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Misconceptions about evolution

evolution.berkeley.edu

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Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#131

Post by eeperson »

Udo wrote: post #122
benched wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I see it, the basic flaw in the materialist worldview is this: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-episprob/ It is also what leaves the door open for more transcendent views. Eastern religions, in particular, are founded on the basic idea that your everyday experience is illusory. You dismiss religious beliefs as based on "essentially nothing". In fact, the basis of religious belief in the most general se…

> That's true, if you restrict yourself to what's usually considered "evidence" in science. It's true that if you don't restrict yourself to the world of facts, you can do pretty much anything. And there are lots of contexts where I'm doing things decidedly not rooted in facts, such as enjoying and producing works of fiction for entertainment. However, if we're going to talk about the nature of the world, adhering to…

You seem to imply the religious belief is inherently contradicted by evidence. What evidence do you feel contradicts all religions?

For example, if a have a religion that only contains a single belief, that the universe is created by a conscious being. How do you produce evidence that contradicts that? I would argue that you can't because science can't address that. It is a purely philosophical question.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#132

Post by dragonwriter »

b_emery wrote: post #17

For many of these people, science and religion simply deal with different realms. Science deals with natural causes for natural phenomena, while religion deals with beliefs that are beyond the natural world. I think scientists are too quick to diffuse the religion vs science arguement. Maybe religious scientist can enlighten me on this. When one bases beliefs on essentially nothing ('gut feelings', apparitions, what…

> how do you reconcile the use of evidence for establishing belief in one domain, and then not require this in another?

Religious belief is quite frequently based on evidence; it often isn't empirical evidence that is verifiable independently because it is grounded in personal internal experience, so it isn't the kind of evidence on which science works, but there is nothing inconsistent about:

1) recognizing empirical/scientifically-based beliefs and other beliefs as separate kinds of belief, and 2) preferring the empirical evidence in the domains for which it is relevant and available, but still 3) accepting other experience as the basis for non-empirical beliefs in areas where empirical evidence is not available (or even relevant.)

> Pick your religion, what method do you use to evalute it's 'factualness' vs some other religion?

Not everyone who has a religion is concerned with evaluating it against other religions in terms of "factualness".

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#133

Post by BlackDeath3 »

es20641 wrote: post #42
noonespecial wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're at least asking the question at the right level. Most people get bogged down arguing about how the something that already was became different stuff that was. "Why is there something and not nothing at all?" is an excellent philosophical base to start building a cosmology on.

I was just thinking this when I read your comment. It is probably the largest thing that is holding me to my faith in an a God. Whether or not evolution is true, it explains _how_ our world was created, but not why.

>It is probably the largest thing that is holding me to my faith in an a God.

How does the existence of a God explain the absence of nothingness? Infinite regression, and all of that. That is one of the things that would keep me away from a faith.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#134

Post by dragonwriter »

tetrep wrote: post #38
aray wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew a few semi-religious scientists in the past. They were all in line with what we'd probably accept as scientific reasoning behind natural phenomena, but deferred to religion on more philosophical (and not physical) questions: "Why are we here?" "What's the meaning of life?" "Why should I be good towards other people?" (I know part of these are at least touched on by some of the humanities sciences - moral philo…

if they're willing to ignore huge swaths of divine text what makes the existential statements special? if someone made a list of statements, most of which were false but some of which were unverifiable why would anyone accept, as truth, the unverified claims? if anything accept part of the Bible, cherry picking, is worse (logically) than accepting all of it.

> if they're willing to ignore huge swaths of divine text what makes the existential statements special?

The idea that divine texts are a particularly privileged source of factual information is not universal among religions (or even among religions which have divine texts, or even among major branches of, e.g., Christianity.)

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#135

Post by Udo »

eeperson wrote: post #131
Udo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's true, if you restrict yourself to what's usually considered "evidence" in science. It's true that if you don't restrict yourself to the world of facts, you can do pretty much anything. And there are lots of contexts where I'm doing things decidedly not rooted in facts, such as enjoying and producing works of fiction for entertainment. However, if we're going to talk about the nature of the world, adhering to…

You seem to imply the religious belief is inherently contradicted by evidence. What evidence do you feel contradicts all religions? For example, if a have a religion that only contains a single belief, that the universe is created by a conscious being. How do you produce evidence that contradicts that? I would argue that you can't because science can't address that. It is a purely philosophical question.

Most religious statements set themselves up to be unfalsifiable, and that's really the main trick behind most of these ideas, but to work they have to make certain claims about the nature of the universe that are exceedingly unlikely, or in other words: just completely made up.

The kind of evidence we gather through scientific observation points to a world that works completely without supernatural intervention, and with advancing scientific knowledge the kind of acrobatics you have to perform just in order to keep escaping the light radius of discovery become more and more elaborate, outright denial of evidence becomes necessary.

For example, to claim that the Earth is 6000 years old, you have to discard a lot of paleontological evidence. To deny evolution, or any other established scientific model, you pretty much have to make the conscious decision to ignore data. The way this works is usually by some invocation of all-powerfulness: my deity is all-powerful, so due to that it not only faked all the evidence, it also made itself invisible and undetectable.

I agree though that it's not possible to disprove arbitrary fantasies on their own terms. All we can do is measure and model things within reasonable limits. Far, far outside these reasonable limits, everything is theoretically possible, it's just not compatible with reality in any meaningful way.

From the perspective of a person on the outside looking into this religiously contaminated world, the most upsetting and depressing thing is that people know their beliefs are completely made up on a whim, and in full knowledge of how that process works, they still believe all this crap without an ounce of skepticism.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#136

Post by Udo »

lliamander wrote: post #129
Udo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you reconcile the use of evidence for establishing belief in one domain, and then not require this in another It's even worse than that. For religious scientists, often belief is directly contradicted by the evidence at hand. The reason this still somewhat works is because humans can exist (and sometimes thrive) in a state of profound cognitive dissonance. I don't remember right now who said this first, but…

This pathologizing of religion is too self-serving and deserves some skepticism. For one thing, it lacks a sufficient explanation for the scientific/mathematical contributions and intellect of people with religious/supernatural belief; people such as Donald Knuth, Isaac Newton, Adam Smith, Euler, Pascal, and so on. For another, it conflates beliefs with mental habits. The point with empirical science, or math, or any…

It may be due to the advancing night here in Germany, and I don't mean to insult you personally, but this seems like an uninteresting discussion to have about things that can be readily looked up and/or reasoned about without me doing a lot of pointing.

Nevertheless: it's possible for a scientist to be completely wrong about most things, and yet produce valid scientific theories. Only when superstition and science collide directly, work usually suffers. Otherwise cognitive dissonance works pretty well. You also have to keep in mind that historical figures had a different cultural outlook than we do today, and I'm boring myself as I write this.

Uncharitable may well be a fair charge, I take it. Other things that don't rank high on my list of credibility indicators are: the number of people believing something, and the social authority of the people believing it. This is all incredibly obvious historical baggage we're carrying around from a time when the goat was the pinnacle of technical achievement. However arrogant this may seem to you, I think a bit of brutal honesty is in order.

However, having said that, I'm fully aware that no amount of argumentation can convince a believer (see my other comments on how religion closes that avenue after it infects a brain). I'm sorry if all that sounds pompous, arrogant, or just plain stupid to you.

At a very fundamental level, religious and secular people might never be able to have a meaningful discussion about the nature of the world. It's probably for the best that we usually maneuver around these black holes on HN.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#137

Post by eeperson »

Udo wrote: post #135
eeperson wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to imply the religious belief is inherently contradicted by evidence. What evidence do you feel contradicts all religions? For example, if a have a religion that only contains a single belief, that the universe is created by a conscious being. How do you produce evidence that contradicts that? I would argue that you can't because science can't address that. It is a purely philosophical question.

Most religious statements set themselves up to be unfalsifiable, and that's really the main trick behind most of these ideas, but to work they have to make certain claims about the nature of the universe that are exceedingly unlikely, or in other words: just completely made up. The kind of evidence we gather through scientific observation points to a world that works completely without supernatural intervention, and…

I feel like you are conflating two thing, religious belief and disbelief of scientific results. There is no reason that these need to be tied together. Of course science conflicts with the latter, but it says nothing about the former. Things that are not provable one way or the other are philosophy not science.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#138

Post by Houshalter »

dazbradbury wrote: post #81
b_emery wrote: post #17

For many of these people, science and religion simply deal with different realms. Science deals with natural causes for natural phenomena, while religion deals with beliefs that are beyond the natural world. I think scientists are too quick to diffuse the religion vs science arguement. Maybe religious scientist can enlighten me on this. When one bases beliefs on essentially nothing ('gut feelings', apparitions, what…

how do you reconcile the use of evidence for establishing belief in one domain, and then not require this in another? Scientists regularly believe in a theory, or concept, that is not yet proven. Many scientists spend their entire lives proving something. Hence, I wouldn't suggest belief in science has historically relied on evidence or proof. Now onto the main point, the difference lies with what is provable and wha…

I think most of these arguments would go away if people understood some probability theory. "It's just a theory", "It hasn't been/can't be proven/disproven.", etc.

The point is do you think it has a greater than 0.00001% of being true? How can you possibly justify such a high probability estimate? In the space of millions of possible hypothesises, the probability of any one being correct is incredibly small. Especially with Occam's Razor, simple explanations are far more likely to be true. And religion is a very over-complicated explanation.

We use evidence to rule out explanations which can't be true, or more accurately lower their probability (the evidence could just be a coincidence or a fluke, for example.) To raise the probability of a specific religion being true, you would need a lot of evidence. Which simply doesn't exist and in fact we have lots of counter-evidence (things that religion say that turned out to be false for example.)

Scientists do spend their lives looking at things that haven't been proven, but they have to have to think they have a greater than, say, 10% chance of being true to be worth their time.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#139

Post by Houshalter »

eeperson wrote: post #75
b_emery wrote: post #17

For many of these people, science and religion simply deal with different realms. Science deals with natural causes for natural phenomena, while religion deals with beliefs that are beyond the natural world. I think scientists are too quick to diffuse the religion vs science arguement. Maybe religious scientist can enlighten me on this. When one bases beliefs on essentially nothing ('gut feelings', apparitions, what…

It sounds like you feel there is an inherent conflict between science and religion (or am I misreading). I see no reason why this needs to be the case. Once you move beyond explanations for things that can make testable predictions, then you are out outside of science you have moved in to philosophy. At that point all explanations that don't contradict what is observed become equally valid/invalid. Take for example t…

>As a result, either answer is equally valid/invalid.

I posted a similar comment above, but this completely misunderstands probability theory. If you can't prove something 100% true or 0% true there is still an inbetween more than "equally valid or invald." Something could have a 0.00001% chance of being true or a 99% chance of being true.

In the space of all possible explanations, the chance of religion being the correct one is exceedingly small. Especially if you consider Occam's Razor that simpler explanations are more likely to be correct. Religion is a very over-complicated explanation.

Re: Misconceptions about evolution

#140

Post by kansface »

maaku wrote: post #127
kansface wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it would not. Anything that exists outside the universe and time is not subject to conjecture of any sort. Applying logic to such a thing is meaningless; there is no reason for logic to exist outside of the universe. In other words, absolutely nothing meaningful can be claimed about an afterlife (unless such a thing exists within this universe which seems doubtful).

What you are arguing is called mind dualism. It is subject to very many difficulties, and does nothing to resolve pesky issues like neurologically damaged and split brain individuals (what happens in their afterlife?) or explain why there is this magical correspondence between the spiritual realm and physical reality, without any causal connection (see my point about Occam priors).

Certainly any afterlife would necessarily be non physical, no? Alternatively, I would be delighted if you gave proof otherwise.

At any rate, I'm not arguing for mind dualism nor will I attempt to answer any of the questions you posed. I argue that it is completely pointless to speculate in any way about something which exists outside of the bounds of knowledge (science).

I was merely agreeing with the assertion of the OP:

> [faith is required] if the claim is that there is or is not an after life

An afterlife can not be shown to NOT exist even if consciousness if fully explainable by science. There is no special knowledge to be found in logic/philosophy that exist outside of science. Therefore, we only have faith in either case.

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