The Strange Inevitability of Evolution • Hacker News Board

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#31

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 8:05 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #14

SiVal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole apologist / sympathizing attitude needs to be changed I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing…

> A person can be a creationist without being a fool and can be a believer in evolution by nothing more enlightened than a lack of independent thinking in an environment where atheism is in fashion among the cool kids. Oh, I love the last point. I've met people like this - who are atheists for the same reason others are religious - because that's what they were taught and/or because it's cool these days. Religion vs.…

> What I'd wish people would do is to stop trying to score cheap shots off one another. I.e. there's a difference between believing in evolution as a a process and evolution as the only source of all the life around us.

Yes! I am so disappointed every time I see people effectively talking past each other, arguing about "creationism" and "evolution" when each party has their own definitions of the words.

What if both theories are correct? What if an intelligent being designed the evolutionary process and set it in motion, with or without some nudging here and there along the way? It seems like false dichotomies must be responsible for so much needless fighting throughout history.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#32

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 8:14 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #28

CamperBob2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person can be a creationist without being a fool How, brainwashing aside?

Compartmentalization. They are certainly fools with respect to the origin of humanity though.

So, since you seem to have the answers, where did humans come from? If humans evolved from other primates, where did those primates come from? How far back can you go? To a pile of goo? Where did the pile of goo come from? Where did the solar system come from? What about the universe?

There are necessarily missing links in the chain of causality, ones which science cannot fill. Even if you believe popular theories of the origin of the universe, such theories only go back so far, and they do not explain what caused the events they describe. For example, where did the big bang's matter come from?

Which requires more faith: to believe that a being set in motion the processes we observe today, or that they happened by chance? Who is the fool: one who believes that someone must have created this universe, or one who believes that it exists without a cause?

If you tell me that something can exist without having been created, where is your proof? Is not your belief in that theory itself a matter of faith? How, then, do you call others fools who have their own faiths? Of course, you answered this question yourself: compartmentalization.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#33

Post by flukus » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #32

flukus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compartmentalization. They are certainly fools with respect to the origin of humanity though.

So, since you seem to have the answers, where did humans come from? If humans evolved from other primates, where did those primates come from? How far back can you go? To a pile of goo? Where did the pile of goo come from? Where did the solar system come from? What about the universe? There are necessarily missing links in the chain of causality, ones which science cannot fill. Even if you believe popular theories of…

God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left, fewer than you seem to think.

All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#34

Post by flukus » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 8:48 AM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #29

flukus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. Creationism was never a scientific theory. And I think we can give a free pass to people being creationist before the theory was created and before it was taugh…

The idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being is not a scientific theory and cannot be disproven by science. It is not in competition with scientific theories of evolution or even, for example, big bang theories, because neither of them can explain why the universe exists, where it came from, etc. If you believe in the big bang, then what caused it, where did the matter come from, etc? You cannot dis…

Sure, there are limits to out knowledge, atheists are a lot happier to say they don't know than most religious folk I've come across.

But what your describing is very different to most creationist, you've pushed the god of gaps back to a level where it's largely irrelevant. Most creationist are the 6000 year old earth kind, which has been disproven by several major branches of science.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#35

Post by mr_overalls » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 11:02 AM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #29

flukus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know, as an atheist myself I think the attitude of smug arrogance embodied in terms like "benighted creationist" is the real problem, not that even acknowledging a theory that has been believed in some form by most humans who ever lived is too kind. Creationism was never a scientific theory. And I think we can give a free pass to people being creationist before the theory was created and before it was taugh…

The idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being is not a scientific theory and cannot be disproven by science. It is not in competition with scientific theories of evolution or even, for example, big bang theories, because neither of them can explain why the universe exists, where it came from, etc. If you believe in the big bang, then what caused it, where did the matter come from, etc? You cannot dis…

You cannot disprove the existence of a ghostly teapot, either, but that doesn't make it a good idea. The philosophical burden of proof falls upon the person making the claim for an idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#36

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

mr_overalls wrote: post #35

alphapapa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being is not a scientific theory and cannot be disproven by science. It is not in competition with scientific theories of evolution or even, for example, big bang theories, because neither of them can explain why the universe exists, where it came from, etc. If you believe in the big bang, then what caused it, where did the matter come from, etc? You cannot dis…

You cannot disprove the existence of a ghostly teapot, either, but that doesn't make it a good idea. The philosophical burden of proof falls upon the person making the claim for an idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Presumption of non-existence is just as much a presumption as presumption of existence.

One man looks at the universe and thinks, "Someone must have created this, for nothing can exist without having been created." Another man looks at the universe and thinks, "I cannot see who created this, therefore no one did."

Who has the better case? Who has more evidence? Of course, it's a matter of interpretation.

But the same can be said for your assertion about the philosophical burden of proof and claim for an idea. One man claims, "I cannot see who created, therefore there is no creator. If you think someone created it, the burden of proof is upon you." Another man says, "It exists, therefore someone created it. If you think no one created it, the burden of proof is upon you to explain how something can exist without having been created."

Whichever side you take requires making assumptions that lay the burden of proof on the other side. And if one were going to choose a side, I fail to see how the no-creator side is a stronger default position: the fact of the universe's existence is evidence that it was created. To disprove this would require demonstrating how something can exist without having been created.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#37

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

flukus wrote: post #34

alphapapa wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the universe was created by an intelligent being is not a scientific theory and cannot be disproven by science. It is not in competition with scientific theories of evolution or even, for example, big bang theories, because neither of them can explain why the universe exists, where it came from, etc. If you believe in the big bang, then what caused it, where did the matter come from, etc? You cannot dis…

Sure, there are limits to out knowledge, atheists are a lot happier to say they don't know than most religious folk I've come across. But what your describing is very different to most creationist, you've pushed the god of gaps back to a level where it's largely irrelevant. Most creationist are the 6000 year old earth kind, which has been disproven by several major branches of science.

> Sure, there are limits to out knowledge, atheists are a lot happier to say they don't know than most religious folk I've come across.

So, if a person says, "I don't know, but I still believe," is that not an example of faith? How, then, can you claim that atheism and/or, shall we say, "sciencism", are more rational belief systems than Creationism, Christianity, etc, given that they both ultimately rely on faith?

The atheist says, "Creationists are fools because they have no proof of their creator," while the creationist says, "Atheists are fools because they have no proof of what created." What's the difference? Who has more faith: the one who sees something that exists and believes that something created it, or the one who sees something that exists and believes it was not created? Is either one not faith-based? Does either one not have missing links in its assumed chain?

> But what your describing is very different to most creationist, you've pushed the god of gaps back to a level where it's largely irrelevant.

How is it not relevant whether an intelligent being created the universe? If the universe was created by an intelligent being, what does it matter how it was done, through natural processes set in motion or by blinking into existence in an advanced state? If the universe was created by an intelligent being, wouldn't that be much more important than how?

> Most creationist are the 6000 year old earth kind, which has been disproven by several major branches of science.

To be strictly fair, this is not true, because it does not engage with that kind of creationism's assumptions. If one believes that an intelligent being created the universe from nothing, including all the physical laws from subatomic to intergalactic, why would it be beyond that being's ability to create the Earth in a state advanced far beyond its actual age? Besides, in matters like this, what is time, anyway? Einstein showed that it's relative--and if an intelligent being created the rules that Einstein discovered, could not that being bend its own rules?

In other words, you unfairly ascribe to the "6000 year old earth kind" an inconsistency which it does not actually bear; you do not engage with it on its own terms. If you do not accept its assumptions, that's fine--your disagreement then lies with them, not with a false inconsistency.

Ultimately, the most important question is of who or what created the universe, not how or when it was created. The former makes a difference in how we should lead our lives, while the latter is merely interesting.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#38

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

flukus wrote: post #33

alphapapa wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, since you seem to have the answers, where did humans come from? If humans evolved from other primates, where did those primates come from? How far back can you go? To a pile of goo? Where did the pile of goo come from? Where did the solar system come from? What about the universe? There are necessarily missing links in the chain of causality, ones which science cannot fill. Even if you believe popular theories of…

God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left, fewer than you seem to think. All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god.

> God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left

Really? So, tell me then, why are we here? What is the purpose of our life, if there is one? What happens after we die? Or are these mysteries not still left?

> All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god.

Yes, that's right. But saying that, "Since we then cannot answer the question of where God came from, God must not exist" is not logical. The existence of another turtle does not disprove the previous turtle. By your logic, since we cannot explain what created the universe, the universe must not exist.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#39

Post by grzm » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:38 PM UTC

alphapapa wrote: post #38

flukus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left, fewer than you seem to think. All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god.

> God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left Really? So, tell me then, why are we here? What is the purpose of our life, if there is one? What happens after we die? Or are these mysteries not still left? > All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god. Yes, that's right. But saying that, "Since we then cannot answer the question of where God came from, God must not exist" is no…

"> God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left"

"But saying that, "Since we then cannot answer the question of where God came from, God must not exist" is not logical."

I see what you're saying, but I think GP may be arguing whether or not that is useful.

For example, what does it say about God beyond that God exists? You ask some good questions, in particular what is the purpose of our life. Does the existence of a prime mover help us decide this? I think we need something more.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#40

Post by alphapapa » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 7:10 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #39

alphapapa wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left Really? So, tell me then, why are we here? What is the purpose of our life, if there is one? What happens after we die? Or are these mysteries not still left? > All it does is create an infinite regress of what created god. Yes, that's right. But saying that, "Since we then cannot answer the question of where God came from, God must not exist" is no…

"> God/creation doesn't solve any of the mysteries we still have left" "But saying that, "Since we then cannot answer the question of where God came from, God must not exist" is not logical." I see what you're saying, but I think GP may be arguing whether or not that is useful. For example, what does it say about God beyond that God exists? You ask some good questions, in particular what is the purpose of our life. D…

Whether it's useful is, of course, a matter of opinion and presuppositions. If one, for whatever reasons, thinks that there might be an afterlife, then nothing could be more important.

> You ask some good questions, in particular what is the purpose of our life. Does the existence of a prime mover help us decide this? I think we need something more.

That depends on whether you believe the prime mover has communicated with us. If you do not, then there would not be much you could do with the knowledge of its existence, so it would not be very useful or relevant. But if you do, then it would surely help us decide, wouldn't it?