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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (183732)	3/19/2006 11:21:02 AM
From: neolib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I haven't seen any inconsistency from either man. They are critical of Darwinian evolution but so what? I'd be interested in seeing an example. It is natural that people would speak of religious beliefs when talking to other believers, I think. Google for Wedge Document & ID. You'll learn more about ID from that than anything else. It is a political, not a scientific endeavor. This is the argument science has to be based on a philosophical materialism (which is atheist by definition). Isn't science supposed to be a search for truth? Science is about understanding the universe through observable and repeatable means. This developed largely in the Renaissance . You might consider what we had prior to that. And no, science is not about Truth. Its about Accuracy. The former is the domain of religion and philosophy in general (and is also pretty useless) while the latter is the domain of science (and is spectacularly useful). The only really safe position for science to take is to be neutral or agnostic on the issue of materialism. Science is materialism, it can't be neutral on the subject. If you could provide even a single example of one successful scientific theory not based on materialism, I'd love to hear about it. Science is agnostic on nonmaterialistic domains. They are both in definition and practice outside its domain. OTOH I've come to the conclusion that evolution as an explanation of EVERYTHING, is not science either. It's unprovable, unfalsifiable, and based on nothing but speculative arguments (admittedly persuasive arguments when it comes to simple step by step changes but not persuasive when it comes to explaining complexity) BS. Evolution, especially common descent is easily disprovable, and might well be shown so. Find any living organism on this earth which does not share the same molecular machinery. Find anatomically modern species fossils in Cambrian deposits. The list of things that could turn evolutionary theory upside down are endless. Whats funny is that creationists run around trying to claim such things (like human and dyno tracks in TX), but unfortunately, they're always frauds. The reason evolution is such a well established theory is that it is supported by such an overwhelming amount of data. It is literally a statistical theory. Each piece of data, while not overly great in itself contributes to a distribution which cannot be ignored. Those attacking evolution typically look for anomalies under the mistaken opinion that an anomaly somewhere on the tail of the distribution can somehow overturn the mean or variance, which are established by millions of over data points. If you know anything about statistics, you'll understand how nutty that approach is. Certain parts of the puzzle, like the geologic column, have contributed so much data in terms of the progression of fossils with known geologic strata, that disproving this in general, i.e. if you could show that geologic strata where not correlated with fossil type, you would in one fell swoop destroy a great swath of evolutionary data. Now is William Provine talking science there or is he advancing a religious viewpoint masquerading as science? He is clearly straying into philosophy which is not science. ID is religion straying into science. Is Provine (and Dawkins and Dennett etc.) fighting a cultural war? And if he is, why shouldn't non-atheists be allowed to fight back? I think attempting to use science to attack religious faith is a threat. I don't see that arguing that God had something to do with us being here is a threat at all. Yes, both sides are fighting a cultural war. The problem with ID is that it does not stop and theistic evolution. It wants to get rid of evolution entirely. Unfortunately, much of modern medicine as well as environmental ecology, etc depends on understanding evolution. So, yes, the future health and welfare of our nations depends on kicking their damn butts. Btw, though it doesn't constitute a proof of God, the traditional argument (for the existence of God) from design is a LOT stronger than it used to be because of the scientific discoveries of the past century. I'm totally unaware of any such advances. What is very true is that Darwin's theory of common descent is infinitely better supported now in the age of genetics, than it was when he had the insight to propose it, while being totally clueless about possible mechanisms. His genius stands in sharp contrast to modern people, blessed with such understanding, who keep their heads firmly in the sand.