I was researching for an article on Noah's flood, and found an Awake article that used a similar tactic. They interviewed a JW that had been a Ship engineer and he spoke about how he studied the shape of the ark and found it to be a seaworthy shape, and hence that built confidence in the story of Noah. Sure, that size will float, but it did not address that the size is too large for a wooden ship not to leak, or to withstand the stresses of the torrent of water that would have hit it, with the volume of water coming off mountain flow and from the rain.
New Pattern regarding Science in the Awake
by konceptual99 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Slidin Fast
I was once in Prague and met a very well qualified molecular bio-scientist who was a Witness. I was at the sceptical but still "in' stage at the time. There was recently an Awake article about him saying how his discipline confirmed the truth of creation to him. When I met him he seemed a genuine kind man and I checked him out. He is well repected world wide in his field.
I have been searching the idexes and cannot find the article, very frustrating. I have often wondered why a man of such intelligence and international repute can still support the WT mythology.
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Slidin Fast
Found Him: He is an expert in his field. I would love to meet him again and ask him the difficult questions.
“I Was Raised an Atheist”
PROFESSOR František Vyskocil of Charles University, Prague, is internationally known for his research in neurophysiology. Once an atheist, he now firmly believes in God. In an interview with Awake! Professor Vyskocil explains why he changed his viewpoint.
What was your view of religion before you started your career in science?
I was raised an atheist, and my father often made fun of the clergy. I graduated from college in 1963 with degrees in biology and chemistry. In my school years, I believed that the theory of evolution explained life’s diversity.
Tell us a little about your career in science.
In my postdoctoral work, I studied the chemical and electrical properties of nerve synapses. I also studied neurons, membrane pumps, transplantation, and drug desensitization. Many of the results have been published, and some articles have been selected as classical. In time, I became a member of the Learned Society of the Czech Republic, a community of scientists chosen by their peers. After the December 1989 “Velvet Revolution,” I became a professor at Charles University and was allowed to travel to the West to meet with colleagues, some of whom were Nobel laureates.
Did you ever think about God?
In a sense, yes. At times, I wondered why many highly educated people, including some of my professors, believed in God—albeit quietly because of the Communist regime. To me, however, God was a human invention. I had also been outraged by atrocities committed in the name of religion.
How did you come to change your view of evolution?
My doubts about evolution began when I was studying synapses. I was deeply impressed by the amazing complexity of these supposedly simple connections between nerve cells. ‘How,’ I wondered, ‘could synapses and the genetic programs underlying them be products of mere blind chance?’ It really made no sense.
Then, in the early 1970’s, I attended a lecture by a famous Russian scientist and professor. He stated that living organisms cannot be a result of random mutations and natural selection. Someone in the audience then asked where the answer lay. The professor took a small Russian Bible from his jacket, held it up, and said, “Read the Bible—the creation story in Genesis in particular.”
Later, in the lobby, I asked the professor if he was serious about the Bible. In essence, he replied: “Simple bacteria can divide about every 20 minutes and have many hundreds of different proteins, each containing 20 types of amino acids arranged in chains that might be several hundred long. For bacteria to evolve by beneficial mutations one at a time would take much, much longer than three or four billion years, the time that many scientists believe life has existed on earth.” The Bible book of Genesis, he felt, made much more sense.
How did the professor’s comments affect you?
His observations, along with my own nagging doubts, moved me to discuss the subject with several religious colleagues and friends, but I found their views unconvincing. Then I spoke to a pharmacologist who was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. For three years he explained the Bible to me and my wife, Ema. Two things amazed us. First, traditional “Christianity” actually has little in common with the Bible. Second, the Bible, though not a science book, actually harmonizes with true science.
Has your change of view hindered your scientific research?
Not at all. Every good scientist, regardless of his beliefs, must be as objective as possible. But my faith has changed me. For one thing, instead of being overly self-confident, highly competitive, and unduly proud of my scientific skills, I am now grateful to God for any abilities I may have. Also, instead of unfairly attributing the amazing designs manifest in creation to blind chance, I and not a few other scientists ask ourselves, ‘How did God design this?’
[Blurb on page 9]
I and not a few other scientists ask ourselves, ‘How did God design this?’
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cognisonance
Dave Perez: You wouldn't ask a biologist their opinion on a circuit board: why would you ask an electronic engineer for their opinion on biology?It's intellectually dishonest for WT to offer his "educated opinion" as evidence on any topic outside of capacitors and robotics... It's intellectually dishonest for WT to offer his "educated opinion" as evidence on any topic outside of capacitors and robotics.
It can only be "intellectually dishonest" if the writer(s), and more importantly the GB who signs off on the article, are aware that they are making at least one of the following logical fallalcies involved with using this computer scientist to debunk evolution (they may just be unaware of the sloppy logic being used):
- Appeal to authority
- Appeal to accomplishment (or sucess)
- Cherry Picking (specifically fallacy of exclusion)
- and if the purpose (it may not be) is to print articles like this showing that many educated people accept creation, Spotlight Fallacy
The posting about František Vyskocil: In my school years, I believed that the theory of evolution explained life’s diversity... My doubts about evolution began when I was studying synapses. I was deeply impressed by the amazing complexity of these supposedly simple connections between nerve cells. ‘How,’ I wondered, ‘could synapses and the genetic programs underlying them be products of mere blind chance?’
I'm having a hard time understanding how a person who held a degree in biology and accepted evolution, could then go on to ask the question "how could this happen by blind chance?" For me, studying evolution showed that such a question is a strawman fallacy. I cannot enunciate my thoughts here better than how Jerry Coyne does in his book Why Evolution Is True (p. 129):
This brings up what is surely the most widespread misunderstanding about Darwinism: the idea that, in evolution, "everthing happens by chance"... This common claim is flatly wrong. No evolutionist - and certainly not Darwin - ever argued that natural selection is based on chance. Quite the opposite. Could a completely random process alone make the hammering wood-pecker...? Of course not. If suddenly evolution was forced to depend on random mutations alone, species would quickly degenerate and go extinct. Chance alone cannot explain the marvelous fit between indiiduals and their environment... True the raw materials for evolution - the variations between individuals - are produced by chance mutations. These mutations occur willy-nilly, regardless of whether they are good or bad for the individual. But it is the filtering of that variation by natural selection that produces adaptations, and natural selection is manifestly not random. (Italics his)
He then quotes Richard Dawkin's concise definition of his explainaiton about natural selection: "the non-random survival of random variants."
So I bring this all up to ask this question. How could someone who accepted evolution happened, and also acknowledged that natural section best explains how it happened, later reject it, especially by using strawman logic (i.e. equating mutations and natural selection to "just chance" as he later says)?
I want to be careful to not to use the No True Scottsman Fallacy myself in answering this question (i.e. just resorting to the answer that he/she must not have "truly" accepted/understood evolution).
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Socrateswannabe
Sorry to be a late-comer to this party but I just took a look at the hard copy of this rag that I got from the Hall, and was blown away by the last question of the interview:
Has your study of science weakened your faith?
Tistarelli said: "On the contrary, science has strengthened my faith."
So if a study of science can strengthen a person's faith, why are we prohibited from pursuing it? I cannot believe the hypocrisy!
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tiki
leolaia - nick kip......i remembered the name....and googled, and came to another thread from pretty long ago apparently. i had friends who were good friends with him and his first wife.....we spent time together....he was a very interesting character. i believe his kids were with the first wife...whose name escapes me....i do know that at one point she was in trouble with the cong for drinking....don't remember if it was a df or a reproof. long, long ago..........
seems he'd be too smart to stay with the religion forever.....
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Anony Mous
As far as Tistarelli: You could make the fallacious logical jump as an electronics engineer (because that's what he is) that if "I create these robots, therefore someone else must've created me"
As far as Vyskocil: Those arguments have been proven false over and over. Any scientists in the life science fields (especially neurology) will not be taken seriously if they ascribe anything to a higher power. If you were convinced by a Russian religionist with bad arguments you could've easily been convinced by Dawkins with even better arguments.
Scientists should never promote their own viewpoints, that's the sign of a bad scientist.
DISCLAIMER: I work in neuroscience.