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It seems to me that
Chris Matthews knew better than engage PJ O'Rourke in a battle of wits,
and played straight man. But here's the thing. I could care
less about the evolution/creationist thing, but I'm at least familiar
with both arguments. People like Mathews (liberals) dismiss out
of hand any concept that has
the slightest specter of God, e.g. climate change, abortion, and
certainly creationism. This is not an atheistic deal; Matthews
considers himself a practicing Catholic (which tenets happen to be
trumped by his real god, statism). What O'Donnel,
perhaps, was trying to say when Maher cut her off was, "Even
Darwin acknowledged "the extreme
difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful
universe … as the result of blind chance or necessity."
How many times in your lifetime have you read the headline, "Missing Link May Have Been Found?"
Why is that so exciting to evolutionists?
Jonah Lehrer, a contributing editor at Wired, smugly took on Ann
Coulter's extensive writings on the subject here:
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Coulter's
mistake is an ancient one. She insists that because we can't touch,
taste or dissect evolution, then it can't really exist. In other words,
if something isn't reducible into physical terms, then it's just
another abstraction, no more tenable than God. This is why Coulter
equates "the ideology of evolutionary biologists" with "religious
fundamentalism." For Coulter, both beliefs are acts of faith.
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Am I nuts, or doesn't this precisely describe the nexus of atheism, as
well as evolutionist theory? Despite the can of worms this opens,
these are rhetorical questions since I'm not inclined to argue the
point by typewriter. Call it a king's prerogative.
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Yes Rodge, you are nuts. But sometimes not so much.
ReplyDeleteLet me straighten this out for you. By means that we are forbidden to ever know, we have been given a universe without top, bottom, or sides. We have only been granted the facility to learn about everything in the middle. That's a fact recognized by all scientists. ((Let's cut Hawkings a little slack.))
Therefore every philosophy, including the very powerful/useful scientific ones, can never be founded in undeniable truth. This is why fools always win arguments—every rational person must admit that his knowledge ultimately rests on an unfalsifiable foundation of belief.
For example, I can explain compass navigation right down to the quantum mechanics of how the needle constantly seeks its lowest energy state. But if someone asks why processes always seek their lowest energy state over time, I can only say that seems to be the only possible way to construct our universe.
So AC has a point with evolution needing the support of an unsupported belief system. But that point is minimal and simply not useful.
When you view the world as the physical manifestation of God's Will, it's all good. We only get a problem when Catholic priests preach that they have exceeded human limits to know more about the world than God. That's how AC got suckered into a humanist fallacy.
You're welcome.
Evolution and cosmology are interesting theories but each is outside of the scientific method because they are based solely on observation and conjecture while not being subject to experimentation. Even relativity was able to make predictions about what could be observed under proper conditions. What predictions subject to verification by observation are offered by evolution?
ReplyDeleteEvolution and cosmology are all about how we got here. Well, here we are. What is important to me is what is next.
Laurence
Zinnnngggg!!
ReplyDeleteReligion answers the question "Why?".
ReplyDeleteScience answers the question "How?".
Does that mean I won? USA UAS USA!
ReplyDeleteSo..., Helly, what you're saying is Rodger's magic think ( or Mohammed's for that matter) is the undeniable truth, while your knowledge of "compass navigation right down to the quantum mechanics..." is founded on an unsupported belief system???
ReplyDeleteJust how powerful is your rabbit's foot, anyway?
"When you view the world as the physical manifestation of God's Will, it's all good."
It's all arbitrary gobbledygook unless you know of some scientifically testible means by which the existense of "God's Will", once defined, can be logically inferred.
I once started some fireworks among the Science teachers at school (I teach U.S. and World History).
ReplyDeleteI stated the opinion that I saw Darwin's Theory as a theory and that like, Creationism, it required faith on the behalf of the believer to accept. I pointed to huge gaps in the fossil record and that evolution really could not be observed in action (aside from with very simple examples like fruit flies).
Finally, I asked "Where did the very first example of life come from?" Spontaneous arrival seems alot like Creationism.
Ath that point, I stepped back and let two Science teachers go nuts. It was quite entertaining.
MAJ Mike
Come clean, Mike. You did none of those things. If you're genuinely interested in the matter then you can debubk much of your own nonsense by reading the material at http://www.talkorigins.org/
ReplyDeleteI suggest that you begin with "The FAQ"
"So..., Helly, what you're saying is …???
ReplyDeleteNo Tony. I said what I said, not some nonsense you pretend I said.
"It's all arbitrary gobbledygook,…"
I'm sure it is to you. The search for someone impressed with your clownish intellectual overreach continues. Better elsewhere, eh?
You come across as a mumbo-jumbo believing yo-yo looking to raise magic think to the empistemological status of credible knowkledge while tearing down a scentific theory to the level of unfalsifiable clap-trap. What I did was make an inference from your and Coulter's claim about TOE needing an unsupported belief system to your own knowledge of "compass navigation right down to the quantum mechanics". Both fields, quantum mechanics and evolutionary biology (or population genetics I think it's called these days) offer a best efforts researched and reasoned explanation of specific areas of reality. Both fields offer scientific models based on inductive reasoning from empirical observation to draw inferences. In the case of TOE this has been an ongoing process ever since Darwin's meticulously detailed account of the things he observed during his voyage on the Beagle and his looooong explanation to account for it all. The point is you cannot make a sound judgement that TOE requires an unsupported belief system without pissing on the efficacy of your own knowledge of "compass navigation right down to the quantum mechanics...". But then believers in unsupported supernatural mumbo-jumbo only have issues with the scientific theories that clash with mumbo-jumbo "divinely inspired" doctrine. I guess in that respect Quantum Theory is in the clear, isn't it, Helly?
ReplyDelete