Ben Stein's new movie...

[superfan]

I would venture a guess that anybody who profess a belief in God or religion wouldn't say it is "easy" or "a cop out". There are many intricacies in religion that have to be thoroughly studied in order to provide a sound foundation in a certain belief. Much like science, you can't go to a lecture once a week and say your a scientist, it is the same with religion, you cant go to church once a week and say your christian or believer in god, because you haven't a sound foundation. Religion needs to be studied throughly much in the same matter as scienece in order to find your answers.

I find it interesting you've implicitly assumed since I'm arguing for evolution and against ID that I don't profess a belief in God.

This doesn't have to do with how "easy" or "hard" it is to accept a belief in God or to study religion. My point strikes at the heart at why scientists resist accepting ID. The main part of ID deals with one aspect of science: biology. The problem is, if you accept ID as a legitimate scientific theory (which doesn't have to go through the "well, we found evidence that proves our theory is wrong" like all scientific theory (such as the Big Bang - if we figure out something else it gets thrown out the window just like Aristotle and Ptolemy's geocentric theory of the universe)), you open a Pandora's box into all sciences. "Well, we can't explain why a star formed this way, let's just say God wanted it that way and call it a day." (Although I sincerely hope no scientist would ever do that).

God has a great place in society, giving people meaning. Science (astronomy in particular) can be very belittling and depressing - I once calculated that on the scale of the universe, my life - from birth through now to death, would go by in less than a blink of my eyes if the age of the universe was scaled to one day (or was it one hour...). However, I don't think God should be an acceptable explanation of why things are the way they are.

[sunset]

If ID exists, yes. If. At current, there's nothing that serves as evidence that it does. But if something presents itself in the future then you have something observable, measurable and empirical. Then it can be classified as having scientific merit. We haven't seen if yet, so we can't give it then. Currently, ID has no scientific merit.

Science still hasn't figured out what happened at the very beginning of time, and a lot of very intelligent scientists believe it may be impossible to ever figure that out. So if science hasn't figured out how everything began, regardless of the road we took to reach our current state, how can a creator be argued for or against using current scientific thought or tools? Faith is outside science, but they are not mutually exclusive. Specifically, one could argue that evolution is merely a tool used by a creator in his/her grand plan.

[superfan]

I think a lot of the animosity comes from the idea that the "book slams closed." The book seems to slam closed according to both sides. It's the original dichotomy. In fact, our conclusions and observations should spark more questions rather than answers.
I don't see it as a cop-out to say that "God did it." It doesn't stop my wonder, it doesn't stop my questions, it only provides diversity to the overall questions being asked.
I agree that we should be after the "right answer"

This gets back to my original point. With science, the book CAN'T slam closed. It's against the entire principle of the thing. Scientific theory mandates that if you can prove a counter-example to a theory, you have to either revise the theory to explain the counter-example or collect new data to refute it. That option isn't there with ID. If I refute an example of ID, the basic principle won't change, that God was somehow involved.

[Cyclone_Grav]

I find it interesting you've implicitly assumed since I'm arguing for evolution and against ID that I don't profess a belief in God.

This doesn't have to do with how "easy" or "hard" it is to accept a belief in God or to study religion. My point strikes at the heart at why scientists resist accepting ID. The main part of ID deals with one aspect of science: biology. The problem is, if you accept ID as a legitimate scientific theory (which doesn't have to go through the "well, we found evidence that proves our theory is wrong" like all scientific theory (such as the Big Bang - if we figure out something else it gets thrown out the window just like Aristotle and Ptolemy's geocentric theory of the universe)), you open a Pandora's box into all sciences. "Well, we can't explain why a star formed this way, let's just say God wanted it that way and call it a day." (Although I sincerely hope no scientist would ever do that).

God has a great place in society, giving people meaning. Science (astronomy in particular) can be very belittling and depressing - I once calculated that on the scale of the universe, my life - from birth through now to death, would go by in less than a blink of my eyes if the age of the universe was scaled to one day (or was it one hour...). However, I don't think God should be an acceptable explanation of why things are the way they are.

I assumed you didn't profess a belief in god because of statements in an earlier post where you claimed that there was no way to prove there was a god.

If you do profess a belief in god, then i apologize

[mclatch]

I find it interesting you've implicitly assumed since I'm arguing for evolution and against ID that I don't profess a belief in God.

This doesn't have to do with how "easy" or "hard" it is to accept a belief in God or to study religion. My point strikes at the heart at why scientists resist accepting ID. The main part of ID deals with one aspect of science: biology. The problem is, if you accept ID as a legitimate scientific theory (which doesn't have to go through the "well, we found evidence that proves our theory is wrong" like all scientific theory (such as the Big Bang - if we figure out something else it gets thrown out the window just like Aristotle and Ptolemy's geocentric theory of the universe)), you open a Pandora's box into all sciences. "Well, we can't explain why a star formed this way, let's just say God wanted it that way and call it a day." (Although I sincerely hope no scientist would ever do that).

God has a great place in society, giving people meaning. Science (astronomy in particular) can be very belittling and depressing - I once calculated that on the scale of the universe, my life - from birth through now to death, would go by in less than a blink of my eyes if the age of the universe was scaled to one day (or was it one hour...). However, I don't think God should be an acceptable explanation of why things are the way they are.

I guess I don't understand why all questioning and curiousity has to stop when one "discovers" God. Are you saying that "meaning" and "reason" are completely separate?

[superfan]

I assumed you didn't profess a belief in god because of statements in an earlier post where you claimed that there was no way to prove there was a god.

If you do profess a belief in god, then i apologize

No big deal, and no reason to apologize. It's been an "interesting" relationship, and I've been on both sides of the fence, from total belief to total disbelief.

I do stand by my statements. There is no way to physically prove whether or not God exists. That's why it's called "faith".

[larrysarmy]

It's a genetic mutation, passed to the offspring... Yes, something could mutate in you right now, a free radical could hit one of your cells just right causing a mutation which could turn into a cancer...

That's true. But cancer is not benificial...ie: I could die from it. Nearly all mutations are negative ...nor due they add new information to the genetic code ....let alone tell my body I need a new ear bone, when the one I have works fine. -Per example by SuperFan

[superfan]

I guess I don't understand why all questioning and curiousity has to stop when one "discovers" God. Are you saying that "meaning" and "reason" are completely separate?

I'll concede my example borders on the extreme.

So all the talk about the Big Bang got me thinking, and I went to my Astrophysics book to see what it said. Here's what I came up with:

The Big Bang

Since the universe is expanding, it must have been smaller in the past than it is now. Imagine viewing a filmed history of the universe, watching the galaxies fly farther and farther apart. Now run the film backward, in effect reversing the direction of time. Seen in reverse, all of the galaxies are approaching one another. According to Hubble law, a galaxy twice as far away is approaching twice as fast. The inescapable conclusion is that all of the galaxies (and all of space!) will simultaneously converge to a single point. As everything in the universe rapidly converged (still running the film backward), it heated to extremely high temperatures. The expansion of the universe from a single point is known as the Big Bang. [...]

*The text goes on to discuss "Problems with the Standard Theory of the Big Bang", including:

- Why is the cosmic background radiation so smooth
- Why is the universe so nearly flat?
- Why have we found no magnetic monopoles?*

Back to the quote:

By itself, the Big Bang explanation for the beginning of the universe is incapable of meaningfully answering these questions. Of course, one possible answer is "That's just the way it is"--that the universe started out smooth and flat because of some set of initial conditions at t=0. Cosmologists would prefer to find a natural sequence of events that inevitably lead to the universe as it appears today, instead of specifying, in an ad hoc way, the values of certain variables at the beginning to make everything come out right.

~Carroll and Ostlie, "An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics", p. 1057 and 1238

This is kind of what I'm getting at, and how I believe it should be. Science is about the "facts", what we have physical evidence for. The text explains what evidence there is for the big bang, but there is no mention of why the Big Bang happened. That is left open to the interpretation of the reader, whether it was just a random event or God snapped His fingers and it was so.

So, to answer your question, yes, there is a difference between "meaning" and "reason". "Why" something happened, if there is no evidence to prove one way or another, is up to personal beliefs. That, I don't think, is part of science. The divine shouldn't be listed as the "reason" something happens, because there's equal probability that God made something happen as there is the Flying Spaghetti Monster made something happen. At the very least, it shouldn't be taught in schools as "science" because there's no proof.

[Cyclone_Grav]

No big deal, and no reason to apologize. It's been an "interesting" relationship, and I've been on both sides of the fence, from total belief to total disbelief.

I do stand by my statements. There is no way to physically prove whether or not God exists. That's why it's called "faith".

I will agree with this statement. As a someone who professes a belief in God, I know that he is not a worldly being (at one time yes if you believe Jesus was the son of god). I rely on testimony, historical record lined up with what the bible says, and my own experience to prove that there is god.

I will also agree that in the definition of science, that ID is more of an explanation for why things are the way they are, than a science.

I will say this though, if ID is an attempt to explain why things happen in the scientific world, it should at least be associated with science even if it isnt a science. (sorry if that seemed wordy)

[mclatch]

This gets back to my original point. With science, the book CAN'T slam closed. It's against the entire principle of the thing. Scientific theory mandates that if you can prove a counter-example to a theory, you have to either revise the theory to explain the counter-example or collect new data to refute it. That option isn't there with ID. If I refute an example of ID, the basic principle won't change, that God was somehow involved.

OK. The reason why ID wants a place at the table is because science cannot slam the book on it's origins theory. Yet that's how it is portrayed to young learners. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that points to improbability. Should we hide that simply because "there's no other option"
Rather than dismissing it, science should be welcoming the criticism.

[CyinCo]

Well, it's good to have a documentary like this from the other side. I was getting tired of Moore and the ultra-left getting all the press.

Fact is, ultra-anything is crap and will be spun to make opposing views look silly. I've never seen Moore's movies and never will. I'll file this silly film right next Moore's in the garbage can where they belong.

[mclatch]

Fact is, ultra-anything is crap and will be spun to make opposing views look silly. I've never seen Moore's movies and never will. I'll file this silly film right next Moore's in the garbage can where they belong.

I think the point of the film is to provoke thought. Moore's films were probably the same.

[jbhtexas]

This is an interesting blog on the matter...

Dean's World - Intelligent Design Petition

[superfan]

That's true. But cancer is not benificial...ie: I could die from it. Nearly all mutations are negative ...nor due they add new information to the genetic code ....let alone tell my body I need a new ear bone, when the one I have works fine. -Per example by SuperFan

True, but you can produce examples where mutation is critical to survival. Take bacteria for example. Many strains are becoming resistant to antibiotics.

Say we have a batch of 1000 bacteria (millions or billions would be more accurate I suppose - irrelevant). Of those, a small amount are mutated.

Now we expose the bacteria to an antibiotic. Nearly all the bacteria are wiped out...EXCEPT a few that had randomly mutated and are resistant to that antibiotic. The survivors multiply, passing their genetic mutation down to their descendants. Soon you've got a strand of bacteria that's resistant to the antibiotic. Mutation and Natural selection = evolution.

Granted, I've accelerated the timeframe quite a bit, but resistance has a nasty tendency to show up pretty quickly, and while the mutation may be negative for us, it's certainly a positive for the bacteria.

Antibiotic resistance in bacteria may be an inherent trait of the organism (e.g. a particular type of cell wall structure) that renders it naturally resistant, or it may be acquired by means of mutation in its own DNA or acquisition of resistance-conferring DNA from another source.

Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics

[ISUCyclones]

That's true. But cancer is not benificial...ie: I could die from it. Nearly all mutations are negative ...nor due they add new information to the genetic code ....let alone tell my body I need a new ear bone, when the one I have works fine. -Per example by SuperFan

There is no smoke and mirrors behind the science I'm talking about. If you're truly interested I would suggest you read the following: The Blind Watchmaker & A Devil's Chaplain both by Dawkins. Whether you agree with Dawkin's view on religion our not does nothing to invalidate the research he has done, I think you will find the most difficult part people have with evolution is our ability to appreciate great amounts of time( 3 1/2 billion years). Off to work.