Philosophy Now Forum

reasonvemotion wrote: I could match you article for article and this could go on indefinitely.

No Ma'am. The fact remains that you would be quoting things off the creationist blogosphere. I don't know what you think counts as an "Article".

The fact remains that you have nothing specific to say about ice core extraction from ice sheets in Antarctica. I linked you twice. You said the fossil record supports a flood, I said that is absolutely false. You asked for evidence of that. I presented a diagram of mass extinctions.

The fact remains that only in some sectors of public news media, talk shows, internet forums, internet chat rooms. Only in those places is a lie perpetuated that there is equal evidence out there for "both sides". I understand this lie saturates the public discourse. But the moment you set foot in any institution of higher learning, among people who collect evidence from the wild and publish it under peer-review. Among many scientific disciplines, evolution by natural selection is not being debated anymore. Its mechanisms are not being debated. It is not a wild, contentious theory anymore and it hasn't been for about seven decades.

The next reply you will have to this, is some variation along the lines that universities are full of "Evolutionists" who are boiled-in-the-pot atheists. They work together to reinforce and perpetuate their "Secular Agenda" their "Naturalistic Worldview" or their "Atheistic philosophy" , or whatever catch-phrase Glenn Beck is using this week. We've heard that one before too, and it is equally false. It also saturates the public discourse, but again that doesn't make it any more true.

At the end of the day, the one thing I hope to communicate to you, is simply this one item:

(be it the formation of the sun, the formation of the earth, the history of living organisms... ) When scientists say that something happened naturally, they say those things because they have evidence showing it. They are not concocting these stories to make them fit with "Darwinism" or whatever Huckabee or Rick Santorum is calling it this week. Don't let anyone hoodwink you on this, reasonvemotion.

When scientists say that something happened naturally, they say those things because they have evidence showing it. They are not concocting these stories to make them fit with "Darwinism" or whatever Huckabee or Rick Santorum is calling it this week. Don't let anyone hoodwink you on this, reasonvemotion.

Science cannot really explain how we came to be here. It has no satisfactory explanation for the origin of the universe, it has no explanation in terms of proven models for how life came to exist, it has no explanation for how the laws of physics and chemsitry could come to be ; it has no explanation for how the massive amount of purposeful information encoded in DNA could arise.

There is no known proven mechanism that can explain all the steps for a living cell to form from nonliving molecules.

Don't let anyone hoodwink you on this, Kuznetzova.

(Sorry I need to edit a lot of this.)

reasonvemotion wrote: Science cannot really explain how we came to be here.

Okay yes. Anyone out there who says they know the ultimate purpose and meaning is lying to you. Science has no evidence supporting that. That would count as a case of them concocting a story without evidence.

reasonvemotion wrote: It has no satisfactory explanation for the origin of the universe, it has no explanation in terms of proven models for how life came to exist, it has no explanation for how the laws of physics and chemsitry could come to be ;

That's correct. Anyone who tells you that they know the answers to these question is lying. If they try to tell you, they are concocting a story with no evidence to support it. I think these are all good philosophical topics. There is the problem of the origin of energy; with the origin of empty space; and with the origin of the laws of physics. You are right in saying that scientists do take public stance on these things. So yes, in those cases they could be concocting a story for which they have no evidence.

reasonvemotion wrote: it has no explanation for how the massive amount of purposeful information encoded in DNA could arise.

Well I would say this is probably not true. Natural Selection is a sufficient explanation. You have to first consider the number of atoms that make up an organism, in conjunction with the number of organisms that have ever lived, including the million billion billion trillion or so bacteria that occupy the oceans at any given time.

reasonvemotion wrote: There is no known proven mechanism that can explain all the steps for a living cell to form from nonliving molecules.

This is also correct. Any scientist or atheist who tells you a story about it has concocted that story. It is true they have no evidence for any such mechanism. Abiogensis is sort of a hodge-podge of just-so stories. Maybe we will discover something about this one day, or maybe not.

reasonvemotion wrote:Don't let anyone hoodwink you on this, Kuznetzova.

I try not to be hoodwinked as much as I can as a person. I don't trust scientists. If I can find time, I prefer to review the evidence myself to see if it matches their stories and wild interpretations. It seems that scientists do sometimes concoct stories without evidence and spread them around. So in that sense, I was technically wrong about this.

This is completely false. Natural Selection is a sufficient explanation for the process.

Natural selection reduces genetic information. This is no secret. If atheists payed attention in biology class vs blind faith in Dawkins.

This is true. Further, science will ever be able to answer the question, "Why are things the way they are?" Science only describes what it measures. Agreed. But in that talk, we are only arguing that God should be a placeholder for gaps in our knowledge. From my perspective, this is not fundamentally different from slapping a label on the problem. This makes about as much progress as taking a bottle full of mysterious liquid and taping a label on the outside with the letters G.O.D. written on it. If there is a good reason for slapping labels on problems like this, we should be able to verbalize that reason.

Look in any dictionary under abiogenesis. Spontaneous generation was falsified 200 years ago.

A creator God that performed the big bang, washed his hands, and went on vacation for 10 billion years. When he gets back he grabs some elements (which he neither designed nor created), and goes to a planet (which he neither designed not created) and says to himself: "Gee -- I think imma design me some DNA today!"

Strawman argument. YEC MOCKS the big bang. YEC starts ~6,000 years ago with Genesis 1:1 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. Atheists starts with Darwin 1:1. 'In the beginning nothing'. Please stop conflating pseudo-science ('evolution' - what a pitiful word) with science. Thank you for your ignorance.

Dear jinx.

Thank you for your enthusiasm.
I removed by edits, and I hereby redact, all the of the portions you quoted above.
Could you please remove your post and then try responding to my edits in their current form? Thanks.

reasonvemotion wrote:Can you give more detail?

The poem the Epic of Gilgamesh. One of the oldest writings we appear to know recounts about a flood story that seems to resemble the Christians Noah story. Now you could say this confirms it but it was way earlier than Noah's so that leads me to think that Noah was a plagiarism therefore a falsehood in the Bible?

jinx wrote:...
Strawman argument. YEC MOCKS the big bang. YEC starts ~6,000 years ago with Genesis 1:1 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. Atheists starts with Darwin 1:1. 'In the beginning nothing'. Please stop conflating pseudo-science ('evolution' - what a pitiful word) with science. Thank you for your ignorance.

Since you're in the 99% of never having read Darwins book I think where the ignorance is is clear.

Your are once again conflating Physics and Biology and demonstrating your ignorance of science. Not least because you make a mockery of geological science with your religious dogma about the age of the Earth.

Didn't you say "cya"? Try and live by your word.

That's correct. Anyone who tells you that they know the answers to these question is lying. If they try to tell you, they are concocting a story with no evidence to support it. I think these are all good philosophical topics. There is the problem of the origin of energy; with the origin of empty space; and with the origin of the laws of physics. You are right in saying that scientists do take public stance on these things. So yes, in those cases they could be concocting a story for which they have no evidence.

Usshers Annals

'It is not strange that the heathens who are totally ignorant of the Holy Bible, should despair of ever attaining the knowledge of the world's beginnings.'

Well I would say this is probably not true. Natural Selection is a sufficient explanation.

Natural selection reduces genetic information. Diploid genome and NS were created by God of Genesis to allow kinds to survive in numerous environments.

jinx wrote:...
Natural selection reduces genetic information. ...

What do you mean by "information" here?

Diploid genome and NS were created by God of Genesis to allow kinds to survive in numerous environments.

If so why does your Bible not say this? Why does it say that this 'God' created the animals whole?

I'm also confused that you can use the term Natural Selection, in what sense are you using it?

Although I do agree that you godbotherers can save your faith by saying that this 'God' started any scientifically explained process but then I think you have the problem that to remain in science your 'God' cannot be an interfering one.

Start with 100 dogs 50 short hair 50 long hair select out the 50 short hair (cold environment) select for the 50 long hair genetic information has been reduced. Started with long and short hair genes reduced genetic information to just long hair genes.

If so why does your Bible not say this? Why does it say that this 'God' created the animals whole?

Umm the bible was written thousand of years before Watson and Crick.


Although I do agree that you Darwinbotherers can save your faith by saying that this 'god (Darwin)' started any scientifically explained process but then I think you have the problem that to remain in science your 'Darwins corpses spirit' cannot be an interfering one.

reasonvemotion wrote:Science cannot really explain how we came to be here. It has no satisfactory explanation for the origin of the universe, it has no explanation in terms of proven models for how life came to exist, it has no explanation for how the laws of physics and chemsitry could come to be ; it has no explanation for how the massive amount of purposeful information encoded in DNA could arise. There is no known proven mechanism that can explain all the steps for a living cell to form from nonliving molecules.

That Science has not provided an all-encompassing explanation for all things is not a reason for disputing the theories that is has arrived at.

Don't let anyone hoodwink you on this, Kuznetzova.

It is you who is doing the hoodwinking by inferring that a theory and the scientific method needs to have explained everything before what it currently explains can be considered true.

I think that you find Science unsatisfactory in its explanations because you believe your religious creationist dogma.

jinx wrote:Start with 100 dogs 50 short hair 50 long hair select out the 50 short hair (cold environment) select for the 50 long hair genetic information has been reduced. Started with long and short hair genes reduced genetic information to just long hair genes.

You think the genes for short-hair have been lost!?

This is not an explanation for what you mean by "information" in your assertions, are you talking about genetic variability?

Umm the bible was written thousand of years before Watson and Crick.

So your Bible is not infallible and can be reinterpreted?

Although I do agree that you Darwinbotherers can save your faith by saying that this 'god (Darwin)' started any scientifically explained process but then I think you have the problem that to remain in science your 'Darwins corpses spirit' cannot be an interfering one.

I think you ought to reread this as unlike the original it makes no philosophical sense.

That you are in the 99% who has never read Darwin I think you have no say.

tillingborn wrote:Wotcher Arising
My favourite story about flood myths is that they are ancestral yarns about the end off the last ice age, when either the straits of Gibraltar or the Bosphoros where breached by melt water from the receding ice caps. 40 days later, there was a Mediterranean or Black Sea. Then again that was before the world was created according to some.

Heyup tillingborn,
Was it truly that short a time? Wow! I guess that could leave such a word-of-mouth myth and I tend to agree that under most myths theres a probable event.

Arising wrote:

The poem the Epic of Gilgamesh. One of the oldest writings we appear to know recounts about a flood story that seems to resemble the Christians Noah story. Now you could say this confirms it but it was way earlier than Noah's so that leads me to think that Noah was a plagiarism therefore a falsehood in the Bible?

Contrary to many assumptions, evolutionary theory did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species, evolution-like ideas had existed since the times of the Greeks. By Darwin's time several other evolutionary theories had already been proposed. Darwin may stand at the beginning of a modern tradition, but he is also the final culmination of an ancient speculation.

Does that lead you to think also that Darwin plagiarized the Origin of Species.

Arising_uk wrote:Was it truly that short a time? Wow!

Oh ye of little faith. The bible states quite clearly that it rained for forty days and forty nights.

reasonvemotion wrote:Contrary to many assumptions, evolutionary theory did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species, evolution-like ideas had existed since the times of the Greeks.

True. My favourite is Empedocles'; his idea was that before people and animals came together as such, the individual components spontaneously appeared, as living things were believed to have done since ancient times, it was Louis Pasteur who finally put paid to spontaneous generation. According to Empedocles: ‘Here sprang up many faces without necks, arms wandered without shoulders, unattached, and eyes strayed alone, in need of foreheads.’ So all sort of abominations appeared before the animals we are familiar with came to be. According to one story, Empedocles threw himself into Mount Etna to prove he was immortal, turns out he was wrong about that as well.