Biblie Busting vs. Darwin Deconstructing

[Vene]

Don't bother, Vene.  They're not talking about scientists.  Or science, even.

But, I like talking about science.  It's one of the few things I know well.

Me too, but all you'll get from them are examples of monkeys trying to use science to prove their dogma.  It can get frustrating.

i repeat what LMNO said


don't worry Vene when i start school in september ill be willing to talk a ton of science
its earth science mind you with paleobiology
BUT IT STILL HAS BIOLOGY IN THE TITLE

But, but I like the molecular stuff.  You know, like ATP, epinephrine, acetyl-CoA, nitrogenous bases and all that shit.

[Iason Ouabache]

I read a book recently (might have been Sagan) that suggested that every political speech and sermon had a P-value attached to it.  It made me laugh more than it should have.

Found it!  It was Sagan (Demon Haunted World, to be exact):

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science - by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans - teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

We will always be mired in error. The most each generation can hope for is to reduce the error bars a little, and to add to the body of data to which error bars apply. The error bar is a pervasive, visible self-assessment of the reliability of our knowledge. You often see error bars in public opinion polls ('an uncertainty of plus or minus three per cent', say). Imagine a society in which every speech in the Congressional Record, every television commercial, every sermon had an accompanying error bar or its equivalent.

That is a very very awesome book, btw.  It should be required reading for every high school science student.

[BootyBay]

Found it!  It was Sagan (Demon Haunted World, to be exact):

It is.  I read it when I was 18.  I loved it - although it was a shock to the system at first (in that it made me psycho).

[BootyBay]

They have found evidence that galaxyies stars etc. are moving the way they would if big bang actually occurred..
So big bang is almost surely happened, if and how it started Being and Matter and Time and .. is still unproven.
It's not like I believe that everithing can be found out anyway, and before the bang pressure and gravitation and temperature were so different from the ones we know that most likely phisics as we know it didn't apply..no surprise if we'll never find out what "creation" really means...
that's far from a bug in the system though, it's again logically implied in the system that creation is hard (maybe impossible) to explain

I'm gonna do another thread on this (the Origin of the Universe).

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have my own Big Bang theory

No, it has nothing to do with what you're thinking, SHUT UP.

The universe is a big cone, you see, and all of the matter settled in the point. Matter is always trying to achieve an equilibrium, but it can't, for reasons that are complicated, like relationships.

So the matter all settles in the point of the cone, and then it's all too close together and repels everything from itself, so it starts to "expand", ie migrate away from other matter. It expands and expands, and as it expands, the cone flattens, until it can flatten no more, and the matter all freaks out by how far away it all is from the other matter, and starts to contract, on the other plane of the cone. It contracts and contracts and the cone gets conier and conier, until all the matter is too close together in the tip of the cone, and then...

It's basically the same as the doughnut model, but way more fun.

[Payne]

I have my own Big Bang theory

No, it has nothing to do with what you're thinking, SHUT UP.

The universe is a big cone, you see, and all of the matter settled in the point. Matter is always trying to achieve an equilibrium, but it can't, for reasons that are complicated, like relationships.

So the matter all settles in the point of the cone, and then it's all too close together and repels everything from itself, so it starts to "expand", ie migrate away from other matter. It expands and expands, and as it expands, the cone flattens, until it can flatten no more, and the matter all freaks out by how far away it all is from the other matter, and starts to contract, on the other plane of the cone. It contracts and contracts and the cone gets conier and conier, until all the matter is too close together in the tip of the cone, and then...

It's basically the same as the doughnut model, but way more fun.

I actually laughed my ass off, and have to stand up to type this.

[Vene]

I have my own Big Bang theory

No, it has nothing to do with what you're thinking, SHUT UP.

The universe is a big cone, you see, and all of the matter settled in the point. Matter is always trying to achieve an equilibrium, but it can't, for reasons that are complicated, like relationships.

So the matter all settles in the point of the cone, and then it's all too close together and repels everything from itself, so it starts to "expand", ie migrate away from other matter. It expands and expands, and as it expands, the cone flattens, until it can flatten no more, and the matter all freaks out by how far away it all is from the other matter, and starts to contract, on the other plane of the cone. It contracts and contracts and the cone gets conier and conier, until all the matter is too close together in the tip of the cone, and then...

It's basically the same as the doughnut model, but way more fun.

It needs bacon dammit!  All the good theories have bacon it them.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I read a book recently (might have been Sagan) that suggested that every political speech and sermon had a P-value attached to it.  It made me laugh more than it should have.

Found it!  It was Sagan (Demon Haunted World, to be exact):

Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science - by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans - teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.

We will always be mired in error. The most each generation can hope for is to reduce the error bars a little, and to add to the body of data to which error bars apply. The error bar is a pervasive, visible self-assessment of the reliability of our knowledge. You often see error bars in public opinion polls ('an uncertainty of plus or minus three per cent', say). Imagine a society in which every speech in the Congressional Record, every television commercial, every sermon had an accompanying error bar or its equivalent.

That is a very very awesome book, btw.  It should be required reading for every high school science student.

Damn stoners! 

I agree with him, we're so far from truth that believing anything to be true seems silly to me. Considering something to be a current best guess, or a good idea or a useful idea,  well thats great and its how I consider the current theories about the history of the Universe. But, I don't believe them, just like I don't believe the Bible, but some of the stories are interesting and some of the morals aren't terrible (though I think a lot of them are quite teh suck). RAW used Sagan as an example of a Model Agnostic in a class a few years back, and I think it was that book he referenced... I'll have to read it now that its appeared again.

[LMNO]

I would like to point out though that you are equivocating about faith though.  In a religious context faith means "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  Or as Twain said, faith is "believing what you know ain't so."  It's a belief in something without evidence (or usually, in direct opposition to the evidence).  In a scienctific sense faith could mean "complete confidence" or "a strong trust".  I will admit to having a strong trust in the scientific method being the best way to learn things about the universe around us.  Because there is tangible evidence that the scientific method works. It produces solid objective and repeatable results and has a process for self-correction.  Religion can't say the same thing.

This is a very good point, one often overlooked because many people think that "semantics" is a dirty word.

Religious Faith often has a very different definition than Scientific Faith.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I would like to point out though that you are equivocating about faith though.  In a religious context faith means "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."  Or as Twain said, faith is "believing what you know ain't so."  It's a belief in something without evidence (or usually, in direct opposition to the evidence).  In a scienctific sense faith could mean "complete confidence" or "a strong trust".  I will admit to having a strong trust in the scientific method being the best way to learn things about the universe around us.  Because there is tangible evidence that the scientific method works. It produces solid objective and repeatable results and has a process for self-correction.  Religion can't say the same thing.

This is a very good point, one often overlooked because many people think that "semantics" is a dirty word.

Religious Faith often has a very different definition than Scientific Faith.

Both can be accepted by thinking individuals and both can also be dogmatically held as Truth by individuals.

It seems to me, as the difference between Joseph Campbell and Richard Dawkins

[LMNO]

Rat, while your statement is true, it also seems to have little application in regards to my overall comment.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Rat, while your statement is true, it also seems to have little application in regards to my overall comment.

Hrmmm, let me rephrase it then:

I agree, but I would say that instead of saying "Religious Faith" we can say "Dogmatic Faith" and apply it to the mindset of the individual, irregardless of his particular brand. Your comment seemed to limit "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" to religion only, yet sombunal individuals apply that same kind of faith to science. It's not science's fault, it's just the monkey mind at work.

Guys like Campbell seemed to have "Scientific Faith" in religion, he saw it as useful if applied correctly. Mosbunal scientists would seem to show that sort of faith in their experimentation, evidence and models.

Guys like Dawkins, seem to have a "Religious Faith" in science, demanding that it is the One True Way, much like *insert crazy religious fuckers here*

So, maybe the difference is between 'trust in observation and methods applied to the model" vs. "Faith/Belief in the model as True", no matter if the model is spiritual or scientific.

[Thurnez Isa]

Guys like Dawkins, seem to have a "Religious Faith" in science, demanding that it is the One True Way, much like *insert crazy religious fuckers here*

to be honest from reading his books i never got that impression
I did a bit from one of docs... but you can never really take docs as serious as most people do
the one thing he talks about that i disagree with
in one his books he promotes an idea that without religious thinking people would be less prone to stupidity
i kind of disagree with that
i think some else will just replace it
Right now I seem to view religion melting into other aspects of our biological nature and doesnt really seem to be a root cause, but sort of a player among other psychological aspects
but these are just personal observations and should be reguarded as such

[Requia ☣]

Dawkins is most certainly a religious nutjob, his regular attacks on agnosticism bring this to light fairly well.  I doubt his internal process is much better when it comes to evolution.

*Has a hard time respecting anyone who uses the argument from evil as a basis for Atheism

[Kai]

You all make me so proud.