You know where the library is, don't you?
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to the atheists on the board
- Thread starter kungfoofighting
- Start date
You know where the library is, don't you?
Quote from ShoeshineBoy:
I can only assume you will not defend macroevolution because it is so weakly supported. Maybe Sardo will come to your rescue by providing me with those page numbers...
No, I'm pretty much done with you. You made the assertion that creationism has a scientific basis with more merit than evolution so it's your job to supply evidence. You have not. There are volumes upon volumes of scientific data supporting evolution. You seem to think they don't exist. You're quite mistaken. You can keep turning the argument back on us but it's your job to prove what you assert is true. Give me ONE little bit of evidence in support of creationism (beyond - how does evolution explain this?) I'm more than open-minded enough to believe that evolution may be wrong (although all scientific evidence to date shows that it is true.) But you don't supply evidence. You throw up strawmen, ad hominem, and appeals to ignorance to support your irrational claims and then attack us for not believing your nonsense. Sorry, I'm no longer interested. If you want to believe a wholly irrational theory, so be it. If you need to attack those who disagree with you, so be it. I'm through.
BTW, it's "Sardo Numspa" (said with a British accent) not just "Sardo." Please get it right. Although "My Dear Brother Numsy" is also acceptable.
Nice summary Sardo.
Shoe just continues using the same old tactics over and over.
He continues to IGNORE the request for a single shred
of evidence to support ID, and instead attacks evolution
with BLATANT straw man fallacies and appeals to ignorance.
He also like to PRETEND that we are dodging his silly
evolution questions.
He DEMANDS that we PROVE macro-evolution, when we have
freely admitted that it is a THEORY, and therefore by DEFINITION
not a proven fact.
All in all...nothing but one big smoke screen to cover the fact
that he CANNOT defend his ID nonsense even a little.
SUMMARY
---------------------------
1) Evolution - tons of evidence
2) ID - ZERO evidence
End of debate.
Will be happy to continue this when Shoe is ready to actually
discuss his ID hypothesis and leave the strawmen, appeals
to ignorance, and general weak attacks on science and evolution.
We await your very first supporting bit of evidence for ID.
peace
axeman
Shoe just continues using the same old tactics over and over.
He continues to IGNORE the request for a single shred
of evidence to support ID, and instead attacks evolution
with BLATANT straw man fallacies and appeals to ignorance.
He also like to PRETEND that we are dodging his silly
evolution questions.
He DEMANDS that we PROVE macro-evolution, when we have
freely admitted that it is a THEORY, and therefore by DEFINITION
not a proven fact.
All in all...nothing but one big smoke screen to cover the fact
that he CANNOT defend his ID nonsense even a little.
SUMMARY
---------------------------
1) Evolution - tons of evidence
2) ID - ZERO evidence
End of debate.
Will be happy to continue this when Shoe is ready to actually
discuss his ID hypothesis and leave the strawmen, appeals
to ignorance, and general weak attacks on science and evolution.
We await your very first supporting bit of evidence for ID.
peace
axeman
Quote from nevadan:
Quite a long discussion generated by your hypothesis, kungfoofighting. As a new member I am a little late in joining the discussion, but after reading most of the posts I would have to say that your position begs the question--Why would a house on Mars indicate the presence of God any more that a house on earth does? One can always arrive at the desired conclusion if an article of faith is presupposed.
The question I asked did not suggest that a house on Mars would be an indication of God. Actually, the question I asked related to why a house on Mars would convince us of the presence of a being that no one had seen, whose properties might be quite unlike any known. Most responses were along the lines that because houses have not been shown to self build, we would be confident that it must have been designed. This begs the question, "Why then is life not evidence of intelligent design?" We have no examples to demonstrate that living things can come into being on their own. I know the thread is quite long, and it would be tedious to pick through all the responses. I hope this clarifies the reason for my original question.
I read with amusement Shoeshine's mischaracterization of the state of evolutionary science, that it is in disarray.
I had the opportunity 4 years ago to attend a small party in which Stephen J. Gould was a guest. Several questions were put to him regarding evolution, creationism, ID. He regarded evolutionary science as robust and ID as scientifically bankrupt.
I had the opportunity 4 years ago to attend a small party in which Stephen J. Gould was a guest. Several questions were put to him regarding evolution, creationism, ID. He regarded evolutionary science as robust and ID as scientifically bankrupt.
Quote from slammajamma:
I read with amusement Shoeshine's mischaracterization of the state of evolutionary science, that it is in disarray.
I had the opportunity 4 years ago to attend a small party in which Stephen J. Gould was a guest. Several questions were put to him regarding evolution, creationism, ID. He regarded evolutionary science as robust and ID as scientifically bankrupt.
Thank you. (I realize that Gould was a staunch evolutionist.) Maybe I've found someone who will talk math and science with me and not just tell me to go read the Encyclopedia Britannica because he can't remember any of it...
I seriously would like to find someone who can defend punctuated equilibra. That is really where I was hoping this thread would go, but I couldn't get any takers.
As you can tell, I feel that I would have to commit intellectual suicide to accept NeoDarwinistic gradualism and I definitely think the future of biology lies with Gould and his followers.
So far I have not been able to find the answers to the following questions:
1. If the favorable mutation rate is so astronomically low (less than 1 in 10,000), why Does Gould feel this would this assist in large scale change over even shorter time periods?
2. Wouldn't a small, isolated population provide for even less overall mutations, i.e. resulting in less chance for mutational change?
3. Wouldn't the correct sequencing of favorable mutations be even more critical in a small population?
I am much more interested in the math and science of it. I really don't want to hear stratigraphic arguments as much (since they could argue for creationism or punc. equ.).
From Stephen Hawkins:
"people must have noticed certain regularities in the behaviour of nature. These regularities were most obvious, in the motion of the heavenly bodies across the sky. So astronomy was the first science to be developed. It was put on a firm mathematical basis by Newton, more than 300 years ago, and we still use his theory of gravity to predict the motion of almost all celestial bodies. Following the example of astronomy, it was found that other natural phenomena also obeyed definite scientific laws. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been publicly expressed by the French scientist, Laplace. I thought I would like to quote you Laplace's actual words, so I asked a friend to track them down. They are in French of course, not that I expect that would be any problem with this audience. But the trouble is, Laplace was rather like Prewst, in that he wrote sentences of inordinate length and complexity. So I have decided to para-phrase the quotation. In effect what he said was, that if at one time, we knew the positions and speeds of all the particles in the universe, then we could calculate their behaviour at any other time, in the past or future. There is a probably apocryphal story, that when Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' <FONT COLOR="red">I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist.</FONT>"
"people must have noticed certain regularities in the behaviour of nature. These regularities were most obvious, in the motion of the heavenly bodies across the sky. So astronomy was the first science to be developed. It was put on a firm mathematical basis by Newton, more than 300 years ago, and we still use his theory of gravity to predict the motion of almost all celestial bodies. Following the example of astronomy, it was found that other natural phenomena also obeyed definite scientific laws. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been publicly expressed by the French scientist, Laplace. I thought I would like to quote you Laplace's actual words, so I asked a friend to track them down. They are in French of course, not that I expect that would be any problem with this audience. But the trouble is, Laplace was rather like Prewst, in that he wrote sentences of inordinate length and complexity. So I have decided to para-phrase the quotation. In effect what he said was, that if at one time, we knew the positions and speeds of all the particles in the universe, then we could calculate their behaviour at any other time, in the past or future. There is a probably apocryphal story, that when Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' <FONT COLOR="red">I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist.</FONT>"
Quote from ShoeshineBoy:
I'm glad you're on here, Harry. Because few of the big names seem to be the extreme materialism promulgated on these threads. Einstein, who you brought up, is a classic example: he would only align himself with the pantheistic Spinoza. Few of them were hard-liner materialists that would flippantly dismiss all agnosticism, deism, pantheism or other hybrids as idioitic and irrational...
Quote from kungfoofighting:
Actually, the question I asked related to why a house on Mars would convince us of the presence of a being that no one had seen, whose properties might be quite unlike any known. Most responses were along the lines that because houses have not been shown to self build, we would be confident that it must have been designed. This begs the question, "Why then is life not evidence of intelligent design?" We have no examples to demonstrate that living things can come into being on their own.
We have repeatedly seen the process (housebuilding) which results in the creation of houses by house builders. We have never seen houses spontaneously arise by themselves.
In contrast, we have never seen the process which results in the creation of life. We have no examples of living things coming into being on their own, and we have no examples of living things coming into being as a result of intelligent creation, let alone creation by a divine being. Either one could be true, or it could be some other process entirely, and we would have no idea.
In the former case we hold a belief because there is repeated and convincing evidence in its favour. In the latter case we have no such evidence. Therefore believing in the former does not in any way imply that we should believe in the latter.
The general rule of thumb is that in the absence of good evidence about a spectacular claim, the rational person reserves judgement until further evidence is produced. So, by that standard a rational person would not be "convinced" of life on Mars just because a house was found there. That would be one *possibility*, but it would not be the only possible explanation, nor even necessarily the most likely. For example if the National Enquirer published the story, I would think it more likely that it was a fake, or they had built the house there themselves.
Quote from harrytrader:
From Stephen Hawkins:
"people must have noticed certain regularities in the behaviour of nature. These regularities were most obvious, in the motion of the heavenly bodies across the sky. So astronomy was the first science to be developed. It was put on a firm mathematical basis by Newton, more than 300 years ago, and we still use his theory of gravity to predict the motion of almost all celestial bodies. Following the example of astronomy, it was found that other natural phenomena also obeyed definite scientific laws. This led to the idea of scientific determinism, which seems first to have been publicly expressed by the French scientist, Laplace. I thought I would like to quote you Laplace's actual words, so I asked a friend to track them down. They are in French of course, not that I expect that would be any problem with this audience. But the trouble is, Laplace was rather like Prewst, in that he wrote sentences of inordinate length and complexity. So I have decided to para-phrase the quotation. In effect what he said was, that if at one time, we knew the positions and speeds of all the particles in the universe, then we could calculate their behaviour at any other time, in the past or future. There is a probably apocryphal story, that when Laplace was asked by Napoleon, how God fitted into this system, he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' <FONT COLOR="red">I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist.</FONT>"
About Laplace's answer to Napoleon when he was asked 'how God fitted into this system', he replied, 'Sire, I have not needed that hypothesis.' : many people here would understand that Laplace wants to say that he doesn't believe in God whereas this is not the logic of his sentence as Stephen hawkins remarks:
<FONT COLOR="red">'I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God didn't exist. It is just that He doesn't intervene to break the laws of Science. That must be the position of every scientist.</FONT>' Once again Hawkins, like Einstein, refers to Spinoza's God. Science doesn't deny the possibility of Personal God, it denies that if Laws exists, it could imply a Design by a Superior Conciousness but this Conciousness is not obligatory at the image of a Human which would like to reward or punish his own creatures : God is not obliged to intervene in Human Affairs like most Religions pretend.
But Science is far from supporting Atheism although he is also far from supporting the idea of Religions God, what is sure is that the concept of God as Superior Conciousness who intelligently DESIGNED the World is not absent at all it is even the core of Fundamental Scientific Research. People confuse Science and Techonology, technology deals with formulas Science deals indeed with the same kind of problem than Religion but without being normally polluted by social religious or politics beliefs. If there is determinism then free will could be an illusion but if it is true you can continue to deny for psychological reason but not for scientific reason.
Clearly you dont know what atheism is.
Atheism is simply a LACK of belief in god.
Science is a process incapable of possessing a belief in
of itself and is therefore atheistic by definition.
peace
axeman
Atheism is simply a LACK of belief in god.
Science is a process incapable of possessing a belief in
of itself and is therefore atheistic by definition.
peace
axeman
Quote from harrytrader:
Conclusion: Science is far from supporting Atheism and is also far from supporting the idea of Religions God, but for sure the concept of God as Superior Conciousness who intelligently designed the World is not absent at all it is even the core of Fundamental Scientific Research. People confuse Science and Techonology, technology deals with formulas Science deals indeed with the same kind of problem than Religion but without being normally polluted by social religious or politics beliefs. If there is determinism then free will could be an illusion but if it is true you can continue to deny for psychological reason but not for scientific reason. [/B]