scigirl

Hey that's MY line!

Yes, exactly? What good is it?

scigirl

Doubting Didymus

It may not be any good at all. So what? It could still be confirmed by the evidence. If uri had supernatural powers, and demonstrated them in a repeatable observable way, then science could confirm that he has them, though you are right that it could not say anything about them.

That doesn't mean that science would ignore it.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Doubting Didymus ]</p>

Starboy

DD, what kind of science do you practice? The kind I practice ignores things that are not useful.

Starboy

scigirl

DD:

But. . . then would we still call it a "supernatural" event?

From dictionary.com:

Super-natural:

1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.
3. Of or relating to a deity.
4. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous.
5. Of or relating to the miraculous.

I think that 1, 2, 4, and 5 are impossible to study with our current methods.

I think one of the problems is we are all defining supernatural and natural differently.

If God did exist like the Christians describe him, and Jesus did really walk on the earth, etc, etc, then there would be physical tangible testable evidence to test, and confirm his existence. From what I have seen and read, there is no such evidence.

This brings me to another idea - do Christians really want science to enter into their religious claims? Because they have to be open to the idea that they might be proven false. And from what I can tell, precious few Christians are willing to look at their religion like that.

scigirl

scigirl

I also want to point out to Vanderzyden that we have had this discussion before. I found this thread particularly enlightening and friendly (for the most part).

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001181" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001181</a>

scigirl

Starboy

Vander, in addition if you open up a persons skull while they are conscious and stimulate the surface of the brain with electrical signals you can get the person to recall experiences, smells, tastes, feelings and so forth. That is another piece of evidence that thoughts are physical. There is also a great deal of work done with PET and MRI scans that indicate that certain kinds of thoughts occur in specific parts of the brain. There is also evidence that hormones and drugs can greatly affect people’s thoughts. There is a great deal of evidence that actions in the physical world on the brain can affect people’s thoughts. Do not get me wrong. I do not assert that I can prove this, I only claim that I can construct a theory around this claim and I can launch a scientific research program around it and perform a great deal of science based on the idea. I am not an expert in this field but I suspect this is going on right now as we speak. I ask again, do you have any evidence that would contradict this proposition?

Starboy

Doubting Didymus

Excellent points, but my point is the same either way. If you call a miracle from god 'natural' because we can see it or if you call it unnatural, science could still confirm the hypothesis that it has, in fact, happened.

Do you call miraculous power supernatural or natural? Its a good question, because we could certainly hypothesise that a miracle occured and we certinaly could confirm or deny this hypothesis using empirical data (i.e. confirm that human blood is spontaneously materialising on the face of a statue, under direct observation and scientific control). We now have a theory: 'human blood materialises on the face of this statue by no known natural means'. Is it a natural theory or a supernatural theory?.

Personally I think it would be a supernatural theory. So to the question: can we study the mechanism? No, we couldn't. Because it is supernatural, there are no empirical means to study it. Nonetheless, the theory would have to be confirmed. The alternative is to pretend that it never happened.

You and I both know that no non-natural theory will ever be validated, because no non-natural thing even exists in our opinions. Theoretically however, a non natural hypothesis could be confirmed.

Starboy

I contend that if we found something that appeared supernatural, the first response of scientists would not be "Oh my god!” It would be, "Well that's interesting. I wonder how that could happen." The phenomena would not be denied, a supernatural explanation would not be considered. Who is to say it doesn't happen all the time? There is no way that I am aware of, for science to distinguish the natural from the super natural.

Starboy

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Vanderzyden

Special creation of anything. You deny the possibility.

Oh, please note: It's difficult to take you seriously with all this religious bantering. All of the "do you know the world is round?" insinuations are quite stale by now.

No, I do not reject genetics. It is the Darwinist extrapolations that are found to be unsubstantiated. Evolutionary biologists place great emphasis on their philosophy. Geneticists focus on heredity within species. There is a vast difference.

As I have said, I suspect that some evolutionary biologists are looking to see what they want to see. I anticipate corrobating studies for the supposed telomeric fusion site in chromsome 2.

Do you think that talkorigins website provides evidence? It's the same old tired stuff. I've been there enough, already. Got anything better?

There is precious little to support Darwinism.

Vanderzyden

monkenstick

vanderzyden, there is a challenge that you have as yet completely ignored that provides ample support for "darwinism"

why won't you answer it?

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001356" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001356</a>

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: monkenstick ]

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: monkenstick ]</p>