Posted on 09/16/2009 3:29:20 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
Steve: You're doing really interesting work. You've decoupled sort of, "Is evolution true?", you know, "What are problems with evolution?", from people's interpretations of whether or not they accept evolution. Regardless of evolution itself, we're just talking about the psychological profiles of how you come to either accept or not accept evolution. Some of that work is yours and some of it you're very well familiar with from other people; so let's talk about some of the basics and some of the surprises about the people who accept and don't accept evolution and their reasons for it.
Lombrozo: Sure. So I think one of the most surprising findings has to do with the relationship between understanding the basics of evolutionary theory and accepting it as our best account of the origins of human life. So most people, I think, [or] in particular scientists, tend to think that if people reject evolution and in particular evolution by natural selection, it's because they don't understand it very well; they don't really understand what the theory is telling us. But in fact, if you look at the data from psychology and education, what you find is either no correlation between accepting evolution and understanding it or very, very small correlation between those two factors, and I think that's surprising to a lot of people and in particular to educators and scientists.
Steve: Yeah, it was surprising to me when your data were presented. So what [does] that mean for, you know, education in the country? What should people be thinking about if they have a desire to have evolutionary theory be more accepted by more people?
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Physicists tell us that space and time came into expression/existence with the creation of the universe we inhabit. Let's look first at dimension Space and its three variable expressions, using an 'allegory'.
To draw a line--representing linear Space--oe starts with a point on a page then holds down the pencil/pen and tracks a line. If one rapidly scribbles side to side with the writing instrument upon the page, while drawing the insturment forawrd of backward, the essence of a plane is expressed using merely lines. Did The Creator start at a point of thought and express first a linear expression of Space? When the linear 'stretched' as far as The Creator wanted, did this linear expression 'phase shift' into planar Space, and likewise at some desired expansion, the Planar Space 'phase shift' into Volumetric Space?
We could make an allegory for the unfolding of dimension Time, also, similar to linear, planar, and volumetric--past similar to linear, present similar to planar, and future similar to volume.
If we think of a quark as a packet of energy with certain expressions, would that not be a remnant of the phase shift states? Who is to say that the presnet universe we inhabit is not a phase shift state where more phase shifts have occurred since our 4D expressed?
And one further thought: when we expereince the universe, we do so as a projection based upon data received from temporal locations already in the past to us because we have a lagtime from energy/particle/wave emission to energy/particel/wave reception. Can anyone imagine a being able to sense in the present of an event, rather than extrapolating from past micro-events to fashion a storyline for reality?
We know we receive data fromt he recent past. We believe we exist in the present, and hope for the future. The 'future/volumetric' may already be, we just haven't reached that where/when yet.
Do, wbarmy wrote:
Then you most of all should see the primary fallacy in using fossils to prove evolution. Where in the world are fossils being produced right now? All fossils are located in sedimentary rock, water laid rock. This points more to a cataclysmic event than slow deposition. A fish that dies in the water doesn’t become a fossil. Only a cataclysm creates a fossil and there was only one earth sized cataclysm that could create the immense number of fossils we find today.
Most excellent...bttt!
They did not emerge. They always were.
"I can readily accept the idea that what we see in our 4D world may well be just a manifestation of a higher-dimensional physics beyond the direct observational ken of human beings. But God is likewise beyond the direct observational ken of human beings."
The higher dimentional physics you're referring to are simply detail that refers to the same 4d, not the physics this world arose from and within which God dwells. The physics of this world are simply a restriction placed on hte beings of this world to exist here only, because their machinery that provides for the functions of the sentience and rationality is limited to this world. See the parable in Gen 3. The physics of this world provide the function of the cherubim waiving the flaming sword.
"Granted, such a thing as absolute nothingness is utterly beyond formulation by the human mind itself."
It is not. It is quite simple and children can comprehend it. Absolute nothingness means exactly what the plain English phrase portrays.
I'll knock out the qualitatives that I didn't imply.
" In effect, your proposal that... people think that "null = something" is to say that folks magically convert nothing into something — which is precisely what I cannot logically do."
It is done by anyone who claims something was created from nothing.
"...there's nothing in your proposal that seeks to answer the question of the origin of energy."
There sure is! Again, it always existed.
"As to something as having been "always existing," it ought to be clearly obvious that there is no way in which you can support that claim on the basis of observation and experience."
The evidence for the conservation of energy is overwhelming. It includes observation of the vacuum interactions in this world. BTW, that vacuum is what this world is seen to arise out of and into which it is returning.
"Temporally situated as we are, we do not see the whole of time. If there was a "beginning," we didn't see it."
It's enough to know there was a beginning and that the beginning can be "seen", IOWs known and understood as a physical process, or transformation.
"Evidently you believe this "higher physics" is eternal."
Yes.
"Still, for the world to be what it is, and not some other way, it must itself have had a cause.
The cause is simply what's required for a phase change. What causes a steam bubble in an infinite pot of 100o water to pop. The world is what it is anyway.
Keep in mind Matthew 12:39, He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.
Nevertheless, parrots and cockatiels communicate...you can parse words and call it talking or not, but it’s clearly not at all merely imitations as you assert either...
Moreover they communicate verbally with each other in their own language...as they do with us in ours.
I visit a place with a community cockatiel named Max...cool bird...says lot of things and not just merely imitations either.
He whistles at friends he’s made...and since no one is allowed to feed him, it’s not out of coersion/reward, etc.
Granted it’s not a giant vocabularly but he says certain things at certain times to certain people. It’s not all just simply regurgitations.
Isn't it rather curious that liberals just shrug their shoulders about answering where the machines, the origins of intelligence and conscious thought and organization (or anything that might help explain evolution/origins) comes from...it all "just is"...
and then turn right around and get intensely curious when they demand, "so where dod God come from"?
Sure...I hear them talking outside all the time!! Don't have any idea what they're saying, but...
As an engineer and scientist I have grappled with these questions for quite some time. I was brought up in a loving household surrounded by family of strong faith, yet I find myself somewhere between agnostic and atheist.
I just find it very difficult to accept anything on the basis of faith alone. Thanks for your replies, and please don’t take offense, I’m certainly not challenging the validity of your faith.
Describe “strong faith”.
Why people become hateful and judgmental over things that cannot be proven I will never understand.
-————————————————————————————Well that’s my beef...specifically...they demand that everything is sheer happenstance with no creation, no design, no intelligence, no purpose, no reason...
and then they turn around and sue people to be silent when they dissent from having ALL children indoctrinated in and confiscating public funds to advance their religion.
That’s my beef.
Yes, indeed.
Makes far more sense than a what or nothing or just shrugging your shoulders and saying everything just happened all by itself.
What doesn’t work for me is that the complexity of DNA or the ‘perfect balance’ of the universe must have been created because of their complexity and balance, yet the far more complex and perfect God has no creator..... Either perfection and complexity requires a creator or it doesn’t.
What’s curious to me is it just remains open ended then?
ad infinatum?
You’re right, the “guy-in-the-sky”, “magic-apple”, “talking-snake” story is much more credible.
At least an explanation is more intellectually honest than nothing at all.
Liberals thought by not having an explanation...the vacuous all just randomly occured all by itslef, and therefore couldn’t be scrutinized, while attacking everything else...
uhhhh backfired!
badly!
A from phase state exists in a space, at the minimum, a mathematical point. And for it to change, time and physical causality must also pre-exist.
Where there is no preexistent phase state including space/time and causality, it is creation ex nihilo - see my post 57.
Objective reality is knowable only to the Creator; only He can see "all that there is" all at once. The rest of us had a beginning, we are creatures, not the Creator.
Emphasis mine:
God alone had no beginning, He is the Creator. His Name is I AM.
His Name is also Alpha and Omega – there is no thing and no time before Him and there will be no thing and no time after Him.
He is the First Cause and the Final Cause.
And to say the rational sentient being man is equivalent to God is absurd. Man is a created thing, not the Creator. He is the clay, God is the potter.
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed [it], Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? – Romans 9:20-21
Man can become an adopted child of God not by his own doing, but by being reborn by God Himself. The man that was dies, the new man lives.
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. - John 3:5-7
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:3
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us. – Romans 8:15-17
But that is not Judeo/Christian belief. The hallmark of Judeo/Christian belief is the Name of God. And so we pray "hallowed be thy Name!"
Truth is in God's Name: I AM. He is not "a" creator, but "the" Creator.
And He is not a hypothesis. I've known Him for a half century and counting.
Again, I aver that…
Man is not the measure of God.
Then essentially you're saying what I already suspected you were saying: That the "higher physics" is, on your view, actually God Himself. Or at least, God as you can conceive Him, according to your "rational" categories."
It's interesting what can happen with "rational categories." Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing how Baruch Spinoza managed to "rationalize" the God of Judeo-Christian theology (see the Ethics). It was a magnificent opus, a cathedral of logical construction, based on definitions, axioms, postulates, lemmas, and so forth, all magnificently, supremely logically done.
But at the end of the day, the acceptance of this completely rationalized God only serves to deracinate human experience, which is based on faith at least as much as on reason, if not more.
Spinoza ends up producing a God of which no human being ever had any experience at all, including Spinoza — a pure abstraction in every sense.
One can rationalize things all day long. But that is not exactly the recipe one would use if what one wanted was something reasonable, in the end.
With your "eternal 'higher physics,'" you make for a very strange theist, spunkets; but welcome to the fold nonetheless!
I'm tickled pink that you are baaaaack!
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
Certainly not!!!
And yet people like spunkets and Baruch Spinoza evidently believe that they can "take the measure" of God Himself....
Nothing is greater than or “above” God. Nothing outside God exists without His creating it. Reality is fully and wholly dependent on God, not the other way around.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear tpanther!
Truly, at the lowest level the organism did not have the intelligence to anticipate the need for maintenance and repair.
Seems to me that man has often sought after a "god" he could measure, fully comprehend or even depict or construct.
Most of the time the imaging or imagining (as in the case at hand) is an anthropomorphism of God - like Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam, beautiful but an anthropomorphism nonetheless. God is not an old gray-haired man on a cloud.
But it can also be a case of man wanting to be like God or even superior to Him - which is perilous.
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. - Isaiah 14:12-14
I find it illuminating that Aaron thought he could feast to the Lord before the golden calf and somehow that would be acceptable.
And when Aaron saw [it], he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow [is] a feast to the LORD.
And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. - Exodus 32:4-6
To conclude that critics of modern scientific epistemology are holding that "null = something" is to invert what "null" actually means to such critics. Which is to say: null = absolute nothingness. Granted, such a thing as absolute nothingness is utterly beyond formulation by the human mind itself.
Many take things for granted, especially time. And also the arrow of time and causality itself.
At the root, we ask why this instead of nothing at all?
Why causality, why time, why space and so on.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.