Science & Religion

[buffalo]

That’s where you’re wrong. Science is not doubting evolution and trending toward design. Evolution is considered as an undeniable fact by the majority of all serious scientists and I also predict that science will never change it’s mind. No matter how much you want to deny evolution, it won’t change the truth.

I will give you one big one - Natural selection is now understood as a conservative process not a creative one. That in itself is a big change. What do you think the implications of this are?

 

[SGWessells]

Personally, I would like to know if you can accept the possibility of a both-and situation about human nature.

In the context of your question, Granny, I would have to say no, because you apparently limit the meaning of “spiritual” to “created by the God of the Christians.”. However, if there were another context in which “spiritual” or “non-material” were defined, possibly yes, depending on the definition and pending further research. I know that’s not a satisfying yes-or-no answer, but it’s the best I can do right now…

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

That’s where you’re wrong. Science is not doubting evolution and trending toward design. Evolution is considered as an undeniable fact by the majority of all serious scientists and I also predict that science will never change it’s mind. No matter how much you want to deny evolution, it won’t change the truth.

I think your position is overly dogmatic. The theory of evolution is considered well supported by researchers and explains fossil and biological observations but to assert it as an “undeniable fact” would undermine the provisional nature of science and is contrary to process of scientific enquiry.

 

[Lui]

I will give you one big one - Natural selection is now understood as a conservative process not a creative one. That in itself is a big change. What do you think the implications of this are?

I only mentioned what I said because you make it sound like science now changed it’s mind again. You said science first thought the age of the earth is a couple of thousand years old and ended up at 4.5 billion years just to change it to several hundred thousand years. You also claim science is now doubting evolution. You make it sound like it’s an established fact now that science says the earth is actually only a couple of hundred thousand years old and evolution is wrong.
I just wanted to clear up that science HAS NOT changed it’s mind at all: **science still claims the earth is 4.5 billion years old and it still claims evolution is a fact. **

 

[Lui]

I think your position is overly dogmatic. The theory of evolution is considered well supported by researchers and explains fossil and biological observations but to assert it as an “undeniable fact” would undermine the provisional nature of science and is contrary to process of scientific enquiry.

Evolution is considered as both, theory and fact:

In science, a “fact” typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term “fact” to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur. Instead, they investigate the mechanisms of evolution, how rapidly evolution can take place, and related questions.

 

[SGWessells]

I regard the claim that an historic “Adam” and “Eve” lived in Mesopotamia (or Akron, Ohio) as scientifically false and theologically irrelevant.

So do I, but we’re talking about Catholic dogma, not the generic terminology of the Hebrew author. The Church, as you well know, insists that her children accept the Bible as the Church understands it, not as they or modern theologians or a lot of bishops or the actual authors of scripture understand it. This isn’t the only occasion where the Church teaches something the authors of scripture probably had no notion about, but if you’re going to be Catholic (I can’t believe I’m writing this), you have to accept every doctrine that the Catholic Church teaches that you have to accept, including that every human being is descended from one man and one woman. The fact that I could not reconcile such teachings with science is a major reason I had to leave the church, because it would not let me dissent in peace, and I couldn’t find a way to believe both. Some persons confronted with this dilemma choose to believe the Church, and I respect that; others choose to follow the evidence seen of science rather than the evidence unseen of faith, and I applaud them. What I find hard to understand (though easy to sympathize with) is people who believe themselves to be faithful Catholics yet deny doctrines which the Catholic Church explicitly requires faithful Catholics to believe. How do you do it?

 

[buffalo]

I think your position is overly dogmatic. The theory of evolution is considered well supported by researchers and explains fossil and biological observations but to assert it as an “undeniable fact” would undermine the provisional nature of science and is contrary to process of scientific enquiry.

Actually, the fossil record over and over again is showing abrupt appearance, stasis and limited variation. It seems every month a living fossil is discovered.

 

[buffalo]

I only mentioned what I said because you make it sound like science now changed it’s mind again. You said science first thought the age of the earth is a couple of thousand years old and ended up at 4.5 billion years just to change it to several hundred thousand years. You also claim science is now doubting evolution. You make it sound like it’s an established fact now that science says the earth is actually only a couple of hundred thousand years old and evolution is wrong.
I just wanted to clear up that science HAS NOT changed it’s mind at all: **science still claims the earth is 4.5 billion years old and it still claims evolution is a fact. **

No, I never said it changed it back to several hundred thousand years. I said a recent downward adjustment was made by a couple of hundred thousand years.

Evolution needs long ages. Design does not. However, design can be true with long ages.

You think one day all the scientists with their vested interests are going to march up to a podium and announce we were totally wrong and concede? It won’t happen like that. There is tremendous momentum and money. The paradigm shift will come over time.

 

[SGWessells]

Please produce evidence.

You first. And note, the issue is not whether human beings can grasp the distinction between good and evil, but whether we alone can do so.

“We” too have been taught by our parents. Who taught our ancestors?

Their ancestors. And before them, their genetics and social interactions.

 

[Lui]

No, I never said it changed it back to several hundred thousand years. I said a recent downward adjustment was made by a couple of hundred thousand years.

Well, obviously science doesn’t claim the earth is EXACTLY 4.5 billion years old and 24 seconds. A couple of hundred thousands years more or less doesn’t even leave a scratch…Ok, maybe the earth is only 4.49999 billion years old.

You think one day all the scientists with their vested interests are going to march up to a podium and announce we were totally wrong and concede? It won’t happen like that. There is tremendous momentum and money. The paradigm shift will come over time.

And I predict science will NEVER conclude that the earth is only 12000 years and evolution is wrong after all. They will actually find out more and more details about the mechanics of evolution.

 

[buffalo]

And I predict science will NEVER conclude that the earth is only 12000 years and evolution is wrong after all. They will actually find out more and more details about the mechanics of evolution.

Cool - we can make a friendly bet then?

 

[SGWessells]

It must have hit a nerve! Please explain what distinguishes a person from a BM in your scheme of things…

I am so tempted to make the obvious joke, but I will be nice .

A machine is nothing but its constituent parts and an energy source. It is not aware of itself, has no nervous system or brain areas which stimulate reactions of fear, joy, anger, and so on. It has no appreciation of beauty, no love or hate, no instincts or subconscious drives, so it cannot be a person no matter how biological it is (assuming there could be such a thing). I think your confusion comes from dividing the human being into two separate and non-interacting segments, the material or physical part, which you regard as analogous to a machine, and a “spiritual” part, or soul, in which reside all the specifically human attributes I mentioned. But the two are not separate; each has measurable effects on the other, which are well documented. Stress, for example, can affect our physical as well as emotional well-being; whether certain genes activate at certain times can affect our emotions and thought patterns. You seem to think that denying a non-material component to thought leaves no agency or inner source from which actions you attribute to the soul, such as thought, emotion, and will, can emerge. That’s why you call a materialist a “biological machine,” But neurology and molecular biology have revealed an interweaving of psychology and physiology which is quite fascinating.

 

[Lui]

Cool - we can make a friendly bet then?

I would bet a million dollars if I had them

The problem with science is that they can prove anything they want to but there will always be people who will still ignore the facts. If science one day develops a time machine and scientists would go back to the time when Adam and Eve “lived”, Noah “built his ark” and Jesus was “crucified and resurrected”, just to find out that none of this ever happened which they document with all available technology, it wouldn’t even leave a scratch to the faith of many Christians.
They would continue to believe in all these things. This goes for many beliefs. People believe what they want to believe.

 

[StAnastasia]

What I find hard to understand (though easy to sympathize with) is people who believe themselves to be faithful Catholics yet deny doctrines which the Catholic Church explicitly requires faithful Catholics to believe. How do you do it?

By following my educated conscience.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

Evolution is considered as both, theory and fact:

Wikipedia aside, it is more precise to say evolution is a theory that is composed of generally accepted facts. Regardless, science (including evolution theory) is provisional and relies on open minded inquiry, not dogmatic pronouncements of truth.

 

[Lui]

Wikipedia aside, it is more precise to say evolution is a theory that is composed of generally accepted facts. Regardless, science (including evolution theory) is provisional and relies on open minded inquiry, not dogmatic pronouncements of truth.

That wasn’t from Wikipedia. If you feel more comfortable by saying it is a theory that is composed of pretty much undeniable facts, so be it

 

[SGWessells]

Very very quietly now. Please list the top three assumptions that a 4.5 billion earth are built upon.

I don’t know whether such methods can be ranked, or what the criteria are, but here are the major reasons that caused me to change my mind:

1. Radiometric dating; there are many different methods but they all, when corrected for possible site contamination etc., all corroborate each other.
2. Geological phenomena such as varves, fossil tree rings, soil layers in the Grand Canyon, and ice layers, which are laid down annually in measurably consistent amounts, or exhibit alternating states of being under water and drying out over millennia, which rule out a worldwide flood.
3. The way fossil layers correlate with other chronological dating methods, geological strata and plate tectonics, all corroborating each other.

 

[SGWessells]

Right, they didn’t call it evolution before.

No quandary at all. Since science is provisional I go with the constant teaching of the Church. I believe in the unchangeable truth of Revelation. The result of this is that we need to peer deeper and challenge the science since its weak spot is human reasoning of the observations. The practical side of this is that Revelation acts as a true compass so to speak. Revelation also illuminates our reasoning.

Revelation trumps.

It wasn’t evolution before. The theory is new, which is why the church had to change its unchanging revelation to allow for it when the evidence got too strong. But they didn’t want to admit that they were changing it because their authority is based on the claim to be the divinely appointed teachers and custodians of God’s unchanging revelation.

“Human reasoning of the observations” is science’s strong spot, if you ask me. The insistence on an unchanging revelation is a weakness because, as I keep repeating (apparently with no result except a growing personal frustration), growing knowledge will leave it behind and force the church to change in fact while pretending not to have changed. Eventually the cognitive dissonance gets too loud. Either you have a greater tolerance for inner discord than I do, or you don’t allow yourself to hear it.

Revelation distorts our reasoning because it refuses to change in response to new knowledge.

 

[SGWessells]

Why were the 10 Commandments issued?

Nobody can possibly say, but I’m confident that you have an explanation .

 

[SGWessells]

Dating is full of assumptions. Although we do not yet know the full effect of this the recently acknowledge radioactive decay rates are not constant as assumed. Mutation rates **are assumed **and not constant. Mutations as the only method of genetic diversity was assumed and now we know better. Uniformatarianism was assumed and now we know better.

We also now know that physical constants are not the same in all parts of the universe.

The target is moving.

The difference in the decay rate, according to the article you (I think) posted was not consistently measured in all methods and was tiny; certainly not enough to make a difference of billions of years.

Mutation rates affect the speed of evolution, not the age of the earth.

As for uniformitarianism, the contrast is not as you have presented it. Originally, with Lyell and others, uniformitarianism was assumed to apply without any catastrophic interruptions. We now know (because scientific knowledge, unlike revelation, can change and thus become more accurate) that catastrophes occurred in the past (though nothing so drastic as a worldwide flood) and are still occurring today. Science has been taking this fact into account for decades.

If physical constants are not the same in all parts of the universe, that shoots he anthropic argument in the foot, doesn’t it? You can’t argue that the constants are so amazingly fine-tuned that only design can account for them when you want to prove God, then turn around and say they aren’t finely tuned and delicately calibrated but rather changing when you want to disprove an old earth.

The target may be moving, but it’s getting no closer to the young earth nonsense.