Prometheus

As best as i can tell the OP is claiming that because science is not unified it will ultimately 'fail'. But dissent is one of the pillars of science - if everyone agreed on everything there would be no science and progress would stop. Another pillar is evidence; as we collect more evidence on a theory the dissent around it reduces. To say science will fail because it is not unified is to misunderstand how science works. By analogy, because football teams are always competing and are not unified they will ultimately fail. Makes no sense does it? And what about the house of God? There are few institutions on Earth as fractured and hostile as the Abrahamic faiths.

The Abrahamic god doesn't even know the value of pi. I wouldn't count on him for maths lessons.

Shared ancestry is a red herring. We all have a shared ancestry from Africa if we go back in time far enough. The only pertinent question is whether there are genetically distinct populations and whether they differ by some measure of intelligence: ancestry - that is the historical antecedents of a population - is irrelevant to this. You posit populations today differ by intelligence. Today, not in the distant past. Therefore ancestry need not be considered in this question, only the genetic diversity of populations today. Your division by ancestry is just as arbitrary as my division by height.

Haven't read the paper, so won't comment on that until i have. On the above particular point though i find it illuminating to consider basketball players. We could classify basketball players as a separate race - after all height has a significant genetic component. Would it then make sense to start looking at intelligence of basketball players vs non-basketball players?

Would astrobiologists be primarily interested in looking for biological signals in spectroscopy data? (I mean, is this the most readily available data to hand to detect extra-terrestrial life?). I know Raman spectroscopy can be used to this end.

Oh, i see. I've met many people who live the hedonistic life and seem very unhappy: but i have met others who are quite content with this lifestyle. I have also met many people who have lived the slower life: some content, others not. So it seems to depend on the individual. But there does seem to be a renaissance of hedonism in the Western world - i guess it helps the rich get richer - such that there is little alternative. If we are reared to believe stuff makes us happy then that will be the prevailing view. This might be suitable for a few people, but many others will be left to live in a manner not conducive to their happiness.

Could you provide links to the research: it's hard to comment without seeing it.

So long as they are both content, does it matter?

Well you have displayed one problem with worshipping the Christian god: it is another tool for us to manifest our primal 'us' versus 'them' mentality. While there are teachings in the monotheistic faiths that preach tolerance, the emphasis seems to be on segregation. While i do not doubt this violent aspect of our nature would manifest without religions, many religions feed rather than quench the tendency. I am not saying you are violent; but already you have displayed a religiously based 'us' versus 'them' mentality which could be exploited by charismatic religious leaders in the right circumstances - this is how religious extremists are groomed. Also, staying on topic, many religions make it a requirement that salvation is attained through faith. While many religious people seem able to perform the mental gymnastics required to give faith primacy in one aspect of life and evidence in another, there are some (creationists) who will deliberately muddy the waters making it harder for the general population to understand what counts as evidence in science. Both my arguments are intended to convey that while religion can be beneficial at the level of the individual, it seems detrimental on a population level in the modern world.

I am both a Buddhist and on the path to becoming a scientist (just started a PhD), so i might qualify as a religious scientist. To my mind they can compliment each other wonderfully, as long as one is willing not to cling to any beliefs. Science can then be used as a tool to eliminate all the crap accumulated in a religion, and leave only what is important. For example Buddhism teaches a concept of rebirth very similar to reincarnation. Science, however, finds no evidence for this. Therefore i do not believe in rebirth. There are a great number of concepts that can thus be eliminated from Buddhism - excellent. This allows me to focus on the important stuff, like how best to relate to the world i find myself in to the benefit of myself and any sentient beings i share it with.

The mystery might keep alive people's belief, but of the alternative possibilities the default should not be a creator deity: the default should be 'we don't know'. While science may not be able to comment on an intangible, unknowable 'something', it can comment on specific claims made in the Quran, Bible, Bhagavad Gita etc. This demonstrates that science can provide a useful framework in discussions about god(s), because it gives limits on claims about the characteristics/properties of such imagined beings. I could accept something like the Toa: the only characteristic ascribed to it is that it is unknowable. We can't know anything about it, and Taoists are generally happy to leave it at that. Theists of other traditions often want to have the 'unknowable' and ascribe to it certain (often suspectly human) characteristics. Most theists attempt to ascribe characteristics, but i get the impression, Unity, you would be happy not to ascribe any? The only problem with this approach is that god(s) is then such a nebulous concept as to be useless.

I couldn't find the exact questions on either link - did i miss it? I'd like to see the actual presentation, not what disgruntled students say it is. More generally, maybe it would be a good thing to encourage this alleged cross-over between subjects to discourage students from compartmentalising their learning.

Intelligence isn't required to change the world, unless cyanobacteria had both intelligence and purpose when they drastically changed the earth. The thing i like best about humanity is that we create things that don't seem to exist elsewhere. I find it funny when people say things like justice, mercy and duty don't actually exist in the universe. Of course they do: they are part of the human condition, as much a part of the universe as any other part. More than that, they are what humans bring to the universe and the space we can choose to introduce meaning to existence. Now that's an interesting question. Was man truly happier before the fall? (I'm talking in a literary sense just in case anyone still takes these myths literally). From my perspective i have no choice: my curiosity is too great - i wouldn't even have needed a serpent to whisper in my ear. Changing allegory; Pandora's jar unleashed a world of suffering otherwise unknown to man (it is not death that frightens us, but knowledge of it): but hope was left. The question is whether it was worth it and we can only answer for ourselves. For me it was.

I've often wondered whether it would be possible to alter a mathematical model of traffic flow to see the effects of increasing the number of individuals who only wish to minimise their time in travelling from A to B. I imagine a few would indeed decrease their travel times, but that the average would increase: not to mention increased risk of accidents. I have studied mathematical models of queues and average queueing time is shorter when people don't just try to minimise their own queue time. It would be interesting to see whether such a model could be extended to financial systems in an attempt to see whether having some people maximise their wealth makes the average poorer. I suspect their is some limit to wealth accumulation which does not adversely effect the system average, but after which increasingly does so. Another project idea to put on the back burner with the rest of them...

Well, that's the crux of the issue: you have supplied some evidence but i just don't have the time to examine it. I remain sceptical that the evidence is convincing but will have to defer any further discussion until i get a chance to read the book.

God created science so science cannot prove god, therefore god exists? That's the weakest argument for theism i've ever heard, and there is stiff competition.

Good luck in your endeavours. Haven't read the book: any chance of a synopsis of the book and particular features you want to discuss?

I generally agree with your points: without a supernatural agent morality is very likely an evolved trait. My point is that this in itself does not add anything to the topic. Why do we have ten digits on our hands - evolution. Why do we have under arm hair - evolution. Why are there paedophiles in the population - evolution. Why do people believe in god - evolution. The interesting question is why these phenotypes evolved (or better, under what circumstances do these phenotypes evolve). With regard to why the idea of god evolves - i just don't think sufficient evidence will ever be available, although there might be some good guesses. For instance could we determine why animism took root in Japan and monotheism in the Levant? I agree, i didn't mean to give the impression otherwise. On a side-note: why is it always that we are merely evolved animals. I find evolution a far more powerful narrative than being merely created by some king-of-kings being.

I've come across mixed public toilets in a UK uni. It was a bit odd walking into the same toilet as did women, before heading to your own cubicle (as was the fact there were no urinals): maybe it requires a certain demographic to be comfortable with unisex facilities, but it would eliminate any issue of which people should use which rooms.

By that definition absolutely everything in humanity is the result of evolution. That's fine, but its so broad as to be meaningless. The pertinent question is why certain phenotypes evolved. We can all make 'just so' arguments: 'such and such evolved because it was advantageous' - well yes, but what have you added to our understanding? You state your opinion as fact. You may have good reason to believe what you believe, but cultural evolution is a nascent science - and one not easily tested due to the nature of the phenomenon, as ideas are not so easily preserved as fossils. I'd just like more links to studies to satisfy people like myself who have not had a chance to see the evidence: at the moment i only have my own speculations. Are you saying the idea of a brimstone and fire 'peeping tom' god was invented by contented people to help stop malcontents spoiling it all?

If you want to move to just talking about things for which we have good evidence, i am happy to do so, but that applies to you too. Therefore we should leave the freewill issue out of this debate (i agree that freewill is unlikely to exist, but the evidence is currently insufficient, and should be debated elsewhere - there are plenty of existing threads on this forum already). Again, we need some evidence to support this. It's very likely that we will never have sufficient evidence to make such bold assertions. By dominant I meant that about 54.13% of the worlds population follow a monotheistic faith - this seems disproportionate given it has only occurred once in human development (unless other monotheistic faiths developed independently then disappeared without trace). I'm sure there are many nuanced factors that contribute to the rise and fall of various religions, but again finding evidence of these, particularly in early development, is going to be difficult. My guess is that violence was the key tool to monotheism spreading (both Christianity and Islam ). But its just my guess. History is not science.

I thought everyone was being harsh on you, as you seemed to have provided evidence to support your claims. I actually clicked these links hoping to learn something - like what particular data/study has climate sceptics so convinced it is all a sham. To say i'm disappointed is an understatement. This is one of the most pathetic attempts to support an argument with 'evidence' i have ever seen. No wonder no one here takes you seriously. Would you be able to provide a/some report/study, preferably peer-reviewed, that demonstrates your position (not just Google images) - i would really like to understand the data which causes your scepticism. To the OP. Would weaning from energy dependence on foreign imports not be sufficient reason for conservatives to support nuclear options?

I wonder whether such moral codes and religion in general had a common root: as if they evolved from a common ancestor Can i ask for clarification. I take your mention of enlightenment to mean a path of 'self-realisation' (let's put aside just how nebulous that concept is for now), rather than the 18 century movement. The former makes sense to me as it does not require belief in god nor religion. The discussion so far has proceeded with the assumption that the idea of god is inevitable in religion/spirituality. The ideas of god(s) in other religions are so different so as not to be directly comparable. Gods in Confucianism, say, are nothing like the western concept of gods being far closer to ancestor worship .Monotheism seems to only have emerged once and the interesting question to me is why has this one 'phenotype' dominated. My hunch is that its inherent hierarchical structure (one god: king of kings) is rather more flexible with it's moral codes, allowing for the violent spreading of the religions.

Generally hypoxia kills much faster then type II respiratory failure, so maybe in the long term we would see CO2 retention but death or medical intervention prevent it from happening. Another speculation could be that the dissociation curves for the two gases are different such to allow adequate CO2 exchange but insufficient O2 exchange (as an initial check you could look at the dissociation curves to see if this is theoretically possible).

I would not have thought so, especially as blood lose is a feature of gunshot wounds. If it's for fiction maybe the stimulation could occur after the shooting but while the unconscious victim is still alive?