Are you an atheist? (2 Viewers)

[Bladerunner]

Car. Mine suddenly developed a deep and abiding dislike for shifting out of first gear this morning.

stupid question but have you checked the trans fluid in it. If it is low, the shifting component will be affected.

Blade

 

[Libre]

Froth-
Why not just pray that the transmission just gets itself fixed? That oughta to it.

 

[Frothingslosh]

stupid question but have you checked the trans fluid in it. If it is low, the shifting component will be affected.

Blade

Dude, you think I didn't think of that? I may not be your age, but I've still been around the block for a few decades.

It's an old transmission on an old vehicle and has been 'going out' for years.

'Going' just became 'went'.

My description earlier of what happened was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The actual event was rather more involved and was most DECIDEDLY the transmission failing. It happened to me once before twenty years ago, so I know the signs, and my mechanic confirmed it for me once he had a chance to look at it (along with giving me an I-told-you-so because he's been warning me about it for a couple years now).

Why not just pray that the transmission just gets itself fixed? That oughta to it.

Good call!

 

[dan-cat]

Ah but that was not the original use of evolution when Darwin started it off in the 1950(s)?????sorry from memory.

WTF?!?!

 

[mariner1969]

I was an agnostic bordering on atheist for most of my younger years...from 18-34. Originally raised Catholic, I took the theory of evolution because, at first glance, it made sense. I began to have doubts when science could not explain subjects like irreducible complexity or the fossil gap.
Then I was introduced to the quantum physics field of study and I began to believe that there is a power much higher than ourselves. A designer. We as humans are more complex than all of the other animals on the planet..with much yet to learn. And the hyper-complexity of the universe coupled with spooky physics (the quantum eraser, delayed choice reaction, the double slit experiment, quantum entanglement) cries for a designer.

As a wanna be budding science geek, and theologian, that once mocked both Bible thumpers and the Geek alike, I was asked a question that has brought me to question absolutes.

Your belief (in this subject) in science based on theoretic evidence. So let's say that there is a 50% chance that it is right. So that means that there is a chance that it is also 50% wrong. As a scientist, why then would you discount that 50% wrong because it based on religious faith. In other words...you are half right that there may be no heaven or hell and that belief in both science and religion keeps you safe, as you can keep your theories and your belief in a higher power. But denying one based on a 50% probability can lead to an eternity of suffering.

Like law, evidence is that only what you are allowed to see. If your judgement is made on incomplete evidence...how can you be sure that you are making the decision that is best for you.

Just thoughts guys!

 

[spikepl]

#5445 Explaining complexity with something even more complex is contrary to the ways of science. And this even more complex complexity then becomes the irrational and the irrefutable and the unarguable, a.k.a. faith.

Oh yeah. This "complexity" is still behind - created the world as we know it yet doesn't have a talkshow, facebook or 1-800, some old-women's tales only. Stunning evidence, really

 

[Rabbie]

I was an agnostic bordering on atheist for most of my younger years...from 18-34. Originally raised Catholic, I took the theory of evolution because, at first glance, it made sense. I began to have doubts when science could not explain subjects like irreducible complexity or the fossil gap.
Then I was introduced to the quantum physics field of study and I began to believe that there is a power much higher than ourselves. A designer. We as humans are more complex than all of the other animals on the planet..with much yet to learn. And the hyper-complexity of the universe coupled with spooky physics (the quantum eraser, delayed choice reaction, the double slit experiment, quantum entanglement) cries for a designer.

As a wanna be budding science geek, and theologian, that once mocked both Bible thumpers and the Geek alike, I was asked a question that has brought me to question absolutes.

Your belief (in this subject) in science based on theoretic evidence. So let's say that there is a 50% chance that it is right. So that means that there is a chance that it is also 50% wrong. As a scientist, why then would you discount that 50% wrong because it based on religious faith. In other words...you are half right that there may be no heaven or hell and that belief in both science and religion keeps you safe, as you can keep your theories and your belief in a higher power. But denying one based on a 50% probability can lead to an eternity of suffering.

Like law, evidence is that only what you are allowed to see. If your judgement is made on incomplete evidence...how can you be sure that you are making the decision that is best for you.

Just thoughts guys!

And I am afraid not very helpful ones. Your whole argument is based on your 50% probability claim and you produce no evidence for this figure. It just seems to be a number plucked out of the air. IMO science that can predict what will happen in particular circumstances is more than 50% percent right regardless of whether there is a higher power or not. If there is a higher designer (which I don't accept) then it would be perverse if the science was wrong.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Mariner - both "Irreducible Complexity" and "Fossil Gap" arguments have been debunked.

If your judgement is made on incomplete evidence...how can you be sure that you are making the decision that is best for you.

Because scientific methods exist to allow a little thing called "extrapolation" to fill in gaps. If you can build a scientific model that allows you to predict what happens when you run into a gap and your prediction, when followed forward, rejoins known reality, then you have bridged the gap. For the "Fossil Gap" argument, that usually turns out to fixable by looking at specific genetic marker changes based on known mechanisms of mutation. That's why we talk about having 98% identical genomes to the apes, who are our evolutionary cousins. (We both descended/diverged from hominids.) Also, don't forget that fossils are available based on where the animals fell. If they died on incompatible soil, their bones didn't fossilize. If they fell where other predators could get to them, they were perhaps carried off and their bones were cracked open to get to the marrow inside - a delicacy for predators. Therefore, saying that we are "missing fossil Y" in the X-Y-Z sequence only REALLY means we haven't found an example of Y yet. It is a diversion off topic, but only this morning I read an article in which satellite images from 430 miles up in space over Khazakhstan were used to identify a work of Man from 7,000-8,000 years ago, mounds placed to form a 900-yard box with an X in it. The theory is that it was a primitive type of observatory. Back to the point - if we are still finding things on the surface of the planet in 2015, why do you think we should have found all the fossils in existence?

Irreducible complexity only means that the person claiming the irreducibility cannot himself / herself do the reduction - but others can and frequently DO manage to show the path from point A to point B. In essence, I can counter ANY claim of irreducible complexity simply by pointing out the arrogance of the claimant. They are saying, in essence, "If I can't figure this out, it must be irreducible." But the history of science is filled with examples of someone coming along a few years after some baffling result and fully explaining it.

Quantum physics doesn't necessarily point to a higher power - but if it does point somewhere, it points to randomness. If you want to say that "God plays with dice" (mirroring the Einstein complaint to Robert Oppenheimer), you blow up the entire concept of "God has a plan" unless, of course, you allow God to cheat at dice.

Those things you mentioned regarding hyper-complexity do NOT (categorically DO NOT) call out for a designer. They call out for experiments, thought, and detachment. If you bring your designer concept to the table, your detachment is totally gone already because you have brought along baggage that might not be compatible (might not? Try damned nearly certainly not compatible) with the field you are studying.

In a sense, I will have to (gently) chastise you. For you to say that these distractions like the fossil gap, ideas of irreducible complexity, quantum entanglement, and similar phenomena have caused you to think you can't solve the problems is EXACTLY THE SAME as someone saying that the inconsistencies, cruelty, and other factors in the Bible plus the apparent abandonment of Man by God cause them to lose faith. Either way, you got where you did because you didn't think you could live with the alternatives. It matters not whether your faith in science or your faith in God was what was shaken.

I said "gentle" chastisement because in fact I am one whose faith in God was shaken by the inconsistencies of the reality that I saw vs. the claims made in the Bible. I cannot actually excoriate you for losing faith in science, can I? Because in that sense, we BOTH have lost faith - but in different senses of the term.

Like law, evidence is that only what you are allowed to see.

Nope, don't work that way. Law defines multiple types of evidence including direct evidence (testimony), physical evidence (forensics), etc. Evidentiary exclusion (to define what your allowed to see) isn't about whether the evidence is relevant or suitable for forming conclusions. It is about whether due process of law was followed when gathering it. The idea of "due process" works for science, too. If you do a crap experiment, you'll get crap results, but don't expect a Nobel Prize for your work. That's why we scientists have this little concept called "Peer Review."

Mariner, believe as you wish. I know I shall do so.

 

[Libre]

Your belief (in this subject) in science based on theoretic evidence. So let's say that there is a 50% chance that it is right. So that means that there is a chance that it is also 50% wrong. As a scientist, why then would you discount that 50% wrong because it based on religious faith. In other words...you are half right that there may be no heaven or hell and that belief in both science and religion keeps you safe, as you can keep your theories and your belief in a higher power. But denying one based on a 50% probability can lead to an eternity of suffering.

The probabilities don't affect your argument, it seems to me. In some sense, there is a 50/50 probability of any occurrence happening or not happening. There are only two outcomes - something will happen or it won't happen.

The scientific method does not eliminate possibilities until it arrives at the one and only explanation. What it does is seek to find the MOST probable explanation of phenomena. Observations are made, questions are asked, hypotheses are postulated, experiments are done, evidence is accumulated, and finally, a theory is advanced. The theory is tested over and over, it is refined and improved, until it explains more or assumes less, and after all that, we can say, we think we know a little something about how this phenomenon occurs, and we think we can predict with SOME confidence how certain events would play out in the future, under certain conditions.

And that's IT. There is ALWAYS the chance that a better theory, one that explains more or assumes less, will be advanced and either modifies the former theory or blows it away completely.

There is no DEFINITE PROOF in the REAL world. There are logical proofs and there are mathematical proofs - which are systems devised by the human mind. Outside of that, there is no absolute certainty of anything.

So scientists (and other critical thinkers) look at the theories and explanations and form a conditional opinion - always ready to learn more. Theologians and devout religious types just bypass all this troublesome work and chalk it all up to "God's plan". No amount of experimentation, truth-seeking, or new knowledge can shake their faith - they pride themselves on how unshakeable their faith is.

This is the model that some of our more devout members follow. They may say that Darwin did not explain how life sprang into being in the first place. They may look at a few outliers where the theory does not fit as well - and then say that his whole theory of evolution "has been debunked". In fact there are very few theories that are as widely accepted, by most rational thinkers the world over, from geneticists to biologists, to just about anybody that will not accept supernatural, mystical, or religious explanations. The holes that exist in any scientific theory or explanation (there is, as yet, no acceptable "Theory of Everything") are used to discredit the knowledge that has actually been gained. It can all be chalked up to God's Plan. Those of us with curiosity and a healthy sense of skepticism just won't accept this easy and always available explanation, because it explains exactly nothing.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Ah but that was not the original use of evolution when Darwin started it off in the 1950(s)?????sorry from memory.

WTF?!?!

Holy shit, good catch.

As if we didn't already know he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about....

 

[Frothingslosh]

Also, it's a well-known logical fallacy to assume that because there are two outcomes, there's a 50/50 chance of either outcome happening.

Let's take target shooting - either you hit the bullseye or you don't. If you use this "logic", then no one will ever have anything other than 50% chance of striking center, no matter how much you do or do not practice.

Other examples would be PATs in football, goals in hockey, and even Russian Roulette - either it happens or it doesn't, meaning that there is always a 50% chance of success, right? Right?

 

[Alc]

Glad so many other people on the 50/50 nonsense (and explained just why it's nonsense far more eloquently than I could manage).

This rubbish is the same sort of "science" used by climate change skeptics and anti-vaccination nuts. If I present some opinion, it has equal merit to all others, regardless of how little evidence supports it.

 

[Bladerunner]

Dude, you think I didn't think of that? I may not be your age, but I've still been around the block for a few decades.

Frothy...I believe I used 'A Stupid Question'......to qualify the last question.. I was trying to be helpful...

Blade

 

[The_Doc_Man]

With regard to "Irreducible Complexity" and the assumptions inherent in using that concept to try to debunk evolution: The late Alan Turing (he of the "Turing Test for Artificial Intelligence") was a mathematician first. He is credited with research and a theorem that provides an excellent explanation of why natural systems progress from simple to complex on their own (without outside interference).

It is a tragedy and a sad indication of someone being born at the wrong time, but Alan Turing committed suicide in the 1950s because someone "outed" him while the anti-gay climate was still virulent. It ruined his career and reputation so badly that he could not live with the hatred that surrounded him. Today, his genius would have been allowed to flourish a lot better than was possible in the WWII era. (I'm NOT saying that we have eradicated the stupidity of hating gays, but we HAVE reduced it.)

 

[The_Doc_Man]

With regard to the 50/50 argument:

It is perfectly possible for BOTH sides of an argument to wrong if the question is badly formulated, and it is also possible for BOTH sides of an argument to be RIGHT if the limiting conditions on the dichotomy are badly formulated (i.e. insufficiently exclusionary to the point of not being mutually incompatible).

Simple-minded example: Can black ever be white? Answer: YES - if your definition of "white" says "equal proportions of component colors red, green, and blue" - because that definition leaves out the key term "non-zero," and in that case, all shades of white, grey, and black would meet the definition. This is why you need to learn how to precisely define the question before you ask it.

Therefore, to argue that something is based on 50/50 probability is meaningless unless you carefully define your terms at all levels of the dichotomy. If "shades of gray" can enter the discussion, your 50/50 claim just flew out the window.

Physics is loaded with cases (also chemistry) in which some observation occurs that seems correct in one context but is also correct in what SHOULD be a contrary context. I personally discovered one such case in my own research when still actively working as a chemist. It was published in the Journal of Analytical Chemistry as a side comment in a more complex paper because it wasn't THAT profound as to bother folks very much.

It is because there is a "fuzz" factor in many observations in which the degree of abstraction implied by some formula hides differences between two different things because the probability curve is broad enough to contain them both. It can also be that a particular experiment is blind to the property in question.

OK, to keep folks from asking the question: I discovered that some literature from the French Metallurgical Institute was incorrect in describing the nature of transition-metal-ion polymerization in strong aqueous acid solutions during metal assays. I found this out by recognizing that the method the French team used for the measurement was not sensitive to the polymerization state in the chemicals that they were observing, but my method WAS sensitive to that state. My method, using more modern equipment and computer simulations, changed the nature of the question, hence my different finding. Were they wrong? No, if you were asking the same question they asked, you would probably get the same result. 'nuff said 'bout that, and it was literally 40+ years ago. But it is relevant to the point that before you say 50/50 shot at being wrong, don't forget to ask the right question first.

 

[mariner1969]

Wow guys!! I must admit that you have all given me food for thought.

I Must also admit, however, that I have been where some of you are...vehemently defending what I hold most dear to me. Science to me was, and is, a life saving field, physically, emotionally and developmentally.

I guess whet I am trying to get across is that some science has been proven wrong and that should leave us room for...not necessarily doubt, but allow for possibilities. I believe that when one shuts his/her eyes to a particular subject i.e music (because as a teen I listened to nothing but heavy metal, I missed out on most of the talent that was available to me) one discounts other possibilities.

The horrors that have been committed by religion have not escaped me either. Torquemada, the Salem witch trials, child exploitation, the current crisis in the middle east, predatory ministries,... ad nauseam. I also remember that humans are fallible and been the ones that brought on those horrors which we now look back and wonder how we ever could have.

Just like with science...I doubt that the scientists that explained for us the nuclear fusion/fission fields ever thought they would be used for war. Do we blame the science.

What percentage in confidence in being right would remove all doubt?

I look forward to learning from people that are much more educated than me.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Who said we are shutting our eyes?

There is no such thing as 'science being proven wrong' - what scientists and rationalists see as errors to be fixed are the things you claim 'disproves science'.

We once thought there were no masses smaller than atoms, and yet we discovered protons, neutrons, and electrons. Does this make chemistry disproved, and that we should stop researching?

We once thought Newtonian physics could be used to describe the entirety of physical interaction, but we have since learned that the entire structure doesn't match observations at the smallest level. Does this mean physics is disproved, and that we should just assume some invisible being is randomly moving everything around?

We once thought time was constant, but now we know its rate of passage is intimately tied to motion and change thereof. Instead of further investigating quantum theory, should we just assume time is 'disproved' and assume yet again that God just randomly warps time?

Can you see the point here? Just because scientists can be in error, that doesn't mean that 'science was wrong'. Science cannot be wrong, because science neither makes statements nor determinations, any more than music makes songs and guitar solos or chemistry makes bombs.

Science is a discipline, a set of guidelines for people who want to figure out what makes the world tick, and the overall collection of areas of study about how the universe and things within it work. Yes, these people are often wrong. but the scientific method takes that into account. It's not about making random proclamations about how the world works, but rather coming up with explanations of why certain observations and measurements came out the way they did, predicting the results of further observations and measurements based on those explanations, testing them, and then refining the explanations (either via adjustment, confirmation, or (occasionally) throwing them out and finding NEW explanations).

None of that means 'science is wrong', just that humanity is still learning about the universe. Scientists are attempting to determine how the universe works, not about spreading "The Truth". They are, in theory, perfectly willing to acknowledge a theory is in error if it can be proven so, although they are only human and some will never accept that THEY can make a mistake. Still, there is not a scientist out there who has the hubris to say "I know how the universe works, and therefore I need not prove it", and yet True Believers (tm) make that statement every time.

In a nutshell, science is simply about asking 'Why?'. How can "Why?" be disproved?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Science can ask the question of why a particular result occurred. In fact, as a specialist in so-call "chemical kinetics" (study of the dynamics of reaction mechanisms), I was always asking why we would get result X vs. result Y - or why we got 50% X, 33% Y, and 16% Z. But those were mechanistic questions that would also be askable as "How?" rather than "Why?"

The difference between science and religion is that when you ask "Why" in any of the Abrahamic religions, the answer is usually "God did it" - and that is the end of the discussion. If you ask why people do evil things, the answer is that "Satan guided them astray." If you ask why an earthquake occurred, someone will say "It was God's form of punishment for evil activity." (Ask Pat Robertson about the Indonesian tsunami, for example. It was punishment for being nice to gays.)

The scientific answer regarding the presence of what is commonly called "evil" is that people do what they do because they are hard-wired by evolution to be territorial, possessive, self-centered, and greedy - all of which are survival traits in reptilian brains. (Oddly enough, the OT God is possessive, authoritative, jealous, and narcissistic. Does that mean that God is a dinosaur?)

Of course, since Christianity tends to deny evolution, this evolutionary answer does them no good even though it is correct. Now if some religious folks would say that Adam and Eve were the first people to be able to break out of that reptilian ferocity, we might even have a discussion - but that would again entertain the idea of evolution being real and that is a religious no-no.

It is why I more closely respect at least parts of Buddhist philosophy. For the Theravada denomination of Buddhism, you don't need a supreme deity - or any deity at all. For mechanisms, "Why" is still a valid Buddhist question. However, you don't ask the question "Why" for philosophical issues - you ask "OK, this thing is here. So what do I need to do about it?" Looking for a reason for a universe to exist is valid if and only if you planned to do something constructive with the answer. (Or, sadly, something destructive - e.g. nuclear weapons.)

The question of "Why" at the philosophical level is often best answered by "I don't know. Let's think about an experiment that would answer that question." But many modern religions instead will insist "God did it and we cannot know the mind of God." The moment you answer a question with that phrase, you are saying "Man is too stupid to answer this question, now or ever in the future." If EVER there was a bit of arrogance, that is it.

 

[Bladerunner]

so much for that BIG LIE!!!!!!!

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/20...gaining-ice-says-NASA.-Is-global-warming-over

Hate to say I told you so!

Blade

 

[Brianwarnock]

Blade, did you read the article or just the headline?

Brian