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Choobak, this is one of those topics where that type of over-the-top joking isn’t helpful. It’s too close to directly belittling other members of the forum.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The "scientists rejected supernatural explanations for life" one may be true, but it's an example of scientists overreaching. They cannot comment meaningfully from within science about anything supernatural.
posted
dkw, look, he said he was joking, and we all know that even people who don't agree entirely with the theory of evolution wouldn't do that. I think that if he could have said that with a certain voice it could make quite a few people laugh, whereas in writing you'd have to imagine that voice yourself, and you might not want to. I did, I laughed about what he said, I'm over it and back to the discussion. Really, don't make a big thing out of it. (as I'm doing a good enough job myself )
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I mean, getting back to the stickers, is that guy really blaming the suit on the Creationists?
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Sure they can, insofar as they can use inductive thought to presume that most (99.9999999%) of phenomena in the material world can be understood solely within the context of the material world, they can certainly posit that all things can be described as such, that metaphysics is an illusion.
It won't be particularly fruitful, but it isn't overreaching, IMO.
posted
Corwin, this is a touchy issue, and we’re had major blow-ups over it. I’d rather not see it happen again. I’m sure it could make more than a few people laugh. That isn’t the point.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote: It’s too close to directly belittling other members of the forum.
I don't want that (if i understand correctly what you write). But I'm sinic that all evidence of evolution can be put into the carpet so easily. When i read that some states of USA "forget" to teach that at school, i am affraid. Sorry to joke. You are right : it's a serious thread.
Posts: 1189 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:When I was in my Orthodox Jewish high school, the rabbis taught us that during creation, God put a system into place. It's up to us to use our minds to figure out what that system is. Right now, we think that system is evolution.
That's pretty much what I believe, although I think there was a separate, Creative event when some animal was given spirit (or a soul). That is, a particular animal at a particular time was used as a building block, and at that point in time God created a human being.
To me, if the "lighning in the soup" theory is true, then in some sense God did fashion Adam out of the mud.
posted
I think that the word "theory" plays a serious part in how people perceive the "theory of evolution." In a generic conversation people use the word "theory" to mean "hypothesis" and I find that confusing.
In other words, people have a guess as to why something happened, but no actual evidence, but they will use the word theory to explain their idea. This gives people the feeling that a theory is nothing more than an educated guess, and that to teach it in the classrooms as truth is like teaching a religion in class as truth.
There are evidences. But somebodies have something between it and their eyes to look at. For religion, only the faith is here. No evidence, just we trust on it.
And I had religious lessons in schoolclass (about all religions).
[Added] You are right about theory and hypothesis : many people make the confusion.
quote: The "scientists rejected supernatural explanations for life" one may be true, but it's an example of scientists overreaching. They cannot comment meaningfully from within science about anything supernatural.
Exactly. Which is why intelligent design isn't science.
And yes, I'm sure they are intended to be a joke. But not without a message.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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The thing that really tends to bother me about stuff like this is how it exposes the ignorance of the people who are opposing the ignorant christians. The problem that this sticker issue highlights is that these kids are not getting a proper education in science. If we could be confident that the kids would leave high school with an actual understanding of what science is and what is meant by something being a theory, there would be no actual problem with these stickers (aside for wasting time and money on the demands of people who don't now what they're talking about).
If this is a threat, then it means that we have system where kids aren't getting a basic understanding of the fundamentals of science.
The same is true for many cases where Christians try to do innapropriate stuff on a political level. They're wrong and ignorant, but the people who oppose them often work in wrong and ignorant ways as well. Fights between people trying to do things with the justification that this is a "Christian nation" so they should be able to force whatever they think the Bible says on other people and the people who want to stop them should focus on the Christian versus "I don't like Christians" angle, it should be about people who don't understand the basis of our country versus people who do. In this case, it should be about people who don't understand science and have only their stubborn ignorance to reccomend them versus the people that don't, but because there's plenty of ignorance and immaturity on both sides, it's mostly on the Christian/non-Christian angle.
These types of Christians aren't going to change. If they could get away with it, they'd try to go back to believing that the sun orbits the earth. I think we should be focused on the often appalling ignorance of the people who are opposing them. In this case, I think our focus should be on improving the quality of the science education that we provide. If we did that, we could, without ever directly opposing them, turn the ignorant objections of these people into the barely significant sidenote they deserve to be. But that's not going to happen as long as people are more concerned in fighting with Christians than they are with making sure kids get a good education.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote: These types of Christians aren't going to change.
That's a defeatist attitude. And it's not true. I know quite a few people who used to be fundamentalists who have softened their viewpoint considerably, and some who now reject religion altogether.
I'm not saying that rejecting belief is something to aspire to. In fact, I think that a person's state of belief is less important than a person's willingness to work with others cooperatively. Essentially, (from my perspective) we need a bridge that allows theists and atheists to work together, instead of polarizing. That would allow theists to feel less threatened by atheist (and associated scientific belief), and would lessen the "cornered animal" behavior that gives fundamentalists such a bad reputation.
Oddly enough, I think Jesus gave us some of the tools to build that bridge.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Nice post, Glenn. And I largely agree with you. I'd be interested to know, though, what tools you believe would be useful that were given to us by Jesus (as opposed to tools that were simply used by Jesus himself, but were also available before his time.)
Posts: 5 | Registered: Jan 2005
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In my experience, pretty much every single person who has ever approached this argument from any position has done it the wrong way.
There are evidences for both sides. Example 1) There were seashells found in the Himalayas. Creationists: they washed up there during the flood. Evolutionists: the Himalayas were pushed up out of the ocean during geological formation of the earth. Example 2) The Grand Canyon. Creationists: the flood created it, along with many other outrageous formations. Evolutionists: Again, natural geological formation.
It's actually pretty insane when you start getting into evidenciary debate. I've gone back and forth between websites and documents supporting both sides so much, and it's all been incredibly circular. For every Creationist argument, an Evolutionist counter-argument. For every Evolutionist counter-argument, a Creationist counter-argument. And so on.
It's like there's some divine being who decided to give full evidence to both sides so we would have to decide by faith...
Posts: 48 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Yeah, I should have been clearer on that. Those types of Christians aren't going to change because you fought with them. It is possible for them to change, but that shouldn't be the focus. If you're in a disagreement with someone who doesn't know what he's talking about, the way to win is to make knowing what you're talking about important, not engaging in a personal battle. If the disagreement between Galileo and the Church were to be settled by scientific merits instead of raw force, Galileo would have won hands down. The same is pretty much true here, although we thankfully live in a country where might (even as expressed in the democratic way by number of votes or the capitalistic way by amount of money) doesn't necessarily trump right.
And I want to emphasize, I'm only talking about some Christians. One of the foundational precepts of our country and the philosphical movement it was a product of is the idea of limiting things to their proper place. In a scientific context, it doesn't matter if you're theistic, atheistic, polytheistic, or anything else, because believs about God don't enter into science. The problem with thse things only comes about when people inappropriately inject them into this realm.
Likewise, it's only when people try to use the government to force other people to live by their beliefs that there is a problem with having people of different beliefs under a government.
I've no problem "living with" people of most any type of religious belief if they are responsible about this.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The idea that evolution happens because of God is perfectly consistent with evolutionary theory. So is the idea that gravity happens because of God perfectly consistent with gravitational theory.
However, neither idea is scientific.
The "scientific theory" of ID asserts that there is scientific evidence evolution happens because of God (they use higher intelligence, but its a remarkably similar entity to the judeo-christian god, being advocated by christians (for the most part), I wonder who they could be talking about). This, however, is not a scientific theory, because it lacks a large body (or any body, actually) of evidence to back it up.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Sausageman -- the thing is, just was with most things (take a look at the "evidence" the moon landing was a hoax sometime), some of the evidence is better than other evidence.
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quote:I just took an office poll. My office consists almost entirely of religious people; several Jews, two Catholics, and a Sikh. The unanimous consensus is that we were descended from apes.
Adam, you totally rock. Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote: I'd be interested to know, though, what tools you believe would be useful that were given to us by Jesus (as opposed to tools that were simply used by Jesus himself, but were also available before his time.)
Doesn't matter. Maybe I'm just assuming that most people on this fourm know I'm an atheist, so the statement was ironic, coming from me.
I was talking about building bridges between theists and atheists, and making a concession of that nature is an example of what I meant. I could also discuss aspects of Pascal's wager that I find useful, which is also pretty ironic.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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An evidence is Always scientific ! Build on fact, on materials, and actions in explicit time. That's why I cannot trust there is other evidence than scientific evidence. That are a conviction and not evidence. That why i wrote religions can be explain only by faith.
Posts: 1189 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Choobak, there are many types of evidence. Not all is scientific evidence.
For example, temperature readings taken throughout the world is evidence that the world is warming. This is scientific evidence used to support a scientific conclusion. Note that such readings do not conclusively prove that the earth is getting warmer. They make it very likely that the earth is getting warmer. The reliability of the evidence is based on the reliability of the instruments used to measure the temperature, the truthfulness and accuracy of the people reporting those measurements, and the number of inferential steps between the premise "Temperatures in 1000 spots across the globe measured daily for 20 years have changed in this manner" and the conclusion "Therefore the earth is getting warmer."
Similarly, thousands of Israelites fleeing from Egypt stop in the desert. Their leader goes up to the mountain. The Israelites see (if I remember correctly) a cloud, hear thunder. When they come down, their leader tells them that God has given these instructions.
His testimony is evidence of what God said. It's not direct proof, but his reliability to the Israelites was high based on recent events.
Similarly, the continuity in the oral tradition and in the various manuscripts, linguistic analysis, dating of ancient scrolls, etc. are all evidence that these events happened as described. To some, they are not convincing evidence. But they are evidence.
If a scientist comes back from an expedition and reports finding a plateau with living dinosaurs, his testimony is evidence. It may not support full belief in the conclusion (that such a plateau, in fact, exists), but it is evidence that such a plateau exists. The reliability will depend in part on the reputation of the scientist, and in part on any other evidence, such as the alleged location of the plateau being in a spot not formerly visited and documented by scientists.
posted
Oh !! Maybe i make a confusion. Actually, French translate evidence as "preuve" (as in justice). And you mean it is a difference between "proof" and "evidence", don't you ?
So, if it's that, I understand what you wrote before. But All my posts are based on the term "proof".
About what you wrote, Dagonee, on the reliability of mesure instruments. It is an old and interesting debat begin with Socrate and his Cave. And more recently, the idea of Eisenberg : "To mesure is to deform". But Currently the precision of instrument is so performed, that we have a good approximation of what we mesure.
Moreover, You are right in a sence : I forgot Math proof.
Posts: 1189 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Dag, I think you are being unrealistically broad in what is considered 'evidence' in common usage. For example, I could state 'All religious people are homophobes' and that would be evidence that my statement is true, by your definition. But very few people would consider it evidence, because they would find it unconvincing. In common usage, 'evidence' means something a lot closer to the scientific or legal standards than mere assertion - perhaps because those are the two contexts in which the word usually appears.
On a side note, what is the standard you apply to, let's say, the crucifixion and resurrection? You've agreed it's not the scientific standard, hard as that is to define. I think it's not the legal standard; wouldn't the Gospels all be chucked out as hearsay? They were all written down by people other than the actual apostles whose names they bear, I believe.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:wouldn't the Gospels all be chucked out as hearsay?
Nope - ancient writing exception.
quote:I could state 'All religious people are homophobes' and that would be evidence that my statement is true, by your definition.
Not really. Moses was reporting events - it was testimony based on personal knowledge. "I witnessed X." Your statement is a conclusion. We may trust conclusions based on the reliability of their source, but generally they're considered weaker forms of evidence at best.
Edit: In fact, I was largely thinking of the legal definition of evidence when I gave the Moses and plateau examples.
Really? Has the situation ever come up in court? Now I'm interested.
On the other subject, suppose I went to the other extreme, and said "God has told me all homosexuals should be punished." Now, I realise I haven't been the recipient of miracles, as you believe Moses was. Nevertheless, aren't you defining that as evidence? And I think that goes against the common usage.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
Your description of that example may represent the most common understanding of evidence, although I'm not sure of that.
But, your statement is evidence - oral or written testimony based on personal sensual perception of an event is the most common form of evidence in the legal system. So while you may be right that people would consider that not to be evidence, in the legal sense it's the prototypical evidence.
Evidence does not equal proof, which was the root of the mutual confusion between Choobak and me.
I think the most accurate thing to say about your statement is that it's insufficient evidence to cause me to modify my beliefs or actions, and that most would agree with that characterization.
Edit:
quote:Really? Has the situation ever come up in court? Now I'm interested.
Not that I'm aware of with the Bible, but there was interesting case about the bell of a confederate privateer that was decided based on ancient (well, 100-year old) written accounts.
quote: Evidence does not equal proof, which was the root of the mutual confusion between Choobak and me.
Well, I understand better and better english with you !
So, like lot of French, i have a cartesian spirit and I need proof unless for religion, where faith is the way. That why my position about this stickers is this.
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