Neo-Darwinian Fundamentalism at the Smithsonian

[Nash]

Hey man, my faith in God is probably way stronger than yer average Sunday Church goer.

And I believe in science.

I think my mind is about as open as it could possibly get.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Godzilla
Maybe, if you are close mined. I happen to be open minded.

I prefer open pit mines myself.

[Seagoon]

Hi Nash,

Originally posted by Nash
Intelligent Design seems to me to be bent on marching in, planting a flag down, and saying "Guess what - there must be a God. So there. End of discussion. Don't ask me to prove that, btw. So pack it in, all you science geeks. Besides, haven't you got better things to do?"

It dismisses science. Because for science to embrace this idea, they'd have to discard what it is that science is about.
...
Science and Intelligent Design cannot co-exist, and ya can't have it both ways.

I realize my post a little while ago got lost in the middle of the exchange between Hangtime and Godzilla, but I thought I'd at least touched on this.

Let me try again to prove to you that Science and Intelligent Design can coexist.

I trust we can all agree that "science" did not begin in 1859 when Darwin published the Origin of Species or that Charles Darwin was the first bona fide scientist.

For instance, I hope we can agree that men like Newton, Copernicus, and Galileo where all scientists. Yes? Well, here's the thing, they all believed in Intelligent Design. In fact, Copernicus expressed the desire of most theistic scientists that it was his "loving duty to seek the truth in all things, in so far as God has granted that to human reason." He viewed the exploration of the natural world and the process of scientific discovery as in no way opposed to the principles not just of theism but Christian theism.

You see until radical materialism took over the scientific world in the 20th century, nobody seriously thought that believing the Universe was created was an inhibition to good science, in fact it spurred them on to figure things out and their faith was, in fact, strengthened as they discovered that the universe was a place of order, uniformity, and wonder. The prestigious Royal Academy of Science was founded not by a bunch of militant materialists but by Puritans the most zealously evangelical, christocentric, and bible-believing of all the protestants.

Theists have happily pursued science for thousands of years, and indeed are still doing so. In fact, if you go into the labs of the scientists working on ID you don't find them sitting around surrounded by books of theology, vigorously debating the interpretation of various passages, you find them surrounded by machines, beakers, and test tubes, doing exactly the same things their materialist buddies are doing (yeah, I know the scientists out there are chuckling "trying to win grants, seduce their assistants, and get tenure") all that is different are their propositions, theses, and conclusions.

- SEAGOON

[vorticon]

Originally posted by Godzilla
Maybe, if you are close mined. I happen to be open minded.

which of course, does not require the baseless leaping into bed with any new hypothesis that comes along,

[Holden McGroin]

Had Copernicus looked at the wandering of the planets against the night sky and decided they wander because that was God's design were would science be today?

[XrightyX]

Originally posted by Thrawn
How many chemical reactions happened in the primordial soup?  The number is mind bogglingly large I can't even conceive of it.  But I bet if you throw your iron fillings in the air that many times you will end up with a Ferrari.


http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=110

Primordial soup?  PAH-LEEZ.  The article you posted does little to explain primordial soup.  Suggesting that RNA or some other form of LESS stable molecules started the organization of life is completely unsubstantiated.  DNA is hard enough to organize and control.  When I was in high school, it was believed that life began in shallow pools at the shorelines.  You got good mixing like in chemical reactions.  BS I say.  Sunlight kills DNA, RNA, anything with cyclic aromatic rings.  Some people have suggested since their discovery, that deep sea vents may be where life started.  This I believe much more than a surface model.  BUT...deep sea vents weren't discovered until the latter half of the last century.  Point is...the debate is on-going.  Scientists still do not know how life began or where it began.

The Stanley Miller experiment (which generated the "primordial soup) assumed an oxidizing atmosphere.  This is currently under debate, and the evidence suggests a reducing atmosphere.  Why?  The first thing that life on this planet did was oxidize almost all the iron in the oceans creating an iron-oxide rich sediment.

Again, the hand waving of some 'scientists' accompanied by "oh, there were just enough chemicals around to start off life" does not answer the question...How did it all start?  Niether does the Bible (at least I don't believe that version).  

Simply put:  There is room to consider intelligent design w/o deeming the individual a religious nut-case with not an ounce of science in them.

Edit:  Concentration of carbohydrates in a can of chicken soup is on the order of 0.1 M to 0.5M.  This concentration is almost pefect for running most of the reactions I do.  On the other hand, the concentration of carbohydrates in a healthy body of water today, is about 100,000 to 10,000 times less than that.  I would not call even this 'soup', primordial or not.

[Nash]

Seagoon, hi.

Good post, and I'm in agreement with you on yer set-up.

I've got a few issues with the follow-through, tho....

Because it doesn't mean anything that these men had nagging issues of faith whilst pursuing their search.

Faith in a god, and the examination of what god has created are not mutually exclusive. Like I said, it will only be the result of these men examining their world that could result in the proof of the existence of god.

Otherwise, it all just comes down to some gawdamned book.

Let them do their job, for chrissakes.

Okay - sorry man... I'm kinda kidding - and being a jerk.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Why the need to foist upon them this arbitrary theory based on faith and in so doing, ask them to reject their means of examination?

There's a lot more to science than just evolution and whatever else the church concerns themselves with. Like a cure for cancer and longer lasting erections for example.

Would you be only asking for an allowance in this instance? To make an exception when it comes to god?

That's the fundamental problem here.

You'd want to interject yourself in the process, and ask them to discard that process wrt matters of god.

Certainly you can see why that's unnacceptable, right?

[Seagoon]

Hi Holden,

Originally posted by Holden McGroin
Had Copernicus looked at the wandering of the planets against the night sky and decided they wander because that was God's design were would science be today?

Copernicus was spurred on throughout his career to inquiry into the motions of the "wanderers" precisely because he believed that God wanted us to look into these things and that part of the reason that He had given us the ability to observe and interpret was so that we might do so. Copernicus went to his grave believing that the Heliocentric solar system was the creation of God and that the planets were in their orbits because God had put them there.

You seem to be seeing a belief that God created the universe as some sort of insurmountable obstacle to scientific inquiry, when in fact exactly the opposite was the case. That's not opinion, that's simple history, and there's no getting around the fact that some of the most important scientific theories in history were proposed and worked out by Christians who believed that they had a duty to inquire and discover the way that God made the universe.

Holden, do you seriously think all theists do is sit around waiting for the next snake-handling session? That we have no natural, God-given desire to inquire, research, analyze, question, and so on? Do you think the Royal Academy of Science was established to supress inquiry into the mechanics of the universe? What is it that convinces you that all Christians are promoting a book-burning agenda of enforced ignorance and have no desire to see science and human understanding advanced? What, simply in the microcosm of this board, would lead you to believe that the Christians here are anti-science, anti-inquiry, anti-debate, anti-learning, and so on?

Keep in mind that this all started with the story of an established scientist who was witch-hunted out of his job for daring to publish an article that challenged some of the entrenched assumptions of the materialist consensus on the basis not of faith but of observed data.

- SEAGOON

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Seagoon
Holden, do you seriously think all theists do is sit around waiting for the next snake-handling session? That we have no natural, God-given desire to inquire, research, analyze, question, and so on?  

No, I just think that Intellegent Design is lazy science.  Once you answer the question with the answer that "It's Gods will" inquiry stops.

"Why is the sky blue daddy?"

"Intellegent Design, son."

If the son accepts that answer he will not learn of light refraction thru the predominant gasses in the atmosphere.

[Mini D]

Originally posted by Nash
(Deja - please keep in mind - I am wading in waaaay over my head here. With that said.....).

I think you might be confusing science with the theories that science has produced.

Science has not produced theories thrawn. It is a tool. People produce theories. This is a fundamental misunderstanding.

To embrace ID is to reject the Scientific Method. Because ID cannot stand up to the scrutiny of that process.

Once again... this is an odd assumption. What do you base this on?

Right now, science actually proves all current "scientific" theories on the origins of the universe to be impossible on a fundamental level. I believe ID falls back the the fundamental assumption that given the absoluteness of the laws of thermodynamics, there is no other possibility. You have to get past that to even accept the origins of the evolutionary sect.

Sure, the theory of evolution may be wrong. It may be proven false one day. But that will only happen via scientific method. For now, it's just a theory. That's why they call it The Theory of Evolution.

I don't believe it's still in the theory state, thrawn. That's what this thread started out about. The fact that this is simply accepted as the way it was in the scientific community to the point that science is disregarded to accept it... even deemed herassy.

I don't have faith in theories, nor do I have faith in religious dogma. I accept them for what they are. I do have faith in the process though. At least for now, it seems to me to be the best we got.

What you don't seem to understand is that you actually have faith in the discoveries that "science" makes. Carbon dating, genetic research or whatever. These are not really specifically accurate things... that's why they are sciences. The fundamentals of science changes every day. The world is what does it on a regular basis. The more we try to define nature the more we realize we don't have a clue. Thinking that science can actually do that is a combination of arrogance and ignorance.

We can develop new technology. We can observe some cause and effect. I do beleive you misunderstand how much science is simply trying to see what happened and less about figuring out what happened.

[Nash]

Thrawn who?

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Mini D
Right now, science actually proves all current "scientific" theories on the origins of the universe to be impossible on a fundamental level.

Not quite[/i] correct.

The big bang theory is a relativistic theory that as we go into the past the universe shrinks to the level where relativity and quantum theory collide.  No one can say what happens before that with scientific certainty.  

This is much different from saying it's impossible.

[Mini D]

Doh.. sorry nash.

Sorry Holden... but even remotely believing that requires every bit the faith that creationism does. Plus it requires dismissing thermodynamics.

[CyranoAH]

As a matter of fact, the O'Club is the perfect example of all this discussion:

- Entropy always on the rise

- Threads evolve

- Members mutate (see Mr.Black)

But Intelligent Design? Pfff puuhleeeze... I mean, it's green!

Daniel

[Holden McGroin]

What... that general relativity formulas (that are proven time and again thru experimentation and engineering application to be correct to a dozen or better decimal places) if extrapolated to the extreme past show an explosive expansion from quantum size?

The Big Bang theory (which has its foundation in Einsteins General Relativity used in applied engineering and can which be measured) has no merit?  

Where does General Relativity break down? It certainly does not break entropy laws, as entropy is also a cornerstone of the big bang theory.

The beilief in the expanding universe? Is that what is incorrect?  Because we can measure that too.  

Where does the blind faith come in?