth as we can call anything we know. Sharing that information with someone is not an agenda, any more than sharing any other education.

Faith is faith, and it shouldn't be treated as science.
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
2+2 does equal 22, for values of '+' taken as 'string concatenation'.
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 

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What I said was not uncivil and it wasn't meant to be conducive to discussion, but rather as an urging for Will to avail himself of the vast resources of the web. Also, I think promoting self-education is actually a good thing. I gave Will with exactly what he needed to do the same Google search I would. I don't see why I should be responsible for doing even more in directing Will towards this information.

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If five people were interested enough to look for the info, that would be five times the effort it would have taken for you to just post it in the first place.

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If you actually care about sharing information, and if you don't why even bother posting, I think it's wise to make it easy to access.

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I shared the information I had, which was that whale evolution gave one of the best examples of observing macro-evolution. That's solid information.

You're not complaining that I didn't share information I had; you're complaining that I didn't go out and look for links so that you didn't have to. It's not like I had information that I was sitting on that I wasn't giving out.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
Internet Argument!
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
MPH
 

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Posted by rjzeller (Member # 8536) on :
 
I think the most sensible post on this entire thread came from Ron. Why not respect your sister's beliefs and leave it at that?

Really, what is with the compulsion to "prove" her wrong or convince her that evolution is real. Smacks of arrogance, if you ask me.

If you continue to push at her this way, then you merely upset her. If she refuses to change her mind, then you get more upset. But what does it matter? If she's wrong, then what harm comes of it? How does her refusal to accept evolution as truth affect you, her, or society? I fail to see why this is a signficant problem that warrants the efforts you're trying to undertake.

And if she's right, then you've just insulted her belief system and questioned her thinking for nothing.

DO we know the truth? Of course many will argue they do, and many will argue they do not. The very fact that such an issue is so hotly contested clearly demonstrates that the issue IS still up for debate and is quite clearly NOT decided. So why do we treat those who don't accept evolution with such disdain?

We can establish that water freezes at certain temperatures, that the sky is blue, and that a fresh hot McGriddle sandwich is really quite yummy. But things such as global warming, peak oil, evolution, religion, and trickle-down economics are always going to be argued over NOT because one side is beign obtuse, but because these things have not yet been definitively proven.

Get off the high-horse, folks, and cut the rest of mankind a little slack.
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
rjzeller:

I don't believe that sharing known information smacks of arrogance. Educating people is not insulting their beliefs, it's pointing out areas where their beliefs may be misinformed or out of whack with facts.

I think having faith is a neutral situation. When a system of beliefs refuses to accept reality, I believe it becomes detrimental to both the person who is ignorant, and to society as a whole.

People who are uninformed cannot make educated choices in regards to anything which touches upon their lack of information. Giving people more information is a positive thing, it allows them to make better choices.

Simply because something is hotly contested does not change the reality of the matter. If a lot of people don't believe it gravity, we won't all start falling upward. If a lot of people are uninformed about evolution, it doesn't invalidate the fossil record.

In fact, it is people with your view, who don't want others educated about evolution, who keep this a hotly contested issue. If more people were educated about the facts of evolution, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, and all the other misconceptions they have, there would be far less uninformed debate.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Many people who criticize evolution are being obtuse. For instance, anyone who says any of the laws of thermodynamics makes evolution impossible is being obtuse (at least, after the first time they've had the reasons that's not so explained to them; the reasons are extremely sensible and not interpretible to allow for the contradiction of evolution -- the laws of thermodynamics are concise statements).

And there are a large number of people who do that, and there are many similar examples. For instance, anyone who claims that its impossible for the genetic information in an organism to increase -- I added genetic information to bacteria in high school biology (using solely naturally occurring enzymes, just concentrated to speed the process up).
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 

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Really, what is with the compulsion to "prove" her wrong or convince her that evolution is real. Smacks of arrogance, if you ask me.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
Internet Argument!

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If you continue to push at her this way, then you merely upset her. If she refuses to change her mind, then you get more upset. But what does it matter? If she's wrong, then what harm comes of it? How does her refusal to accept evolution as truth affect you, her, or society? I fail to see why this is a signficant problem that warrants the efforts you're trying to undertake.

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So why do we treat those who don't accept evolution with such disdain?

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his

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*her
 

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Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
 

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Originally posted by Amanecer:

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his

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*her

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oh geez I seriously debated this very detail in my head and finally decided that Amanecer was a gender neutral name and just guessed him. My apologies!
 

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Posted by Amanecer (Member # 4068) on :
 
No problem at all!
 

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Posted by Lord Of All Fools (Member # 3841) on :
 

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I don't see why I should be responsible for doing even more in directing Will towards this information.

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Instead, what has been found is completely formed species with no halfway developed parts. Without exception.

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I had trouble reconciling it with my religious convictions, but I managed.

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Instead, what has been found is completely formed species with no halfway developed parts. Without exception.

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So you can't blame a self-respecting scientist for adhering to the only scientific option out there. Unfortunately, the strict guidelines of science has forced evolution scientists to create an un-scientific theory.

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Darwin falsified his theory by saying that if the fossil record (which during his time was very scant) would eventually reveal an enormous number of intermediates. This has not happened. Instead, what has been found is completely formed species with no halfway developed parts. Without exception.

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Are there identified fossils found that are transitional between species (as opposed to between families, genera, etc.)?

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Fossiles, I don't know about, but you might want to look at ring species, of which there are several examples. Intermediate-ness in space rather than time, as it were.
 

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Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
 
I don't know about definitive evidence of the evolution of sexual reproduction, but keep in mind that there's a continuum between organisms that produce sexually and those that produce asexually. Many protozoans are capable of doing both.

I'd like to point something else out: Darwin is not God, and the Origin of Species is not infallible. Proving Darwin wrong doesn't necessarily prove anything about evolution. Heck, you can probably find research by evolutionary biologists that contradicts Darwin.

The trouble with "transitional fossils" is, if you look at it a certain way, everything's a transition. Some transitions happen faster than others (as I understand punctuated equilibrium, if there's a lot of environmental stress, species tend to change a bit faster than in more static environments where the organisms are well-adapted), but many populations undergo change. If we survive long enough to give birth to a new species or two, then wouldn't we be a transitional species between Australopithecine and our descendants?

As for the rather uncalled-for ad hominem argument that I only believe in evolution because I want a scientific explanation, let me inform you that I used to believe that the Genesis account was literally true and that the earth was only several thousand years old. I was very interested in the scientific evidence supporting YEC, so I did a lot of reading. I ended up being dragged kicking and screaming into the evolutionist camp by the mountains of evidence. Oh, well. It's an incredibly useful theory and explains a lot of things quite well.
 

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Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
 
It would be difficult to say. I am not a paleontologist, but IIRC, they use a somewhat different technical definition of "species" as is commonly used in other areas of biology (i.e. that two organisms are the same species if they can produce fertile offspring). Since it's impossible to tell whether two physically similar fossils might have been capable of producing fertile offspring, I think the word is used more generally by paleontologists to describe a group of fossils that demonstrate more-or-less complete physical homology. Of course, the term "species" (along with all other methods of classification) is an arbitrary designation used by scientists for simplicity's sake anyway, so this difference in terminology doesn't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. Because natural selection is constantly working, and all generations of all organisms are constantly undergoing the process of evolution, a given type of organism is not a discrete unit, but rather a continuum of phenotype and genotype, gradually altering over time.

That said, there are certainly transitional fossils that demonstrate contiguity closely related organisms, and we are constantly finding more to fill in the gaps. The whales are a great example of this. Half a century ago, we knew that there were primitive mammals that we suspected were the ancestors of modern whales, based on various similarities in morphology. We were therefore able to make the prediction that some intermediate form of the animal existed, and could even predict what such an animal might have looked like, before finding any other fossils. These hypotheses have been confirmed with a startling degree of accuracy by the wealth of proto-whale fossils found in the past few decades, as Amanecer's and Lord of All Fools' links describe.

THAT's science in action. If we had found fossils that falsified the proto-whale hypothesis (for example, a transitional fossil that showed both proto-flippers and a hip structure more similar to reptiles than mammals), then we would have tossed out that hypothesis and started from scratch. Instead, we confirmed our hypothesis, and can move on from there to suggest new ones.

Edit: Erm, sorry. This was supposed to be in response to Will. That'll teach me to not use the quote function.

Edit 2: Like Shigosei, I'm also an ex-YEC. Exposure to the actual science (and doing a lot of research into the subject on my own) eventually convinced me that the theory of evolution is as solidly grounded in reality as gravitation, no pun intended. It also had the side effect of spurring an intense interest in biology in general, and is a not-insignificant part of why I decided to go into biological research myself.

[ February 21, 2007, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: Tarrsk ]
 

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Posted by Friday (Member # 8998) on :
 

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But that doesn't mean it's right, because the basic premise that rules out Creationism and favors Naturalism may very well be false. And that premise is the outright rejection of the supernatural. Prove to me that the supernatural doesn't exist!

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The passionate and often vehement rebuttals against him are very weak and chock full of red herrings and other fallacies.

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The archyopteryx(sp?) is found later in the record than the birds it is supposed to transition to.

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I was using Darwin as an example of falsifying the theory, something that is essentially impssible to do today

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Originally posted by Shigosei:
I don't know about definitive evidence of the evolution of sexual reproduction, but keep in mind that there's a continuum between organisms that produce sexually and those that produce asexually. Many protozoans are capable of doing both.

...If we survive long enough to give birth to a new species or two, then wouldn't we be a transitional species between Australopithecine and our descendants?

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But it has only remained compelling because of the lack of alternatives, and therefore the evidence is made to fit the theory, and the theory is adjusted to accept new evidence. As I said before, the process of assimilation and adjustment has had the unfortunate effect of rendering the theory unfalsifiable, and therefore unscientific.

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Originally posted by King of Men:

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The passionate and often vehement rebuttals against him are very weak and chock full of red herrings and other fallacies.

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Off he goes again with the assertions of authority. Tell you what, why don't you give one of Behe's arguments, and I'll refute it.

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The archyopteryx(sp?) is found later in the record than the birds it is supposed to transition to.

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This does not invalidate its transition-ness. (Transitionality?) I also note that you don't actually respond to all the other evidence that was given you. You just say "I read it, and here's the problem with the archaeopteryx". This is a red herring. Argue against all the evidence, or don't argue at all. It's perfectly possible for the transitional species to hang around for several million years alongside both the original species and the descendant species. To use an analogy, you are arguing that because Harold was buried later than George, it is not possible that Harold was George's father.

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I was using Darwin as an example of falsifying the theory, something that is essentially impssible to do today

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It is not impossible. Finding a human skeleton in the Triassic would do it. But nobody has ever done it, and that includes Darwin. Being a Victorian gentlemen, he was careful to point out the places where his theory might be wrong; "If you find X, I'm going to admit I was mistaken". Nobody has ever found any of the X he mentioned. [/QB]

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And off you go again with the attitude. I'm making an effort to keep this civil, why don't you?

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Well, that's a nice falsification, but it's also one that is not going to happen. True fasifications are ones that could conceivably be discovered.

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Yes, well? Do you think we have discovered all the Triassic fossils that exist yet?
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
I'm off to bed. Just wanted to make the point that a reasonably intelligent person can reject evolution without deliberately pulling the wool over his own eyes. I'm sure all of you true believers are convinced that this is exactly what I'm doing, but maybe one or two of the people reading this thread recognize my honesty.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
Don't waste your time, KoM. You don't want a debate, you want a fight. Try stepping outside of yourself and read your posts. See who has an attitude. Good night.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
Sorry, one more thing: An equally compelling explanation for all the similarities between so many species is that God made so many that nearly every variation on the theme of life is represented. ALL of the evidence that supports Macroevolution could be just as readily applied to this explanation. The only difference is that one is scientific and one is not. And so if you buy the premise that there is no supernature, then the choice is clear. For those of us who have experienced God's presence as real as anything else we've ever experienced, the choice is also clear. So again, try to respect the intelligence of those who believe in Creation. It may be that you are the one who is missing a certain piece of evidence.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
We see plenty of parts that are halfway developed in the sense of being less capable than more developed versions of the same thing.

We see no parts like that which are useless because those would be selected against (though we do see the odd mostly useless part, usually as a leftover).

For instance, many fish have stubby fins which are used as proto-legs on land (the lungfish, for instance). That's a perfect example of a part which could be terms a half-developed leg, but is still useful for its own sake.

Actually, I'll give you a challenge. Name any part (and an example organism edit: in which is is fairly useful), and I'll find another organism with a less-developed (but still useful) form of it.

[ February 21, 2007, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: fugu13 ]
 

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Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
 
Reshpeckobiggle: I'm really not seeing an argument from you, other than, "Evolution isn't 100% in the bag, so we should throw the whole thing in the trash."

I have yet to see a better alternative. Creationism? It is just as likely that aliens dropped off all the species fully formed. Or that there's an alternate dimension where everything came from, and it warped here. You can come up with any number of creative ideas, but none of them have any evidence behind them.

How can you show lack of complete evidence as a viable reason to completely ignore evolution, and then embrace an alternate explanation with zero evidence?
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Luckily for us, the argument from similarity is not the bedrock of evolution

It is a part of one major foundation: that if we take the fossils we find and arrange them by date, they start out not very complex and become more complex, and particularly specialized species tend to be found after similar more generalized species are, and even if we zoom in to only 'short' (in geologic terms) gaps, we see separate species that look much like an assortment of changes to previous species, et cetera.

And then when we find 'close' relatives of species from the past and examine their genetics and internal organs that aren't preserved, we find that the same webs of descent we discover in the fossils appear independently!

These do not support God having created things all at once as much as it supports a gradual process of change in and between species.
 

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Posted by kaioshin00 (Member # 3740) on :
 
The Origin of Species is a fantastic primer

Only took about 1 year to get through.
 

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Posted by Survivor (Member # 233) on :
 
A year?

I think this is supposed to be funny, but I don't get it.

Why? Why me? Why don't I get it?

I don't find any connection between religious belief and opposition to Darwinism. It's true that religious belief is probably necessary for going against the establishment view, because otherwise who the hell would even care whether evolution was or wasn't a random process?

You might believe that if your species was "intelligently designed", you'd have a better chance of not being wiped out, but you'd be wrong. There is no logical reason that a species designer would necessarily regard a created species as inherently more valuable than one that had occured without intervention. There are illogical reasons, but there are also illogical reasons to regard a species as less valuable if it was the product of design. We can presume that a designer (or should I say "Designer"?) would have logical reasons, but you cannot presume on illogical motives so easily.

Anyway, life on this planet is the product of design. But I don't see how that matters.
 

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Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
 
I find it laughable that Resh goes so far as to make an arguement and then refuse to continue the arguement, KoM was reasonable on requesting you give some of Behes arguements bt you refuse, probly because you know it will most certanly be ripped apart, the anti evolution arguements work great with those lacking in any scientific knowledge, but I consider myself well read and so far I have not found a single creationist arguement or lack-there-of arguement convincing or as supported in observable indirectly and directly evidence.

You come on a forum through out your fragile beliefs into the open state your claims and say "I am resolute and absoute!" And then retreat turning your back on the snowballs that are unnervingly heading your way.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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You come on a forum through out your fragile beliefs into the open state your claims and say "I am resolute and absoute!" And then retreat turning your back on the snowballs that are unnervingly heading your way.

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I don't find any connection between religious belief and opposition to Darwinism.

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and if you really think about it, the two are really not reconcilable. Either God did it all or he didn't. Maybe he guided the process, or just set the ball in motion with the big bang or the first life form(incredibly problematic for evolutionists), but if you believe that, then why do you need evolution in the first place? Because the evidence says it happened? The why do you need God?

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So again, try to respect the intelligence of those who believe in Creation.

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For example, there aren't creatures that walk like Slinkys. There aren't any living hydrogen balloons.

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Yet.


 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Inchworm, inchworm
 

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Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
 
The "ring species" thing is really interesting.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 

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Originally posted by Amanecer:
... He could have started creation however He wanted, and your saying that he had to do it one specific way does not suddenly mean it had to be done one way ... I do not see how this has any bearing on a need or lack of need for God ... I was raised to believe that there was no conflict between evolution and God ... God explains why that might have happened. Further, the concept of a God's signifigance is not limmited to Creation. God provides purpose and direction in life as well as hope for an upcoming life. I don't know why you would want to limit the scope of God's meaning to whether life on Earth was created all at once or slowly throughout time.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
I'm sorry Tom, but you are wrong. If you say archeopteryx to me, I will respect you less than I never did.

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New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude and uncaring, but it's just not true. Ask someone from the Midwest for the time, and he'll tell you the time. Ask a New Yorker, and he'll say, "Dumbass! Why don't you get your own freakin' watch?" See? He's looking out for your welfare! Trying to help!

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posted February 21, 2007 12:03 PM
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New Yorkers have a reputation for being rude and uncaring, but it's just not true. Ask someone from the Midwest for the time, and he'll tell you the time. Ask a New Yorker, and he'll say, "Dumbass! Why don't you get your own freakin' watch?" See? He's looking out for your welfare! Trying to help!
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Except in this case, from my perspective, it is more like you are asking me how you could determine what time it was. "By looking at a watch." I respond. Neither of us has a watch, but you apparently feel I should be the one to go out and buy a watch. I disagree.

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Why can't you look it up on your own? It'd take you no more effort to find it then it would me and, as I've already said, I've linked it many, many times on Hatrack.

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I don't think it was answered yet (on this thread), so I'll throw out that the probably strongest case for observing macroevolution comes from the evolution of whales from a sort of wolf-like land mammal. You can look it up pretty easily and I've mentioned it on innumerable Hatrack threads about evolution.

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I find it laughable that Resh goes so far as to make an arguement and then refuse to continue the arguement

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P.S. I still don't know what a troll is, exactly. I just know I get called that all the time around here. Could someone give me a definition?

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I have my reasons, and I told them to you.

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Trolls can also be existing members of such a community that rarely post and often contribute no useful information to the thread, but instead make argumentative posts in an attempt to discredit another person, more often than not based on what they thought was said rather than what was actually said by the other person, concentrating almost exclusively on facts irrelevant to the point of the conversation, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.

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by me!

An equally compelling explanation for all the similarities between so many species is that God made so many that nearly every variation on the theme of life is represented. ALL of the evidence that supports Macroevolution could be just as readily applied to this explanation. The only difference is that one is scientific and one is not. And so if you buy the premise that there is no supernature, then the choice is clear. For those of us who have experienced God's presence as real as anything else we've ever experienced, the choice is also clear. So again, try to respect the intelligence of those who believe in Creation. It may be that you are the one who is missing a certain piece of evidence.

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ALL of the evidence that supports macroevolution could be just as readily applied to this explanation.

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For those of us who have experienced God's presence as real as anything else we've ever experienced, the choice is also clear.

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I am simply trying to establish that disrespecting someone simply because he doesn't buy the theory, that is elitist. I am doing this by showing that I, no idiot, am able to provide reasons and arguments in support of my position.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Thanks for the link, Verloren. I skimmed through it and intend to read it in detail when I get time later.

I would like to reiterate that I am not set on disproving Evolution. I'm not smart enough or talented enough to do that if evolution is in fact false, and it may be that it did happen, in which case no amount of intelligence or talent is going to do that. I am simply trying to establish that disrespecting someone simply because he doesn't buy the theory, that is elitist. I am doing this by showing that I, no idiot, am able to provide reasons and arguments in support of my position. Choose do dismiss them if you like, but don't think yourself smarter, more open-minded, or better informed than me or others who believe the way I do. Is that such an unreasonable request?

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I am doing this by showing that I, no idiot, am able to provide reasons and arguments in support of my position.

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But then, I know much more about it than the vast majority of people who believe it. The theory still functions as a faith in that regard.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Tom, you really ARE a troll.

Perhaps you all are right. I don't know as much about evolution as some of you, especially those of you who are best able to defend it. But then, I know much more about it than the vast majority of people who believe it. The theory still functions as a faith in that regard.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
I ask you, if you were an astronomer in the 14th century, and someone told you that he didn't think that the planets circled the Earth on wheels in the sky, and that something else had to explain retrograde motion, but was unable to provide a better explanation, would you not chide him for ignoring the wealth of evidence that was present at the time that supported the universally accepted theory? That person might point out the very slight discrepencies that was present and say, "without this, you cannot be certain." Would you accept that, or would you call him ignorant for not having faith in the scientists who know so much better than he?

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Tarrsk, you and a few others here are very capable in your defenses of the theory of evolution and why it seems to be only rational to accept the damn thing. You have to believe me when I say that I see exactly why you feel that way, because is so convincing and does fit the evidence nicely --or should I say the evidence fits the theory so nicely. I am asking if any of you are able to do the same, recognize that there it is perfectly possible for someone to know the theory well enough to understand why is can be true and is so widely accepted, and yet still not believe that evolution is what happened? I already know KoM's answer: "No, you prove your ignorance by rejecting the theory." Is that truly your answer?

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I ask you, if you were an astronomer in the 14th century, and someone told you that he didn't think that the planets circled the Earth on wheels in the sky, and that something else had to explain retrograde motion, but was unable to provide a better explanation, would you not chide him for ignoring the wealth of evidence that was present at the time that supported the universally accepted theory? That person might point out the very slight discrepencies that was present and say, "without this, you cannot be certain." Would you accept that, or would you call him ignorant for not having faith in the scientists who know so much better than he? [/QB]

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"Survival of the fittest" is a conversational way to describe natural selection, but a more technical description speaks of differential rates of survival and reproduction.

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Biblical Creationism is no more or less logical than any other supernatural Creationism.

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Thats a whole lot of "God." However, I might just quickly note that many of your assertions would be just as logically consistent (or not) had we inserted Baal, Ra, Zeus, or whatever.

As an aside for Resh, this of course means that even if evolution is wrong, the default position is not God. Thus, trying (not particularly well mind you) to poke holes in evolution does not automatically make belief in God more right. *Even* if we make the leap that if evolution is wrong, then there has to be *a* god (a leap which is obviously wrong) ... then there could be *any* god.

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So why was evolution presented as a vague load of crap about survival of the fittest? I'm insulted. I'm mad that folks who study evolution don't ensure that textbooks cover the basics properly.

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I am asking if any of you are able to do the same, recognize that there it is perfectly possible for someone to know the theory well enough to understand why is can be true and is so widely accepted, and yet still not believe that evolution is what happened?

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But I also know I have blue eyes because both my parents did and with recessive genes I couldn't have gotten anything else. It was broken down into a simple example I could understand. I have never once questioned the scientific validity of genetics.

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So why was evolution presented as a vague load of crap about survival of the fittest?

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Originally posted by MrSquicky:

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Biblical Creationism is no more or less logical than any other supernatural Creationism.

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I'd argue that it is less, as there are two mutually exclusive stories of creation in the Bible. Biblical literalist creationists not only reject evolution, but also embrace two stories, only one of which can be true.

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MrSquicky, true enough, there are two creation accounts which have evidently been joined together (presumably by Moses) in the first chapters of Genesis, but your assertion that they are mutually exclusive is unwarranted.

One account says the animals came into the Ark two-by-two (Gen. 6:20). But then in the next chapter, we read that the animals were taken into the Ark by sevens. However, these two statements are harmonized by the details given in Genesis 7:2: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." Thus we see that both accounts are correct. The UNCLEAN animals (those considered unfit for food--and consisting mainly of predators and scavengers) entered the Ark by twos, while the CLEAN animals entered by sevens. Why seven? Logically that provides three mated pairs of the clean animals, plus one to be offered as an offering after Moses and company left the Ark. This also indicates a reasonable ratio of predators vs. prey.

Genesis chapter 2 verse 4 seems to introduce a second narrative, which summarizes creation week, saying: "This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...." This refers to one day, while the prior account talked about seven days. But the use of the word "day" here can reasonably be construed as being general and indefinite, as if it were saying "in the time that the LORD God made the earth and heavens...."

Any other descrepancies can be easily explained simply by being fair-minded about it, taking into account the different focus of each narrative. If there are some more specific examples of "mutually exclusive" statements, please state them, and I will show you why they are not mutually exclusive.

When people claim there are contradictions in the Bible, I have found that in virtually all cases, those who make the claims are jumping to conclusions. One common example is the claim that the Bible implies the value of pi is three, when actually the measurements of the brass bowl that were being given included inside and outside measures which allowed for the thickness of the side, or perhaps for a curved lip. One measure is necessary for figuring the volume contained by the bowl, the other measure was necessary for determining how much space the bowl would take up as an item of furniture in the sanctuary. Those who are willing to figure out what is really being said, and not just trying to seize upon something they can claim is a contradiction, do not see any contradictions in the Bible.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
In the first account, the plants and animals are made before man is made.

In the second, man is made before the plants and animals.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
What Dag said. Also, I realized this when I was a 9 year old devout Catholic.
 

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Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
 
Shigosei: Sadly, I'm not interviewing at Stanford. Probably for the best, since my mother actually works there, and as much as I love her, I think it would be a little overbearing to spend my graduate career on the same campus as her. Where else are you interviewing, if I may ask?

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Originally posted by AvidReader:
More importantly, why wasn't it presented that way in school? I know genetics is complicated. But I also know I have blue eyes because both my parents did and with recessive genes I couldn't have gotten anything else. It was broken down into a simple example I could understand. I have never once questioned the scientific validity of genetics.

So why was evolution presented as a vague load of crap about survival of the fittest? I'm insulted. I'm mad that folks who study evolution don't ensure that textbooks cover the basics properly. I'm mad that plenty of other folks have known this all along but keep giving me attitudes about how all the smart people know this, why don't I?

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:

I ask you, if you were an astronomer in the 14th century, and someone told you that he didn't think that the planets circled the Earth on wheels in the sky, and that something else had to explain retrograde motion, but was unable to provide a better explanation, would you not chide him for ignoring the wealth of evidence that was present at the time that ...

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Galileo's letter of 1614 to the Grand Duchess Christina Duchess of Tuscany was not widely known, and was ignored by Church authorities. When a year later the Carmelite provincial Paolo Foscarini supported Galileo publicly by attempting to prove that the new theory was not opposed to Scripture, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, as "Master of Controversial Questions," responded.
...
to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its axis ) without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false . For Your Reverence has demonstrated many ways of explaining Holy Scripture, but you have not applied them in particular, and without a doubt you would have found it most difficult if you had attempted to explain all the passages which you yourself have cited.

"Second. I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth , and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe....

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Originally posted by Dagonee:
In the first account, the plants and animals are made before man is made.

In the second, man is made before the plants and animals.

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4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

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Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.

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Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.

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Those who are willing to figure out what is really being said, and not just trying to seize upon something they can claim is a contradiction, do not see any contradictions in the Bible.

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that most people would readily see is an unfair one.

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Originally posted by King of Men:

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For those of us who have experienced God's presence as real as anything else we've ever experienced, the choice is also clear.

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You've done nothing of the sort. Go talk to BlackBlade. He is a Mormon, and also claims to have experienced God's presence. (So does Dag, a Catholic.) And yet, these three gods have separately assured you three people that different sets of doctrine about them are correct. What is the natural conclusion for this phenomenon?

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
Many people only assume this means the sun and moon. But there some Bible students, particularly creationist scientists, who theorize that before the Flood the earth originally was created with some form of water above the atmosphere, as explicitly stated in Genesis 1:7 (the word "firmament" means the atmosphere--see verses 14, 20). The logical consequences of this would be that the orbs of the sun and moon were not directly visible through whatever watery layer existed; rather, there would be an area of bright light where the sun shown through the translucent medium, and the same translucent medium would conduct light around to the apposite side of the earth, where it would appear as a pearly glow, like a permanent night-light. These were the greater light and lesser light, and they were made to appear by God setting into order the arrangement of the atmosphere and the waters above the atmosphere.

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Originally posted by King of Men:
The only reasonable conclusion is that you are all actually experiencing something else, and putting a false interpretation on it.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Does anybody like this guy?

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Originally posted by King of Men:
Without wishing to speak for either Dag or Resh, I rather strongly suspect that they would say

a) Smith was a false prophet.
b) This is confirmed for them (perhaps not directly, but through some reasoning) by their experiences of god.

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If true - I should be most pleased if one or both of them would confirm or deny - then your experiences and theirs are mutually contradictory; yet we have no way to judge which is correct, since you all give the same testimony of having "experienced the presence of god". The only reasonable conclusion is that you are all actually experiencing something else, and putting a false interpretation on it.

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Originally posted by MightyCow:

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Originally posted by King of Men:
The only reasonable conclusion is that you are all actually experiencing something else, and putting a false interpretation on it.

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I would guess that many religious people would say that the only reasonable conclusion is that THEIR experiences are true, and the OTHER people are the ones misinterpreting.

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Now you put a fanatical Evangelical Christian and an Islamic Extremist together in a room, and you just know they'll both be looking for weapons before too long.[/QB]

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I experienced a paradigm shift about five years ago when I read that first book exposing the circularity and insularity of evolutionary theory.

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I don't want to do what you guys are doing when you say that you know so much better than me and you know, without a doubt that I'm wrong in rejecting an evolutionary explanation of our origins.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
The major point of my participation in this thread has been to establish that no matter how wise we may think we are in our eyes, we humans are fallible. That should be the lesson of all of history. And yet hubris still abounds. At least it does around here.
...
For the first time in my life, I was removed from the system. I can look back on where I was and see that, when you are in the system, there is no other existence.
...
I don't mean to sound elitist. I know that the way most of you are going to read this to be that I somehow can see all of you squirming around, trapped within your little universe of understanding, and I am free, on the outside, watching you and pitying you.

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Originally posted by King of Men:
[QUOTE]4(You may, if you wish, give one of the arguments; any one of us will be happy to shoot it down. Please feel free to take that as a challenge. I'll even be quiet and let someone else do the shooting down, since you seem to feel I have too much attitude for you to deal with.

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Originally posted by Dan_raven:
Well, quite a few in Iraq and Afghanistan of the Islamic Extremists looking for weapons, and then we have the Reverend Pat Robertson suggesting we arm ourselves against the Muslims, and a few around here saying that since Islam is such a violent religion we got to convert or kill dem all.

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Originally posted by Troubadour:

2) I'm interested to know that if, on the basis of your belief in creationism, if you also believe in the literal truth of the Bible in all other respects?

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Originally posted by Dagonee:

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Those who are willing to figure out what is really being said, and not just trying to seize upon something they can claim is a contradiction, do not see any contradictions in the Bible.

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that most people would readily see is an unfair one.

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Ron, when you wish to discuss this without such malicious assignment of motives and comments about the obviousness of the unfairness of those who disagree with you, let me know. I let the first one go, but it now seems clear this is a pattern with you.

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Those statements are entirely true--this is what I have observed, that you can approach Scripture in the manner of a scholar, careful to be fair about what it actually says, or jumping to conclusions and reading into it private assumptions.

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Originally posted by Mucus:
Like for example, that the Bible supports a heliocentric model of the solar system rather than a geocentric model...

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Originally posted by King of Men:
If I understood correctly, Resh actually believes in some variant of theistic evolution rather than outright young-earth creationism. So I don't think Biblical literalism comes into it.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
Mucus, the Bible employs common human manners of speaking. So do we today, when we speak of "the four corners of the earth," or "sunrise" or "sunset," etc. We know it is the earth that moves, yet we still speak this way. Everyone understands what is meant, which is the important thing.

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"There are many such passages in the Bible, outstanding among them being, of course, the one relating how Joshua commanded, "Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon, toward the valley of Ajalon," whereupon, "the sun and the moon stood still, till the people revenged themselves of their enemies" (Jos.10:12-13). And again, as St. Robert Bellarmine pointed out, the Preacher says," The sun riseth and goeth down and returneth to his place: and there rising again, maketh his round by the south and turneth again to the north" (Eccles. 1:5-6)

"Scripture also specifies that the Earth is immovable in the face of these solar and lunar peregrinations, Psalm 92 stating flatly that God "hath established the world which shall not be moved." Psalm 103 says He has"founded the earth upon its own bases ; it shall not be moved forever and ever," Psalm 95 telling us God has "corrected the world, which shall not be moved." Again, in I Paralipomenon 16:30, "He hath founded the earth immovable," and according to Job 26:7, God by His power"stretched out the north over the empty space and hangeth the earth upon nothing." No less an authority than the Catechism of the Council of Trent, in its commentary on the Creed, states furthermore, "The earth also God commanded to stand in the midst of the world, rooted in its own foundation."

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Dragonee, what is your problem?

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Those statements are entirely true--this is what I have observed, that you can approach Scripture in the manner of a scholar, careful to be fair about what it actually says, or jumping to conclusions and reading into it private assumptions.

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If you find anything objectionable with such statements, then you have a serious problem that is not of my making. I am talking about proper methodology in interpretation of Scripture.

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Furthermore, those statements were not aimed at any specific person, but were stated generally. Why on earth did you take personal offence? Perhaps you are inferring things where nothing was implied.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
Dragonee, you persist in mischaracterizing what I say. There is no rudeness in what I said. You are just being insulting, totally without cause.

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If you want to convict the Bible, you have to convict the Bible on its own testimony, not on what others say it says.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:

I do not recognize commentators, even be they cardinals, as having authority equal to the Bible. If you want to convict the Bible, you have to convict the Bible on its own testimony, not on what others say it says.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
If there are some more specific examples of "mutually exclusive" statements, please state them, and I will show you why they are not mutually exclusive.

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Dagonee, I suspect that the reason for your overwrought and way out of proportion response to the reasonable things I have written is that you may be resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and you are just taking it out on me. I feel honored and thankful if the Lord can use what I write to bring conviction to people.

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I do not submit to the kind of bullying manipulation you

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You do not get to frame the debate and set out any list of what I must say or respond to.

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I have already said all I need to say to be fully and completely responsive to the points being debated.

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Why don't you respond point-by-point to my substantive, Scripture-based arguments?

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All you have done is be insulting and feign offense at my definite arguments and citing of evidence that contradict your absolute statements of what the Bible teaches, etc.

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As one who personally knows the God of the Bible, and has studied the Bible for six decades of life, I believe I am justified in having some confidence in what I say about the Bible and what it teaches.

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This entitles me to more strength of conviction than those who may not be in the habit of admitting to a need for correction at all, especially where spiritual things are concerned.

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Originally posted by Shigosei:
Another thought: there's no way the ancient Hebrews had the concepts or even the language necessary to communicate the Big Bang or evolution. What if Genesis is just an approximation or allegorical tale for the people who lived then and didn't have the knowledge necessary to grasp the concepts involved?

God: Hey, Moses, write this down: "In the beginning, the universe underwent rapid expansion, with space-time itself growing rapidly. Space was full of a highly energetic quark-gluon plasma, which cooled as the universe expanded. Eventually, hydrogen and helium atoms formed--"
Moses: What are you talking about?
God: Oh, forget it. Just put down "Let there be light" and leave it at that.

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Ha. Awesomest explanation ever.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 
There's actually a short story about that. Moses is trying to explain the big bang to Aaron, but he keeps telling Moses that he doesn't have enough parchment for all of that, so he has to trim it down to "let there be light".
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 

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But the point that I keep trying to make that none of you wish to input into your brains is that it is not reasonable to throw out all other theories simply because the one you are sticking with appears to you to be infallible, especially when the evidence of history shows that there is a significant possibility that the theory is in fact a brilliant construct that fits the evidence as well as it does and yet still is untrue.

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Using the term 'Catharsis' to refer to a form of emotional cleansing was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
One thing that I walked away with, in spite of the author's (perceived by me) intention was how short of a time we've believed so many of the things that we presently do. It really made me wonder how quaint our current theories will look to the next generation.

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[Science] allows for no supernatural causes and effects, which, by it's very nature, science cannot prove or disprove.

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Computers are even newer than the theory of evolution, yet you don't seem to have any difficulty using those.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
... is that it is not reasonable to throw out all other theories simply because the one you are sticking with appears to you to be infallible, especially when the evidence of history shows that there is a significant possibility that the theory is in fact a brilliant construct that fits the evidence as well as it does and yet still is untrue.

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... Again, I am not saying evolution didn't happen. My argument is against atheism. The only way that evolution could have occurred is for God or some higher power to have been the guiding force. And so we might as well stick with what people have believed consistently throughout history, and that God did all this.

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Originally posted by Tarrsk:

Edit (again, sorry): I should add that the majority of scientists are, in fact, religious. My current supervisor, at the NIH lab in which I work, is an observant Catholic who wore the cross on his forehead for Ash Wednesday today, and he is a PhD whose work relies heavily on how genetic homology (which decreases over time as species diverge) allows us to make predictions of functional homology.

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I can try to argue the individual points of evoultion and will probably lose, as has happened, because I don't have the expertise or the rhetorical skills of my opponents.

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And this is also why I warn against the arrogance, elitism, and yes, hubris, exhibited by KoM and Tom Davidson.

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I am not arrogant. I have a single premise: things which happen in the physical context have a physical cause.

If you disagree, show me the non-physical cause and I will gladly concede that argument.

Until then, that is my starting premise. Consequently, arguments which rely on the assumption of non-physical, supernatural invention are discarded as useless -- not because I think I'm "superior" to them, but because they literally have no utility.

There is no demonstrable benefit to a supernatural explanation. Within the context of the physical world, such an explanation answers nothing, predicts nothing, and explains nothing.

I am willing to grant the possibility that an imperceptible, unpredictable spiritual reality exists. I am even willing to grant the possibility that men can occasionally tap into this spiritual reality ineffectually and unreliably, occasionally but not always benefiting from this spiritual connection but mainly deferring any perceived spiritual consequences to a hypothetical afterlife.

At the same time, these possibilities are not only remote but ultimately irrelevant. There is no sane argument for them; there is no demonstrable merit to such a philosophy that cannot be derived from a philosophy of more sophistication and less superstition. I may be paying the price for my unbelief with bits of a soul I cannot detect and do not believe exists; then again, everyone who is not sacrificing men to Huitzilapochtli could well be damning themselves, too, and there's nothing they could -- or would -- do about it.

You use the word hubris unironically, speaking of atheists. And yet how hubristic would the Greeks find you or Ron, claiming to have found God, to -- in Ron's case -- having taken enough instruction directly from God that you are no longer willing to learn from men? My own position -- that no evidence for a God whose existence matters exists that meets my standards, and therefore I will conclude that no significant God exists -- is far, far less hubristic by the original definition than any Christian's claim to have touched the mind of the All-Father.
 

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Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
 
Dag: Sorry, just googled the article and grabbed the figures. Reading it again, it does seem more confusing. The "greater scientists" are actually just members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Anyways, the whole point was just to add information to the assertion that the majority of scientists are religious by highlighting that "religion" is not necessary synonymous with a "God" (which seems to be the focus of this thread), and that the majority of scientists are not in fact in favour of a God even using the "60.7%" number among American scientists.

Additionally, reading the article more closely, I would bet that the number believing in God would be even lower if the survey had taken a global rather than an American sample of scientists.

In any case, I was just trying to add actual numbers to personal anecdotal statements
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
BTW, when I'm saying I'm not "arrogant," specifically what I'm saying is that I am not "arrogating" to myself the right to decide which premises I choose to accept.

I have that right. It is mine. I will concede that right to no one else but God, and even God would have to assert His right before me before I'd grant it to Him.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
I just thought this would be fun:

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originally posted by Tom Davidson:

There is no demonstrable benefit to a supernatural explanation. Within the context of the physical world, such an explanation answers nothing, predicts nothing, and explains nothing.

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originally posted by MPH:


There's also a big difference between something being useful and being True. Newtonian physics are incredibly useful, but it still seems silly and quaint to us today when we read of people who, based on their Newtonian knowledge of celestial bodies, thought that they really starting to fully understand how the universe works.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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And this is also why I warn against the arrogance, elitism, and yes, hubris, exhibited by KoM and Tom Davidson.

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I am not arrogant. I have a single premise: things which happen in the physical context have a physical cause.

If you disagree, show me the non-physical cause and I will gladly concede that argument.

Until then, that is my starting premise. Consequently, arguments which rely on the assumption of non-physical, supernatural invention are discarded as useless -- not because I think I'm "superior" to them, but because they literally have no utility.

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If god exists but you choose not to believe he exists, does that mean he does not exist?

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Your "single premise;" you should recognize that that premise may, may be wrong.

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Your "single premise;" you should recognize that that premise may, may be wrong.

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But you're not hubristic...

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Are you searching for truth, or for utility? If only utility, then what purpose that utility?

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Originally posted by King of Men:
In any case, mph is wrong, Newtonian physics is True as long as you don't apply it outside its domain.

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Is this just your opinion, or do you think that anyone who disagrees is just flat wrong?

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I think they're flat wrong. You are welcome to try to demonstrate to me ANY way in which a religious epistemology is demonstrably superior to a scientific or logical epistemology. Try not to use a logical epistemology while you do it, just for fun.

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I'm just being honest. If it's hubristic to adjust your worldview based upon something that has happened to you, then maybe I don't know what hubris means after all.

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A long-standing problem in the study of the Solar System was that the orbit of Mercury did not behave as required by Newton's equations.

To understand what the problem is let me describe the way Mercury's orbit looks. As it orbits the Sun, this planet follows an ellipse This rotation of the orbit is called a precession.
...
The precession of the orbit is not peculiar to Mercury, all the planetary orbits precess. In fact, Newton's theory predicts these effects, as being produced by the pull of the planets on one another. The question is whether Newton's predictions agree with the amount an orbit precesses ... The precession of the orbits of all planets except for Mercury's can, in fact, be understood using Newton's equations. But Mercury seemed to be an exception.

As seen from Earth the precession of Mercury's orbit is measured to be 5600 seconds of arc per century (one second of arc=1/3600 degrees). Newton's equations, taking into account all the effects from the other planets (as well as a very slight deformation of the sun due to its rotation) and the fact that the Earth is not an inertial frame of reference, predicts a precession of 5557 seconds of arc per century. There is a discrepancy of 43 seconds of arc per century.

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MPH: There's also a big difference between something being useful and being True. Newtonian physics are incredibly useful, but it still seems silly and quaint to us today when we read of people who, based on their Newtonian knowledge of celestial bodies, thought that they really starting to fully understand how the universe works.

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I would ask you to step outside and debate me from where I am, but I don't think you know the way.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:

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Originally posted by King of Men:
In any case, mph is wrong, Newtonian physics is True as long as you don't apply it outside its domain.

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By my understanding (and if my physics is wrong, please correct), there isn't really any such thing as relativistic speeds. There are speeds were relativistic effects are big enough to matter and speeds where they're too small to matter, but they're always there.

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Correct, Newton's laws are not "true" in the sense that they proposed gravity as a force, rather then a warping of spacetime. They are useful in that they can predict the orbits of all planets except Mercury, for which there is an error of 0.8% (or so). Thus, I would hardly say silly and quaint, and I think they they are indeed a very good start as to understanding how the universe worked.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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I would ask you to step outside and debate me from where I am, but I don't think you know the way.

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Describe your paradigm a bit.

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Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head:
A good start yes. But almost finished? How quaint.

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Originally posted by MightyCow:
Resh: The problem with your paradigm is that it does not allow real discussion. Your paradigm presupposes that God exists, and is allowed to do anything at all, sometimes including logical paradoxes.

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Discussion in the paradigm of science, the paradigm of non-supernatural, goes something like this:
-I wonder why X happens.
-Well, this and this seem to explain it.
-How about this?
-Oh, I see how that makes a different case, let's try another idea.

Discussion in your paradigm, if I understand it correctly, goes something like this:
-I wonder why X happens.
-God did it.

Really, what is there to discuss? Anything at all that you want to explain, you just say God is responsible. You don't learn anything about the process. You don't answer any questions. There's no room for debate or discussion. God did it, end of story. No need to look further, it was supernatural, we can't explain it.

It looks to me like your paradigm stands on willful ignorance and an intolerance for ambiguity or lack of knowledge. Why admit that we don't understand everything, but that we're trying to figure it out, when you can just toss out the "God did it" trump card and be done with it?

To me, saying that God just did something is the most unsatisfactory answer possible. Saying, "I don't know." allows room for, and and even encourages an effort to learn more and discover an answer, or at least work towards an answer.

Invoking unknowable supernatural powers seems like a cop out.

In practice, how is saying, "God did it" any different from saying, "volcanoes erupt because the earth is mad at us" or "the sun is pulled through the sky by a fiery chariot" or "we get rain when we appease the gods with human sacrifices"?

All those examples of appeal to supernatural powers have been conclusively shown to be natural occurrences, which can be understood with a basic knowledge of scientific and mathematical ideas.

I suppose it's possible to say that it only LOOKS to us like the earth revolves around the sun, because our paradigm won't allow us to see that a fiery chariot pulls it through the arch of heaven, and we've only constructed a weak foundation of science to fit our observations.

I don't want to live in the paradigm that insists on the fiery chariot though, because frankly, it's stupid.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
I have repeatedly said that I don't propse to "know" anything ... I am careful to express that I am not discounting anything except a completely naturalistic explanation for existence. The farthest I will go is that some Creator ...

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Mucas, I did nothing of the sort. I said I find it unlikely. Maybe the multi-verse theory is correct. But borrowing Tom's reasoning, it only serves the purpose of explaing what cannot be explained without a Creator.

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I am careful to express that I am not discounting anything except a completely naturalistic explanation for existence.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
The question of ultimate origins has only two basic possibile answers.

(1) Those who insist on the naturalist view that everything came into existence through the random operation of natural laws, usually go on to say that the universe itself began in a Big Bang...

(2) The only logical alternative, of course, is that Divine Intelligence was involved and necessary in the creation of the universe, and ultimately life.

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In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. However this chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg for eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head (like the Greek Pan) and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang).

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There was some ultimate origin of everything. So which origin makes more sense--a supernatural mind first came into being, or matter? Is it not more reasonable to say that God came into being first, and then He imagined the universe, and by His creative word or imagination, matter and energy came into being?

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Mucas' response to your post, Ron, is an illustration of the blindness caused by the paradigm in which he exists ... No, there is no room for God in his world, because he has already decided that God does not exist.

KoM, you are either speaking out of your ass or being completely dishonest with your response about fine-tuning. The problem with the the weakness of gravity is specifically a "tuning problem." The entire field of quantum mechanics is mathematical, and quantum physicists are constantly trying to work out the levels so that everything fits together. It is entirely a matter of tuning. I'm done with you on this subject.

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It would be more correct to say that there are many scientific theories with the Big Bang being dominant and usually (but not always) associated with atheism or agnosticism and there are hundreds of possibilities involving each of the many and mutually exclusive gods, each with pretty much the same amount of proof.

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This means that in *my* belief structure there are hundreds of possible theories, of which God is one very minute, though clearly nonzero possibility on par with Pangu.

Second, KoM is oversimplifying what he says. However, you are just plain 100% wrong. Quantum mechanics is far from just a field of mathematics. It is also a field of applied science that yields real-world applications. Quantum computing which as I have stated before yields real-world results.
Furthermore, closer to home, the very computer you are using relies on modern semiconductor technology, the design of which requires understanding of quantum mechanics ( example ) Even modelling of biological molecules and design of pharmaceuticals is at a level where quantum mechanics has to be taken into account.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
Why would I "maliciously" skip over it? I didn't mean to micharacterize what you say. But your minute, barely non-zero possibility for a Creator is essentially ruling out the possibility, much in the same way that the minute, barely non-zero possibility that there isn't a Creator does not fator into my belief structure.

And I don't think I am wrong about quantum mechanics. Show a single area of it where mathematics are not integral.
 

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Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
 
Show me an area of physics where math isn't integral. You know, besides differential calculus
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
*groan*
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 

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KoM, you are either speaking out of your ass or being completely dishonest with your response about fine-tuning. The problem with the the weakness of gravity is specifically a "tuning problem." The entire field of quantum mechanics is mathematical, and quantum physicists are constantly trying to work out the levels so that everything fits together. It is entirely a matter of tuning.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
And I don't think I am wrong about quantum mechanics. Show a single area of it where mathematics are not integral.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Why would I "maliciously" skip over it? I didn't mean to micharacterize what you say. But your minute, barely non-zero possibility for a Creator is essentially ruling out the possibility, much in the same way that the minute, barely non-zero possibility that there isn't a Creator does not fator into my belief structure.

And I don't think I am wrong about quantum mechanics. Show a single area of it where mathematics are not integral.

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This is the atheistic view, by definition.

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If we add to the mix the tenet many hold that God also created time when He created matter and energy, then the question of what came before the beginning of time is meaningless. Nothing can come before the beginning of time.

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Everyone on this board is perfectly aware of the fact that 150 years ago, every educated European was a Creationist.

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my 3000 level college courses

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. The most important feature of my paradigm right now is not what is, but what it is not.

Edit: Another feature it does not have is the assumption of being right.

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It simply does not assume a priori that naturalism is a fact, or as you would put it Tom, the only useful and relevant fact.

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
KoM is just a dense as ever, though. You just have fun out there, dude.

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Originally posted by King of Men:

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
KoM is just a dense as ever, though. You just have fun out there, dude.

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You know, coming from you, that's a compliment. When such as you are reduced to nothing but plain insults, I know I've won. nothing could more plainly demonstrate how empty your side of the argument is.

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originally posted by Shigosei
Resh, how is life different for someone who does not use naturalism as a foundation? Do you look for the supernatural in all parts of life? Just in the case of origins? Something in between?

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Originally posted by Tom Davidson
How do you determine whether something is useful and relevant? What's the process you use to establish that a given method meets those criteria?

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The latter is called a tautology (the thing is the same as itself), and it means, in other words, that the material universe created itself.

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You can call B.S if you want, but I don't know why you would. I'm just telling you how I define my paradigm...

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:
And you'd rather believe that God created Himself?

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to paraphrase Aquinas: "Something, somewhere, must be uncreated... and this something is what people commonly name 'God'"

my addition "and others call the sum total of matter and energy in the Universe."

You have to admit that if Energy cannot be created or destroyed, that it also fits most of Friar Tom's (and many other) definitions of God-- unmoved mover, uncaused efficient cause, etc. ...even to the point of being outside of time due to relativistic effects of propogating at the speed of light.


edit: "people" and "others" are not meant to be in opposition

[ February 26, 2007, 09:29 AM: Message edited by: Jim-Me ]
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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Well, get back to me when you read my posts, Tom.

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to paraphrase Aquinas: "Something, somewhere, must be uncreated... and this something is what people commonly name 'God'"

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
Well, get back to me when you read my posts, Tom.

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basically I'm just saying that I can't answer your questions satisfactorily.

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basically I'm just saying that I can't answer your questions satisfactorily.

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There was some ultimate origin of everything. So which origin makes more sense--a supernatural mind first came into being, or matter? Is it not more reasonable to say that God came into being first, and then He imagined the universe, and by His creative word or imagination, matter and energy came into being?

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No, KOM, try to be a little more careful in your thinking. The alternatives are more correctly framed this way: The material universe began with God, or the material universe began with the material universe. The latter is called a tautology (the thing is the same as itself)

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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basically I'm just saying that I can't answer your questions satisfactorily.

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Just so we're clear on that.

One reason my paradigm's better: I can answer your questions satisfactorily.

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my belief system is sufficiently convincing that I can reject Naturalism, and evolution as it's byproduct, while remaining intellectually honest

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Originally posted by camus:

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basically I'm just saying that I can't answer your questions satisfactorily.

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Can you at least answer this question:

3) How do you determine when something is correct?

Or at least your opinion on the best way to determine the correctness of an idea?

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Originally posted by Boothby171:

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my belief system is sufficiently convincing that I can reject Naturalism, and evolution as it's byproduct, while remaining intellectually honest

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Now THAT, I'd love to see!

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Your "better" is subjective.

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You see, the whole purpose of all this is to show that it is possible to not automatically accept evolution as fact without being hopelessly ignorant...

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My belief system doesn't have any limitation besides those placed on our observations. It makes it possible to know for certain all that CAN be known for certain.

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Can you tell me whether or not what we experience is genuine or if we are actually embedded in the Matrix?

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If those reasons are happening behind a screen and regularly and unpredictably change, there's no point at all to the scientific method.

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An example: the platypus. It certainly has no place within the evolutionary structure (yet),

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I file encounters with the supernatural (i.e; God) under "experience."

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Thanks for your imput, Sam. Seriously though, I am pleased that you're interested. I defined my paradigm by what it is not, and maybe that was a mistake.

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As long as there are realms of the Matrix which follow, at least well enough, certain laws, the scientific method can be brought to play there with good results.

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So why cannot you see that there is a possibility, and perhaps a strong possibility, that we "creationists" are entitled to what we believe without being immediately regarded as ignorant or misguided?

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It certainly has no place within the evolutionary structure (yet), and even Gould said that "mosaics like the platypus and the archyopteryx must be ignored," or something to that effect.

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So there's no corrective mechanism. So what? Maybe life just ain't fair.

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You're missing something, Sam. The false dichotomy is Evolution vs. God. Naturalism is not Evolution. Naturalism is quite specifically defined as "entirely natural, without any supernatural influences." Evolution is the mechanism by which Naturalism is made into a valid philosophy.

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I will just observe how hopelessly mired you all are in your own logical constructs.

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He's actually saying, "Your approach is all mired in logical constructs, and is therefore rejected. My approach (paradigm) is not bound by logic, and is therefore superior"

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Originally posted by Boothby171:

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my belief system is sufficiently convincing that I can reject Naturalism, and evolution as it's byproduct, while remaining intellectually honest

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Now THAT, I'd love to see!

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But then there's no reason to trust the rules of logic - a line of reasoning is simply a modification of states to the molecular structure of the brain in which the final state is interpreted as "true". It's too arbitrary to expect it relate in any way to truth.

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Sywak's five rules of theological debate:

RULE 1: Presume the existence of God. More specifically, presume the existence of your particular God. Don't say things like "I believe that God does this...", simply say, "God does this..." After all, everybody knows that God exists. Atheists are just wrong, and deep down inside they realize that. Yes, it's OK to pity them (just not yet--see RULE 5).


RULE 2: Never actually define what it is you mean by "God" or "Heaven," etc. If you define it, then it can be refuted. After all, you've already established that He exists (see RULE 1). Also, if challenged, you can always say, "That's not what I meant," or "I never said that He could do that..."


RULE 3: Once your opponent starts using observation and logic in his foolish attempt to refute what everybody already knows to be true, you can deny that both observation and logic are valid approaches to understanding. Typical responses are, "How can we ever really know anything," and "God does not operate under the rules of logic and rationality--He is beyond them." Never, under any circumstances, attempt to explain just what the hell any of that means, because it really doesn't mean anything (that's the beauty of it). More importantly, do not try and understand it yourself, as your head may actually explode. Your opponent may respond to your first statement by asking, "then how do you know if anything is true?" To which you simply respond, "I just know."

Some other good responses under RULE 3 include "But is there really any difference between the earth and the concept of the earth?" and "If I have no way of knowing if there are monsters under my bed (short of looking) but if I genuinely believe they are there, the fear of them is no different than if they really are there."

One of the other advantages of invoking RULE 3 is that you are no longer constrained to actually have to make sense in what you say or write. By discrediting logic and reason, you are no longer bound by them yourself. If you can keep this up, many times your opponent will just walk away, shaking his head, thereby handing you the "win."


RULE 4: As things start to go downhill, you may have to use the old reliable notion that "God exists because people believe that He exists." There are deep theological problems with this approach, especially if other religions have more believers in their God than yours (except you know, of course, that they're totally wrong, anyhow). But still, it keeps you away from RULE 5.


RULE 5: If all else fails, you may just have to reveal your opponent for what he really is. An idiot. A Godless, liberal, democrat, communist, baby-eating, tree-hugging idiot.


To which I guess I should add #6: You know that thing we were discussing that was so important? It's not really that important after all. Why are you so hung up on it? It's like you're obsessed or something!

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There are some people who find it absolutely horrifying to think that there's no way for them to know whether they're living in the Matrix or not. To these people, I say, "tough cookies."

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What method, scientific or not, would you use to measure the effect of the afterlife?

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Of course, I wouldn't separate out "does the afterlife really exist" from other questions like "does God exist" and "was Jesus the Savior".

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Originally posted by Tom Davidson:Why worry? Realistically, unless you found out, what could it possibly matter? Like the existence of an afterlife, it's one of those possibilities that simply can't be effectively factored into a rational life due to the absence of measurable impact. You could be a brain in a box; you could be a dreaming butterfly; you could be an entire lifetime of memories created and destroyed in an instant by a flickering universe. In all these models, the only agency which exists is the agency you choose to believe in.

People give themselves purpose.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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But then there's no reason to trust the rules of logic - a line of reasoning is simply a modification of states to the molecular structure of the brain in which the final state is interpreted as "true". It's too arbitrary to expect it relate in any way to truth.

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I consider this completely nonsensical. What is your definition of "truth?"

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Originally posted by Boothby171:
Mathman,

Except that interactions with the natural world will verify the "true" status as valid or invalid.

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Originally posted by Boothby171:


A mathemetician and an engineer were put into a room, and a great reward was placed at the other side. They were each told that at each step of the challenge, they could halve their distance to the reward.

The mathematician turned and left the room; "I'll never get there!" he (or she) said.

The engineer started walking towards the great reward; "I'll get close enough!"

I'll get close enough to the truth.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Well, it all comes back to the "brain in the box" thing, I suppose. There are some people who find it absolutely horrifying to think that there's no way for them to know whether they're living in the Matrix or not. To these people, I say, "tough cookies."

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Oh my God, I think we're getting somewhere!!! This is unprecedented!!!

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Not at all. Tom and I had another pleasant discussion concerning the Matrix, brain-in-a-box, and belief in God just a few weeks ago.

Unless you meant that it's unprecedented for you to get somewhere in such a discussion.

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Maybe my point was being obscured by my caustic manner.

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 

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Under naturalism, every experience you've ever had is simply a rearrangement of molecules - you can't even honestly construct your past. You can't say "X happened 5 minutes ago", you can only say "my current brain state makes me think X happened 5 minutes ago". I guess fundamentally I'm saying that accepting naturalism means you lose all objectiveness. You have no more feelings or thoughts about things, you simply have random mental states. In short, you lose the ability to trust your own thinking.

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Your "better" is subjective. I can follow a certain set of rules with certain premises and create an environment where all doubt can be eliminated.

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I'm more referring to others here making veiled statements like that

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Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
I really dont like arguements that go into the worthiness of naturalism example "then we are no better then x" and somehow magically our lives lose all meaning if we accept a naturalistic course. Pfft.

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Naturalism, at least as I (may have incorrectly) defined it above precludes accepting even such statements as true, simply because "truth" is an arbitrary, meaningless term in the context of naturalism.

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Originally posted by King of Men:
. . . you've been overdosing on cretinist literature.

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:

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Naturalism, at least as I (may have incorrectly) defined it above precludes accepting even such statements as true, simply because "truth" is an arbitrary, meaningless term in the context of naturalism.

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This is not true. Naturalists do not deny that there is a reality; many of them simply deny that it can be perfectly perceived. The important thing here, then, is that "truth" is evaluated within different contexts. It is "true" that I love my wife. It is "true" that I exist. And yet on a different level, it may be equally true that I do NOT exist; my existence is something that has reality only within a given contextual framework, and so statements which rely on my existence must take the current framework into account.

It's true that we have to take as an operating premise the idea that things are knowable. But there's nothing out there which requires this to be true; we only have to behave as if it is.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
King of Men, would it be OK for me to call you an "evilutionist?"

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Originally posted by King of Men:

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Under naturalism, every experience you've ever had is simply a rearrangement of molecules - you can't even honestly construct your past. You can't say "X happened 5 minutes ago", you can only say "my current brain state makes me think X happened 5 minutes ago". I guess fundamentally I'm saying that accepting naturalism means you lose all objectiveness. You have no more feelings or thoughts about things, you simply have random mental states. In short, you lose the ability to trust your own thinking.

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While this may possibly be true, it's just as true for any system involving a soul, which I would suppose is the chief alternative. After all, we don't actually know how such a thing works; there's nothing to say its memories are not false. What if Memory Gremlins are interfering with its operations and giving you false memories? This is just as likely as the random rearrangements of brain states you are suggesting - if not more so, in fact. If we assume pure naturalism, then clearly evolution is working on those purely physical brains; and presumably the more accurate ones (both for memory and reasoning) have more offspring.

In other words, the criticism you are making of naturalism cuts just as sharply on what I suppose we may call spiritualism. I suggest, therefore, that it must be discarded as not permitting any useful distinction to be drawn.

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
King of Men, would it be OK for me to call you an "evilutionist?"

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P.S. (to KoM only) - When you say I am making a "Godelian argument", I hope you only mean that I am borrowing the spirit of Godel's original argument (as opposed to quoting one of Godel's 2 incompleteness theorems and expecting it to apply to reality). I terribly hate the 2nd form of the argument

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I do, however, think there's one important distinction. To make any progress with naturalism, one must begin by making assumptions. But by their very nature, these assumptions go against naturalism. To make any progress within a naturalistic framework, one must essentially start with "Naturalism is true, but it's not TOTALLY true"

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I think you have not shown that this is a distinction; you've shown it is true for naturalism, but you've failed to show it is false for not-naturalism. Until you refute my arguments showing that your criticism is equally bad for not-naturalism (ack, can we start referring to this as ~N?) there's no distinction to be drawn.

[ February 27, 2007, 07:10 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
 

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Posted by Boothby171 (Member # 807) on :
 
Camus!

Thanks for showing up!

Actually, except for the "Godless, naturalist heathen" reference, it's exactly what those from the anti-naturalist (or was it anti-evolutionist? I'm losing track) bent are saying.

Except they're not saying it as clearly.
 

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Posted by Boothby171 (Member # 807) on :
 
Resh,

Let me see....

First, you say:

I can follow a certain set of rules with certain premises and create an environment where all doubt can be eliminated.


And then I say:

Are you sure? Are you really, really sure?


And then you say:

No! That's the point!


So, to paraphrase you, I'll ask:

Just what the hell is your point?
 

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Posted by Boothby171 (Member # 807) on :
 
Resh...

Did Clerks 2 really suck, or do you only remember it as sucking?


 

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Posted by Troubadour (Member # 83) on :
 
And how do I know it's really my navel I'm gazing at?
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 

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To make any progress with naturalism, one must begin by making assumptions. But by their very nature, these assumptions go against naturalism.

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Originally posted by stihl1:
I find that people often have no idea WHAT evolution even is. They get caught with that lame old archaic response about humans evolving from apes. I personally don't understand all of the anger and offense about evolution, especially from so-called religious people. I have no problem believing in both God and the theory of evolution. In fact, they both fit nicely together as far as I'm concerned.

Not only that, but all of what biology and medicine is based on relates directly back to evolution. Without evolution, there is no genetics. Without genetics, there is no understanding of most of modern medicine. Without evolution, there are no cancer treatments, immune system understanding, etc, etc. I often find it interesting that people who violently disagree with evolution have no problem using modern medicine when they're ill or sick.

Evolution is a principle of biology just like gravity is a principle of physics. Yet people don't rail against gravity or discount the fact that God created the world with the principle of gravity.

I think it's all about the human ego. People are just too proud to think that humans share a common ancestor with primates. No matter how close it has been shown humans are to apes in genetic makeup.

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Well said.
 

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Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
 
On the subject of whether matter can reliably do logic; let's consider a ~N scenario, so we believe humans can do logic. Now, we know that computers can do logic, and there's certainly no mystical life force invovled there; we've built them from the ground up, and it's all physics, thanks kindly. Yet they are much more reliable than humans are. From which it follows that you can indeed rely on some kinds of matter to correctly do logic.
 

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Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
 
Boothby, I don't know if Clerks 2 sucked. And honestly I don't even remember if it sucked, because I blocked it out of my memory. That's the last time I go out of my way to watch a Kevin Smith movie.

To "create an environment where all doubt can be eliminated..." That was poorly worded, and I didn't realize until now how that sounds. I meant something more like: "...to create an environment where all possibilities are available." That is much closer to what I meant.
 

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Posted by suminonA (Member # 8757) on :
 

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Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
I meant something more like: "...to create an environment where all possibilities are available." That is much closer to what I meant.

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Actually, except for the "Godless, naturalist heathen" reference, it's exactly what those from the anti-naturalist (or was it anti-evolutionist? I'm losing track) bent are saying.

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Ok, I have a question for you: do you attribute the same weight to all those possibilities?

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Originally posted by camus:

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Ok, I have a question for you: do you attribute the same weight to all those possibilities?

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All possibilities obviously do not carry the same weight, just like all scientific theories carry different levels of credibility. The difference, or problem as some may see it, is that these ~N (to borrow KoM's term) possibilities rely entirely on personal experiences or trust in an authority figure's personal experiences, which is obviously not something you can test in a scientific experiment. To complicate the problem, personal experiences can be misinterpreted or incorrectly remembered. However, that's not to say that certain ~N possibilities don't exist or didn't actually happen, just that they can be hard to convince others of, or may not have any physical distinguishable impact on one's life than Naturalist explanations.
[emphasis added]

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While I’m waiting to see what Reshpeckobiggle can tell me about his paradigm, I’ll reply to camus:

That is why I ask, to see if there can be set any sort of hierarchy among “all the possibilities”. If there cannot, or the criteria are not transmissible to others, then we should remember that we are discussing about it, if not for other reason, at least because there are more than one people in this Universe. So if we are about to collaborate in any endeavour (rational or otherwise), we need to be able to communicate in a minimally reliable fashion about minimally reliable facts.

Let me bring a metaphor into discussion (as if this is the last thing that this thread needs ):
One person wants to build a bridge. As long as that person works alone, using a “scientifically” based method or “I can’t be sure of anything” kind of philosophy, the construction can advance more or less rapidly and ultimately be accomplished. And when the construction is finished, the fact that the person trusts or not their own construction is only relevant for one person. But, if two or more people want to participate in the building process, or use the bridge after it is finished, we should think about the possibility (as opposed to impossibility) of collaboration and the reliability of the construction, shouldn’t we?

If someone tells you that they think (but have no way to be sure) they can build a bridge in about a month, and that it could cost an unlimited amount of resources, plus after its completion they are not sure it will support any weight, will you be interested in it?

And if other person tells you that using precise (within a given margin of error) calculations the bridge would be finished in 30 days at most, it will cost this much resources and that it will support at least 100 tons of weight and at most 500 tons, would you consider crossing it?

Again, if you’re all alone in the Universe, this is a moot point. But if I can ask the question and someone else can answer it, then I’d say it is an important “detail”.

A.
 

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Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
 

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But, if two or more people want to participate in the building process, or use the bridge after it is finished, we should think about the possibility (as opposed to impossibility) of collaboration and the reliability of the construction, shouldn’t we?

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I feel that I have become irrelevant to the conversation.

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Originally posted by Boothby171:
"...to create an environment where all possibilities are available."

Would that include the possibility that not all possibilities are available?

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