quote:You and I live in the country with the largest per capita environmental footprint in the world. If we want to do something about this, we're the ones who have to start making sacrifices.
I don't have many sacrifices to make living in residence. We already recycle and of course I don't drive a car.
Concerning energy usage in Canada, the problem is that it's freezing cold in the winter and sweltering hot in the summer. People tend to overcompensate in both seasons.
Trees-wise, it would be awfully nice if companies didn't clear-cut.
quote:so much as I find it unworkable in RL
There are problems and contradictions in all political systems, including the liberal ideals American's presently live under.
I hate to make science fiction references in a serious thread, but you know all those times when Earth is going to be invaded by huge ships and get blown to smithereens and everyone says it's not going to happen? The argument is always made that if it does happen everyone's going to look mighty stupid. If it doesn't that's great!
What's so wrong about putting a major effort into something that will make our planet a better place to live? We can't seriously stop asteroids or hurricanes or the aliens ships of my example but we can do a whole lot about cutting down our driving, energy usage and clear cutting. I don't understand why people put up such a resistance to believing in environmental issues.
If your kid gets sick and won't get better, are you just going to assume that they're naturally just going through a bad season or are you going to start looking into what may be wrong and trying to fix it? There is no question here, why should there be one about the only place in the universe that we as a race can live. Seems pretty gorram important to me.
I don't care whether you believe in environmental doomsdays or not, but it's pretty clear that there are some yucky things going on with our planet that you can't ignore as harmless. It's worth cleaning up those things even if our planet can handle our excesses.
If you don't do anything and in a hundred or two hudred years Earth is dangerous to live on you're going to sound pretty stupid.
If we do act and the planet becomes an altogether more pleasant place to live in two hundred years what's wrong with that?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Why is it that every thread has to turn into a “Bush is great” / “Bush is evil” / “Clinton was worse”.
It wasn’t until page 2 that any debate about global warming seemed to happen.
Many people in the rest of the world do not care if Bush, Clinton or the tooth fairy is to blame for the lack of action from America.
I know global warming has not been proven beyond all doubt (and by the time it is it will be too late for large parts of the world) but the evidence is compelling enough that we ought to try to do something. Even if you do not believe in global warming fossil fuels are a finite resource and reductions now are needed to conserve the supplies for the future.
For those who say that we are heading out of a cold period that is not true. The last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago and the climate since then has been remarkable stable compared to the few hundred thousand years before that.
The cost of cutting carbon dioxide is relatively low (except for oil companies) and as a domestic consumer will save you money. If it turns out that scientists were wrong about global warming the biggest effect will be the fossil fuels will last longer. If we do not act and global warming is correct the consequences will be much more severe.
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However if you wanted to argue about the ill temperedness of the broun bear subspecies known as the Kodiak Bear you might have had a leg to stand on. http://www.extremescience.com/PolarBear.htm
quote:If the equations that they enter are flawed ... then the data that is returned is flawed. Second, the information that they enter into their model might also be flawed as well.
When we talk about computer modeling we're probably usually talking about efforts to model climates -- much different from routine computer usage to amass and analyze meteorological statistics.
And you can bet that nobody is more skeptical of such computer modeling than the scientists doing it. Of course they are aware of GIGO principles.
This is not a reason to stop doing the work. When new data emerges (from, say, ice core sampling in Antarctica) it can be entered into the model. If someone has the idea to tweak the equations, the results are analyzed, and if predictions match reality (in some part of the system), that equation may have merit.
But it's a hugely complex problem, with tons of variables; a key part of the problem is that we're trying to describe a phenomenon which occupies a Very Large Space (a planet) and a Very Large Duration (all of geologic time since the earth formed) based on 25 years of sophisticated data-gathering -- a razor-sliver of time -- and vastly complicated by the fact that almost all human-observable climate phenomena are masked by macro- and micro- geological and weather patterns.
It's a bit like taking a 1/30-second snapshot of a clothes washing machine during its agitation cycle, and a teaspoon sample of its soiled water at that instant, and then asking, 'will a washing system have been developed in a century that is capable of removing pixie dust from a framboozle?'
A priori, one can hardly guess what to measure, let alone what the measurements might mean with regard to the question being asked; and it's even harder to guess what possible experimental results would indicate that your preliminary answers are more or less correct, short of waiting a century.
I think your worry, to the extent it is justified, should be with those who carelessly quote such models; but that is a general problem where science becomes politicized that has alread been well noted in this thread.
My personal worry is that there is beginning to be sufficient evidence that, like most chaotic systems, planetary climate systems self-govern within a band of equilibrium. Here an Ice Age, there an Ice Age. Is the impact of human activity sufficient to knock the system abruptly (at a 'tipping point') from one level of equilibrium to another? By 'abruptly,' I mean rapidly enough to be observed as rapid, traumatic change within a human generation or two -- more rapidly than political systems, economies, and large populations can adjust safely.
The last time that happened, only a guy named Noah and his hand-picked buddies survived And the time before that, all the dinosaurs kicked.
If I were in the shoes of the chief executive of the most powerful, profligate nation on earth (i.e., the one with the most to lose) -- and you may thank God I am not -- I would make it a matter of public policy to take careful account of scientific progress on such questions, and encourage clear, open debate on possible socioeconomic responses to conclusions as they emerge.
In a way, it's encouraging: The simple fact that our scientists are even able to begin to ask and answer such questions, however haltingly, is a powerful indication of mankind's implicit stewardship of the planet. That perhaps, just perhaps, the climatological impact of homo sapiens' explosive success as a species will become clear just as we have the tools to both detect, and manage it.
It does concern me that the current administration seems to have zero interest in even affording us that chance.
Posts: 431 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Okay - can I jump in here with a question? And I don't really mean for this to be snarky, so please don't take it as such. I'm trying to understand other points of view.
Many people who hold what I consider to be the more extreme environmentalist views (I do care about the environment myself, but I'm not an activist about it -- I just take care of my own little space) -- many of them are also people I know who happen to be atheists.
So, as atheists, they pretty much hold fast to the theory of evolution as how things began, and how things keep going.
So, if you are an evolutionist -- then isn't all of this (global warming, extinction of species, human affects on the globe) just part of the "natural" evolutionary process? Part of the 'survival of the fittest mentality'?? In your philosophy of science, isn't it the way things are supposed to go? Because mankind is on equal footing as an animal with other animals, all going through evolutionary advancement.
So I guess I'm getting a conflicting message from those who want to "change the world" (by preventing global warming or extinction of any species, etc.) yet also believe that evolution is a 'natural change' and don't see this as part of it.
posted
Farmgirl, I think the underlying fear is that we will alter the ecosystem so far that in the future it will become uninhabitable for even humans.
Or they don't view humans as evolutionarily any more important than any other species. In other words even though it might be natural selection we really shouldn't have the right to determine the fate of other species. With the dinosaurs it was an asteroid that did the damage, not the dinosaurs themselves.
posted
Farmgirl: there's no moral imperative to evolution. People don't think that whatever happens in evolution is the right thing to happen. Its just a description of a complex process that does happen.
Also, you're confusing things a little bit. Global warming is a part of the environment. The earth is not alive. The temperature of the earth is an externality evolutionary processes interact with, not a part of the process.
Furthermore, humans are internal to evolutionary processes -- we evolve, and our interactions with other things influence their evolution. No matter what our influences are, they're still internal. So if we cause the demise of large numbers of species, that's natural. And if we save large numbers of species (and a good number of our own species) by maintaining an average global temperature through mitigating our disruptive influence, that's natural, too.
Personally, I'd prefer the latter.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
It may be important to note that there is no claim that what is "natural" or according to evolution is necessarily right. Evolution is a description of what happens, not a moral or utilitarian gauge. There is no "the way things are supposed to go" tied in with any of this.
And, err, if humans creating pollution is considered natural, humans acting to prevent pollution or counter-act global warming is just as natural.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
No it's more a view that the current human accelerated evolutionary process is "unnatural" for lack of a better word. No other species has messed with the normally slow-changing carbon cycle like we have using fossil fuels.
I've had this conversation with people like you describe. I tend see it more like you do Farmgirl. It is a long term possibility however that we will make our own world uninhabitable for us, before we figure out fast spaceflight and ecosystem terraforming.
AJ
There are environmentalists out there that *don't* believe we have the moral right to mess with other species through our own natural processes even if they do believe in evolution. I think it sounds nice in sentiment, but no matter how emotionally passionate you are, it's hard to generate a truly consistent logical position. I also have to wonder why they value their own life to be so worthless when it's what they've got.
posted
FG, I think you might be a bit confused about what you're talking about. There is no united evolutionary process. There's no plan for how things are supposd to go that is not to be altered. Nearly anything that people do affects evolution. Whether we save species or kill them off, pour CO2 into the atmosphere or build up forests that reclaim it, choose paper or plastic when we're shopping; these things all get taken into evolution. There is no "outside" of evolution. It never stops, unless the earth and everything on it stops changing.
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posted
Banna, Probably being a theorist and researcher (especially in a field with as big a scientificly gray area as psychology) makes the specifics of scientific epistemology loom larger than for an engineer. Just don't ask me to build anything.
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posted
This, to me, is one of the prime reasons why we need government by technocrats instead of politicians. In crucial areas like Energy policy, it just doesn't make sense to have pols make decisions. They can't possibly have the expertise to make valid decisions, and yet they do so all the time. Based on a philosophy of governance rather than on data.
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quote:So, if you are an evolutionist -- then isn't all of this (global warming, extinction of species, human affects on the globe) just part of the "natural" evolutionary process?
Just like making a mess in the kitchen, we, as the most sentient species of the planet, have a duty to clean up after ourselves, especially since we're causing such a huge artificial impact on the planet. Being aware of our impact only makes us more responsible.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, but Farmgirl's question raised a interesting point. Conservative people tend, overall, to be more religious - and the religion is more likely to be Christianity, I think - than liberals. Christianity has a description of how things are, and it also makes the assertion that the state of things is overall good.
Now, I don't want to make too much of evolution as a philosophy, because it isn't; it's just a description of what happens in nature. But ti does tend to be moderately strongly correlated with atheism, and atheism is a philosophy; likewise, scientists - particularly in the physical sciences, I think - tend to be more atheist than the general population.
As was pointed out, evolution is not a moral description of how the universe ought to be; indeed, for people who have thought a bit about it, it might even make the opposite assertion : This is how things are, and it's really rather a pity. I wonder, then, if this could be the underlying reason for the correlation I started my post with, that conservatives tend to be traditionally religious? If you view the state of the universe as generally a good thing, that might lead to resistance to changing the political status quo; conversely, if you see the natural state as bad, then meddling might come easier.
I don't know if I'm making myself clear here, because my brain is mush after coding for ten hours. But there's something else I'd like to know; is it usual for creationists (I seem to recall that comrade Farmgirl is one?) to think atheists believe evolution is a good thing? Because it isn't, really. It just happens; it's no more good or evil than a forest fire. Might it be useful, in the creation-evolution 'debate', to get this point across? I really thought that Farmgirl, who has been here for a good long while, would be aware of such a basic point.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Well, no, but then I'm talking about the current incarnations. But perhaps it would work better if I opposed anything-but-conservatism to conservatism; libertarians, for example, who are anything but liberal in the modern American sense of the word, tend towards atheism also, at least that's my impression. (Friend starLisa being an obvious exception.)
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I would hesitate to equate atheism to 'state of things is bad.' More like: neutral. It is what it is, to be described, understood, managed, survived, improved, whatever, according to (natural) laws that can be discerned over time (rather than received from Scripture, say).
The distinction might be: has meaning, vs. has no meaning. From this perspective (to pursue the type of reasoning you dallied with here), it could be that religious conservatives are less willing to 'meddle,' on the reasoning that things are the way they are by the will of divinity; while scientific/atheists feel no such compunction.
Of course, this has also led to accusations of scientists 'playing God.' Which can be a bad thing (nuclear weapons) or a good thing (saving lives with modern medicine).
Posts: 431 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I was referring to evolution more than atheism, actually. It basically states that all progress except the technological depends on pain, suffering, and death; that for a species to survive, a large number of its children must die; and - worse - that there is rarely any real progress even after all that dying.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I disagree with your description of evolution as something that relies on suffering and pain.
Evolution is one of those things that's always going on in the background very slowly, like you running some sort of ongoing program in the background of your computer that's very slowly modifying your computer in an attempt to make it better. However, despite this program being fundamental, I consider the foreground to be infinately more important. By the foreground I mean everything else that's happening- human life, animal life, climate change, etc.
Now, I may switch on my computer one day and find that my icons on my desktop are starting to fade. It's been happening so slowly that I can only see a difference because I remember what it was like three years ago. The background loss of the icons is perhaps sad when I think about it in that way but when I remember how many desktop icons I have deleted in the foreground in the same time period the fading icons the fact that the icons are fading completely seems somewhat insignificant.
Yes, there is a certain element of loss in evolution. However, compared to the loss that we as humans (and animals) experience and perhaps cause on a daily basis, it's almost unnoticable.
Also, people are going to die in the same ways from illness and genetic problems if evolution happens or not. If you look at it that way evolution has a slight positive effect.
I don't consider Evolution a bad or a good thing. It's just a thing that happens in the background. It created me and my people as I am today, and so that's good. If it creates a better or different me and my people for someone a million years in the future, that's good too.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: But there's something else I'd like to know; is it usual for creationists (I seem to recall that comrade Farmgirl is one?) to think atheists believe evolution is a good thing?
To be quite honest, I don't know that I ever really thought much about that question specifically until this thread. I didn't have a feeling regarding whether evolutionists thought of evolution as good or bad.
I guess what I'm realizing is that creationists, or God-believers, see both the past history of Earth, and the future of earth in terms related to God.
An evolutionist/atheist, then, sees evolutionary simply as historical fact "this is what happened" -- but not at all in terms of future "this is what is GOING to happen" -- and so since there is no set way future is supposed to happen in that viewpoint, it can be manipulated and go in any direction...
posted
Oh, the forces involved are often not terribly manipulable, but yes, everything is intertwined, so anything humans (or other species) do affects the evolution of all the rest, to varying degrees. The impact of the actions of Darwin's finches on our evolution might be viewed as small (for instance) -- except one has to wonder what modern biology would be like without one of its most basic and important principles, evolutionary theory, which Darwin might not have formulated the rough basis of without seeing those finches.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Teshi : If the most unfit animals do not die before breeding, there is no evolution. Usually that means death by disease or predator. Neither is very pleasant.
Now, as I write, it occurs to me that the animals that do get to breed die too, usually by disease or predator. The only real difference is whether they had children first. So actually, you may have a point.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:it can be manipulated and go in any direction...
Sure, and if that direction happens to include keeping the existence of the human race viable on this planet, well, that's definitely a perk.
(For the humans, anyway.)
I suspect that lots of the environmentalist atheists you were talking about initially would also be in favour of nuclear disarmament, presumably for similar reasons. But are you saying that creationists think they don't need to worry about the future since god "has it all figured out?"
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
That's what I mean. It's not like only weak animals die. Everyone dies and the pain and suffering you describe is totally inevitable and so not connected to evolution any more than if there was no evolution.
The only question is whether we die before passing our genes on or not as you said.
Pain, suffering and death isn't anything to do with evolution, it's only to do with animal life. Evolution is merely a by-product of the higher likelyhood that unfit animals will die before they breed.
In fact, looking at it that way, evolution doesn't really exist as a seperate thing at all, only as something that happens because of some other factor. Evolution's not a concept in of itself- there is no guiding principal. Almost by definition, Evolution is the absence of a guiding principal.
As a result, I suppose, this is the way that Evolution is fundamentally opposed to Creationism, all monkeys aside. Creationism relies on the very guiding principal that Evolution relies on there not existing.
EDIT!: I no longer believe the following assumptions...
To take it one step further, as soon as God is said to have intervened with the healing of a sick man or woman, Evolution loses a large tenet of its being. It still exists, unless God personally intervenes with everyone, but is substantially weakened. You start to get a sliding scale
Fundamental Creationism (total intervention: God controls everything)---> Creationism (large scale intervention: some random elements) ---> Mixture of the two (short term evolution, long term Creationism) ---> Evolution (God exists but does not get involved) ---> Atheistic Evolution (no intervention, no God)
But, Fundamental Creationism and Atheistic Evolution are the same thing. If God is totally involved is is playing the part that chaosy-type survival would in Atheistic Evolution. Since there is no random element, the non-randomness becomes the random element. The two, without proof of God, appear to be indistiguisable kind of like the way fascism and communism look the same when very extreme.
In this case, it is Creationism, not Fundamental Creationism, that is the most opposed to Atheistic Evolution, although we would naturally assume the latter. I think there are very, very few people who believe absolutely everything is controlled by God. That's a very hard thing to believe.
quote:But are you saying that creationists think they don't need to worry about the future since god "has it all figured out?"
This, in its most pure form is what I just called Fundamental Creationism. I don't think many people believe that or they would do nothing. It wouldn't matter what you do because everything already exists.
This is why Creationism is more difficult to reconcile with Evolution. There is the element of picking and choosing what God controls. God can control the climate, or it can be our responsibility, for example. God healed him but not her. God allows nuclear weapons or he's just hanging his head in dispair and hoping we won't explode each other. There's no way of knowing where the line is.
I'm starting to ramble. It's twelve o'clock and I have a class in an hour. I should get up.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: But are you saying that creationists think they don't need to worry about the future since god "has it all figured out?"
No, that's not exactly what I'm saying..
*thinks of how to word how I think*
I do believe that in the end God will not allow the entire Earth to be destroyed..
(crap -- the network to branches just died here at work -- I will have to come back into this thread and re-visit this issue later. Chaos rules at the moment)
quote:Fundamental Creationism and Atheistic Evolution are the same thing.
I know it sounds wacky. The reason it sounds wacky is because the difference means a lot to a large number of people. But think about it, on the surface, if God was controlling everything, it wouldn't look any different without proof of God's existance of which we so far have nothing concrete.
So really, the human effect would be exactly the same.
quote:I don't think many people believe that or they would do nothing. It wouldn't matter what you do because everything already exists.
By nothing I meant zip. It's the other levels who do very little.
Anyway, I was kind of rambling really, so take what I said with a grain of salt.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
As fate would have it, today in my History of Europe in the 19th Century class the topic was Evolution. I have revised some of what I have previously said. (I edited the post above to show where my mind has changed due to more thinking):
I said:
quote:Pain, suffering and death isn't anything to do with evolution, it's only to do with animal life. Evolution is merely a by-product of the higher likelyhood that unfit animals will die before they breed.
My professor used the phrase "death is a creative force" (I'm not sure if that's Darwin's or not). I like the phrase. I now think the death of certain individuals in a species shouldn't be described as a positive force; there is no pursuit of a perfect ideal human, only adaptation. Instead Evolution is the creative by-product of death, adapting species to their environment and working for neither good nor evil (although I know creative has a positive association try to think of it as merely a neutral one.
I also said:
quote:As a result, I suppose, this is the way that Evolution is fundamentally opposed to Creationism, all monkeys aside. Creationism relies on the very guiding principal that Evolution relies on there not existing.
I still believe that that biggest problem that faces theists trying to reconcile their beliefs with Evolution is the problem of God's involvement in the process. Exactly where does he come in?
However, I definately want to stress a reversal on something else I said:
quote:To take it one step further, as soon as God is said to have intervened with the healing of a sick man or woman, Evolution loses a large tenet of its being.
I NO LONGER BELIEVE THIS and my following statements in the original post and want to clarify certain things. I do not think that an atheist holding Evolutionary Beliefs has somehow stronger or better beliefs than a theist who holds the same beliefs. There should be no distinction. Evolutionary beliefs can be held by theists with just the same strength of conviction of atheists.
Everything else you should consider thoughts that, although interesting, I do not consider very valid.
I'm going to post this and then come back and re-answer Farmgirl's original question. I have to go do some shopping .
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:So really, the human effect would be exactly the same.
In the atheistic worldview we humans can effect change. In the fundamentalist worldview you describe, we can't. I think this difference means that atheists and those sorts of fundamentalists act in starkly different ways.
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posted
Okay -- I don't have time to post my complete thoughts on this here today. However, I didn't want to leave my last post dangling because it is imcomplete.
Just because I believe God will prevent mankind from destroying the world entirely, the fact that I believe He will intervene does not take away my (and everyone's) personal responsibility to "be good stewards" of it while we are here, each in our own way.
posted
I think I've solved the Evolution/Creationism debate.
Evolution answers How.
Creationist/ID answers Why.
Both sides keep assuming the other is really answering their question, and they are not.
Evolution says nothing about Why man came to be. Creationism says nothing about How man came to be, other than through God's will. The details, even those set out in the Bible, are sketchy on the exact process.
It is when either side tries to fill in the details of the other question that arguments and insults occur.
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posted
Well, Evolution also answers Why the human race exists: luck and chance. Evolution says there doesn't have to be a why, that we are as we are today is not part of a plan but merely a combination of luck and .
On the other hand, Creationism also answers the How: God said. (I'm not trying to be stupid, I'm going from a paraphrased 'God said let there be light' line). Creation says there doesn't have to be a How because God takes care of all that.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
No, evolution doesn't say the human race exists because of luck and chance. It says the existence of the human race can be explained by natural selection, which involves beneficial mutations being selected for and detrimental ones being selected against. How these mutations occur is not part of things, partly because we don't really know. We're pretty sure a lot of them are random, but that's a separate area of theory. Evolution occurs even if the mutations are completely deterministic.
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posted
I was going to say something more complicated but decided that chance was kind of a good simple way of saying what you just said. At least, with my disgusting ignorance about the topic, it seemed like a good enough way.
I see now that 'tis not.
Anyway. My point still stands that the "why" is answered by Evolution all the same.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It depends on what you mean by "Why?" The why you're answering with evolution seems like a rephrased how to me.
A rock falls off a cliff? Why? "Because of the distortion of space-time caused by the mass of the earth" is a perfectly valid answer. But, really, that's just a "how" answer.
But "because I was trying to hit you with a rock" is probably a more relevant answer.
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posted
Hm. You have a point which is why I think that a more generalised answer, even if inaccurate, gives a better answer than fugu's more technical answer.
The point with Evolution is that there doesn't have to be a "why", or at least, we don't have to worry about it. The same goes for Creationism's "how". It's not all that important. The answers are weak answers; however, I believe they are still valid answers as each theory goes. Creationists do not require a how just as Evolutionists do not require a why.
Your example of the rock gives a very solid why; someone is throwing that rock. If I believe in Atheistic Evolution, the rock falls off the cliff because of some shift on the land or in the wind- however, that is unimportant, really because as soon as it's falling it's subject to gravity. If I believe in Evolution but also God perhaps I think that someone threw that rock and only then it become subject to gravity. Someone who believes in Creationism might think that someone threw the rock and someone's determined where it's going to land but the intermediate bits are perhaps unimportant.
That kind of reminds me of that physics law (theory?) where you can tell where a particle is at any given moment or you can determine its speed but not them both at the same time. I've forgotten what it's called, but you doubtless know the one I mean.
quote:The why you're answering with evolution seems like a rephrased how to me.
quote:Both sides keep assuming the other is really answering their question, and they are not.
Perhaps Dan_Raven was right. There is some sort of communication difficulty. To me, whether the rock was thrown or not is unimportant. It fell somehow and we can determine its course up to where it is now. Creationists are more about the thrower and the place where it's going to land.
Evolutionists why does exist, it's just not the major concern. Creationists how similarly exists, just it's not the major concern. It seems to me at least that there is a certain amount of apprehension among Creationists that if the throwing of the rock is unimportant then God is somehow made unimportant by science.
I don't believe that has to be the case. God is not necessary to science but that doesn't been that theistic beliefs cannot co-exist with scientific fact. God is not excluded from science simply because the idea of God is so elusive.
Suppose we call the rock the earth and we are falling down your cliff, thrown or dropped by some other natural force. Coming back to the environment topic, I think that the rock as it falls is in our hands. Things happen around us that are out of our control, but we are still the one's in charge of making sure the rock keeps falling unimpeded.
I'm sorry to be so metaphorical. I think I think better in metaphors.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:The point with Evolution is that there doesn't have to be a "why", or at least, we don't have to worry about it. The same goes for Creationism's "how". It's not all that important. The answers are weak answers; however, I believe they are still valid answers as each theory goes. Creationists do not require a how just as Evolutionists do not require a why.
This is why I hate the way "Creationism" has been coopted.
I am a creationist: I believe the entire Universe exists because God created it.
i am also an evolutionist: I believe evolution is a useful scientific theory for understanding how life forms change over time.
In a metaphysical sense, I believe evolution to be the mechanism God used to create life.
As a creationist, I believe God performed a separate, distinct act of creation to make humans beings. This act may have used the physical results of evolution at the same instant the soul was created.
As a creationist, I believe that there is a separate act of creation every time a new human life begins, separate and above the mere biological reactions that form the human organism.
I realize many or most creationists, even those who believe in theistic evolution, believe something different than that. And I realize that most people who use the word Creationist mean something very different than that. But if they believe God purposelfully created the world, in some sense we are fellow creationists.
That's why I don't think evolution has a "why," at least not one that can be referenced outside itseld: as a scientific theory, it's purpose is to describe a certain set of behavior in the physical world. Sure, there are lots of "whys" within that theory that are answered, but they are physical whys.
There are philosophies that use the existence of evolution as part of their supporting framework. But the minute they go beyond any merely physical phenomenon, they're beyond being evolutionists and are being Evolutionists.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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The difference is in the people who are behind the two movements.
Scientists are mostly engineers at heart, trying to decipher how the universe works so that they can take advantage of that knowledge to make life better.
Religious leaders are mostly moralists at heart, trying to decipher the moral causes that are important to the universe so they can take advantage of that knowledge to make life better.
In Copernicus's day, he said that the science shows that the Earth revolves around the sun. It was simply how things were done.
The Church disagreed because that went against moral principals that stated God's Earth was the center of the Universe. Why would God make the Sun the center? It was that moralistic "Why" that got in the way of them accepting scientific proof.
I know some engineers that are interested in How Jesus turned water into wine. Did he turn the molecular structure of water into that of wine? Did he replace the water with wine that he created? Did he just make everyone think the water they were drinking was wine? Well, no, that couldn't be because the text says he turned it into wine.
Such debates are totally useless in a moral/church discussion of the miracle, and those moral teachers who discuss the miracle see such How debates as dangerous, perhaps demeaning, to the moral message. As Teshi says, "There doesn't have to be a How. God took care of it." Or, the How was Jesus did a miracle.
Can you disect a miracle? Do you think it would be fun/intesting to try?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote: useful scientific theory for understanding how life forms change over time.
I disagree with your wording. I think evolution cannot be described as theory like other things are theoretical because they cannot be proven. Species evolve and I think that makes it more than a tool for understanding something. I think that should you believe in evolution you should take that extra step and say that it's fact.
quote:as a scientific theory, it's purpose is to describe a certain set of behavior in the physical world.
Again, I think that it's not something that helps us to understand something, it's a name given to something that happens. That's a little like saying sex is a useful way of explaining the appearance of children- putting it that way sounds crazy. The reproductive point of sex is solid fact. In the same way, evolution is also solid fact.
I do not wish to have a fight over this. We may lock horns, though, .
EDIT:
quote:Can you disect a miracle? Do you think it would be fun/intesting to try?
I'm actually writing a horribly blasphemous story right now that I could never publish however worthy it ended up being but I am definately trying my best to not so much dissect miracles but re-imagine the stories behind them. It certainly is fun and interesting.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:I disagree with your wording. I think evolution cannot be described as theory like other things are theoretical because they cannot be proven. Species evolve and I think that makes it more than a tool for understanding something. I think that should you believe in evolution you should take that extra step and say that it's fact.
Take it up with the people who define what a scientific theory is. And I didn't say it wasn't "fact."
quote:Again, I think that it's not something that helps us to understand something, it's a name given to something that happens. That's a little like saying sex is a useful way of explaining the appearance of children- putting it that way sounds crazy. The reproductive point of sex is solid fact. In the same way, evolution is also solid fact.
I'm not sure why you're disagreeing with me, or even what you're disagreeing with me about.
Evolution helps us to understand why cave fish don't have eyes, why we have however many bones we have in our ears, and why different species of finches have different beak shapes.
Why do you keep insisting on the "solid fact" thing as if you're trying to convince me of something?
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I'm not trying to convert you from your theistic ways, because I know that's what you mean by your last phrase. I think perhaps you and I represent different ways of looking at, and supporting evolution. I know you're angry- please don't be.
Um... how to explain...
I am uncomfortable with your intial wording. I think of the phrase "useful tool" as implying something that's not real ("solid fact") and more of something that fits the way that things are but isn't actually necessarily true. Kind of like using the spheres to explain the movements of the planets.
That may be not what you meant. In fact, I'm fairly sure it wasn't. However, I disagreed with your wording (not with you) because it certainly could have been interpreted in that manner.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Teshi - I think actually you might need to back down one step and realise that you're not arguing with a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic here. Dags is using the word 'theory' in the science-canonical way; he's not (as far as I can tell) trying to say "but of course it doesn't really happen that way." Evolution is a theory and a fact; usually the fact is taken for granted and we refer only to the theory. Perfectly acceptable language, unless you happen to be dealing with a YEC. When your opponent thinks the Earth is six thousand years old and Adam rode dinosaurs to schurch, that is when you need to use baby language and carefully define every step.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Getting back to the original question--Global Warming is going to be a financial and humanitarian disaster. Farmers will have to change crops, and billions in equipment to grow those crops, as the ice melts water levels will rise and a lot of expensive beach front property will have to be either raised or will disappear. In poorer countries this will shrink living space dangerously, but that should be ok because bigger, nastier storms will start reducing the surplus population. Such storms will leave disease and violence in their wake, not to mention giant bills.
President Clinton admitted there was a problem, and played politics with a solution. That is bad.
President Bush has argued there is no problem, that was worse. He has since clarified his position that while there is a problem, its not our fault.
Fine.
It is God's fault, or its Nature's fault.
Laying blame does not solve the problem. It only gives you a cheap excuse to ignore the problem.
Cutting green house gasses will diminish the effects of global warming no matter why its happening. Where is the initiative to do that? Where are the plans to help those who will be stormed, flooded, or over-heated disasterously?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Cutting green house gasses will diminish the effects of global warming no matter why its happening.
This is simply not known. We have to consider the effects of the new behavior as well.
Cutting green house gasses with no other changes will almost certainly diminish the effects of global warming. We can't cut green house gasses without causing other changes (some very significant).
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: A rock falls off a cliff? Why? "Because of the distortion of space-time caused by the mass of the earth" is a perfectly valid answer. But, really, that's just a "how" answer.
But "because I was trying to hit you with a rock" is probably a more relevant answer.
BWAHAHAHAHA! I am totally using this. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Teshi - I think actually you might need to back down one step and realise that you're not arguing with a dyed-in-the-wool fanatic here. Dags is using the word 'theory' in the science-canonical way; he's not (as far as I can tell) trying to say "but of course it doesn't really happen that way."
I realised this. I just disagreed with his wording. I hope I made that clear now. I realise he's as much an Evolutionist as I am. Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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