So, what's the general consensus here on evolution?

[NonServiam]

Snusdog Re: "And stop making people of faith out to be either fanatics or idiots. There are plenty of each on both sides of the debate as there are plenty of intelligence and integrity who merit our respect from both sides."

I will agree with you there. My wife is Methodist, and very devout to Christian teachings. I on the other hand, am spiritual but not a christian. More a blend of polytheism, panentheism, and certain philosophies of the left hand path. Anyways, my wife is nowhere near being a fanatic or an idiot, she holds a bachelor's degree in science and nursing, and she is not bigoted or hateful towards those of difference. Nor does she peddle her beliefs door to door.

She's just a small town girl who holds true to what her parents instilled in her, it works for her, and gives her a foundation in life. That foundation may not be functional or solid for others or myself, but it is for her, and that's what is important.

This is one of those threads that could continue on forever (I know, I know, that is not scientifically or mathematically possible, lol) because individuals hold deep convictions, and this thread alone will not convert anyone from the side they were on prior to posting in this thread. And I apologize as I have just perpetuated this thread ever further, rather than letting it fade away. The beneficial side of this thread is we are all communicating, sharing ideas, and enjoying ourselves, and somewhat peaceably I might add.

[sgreger1]

My wife is Methodist, and very devout to Christian teachings. I on the other hand, am spiritual but not a christian. More a blend of polytheism, panentheism, and certain philosophies of the left hand path. Anyways, my wife is nowhere near being a fanatic or an idiot, she holds a bachelor's degree in science and nursing, and she is not bigoted or hateful towards those of difference. Nor does she peddle her beliefs door to door.

She's just a small town girl who holds true to what her parents instilled in her, it works for her, and gives her a foundation in life. That foundation may not be functional or solid for others or myself, but it is for her, and that's what is important.

Dude are we sharing the same wife?

[lxskllr]

Dude are we sharing the same wife?

I think that's Mormon or something, not Methodist :^P

[NonServiam]

Dude are we sharing the same wife?

I certainly hope not, I hate sloppy seconds! Or did you get the sloppy seconds Although, my daughter has blonde hair, you don't have blonde hair do you?

[Joe234]

Ok amid this somewhat banal discussion I will ask a simple question to both sides (or rather to the parody of both sides represented by this thread)

My Question: What do the laws of science, math, or philosophy (logic) tell us about a randomly generated factuality?

If factuality is random then statistics, observation, calculation, causality, mathematical norms are utterly and completely irrelevant.

At stake for both sides is any claim to reason, evidence, or scientific theory.

This is not a parlor trick, it IS the essence of the debate for both sides.

So how do laws speak to or tell us about random facts.

Note: both sides assume the same basic nature of facts (regardless of whether they realize it or not). Likewise both sides assume the laws of science, math, and logic necessary for their observations and theories about the past. WHAT NEITHER SIDE has done is to demonstrate how their understanding of laws and their understanding of facts ever meet. They merely ASSUME that they meet. Now there is nothing wrong with assumptions. However the assumption made here is based on an inherit contradiction and impossibility and therefore is utterly damning to the very POSSIBILITY of the debate as it has been framed by both sides

Answer this dilemma and the thread is worth participating in.

Fail and this is just one more blog of straw man opinions, mud slinging, and pooling of ignorances.


And stop making people of faith out to be either fanatics or idiots. There are plenty of each on both sides of the debate as there are plenty of intelligence and integrity who merit our respect from both sides. Enough

And if it were me, I would want to base my understanding of this issue on the best, the most profound, and the most discerning from both sides. Not the mildly disturbed and polemic rabble featured in the videos and quotes thus far.

Just my 2 cents

Yes. How do we know that science and physics explains everything?
I lean toward being a skeptic when is comes to religion. However is it
possible there is an explanation that does not fit our paradigm or laws
of science?

[Joe234]

The God Delusion
Richard Dawkins
Click Here

http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275947494&sr=8-1

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The antireligion wars started by Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris will heat up even more with this salvo from celebrated Oxford biologist Dawkins. For a scientist who criticizes religion for its intolerance, Dawkins has written a surprisingly intolerant book, full of scorn for religion and those who believe. But Dawkins, who gave us the selfish gene, anticipates this criticism. He says it's the scientist and humanist in him that makes him hostile to religions—fundamentalist Christianity and Islam come in for the most opprobrium—that close people's minds to scientific truth, oppress women and abuse children psychologically with the notion of eternal damnation. While Dawkins can be witty, even confirmed atheists who agree with his advocacy of science and vigorous rationalism may have trouble stomaching some of the rhetoric: the biblical Yahweh is "psychotic," Aquinas's proofs of God's existence are "fatuous" and religion generally is "nonsense." The most effective chapters are those in which Dawkins calms down, for instance, drawing on evolution to disprove the ideas behind intelligent design. In other chapters, he attempts to construct a scientific scaffolding for atheism, such as using evolution again to rebut the notion that without God there can be no morality. He insists that religion is a divisive and oppressive force, but he is less convincing in arguing that the world would be better and more peaceful without it. (Oct. 18)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Scientific American

Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications—the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, "to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously." Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates —through spiritons!—and where it resides. Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite. George Johnson is author of Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order and six other books. He resides on the Web at talaya.net --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

[danielan]

My Question: What do the laws of science, math, or philosophy (logic) tell us about a randomly generated factuality?

This isn't particularly hard, but you totally lost me.

In fact, you lost Google. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ra...+factuality%22

Are you saying that reality is random?

I'd posit that it is random in the sense that there isn't a plan or purpose. And that in any given second a radioactive element may decay or not decay.

But, in the sense of being ordered and having laws then no, IMO, it isn't random.

[sgreger1]

Yah I caught some of that book and Hawkins is certainly not nice to any religion lol. I think it's elitist for him to put his theory above others, even if his has more facts that meet the criteria of his expertice. I mean for him as a sicentist, he wants to know how god communicates, how much processing power it would take to mind read every human etc, whereas religion looks at it a different way. I don't think he's right in being so hardheaded in his beliefs but he's entitled to his opinion. The thing is that science is always evolving, someday we may somehow come to the conclusion that some things may be unexplainable and therefore have a creator involved in it, but at the end of the day that can never be proven unless this creator wanted to show himself, which he seems adimant about not doing ever.

[sgreger1]

This isn't particularly hard, but you totally lost me.

In fact, you lost Google. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22ra...+factuality%22

Are you saying that reality is random?

I'd posit that it is random in the sense that there isn't a plan or purpose. And that in any given second a radioactive element may decay or not decay.

But, in the sense of being ordered and having laws then no, IMO, it isn't random.

randomly | in a random manner
bring forth | bring into existence
factuality | the quality of being actual or based on fact

To create something in a random manner based on fact(s).

I read that as meaning, if I have the following facts:

There are fossils that show species as a lizard, as a half lizard/bird, and as a bird
Genetic data showing how similar we all are on a genetic level
The mechanism to accomplish this (time, the existance of genetic mutations and procreation)
As well as current day examples of species adapting to better their survival (procreation) rates

I would then generate a theory based on this that things mutate, over time, in a manner which breeds future generations of species that are better fit for survival in their given habitat. I could have chosen other theories, such as randomly making up that a god made these changes in each generation (or that the devil planeted this evidence to test my faith), but I instead chose the theory that is backed up with the most facts, the theory that would establish how this happened given known processes.

So this theory no longer falls into the catagory of randomly generated factuality, as I did not choose a theory at random to explain the evidence in question, but rather used logic to deduce what most likely happened.


Makes sense to me. What does science, math or logic tell us about this? It tells me that this is a solid method of creation theories.

[Roo]

I despised that book

[shikitohno]

Ok amid this somewhat banal discussion I will ask a simple question to both sides (or rather to the parody of both sides represented by this thread)

My Question: What do the laws of science, math, or philosophy (logic) tell us about a randomly generated factuality?

If factuality is random then statistics, observation, calculation, causality, mathematical norms are utterly and completely irrelevant.

At stake for both sides is any claim to reason, evidence, or scientific theory.

This is not a parlor trick, it IS the essence of the debate for both sides.

So how do laws speak to or tell us about random facts.

Note: both sides assume the same basic nature of facts (regardless of whether they realize it or not). Likewise both sides assume the laws of science, math, and logic necessary for their observations and theories about the past. WHAT NEITHER SIDE has done is to demonstrate how their understanding of laws and their understanding of facts ever meet. They merely ASSUME that they meet. Now there is nothing wrong with assumptions. However the assumption made here is based on an inherit contradiction and impossibility and therefore is utterly damning to the very POSSIBILITY of the debate as it has been framed by both sides

Answer this dilemma and the thread is worth participating in.

Fail and this is just one more blog of straw man opinions, mud slinging, and pooling of ignorances.


And stop making people of faith out to be either fanatics or idiots. There are plenty of each on both sides of the debate as there are plenty of intelligence and integrity who merit our respect from both sides. Enough

And if it were me, I would want to base my understanding of this issue on the best, the most profound, and the most discerning from both sides. Not the mildly disturbed and polemic rabble featured in the videos and quotes thus far.

Just my 2 cents

Dog, you're going to have to use phrases that make sense. "Randomly generated factuality" is utter nonsense dressed up in fancy sounding terms. The randomly generated quality of being factual? If I assumed you mean randomly generated facts, you're still not making sense. An idea or concept can be one of two things: a fact (true based on empirical evidence) or a falsehood. You don't have randomly generated facts, facts either are or they are not. And I think it's fairly well demonstrated how the laws of science, math and logic come together for evolution. For intelligent design, there's are numerous gaping holes where they do not. Could you give me an example of where in evolutionary theory it is that you feel there's such a glaring gap between the laws of science and whatnot? At the very least, come back and clarify what you mean.

And religious people get painted that way because of how a select few of them act. The sane, intelligent ones aren't out making ranty videos on youtube.

Also, what assumption is it you're claiming evolution shares with intelligent design? The theory of evolution makes no claims as to the origins of life, so if you're talking about the question of how life came to be, you may want to brush up on your Darwin. Evolution deals only with the mechanism by which modern life forms emerged from older ones that no longer exist.

[sgreger1]

Factuality is not random, nut sure what your intent was Dog, like shikitohno said, it either is a fact or it is not. Evolution is just a theory used to explain how several other related facts can be pieced together in a meaningfull way. The facts are that we have a fossil record, corroborated by genetic evidece, as well as present day observations of creatures mutating and changing from one thing to another in order to better adapt to and survive in their surroundings. Those are facts, evolution tries to take those seperate facts and form them together into a theory of how this process works and how these facts (evidence) came into being.

[Darwin]

A theory of something is a framework for explaining a set of facts (data) to an extent satisfactory for having a predictive legitimacy. The term is much confused with hypothesis which is an educated guess about how a system might work and only becomes a valid theory when a broad base of data, experimental or observational, show it to be true in a general sense. The distinction is an important one because there are many hypotheses that have in the past attempted to explain natural phenomena but over the years the data have shown that only a subset of those hypotheses turned out to be sound and therefore constitute a valid theory. Hypotheses do not turn into theories overnight and theories are constantly being refined and sometimes even disrupted if disputatious evidence is strong enough. At this point in most areas of scientific endeavor humans are nattering about the very marginal edges of established theories attempting to resolve difficulties but few such efforts will completely overturn the main thrust of established theories. It's not impossible for this to happen but it is extremely unlikely. The observed facts display a clear evolutionary trail of life and even if the details of various mechanisms, even long established ones, are shown to be faulty or incomplete in some way that will in no way obviate the fact that evolution did in fact happen and I'm fairly confident that no credible evidence will be forthcoming that some cosmic omnipotence chose to occasionally stab a metaphorical finger down during some tiny bit of the vast ocean of geological and evolutionary time and said, "Let there be bacteria!" or "Let there be dinosaurs, or human beans even!"

[sgreger1]

"Let there be dinosaurs, or human beans even!"

Mmmm. Human beans.

[victoryredchevy]

I am a Christian. I believe in Creationism. I understand why so many believe in evolution and I don't belittle it. I just simply do not believe in it. Put yourself in a Christian's place, though. Try to explain to someone that you have a relationship with the creator and that they can have one, too. Christianity is a tough practice, my friends.