For centuries, established religions have asserted that science should be viewed through the lens of religion. Over the past few years, scientifically-oriented writers have turned that view on its head. They have asserted that it is more appropriate to view religious practices through the lens of science.
The recent flurry of books includes the following:
- Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, by Pascal Boyer (2002)
- The Human Story, by Robin Dunbar (2004)
- Breaking the Spell, by Daniel Dennett (2006)
- Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, By David Sloan Wilson (2003)
- How We Believe, by Michael Shermer (1999)
- Why God’s Persist, by Robert Hinde (1999)
- The End of Faith, by Sam Harris (2004)
- Attachment, Evolution and the Psychology of Religion, by Lee Kirkpatrick (2005)
- In Gods We Trust, by Scott Atran (2002)
Though I own each of these books, I have completely read only half of them; I’m partly through the others. They are a priority on my reading list given the high stakes of failing to understand religious practices (religious tensions and wars everywhere one cares to look).
For anyone just getting started in this area, I recommend Dennett’s 2006 work, Breaking the Spell. This book is classic Dennett: eloquent, heartfelt and clear. He works extra hard so that he is not only preaching to the choir. He spends the first one-hundred pages working to convince Believers to give him a chance. It’s quite an extraordinary opening gambit.
Most of the above books concern similar questions regarding religion, though they approach these issues in a variety of ways. Those questions include the following:
1. Why do religious people say the puzzling things they say?
For instance, some Believers say that a virgin gave birth. Others insist that the Bible is absolutely consistent even though the Bible identifies two separate men as the father of Joseph (in an ethereal-sperm sort of way, I’m referring to the “biological” grandfather of Jesus); one Gospel insists that his name is “Jacob” (Matthew 1:16) while another gospel insists it is “Heli” (Luke 3:23). There are many many more contradictions where this came from. See the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
2. Do believers really believe the alleged truths of their religions? Literalist believers claim that they truly believe Bible truths, but this is difficult to grasp for outsiders like me. For instance Deuteronomy 5:14 couldn’t be any clearer that God’s people shouldn’t work at all one day out of seven. Yet there they are working those Wal-Mart stores seven days out of seven.
3. Why do believers engage in rituals? You know . . . I’m referring to those things that many non-believers see to be pointless and time-wasting. Interestingly, Believers often disparage the rituals of every one else’s religion.
Each of these questions is actually four separate “why” questions, as established by the Nobel Prize winning ethologist Niko Tinbergen. These four “why” questions concern the behavior’s:
- Phylogeny or history (when did the behavior developed over geological time as part of the evolution of the species?).
- Ontogeny (the behavior’s development over the life of the individual animal),
- Function (how the behaviour impacts the animal’s chances of survival and reproduction; the purpose the behavior serves in the animal’s life) and
- Proximate cause or mechanisms (what bodily machinery, including motivational systems, produces that behavior).
A full explanation of religious practice must carefully deal with each of these levels of explanation. In The Human Story, Robin Dunbar points out that when analyzing any trait or behavior, it is important that we not confuse these levels of analysis, the most common confusion being between function and ontogeny. As Daniel Dennett writes in Breaking the Spell, science is just getting started analyzing religion with vigor (hence the title to his book).
Based on these recent books, science is finally gearing up to vigorously put religion under the microscope of science. Religion is not going to comply willingly, however. If (long) history is any indication, religions (especially literalist traditions) will continue to insist that religion is primary and that any scientific finding threatening religious authority will be prima facie overruled.
Ironically, the science needed for a fruitful analysis of religion is rich in vitamin “D” (Darwin). Thus, the struggle once again comes down to believers versus Darwin. This will be interesting struggle to watch. I find it equally fascinating and frustrating to watch fundamentalist apologists deal with inconvenient facts.
Even “science-friendly” religions such as the Roman Catholic Church aren’t about to hand science a blank check to figure things out. The Catholic hierarchy will likely invoke its suspect intellectual and moral authority to veto the entire project if-ever and when-ever the enterprise becomes too embarrassing or inconvenient. It will do this despite the many ghosts from its past: To the Galileo problem, the massive pedophilia cover-up and the Church’s silence during the Nazi Holocaust, I would add the Church’s reprehensible treatment of gays and the Church’s condemnation of effective birth control, a position responsible massive starvation and suffering.
I’m not trying to pick on the Catholic Church. I believe the Catholic Church will be more open to a scientific analysis of religion than the many religions that are more literalist/conservative. When the termites of science start munching at theological foundations, however, you can expect the Catholic Church to generate tons of abstruse proclamations.
The more literalist/fundamentalist religions will fight a different type of fight. They will throw off their gloves at the earliest moment to grab further hold of the political process in order to shut down funding for all universities and institutions daring to follow where the evidence leads.
Liberal religions (e.g., Unitarian Churches) might well watch the work of science with some interest and, indeed, even some enthusiasm. After all, many followers of liberal religions manage to find plenty of room for their poetic and inspirational versions of God no matter what science digs up.
The question, again: Should we look at science through the lens of religion or should we examine religion through the lens of science? I would choose to latter and here’s why. As Sam Harris wrote in The End of Faith, “religious faith is the one species of human ignorance that will not admit of even the possibility of correction” (p. 223). In short, many religions (especially literalist sects) have already set their positions. They will be there to fight science no matter what science finds. They’ve already drawn their curves. All that remains is to plot their biased data in accordance with their belief frames, guided by the all-powerful confirmation bias.
Science, on the other hand, is self correcting, isn’t it? Or is science often wrong and aren’t scientists often pig-headed? Yes to both of these questions! Despite overwhelming supporting evidence, elegant new scientific explanations are regularly rejected by people (including experts in the same field) who refuse to look at new evidence with open minds. Galileo and Darwin are only the most recognizable examples. Here are three equally disturbing examples:
- Alfred Wegener, the scientist who developed tectonic plate theory in 1915. Despite the existence of evidence supporting his theory, it was rejected by most of his contemporaries.
- The same thing happened in 1984 to Australian Doctor Barry Marshall, who argued (to a chorus of ridicule) that many ulcers are caused by bacteria called helicobacter pylori, not stress. It opponents claimed that it was medical fact that stress caused ulcers. Desperate to prove his theory. Marshall drank a beaker of the bacteria to cause an ulcer in his own liver. This began a revolution in our understanding and treatment of peptic ulcer disease).
- Kilmer McCully, M.D. paid dearly for disparaging the reigning theory of his day, that heart attacks were caused by excessive cholesterol. McCully published papers contending that high cholesterol was not the main cause of heart disease. His 1969 theory linked homocysteine—an amino acid that accumulates in the blood—and heart disease. For this work he was banished from Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. For the next 27 months he was unable to find a position in North America that would allow him to continue this work.
Yes, science makes big mistakes. The most important question to ask, however, is whether it is religion or science that has better tools for making self-corrections. The clear winner is science. Each of the above-described scientific blunders was corrected. Science is currently off and running in the right direction in each of these cases. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his classic 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, inertial and institutional forces sometimes delay the implementation of major steering corrections in scientific research. In the end, though, science gets it right.
Therefore, full speed ahead with the scientific analysis of religion! Given the spate of unceasing religious wars everywhere we look, the stakes are too high to fail in this endeavor.
Erich
[Clarification: Do I need to insert again, just to be clear, that I have the highest admiration for many devout believers? That I find fault with the official doctrines and the organizational structures of many religions in no way disparages the heroic efforts of many members of these organizations to relieve human suffering, to achieve social justice and to encourage vigorous and free-thinking human exploration of the world. If such a clarification is needed, here it is: A toast to good-hearted open-minded believers everywhere!]
Any theory that purports to be fact with claimed scientific evidence is just as prone to error as any religion.
If one says the facts are overwhelmingly if favor of the worldview of many atheistic scientists(that God does not exist)that science is futile in attempting to declare in the negative through the use of science that something does not exist.
What if I were to propose a theory for the existence of extremely dense but also extremely small and light particles being the very fabric of "empty" space. What would be needed to convinve you that this could ever be the case? What if nothing we have in terms of particles or energy to use for probes could ever detect them. Would I be intellectually dishonest to say I believed they were there but unable of being detected except by indirect inferences.
The same applies for my belief in God.
God exists, and someone who claims that one can only believe what scientists agree is acceptable science are closed minded as well.
Karl: You can choose to believe things other than the things scientists confirm, but these things are not scientific. They lack the stamp of reliability and validity that science can sometimes offer. You can still believe them. You can believe that angels inspire you or that Babe the Blue Ox was bigger than a house. You can even act on these beliefs, but they are not scientific beliefs.
Scientific beliefs give rise to airplanes that really fly and some medicines that save lives. Beliefs that are not scientific don't give rise to these sorts of amazing things. If one wants to consider something to be scientific one must first articulate it in a way that is understandable and testable, and then one must test it.
The science of aerodynamics with airplanes has nothing to do with evolution, unless someone has shown that grant money can be obtained to write up articles demonstrating how flying animals acquired the ability to do so from the combination of random mutations that helped them survive for one reason or another.
Investigational studies of medicines have nothing to do with the principles of macro evolution, unless grant money can be obtained for writing articles that demonstrate the similarity between the medicines and the illnesses they treat. Afterall they are probably both organic with characteristic shapes and properties due to those chemical shapes.
The only thing that differs from calling macro-evolution a fiction in the minds of so many people is that it probably is the only reasonable scientific way to account for life if one doubts that there is a creator.
You seem to think I discredit all science and the scientific method as "who do the voodoo."
There are practical uses for basic science, applied science and the technologies that are advanced by these endeavors.
Just the same, I do not believe in the phrase "nothing in the life sciences (Biology) makes sense without evolutionary principles."
There I go again stepping on one of those credos of certain scientists.
Design, order and interelatedness between species make more logical sense (in my mind) from the perspective of an intentional creation as opposed to the belief that order and interellatedness appears to arise from random chance beneficial mutations.
Is the "Blue dude" who overdosed on silver an example of a new species in formation?
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22536241
No, This is an example of how a living species reacts to environmental change and produces an unusual conditional life form that is directly related to the environment of the living thing.
I have never heard of, nor has the evolution of an entirely new species that has longevity and persistence of reproduction ever been documented to my satisfaction. Some believe they have witnessed evolution in bacteria. Take away the environmental stress and the "new species" disappears from before our very eyes in a very short number of generations.
Environmental stress (natural selection) applied to an organism do appear to cause changes. But I seriously doubt the the Blue dude's DNA was altered so that his children would also have been blue.
They would probably have a tendency to turn blue in an overdose of silver, but that doesn't mean the smurf is an improved new species – only a species witha unique phenotype that is more environmental and gene related.
Karl writes:—"Any theory that purports to be fact with claimed scientific evidence is just as prone to error as any religion."
The difference (one among many) is that in science everyone is urged to tear a theory apart to find the flaws and see if something else works better. In religion, the whole point is for everyone to be on the same page and protect the canon. The result is very different outcomes.
—"What if I were to propose a theory for the existence of extremely dense but also extremely small and light particles being the very fabric of “empty” space. What would be needed to convinve you that this could ever be the case? What if nothing we have in terms of particles or energy to use for probes could ever detect them. Would I be intellectually dishonest to say I believed they were there but unable of being detected except by indirect inferences."
Well, we kind of have that situation now with string theory. Stay tuned.
—"God exists, and someone who claims that one can only believe what scientists agree is acceptable science are closed minded as well."
Only by your standards, we do not by necessity allow for the possibility of the nonexistence of god. So who's more close-minded?
For myself, whether god exists or not does not change my understanding of how nature operates. If a deity set it up, fine. It still works a certain way and I find a better explanation for that in science that in the rejection of evidence in favor of a cosmic magician—which seems to me, at those odd moments when I think about it at all, a terribly small and limited way to think of something that could have made all this.
Which brings me back to wondering why such a being would be in the least interested in the foibles and follies of a minor expression of carbon based life way off in the cosmic hinterland.
Your adherence to the kind of personally involved god you seem to claim is of the type that always struck me as the ultimate in wishful thinking. At base, it's all about you.
Anyway, we've been around this mulberry bush often enough. My feet are tired.
Karl
You use one phrase that is especially telling, and you use it frequently:
Can you please tell me what you would need, for anything to be documented to your satisfaction? Do you even have the necessary knowledge and skills to understand the documentation that you so blithely demand (for everything, apparently)?
You portray yourself as the stereotypical bumpkin – I ain't never seen it, and I ain't gonna believe it, even if I saw it with my own eyes!
I am done with you. You have taken yourself out of the debate with your stance, because you have made the clear statement that nothing we say or do can ever convince you otherwise.
And you call US closed-minded!
Documentation, Let’s see . . .
Ever hear of primary sources – actual eye witnesses?
You cannot call the extrapolated/theoretical work of a scientist a primary source. You cannot even call Darwin's journals primary sources because they contain thoughts that are clearly based upon a view point that was looking for ways to correlate a viewpoint of a much older earth with possible evidence from the natural world.
I believe the Bible is full of the closest to primary sources we have concerning actual events and people from ancient history from eye witness accounts. Even Luke, is careful to state his information came directly from first hand primary sources concerning the Life of Jesus.
Note – someone with a considerable vested interest in seeing the evidence interpreted one way or the other based upon a priori assumptions should have little business compiling a one sided view of evidence and then label it scientific.
If the glove doesn't fit . . . you must acquit.
Another negative fact that proves nothing either way.
What a bunch of malarkey.
I wonder if wet leather if allowed to dry on its own will keep its shape and size. Should we suggest a little investigation into the matter, or should we use a logical appeal to the (innocent until proven guilty mindset of the jury) to call into question any other patterns or evidences of perhaps even more significance.
Find me primary source documentation for random, natural selection determined macro-evolution (Not a variant bacteria that is still a bacteria)and I'll have little choice but to say that science rules and faith in God drools.
Until then, being on top and telling others you are is not a position that favors open discussion and honest dialog.
Karl: You are ignoring the fact that circumstantial evidence can make for strong cases. No, you can't stand there and "watch" things evolve. Nor can you see the gasoline explosions in your engine as you drive to the store.
But you apply a very different standard of proof to bible claims. Hmmm, I wonder what religion you would be if you applied that same loose standard (the one you apply to bible claims) to the claims of Muslims?
Erich, you may choose to *cricket* this comment or you may choose not to. I however, will give a try and respect your decision.
The reason for creationists like myself that don't accept evolution is because it does not logically add up even if scientists say it does. The first problem is the origin itself. Because scientists agree that the earth was already a living matter and the atmosphere was favorable to the emergence of life does not make it so. DNA is the code for making proteins, but first has to be translated into RNA which then provides the blueprint for proteins. However, proteins are needed to make copies of DNA to pass onto daughter cells. Proteins, DNA and RNA are essential for life, but which came first the chicken or the egg? RNA is not easily synthesized and does not readily make copies of itself.
You don't question the scientists? you just accept it as evidence. Every honest scientist and evolutionist has asked themselves at some point whether something as complex as the human eye could have evolved by chance. Scientists want answers for everything and creation is regarded as being outside the scope of science. Can we equate what is true with what can be seen and measured? Is the physical world all there is?
Human consciousness and language is something that clearly sets us apart from our closest ancestor the chimpanzee. There are also breeding limits. Many creatures reproduce asexually. Why would there be a need to incorporate a more complex system of reproduction that is only useful if fully in place, such as the male and female sex organs? These kind of things defy the imagination.
I personally don't believe the earth is billions of years old and there is evidence for a young earth. "Mitochondria Eve" was an experiment done on the DNA of an African women to determine the mutation rate, which would then determine the age. It turned out that the mutation rate was much faster than expected and concluded that woman can't be millions of years old as expected http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve.
Another example is the red giant stars. Evolutionists teach that these stars change into white dwarfs over millions of years, however Sirius is an example of a red star becoming white within the past 2,000 years. It's now regarded as white. Another example is the Sahara desert. Calculations based on the expansion show the desert to be 4,000 years old. Rapid fossilization is more evidence of a catastrophic event, such as a flood. In order for a fossil to form it has to involve rapid, immediate burial in mud just like Noah's flood would have provided. The coal miners doug up many findings that will never make secular news. In early July of 2000, a human footprint overlaid by Dinosaur print was found on a Cretaceous limestone block. Recently, scientists discovered octopus fossils which were supposedly 95 million years old from the Cretaceous period which looked identical to modern octopi. Another finding, paleontologist Mary Schweitzer claimed to have found blood cells and collagen from a thigh bone of a fossilized Tyrannosaurus Rex. Of course, evolutionists refuse to accept this. If the earth is billions of years old, then why are there petrified trees buried in the upright position through many layers in various places around the world? Example, the bottom of Sprint Lake and Yellowstone National Park.
You keep repeating the evidence for evolution, but refuse to look at the evidence for creation. You cannot argue how an Intelligent Designer would/should design something. that is a "strawman argument".
Walter: Please go read a few good science books so that we can meaningfully engage in a discussion on these topics. I will note for the record, however, that I have NEVER suggested that I (or anyone) knows why the universe exists or why it has the physical characteristics it has rather than some other characteristics. I simply don't know. I am almost absolutely certain that I will never know.
Of course circumstantial evidence can make for strong cases, but it can never prove something doesn't exist.
Nor can it conclusively state something unwitnessed happened because one thinks it's logical to your worldview that it should exist.
I do study matter and energy following scientifically predicted and expected rules order. The "new sciences" have more than enough unpredictability built into their premises to every make them correlate with reality in my thinking.
Science is suppose to be about correlation, not unwitnessed and hoped for connections with little if any identifable cause and effect patterns.
Random events happening to the internal genotype of living things that result in the production of a new and improved species with an improved survivability rate has not been witnessed, even though atheists so want this to be the case.
Part of your paradigm includes random cause and effect interrelationships developing into living things. Works for you, but not for me.
Lawyer: Now Mr. Jones, did you and the members of your family look for an elephant in your house?
Mr. Jones: Yes, we did. My wife, my children and I looked in every room of the house for 3 hours, and we did not see any elephant.
Lawyer: Therefore, are you CERTAIN that there was no elephant in your house?
Mr. Jones: Yes . . .
Mr. Karl: OBJECTION!!! Circumstantial evidence will NEVER prove an elephant doesn’t exist in the Jones house. It could have been one of those invisible supernatural elephants that sporadically shows up as a feeling of contentment in members of the Jones family at varying times. Your Honor, I read about one of those elephants in an ancient book written by unknown people who heard about it from other people. That elephant could have been in one of the GAPS between the joists in the attic.
Judge: Mr. Karl, isn't it true that you have a copy of the Koran in your house?
Mr. Karl: No, Your Honor. I've searched my house carefully, and I can say with CERTAINTY that I do not have a copy of that book in my house.
. . .
Karl writes:—"Ever hear of primary sources – actual eye witnesses?"
That's ironic, as from what scholars can tell, not one book in the Bible was written by an "eye witness." Yet you rely on it for so much…
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/…
The key to speciation is the evolution of genetic differences between the incipient species. For a lineage to split once and for all, the two incipient species must have genetic differences that are expressed in some way that causes matings between them to either not happen or to be unsuccessful. These need not be huge genetic differences. A small change in the timing, location, or rituals of mating could be enough. But still, some difference is necessary. This change might evolve by natural selection or genetic drift.
Reduced gene flow probably plays a critical role in speciation. Modes of speciation are often classified according to how much the geographic separation of incipient species can contribute to reduced gene flow.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/…
Walter writes:—"Another example is the red giant stars. Evolutionists teach that these stars change into white dwarfs over millions of years, however Sirius is an example of a red star becoming white within the past 2,000 years. It’s now regarded as white."
When I first read your comment, my reaction was, "Where the hell do I start?" There is so much NOT RIGHT in what you wrote.
Rather than attack the biology, I thought I'd take this one.
Walter—where do you get this shit?
Sirius is a binary. (That means two stars orbiting each other) Both began as blue stars. BLUE. Some two to three hundred million years ago Sirius A began to settle into a white star. Sirius B expanded into a red giant—120 million years ago—before collapsing into a white dwarf. (Red giants are relatively short-lived stars, burning up their fuel comparatively quickly.)
The confusion over Sirius being red dates from the first century C.E. Some observers commented on its redness. AT THE SAME TIME, however, others recorded it as blue and in China it was considered white. The records are all over the place.
But given its mass and magnitude, it was not at that time a red giant. Couldn't have been.
Nevertheless, the life cycles of stars are in the tens to hundreds of millions of years AT LEAST, depending on their original mass, billions of years for many if not most.
I'm going to assume the best here and say that you are reading things too hastily. You're gleaning just enough information from whatever your sources are to be dangerously misinformed. SLOW DOWN. READ THE WHOLE BOOK. STOP CHERRY-PICKING.
Your sequence of proteins, RNA, and DNA is bass-ackwards at best.
READ MORE. Your comment on the Sahara is true as far as it goes. Observations from orbit confirm geology that the region was once criss-crossed with rivers and streams and was probably forest before desertification began.
The human footprint over a dinosaur print was debunked years ago—both prints are from dinosaurs.
http://paleo.cc/paluxy/paluxy.htm
Stop relying on the NATIONAL ENQUIRER and WEEKLY WORLD NEWS for your science reports.
That certain species exist whose ancestors are largely unchanged over millions of years is nothing new. Sharks are pretty much the same now as they were a hundred million or two hundred million years ago. If a species is successful in its environment and there has been no isolation of a group from the larger population, the odds are no changes will occur.
The "soft tissue" from Tyrannosaurus you mention has not been "dismissed" by evolutionists—it is being studied to determine if it's legit.
As to the upright position of petrified trees, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything…oh, wait, the Flood! Yeah, but mineralization—the process by which trees "petrify"—takes a damn sight longer than four thousand years.
The problem, Walter, is that there is no evidence FOR creation in the same way that there is evidence FOR all the stuff you keep trying to overturn. The fact that all this stuff is here and you believe a big sky magician made it all about six thousand years ago is not evidence. And most of the evidence you put up in this post is stuff that has valid explanations. (Not even other creationists use those footprints anymore, recognizing their error.)
What has always—ALWAYS—puzzled me about creationists is this insistence on a biblical account of something IN ORDER TO BELIEVE IN GOD, when it seems clear to me, at least, that you can believe in god regardless of the physical reality around you. You use that book like a crutch and when someone says to you "You can walk without that" you cling to it ever more tightly.
And you miss so much as a result!
Anyway, enough of this. Erich's right. You need to do a lot more reading and read A LOT MORE CAREFULLY before you can argue with any kind of merit about these subjects.
Did the Jones family say elephants exist or that they exist in their house? Is the lawyer asking for a point of clarification or is the lawyer leading the witness alomg a line of reasoning that is irrelevant to the case under consideration?
Does the Lawyer wish to prove that there is no God in someone's house, or does the lawyer wish to prove that there is a way in general that he can prove God does not exist by the process of elimination of all likely hiding places?
Do agnostics say God doesn;t exist or do they just not have evidence enough either way?
Do atheists have any other explanation for life and its existence in general if macro-evolution were shown to be insufficient even given hundreds of billions of years to operate?
Macroevolution encompasses the grandest trends and transformations in evolution, such as the origin of mammals and the radiation of flowering plants. Macroevolutionary patterns are generally what we see when we look at the large-scale history of life.
It is not necessarily easy to "see" macroevolutionary history; there are no firsthand accounts to be read. Instead, we reconstruct the history of life using all available evidence: geology, fossils, and living organisms.
Once we've figured out what evolutionary events have taken place, we try to figure out how they happened. Just as in microevolution, basic evolutionary mechanisms like mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection are at work and can help explain many large-scale patterns in the history of life.
The basic evolutionary mechanisms — mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection — can produce major evolutionary change if given enough time.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/…
A process like mutation might seem too small-scale to influence a pattern as amazing as the beetle radiation, or as large as the difference between dogs and pine trees, but it's not. Life on Earth has been accumulating mutations and passing them through the filter of natural selection for 3.8 billion years — more than enough time for evolutionary processes to produce its grand history.
Many lineages on the tree of life exhibit stasis, which just means that they don't change much for a long time, as shown in the figure to the right.
In fact, some lineages have changed so little for such a long time that they are often called living fossils. Coelacanths comprise a fish lineage that branched off of the tree near the base of the vertebrate clade. Until 1938, scientists thought that coelacanths went extinct 80 million years ago. But in 1938, scientists discovered a living coelacanth from a population in the Indian Ocean that looked very similar to its fossil ancestors. Hence, the coelacanth lineage exhibits about 80 million years' worth of morphological stasis.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/…
"even given hundreds of billions of years to operate"
Karl, the true age of the earth is over 4.5 TRILLION years (not BILLIONS).
4,500,000,000,000,000
Get your facts strait.
Ben
Karl is obviously confused by numbers with too many zeros. Million, billion, trillion, bazillion… they're all made up, so he doesn't pay any attention to that stuff – we've only been around for 6000 years, donchaknow.
"Gazillion" has been invented for people like Karl, who know in their hearts that the earth is far older than 6,000 years but aren't willing to say it.
Karl, you labor under a misapprehension.
It is not 'atheists' who say evolution is our best theory (strong term, science definition, not weak, not very well supported 'only a theory' per political-speak).
The people who say this are scientists.
Although it is true that training oneself to be sufficiently rational to pursue science as a career can promote the elimination of irrational belief systems unsupported by evidence (aka religion, woo) it does not demand it. Scientist INTERSECTS Atheist, and there are many non-scientist atheists (your's truly, for example), just as there are many non-atheist scientists (Francis Collins, for example).
If you are going to rely on an argument, make sure of the facts first.
Ben,
Please…it's BILLION. The whole universe is only 14 BILLION. Not trillion. It's been around a long time, but not that long.
The 100 billion was suppose to be an exageration upon the 3 to 5 billion claimed by naturalists for the age of the earth needed to account for a statistically non-excluded possibility for evolution to have ocurred.
It was my way of stating that even with deeper and deeper time evolution is just as barren of its alleged proof of beneficient macro-evolution.
We have witnessed the demise/decline of gene pool after gene pool of existing life forms, yet we are suppose to believe that these declines get infused with new and improved genes that make for better and newly favored species.
I guess if one must have faith in something, one must have faith in something.
Karl says: "I guess if one must have faith in something, one must have faith in something."
I choose to have faith in the things that correlate to other things, based upon innumerable precise observations that don't depend on who is making the claim. It's the same approach all of us take regarding most things. I am willing to take it as far as it goes. It doesn't answer all of my questions and curiosity, Karl. I'll admit that. In my mind, we need to have the courage to say "I don't know" where the evidence leaves off.
Mark, are you sure about the star Sirius? According to this article, it is a "vexing" problem of history, that ancient astronomers called Sirius "in no uncertain terms as red or ruddy". http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=2055. Granted, the article is dated 10/21/09 and perhaps new information has been revealed, but I don't believe there is any religious affiliation involved (correct me if I'm wrong).
Are you also sure about the time it takes for something to petrify? According to many sources, it can take a few hundred years or less.
As far as the biology is concerned. It's pretty basic. DNA is unable to make proteins by itself. It first must be translated into RNA via proteins(in the form of enzymes). The RNA provides the building blocks for protein construction. That can easily be googled, as well.
I am sure I don't know as much about evolution, as you probably don't know much about creation. It is also true, that I am pretty closed minded when it comes to evolution. I look around at all of the creation and just can't imagine it happening by chance. What is the reason for living? Why even bother trying to be a good citizen? I have faith that there is a God and that I will someday meet him face to face. Yes, it does take faith and it's a feeling of a special presence that's with me all the time. It's a relationship with the creator himself. It's not religion.
Karl
Extinction is a fact of life. Speciation is a fact of life, and if you think about it logically, the environmental pressures that support (and in many cases lead to) speciation, are also drivers for extinction.
As Heinlein said: TANSTAAFL.
Just being alive is no guarantee of continued success.
I'm sure all the early algae were really pissed off when the their effluent made the burgeoning earth poisonous for them. Some evolved into other niches (hello sulfur springs!) but many will simply have disappeared.
Just because we humans have imposed such radical environmental changes it is almost impossible to ignore extinction. Just because we notice it is no reason to dismiss the findings of evolutionary science. Quite the opposite. (But then you do like to cherry-pick, don't you?)
Walter
You keep citing evidence and 'authorities' that make no sense. You continue to make statements that are as out of touch as Velikovsky's theories regarding Venus.
If you are going to claim evidence – please provide citations. Peer-reviewed citations. Or even proxies for peer-reviewed citations (from reputable journals). Even an article fro Time Magazine would be better than the crap you are presenting as 'evidence'.
Until you do so, you are making no contribution – other than as a sideshow.
Walter writes:—"Mark, are you sure about the star Sirius?"
Yes.
—"I am sure I don’t know as much about evolution, as you probably don’t know much about creation"
If that's a subtle attempt to claim parity of ignorance, forget it. There simply isn't much to "know" about creation as a science. As anthropology, however, there are as many "creation" stories as there have been distinct cultures on the planet. My question is, what privileges the one you prefer over all the others? And if they are wrong, why can't yours be wrong?
—"What is the reason for living? Why even bother trying to be a good citizen?"
So you're suggesting that if somehow I managed tomorrow to convince you that there is no god (never mind how) you would promptly embark on a program of depravity, sloth, and perversion? I think not. I think you would find that you still have plenty of reasons to be a good citizen because you are a member of a community, and ultimately, in a practical sense, that's where purpose always comes from.
That's one of the most inane reasons to dismiss evolution I have heard, that if it were true we would suddenly have no purpose. From what I see, plenty of "believers" have no real purpose in life, either. You do that work on your own. It's hard for everyone, unless it's handed to them, but you find it from the place where you are and the things you learn.
I appreciate your honesty at admitting your close-mindedness. But now that you've owned up to it, you have the ability—and I'd say the responsibility—to get over it.
Tony, you know certainly well that there is almost no chance of creation articles passing the peer review process in secular journals no matter what their quality. Creationists have published their own journals such as Creation Research Society Quarterly and Nihilo Technical Journal.
Walter opined:
ROFLMAO.
Scientific peer reviewed journals generally have standards. Submissions need to meet those standards. You can't just make shit up. (Not even in Psychology journals!)
That's where your 'creation science' fails. If you wish to overturn centuries of evidence and research, you had better bring a great deal of power to your swing. Some have succeeded (String theory, Quantum mechanics, Special & General Relativity). Many fail.
I'll simply repeat a closing statement of Mark's that is entirely apposite
Walter and Karl: Most of us here are impressed with the scientific method based on the incredible success of that method (drugs that cure and computers that compute). I admit, though, that not everything scientists do is successful–there are often mistakes in performing experiments or interpreting results. Where they fail, though, it is the scientific method that can get them back on track. It is not a system based on trust and authority, but on precisely executed and skeptically evaluated experimentation.
We continue standing at a crossroads, still trying to figure out exactly why we disagree, having locked down some good ideas of where we disagree. For this effort, I am appreciative. Yet I am fatigued by this continuing conversation, because it seems to me that we are in a situation of diminishing returns. We've already covered much of what we continue to discuss these days, even though new things occasionally come up. But, again, it seems like diminishing returns.
We appear to be speaking in different languages. To me, it seems like the writers of this blog are focused on understanding phenomena based on methods that are independent of the internal emotions, hopes and social connections of the observers. We are interested in the same sorts of things that could be determined by a Martian scientist who had no knowledge of any allegedly sacred writings. If he visited earth, a Martian scientist would see a vast tree of life that has a temporal direction. Namely, he would be fascinated that there are no rabbit fossils to be found in Precambrian strata. With further fossil-digging and analysis, that would strongly suggest to the Martian scientist that life on earth changed over time in dramatic and systematic ways. It is my belief that such an outsider scientist would eventually appreciate the approach Darwin offered for describing and testing these observations.
Your approach, on the other hand, seems like strange poetry. Its words are familiar to me, because these sorts of claims are so often repeated in society, but their meaning cannot be discerned by exploring the physical world. I don't understand your strange poetry. I don't think I ever will, except through the study of cognitive science aimed at why you are saying such things; I don't believe we can understand our differences by studying fossils and the many other types of physical evidence. The subject matter of evolutionary biology strongly suggests to me that Darwin derived an elegant explanatory theory that blows away fantastic tales regarding imaginary beings found in ancient apocryphal writings.
It is for all of these reasons that I have, for the most part, declined to engage in these conversations of late.
I as well am impressed with what science can offer in terms of cures for sicknesses, advances in technologies and in general basic research.
It is in the explanatory power that we differ in degree. I am not content with a description of events from an interpretive perspective that fails to consider evidence from more than one interpretive perspective.
A little green man from Mars could perhaps just as easily arrive on earth and study the rocks and the damages to the earth's surface and state that the best way to explain the evidence was from a catastrophic perspective that effected great changes and ravages to a once much more uniform surface of the planet. His ancestors said it happened from a distance, but never realized just what was going on until a more up close examination was possible.
Karl – my intolerance of you is climbing the scale. You continue to demonstrate willful ignorance. Willful, because you continue to claim actual empirical knowledge of science and it's benefits, yet deny both the methodology and findings when it suits your agenda to do so.
Such continued demonstrable willful ignorance is simply abominable to me. You continue to say you will pick and choose what is right and what is wrong.
So who made YOU the decider of truths?
It hurts me to do so, for I feel that one more conversation maybe sufficient to sway you, to let you see your error – but I'm done.
I've taken your sack and dumped it at the bottom of the Marianas trench.
Adios.