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The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

nautil.us

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Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#41

Post by louthy »

dropit_sphere wrote: post #10
solipsism wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. Science isn't trying to figure god out any more than it's trying to figure fairies out. Science focuses its efforts on understanding reality.

That's not the important distinction. Religion is also trying to figure out reality. If science thought it could detect fairies, then science would study fairies. The distinction is rather in method; science uses (hopefully) well-designed experiments and peer review; religion uses...other methods.

This is an important point which I think many miss. I'm not remotely religious, and I see the errors in the so called truths of each religion. I used to consider people of faith to be either stupid or brainwashed, but then I watched The Day The Universe Changed[1], a beautifully written BBC documentary by James Burke from 1985. It's much easier to watch it[2] than me try to replicate everything said on there. But the essence is the point that dropit_sphere made, and that is both religion and science are trying to figure out the truth. But use different methods to acquire it.

The difference is that the scientific truth is always changing. The scientific truth today is different from the truth 300 years ago. And will be different again in 300 years time. So how true is that 'truth'? If the things we believe to be true today are untrue tomorrow, then how can people of science be so hostile to the 'truths' of religion? And what's the end-game? When will we finally know the truth?

People of faith get their absolute unchanging truths from their religion, not that the religions themselves are truth seeking in the same way as science.

Anyway, it's definitely worth a watch and very thought provoking. He also predicts the potential totalitarian use of the internet, along with the ideas of global communities sharing knowledge and ultimately each person's own truths.

I have since stopped being quite so brutal in my opinions about people of faith.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Universe_Changed

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QgNpYg0IOU

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#42

Post by Retra »

Rexxar wrote: post #38
Retra wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not two different problems. And more importantly, religion has never actually answered a "why" question in a reasonable manner. So it is objectively useless. It is not how you answer "why" questions. Assuming your distinction is actually meaningful, here's a question for you: "How do you properly answer 'why' questions?"

"How do you properly answer 'why' questions?" Maybe the answer is that there is no scientific answer to a "why" question ? The question has no scientific answer. In maths, some equations have no solution, some proposition are not provable with common axioms. The "why questions" are just question without scientific answer.

Every question you ask is going to be manifest in relationships between subsets of observable states of reality. Even if you ask a nonsensical question, it is possible to determine that the question is nonsense by observing the context of the question. There is nothing here that prevents science from working to answer the question.

If you have a question with no possible scientific answer, then it has no answer at all. You do not get better results by refusing to use the best tools.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#43

Post by Retra »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #35
Retra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the argument in order to preach "nice makes right" also detracts from the argument...

Except that "[coherent-under-consequential-reflection] nice makes right" is a fairly accurate description of moral affairs, if not of epistemology.

I disagree vehemently.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#44

Post by dang »

alexqgb wrote: post #18
pcunite wrote: post #2

A quote from the article: "You don’t have to be a benighted creationist ..." Can we please keep these type of articles off HN please? I don’t come here to be insulted. I have other sites for that! Sir Isaac Newton was not a simple nor stupid man and he gave honor to the Creator. Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. A whole lot of reasons for what allowed the Internet, HN, science…

Slapping "In God We Trust" on everything was not only a fairly recent development, it was a cynically calculated response by a chastened business class that found itself coming under extraordinary scrutiny in the wake of the Great Depression. The redemption of capitalism by Christianity demanded a heavily modified version of the religion that basically abandoned all the parts about people looking after each other and…

> If you have any interest in finding out just how much bullshit has gone into shaping your world view

Personal attacks and acerbic swipes are not welcome on Hacker News. Please don't do this.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#45

Post by dang »

Retra wrote: post #19
Rexxar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. The big question of science is "How ... ?" The big question of religion is "Why ... ?" The two solve different problems and could coexist without so many animosity on each side.

There are not two different problems. And more importantly, religion has never actually answered a "why" question in a reasonable manner. So it is objectively useless. It is not how you answer "why" questions. Assuming your distinction is actually meaningful, here's a question for you: "How do you properly answer 'why' questions?"

> [Religion] is objectively useless.

Religious flamewars aren't ok on HN. Please don't.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#46

Post by lotsofmangos »

Retra wrote: post #33
lotsofmangos wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rhetoric is a two way street. It can be just as damaging as it can be beneficial. Also, the observation that almost anyone other than a creationist would be able to get past a line that specifically insults creationists, is not that surprising. edit - It is a great article, that for the most part deals with a very complex subject really well. I am just saying that the philosophical point scoring in the introduction a…

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I'm perfectly content to live in a world where people experience an intellectual and social disadvantage for believing in nonsense.

Hang on.

You have admitted that you didn't even know the meaning of the sentence that you have been defending until I posted the meaning of the word 'benighted', while criticizing those who were upset by it for holding faith based positions?

Sorry, but that is hilarious.

(edited slightly for clarity)

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#47

Post by eropple »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #46
Retra wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I'm perfectly content to live in a world where people experience an intellectual and social disadvantage for believing in nonsense.

Hang on. You have admitted that you didn't even know the meaning of the sentence that you have been defending until I posted the meaning of the word 'benighted', while criticizing those who were upset by it for holding faith based positions? Sorry, but that is hilarious. (edited slightly for clarity)

He didn't say he learned it when you posted it, did he?

And even so, the contextual value of the word would be obvious in context.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#48

Post by lotsofmangos »

eropple wrote: post #47
lotsofmangos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hang on. You have admitted that you didn't even know the meaning of the sentence that you have been defending until I posted the meaning of the word 'benighted', while criticizing those who were upset by it for holding faith based positions? Sorry, but that is hilarious. (edited slightly for clarity)

He didn't say he learned it when you posted it, did he? And even so, the contextual value of the word would be obvious in context.

No, but if you post a dictionary definition of a word and someone's next reply contains an aside that they learned the definition of a new word today, from context it usually means they learned it there and then.

As for the article, without knowing the definition of 'benighted', there are several different meanings available.

For example, say it meant 'dedicated'. That would fit perfectly, but the phrase would then have a different meaning of one who believes completely, rather than someone who is a fool for believing.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#49

Post by Houshalter »

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #11
solipsism wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because science has not figured God out, does not deny His existence. Science isn't trying to figure god out any more than it's trying to figure fairies out. Science focuses its efforts on understanding reality.

Science describes reliable models of reality. Its language is mathematics. Religion wonders about the ultimate meaning of such models. Its language is philosophy. The first religions bundled model and meaning out of necessity. However, post-Roman Christians were keen logicians and experimenters who laid the foundation of the modern sciences. They would be ashamed of creationists' shallowness.

The separation between science and religion is a relatively recent phenomenon. At one time people actually believed religion. http://lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprova...

>The Old Testament is a stream-of-consciousness culture dump: history, law, moral parables, and yes, models of how the universe works. In not one single passage of the Old Testament will you find anyone talking about a transcendent wonder at the complexity of the universe. But you will find plenty of scientific claims, like the universe being created in six days (which is a metaphor for the Big Bang), or rabbits chewing their cud. (Which is a metaphor for...)

>Back in the old days, saying the local religion "could not be proven" would have gotten you burned at the stake. One of the core beliefs of Orthodox Judaism is that God appeared at Mount Sinai and said in a thundering voice, "Yeah, it's all true." From a Bayesian perspective that's some darned unambiguous evidence of a superhumanly powerful entity... The vast majority of religions in human history - excepting only those invented extremely recently - tell stories of events that would constitute completely unmistakable evidence if they'd actually happened. The orthogonality of religion and factual questions is a recent and strictly Western concept. The people who wrote the original scriptures didn't even know the difference.

Re: The Strange Inevitability of Evolution

#50

Post by socceroos »

woodchuck64 wrote: post #12

"Evolution need only take a random walk along a web of neutral (or at least almost neutral) mutations, that, without impairing the fitness of an organism, surrounds it with very different neighbors: innovative solutions to selective pressures that are there for the taking when the circumstances compel it." Wow, that starts to explain the amazing creativity of rapid evolution (like whale evolution in 10 million years)…

What is the difference between evolution and adaptation? It sounds like circumstantial mutation is more in line with adaptation than evolution?
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