Skeptical

I have a "bias" that gravity is true. I have a "bias" that fire creates heat. I have a "bias" that hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. I have these "biases" due to personal experience and innumerable experiments conducted by thousands of others that all confirm the same facts about the world. That's what science is.

Mr. Dawkins no more has a "pre-scientific" (whatever that means) POV regarding biology than I have a "pre-scientific" notion that gravity is true. The data does not lie. Mr. Dawkins has the POV he has because he has done the research, he has performed his own experiments and collected his own data. After all of this work, he has formed an opinion based on solid, empirical data and backed by mountains of similar data collected by others. The only way you can claim that this is "bias" is to completely ignore the actual evidence we have.

I repeat my challenge to you: please provide _any_ information regarding a non-naturalistic toolset for understanding the world or give _evidence_ that naturalistic explanations don't work. I repeat, _evidence_, not some quote or story about why you think scientists/naturalist/whatever term you want to use are "biased", evidence about naturalism itself and why it doesn't work. So far you have produced nothing of substance.

Naturalism works. Period. If you disagree, present your evidence or admit that you have none.

MrKrinkles

random comments:

This is as expected. Three pages into this and there still are no good, reasonable answers to my questions. I know there are many creationists who frequent these boards. I think that creationists don't want to answer the questions because to do so they would have to explore some rather uncomfortable truths. One of these truths is that evolution is an accepted fact of science. Another one of these truths is that most Christians accept some form of evolution. Yet another harsh truth is that a good number of high profile creationists are proven liars. By the way, I'll ask this question again: Why do these creationists have to lie if what they are promoting is the truth? Why in the world would you need to resort to such desperate measures if you thought you had the truth on your side? Only falsehoods need to be supported with lies.

Creationists can argue all they want on Internet boards and in front of church audiences, but what they are arguing for has no scientific backing. That is why these are their only forums. Creationists have never presented any theory that has been as successful and which has had the predictive power of the theory of evolution. They don't have anything that compares to evolution. Ultimately, all they can do is assert that "Goddidit" and leave it that. They have no research they can do: They cannot make predictions and test them out, since "God's ways are mysterious." A creationist scientist is an oxymoron. All they can do, all they have ever done, is attack evolution.

I wonder sometimes what kind of society we would have if the creationists were able to somehow impose their will on the rest of us. I mean, would they forbid teaching doctors that pathogens evolve resistence to antibiotics? Would they prevent farmers from selectively breeding the most productive crops, because artificial selection demonstrates the same principles as natural selection? Would they shut down the mapping of genes and disease research because this work reveals too much about the history and relationship between different species? How far would they go to rid the world of the corrupting influence of evolutionary biology?

It is strange arguing with creationists because they don't seem to realize that their side has already lost. I get the impression that they are mainly arguing for themselves, trying to create enough doubt about evolution in their own minds so that they can hold on to their inerrantist religious beliefs.

Brooks

Stephen T-B

and here's my pennyworth (Ok, cent's worth)
1. Dear Vanderzyden, it is unmitigated crap that a belief in god prevents people from behaving in an immoral manner - but this is not the time nor place to pursue that particular canard.

2. You wrote: “Her primary pre-scientific belief is that the creator, if he exists, takes no special interest in his creation.”
What are you talking about?
The “pre-scientific belief” of very many scientists (in the West) is precisely the same as any orthodox Western believer”s. Their investigations may lead them to the conclusion that “if he exists, (he) takes no special interest in his creation.” But that is completely different from starting out with an assumption which an attempt is then made to substantiate - which is exactly what the Creationists do. Your crass statement reveals that you do not even begin to understand basic scientific principles.
And then you cap this particular hill of poo with the statement: “Claiming to be wise, the Darwinian ignores the strong clues to an Intelligent Cause and invents theories to exclude this cause from consideration.”
Scientists do not claim wisdom. They acknowledge ignorance, or they wouldn’t be embarked on a life-long quest to erode it with the help of research and the accumulation of empirical evidence.
Furthermore your statement “(The Darwinian) invents theories to exclude this cause from consideration,” simply consolidates the charge that you do not even begin to understand basic scientific principles.

And to proceed:
“If you are unaware, there are many theistic realists - they begin with far stronger presuppositions than the naturalist.”
What presuppositions? Are you saying that their observations persuade them that there is, after all, an intelligent designer? And if they are realists, why don’t they ask some fairly basic questions like: if Man was intelligently]y designed, why does he get back ache? if the Intelligent Designer designed everything to provide a framework in which human beings can be born, die and be judged, why are there at least 4,500 species of ant, and more life-forms in a tropical rain forest than science has yet been able to identify?

“Make no mistake, Stephen, Darwinians have their own religion. Leaps of faith abound everywhere in their thinking. The methodological naturalist clings desperately to the edge of an immense chasm. And yet, rescue is at hand.”
Rescue? You mean by abandoning the hard road of the slow, painful, one-step-forward, two-steps-backward acquisition of verifiable data and relaxing into the soft option of “Look, we don’t need to strain our brains thinking about any of these things. We just need to go to church and praise the Lord.”

I agree with this: “However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as it (sic) dead dogma, not a living truth.”

That is why the scientific community devotes enormous energy, resources and time to probing the ideas which observation suggests.

Your lenfgthy quote quote beginning “He knows only his own side of the case..." applies to the Creationists/ IDers just as much as anyone else. And it particularly applies to you.

Vanderzyde (this may please him to know) cannot be accused of looking at Life through a telescope, nor even the wrong end of a telescope. He’s trying to look at it through a telescope with the cap still on it.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

"Intelligent Cause", huh?

Vanderzyden, I have bumped <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000801&p=" target="_blank">this thread</a> for you to peruse.

I insist that you read it thoroughly, then report back on how your "Intelligent Cause" is involved.

TTFN, Oolon

GeoTheo

Mr. Krinkles,
Well, obviously this is not a forum that is sympathetic to Christianity. I am not saying that there is somthing wrong with that. I come here for this very reason. I find that conversing only with people one agrees with leads to intellectual laziness. In the course of debating evolution here off and on for two years, I have have come to the conclusion that evolution is a fact.
I really did not visit very many Creationist sites at first. I came up with most of my arguements off the top of my head. I still think I asked some good questions. I honestly did not believe in evolution. As I read more and more posts and was exposed to stronger and stronger evidence in favor of evolution, I began to do more research into creationist literature to find better arguements. I became very frustrated and angry after a while since there didn't seem to be any. I also found evidence of creationists quoting out of context and presenting strawman arguements.
I never considered evolutionists morons. I had a view that they were biased though. I kind of had the view that by their methodological naturalism they excluded themselves from discovering the truth. I believed that evolution was the default position once one rejects a supernatural creator.
I even wrote a paper on it, that evolution was a creation myth for materialists. It was well recieved by several non Christian people I showed it to including my professor.
One thing that kind of disturbed me though was that the people who thought I made a valid point, the people who were not Christians, did not believe in objective reality. This is really not my view. This is not the view of Christianity either. But some creationist take that position.
Both sides they say are biased and that no one can ever really know the definate answer on questions of origins. All must rely on Faith.
I reject this viewpont now

Sci_Fidelity

Theo,

If only more people would do the research you've done, and not simply reject things out of hand. As I recall, you were a YEC not too long ago; you have made a tremendous change in a short time. That takes courage.

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Sci_Fidelity ]</p>

beausoleil

I agree that it is, for some materialists. But that doesn't make evolution as used by scientists incorrect.

In essence I think that the mental 'experience' of believing in something in that sense is independent of the correctness of the belief. I think extreme anger when it is questioned is a symptom of a 'religious belief' (in a scientific idea or a mystical one). I think it might be unhealthy for a scientist to have that sort of belief because the subject matter becomes ring fenced and immune from criticism, justified or not. On the other hand, it can be a powerful driving force which might be useful. Science is a broad church (pardon the analogy) and tolerates lots of different styles.

But then I don't live in an environment where creationism is a threat to the teaching of science. I'd probably get pretty angry if someone suggested teaching creation science to my kids.

Stephen T-B

I admire GeoTheo for his honesty and readiness to accept a position which I think he is instinctively pre-disposed to reject. He’s done the work and reached a not-entirely welcome conclusion.
I think that that is a very difficult thing to do because many of us are driven by non-rational impulses. I know I am. The theory of evolution, for instance, makes sense to me because the Creation story doesn’t; and I’ll be frank: I don’t want it to. If it were to be true, I should have to acknowledge the existence of a god and I really don’t want to have to do that, having decided there isn’t one.
I’ve only just come across this expression, but “kudos” then, to GeoTheo.

MrKrinkles

GeoTheo,

I appreciate your response.

Brooks

Albion

We may yet find out.

<a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol19/9510_cloning_creationism_in_turkey_12_30_1899.asp" target="_blank">http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol19/9510_cloning_creationism_in_turkey_12_30_1899.asp</a>