quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: King of Men, I do not know if a mouse and a rat are the same kind. I do not know for sure if a wolf and a collie are the same kind. I do not know if a lion and a jaguar are the same kind. I think it is likely that they are. But the final determination would require a complete mapping of their respective genes.
Great! We have very good genomes for mice and rats. And humans and chimps.
See, you saying "I think mice and rats are the same kind" is not making an argument. That's just making an unsubstantiated claim, not at all the same thing.
Making an argument would consist of linking to hard data that supports your claims.
So go on and 'make your arguement' about rats and mice, if you are capable. All the info you need is right there.
Or, if Creationism is an honest legitiamte scientific enterprise, someone as knowledgeable as yourself should be able to point to a real live working Creationist biologist who has been working on this for the last 8 or so years, and you can cite his data, which in turn will rely on the genomic information found either above in Ensembl, or on NCBI.
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I doubt there are many creationist geneticists. One might suggest that this is because the more familiar one becomes with genetics the less one is likely to find support for creationism, particularly of the young earth, all "kinds" on the ark, variety.
It's notable that the only biologist referenced by Ron in this thread, Michael Behe, believes common descent is the best explanation for the current diversity of species.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: King of Men, I do not know if a mouse and a rat are the same kind. I do not know for sure if a wolf and a collie are the same kind. I do not know if a lion and a jaguar are the same kind. I think it is likely that they are. But the final determination would require a complete mapping of their respective genes. Even the old test of whether or not they can reproduce together is not necessarily the final determinant, since as has been noted there are "edge" cases.
I am asking the question in the context of the challenge you posted a couple of pages back. You claimed that your theory is falsifiable; please either stick to your claim or retract it. Is there any pair of species, such that finding a gene in the one species which does not exist in the other, is strong evidence against creationism? Are mouse and rat an example of such a pair? If not, could you please name another?
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King of Men, I do not need to be that specific. The principle I set forth is valid. If Creationists are right, then it should be demonstrable that variations within the same kind arise from genes that were already present in the original parent. Identifying what animals are of the same kind, and which one is the original parent of the kind, would require gene mapping to be certain. But this could be done. If evolutionists, with all their resources, all their government grants, really want to falsify the Creationist explanation for variation within a species, then here is how to do it. I suspect they are afraid to try. They might prove that the Creationists are right.
Or here is an alternative: If, as seems reasonable, the wolf came first, as the parent of its kind, then it should be possible to breed down from a wolf, by selective breeding alone, and get a collie, maybe in ten or twenty generations. Or we might choose some animal that has shorter generations. It should work for plants too, or insects--though with plants and insects we may have more difficulty guessing which organism is the original parent of its kind. I do know you can take regular potatoes and by selective breeding (using the seeds, not cuttings) you can get a wide variation very quickly, anything from yellow potatoes to blue potatoes. For some reason, potatoes undergo wide variation readily, when grown from seed. But clearly, the blue potato was in the white potato, at least as a genetic potential. There you have it--the blue potato proves Creation.
[ December 15, 2009, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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quote:You seem to now be saying that if the genes are there then it's proof that they are the same kind and that if they are absent then they must be different kinds.
This is in fact what Ron has said in the past, and what I was referencing when I'd said that people had already explained to him why his "challenge" was absurd.
quote:it should be possible to breed down from a wolf, by selective breeding alone
Bear in mind that although you discount the role of mutation in natural selection, most geneticists don't. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Anyone who concluded that my challenge was absurd came to a wrong conclusion, and is not willing to be fair-minded or even honest about what is being said. This is why I frankly have so little regard for the intellectual integrity of evolutionists. All they want to do is win debates (or just pretend to maintain an appearance of it) and defend their noxious worldview. They don't really have any zeal to know the truth about the reality of the universe we all live in.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: King of Men, I do not need to be that specific. The principle I set forth is valid. If Creationists are right, then it should be demonstrable that variations within the same kind arise from genes that were already present in the original parent. Identifying what animals are of the same kind, and which one is the original parent of the kind, would require gene mapping to be certain. But this could be done.
You can get to genes, transcripts, and proteins from those links.
Obviously one wouldn't want to draw a conclusion from a single gene, but why don't you just do it as an exercise, and show us exactly what kind of analysis you have in mind.
quote:If evolutionists, with all their resources, all their government grants, really want to falsify the Creationist explanation for variation within a species, then here is how to do it.
But what concrete prediction does the Creationist predict?
Make a prediction about rodent transferrin receptor, and we can all check it. No government grant needed. Or we can pick some other gene. You've got thousands to choose from.
quote:I suspect they are afraid to try.
Umm, I'm most certainly not afraid of looking at genomic data. Make a concrete prediction and everyone can look at the ensembl data for themselves. A little searching, a little BLASTing, it's not hard at all.
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It is a concept that you and you alone are defining. None of the biologists who might actually answer your question believe in "kinds."
Humans are descended from primates; does that mean that chimpanzees and humans are the same "kind," even though they're different branches of the same tree? What does it take for a trout to be the same "kind" as a shark?
Would you accept a geneticist's claim that one animal is directly descended from another animal (or a common ancestor) for the purposes of your challenge?
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There's a sort of circular nature to your challenge, Ron, which makes it useless. First you have to identify the kinds. How is this done? By making sure they have common genetic material. Then you use that alignment to prove that descendants of the parents within kinds don't have novel genes.
I'm not being intellectually dishonest to point out that this is circular reasoning on your part.
I also ask you to consider whether you really believe that you'd accept a negative result of this kind of test, even if it could be designed in a way that wasn't meaningless. Honestly - in your view - wouldn't that just show that the Creator made it possible for genetic changes to take place?
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Or here is an alternative: If, as seems reasonable, the wolf came first, as the parent of its kind, then it should be possible to breed down from a wolf, by selective breeding alone, and get a collie, maybe in ten or twenty generations.
In only twenty generations? Too fast. And there's no reason why you couldn't do the reverse; make a wolf from a collie given a whole lot of generations. And the last common ancetor of wolves and collies would not be the same animals as modern wolves.
You are esentially saying that it would be possible to breed your family to look like your cousins. That wouldn't prove anything.
quote:Or we might choose some animal that has shorter generations.
Arguing about how easy it all is makes your case look worse, not better, becuase you have to explain why all your working Creationist biologists haven't gotten around to working on it. "What is a kind" is a pretty fundamental question of Creationist biology. If it were easy to do, you would have done it already.
quote:It should work for plants too, or insects--though with plants and insects we may have more difficulty guessing which organism is the original parent of its kind.
Why guess? We have genomes, remember? Why not deduce the ancestry from the genomics?
quote:But clearly, the blue potato was in the white potato, at least as a genetic potential.
No, it's not clear to me.
But you can make it clear enough. There are dozens of genomes in Ensembl. Show me a link to some "genetic potential" in some organism or another.
Or, be useful for once, and open up the tuberculosis genome, and find the "genetic potential" for antibiotic resistance.
Really, are you seriously going to argue that it is impossible for a Creationist wanting learn how to treat people dying of TB to get a government grant to study the "gentic potential" of a potentially lethal bacterium?
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quote:If Creationists are right, then it should be demonstrable that variations within the same kind arise from genes that were already present in the original parent. Identifying what animals are of the same kind, and which one is the original parent of the kind, would require gene mapping to be certain. But this could be done. If evolutionists, with all their resources, all their government grants, really want to falsify the Creationist explanation for variation within a species, then here is how to do it.
I still don't think that would falsify it - since it would leave the "God created animals with genes that make it appear that they evolved, when they didn't" explanation. Just like the light that was theoretically created mid-trip on its way to earth.
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quote:King of Men, I do not need to be that specific. The principle I set forth is valid. If Creationists are right, then it should be demonstrable that variations within the same kind arise from genes that were already present in the original parent. Identifying what animals are of the same kind, and which one is the original parent of the kind, would require gene mapping to be certain. But this could be done. If evolutionists, with all their resources, all their government grants, really want to falsify the Creationist explanation for variation within a species, then here is how to do it. I suspect they are afraid to try. They might prove that the Creationists are right.
Perhaps you misunderstood me? I am offering to attempt precisely this test, using the publicly available gene maps. (Notice that I do not have a government grant for biological research; I would do it entirely on my own time.) But to do so, I need a pair of species which Creationism predicts will have a parent/derived relationship.
Let me phrase it another way: Your prediction is "variations within the same kind arise from genes that were already present in the original parent". Very well; but you must have some idea what is a 'kind', otherwise it's a self-fulfilling prophecy! Suppose I demonstrate that mice have genes which rats don't, and you merely shrug and say "Then they are of different kinds"; how then is your hypothesis falsifiable? Is it necessary to prove that every species in the world has at least one gene unique to it? Or can we set some numerical limit? If it is shown that there are, say, a thousand 'kinds' which are unique in this sense, does that falsify creationism? Or is the required number ten thousand? Falsifiability requires specifics!
However, I'm prepared to grant you some continuum-ness; it is not necessary to falsify a theory in one fell swoop, one can accumulate evidence against it gradually. It seems to me that most creationists would intuitively classify rats and mice as being of the same kind - 'rodent'. Do you agree that this is reasonable? If so, do you further agree that finding a mouse gene which no rat has, and a rat gene which no mouse has, would be evidence against your theory? I do not say 'a falsification', but 'evidence against'; that is, it's not conclusive, but it should reduce your confidence. Can we agree on this point?
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Here is another idea. Who is to say God himself is not a scientist. I mean, he is all knowing, right?
To me this makes more sense then God snapping his fingers and having man just poof into existence.
I mean, he made Adam go to sleep, took a rib, and made Eve. Sounds a whole lot like a science experiment if you ask me.
I understand the reason evolutionists believe that creationists are incorrect, and vice versa. I believe in both of them. I believe evolution does occur, but who is to say God didn't have a hand in it? Perhaps that is how He rolls?
The one argument that I think is hilarious is the Big Bang theory. A really long time ago, there was this huge explosion, and all of the sudden there were suns, nebulae, planets, and all sorts of mass in the universe. I am pretty sure that nothing just explodes into existence. Mass is eternal. You can mold it, change it, but it is still there in some form, be that energy, solid, gaseous, etc.
And this is where I see a similarity between science and God. Both believe the world was created out of matter unorganized, and that some sort of force organized it.
While I disagree with the Kent Hovind's thesis to an extent, I can say that I think he really believes in what he is writing. You can tell he has conviction.
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quote:In only twenty generations? Too fast. And there's no reason why you couldn't do the reverse; make a wolf from a collie given a whole lot of generations. And the last common ancetor of wolves and collies would not be the same animals as modern wolves.
I think you're misunderstanding Ron here; his premise was, if creationism is true, then it should be possible to get collie from wolf in twenty generations, because the potential exists. And ok, fair enough, this seems to be a point where creationism makes a prediction which differs from that of science. Creationism requires very rapid species differentiation, because otherwise there isn't time to get the current diversity from the few kinds which could have been put on the Ark.
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quote:The one argument that I think is hilarious is the Big Bang theory. A really long time ago, there was this huge explosion, and all of the sudden there were suns, nebulae, planets, and all sorts of mass in the universe. I am pretty sure that nothing just explodes into existence. Mass is eternal. You can mold it, change it, but it is still there in some form, be that energy, solid, gaseous, etc.
I would suggest that you educate yourself on what modern cosmology states as fact, and what it conjectures as possibilities, before opining further on this.
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quote:Anyone who concluded that my challenge was absurd came to a wrong conclusion, and is not willing to be fair-minded or even honest about what is being said. This is why I frankly have so little regard for the intellectual integrity of evolutionists.
But you've stated two separate sets of conclusions which can be derived from the same test.
Conclusion set one: Wolves contain dog genes - Evolution didn't happen Wolves do not contain dog genes - Evolution did happen
Conclusion set two: Wolves contain dog genes - Wolves are the same "kind" as dogs (evolution didn't happen) Wolves do not contain dog genes - Wolves are no the same "kind" as dogs. (evolution didn't happen)
Going with conclusion set two, you don't have to accept evolution as an explanation, while previously you'd said that the absence of dog genes in wolves would falsify the creation hypothesis.
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quote:The one argument that I think is hilarious is the Big Bang theory. A really long time ago, there was this huge explosion, and all of the sudden there were suns, nebulae, planets, and all sorts of mass in the universe. I am pretty sure that nothing just explodes into existence. Mass is eternal. You can mold it, change it, but it is still there in some form, be that energy, solid, gaseous, etc.
I would suggest that you educate yourself on what modern cosmology states as fact, and what it conjectures as possibilities, before opining further on this.
You mean this?
"As used by cosmologists, the term Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the Universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past (best available measurements in 2009 suggest that the initial conditions occurred around 13.3 to 13.9 billion years ago[3][4]), and continues to expand to this day."
Ok, and where did this hot primordial matter come from? Did it just appear? Was it leftovers from a different universe?
As far as I know (and I could be wrong, it happens often) science doesn't really have a concept of eternity. Everything has an age, a timeline, and a progression path. So if anyone knows where this primordial mass of energy came from, I'm curious to know more about it.
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: And also, all the books are wrong. And if the Genesis bit of the book is wrong, who's to say that the Bethlehem bit is right? If there was no flood and no ark, how do we know that there was a birth in a stable and a man who walked on water?
This is a more complicated question than it seems and one that I won't go into here as the conversation has moved on. One thing, though. It is a mistake to think of the Bible as one book. Think of it as a collection of historical writing and oral tradition by many different people over centuries. You may as well go to my library and ask, "this book of narrative poems is not true so why should I trust this law book?"
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quote:As far as I know (and I could be wrong, it happens often) science doesn't really have a concept of eternity.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Time may be an attribute of the universe itself. Using terms like "eternity" to try to discuss universal origins may be nonsense. What does "eternity" mean when time doesn't exist?
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Just along those same lines, the Bible wasn't even consolidated into one book until hundreds of years after the book of Revelations was written.
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Geraine: there's nothing in science that prevents everything from having existed forever. Indeed, that's a pretty typical view among scientists, as far as I understand it (typically in the idea that there's a recurring cycle of big bangs and big crunches).
It just isn't testable on either side of the big bang/big crunch.
edit: and, as MattP alluded to, another possibility is that time doesn't exist outside of the big-bang, big-crunch boundaries. That the question of "what was before the big bang" doesn't make any sense. As I mentioned before, it just isn't something we can get at scientifically at the moment, so scientists don't worry about it much.
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quote:Ok, and where did this hot primordial matter come from? Did it just appear? Was it leftovers from a different universe?
As far as I know (and I could be wrong, it happens often) science doesn't really have a concept of eternity. Everything has an age, a timeline, and a progression path. So if anyone knows where this primordial mass of energy came from, I'm curious to know more about it.
Just the point: We do not know where the mass came from. We have very strong evidence that the universe was once much smaller and denser; this evidence goes back to a certain point. The name 'Big Bang' is actually a derisive coinage, not a description of what scientists think genuinely happened. If you extrapolate back the development for which we've got actual evidence, eventually you get to a point, which then explodes. Well and good, but there's no evidence that this extrapolation is what happened; the guy who called it 'the Big Bang' was sneering at the theory, not describing it.
Now, if you wish, you can of course insert your god into this gap, and say "Ah-hah; science does not have an explanation for this point, therefore goddidit!" I suggest you consider that course carefully, however. For what will you do, if science finds a good evidence-backed explanation tomorrow? Forbid the new theory to be taught in classrooms? Demand equal time for your god of the gaps?
The part about science that is hardest for theists to understand is that "I don't know" is an acceptable answer. For three centuries, every time a scientist said "I don't know", some theist would leap to the attack and triumphantly claim "Therefore God!" (Lest you think I exaggerate, I remind you of the famous episode of Euler and the atheist at the Czarina's court. Not Euler's finest moment.) Now, so many gaps have been filled that you are reduced to grasping at the few nanoseconds between what we have evidence for, and the end product of extrapolating from evidence. Is this really what you want for your god? Would it not be better to simply say, "I was wrong", and give up this old theory? Even if you do insert a god here, what is the connection between some deistic spirit which gives a momentary impulse to the universe, and a personal god who cares about your eternal life? What is the purpose of such a god; merely to say "I believe?" Why bother? This is belief for its own sake, without justification other than being the done thing. Is it not simpler to just... stop? To just accept that there is no god, and get on with living? Why would you even want such a god, growing tinier every year as science inexorably crushes the gaps in which you insist on putting him?
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quote:As far as I know (and I could be wrong, it happens often) science doesn't really have a concept of eternity.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Time may be an attribute of the universe itself. Using terms like "eternity" to try to discuss universal origins may be nonsense. What does "eternity" mean when time doesn't exist?
Right, however the same could be said that using a measurement of time to discuss universal origins may be nonsense as well. Time is essentially mankind's perception or measurement of certain events.
On a side note, does anyone know anything about noetic science? Was it created by religious people attempting to bridge the gap between science or religion or the other way around?
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Bah. By the time the term "God of the Gaps" was coined, it was already a strawman argument.
quote: There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps--gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in gaps? What view of Nature or of Truth is theirs whose interest in Science is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot, whose quest is ignorance not knowledge, whose daily dread is that the cloud may lift, and who, as darkness melts from this field or from that, begin to tremble for the place of His abode? What needs altering in such finely-jealous souls is at once their view of Nature and of God. Nature is God's writing, and can only tell the truth; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
If by the accumulation of irresistible evidence we are driven--may not one say permitted--to accept Evolution as God's method in creation, it is a mistaken policy to glory in what it cannot account for. The reason why men grudge to Evolution each of its fresh claims to show how things have been made is the groundless fear that if we discover how they are made we minimize their divinity. When things are known, that is to say, we conceive them as natural, on Man's level; when they are unknown, we call them divine--as if our ignorance of a thing were the stamp of its divinity. If God is only to be left to the gaps in our knowledge, where shall we be when these gaps are filled up? And if they are never to be filled up, is God only to be found in the dis-orders of the world? Those who yield to the temptation to reserve a point here and there for special divine interposition are apt to forget that this virtually excludes God from the rest of the process. If God appears periodically, He disappears periodically. If He comes upon the scene at special crises, He is absent from the scene in the intervals. Whether is all-God or occasional-God the nobler theory? Positively, the idea of an immanent God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional wonder-worker, who is the God of an old theology. Negatively, the older view is not only the less worthy, but it is discredited by science. And as to facts, the daily miracle of a flower, the courses of the stars, the upholding and sustaining day by day of this great palpitating world, need a living Will as much as the creation of atoms at the first. We know growth as the method by which things are made in Nature, and we know no other method. We do not know that there are not other methods; but if there are, we do not know them. Those cases which we do not know to be growths, we do not know to be anything else, and we may at least suspect them to be growths. Nor are they any the less miraculous because they appear to us as growths. A miracle is not something quick. The doings of these things may seem to us no miracle, nevertheless it is a miracle that they have been done.
quote:Bah. By the time the term "God of the Gaps" was coined, it was already a strawman argument.
I suggest you re-read your quote. Your writer agrees that there are people who believe in such a god; he is not trying to show that they don't exist, he is trying to make them stop! A method actually practiced is no strawman, and indeed I need look no further than Gerraine's post to which I responded for a fine example.
As for his assertion that a flower needs a driving will, pff. Sez you, comrade. Show us yer evidence. And the assertion that an immanent god is grander than a non-immanent one is all very well, and my father can beat up yours, but these are not arguments in the sense that an adult thinks of them. These are playground taunts, and if that's the level of discourse you think appropriate, it can only end as playground spats do: Someone throws a punch, and the loser runs home to his parents in tears. But when adults are reduced to this level, there is no parent to give comfort.
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The difference is that anything science proves as fact can be attributed to God by those that believe, but more difficult if switched around.
For example, say scientists say "We figured out the Big Bang, this is how it happened, and this is how our Universe came to be. There is no God. Game, set, and match."
That would be a complete sophistry. That would not in ANY way, shape, or form disprove that God exists. It would, however be a great discovery.
I see your argument of "Isn't it easier just to not believe in god?" to be a complete irrational one. Yes it would be easier, but being religious or believing in God isn't about taking the easy way out. And on that same note, the quotes you included were laughable because they were so one sided. How many scientists have said the same thing in reverse? They say "We have discovered <x> so God must not exist."
My point is : Religion meshes better with science than science meshes with religion. (In my mind that statement makes sense, but I am not always the most eloquent with words)
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quote:I see your argument of "Isn't it easier just to not believe in god?" to be a complete irrational one. Yes it would be easier, but being religious or believing in God isn't about taking the easy way out.
I thing KoM is talking more of an Occams Razor sort of thing. God complicates any explanation, the way that adding an elaborate expression to both sides of an equation complicates the equation without actually changing its solution. It is easier and more correct to not add the unnecessary expression.
quote:How many scientists have said the same thing in reverse? They say "We have discovered <x> so God must not exist."
Depending on the definition of God that may be a valid statement. To the extent that God may have once been believed to have been an old man with a beard who throws lightning bolts when he's angry, science has fairly well shown that he doesn't exist.
But that's beside the point that scientists expressing their personal opinion are not doing science. Whereas priests that express their personal opinions are quite often doing religion.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: As I have stated--I thought pretty clearly--the complexity of the universe argues overwhelmingly for the existence of an Intelligent Designer. Therefore--and this is a LOGICAL conclusion--any science that deliberately refuses to consider the existence of a Creator, cannot be real science, for there is no rational reason to exclude God.
I think this is the crux of the problem. You are using the first sentence here as an axiom upon which you are building your arguments. Your detractors in this thread do not accept this statement as an axiom; you must demonstrate to them that it is true, if you wish them to accept your arguments. Your second statement would be a logical conclusion from the first, but that doesn't mean the first is true.
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quote:I see your argument of "Isn't it easier just to not believe in god?" to be a complete irrational one. Yes it would be easier, but being religious or believing in God isn't about taking the easy way out.
I think you misunderstand me. You seem determined to believe in a god. Why? You go to great lengths to find some sort of way to match your religion to what science shows. Again, why? What is the purpose of this activity? Is it not better to believe in what you have evidence for, and leave it at that? From your posts, you seem rather to desire to have evidence for what you believe. A third time, why? What would be so terrible about not being a theist anymore? You can just stop, you know. There's no need for all this frenetic, exhausting activity to justify your assertion, "I believe in god". You post as though such belief is a good thing in itself, not to be questioned, and therefore "It's not about taking the easy path" is a defense. But this misses the more fundamental point, that it's the truth of the belief that must be defended, not its virtue. It is easy to believe in gravity; ought one on that account not to do so? "Gravitism or gravity-belief isn't about taking the easy path out". You would not accept this argument, so why apply it to gods?
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The difference is that anything science proves as fact can be attributed to God by those that believe, but more difficult if switched around.
For example, say scientists say "We figured out the Big Bang, this is how it happened, and this is how our Universe came to be. There is no God. Game, set, and match."
That would be a complete sophistry. That would not in ANY way, shape, or form disprove that God exists. It would, however be a great discovery.
Certainly true.
quote: I see your argument of "Isn't it easier just to not believe in god?" to be a complete irrational one. Yes it would be easier, but being religious or believing in God isn't about taking the easy way out. And on that same note, the quotes you included were laughable because they were so one sided. How many scientists have said the same thing in reverse? They say "We have discovered <x> so God must not exist."
This, on the other hand, is a strawman. Find me one scientific paper that makes this statement (or anything remotely similar). Personal statements by people who happen to be scientists don't count, by the way - there are lots of theist scientists, just like there are lots of atheist and agnostic scientists. I can guarantee you that none of them mention God (or religion in general) anywhere in their research publications.
Seriously, go to Pubmed and find me a paper that claims to have disproved the existence of God. It's free, it's easy to search. It's basically Google for the scientific literature. Put your money where your rhetoric is.
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Tarrsk, can you honestly tell me that you believe a scientist has never said anything like that? Whether written or not, do you believe that no scientist has ever tried to disprove the existence of God?
This is what I was referring to. It goes both ways. Someone says "Scientists can't explain <x> hence God!". Ok fine. What I was illustrating was that a scientist could also turn this around and say "Religion can't explain <y> so hence no god!"
I appreciate you turning me on to Pubmed, but I already read papers on there often. You really should broaden your search though. I'll help you out. One quick search of "Scientific Case Against God" and I found a nice little paper from a Victor S. Stenger, titled the same. Dr. Stenger is a Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii. Here is a link to his article. I will say that it is an interesting read.
I had professors in high school and college that said things similar to the above. I have also had teachers at church feed me the other side.
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Geraine? So what if some scientists have tried to disprove the existence of God?
Are scientists not allowed to be individuals with flaws as well?
I mean, after all, why would anyone go about trying to disprove the existence of something there's no positive evidence for anyway? After all, I'm not going out trying to disprove the existence of humans currently living on Venus.
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anyway, let's be clear: I doubt Ron coudl do what everyone here asks. I say this because I, personally, cannot do what you ask either, I don't know how. I can't figure out heads or tails of Ensembl.
You can't expect Ron to do it if I can't. I don[t think that's really fair...
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Tarrsk, can you honestly tell me that you believe a scientist has never said anything like that? Whether written or not, do you believe that no scientist has ever tried to disprove the existence of God?
Absolutely, I can. I am a scientist, so you can imagine that I talk to scientists on a regular basis, and never once has someone ever said anything like "I'm in it to disprove the existence of God."
You know why?
Because science isn't in the business of caring about God one way or the other. Seriously. It's irrelevant. We take the universe as is, and try to figure out what's going on and how things happen. The business of science is the natural, and we just take it as a given that the supernatural is out of our purview.
Are there vehemently atheistic scientists? Yes. Richard Dawkins is one. But even the most militantly atheist scientist leaves his or her opinions about religion at the door when they walk into the lab. Even Dawkins.
quote:This is what I was referring to. It goes both ways. Someone says "Scientists can't explain <x> hence God!". Ok fine. What I was illustrating was that a scientist could also turn this around and say "Religion can't explain <y> so hence no god!"
Such a person would be no scientist. Science works via logic and inductive reasoning. "X can't explain Y" does not necessarily mean that "Z *does* explain Y." Short of God announcing his own existence by lasering a message proclaiming "I AM REAL" onto a mountain, there really isn't any way to scientifically assay the question of a deity's existence. And any scientist worth his or her salt acknowledges that and leaves the whole bloody business to the philosophers and theologians.
quote:I appreciate you turning me on to Pubmed, but I already read papers on there often. You really should broaden your search though. I'll help you out. One quick search of "Scientific Case Against God" and I found a nice little paper from a Victor S. Stenger, titled the same. Dr. Stenger is a Professor of Physics at the University of Hawaii. Here is a link to his article. I will say that it is an interesting read.
Uh huh. I notice that, despite my request for something published in the scientific literature (i.e. a research paper), your "cite" is the personal website of a professor.
Let me quote my previous post, since you apparently didn't bother to read it:
"Personal statements by people who happen to be scientists don't count, by the way - there are lots of theist scientists, just like there are lots of atheist and agnostic scientists."
In other words, I asked for the journalistic equivalent of a fact-checked news article and you gave me a link to an editorial.
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Tarrsk, can you honestly tell me that you believe a scientist has never said anything like that? Whether written or not, do you believe that no scientist has ever tried to disprove the existence of God?
Um, I'm surrounded by scientists. Biologists, geologists, all of that. I don't ever see that done, and the number of scientists who do that are doing it on their own time without any scholarly review, in practically all of their cases.
The reason why there's going to be virtually no scholarly review (in effect, actual science) and research done on "ergo, there is no god" is because it is a negative argument. God is typically an untestable claim.
Hate to rail on you but you're tripping up bad here. You're judging science on a strawman, and it doesn't serve any point except to reinforce your extant biases.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Ok, and where did this hot primordial matter come from? Did it just appear? Was it leftovers from a different universe?
It's very hard to test for where matter or time or anything came from 'originally.' science does not claim to know the starting point for anything. It doesn't even claim that there is a starting point. It tests detectable data and falsifies claims. Since looking through space is also looking through time, we have a lens — detectable data — into the expansion of the universe from an earlier, homogenous, superheated and incredibly dense state that is represented by the cosmic background radiation at the edge of visible time.Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: There you have it--the blue potato proves Creation.
And some medieval art proves dragons.
This is fascinating, insofar as you provide a case study for extreme cognitive mechanisms of denial.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:I see your argument of "Isn't it easier just to not believe in god?" to be a complete irrational one. Yes it would be easier, but being religious or believing in God isn't about taking the easy way out.
I think you misunderstand me. You seem determined to believe in a god. Why? You go to great lengths to find some sort of way to match your religion to what science shows. Again, why? What is the purpose of this activity? Is it not better to believe in what you have evidence for, and leave it at that? From your posts, you seem rather to desire to have evidence for what you believe. A third time, why? What would be so terrible about not being a theist anymore? You can just stop, you know. There's no need for all this frenetic, exhausting activity to justify your assertion, "I believe in god". You post as though such belief is a good thing in itself, not to be questioned, and therefore "It's not about taking the easy path" is a defense. But this misses the more fundamental point, that it's the truth of the belief that must be defended, not its virtue. It is easy to believe in gravity; ought one on that account not to do so? "Gravitism or gravity-belief isn't about taking the easy path out". You would not accept this argument, so why apply it to gods?
I actually think you are misunderstanding what Geraine means. When he's saying its "easier" to not believe, he's not using "easier" as a synonym for "fits better with the evidence". Rather, it is "easier" in the sense that it requires less faith in uncertainties. A thing can be "easier" in this emotional sense of requiring less faith, while simultaneously being less rational and less consistent with all the evidence. I can give a few examples to illustrate this:
One example would be when a friend betrays you. In such a situation, it might be "easier" to believe he or she know longer is your friend. But the harder AND more rational conclusion is to remember all the past times he or she was your friend, and have faith that this one betrayal doesn't prove the friendship is over.
Another example is working hard towards a goal you can't seem to accomplish. In such a situation, it might be "easier" to assume the goal is simply impossible. That's because it is very difficult to keep working and believing in something when it has failed repeatedly so far. But often the harder and more rational conclusion is that persistence will eventually achieve your goal - given the evidence of many other people who've failed repeatedly and then went on to succeed.
Another example is ethics. It can be easier to believe there is no such thing as right and wrong. This allows you to avoid having to make tricky uncertain judgement calls. However, I think most people accept that the easier way is also the less rational way; there is a right and wrong.
In general, an "easy" view of the world is one where all things are simply mechanical and serve whatever function they happen to naturally have, where we have no free will and no responsibilities, where we simply go through life in the way we are programmed to, and that contains no inherently meaning and nothing of inherent value (since meaning and value are such "hard" things to pin down in any belief system.) This type of world view is simple, straightforward, consistent with science, and would avoid almost all the tough, ambiguous questions in life. It is also false, and misses most of what is good about life. Therein lies the problem with taking the "easy" belief system.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:In general, an "easy" view of the world is one where all things are simply mechanical and serve whatever function they happen to naturally have...
Wow. So you're saying that it's hard but rewarding to make up functions for things through, say, mechanisms like superstition? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: This type of world view is simple, straightforward, consistent with science, and would avoid almost all the tough, ambiguous questions in life. It is also false, and misses most of what is good about life. Therein lies the problem with taking the "easy" belief system.
Aw, you were doing so well until you got to "it is also false" and it was all downhill from there.
Believe it or not, being an atheist (which I believe is what you were getting at) is not miserable. Many people are happier being atheists because they don't have to believe things that are at odds with their experience, e.g. "God is torturing me by having made me gay and then saying it's a sin."
On top of that, as has been said many times by non-believers to believers, atheists can be optimists and pessimists and full of joy or not full of joy just like other human beings. Atheists do not miss most of what is good in life and can recognize meaning just as well as anyone else-- they just don't necessarily regard things as inherently meaningful.
In addition, I'm not how being an atheist avoids ambiguity in terms of morals. I would have thought that, because there are no rules as to what you have to believe, ambiguity is increased. However, perhaps merely the conflict moves from being perceived as internal-external (e.g. God and you) to internal-internal (e.g. you and yourself).
But I make no claim that a theist life is easier that an atheist life, or the reverse. I think "easy" is the wrong word, because in this American Protestant society, things that are easy are considered to be negative and weak, which is why we have this strange type of argument:
"No, YOUR theory is easier! It is MINE that requires thought and difficulty!"
Madness.
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What is more straightforward about atheism is the connection of reality to science. If you are an atheist, you do not have to change science
This isn't to say that your experience will always line up with science, at least intuitively. However, I have always found that once I am aware of the scientific explanation for something (e.g. colour-- that coloured objects are merely reflecting a certain set of wavelengths) that it may not be intuitive to think of colour this way but it is rational.
But there are irrationalities about living in a scientific universe, and one of these is the beginning of the universe: What was all that energy doing in the first place? What is outside the universe/where is the universe? Why do things exist at all?
However, I do not think the introduction of God solves these irrationalities. If you have God solve your "beginning" problems, you merely are putting another Turtle in your pile of Turtles. You know the story, right? An old Lady gets up and claims the world is seated on the back of an elephant on the back of a turtle, and then, when questioned as to what to turtle is sitting on, she says it's "Turtles all the way down."
God, although he may not look like a turtle, is simply another turtle. The same questions take a step backwards: Where did God come from in the first place? What is outside God/where is God? Why does God exist at all? God's superhuman nature doesn't mean that these questions can be discounted.
These are mindboggling questions. We have no way of knowing, at least at the moment, what is outside the universe (or where the universe "is"). But they are mindboggling to atheists and theists alike. However, unless God actually appears and starts answering these questions, it is only science that has a chance of answering these questions in an empirical, scientifically-consistent way.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Believe it or not, being an atheist (which I believe is what you were getting at) is not miserable. Many people are happier being atheists because they don't have to believe things that are at odds with their experience, e.g. "God is torturing me by having made me gay and then saying it's a sin."
On top of that, as has been said many times by non-believers to believers, atheists can be optimists and pessimists and full of joy or not full of joy just like other human beings. Atheists do not miss most of what is good in life and can recognize meaning just as well as anyone else-- they just don't necessarily regard things as inherently meaningful.
My point wasn't that being an atheist requires being miserable. My point was that if you accept the "easiest" belief system to believe, you'll end up with a belief system that is less rational (since it ignores ambiguous evidence which is nevertheless important) and that cannot explain most of what is valuable in life.
Having said that, it should be noted that being an atheist does not require being a materialist, or not believing in morals, or not believing things have no inherent value, or anything like that. Athiesm simply requires not believing in God. It is even possible to be a religious atheist, like you might find within Buddhism, as long as you don't believe in God.
Some people do claim that, in addition to being atheist, they also believe in strict materialism, in moral relativism of the strongest sort, and in a worldview that truly does not include anything that goes beyond what science can directly study. These folks are not miserable, but in real life I think they typically act in ways that are not explained by the worldview they claim is true. Someone who claims there is no such thing as morality will typically still not steal candy from a baby, for instance. So, it's not that taking the "easiest" belief system is going to inherently prevent you from living a good life. It's more that taking the "easiest" belief system will end up requiring you to act in ways that your belief system can't explain and can't help you with. (It's sort of like folks who say modern genetics and evolution are fundamentally wrong, and that scientists are untrustworthy, but then go on to trust medicines based on that same scientific model in order to stay healthy. They can stay healthy while holding their belief system, but in doing so end up acting in ways that defy explanation under their belief system.)
quote:Sure you did. Because if they existed, you could just use science.
This is not true. As was just discussed in this thread, science is limited in what it can study. If God exists, science could still not study God.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: anyway, let's be clear: I doubt Ron coudl do what everyone here asks. I say this because I, personally, cannot do what you ask either, I don't know how. I can't figure out heads or tails of Ensembl.
You can't expect Ron to do it if I can't. I don[t think that's really fair...
If pressed, you could pick a gene name, find entries for a few species on Ensembl, BLAST them against each other, and just write down the percentage similarities and identities. That would be at least a crude way of comparing species to each other.
You aren't claiming to know more about the facts of evolution than the world's professional biologists, and Ron is. That sets the bar far, far higher for him than it is for either of us. Undergrads can copy and paste into BLAST. Ron should be able to do at least that much.
Ron has set himself up particularly well here, and I think such opportunities should be taken advantage of. To twice lament "If only we had the complete genomes", and then to be given the complete genomes, and be utterly unable to do a thing with them, that's illuminating, and a handy example to point to when Ron makes any kind of claim.
Posts: 575 | Registered: Feb 2007
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quote:As was just discussed in this thread, science is limited in what it can study. If God exists, science could still not study God.
If God exists in any way that is meaningful, science can study God. It is only the non-meaningful things that science cannot study.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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