Is U.S. Becoming Hostile to Science?

Nope, she's always been hostile It's part of her cuddly charm.

!

Cuddly? Hostile is the new Hot.

Excellent!

One might note that the eternal argument over origins, which contains much that may never yield up proof in one direction or the other, does not seem to be stopping the vast majority of technological progress and the accumulation of scientific data. Priesthoods within the scientific community come and go. Atheistic mysticism seems to be the order of the day, but it is not a necessary feature of the honest search for answers.

This phrase "science" which starts things off needs some exercise of the severability clause - simple association with the term or with those in the academic or medical communities does not mean what you are doing is scientific. It certainly doesn't give you the automatic ability to define truth.

It seems to me that any new creation of life in the laboratory would only be a tautology - it would demonstrate that by intelligent application of natural chemical processes, life can arise. Neither hypothesis would be answered by such a result. Now what would be really interesting is if despite trying for centuries, no one could ever do it.

No, that I got, tho it exasperates me at times.

Ok, now I'm dizzily confused.

Honest, noncombative question: is that part of Christian teaching?

Do (generally) all Christians believe this?

I thought the good / evil dichotomy was somehow tied into the concept of free will, though I can't cite a source - perhaps just personal speculation on my part.


The implications of predestiny seem to be, well, quite dooming.

Enough to make a man stop at a liquor store, before proceeding down the one-way road to his eternal reward.

Some Christians believe one way, others believe the other way.

Some call it pre-knowledge, in that God knows us before be were born.

The Bible has several references to predestination.

I don't understand why it would be dooming to be part of a plan that means one will be in harmony with all that is.

Paul was a killer of Christians, yet he turned out to be the one who wrote most of the New Testament. That's why I never assume anything about anyone. God made us all as He saw fit, and we are exactly as He designed, in my opinion.

Would it be dooming to say that that is a very interesting sentence?

~Ulrika~

Not at all. Sorry for my grammar. I never really enjoyed writing, until IRC/ IM. It bored me to tears. I love to read because there is so much to know. But for some reason, with all the reading I've done, I never have had great vocabulary or grammar skills. The funny thing is I used to teach English in South America. lol, go ahead, laugh it up. To them, my English was excellent. They scored very well in tests because we talked for hours in English. I think they taught me more than I taught them. It's amazing how much we can learn from one another if we listen. Hugs

I'm sorry. I know I've been holding your feet to the fire but I can't resist pointing out how funny this sentence is coming from you. I've lost count of how many times people have repeated the same content to you over and over.

~Ulrika~

Yes, that is strange, as if I didn't read it the first time.

The fact someone says something, or even if 1 million people say something, I don't have to believe it or accept it. Millions of young adults come from like-minded universities each year, parroting their professors every word as if it's a dogma. We need to teach young people to think outside the box. They should question everything, religion included.

That's a weak excuse. Let's try something that's trivially verifiable as factual that I've said to you about eight times now (no exaggeration).

Do you understand that natural selection is not a random process?

Let's stay on this topic until you understand it. Do not change the subject. Do not post anything about "abiogenesis". Can you do this?

~Ulrika~

Ah, well yes I suppose the very definition of prophesy contains some element of predestination to it... something I hadn't quite considered.

I used the word 'dooming' in its fullest meaning (save the part about Anglo-Saxon rule of law) - may your god and fellow mortals please forgive me for posting a dictionary definition within a forum. It is something I have never done prior:

*holds own nose*

Doom: http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/doom

1. Inevitable destruction or ruin.
   
2. Fate, especially a tragic or ruinous one.
   
3. A decision or judgment, especially an official condemnation to a severe penalty.
   
4. Judgment Day.
   
5. A statute or ordinance, especially one in force in Anglo-Saxon England.
   

My use of this word allowed the possibility of a 'good' doom like the one you suggest. While not so subtly begging the question: could a child be damned, irreversibly, from the moment of its creation? That would be the fear.

Considering if:

1) You are absolutely right about the universe,
2) I am predestined for eternity in Hades,

... in that case, well, I am quite happy for my ignorance. And likely to purchase sufficient alcohol to *further* distance myself from the inevitable, whilst I still can!

It would have been fascinating, I think, to hear a debate between (an evangelical?) such as yourself and a traditional Sudamerican Catolico, in the original.

Doubtless the discussion would have had all the intensity one finds in your exchange of words with Ulrika, but with the added flavour and implications that only Castillian Spanish has to offer.

Recuerdo, La Virgen bencedir tu alma, senor.

- Desmundo Shang

* I now return you to your repartee with the Atheists, and bow out *

Do you then acknowledge that life forms act with intent to survive?

Provided we share the same definition of "act", then I do.

~Ulrika~

I thought of a little logic trap you might be headed into, but I doubt it will matter much. I think natural selection is a main method by which organisms adapt to changing conditions. However, that leaves out the method by which the variations on which natural selection acts are created. As far as anyone can tell, these are produced by random recombination of genes from the parent organisms. This is nondeterminism, or a random process, wouldn't you say?

The speed at which succeeding generations sometimes adapt in the right direction leaves doubts in my mind as to whether natural selection by random variation is the only mechanism at work. It would not surprise me at all that the body has mechanisms by which to choose different genes to activate, based on the environmental stressors met. (I'm sure those more scholarly than I could even point out the research on this). There is also evidence that microbes steal genetic information from one another as a part of their own survival strategy.

But as far as the intent question goes... what combination of genes or chemicals codes for this self-awareness? Do you believe in free will? Or is it just happenstance, a tendency of chemicals to self-replicate?

Randomness is but one component of natural selection. Randomness is introduced in sexual reproduction through a random (yet bounded) combination of parental genes and by errors in genetic replication or mutations due to the environment.

The success of these genes is reflected in a statistical quantifier known as fitness. Some genes in a given environment will provide an increased probability that an organism will mate (sexual selection) or survive to mate (natural selection). Over a period of time, genes which provide increased fitness will spread throughout the population.

Thus natural selection is driven ultimately by the statistical fitness of genes that change in a bounded random fashion every generation (for sexual reproduction). It is not a random process and thus arguments against it that rely on infinitesimal probabilities are fallacious.

Under extreme environmental pressure, organisms can change quite rapidly. For instance, selective human breeding (human selection as opposed to natural selection) can yield novel varieties of plants, flowers, trees, dogs, and cats in just a few generations. For example, specialty dogs (hunting, show, lap) are all bred by selecting which dogs will breed based on a given trait. Humans (as opposed to the environment) decide the fitness of a gene and then see that it propagates. This is how humans have been able to evolve many different breeds of dog from their feral ancestors.

I have no answer for this.

Absolutely. The field of evolutionary psychology is dedicated to explaining how autonomous organisms are influenced by their genes through emotions. (I could write a book on that. )

~Ulrika~

In the last portion you state your simultaneous belief in free will and in evolutionary psychology. There's no way I'm descending into that snake pit tonight, but how do you reconcile these contradictory viewpoints of human nature?

They are actually not contradictory. Given that I'm heading to sleep, I'll keep this brief.

Stated simply, evolutionary psychology states that the our consciousness and emotions evolved together. Emotions exist as methods of influencing an autonomous being. For instance, lust serves the purpose of convincing an autonomous being to stop playing chess and to go reproduce. Fear serves the purpose of convincing an autonomous being to avoid a dangerous situation or animal.

(Did I answer the wrong question?)

~Ulrika~

Ulrika,

"Natural selection is a process by which biological populations are altered over time, as a result of the propagation of heritable traits that affect the capacity of individual organisms to survive and reproduce. " wikipedia

The reason natural selection has absolutly no bearing on the discussion I was having is because in order for natural selection to happen, there must be life first.

Before tackling the issue of how biological populations are altered, we must first learn how the first biological entity came to be. That is why I was discussing abiogenesis, as it is the theory that suggests life came from non-living matter.

The first "animal" came to be when mankind drew a collective line in the sand and declared:

"That's an animal, and THAT's not an animal".






'The world is a thing we whipped up amongst ourselves and agreed to forget the gag.'
Robert A Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land

As a person with a leg in both camps, perhaps I can help here.

I am not a Christian, and I believe that the bible, like other religious texts, is mostly error, misunderstanding and irrelevancy. But it does say "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and unto man that which is man's". Or something like that. I think it is the answer here.

The mistake religious people can make is to allow their spiritual beliefs to contaminate their relation with the material world.

Science is our explanation for the material world and its operation. It is the essential tool we have painstakingly developed to predict and therefore control it, for the purposes (at least originally) of our bodily survival.

It must be taught in our schools. It is the "operating handbook" of the material world as we have discovered it happens to be, including the human body, with one of which we are all supplied.

Spirituality, and its less committed brother, philosophy, are something else.

Imagine someone has given you a computer. It didn't come with an official operating handbook from the manufacturer, but you find that previous users have painstakingly built up a huge body of documentation, and a model of its operation, which in practice you find works well. Call this the "user generated handbook" or UGH.

Some people may get so absorbed in using their computer that they have no awareness that there is anything outside, immersing themselves in its operation. They come to believe that its UGH is the rules of existence. This may be sufficient for their lives, and indeed thay may be able to get more from it, and have more fun, with this attitude.

Now imagine someone becomes aware of the desk, the chair, the floor - of the possibility of different computers with different structures, of the existence of computer factories, of design teams, manufacturers.

Should such a wider interest alter their use of, or belief in, the UGH ?

No. For practical purposes in operating the computer it is likely to remain unchallenged, being designed exactly for the purpose by the users themselves.

Some people may well become puzzled that the manufacturer didn't supply an official manual, and may start hunting the file system for half-hidden documents or other obscure pronouncements. Thus are organised religions born, with conflict between different groups seizing on different texts. And profiting from their promulgation.

For me, it is apparent that no such thing has been left on the computer, except maybe as a few scattered clues. And those refer not to the detailed operation of the computer itself (which is of little importance except when operating it) but to the existence of the outside-computer-reality.

But even if I am wrong, there is still no substitute for the UGH as a guide to operating the material world. It is designed exactly for that purpose. It needs to be taught, understood and mastered before you take your eyes off the screen and start looking around.

The nature of the surrounding room, with its own different logic, is a totally separate matter, and indeed as we know its very existence is a matter of dispute.

Teach science for the same reason we teach people to drive a car. Like car driving, which is useless when you are not in a car, science (but maybe not its methods) is useless when you are no longer in the material world. But which of us is that ?

And when you ARE at the wheel of a car, you are a moron to refuse to learn how to do it. As for refusing to show your kids how it works, and sending them driving to the shops - well !

Things of the spirit and of the material world are separate. Each should be rendered to its own, as with Caesar. Their intersection is morality. The spirit does not compete in physics or geology or biology or history. They are outside (beneath ?) its attention.

Most of the confusion is perhaps generated by those who have seen nothing for themselves, but take their glimpses secondhand from others, swallow the texts they are offered with no ability to assess them, and consequently haven't actually the slightest clue about anything of significance.

Their highest achievement is to appreciate that many of these texts were written in part to incorporate genuinely high moral ideals and principles. The naive seize upon these to authenticate their following the book, unaware that they are equally well derived from humanistic experiences. They cry "Look, my book is so full of moral truths at MUST be divinely inspired". They rarely hear the reply "Sorry, chum, those are, and have been, easily derivable with no such intervention".

Because the morality and social-engineering in their text is all they can appreciate and assess, they cling to it, and think it is the prerogative of a divine text, and that they have understood. They use it massively in discussion with non-believers, not realising that it is irrelevant to the question of divinity.

In my opinion religion should not be taught to children. Teach them morality, then science, then maybe philosophy. Tell them from the start that many believe there is something more that is not apparent, and that there are many who seek a deeper explanation. But that this is something they will need to investigate individually when they are older, if they feel an impulse to do so. Many never do, and that is ok too.

The quote is somethig like... render unto Caesar that which is Caesars, and unto God that which is God's. Jesus said this when people tried to make him out to be anti-tax. He was refering to the image of Ceasar on the money, the image of God is on the people, so render to God yourselves was the message.

The problem we have is, many within the scientific community have allowed science to become dogmatic. Much of what is taught to children as fact is actually dogma, no better than religious teachings.

When people use science to suggest there is no God they cross the line of seperation of church and state. Atheism is a religion, and pushing it on children is at least as bad as telling them God created life. If education is to be religion neutral, it can't support either view. Otherwise, those on the other side will demand equal representation of their side.