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Artificial Life Created

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    #632
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Wicknight wrote: »
    Yes, that is correct (leaving aside that the Earth is actually a close approximation to an oblate ellipsoid, but I knew what you mean)

    That's grand. If ever feel like being a Luddite and a Flat Earther I can refer to the theoretical nature of the world which is good because I don't have a telescope that can see ships on the horizon so I have no observational evidence to support the alternative theory :D

    Wicknight wrote: »
    All evolution is a theory. Not sure what you mean by "only". Only compared to what.

    Subtle dig in a different direction.:) Most of evolution is ok at the intraspecies level however extraspecies speciation is short on evidence. Artificial speciation says as much about evolution as Venters wee step in to DNA manipulation does about abiogenesis.
    IN other words I'm ok with new drosophila strains or bacterial resistance development although I do not consider the latter to be evolution, merely adaptation and a function of being a bacterium (guess who'll have a hissy fit with that one) but dogs and cows having common ancestry? Might be true genetically but then again we're all sea cucumbers.
    When I see a dog turn into something as different from a dog as a cow is I might just consider it again.

    It's funny, us Christians have time for the doubting Thomas's but cast doubts on the theory of evolution within earshot of an evolutionist atheist and almost immediately you are labelled a fundmentalist religious crackpot heretic hunter out to stop the scientists. ;)


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    #633
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    PDN wrote: »

    These guys aren't as sure as you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7440217.stm

    Maybe this other universe has a Slartibartfast with a colleague who inserts the fossils and tweaks genes to give people jobs in evolutionary theory and keep everyone except those with faith guessing :D


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    #634
    monosharp
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    PDN wrote: »
    Who is this 'we' you speak of? (as Tonto replied to the Lone Ranger's comment that '"we're in trouble" when surrounded by a thousand Indians)

    Humanity.
    These guys aren't as sure as you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7440217.stm

    I've actually heard this hypothesis, or rather something very similar, before.

    Absolutely and good on them and I'd love to be corrected on this.
    As far as I know the currently held scientific explanation for the big bang is that time and space were created with it, but this isn't my field so all I can do is listen to what they say and try to understand it. Science is all about learning, corrections and learning, corrections and learning ....

    Science is all about correcting mistakes, what I 'know' today could be wrong tomorrow.

    I'm a bit confused though, whats your point here ?

    Btw did you read all of the article you linked ?

    "Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular."

    Not really compatible with the bible now is it ?
    Maybe Sean Carroll (who happens to be a pretty outspoken atheist btw) doesn't understand science? Heck, next he'll be saying that evolution is just a theory. :)

    I don't understand your point here, the currently held scientific view is that time was created at the big bang. For all intensive purposes time in our universe 'bagan' at this 'time' even if the professors model is correct. If our Universe simply bubbled out from another universe then 'time' in our universe effectively 'started' from that point.

    So whats your point ?


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    #635
    PDN
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,686 ✭✭✭✭PDN


    monosharp wrote: »
    I've actually heard this hypothesis, or rather something very similar, before.

    Absolutely and good on them and I'd love to be corrected on this.
    As far as I know the currently held scientific explanation for the big bang is that time and space were created with it, but this isn't my field so all I can do is listen to what they say and try to understand it. Science is all about learning, corrections and learning, corrections and learning ....

    That is very different from your earlier claim that "we're pretty sure".

    You're not sure. You don't know, but you think one option might be true.

    My problem is that we get posters coming into this forum telling us what 'science says' - but when we probe a bit deeper then suddenly the goalposts move and it all gets more subjective. Now I've no problem with that, it actually seems very reasonable to me to assess different theories and to pick the one that makes the most sense - but I do have a problem when those same posters try to pretend that everything in science is so objective and other fields of knowledge (eg history) are so subjective.
    I'm a bit confused though, whats your point here ?
    My point is that you might be sure about something, but science is far from sure about it. Which leads me to treat with a pinch of salt other claims you might make about what science is sure about.
    Btw did you read all of the article you linked ?

    "Their model suggests that new universes could be created spontaneously from apparently empty space. From inside the parent universe, the event would be surprisingly unspectacular."

    Not really compatible with the bible now is it
    ?

    Yes, I read all the article. Did I say it was compatible with the Bible?

    What the heck has that got to do with anything I've said? I personally believe time came into existence when God created the universe.
    I don't understand your point here, the currently held scientific view is that time was created at the big bang. For all intensive purposes time in our universe 'bagan' at this 'time' even if the professors model is correct. If our Universe simply bubbled out from another universe then 'time' in our universe effectively 'started' from that point.

    So whats your point ?

    Nonsense.

    If a baby is born from it's mother then time, for the baby, effectively started from that point. But that would not justify you saying that time didn't exist before the baby was born.

    My point is that you gave the impression that a particular theory (that time did not exist before the big bang) was something of which science was pretty sure. The article I linked to says that is incorrect.


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    #636
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    PDN the news link is very interesting and it's crystallized something that's been going around my head for some time.

    First off apologies to anyone offended by my lack of knowledge and coherence on evolution and quantum mechanics. I only ever studied these in relation to chemistry and biology and not physics, and as they have no bearing on my daily life, the one I observe, I sometimes loose a bit of accuracy. Thanks to those who assisted me in my pursuit of knowledge without calling me ignorant (though I accept there is more than one meaning to that word but it some mouths it carries a sting) [Don't you just love mixed metaphores, I do]

    Anyway, back to what I wanted to say... Atheists, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of science almost to the point of idolatry, yet, with all these new discoveries and theories, all this understanding of the world and where it came from, where it might be going, the vast majority is outside the lifespan of a single atheist. Presumably some number of atheists died before they heard of the potential for another universe spawning this one.
    Many more will die before the LHC makes its announcement about the God particle. Sorry, should I call the the Higgs boson to be politically correct?
    No doubt many atheists were delighted with Venter.
    It must be great to feel so vindicated so often, even if it is only a personal vindication.
    No matter - we all die. Some of us die in faith with hope (or vice versa) and move on to an afterlife, a life where all questions will be answered. I don't know if we will get perfect knowledge there but given that eternity is a long time and all the knowledge of the world and universe(s) will be at our fingertips anything can happen.
    Others die expecting nothing, having spent their lives believing in nothing. What must be a real killer is to die without ever knowing the truth, except what one makes up, because the day after one dies some new discover may be made.
    To a Christian that is no problem. Is that a problem to an atheist (rhetorical, no need to answer)?

    If the atheist is right, does it matter. If the atheist is wrong but...

    The prompt for this is not Pascal's wager, though I admit there are similarities - not intentional - but the case is time. I know I have been on this planet for a number of years but in memory terms it is a blink. I cannot slow time, I cannot revisit the past and do things differently. In ten or twenty years time my memories will be just that - memories of a life in the blink of an eye, no re-visitation, no reliving. Life in memory becomes so insignificant.

    Some of the evolution experts here might be able to generate sources for this. If not I'll find them and post them. It appears there are evolutionary biologists who have discovered that we are genetically hardwired for religion. Morals are not built in but the need for religion is.
    In evolutionary terms that just does not make sense.

    Or does it...

    It was once said that if God had wanted us to fly.... you know the rest.

    We'll what if God hardcoded our DNA to make religion part of being human? Science would appear to support the fact that the majority of humans are religious, and this is a function of evolution.
    It might not be written in the stones, but if it is written in the DNA...?

    Ah... found the prompt - David Lewis-Williams in the God issue of NewStatesman April 2010. p.53 he surmises that the raw material for believe is created by he electrochemical functioning of the brain. I suggest that if that is so and evolution put it there, what put it into evolution otherwise why should evolution put it there. Is there a scientific evolutionary benefit to being religious?

    Something does not gel there. Evolution makes us religious and an atheist says we must fight it. Go figure that one out because I can't.


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    #637
    Spacedog
    Registered Users Posts: 1,775 ✭✭✭Spacedog


    once again, a new discovery 5hits in the mouth of outdated superstitions. I open a thread about scientists creating life, and I see nothing but fud about the big bang and the meaning of gravity.

    here's an idea, a few hundred thousand million years ago, aliens no more advanced than we are today, perforned this experiment, they loaded up the components and lashed it on a rocket pointed at earthlike planets, in the vacum of space the momentium kept it moving on course, it landed here, opened, the experiment activated and the beginnings of life are formed on earth...and potentially thousands of other worlds. ---This scenario is now just as likely reason for the orign of life as God directly creating the origns of life on earth. Of course, this will be seen as rediculus by believers, BUT if it was proven to be 100% true tomorrow, this message board would be full of comments about the aliens being created by God (aka angels) to give us life, and there would be all threads about the big bang and what gravity means, avoiding the topic at hand.


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    #638
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Ah, Zod or is it Spacedog. Maybe it's Zod the spacedog. Welcome back.

    Yes we started discussing life but as it was essentially about a creation event the evolution to it's current position was entirely expected. :)

    Start with bacteria and give them enough time they will eventually start into quantum mechanics and where did we come from.

    Not that surprising really, we've seen it all before. :D


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    #639
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Spacedog wrote: »
    once again, a new discovery 5hits in the mouth of outdated superstitions. I open a thread about scientists creating life, and I see nothing but fud about the big bang and the meaning of gravity.

    here's an idea, a few hundred thousand million years ago, aliens no more advanced than we are today, perforned this experiment, they loaded up the components and lashed it on a rocket pointed at earthlike planets, in the vacum of space the momentium kept it moving on course, it landed here, opened, the experiment activated and the beginnings of life are formed on earth...and potentially thousands of other worlds. ---This scenario is now just as likely reason for the orign of life as God directly creating the origns of life on earth. Of course, this will be seen as rediculus by believers, BUT if it was proven to be 100% true tomorrow, this message board would be full of comments about the aliens being created by God (aka angels) to give us life, and there would be all threads about the big bang and what gravity means, avoiding the topic at hand.

    I seem to remember suggesting earlier in this thread that to a bacterium Venter must appear to be a God. or a deity.

    Your suggestion is not much different.


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    #640
    lmaopml
    Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    Ahh the 'theory of everything', that Einstein worked on till he passed and never got to solve....The much later M Theory, solves the problem of the singularity, with all those branes rippling against each other and leaking matter.

    Looking at the nice smooth physics of the cosmos it does present the problem that time space and matter, our 3D universe, burst into being - the universe is expanding, so it must have at one time been infinitely small, and nice smooth physics make no sense at this point. Enter quantum physics and it's sheer weirdness....( It's birthed some pretty hairy New Age stuff too - and they give out about Jesus :confused: )However, string theory and bubble universes etc. or being one universe inside a multiverse seems to be the current hot rod...

    The LHC should at some stage be able to either say this theory is most likely at present, or present a few more..lol..., they're searching for the graviton, a particle that can only be observed by it's effects on it's surrounding particles before it blips out of existence or leaks through the brane that seperates universes...The Graviton would solve lots of problems in the observable universe, such as inflation seemingly speeding up at parts of the horizon...



    It's all mad Ted!...exciting though, very sci fi.......


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    #641
    ISAW
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,142 ✭✭✭ISAW


    Spacedog wrote: »

    here's an idea, a few hundred thousand million years ago, aliens no more advanced than we are today, perforned this experiment, they loaded up the components and lashed it on a rocket pointed at earthlike planets, in the vacum of space the momentium kept it moving on course, it landed here, opened, the experiment activated and the beginnings of life are formed on earth..

    Already dealt with by occams razor in this thread. And mayne the aliens were seeded by other aliens. the thing is some aline race had to begin by abiogenesis and not by aliens seeding a planet. If it happened originally on some planet why not cut out all the links and assume that there is only one and we are the planet?


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    #642
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    JimiTime wrote: »
    I agree with this, and is pretty much behind what I have been saying. If I follow the scientific method to investigate something, WHEREVER THE IDEA TO INVESTIGATE IT CAME FROM, then I am engaged in science. THAT IS ALL I AM SAYING.

    Thats fine. That wasn't what you were saying originally, so I hope you can see the issue me and Monosharp had.

    Nothing is science until you start trying to explain observable phenomena. Something, say a religious creation story, inspiring someone to go looking for unexplained observable phenomena to try and explain is great, but it isn't science.


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    #643
    lmaopml
    Registered Users Posts: 3,080 ✭✭✭lmaopml


    StealthRolex wrote: »
    PDN the news link is very interesting and it's crystallized something that's been going around my head for some time.

    First off apologies to anyone offended by my lack of knowledge and coherence on evolution and quantum mechanics. I only ever studied these in relation to chemistry and biology and not physics, and as they have no bearing on my daily life, the one I observe, I sometimes loose a bit of accuracy. Thanks to those who assisted me in my pursuit of knowledge without calling me ignorant (though I accept there is more than one meaning to that word but it some mouths it carries a sting) [Don't you just love mixed metaphores, I do]

    Anyway, back to what I wanted to say... Atheists, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of science almost to the point of idolatry, yet, with all these new discoveries and theories, all this understanding of the world and where it came from, where it might be going, the vast majority is outside the lifespan of a single atheist. Presumably some number of atheists died before they heard of the potential for another universe spawning this one.
    Many more will die before the LHC makes its announcement about the God particle. Sorry, should I call the the Higgs boson to be politically correct?
    No doubt many atheists were delighted with Venter.
    It must be great to feel so vindicated so often, even if it is only a personal vindication.
    No matter - we all die. Some of us die in faith with hope (or vice versa) and move on to an afterlife, a life where all questions will be answered. I don't know if we will get perfect knowledge there but given that eternity is a long time and all the knowledge of the world and universe(s) will be at our fingertips anything can happen.
    Others die expecting nothing, having spent their lives believing in nothing. What must be a real killer is to die without ever knowing the truth, except what one makes up, because the day after one dies some new discover may be made.
    To a Christian that is no problem. Is that a problem to an atheist (rhetorical, no need to answer)?

    If the atheist is right, does it matter. If the atheist is wrong but...

    The prompt for this is not Pascal's wager, though I admit there are similarities - not intentional - but the case is time. I know I have been on this planet for a number of years but in memory terms it is a blink. I cannot slow time, I cannot revisit the past and do things differently. In ten or twenty years time my memories will be just that - memories of a life in the blink of an eye, no re-visitation, no reliving. Life in memory becomes so insignificant.

    Some of the evolution experts here might be able to generate sources for this. If not I'll find them and post them. It appears there are evolutionary biologists who have discovered that we are genetically hardwired for religion. Morals are not built in but the need for religion is.
    In evolutionary terms that just does not make sense.

    Or does it...

    It was once said that if God had wanted us to fly.... you know the rest.

    We'll what if God hardcoded our DNA to make religion part of being human? Science would appear to support the fact that the majority of humans are religious, and this is a function of evolution.
    It might not be written in the stones, but if it is written in the DNA...?

    Ah... found the prompt - David Lewis-Williams in the God issue of NewStatesman April 2010. p.53 he surmises that the raw material for believe is created by he electrochemical functioning of the brain. I suggest that if that is so and evolution put it there, what put it into evolution otherwise why should evolution put it there. Is there a scientific evolutionary benefit to being religious?

    Something does not gel there. Evolution makes us religious and an atheist says we must fight it. Go figure that one out because I can't.

    This is a lovely post...

    ..and it echoes something I was trying to touch on earlier as regards 'free will'...whether we ever do anything that we 'want' to do or whether we are; Atheists and people of faith alike just chemical love junkies living in a chemical dream of sorts.....

    We're 'zombies' :eek: While natural evidence seems to suggest that we are just predetermined beasts, explaining love chemicals, and sex chemicals, and logic chemicals etc. etc. etc. it's consciousness and that spark of God, that enables free will....and 'soul'...

    I can't prove it, but hey.. :) it's my 'faith'.

    In fact I'm going to use my free will to go to bed right now even though I don't want to...lol...

    ..or is that what I really wanted all along....hmmmm


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    #644
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    PDN wrote: »
    That's what I thought up until 2 days ago, but Wicknight was very insistent that science doesn't say that at all (post #394 in this thread).

    Er, no I wasn't actually.

    History takes stabs at what they think might have happened even though a lot of the time history has no way of testing these historical theories.

    Science doesn't.

    I'm going to assume you aren't deliberately misrepresenting the context of what we were originally talking about.


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    #645
    monosharp
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭monosharp


    PDN wrote: »
    That is very different from your earlier claim that "we're pretty sure".

    How so ? What I said is the current scientific position.
    My problem is that we get posters coming into this forum telling us what 'science says' - but when we probe a bit deeper then suddenly the goalposts move and it all gets more subjective.

    Right, I actually thought you were been genuine for a moment. Silly me.

    What 'science says' is what the scientific community says, what peer reviewed journals say, what the available evidence at that time says.

    And what 'science says' at the moment is that the big bang created space and time. Without space, there was no time.
    Now I've no problem with that, it actually seems very reasonable to me to assess different theories and to pick the one that makes the most sense - but I do have a problem when those same posters try to pretend that everything in science is so objective and other fields of knowledge (eg history) are so subjective.

    We do not pick the one that makes the most sense, we accept the one that the scientific community agrees on. That peer-review agrees on.

    Dr Carroll's model is not a theory specifically because it is just speculation. Or do you need to be educated on the difference between the word theory in science and the meaning in common language ?
    http://www.universetoday.com/2008/06/13/thinking-about-time-before-the-big-bang/
    Granted, — and Carroll stressed this point — any research on these topics is generally considered speculation at this time.
    My point is that you might be sure about something, but science is far from sure about it.

    Ah so Dr Carroll speaks for science now does he ?

    Like Fr John down the road speaks for Christianity ?
    If a baby is born from it's mother then time, for the baby, effectively started from that point. But that would not justify you saying that time didn't exist before the baby was born.

    We don't know what happened 'before' the big bang.
    Time depends on space, space started expanding at the big bang.

    Your analogy is ridiculous by the way. The big bang is responsible for our laws of physics, for space and for time. Its beyond ridiculous to make assumptions about them in a possible 'mother universe'.
    My point is that you gave the impression that a particular theory (that time did not exist before the big bang) was something of which science was pretty sure. The article I linked to says that is incorrect.

    Your article is an interview with one scientist who says himself that this is pure speculation.

    If I go and meet a Christian who thinks Jesus was Australian does that mean Christianity thinks Jesus was Australian ?


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    #646
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    StealthRolex wrote: »
    That's grand. If ever feel like being a Luddite and a Flat Earther I can refer to the theoretical nature of the world which is good because I don't have a telescope that can see ships on the horizon so I have no observational evidence to support the alternative theory :D

    You asked does science prove this, not does science put forward an accurate theory. There is a difference. If we are brains in a jar the Earth isn't round since it doesn't exist. To prove the Earth is round would mean to demonstrate that something absolutely cannot under any circumstances be inaccurate. Which we can't do.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Subtle dig in a different direction.:) Most of evolution is ok at the intraspecies level however extraspecies speciation is short on evidence.
    No it really isn't. But this is perhaps a better discussion for the Creationist thread.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    IN other words I'm ok with new drosophila strains or bacterial resistance development although I do not consider the latter to be evolution, merely adaptation and a function of being a bacterium (guess who'll have a hissy fit with that one) but dogs and cows having common ancestry? Might be true genetically but then again we're all sea cucumbers.

    I don't think many biologists who use evolutionary biology day in and day out care that much at what you are or are not "ok with"


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    #647
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    PDN wrote: »
    That is very different from your earlier claim that "we're pretty sure".

    You're not sure. You don't know, but you think one option might be true.

    That isn't quite accurate.

    Time was created at the Big Bang as was the universe. We are pretty sure of this. We are pretty sure of this because the mathematical models of the Big Bang have space time disappear into infinite at the moment of the Big Bang, and these models are considered accurate. Space and time are actually the same "thing" and if they disappear off into mathematical infinity they don't function.

    That isn't to say that another version of time couldn't have existed in a different state along with another universe. Scientists have been speculating about that for decades. This is basically what string theory is, higher dimensional "branes" banging into each other producing a big bang.

    But time "before" the Big Bang would not be the same as time as we understand it. We have no idea what it would be like, or even if "time" is the correct term. The professor is calling for scientists to be more accurate in lay man terminology, not saying the theory is wrong.

    As a poster on the Richard Dawkins forum put it better than me

    http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3435
    Spacetime as we are used to it formed during the Big Bang when already some things occurred. If you would go back in 'time' from that point parameters get kind of weird. You get things like infinite density and infinite temperatures. Space and time become infinite dense so at one point there is no space or time.

    The 'before' is a metaphor in order to put calculations in perspective. So yes, there might be a 'before', but it cannot be measured in ordinary seconds since it does not even belong to the Planck epoch. This 'before' would not belong to our universe as we currently understand it. On the other hand, findings may lead to a much more sophisticated theory of the universe/multiverse way beyond sub quantum scales.

    Research like this is way more mathematics than physics.


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    #648
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Thanks to those who assisted me in my pursuit of knowledge without calling me ignorant

    It would be a bit easier to stomach this request if you stopped taking swipes as atheists at ever opportunity.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Many more will die before the LHC makes its announcement about the God particle. Sorry, should I call the the Higgs boson to be politically correct?
    Scientists including Prof Higgs himself disliked the term because it over emphasizes the importance of the Higgs field in quantum mechanics and can be construed as disrespectful to religious people.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/may/29/why-call-it-the-god-particle-higgs-boson-cern-lhc
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Some of the evolution experts here might be able to generate sources for this. If not I'll find them and post them. It appears there are evolutionary biologists who have discovered that we are genetically hardwired for religion. Morals are not built in but the need for religion is.
    In evolutionary terms that just does not make sense.

    Course it does. We are evolutionarily predisposed to viewing nature in terms of human-like agency. This allow us to process natural interaction (a tree falls in the woods) in a similar manner to how we process human interaction (a man cuts down a tree in the woods).
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    We'll what if God hardcoded our DNA to make religion part of being human? Science would appear to support the fact that the majority of humans are religious, and this is a function of evolution.

    The majority of humans throughout history are not followers of Abrahaic religions, so following your logic you seem to have picked the wrong god.

    I imagine though you aren't going to convert any time soon.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Is there a scientific evolutionary benefit to being religious?
    Yes, or at least evolutionary benefit to the behaviors behind religious thinking. Our brains, as wonderful as they are, find it difficult to process the world in terms of massive parallel systems interacting with each other. Our brains find it much easier to process the world in terms of human like interactions, which is understandable given how our brains have evolved to be used to interact with other humans. It is easier to imagine a human like agent (a god or spirit for example, or simply just mother nature) making it rain for a particular reason than it is to try and understand global weather systems and how they interact with each other, particularly for primitive man who did not have the help of scientific equipment. Even in modern society with all our advances we still have a natural tendency to view things like good weather as being gifts from nature for our benefit, even if we don't take such instinctive ideas seriously any more.

    For example experiments have shown that in times of stress and feelings of the world being random and out of our control our brains create the concept of agents in nature causing events to happen.

    This reduces stress in the brain because it is easier to process the world in these terms than as a series of chaotic random inputs. For example it is easier to process a string of unfortunate events in your life, such as your house burnt down, because "you are unlucky" (lucky being a form of human-like agency in nature that picks people for human like reasons) than because of the rather complicated interactions between all the various elements in your life.

    This would some what explain why so many people turn to religion in times of personal doubt and stress. The brain seems to flip a switch, abandons trying to process the massive amount of random information that streams into us and instead starts rearranging things in easier to process bites.

    If you introduce a concept that already exists in society, such as a religion, that fits with this this concept is easily accepted. But interestingly enough this doesn't seem to be necessary. The person will imagine these agents all on their own if necessary.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    Something does not gel there. Evolution makes us religious and an atheist says we must fight it. Go figure that one out because I can't.

    It is not really anything to do with fighting it, more understanding it.


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    #649
    JimiTime
    Registered Users Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    Wicknight wrote: »
    Thats fine. That wasn't what you were saying originally,

    FFS! IT WAS. All along I have said that it is the method you employ that makes it science, NOT WHERE YOU GET THE IDEA TO EXPLORE IT.

    Sam got exactly what I meant pages ago, yet you persisted in thinking I was claiming things I wasn't.
    Nothing is science until you start trying to explain observable phenomena.

    Something, say a religious creation story, inspiring someone to go looking for unexplained observable phenomena to try and explain is great, but it isn't science.
    NEVER said it was. In fact, I have been trying to correct you all this time on what you keep asserting I've said.

    All along its been about how a scientists faith CAN inspire them to examine areas of reality. I NEVER said that this process was science. I said that the method they employ to examine the subject matter would determine if its science! You were the one going on about getting ideas from the bible being 'opposite of science'. Its neither science, nor the opposite of science. As I said, its what you do with the idea that will define where science enters the realm.


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    #650
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    JimiTime wrote: »
    FFS! IT WAS. All along I have said that it is the method you employ that makes it science, NOT WHERE YOU GET THE IDEA TO EXPLORE IT.

    Great but that is irrelevant to what I just said (why do I bother)

    You said originally

    Saying the world had a beginning is not science. However, taking that idea and testing and observing in order to examine that claim is science.

    No it isn't. Simple. End of.

    Science does not examine claims of the Bible or any other claim not related to observed phenomena. If you don't get that by now I'm sick trying to explain it do you.


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    #651
    JimiTime
    Registered Users Posts: 7,418 ✭✭✭JimiTime


    Wicknight wrote: »
    Great but that is irrelevant to what I just said (why do I bother)

    You said originally

    Saying the world had a beginning is not science. However, taking that idea and testing and observing in order to examine that claim is science.

    No it isn't. Simple. End of. If you don't get that by now I'm sick trying to explain it do you.


    Yadda yadda, sick of this, tired of that, ye twisted this, I twisted that.
    Others got it, you didn't, finally the penny dropped with you. Hoorah, end of. moving on. Don't forget to tip yer waitress.


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    #652
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    JimiTime wrote: »
    Others got it, you didn't, finally the penny dropped with you.

    No one got it Jimi, Sam put across apparently what you were trying to say, that religious curiosity can inspire people to go out and become scientists, but didn't say, and you agreed with him.

    The Bible can inspire people to become scientists but examining the claims of the Bible using the scientific method is not science. If you didn't mean to claim that it was then fair enough but you did claim that in your original posts (as quoted above).

    You focus on the method which was never my point. Simply examining something with the scientific method does not make it science. Examining a claim of the Bible using the scientific method is not science. It is only science if you are using the scientific method to model an observable phenomena.

    That may seem like pointless semantics but spend 5 minutes with Creationists and you will see why this is a very important point.


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    #653
    Sam Vimes
    Registered Users Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    Wicknight wrote: »
    That may seem like pointless semantics but spend 5 minutes with Creationists and you will see why this is a very important point.

    I thought you were being a bit ridiculous there but now I get your point. Creationists do like to abuse science so you're right to say that just examinig a claim is not science but the specific claim that Jimi was talking about is that the universe had a beginning which is theoretically verifiable and falsifiable so that would be scientific. So examining a claim of the bible can be scientific but isn't necessarily


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    #654
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Wicknight wrote: »
    It would be a bit easier to stomach this request if you stopped taking swipes as atheists at ever opportunity.

    This thread appears to have been started as a swipe against religion in general and Christianity in particular. If you don't want twatting why come in to a Christian forum to present a view that is in direct contradiction of ours.
    You are welcome to discuss and explore but the presentation of atheistic dogma is an open invitation.

    Wicknight wrote: »
    It is not really anything to do with fighting it, more understanding it.

    No Dawkins is openly confrontational with religion, Hitchins likewise as is Lewis-Williams. That is not even trying to understanding.

    The idea presented by atheists here are those of the New Atheists, not those of the Enlightenment. There is a different, you were predicted in the Bible and it is up to us to witness to Jesus and defend the faith.


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    #655
    ISAW
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,142 ✭✭✭ISAW


    Wicknight wrote: »

    Science does not examine claims of the Bible or any other claim not related to observed phenomena. If you don't get that by now I'm sick trying to explain it do you.

    WRONG! Science in fact does both examine claims of the Bible and does involve itself in speculation in things which it cannot observe.


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    #656
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    I thought you were being a bit ridiculous there

    Join the club :D

    I'm not sure if I'm just explaining it wrong or if some people are just so backs up against the wall that anything I saw is taken as a jab at them.

    Anywhoo, my point is pretty simply it is not meant to cause offense, I was some what surprised everyone started arguing it or accusing me of anti-theism.
    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    Creationists do like to abuse science so you're right to say that just examinig a claim is not science but the specific claim that Jimi was talking about is that the universe had a beginning which is theoretically verifiable and falsifiable so that would be scientific.
    It is verifiable now but that is because we have already worked it out. We already have the observable phenomena that are explained by a Big Bang like model.

    In Jimi's example he was talking about a time when scientists held to the steady state theory and the Bible might inspire someone to go investigate the idea that this might be wrong and the universe had a beginning.

    In the example given there wasn't an observable phenomena to study, there was an idea that current theory could be wrong and this idea might be right.

    That is the important part here, in the example given by Jimi (and I dont' know if he meant it or not) this was before any observations explained by an aging universe. In his example the Bible is inspiring someone to go out and start testing and verifying the claim that the universe ages. That is science the wrong way around.

    We know from the folly of Creationism that if you attempt to get scientific evidence for an idea alone without a phenomena you are attempting to explain you will find tons of it. The example I used was "kinds". Creationists are falling over themselves with for this evidence for kinds but have no phenomena that need actually be explained by it so the model itself (rather than the evidence for it) is ridiculous lacking and untestable.

    You can find evidence for anything if you go looking for it, the question is does this evidence support or detract from a model of an observable phenomena. If you don't have an observable phenomena you can't do this. If you do have an observable phenomena then you aren't using science to investigate claims of a holy book, you are using it to investigate models of the phenomena. If the Bible inspired you to go out looking for phenomena to explain great but that wasn't the original claim.

    It isn't really a question of being wrong, it is a question of modelling something accurately and with the scientific method that may not actually exist.

    If the universe is stead state you may still find a ton of evidence supporting your idea that it had a beginning. That doesn't mean anything unless you can some how tie this idea to a phenomena that needs explaining.

    BTW I'm not talking about motivations here (perhaps that is what is getting people backs up). I didn't, or certainly didn't mean to imply that Jimi was saying creationism is great, nor that he was saying we should take the infallible word of God into science.
    Sam Vimes wrote: »
    So examining a claim of the bible can be scientific but isn't necessarily

    It can't be scientific nor is it necessary. The Bible can by all means inspire you to think differently or inspire you to do science, and if that was all Jimi's point was and I'm reading way to much into what he was saying then apologies and I'm happy with that.


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    #657
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    ISAW wrote: »
    WRONG! Science in fact does both examine claims of the Bible and does involve itself in speculation in things which it cannot observe.

    Can you give me an example?


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    #658
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Wicknight wrote: »
    I
    The majority of humans throughout history are not followers of Abrahaic religions, so following your logic you seem to have picked the wrong god.

    How is that given I mention God with no specific reference to any particular religion. Reads like just another atheistic swipe.

    Tackle the whole argument, not the bit you want.

    Represent with minor edits for typos and clarity.

    It appears there are evolutionary biologists who have discovered that we are genetically hardwired for religion. Morals are not built in but the need for religion is. In evolutionary terms that just does not make sense.
    What if God hardcoded our DNA to make religion part of being human? Science would appear to support the fact that the majority of humans are religious, and this is a function of evolution.
    David Lewis-Williams in the God issue of NewStatesman April 2010 surmises that the raw material for belief is created by the electrochemical functioning of the brain. I suggest that if that is so and evolution put it there, then what put it into evolution and why should evolution put it there. Is there a scientific evolutionary benefit to being religious?


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    #659
    sensibleken
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,650 ✭✭✭sensibleken


    Wicknight wrote: »
    To prove the Earth is round would mean to demonstrate that something absolutely cannot under any circumstances be inaccurate. Which we can't do.

    dubito ergo sum?

    i cannot doubt that i can doubt for to do so is doubting. a starting point of absolute truth for Descartes by no means meant he did not end up mirred in bull because he was seeking to prove something rather than accurately following logic and observation. though he trusted one and not the other


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    #660
    StealthRolex
    Registered Users Posts: 1,293 ✭✭✭StealthRolex


    Wicknight wrote: »
    It can't be scientific nor is it necessary. The Bible can by all means inspire you to think differently or inspire you to do science, and if that was all Jimi's point was and I'm reading way to much into what he was saying then apologies and I'm happy with that.

    Certainly in parts it makes claims that were not accepted by science until much later in history:

    The earth is round!

    You may be surprised to learn that the Bible revealed that the earth is round. Job 26:10, Prov 8:27, Isaiah 40:22, Amos 9:6. Today, we chuckle at the people of the fifteenth century who feared sailing because they thought they would fall over the edge of the flat earth. Yet the Bible revealed the truth in 1000 B.C. 2500 years before man discovered it for himself!

    Matthew Maury (1806-1873) is considered the father of oceanography. His daughter was reading a portion of the Bible to him. While listening, he noticed the expression "paths of the sea" in Psalms 8:8. Upon his recovery, Maury took God at his word and went look ing for these paths. We are indebted to his discovery of the warm and cold continental currents. His book on oceanography is still considered a basic text on the subject and is still used in universities. Maury used the Bible as a guide to scientific discovery. If only more would use the Bible as a guide in their personal lives!

    "At one time, when Commodore Maury was very sick, he asked one of his daughters to get the Bible and read to him. She chose Psalm 8, the eighth verse of which speaks of "whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea," he repeated "the paths of the sea, the paths of the sea, if God says the paths of the sea, they are there, and if I ever get out of this bed I will find them."

    The Hydrologic Water Cycle

    Revealed in the Bible: Job 36:27-28

    The water cycle was not fully understood until about 30 B.C. by a Roman engineer named Marcus Vitruvius. Yet every aspect of the water cycle was fully revealed to mankind in 1600 B.C.! The Bible's description is in perfect harmony with modern science. Eccl 1:6-7; 11:3; Job 26:8; Amos 9:6. Vitruvius was 1600 years too late!

    "At one time, when Commodore Maury was very sick, he asked one of his daughters to get the Bible and read to him. She chose Psalm 8, the eighth verse of which speaks of "whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea," he repeated "the paths of the sea, the paths of the sea, if God says the paths of the sea, they are there, and if I ever get out of this bed I will find them."

    Source


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    #661
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    StealthRolex wrote: »
    This thread appears to have been started as a swipe against religion in general and Christianity in particular. If you don't want twatting why come in to a Christian forum to present a view that is in direct contradiction of ours.

    I don't mind "twatting", it is your calls of victim hood that are hard to stomach.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    No Dawkins is openly confrontational with religion, Hitchins likewise as is Lewis-Williams. That is not even trying to understanding.

    Ah, I thought you meant the makes us religious bit, rather than religion.

    Dawkins doesn't pretend that evolution doesn't make us religious, and as such is not fighting the idea merely attempting to understand it

    Part of this though does come from fighting the view that we are religious because religions are true and the various creators want us to be this way.

    That seems not to be supported by current understanding of evolutionary psychology, which you appealed to in your previous post.

    You can't really have it both ways, appeal to evolution as to why we all have a tenancy towards religion and then ignore the rest of it.
    StealthRolex wrote: »
    The idea presented by atheists here are those of the New Atheists, not those of the Enlightenment. There is a different, you were predicted in the Bible and it is up to us to witness to Jesus and defend the faith.

    If you say so.


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