This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity

[Rhydderch Hael]

...As regards Intelligent Design, how do they explain nipples on men or the "intelligent design" which gave us the appendix?
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You know, the answer (always) lies with Terry Gilliam.

"God isn't interested in technology. He knows nothing of the potential of the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time: forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men! ... SLUGS! He created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic?...

"...If I were creating a world, I wouldn't have messed about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers! Eight o'clock, Day One!"

[Jester]

I just love the idea that the data *can* be explained by design.

Of course it can. It always can. Postulate an undefined entity interfering in the universe, and you can justify *any* result.

Quantum Mechanics seems confusing? God is moving particles around.

Universe isn't expanding like it's supposed to? Must be Thor.

The Duck-Billed Platypus doesn't make any sense? Clearly, aliens, hooped up on alien funny juice, decided to intervene as part of an elaborate intergalactic bet. (And they, in turn, were created by Ahkenaten.)

It's exactly as helpful an explanation as "who knows," but without the humility.

-Jester

[GenericKen]

I just love the idea that the data *can* be explained by design.

Of course it can. It always can. Postulate an undefined entity interfering in the universe, and you can justify *any* result.

Quantum Mechanics seems confusing? God is moving particles around.

Universe isn't expanding like it's supposed to? Must be Thor.

The Duck-Billed Platypus doesn't make any sense? Clearly, aliens, hooped up on alien funny juice, decided to intervene as part of an elaborate intergalactic bet. (And they, in turn, were created by Ahkenaten.)

It's exactly as helpful an explanation as "who knows," but without the humility.

-Jester
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To be fair, the same tautology lies in the idea that the causation of everything is a matter of chance and time. "Chance" itself is just as ill-defined, if not moreso, than the providence of God.


That Terry Gilliam quote irks me a bit. Has anybody else noticed how Science and Literature have seemed to switch stances, in that now authorship is the most important part of any scientific idea and that the writer has been divorced from his work? If science is still rooted in logic, whatever happened to divorcing the argument from the arguer?

[Guest]

Universe isn't expanding like it's supposed to? Must be Thor.

-Jester
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Can you honestly say thats any worse than "dark matter"? Invisable stuff that has just the right properties and amount to make a theory work?

[Guest]

You have inverted a concept. Authorship is so protected in Science because people want the fame of being associated with cleverness rather than to prove cleverness by association with the name.

Of course there are some exception, ussually involving money, but they are exceptions.

[--Pete]

Hi,

You have inverted a concept. Authorship is so protected in Science because people want the fame of being associated with cleverness rather than to prove cleverness by association with the name.

Of course there are some exception, ussually involving money, but they are exceptions.
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In reality, the situation is simple. It takes money to do science. It takes reputation (and a certain ruthlessness) to get money. And, after you get the money, you get to quit science and take up administrating, which seems to appeal to many 'scientists'.

Since the only thing you haver to sell is your name, you need it to shine.

Outside of the lab (and sometimes inside, too), science is a very dirty business.

--Pete

[--Pete]

Hi,

Can you honestly say thats any worse than "dark matter"? Invisable stuff that has just the right properties and amount to make a theory work?
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Yes. Because 'Thor' can have any properties you want. And he doesn't have to follow any rules, not even homogeneity or consistency (really, the same thing, but I split them for those who still don't instinctively think in four space).

Whatever dark energy ('dark matter' is another concept that helps to describe the rotational velocity and dynamics of galaxies) is, it has to follow rules. We don't know what those rules are, yet. It may take a while to figure them out, it might take a few revisions of the theory (or even complete replacements of the theory) to get a decent map.

But a theory can evolve, tested and changed by observation and calculation. It starts out weak, with an apple falling, and eventually puts men on the moon and rovers on mars.

Thor? He just remains Thor -- a dead end. A comfort to the ignorant. A bastion of superstition. But with just 'Thor' to guide you, you still need to kill your elk with stone tipped spears.

--Pete

[Doc]

Hi,
Yes.  Because 'Thor' can have any properties you want.  And he doesn't have to follow any rules, not even homogeneity or consistency (really, the same thing, but I split them for those who still don't instinctively think in four space).

Whatever dark energy ('dark matter' is another concept that helps to describe the rotational velocity and dynamics of galaxies) is, it has to follow rules.  We don't know what those rules are, yet.  It may take a while to figure them out, it might take a few revisions of the theory (or even complete replacements of the theory) to get a decent map.

But a theory can evolve, tested and changed by observation and calculation.  It starts out weak, with an apple falling, and eventually puts men on the moon and rovers on mars.

Thor?  He just remains Thor -- a dead end.  A comfort to the ignorant.  A bastion of superstition.  But with just 'Thor' to guide you, you still need to kill your elk with stone tipped spears.

--Pete
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Hmm... Wait a moment... Brain is exceptionally rusty here. And I am in a lot of pain so I am not thinking right.

Wait for it...

Something Einstien said. What was it... Something about science and faith.

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

Ah, yes. That about sums up what I believe.

Oh.

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."

And...

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

Wise words those. Right or wrong? Dunno. Don't care. Still touches me to read them. I have pushed logic to it's very bounderies, and logic and learning still can not explain the complexities of things like first love... The overwhelming feeling of joy in seeing the first dandilion after a long winter, or the simple pleasure of mud squishing between your toes. Math and science can not explain to me the warm and simple joy of the silken fur of a mewling kitten cradled in my arms.

And with that, more parting words from Einstien.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

[--Pete]

Hi,

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

Ah, yes. That about sums up what I believe.
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Good for you. And is 'Thor did it' the sum and sustenance of your religion? For that is the form of 'religion' which I lampoon. Those who go into the battle of a high school football game with a prayer for victory are the superstitious savages I lambaste. When a personal god becomes a personal servant (my mother prays to St. Anthony to help her find lost items -- but perhaps he has more free time than the trinity do/does) then the concept of god is reversed. The godhead becomes a doghead.

So, if the shoe fits . . . If not, then just move along, there's nothing here for you to see.

--Pete

PS It is the person ignorant of science that only can experience half the universe. A rainbow to me is something that delights me, awes me, and can bring tears of joy to my eyes. And still, I *understand* how that beauty came about -- I have no need for miracles, or biblical promises, to explain it. And so in addition to the awe of the direct experience, I have the awe of the simplicity, of the elegance, of the beauty of nature's methods that delights my intellect as much as the rainbow itself delights my senses.

[GenericKen]

Outside of the lab (and sometimes inside, too), science is a very dirty business.
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And this affirms the authority of modern science how?


It's worth keeping in mind that all humanistic legends and fantasies maintain internal consistancy to mirror the world we live in, not unlike much of theorhetical science. I wouldn't consider dark matter fantasy (string theory maybe), but I don't think it's so different from creative fiction as you propose, Pete.

[Doc]

Hi,
Good for you.  And is 'Thor did it' the sum and sustenance of your religion?  For that is the form of 'religion' which I lampoon.  Those who go into the battle of a high school football game with a prayer for victory are the superstitious savages I lambaste.  When a personal god becomes a personal servant (my mother prays to St. Anthony to help her find lost items -- but perhaps he has more free time than the trinity do/does) then the concept of god is reversed.  The godhead becomes a doghead.

So, if the shoe fits . . .  If not, then just move along, there's nothing here for you to see.

--Pete

PS  It is the person ignorant of science that only can experience half the universe.  A rainbow to me is something that delights me, awes me, and can bring tears of joy to my eyes.  And still, I *understand* how that beauty came about -- I have no need for miracles, or biblical promises, to explain it.  And so in addition to the awe of the direct experience, I have the awe of the simplicity, of the elegance, of the beauty of nature's methods that delights my intellect as much as the rainbow itself delights my senses.
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You know, I don't much care for those who use God as their personal servant either. I believe that we agree on something. Don't get me wrong... I pray. But I also believe that you work as if everything depended on you and have faith as if everything depended on God. To sit in a room and ask God for something, and then do nothing but sit there and wait, well, that's bloody stupid if you ask me.

As for your point about praying for football games... Yargh. What a waste of faith. With two people praying on both sides, one of them is going to walk away disapointed. Which only breeds bitterness and disbelief in a higher power. It is frivolous pointless action, and I heartily agree, they should be lambasted.

And don't get me started on all those people that only talk to God when something bad is happening, asking to have their ass pulled out of the fire. That annoys the crap out of me. Why not share good news? Share joy? Give thanks? When life is going good, many people have very little to say to God so long as they can keep running on their own two legs. All those people for whom God is merely the guy you call on to pull your fat out of the fire. It makes me sad to see these people. Many of them have miserable lives, and their faith is shakey at best. Many of them ask "Where is God and why isn't he listening?" To many people screw up their faith with religion.

Faith is the act of allowing your self to be carried where your heart would choose not to go. On January the third, I have to go get the results of a biopsy. I may have cancer again. I would really rather not go. I'd like to go and hide. Really, I think I would rather blow my own brains out rather than face another battle with cancer. But I will go and I will continue as God allows it.

[Guest]

Neither sounds good to me.

In essence Thor is just a a multitude of dark matter varieties.
Both are just making up a filler with no evidense, for a gap in knowledge.
Dark matter theory is more elegant than Thor theory much in a the same one 1 stain is cleaner that filth on an entire carpet.


I think common sense is making a surprise attack on cosmology in the last 2 years though.
People are suggesting exspansion of space can be described by the General Theory of Relativity just as the contraction with gravity can.(and some local movement for nearby space).
This seems obvious to me, but maybe Im missing something.

[Jester]

"It's worth keeping in mind that all humanistic legends and fantasies maintain internal consistancy to mirror the world we live in, not unlike much of theorhetical science."

You've lost me here. Are you claiming that all legend and fantasy is consistent? Or is there some subset that is?

Does fiction have falsifiability? Specificity? Is Odysseus subject to contrary evidence?

I don't think any of those things are true. But if that's not what you're claiming, then I don't know what you're claiming.

-Jester

[Guest]

Well its quite possible I underestimated the degree of that money sullies science.
I should known better I guess, I left science because it was appearent to me I could never handle the money politics of modern science and I was not so brilliant that people would throw money at me no matter what.(I dont mean to imply at any other large industry in America has less politics.)

[wakim]

Wouldn’t it in itself be miraculous if the scientific method, whose methods are limited such that it cannot [be used to] postulate, test, or determine the purpose of a device as simple as a screw-driver, could [be used to] discern purpose or design in something greater? If the beginning and end of one’s knowledge is limited to what is shown by the methods of empirical experimentation then there should be no surprise that purpose and design is necessarily excluded. A question as simple as What is the purpose of scientific experiment? falls outside of the purview of science and thus becomes unknowable to a man who would be so limited.






edited for clarity (brackets).

[Guest]

That was nonsese.

It would be analogous if you had said "Wouldnt it be a miracle if my hammer could know why I use it to pound a nail."

[kandrathe]

I spent a lot of time on the old boards several years ago. Just poping in more recently to bask in the relative enlightenment and even-handedness of Occhi's posts as compared to the rest of the internet.

So much for that. At least you have cute smilies.  :whistling:
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Please measure the Lounge by it best posts (posters). Most of us believe in grammar and spelling. The bar has definately lowered in recent years, but the conversations have been as lively.

On Topic;

As for ID vs Evolution... The problem I see in schools is they use cross disciplinary all the time, except when it comes to this very topic. Mostly because it is very difficult to separate the theology from biology, the physics from the metaphysics, or fact from faith. There are two ideologue camps; one being Camp A - "Heaven forbid that science education would rob a child of faith." and the other Camp B - "Science education should not bring any child to a belief in religion." Most other people are in Camp C, D, and E -- Clueless, Apathetic, or critical of all.

Most of humankind is unified in having an underlying set of similiar myths that seek to explain our relationship with the universe and the divine. These myths are passed down as stories interpretted, translated, and re-interpretted over thousands of years, which does not invalidate them as frameworks for guiding the morality of a society. No cultures myths stand up as 100% factual under intense scrutiny, but these frameworks do allow societies to flourish by providing direction and a sense of something bigger than the individual which must be served. I see them as two entirely different pursuits.

Natural selection, and evolution are evident processes at work in our natural world. One can see clear signs of truth in evolutionary theory in the fossil record. We don't know the whole evolutionary history story, nor would we ever probably be able to know it. I'll skip my whole explaination of why I see Science as a type of religion. But, I see the same type of faith exercised in the extrapolations of certain origin theories.

My understanding of intelligent design is that it seeks to find design patterns in evolutionary history indicative of intelligence. These forces may be aliens, DNA based (self design) or something else. If SETI makes any sense by listening for patterns in space, then the pursuit of intelligent design makes the same sense in looking for patterns in how life on earth evolved. If ID is performed using scientific principles, without leaping to unproven conclusions then it is science. This pursuit of ID, just like other theories, is plagued by those from Camp A that want to say that the results prove God exists, and from those in Camp B that are afraid of Camp A making junk science. I don't think there are any scientific articles published about ID, so how to make it into a science curriculum may be premature as it has yet to define itself as even a scientific endeavor. It might be an interesting nod to Aristotlian metaphysics, and a cross disciplinary exploration of philosophy.

So Camp A people say, "Ok, teach evolution, but also teach ID because it gives us a way of explaining evolution consistent with a belief system", and Camp B says "Intelligent design is an anti-evolution belief that asserts improbabilities indicate divine intervention."

I have to reside in Camp E, so show me your work and I'll review the results and make up my own mind. I'm not afraid of people being taught things, as long as they have learned to be critical and review the evidence that supports it. Perhaps that is one thing that is missing in education today, we need to give our kids an adequate filter much earlier.

[Doc]

What never fails to suprise me are the people that say I am going to roast in hell because I am a Christian that also believes in simple scientific reasoning. I believe in evolution, but I also believe that it had to be guided by an outside force. Einstien believed this, Stephen Hawking believes this, a lot of great minds believe this.

People say there is no God. People say there is no proof of God. Yet there are a lot of great minds that say that there is some proof that may point to something that had influence on creation.

I say, show me proof that there is not a God. If science can prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that God can not, and could not exist, then, and only then, will I be convinced.

And on a side note, science keeps changing. They found something far off in some galaxy, something so damn cold that they believe that it is colder than what they thought was true zero. Something so cold that they believe that the universe it self, the cold emptiness of space it self may exist as a liquid like substace because all of the atomic mass is completely still. Einstein and whatsisname, I can't think of the other guy, but they had famous arguments about the nature of atomic mass at true zero. Anyhoo, it was really interesting to read. I think his last name was Bose? He and Einstein had this thing about atomic condensation and that atoms could never achieve a state of true zero because of the effects of quantum mechanics would keep things moving. Well, this new discovery out in space is so damn cold that they say that even light slows down to a complete stall and may have even turned in to a liquid-like state because it is so damned cold.

Here on Earth, in a lab, they managed through some technical wizardry to bring some atoms to ten millionths of a degree above true zero, and started noticing this same effect, but couldn't seem to get it any colder. It was so cold that relativity and gravity started breaking down, and things like liquid helium started flowing upward, and light started to break down and do some funny stuff. A new term was coined about super-fluidity. I wish I could remember more of the details.

Science changes all the time. What was once rock solid theory changes as man discovers a new way to look at the universe around him. Because of this, I do not believe that we will ever prove that God does not exist.

[GenericKen]

"It's worth keeping in mind that all humanistic legends and fantasies maintain internal consistancy to mirror the world we live in, not unlike much of theorhetical science."

You've lost me here. Are you claiming that all legend and fantasy is consistent? Or is there some subset that is?

Does fiction have falsifiability? Specificity? Is Odysseus subject to contrary evidence?

I don't think any of those things are true. But if that's not what you're claiming, then I don't know what you're claiming.

-Jester
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My second point was a response to a second thread by pete. I'm sorry for the lack of clarity, I'll post the quote here:

Yes. Because 'Thor' can have any properties you want. And he doesn't have to follow any rules, not even homogeneity or consistency (really, the same thing, but I split them for those who still don't instinctively think in four space).

Whatever dark energy ('dark matter' is another concept that helps to describe the rotational velocity and dynamics of galaxies) is, it has to follow rules. We don't know what those rules are, yet. It may take a while to figure them out, it might take a few revisions of the theory (or even complete replacements of the theory) to get a decent map.

But a theory can evolve, tested and changed by observation and calculation. It starts out weak, with an apple falling, and eventually puts men on the moon and rovers on mars.

Thor? He just remains Thor -- a dead end. A comfort to the ignorant. A bastion of superstition. But with just 'Thor' to guide you, you still need to kill your elk with stone tipped spears.

Creative fiction is not neccessarily consistant with the world, but all good fiction is internally consistant, in that it sets rules and follows them.

I am not asserting that fiction is science, but that some of the more theorhetical science nowadays is fiction. Internal consistancy is not a complete defense for a theory claiming to be scientific, and lambsting another belief that you have no knowledge of does not change that.

[Jester]

My second point was a response to a second thread by pete. I'm sorry for the lack of clarity, I'll post the quote here:
Creative fiction is not neccessarily consistant with the world, but all good fiction is internally consistant, in that it sets rules and follows them.

I am not asserting that fiction is science, but that some of the more theorhetical science nowadays is fiction. Internal consistancy is not a complete defense for a theory claiming to be scientific, and lambsting another belief that you have no knowledge of does not change that.
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No. Nothing that can be called science works on those principles. The internal consistency of fiction has no bearing whatsoever on the outside world. It is not, in a word, testable.

Scientific "theories" that cannot be tested *at all* are not theories. They are philosophical musings, or some such. Even M-theory, poorly understood though it is, exists for the purpose of making *testable* predictions from a description of the universe. Without that, it would just be a thought experiment. Internal consistency is merely the prerequisite for being taken seriously, and for making sensible predictions.

I have no idea what theory you're talking about in your last sentence. Intelligent Design? Also, I can only presume you're talking about Pete doing the lambasting, in which case I'd be wary about declaring his lack of knowledge. He's not the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for nothing.

-Jester