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

Joe posted this: "timothya- Speaking of miracles, how strange that you are able to post anything." You think information technologies are miraculous? No wonder I have a job for life.timothya_{August 20, 2012
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Bjornagain posted this (among other things): "* In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle." Well perhaps (though this little black duck doesn't feel forced to believe any such thing, and I would not presume to speak for materialists in general). But an anti-materialist (anyone who believes in the existence of a supernatural entity as an ultimate cause of material reality) must also believe that the entity is capable of randomly and miraculously intervening in nature. If this is true, then science is a pointless waste of human effort for reasons I explained upthread.timothya_{August 20, 2012
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timothya- Speaking of miracles, how strange that you are able to post anything. Usually that is limited to people with some understanding of things.Joe_{August 20, 2012
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actually timothya, Joe is completely correct to observe,,,
“Ya see tim, I say YOUR position requires more miracles than mine.”
For ya see tim:
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world. Neither is it the case that "nothing" is unstable, as Mr. Hawking and others maintain. Absolute nothing cannot have mathematical relationships predicated on it, not even quantum gravitational ones. Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency - a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what "breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.,,, the evidence for string theory and its extension, M-theory, is nonexistent; and the idea that conjoining them demonstrates that we live in a multiverse of bubble universes with different laws and constants is a mathematical fantasy. What is worse, 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. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/ 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:
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 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.
This 'lack of a guarantee', for trusting our perceptions and reasoning in science to be trustworthy in the first place, even extends into evolutionary naturalism itself;
Should You Trust the Monkey Mind? - Joe Carter Excerpt: Evolutionary naturalism assumes that our noetic equipment developed as it did because it had some survival value or reproductive advantage. Unguided evolution does not select for belief except insofar as the belief improves the chances of survival. The truth of a belief is irrelevant, as long as it produces an evolutionary advantage. This equipment could have developed at least four different kinds of belief that are compatible with evolutionary naturalism, none of which necessarily produce true and trustworthy cognitive faculties. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/should-you-trust-the-monkey-mind What is the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism? ('inconsistent identity' of cause leads to failure of absolute truth claims for materialists) (Alvin Plantinga) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNg4MJgTFw Philosopher Sticks Up for God Excerpt: Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he (Plantinga) writes. “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/books/alvin-plantingas-new-book-on-god-and-science.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all Modern science was conceived, and born, and flourished in the matrix of Christian theism. Only liberal doses of self-deception and double-think, I believe, will permit it to flourish in the context of Darwinian naturalism. ~ Alvin Plantinga Can atheists trust their own minds? - William Lane Craig On Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byN38dyZb-k “One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.” —C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason) Do the New Atheists Own the Market on Reason? - On the terms of the New Atheists, the very concept of rationality becomes nonsensical - By R. Scott Smith, May 03, 2012 Excerpt: If atheistic evolution by NS were true, we'd be in a beginningless series of interpretations, without any knowledge. Yet, we do know many things. So, naturalism & atheistic evolution by NS are false -- non-physical essences exist. But, what's their best explanation? Being non-physical, it can't be evolution by NS. Plus, we use our experiences, form concepts and beliefs, and even modify or reject them. Yet, if we're just physical beings, how could we interact with and use these non-physical things? Perhaps we have non-physical souls too. In all, it seems likely the best explanation for these non-physical things is that there exists a Creator after all. http://www.patheos.com/Evangelical/Atheists-Own-the-Market-on-Reason-Scott-Smith-05-04-2012?offset=1&max=1 The following interview is sadly comical as a evolutionary psychologist realizes that neo-Darwinism can offer no guarantee that our faculties of reasoning will correspond to the truth, not even for the truth that he is purporting to give in the interview, (which begs the question of how was he able to come to that particular truthful realization, in the first place, if neo-Darwinian evolution were actually true?); Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think - October 2011 Interviewer: You could be deceiving yourself about that.(?) Evolutionary Psychologist: Absolutely. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128335.300-evolutionary-guru-dont-believe-everything-you-think.html Evolutionists Are Now Saying Their Thinking is Flawed (But Evolution is Still a Fact) - Cornelius Hunter - May 2012 Excerpt: But the point here is that these “researchers” are making an assertion (human reasoning evolved and is flawed) which undermines their very argument. If human reasoning evolved and is flawed, then how can we know that evolution is a fact, much less any particular details of said evolutionary process that they think they understand via their “research”? http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/05/evolutionists-are-now-saying-their.html
bornagain77_{August 20, 2012
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Joe How strange that you would post this: "Ya see tim, I say YOUR position requires more miracles than mine." And then post this: "Just saying it does NOT make it so, duh." I agree.timothya_{August 20, 2012
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How are we to tell if godididitty intervened in this particular experiment or did not?
How do we tell now?
It is you that believes that the regularity of nature can be interrupted by miracles.
It is? Evidence please. Ya see tim, I say YOUR position requires more miracles than mine.
The point is this: if it is possible that the supernatural entity can interrupt the regularities of nature, then the whole of science is a waste of time (even the bits you like).
Just saying it does NOT make it so, duh.Joe_{August 20, 2012
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Joe posted this: "Nope, because no one says said agency does so all the time. And anyway science only cares about reality." How are we to tell if godididitty intervened in this particular experiment or did not? It is you that believes that the regularity of nature can be interrupted by miracles. Fine. Just produce evidence. The point is this: if it is possible that the supernatural entity can interrupt the regularities of nature, then the whole of science is a waste of time (even the bits you like).timothya_{August 20, 2012
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If a supernatural entity can, at will, interrupt the observed regularities of nature, then science is a pointless exercise.
Nope, because no one says said agency does so all the time. And anyway science only cares about reality.
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.
Good luck proving that bit of nonsense.Joe_{August 20, 2012
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If a supernatural entity can, at will, interrupt the observed regularities of nature, then science is a pointless exercise. Why? 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). If that is what you think, then you should say so.timothya_{August 20, 2012
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Strange that the father of modern science, Isaac Newton, saw science as a way of understanding God's Creation.Joe_{August 20, 2012
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