Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

Science is the study of the natural world.
Religion concerns the supernatural world.

You've simply concocted weak definitions to prove non-existent "harmony".

Science, whether formal or factual, is a critical search for or utilization of patterns in ideas, nature, and society.

I like Christina Anne Knight's description of religion:

"Religion is a metaphysical system constructed on an architectural framework of superstition and myth, that attempts to explain the nature of reality, and the relationship of our species to it, which along with a body of ritual, and a static code of ethical formulation, is perpetuated via cultural transmission, for the psycho-physiological alleviation of existential angst and is epistemologically dependent on magical thinking, delusion, and confirmation bias."

I never said that religion and science, or math and art, are "at war" with one another. They're not. Neither are atheism and religion. The concept doesn't even make sense unless you're a religionist, caught up in mythical thinking, living in some cosmic opera buffa, your mind infested with fairy tales.

Quote:

These are two distinct disciplines. This is why they are in harmony.

Yes, they're two distinct disciplines but no, they're not "in harmony", nor do they need to be. Their foundations are too dissimilar.

3 Replies

@hightor,

Quote:

Yes, they're two distinct disciplines but no, they're not "in harmony", nor do they need to be. Their foundations are too dissimilar.

I make this claim only for myself and not for believers in general.

I can honestly say that the foundation of my certainty of a creator began as a curiosity about what we call 'science' and has remained so to this day. I have never encountered a fundamental conflict between the certainty of my creator and the results of scientific research. To the contrary, they reinforce it.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Quote:

I have never encountered a fundamental conflict between the certainty of my creator and the results of scientific research.

If the research accurately describes the world as it exists, there could, by definition, be no conflict.

But I still don't think that shows religion and science to be in "harmony"; they're different tunes completely, played in different styles on different instruments in different venues for different audiences.

Quote:

To the contrary, they reinforce it.

I don't doubt you, as I don't think there's any sort of "war" between them and people who are led to contemplate the divine through the observation of the natural world have my sincere admiration.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Quote:

Leadfoot Quote:
“I have never encountered a fundamental conflict between the certainty of my creator and the results of scientific research.”

hightor replied:
If the research accurately describes the world as it exists, there could, by definition, be no conflict.

But I still don't think that shows religion and science to be in "harmony"; they're different tunes completely, played in different styles on different instruments in different venues for different audiences.

To the first part, absolutely.

The second is true of 'religion' but not of what my claim was. You can have a religious belief in a creator without having any knowledge of scientific research at all.

But if your certainty of a creator is founded on what you see in scientific research (molecular biology in my case), then your first statement is still true, even if that certainty is what you mean by 'religion'. I would not equate them, even though there are other ways of being certain of a creator that might be considered 'religious'.

If scientific research showed that an intelligent creator was not needed to explain our existence, I would be wrong. But it hasn’t. This was the question the OP asked to be debated, but so far no one is willing and able to do that with me.

Quote:

I don't think there's any sort of "war" between them and people who are led to contemplate the divine through the observation of the natural world have my sincere admiration.

I sincerely agree.

0 Replies

@hightor,

And you're creating arbitrary ones.

When I was doing science experim in school, I never thought "Man, I'm gonna have to say ten Hail Maries and ten Lord's Prayers after this." For one thing, because I'm not Catholic Wink

but for another, science and religion use different parts of everything. I think while studying the effects of blue light or different soil on plants, but I tend to feel when something spiritual happens. I don't use the same part of my brain, in some cases I'm not using my brain at all but some sort of instinct, it's an ecstatic feeling rather than rational thought. I don't even use the same words or gestures so different muscles probably are used. Similarly, I never think about whether whether my belief in God is gonna hinder my understanding of science. Because these are different compartments of my life. In the same way art and religion, or engineering and religion are different facets. Now, plenty of people have made paintings of Jesus, but you generally direct your hands to move a certain way, I can't just pray and have a painting appear.

The men who said "science and religion are in conflict," was John William Draper and Andrew Jackson White. But these assholes who are widely quoted, to the best of my knowledge has no scientific tests of his own theory. Principe writes,

Quote:

How does he (John William Draper) support his contention of conflict? Well, unfortunately, with some of the worst historical writing you are ever likely to come across. Historical facts are confected, causes and chronologies twisted to the author's purpose. We find interpretations made merely by declaration. We find quotations violently taken out of context. And instances, quite a few of them where Draper claims a historical writer said something in fact 180 degrees away from what he actually claimed...Much of Draper's book is so ridiculous, so malodramatic, so rabid, it's hard for a knowledgeable person actually to read it without a wry smirk...Let's start with a simple and a notorious example: the idea that before Columbus people thought that the world was flat. Well, in fact, it is Draper and White, specifically, both of them, who bear most of the blame for popularizing this baseless view to the extent that nowadays, 80 percent of school teachers still foist this upon poor innocent school children. The fact is that of course the sphericity of the Earth was well established by the fifth century BC by the Greeks, and a good measure of its circumference made by the third century BC. And these facts were never forgotten in learned Western Culture.

In other words, this idea was just kinda declared by fiat. I have done both, and there is no conflict between pure science and faith.

Now, might there be a conflict, if I stick around extreme fundies and they tell me to stop doing all these tests because Jee-zus doesn't like it? Maybe. And what about some rabid atheist telling me that I'm just guessing. Yes.

But, this is not a conflict of science and religion. This is an interpersonal conflict between myself and a series of douchebags. I am within my rights to just walk away and carry on my faith or my experiments elsewhere.

2 Replies

@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

But, this is not a conflict of science and religion.

But I get the distinct impression that you want to make it one. In this thread and others you talk out of both sides of your mouth, employing pseudo-science to demonstrate how well-versed you think you are and making personal attacks on historically important scientists and their discoveries and then holding your rather unique religious perspective up as the "real" truth.

There is no enduring conflict between science and religion. There can't be, because these are abstract terms for types of thinking, not agents of thought themselves. Any conflict occurs between human proponents of one side or the other, scientists versus religionists. And when the gladiators leave the arena the conflict leaves with them.

1 Reply

@hightor,

I am responding to your posts.

Go and look up Draper.

Then look up scholasticism. For awhile, the church ran the schools, meaning they were also directly involved in teaching science. But somehow this little gem is glossed over. Then look up alchemy, where chemidtry and supernatural theories were interwoven. Current science is not in conflict with religion, but it is separate. But at one people these two were very connected through most of history.

Bottom line? Draper is a hack, who picks and chooses from history to support his opinions. But the larger view of history does not support such nonsense. I would know, I'm a major in history.

1 Reply

@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

For awhile, the church ran the schools, meaning they were also directly involved in teaching science. But somehow this little gem is glossed over.

That's simply because of the institutional dominance of the church in society in the age of scholasticism. They taught natural philosophy (there was no "science" at the time) at the same time they were persecuting witches and burning heretics. And if someone were to propose an idea like a heliocentric universe it would be denounced and the observer of the heavens silenced. When secular colleges emerged, speculation and research was freed from religious oversight.

1 Reply

@hightor,

It might have been. And the science might have been shaky.

But irregardless (my dad hates this word), classic thoughts of philosophy and science was taught at the schools dominant of the period. No scientists were killed.

Like Draper, you choose to focus on that stupid heliocentism incident. It's like this. I've looked at entire models drawn in older books. It isn't that their religion was against it. It was that their SCIENCE was against it.

I've seen models of the solar system around that period. Most of them were heavily inscribed with alchemical symbols, and notes about the aether or what have you.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/03/aa/e6/03aae6b15719759603aff4e0120337ce--our-solar-system-slide-rule.jpg

As you can see, it wasn't even the heliocentrism part. It was the displacement of Earth from its importance in the system. Where some of these types suggested that this wasn't some grand alchemical pattern, but that Earth was just a tiny little planet in a small solar system, in the middle of nowhere.

Most of them believed Earth orbited the Sun, but they still thought that Earth was at the center of the universe.

1 Reply

@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

Like Draper, you choose to focus on that stupid heliocentism incident.

I just chose that as one example; I hardly "focused" on it.

Quote:

It was that their SCIENCE was against it.

No, it's because they didn't have "science". They relied on the "argument from authority".

1 Reply

@bulmabriefs144,

this is all very interesting as a philosophical debate but Ive yt to hear ANY discussions of the role that genetics, the fossil record, or, as a single example the role that primates of the Haplorrhini suborder have lost a working GULO gene compact and yet other orders of mammals have similarly lost this functioning genetic "compact" (although in different numbers of genes and at diffrent geological times. (Ive just highlighted the single above arena, there are literally tens of thousands that you guys clearly like to avoid,(besides the occasional comparisons of genoms to "bar codes")

These observations can be tested an experimented and compared favorably to two Darwinian drives for volution, yet noone from The ID crowd, specially Dr Hamm or the folks at Discovery Institute have presented NOTHING to support their beliefs other than your kind of pablum .
The fact that we can measure macro evolutionary changes in FISHES that have adapted to environmental changes induced by humans in REAL TIME allows one with a reasonable adept scientific knowledge (lets say a sophomore in HS) to examine and experiment on evolution as a "front end loaded phenom, or not) as folks from Discovery Institute assert.

You guys are certainly free to assrt your beliefs to whomever may listen ,BUT PUHLEEESE stop mixing it up with science, you are not even close.

This thread, postd by the late Wandell was started as a debate to discuss the basis by which IDers have insisted they represent a pure kind of science but though these hundreds of pages, Ive yet to see an honest to goodness debate based on evidence that you guys have forwarded

0 Replies

@VABGirl,

There are many types of evidence all over. For instance, fossils show that organisms from the past are not the same as those found today, and show a progression of evolution. Scientists determine the age of fossils from all over the world to determine when the organisms lived relative to each other. The resulting fossil record shows the evolution of form over millions of years. For example, scientists have recovered highly detailed records showing the evolution of humans and horses

A question for you. How do you think that germs develop an immunity to medicine?

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

saw an interesting article about how hybridization may save the Polar Bear from extinction , and how cichlids of several african lake systems have developed all these new species in less than 20000 years, and how Connecticut River cichlids whove been trapped bhind colonial water wheel dams have evolved at least 7 new secies since the 1700;s
So, we are watching evolution in action as a consequence of climate change, weve seen how rapid evolution has responded to tectonics in africa and, weve seen how evolution has expanded the number of species that have resulted due to direct human activity.

this is stuff that dr meyers has totally ignored in his philosophical treatise on the "God Hypothesis" .

1 Reply

@hightor,

No, they did have science.

Science is one's understanding of how the world works. You cannot not have science. Just as you cannot not have history (short of amnesia), because you have a past.

Now, some of this era was the time of bleeding and leeches so maybe some of their science wasn't all that good. But basically their objection was the same as if I suddenly proved faith healing works. The current scientific model doesn't support this, so they'd attack me. Or are you saying that the current science isn't involving a fair amount of authority? Cuz then I'd say you're lying, at least to yourself.

2 Replies

@farmerman,

I just saw an article on the BBC website about endangered Californian Condors having virgin births, female condors are laying feftile eggs without mating with males.

1 Reply

@bulmabriefs144,

Quote:

No, they did have science.

Prior to developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, and biology in the 16th century and the emergence of the scientific method in the 17th century, the intellectual tradition you refer to is usually distinguished as "natural philosophy" to differentiate it from modern science.

Quote:

But basically their objection was the same as if I suddenly proved faith healing works. The current scientific model doesn't support this, so they'd attack me.

If you legitimately "proved" that faith healing works, and your proof was substantiated by other researchers, no one would "attack" you; your discovery would become part of the scientific consensus.

Quote:

Or are you saying that the current science isn't involving a fair amount of authority?

Sure it does. But its "authority" can be challenged and overthrown with experimental data. No one is burned at the stake for deigning to dispute Ptolemy – or Einstein.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

this e used to call ""Obligate Parthenogenesis" (its a great barroom bet word). Turkeys and chickens have shown exampls of OP because these birds , from hybridizing had the ability to go AC DC if mles just in the area of th coops.
I saw an article about condors going AC DC in the n Diego Zoo. Invrtebrates are famous for this kind of rpro, and only a few vrtebrates .I know of only one example in Mammal an that was a rabbit.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

It's a plot device in Jurassic Park.

0 Replies

@bulmabriefs144,

bulmabriefs144 wrote:

Science is one's understanding of how the world works. You cannot not have science. Just as you cannot not have history (short of amnesia), because you have a past.

Incorrect. A belief isn't science if it wasn't produced by the scientific method.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Quote:

Sure it does. But its "authority" can be challenged and overthrown with experimental data. No one is burned at the stake for deigning to dispute Ptolemy – or Einstein.

But they stand a very high chance of not getting grants or publication.

Kind of the same thing as death in academia or science these days.

Pesky random thought: You ever been to the magnetics center at UF?

1 Reply

Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know