In a characteristic display of scientific humility, PZ Myers announces, …

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 20, 2012

Intelligent Design}

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“Scientists! If You’re Not an Atheist, You Aren’t Doing Science Right!”

And what exactly are the achievements that the sage of Morris, Minnesota himself boasts, that justify such a pronouncement?

Note the unhinged comments from supporters at YouTube.

Like we said, the big problem with new atheism is not its conflict with traditional religion and philosophy but its growing conflict with liberal democracy and representative government.

See also: He said it: “There is more evidence for evolution than … the idea that things are made up of atoms”

Comments

timothya, Ockham is meaningful as a lesson in parsimony. It was never intended to be a tool to avoid critical evidence.Upright BiPed_{August 21, 2012
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Brent: Yes, but since there can be no information transfer across the singularity, we will never know one way or the other. Such a universe would be indistinguishable from one that poofed into existence on its own. So why prefer a more complicated explanation? Roger of Ockham is your friend. Steve: My comments have nothing to do with whether miracles actually happen or not (though I admit my rather pointed mode of expression might lead you to think so). I make no claims about whether God acts or thinks in this or that way, only about why people so readily resort to supernatural causes. It is simply this. Humans are disposed to allocate unusual events to the supernatural (evidence: you'all). This mental trick may even have been evolutionarily adaptive in the distant past, but the decline of miraculous events in recent centuries suggests our species is growing out of the habit. KF said this: "And in fact millions of people have over the centuries experienced God in life-changing,miracle working power." This is a fact is it? I daresay millions of people believe they experienced God, but that is a different thing. In saying this, you are using precisely the same argument that you criticise defenders of evolution for: attempting to establish the truth of an idea by popular vote (does the phrase "150 years of criticism" ring a bell?).timothya_{August 21, 2012
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PS: It is worth footnoting that in his will Boyle endowed a lecture series in defense of the Christian view, from the sort of arguments above. And of course, there is no explicit statement of an "exception" to the law of the spring of the air, it being understood that science studies the usual course of the world. Or, do you think, say, Joseph was minded to privily put away his espoused wife because he believed there was no usual course of the world, or that Luke gave up his medical knowledge -- or even praxis -- because he came to believe that one rose from the dead in fulfillment of the promises of God? Etc?kairosfocus_{August 21, 2012
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TA: Don't you see the irony in:
Here is what I think: every attempt to suppose a god-like intervention in nature is simply a logical fallacy that humans seem addicted to – imposing on nature an anthropomorphic principle (weird things happen in nature, therefore a human-like intelligence must be involved). A miracle, by definition, cannot be “normal”. It has to be an observed, verifiable interruption of the regularity of nature. In any case, you are assuming what you are required to demonstrate . . .
Methinks you have here shown a problem with a question-begging assertion -- how do you KNOW that EVERY case of the miraculous as experienced or reported is fallacious? And, you compound it by projection of question-begging unto theists who accept the supernatural and miraculous And BTW, the fact that I am sitting here next to one of my fav Math teachers, and typing to you, is itself testimony of a miracle. Absent a miracle of guidance, that led my mother to the right doctor whom she would never otherwise have heard of I would be dead these 40 and more years now. And in fact millions of people have over the centuries experienced God in life-changing,miracle working power. If the human mind is so delusional that this is all fallacious, then in fact you have decisively undercut the credibility of your own mind. later KFkairosfocus_{August 21, 2012
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This comment is directed to on-lookers, The miracles-destroy-science argument put forth by timothya requires that God be capricious and non-revelatory in order to work. Now when asked about the possibility that God could be intentional and revealing about his extraordinary work, we are told that it is defective to claim knowledge of God. We are to "get back" to him when we have confirmed this knowledge. It seems that claiming knowledge of how God works is impossible. But since timothya's argument requires God to be capricious and non-revelatory, he has made an implicit knowledge claim. Maybe he should get back to us when he confirms God means to act that way.Steve_Gann_{August 21, 2012
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Oh boy! Is it logically possible that God (a maximally great being) could have created a universe like this one in such a way that He needn't interfere, but it would run according to rules "programmed in"? Yes/NoBrent_{August 21, 2012
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Brent: 1. "If miracles regularly happened, they would be considered normal and not supernatural." Are you saying that we wouldn't even necessarily recognise a miracle if it actually happened? That would come as a surprise for the miracle-hunters of the Catholic church who require such events as justification for canonising saints. 2. "You have, by implication, stated clearly that it would be logically impossible for God not to interfere with the normal, regular operations of nature if He existed." What are you smoking? I said this? I don't think so. Here is what I think: every attempt to suppose a god-like intervention in nature is simply a logical fallacy that humans seem addicted to - imposing on nature an anthropomorphic principle (weird things happen in nature, therefore a human-like intelligence must be involved). A miracle, by definition, cannot be "normal". It has to be an observed, verifiable interruption of the regularity of nature. In any case, you are assuming what you are required to demonstrate: that your God exists and intervenes in nature in detectable ways. Ante up evidence. 3. I am happy to make angels dance on pinheads for the sake of a hypothetical discussion. But I simply don't find that particular discussion interesting.timothya_{August 21, 2012
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TA: I responded to a specific problem in how you portrayed theism in science. You decided to pick a handy point to drag a red herring and head off on a tangent to a strawman, exactly the original problem. And, I have not failed to notice the pouring on of oil of contempt and the snide flash of spark-words of the sort usually intended to ignite a fire and spread poisonous, choking, polarising clouds of confusion and contention. I notice that was immediately picked up. In short, the game is no longer working as easily as it once did, after many months of repeated exposure of the trifecta tactic. Perhaps it has not dawned on you that the orderliness of the cosmos and its fine tuned setting to an operating point that supports C-Chemistry, cell based life are factors that speak in this overall context? Has it not registered that theism -- as the historic examples cited show -- sees the general order of the cosmos as the law of its creator, and so that scientific thought on reasoned induction is confidently used as it thinks the thoughts of God after him? Has it not dawned on you that the same theists, down to today, hold that for good reason miracles will be rare and in particular contexts so that science will be able to confidently proceed on investigating the overall order of the cosmos? Indeed, has it never dawned on you that for a law there is usually a lawgiver, hence the significance of "laws of nature"? I guess I should pause to clip what you should have read and seriously reckoned with in the above link from Newton in his General Scholium:
. . . This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those systems at immense distances one from another. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler . . . . Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. [i.e necessity does not produce contingency] All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing. [That is, implicitly rejects chance, Plato's third alternative and explicitly infers to the Designer of the Cosmos.] . . .
Remember, onlookers, this is in the single most influential scientific work ever written. And, there is much more than I have clipped. KFkairosfocus_{August 21, 2012
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tim you state:
If miracles (arbitrary violations of the regularities of nature) are possible then no reliable science is possible
EXACTLY RIGHT TIM!
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: multiplying without limit the opportunities for any event to happen in the context of a multiverse – where it is alleged that anything can spontaneously jump into existence without cause – produces a situation in which no absurdity is beyond the pale. For instance, we find multiverse cosmologists debating the “Boltzmann Brain” problem: In the most “reasonable” models for a multiverse, it is immeasurably more likely that our consciousness is associated with a brain that has spontaneously fluctuated into existence in the quantum vacuum than it is that we have parents and exist in an orderly universe with a 13.7 billion-year history. This is absurd. The multiverse hypothesis is therefore falsified because it renders false what we know to be true about ourselves. Clearly, embracing the multiverse idea entails a nihilistic irrationality that destroys the very possibility of science. - quoted from Washington Times article The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory & The Multiverse – Dr. Bruce Gordon – video http://vimeo.com/34468027
Here is the last power-point slide of the preceding video by Dr. Gordon:
The End Of Materialism? * In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all. * In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles (ARBITRARY MIRACLES) as a explanatory principle. * In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose. * Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible.
Further notes on the (science defeating) irrationality of relying on 'arbitrary' random miracles as a explanatory principle:
Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness - Talbott - Fall 2011 Excerpt: The situation calls to mind a widely circulated cartoon by Sidney Harris, which shows two scientists in front of a blackboard on which a body of theory has been traced out with the usual tangle of symbols, arrows, equations, and so on. But there’s a gap in the reasoning at one point, filled by the words, “Then a miracle occurs.” And the one scientist is saying to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.” In the case of evolution, I picture Dennett and Dawkins filling the blackboard with their vivid descriptions of living, highly regulated, coordinated, integrated, and intensely meaningful biological processes, and then inserting a small, mysterious gap in the middle, along with the words, “Here something random occurs.” This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness Murray Eden, as reported in “Heresy in the Halls of Biology: Mathematicians Question Darwinism,” Scientific Research, November 1967, p. 64. “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/ReferencesandNotes32.html Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Wolfgang Pauli on the Empirical Problems with Neo-Darwinism - Casey Luskin - February 27, 2012 Excerpt: "In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of 'natural selection' in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely 'scientific' and 'rational,' they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word 'chance', not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word 'miracle.'" Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/nobel_prize-win056771.html
bornagain77_{August 21, 2012
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These "answers" make me sure my radar is both functional and properly tuned. 1) This is a simple assertion. I asked you to "make your case". You simply parroted what you were saying from the beginning. Combined with 3, which you apparently didn't understand (i.e., you need to make your case that miracles would be even knowable as such if they were regular occurrences. If miracles regularly happened, they would be considered normal and not supernatural. The idea of miracle presupposes regularity. If no regularity, no chance of miracles being known as such. Therefore, regularity, necessarily and experimentally, is the RULE!), shows you have not thought about this very thoroughly at all. 2) This is a total cop-out! You have, by implication, stated clearly that it would be logically impossible for God not to interfere with the normal, regular operations of nature if He existed. MAKE YOUR CASE! If you can rationally hash that out you could have a good argument against theism. In other words, what you must be saying is that it is not possible, in any possible world, that God could conceivably create a universe that ran without Him performing intervening acts often enough to thwart a scientific enterprise. This is what you need to show, not just assert. 3) We can talk on miracles later if you'd like. I thought it was clear that we were, until now, speaking theoretically, logically, hypothetically. Sorry you missed the "if".Brent_{August 21, 2012
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Brent: 1. If miracles (arbitrary violations of the regularities of nature) are possible then no reliable science is possible (that is, we can never rely on any experimental result because we can never know whether we are observing the regularity or the miracle). 2. I never imputed any motivations to God (capriciousness, necessity or intentionality etc etc), nor would I (since I don't anthropomorphise nature). I leave that mode of thinking to people who feel obliged to believe that nature is imbued with a spirit. 3. Regular miracles are a valid point? When? Where? Do you have an actual example of such a thing? Don't make me tired.timothya_{August 21, 2012
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Well then, start, please, with making your case that: 1) If God, no meaningful science. 2) Because God can perform a miracle and interfere with the normal operations of nature, that He must. 3) A miracle would even be known as such if they were a regular occurrence (and please stop acting as if you didn't/couldn't get that very, very valid and pertinent part of KF's post. Really!)Brent_{August 21, 2012
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Brent: give me an "overall point" to comment on and I will be glad to oblige if I find it interesting. But please don't ask me to dredge through KF's and Bornagain's unreadable sequences of disarticulated quotemines. Ridicule is the only serious response to that form of argumentation. Your radar may be operational, but it is tuned to the wrong frequency.timothya_{August 21, 2012
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timothya, Glad to know my radar is fully operational. You disregard overall points, cherry-picking what is convenient for your agenda. Get that fixed and then come back for real dialogue. Right now you are just a troll.Brent_{August 21, 2012
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Plenty of people commenting here are happy to prescribe various ways in which their particular God is supposed or required to behave. Get back to me when you get confirmation from her one way or the other. But Kairosfocus takes the cake. He posted this: "Should it not give you pause, that the likes of Boyle, Kepler, newton etc believed in a world ordered by the mind of God so that in science we think God’s ordering and sustaining thoughts after him? Surely, the eminence of these thinkers as founders of science should tell you that history is advising us that science is very possible within a theistic worldview that is open to the miraculous." But KF, haven't you noticed something strange about the form of Boyle's Law (or Keplers' or Newtons')? Boyle says: "pV=K" Boyle does not say: "pV=K (except when God intervenes to make sure that pV does not equal K)" I can only interpret your words, so I must assume that you think the necessary God of your religion is hidden inside the p or the V or the K (or perhaps the equality). Your call. Certainly Boyle and many other magnificent scientists were deeply religious, but there is no evidence that religion informed their results. They left their prayer book outside the laboratory, as every observant scientist does. KF also posted this (and then followed it up with some gratuitous fingerwagging): "It is indeed true that science is not feasible in a chaos, but it is a caricature of theism to suggest that it teaches or implies that we live in a chaos." I have no idea what this means, so I can only respond with a well-known quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."timothya_{August 21, 2012
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Thus, though neo-Darwinian atheists may claim that evolution is as well established as Gravity, the plain fact of the matter is that General Relativity itself, which is by far our best description of Gravity, testifies strongly against the entire concept of 'bottom up' neo-Darwinian evolution. further notes:
Are You Looking for the Simplest and Clearest Argument for Intelligent Design? - Granville Sewell (2nd Law) - video http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/looking_for_the056711.html Physicist Rob Sheldon offers some thoughts on Sal Cordova vs. Granville Sewell on 2nd Law Thermo - July 5, 2012 Excerpt: This is where Granville derives the potency of his argument, since a living organism certainly shows unusual permutations of the atoms, and thus has stat mech entropy that via Boltzmann, must obey the 2nd law. If life violates this, then it must not be lawfully possible for evolution to happen (without an input of work or information.) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-rob-sheldon-offers-some-thoughts-on-sal-cordova-vs-granville-sewell-on-2nd-law-thermo/
In further critique
Science and Pseudoscience (transcript) - "In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts" - Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture
Even Darwinists are now admitting that their theory has suffered major renovations in order to fit what the evidence is now saying:
EMBO workshop focuses on “phenomena that are not part of the traditional narrative of molecular evolution … ” August 2012 Excerpt: It is impossible to deny that our ideas on evolution are shifting from the simple and rigid ‘random mutation–selective fixation’ scheme epitomized in the Modern Synthesis, to a much more complex, nuanced picture. Under the new view, the interplay between stochasticity and adaptive mechanisms is extensive and essential, both in the generation of variation and in the fixation of the changes. https://uncommondescent.com/evolutionary-biology/embo-workshop-focuses-on-phenomena-that-are-not-part-of-the-traditional-narrative-of-molecular-evolution/
also of note, quantum mechanics, which is even stronger than general relativity in terms of predictive power, has some very interesting assumptions built into it that make it so successful as a theory:
Can quantum theory be improved? - July 23, 2012 Excerpt: However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice, free will assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,, ,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random. http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html
Needless to say, finding free will and consciousness to be 'built into' quantum mechanics as starting assumptions is VERY antithetical to the entire materialistic philosophybornagain77_{August 21, 2012
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uoflcard:
"Okay I made it to the 20 minute mark (of the PZ Myer video)"
I feel for you, I sat through about that much of his Junk DNA video, skipping though, along the high points of his powerpoints, to gather his main claims at the end, which, if I remember correctly, he claimed that DNA was something like greater than 50% completely functionless. So much for unbiased science on his part. But here PZ's primary claim (accusation against Theists) is that:
“Scientists! If You’re Not an Atheist, You Aren’t Doing Science Right!”
But as was pointed out so eloquently in a post that came out yesterday in the Christian Post, in a article challenging Lawrence Krauss's over the top claims about the significance of the Higg's boson (The 'God' particle):
The God Particle: Not the God of the Gaps, But the Whole Show - Monday, Aug 20, 2012 Excerpt: It is Krauss's atheism that is at war with his science - not God. http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-god-particle-not-the-god-of-the-gaps-but-the-whole-show-80307/
Indeed it seems that PZ Myers, in his irrational, hate filled, war against God refuses to recognize that without God 'science', which he claims to love so much, is not even possible in the first place!
Epistemology – Why Should The Human Mind Even Be Able To Comprehend Reality? – Stephen Meyer - video – (Notes in description) http://vimeo.com/32145998 Why should the human mind be able to comprehend reality so deeply? - referenced article https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qGvbg_212biTtvMschSGZ_9kYSqhooRN4OUW_Pw-w0E/edit
Moreover, Myers, with his a-priorily preferred theory of atheistic/materialistic neo-Darwinism, simply has no basis in science from which to work with: i.e. Although neo-Darwinists are infamous for claiming that Darwinian evolution is as well established as gravity. This claim is patently false! For one thing Gravity, as formulated within General Relativity, can be falsified:
The happiest thought of my life. Then the Principle of Equivalence states that 'the inertial and gravitational masses are identical.' The whole of the General Theory of Relativity rests on this postulate, and will fail if one can find a material for which the inertial and gravitational masses have different values. http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node85.html
Whereas, neo-Darwinism has no identifiable falsification criteria:
Science and Pseudoscience – Imre Lakatos “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture
Moreover, General Relativity has been confirmed to stunning degree of accuracy:
Einstein’s General Relativity Tested Again, Much More Stringently - 2010 Excerpt: As Müller puts it, “If the time of freefall was extended to the age of the universe – 14 billion years – the time difference between the upper and lower routes would be a mere one thousandth of a second, and the accuracy of the measurement would be 60 ps, the time it takes for light to travel about a centimetre.” http://www.universetoday.com/56612/einsteins-general-relativity-tested-again-much-more-stringently/
Whereas neo-Darwinists have never demonstrated that even a single protein (much less massively integrated protein networks) can arise by purely material processes:
Evolution vs. Functional Proteins - Doug Axe - Video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4018222
Moreover, not only is Darwinian evolution not even close to being as firmly established as gravity, (General Relativity), a strong case can now be made that Gravity, as described by General Relativity, arises as a 'entropic force', and therefore directly opposes the entire concept of Darwinian evolution (opposes the entire concept of random 'bottom up' evolution),,,
Evolution is a Fact, Just Like Gravity is a Fact! UhOh! - January 2010 Excerpt: The results of this paper suggest gravity arises as an entropic force, once space and time themselves have emerged. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/evolution-is-a-fact-just-like-gravity-is-a-fact-uhoh/ The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them? Roger Penrose Excerpt: "The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the "source" of the Second Law (Entropy)." How special was the big bang? - Roger Penrose Excerpt: This now tells us how precise the Creator's aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123. (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 - 1989) Roger Penrose - How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized, whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space.” Entropy of the Universe - Hugh Ross - May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe
,,, there is also a very strong case to be made that the cosmological constant in General Relativity, the expansion of space-time (Dark Energy), drives, or is deeply connected to, entropy as measured by diffusion:
Big Rip Excerpt: The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis first published in 2003, about the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future. Theoretically, the scale factor of the universe becomes infinite at a finite time in the future. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
bornagain77_{August 21, 2012
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TA: I see your claim/boilerplate -- it seems to be a pretty standard talking point used to push a priori materialism under the name methodological naturalism or the like:
If you believe that a supernatural entity can intervene in nature at any time, then no scientific experiment (of any kind!) can reliably tell us that X causes Y. (There is always the chance that the experimental result happened because the supernatural entity intervened to make it turn out that way).
The main problem is that you have first and foremost offered a strawman caricature, one that actually curs clean across the actual history of the rise of modern science. Should it not give you pause, that the likes of Boyle, Kepler, newton etc believed in a world ordered by the mind of God so that in science we think God's ordering and sustaining thoughts after him? Surely, the eminence of these thinkers as founders of science should tell you that history is advising us that science is very possible within a theistic worldview that is open to the miraculous. In short, your assertion fails the actual history of science test. Why is that so? C S Lewis offers a key clue: on any reasonable theistic view and definition, miracles are signs that to work as signs, must stand out from the usual course of the world. Where that basic and mundane course of the world is itself sustained by the will of the Deity as a means of governing creation. (This is for instance very strongly asserted in Newton's General Scholium to Principia, i.e. the most important book of science written in the past 400 years. So, someone has not done due diligence before making confident manner assertions, and/or is suppressing inconvenient but material evidence. In either case they know or SHOULD know better.) In short, theism posits a cosmos, not a chaos. It is indeed true that science is not feasible in a chaos, but it is a caricature of theism to suggest that it teaches or implies that we live in a chaos. An open universe in which for good reason God may act in other than the usual way (creating a sign that points to realities beyond our mundane world order), is not one that is hostile to genuine science. Science that is humble enough to for instance recognise the provisionality of its findings, and to accept that in the end it offers models made by imperfect people which therefore are likely to be imperfect, but at the same time should seek, value and prize truth about the world. In that context, it is those who would impose an a priori materialism who are censors and are profoundly anti-scientific. For they are taking science captive to an ideology. And, those induced to become fellow travellers with that ideologisation, are enablers of the undermining of the social consensus that lies behind the credibility of science in our day. if you turn science into politics, eventually enough people will get the message that science will be seen as simply a party-platform label. At least, in the relevant fields. That is already happening with climate science. Or, in the words of the child's story, those who cry wolf wolf when there is no wolf, will one day lose all respect and credibility when a real wolf is tearing the flock. So, please, think again. KFkairosfocus_{August 21, 2012
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Timothya said: "...then you can never know whether you are observing a natural regularity or a miracle." It is a strange notion seeing that ID is all about detecting irregularities in the natural flow of things. The only cause we scientifically (i.e. through experience) know that can cause irregularities is intelligence. Are you implying that the investigation of irregularities in nature is outside the reach of scientific method. If that is your position then I suppose you have a strong argument to ensure that "tampering with the data" can never be detected. or Maybe you just have a strange definition of a miracle?mullerpr_{August 20, 2012
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Okay I made it to the 20 minute mark. Let me know if something Earth shattering was said beyond that. But his main argument for why religion doesn't matter seems to be "it doesn't" and his argument for why love has nothing to do with God or the supernatural is "it doesn't". What powerful arguments, Dr. Myers. How can my faith survive such strong arguments? From whatever I've read or heard from PZ, it just seems like he doesn't realize that his worldview is driven by faith just as much as an theists. He compares theists' faith with his "lack of faith", not realize that he really has faith in the lack of the supernatural. I'll just sit back and watch real science obliterate his worldview more and more every year by uncovering the layers of complexity in biology.uoflcard_{August 20, 2012
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@ 3:15...
Yes there are religious scientists, but they don't do it simultaneously. They have to shut down their prayer module when they go into the lab to do research because prayers do not contribute to their research.
Put another way...
Yes there are scientists with senses of humor, but they don't do it simultaneously. They have to shut down their humor module when they go into the lab to do research because laughter does not contribute to their research.
I guess scientists should not have sense of humor, then! Sad that this is even getting discussed. It is intellectually bankrupt, just a bunch of GOTCHA! philosophy. timothya, you truly believe that if God were to intervene even one time, that would bankrupt all of the value of science? "Sorry little Bobby, we have to throw these chemotherapy drugs in the trash...science has been overturned by God making a firecracker un-explode."uoflcard_{August 20, 2012
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Doh! That would be a proper modus-tollens. But, as per my first post, the problem is that it isn't sound as a premise, if God, no meaningful science. You will have to establish that first. Good luck.Brent_{August 20, 2012
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timothya, You are on my "cannot be taken seriously radar" since you, again, use your own selective way of dealing with a part of what I said. You are saying: If God exists, no meaningful science. Meaningful science. God doesn't exist. Ummm . . .Brent_{August 20, 2012
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timothya, I would like to develop your idea more if you don't mind. What would happen if God was not capricious? That is, if he/she/it made it crystal clear they were doing something extraordinary in nature?Steve_Gann_{August 20, 2012
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Brent posted this: "You and PZ don’t have a case here at all. Just because God conceivably can intervene and gum up our ability to do meaningful scientific experimentation, it does not follow that He has to." It is you lot that are claiming to know the mind of God, not me. I am making the humble point that if miracles are possible, then you can never know whether you are observing a natural regularity or a miracle. Butifnot posted this: "If the universe can exist on its own it can stop existing, parts of it can change or anything can happen at any time." Well done, you are starting to get the drift.timothya_{August 20, 2012
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Tim, your point goes both ways. If the universe can exist on its own it can stop existing, parts of it can change or anything can happen at any time.butifnot_{August 20, 2012
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Tomothya, You and PZ don't have a case here at all. Just because God conceivably can intervene and gum up our ability to do meaningful scientific experimentation, it does not follow that He has to. And, since experimentally we indeed do find repeatability and coherence, your premise is only going to get you as far as concluding that God, for whatever reason, does not intervene, or does so consistently, either of which make scientific exploration meaningful. No further conclusions can be drawn I'm afraid. I think this is a case of unwarranted and untenable selective skepticism. I.E., since something is logically possible, therefore we cannot (or could not) know. And then you say (by implication), since we do know scientific experiments are a real means of knowledge and understanding, therefore it is logically impossible for God to exist. I don't see any other way for your argument to go, and this way will get you exactly nowhere.Brent_{August 20, 2012
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tim as to your thought that materialism somehow has a leg to stand on as far as empirical science in concerned (that material particles are somehow 'self-sustaining' entities), well that materialistic presupposition of yours is now shown to be completely false: Quantum Evidence for a Theistic Universe https://docs.google.com/document/d/1agaJIWjPWHs5vtMx5SkpaMPbantoP471k0lNBUXg0Xo/editbornagain77_{August 20, 2012
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tim you falsely hold:
must also believe that the entity is capable of randomly and miraculously intervening in nature.
i.e. hidden in your use of the word 'randomly' is the wrong thought that God is somehow capricious in His actions; Yet God, as the 'maximally great Being', is incapable of being capricious in His actions for that would be a 'lesser making quality':
God Is Not Dead Yet – William Lane Craig – Page 4 The ontological argument. Anselm’s famous argument has been reformulated and defended by Alvin Plantinga, Robert Maydole, Brian Leftow, and others. God, Anselm observes, is by definition the greatest being conceivable. If you could conceive of anything greater than God, then that would be God. Thus, God is the greatest conceivable being, a maximally great being. So what would such a being be like? He would be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good, and he would exist in every logically possible world. But then we can argue: 1. It is possible that a maximally great being (God) exists. 2. If it is possible that a maximally great being exists, then a maximally great being exists in some possible world. 3. If a maximally great being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world. 4. If a maximally great being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world. 5. Therefore, a maximally great being exists in the actual world. 6. Therefore, a maximally great being exists. 7. Therefore, God exists. Now it might be a surprise to learn that steps 2–7 of this argument are relatively uncontroversial. Most philosophers would agree that if God’s existence is even possible, then he must exist. So the whole question is: Is God’s existence possible? The atheist has to maintain that it’s impossible that God exists. He has to say that the concept of God is incoherent, like the concept of a married bachelor or a round square. But the problem is that the concept of God just doesn’t appear to be incoherent in that way. The idea of a being which is all-powerful, all knowing, and all-good in every possible world seems perfectly coherent. And so long as God’s existence is even possible, it follows that God must exist. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/july/13.22.html?start=4
I like the concluding comment about the ontological argument from the following Dr. Plantinga video:
"God then is the Being that couldn't possibly not exit." Ontological Argument – Dr. Plantinga (3:50 minute mark) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXvVcWFrGQ
Further notes:
The Ontological Argument (The Introduction) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQPRqHZRP68
It should also be carefully noted that materialists/atheists have conceded the necessary premise to the ontological argument in their appeal to the multiverse to try to 'explain away' the extreme fine-tuning of the universe
Ontological Argument For God From The Many Worlds/Multiverse Hypothesis - William Lane Craig - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4784641
i.e. As well, this hypothetical infinite multiverse obviously begs the question of exactly which laws of physics, arising from which material basis, are telling all the other natural laws in physics what, how and when, to do the many precise unchanging things they do in these infinity of other universes? Exactly where is this universe creating machine to be located? Moreover, if an infinite number of other possible universes must exist in order to 'explain away' the extreme fine tuning of this one, then why is it not also infinitely possible for a infinitely powerful and transcendent Creator to exist? Using the materialist same line of reasoning for an infinity of multiverses to 'explain away' the extreme fine-tuning of this one we can thusly surmise; If it is infinitely possible for God to exist then He, of 100% certainty, must exist no matter how small the probability is of His existence in one of these other infinity of universes, and since He certainly must exist in some possible world then he must exist in all possible worlds since all possibilities in all universes automatically become subject to Him since He is, by definition, transcendent and infinitely Powerful.,,, and as weird as it may sound, this following video refines the Ontological argument into a proof that, because of the characteristic of ‘maximally great love’, God must exist in more than one person:
The Ontological Argument for the Triune God - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGVYXog8NUg
bornagain77_{August 20, 2012
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If this is true, then science is a pointless waste of human effort for reasons I explained upthread.
Except you didn't explain anything. As I said you don't appear to have a basic understanding of anything. That is why it is a miracle that you can use the internet.Joe_{August 20, 2012
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