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Then why did God let me fall off that cliff?
Someone stated earlier that science deals with the hows and religion/philosophy deals with the whys. Wise words. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The Devil tempted Jesus to hurl himself off a clif based on the belief that the angels would save him. Jesus' response was that God is not one to be tested...not that that has anything to do with this discussion.
quote:Someone stated earlier that science deals with the hows and religion/philosophy deals with the whys. Wise words.
Yes indeed. Doesn't necessarily mean they have to contradict each other, but they are still two different fields of study/
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But it's still fun to tell people, when they ask why I want to be a pastor, that it's partly because a part of me just likes to piss people off Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:What do you mean by "accept ... as beliefs"?
I mean you think it is true. As in, you are willing to put your life on the line driving across a bridge which is only safe if the laws of science used to design it are accurate.
Placing this trust in science requires more than simply saying "the theory is consistent with the facts so far." It requires you to actually believe the theory.
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Ive always believed that faith is simply the term we use for belief without reason or evidence to support that belief. If you believe in evolution, then I would suspect that you believe in it not through faith but through the logical arguments and evidence which point that way. If you believe in God, then you believe in God based on faith. That is the difference between the ID and evolution debate and why evolution should be taught in schools without ID.
I also want to say that those who say that it is just as probable that God created the Earth and did something forget that this argument also means other things. It means that I can say that we are being decieved into believing that by an evil demon and thats what he wants you to believe, and I can say that we live in a matrix and the AI wants you to believe that. Again, I see these as reasons why evolution should be taught and ID not.
Now, I am not saying that having faith is not justified. I will never say, and you will never hear me say, that a belief in God is irrational, stupid, or moronic. I am fully aware that I could be wrong in my atheism. To me, its just the best conclusion that fits the evidence but to others they can overcome this with faith. I cannot do so. But please, and I say this because ive taught a class on religion and heard people who are ashamed to believe in God, dont feel like all people who do not believe what you believe think you are in anyway stupid. I simply put forward an argument for evolution. I hope that its correct!
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quote:I mean you think it is true. As in, you are willing to put your life on the line driving across a bridge which is only safe if the laws of science used to design it are accurate.
Placing this trust in science requires more than simply saying "the theory is consistent with the facts so far." It requires you to actually believe the theory.
I think the fact that "the theory is consistent with the facts so far" is enough to get me to cross the bridge.
My willingness to cross the bridge is based on my knowledge that hundreds of thousands of bridges have been built this way, millions of people have crossed these kinds of bridges safely, and the government engineers have inspected this bridge and certified its structural integrity.
In other words, I am willing to cross that bridge based on logical proof or material evidence of its safety. It is not based on some sort of unproven belief in a mysterious, unkown principle that I cannot articulate.
My willingness to trust my life to science does not mean I believe science is infallible. It only means, as I have stated before, that the scientific method has provided the best solution so far based on the information we have.
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quote:Lack of a common genetic code or lack of conserved genes.
Yes, that would falsify our current model of macroevolution. However, it would also falsify one of the most popular models of Intelligent Design - namely the model that suggests God created us by influencing a gradual evolution of life. Thus, that particular model of Intelligent Design is also falsifiable.
And that brings up something I hadn't really thought about until just now... We are defining Intelligent Design in an unfairly broad fashion. By unfairly broad, I mean we are using the term to cover something far more broad that the traditional theory of evolution we are comparing it to.
We are discussing really only ONE model of evolution, while using the term "Intelligent Design" to refer to ALL models that involve God in any way. Because SOME of these models (such as the model that says God snapped his fingers and made life instantaneously) are not falsifiable, it means we can never falsify the entire group at once. Instead we can only falsify certain models - the scientific models. Thus we should really only discuss the one most convincing and scientificly testable model of Intelligent Design, like we do with Evolution.
Once we restrict ID to a single model of that sort, it is falsifiable in the same way traditional macroevolution is. After all, if the DNA of supposedly related species is totally unrelated, we would falsify the particular ID theory that God created life through guided evolution, and prove it is falsifiable.
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quote:I think the fact that "the theory is consistent with the facts so far" is enough to get me to cross the bridge.
I don't think so, because there are many other theories that are equally consistent with the facts - some of which would inevitably conclude that the bridge would collapse the second you step on it.
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quote:because there are many other theories that are equally consistent with the facts
You mean there are other theories that will explain why bridges certified by engineers as structurally sound are actually safe? Like logical, verifiable theories?
Are you saying that sure, science is one explanation, but it is just as likely that the hand of God or alien tractor beams are holding up the bridges which happens to also be built by sound engineering principles (opps, I mean sound Bridginess principles, darn you engineers and your techno jargon! )
ssywak
[ August 13, 2005, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
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quote:God created everything in perfect working order, and instead of waiting 800 million bajillion years for everything to work itself out, He created it as it would be 10,000 years ago. Either that or he did create it 800 million bajillion years ago, and gave us the Genesis account for purely poetic and educational reasons. That said, I think the point is moot.
That is, it all comes down to faith. What we know: everything is in perfect working order right now. What we choose to believe: either it is all random, or it was call put into place by God.
Are you implying that it doesn't matter today how things got here? Because if you are, well, it ain't so. You see, the theory of evolution doesn't just say things about the past. It tells us what organisms are like, right now, because of their past. We can use evolutions to make predictions and new discoveries.
Here's an example. I've been taking genetics classes. My professor asked us a question about a gene. It's from a eukaryotic organism, and it's on a chloroplast, he says. How would the scientists know it is on a chloroplast? he asked us. Well, we had a list of the closest matches to other genes that had been sequenced. As it turns out, one of the best matches was with a gene from photosynthetic bacterium. The theory of evolution tells us that related organisms are genetically similar. The endosymbiont theory says that chloroplasts (and mitochondria) are related to certain types of bacteria. So if this gene is very similar to a gene on an organism related to chloroplasts, then it is most likely on a chloroplast.
Evolution is actually a really useful and applicable theory. I like it.
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quote:But it's still fun to tell people, when they ask why I want to be a pastor, that it's partly because a part of me just likes to piss people off
Vid...I've known a lot of pastors and there must be a reason why, to a person, they DON'T adopt this particular attitude towards those they hope to encourage in faithfulness.
Also, it was kind of buried in my most recent post (page 3), but I'd like your take on the statement I made about how science can actually be a faith-builder -- it is a way to study God just as much as Scripture is.
My statement that I'd like your take on, though, is the part about belief in a perverse God who would provide evidence of that which is not true (like an old earth). I note that you have chosen to avoid the YE/OE question. But, I think, that's all to convenient. If we are told in Scripture that the evidence around us would convince us of God's existence (I'll look up the reference if I need to), then it stands to reason that empiricism (our best, most certain way of gathering that evidence) should lead us toward conclusions about God.
If, instead, it leads us to believe that God is a trickster, creating a 5 billion year old earth in a matter of days and then making it LOOK OLD, I think we have to question why that would be. It's like saying God gave us reasoning abilities to trip us up. It's a bloody test and only those who ignore the gifts of mind (intellect) have a hope of attaining Heaven. I think reasoning out that conclusion is perverse. If you think about it, means that you can reason to the point of deciding that reason is unreliable. Circular, right? Because you've just proven that you can't believe your proof.
You might say "well then, all there is is faith," except, again, you reached that conclusion by way of your faulty reasoning, and thus your conclusion about faith is also to be discounted. I think the situation is much simpler than that. The evidence exists and the DEEPER we understand the evidence, the MORE we'll understand the mind of God. So, as we develop our ability to study God's creation, we don't have to abandon reason, we have to sharpen it and use it to the best of our abilities.
Again...I think any conclusion other than that leads to belief in either no God or a very perverse and untruthful God.
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quote:You mean there are other theories that will explain why bridges certified by engineers as structurally sound are actually safe? Like logical, verifiable theories?
There are exactly zero verifiable theories about the future structural soundness of the bridge - because you cannot verify scientific theories, or any theory about the future using only induction from the past. Science can tell you what IS NOT always true (theories that have been falsified through experiments), but it can't tell you what IS always true.
There are other theories that are logically consistent with the facts, however. Both the God and alien tractor beams would be good examples, among many. It entails a degree of faith to believe in the scientificly favored theory rather than these - because neither logic nor observation can prove any of them is true.
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quote:Science can tell you what IS NOT always true (theories that have been falsified through experiments), but it can't tell you what IS always true.
Interesting. Can science tell you what will most likely happen in the future, based on probability?
If I toss a coin a billion times, and it always lands heads or tails, am I correct to assume that it is extremely likely that the very next coin toss will produce either a heads or tails result, and not, say, a coin standing on its edge.
I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying Tres, and I really want to understand your point of view. You'll have to be patient with me. The only science I've seriously studied in college had the word "political" attached to it.
Edited to add:
I'm not quite sure why you believe the "hand of God" and "alien tractor" theories are on par with engineering theory.
I can ask an engineer why the bridge is safe. The engineer can show me stress test results, equations, statistics, etc. -- in short, all sorts of verifiable evidence that the bridge should be safe.
What can the "hand of God" and "alien tractor" theory people show me that is verifiable and testable?
[ August 14, 2005, 06:24 AM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
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You see, Tres knows that philosophically one cannot say anything about the future -- what he doesn't seem to understand is that science is only concerned with what one can reasonably say about the future, which is dependent on what has happened in the past.
Also, a few minor points, Tres: first, evolution is not purposeful, even in the "theory" of intelligent design (though I think that's just because nobody's gotten around to asserting that it is, there). How, therefore, would dead-end paths demonstrate anything? Especially as the "superior being", while described as "superior" (and little else) is not described as perfect in his/her/its efforts, and therefore any "imperfections" (which are themselves not really possible, given the previous note about there being no standard to compare against in order to determine "quality" of an evolutionary change) do not change the possibility of any intelligent designer one bit.
Furthermore, scientific theories are not monolithic, as I have noted before. One cannot take the theory of gravity, add the notion that there's a puce beach ball at such a huge remove that we can never detect it in any way before the universe ends (however that happen), and have an equally viable scientific theory. Scientific theories are evaluated based on independent considerations of their atomic parts, not everything they say they include all at once, and on how those parts fit together. I contemplated going through a lengthy demonstration about how this would apply to ID in respect to evolutionary theory, but I'm going to assume people are intelligent enough to make the connection.
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Oh, to more specifically address Beren One Hand's question: from a philosopher's point of view, science cannot actually tell you about the future, that science is often pretty good about being right about the future (typically in the form of a statistical model) in many things notwithstanding.
Luckily for those of us who like to use the results of science, science is willing to settle for being right over being possible.
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quote:Interesting. Can science tell you what will most likely happen in the future, based on probability?
No, unless you have faith in the idea that the future will be very like the past. There could be some probability that the laws of science will all completely change tommorrow for no known reason, and we have no way of determining what the chance of that might be - without resorting back to the assumption that the future will be like past.
quote:I can ask an engineer why the bridge is safe. The engineer can show me stress test results, equations, statistics, etc. -- in short, all sorts of verifiable evidence that the bridge should be safe.
What can the "hand of God" and "alien tractor" theory people show me that is verifiable and testable?
They might show you the Bible, or whatever it is that would lead one to believe in an alien tractor. They obviously would not PROVE anything, unless you accept certain premises on faith. However, the same is true for the engineering evidence. The difference is that the assumptions required to accept the engineer's evidence are much easier to have faith in for most people.
quote:what he doesn't seem to understand is that science is only concerned with what one can reasonably say about the future, which is dependent on what has happened in the past.
I do understand that, but it all depends on what you call reasonable. I was just responding to the point that science only requires logic and observation, not faith. Strictly speaking, it's pretty true that you can do science through just science and observation, but in order to apply it to the future you need to add a bit of faith.
quote:Furthermore, scientific theories are not monolithic, as I have noted before. One cannot take the theory of gravity, add the notion that there's a puce beach ball at such a huge remove that we can never detect it in any way before the universe ends (however that happen), and have an equally viable scientific theory. Scientific theories are evaluated based on independent considerations of their atomic parts, not everything they say they include all at once, and on how those parts fit together.
The difference between God in ID and the beach ball above is that God supposedly plays a significant role in the model of Intelligent Design. God actually solves a problem that proponents see in modern evolution theory. I doubt ID theorists would consider His role simply tacked on.
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You've certainly treated the role of the "superior being" as largely tacked on, talking about how in so many ways ID "theory" shares content with evolutionary theory.
I don't much care how important IDers consider the role of the superior being; it is notionally separable, which is easily demonstrated by evolutionary theory not rejecting its possibility, but that the presence of the superior being is scientifically establishable.
edit: hence the common class of people who consider evolutionary theory correct who prefer "theistic evolution".
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quote:There are exactly zero verifiable theories about the future structural soundness of the bridge - because you cannot verify scientific theories, or any theory about the future using only induction from the past. Science can tell you what IS NOT always true (theories that have been falsified through experiments), but it can't tell you what IS always true.
That's going right off in the direction of "we can never really know anything," which I have previously established as the last desperate gasp from the religious side in a failed theological argument.
I can gurantee you that the George Washington Bridge, barring a terrorist act or a Richter 10 earthquake or 200 foot high tsunami wave, will remain standing for the next 10 years. If I knew more about its maintenance schedule, I'd put it at 50 years or more.
But, if you want to get right to the concept of "verifieable theories about the future, well..you have to wait until that future point in time to really verify them, don't you.
10 years ago, I predicted that my hydraulic, 50 hp, 4-spiralift water-torture-tank lift would last as long as the MGM EFX show over in Vegas. Using engineering principles. I was right. So were the principles. What have I missed here?
Please make you point more clearly, tres, or do I somehow understand it?
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quote:I do understand that, but it all depends on what you call reasonable. I was just responding to the point that science only requires logic and observation, not faith. Strictly speaking, it's pretty true that you can do science through just science and observation, but in order to apply it to the future you need to add a bit of faith.
Thanks for explaining that. So based on your model, it is not just science that requires faith; basically anything we use to predict the future requires faith, even basic principles of logic and cause and effect.
When I breath, I'm acting on "faith" that oxygen is still good for me. I'm pretty darn sure I should breath, but heck, how can I be sure. Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The issue I have is with conflating such degenerate definitions of faith will all other sorts of faith Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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If people who enter into theological discussions feel that the only way they can "win" is to render language and knowledge meaningless, is it a fair assumption to make that they really don't have a viable viewpoint to present?
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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.
quote: because neither logic nor observation can prove any of them is true.
This is one of the MANY reasons why you have to be an engineer and not a philosiphist to work on bridges.
And I for one am glad that that is the way it is done. Hell, to me his arguments don't even hold water let alone 200,000 tons of people in cars. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:I don't much care how important IDers consider the role of the superior being; it is notionally separable, which is easily demonstrated by evolutionary theory not rejecting its possibility, but that the presence of the superior being is scientifically establishable.
It is only separable if He does nothing of importance to the process at hand. But if He does alter the process and results, then He is no more separable from the model than the moon is separable from our model of the tides.
quote:That's going right off in the direction of "we can never really know anything," which I have previously established as the last desperate gasp from the religious side in a failed theological argument.
I can gurantee you that the George Washington Bridge, barring a terrorist act or a Richter 10 earthquake or 200 foot high tsunami wave, will remain standing for the next 10 years. If I knew more about its maintenance schedule, I'd put it at 50 years or more.
That is because you are, like everyone I think, a person with faith, just like the many people who have told me they are certain that God exists. However, the fact that they guarantee such things or have such faith does not make it certain that God exists, and the fact that you said the above does not make it certain that the bridge will stand. All sorts of things could occur to destroy it, ranging from an accidental explosion to an inexplicable alteration of the natural laws of the universe. Bridges have, historically, fallen when they weren't supposed to.
And it sounds like we never know anything because, at least in regards to the future, we don't. Whether this is desperate or not, it is accurate.
quote:The issue I have is with conflating such degenerate definitions of faith will all other sorts of faith
You don't have to call it "faith" if you don't want to, but claiming that belief in science requires only logic and observation is still false.
I am not sure what would make it categoricly different from religious faith though. It seems to me the difference is only in the degree to which people find that faith reasonable, and varies from person to person.
quote:This is one of the MANY reasons why you have to be an engineer and not a philosiphist to work on bridges.
Beware! Philosophers DID work on those bridges you drive across, indirectly - they invented the original theories used to design them, and the method through which those theories were figured out. Besides, to say someone is an engineer is not to say they aren't a philosopher. Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Bridges have, historically, fallen when they weren't supposed to.
Far more bridges have remained standing in accordance with engineering principles than have fallen down, though. Let's say that I build a sturdy bridge using tested civil engineering principles and you build one using alien tractor beam principles. I think I know which bridge I'd rather drive an 18-wheeler across.
quote:Philosophers DID work on those bridges you drive across, indirectly - they invented the original theories used to design them, and the method through which those theories were figured out.
In all of those cases the philosophers were also engineers. Nowadays we have very few philosopher-engineers.
Of what value, significance, or meaning is the "faith" I have that the world will continue to operate in largely the same way from one moment to the next?
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Well, considering you can't "prove" a negative, at least not using Tres' style of logic...
There is a difference between complete faith and a faith based on logic and empirical logic, Tres. When you say faith you mean something other than what most people mean when they say it.....not that that is anything new. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:All sorts of things could occur to destroy it, ranging from an accidental explosion to an inexplicable alteration of the natural laws of the universe....
And it sounds like we never know anything because, at least in regards to the future, we don't. Whether this is desperate or not, it is accurate.
If we accept your idea that "inexplicable alteration of the natural laws of the universe" is somehow relevant in our discussions, then not only are we unable to know the future, we are, under your reasoning, also unable to know anything about the past or the present.
You think you are touching your keyboard. But are you sure, 100% sure, that the laws of the universe governing your sensory perception have not suddenly changed? You think you remember your last wedding anniversary. But are you sure the laws of the universe governing your linear perception of time are still unchanged?
We are unable to know anything in your universe, period.
Concepts like "evidence" or "logic" cannot exist in your model. They are all invalid because your broad definition of "faith"--the idea that believing in anything we cannot know as eternally true is considered an act of faith--undermines every foundation of human knowledge.
I cannot define science then, in terms of "evidence" or "logic"--for you have rendered those words meaningless.
It is fun to say "there is no spoon" once in a while. But when you are hungry for soup, or need to cross a bridge....
[ August 15, 2005, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: Beren One Hand ]
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No, he's only not separable if the superior being both does not alter the process in a testable manner and if the way it alters it in may not be adequately explained by another model (such as an appropriately constructed random variable).
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quote:Is Intelligent Design falsifiable? If so, how could this be done?
It depends on what exact model you'd be using, I'd think. I doubt you could falsify ID in general - it's just too broad. However, if you develop a specific model as to HOW God is influencing evolution, you could falsify it by finding something that conflicts with that specific model.
quote:Well, considering you can't "prove" a negative, at least not using Tres' style of logic...
You can prove a negative, if you are talking about universal propositions. If you talk about a rule that is sup posed to ALWAYS be true, you prove it false by finding one instance when it is false. You falsify "All Dogs are brown" by finding one dog who is not brown.
quote:There is a difference between complete faith and a faith based on logic and empirical logic, Tres
What is "complete" faith? I don't believe there is anyone who believes anything that isn't based in part on logic and empirical evidence. Why would one believe such a thing?
I certainly base my faith in God on various empirical observations and logical arguments, as do many who have explained their belief to me. Usually those observations have to do with unanswerable questions in the world, internal feelings, and the correctness of supposed authorities.
quote:If we accept your idea that "inexplicable alteration of the natural laws of the universe" is somehow relevant in our discussions, then not only are we unable to know the future, we are, under your reasoning, also unable to know the past or the present as well.
That depends on just how skeptical you want to be. There are very few you can know for certain without any faith - things like the contents of your own consciousness.
quote:Concepts like "evidence" or "logic" cannot exist in your model. They are all invalid because your broad definition of "faith"--the idea that believing in anything we cannot know as eternally true is considered an act of faith--undermines every foundation of human knowledge.
You say "undermines"... Why does faith undermine anything? It only does so if you think it is bad to have faith in things. I don't believe this is so. Faith is necessary, within certain limits, and it is an important contributor to the usefulness of logic and observation.
Why would logic and evidence cease to exist if they often also required faith in order to result in belief? I don't see why this would be true. Just like logic is pretty useless without pairing it with observation, both of those are also somewhat useless without adding faith. This is why (and this is my point in saying this) faith is not a bad thing, or an element of belief to be frowned upon.
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The reason I asked (about falsifiability) is that a blogger I know and respect has said that it *is* falsifiable, but unfortunately, you can't comment on his blog w/o MS Passport ... and then I found this thread.
I tended to think it was not. Although I don't agree with ID, I think it's worth discussing, but it seems like more of a "philosophy of science" thing than a science thing.
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quote:That depends on just how skeptical you want to be.
I'm just following your definition of faith to its logical conclusion.
quote:Why would logic and evidence cease to exist if they often also required faith in order to result in belief?
As I've stated in the sentence below the one you quoted, "I cannot define science then, in terms of 'evidence' or 'logic'--for you have rendered those words meaningless."
Can you have evidence of anything under your definition of faith? If we cannot achieve perfect knowledge of anything in this world, how can anything be considered evidence?
Your tactile perception of your keyboard cannot be considered "evidence" that the keyboard exists. You can never really be sure about that pesky keyboard's existence, given that we do not have perfect knowledge about the nature of keyboards (or our sense of touch) in our universe. (Remember how we don't have perfect knowledge of the safety of bridges? This is a lot like that.)
Your perception of the keyboard is, at most, evidence that you believe the keyboard exists. But then how do we even know you exist?
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My understanding of most proponents' claims about ID is that it is scientifically provable to be true. Since that is falsifiable, I would say that ID as a scientific theory certainly is falsifiable.
If it is merely meant as a "philosophy of science" claim, then I really question its place in a public school science classroom. But as a philosophical construct, I probably agree with it. As a scientific theory, I don't.
Do I think the most likely scenario is God-guided evolution? Yup. Do I think there is scientific evidence to back this up? Not really, nor do I especially think there should be.
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No aspect of ID that is not borrowed from evolutionary theory is scientifically falsifiable.
The question of whether or not it is a scientific theory is decidable (falsifiable's not quite the right concept), as rivka notes. And it isn't.
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Rivka, Why do you think that "the most likely scenario is God-guided evolution"? Do you have reasoning for this beyond personal preference? (If this sounds confrontational, please know that it isn't meant that way. I'm genuinely curious.)
As for science as a window into the Mind of God, does new insite into "God's Mind" change your perception of what, exactly, God is? To clarify: Let's say a "scientist" a thousand years ago believed that all the variety on earth was evidence itself of a divine creator. It was clear to him from the vast diversity of life and the fact that everything had its place in nature and its own function in the cycle of life that God just made everything "poof", ex nihilo, as he saw it then. He might literally believe the story of Adam and Eve, and believe that the post Eden natural world was now as it was then.
Today I think you'd be hard pressed to find a real scientist who believes that, even though you could probably find many that believe in God in some form. A God who created the world as we see it today, by influencing evolution (i.e. presumably by actively tweaking the random mutations in DNA), is really a different creature from the God believed in by the ancient scientist. He might think that such an idea of a God tweaking "imperfect" beings toward some ultimate goal as a heresy. You, clearly, do not.
***
One major issue I have with ID is that no matter which paradigm you use, ID seems to be saying "That which we don't know" = GOD. This illustrates why they might find science to be such a threat -- the larger our body of knowledge becomes, the smaller "GOD" becomes.
Additionally, why don't the ID folks also have a problem with the "theory of planetary formation"? Why are they just attacking evolution? Why aren't they clamoring to include ID concepts in star formation or rocky planet formation or in discussions of the Big Bang?
Oddly enough, I can accept the possibility that some intelligence influenced the creation of life on Earth at some point, but I wouldn't necessarily call that intelligence "God". And if it claimed the title for itself, I still wouldn't believe this was the "God" of Christianity or Judaism, or any other religion I know of unless it claimed such for itself and did a helluva lot of explaining of specifics.
It just seems like as time goes on, all the old religious "knowledge" gets watered down into allegory, poetics, and parable in, what seems to me, an attempt to cling to a premise that objective observations do not support and in many ways prove, if not "false", then certainly "incorrect as previously interpreted".
That is why I think science moves forward better without having to address the metaphysical. No matter how one couches it in the language of science, ID is a metaphysical theory. This is demonstrable from the fact that the claim never changes, no matter the evidence. The term "God" is kept sufficiently vague as to fit any new evidence. Because of this it has no scientific value. At least scientific "knowledge" changes as new data is discovered.
(NOTE: Yes, I know that the word "God" is scrupulously avoided by ID proponents, but I hope we can at least agree that this is what is meant by "intelligence". I have yet to find an ID proponent who espouses ID while entertaining even the possibility that this "intelligence" is other than the God of The Bible.)
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote: I have yet to find an ID proponent who espouses ID while entertaining even the possibility that this "intelligence" is other than the God of The Bible.
Actually, I have seen quotes from ID-proponents stating, "heck, it could have been aliens!"
Granted, these are probably disingenuous statements.
Which leads me to my other comment about the ID movement generally: I despise its dishonesty. It was one thing, 20 years ago, to have to argue 'evolution' vs. 'creationism.' That at least could be argued on its merits.
But the movement today is a calculated political movement, that seeks to spoonfeed pat quotes, bad science, and not a few lies to susceptible school boards, with the goal of sowing sufficient doubt to let this proto-creationism get a foothold.
'Don't mention God,' is their mantra -- don't trigger the church-and-state clause.
It just riles me that a group that supposedly includes many religious people is choosing the low road. It is as if in the thrust to make religion about science (or science about religion), they have forgotten that religion is also about right and wrong, about ethics and morals, about truth.
Maybe I missed it where Jesus said 'the ends justify the means.'
Posts: 431 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:Can you have evidence of anything under your definition of faith? If we cannot achieve perfect knowledge of anything in this world, how can anything be considered evidence?
I believe the contents of our immediate consciousness are known for certain. If I think I am in pain, for instance, I am definitely in pain. It's a direct observation. From this and other assumptions we have simply faith in, I think we have evidence for all the things we come to believe.
You seem to be implying that evidence is not evidence if you aren't certain of it. I disagree. For instance, if I claim I witness a murder, my claim will be evidence of the conclusion that there was a murder, despite the fact that we all know it could be possible I am lying or making it up for some reason. This does not mean it ceases being evidence - it only means we must have some faith in that evidence in order use it to justify the conclusion.
And no, I don't think I know for sure if my keyboard or anything else physical exists. But I consider my perception of it as evidence, and when combined with the faith-based assumption that the things I percieve reflect an objective reality, I conclude that it exists. Note that this does not constitute perfect evidence, but it does constitute some evidence - enough that when combined with a degree of faith that I consider acceptable, I can accept the conclusion. I think that is how evidence works to justify beliefs.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:I believe the contents of our immediate consciousness are known for certain.
Why? What do you mean by certain?
quote:You seem to be implying that evidence is not evidence if you aren't certain of it.
Based on your "universal laws may change at any time" model, how do you compare between a person who actually saw a murder versus another who merely thinks he saw one? How do you evaluate which evidence is more reliable in a universe where nothing is certain?
The person who actually saw a murder only has his sensory perceptions as "evidence" that he witnessed a crime. But according to you, sensory evidence makes at least one faith-based assumption--that the things you perceive actually reflects objective reality.
How do we know that another faith-based assumption--that things you make up in your head actually reflects objective reality--isn't just as valid?
What makes one faith-based assumption better than the other?
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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To answer the "How did whales evolve:?" question from a little while back, I typed "whale evolution" into google and here's the second page I got back. From that page:
quote:The evolution of whales has been a mystery. How did a large, big-brained mammal -- air-breathing, warm-blooded, giving birth to live young -- come to live entirely in water, when mammals evolved on land? The discovery of many fossils with transitional features documents the transformation of whales from land animals to ocean dwellers. Another indication of whales' evolutionary heritage can be seen in the way they move.
Funny thing is that the evolution of whales from land mammals was for some time a confounding question that has been resolved through a remarkable fossil history in which you can actually see the macroevolution of land creatures into proto-whales occuring. From being a stumbling block to evolutionary theory, it has become some of the strongest supporting evidence for the idea that macroevolution does actually occur.
As a sidenote, this is like the 5th time I've mentioned the whale macroevolution thing on Hatrack. Is this something that people don't agree with but don't voice their disagreeement or does it just not sink in for some reason?
---
On another note, the purpose of science is not to say what is true and what is not. This is forever beyond it's scope. Rather, science is a system of observation and testing with the end goal of having a certain level of confidence in the predictive ability of certain hypotheses. To put it more simply, science doesn't actually ever say "This is right.", but instead more something like "If you use this idea, you're likely to be right." The idea itself doesn't even have to be right (e.g. we know the earth is round, but we use flat maps when we're driving anyway); it just has to have good predictive validity.
The criticism that Tres is leveling "You can't be totally sure of anything." is not a valid as this is a long understood and acknowledged part of the philosophy of science. Equating the untestible, untransferrible faith that Tres is talking about with the faith required by the at best 99.999999999999999999 and so on percentage that is the ceiling of scientific testing is an egregious epistemological error.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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BTW, your timing sucks. I saw this post literally two minutes before I popped out the door (running late, as usual). I knew I didn't have time to answer it then, and I forgot about it until now.
Oh, look! Shiny!
quote:Rivka, Why do you think that "the most likely scenario is God-guided evolution"? Do you have reasoning for this beyond personal preference? (If this sounds confrontational, please know that it isn't meant that way. I'm genuinely curious.)
It's a reasonable question. *ponders* I guess it's a combination of my background (raised Jewish Orthodox by two people who became religious as adults . . . and who are both academics in the sciences) and my personal experiences and research. (Among the authors who helped shape my views: Aryeh Kaplan, Lawrence Kelemen, and Nosson Slifkin.)
I should clarify that if the world really is less than 6000 years old, that's fine with me too, and I consider it perfectly possible. It may be 5 minutes old too -- how would we know? And therefore, I don't think the actual age matters much.
quote: As for science as a window into the Mind of God, does new insite into "God's Mind" change your perception of what, exactly, God is? To clarify: Let's say a "scientist" a thousand years ago believed that all the variety on earth was evidence itself of a divine creator. It was clear to him from the vast diversity of life and the fact that everything had its place in nature and its own function in the cycle of life that God just made everything "poof", ex nihilo, as he saw it then. He might literally believe the story of Adam and Eve, and believe that the post Eden natural world was now as it was then.
Today I think you'd be hard pressed to find a real scientist who believes that, even though you could probably find many that believe in God in some form. A God who created the world as we see it today, by influencing evolution (i.e. presumably by actively tweaking the random mutations in DNA), is really a different creature from the God believed in by the ancient scientist. He might think that such an idea of a God tweaking "imperfect" beings toward some ultimate goal as a heresy. You, clearly, do not.
Firstly, I actually know quite a number of scientists of the type you dismiss so readily. Secondly, you may see the two views as incompatible with the same concept of God (and I know some in that camp who would surely agree with you!), but I do not. IMO, regardless of His methodology, He had -- and has -- a plan. The method simply doesn't matter much. *shrug*
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'll put it this way: If I see a table, it might not really exist. I might just be imagining a table. However, the image of the table that I have in my mind definitely IS there, whether it is a dream or not. I can't be under the illustion that I am seeing an image of a table and yet not be seeing it, because seeing an illusion of an image IS seeing that image. That's how direct observation works - you can see, for sure, the contents of your own mind, so to speak.
That was confusing still. I blame the fact that is 1 am...
quote:Based on your "universal laws may change at any time" model, how do you compare between a person who actually saw a murder versus another who merely thinks he saw one? How do you evaluate which evidence is more reliable in a universe where nothing is certain?
You rely on the things you have faith in, and act as if those things were known. It is all a sort of house of cards, ultimately, but it is a house of cards that continues to work, so we get by with it.
quote:What makes one faith-based assumption better than the other?
Other assumptions, observations, and evidence that might influence what you choose to have the most faith in. If you want to know where the FIRST assumptions come from, those that you need to make everything else, I don't know. They may be hardwired into us, or learned somehow. I don't know the answer to why the universe continues to work the way we think it should, and why it continues to follow the major assumptions we make, but it does. We don't know it will, but it does seem to nonetheless.
quote:Rather, science is a system of observation and testing with the end goal of having a certain level of confidence in the predictive ability of certain hypotheses. To put it more simply, science doesn't actually ever say "This is right.", but instead more something like "If you use this idea, you're likely to be right." The idea itself doesn't even have to be right (e.g. we know the earth is round, but we use flat maps when we're driving anyway); it just has to have good predictive validity.
This is not true because science can't logically prove what is "likely" to be right. This is because we have no idea what the likelihood is that things will change tommorrow. Yes, the sun has risen every day of my life. That doesn't mean the probability that it will rise tommorrow morning is 100%. It doesn't mean it is 99%. It doesn't even mean it is over 50%. This is because, whatever the probability was today, it could change completely tommorrow for any or no reason. Unlike a game with fixed parameters and rulests, like rolling a die, the future of the universe is open ended. We can assume the rules, and we do, but we don't know what the rules are for sure. Because of this, we can't calculate what is LIKELY to be true any better than we can calculate what WILL be true.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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So long as we keep turning up correct on what's likely to be true, I'm satisfied
To use a phrase I've used before: I'm willing to settle for being right over being possible.
Though its not really probabilities that science works with, strictly, its confidence intervals. And those we can be sure of, because they're properties of observed phenomena, not of future phenomena, even though they relate to future phenomena.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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