Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion

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Pam Winnick’s new book, A Jealous God: Science’s Crusade Against Religion, is out in stores. It provides a nice counterblast to Chris Mooney’s diatribe about the Republican/conservative hijacking of science.

Comments
umm ok? you clearly havent read behes book. youre not making sense. ID is a positive argument, tho you deny this. you claim ID is simply "we don't know! it must be designed' the end" not so. and i merely pointed out that no reasonable step by step process to evolve the BF has come about. darwin said such a situation would totally falsify his theory. his theory still stands with you and many others...why is that the case? we can come out with some off the wall ideas such as P.E. but that doesn't make the situation any better.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Jboze, "youre trying to claim ID is some sort of god of the gaps argument, but that doesnt hold up under the evidence thats been put forth, the papers/books written, etc." You say this, then you go on the say this: "you cannot show any possible step by step process that would create an IC system. darwin himself said that if one could not do this for all systems we find, it would falsify his theory. you cant do it, others cant do it either- miller, who seems to think hes done it, doesnt even understand IC, considering he seems to think a mousetrap, tie clip, and paper weight serve the same purpose…even if this stipulation wasnt in place, he still hasnt shown a thing in regards to the BF. not to mention a cpl other examples of IC that have no step by step explanation. how long (i think its been 7 or 8 yrs so far) before we consider the theory that you claim is supported by a mountain of evidence falsified as darwin pointed out?" The irony of this is deafening.testerschoice
November 7, 2005
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i should also point out that the entire mud to man evolution scenario is nothing but a theoretical narrative. its surely no empirical in any sense. and ID does, indeed, have more than a "lack of knowledge" on the BF. youre trying to claim ID is some sort of god of the gaps argument, but that doesnt hold up under the evidence thats been put forth, the papers/books written, etc. you cannot show any possible step by step process that would create an IC system. darwin himself said that if one could not do this for all systems we find, it would falsify his theory. you cant do it, others cant do it either- miller, who seems to think hes done it, doesnt even understand IC, considering he seems to think a mousetrap, tie clip, and paper weight serve the same purpose...even if this stipulation wasnt in place, he still hasnt shown a thing in regards to the BF. not to mention a cpl other examples of IC that have no step by step explanation. how long (i think its been 7 or 8 yrs so far) before we consider the theory that you claim is supported by a mountain of evidence falsified as darwin pointed out?jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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"Also, could you please use proper capitalization and not write in sentence fragments every paragraph. I usually do not bring this up with people on the internet, but you are gratuitous." id rather not. you can continue to claim id has no positive evidence behind it, but thats BS and you know it. "I would rather have an approximation of the answer than no answer at all. It is nice to know the IDists have a defeatist mentality in the face of actual questions about reality. " youre still putting words into my mouth. that part of my comment clearly had nothing to do with ID, it had to do with philosophy. i see you have turned the mountain of evidence into the molehill i said it was...its okay tho, because you claim there is positive ID evidence, which as i said, is bogus. as for your comments on science- science proclaims it CANNOT examine the supernatural. if the supernatural does, indeed, exist (in any of the forms i mentioned), then science would have to admit it cannot study it. if god came down and had lunch with richard dawkins- and dawkins agreed that god was supernatural, he would have to admit that he couldnt possibly study god, no matter how many lunches they had together. if science cannot deal with the supernatural and if the supernatural does exist- science would just label it natural. either that or most would deny the evidence and claim there has to be some naturalistic explanation to it. that is the very definition of closed minded.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Jboze, "you continue to put words in my mouth. thanks! i wasnt aware that it was all about the spiritual realm for behe, dembski, johnson, and even myself. clearly ken miller is a christian, so “bel;ieving” in evolution isnt in any way surrendering ones faith." You said: "i believe the designer is the god of the bible- so i think there is purpose to life." Please rectify this, do you want to renounce this quote? Ken Miller clearly has resolve the issue for himself somehow, hey, notice how he is not on my list! Also, I never it it was "all about the spiritual realm", merely that it had importance in that. "if there is no god, no one will ever find out the biggest answers in life. theres no chance that man will ever find these answers himself on earth…unless we can build time machines to travel back to the start of it all…even then, its unlikely that would tell us all we want to know. no god means no chance of ever truly knowing. its just not possible, so why bother, when any reasonable person knows without god there will be barriers and limits no man will ever be able to get around?" I would rather have an approximation of the answer than no answer at all. It is nice to know the IDists have a defeatist mentality in the face of actual questions about reality. "mountains of evidence? sorry, but when the leading lights have a handful of their most prized “transitions” (horses and whales mainly), and not even all darwinists agree that these transitional sequences hold up- i would hardly call that a mountain of evidence. the total of all ‘hominid’ fossils would barely fill the back of a small pickup truck (as history channels recent ape to man series explained), yet we have mountains of evidence of human evolution? come on!" A pickup truck of hominid fossils is infinitely more than NO positive evidence for ID. Especially your specific interpretation which requires the existence of the Christian God. Why is their no active research into the mechanisms for how ID is executed? Answer that question please, because Behe sure did not know. "the fact is- common decent and common designer could both be equally likely from the evidence…in my view common design wins out tho. if ID has no evidence to stand on, please explain to us the step by step process that lead to the bacterial flagella. explain why, in the lab, species limits is the rule when it comes to fruit flies and e coli, even tho weve sped up mutation rates to the poiint where we should have already seen some major changes. if intelligent agents speeding up the mutation rates cannot accomplish this, how does unguided, purposeless processes in nature do it and do it a thousand times as big?" Check out Behe's testimony on the subject. For a bacterial colony that is several powers of ten below the population size in a ton of dirt and using only point mutations, they will evolve a functional disulfide bond in 20,000 years. Considering that is a very conservative estimate and life has been around for approximatly 3.5 billion years the odds are not so bad. "a reasonable explanation as to why the fossil record shows stasis and so many body forms appear with no links before it. your mountain is a molehill." Oh no, you caught us, we cannot explain the step by step mechanisms for bacterial flegella evolution. And this is evidence for ID how? How is the LACK OF KNOWLEDGE evidence for intelligent design? Again, you have no evidence for design besides theoretical models (something which IDists scoff at when biologists do the same). "and it doesnt make sense to say- this is science, anything outside of it is bunk and not worth looking at. while, at the same time, science daily tackles issues of the supernatural realm (they claim that they cannot study god, but natl geographic channel runs programs daily attacking god and “disproving” his existence.) they claim that they cannot go into the realm to study hauntings, spirits, ghosts, esp, etc. yet they constantly claim theyve debunked all of this stuff…its a complete contradiction and its closed minded and way too narrow for science overall. " It makes perfect sense, that is why science has actually answered questions about the universe and things like astrology have done nothing. Science can go in and investigate phenomena that are called spiritual and have observable and quantifiable (read material) manifestations. Also, could you please use proper capitalization and not write in sentence fragments every paragraph. I usually do not bring this up with people on the internet, but you are gratuitous.testerschoice
November 7, 2005
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you continue to put words in my mouth. thanks! i wasnt aware that it was all about the spiritual realm for behe, dembski, johnson, and even myself. clearly ken miller is a christian, so "bel;ieving" in evolution isnt in any way surrendering ones faith. if there is no god, no one will ever find out the biggest answers in life. theres no chance that man will ever find these answers himself on earth...unless we can build time machines to travel back to the start of it all...even then, its unlikely that would tell us all we want to know. no god means no chance of ever truly knowing. its just not possible, so why bother, when any reasonable person knows without god there will be barriers and limits no man will ever be able to get around? mountains of evidence? sorry, but when the leading lights have a handful of their most prized "transitions" (horses and whales mainly), and not even all darwinists agree that these transitional sequences hold up- i would hardly call that a mountain of evidence. the total of all 'hominid' fossils would barely fill the back of a small pickup truck (as history channels recent ape to man series explained), yet we have mountains of evidence of human evolution? come on! the fact is- common decent and common designer could both be equally likely from the evidence...in my view common design wins out tho. if ID has no evidence to stand on, please explain to us the step by step process that lead to the bacterial flagella. explain why, in the lab, species limits is the rule when it comes to fruit flies and e coli, even tho weve sped up mutation rates to the poiint where we should have already seen some major changes. if intelligent agents speeding up the mutation rates cannot accomplish this, how does unguided, purposeless processes in nature do it and do it a thousand times as big? a reasonable explanation as to why the fossil record shows stasis and so many body forms appear with no links before it. your mountain is a molehill. and it doesnt make sense to say- this is science, anything outside of it is bunk and not worth looking at. while, at the same time, science daily tackles issues of the supernatural realm (they claim that they cannot study god, but natl geographic channel runs programs daily attacking god and "disproving" his existence.) they claim that they cannot go into the realm to study hauntings, spirits, ghosts, esp, etc. yet they constantly claim theyve debunked all of this stuff...its a complete contradiction and its closed minded and way too narrow for science overall.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Jboze, I know why Dawkin's (and myself for that matter) do science. We both are uncertain about our fate after we die, there may be no grand truths revealed. It then makes sense to dedicate your life to finding them, since it is possibly our only chance. What reason do you have to find them in life if you believe they will be revealed in their totality when you die? As for rhetoric, from my perspective that is all the ID community has. Evolution can stand on the mountains of evidence that has been aquired over the last 150 years. ID just has sparse (if any) publications and quote mining (Dawkin's supports ID LOL!!). Honestly, we may never know who is right, and evolution may never be able to convince people like you. No matter how much evidence is presented against ID, for people like you, Dembski, Behe, Johnson it is a matter of importance beyond the material realm, but in the spiritual realm. To believe in evolution is to surrender your faith. I ask you, is there anyway you could ever believe (in the scientific sense) evolution? PS. "they have a more open minded view of allowing evidence to come in, and not demanding it fit a certain preconceived notion of what is and what isnt true science, what is and what isnt evidence that should be allowed, etc." Thanks for the rhetorical argument.testerschoice
November 7, 2005
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yeah. and the same goes for me. and from my pov, the evidence - all of it taken together points to purpose and design. science, philosophy, religion, etc. using them all together, i see a purpose to life, meaning and a reason for being here. if, on the other hand, the designer killed you off and that was that- i wouldnt even care to wonder about his design. why would i? so i can learn more about it, die, then never find out the ultimate truths to life? i believe the designer is the god of the bible- so i think there is purpose to life. to those who think the designer is a purposeless being/god whatever- i dont understand why they care to study it at all. just as i dont get why militant atheists like dawkins wastes time with his study of the issue, when he thinks hell die one day and never truly find out any ultimate truth...and even if he thinks hes got some ultimate truth- so what? hell die and thatll be it for him forever, so why bother? why not drink and be merry , for tomorrow we die? im going with the evidence as well, and from the rhetoric itself i see one side ahead (the ID side). when one side attacks, distorts, lies about the other- you know that that side probably has some issues, that theyre not really totally solid with their so-called evidence. when one side is calm and cordial, you see that chances are- they have a better grip on things for 1. and 2. they have a more open minded view of allowing evidence to come in, and not demanding it fit a certain preconceived notion of what is and what isnt true science, what is and what isnt evidence that should be allowed, etc.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Jboze, "you want life to have no purpose" I do not want that, but I acknowledge it as a possibility. This is no different then my acknowledging that life may have a purpose (divine or otherwise), or that the mind may be immaterial. All I am doing right now is investigating and waiting for the evidence to come in. That determines where I place my bets.testerschoice
November 7, 2005
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how do you gather tester? im not fervent in my position at all... the fact is, if your the result of a blind unguided process- none of our lives have any meaning, as even provine from cornell admits. so, we can now argue that you want life to have no purpose, then you can act accordingly, which is why you see things the way you do, right?jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Jboze, Ah, now I see why you were so fervent in your position. If you are wrong, your life has no meaning. That sucks.testerschoice
November 7, 2005
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oops. noticed a mistake. make that resurrection.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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"This is by far a conclusion more reasonable than postulating some kind of supernatural spiritual essence that continues sensory experience and recording in the absence of functional sensory apparatus." --------------- well, for me the designer would be God...and if life ended with your natural death, then that's no God worth having. being a christian and knowing the evidence of the miracles and reserrection of christ, id find it easier to side with the 'supernatural' period, and this sort of thing seems to mirror that sort of realm to some degree. even if the designer, in your opinion, isnt god- if life ended at death, then i wouldnt even care to posit about the designer or his design, because hed be worthless beyond imagination.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Brain chemistry doesn't cease when characteristic brain electrical waves go flat. Brain waves are indicative of loss of ability to physically interact with reality. Brain chemistry is probably what records sensory experience. For instance, recent experiments which disable certain protein activity in the brain block the formation of long term memory but impair no other brain functions. Electrical activity may be simply indicative of post-processing of the real-time and recorded data streams for actionable responses. Being considered clinically "brain-dead" is more likely just an expedient excuse to facilitate disconnecting patients from expensive life-support machinery based upon statistical evidence that brain-dead patients, especially those that have been brain-dead for hours or days, never (or close enough to never) recover consciousness. Triage is a lousy job but someone has to do it.DaveScot
November 7, 2005
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"if someone has no brain activity (nothing shows up on an EEG), i assure you theyre considered brain dead" I've seen enough electronic malfunctions and operator error to easily explain a few cases of apparent brain death when there wasn't any. But for the sake of argument let's say the machines and their operators performed flawlessly. Let's also say the memories are real. The logical conclusion is that what we consider "brain-dead" really isn't and there's activity not detectable by current methodology. This is by far a conclusion more reasonable than postulating some kind of supernatural spiritual essence that continues sensory experience and recording in the absence of functional sensory apparatus. Have you seen the movie "21 Grams"? You'd like it. Try to keep in mind it's fiction while you watch it.DaveScot
November 7, 2005
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"you sound like ID opponents who shrug it off as nonsense without a glance over" Most things that are given pseudo-science labels really deserve them. ID is the exception that proves the rule.DaveScot
November 7, 2005
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you sound like ID opponents who shrug it off as nonsense without a glance over. if someone has no brain activity (nothing shows up on an EEG), i assure you theyre considered brain dead.jboze3131
November 7, 2005
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Maybe she wasn't really braindead. Maybe the moon landing was faked. Maybe aliens travel trillions of miles to earth to conduct anal probing experiments on abducted humans. Maybe witches really can fly on a broom. Maybe I don't have much time for paranormal claptrap.DaveScot
November 7, 2005
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testerschoice, RE: Post 20 You have pointed out that the burden of proof is on others “to show that thoughts have an immaterial basis.” I do not see why you would bother to contest the burden of proof or how this could be relevant to your thesis. As you say, thoughts are no more than material brain events, to include emotions, beliefs, “problems,” “proofs” and so forth. Some members of this forum contend that self, conscience and thoughts are immaterial but you say that these metaphysics are themselves nothing more than neurotransmissions specific to operational life forms. We can indeed weigh them on our instruments; else they do not exist. But your behaviorism is also nothing more or less than a series of brain-states that might be shared through language. In other words, “behaviorism,” “psychologism,” “materialism” and “reductionism” have no station outside the cranial membrane: they are material brain-events. “Behaviorism” is ultimately no different than “faith,” “avarice,” “pre-wakefulness” or “mild indifference.” More to the point, “behaviorism” is ultimately equivalent to the “immaterialism” so popular in this forum. Each consists of neural events and has no other being. True, one might distinguish variant details in the neural data, but these are of no consequence. They signify nothing but themselves! Therefore I do not understand your apparent concern with assigning a “burden of proof” as if you apprehended some standard, some proof-standard, above and beyond brain-states. You appeal to “proof” as if some system, outside and apart from our brain states, could “settle” some difference between us. It sounds suspiciously like the scientific system of evidence, inductions and laws. But surely, you would acknowledge that these “proofs”are no more than ephemeral bio-electrical events. Whence this disembodied “proof” and wherefore any “burden?” sdpmob1
November 6, 2005
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"That’s because for the large part modern scientific enterprise has been kept on a tight leash by the non-scientist moral majority. Incidents like Nazi medical research are what inspire the leash holders to closely monitor the amount of slack in it." I shudder to think what would happen if the majority lost its morality. How low can humanity sink? I think the Nazis gave us a good idea. Davidcrandaddy
November 6, 2005
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there are many cases of people losing consciousness and unexplained things happening. a woman i read about a few days ago started a site because she had an injury- was brain dead for nearly 10 mins...yet she drew a picture of the saw they used to open her cranium, as well as the sound it made when her signs were showing no brain activity at all. other cases where people have drawn pictures of the tools in the room, what happened to them from doctors and nurses while out ofit, how many people in the room- sometimes objects in other rooms, peering down on their own bodies. there are a lot of things that defy reasonable explanation out there, and its unlikely that the skeptics approach (to shrug it off and say that it must have been memories from before losing consciousness, or memories from after, etc) always adds up with all of these cases. some of them, sure- its likely someone saw a tool before they went out totally or when they woke up...but some of the cases amaze the doctors who cant explain the situations at all.jboze3131
November 6, 2005
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Try imagining that the brain creates false memories to fill in the blanks. It's not rocket science.DaveScot
November 5, 2005
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Dave, "I’ve been unconscious due to brain concussion and I’ve not only no memories of when I was unconcious but I’ve no memory of being pitched over the handlebars of my motorcycle and landing on my head either. One might expect that flying through the air like that would be a memorable experience but noooooooooooooo… " My guess is that you never stopped breathing. I think you have to actually be going throught he dying process in order for those inner senses to kick in. Try looking up right temporal lobe stuff.avocationist
November 5, 2005
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SteveB "For you to suggest that the broad brush of “Nazi scientists uncovering biological truths using live human subjects” applies to all of the modern scientific enterprise is riduculous." I didn't suggest that. That's because for the large part modern scientific enterprise has been kept on a tight leash by the non-scientist moral majority. Incidents like Nazi medical research are what inspire the leash holders to closely monitor the amount of slack in it.DaveScot
November 5, 2005
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DaveScot, "I’ve no memory of being pitched over the handlebars of my motorcycle and landing on my head either. One might expect that flying through the air like that would be a memorable experience but noooooooooooooo…" Actually, it is the norm that people do not remember events surrounding a traumatic brain injury.testerschoice
November 4, 2005
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Bombadill, That was an interesting paper by Parnia et al in Resuscitation, and a later one in 2002. Firstly, of the 63 patients sampled only 4 had NDE (near death experiences). Of those 4, no evidence could be provided that neural activity shut down during the experience since the patients were not hooked up to EEGs or any other kind of neural activity recording device. However in the cases where patients have had cardiac arrest while their brain activity could be monitored the EEG went flatline after several seconds. Activity only returned much later, and slowly. Of the sample of 63, around 88% had no memories or recollection about the experience. This would make sense if their EEGs had gone to flatline. It is also important to note that the authors say their sample is too small to test for significance with respect to correlating physiological parameters to the NDE. I think that it is an interesting phenomenon and should be researched further. However, it is not conclusive proof for an immaterial mind. Due to the low frequency of NDEs and recordings of brain activity during cardiac arrest, the sample sizes are just too small. Along with that, no mention is made of EEG recordings of patients while they have NDEs.testerschoice
November 4, 2005
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“If the universe were not, we would not be here to say otherwise.” “That is the point. It shows why the fine tuning argument is fundamentally flawed.” http://leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/barrow.htmlMGD
November 4, 2005
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Bombadil Is it not possible that the resuscitated patients formed false memories after the fact? I've been unconscious due to brain concussion and I've not only no memories of when I was unconcious but I've no memory of being pitched over the handlebars of my motorcycle and landing on my head either. One might expect that flying through the air like that would be a memorable experience but noooooooooooooo...DaveScot
November 4, 2005
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Testerschoice, When I asked this question earlier: "So when I think of a number, “5″ for example, the “5″ I think is the brain activity itself, not something beyond the brain activity that corresponds to that activity?" and you agreed, we may have misunderstood each other. I thought you to be saying that there is not a "5" beyond my brain activity to which that brain activity corresponds. If I understand your last reply, your position is actually that when I think "5", my brain activity itself is not actually "5", it is only a representation of "5", and the "5" that it represents is independent of both our brains, which is why communication is possible. Is this correct? Dave T.taciturnus
November 4, 2005
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Taciturnus, When we grow up and learn language, we learn how to correlate our internal representation of objects with words spoken to us. We also learn how to communicate our internal representation of objects through speech that others can understand. It does not matter if we have different internal representations objects, since we have a universal (language) way of sharing those representations.testerschoice
November 4, 2005
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