posted
You've been discussing the evidence with KoM and fugu. But where's the evidence of god's hand in all of this? It isn't there. Evidence that evolution occurred on earth is not also evidence of intelligent design. Evidence of intelligent design would be roughly analogous to us finding god's signature somewhere in the universe, sort of like the circle in pi in Carl Sagan's Contact.
I mean, it's easy to say "god could have made it to look this way," and that we shouldn't ask why god would bother to do such a thing because we can't understand god's motivation for doing things, but it doesn't get us anywhere.
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posted
I was using random in the mathematical sense of 'truly un-patterned, unpredictable even in principle.'
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Twinky, in one of my earlier posts I mentioned I avoid the YE/OE argument for that exact reason: people assume that evolution disproves God. It doesn't. The reason God didn't make creation glaringly obvious that it was from Him and not completely random is the same reason he doesn't wake us all up every day by yelling, "Hey! I'm here! I exist! Now believe in me!" It takes faith. If you're going to put your faith in science alone, go ahead. Just don't try to write me off as a total moron for putting my faith in science and God.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I was using random in the mathematical sense of 'truly un-patterned, unpredictable even in principle.'
I gotcha. I'll avoid the "so something must have caused a pattern... nature caused the pattern... something must have caused nature to put the patten in place..." argument that would stem from there Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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I don't think it does. Evolution merely disproves the literal interpretation of the Bible, which is very different from disproving the existence of God.
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quote:Originally posted by Beren One Hand: Evolution merely disproves the literal interpretation of the Bible, which is very different from disproving the existence of God.
I'll drink to that.
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posted
Not only have I not accused you of being a moron, I have also not said that god's existence is subject to proof or disproof by evolutionary theory. I am also not putting my "faith" in science; rather, I lack the faith required to believe in god.
What I'm not getting about your argument is why anyone would arrive at the conclusion that god exists based solely on the kind of evidence that's been discussed in this thread. Why bring god into it at all? This does not imply that god does not exist; I'm saying that intelligent design has no scientific merit because it doesn't add anything useful to the discussion of the evidence. Lots of people on this thread have already pointed out that science is concerned with "how," not "why." God is a "why." You say "you have to admit it's just as likely that god did it..." and of course it's certainly possible that god did indeed do it, but like I've been saying, it doesn't get us anywhere in the discussion because it isn't testable.
In fact, we aren't saying very different things, since you've pointed out multiple times that belief in god requires a leap of faith. Faith is not under the purview of science, so why should god be?
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Your statements are disingenous. You presuppose "design" for the eye, and for the atom, etc. I believe that KoM was being facetious with his talk of 'design' for those things.
I could also tell you all about the totally crappy design of the human spine, having had some serious back surgery a few years ago, and still being not quite right.
quote:I don't know if you noticed the "Intelligent Design" in the title, but I figured I'd do my best to represent that half of the discussion.
And would you please give me the supporting evidence you have of a totally random beginning to existence?
First, please feel free to provide any supporting evidence to the "Intelligent Design" premise.
As to the total randomness of the beginning of existence...which existence do you mean? Life, or the universe? Re. "the universe," we're working on it. Until we know for sure, though, I think we'll attribute it to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessed be his Noodly Appendages).
As to "life," may I point you to the eight or so other planets, plus the dozens of moons and tens of thousands of asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects with no life on them whatsoever. We just got lucky on this little ball of earth and water right here.
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I'd recommend starting a new thread about just evolution, then, before you get any more people stumbling in trying to make and points regarding intelligent design.
No, you haven't explicitely accused me of being a moron, but your comments have been extremely condescending. Don't bother trying to defend yourself or your comments, I'll stop bothering you guys in your discussion.
And yes, you are very much so putting your faith in science. Everyone has faith in something. I just consider faith in God a little more wisely placed Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Really? Tell me then, just how do you think my 'faith' manifests itself? Certainly I believe evolution to be an unguided process; much as I believe water is wet. In neither case does the belief have an impact on my life or my morals.
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You've been arguing with me in a pretty convicted manner. That sounds like a manifestation of your faith to me. I could get really general and point out that you have faith that gravity will work, even though you have no idea why.
Since you brought it up, what does impact your life and morals?
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On the Young Earth v. Old Earth subject I just want to say that the appearance of age arguement makes God a liar.
Little peice of completely useless information: Darwin only considered the possibility of there being no God when he found that so many species had gone extinct; the idea that God would do something so atrocious as let a species die out simply boggled his brain. The theory of evolution didn't prove to Charles that there wasn't a God until after he had decided to not believe in Him.
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For me, faith means "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."
Science does not require faith. The scientific method is based on providing logical proofs and examining material evidence.
This is not to say, however, that science or logic is superior to faith.
Maybe when you talk about having "faith" in science, you are talking about people who believe that science can solve ALL our problems and explain EVERYTHING in the universe, including questions like why we exist.
For those people, yeah, their belief in science is an act of faith.
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quote:Originally posted by Celebrindal: On the Young Earth v. Old Earth subject I just want to say that the appearance of age arguement makes God a liar.
Little peice of completely useless information: Darwin only considered the possibility of there being no God when he found that so many species had gone extinct; the idea that God would do something so atrocious as let a species die out simply boggled his brain. The theory of evolution didn't prove to Charles that there wasn't a God until after he had decided to not believe in Him.
It's a good thing Darwin was such a master theologian.
Without death, there is no life.
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I would hope people were pretty convicted when arguing in support of carefully developed theories involving thousands of very intelligent people spending millions of man-hours researching them, using continuously, rigorously tested methodologies with strong philosophical reasons for their utilization.
If someone can't argue stridently for that sort of thing, what's the point in trying to have a viewpoint based on, y'know, actual evidence?
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If you think I'm putting "faith" in science, I really think you should reconsider which of us is condescending to the other. It's perfectly valid to state that I think intelligent design has no scientific merit, and to give my reasons for thinking so, in a thread where much of the discussion has been about what scientific merit intelligent design might have. I've said nothing about the merits of believing in god.
Beren's first three lines in his 9:46 PM post sum it up very well.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: If someone can't argue stridently for that sort of thing, what's the point in trying to have a viewpoint based on, y'know, actual evidence?
I'd only change that sentence by adding one word: probably actual evidence. Or two words: most likely actual evidence. The reason I point it out is because people have believed a lot of things over the years. I think it's funny how easily we prove ourselves wrong Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Faith is synonymous with belief, the only exception being that faith has religious connotations. Faith does not have to mean belief in God, just belief.
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Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
A set of principles or beliefs.
I assumed Vid was using the "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence" definition rather than the "Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing" definition from the context in which he used it.
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posted
I disagree. Beliefs are based either in faith or in fact. I believe a basketball is larger than a hockey puck because, well, it is. I believe God created time, matter, and space because of my faith.
I believe in a lot of things in science because of pure fact. At the same time, people believed that they could make flies out of mud, dung, and straw because they thought their findings were based in fact.
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Yes, but to compare that to real science, with the full panoply of peer review and repeatable experiment, is rather dis-ingenous. And dishonest.
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quote:The reason I point it out is because people have believed a lot of things over the years. I think it's funny how easily we prove ourselves wrong
When scientists discover new evidence and amend their theories accordingly, it's an example of the scientific method's triumph and not its failure.
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quote:Originally posted by Beren One Hand: When scientists discover new evidence and amend their theories accordingly, it's an example of the scientific method's triumph and not its failure.
I agree. But it's a constantly ongoing process. That's why there are so many theories.
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"When scientists discover new evidence and amend their theories accordingly, it's an example of the scientific method's triumph and not its failure."
Funny story: A while back, a group of scientists did a study on seawater and ran experiments to predict how many years ago streams and rivers would have started running into the ocean to reach the salinization that it is today. The equasions they were working with gave them an answer that wasn't long enough to support the scientific theory they believed, so they scrapped the whole project and never published it. Probably irrelevant and there might have been other factors that threw off the answer anyway so it doesn't really matter, but hey! that's integrity for ya!
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Actually, it is. If your model that you use to explain your data has just proved that the Moon is made of green cheese, it is entirely legitimate to scrap the model and not publish the result. It isn't legitimate to scrap the data, of course, but I'm willing to bet no such thing was done.
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i heard something similar where a girl did some experiments with Carbon dating only to have 3 extremely wild results so the teach said "just go with the one that suits your experiment" supposedly my acaintance says that's a reason why carbon dating is unreliable.
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Really, Celebrindal, how fascinating. Would you care to cite a source for that? You know, just one?
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ok your not a moron for both believing in god and science, nevertheless soem of the religious studetns at my college or one of them anyway, said that evolution was originally created by some french guy to disprove god with that intent. I'm not sure of this since I've never heard of this guy except in passing by Isaac Asimov when talking about Judo Arguements about Evolution.
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Gee, Sid, that was a really strongly supported argument, fantastically well-thought-out, and with alternative spelling at that! You must have put a lot of work into that post. We're all very impressed, bravo! 'Some French guy', wow, and even citing of sources!
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Yeah, I think I'd probably subscribe to the theory that aliens planted life on earth before I'd subscribe to some of the theories I hear in religious circles
I had to restrain myself in a discussion with my wife's grandfather. He was explaining that we don't need to worry about oil running out because God will provide more out of the ground. I changed the subject pretty quickly.
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Sid: for many things, carbon dating does not work, for very well understood reasons. However, for the things its intended to work with it (mysteriously) agrees with all the other ways science has come up with to measure age (in the same ranges)!
Clearly every single one of those methods is wrong, and not only wrong but wrong in the same way.
And a bit more on the salt in the oceans thing: this is an incredibly common error among creationists, assuming that because something happens at a certain rate it must have always happened at a certain rate, and the effects must not have been reduced by other events.
For instance, moon dust. Creationists often cite a rate of accumulation for moon dust (which is also often easily refuted), but even given a particular rate for moon dust accumulation . . . its not necessarily constant; impacts on the moon may well disrupt the accumulation of moon dust; moon dust has a lot of weight, and as there's more and more will compact into itself forming rock; et cetera.
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This was a matter of dates, though, not green cheese. instead of getting a gazzillion years like they wanted to(to prove that evolution had enough time to work it's stuff on this planet) they got something like 2.5 billion years wich to popular belief at the time, wasn't long enough. The acceptable length of time in which evolution could occure to the current extent may have changed with popular opinion. And you may be right about it never happening, but it's not an isolated story. I hear things all the time about creationists and evolutionists covering up evidence that they believe will disprove their belief system. The record for scientific integrity might, if left out on the kitchen table, be taken for a child's rendering of modern art.
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To be fair, the upper end of the creationists (which is a bit like talking about the upper edge of pond scum, but anyway) have recognised that moon dust is a bad argument, and given up on it. AiG has a page on it.
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Wow, Celebrindal, 'you hear things'? That's really strong evidence that scientists are dishonest, that is. I can see I'll just have to give up my chosen career and become a hermit for the great glory of god; how can I possibly work with such a gallery of rogues and scoundrels?
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And I'm not really advocating the "great glory of god". I believe in ID, not necessarily the Christian God.
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"The record for scientific integrity might, if left out on the kitchen table, be taken for a child's rendering of modern art."
Well, we all know scientists are only in it for the fame and the money. Those greedy bastards.
KoM, come on, I know you're not feeling well but let's not get into that kind of argument. (I hope you feel better, btw.) Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I just thought I'd add some fuel to keep this fire going, and also because I feel bad that Vid is outnumbered here. If you've read my other posts, then you realize that I have the utmost respect for science.
One third of scientists admit to research violations—More than a third of US scientists, in a survey of thousands, admitted to violating some of the bedrock rules of scientific research, according to a report by a team of Minnesota researchers. Less than 1.5% admitted to outright falsification or plagiarism. But 15.5% said they had changed the design, methods, or results in response to pressure from funding sources, and 12.5 admitted overlooking other's use of flawed data. In addition, 7% admitted ignoring "minor" rules of requirements regarding the use of human subjects. This is the first survey of its kind, so it is not known whether the conduct is growing more common or not (Nature 2005;435: 718-9).Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Nope, big errors throughout here. Evolutionary theory does not state that life was solely guided through natural selection, not at all. It states that natural selection is an adequate, testable account for the progress of life, by which we mean (among other things) that our confidence in its accuracy may rise and fall depending upon newly revealed evidence and tests.
For instance, if someone comes up with something that natural selection does not appear to explain, this reduces the adequacy of the explanation, and the test of natural selection is if an adequate explanation through natural selection may be uncovered.
Its completely scientifically testable.
What experiment could completely falsify macroevolution? I can think of some that would "reduce the adequacy" of the theory, but I can do the same thing for intelligent design - unnecessary evolutionary dead ends would be one example.
Additionally, if it is true that macroevolution is testable, then we have an interesting problem. After all, if evolution is completely scientifically testable, that means it could be proven wrong. If it were proven wrong, what would science then turn to in order to explain life? It could not turn to intelligent design if, as you say, it is inherently unscientific. So, what would it say? What theory would it turn to?
quote:For me, faith means "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."
Science does not require faith. The scientific method is based on providing logical proofs and examining material evidence.
This is somewhat mistaken, under your definition of faith. You are right in that science can propose possible explanations without requiring any faith, and it can reject false explanations without requiring much in terms of faith. However, if you are going to go beyond that and actually ACCEPT leading scientific theories as beliefs (which almost everyone does), then you are making a leap of faith - because science can't show anything is true through logic or material evidence. It can only show what is false.
For instance, it doesn't take faith to accept that the theory of gravity could be true based on what science has shown. However, in order to conclude that it actually IS true, you need to make a leap of faith.
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quote:Originally posted by camus: I just thought I'd add some fuel to keep this fire going, and also because I feel bad that Vid is outnumbered here. If you've read my other posts, then you realize that I have the utmost respect for science.
One third of scientists admit to research violations—More than a third of US scientists, in a survey of thousands, admitted to violating some of the bedrock rules of scientific research, according to a report by a team of Minnesota researchers. Less than 1.5% admitted to outright falsification or plagiarism. But 15.5% said they had changed the design, methods, or results in response to pressure from funding sources, and 12.5 admitted overlooking other's use of flawed data. In addition, 7% admitted ignoring "minor" rules of requirements regarding the use of human subjects. This is the first survey of its kind, so it is not known whether the conduct is growing more common or not (Nature 2005;435: 718-9).
Thanks, camus. Don't worry, I've got a TON of respect for scientists (my high school chem and physics classes are much to thank for that).
Do you think that the Minnesota researchers committed any research violations in this study? :-p
Edit: I just realized that I sound really sarcastic in my sentence regarding my respect for scientists. But trust me, I do respect them very much.
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quote:However, if you are going to go beyond that and actually ACCEPT leading scientific theories as beliefs (which almost everyone does),
That's interesting Tres. What do you mean by "accept ... as beliefs"?
I don't consider evolution as some sort of absolute truth of the universe. When I say I believe in evolution, I mean I believe in the scientific methods used to come up with the theory. I believe it is the best theory we have with the evidence we've accumulated. If new evidence shows up to support other theories, I will be happy to consider them.
quote:For instance, it doesn't take faith to accept that the theory of gravity could be true based on what science has shown. However, in order to conclude that it actually IS true, you need to make a leap of faith.
Well, if you leapt off a cliff and died, would you believe in gravity then? Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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