Atheism, Evolution, Origin of Life, Scientific Method

Lots of talk these days on how atheism falls short, because it cannot account for the origins of the universe, and life.

I have tucked this into other threads, but seen very little response to the notion. I am hopeful we can have at least a credible discussion, stripped of "ownership" and other things that do nothing but advance our egos.

I have said this many times. In brief:

1. Science does a very simple thing. It's interest is in the natural world. It seeks to explain (and, if all goes well, predict) natural phenomena, by scientific method.

2. Scientific method is an empirical method, that proceeds by logic and rational inquiry by gathering data, through observation, or experimentation, and then assesses hypotheses by reference to the data acquired. It simply moves from the known to the unknown, by methodical means, to make new knowns.


3. That there are things yet to know doesn't necessitate some external, divine agency to the creation or management of nature. To the scientist, it simply means additional inquiry is needed, to make new knowns.

Evolution, for example, one finding, merely shows a process whereby organisms with a certain gene set that better suits them to a given natural environment tend to survive long enough, when compared to their lesser-endowed population neighbors, to have a better chance to pass on those relatively more efficacious genes.

As another example, as I've said, at one point, the universe was considered to have swirled around the Earth, and such a view was promulgated by a clerical orthodoxy, with its religious understanding of the universe. A man with a scientific approach found data that showed otherwise, and he promulgated his findings (paying horribly for the contribution).

Science has simply progressed apace, since then, continuing to reveal more and more of the natural world and its workings.

To say that the Origins question both refutes an atheist scientist's understanding of the natural world, and necessarily establishes divine agency, makes no more sense than an orthodoxy that once dictated a divine universe, with the earth at its center, because to show otherwise lessens Man, the lead player of the story of Eden, God's biblical creation (the Earth), and divinity itself.

The questions of the origin of the universe, and of life are being pursued scientifically, and that's it; it's a process, a method, and not a quantum of knowledge that says "unless all things are answered, science is useless, and divinity is the only possible explanation."

As a closing point of departure for discussion, I've always been intrigued by viruses, in terms of their possible contribution to an understanding of the origins of life.

Viruses are really nothing more than a collection of complex, long-tail proteins - RNA or DNA, and some sort of protective, protein coating. They can't do squat outside a host; they are "non-living."

Yet once inside a host, this bunch of proteins behaves very much like a living thing, undergoing synthesis and reproduction much more complex than clearly non-living material, as in, say, crystal formation. Viruses therefore also betray "living" behavior.

Are viruses "living?" Good question. Demands inquiry.

Could it be that "life," a thing we've defined, came from something approaching this odd collection of proteinaceous material? Good question. Demands inquiry.

Lots of other stuff...going further "back," to the origins of amino and nucleic acids themselves, other possible avenues "in" to the Grand Questions.

It's my hope this helps distinguish between seeing how science proceeds, and what it has accomplished so far, from where it can possibly go.

I've said this many times, but am puzzled why this hasn't seemed to be received by many: That there are more questions to answer means there are merely more questions to answer, not the necessity of divinity.


Nature itself is fascinating enough, to me, anyway.

 

Science is cool. I was doing something more useful than playing on DP the other day and came across this website. I thought it was cool. I was thinking about the universe:

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/universe.html

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/stardist.html

 

Cool sites, Brown - thanks!

 

yup, nice links.

NPT:
good post. It is closely related with another post I made couple days ago on the religion vs. science issue.

 

Wow, Chaos - I had missed that. Fantastic post, and interesting to me the synchronicity. Very well said.

 

I would trust theories on the origins of the universe, or life, from science, before the written ramblings in an old book from a primitive culture. We definitely don't know all the answers in life, but I suppose one issue I have is that religion seems to discourage and smother questioning and as you're aware, there are cultures that will murder and imprison you for it, or of course, in more "advanced" religious cultures, many of them will just be satisfied in knowing you'll burn in hell for all eternity. If science can't explain the origins of the universe, it's simply because they don't proclaim unproven ideas to be absolute fact (like the religious seem to). At least with science, it's based on evidence, questioning, and exploration. It's not about knowing all the answers to begin with, and then going backwards to try to prove it, it's simply about finding out what the truth is.

 

Scientist can search and search foe thousands of year and still they won't have all they answers. And that's a fact

 

Fact = "A pragmatic truth, that can be checked and confirmed." Wikipedia
Speaking about what will happen thousands years from today is not a "fact", but a prophecy.

Rabbi Johanan, a jewish scholar who lived in Palestine in the 3rd century is known for saying: "prophecy has been taken from prophets and given to fools and children"

 

hahah just my opnion brother.
Although I enjoy science my self, I just dont beilve it has all the answers

 

So now u're talking. it is just your opinion and not a fact.
It is a very interesting philosophical question: "In a finite period of time, can science leave us with no further questions regarding the natural world after having answered them all?".
I don't know.

 

I hope not, would make life kinda boring, but on the other hand it'll always make room for the arguement "god did it".

 

Of course when I stated, 'Its a fact' this was merely my expressing my opnions.

 

Hypocrisy much?

Crytyme, please allow me to repost something from my original post:

Now, unless you have something substantive to add, repeating something amounting to little more than "science is lamers, dude!" doesn't really rock the world of useful discussion, does it?

In other words,

Since we have the potential for an engaged discourse, I'd personally appreciate you heed your own sagacity, and either contribute some informed thought, or find another place to spew, 'kay?. Thanks.

 

I was reading some stuff about creation today and stumbled on perhaps the world's greatest oxymoron: scientific creationism.

 

Agreed, Roman. It's an old subject for me, going back over 20 years ago or so, when I was involved in arguing against its inclusion in biology curricula, at our local community college (Student Body Prez, and I therefore sat on the community college district Board of Trustees). This "science" class was to be taught by a local minister, with a degree in theology. The current marketing push of "Intelligent Design" is the same stuff, rebranded, as I'm sure you know.

I actually don't have an issue with the biblical account of "creation" being included in, say, a class on comparative creation myths, or part of a course on ontological philosophy, something like that.

Just impossible that it can be taught scientifically, for reasons I've said above and elsewhere. As Chaos said in the other thread (and others, including myself, have said elsewhere on the site), matters of faith and matters of science do not intersect - by definition.

 

For a theory to qualify as scientific it must be:

consistent (internally and externally)
Religion is anything but consitent.

parsimonious (sparing in proposed entities or explanations)
Guess they get this one; "god did it" is pretty parsimonious.

useful (describing and explaining observed phenomena)
Since it was proven the Earth is not flat and the Earth is not the center of the universe guess it comes a bit short.

empirically testable and falsifiable
1/2; testable, not a chance, falsifiable, how can you prove something that does not exist does not exist?

based upon controlled, repeatable experiments
Big loss here.

correctable and dynamic (changing to fit with newly discovered data)
I give it a 1/10, religion seems to correct itself to newly discovered data, just takes a century or two.


progressive (achieving all that previous theories have and more)
Notta, based on a 2000 year old book, not very progressive.

tentative (admitting that it might not be correct rather than asserting certainty)
Yeah, right.

Score 1.6

For any hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet at least most, but ideally all, of the above criteria. The fewer which are matched, the less scientific it is. If it meets two or fewer of these criteria, it cannot be treated as scientific in any useful sense of the word.

 

Good guidelines, Roman - hadn't seen these, quite so codified, but agreed - this is my understanding of scientific method, theorization.

 

I honestly don't know much about them, but from what I've read it sounds like the emphasis is on creationism, but not much on the scientific. The Creation Research Society that promotes scientific creationism, actually supports research grants only to scientists who believe above all else that the bible is literally factual, we were made by G-d and didn't evolve from apes, and the Noah flood really happened. To be a member, here are the requirements. Therefore, they take someone that's already severely biased - they know what conclusion their scientific data needs to support, and are just searching backwards to try to find evidence of what they've already concluded.

 

I started taking a bus to work recently, my wife wants to save the world so I end up with an hour of free time each day. Luckily I have a data phone. I am very analytical and I could never justify the existence of god but with my free time I decided to do some reading just in case I was wrong, but the more I read the stornger my belief becomes.

Now if you want some real silly reading check out Young Earth creationism, they are very silly.

Exactly, that's what religion is all about, looking for evidence that justify their conclusion where as science looks for a conclusion based on evidence, one of these things are quite backwards.

 

Holy moly! At least Intelligent Design folks try to cloak it in a kind of generic theism (although it really is nothing more than Creationism, without the obvious Christian preaching of the above organization).

Guess the CRS folks won't allow in the Pacific Islander theologists, whose own version of the Sky-Father and Earth-Mother motif is a cool comparative analogue to the West European Goddess/Green God motif.

Wholly agree, Rebecca - this notion "working backwards from a wanted conclusion" is antithetical to scientific practice.