A simple reason why creationism is false

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by elwestrand
Why are you insinuating that that isn't merely the way it actually is? Apparently it is not intellectually satisfying if "everything has equal weight." But the opposite is also unfalsifiable.

Because if everything has equal weight I can say the my gym shorts traveled back in time and created the universe in a manner in which every looks to us the way it us, but it is really made out of cheese that just has the ability to look like other things. And that theory would be just as valid as a theory of god.

Or I could say that we are all in a video game, matrix style, and that I am really the virtual representation of the being outside the video game playing for real, so I am god. You all simply do not have the ability to recognize the truth, because I programmed it like that.

Its funny, although one of the main claims of religion is the finding of meaning and significance in life, but if you follow the above logic, you give nothing meaning, and there is no significance.

Although it is fun and very much in human nature to create self-disillusionment, it is not, as you call it "intellectually satisfying."

 

[Zero]

In order to show the illogic of "God" claims, simply insert "Zero's left boot" any place where you see "God" or "a creator".

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Zero
See, you keep making the utterly unfounded assumption that there is something besides the material. It biases all the rest of your "logic" and invalidates it.

First of all it is not an assumption but an experience, a subjective experience, granted; but, as I can only experience anything subjectively including the objective universe, my subjective experience is just as real and carries just as much wieght as any and all experiences.

There are things that are intrinsic to me and there are things that are extrinsic to me. I can and do recognize the difference. The objective universe is extrinsic, so is the subjective and spiritual.
By the same reassoning that I know that the objective universe exists and is real, I know that the spiritual and subjective universe is real.

To me it is obvious, yet how do I explain or support the experience of blue or red to one who has never seen much less ever seen color?
I am constantly reminded that; "None are so blind as those who will not see."

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Royce
To me it is obvious, yet how do I explain or support the experience of blue or red to one who has never seen much less ever seen color?
I am constantly reminded that; "None are so blind as those who will not see."

All hail my Gym Shorts, thy Savior and Creator. There is no doubt of their omniscience as I can see it in my head.

Of course many none believers out there have not the vison for sight and you are all blind to my Gym Shorts mighty power and divinity.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Deeviant
All hail my Gym Shorts, thy Savior and Creator. There is no doubt of their omniscience as I can see it in my head.

Of course many none believers out there have not the vison for sight and you are all blind to my Gym Shorts mighty power and divinity.

Thank you for this well thought out, intelligent and enlightening post. You show not only your rudeness but also your ignorance. Only a fool thinks that something he doesn't understand or know anything about is foolish. You still have a ways to go before you can beat Zero in sarcasm. He at least can be original, funny and yet poignant.

 

[Rader]

Read the full link

Originally posted by FZ+
More what? Evolution, as I said, is dependent on things not fitting, and hence changing. The existence of an underlying design undermines the whole mechanism, and undos much of what we observe.

The underlying design is what makes it work. The design is superior to the funtion, that's why things work..
What we observe in the macro is order. What we observe in the micro is irreducible wave patterns.

No. QM is a stochastic random process. I am referring to complexity/chaos theory. Evolution relies on emerging instabilities, and pseudorandom chance actions. Naively putting in a design does not make the process "better", but undermines the whole thing. It is additionally not reflected in the evidence we have - we don't see averages, but rather a jerky series of changes. Evolution does not defy logic. God does that.

Thats worse yet, you obviously have not investigated or read anything about ID. You can apply caos theory to the weather but not to biological functions in the human body. Imagine your heartbeat would be like the weather.

What we see is missing links,that are not there, that is the evidence.

There are, usually, no two of anything. Every individual is often different. Mutations, environmental differences and so on pull populations apart. Evolution involves an unstable shifting balance between these forces, and interbreeding etc which tries to pull the population back together.

There is male and female, that is the bipolar sexual relationship. Every individual is distinct, i agree. There are no mutations that contribute anything to evolution except extintion. Environmental changes, produce changes in populations. You lost me, why does interbreeding pull the population back together? I think your stressed.
http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm

 

[Rader]

Originally posted by Zero
No, see, science is always provisional, therefore we can never claim to know anything 100%. However, while evolutionary theories aren't perfect, "Intelligent Design" contains NO theories.

Zero here is a link to a page on "Intellegent Design" I agree with your first sentance. Not with your second sentance. Read>>>>>>>>>>>http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm

 

[FZ+]

The underlying design is what makes it work. The design is superior to the funtion, that's why things work..
What we observe in the macro is order. What we observe in the micro is irreducible wave patterns.

That's where complexity theory comes it. Complexity and chaos are sort of a couple. They describe two sides of the same coin. Complexity describes how small entities in large numbers lead to order. Chaos does the opposite. Both are demonstration of the widespread trend for the inferior to lead the superior. Evolution is a splicing of the two, working across different scales. Look up research on fireflies.

Thats worse yet, you obviously have not investigated or read anything about ID. You can apply caos theory to the weather but not to biological functions in the human body. Imagine your heartbeat would be like the weather.

Oh ah... Bad choice there. One of the earliest application of chaos theory was to describe the heart.

http://husol.hahnemann.edu/chaosjk1.htm

What we see is missing links,that are not there, that is the evidence.

No we don't. We see varying sparsities of certain formations. We see indistinct characterisations of actual species. We see precisely what chance based evolution predicts, and precisely not the diffuse scattering around a central design that design based conjecture involves.

There are no mutations that contribute anything to evolution except extintion.

Microbes are not going extinct. Nor are the people on certain highland areas. It is unjustifiable to make your claim.

You lost me, why does interbreeding pull the population back together?

Because interbreeding between different types evens out the sharp differences. Speciation occurs when interbreeding is defeated.

The article is incorrect, as the specification is only done after the event. Nor is it correct that chance cannot produce complex specified data - it is done simply by culmination of pseudorandom data, specifying by environmental conditions, and then accumulate for complexity. This is demonstrable through computer programs, and the evolution of whirlpools etc.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Rader
Zero here is a link to a page on "Intellegent Design" I agree with your first sentance. Not with your second sentance. Read>>>>>>>>>>>http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm

Too bad, because my second sentence was also true. You've got to get a handle on the difference between "theory" and "hypothesis".

Plus, Dembski is blowing smoke up your butt...he either doesn't completely understand information theory, or intentionally misrepresents it. He bases most of it on misused terms, contradictory standards, and subjective criteria based on prior bias.

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Royce
Thank you for this well thought out, intelligent and enlightening post. You show not only your rudeness but also your ignorance. Only a fool thinks that something he doesn't understand or know anything about is foolish. You still have a ways to go before you can beat Zero in sarcasm. He at least can be original, funny and yet poignant.

Yeah, that's just because Zero is smarter and more mature than me. But hey I'm a younger guy. I have many years to learn yet and at least I have the drive to actually go about learning.

I am also pretty funny, but only if you have thick skin, as my satire and sarcastic wit does not mix well with some. I apologize.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Deviant
Yeah, that's just because Zero is smarter and more mature than me. But hey I'm a younger guy. I have many years to learn yet and at least I have the drive to actually go about learning.

I am also pretty funny, but only if you have thick skin, as my satire and sarcastic wit does not mix well with some. I apologize.

No need as far as I'm concerned. Its just that we've been here before and saying the same things. Zero used Santa Claus and pink unicorns or some such nonsense. Twer me I'd set my sights higher, as much as I appreciate Zero's humor(?) and intellect.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Royce
No need as far as I'm concerned. Its just that we've been here before and saying the same things. Zero used Santa Claus and pink unicorns or some such nonsense. Twer me I'd set my sights higher, as much as I appreciate Zero's humor(?) and intellect.

At least I recognise my nonsense for what it is...you actually believe in mytholoical beings, so what does that make you?[?]

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Zero
At least I recognize my nonsense for what it is...you actually believe in mythological beings, so what does that make you?[?]

Your mythological being is my reality, my experience. What do you think led my to where I now am. All of the mythology of both the Christian and Buddhist religions as well as those of the Greeks and Romans showed me that it was nonsense yet also showed me that there must be some truth hidden in all of those wonderful stories. Either that or all men were and are mad.
I looked for the truth and found it everywhere I looked as long as I did not take the stories literally but looked into their meaning and purpose. I had to invent my own religion by combining several hopefully keeping the truth and the good and throwing out the nonsense and bad. The similarities and parallels are compelling. There must be something to them. It had to be my own lack of understanding and vision that made it nonsense.
You had your Santa and pink unicorn. Deeviant has his gym shorts.
I, not being nearly so creative nor imaginative, had my fire god. I was not so willing to scorn nor ridicule thousands of years of study, reflection, revelation and meditation of thousands of people. I was not so arrogant to think that all of them were totally wrong or deluded and I in my few years of life was so wise, experienced and intelligent that I knew better than all of them. There had to be something to it, some truth, some reality to it all.
So I looked. I looked with an open mind willing myself to see what was not what I wanted or believed. I saw. I experienced. I know.
Yet to you I am a believer in nonsensical myths. So be it.
But ask yourself just once; "Could it be me? Could I be the one in my youth and arrogance be the one that is wrong?"

 

[Zero]

"Open-mindedness" is a cop-out. What it is in reality is a call for people to suspend rational thought.

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Royce
Either that or all men were and are mad.

I would vote for all men were and are mad.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Zero
"Open-mindedness" is a cop-out. What it is in reality is a call for people to suspend rational thought.

No, it is a call for people to rid themselves of the belief that they already know it all and that their mind is made up and not to confuse them with facts. To forget what you holy science and school books taught you and realize that they too just like the bible were written by men, only men just like you and me and they have no more handle on the truth or reality than you or me.
How you scorn at people how believe the bible yet you yourself believe the science books that have to be rewritten every 10-20 years. Which book do you put your faith in today. How do you feel when you find that it was all hogwash and there is a new high priest of physics with his new gospels that you now have to learn knowing that in 10-20 year from now it will be found that hi too was full of s**t.

 

[ahrkron]

Originally posted by Royce
To forget what you holy science and school books taught you and realize that they too just like the bible were written by men, only men just like you and me and they have no more handle on the truth or reality than you or me.

There is one very important difference.

As you say, science books are indeed written by men, as was the Bible. However, science books compile the results of the work of literally hundreds of thousands of people. Not only each assertion on them can be traced to the experimental work of a group of people, but also it has been verified by numerous independent groups, each one publishing not just the results, but also the full procedure for repeating the observation.

Whatever is written on a "science book", as you call them, can be verified today by following the procedure.

On the other hand, what is written in the Bible is, by its very nature, impossible to replicate.

Both require a certain amount of "faith", but of very different type.

How you scorn at people how believe the bible yet you yourself believe the science books that have to be rewritten every 10-20 years.

Not really. In science, theories are not "rewritten" when further experimental precision shows new patterns. New models are developed which are required to give the same results that old theories did when applied to the old problems, or when the precision is limited to that available in the old data.

[Edit: typo]

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Royce
No, it is a call for people to rid themselves of the belief that they already know it all and that their mind is made up and not to confuse them with facts. To forget what you holy science and school books taught you and realize that they too just like the bible were written by men, only men just like you and me and they have no more handle on the truth or reality than you or me.
How you scorn at people how believe the bible yet you yourself believe the science books that have to be rewritten every 10-20 years. Which book do you put your faith in today. How do you feel when you find that it was all hogwash and there is a new high priest of physics with his new gospels that you now have to learn knowing that in 10-20 year from now it will be found that hi too was full of s**t.

Royce, man. I REALLY think you should take a logical look at your argument. You would find it extremely flawed.

Lets say two men each write a book outlining the construction of sail boats. When the books were written, both men had no experience and were basically just guessing. Over tens of years of experimentation, one of the men incorporates all his knowledge into a revision of his book, he adds all the things he learned, and changes the things in the earlier version of the book that were simply wrong.

The other man views his original book as sacred. He not only limits himself to only techniques in his original work, he also refuses to make any sort of revision to it.

60 years down the road, the two men are old and ready to retire so they proudly give their ship constuction books to their son's.

Which son would you rather be? Which son do you think would be more successful?


Do you really think that the work involved with learning new ideas outwieghs the benefit of knowledge?

 

[FZ+]

How do you feel when you find that it was all hogwash and there is a new high priest of physics with his new gospels that you now have to learn knowing that in 10-20 year from now it will be found that hi too was full of s**t.

I feel that this is what I expected all along. Science is not a body of facts, it is an eternal process, an attitude of thought. We must accept that all our theories will be improved on and replaced. This replacement is what makes science interesting. We don't believe in our textbooks. We believe them to be wrong, but less wrong than the present alternatives. In theory, science is the epitomy of open-mindedness. In practice, the phrase open-minded is used as a bludgeon to fend off necessary scepticism, and strengthen weak ideas.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by FZ+
I feel that this is what I expected all along. Science is not a body of facts, it is an eternal process, an attitude of thought. We must accept that all our theories will be improved on and replaced. This replacement is what makes science interesting. We don't believe in our textbooks. We believe them to be wrong, but less wrong than the present alternatives. In theory, science is the epitomy of open-mindedness. In practice, the phrase open-minded is used as a bludgeon to fend off necessary scepticism, and strengthen weak ideas.

I agree with all this for the most part. I'll only add that science is open minded only to the extent that the method allows it to be. It is up to philosphy to decide how adequate that is.

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Fliption
I agree with all this for the most part. I'll only add that science is open minded only to the extent that the method allows it to be. It is up to philosphy to decide how adequate that is.

And why is that. What gives philosophy cardinal right to judge science?

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Deeviant
And why is that. Why gives philosophy cardinal right to judge science?

Because that's what philosophy is. The scientific method is but a creation and a tool of philosophy. An act of science cannot judge the scientific method. Only philosophy has that scope.

 

[Deeviant]

Originally posted by Fliption
Because that's what philosophy is. The scientific method is but a creation and a tool of philosophy. An act of science cannot judge the scientific method. Only philosophy has that scope.

There then is no difference between science and philosophy and thus the statement "It is up to philosphy to decide how adequate it(science) is" has no meaning.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Deeviant
There then is no difference between science and philosophy and thus the statement "It is up to philosphy to decide how adequate it(science) is" has no meaning.

Well, there is a philosophy of science, but some folks seek to ignore it, because it doesn't allow for the level of subjectivity that they would like. So, they assert that a more subjective style of philosophy is needed to reign over science, so that they can insert the level of subjectivity that they desire.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Deeviant
There then is no difference between science and philosophy and thus the statement "It is up to philosphy to decide how adequate it(science) is" has no meaning.

No, philosophy is a broader field around acquiring wisdom/knowledge. Science is a subset or a tool of philosophy that helps to accomplish that through a strict method of application.

 

[Royce]

My point in my previous post was that scientist are people with all of the human weaknesses and biases just like those who wrote the bible.
We all have a tendency to resist change and to discard the things we worked so hard to attain and obtain including learning and knowledge. Established scientist resist change just like everybody else does.
Do I need to list the many cases of established science ridiculing and deriding young scientists with new theories that have taken place just in my life time. Even the term Big Bang was a term of derision but backfired as it was soon became the accepted name of the theory.

We seem to forget that religion and spirituality is based on the study and observations and experience of thousands of people of every culture over thousands of years. Yet since it isn't science or empirical or material it is bunk and myth. That in my opinion is the very definition of a closed mind with telescopic vision.

 

[Zero]

Resisting change is good, so long as you don't totally rule it out. Any scientific theory which survives the onslaught of peer review and heavy resistance deserves to be embraced, that's the point of the whole thing in the first place.

As far as the "experience" of people over thousands of years...the evidence doesn't hold up to scrutiny, which means it is rightly rejected. When you get better evidence, you are always welcome to try again, though. THAT'S the great part about science, the willingness to accept new evidence. When was the last time you saw a religion change its mind when new evidence debunked their beliefs?

 

[Royce]

While it and all related evidence is not empirical, never can be empirical, it is evidence. It is verifiable, repeatable, and observable. You yourself have observed all of this time and time again right here of this forum. A number of us, myself, Les, Ole drunk for just a few have all reported the same things in our own personal way as it applies to us individually but it is the same phenomena.
You come short of calling all of us liars but you do not hesitate to say that we are deluded and believers in myth. You poke fun at us with your Santa Claus and pink unicorns just as Deeviant does with his gym shorts. And yes I do think it is funny and am not in the least offended. Frustrated, yes; but, not offended.
So long as you close your mind to the possibility of there being any real thing that is not material and not measurable then you and other like you will never be able to accept what virtually all of mankind has been saying for 3000+ years; nor, will you ever be able to see any thing but what you let yourself see or know. Your position that nothing that is not material and not supported by empirical evidence can exist is reality is a closed position of tunnel vision.

However, every once in a while you have let slip a tiny bit of subjective belief as in your previous post of different levels of the mind. It is not just you Zero, or even Deeviant; I just can't see how one could call him or herself a scientist in good conscious unless they are willing to look at all of the evidence, empirical or not, and be willing to look wherever that evidence might lead them.
Your also wrong about scientist denying evidence even repeatable empirical evidence for the sake of status quo. It has happened time and time again in this century alone. If they can't attack or dispute the evidence they attack the person and literally attempt to destroy their career and drum them out of the field. That is not science nor are they the scientist that the claim to be when they act this way; but, it is human.
My one and only point is that science is a tool used by human beings and is only as good as the humans using it. In this sense science is no different or better than religionists, dualist or idealist or me a realist.

I am also a left handed Capricorn which may in itself explain a lot.

 

[Polly]

When a business from the UK goes to the PRC to do business, he has to comply with all the PRC rules and regulations, he can't just say,"Why should I go through business registration again? I am a Fortune 100 company with a market capitalisation of US100 million, everybody knows me, check it out and don't bother me again." He would make himself very unpopular if he does so. Likewise, he should not find himself saying,"I want this to be executed as a deed for maximum security, your chop just isn't good enough." He would be surprised to know that a simple thing as a seal is an affront to the PRC ideology and an icon of evil old China. Likewise he should not expect his equitable interest in a property enforceable in the country because equity was almost a corollary imperative of English history.
My point is, since skepticism is an essential part of scientific mental discipline, we just have to accept and respect it. After all it is this very skeptism and regidity in methodology that lends it its authority.

 

[Zero]

Royce,

I don't understand how something non-empirical could be counted as evidence with the same weight as empirical evidence. The idea is ridiculous, anti-reason, anti-science. I don't think you are liars, and I think your experiences are "real", I just don't think they carry the significance you assign to them. After all, I've done the meditation thing, the OBE, etc, and never for a moment did I think there was anything non-physical about it.