Dawkins 1 - Creationists 0

[busydude]

I think it's fine if religious discussion takes place in religious classes and scientific discussion takes place in science classes. But when discussing the origins of the universe and evolution I think teachers need to start with a disclaimer "Science really has no idea how life began or how organisms have progressed from that time, but this is our best guess."

Do priests and rabbis start with a disclaimer "I have not personally seen god, and nor do I have the proof that this bible is the word of god; but my best guess is that god XXXX is the most loving and powerful of all"?

 

[Elfear]

Do priests and rabbis start with a disclaimer "I have not personally seen god, and nor do I have the proof that this bible is the word of god; but my best guess is that god XXXX is the most loving and powerful of all"?

They teach classes that are voluntary and unassociated with regular public schools (at least in most countries). Why would they need a disclaimer?

 

[sandorski]

Right, but knowledge implies knowing something which science cannot say in relation to the origins of the universe. I firmly believe that science is a worthwhile and important part of schooling but we need to let students know that some aspects are just our best guess so far.

They are not "guesses".

 

[Elfear]

They are not "guesses".

I must have missed the news story about scientists successfully fueling a Delorean with plutonium...

 

[sandorski]

I must have missed the news story about scientists successfully fueling a Delorean with plutonium...

I think you just missed Science Class.

 

[WelshBloke]

There were a LOT of people who witnessed what they believed to be Jesus Christ 2000 years ago and wrote about it. There were many more who witnessed acts of God and also wrote about it. The evidence seems to point to something supernatural going on back then. For all we know it could have been Aliens. If that is the case than it is the prank of all pranks. However, to suggest it was all made up shows true lack of intelligence. It seems quite clear to me that everything couldn't have happened exactly the way it was written in the Bible but people sure like to dismiss the whole account over some discrepancies written over 2000 years ago.

There's probably more documentation and evidence of David Blaine having supernatural powers than Jesus.

 

[cybrsage]

Do priests and rabbis start with a disclaimer "I have not personally seen god, and nor do I have the proof that this bible is the word of god; but my best guess is that god XXXX is the most loving and powerful of all"?

This is the difference between science and religion. Religion is 100% faith, science only uses faith as its basic foundation. Science calls it base assumptions, though.

 

[cybrsage]

They are not "guesses".

I must have missed the news story about scientists successfully fueling a Delorean with plutonium...

While they are guesses, they are not guesses in the way a layman would think of as a guess. They are more of a "The catfood bowl is empty. The cat is licking its lips and is not hungry. No one was in the house between the time I filled the catbowl with food and now. I guess the cat ate the food." type of guess.

While you do not have a time machine to go back and watch the cat eat the food, and you cannot be 100% sure the cat actually did eat the food, any rational person would say your guess is a good one and is correct.

 

[mattpegher]

While I support the current theory of evolution (since it now includes saltation and punctuated equilibrium), I do not get why you say God altering things means He is not omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient..

God could easily have said "This will create what I want provided I tweak things here, here, and here, so this is what I will do." Being omni-stuff, God can do all this with the only reason needed being that He wanted to. Sure, He could have just set everything in motion at the start to create the desired end point as well (evolution), but maybe He simply likes being personally involved in the process. Who knows.

Not saying He did alter things, just that I don't get why you say it would be a problem.

An omnipotent, omniscient being would have no need to change his mind or change his plan, because he would know initially the desired result and would create the universe to give that result. If you know the end result at the beginning why create a set of physical laws that would result in an undesirable effect only to break your own laws at some time in the future?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

This is the difference between science and religion. Religion is 100% faith, science only uses faith as its basic foundation. Science calls it base assumptions, though.

Replace faith/assumptions on the science end to observations, and you'd be spot on.

 

[cybrsage]

An omnipotent, omniscient being would have no need to change his mind or change his plan, because he would know initially the desired result and would create the universe to give that result. If you know the end result at the beginning why create a set of physical laws that would result in an undesirable effect only to break your own laws at some time in the future?

What mind changing is being done? If you read my post, you would see that the original plan involved the manual tweaking at the outset.

Have you ever manually performed a process which was able to be done automatically simply because you wanted to do it that way? I have.

 

[cybrsage]

Replace faith/assumptions on the science end to observations, and you'd be spot on.

No.

Assumptions to formulate a theory
This is a view shared by Isaac Asimov. In Understanding Physics, Asimov spoke of theories as "arguments" where one deduces a "scheme" or model. Arguments or theories always begin with some premises—"arbitrary elements" as Hawking calls them (see above)—which are here described as "assumptions". An assumption according to Asimov is...

...something accepted without proof, and it is incorrect to speak of an assumption as either true or false, since there is no way of proving it to be either (If there were, it would no longer be an assumption). It is better to consider assumptions as either useful or useless, depending on whether deductions made from them corresponded to reality. ... On the other hand, it seems obvious that assumptions are the weak points in any argument, as they have to be accepted on faith in a philosophy of science that prides itself on its rationalism. Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible.
​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Assumptions_to_formulate_a_theory

A perfect example is the assumption that the physical rules we currently see if the universe are the same now as they were when they initially formed after the big bang. We also assume they did not change over time. We have absolutely no way of know the strong force did not increase and then decrease over time, for example. We also have no way of knowing it stayed the same. Since assumping it has changed solves nothing and is therefor useless, but assuming it stayed the same is very useful, we make take the faith based belief that it stayed the same and go from there.

Faith is belief without proof (proof being supporting evidence in this case).
​

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

An omnipotent, omniscient being would have no need to change his mind or change his plan, because he would know initially the desired result and would create the universe to give that result. If you know the end result at the beginning why create a set of physical laws that would result in an undesirable effect only to break your own laws at some time in the future?

Your assumption is that intervention isn't part of whatever plan that was in place.

 

[fskimospy]

Your assumption is that intervention isn't part of whatever plan that was in place.

Well sure, but things start getting pretty silly pretty quickly when you do that. Yes it is possible that some supreme being created a system in an arbitrary and needlessly complicated manner simply for his/her own amusement or to give them something to do if they got bored. Considering an omniscient being already knows the times, causes, and effects of all intervention however, it seems like they would just be parceling things out for no reason.

I've never understood why people would insist that god be omniscient and omnipotent; it immediately creates a whole ton of huge problems.

 

[heymrdj]

Replace faith/assumptions on the science end to observations, and you'd be spot on.

You sound like a religious nutcase. This is simple. WHO OBSERVED THE FORMATION OF LIFE! WHO, WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW. Assumptions is what it is, stop being dense.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Assumptions_to_formulate_a_theory

A perfect example is the assumption that the physical rules we currently see if the universe are the same now as they were when they initially formed after the big bang. We also assume they did not change over time. We have absolutely no way of know the strong force did not increase and then decrease over time, for example. We also have no way of knowing it stayed the same. Since assumping it has changed solves nothing and is therefor useless, but assuming it stayed the same is very useful, we make take the faith based belief that it stayed the same and go from there.

Faith is belief without proof (proof being supporting evidence in this case).
​

You assume the assumptions are based on nothing; they are not. It was observations that formed the base assumptions. "Deductions made from them corresponded to reality" was an important part of your quote, which you conveniently ignored.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Well sure, but things start getting pretty silly pretty quickly when you do that. Yes it is possible that some supreme being created a system in an arbitrary and needlessly complicated manner simply for his/her own amusement or to give them something to do if they got bored. Considering an omniscient being already knows the times, causes, and effects of all intervention however, it seems like they would just be parceling things out for no reason.

I've never understood why people would insist that god be omniscient and omnipotent; it immediately creates a whole ton of huge problems.

It's an impossible question to answer but interesting to entertain. I suppose that creating beings with freedom of choice means setting up a clockwork universe wouldn't b.e a good idea.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

You sound like a religious nutcase. This is simple. WHO OBSERVED THE FORMATION OF LIFE! WHO, WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW. Assumptions is what it is, stop being dense.

You're an idiot plan and simple. See my above post.

 

[heymrdj]

You assume the assumptions are based on nothing; they are not. It was observations that formed the base assumptions. "Deductions made from them corresponded to reality" was an important part of your quote, which you conveniently ignored.

Those same obvservations, which you convenienly point to towards your own opnion, do not ally themselves in any way to a universe that created itself or a universe that had a being(s) create it.

 

[heymrdj]

You're an idiot plan and simple. See my above post.

Debunked, try again please. Actually come up with firm deductions that say creationism COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY OCCURED. You won't find any.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Debunked, try again please. Actually come up with firm deductions that say creationism COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY OCCURED. You won't find any.

That's neither here nor there. So what? The burden of proof is on creationism. Good try though.

 

[IronWing]

Debunked, try again please. Actually come up with firm deductions that say creationism COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY OCCURED. You won't find any.

Why would we bother? Creationism provides no useful results, no testable hypotheses, no plausible rules of evidence, and is impervious to reason.

The creationism-evolution and old earth-young earth debates were settled decades ago in the free market. Folks whose livelihoods depend on understanding the history of the earth and life thereon (oil, gas, and mining companies) don't hire creationists to find mineral wealth. Creationism is an intellectual dead-end and the only profits derived from creationism are those extracted from bamboozling the gullible.

 

[heymrdj]

That's neither here nor there. So what? The burden of proof is on creationism. Good try though.

You want your cake and eat it too. Macro evolution isn't firmly proven, there hasn't even been an observed case of it within scientific lifetime. Creationism isn't proven either, nor can be observed. It's easy to see that science taught in class rooms should very well have a disclaimer that this is our best assumption as to what happened, and that we really don't have any proof to say it did and that you're free to go elsewhere to find something that makes more sense to your personal taste. I really don't see what the big deal is with that. Why do you defend lying to students about what we really know. It should firmly be planted in their heads from day one that WE DON't KNOW. Is it insecurity? Will kids go crazy when they don't have a fairytale to believe in as to their origins? Because that's what science is putting in their heads right now. A fairytale. A fairytale that man knows all the answers and will save them from confusion and misunderstanding. Hell we can't even put a man on mars yet, you think we can figure out where we came from to a T?

Also thanks for proving my point. By saying it's on creationism to prove it, you point out that science really doesn't know. Go on and admit it, you'll look like less of a fool than defending it like a zealot.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

You want your cake and eat it too. Macro evolution isn't firmly proven, there hasn't even been an observed case of it within scientific lifetime. Creationism isn't proven either, nor can be observed. It's easy to see that science taught in class rooms should very well have a disclaimer that this is our best assumption as to what happened, and that we really don't have any proof to say it did and that you're free to go elsewhere to find something that makes more sense to your personal taste. I really don't see what the big deal is with that. Why do you defend lying to students about what we really know. It should firmly be planted in their heads from day one that WE DON't KNOW. Is it insecurity? Will kids go crazy when they don't have a fairytale to believe in as to their origins? Because that's what science is putting in their heads right now. A fairytale. A fairytale that man knows all the answers and will save them from confusion and misunderstanding. Hell we can't even put a man on mars yet, you think we can figure out where we came from to a T?

Also thanks for proving my point. By saying it's on creationism to prove it, you point out that science really doesn't know. Go on and admit it, you'll look like less of a fool than defending it like a zealot.

Observations were made. Assumptions created then confirmed for macro evolution. That you don't understand it doesn't have any effect on it. That you have a complete lack of understanding of science doesn't mean anything to anyone else.

Hint: "Macro Evolution" was not the observation that lead to the theory of evolution.

 

[heymrdj]

Why would we bother? Creationism provides no useful results, no testable hypotheses, no plausible rules of evidence, and is impervious to reason.

The creationism-evolution and old earth-young earth debates were settled decades ago in the free market. Folks whose livelihoods depend on understanding the history of the earth and life thereon (oil, gas, and mining companies) don't hire creationists to find mineral wealth. Creationism is an intellectual dead-end and the only profits derived from creationism are those extracted from bamboozling the gullible.

Your drawing things out of proportion. A minerologist could very well be a flying spaghetti monster believer and still study the earth and be productive. You want to lead the next generation with blindfolds on? That's just as bad as a religious nutcase teaching our next generation. Both blind people as to what is really going on, a world full of questions with no answers, some of which probably can't ever be answered.