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The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

nautil.us

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Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#41

Post by grzm »

alphapapa wrote: post #40
grzm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"> 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…

"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."

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. This brings us to the question is how do you move from the existence of a prime mover to the belief that the prime mover has communicated with us. It's not clear to me that existence implies such communication. And if it doesn't, it's not clear to me that the existence of the prime mover in and of itself is doing any useful work.

On the other hand, proving that there is no prime mover is a well-known difficult problem as well :)

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#42

Post by CamperBob2 »

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…

Where does all that skepticism go when Sunday morning rolls around?

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#43

Post by flukus »

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…

>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?

Meaning of life? Who said there is one? You seem to be switching gods to suit your argument. A meaning to life implies a god that cares, not the non interfering prime mover you seem to be arguing for elsewhere.

As for an afterlife, there isn't one sorry. There is precisely zero evidence of any sort of afterlife. There is no physical explanation of how it may be possible.

> 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.

The point is it doesn't explain anything. It's either infinite regress or you have to accept the universe or god was created spontaneously. At that point Occam's razor eliminates god.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#44

Post by flukus »

alphapapa wrote: post #37
flukus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Th…

>, 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?

Quite simply, science gets results, religion doesn't.

What do you think if last Thursday is? Because the rest of your arguments apply equally to that and neither have real world consequences.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#45

Post by travis-d-ray »

flukus wrote: post #44
alphapapa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Th…

>, 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? Quite simply, science gets results, religion doesn't. What do you think if last Thursday is? Because the rest of your arguments apply equal…

Playing the devil's advocate, what results does the theory of evolution give us other than confidence to observe that a species genes mutate sometimes giving rise to a new species? Does evolution have any predictive power?

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#46

Post by alphapapa »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #42
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…

Where does all that skepticism go when Sunday morning rolls around?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Could you clarify?

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#47

Post by flukus »

travis-d-ray wrote: post #45
flukus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, 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? Quite simply, science gets results, religion doesn't. What do you think if last Thursday is? Because the rest of your arguments apply equal…

Playing the devil's advocate, what results does the theory of evolution give us other than confidence to observe that a species genes mutate sometimes giving rise to a new species? Does evolution have any predictive power?

It predicted the existence of DNA, or something very much like it. It predicted that the DNA copying process would contain errors, something not confirmed until long after Darwins death. It predicted the existence of many animals, extinct and extent, origin of species itself list some examples.

It also predicted a single origin for all/most life, which presented a lot of problems for the theory before we understood things like continental drift.

Aside from that, it gave us one of the first hints that simple rules can create complex behaviors, which is important to a lot of sciences.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#48

Post by flukus »

alphapapa wrote: post #36
mr_overalls wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

The existence of a creator also requires that something can exist without having been created. The burden of proof for this is higher because there are 2 claims.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#49

Post by CamperBob2 »

alphapapa wrote: post #46
CamperBob2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does all that skepticism go when Sunday morning rolls around?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Could you clarify?

It just sounds like you're holding priests to one standard of evidence, and scientists to another.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#50

Post by alphapapa »

grzm wrote: post #41
alphapapa wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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." I think you've hit the nail on the head here. This brings us to the question is how do you move from the existence of a prime mover to the belief that the prime mover has communicated with us. It's not clear to me that existence implies such comm…

> This brings us to the question is how do you move from the existence of a prime mover to the belief that the prime mover has communicated with us. It's not clear to me that existence implies such communication.

I think you're basically right: it doesn't necessarily imply that. So, since there are so many claims in this world of evidence of the creator's communication with us, it's up to each person to examine the claims for himself--or to not do so: ignorance is bliss, until the moment of truth.

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