Abra wrote:


Perhaps I have missed the point as well then. Although there may not be a single flawless "scientific method" for every possible scenario, we do have a firm grasp on what a scientific method should consist of.

When used properly, an 'objective' third-person view CAN be applied by any other person, its called scientific method. Obviously that prevents opinion and personal perspective from confounding experimental results.

Am I wrong? What have I missed.

It seems he only pointed it out because of his own misunderstanding of my reply.

Now did I have to point that out?

Maybe if others knew what result you were trying to achieve, they would be able to help.

Just a suggestion.

There may be some truth in every belief system. In fact, I would think that there is *some*. The problem had is in determining which parts contain truth and by what measure that can be accurately determined.



I am not sure if I would equate "all or nothing" to "with me or against me", but I recognize your point which concerns throwing out the good with the bad. I suppose that when saying that I was unconsciously referring to the idea of approaching the individual elements of a particular belief system which happen to still hold importance from a new 'direction' as it were.



You do realize that it is a Christian fundie argument, right?

I personally would not call the possibility a weak link as long as there were logically sound arguments for it. As it stands, it presupposes the existence of a designer, or wrongfully equates our empirical observation, which is necessarily pattern seeking, to design which pattern-seeking reminds us of. In such an assessment, we overstep the logical grounds and delve into the anthropomorphism of intent, purpose, and reason. Without those things, design does not - cannot - exist.

That is why sound logic stops short of it. Intelligent Design requires things which cannot be logically deduced nor induced from our knowledge.

If your belief is workable – then it MUST be subject to change – how is that consistant? Unless of course, as Shoku claims of Abra – one just >>consistently<< moves the boundaries therefore allowing for change within your “workable” beliefs. ????



And how often do your goals and purposes change? Is it in a “consistent” manner?



Where is the consistency in all that?



Are you agreeing that you would declare anything that does not agree with your beliefs as illogical?

But if you like an illogical idea – then that is workable?
So basically you are admitting to just making stuff up because it suits your needs.

Then what value do you see in scientific exploration if you can just make up whatever suits your purpose and goals?

You've answered your own concerns in the bold print.

When it comes to very simple observations the agreement is high. this is why Newtonian mechanics excelled for as long as it did.

However, as are knowledge of the physical world becomes more complex that agreement quickly dissapates. Today, even the most prominent scientists don't agree on what the results mean.

The Einstein-Bohr debates should be vivid evidence of this, and in a sense they are still going on today even though neither man is still living.



Well, again, that works for simple stuff. But it doesn't seem to be working anymore in this modern age.



The only thing I see that is missing from your observations here is the recognition that modern science is not nearly as cut-and-dried as it used to be.

In fact, it doesn't even follow the "Scientific Method" anymore. As I keep pointing out, many scientific theories today are based more and more on pure abstract mathematics. A mathematics that even mathematicians often question the validity of.

It's even a valid question in pure mathematics to ask whether mathematics itself is a relfection of nature, or a man-made whim?

I personally feel that its a combination of both, and there are areas where it is more whimsical than others.

By your own admission, and in agreement with some others in this thread, you have admitted that we cannot look outside the box with while the only tools available to us can only see inside the box.

So to view atheism as a fundamental view that obstructs scientific progress is a rather falible argument and one that can be construed as prejudicial.

After all, when attempting to elevate an atheistic claim to the level consistent with fundamental religous views you are proposing that there are some belief structures in place.

If that's the case, then your argument is doubly flawed, for if there is, in fact, "some truth in all beliefs" then atheists win - for our only godly belief is none at all.

Di wrote:



I can also envision another kind of belief system in which rather than the system itself changing to accomodate new knowledge, the knowledge itself would be semantically re-arranged to accomodate the pre-existing hinge propositions of that belief system.

That is not meant to implicate anyone in particular here...

Just saying.

Abra wrote:


Abra, how many years passed between Copernicus and Kepler and how many between Newton and Einstein? Obviously science was never cut-n-dry.

So in your generation you have seen nearly as much progess as in all those years combined - but now you seem to be expecting ever greater challenges to be met and solved in a single generation.

That's the same reason people choose to believe in religions, they offer immediate answers to questions we will surely die with otherwise.

Every generation offers some new beginning but it is so rare for a generation to watch what they started emerge to take its place as the next great building block of human knowledge.

We have seen more than our share in our generation, I can't even begin to dream what Bushi and Shoku will see in theirs. But I do know that how it developes will be no more cut-n-dry than any developments before them.

Quoted for truth value alone.

I can only answer for myself here…

What doesn’t make sense to me is attempting to compare “science” with “belief”. As I see it, the two are inherently mutually exclusive. They start from diametrically opposed positions and work in opposite directions.

Science starts with “other” and works inward toward “self”.

Belief starts with “self” and works outward toward “other”.

I don’t see any reason for science to change how it goes about it’s search for objective knowledge (i.e. knowledge of “other”).

I just lament the lack of research into subjective knowledge (i.e. knowledge of “self”). (Although PEAR’s “Science of the Subjective” is a good start. And Bohm’s “Holographic Universe” looks like it has potential.)

I think the main problem is that science is so intractably cemented into it’s starting position and direction, that it has gotten to the point where is it now defining the subjective in terms of the objective. In short, it has essentially “talked itself into” the position where there can be no such thing as the “self” – i.e. “‘self’ is a product of ‘other’”.

I would have to answer that with: “By my own observations and evaluations.”

But it must be recognized that validity, to me, is like “true/false” – there is the added category of “unknown”. That is, unless it has been observed and/or evaluated by me, it does not fall into either the “valid” or “invalid” category. It remains in the “unknown” category until it is observed and/or evaluated by me.

I totally disagree with this.

In my generation we have seen basically no progress at all on the scientific front. Basically, zip, zilch, nada. (* other than perhaps some cosmological observations concerning the accelerated rate of expansion of the universe, and the discovery of dark matter.)

Our observations of cosmology have increased some. And Inflation Theory was a major "breakthrough too" for the Big Bang Theory. (abeit even that is still quite speculative).

But overall, we aren't must further ahead than we were since QM and GR have been established. There hasn't been a "major" breakthrough in science since I've been alive.

This has been a relatively "dead" generation in terms of major discoveries. String Theory can't even be called a "discovery". It's really just "String Guess" and it could be entirely wrong.



I think everyone has their own reasons for believing in realigions. Religions don't offer me any answers at all. On the contrary a belief in a religion is entirely based on "faith", and faith is not an answer, but rather a belief is something that has no answer.

Besides, from my point of view religion and science aren't even competing ideals. Where people come up with that crap is beyond me. That very notion implies that science represents atheism, which is an absurd notion in any case. Even if there is a "god" or "designer" science would still be a valid method of investigation of how the physical world operates.

So science and religion aren't even at odds, IMHO.

I suppose they could be at odds for certainly religions where scientific discoveres reveal that their dogma contains lies. But that's certainly not the case for me. Science and religion are totally 100% compatible for me. There's no conflict between them whatsoever.



I think you're confusing technology with science.

Things like the Human Genome Project and the search to better understand genetics and genetic engineering are truly matters of technology now. The "science" is done. We know we evolved via a process of natural selection. That hasn't changed since Darwin. Perhaps the details of how we understand that process have changed, but that's it. That's not "new scientific discoveries".

That's just technology.

You're confusing technology with with science.

I was born with the transistor in 1949. I've watched computers and semiconductors and electronics develop dramatically over my lifetime.

None of that is 'science'. That's just technology.

We haven't had a 'Scientific Break through since Quantum Mechanics". Unless you want to call the observation of Dark Matter a breakthrough. I guess that would be for cosmologists.

But no. Science has been pretty much dead for my generation. Only technology has grown.

We don't know much more today than we did when I was in my teens.

Trust me, I've been WAITING for a major breakthrough all my life!

The discovery of Dark matter is about the only thing I can even truly think of that has been a major discovery since my teens.

The Higgs boson would be a huge discovery too. But thus far, it's just speculation. That could change relativitly soon, but insofar as I know they haven't found it yet. If they did, I'm shocked that I haven't heard the news yet. It seems to me that would be too big of news to miss. But living in the sticks here I could potentially miss it.

There are two meaning for consistency that could be applied here.

One is “self-consistency”. That is “contains no self-contradictions”. And I don’t see any self-contradictions in it.

The other is “consistent with observation”. I would classify that as being synonymous with “accuracy”. And again, I don’t see anything in it that is inconsistent with observation.

So I don’t see why “it MUST be subject to change” – unless, by “consistency” you mean “immutability”, in which case I would agree – it must be subject to change.

But that was not the intended meaning.

I think I addressed that above.

Well I can answer that with a simple “No”. But it’s such a bizarre question that I don’t know why it was even asked. It doesn’t appear to have anything whatsoever to do with anything I ever said. I think you may be assuming an identity somewhere, which was never intended.

No, you got that one backwards. It’s not workable because I like it, I like it because it’s workable.

Interesting way of putting it, but yeah, that’s fairly accurate.

Relative to my philosophical beliefs, scientific exploration has no value at all. It only has value relative to itself. So when I’m interested in things scientific, I look to science. But I can’t very well look to science when I’m interested in things that are inherently outside the realm of science.

Exactly. I also don't understand people who compare science with spiritual or other philosophical beliefs.

There is nothing in science that conflicts with my philosophical views of life. It's totally compatible in a perfectly seemless way as far as I can see.

I guess this comes from the biblical religions. Science conflicts with the Bible in several ways. Science suggests that we evolved from monkeys which flies in the face of the Bible, and science conflicts with the idea that mankind could be responsible for bringing imperfection and death into the world since science shows that imperfections and death existed before mankind evolved.

Since I don't believe in the Bible those kind of conflicts are meaningless to me.

There is nothing in science that conflicts with my spiritual beliefs. So why do people keep acting like it's an 'either/or' choice?

That's what I keep asking. Why push for this conflict between science and personal beliefs?

There is no conflict between science and my personal beliefs.

The only conflict I see is when compared to religious doctrines such as the Bible that requires a belief in things that science does conflict with.

But science doesn't conflict with my notion of spirituality at all.

In fact, when Quantum Physics was first discovered the Eastern Mystics were quick to tell the western world, "We told you so".

Quantum Mechanics is in perfect harmony with Eastern Mysticism. As is Einstein's rejection of absolute time, and even any notion of past, for future. Einstein recognized that the only meaningful concept of time is the "now" of the observer.

Einstein also showed that it is indeed the viewpoint of the observer that creates their subjective version of reality.

As far as I'm concerned science has done nothing but confirm my spiritual beliefs. There's no conflict at all. It's 100% compatible.

In fact, it would actaully be 'wrong' of me to say that science confirmed my spiritual beliefs. It would be far more accurate to say that my knowledge and understanding of science has actually helped me to find a meaningful spirituality. (not the other way around)



If Eastern Mysticism is good enough for Albert Einstein, it's good enough for me. If Albert Einstein can refer to "the spiritual" and still be considered a scientist, then why should I be granted any less respect?

I get sick of all these accusations that claim that science is somehow pitted against anything spiritual and that to believe in spirit is unscientific, illogical, or even 'unwise'.

It's nonsense.

To make such claims is to accuse Albert Einstein of the same thing.

It's pathetic.

At least I'm in good company.

Truly!

Where does this "all-or-nothing" mindset come from in the first place?

I love science for what it is. It's a Chilton's Manual for the universe. (for those who don't know what a Chilton's Manual is, it's a mechanic's guide to auto repair)

Science is GREAT for technology! That's what it's good for.

I LOVE science!

But I also understand what it is, and what it isn't.

I said it many posts ago, but I'll say it again.

I love Ferraries too. But I wouldn't try to sail one on a lake.

I know the difference between a Farrari and a sailboat.

Just like I know the difference between science and spirituality.

Science is a description of how the universe works. It can't even begin to address the question of why the universe is the way it is or how it came to be.

So what's up with even comparing science with spirituality.

That's like trying to compare Farraries with sailboats, or apples with oranges.

Science is not a religion! It's a descripion of how the universe works, after the fact, that it exists.

Why are people so bent on trying to push science off as a religion?

Actually, that’s not quite right. Science starts with “other” and works sideways to “other”.

Which is why it ultimately leads it to the curious conclusion of “self=other” (“I am my body.”).

Well I don't imagine ALL atheists feel that way. I consider myself an atheist and I have met a lot of different kinds of atheists. It is difficult to really generalize. I do think there are "some" who reject any kind of "spiritual" notions.

That's understandable. But your idea of "logical sound" arguments are basically YOUR idea.

I may not understand your kind of "logic" but I find the evidence for intelligent design "reasonable." More reasonable than not actually.

Exactly.

Why should sound logic disregard anthropomorphism?

That's not even a logical thing to do, IMHO.

Where did we get our anthropomorphic qualities in the first place?

Where did they come from?

They came from this universe!

So what logical sense would it make to dismiss them off-hand as being irrelevant when considering the question of the true nature of the universe?

What you dismiss off-hand as being irrelevant, I see as being paramount to the question at had.

It seems to me that to dismiss anthropomorphism when considering the true nature of this universe is to automatically presume that life is indeed a complete and utter accident that is somehow totally independent of the nature of this universe.

Otherwise why should it be dismissed?

So, no, I would never call the off-hand dismissal of anthropomorphism "sound logic", on the contrary, I would call it an utterly ludicous oversight.

All you're doing is dismissing the observation of what this universe has evolved into, as being "irrelevant". How does that translate into "sound logic" when attempting to ponder the true nature of this universe?

If we're going to consider the true nature of the universe we must take into consideration everything that this universe has produced, including conscious thinking beings.

That's part of what this universe does.

I think the that the good people get a second life that lasts forever kind of devalues the first life to them. Not everyone but definitely a lot of people.

If you accept the evolution thing it's worth noting that we're less promiscuous than chimps.

The go forth and multiply thing seems like kind of a lazy alteration thing though. We've got really low fertility and there are tons of animals out there that have almost guaranteed chances of getting pregnant every time they have sex. Knowing that it is possible to set a body up like that why wouldn't they have the ovaries and uterus do something similar? Just making three times as many eggs and ovulating three times as often in the same menstruation cycle would boost fertility a ton.

Isn't it obvious? If his opponents ever fail to answer a question they automatically lose because the quality of the explanation doesn't matter here- it's just warring religion where whoever explains the most wins and hes gone and declared that the word creator always works as an answer.

It was nice of him to make that post about how the pink elephantic smooge doesn't explain anything though so anybody with the capacity to see how little the word creator/designer actually explains shouldn't be swayed.

So you're saying we need to find some omnipresent-creative-consciousness dung?
Well I guess that would work but how would you tell designer dung apart from regular animal dung? Eye patterns carved into it?



You quote mine too much. It is an intellectually filthy practice.


And I'm sure your ego is as overblown as it is simply because of the rarity of people who have taken both classes.

Your philosophy is weak and your science is bad. With me around you can't dodge the danger in one by moving into the other and if you keep trying to I'm going to hound you until you're trapped in a corner and, well, basically humiliated.

Thanks for insisting that your science was fine for pages and pages before admitting that we had been in philosophy though. I absolutely love watching people change their point so they don't have to admit they were wrong.