Science: Do we believe or do we accept?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by citybutch

I think you have deeply misinterpreted me and my beliefs. I believe in both evolution and a divine nature to... well, nature. I am not sure where you get anywhere in my post that I do not believe in evolution. I don't even believe in heaven for goodness sake. Well, at least a heaven that is beyond this life.

I was merely asking in a philosophical sense and hoping for a more intellectual conversation not a rebuttal of my post and an analysis of my "beliefs" which I did not state in this thread and have barely stated in others. ... The questions are common ones when one is having a conversation about the philosophy of science...

Your assumptions led you a little astray in your response to me...

I wasn't saying *you* didn't believe in evolution, I was offering evolution as an area of contention. You may not doubt evolution but you are in a distinct minority in the United States. Forty percent of Americans believe that human beings were created, in our current form, within the last 10,000 years. They ignore any evidence to the contrary and do not know nor do they want to know what evolutionary theory says. They insist that because their holy book *says* this that nature is obliged to agree with them and that the entire biological sciences are just wrong. Not on some empirical issue, but rather we are wrong because we do not agree with the biblical account. It was an example of the demarcation problem, not meant to say that you doubt evolution.

Put it this way, you seem to like Deepak Chopra. I am not fond of him for reasons I won't get into. It would be uncalled for me to show up at a Deepak Chopra speaking engagement and then, every time he mentioned 'quantum' ask him to explain how he squares his interpretation of QM with the scaling problem (which I won't get into here). What I see happening with creationists is that they are showing up in schools and saying that they reject this theory in biology because it offends their religious sensibilities and that therefore, biology is *required* to submit itself to those sensibilities. I see no reason why biology should do that.

I wasn't trying to analyze your beliefs or rebut your post.

As far as spirituality being a set of tools to understand the Universe, okay so far as it goes but it is a different set of questions. I think that spirituality is *useless* for understanding how stars work. In fact, I would say that it is worse than useless. My problem isn't when spiritual people say "these are the set of tools to help me get through my day while staying sane". I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when spiritual people say "my <insert holy text here> teaches that the reason that stars burn is that <insert pre-scientific account of stars here>". To be clear, I am NOT saying that you are doing this. I am trying to clarify the point I was making.

I was, more or less, agreeing with you. I was not trying to say you believe in heaven. I do not know what your beliefs are other than that you are some form of Christian. But large numbers of Christians *do* believe in heaven and that is fine, unless they are going to insist that heaven is a factual place in which case I think that it is reasonable to treat it like any other factual place and begin to ask questions about it.

Again, this is not to say that you believe in heaven or that you are like a large numbers of Christians. For all I know you are in a denomination of one. I am offering up examples of where I see the demarcation lines being drawn. This is completely separate of your beliefs about heaven, evolution or, for that matter, quantum mechanics or any other specific issue.

Cheers
Aj

[citybutch]

Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.

I think the demarcation lines are a lot easier to draw if your mind sits in either one extreme area or the other... and so yes, I do agree with you. I just think as we get down into the scientific subject of matter (for example) the demarcation gets a little fuzzy. And perhaps science will progress to a point where we have absolute answers... In fact, I have little doubt that it will. However, as it stands right now, there has to be a small bit of assumption when you get down to this area... a part of it that is accepted as truth without proof... and THAT was my point. There is, to be a scientist, just a little bit of faith involved (even if you don't want to call it that)... By the way this is a conversation I engage in with both my brother and his wife... He is a nuerobiologist and she a geneticist.. both with their own labs.. Very smart people (like you) who have little spiritual interpretation in the world around them. It's sometimes hard for me to engage but my "play the devils advocate" side comes out and we have fun!

I like Chopra a lot more than you do I guess but to be honest haven't read that much of him. I am too busy studying these days than digging deep into spiritual writers and thinkers. I did enjoy his fictional rendering of Jesus though.

I want to say more but I have to go sit for an exam this morning...

Thanks for your response!

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I wasn't saying *you* didn't believe in evolution, I was offering evolution as an area of contention. You may not doubt evolution but you are in a distinct minority in the United States. Forty percent of Americans believe that human beings were created, in our current form, within the last 10,000 years. They ignore any evidence to the contrary and do not know nor do they want to know what evolutionary theory says. They insist that because their holy book *says* this that nature is obliged to agree with them and that the entire biological sciences are just wrong. Not on some empirical issue, but rather we are wrong because we do not agree with the biblical account. It was an example of the demarcation problem, not meant to say that you doubt evolution.

Put it this way, you seem to like Deepak Chopra. I am not fond of him for reasons I won't get into. It would be uncalled for me to show up at a Deepak Chopra speaking engagement and then, every time he mentioned 'quantum' ask him to explain how he squares his interpretation of QM with the scaling problem (which I won't get into here). What I see happening with creationists is that they are showing up in schools and saying that they reject this theory in biology because it offends their religious sensibilities and that therefore, biology is *required* to submit itself to those sensibilities. I see no reason why biology should do that.

I wasn't trying to analyze your beliefs or rebut your post.

As far as spirituality being a set of tools to understand the Universe, okay so far as it goes but it is a different set of questions. I think that spirituality is *useless* for understanding how stars work. In fact, I would say that it is worse than useless. My problem isn't when spiritual people say "these are the set of tools to help me get through my day while staying sane". I have no problem with that. I do have a problem when spiritual people say "my <insert holy text here> teaches that the reason that stars burn is that <insert pre-scientific account of stars here>". To be clear, I am NOT saying that you are doing this. I am trying to clarify the point I was making.

I was, more or less, agreeing with you. I was not trying to say you believe in heaven. I do not know what your beliefs are other than that you are some form of Christian. But large numbers of Christians *do* believe in heaven and that is fine, unless they are going to insist that heaven is a factual place in which case I think that it is reasonable to treat it like any other factual place and begin to ask questions about it.

Again, this is not to say that you believe in heaven or that you are like a large numbers of Christians. For all I know you are in a denomination of one. I am offering up examples of where I see the demarcation lines being drawn. This is completely separate of your beliefs about heaven, evolution or, for that matter, quantum mechanics or any other specific issue.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by citybutch

Sorry about that AJ. Because you responded to me and put my post in yours it was a natural conclusion to assume you meant me.

No worries, City I probably should have been more clear that I was offering examples.

I think the demarcation lines are a lot easier to draw if your mind sits in either one extreme area or the other... and so yes, I do agree with you. I just think as we get down into the scientific subject of matter (for example) the demarcation gets a little fuzzy. And perhaps science will progress to a point where we have absolute answers... In fact, I have little doubt that it will. However, as it stands right now, there has to be a small bit of assumption when you get down to this area... a part of it that is accepted as truth without proof... and THAT was my point. There is, to be a scientist, just a little bit of faith involved (even if you don't want to call it that)...

Oh, I think there is faith in as much as I trust the natural world to be consistent. Like I said yesterday, I did not wake up on the moon although there is a quantum mechanical description of my body, lying in bed in my house, wherein I wake up and find that I have suddenly found myself on the moon. Perhaps a better example is this. There is a means, using quantum mechanics, to describe the state of all of the atoms making up the Statue of Liberty that has her waving the arm holding the torch. It is *possible* for that to happen, no physical law forbids it. However, in order for it to reach that state, we would have to wait for several hundred times the lifetime of the Universe for just one movement. I have faith, if you will, that the universe is a regular enough place that the statue will not be waving her arms about next time I visit New York. I have somewhat less faith that we glorified chimps are smart enough to figure out most of the questions about the natural world we might have. That said, I think there are questions we will never be smart enough to answer such as "what came before the Big Bang".

I want to say more but I have to go sit for an exam this morning...

Thanks for your response!

I'm looking forward to your next response.

Cheers
Aj