Posted on 03/01/2009 5:30:40 AM PST by Salman
For the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth (February 12, 2009), National Geographic News asked leading scientists for their picks of the most important fossils that show evolution in action ...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Alchemy and bloodletting was the science of the day, no matter how you twist it.
And who was it who didn’t like the results of his equations showing that the universe had a beginning and so inserted a cosmological constant to fit the (steady state) theory of the day, instead of looking at the evidence and adjusting the theory to fit the evidence; thereby engaging in fraud and deception to further his worldview instead of admitting he was wrong?
Oh right, a scientist.
But it all bears out that science was wrong more than once and that there is good reason why people are skeptical of the latest scientific pronouncements. Scientists aren’t the infallible heroes you evos like to portray them as. You’d get further if you guys were more willing to admit to their humanity and propensity to make mistakes than act like they’re some sort of elite-incapable of doing wrong and taking such offense when questioned at the thought that the unwashed would dare to question them.
Fine, some scientists catch and correct mistakes, but they sure make enough of them themselves, either through ignorance (cause we don’t know nearly what they like to pretend we know), or through intend. And not everything that is *corrected* is right either. It keeps needing to be *fine tuned* (read: Corrected again because it was still wrong).
FWIW, the assumption that the theories, etc have been corrected as they are *fine tuned* is only that. Scientists don’t know what the truth is about much of anything and the assumption that we are getting closer to the truth is just that, an assumption. If you don’t know where you’re going, you have no idea whether you’re getting closer or not, much less if you’re even going in the right direction.
Let them have their so-called “science”. As for me, I’ll take the Word of God every time.
I haven't portrayed anyone as an infallible hero. But "you creos" don't express scientific concerns about the theory of evolution--or when you do, for the most part they get answered. Instead, you use "science has been wrong before" as a way to stop thinking, as a way of avoiding facts that make you uncomfortable. (And you pretend you never heard the answers and ask them again a week later.)
If you don’t know where you’re going, you have no idea whether you’re getting closer or not, much less if you’re even going in the right direction.
Sure you do. Theories are used to make predictions. If a refinement to the theory enables it to make more successful predictions, it's fair to conclude that the refinement brought it closer to the (small-t) truth. (Or is your beef really with the scientific method altogether?) Claiming everything that's not exactly right is totally wrong, without distinction, is just another way of avoiding thinking.
Why is that? (I don't know that much about Heraclides, and nothing about Enoch.) Did they just guess right?
Moreover, modern science has built a wall around itself, intentionally separating itself from theology, philosophy and mathematics...It excludes purpose on principle as if to presuppose that everything happens by pure, blind chance, etc.
I think it just excludes what it doesn't think it can measure or experiment on. Those who argue for purpose generally say we can "infer" it--even they don't claim to be able to measure or test it. That doesn't mean science presupposes there is no purpose (though some individual scientists may). There is still room for individuals to see purpose in what science discovers (as many posters on these threads have demonstrated).
Following up on my previous: “or when you do [express scientific concerns about the theory of evolution], for the most part they get answered.”
I jumped into this thread because Max_850 asked a decent question about evolution—or rather, there was a decent question buried in there: why is there only one species of human still around? I gave the scientific answer as I understand it. Rather than address the answer, you just started snickering about “speculation,” and you still haven’t proposed your own answer. That’s lazy thinking, and that kind of approach isn’t going to enable us to learn anything—to get any closer to “truth.”
Really? Who did this, when, and do you have links to the studies or papers that revealed the frauds?
Evolution is God showing us how He constructed His universe. People that oppose evolution are bound and determined to tell God how to do His job.
Wait a minute. Aren’t the “evilutionists” supposed to be the racists?
you: Why is that? (I don't know that much about Heraclides, and nothing about Enoch.) Did they just guess right?
For instance, the King James translators used the word “science” to interpret the Greek word “gnōsis” in the following passage:
Beginning of Modern Science and Modern Philosophy
Conversely, Enoch was a seeker of knowledge whose primary source was divine revelation. He testifies that God revealed orbits to him and that the moon reflects light, etc.
Or to put it another way, the Intelligent Design hypothesis simply says that “certain features of the universe and life are best explained by intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.”
In my view, it is simply obvious that the inherited traits of "certain" offspring are caused by the parents’ choice of mates. For that reason I do not even consider it to be a “hypothesis” – more like an “observation.”
Ditto for “certain” features of the universe –e.g. space/time and therefore physical causation.
In the absence of space, things cannot exist. In the absence of time, events cannot occur. Physical causality requires space/time. Therefore, there can be no “undirected process” to explain the cause of physical causation.
Moreover, we have have observed by cosmic microwave background measurements since the 1960's that there was a real beginning of space and time in this universe. It was truly the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science (Jastrow.)
To God be the glory!
I assumed that the poster was not making a point like that, but the point was specific about Crazy Michelle.
I assumed that’s why it’s a picture of Crazy Michelle with a trademark crazy look on her face...
Or to put it another way, Heraclides (>300 BC) was a seeker of knowledge whose primary source was nature. And by looking at nature, he concluded that the earth rotates on an axis once every day and that Venus and Mercury orbit the Sun.
So it sounds like he followed the first couple of steps of the scientific method (observation and hypothesis). Are we not calling him a scientist just because there was no concept of "scientist" or "scientific method" at the time? That's fine if we are. But metmom claims that bloodletters and alchemists were scientists, even though they didn't follow the scientific method. And then you say that someone who really did follow the scientific method wasn't a scientist because there was no such concept at the time (which would also apply to the beginning of bloodletting and alchemy). These strike me as contradictory, so I think it's important to keep straight who's saying what.
In my view, it is simply obvious that the inherited traits of "certain" offspring are caused by the parents’ choice of mates. For that reason I do not even consider it to be a “hypothesis” – more like an “observation.”
I don't think any scientist would deny that "certain" phenomena have an intelligent cause. The question is whether you can therefore conclude that everything has an intelligent cause.
Physical causality requires space/time. Therefore, there can be no “undirected process” to explain the cause of physical causation.
I don't follow that--the steps included in that "therefore" are not obvious to me. I think I agree that once space-time exists, physical causality comes into play. I'm not sure why that necessarily implies that space-time cannot come into being via an undirected process.
But I'm not arguing that it does. I just wonder how science is supposed to detect something that operate(s)(d) outside of space-time.
Selah!
Events, such as processes whether directed or undirected, cannot occur in the absence of time. If time were removed from the geometry of this universe, everything would be literally frozen in place.
And if there were no place, i.e. no space, for those frozen things, there would be nothing at all. Not just zero but null, void.
Remember that space/time does not pre-exist. It is created as the universe expands. There was a real beginning of space and time in this universe.
There had to be uncaused cause of real space and real time for there to be physical causation at all - whether physical causation in this universe, of this universe or indeed of any prior universe. That is the poison pill of all physical cosmologies.
BTW, the Jewish mystics use the term Ayn Sof to describe God as the Creator. The word literally means "no thing" and derives from the fact that to name or describe anything is to "own" it, to reduce it to what the observer can comprehend. Words like space and time cannot apply to the Creator of them. Words like timeless and spaceless would be more appropriate, hence the negation of all language terms, i.e. "Ayn Sof."
If a mathematician can design a program that will generate random numbers, are the things generated the result of intelligent design?
That is no easy task. I've tried. (I used to design RNGs for the fun of it..) If you use a floating-point engine that rounds off at any point, it invariably imposes a pattern on the results.
Granted, "longer-word" computers push that patterning result farther out, so that it is more difficult to detect -- but it still exists...
IMHO, the only hope of creating a truly random number generator is to base it on some "natural" process -- like molecular motion. Even then, I submit that, in a created universe, that process is the result of the work of our intelligent Designer...
To answer your question, yes... ;-)
An "undirected process" is a physical causation without purpose. Which is to say the process is not intelligent, there is no purpose to it. It just is.
With you so far.
Events, such as processes whether directed or undirected, cannot occur in the absence of time. If time were removed from the geometry of this universe, everything would be literally frozen in place.
And if there were no place, i.e. no space, for those frozen things, there would be nothing at all.
Fair enough, as far as the known universe goes anyway.
Remember that space/time does not pre-exist. It is created as the universe expands. There was a real beginning of space and time in this universe.
Okay.
There had to be uncaused cause of real space and real time for there to be physical causation at all
I think this is where you lose me. Given what I understand about the theory of the Big Bang, it doesn't follow that there had to be a "cause" for it. If it doesn't make sense to talk about events and things before space-time existed, why does the beginning of space-time imply something that exists outside of it?
That's a loaded question. Before I answer, let me say that I know that true "randomness" is a difficult concept, so I can only use the layman's understanding of what it is.
And my answer is that it depends on what you mean by "intelligent design." In the most general sense, sure. But the proponents of "intelligent design" as it's generally used (in opposition to "evolution") insist that the actions of the mathematician can be seen in the string of random numbers--that we can tell the difference between a string of random numbers generated by a designed program from one that wasn't. I don't think we can--or at least, we haven't--so whether or not you believe there was a designed program is up to you. But the numbers are the numbers, either way.
Thanks ever so much for your references from the history of science! It was especially interesting to me that you broached the issue of "alchemy."
"Science" as an organized system of inquiry began among the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece. Back in that day (and for about 19 centuries thereafter), it was called "natural philosophy."
Natural philosophy was based on a revolutionary insight: that the physical cosmos, or universe, is a systematic, organized, unitary whole that is such because it is "lawful." Corollary: If it is "lawful," it must be intelligently organized.
Because it is intelligently organized, therefore it is intelligible to human intelligence. So, the job of the natural philosopher was to understand the underlying laws and principles of nature — which job, to him, above all signified the pursuit of the truth of reality for its own sake.
Then along came the alchemists. They were not so much interested in the quest for the truth of reality, but rather in the pursuit of transforming reality in ways conducive/amenable to human desires/purposes.
The word "science" did not enter the English lexicon until the 18th century. I imagine this was a simple acknowledgment of the stripped down form of natural philosophy that you would expect to find if you dump first and final causes as immaterial or irrelevant to the pursuit of true knowledge of nature and the world. Yet Francis Bacon's argument justifying methodological naturalism — which essentially was a reduction of the world to material and efficient causes only, i.e, without reference to matters of "form" or "purpose" in nature — was overwhelmingly persuasive in his time, and continues to bias and bind us today.
Which leads me to ask: Is science supposed to be about disclosing the truths of the universe, or is it only to be about instrumentalizing those "truths" we now possess in ways that response to human desires?
If it ever becomes fully the latter, then it seems to me you can just kiss the former goodbye.
Thank you ever so much, dear metmom, for your excellent essay/post!
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