Darwin in Context

by hamilcarr 33 Replies latest social current

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  hamilcarr

  Why non-atheists needn't be afraid about the upcoming Darwin anniversaries.

  The fear is that the anniversary will be hijacked by the New Atheism as the perfect battleground for another round of jousting over the absurdity of belief (a position that Darwin pointedly never took up). Many of the prominent voices in the New Atheism are lined up to reassert that it is simply impossible to believe in God and accept Darwin's theory of evolution; Richard Dawkins and the US philosopher Daniel Dennett are among those due to appear in Darwin200 events. It's a position that infuriates many scientists, not to mention philosophers and theologians.

  "A defence of evolution doesn't have to get entangled in atheism," says Mark Pallen, professor of microbial genomics at Birmingham and author of The Rough Guide to Evolution. Bob Bloomfield, of the Natural History Museum, says: "We want to move the agenda on to the relevance of his ideas today and put aside this squabbling over faith and dogma."

  An attempt to do just that will be in one of the most important of the new crop of Darwin books: Darwin's Sacred Cause, by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, published next month. They argue that Darwin was driven by a moral impulse - abolitionism. He set out to prove that all human beings, regardless of skin colour, were essentially the same, all descended within a few thousand generations from shared parentage. It was Darwin's refutation of the scientific racism of his day used to justify slavery.

  Bloomfield argues that Darwin's theories of evolution are rich in the ethical inspiration essential for the huge environmental crisis we now face. Common descent provides scientific underpinning for the kinship of all human beings - this is no longer simply an ideal, but a scientific fact. And human beings are connected to all other living things on earth; our relationship with the natural world is not one of dominion but intimate interdependence. Darwin may have provoked outrage by displacing human self-aggrandisement, but he also hugely widened the scope of understanding into how the earth has come to be, and thus the responsibility for how it evolves from here. In comparison with such lofty aims, a row over whether evolution is proof of atheism would be a monumental and nonsensical waste of everyone's time.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/29/darwin-anniversary-atheism
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  BurnTheShips

  Thanks for that Hamilcarr. Even I can tell the difference between the groups.

  BTS
• 

  hooberus

  Why non-atheists needn't be afraid about the upcoming Darwin anniversaries.

  The problem is that a person can have a religious view that is compatible with dawinian evolution only if the religious view (as to biological history) is indistinguishable from atheism's naturalist viewpoint. Any, and all others, (such as straight forward history as recorded Bible, any ID theory, etc, etc.) are directly challenged by neo-darwinism.

  Likewise, neo-darwinism is directly challenged by all the other viewpoints , hense atheists have been afraid of any upcoming alternatives, or even evidence against evolution.

  http://www.creationresearch.org
• 

  hamilcarr

  The problem is that a person can have a religious view that is compatible with dawinian evolution only if the religious view ( as to biological history ) is indistinguishable from atheism's naturalist viewpoint. Any, and all others, (such as straight forward history as recorded Bible, any ID theory, etc, etc.) are directly challenged by neo-darwinism.

  To a large extent, we are all naturalists, no matter our ideological background. Therefore, it's very important to distinguish between scientific and ontological naturalism, as most contemportary philosophers of science do.

  Many modern philosophers of science [ 3 ] use the terms methodological naturalism or scientific naturalism to refer to the methodological assumption that explanations of observable effects are practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles). In other words, methodological naturalism is the view that the scientific method (hypothesize, predict, test, and repeat) is the only effective way to investigate reality.

  Methodological naturalism can be contrasted with metaphysical naturalism or ontological naturalism, which refers to the metaphysicalbelief that the natural world (i.e. the universe) is all that exists and, therefore, nothing supernatural exists. In metaphysical naturalism's paradigm observable events in nature are explainable only by natural causes.

  Likewise, neo-darwinism is directly challenged by all the other viewpoints , hense atheists have been afraid of any upcoming alternatives, or even evidence against evolution.

  If all scientists embrace an atheistic naturalism, then why are there alternatives to the neodarwinian worldview within the scientific world?
• 

  inkling

  The problem is that a person can have a religious view that is compatible with dawinian evolution only if the religious view (as to biological history) is indistinguishable from atheism's naturalist viewpoint. Any, and all others, (such as straight forward history as recorded Bible, any ID theory, etc, etc.) are directly challenged by neo-darwinism.

  Wow. Stop the presses, call the cops, batten down the
  hatches, because Hooberus just wrote two consecutive
  sentences that I agree with!!!

  Seriously though, If indeed a true understand and acceptance of Darwin's
  theory does NOT challenge the idea of a interested creator, then why was
  Charles Darwin's faith slowly eroded away to nearly nothing?

  [inkling]
• 

  hooberus

  To a large extent, we are all naturalists, no matter our ideological background. Therefore, it's very important to distinguish between scientific and ontological naturalism, as most contemportary philosophers of science do.

  Actually, on the issue of evolutionary naturalism the two "brands" of naturalism operate exactly the same way and produce the exact same result -that is only naturalistic ("nature by itself, only") "explanations" are considered. With for example "design by an outside entity" excluded apriori by definition, and not by evidence.

  Many modern philosophers of science [ 3 ] use the terms methodological naturalism or scientific naturalism to refer to the methodological assumption that explanations of observable effects are practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles). In other words, methodological naturalism is the view that the scientific method (hypothesize, predict, test, and repeat) is the only effective way to investigate reality.

  One need not embrace methodological naturalisms restriction of naturalistic only ("nature by itself, only") explanations in order to use the scientific method. http://saintpaulscience.com/contents.htm

  2. Naturalism vs. Science

  • Covers issues in the philosophy of science.
  • Explains the difference between scientific and non-scientific theories, particularly the key role of testability.
  • Documents that evolutionists themselves have thoroughly endorsed testability as the criterion of science in all the key creation/evolution court cases.

    The book later argues that evolution is not science — using the evolutionist's own criterion of testability. Some evolutionary leaders are quoted essentially admitting that. The book argues that the new creation theory is testable science, and evolution is not. This role reversal is noteworthy since it engages the debate on the evolutionists' terms using their own criterion of science. It is also a departure from previous creationist positions.

  • Debunks the evolutionists' attempts to define creation out of science:
    • Identifies cases where evolutionists use a double standard — one standard for creation theory, and a lesser one for evolution.
    • Shows that theories involving an intelligent designer are already accepted by evolutionists as testable science. Therefore, evolutionists cannot claim such theories are inherently unscientific.
    • Debunks the evolutionist's assault on the argument from design. Shows that the argument from design can be thoroughly convincing. For example, we often show that someone's death was not accidental, that it was designed — and we show it so compellingly that we execute the 'designer'.
    • Shows that some statements about the supernatural can be testable science. The key is that science must remain self-consistent, it cannot be allowed to contradict itself, and this sometimes forces us to accept some element of the supernatural. Gödel's Theorem (from the logic of mathematics) is discussed as a precedent setting example. This is a contribution to the wider philosophy of science as well as the origins debate.
    • Shows the anthropic principle is not testable, and so not science by evolutionists' own criterion. It reveals an illusion involving a three-shell game ruse, much like is later revealed for natural selection.
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  hooberus

  Seriously though, If indeed a true understand and acceptance of Darwin's
  theory does NOT challenge the idea of a interested creator, then why was
  Charles Darwin's faith slowly eroded away to nearly nothing?

  And many others since as well. See even Dawkin,s comments on this (and his expose on the tactics of the "evolution defense loby" on this very issue!) in this brief (few minutes) online clip from Ben Stein's Expelled the Movie

  Go to:

  http://www.expelledthemovie.com/videos.php

  and then click on "The Darwinian Gospel"
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  hamilcarr

  The book argues that the new creation theory is testable science

  The testable supranatural. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
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  hooberus

  The book argues that the new creation theory is testable science

  The testable supranatural. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

  The book (1993) "Shows that some statements about the supernatural [creation by a creator outside of nature] can be testable science." Such as "An intelligent designer is necessary for the origin of life [from non-life]."-This would be falsified by a demonstration that nautral processes are sufficient to account for life from non-life. B.T.W. this demonstrates that the claim of prominent anti-creationist Kenneth Miller that intelligent design has produced "no testable hypothesis" is false. Here he is making such a false claim in an interview. The Colbert Report: (4:40 to 4:55) in the clip http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/173859/june-16-2008/kenneth-miller
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  hamilcarr

  An intelligent designer is necessary for the origin of life [from non-life] ."-This would be falsified by a demonstration that nautral processes are sufficient to account for life from non-life.

  It has been falsified. There are many non-supranatural explanations for the origin of life, such as the metabolism-first and the genetics-first theories. I like, for instance, Wächtershauser's iron-sulfur world theory with its brief recipe for life:

  Boil water. Stir in iron sulfide and nickel sulfide. Bubble in carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide gas. Wait for peptides to form.