Scientists: Creationist President Would Doom U.S.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Perfection
I'm not saying they should mention God or that he takes some role in evolutionary theory, I'm just saying they shouldn't say evolution is incompatible with God.

I'm sure most would agree with you. They also shouldn't say that evolution is incompatible with the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There's all sorts of obfuscating things they shouldn't say. Just because something is logically true, is no good reason to say it - not everyone understands logic.

[Perfection]

When I say "shouldn't say", that doesn't mean they must state the exact opposite, it means they shouldn't say.

[Blake]

I think that "shouldn't say" just means "do not speak of".

Do not speak of God in science class, it is irrelevant.

[Perfection]

Well, students will bring it up if the teacher doesn't so it's going to at some point have to be adressed by the teacher.

[Whaleboy]

How does the scientifc method say that the existance of God is incompatible with evolution?

It's slightly more complex than saying that evolution utterly refutes God until the end of time, which obviously isn't true.

However, take as my assumption that evolution refutes intelligent design. Two questions; what kick started evolution, and what kick started the universe.

We don't know.

Could (a) god have done it? Sure! Why not? The flying spaghetti monster could have done it or the precarnate ghost of Mr T who wanted to create a universe full of fools whom he could pity and order to stay in school (fool).

The question is, why posit him as an explanation? There simply is no evidence to support the idea that God *could* have started things moving, any more than the myriad other explanations I could pick out of thin air. Since the burden of proof would be on me if I wanted to propose God and "oops! no evidence", we're back to square one.

This is why, as someone cleverly pointed out, the God in the Gaps argument (i.e., the "God could have started it" proposition) isn't merely unscientific, it's anti-scientific.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by Will
The only reason the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism is unconstitutional is because creationism advances a particular religon, but doesn't evolution advance atheism?

NO

[Whaleboy]

Well, students will bring it up if the teacher doesn't.

We, collectively, have had a very reasonable and logical conversation on the matter, and have provided a good answer to the question. What's to say such an answer can't be provided if a student should ask?

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
This is why, as someone cleverly pointed out, the God in the Gaps argument (i.e., the "God could have started it" proposition) isn't merely unscientific, it's anti-scientific.

The god of the gaps argument was the rejection of inductive logic (the evidence for evolution), positing God's existance or his creation of the universe does not reject any inductive logic but merely posits that something exists because of some noninductive reason. So while positing God as some sort of creator is unscientific (or less pajoratively, nonscientific) it certainly isn't antiscientific.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Winston

Scientists: Creationist President Would Doom U.S.

Well I think that 'scientists' should bloody well be content to have just one vote like everyone else.

And preferably concentrate more on science and less on painfully transparent political grandstanding.

I think Danes should STFU about American politics, since they have exactly zero votes. Deal?

[Blake]

I'm an Atheist and a Buddhist.

The difference between me and most atheists, is that as well as embracing science - observing and understand the world by looking out, I also look back in and observe and understand the "watcher".

Fundamentally, this is the difference between the natural world and the spiritual world, the natural world is seen by looking in one direction - out, the spiritual world by looking in the other direction - in.

The theory of evolution explains operations of the natural world, is it irrelevant to the spiritual world. My buddhist contemplation explains operations of the spiritual world, it is irrelevant to the operations of the natural world, except to the extent that the natural world is perceived only through the filter of the spiritual world - the mind.

Keep things in the relevant domain, if there is a god, evidence for him will NOT be found out there! So it is pointless to talk about god in the context of the natural world.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dauphin
To take an example with no religion, I should fail to understand how anyone can believe in General Relativity and quantum mechanics. They are fundamentally incompatible. Go back a hundred so years and you also have the issue of the ultra-violet catastrophe.

GR and QM aren't incompatible if you build in limitations to the theories to say that they don't apply outside of specific [nonconflicting] ranges. Just as you can make Newtonian physics compatible with SR by setting one as an approximation to the other.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


We, collectively, have had a very reasonable and logical conversation on the matter, and have provided a good answer to the question. What's to say such an answer can't be provided if a student should ask?

What's the question the student is asking? Remember, students can ask many many different questions.

Look, there are plenty of good things a teacher can say to a student who brings it up or before students invariably bring it up. I don't particularly care exactly what they say so long as they don't state that evolution is incompatabile with the existance of God or a creator God.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Perfection


Well, I'll agree that unscientific viewpoints are certainly okay. I myself hold some (such as a Platonic veiw of Mathematics).

God of the Gaps however is not simply unscientific it's antiscientific! It basicly states "screw the evidence, we don't understand how this one thing fits therefore we can believe whatever we want". The whole point of science is coming up with results even though we cannot test every variation in every instance (inductive logic). God of gaps rejects that system and in doing so rejects science.

I agree that god of the gaps has no place in almost any secular setting but it's not anti-scientific if it carefully conforms to current observation and tested theory. Rather God of the gaps would only be somehow antiscientific if people tried to insert it into the scientific process. In that sense any unscientific notion that is inserted into the scientific process can be regarded as antiscientific.

In fact someone could even be a scientist and hold a God of the gaps view so long as they did not integrate it into their work or professional speculation supporting their work. They'd probably hold the particular God of the gaps interpretation that acts of God are like singularities. They must always be hidden from observation by some means. A kind of no naked acts of God principle. In which case why would they say "screw the evidence"?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Heraclitus


It isn’t. He said they mentioned it in their biology class. It was the same here, in primary school we had an hour or two to explain how we got to evolution. The aincent greek idea, Lamarckism, Darwin’s voyage, religious controversy in the 19th century… Interestingly if I look back at the textbook it in fact did have a case example of how the eye could evolve from primitive forms. Then we had another two hours on evolution, and a few more on the specific theories regarding the origin of mammals and humans.

We did another hour or two in High School on it, then about half a semester on the evolution of man.

So where is this enormous chasm between the teaching of evolution in US schools and the rest of the world? All of this was in my high school biology textbook and covered in lecture.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Will


Even if atheism can't be considered a religon and you there are no religious groups that believe that the big bang and later evolution are the reasons for the universe we have today, condoning religious beliefs in school is just as unconstitutional as supporting them.

Some people here seem to think that it is a student's right to learn evolution so he/she can make a decision about which idea is true. What about the children of atheists who were raised to believe in evolution? Don't they have the right to learn creationism?

The basis for a belief in creationism is totally different from a belief in evolution. evolution arose from science while religion arose from faith or divine revelation. So evolution will be taught with the sciences and creationism will be taught in social studies alongside other instruction regarding religion.