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Evolution vs Intelligent Design
On Thursday's Geeknights you guys talked briefly about "Evolution vs Intelligent Design" and now I'm going to throw in my two cents.
They both work at the same time!
Just as the botanists of today (and the last few hundred years) cross pollinate plants to make hardier species whose to say there is not some guiding force at work with all living creatures?
I'm not saying it all happened in a literal 7 days... But what if each of those 7 days in "god time" were equal to a billion years in "human time"???
I think both theories work together easily.
They both work at the same time!
Just as the botanists of today (and the last few hundred years) cross pollinate plants to make hardier species whose to say there is not some guiding force at work with all living creatures?
I'm not saying it all happened in a literal 7 days... But what if each of those 7 days in "god time" were equal to a billion years in "human time"???
I think both theories work together easily.
Comments
My personal beliefs aside, you can believe whatever the hell you want to believe. My problem with “intelligent design†is when its proponents try to bring it into it publicly funded schools.
I do not go into your churches and try to teach science, so please do not come into my science class and teach religion.
however, it depending on how you define God it can be limiting
There are the crazy nuts who say things like the earth is only a few thousand years old. They believe things which are patently contradictory to accepted science. These people are nutty and dangerous.
There are people who do not refute things that are pretty much true, like the fact that we share common ancestry with monkey species. However, when it comes to things that science has not yet explained, they believe there could be some sort of spiritual involvement. I still think these people are nutty, but at least they aren't dangerously nutty. Religion in the margins as they say.
Then there are people like me. In the areas that science has not yet explained something I believe only that "we don't yet know". Eventually science will find the answer. There are no supernatural things.
Also, ponder this... The sun and stars were created on the "third day". There were two whole days, without the means to measure what a day is.
Logic is useless with ID people.
The first one said that the way she sees it (and I'm paraphrasing) that it made more sense to her for God to use evolution to create humans and other animals. Instead of God making all the animals and making sure that they all worked and could reproduce etc. he just made a few single celled organisms and gave them everything they needed to make their own way.
Why would God bother to do all that work when the more intelligent thing to do would be to create evolution, and if God is omni-everything they wouldn't he see the most effective way and use it?
I think that's what sensible Christians think, but I'm not sure I'm sensible and am definitely not Christian so I don't know for sure but that's what's those in the 'know' think.
And, by definition, anything supernatural would be outside the abilities of science to test them, and thus nothing could be said about them in a scientific fashion.
EDIT: I have no problem with people that turn to a spiritual answer for those things that science cannot explain. It's a comforting thing to those people, and I would not deny someone else the thing they need to get them through the day, as long as it's not destructive or detrimental to others.
So yes, tehnically and philosophically you can argue that there is no way to be 100% sure that science can explain the entire universe and that there is absolutely no such thing as the supernatural. However, if you take into account the evidence of the current trend of scientific progression you can definitely say that there is a %99.999999 chance that science will eventually explain everyhthing there is to be explained about the workings of this universe.
It's the same as saying that "If I let go of this apple, it won't fall to the ground this time!" Technically, we aren't 100% sure that gravity won't just stop working on that Apple at that exact moment. Not until you let go of the Apple and observe it will you be sure, or at least as sure as you can be, that it won't float away. However, the trend throughout history shows that the odds of gravity not pulling that Apple towards the earth are infintesiimally small, since gravity has functioned according to well known physics for a very long time.
In conclusion, if science has not yet explained something, there is technically a possibility that it is a supernatural phenomenon. However, to believe that the supernatural phenonmenon is the correct explanation without evidence is to bet on the %.000...1 chance. It is the same as believing that you will let go of an apple and gravity won't work this time. It's going against the trend that has never ceased to progress steadily forward throughout all of human history. Personally, I'll bet on the 99.99999% chance. If you bet on the .00001% chance I think you're a little bit stupid, but I won't begrudge you for it.
I'm not saying that those things which science cannot explain currently must therefore be a supernatural phenomenon, or that the supernatural phenomenon is even a possibility. I'm saying that when science doesn't know the answer to something, it doesn't know any part of the answer, including whether or not there even is an answer. So, saying that "science will eventually explain everything" is a bit of a far-reaching statement, because you cannot make that statement via the scientific process. If you observe some naturally occurring phenomenon, you can attempt to explain it via science, but there is no guarantee that science will explain it fully or at all. If there has been any major observable trend about science, it's that our fundamental understanding of everything around has changed repeatedly throughout history; some things that were once "known" are now unknown, and vice versa.
Science has its uses, but if you can't observe something, you cannot, under any circumstances, draw any scientific conclusions about it. If you can't draw any objective, empirical observations in regards to a quandry, then it is left to logical speculation and debate.
One thing to note: you keep making this difference between science and philosophy, but as I've pointed out, science is a branch of phiolophy whose core principle is the determination of truth via the interpretation of empirically observed data. It's not the be-all and end-all of human discourse, though I do contend that it represents the pinnacle of human understanding, in that if we can say we understand anything fully, it will be understood scientifically.
There are people who hold a direct belief in a specific god/pantheon/sky giant/force/whatever. This is religion.
There are people who hold a gnostic belief in the existence of some form of creator or existence outside of what we know, but do not define it. This is effectively a form of gnosticism. You can call it personal spirituality if you like. The reason for the lack of definition is irrelevant*
In the case of the latter, the argument for or belief of some creator force is nothing more than philosophical. We can search for a "creator," but whether or not it exists does not matter, for our theories and our world work in their own contexts without the need for this creator to have ever existed. It doesn't matter whether it existed or not, since either way our world exists. We can search for it if we like, and we can never prove it doesn't exist, but it remains purely in the realm of thought.
I have no problem with gnosticism.
Religion, however, is a different matter. Religion is the belief in specifics. Religion makes claims. In all of recorded history, there has been no verifiable evidence in support of the existence of the gods or miracles of any known religion. There is, however, evidence to the contrary, in the form of historical understandings of the known secular origins of these religions, and as well in clearly explained and proven mechanisms behind events that have been called miracles. With no strikes for and some against, no reasonable person can logically conclude the positive case.
I perfectly accept gnostic beliefs, personal spirituality, and philosophy. I cannot, however, abide religion. You can have all the philosophical notions you want, and debate them forever, but the moment you make a direct claim without any temporal evidence, you've abandoned all reason and logic.
"Intelligent Design" is utter bollocks. It's nothing more than a weak attempt at promoting christian sentiment in the realms of science. It has no evidential or logical basis. Evolution functions. It happens. Whether it is somehow directed or not can't matter, because regardless it continues. To thus claim that there is indeed direction, despite having no evidence whatsoever for such a claim, and despite having a working theory that functions without the need for a creator, is nothing short of stupid.
From those who I have spoken with in the past about I.D. we were also religious, they seem to use it as a loophole to get around the facts. Evolution and many other items in many other sciences all tend to either mildly contradict or shatter religious doctrines on what reality is. The religious crazies want it taught in schools besides evolution in what is an obvious attempt to discredit science. The crazies ALSO recognize that letting religion in is a slippery slope, and they could weasel their way into schools all over. I've also noticed that they'll always balk when you point out that in order to teach xian creationism in class as a 'legitimate' possability, you'd have to engage other religious mythos as well.
I.D. is a sham, a scam, and an attempt by the stupid and crazy to make all of our children equally stupid and crazy.
ID is bullshit, etc, etc. It's not science at all, and it's not even terribly good pseudo-science; it's simply thinly-veiled creationism.
Read up on the meaning of "theory"
ID is not a theory in the scientific sense. To put it on the level of the modern synthesis of evolution is total horseshit.
Christianity bothers me because they claim the existence of something specific without any evidence for it and significant evidence against. The "teachings" of the church aren't special or particularly useful, and for every good one there are half a dozen crazy/dangerous/bad.
I don't mean to offend anyone here, just playing devil's advocate
Getting back on topic, however I think that if you wish to believe in the bible, do so but you should take it literally, and therefore I do not believe that evoltion and intelligent design are compatible. That is, however just my opinion on how you should interpret a holy text.
/I have to stop doing this.