Where did Darwin get his ideas?

[lucaspa]

Ermm... I said it works without deity being included, and you told me that I was wrong because a deity is neither included nor excluded.

 

Care to explain that one?

 

You only have half the requirements necessary for the neutrality of science. You've been trying all along, iNow, to shift the neutrality of science toward atheism. This is just another attempt.

 

As you put it, science only does not include deity. Well, not include = exclude, doesn't it? But that isn't the neutral position of science. Science neither excludes nor includes deity. Science simply can't comment on whether deity is participating:

 

" To say it for all my colleageues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." SJ Gould, Impeaching a self-appointed judge. Scientific American, 267:79-80, July 1992.

 

" Because creationists explain natural phenomena by saying "God performed a miracle," we tell them that they are not doing science. This is easy to understand. The flip side, though, is that if science is limited by methodological materialism because of our inability to control an omnipotent power's interference in nature, both "God did it" and "God didn't do it" fail as scientific statements." Science and Religion, Methodology, and Humanism, Eugenie C Scott, NCSE Executive Director; Reports of the National Center for Science Education 18: 15-17, Mar/Apr. 1998.

 

lucaspa: Now, if we have actually found the material method by which deity works, then of course we won't need to add to that material method. The material method will be sufficient as a material method. The issue is whether the material method is sufficient as the total cause. But at that point we leave science and get into matters of faith.

 

I couldn't agree more, and your last sentence there is exactly my point. Where's the problem again?

 

The problem is that you keep insisting that deity is "not included". For deity to be "not included" you must have faith that the material cause is the only cause. But that is exactly what science cannot say. Saying only "deity is not included" is a statement of faith.

 

In my view, the inclusion of such a "god possibility" only offers solice to the mentally handicapped people ..

Probably because they left their theism out of it, but that's just my guess.

 

So you want to compartmentalize "mentally handicapped". They are mentally deficient only when they talk about deity? Nice Special Pleading. You know it's not a valid argument.

 

BTW, your picture of atheists seems to include Darwin. Darwin was never an atheist.

 

Again, what references will you be sharing that show we've disproved the existence of fairies, unicorns, dragons, and leprechauns ... I ask you to please support your position that these things were somehow disproved, and are hence different than god.

 

Go back to my post of 10-06-08, 2:18 PM.

 

Frankly, all of the reasons you cited for the disproof of fairies, unicorns, and lephrechauns apply equally to your assumed deity.

 

WAIT a minute. First you say I didn't give any evidence, now you say that that evidence and reasons (I didn't give) apply equally to deity???!!! So, you knew your statements that I had not provided the evidence were false. Are you so desperate about this discussion that you felt you had to step over the line into deliberate dishonesty?

 

BTW, if you think the reasons apply equally, please apply them. This ought to be fun.

 

The reasons don't apply because

1. Deity (particularly Yahweh) was never stated to be material. Therefore you can't falsify it by looking thru the search space.

2. The consequences of deity (particularly Yahweh) either a) can't be tested by science due to Methodological Materialism, b) haven't been falsified, or c) been supported.

 

I think that why creationist “science” will fail is that it cant reach being a science.

 

Creationist science fails precisely because it is a scientific theory. It was the accepted scientific theory from 1500 - 1831. It was falsified by the same scientists who espoused the theory.

 

In simple terms I think, how could they ever prove, via an empirical physical mechanism throughly tested for something that could prove anything dealing with a creator period?

 

You don't need that. All you need are the consequences of the "creator period".

 

You test scientific theories/hypotheses by assuming they are true and then looking for the consequences of the theory. Traditional "creation science" has a number of consequences:

 

1. No or very little sedimentary rock, because there has not been enough time for erosion to make sediments.

 

2. No stars visible beyond 6,000 light years and stars becoming visible thru history as their light first reached the earth.

 

3. Isotopes with half-lives less than 50 million years in the earth's crust.

 

4. No or very few fossils. And those fossils are those of contemporary organisms. Skeletons of ALL organisms mixed together in the sediments.

 

5. Clear genetic boundaries between the "kinds" of organisms.

 

Now, if we had found this evidence, we would have (rightly) concluded that creation science was strongly supported and that the universe, earth, and life on earth had come into existence as described by creation science: instantaneously appearing in the present form. Instead, we found contradictory evidence -- false consequences. True statements cannot have false consequences. By deductive logic, creation science is false.

 

Evolution does not say there is some higher thing nor does it deny it.

 

Exactly. For Christians evolution simply becomes how deity created.

 

Lastly creation science is always built on god of the gaps.

 

Very good. This is true, especially of ID. However, science got its rejection of god-of-the-gaps from Judeo-Christianity! god-of-the-gaps is not biblical, but instead Biblical teaching is that Yahweh created a complete universe that should have no gaps. Eventually science came to the same conclusion about gaps, but Judeo-Christianity got there first.

[iNow]

Fine, then.

 

A diety is neither included nor excluded from evolution by natural selection, and the theory still works just fine (although, in my mind, the fact that it's not included in the theory means it's excluded, but whatever... I cannot keep up with the mental contortions and gymnastics which is the desire to argue in favor of deity).

[Mr Skeptic]

I think that the word people are looking for here is "irrelevant" -- neither included nor excluded, just says nothing about it.

[Sayonara]

You are wrong. Darwin's notes documenting how the idea of evolution developed are public knowledge. Read them. Then you won't come up with such silly and juvenile statements.

FYI, I believe BlackPower is referring to the character of "Wallace" from Tarsem Singh's 2006 movie The Fall. Wallace, a monkey, is Darwin's colleague and helps him to devise some of his theories. Presumably he is named after Alfred Russel Wallace.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2196111641/

[marnixR]

I think that the word people are looking for here is "irrelevant" -- neither included nor excluded, just says nothing about it.

 

what was it again that Laplace said ? "i have no need of that hypothesis"

if your car doesn't want to start on a cold morning, will you do a voodoo dance on the word of someone who says "if it doesn't work, at least it doesn't hurt" ?

[Mr Skeptic]

No, because it does hurt. Wasting my time counts as "hurt". I probably wouldn't stop someone who wanted to do the voodoo dance for me, though (depends on how annoying, amusing, or embarrassing he is)

 

I wouldn't say that voodoo is proven to be wrong, just that no one has any evidence that it works.

[I_Pwn_Crackpots]

Hey! Not all of voodoo is a complete crock. Have you not heard of Clairvius Narcisse, the man who was raised from the dead...

 

It is certainly much more testable than Yahweh...

[insane_alien]

a simulated death. not proper death

[I_Pwn_Crackpots]

You only have half the requirements necessary for the neutrality of science. You've been trying all along, iNow, to shift the neutrality of science toward atheism. This is just another attempt.

 

As you put it, science only does not include deity. Well, not include = exclude, doesn't it? But that isn't the neutral position of science. Science neither excludes nor includes deity. Science simply can't comment on whether deity is participating:

 

Wait, that's a false dilemma. Since when exactly did neutrality mean that it doesn't exclude anything.

 

And since when did atheism become not neutral, all atheism means is lack of belief in a deity. And/or not acknowledging the existence of one, which is exactly what science does. In that since it is atheistic (albeit very weakly so...).

 

I understand that there are some assholes out there who like to think otherwise, but there really is nothing in science that prevents you from continuing to have faith in one.

 

The problem is that you keep insisting that deity is "not included". For deity to be "not included" you must have faith that the material cause is the only cause. But that is exactly what science cannot say. Saying only "deity is not included" is a statement of faith.

 

Spoken like a true theist. To the complete exclusion of all other faiths . No belief in deity doesn't necessarily mean that they think material causes are the only ones, only philosophical materialists do that.

 

 

1. Deity (particularly Yahweh) was never stated to be material. Therefore you can't falsify it by looking thru the search space.

2. The consequences of deity (particularly Yahweh) either a) can't be tested by science due to Methodological Materialism, b) haven't been falsified, or c) been supported.

 

1) I'm pretty certain he was. Hence the phrase "created in his own image" in the Genesis. While arguable, he was regardless stated to have intervened numerous times throughout Earth's history, and even to have lived on it for a time...

 

2) Not directly anyway, but you can certainly test for his so-called "interventions". I'm pretty certain that turning of the Red Sea into blood would have a noticable effect on the geology and ecosystem of the region, to name an example...

 

Creationist science fails precisely because it is a scientific theory. It was the accepted scientific theory from 1500 - 1831. It was falsified by the same scientists who espoused the theory.

 

No it wasn't. Ideas about evolution and/or origin of various species have been around since the time of the Greeks. Until the mid to late nineteenth century it remained in the realm of philosophy.

 

The Greeks (in particular Aristotle)held that there was no evolution, that all the animals were "fixed". They were not clear on how they actually came into existence, and some went as far as saying they always have existed for all eternity.

 

Ideas about evolution, ironically, were not influenced by theism but by pantheism and paganism, in recent modern times. The Romantic scientists at the time held that there was an ideal plant, an "ideal" mammal, etc etc, that all species try to obtain, but failed just short of doing so. That is, they all tried to evolve to the ideal form.... And this has been around for a LONG time, since the early 1600-1700's.

 

All the theists did was hijack them and introduced their own biases into those ideas, and claimed somehow God was responsible for it all (they, of course, were smart enough to not specify how it was done).

 

 

Very good. This is true, especially of ID. However, science got its rejection of god-of-the-gaps from Judeo-Christianity! god-of-the-gaps is not biblical, but instead Biblical teaching is that Yahweh created a complete universe that should have no gaps. Eventually science came to the same conclusion about gaps, but Judeo-Christianity got there first.

 

All religions do this. The reason they continue to have gaps is simply because ideas about deities and how they operated were created in man's own flawed image.

 

However, some religions are smart enough not to claim perfection (and some openly acknowledge that their gods are not perfect), unlike Christianity.

 

I understand that you take that personally, but until the Abrahamic religions are able to admit that their deity is not perfect and modify it to acknowledge that, they will continue to bear the brunt of all the criticism....

 

a simulated death. not proper death

 

Simulated or not, doctors can't tell the difference

Edited November 18, 2008 by I_Pwn_Crackpots
multiple post merged

[insane_alien]

actually, they can. seeing as there is still electrical activity and so on.they are actually very different once you get past the way it appears from a cursory inspection.

 

and its not minor things either, you still breathe, but slowly and very shallowly, the heart still beaats but too weak to produce a pulse and so on.

[I_Pwn_Crackpots]

actually, they can. seeing as there is still electrical activity and so on.they are actually very different once you get past the way it appears from a cursory inspection.

 

and its not minor things either, you still breathe, but slowly and very shallowly, the heart still beaats but too weak to produce a pulse and so on.

 

Of course I know all that. But only if you were taken to a hospital, or weren't living in Haiti where health care is certainly substandard and just about anybody can become a doctor.

 

You know nothing about how third world countries operate

 

 

 

Regardless, the whole point I was trying to make is that not all religions out there are ad hoc hypothesis that someone just pulls out of their ass.

[Ophiolite]

And since when did atheism become not neutral, all atheism means is lack of belief in a deity. And/or not acknowledging the existence of one, which is exactly what science does.

Not it isn't. Science declares it has nothing to say about deities either way, that it cannot investigate deities or their supernatural acts. It is methodologically naturalistic, not intrinsically naturalistic: an important distinction.

I understand that there are some assholes out there who like to think otherwise,

I don't like to think otherwise, I am constrained to think otherwise by manner in which scientific methodology evolved. I could try denying reality, but I don't believe that's very effective.

 

YAA.