That Theory Of Evolution

[Blade Runner]

i rememeber only too well in Colorado ('bouit 7 years back) being told that the Rockie mts were only 6000 years old!!!! But here's the twist ....the dude was otherwise quite smart.....i'm still traumatised

 

Is it supposed to be about 6000 years since Adam and Eve? Was that his angle?

[Chinahand]

I think the biggest mystery about this is that so many people are just not prepared to accept "we don't know" for an answer. It's as if nature abhors that vacuum in their knowledge. Maybe it does.

 

Its interesting - my feeling is that I, and most likely Slim, are quite happy with the idea that there is a vacumn in our knowledge - what Slim abhors is attempts by the religious to fill that vacumn with Gods with no justification whatsoever. There is a chance that a part of that vacumn does contain something we in our limited view might call a God - but equally it may not - as we are all agreed we do not know! Plus, just because a part of the vacumn may contain soemthing we might call a God that does not mean that any of the religious world-views existing today are correct. My view is that those world views are totally a human construct, based on our psychology, and are nothing to do with the cosmic nods and winks of revelation from supernatural intelligences.

 

 

i rememeber only too well in Colorado ('bouit 7 years back) being told that the Rockie mts were only 6000 years old!!!! But here's the twist ....the dude was otherwise quite smart.....i'm still traumatised

 

Intelligence is only poorly correlated with holding a scientific outlook. Knowledge correlates better, but even then it's not perfect. The main issue are the base assumptions people hold. If you gain a certain set of axioms you can be highly intelligent, and knowledgeable of the world, and still hold to creationist views. Portraying creationists as thick ignorant hicks is not accurate or helpful. Informing them can be helpful, but the trouble is they see evolution as underminding their core beliefs.

 

Many atheists get really mad at attempts, like the piece I've posted above by John Wilkins, which try to provide theists with an explanation of evolution which is compatable with their world view.

 

Here the argument gets subtle - I disagree with the basic theist world view and will argue with it and critique it. Is it helpful to remove evolution from that debate or keep it in? This goes basically to the central point of what rationality and "science" are. I feel religious people are capable of doing great science, but ultimately they hold a world view which is profoundly unscientific.

 

The reasoned position is agnosticism, not faith in things unseen, nor I freely admit certainty there is no type of God whatsoever - but I know of few atheists who hold that position.

 

Lonan3, I think a reason Dawkins often gets accused of the smugness you deplore is that he points out that a thinking, acting, omniscient, omnipresent being is not an axiomatic starting point, but itself has to be explained. Explaining the universe is complicated enough, but explaining it AND its spontaneous creation by a supernatural being is even more complicated. Dawkins would say adding Gods into the issue makes things worse and makes it less likely to explain things, and he isn't going to do that unless there is a compelling reason to do it.

 

I don't feel such a rejection of Gods fits with your accusation of smugness - this rejection is provisional and for good, pasimonious reasons, not dogma.

[woolley]

The problem we have is that discovering the origins of existence or even its nature maybe an impossible task for us. At least I think we would agree that it will be a very long job and none of us here is going to see its conclusion. Perhaps it is innate to man in his fleeting lifetime to try to provide comforting answers to profound questions hence the rejection of my "we just don't know" replies. People keep saying "it's a cop out" and "but how far are you prepared to go with religion" and "we need to make an assessment based on the known facts". Why do we?

 

The trouble is that the known facts are so bizarre that it is almost meaningless to try to deduce the nature of the universe from them. So whilst science must continue to experiment and make ever more amazing discoveries it is not anywhere near mature enough to yield sensible answers. It's a bit like the notion that walking to the end of the Victoria Pier would assist you in swimming to Liverpool.

 

It gets worse. Every major discovery we make seems to make existence more rather than less complex. When the early astronomers considered the Earth to be at the centre of the universe, everything seemed pretty well wrapped up. When that was questioned and discredited the Church didn't like it at all and you could understand why. The notion of our planet being vanishingly insignificant in the grand scheme of things did not sit well with their agenda. Since then things have only become exponentially more chaotic with every new discovery. Early in the 20th century it was thought that the atom was the basic unit of matter but then we discover the world of sub atomic particles and find that the atom consists mainly of empty space held together by force of energy. We thought that following the big bang, everything in the universe was flying away from everything else and that it would eventually slow down and go into reverse leading to the big crunch. Now we know that actually it is speeding up and expanding at an ever greater rate. Into what? We don't know. Even the motions of celestial bodies such as the orbits of the planets around the sun, long observed and measured are not what they seem. They only appear to be in elliptical orbit relative to our location in observing them. In reality they are traveling at the nearest approximation to a straight line which is being distorted by the effects of their own mutual gravitational attraction and its warping effect on space time. The next batch of discoveries might solve all of our mysteries but I would wager that it's much more likely that they will deepen them.

[Albert Tatlock]

According to hardline creationists, the world began on the 23rd October 4004 BC.

What day was that? A Wednesday?

[quilp]

Good post, Woolley. And indicative of how many people feel about science and discovery. The awe and wonderment can be intimidating and over-whelming which is why people would rather not think too much. You're correct when you say that each new discovery throws up more mystery and tangents but over the millennia our understanding of events and the interpretation of the facts available at any given time has increased its scope. In other words, our intellectual-evolution has expanded alongside our quest for knowledge and the most exciting thing is that there's so much more to learn out there and down here. We bother because we're curious; becoming ever more so with each new discovery. Our methods of analysis and what stuff means has come along in leaps and bounds as has our understanding of the nature of things.

A 'casualty' of this progression has been religion. The explanation of god-head and creator as the reason for our being has lost credibility in tandem with the rise of accepted 'facts' on evolution and origins of species. Religion is effectively becoming less of an option as an explanation of existential reality, certainly in the christian 'west'. It is no longer the opium of the masses, except maybe in those places where blind-faith is the enforced norm and witch-craft still frightens the natives.

[Evil Goblin]

Here's a question. Let's assume that there is a Creator God as set out in Genesis, outside of our space and time and knowing everything (including just what would happen down the ages) - why did He/She bother doing it?

[quilp]

Here's a question. Let's assume that there is a Creator God as set out in Genesis, outside of our space and time and knowing everything (including just what would happen down the ages) - why did He/She bother doing it?

 

Maybe because he hadn't created 'World of Warcraft' by then and was bored.

[The Evil One]

Here's a question. Let's assume that there is a Creator God as set out in Genesis, outside of our space and time and knowing everything (including just what would happen down the ages) - why did He/She bother doing it?

 

 

It was an accident! Careless bastard!

[woolley]

Nothing we have discovered through modern science precludes the possibility of a creator because we have no idea what happened at the time our universe was created. It is probably the complexity of what we have discovered that has caused us to become agnostic. It could have gone - and still might - the other way in that we become so awed by what we find that we start to believe that there must have been a purpose and an intelligence behind it. We don't know now and we may never know.

[Evil Goblin]

Woolley - the problem is that in attributing everything to a Creator you are faced with the question "where did the Creator come from", which is basically as unknowable as the original source of The Big Bang and what have you. I suspect that you are right in saying that there will always be some questions to which we will have no answers. I think the most appropriate way of proceeding is to accept all that science is able to tell us about the Universe (or Multiverse) and to be agnostic on the question of original causes.

[woolley]

Fully accept that Goblin. And so the mystery deepens............