Kevin Myers and Evolution.

bonkey

pH wrote:

But what I don't fully understand is this - Myers is taking a scientific/materialistic position, he's attempting to explain life on earth. However I cannot tell exactly what his replacement theory for evolution is.

Why does he need a replacement theory?

"Your theory is wrong" does not require that I know what the correct theory is.

Thats not how science works. "Your theory is wrong because I can show why your theory is wrong" is how science works.

Now...don't get me wrong...I don't accept that Myers has shown that evolutionary is wrong, nor even made a good argument as to why it may be wrong.

If a challenge to a scientific theory is to be rejected, it should be rejected by showing that it is incorrect, not that it fails to supply an alternative.

ETA:
This would perhaps make instructive reading for Mr. Myers to help understand his quandry regarding probability and/or the lack thereof.

bonkey

joe_chicken wrote:

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

Unfortunately, thats what religion should do. Unfortunately, religion has on occasion taken it upon itself to answer huge questions that people couldn't answer at the time only to find that people could in fact answer them at some later point.

Where this has not led to an ongoing dispute (as per the case at hand), the outcome has consistently always been the same - the religious have been wrong.

Of course, its not that these divine sources are wrong, its that the interpretation of them was incorrect. It is man and not the divine which is fallible. If the message was corrupted, it is through man's imperfection.

I can accept this. Its not all that bad an argument.

What I cannot accept is that the self-same acknowledgers of previous fallibility do not recognise (or do recognise but refuse to admit) that the unquestionable implication of this is that there is no definitive reason to believe the current interpretation is infallibly correct.

JCarey70

'Icons of Evolution' by Jonathan Wells.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Icons-Evolution-Science-Teach-about/dp/0895262002/ref=sr_1_1/026-2404536-6737237?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173913637&sr=1-1

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

Let me guess, Science asks "How?" questions and Religion asks "Why?" questions?

Going by their respective track records its more like Science asks "How?" questions and gets some answers, then goes and asks some more "How?", "Why?" and "When?" questions and gets more answers, whereas Religion, well it just makes up the answers and ignores everything else (or imprisons or kills everyone who disagrees, whichever is good).

I don't get this Separate Magisteria idea at all. The answers religion provides are as useful and meaningful as the sound of a dog's fart.

I don't think that's fair. Religion answers some of the really big questions people want answered - "why is my life meaningful?", "why am I so important?", "will everything be OK?", and "is death really the end?" - to which the answers are "God loves you", "God loves you", "if you behave", and "no of course not".

Now, you and I might think these answers are the things you say to comfort a frightened child - 'meaningless unsubstantiated soothing noises', perhaps, rather than your less comforting noise, but that is irrelevant. They may be bad answers, but they are answers - answers that science does not even pretend to provide.

This is why most people will never be atheists - because the atheist answers are "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "maybe", and "probably".

cordially,
Scofflaw

5uspect

Scofflaw wrote:

I don't think that's fair. Religion answers some of the really big questions people want answered - "why is my life meaningful?", "why am I so important?", "will everything be OK?", and "is death really the end?" - to which the answers are "God loves you", "God loves you", "if you behave", and "no of course not".

Now, you and I might think these answers are the things you say to comfort a frightened child - 'meaningless unsubstantiated soothing noises', perhaps, rather than your less comforting noise, but that is irrelevant. They may be bad answers, but they are answers - answers that science does not even pretend to provide.

This is why most people will never be atheists - because the atheist answers are "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "you'll have to work that out for yourself", "maybe", and "probably".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Okay, but those aren't really answers based on anything meaningful. they're opinions based on interpretations of an idea put forward with no justification as ultimate knowledge. I guess we're back to saying whats wrong with saying "I don't know?"

I see you point that this lack of absoluteness is why most people cling to religion, I don't see how they can justify it tho. I suppose thats why I'll never understand the mystical Christian concept of faith. Maybe I'm too cynical.

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

Religion answers huge questions that people can't answer...

It doesn't though, that is the point. It just pretends it does. And admitably a lot of people are perfectly happy with that delusion.

Say I've got a maths problem that asks what is 142523293 divided by 29343. If I said well the answer is 42 I am certainly providing an answer. But that answer is largely meaningless. Since I don't actually know the true answer I don't know that is answer is either incorrect or correct, it is just a guess. This is componded if I then stop trying to figure out what the actual answer is and am just happy with my guess. It probably isn't the correct answer, though of course there is always the small possibility that by blind luck it actually is the answer (its not btw, the real answer is 4,857.14). But that doesn't change the fact that I don't know either way.

So the question is what is the point of this answer?

If the point is to simply provide an answer, any answers, because the lack of an answer to the question makes us uncomfortable then it succeeds in that goal. But if the point is to provide a correct answer then it doesn't.

This is exactly what religion does, but in a much more elaborate fashion, often constructing the question itself around the answer it wishes to provide.

joe_chicken wrote:

You could argue that answering these questions takes away the temptation to try and answer them yourself

No I'm arguing that religion, by claiming to have an answer that is really nothing more than a guess, takes away the desire for people to go out and try and find answers to a higher standard. That is what science is, a higher standard of guessing over religion.

As Dawkins points out in the God Delusion the statement "we don't know" is what drives scientists. Science is about exploring what we don't know. It is also about realising what we don't know and constantly examining the questions as well as the answers.

Religion is the exact opposite. It is about pretending we know something that we don't actually know, and then saying that because of this we should stop looking at both the questions and the answers.

Zillah

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

Okay, but those aren't really answers based on anything meaningful. they're opinions based on interpretations of an idea put forward with no justification as ultimate knowledge. I guess we're back to saying whats wrong with saying "I don't know?"

I suppose that it's not satisfying for a lot of people.

5uspect wrote:

I see you point that this lack of absoluteness is why most people cling to religion, I don't see how they can justify it tho. I suppose thats why I'll never understand the mystical Christian concept of faith. Maybe I'm too cynical.

The thing I think most atheists miss is that belief comes first - then everything else.

We expect people to justify their Christianity, say, from the Bible, whereas the majority of Christians don't know the Bible much, and reading the Bible only comes after they've become Christians.

It's as if I wanted you to justify falling in love with someone at first sight - asking you "what factors led you to do this?", "how do you know you're right?", and expecting meaningful answers. Belief is like love - it's an emotional committment first and foremost.

Once the believer is 'in love', they are hardly going to be able to see their beloved's faults. She has people put to death? It's for their own good! And we, the atheists, can no more persuade someone out of belief than we can persuade them out of love - we can only wait for them to fall out of love, which the smart ones will do, because of their beloved's lyin' cheatin' ways...


cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Wicknight wrote:

It doesn't though, that is the point. It just pretends it does. And admitably a lot of people are perfectly happy with that delusion.

This is where I don't get atheism...

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

Say I've got a maths problem...

Using a construct like maths where we know what the answer is (because we invented the rules) is not a fair comparison.

So the question is what is the point of this answer?


If the point is to simply provide an answer, any answers, because the lack of an answer to the question makes us uncomfortable then it succeeds in that goal. But if the point is to provide a correct answer then it doesn't.

This is exactly what religion does, but in a much more elaborate fashion, often constructing the question itself around the answer it wishes to provide.

I'm unsure what you're arguing here?!

Is it that science has more of a point?

No I'm arguing that religion, by claiming to have an answer that is really nothing more than a guess, takes away the desire for people to go out and try and find answers to a higher standard. That is what science is, a higher standard of guessing over religion.

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago, and how come so many people who did push the boundaries of science were religious.

Zombrex

Zillah wrote:

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

What you saying about my mother!

bonkey

joe_chicken wrote:

Is it that science has more of a point?

Science has a different point, and its one which can happily co-exist with most religious beliefs.

To explain further...limiting myself to science...

Newtonian physics is wrong. We know its wrong. We can measure situations where its wrong. However, we know its pretty-damn close to being right in a lot of situtions and a hell of a lot simpler than other models we have which are capable of producing more accurate asnwers.

So Newtonian physics can be used in a wide-ranging number of scenarios because it is a useful model which matches observation sufficiently well in a large number of cases.

Relativity gives us another model. Its more complex than Newtonian physics, harder to work with, but has the advantage that it can provide a more accurate result which will more closely match observation. At worst, it will agree with Newtonian physics. Like Newtonian physics, Relativity is still, strictly speaking, wrong, as we can come up with situations where it fails to accurately match observation.

The same applies for most - if not all - scientific models. If we discovered tomorrow that gravity doesn't quite work the way we think it does, our current model would still be applicable in the situations where we know it matches observation.

Scientific theories are not explanations of what is. They are models which closely match observation within a set of boundaries with sufficient accuracy to be used in a predictive manner.

That might sound like pedantry, but its not.

Lets imagine, just for one sec, that the universe was created by a divine being exactly 10 seconds ago and made to look exactly like a universe which formed according to current scientific theory. Would this invalidate our scientific theories? Not in the slightest....because they would still predictively model just as well as they do now. From a scientific perspective, there would be no difference. They wouldn't accurately explain what the origins of the universe really were, merely what observation says they appear to have been.

If someone wants to argue that dinosaurs didn't walk the earth, but that the fossils were added by some divine being and made to look just like they did....that doesn't invalidate scientific theory in the slightest.

If someone wants to argue that the earth was created on the night of October 24th, 4004BC and made to look exactly as though it were billions of years old, in a universe billions of years older, then fine...it doesn't invalidate scientific theory in the slightest.

If someone wants to argue that evolution didn't happen but that it has just been made to look like it did, then thats perfectly ok too.

Most young-earth creationists that I've had experience of don't seem to want to deal with the concept of a capricious God. They don't want to have to open themselves to the question of why God would do this. They don't want people to consider that there is merit to accepting the usefulness of scientific modelling because its not what they believe happened, regardless of what things look like.

I can't explain it.

The entire point of science is to model observation. Its not a definitive statement of what is. Belief, on the other hand, should be about an underlying belief of just that...of what is.

I would argue that the current "victimisation" of theists by atheists is a backlash. Some faithful want their children to be taught that ID is a scientific theory. Some want the credibility of science torn down because its models offend them. Some misunderstand science to be a declaration of what is and/or are worried that others may mistake it to be such.

Ultimately, science and belief should have no need to clash swords. Scientists generally don't go looking to hunt down the faithful or the religious to challenge, demean or scoff at their beliefs. What they do, however, is defend themselves and the integrity of their field from the type of attack they have been subjected to.

Scofflaw

joe_chicken wrote:

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago

Trial and error. The scientific method is at heart a formalised, standardised and thought-through version of this.

What it wasn't, by and large, was "applied religion".

joe_chicken wrote:

and how come so many people who did push the boundaries of science were religious.

You can be as religious as you like, as long as you can apply the scientific method properly.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Zillah wrote:

I was going to start arguing with Scofflaw like the two tits above me here (:p) but as I was formulating a response I realised that he is absolutely right. Well chosen words laddie.

EDIT: Ok technically the tit Wicknight wasn't but the spirit of the argument was there

That has to be some kind of first!

cordially,
Scofflaw

SonOfPerdition

joe_chicken wrote:

This is where I don't get atheism...

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

What about those whose faith has them believe the end of days are coming so there is no point in worrying or doing anthing about climate change?
What if those people are in a position of power? Is their faith completely irrelevant?

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

This is where I don't get atheism...

Not sure what you mean. Atheism doesn't answer any questions, it simply points out that previous answers (ie "God") are wrong.

joe_chicken wrote:

It does answer questions for people who have faith...
Whether you think they are right or wrong is completely irrelevant.

Well it depends on if you think a wrong answer can hold any value. Some people might say yes. But even in this case it is important to realise that the value of the answer is in the comfort it provides, not the fact that it is correct.

joe_chicken wrote:

Using a construct like maths where we know what the answer is (because we invented the rules) is not a fair comparison.

Well for my example you don't need to know the answer, I just picked that problem because it was possible to show that 43 wasn't the answer. If you didn't know how to divide those numbers it wouldn't make 43 any more likely to be the answer.

This is why statements, often made by theists, along the lines of "Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang. Religion can, and it was God" annoy me so much.

Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang because science views the correctness of an answer on the subject to be more important than the comfort value of any such answer. Therefore it does not put forward an answer because we cannot tell if any answer is correct or not.

Religion also cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang either, but because the comfort value of providing an answer is more important than the answer being correct religion will put forward an answer anyway.

And because people are made uncomfortable by there being no answer at all available they will take the this answer, even if it isn't correct, and use it to nullify the uncomfortable feeling when they ponder things like the Big Bang.

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not.

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm unsure what you're arguing here?!

Is it that science has more of a point?

Pretty much.

Any answer provided by religion to any question posed to it is largely meaningless because it is simply a guess. And not even an educated guess, often the guess will be very random and nonintuitive (a middle eastern virgin gave birth the son of a god who lived for 33 years and then was executed by Romans so that man can be forgiven his sins that were first created by god when a woman in a garden south of Babylon as punishment for eating an apple ... seriously?)

The only thing this guess can do is to delude people who accept it into a feeling of contentment about how the world works.

But you cannot actually do anything with this guess because it might not actually be correct, and most likely isn't. You cannot build a TV with it, or an automobile. You cannot form a theory of relativity or cure a form of cancer with it. You cannot launch a rocket to the moon, and build a nuclear power station.

The only thing religion can do is provide easy, yet in all likelyhood completely incorrect, answers to the people who get upset if they don't have answers for certain things.

It seems to just be human nature that some people are made uncomfortable if they cannot view the world in such an absolute way. Religion provides a very basic and silly model that these people can use to feel better. To them that is enough.

joe_chicken wrote:

So how did we discover anything new before about a 100-150 years ago

Many ways, but not through religion.

Religion has never answered anything, if one assumes that to discover something real one requires a correct, or at least close to being correct, answer.

There have certainly been religious people who were also brilliant minds who explored and developed ideas and theories on things. But they didn't do it within the framework of religious questioning.

For example no one has ever formed a theory of the Earth's formation from the book of Genesis that does anything accept make them feel comfortable about the book of Genesis. You cannot find oil or determine why the poles flip by looking at the religious theories of the Earth.

The people who are content to stop looking based on these religious answers are normally the ones who aren't actually that interested in looking in the first place. You get that all the time on the Christian forum, comments along the line of "I don't accept evolution, the Bible is good enough for me" That person will never cure HIV or cure cancer, though they might not care and they might be just happy enough living their lives (hopefully HIV and cancer free) content in their absolutely belief in the Bible.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

This is why statements, often made by theists, along the lines of "Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang. Religion can, and it was God" annoy me so much.

Science cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang because science views the correctness of an answer on the subject to be more important than the comfort value of any such answer. Therefore it does not put forward an answer because we cannot tell if any answer is correct or not.

Religion also cannot tell us what was before the Big Bang either, but because the comfort value of providing an answer is more important than the answer being correct religion will put forward an answer anyway.

And because people are made uncomfortable by there being no answer at all available they will take the this answer, even if it isn't correct, and use it to nullify the uncomfortable feeling when they ponder things like the Big Bang.

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not.

Indeed, science could 'provide an answer' with exactly the same rigour that religion does. Scientists could just say "it was orange" - or even better, different groups of scientists could say different things. These statements would have exactly the same level of validity as those made by religion, but they would not be scientific statements - which is the reason science does not make them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

joe_chicken

Wicknight wrote:

Well it depends on if you think a wrong answer can hold any value.....

But the point to remember is that the answer provided by religion is largely meaningless in terms of if it is correct or not...

....

Any answer provided by religion to any question posed to it is largely meaningless....
....

Religion has never answered anything.

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

Zillah

Scofflaw wrote:

That has to be some kind of first!

Bout bloody time you started making sense!

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

You'd think you would have gotten it by now tbh.

Zombrex

joe_chicken wrote:

I'm getting a tremendous feeling of deja vu here

Well to be honest Joe I'm simply saying again the same thing as I've always said

As Scofflaw says science could provide an answer for any question that you think religion can provide an answer (and that answer could well be "orange")

But science doesn't do this, and that is a mark in science's favour. It is precisely because it doesn't do this that science is held in vastly better favour than religion ever could be.

Yet for some people this is considered a failing on sciences part, when it reality it is a failing on the part of religion.

Science holds itself to a standard to the truth that religion doesn't care about, or is even unaware of.

Múinteoir

As regards Kevin Myers, here's a humourous blog here that follows his journalistic escapades and where he is referred to as Colonel Myers.
Sadly nothing up about this whole evolution debate yet. Maybe they need a nudge in the arm to wake them up.

magicbastarder

bonkey wrote:

Newtonian physics is wrong. We know its wrong. We can measure situations where its wrong. However, we know its pretty-damn close to being right in a lot of situtions and a hell of a lot simpler than other models we have which are capable of producing more accurate asnwers.

i would argue newtonian physics is only 'wrong' if you claim it is the full story; it is not wrong, but limited, and its limits are known and understood.

bonkey

magicbastarder wrote:

i would argue newtonian physics is only 'wrong' if you claim it is the full story; it is not wrong, but limited, and its limits are known and understood.

Are there situations where Newtonian physics will yield an exactly correct answer? Or is one of these limits effectively that the result will be "within an acceptably small margin of error" ???

To me, an "acceptably small margin of error" means "wrong, but close enough to being right in order to be useful".

magicbastarder

i take your point; however, i'd still go for calling it 'flawed' or 'limited'.

5uspect

bonkey wrote:

Are there situations where Newtonian physics will yield an exactly correct answer? Or is one of these limits effectively that the result will be "within an acceptably small margin of error" ???

To me, an "acceptably small margin of error" means "wrong, but close enough to being right in order to be useful".

Newtonian physics can make very accurate predictions, indeed it is by far the most useful part of physics (for us engineers anyway). It is a simple model of the part of the universe we are part of and any large error is really due to the simplifications used to solve your equations. I wouldn't call it "wrong" but I see your point. I'd prefer limited also.

And of course you couldn't build a particle accelerator with out it!

Scofflaw

5uspect wrote:

bonkey wrote:

Are there situations where Newtonian physics will yield an exactly correct answer? Or is one of these limits effectively that the result will be "within an acceptably small margin of error" ???

To me, an "acceptably small margin of error" means "wrong, but close enough to being right in order to be useful".

And of course you couldn't build a particle accelerator with out it!

Indeed, for all building purposes, as well as most day to day applications, Newtonian physics is exactly that - close enough to being right to be useful.

Doesn't help you with satellite clocks, but good enough to get the satellite up there...

cordially,
Scofflaw

Son Goku

There's also no way to write down a quantum mechanical equation that doesn't assume somebody, somewhere is approximately Newtonian.
bonkey is correct naturally, but I think it's interesting that Quantum Mechanics needs to assume that the bodies/apparatus/people which will be performing measurements are described really well by Newton's Mechanics.

An example:

And of course you couldn't build a particle accelerator with out it!

Not only that, if you could build a particle accelerator without it, you couldn't do particle physics. You need the equipment to be classical.

pH

Bumping an old thread but it's a good one!

Turns out that a large portion of the book is taken up with comparing fossils with living creatures to 'prove' that evolution doesn't happen. Made even funnier by confusing things like eels and snakes and using pictures of fly-fishing 'flies' instead of real ones.



http://forbiddenmusic.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/atlas-of-creation-by-harun-yahya/

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/well_fly_fishing_is_a_science.php

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2833,UPDATED-Venomous-Snakes-Slippery-Eels-and-Harun-Yahya,Richard-Dawkins

Mena

Holy Necro Batman :eek:

But thanks, I missed this thread and it's proved beyond fascinating.

robindch

pH wrote: »

Bumping an old thread but it's a good one!

Haven't laughed so much as when the news about Pastor Ted, er, came out!

Thanks for bumping this, I just saw another opinion piece by Mr. Myers on a global forum I use:Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS
They don't like creationists there. (and on religion polls it gets about 60% A&A)