lucaspa

An hypothesis can vary from person to person. But surely an good hypothesis is based on at least some fact and asumption based on the facts.

Not necessarily. You are talking about supported hypotheses. When a hypothesis is first made, it does not have to be based on anything at all; it is an imaginative construct.

However, the first step a person making a hypothesis should do is attempt to falsify it before he tells anyone else. This is where your "based on at least some fact" comes in. The hypothesis has already survived YOUR best efforts to falsify it before you tell anyone else. You have already tested it against facts to see if the hypothesis has any false consequences.

Now, the hypothesis can fail the testing. It is still a hypothesis, but it is now a falsified hypothesis.

So, you can see that hypotheses can be:

1. untested.

2. falsified

3. supported.

In these discussions, we tend to forget the first two and improperly assume that all hypotheses are supported hypotheses.

Found a nice post of things to keep in mind for anyone thinking they've overturned modern science. Some old' date=' some new.

 

http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/quack.html[/quote']

 

Siegel's essay repeats, with more humor but less precision, the way Kitty Ferguson summed up the scientific method:

 

"...what we learned in school about the scientific method can be reduced to two basic principles.

"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself.

2. The testing, the experience, has to be public, repeatable -- in the public domain. If the results are derived only once, if the experience is that of only one person and isn't available to others who attempt the same test or observation under approximately the same conditions, science must reject the findings as invalid -- not necessarily false, but useless. One-time, private experience is not acceptable." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pg. 38.

 

This is the best summary I have found so far. It is objectivity and intersubjectivity.

Here's a thought to ponder. How long did it take for humans who migrated to Europe/North Western Asia to develope lighter skin' date=' eyes and hair? It makes since that they would eventually due to the colder environment. I think that it's amazing that the human body can adapt/evolve to fit such a vast environment.

[/quote']

 

Less than 50,000 years for the changes in skin color etc. Of course, with 20 years per generation, that's still 2500 generations. In fruit flies, 2500 generations was enough to get a whole new species. So humans are a bit slow.

 

Actually, mostly the human body did not adapt. Most of our ability to live in extreme climates comes from technology.

 

Adapt/Evolve can be considered an argument in itself. Do random mutations cause the adaption or does the environment encourage it? As stated before; I am not an expert here...just throwing stuff out.

 

Natural selection is a two step process:

1. Variation, of which mutations are a part.

2. Selection.

 

You must have BOTH in order to get an "adaptation". As I noted above, the variation (whether caused by mutation or recombination) is a possible design. BUT, you don't know whether that design fits the environment -- is an adaptation -- until after selection. IOW, that design has to be tested against the environment to see if it works. An "adaptation" is a design that works in that particular environment.

I always have trouble with this. Where are the options? NS is an odd concept for me.

The "options" are each individual. Remember, individuals vary, no two (except twins) are alike. So, the environment presents a design problem to the population. Each individual represents a possible solution to that design problem. Each individual is a design. Since there are more individuals born than the environment can support, there is a competition among individuals for the scarce resources. Only the better designs will win the competition. Those individuals with the better designs will then breed with one another, passing their designs to their offspring. Which, because each individual varies, will have modifications to the design. Again you have the competition and only the "good" modifications win. And this continues generation after generation.

Now, the "competition" is not head-to-head. One example is the tailings from copper and other mines of heavy metals. The tailings (waste) is dirt that has toxic levels of these heavy metals. Seeds from nearby plants land on the tailings. Those plants that are able to even a little bit handle the presence of copper and the other heavy metals. They don't die. They might not do as well as their non-tolerant siblings not on the tailings, but they do better than their non-tolerant siblings on the tailings. Here the competition is against the toxic levels of copper. Not directly with each other.

So, the ones that survive, even if they don't do well, breed. Their offspring are now on the tailings and in a few generations fill up the space on the tailings. NOW the competition is not just to be able to survive, but do WELL growing in the toxic dirt. The individuals that are even MORE tolerant of the heavy metals do better than their siblings who are not AS tolerant. They grow faster, larger, and are healthier. They have more offspring. This progresses from generation to generation until you have a population of plants that thrive on soil with heavy metals. The genetic changes have also made them a new species from the original that still grows in the adjacent soil without the heavy metals.

5. Toxic Tailings and Tolerant Grass by RE Cook in Natural History, vol90(3): 28-38, 1981

Notice that nowhere does the "competition" involve one plant actively trying to kill another. The competition is metaphorical, just as Darwin stated.

but to say that life is definitely the result of random events as most scientists believe is not so easy for me to see.

That's because life is NOT the result of random events. Chemistry is not random. The selection part of natural selection is NOT random.

When scientists speak of "random" in evolution, what they mean is that variations are random with respect to the needs of the individual or the population. Period. That is, in a climate that is getting colder, just as many deer with shorter fur will be born as those with longer fur. However, only the deer with longer fur will do better at surviving the colder winters.

I have not yet however come across any proof, or have been able to rationalize how a pool of complex chemicals could become “alive”.

Here:

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm'>http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/

I do know that there is no clear line that divides what is alive and what isn’t, but there is one thing that does set life apart from all other things in the universe; and that is “purpose”. If you take life out of the equation, all other things that happen in the universe are completely random.

Wrong on both counts. What "purpose" does a bacteria have? And gravity is not "random". It ALWAYS attracts. No randomness of sometimes attracting and sometimes repulsing. Also, mix oxygen, hydrogen, and add a spark. You ALWAYS get water. Never any other compound. And water is ALWAYS H2O. Never HO, HO2, H3O, H2O2, or any other combination of H and O. NOT RANDOM!

The fact that we have not been able to create a biological cell from scratch

The sites above do make a biological cell from scratch. However, remember that MODERN cells are the product of 3.8 billion years of evolution. Even by the time multicellular organisms appear, there was at least 1 billion years of evolution to get the cellular machinery. It's impossible to duplicate that billion years of non-random processes in the lab in the weeks or months that an experiment lasts.

also, after some similarly protracted absence, posts by the honest and consistent christian LUCASPA (with whom i do not agree about several things but who, in my eyes, is eminently respectable.)

"eminently respectable"?? What the hell is that?

And why is my personal belief highlighted instead of my profession?

BTW, you are not required to agree about my personal beliefs. However, unless you have contrary data, you do have to agree to the science I present.

lucaspa' date=' thanks again for those files. It was interesting to see "Mein Kampf" referenced in that area. I really have to struggle to keep a nerve from getting touched when I have to explain that I do not endorse Hitler. I generally use a different approach where we both agree that Hitler was an a-hole, neither one of us like him, and he's not a scientist.

 

I'd also like to put this Gobineau into better perspective. Was he influencal? Do you have anything in his own words about "Darwinism"?[/quote']

 

As the links in the file indicate, Gobineau was very influential in setting Nazi policy! In fact, that's where the policy came from, not Darwin. I haven't found any direct quotes of Gobineau about Darwin. Not much of Gobineau's letters are widely available (if they are available at all) and his major work was done before Darwin. So there is no book by Gobineau post-Darwin where he might have commented in print on Darwin and evolution.

 

Another approach is to say that evil people will corrupt ANY idea for their purpose. Racists corrupted evolution, too. Darwinism was first very anti-racist. However, it didn't take long for Virchow, Spencer, and others to corrupt Darwinism into Social Darwinism to support racism. So BOTH Christianity and Darwinism was twisted to support racism.

 

Also, look at how the Prince of Peace has been used over the centuries as justification for wars! People wanted a war, so they misused Jesus and Christianity to justify one.

pointing out how stupid many designs are:

 

http://oolon.awardspace.com/SMOGGM.htm

 

or how some really evil things have been designed

 

http://winace.andkon.com/designed_organisms/

 

can also help

This is the theological argument against creationism (which silkworm doesn't like to get into). It was the poor, stupid, and sadistic designs in nature that got Special Creation (creationism, ID) in theological trouble in the period 1830-1859.

Yes, IF God is directly designing/manufacturing each organism, then God becomes directly responsible for all those designs. This means that God is sadistic, stupid, and has Alzheimer's. This is theologically unacceptable. Modern day creationists are not as honest as their 19th century counterparts; they don't look at the bad designs, but only the ones they want to look at. The creationists then did not hide from data.

However, natural selection got God off the hook. Now God is no longer directly responsible for the designs -- natural selection is. It is one reason why so many clergy bolted from Special Creation and accepted evolution by natural selection.

This joke illustrates the theological problem of Intelligent Design and God as an engineer:

Three engineers are discussing the human body: an electrical engineer, a hydraulic engineer, and a civil engineer. The electrical engineer says "The human body was designed by an electrical engineer. Look at the complex of wires that carry electrical impulses that are the nerves and brain." The hydraulic engineer says "No, the human body was designed by a hydraulic engineer. Look at the magnificent pump that is the heart and the series of pipes that are the blood vessels." The civil engineer then says "You're both wrong. The human body was designed by a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipe through the middle of a recreation area?"

Well' date=' thanks for the help everyone except this meeting was pretty uneventful. There weren't many people and Dr. Lucas did not join the meeting due to technical limitations, which are being worked out and he most likely will join us in two weeks.

 

I recapped the meeting here:http://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/02/recap-of-june-1st-corr-meeting/

For your help next time. I noticed this quote from Dr. Spock:

Spock's book Baby and Child Care (1946):

"Each child as he develops is retracing the whole history of mankind, physically and spiritually, step by step. A baby starts off in the womb as a single tiny cell, just the way the first living thing appeared in the ocean. Weeks later, as he lies in the amniotic fluid of the womb, he has gills like a fish…"

This is "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". It was never part of Darwin's theory of evolution. This was a hypothesis advanced by Ernst Haeckel. Darwin's idea was the similar species had similar embryology and that embryology contained remnants of evolutionary history. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is that the embryo goes thru the adult forms of all its evolutionary ancestors. This was shown false even as Haeckel proposed it since embryos do not go thru the adult forms of evolutionary ancestors. The theory is so wrong that Haeckel had to fabricate his drawings of embryos. You can get some more info here

http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/evo5.html Haeckel's drawings

http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/evo1.html More Haeckel

""Evolutionists can not explain how this can happen by chance.""

You did well in not letting Menton get away with this. As you pointed out: EVOLUTION IS NOT CHANCE. Natural selection is not chance. The "selection" part of natural seleciton is the opposite of chance; it is pure determinism.

Next time, you might want to say: Variations are random with regard to the needs of the individual or the population. In a climate growing colder, just as many deer with shorter fur will be born as those with longer fur. But ONLY the deer with longer fur will survive the colder weather. That's not chance, it's design. Natural selection is an algorithm to get design. That is, follow the steps and design is guaranteed.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/sep99/937540022.Gb.r.html

"3.05010: How long does it take to starve to death?

The length of time it takes for someone to starve to death varies from person to person. It depends on their body composition, weight, heart condition, etc. It can take anywhere from several days to several weeks."

Source: Article by Faye Girsh, Executive director of the Hemlock Society.

http://www.hemlock.org/starve.html

They are there for some sort of scientific affirmation of their faith, as a student of science I am naturally interested in the argument if one is presented, but when it's not I let them know. I don't go to these functions at church services, this is a public university. I do put my beliefs (or lack thereof) aside,

I am beginning to doubt that. Because you won't reassure the audience that science doesn't attack their faith. Let's face it, you have beliefs. You believe God does not exist. You believe all the physical processes discovered by science work on their own. That they don't need a supernatural component.

What you are doing is good, but it is not sufficient. As you noted, for the audience the issue is only secondary that Lucas' particular scientific theories are wrong. The real important thing is that Lucas is telling them that the currently valid scientific theories attack their faith. You aren't telling them differently.

I attend simply as a student of science. I refuse to lie to my own people, and if my atheism is exposed and becomes an issue I will simply say, "I was raised christian, I am a midwesterner, I am one of you, and most importantly, I refuse to lie to you. I'm here as a student of science Everything I say about textbook science can be verified by science textbooks."

Let me make a suggestion. Say "Yes, my personal belief is atheism. However, that belief is not part of science. Science is neutral about belief in God. Many, many scientists are theists. They view science as telling them how God works. I am one of you, and most importantly, I refuse to lie to you, and I had to speak because these people are lying to you. They are lying about specific theories in science. The theories are not what they say they are. You can look for yourself by reading science textbooks."

Now, is there any dishonesty in that?

I think that says what I meant, but just in case I'll put it another way. He goes up there and says something silly, I'm not going to go up there and say something silly back, I'm going to simply say, that's silly.

That's more understandable, but can you give me a concrete example of what you consider "something silly"?

Richard Dawkins and Jay Gould said that taking part in these "debates" gives the creationist side validity, a podium, that they wouldn't have otherwise. Sounds logical, so scientists generally avoid functions like these to avoid giving this ridiculousness merit. ... However, ignoring this problem only makes it worse, by the tea party reference I believe that the Dawkins Method is correct if you say, "This isn't good tea, the tea is too sweet," instead of saying, "There is no tea here."

I tend to agree, which is why I'm trying to help you instead of discouraging you. If scientists don't show up, then the public hears only one side. But Dawkins and Gould have a good point: debates don't decide truth and the creationists can "win" a debate by being better debators, thus giving credibility to creationism. It's a risk.

If I understand Dawkins correctly, it is what I advocate: treat creationism like what it really is: a scientific theory. Show how it is false, just like you would any other scientific theory.

I know but agnosticism and atheism are one in the same to this audience, as are Judaism, Islam, and any other nonchristian belief (even to a small extent catholicism). This is generally an evangelical crowd. Whether or not the audience knows the difference in definitions is moot, any nonprotestant belief is seen as atheism here, as is pointed out by many specific examples both at these meetings and many church services/conversations with evangelicals I have attended in the past.

You keep highlighting how important religion is to this crowd. But then say you are going to avoid the religious implications! Unless you meet the religious concerns head-on and defuse them, I submit your scientific arguments are going to fall on deaf ears. As long as they view science as atheism, you've "lost". You are going to have to insist that science is neutral toward religion. It doesn't back theism (particularly their version of it) but it doesn't back atheism, either.

If you are going to educate them on correct versions of specific theories, you might as well educate them on correct philosophical terms.

Unless, of course, you really believe science falsifies religion and mandates atheism?

science does not have consult any religion or religious text in order to be good science. It simply must work.

I never said science had to consult a religious text. Hypotheses/theories are decided by direct experience of the physical universe.

However, thru most of the history of science, science has been viewed as figuring out how God works/created. Thus, science is not an enemy of, nor completely separate from, religion.

Even today, Dawkins use of science to bolster atheism and bash theism is having science be a bedfellow of religion -- but in this case the religion is atheism.

However, scientists come from different backgrounds. Different religions or no religion at all. And who a scientist is at home and where science exists are 2 entirely different places.

But that scientists can have such diverse personal beliefs means that science is compatible with those beliefs. So, even tho you are an atheist, you can honestly present science as being compatible with theism. No lie there, is there?

The marriage of science and religion is not done by science, though it is done by scientists at home and, unfortunately, by outsiders who take it out of context. This marriage is a cultural one and not a methodological one, as it is common for anyone to measure new ideas against what they already know, primarly given to them by their culture - which of course includes religion. It's simply done by unneccessary and unhappy accident, and it would be the best for both to be permanantly seperated and have no affect on the statements of the other.

I already stated that Methodological Materialism -- how we conduct experiments -- prevents us from directly testing for the supernatural. But I submit that you are letting your prejudices get the better of you. The "marriage" of science and religion, or interaction of science and religion if you prefer, is not just a cultural one nor done by "unnecessary and unhappy accident". That the supernatural exists and that it is necessary for the material processes to work is a valid scientific hypothesis. It's just that the methods of science are incapable of testing that hypothesis. Doesn't mean the hypothesis is unimportant.

Gould proposed NOMA, but Dawkins argues that it is not possible. What science does is going to impact religion. And the existence of data outside of science that leads to religion impacts science. What's more, the morality of religion impacts science, because science itself has no morality. Science must get morality from outside science.

Science is agnostic because it has no choice. It's methods force it to be agnostic. But science would still like an answer. We as scientists can't know all about the universe unless and until science can decide whether or not the supernatural exists and whether or not is necessary for the material methods we find in science to work. Of course, science may never be able to decide. But we as scientists learn to live with unanswered questions. Or, at least, you have better be learning that in school. Some questions take longer to answer than others.

In the meantime, in order to defend science effectively against attack by a particular religion -- Fundamentalism -- we have to be able to show that science does not threaten God. Otherwise, if we don't comment the Fundies are going to use politics to define science the way they want so that God is not threatened.

Hello Lucaspa, if memory serves we have met before maybe a year ago. Glad to see you, if that's you.

It's me.

I'm out of here. Just dropped in for a moment. I'm reading a great new quantum gravity paper, and nothing will make me stop doing that today.

Let us know if the paper really does give us a valid theory of quantum gravity! After all, we've only been waiting for one for, what? over 30 years!

Better yet, give us the citation.

Well, these meetings are billed as scientific arguments, however I have yet to see a valid scientific argument presented,

LOL! Of course not, considering that creationism was falsified by 1860!

I'm not going to argue in scientific invalidity, I just point out that he's misrepresenting science and that his arguments are invalid scientifically.

??? Please read what you wrote again. you say you won't argue in scientific invalidity, but then say his arguments are scientifically invalid. I think you meant to say something else, because this contradicts.

The Dawkins Method is correct in sentiment in this regard. If I attend and join his imaginary tea party I'm giving him validity,

What "imaginary tea party"? What's the "Dawkins Method"?

Also, agnosticism and atheism are one in the same to this audience, and I do not have the authority to redefine it for them.

Sure you do. Huxley coined the term "agnostic" specifically not to be confused with atheism. The terms are out there in the public domain. You are part of the public. You have the authority to give the correct definitions.

Although I didn't mention God' date=' and only did once overall. An ICR bookwriter attends all the meetings and he said that belief in God causes an accountability problem and that's why people want to not believe in him and believe in evolution (his assumption of course that they are mutually exlusive). I had to make the statement, "Then how are you going to be held accountable to God by endorsing the lies about science in these presentations?" It took a couple of days but he conceded there are misrepresentations, though he did so in private. [/quote']

 

Good comeback! You took away the high ground from him.

 

I go to these meetings as a student of science looking for a valid scientific argument, not as a religious person.

 

I understand that's why you go, but what about the audience? They are there to hear "Christianity" and God defended against what they perceive as science that is inherently atheistic.

 

That's how I approach it, and that's the only way I can do it honestly.

 

Sigh. I understand. Yes, you are doing your best, but you are handicapped by your beliefs. I'm asking you to set aside your personal beliefs and present evolution as it can honestly be presented: as the way God created. Yes, those are not your beliefs, but you do recognize that your beliefs are beliefs and could be wrong, right? There's nothing against science with evolution being presented, for theists, as how God created. Afer all, many evolutionists are theistic evolutionists. Atheists, of course, believe evolution works on its own because they believe there is no God.

 

I do feel I have authority now to comment on Darwin not being an atheist now, and thank you for pointing that out,

 

You're welcome.

We're essentially saying the same thing, however, my point is because we can't control for God or test for God's existence so science does not care about the existence of God.

No, we DO care. We just can't comment. IOW, we care but can't do anything about that caring.

With a different set up, that the existence of God is of importance and consideration to science, gives them fuel for their argument, which that science and religion are bedfellows and that supernatural forces/entities need to be considered for valid science to take place.

Science and religion are bedfellows. Have been perceived that way for centuries. Even today scientists who are theists view science as figuring out how God works.

Remember that I made a distinction between DIRECT testing and getting God in by the backdoor? All of creationism is sneaking God in by the backdoor. That is, God is proposed to use a different material method. Instead of the BB to get the universe, God is supposed to have made all the stars instantaneously in their present form. Instead of evolution, again God is supposed to have manufactured species in their present form.

That "made" and "manufactured" are material methods we can test by science. And have shown them to be false. Yes, the material nature of this method is disguised because the manufacture is said to be by "miracle", but that is irrelevant. When anthropologists found the oldest stone tools, they didn't know how they were made. They had to rediscover/reinvent the technique. But they could decide the tools were manufactured (by now-extinct hominids).

Similarly, we can test whether species are manufactured or whether the stars were manufactured in their present form or formed by other processes.

The really good thing about acknowledging creationism/ID as a scientific theory is that you get to falsify it like we falsify any other theory. God isn't affected, but we get to make a very strong statement about creationism/ID: it is FALSE.

lucaspa' date=' I didn't get 2 files, I'm not sure you can attach them to posts, maybe you can. Would you like to email me? Thanks for the help and support and I'm reviewing the information you have sent me.

 

As a sidenote, I don't advertise my atheism because by what I address it's a moot point, but I will not lie if asked.

 

No, you shouldn't lie, and I am not suggesting you do. I am only asking that you present that atheism as a personal faith and not dictated by science or a product of science. Also that you honestly present evolution as an alternative method for how God created. Yes, that isn't your personal belief, but you can present the position as a reasonable and valid belief.

 

The support for ID/creationism is more cultural than religious in these parts and I am one of them.

 

I can see that by the call for "all people who voted for Bush" to turn out at the meeting. But they also call for people from churches.

 

I have been met with success as well, because what I care about is defending the audience who I address,

 

Yes, you can present yourself as not wanting to see the audience be conned and told something that isn't true. It's equivalent to stepping in and telling the used-car customer that the used-car salesman is telling them untruths about the car.

 

I see little point in beating Lucas in an invalid argument

 

What do you mean by that?

 

I have been met with success in past meetings, however Lucas' first meeting I had the least (although there were the most people there) because of the odd format, and this format is even more odd with the CCTV.

 

Because you don't get to respond directly to Lucas. Which is why you have to be proactive and defuse Lucas' equation of science to atheism and CCS to theism. You can't wait to just respond, but must educate people about science -- both the real theories, really how science is done, and how science really relates to religion. Science is agnostic, not atheistic. My experience is that, as long as the audience hears that a theory is "against God", it does no good to be technically correct about the theory. They have already tuned you out.

 

OK, this time the file attachments worked. I had to put them in PDF format.

Hitler and races created.pdf

Gobineau and racism.pdf

"Most simple point here is that you can't consider a supreme being when conducting a scientific investigation because you can not control for it. The existence of God is irrelevant to science. Nor can science prove or disprove the existence of God, because natural science only studies the natural world, also known as the universe. Nor does science really care. You won't find any reputable scientific journal that weighs the existence of God in any of its conclusions."

I would disagree. Science does passionately care about the existence of God. It's just that science can't DO anything about it -- to show God exists or that God does not exist.

Look, we are trying to completely understand the universe and how it works. If God is necessary for all the laws, theories, hypotheses, processes we study to WORK, we really care about that.

But, as you pointed out, we can't control for the supernatural. We can't point to a test tube and say "I know God is not in that one" and point to one next to it and say "I know God is in that one." But we have to be able to do that in order to directly test for God's effect on, say, the combustion of hydrogen to oxygen. If God participates in the reaction every time, science can't detect God. It's called Methodological Materialism.

So, science finds the material (or natural) explanation. Or rather the material component of the explanation. There may or may not be a supernatural component of the explanation.

The way God gets into science is by the backdoor. God is proposed to work by a specific material mechanism. Then we test the material mechanism. For instance, it was proposed that God caused a Flood and the Flood caused all geological features. Well, we tested whether all geological features were caused by a single world-wide Flood. Nope. So, we falsified the Flood as the material mechanism for geology. However, what do we do if someone proposes that God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution? Yes, all those material mechanisms account for the entities associated with them. But is God involved? The scientific answer is: we don't know.

But the idea that God is necessary and a part of every explanation is very relevant to science. Again, it's just that we can't do anything about it because of the limitation imposed by the scientific method.

Now, God is weighed in 2 areas: the origin of the universe and the origin of the order of the universe. In 2001 an Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences was devoted to weighing different hypotheses of the origin of the universe and the origin of the order in the universe.

1: Russell RJ. Did God create our universe? Theological reflections on the Big Bang, inflation,and quantum cosmologies.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:108-27.PMID: 11797742 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2: Gingerich O. Scientific cosmology meets western theology: a historical perspective.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:28-38.PMID: 11797757 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

4: Miller JB. Cosmic questions and the relationship between science and religion.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:309-10. No abstract available.PMID: 11797760 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

5: Turok N. Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:83-96.PMID: 11797765 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

6: Weinberg S. A universe with no designer.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:169-74; discussion 183-90.PMID: 11797746 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

7: Polkinghorne J. Understanding the universe.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:175-82; discussion 183-90.PMID: 11797748 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

8: Griffin DR. Is the universe designed? Yes and no.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:191-205.PMID: 11797749 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

9: Pelikan J. Athens and/or Jerusalem: cosmology and/or creation.Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Dec;950:17-27.

God has also been considered as being behind the observation that intercessory prayer has an effect:

3: Levin JS. How prayer heals: a theoretical model. Altern Ther Health Med. 1996 Jan;2(1):66-73. Review.

#4 is the one lost on most of the audience, but I try to put that in practical terms.

That should be the easiest. We all agree there is a REAL universe out there to study. We don't think we are living in the Matrix.

The point here is that science did get these assumptions from Judeo-Christianity. Why is Lucas leaving 2 of them out? Contingency and Accessibility. What, couldn't God have made the universe differently? That's why we have to do science and go out and look. Not just what Lucas does and make theories in his office and never do experiments.

It's also hard to explain J-C principles to an evangelical audience, because they generally don't think of their religion in those terms.

Maybe because you don't know Judeo-Christianity well enough? I realize that they don't know much history of Christianity, but that should make it all the more effective when you point out that creationism is against Christianity!

Historically, evolution was looked upon as rescuing God from creationism. Special Creation creates (pun intended) real problems for God. This was recognized in the 1850s as more and more bad and cruel designs were discoverd in nature. God made these directly? Then God is sadistic, stupid, and suffering from Alzheimer's! Not acceptable. Natural selection gets God off the hook, because God no longer DIRECTLY designs each species: natural selection does.

Common Sense science actually argues against all scientific physical laws and redefines them. This is where their movement is going, and reminds me of The Exorcist line, "The Devil mixes lies with the truth."

There's also a Bible verse to that effect. Let's both try to look it up. Imagine how effective that would be: showing that the Bible disapproves of Lucas' CSS!

They misrepresent science using what sounds like scientific terminology in order to argue against their own silly misrepresentation. Evolution has overwhelming scientific support, so their presenting a different version of textbook science that will look silly to their audience and that will support their own reasoning.

Making strawmen of science has been a hallmark of modern creationism since Morris and Whitcomb published The Genesis Flood in 1968. Barnes and others have also done it for physics. As the resource site I posted to you demonstrates.

he flat out admitted he thinks they are wrong because "they do not allow for God."

Did you ask "How are they supposed to include God?" Or "Why aren't these laws how God is acting?"

"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

Educate them on how Christians have really thought about science! Did you know that it was Christians that falsified creationism in the first place? Yep. And many of them were ministers.

This is an excellent post, and you and I agree wholeheartedly. I'm not going to claim religion because I am not religious, and I do not lie - that's what they do, but I'm lucky because I am from their culture - most of the support of creationsim/ID comes from my people, who I know how to talk to.

Then use the quote from McCosh as your starting statement and point out that, for theists, creationism and evolution are different methods God used to create. THAT you can do honestly.

There are a lot of ties between Darwin and Naziism in these meetings, ironically by people who openly make anti-semetic statements. Do you know anything about this business about Darwin saying men are more highly evolved than women?

First, Nazism came from creationism, not evolution. The source of the Nazi race theories came from the work of a guy named Gobineau -- a creationist who argued that the races were separate creations and were created unequal. See the attached file on "Godineau" .

Yes, I know the quote from Darwin.

"Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness; and this holds good even with savages, as shewn by a well-known passage in Mungo Park's Travels, and by statements made by many other travellers. Woman, owing to her maternal instincts, displays these qualities towards her infants in an eminent degree; therefore it is likely that she would often extend them towards her fellow-creatures. Man is the rival of other men; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition which passes too easily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem to be his natural and unfortunate birthright. It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.

The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work on 'Hereditary Genius,' that if men are capable of a decided pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power in man must be above that of woman." Descent of Man pp 563-64 http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/descent/descent19.html

This isn't about "highly evolved" but "more intelligent". However, you can easily see where Darwin made his mistake. The secondary status of women was due to culture, not inherent properties of women. Notice that Darwin also makes the mistake of equating technology with biology -- "therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation". By his own theory, civilisation has not been around long enough for selection to change humans much.

I do point out however that Darwin was a religious man, even studying for clergy, and that his atheism had more to do with the death of his favorite daughter than it did his science, which I think many in the crowd can relate too.

Darwin NEVER became an atheist! You can see that in Chapter 20 of Desmond and Moore's biography Darwin . The chapter title is definitive "Never an atheist". This comes from a letter from Darwin to Asa Gray late in life: 'I have never been an atheist in the in the sense of denying the existence of a God, ... I think that generally (& more & more as I grow older), but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.' Darwin said he underwent "wide swings" in his belief. But those swings were between theism and agnosticism.

I have another resource for you: http://www.leaderu.com/science/crackpot.html

This site is a Biblical sholar criticizing CW Lucas! So it is a fellow Christian telling them Lucas' science is wrong! Make the most of this.

Unless you can leave your atheism at the door (such as trying make Darwin an atheist when he was not), you have no chance and should not be in these debates, IMO. Whatever your personal worldview, the only chance evolution has is to make it very, very clear that it is compatible with Christianity. Evolution is not compatible with Biblical literalism, so if they say that evolution cannot be reconciled with a literal reading of Genesis 1, then that is correct. But you can point out that Christians long ago stopped reading Genesis 1 literally. St. Augustine and John Calvin, for instance, did not hold to a literal Genesis 1.

Now, I hope those files uploaded. If you didn't get 2 files, let me know and I'll do it again.

to say that life is definitely the result of random events as most scientists believe is not so easy for me to see.

That is because this idea is false. Life is the result of chemistry and chemical reactions are NOT "random"

I have not yet however come across any proof, or have been able to rationalize how a pool of complex chemicals could become “alive”.

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm'>http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/

http://www.siu.edu/%7Eprotocell/

http://www.christianforums.com/t155621

I do know that there is no clear line that divides what is alive and what isn’t, but there is one thing that does set life apart from all other things in the universe; and that is “purpose”. If you take life out of the equation, all other things that happen in the universe are completely random.

Gravity is random? Not at all. It is completely directional and deterministic. So your premise about all other things in the universe are completey random is false. Even quantum events have rules. We cannot know WHICH radioactive atom will decay next, but half of them ALWAYS decay within a half-life.

Life is chemistry. THere is no inherent long-term "purpose" to life.

Now, natural selection does have a short term purpose: to find a design that fits the environment.

The fact that we have not been able to create a biological cell from scratch yet is surprising to me when you take into consideration everything else we now of life and its process (we actually seem closer to doing it electronically with computers). Does anyone know of any instance where a cell has been built from scratch in a lab?

A modern cell? No. But A cell? YES. see the websites I posted above.

And the assault on science will not be against evolution, but all science. He redefines and misrepresents science in order to set up his support. To check out his absurdity and the absurdity of his organization please visit www.commonsensescience.org[/url'] It's especially insulting to physicists and chemists.

From what I can see about the site, it is focussed on physics and chemistry, not evolution. And yes, it misstates science ... a LOT. He doesn't like quantum mechanics at all. Ironically, QM is consistent with Judeo-Christianity (his big point about CSS that it is compatible with CSS). Strict determinism removes God from interacting with the world. Strict cause and effect means a deistic God that simply started up the universe and let it run, not the theistic God of J-C that intervenes in human history.

For instance, http://www.commonsensescience.org/explaining_life.html it claims that the strong and weak forces are an example of modern science discarding unity. Nothing could be further from the truth. All are part of the idea that there is unity to the universe. Forces do not have to act uniformly for unity.

Now that I think about it, Lucas is most vulnerable theologically. That is, his view of science contradicts major and necessary beliefs of J-C.

For instance, his common sense science has only 3 assumptions about the universe. Science has 5 (which includes all 3 of his). And yes, originally those 5 assumptions came from J-C in that they are attributes of God. So why does CSS leave out 2 of them?

I think Kitty Ferguson in Fire in the Equations gives this the best.

"There is a further element of risk for anyone on a search for the truth. You cannot start in a vacuum. You must begin by trusting some ideas about the universe that have never been proved, may never be proved, and might turn out to be wrong. To be simplistic about it, you have to assume that you exist and that you are sane. Those may not be such difficult assumption. Common sense supports them. Of course, you have to believe they are true in order to trust your common sense. You see what sort of mental mess we get ourselves into!

"The search for truth in science is based on agreement concerning just such basic assumptions. It is a gamble, if you will; a gamble that certain articles of faith which cannot be proved by science are nevertheless well-founded enough to provide a springboard for all scientific investigation. It is intriguing to find that religion shares much of science's basic view of reality. How is it that two approaches, science and religion, both claiming to be avenues of truth but in many ways reputed to clash with one another, should be in agreement on so basic a level? ...

"Scientists of the seventeenth century, most but not all of whom had religious views closer to my grandparents that to Hawking ... developed a procedure that would systematically separate what is true from what is not true. That is the procedure that we call the scientific method. It has served us splendidly ever since its birth and made our spectacular technology possible. Whatever the scientific method's origins or its philosophical foundations, we have no cause to doubt its usefulness.

"Depending upon whether we believe in God, you or I might leave God out of the following." (I put the comments related to deity in [ ] to separate them.)

"1. The universe is *rational*, [reflecting both the intellect and the faithfulness of its Creator]. It has pattern, symmetry, and predictability to it. Effect follows cause in a dependable manner. For these reasons, it is not futile to try to study the universe.

"2. The universe is *accessible* to us, not a closed book but one open to our investigation. [Minds created in the image of the mind of God can understand the universe God created.]

"3. The universe has *contingency* to it, meaning that things could have been different from the way we find them, and chance [and/or choice] played a role in making them what they are. Whether this is contingency in the sense that chance [and choice] play an on-going role within the universe, or merely in the sense that there was a initial chance occurrence [or choice] which brought about this universe instead of a different one or none at all, one cannot learn about the universe by pure thought and logic alone. Knowledge comes by observing and testing it.

"4. There is such a thing as *objective* reality. [because God exists and sees and knows everything, there is a truth behind everything.] Reality has a hard edge to it and does not cave in or shift like sands in the dessert in response to our opinions, perceptions, preferences, beliefs, or anything else. Reality is not a democracy. There is something definite, some raw material, out there for us to study.

"5. There is *unity* to the universe. There is an explanation -- [one God], one equation, or one system of logic -- which is fundamental to everything. The universe operates by underlying laws which do not change in an arbitrary fashion from place to place, from minute to minute, or even millenium to millenium. There are no loose ends, no real contradictions. At some deep level, everything fits."

"Divorced from the assumption that there is a God, these five assumptions about the universe, these five articles of faith, if you will -- rationality, accessibility, contingency, objectivity, and unity -- continue to underlie the practice of science. Some would argue that upon them depends all possibility of doing science as we know it. The best argument for their validity is not that they are obvious but that the scientific method seems to work so well! The proof (dangerous word) is in the pudding." Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations pg. 8-9

Advice: Take away the theological "high ground" of the creationists. I don't know the beliefs of Silkworm, but it would help if he were Christian. If so, the first thing to do is say: "Anyone here who believes God exists raise your hand" and raise your hand. Then say "Anyone here who believes God created raise your hand" and raise your hand.

Then say, "The title of this debate is misleading. We are not debating Creation vs an alternative to Creation. Instead, we are debating two different methods that God is said to have used in creating: creationism or ID and evolution. Did God create how creationists say He created, or did God create by evolution? The evidence God left us in His Creation says clearly He created by evolution."

Then point out the prominent evolutionists who are/were Christians: Asa Gray, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Francisco Ayala, and Kenneth Miller.

Also be sure to use this quote from Origin of Species:

"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

Be sure you know what "secondary causes" are in theology.

Creationists try to portray evolution as atheism. DO NOT LET THEM DO THAT Once you let them turn this into theism vs atheism, you've "lost" to your audience. The only way to get the rank and file to listen is to keep saying that evolution is compatible with God creating and Christianity! Also use this quote from America's most prominent Christian and theologian in the late 19th century:

"Christians should look on evolution simply as the method by which God works." James McCosh, theologian and President of Princeton, The Religious Aspects of Evolution, 2d ed. 1890, pg 68.

Neandertals had a retromolar space, while modern do not. One might surmise that they did not have problems with wisdom teeth. However the retromolar space a unqiuely derived trait, and sets H. neanderthalensis apart from other hominins as well.

Then it would be a derived trait of Neandertals as they diverged from H. erectus. H. sapiens and H. neandertalis are sibling species.

Did early anatomically modern humans have painful problems with their widsom teeth? Or even, how far back in recorded history do we see evidence of impacted wisdom teeth? Perhaps the wisdom tooth problem is a fairly recent development-- either a human structural change, or something elicted by lifestyle?

That impacted wisdom teeth is a fairly recent development is probable:

"Lombardi96 concluded, ‘Dental crowding is endemic among technologically advanced populations and uncommon in primitive groups. The significant elements in the development of most dental crowding are mesial migration and the lack of inter proximal attrition. Mesial migration of the posterior teeth provides the functional replacement for the tooth surface lost to attrition because of the rigors of a primitive diet. In modern man there is little attrition of the teeth because of a soft, processed diet; this can result in dental crowding and impaction of the third molars.’

In short, this theory concludes that ‘ … inter proximal wear is highly correlated with the chewing force required by the diet. A diet consisting largely of tough foods, such as nuts, seeds, fibrous vegetables, and partially cooked meats, requires high chewing forces that cause lateral movement of the teeth relative to each other. This rubbing of adjacent teeth is the cause of inter proximal wear. The amount of particulate matter or grit in the diet is a secondary factor in inter proximal wear, although it accounts for most of the occlusal wear. Advanced populations that consume a diet composed largely of cooked meats and vegetables, as well as processed foods, do not require the large chewing forces that lead to lateral movement of the teeth and inter proximal wear. The low incidence of crowding in primitive populations seemingly results from the high degree of inter proximal attrition and not from a more harmonious concordance of tooth and jaw size.’97"

Amazingly enough, this useful information comes from AiG. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/wisdomteeth.asp They think it is evidence against evolution. Of course it is not, only against the subsidiary hypothesis that impacted wisdom teeth are due to the evolution of decreased jaw size.

It's not so much that they're idiots as they are infected with a pathogenic meme.

LOL! We have the ultimate here in Conspiracy Theory. "The meme made me do it! I'm so intellectually impoverished that I can't throw off the meme!" Remember the scientists I chose. These are leaders in the field of evolutionary biology. Dobzhansky was one of the 3 founders of the Modern Synthesis. Ayala is the premier living evolutionary biologist. Kenneth Miller is the most able opponent of ID. It was his testimony before the Ohio Board of Education that prevented ID being taught in that state.

Now, Ayala and Miller have argued against ID and creationism. So, they are critical enough of religious memes to discard some. You are saying that this critical ability is suddenly missing when it comes to examining the overall memes "God exists" and "God created"? Does Special Pleading sound familiar to you?

Finally, of course, you are using a very controversial theory as tho it is fact. Memes and the behavior you are ascribing to them are far from universally supported.

However, there are others that see science as undermining the foundational ideas through which their meme spreads, so the pathogen with which they're infected collectively begins to generate new memes to prevent its own demise.

These guys are infected with the science meme whose one inviolable rule is:

"The only rule of the scientific method is that we must discard any scientific statement if the evidence of our senses shows it to be wrong. " And you say they will discard that rule? Special pleading again.

Logic and the scientific method have given us an excellent foundation from which to perform sound thinking and reasoning, but sadly it hasn't yet allowed people to reveal to themselves that they're infected with pathogenic memes which have a detremental effect on society and human behavior.

Why don't you classify atheism as a pathological meme? Isn't atheism a meme? How do you know it is not also acting with a detrimental effect on society and human behavior?

Since there are scientists who are atheists, we have other scientists who are not infected with what you call a "pathological meme". They should have published peer-reviewed papers showing deity does not exist. Where are those papers? Find me a peer-reviewed paper that shows deity does not exist.

I'd say this is mostly because religion is a meme which has evolved to motivate people to continue its spread through fear of an inescapable and eternal reprisal (i.e. Pascal's Wager) for anyone who "disbelieves," making it not only hard to escape without enduring something of a mental breakdown,

If that were true there would be no agnostics or atheists at all. Besides, with the advent of secular societies, there is no punishment in this life. Now, while the threat of hellfire figures in SOME religions and some denominations of Christianity, it is absent in others. Judaism, for instance, has nothing like what you portray. Nor have I seen any threats of eternal damnation in Hinduism and the "threat" is minimal or non-existent in many Protestant denominations.

So, you have advanced one hypothesis. Have you considered alternative hypotheses for the persistance of belief in the existence of deity?

Let me put another, althernative hypothesis to you: theism survives like any other idea survives: because of evidence.

Yes, religions are excellent memetic replicators; it's just sad they have so many deleterious effects (e.g. 9/11, The Inquisition, The Crusades, ID, etc.)

Unfortuantely, the pathological meme that is atheism seems to blind you to the fact that atheism is a faith. Nice pathological feature, don't you think?