Evidence for God from Science

gone

Sandy,

Wall-dog wrote:
Let's say I'm a third-grader who can barely spell his own name. If my statements are accurate and my logic is sound, who cares? ... In other words, if a group of homosexuals starts to pay attention to you when you are an adolescent and you decide to partake of that lifestyle, your DNA will adapt to it and as a part of your free will you will become a homosexual. If on the other hand you tell them to buzz off and start dating the opposite sex, your DNA will adapt and make you straight.

I've been keeping out of this thread, in part because I don't have that much interest/knowledge of biology/paleontology, but also because my beliefs are so different from most of the comments that it would be a total waste of everyone's time for me to post. Even so, this statement about DNA changing as a result of behavior has got to be one of the most farfetched claims I have read here. What references are there for such an astounding claim ?

I'd agree that it sounds far-fetched when you first hear it and I certainly respect that you aren't going to just take my word for it, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. I'm not a quack throwing out rhetoric just to make people mad. I wouldn't post it if I couldn't support it. I refer to the following articles:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/80

The conventional wisdom a decade or so ago was that we need about 100,000 genes to carry out the myriad cellular processes that keep us functioning. But it turns out that we have only about 25,000 genes--about the same number as a tiny flowering plant called Arabidopsis and barely more than the worm Caenorhabditis elegans.

That big surprise reinforced a growing realization among geneticists: Our genomes and those of other mammals are far more flexible and complicated than they once seemed. The old notion of one gene/one protein has gone by the board: It is now clear that many genes can make more than one protein. Regulatory proteins, RNA, noncoding bits of DNA, even chemical and structural alterations of the genome itself control how, where, and when genes are expressed. Figuring out how all these elements work together to choreograph gene expression is one of the central challenges facing biologists.

In the past few years, it has become clear that a phenomenon called alternative splicing is one reason human genomes can produce such complexity with so few genes. Human genes contain both coding DNA--exons--and noncoding DNA. In some genes, different combinations of exons can become active at different times, and each combination yields a different protein. Alternative splicing was long considered a rare hiccup during transcription, but researchers have concluded that it may occur in half--some say close to all--of our genes. That finding goes a long way toward explaining how so few genes can produce hundreds of thousands of different proteins. But how the transcription machinery decides which parts of a gene to read at any particular time is still largely a mystery.

The same could be said for the mechanisms that determine which genes or suites of genes are turned on or off at particular times and places. Researchers are discovering that each gene needs a supporting cast of hundreds to get its job done. They include proteins that shut down or activate a gene, for example by adding acetyl or methyl groups to the DNA. Other proteins, called transcription factors, interact with the genes more directly: They bind to landing sites situated near the gene under their control. As with alternative splicing, activation of different combinations of landing sites makes possible exquisite control of gene expression, but researchers have yet to figure out exactly how all these regulatory elements really work or how they fit in with alternative splicing.

And the conclusion?

But the central question is likely to remain unsolved for a long time: How do all these features meld together to make us whole?

And on the environments we create for ourselves changing our genes:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... tml?nav=E8

Geneticists said the new work, by an international team of scientists who studied the DNA of more than 40 pairs of twins, strengthens the case that a fledgling research field called epigenetics holds the long-sought answer to one of biology's toughest questions: How do environmental influences, such as exposure to pollutants, consumption of certain foods or perhaps even powerful emotional experiences, produce lasting and potentially life-altering changes in a person's DNA?

"This is how the environment talks to the genome," said Rudolf Jaenisch, a geneticist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., who was not part of the project. "This paper says lifestyle, or environmental influences or whatever you want to call them, have a real influence on your DNA."

Stephen Baylin, a professor of oncology and medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, said the new work points to the roots of a host of chronic diseases. "This could lead to far-reaching revelations about how our environment breeds predispositions for lots of diseases, like diabetes, cancer and heart disease."

These aren't hillbillys playing "Dueling Banjos". These are real scientists in real places like the John Hopkins Medical Institute. This is still cutting-edge stuff though. Science only found out about this a few years ago. The implications however go WAY beyond the realm of disease. The implications of environmental and lifestyle conditions changing our DNA is earth-shattering from a theological perspective as well, because the notion that we can program ourselves throws the naturalist "mind=brain=computer" argument on it's ear.

Zenith,

wall-dog

i don't have much time right now but i read your post and wanted to ask you something. what do you define as a supernatural force? why is there an inherent difference between god and nature? why do you think that the spiritual world could affect the physical world in any way? if the spiritual world acted on the physical world, then it would have to have some physical presence, thus negating its spirituality. i have found that abstract things like love, beauty, pain, etc. are not physical in any way, but are real forces that act on each other by means of physical characteristics. these things would be the closest to the spiritual world that we can witness. but why would they not be naturalistic causes, if they are dependant upon physical entities?

That's a good question.

I would say anything not dependant upon physical entities would constitute non-naturalist causes. Supernatural would be anything that can not be defined in naturalist terms. There is an inherent difference between God and nature because God made nature. That gets into the origin of the universe argument.

I don't really have a thought on ghosts in the sense of spiritual entities that haunt things. You kind of hit it right on the head when you brought up interaction because really there are two seperate questions implied here. First, is there such a thing as 'life after death,' and second, if there is 'life after death' can it manifest itself and/or make its presence known to things in the physical world? A 'yes' to the first question does not automatically assume a 'yes' to the second. But in my opinion proving life after death (which would require that the second question have a 'yes' answer to at least some degree) would prove that a non-naturalist cause does exist and thus disprove at least the naturalist 'law' that everything must have naturalist causes. And once you do that, God becomes a legitimate scientific theory for things such as the origin of the universe, the origin of species, etc. etc. etc..

Would a spiritual entity have to be able to manifest itself in the physical world to act on the physical world? Maybe. Or maybe the mind is seperate from the physical body. Perhaps our minds are non-physical entities that interact through our brains with our bodies and thus the physical world. Perhaps our minds are also capable of sensing or even in some cases seeing other spiritual entities that are no longer tied to physical entities.

Now, I'm not going to start talking ghost busters. I've never seen a ghost and while I don't completely discount the possibility that others have, I don't necessarily believe it either. But I do believe in life after death so I do have to believe that it could be possible for spiritual entities to at least interact with other spiritual entities - such as our minds.

Wall-dog wrote:"But it turns out that we have only about 25,000 genes"

I wasn't questioning the low number of genes so this is irrelevant.

Wall-dog wrote:And on the environments we create for ourselves changing our genes:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... tml?nav=E8
How do environmental influences, such as exposure to pollutants, consumption of certain foods or perhaps even powerful emotional experiences, produce lasting and potentially life-altering changes in a person's DNA?

Thanks for the reference on this. It is news to me as I don't read much about biology. I had read of how chemicals could cause genetic problems which could be transmitted to offspring but was unaware of the scope of epigenetics. But since this research is just starting, it looks like I'll have at least several years to question:

In other words, if a group of homosexuals starts to pay attention to you when you are an adolescent and you decide to partake of that lifestyle, your DNA will adapt to it and as a part of your free will you will become a homosexual. If on the other hand you tell them to buzz off and start dating the opposite sex, your DNA will adapt and make you straight.

A couple of questions arise:
1) This seems like a small perturbation on DNA (one reason it is just being discovered) so it seems hard to believe that a few experiences could alter someone's sexual orientation.
2) If this does alter the DNA as described, then doesn't imply that offspring ought to be similarly affected ? So someone whose DNA has been altered to homosexual DNA is more likely to have homsexual offspring and likewise for heterosexuals ? Is there such a correlation ?

Sandy,

A couple of questions arise:
1) This seems like a small perturbation on DNA (one reason it is just being discovered) so it seems hard to believe that a few experiences could alter someone's sexual orientation.
2) If this does alter the DNA as described, then doesn't imply that offspring ought to be similarly affected ? So someone whose DNA has been altered to homosexual DNA is more likely to have homsexual offspring and likewise for heterosexuals ? Is there such a correlation ?

They are still trying to determine just how quickly DNA changes, but they believe the vast majority of genes and possibly all of them are open to change. A few experiences may not change someone's sexual orientation, but they may lead the person on a chain of further experiences that will. Certainly scientists have shown that lifestyle changes your DNA. Homosexuality (or for that matter hetrosexuality) is a lifestyle that scientists believe has a gene or grouping of genes associated with it. Yes - living as a homosexual will make you one and living as a hetrosexual will make you one.

Your second question is interesting. I wonder though if children are born one way or the other? My question is whether or not children raised in homosexual households are more apt to become homosexual when they do reach sexual maturity, and based on this research I'd have to believe that is a strong possibility. But I don't really know the answer to that and I'm not sure epitgenetics has even answered that yet.

But homosexuality isn't really the issue and I hope this thread isn't going to turn into a debate on homosexuality. It was a mistake for me to use that example. Really the point is that epigenetics prove that we are more than computers programmed by biology. We are programmers who write our own code as we go about our lives. Computers can't program themselves, proving that decision-making and creative thought are more than just firings in the brain controlled by environment and DNA. It becomes much harder if not impossible to explain the mind in naturalist terms when the 'program' that controls us changes based on the decisons we make. Homosexuality is but one decision. Liking football could be just as important from a theological perspective.

Wall-dog wrote:
I think you would agree that the naturalist version of the scientific method, which says as a 'rule' that all things must be explainable by naturalist methods, kind of discounts God doing it right from the start. Why was Intelligent Design not allowed to be taught in public schools recently? Because it breaks that 'rule.'

naturalism is a philosophy. there are a variety of types of scientists. a lot of the time there are scientists who are doing projects and experiments in a field that has nothing to do with what we are talking about, and they can hold any belief that they wish. they do not partake in the philosophical discussions dependant on their research. they are only taking measurements, and far less unbiased ones (than you are presuming).

intelligent design was not allowed in schools for two major reasons; one of which i know you will agree on. firstly, inelligent design does not have any legitimate scientific research or evidence. it is not considered an actual science. as such it cannot be taught in a science class, no matter who wants it to be taught there. the major supporters of it are christians. it is the equivalent of asking a bible school to teach evolution.

Wall-dog wrote:
We have some common ground then. I agree with that 100%. But the thing is that science has been disproving naturalist theories for the past 30 to 50 years but it has yet to do much damage to the Bible. And because of the 'must be explanable by naturalist causes' thing, the majority of scientists don't have the clean slate you have. I commend you for having an open mind. That makes you one of a very few group of pure scientists.

can you disprove the travels of oddyseus after the trojan war? can you prove that the war was really triggered by one woman? just because you cannot prove it, doesnt mean it is true. you complain that science is constantly attacking christianity and then admit that it has done nothing to prove christianity wrong? it seems to me that christians are constantly trying to prove the theories of science wrong. and the scientists don't really care because they are trying to prove their theories wrong too. the only ones that care to argue with non-scientific studies are the professors and authors and philosophers who arent actually doing any real study or experimentation.

but i digress. you are an intelligent person as well, and you seem to have thought about your beliefs a lot more than the average person. a lot of theists will just blow off scientists without even considering their words. i might not believe in christianity, but i believe in their morals and of a reliance on faith.

Wall-dog wrote:
Absolutely science is stronger than it's ever been, but it is also closer to God. Naturalism doesn't currently have any viable theories out there, but as a Christian I'm confident that should naturalists come up with some new theories, scientists such as yourself will shoot them down.

how is it closer to god? i don't get what you mean by that. you're right that naturalism doesn't have any viable theories out, its only a philosophy. but there are a lot of scientific theories that give evidence for naturalism. there is no, (and it is my belief that there will be no) evidence for the spiritual world, other than faith in it. but there is a possibility that what many call spirituality might have an actual tie to the physical world, or it might be something completely different than expected.

perhaps spirituality is like abstract thoughts like love and belonging and patriotism and even time. none of those things are tangible, but they exist nonetheless. this seems to me to be the biggest evidence for spirituality, but for a spirituality that is not exactly like what most people think of it as.

Wall-dog wrote:
My argument wasn't really refuted. It was challanged but I continued to support it. The number of genes isn't the point though. The point is that they change based on the decisions you make and based on the way you live your life. THAT just 'does not compute' according to naturalism.

i read the article you posted concerning this. it seems you were either reading something else, or you misinterpreted it. the genes do not change, the dna doesnt change. its just that certain chemicals and enzymes or other stimuli can activate portions of genes that were inactive before. the genome is a very complicated system that we are only beginning to understand. your genes do no change (except for in cancer cells and germ cells). but the active genes can become inactive and the inactive ones can become active due to any number of causes which are currently being researched.

Wall-dog wrote:
Respectfully, you are wrong. The whole basis for keeping Intelligent Design out of public schools is that it isn't 'scientific' because it attributes 'non-naturalist causes' to such things as the origin of the universe. You are right that there are some agnostic and even some religious scientists, but if they allow even the possibility of God to enter their professional lives, they are ostricized and ripped apart as 'non-scientific' for it. But some of them do anyway, and in many cases it is the scrutiny of these scientists that is disproving naturalism. But they can't use God as a theory. All they can do is shoot-down all of the other theories...

you're right that ID was not allowed to be taught because it has no physical evidence for it. that means it is not a science. everything that affects this world has physical evidence, even if its just tracks of its past presence. the reason ID is not taken seriously is because it has no legitimate testing of its theories. but i do agree that there is entirely too much contempt from scientists for ID and for god. That is because there is absolutely no evidence one way or the other providing solid support for either stance. if there is no god, then we will never know and people will continue to believe for as long as they live. but if there is, we will only know for sure if he reveals himself to us, or if we find conclusive proof that god exists.

Wall-dog wrote:
You must be the one who told me to get an education. When you talk about my limited experience with science you are making an ad-hominum argument. My knowledge of science isn't the issue here. It is only relevant as it relates to my arguments. If my knowlege of science is really that weak you should have no problems ripping me apart without insulting me.

i don't recall telling you to get an education, unless it was in other words. but i do think it is healthy for your mind to constantly learn. i am in college right now. your knowledge of science is the issue here because you are making claims about what science knows. if you yourself do not know what science theorizes, how can you make claims critisizing it? i admit, you are a lot more knowledgable than some of the other people here, but you seem to have an overbalanced bias against science which causes you to take it less seriously. most of the evidence provided by scientific research is done by people who never take part in, or even think about the discussions we are having now. and this is a good thing because they have less of a bias than me or you.

As for my stereotypes, all I can say is that my contention on the 'rules' of naturalist science are 100% accurate. Naturalism is closed to the possiblity of God.

please... don't be so arrogant. your 'contention' is nowhere near the reality of that philosophy. naturalism is not closed to the idea of god, (individuals of the belief mostly are) but actually more open to different interpretations of it. you can put a label on anything you want, but that doesnt mean it fits. i would call myself a naturalist, in a way. but i believe in god, or a higher form of being.

Wall-dog wrote:
Where did science do this? In a petri-dish in a lab under the best possible environmental circumstances for making amino acids even though those conditions had NOTHING TO DO with what the early Earth looked like! I know about that experiment. It was way back in the '50s. And furthermore they only made a SINGLE amino acid. As I've said earlier, one isn't enough. You'd need thousands all lined up in the right sequence to make a single protien. And you'd need thousands of proteins all lined up in exactly the correct sequence to make a single living cell. They didn't do that in a lab.

actually the conditions were based off of evidence showing what the atmospheric composition of the planet was back then. they were faily accurate. and the experiment (or at least another similar to it) created more than one of the amino acids, it created i think 13 of them.

"The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected together in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes. The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired through the atmosphere and water vapor to simulate lightning, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle.

At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids, including 13 of the 21 that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. However, there are two forms of amino acids. They are refered to as a left-handed or a right-handed amino acids. Only left handed amino acids are found in living organisms, and the ones created in the Miller-Urey experiment, and all subsequent experiments, succeed in creating right- and left-handed amino acids in roughly a 50/50 ratio.

The molecules produced were simple organic molecules. Far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first."

Wall-dog wrote:
I think theists understand that better than athiests. We call that cause 'God'.

god is a loose explanation. god is never accurately described. god could be any number of forces or entities that we are unaware of.

Wall-dog wrote:
I'm not asking you to prove God doesn't exist. If you can simply create a scenario where you can explain the origins of the universe, the origins of species, and the nature of morals and cognitive thought, and explain it without any need for God, that'll be good enough. It'll get you the Nobel Peace Prize too.

it happens to be my lifelong goal, except for one difference. i will include god, but i will find god and describe him.

Wall-dog wrote:
You are correct. It is however fact to say that the odds are roughly the same as the odds of a tornado going through a junkyard assembling a fully functional Boeing 747 by randomly throwing garbage around. What takes more faith? Believing God did it or believing the Tornado did it?

My contention is that if I can disprove all naturalist causes, then science should at least open itself to the possibility that God might exist and then allow that possibility to be viewed as a legitimate theory.

the tornado analogy is hardly an accurate comparison. a jet is a man-made thing, though i still consider it natural, but it requires man for it to occur. how would you go about disproving 'naturalist causes'?

Wall-dog wrote:
Actually, I'm happy to admit that most of them are true 'ancestors' of Mankind since all of the bone fragments fit modern man. Re-read the part of my post to Be Good please...

they only fit modern man without the tissue there, and even then not so snugly as they should. the bone fragments of the jaw certainly dont line up with that of a homo sapien. i read it, but i still don't agree with it.

Wall-dog wrote:
Another ad-hominum argument. Actually, I happen to know quite a bit about evolution. I'm only a layman on the subject, but I'm a well-read layman. That's why I keep pointing you to Lee Strobel's book. He interviewed true experts.

I'd be happy with any investigation that doesn't use naturalism as an assumption. Find one and we can start there. But you won't find one

asking me for an investigation that doesnt use naturalism as an assumption is like asking you to use an investigation that doesnt use god as an assumption. but to me, they're exactly the same, just the words are a little different.

Wall-dog wrote:
I'll agree that had mankind not banded into communities then mankind would have become extinct, but that only proves that communities would exist all over the place, and it would be safe then probably to assume that all communities by nature would have moral codes. What it does NOT explain is why all of these communities came up with the SAME moral code.

Physical structure for the mind? What makes you think the mind is physical? Show me a computer that is capable fo cognitive thought.

it does explain why they have similar moral codes though. humans all have a very similar brain structure. this means that our brains work in a very similar way, that information is travelling through similar neural networks. because of this, we come up with similar concepts. native americans came up with a language while isolated from any other kind of humans. is this because god told them to speak? no, their language is much different than eastern languages. it is because it is the natural tendancy of man to speak, to communicate thoughts to others, to live communally, and to help others in the community. it is because we survive that way. all humans started living communally because they all saw that they would die if the didn't. the rest of homo sapiens' cousins and ancestors died because they did not learn this.

also, it is believed by many anthropologists, geneticists, and evolutionists that modern man evolved in eastern africa and spread out across the world from there. it would mean that all humans came from one area and then differentiated slightly after migrating. it is why northerners have white skin and why easterners have a different facial complexion, and why native americans are slightly similar to the far easterners.

the mind is physical, but it is not necessarily bound to what is inside the skull. an electromagnetic field plays a big role in cognitive thought, as it causes a feedback into the brain. the information that goes out, comes back in through this electricity. i am not opposed to the idea of a soul, just opposed to the idea that the soul has no physical affect or presence in the world.

Wall-dog wrote:
I'm not asking you to disprove God. All I'm asking is for you to explain self without needing God to do it.

i don't need god to explain the self. in fact the only times i really think about god are when i'm talking to people who want to talk about god. all my beliefs revolve around what i observe myself and i simply do not observe god. but that does not mean i am against the idea of god. i just think that god must be something different than what most people believe he is.

i explain the self as this:
the structure of the brain determines the chemical composition in the brain which in turn determines the speed and amount and through which nerves the signal (electricity) travels through. the electricity allows for signals to be passed from sensory organs to the brain, where they then pass through nerves (based on the current chemistry and structure of the brain) which compare that information to information stored in proteins (memory). the act of the electricity passing through the structure of the brain causes the electromagnetic field created by this energy to affect how and where the signals pass through the brain. this creates conscious thought.

but why do you want me to explain it without god? why do you constantly say that naturalism cannot coexist with a belief (or non-disbelief) in god? i can see in the system i explained above where god could put his influence, but i cannot see a reason for that influence if he has already designed perfect forces by which the universe acts on its own for the purposes god has made it for.

This is a wonderful debate in spite of the ad-hominum arguments. I thank you for keeping it civil. I know that when we question things as basic as this there is a tendency to get hostile and I want to thank everyone for avoiding that temptation!!

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to skip the spell check or I'll be here all night. This is a long post

yes, i think its good to argue because it shows the fallacies in the beliefs both sides have, as well as the good points. my view of the world around me changes slightly with each post.

Wall-dog wrote:I would say anything not dependant upon physical entities would constitute non-naturalist causes. Supernatural would be anything that can not be defined in naturalist terms. There is an inherent difference between God and nature because God made nature. That gets into the origin of the universe argument.

I don't really have a thought on ghosts in the sense of spiritual entities that haunt things. You kind of hit it right on the head when you brought up interaction because really there are two seperate questions implied here. First, is there such a thing as 'life after death,' and second, if there is 'life after death' can it manifest itself and/or make its presence known to things in the physical world? A 'yes' to the first question does not automatically assume a 'yes' to the second. But in my opinion proving life after death (which would require that the second question have a 'yes' answer to at least some degree) would prove that a non-naturalist cause does exist and thus disprove at least the naturalist 'law' that everything must have naturalist causes. And once you do that, God becomes a legitimate scientific theory for things such as the origin of the universe, the origin of species, etc. etc. etc..

Would a spiritual entity have to be able to manifest itself in the physical world to act on the physical world? Maybe. Or maybe the mind is seperate from the physical body. Perhaps our minds are non-physical entities that interact through our brains with our bodies and thus the physical world. Perhaps our minds are also capable of sensing or even in some cases seeing other spiritual entities that are no longer tied to physical entities.

Now, I'm not going to start talking ghost busters. I've never seen a ghost and while I don't completely discount the possibility that others have, I don't necessarily believe it either. But I do believe in life after death so I do have to believe that it could be possible for spiritual entities to at least interact with other spiritual entities - such as our minds.

i'm not sure we're using the same definition for naturalism here. naturalism (to me, at least) does not include the belief that there isn't a god. rather, it claims that everything has a physical presence, or affect on the universe and that god can be explained as a real entitiy and using scientific terms (whatever those might be if we ever reached the point that we could actually find god). instead of seperating spiritual from physical, naturalism explains that the spiritual is actually part of the physical, but in a different way, or form. like i was saying before, perhaps spirituality is an existence, not as a physical entity, but as an interaction or an idea. perhaps spirituality is like love; an actual process, but abstract in that it can be explained, but not quantified (at least not yet). that is naturalism.

i believe in a kind of life after death. i believe that after death, our mind is released from the limitations of the physical mind and our 'soul' expands to fill the entire universe and then some. we cease to experience like we did as humans, but we instead live constantly in the 'now' with no past and no future. all knowledge is known.

proving life after death does not prove non-naturalistic causes. because there always has to be a carrier for energy transition. i believe electrons to be the carrier for consciousness and that after death, we spread out through space as radiation; like rays from the sun travelling constantly and without time.

for a while i had a theory that our brains are really recievers for the transmission which is our soul. our brains are like antennas and our soul is like the radio waves travelling through space. but i couldn't really find much evidence for it.

i just think that spirituality, as it is commonly thought of, is a bit absurd (no offense). i can't see how something can be, and yet not exist. there is no way that it could interact with the world. there is no way that we could even know about it. for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist. it would need some kind of physical presence, even as miniscule as a quark in an atom, for it to have any kind of effect on the universe.

Zenith,

I agree that naturalism is a philosophy. But there is a HUGE movement to take take that philosophy and package it as a part of the scientific method. I think we agree that it doesn't belong there, but I'll illustrate that the two are being bundled.

When Judge John Jones shot-down Intelligent Design he actually went further than that. The Pennsylvania School Board in question didn't want to teach Intelligent Design. All they wanted to do was 1. teach evolution as a theory rather than as a fact and in doing so mention some of the holes in it, and 2. mention that Intelligent Design was another theory many people believed. They would have had biology teachers mention that a book (recently purchased) called 'Pandas and People' was in the library if they wanted to learn more about Intelligent Design. After that they would teach evolution.

Judge John Jones' ruling included the following:

Creation science is simply not science because it depends upon supernatural intervention, which cannot be explained by natural causes...

An introduction to the scientific method from a teaching support website, http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_l ... ndixE.html

It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.

But - from the same source...

Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories.

THAT is interesting because, by strict interpretation, a theory isn't scientific until methods exist that will allow measurement, even if those theories exist in the physical world.

Take a look at this site:

http://www.biologycorner.com/bio3/notes ... ethod.html

Chapter 1 - Biology: The Science of Life

Scientific Principles

Natural Causality is the principle that all events can be traced to natural causes

all events can be traced to natural causes that are within our ability to comprehend
supernatural forces are excluded
if we cannot trust the evidence provided by nature, then studying and trying to understand nature is futile
The natural laws that govern events apply everywhere and for all time

natural laws do not change with time
behavior of light, gravity, and genes is the same now as it was billions of years ago
Scientific inquiry is based on the assumption that people perceive natural events in similar ways

science does not address value systems or morality
science only addresses that which can be perceived
science is objective, not subjective

The Scientific Method

Observations
Questions
Hypothesis (prediction, testable, falsifiable)
Experimentation
Conclusions
Controls and Variables

Variable - a single factor that causes and observation

Independent Variable -what you manipulate
Dependent Variable - what you measure

Control - a group in the experiment that remains constant, so the variable can be compared.

Conclusions: Data gathered from the experiment can support or reject a hypothesis. A hypothesis is never PROVEN.

*A Hypothesis becomes credible when repeated attempts to disprove it fail.

That all came from about a 30-second google search. If you would like more evidence of the link between naturalism and science, just let me know. I can bring sites up that show the link faster than you can read them.

That said, I agree 100% that the scientific method does not really dismiss God or theories that include God. I particularly say that in light of the first quote, which says that most theories can't be proven.

Is God physical or metaphysical? I'll answer with a question if you will allow me... If He exists, then what is the difference? If the metaphysical exists, that would imply some means of measurement. Perhaps physical rules of time and space don't apply and thus the means of measurement don't reflect traditional measurement approaches. Who knows? And again, if the metaphysical exists, what is the difference? If you prove it exists then it immediately becomes a part of the realm of science and science would have to find ways to find out about it. There is a perception that science is about measurement. Certainly measurement is a big part of science, but really science is about expanding knowledge. Measurement is just a tool in that process. Measurement is the technique used to expand our knowledge or at least to forward theories, but if one can prove the existance of something unmeasurable that unmeasurable thing is still a part of science. Maybe you can't progress further into that thing until you figure out how to measure it, but the existance of it would have to become a part of the realm of science.

firstly, inelligent design does not have any legitimate scientific research or evidence. it is not considered an actual science. as such it cannot be taught in a science class, no matter who wants it to be taught there. the major supporters of it are christians. it is the equivalent of asking a bible school to teach evolution.

I would agree that the evidence for Intelligent Design is circumstantial. I would however say the same about evolution. Even if you had a legitimate chain of species, there would be no way to prove that those species decended from each other.

I'll say something else though. If evolution were as strong a theory as naturalists would have us believe, then bible schools

should

teach it. The Bible tells us that Jesus knocks at the door and that if we seek we shall find. I grew up believing in evolution and thinking that it was a part of God's plan. It's only been the past year or two where I really started to question it. The Bible says creation took seven days. There would have been no earthly measurement of a 'day' until day two though, so God certainly wasn't using earthly measurements of a day. So what do we really know about creation? The age of the Earth should be roughly divisible by seven and the fossil record should have things pop-up in the correct sequence and in the correct 'day' in terms of which 1/7 of Earth's history they came up. Even with evolution, it falls into place. But the fossil record does not support evolution and I'd like to see the scientific community to admit that. Perhaps more importantly, I'd like to see that taught in schools.

People with true faith won't feel compelled to 'cheat' by trying to stomp-out science. My faith tells me that science and God will one day run into each other. Why would God create rules that disprove His existance? I don't believe he would do that. I don't think he expects us to take Him entirely on faith. I think he really is knocking at our door and if we seek Him we will find Him.

I don't have disdain for science. I do have some disdain for naturalism though and I'll freely admit it.

can you disprove the travels of oddyseus after the trojan war? can you prove that the war was really triggered by one woman? just because you cannot prove it, doesnt mean it is true. you complain that science is constantly attacking christianity and then admit that it has done nothing to prove christianity wrong? it seems to me that christians are constantly trying to prove the theories of science wrong. and the scientists don't really care because they are trying to prove their theories wrong too. the only ones that care to argue with non-scientific studies are the professors and authors and philosophers who arent actually doing any real study or experimentation.

Science would have done that had they not found Troy. Keep in mind that Troy was found recently. For a LONG time it was believed that Troy did not exist. But maybe Oddyseus really did have a 20-year journey on his way back from Troy and maybe there is a fair amount of fact mixed in with all the myth. You could prove or disprove bits and pieces of any story by looking at the evidence at hand. Troy existed and a really big battle really was fought there. Troy really did lose and there is even evidence that the horse in some form may have existed. So you have evidence of The Illiad if nothing else. Trying to find one person would be just about impossible and that I'll agree with, but I think your point misses the point.

but i digress. you are an intelligent person as well, and you seem to have thought about your beliefs a lot more than the average person. a lot of theists will just blow off scientists without even considering their words. i might not believe in christianity, but i believe in their morals and of a reliance on faith.

Thank you for that. There are a lot of athiests, my parents included, who think anyone who believes in God must be stupid. They don't just disbelieve. They disdain. Many members of the scientific community unfortunately fit that mold.

how is it closer to god? i don't get what you mean by that.

Science is not in conflict with God but Naturalism is. Naturalism started under the understanding that while trying to disprove the existance of God was probably impossible, disproving the

need

for God would accomplish pretty much the same end. Science has however recently been shooting-down naturalist theories. I would contend that doing so brings us closer to God because all of a sudden He is needed again to explain such things as the origin of species, the origin of the universe, and the nature of morality and cognitive thought.

But that could bring science closer to a lot of things. Saying it brings science closer to God is a statement of faith and I'll freely admit that. I believe God exists and because of that I have absolute faith that science will find him. If I were a scientist I wouldn't cheat because the need to do so would go against faith. One who has faith doesn't need to cheat...

i read the article you posted concerning this. it seems you were either reading something else, or you misinterpreted it. the genes do not change, the dna doesnt change. its just that certain chemicals and enzymes or other stimuli can activate portions of genes that were inactive before. the genome is a very complicated system that we are only beginning to understand. your genes do no change (except for in cancer cells and germ cells). but the active genes can become inactive and the inactive ones can become active due to any number of causes which are currently being researched.

Actually the article said that genes don't really do much individually but rather they act in concert with other genes. The interactions change. But since everyone's understanding of 'genes' is based on a gene-to-trait relationship, saying 'genes change' is a legitimate simplification. Whether or not the genes themselves change isn't important. What they do changes. Beyond that we are arguing symantics.

you're right that ID was not allowed to be taught because it has no physical evidence for it. that means it is not a science. everything that affects this world has physical evidence, even if its just tracks of its past presence. the reason ID is not taken seriously is because it has no legitimate testing of its theories. but i do agree that there is entirely too much contempt from scientists for ID and for god. That is because there is absolutely no evidence one way or the other providing solid support for either stance. if there is no god, then we will never know and people will continue to believe for as long as they live. but if there is, we will only know for sure if he reveals himself to us, or if we find conclusive proof that god exists.

Don't be so hasty. There is plenty of physical evidence for ID. The complexity of the cell is physical evidence. But it's circumstantial evidence and I'll agree with that. But before you dismiss ID as unscientific, give me another logical explanation.

Proving or disproving God would be an excercise in futility for exactly the reasons you give. Proving or disproving a

need

for God however is much more practical.

i don't recall telling you to get an education, unless it was in other words. but i do think it is healthy for your mind to constantly learn. i am in college right now. your knowledge of science is the issue here because you are making claims about what science knows. if you yourself do not know what science theorizes, how can you make claims critisizing it? i admit, you are a lot more knowledgable than some of the other people here, but you seem to have an overbalanced bias against science which causes you to take it less seriously. most of the evidence provided by scientific research is done by people who never take part in, or even think about the discussions we are having now. and this is a good thing because they have less of a bias than me or you.

I'm a computer programmer with a degree in networking and programming. I'm not a scientist, but computer science is a science of sorts so while I'm only a layman on the subject, I don't think my knowledge is so weak as to be dismissable by ad-hominum arguments. If I'm that far off base you should have no problem discrediting my arguments without my education ever being an issue.

I have no bias against science. I do have a bias against naturalism and I think naturalists by and large have a bias against religion. Really I think naturalism is in a sense a religion.

As for my claims, I also back them up. I make no scientific claims without sources.

please... don't be so arrogant. your 'contention' is nowhere near the reality of that philosophy. naturalism is not closed to the idea of god, (individuals of the belief mostly are) but actually more open to different interpretations of it. you can put a label on anything you want, but that doesnt mean it fits. i would call myself a naturalist, in a way. but i believe in god, or a higher form of being.

Please see the first couple of quotes regarding naturalism and the scientific method. And I don't know why you would call me arrogant. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else. I'm not even attributing anything to naturalists that they don't freely admit to. The rule that all things must have naturalist causes is there rule - not mine. I would say that their rule is arrogant. Personally, I don't care if a cause is a naturalist cause or a supernatural cause. I only care if it exists. When I talk about faith, that's a two-sided sword. It goes for naturalists too. If they really believed in their position why would they need that rule?

"The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected together in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes. The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired through the atmosphere and water vapor to simulate lightning, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle.

At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids, including 13 of the 21 that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. However, there are two forms of amino acids. They are refered to as a left-handed or a right-handed amino acids. Only left handed amino acids are found in living organisms, and the ones created in the Miller-Urey experiment, and all subsequent experiments, succeed in creating right- and left-handed amino acids in roughly a 50/50 ratio.

The molecules produced were simple organic molecules. Far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first."

I'm familiar with that experiment. The environment they created is not one that has ever existed on Earth. They didn't create an early Earth environment. They created the environment they thought was most apt to give them the result they were looking for. I'll again refer to Lee Strobel's book and the attached bibliography. When that experiment was done they thought the Earth looked like that, but they thought that based on the assumption that it must have looked like that because amino acids were created. That assumption has since been proven false.

the tornado analogy is hardly an accurate comparison. a jet is a man-made thing, though i still consider it natural, but it requires man for it to occur. how would you go about disproving 'naturalist causes'?

Disproving the contention that 'something naturalist caused it, but we don't know what' is just as impossible to disprove as the notion that God did it. But one can take the probability of it happening, draw something else with a similar probability, and let the reader decide how likely it is.

they only fit modern man without the tissue there, and even then not so snugly as they should. the bone fragments of the jaw certainly dont line up with that of a homo sapien. i read it, but i still don't agree with it.

Pick up a copy of Lee Strobel's book and read it for yourself. Then look through his bibliography and read his sources. Then tell me if you don't agree...

asking me for an investigation that doesnt use naturalism as an assumption is like asking you to use an investigation that doesnt use god as an assumption. but to me, they're exactly the same, just the words are a little different.

The difference is that The Bible provides an explanation and naturalism does not.

it does explain why they have similar moral codes though. humans all have a very similar brain structure. this means that our brains work in a very similar way, that information is travelling through similar neural networks. because of this, we come up with similar concepts. native americans came up with a language while isolated from any other kind of humans. is this because god told them to speak? no, their language is much different than eastern languages. it is because it is the natural tendancy of man to speak, to communicate thoughts to others, to live communally, and to help others in the community. it is because we survive that way. all humans started living communally because they all saw that they would die if the didn't. the rest of homo sapiens' cousins and ancestors died because they did not learn this.

also, it is believed by many anthropologists, geneticists, and evolutionists that modern man evolved in eastern africa and spread out across the world from there. it would mean that all humans came from one area and then differentiated slightly after migrating. it is why northerners have white skin and why easterners have a different facial complexion, and why native americans are slightly similar to the far easterners.

Starting from the same geographic location without civilization and then developing civilization millions of years later doesn't explain it. The similarities in the brain would explain it if it were true that similar brains come up with similar thoughts. That's just plain not true. Our argument proves that!

i don't need god to explain the self. in fact the only times i really think about god are when i'm talking to people who want to talk about god. all my beliefs revolve around what i observe myself and i simply do not observe god. but that does not mean i am against the idea of god. i just think that god must be something different than what most people believe he is.

i explain the self as this:
the structure of the brain determines the chemical composition in the brain which in turn determines the speed and amount and through which nerves the signal (electricity) travels through. the electricity allows for signals to be passed from sensory organs to the brain, where they then pass through nerves (based on the current chemistry and structure of the brain) which compare that information to information stored in proteins (memory). the act of the electricity passing through the structure of the brain causes the electromagnetic field created by this energy to affect how and where the signals pass through the brain. this creates conscious thought.

but why do you want me to explain it without god? why do you constantly say that naturalism cannot coexist with a belief (or non-disbelief) in god? i can see in the system i explained above where god could put his influence, but i cannot see a reason for that influence if he has already designed perfect forces by which the universe acts on its own for the purposes god has made it for.

You haven't defined cognitive thought. You've described programming. As a computer programmer, I know the difference. Beyond that, explain how you got here, going all the way back to the origion of the universe and the origin of species.

Naturalism by definition tries to explain everything in such a way that no supernatural forces are necessary. They remove the need for God if not God Himself. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

yes, i think its good to argue because it shows the fallacies in the beliefs both sides have, as well as the good points. my view of the world around me changes slightly with each post.

Mine too. It would be silly to maintain a belief I can't support.

i'm not sure we're using the same definition for naturalism here. naturalism (to me, at least) does not include the belief that there isn't a god. rather, it claims that everything has a physical presence, or affect on the universe and that god can be explained as a real entitiy and using scientific terms (whatever those might be if we ever reached the point that we could actually find god). instead of seperating spiritual from physical, naturalism explains that the spiritual is actually part of the physical, but in a different way, or form. like i was saying before, perhaps spirituality is an existence, not as a physical entity, but as an interaction or an idea. perhaps spirituality is like love; an actual process, but abstract in that it can be explained, but not quantified (at least not yet). that is naturalism.

i believe in a kind of life after death. i believe that after death, our mind is released from the limitations of the physical mind and our 'soul' expands to fill the entire universe and then some. we cease to experience like we did as humans, but we instead live constantly in the 'now' with no past and no future. all knowledge is known.

proving life after death does not prove non-naturalistic causes. because there always has to be a carrier for energy transition. i believe electrons to be the carrier for consciousness and that after death, we spread out through space as radiation; like rays from the sun travelling constantly and without time.

for a while i had a theory that our brains are really recievers for the transmission which is our soul. our brains are like antennas and our soul is like the radio waves travelling through space. but i couldn't really find much evidence for it.

i just think that spirituality, as it is commonly thought of, is a bit absurd (no offense). i can't see how something can be, and yet not exist. there is no way that it could interact with the world. there is no way that we could even know about it. for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist. it would need some kind of physical presence, even as miniscule as a quark in an atom, for it to have any kind of effect on the universe.

Your take on naturalism is interesting. I agree that we are working off of two different definitions for it. I would say that you are not a naturalist, but rather someone who tries to make sense of naturalism without giving up that which naturalism was designed to discredit. That's not to say that your position isn't a good one. Quite the contrary. Your position is easy to defend. You don't discredit the metaphysical. Rather, you say that it is physical.

Wall-dog wrote:BeGood,

Correct. However this is well known.

I'm glad we agree, though I wonder if you fully see the ramifications of that. Let's say that I have fragments from what I believe to be 26 skulls for a particular pre-species of Mankind. I start to try to put them together. Now, in a few cases I may get lucky and have two or three pieces that actually fit together, but for the most part I've got gaps between the fragments.

This isn't what's done. Reconstructions are not conglomerations. Fragments of skulls from various individuals overlap in terms of anatomical elements. For instance one sample may contain a part of the temple. And another fragment may be composed of some of the same area of the skull and some of the orbital proess. From a comparative analysis we can determine the likelyhood that the two fragments are from the same general lineage. Then we can use this information to reconstruct the suborbital process of the first fragment. When samples are removed from the ground their location and position is carefully catalogued so that others can determine the fragments relation to each other. In some cases fragments are clearly from individuals. Skulls are reconstructed for the benifit of the public, any reconstruction is a result of comparative analasis and speculation, this is understood. However this does not take away from the fact that the actual fragment in question is not that of a modern man.

Wall-dog wrote:This is problematic for many reasons - not the least of which is that there is no way I can really know that the fragments even come from the same skull. I know they are roughly the same age because I found them together and because I can carbon-date them, but there is no way I can really know I don't have fragments from multiple skulls that just happened to be together.

But even if I'm right that I have fragments from 26 skulls, how do I put them together? I'll start by going through each skull and putting each piece that fits perfectly into another piece together. Then I'll try to use these few sections to figure out how to place the other fragments. If the check-bone fits one way on one skull for example it probably goes in the same basic place on the other skulls.

But my 26 skulls are not all from the same geographic location and I have no way of knowing if there were differnet ethnic groups within the species I'm working with. Ethnic groups have distinct bone patterns that may not be shared by other ethnic groups. The American Indian for example generally has higher cheek bones than most other groups today. I've got a spat of Indian blood and have high cheek bones because of it.

Human skulls are all nearly identical when compared to outside of the species. It is only your familiarity with the subject that you observe differences as striking and varied. Perhaps a good example is elephants. To the general public they all seem identical. There is no easy way to tell one from the next. For instance you may not be able to tell me that one came from India or Africa. However to someone with an intimate knowledge of the subject matter, they would be able to tell you immediately.

Wall-dog wrote:Furthermore, different skulls within the same ethnic group can be quite different. My sister's skull is much rounder than mine for example. Next, not all skulls are the same size. This is really important because none of my skulls are complete so I have no conclusive way to gauge the size of ANY of them. I have techniques that should give me reasonable guesses, but none based on this sub-species because I don't have any complete skulls to use as a base. So I have to look at other sub-species both before and after, and based on the assumption that they evolved one to the other I'll start to use the other species to fill-in the blanks on the current species.

The focus is on the fragments, the anatomy of reconstructed parts is not used by scientists and is there for the sole benifit of the public. For the general public a coronal suture or protuberance is meaningless, they are more able to understand the whole picture. Reconstructions are apt to change as they are based on the best available information.

Wall-dog wrote:But I have the same problems with the other species I'm trying to use, and beyond that I've already made my technique into a circular argument by using the theory of Evolution as a basis for how I put the skulls together.

Again the theory is based on the fragments themselves not the reconstructions.

Wall-dog wrote:Palentologists do the best they can with what they've got, but there is no way they can really say what any of those skulls should look like.

However as I said before certain features allow the ability to group fragments together. And use this to reconstruct each individual.

Wall-dog wrote:Throw into the mix that every fragment they have fits a modern skull and one has to wonder why they don't use the modern skull as a base...

Again these fragments absolutely do not fit modern skulls.

Wall-dog wrote:Maybe that's because if I did that I'd put together 26 modern-looking skulls?

You can try but you would have some very odd looking modern skulls.

Wall-dog wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:
There are complete bones for other parts of the body, but none of the ones that are different from modern man.

I suppose with a cursory glance no, however upon closer examination you'll notice different angles for the joints and different pelvic configurations.

My grandmother had bad arthritis. Do you think upon closer examination she would have different angles for the joints and/or a different pelvic configuration?

No.

Wall-dog wrote:And on top of that you've got all the same problems you have with the skulls with each bone. The vast majority of bones are incomplete and none of the skeletons are anywhere NEAR complete.

This depends on your meaning of complete. For instance one femur is enought to reconstruct the other is it not? A family of bones found together containing two individual which share the same features in the ethmoid should allow me to reconstruct one individuals spine using the spine of another. Right?

Wall-dog wrote:The bones that supposedly have differnet angles and configurations just happen to be the biggest bones in the body which are also in the most pieces.

Please, could you tell me where you got this information?

Wall-dog wrote:Between disease, arthritis, and the inherent problems of palentology as discussed in reference to skulls make it impossible for me to do more than speculate what the joints might have looked like.

Are you saying that the majority of fossils are due to disease?

Wall-dog wrote:And keep in mind that micro-evolution happens all the time so a small variation is to be expected. But you won't find enough to show more than micro-evolution without throwing in lots of subjective interpretation.

The fragments would contest to this.

Wall-dog wrote:I don't know that mandible, but I do know only one intact mandible from a pre-species of man exists and it fits a modern man. What someone may have assembled from fragments based on the same subjective 'science' discussed above isn't relevant. There are also several partial skulls with intact mandibles that some palentologists claim to be human but that other palentologists say are not related to humans (including pre-species) at all. Pictures may say 1000 words, but some of those words may be false... That mandible is subjective at best, as is the skull it is attached to.

This is an intact mandible and it absolutely does not belong to a modern man.

Wall-dog wrote:He might point out how much of it is material added subjectively by the palentologists who put it together.

Again there is no material added to this specimen. It is an intact and complete mandible, which shares a feature common to many finds.

Wall-dog wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:
What is the point? Sure - you can take one skull and based on that shape another skull correctly, but when every single human skull ever found has nothing but pieces that fit modern skulls, what pray tell are they using as a base of reference in their forensic science recreations?

Again look at the fossils after studying the modern skull, and tell me if you still think this is the case.

Keep in mind when you say that, that had the palentologists used modern skulls as their base they'd have created modern-looking skulls.

Again most of the reconstruction is done using comparative analysis. Otherwise it is stated that the reconstruction is largely best practice guestimation. The puzzle analogy is a bad one. Here is a better analogy, imagine a table covered with dozens of abstract clay figures. All different sizes but all done using the same pattern.
Now I smash each one and take random fragments from each sample. These samples are then delivered to a team of scientists.
At first all I have is several dozen unrelted fragments. However As I begin analyzing these samples I begin to realize that the various sample share features. I slowly begin to reconstruct the pattern, If I am lucky I can start to see what the original pattern may have been.

Wall-dog wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:
I'll tell you what they are using. They are using other skulls that also contained nothing pointing to any form other than the form of a current skull.

It STILL floors me.

Why not ask a paleontologist yourself how they do a reconstruction. Go straight to the source instead of trusting some book you read or a stranger on the internet.

Who do you think wrote the books? Their methodology isn't the problem though. Nobody questions whether or not the vast majority of palentologists did the best with what they had to work with. The problem is that they didn't have enough to work with. The best guess someone can make is still a guess. And when other people use guesses as a basis to guess from, the guesses keep getting bigger.

Then go straight to the evidence, look at the fragments yourself.

Wall-dog wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:
Somebody please refute the statement that every bone fragment ever found fits a modern skull. I mean, if you have never found a single bone fragment that doesn't fit a modern skull, then you also haven't found a base of fragments from different skulls that collectively form a different shape. Rather you have found a base of fragments from different skulls that collectively form our CURRENT shape.

Again this contention is absolutely wrong. Look at the fragments.

That's a great idea. Please provide photos of fragments that haven't been assembled. We'll see how much they look like pieces of modern skulls.

Here is a rather complete H. erectus skull, it's clearly not modern.

Wall-dog wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:
Nobody refutes that every bone fragment from every skull ever found fits modern man. I don't get it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the ramification of that.
Where is this claim comming from?

Re-read your first quote where you said it was a well known fact.

I was responding to your comment that there were no complete skulls.

Wall-dog wrote:You are very civil BeGood. You are a true gentleman and it is a pleasure to debate you!

Likewise

Wall-dog wrote:Your take on naturalism is interesting. I agree that we are working off of two different definitions for it. I would say that you are not a naturalist, but rather someone who tries to make sense of naturalism without giving up that which naturalism was designed to discredit. That's not to say that your position isn't a good one. Quite the contrary. Your position is easy to defend. You don't discredit the metaphysical. Rather, you say that it is physical.

actually, my definition is more like the common definition of naturalism:

"Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that do not distinguish between the supernatural and the natural. Naturalism does not claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural necessarily do not exist or are wrong, but insists that they are not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses, and that both supernatural and natural phenomena and hypotheses can be studied by the same methods." from wikipedia.

why should there be any inherent difference between supernatural and natural? the distinction was purely manmade, and completely unsubstantiated.

Wall-dog wrote:Zenith,
I agree that naturalism is a philosophy. But there is a HUGE movement to take take that philosophy and package it as a part of the scientific method. I think we agree that it doesn't belong there, but I'll illustrate that the two are being bundled.

When Judge John Jones shot-down Intelligent Design he actually went further than that. The Pennsylvania School Board in question didn't want to teach Intelligent Design. All they wanted to do was 1. teach evolution as a theory rather than as a fact and in doing so mention some of the holes in it, and 2. mention that Intelligent Design was another theory many people believed. They would have had biology teachers mention that a book (recently purchased) called 'Pandas and People' was in the library if they wanted to learn more about Intelligent Design. After that they would teach evolution.

Judge John Jones' ruling included the following:

Creation science is simply not science because it depends upon supernatural intervention, which cannot be explained by natural causes...

An introduction to the scientific method from a teaching support website, http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_l ... ndixE.html

It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.

But - from the same source...

Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories.

THAT is interesting because, by strict interpretation, a theory isn't scientific until methods exist that will allow measurement, even if those theories exist in the physical world.

but the advancement of our technology further enables us to observe and measure a larger aspect of our universe. if it affects our universe, we can potentially observe and measure it. Potentially. which means under the right circumstances. because of this, the two quoted statements make sense.

naturalism bridges the gap between supernatural and natural by saying that there really is no difference between the two. and this means that ID should be able to predict an aspect of reality, and prove that aspect is real. such as how evolution has been used to predict certain animals, which have been proven to exist.

science does not address value systems or morality
science only addresses that which can be perceived
science is objective, not subjective

there are sciences observing value systems and morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
science can only address that which can be perceived, whether by naked or assisted eye/ear/touch/taste/smell.
objectivity is a more unbiased and realistic view of the world around us. being subjective is only viewing how things affect you. being objective is to see how things affect and are affected.

this is a really watered down version of what science is, and it is most certainly not like what everyone thinks of science. everyone has a different idea of science, just like everyone has a different idea about god, or happiness, or success.

A Hypothesis becomes credible when repeated attempts to disprove it fail.

it becomes more credible. a lot of what should be taught in science is that all we learn are only possibilities and probabilities. you have to be thinking that anything can be proven wrong, and that it is your job to do so.

Wall-dog wrote:That all came from about a 30-second google search. If you would like more evidence of the link between naturalism and science, just let me know. I can bring sites up that show the link faster than you can read them.

that does not mean that the links are credible, or that they convey an accurate description of the reality of science and naturalism. especially since you have a more skewed perspective on just a few scientific and philosphical theories. i gain my idea of science through actually working with scientists. they don't think of their work as proving anything about the existence of god, or how the world can be described. they think about how much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes it too hot for a certain crop to grow, or how the pieces of fossil bones fit together based on the bones of animals existing today with similar structures, or what chemicals will affect what organs in the human body, etc. etc etc.

Wall-dog wrote:That said, I agree 100% that the scientific method does not really dismiss God or theories that include God. I particularly say that in light of the first quote, which says that most theories can't be proven.

all theories can potentially be disproven. but the amount of times a theory has been tested true is proportional to how credible and how probable it is. also, our method of conveying our theories (language) is not able to communicate truth, or full experience. language is widely interpretable, meaning that when i say something, its meaning is very different to you.

Wall-dog wrote:Is God physical or metaphysical? I'll answer with a question if you will allow me... If He exists, then what is the difference? If the metaphysical exists, that would imply some means of measurement. Perhaps physical rules of time and space don't apply and thus the means of measurement don't reflect traditional measurement approaches. Who knows? And again, if the metaphysical exists, what is the difference? If you prove it exists then it immediately becomes a part of the realm of science and science would have to find ways to find out about it. There is a perception that science is about measurement. Certainly measurement is a big part of science, but really science is about expanding knowledge. Measurement is just a tool in that process. Measurement is the technique used to expand our knowledge or at least to forward theories, but if one can prove the existance of something unmeasurable that unmeasurable thing is still a part of science. Maybe you can't progress further into that thing until you figure out how to measure it, but the existance of it would have to become a part of the realm of science.

there you go, you're starting to sound like a naturalist now! it is really a very logical philosphy if you start thinking about it. if the metaphysical exists, then it is no different than the physical, and we are able to measure it (even if it takes us a million years to become advanced enough to do so).

Wall-dog wrote:I would agree that the evidence for Intelligent Design is circumstantial. I would however say the same about evolution. Even if you had a legitimate chain of species, there would be no way to prove that those species decended from each other.

we really can't prove that its entirely circumstantial. in a way, all theories are circumstantial. but the amount of circumstance that the theory requires is an entirely different story. evolution as a theory requires no forces that we have not observed. but ID and creationism do. in fact they both hinge on the assumption that there is an ultimate (maybe not ultimate for ID, but rather a much more advanced) being behind everything. the theory of evolution does not require any unsupported beliefs, but rather assumes one as its conclusion. creationism requires an unevidenced belief for it to be true; evolution creates (but does not require) an unevidenced belief based on true observations. there is a difference.

Wall-dog wrote:I'll say something else though. If evolution were as strong a theory as naturalists would have us believe, then bible schools

should

teach it. The Bible tells us that Jesus knocks at the door and that if we seek we shall find. I grew up believing in evolution and thinking that it was a part of God's plan. It's only been the past year or two where I really started to question it. The Bible says creation took seven days. There would have been no earthly measurement of a 'day' until day two though, so God certainly wasn't using earthly measurements of a day. So what do we really know about creation? The age of the Earth should be roughly divisible by seven and the fossil record should have things pop-up in the correct sequence and in the correct 'day' in terms of which 1/7 of Earth's history they came up. Even with evolution, it falls into place. But the fossil record does not support evolution and I'd like to see the scientific community to admit that. Perhaps more importantly, I'd like to see that taught in schools.

i agree with you on this except for the part where you say the fossil record does not support evolution. i would really like to know why you think this, as everything i've heard/read/seen shows contrary to your belief. the scientific community is not going to admit something that it doesn't think is true. and also, the scientific community is made of many individuals and organizations. there is no one whole community to admit something.

Wall-dog wrote:People with true faith won't feel compelled to 'cheat' by trying to stomp-out science. My faith tells me that science and God will one day run into each other. Why would God create rules that disprove His existance? I don't believe he would do that. I don't think he expects us to take Him entirely on faith. I think he really is knocking at our door and if we seek Him we will find Him.

i agree

Wall-dog wrote:I don't have disdain for science. I do have some disdain for naturalism though and I'll freely admit it.

you have a disdain for a concept of naturalism which is not concise with what most naturalists believe. i think you actually agree with naturalism, somewhat.

Wall-dog wrote:Thank you for that. There are a lot of athiests, my parents included, who think anyone who believes in God must be stupid. They don't just disbelieve. They disdain. Many members of the scientific community unfortunately fit that mold.

i hope you don't dislike naturalism because of your parents' oppressive ideals. childhood memories are the cause much of one's bias when observing the world. just because your parents were like that doesn't mean every scientist or every naturalist is like that.

Wall-dog wrote:Science is not in conflict with God but Naturalism is. Naturalism started under the understanding that while trying to disprove the existance of God was probably impossible, disproving the

need

for God would accomplish pretty much the same end. Science has however recently been shooting-down naturalist theories. I would contend that doing so brings us closer to God because all of a sudden He is needed again to explain such things as the origin of species, the origin of the universe, and the nature of morality and cognitive thought.

again, you are misinterpreting the meaning of naturalism. i think this is part of why you don't believe in evolution. perhaps if you saw how naturalism doesn't try to disprove the need for god, but rather tries to define god, then you might understand how evolution could have occured as the form of god's creation.

Wall-dog wrote:But that could bring science closer to a lot of things. Saying it brings science closer to God is a statement of faith and I'll freely admit that. I believe God exists and because of that I have absolute faith that science will find him. If I were a scientist I wouldn't cheat because the need to do so would go against faith. One who has faith doesn't need to cheat...

most of the observations and facts behind scientific theories are gathered by people with almost no bias. research is conducted a lot of the time by people who are not making philosophical conclusions based on that research. in this way, there really is no 'cheating' or trying to twist the facts to fit the model. most scientists are truely trying to disprove their theories, especially today when in college science courses we are taught that our main duty is to try to disprove everything. i should know because i am taking one of those courses right now. it has nothing to do with god; it has nothing to do with trying to prove a personal point; it only involves what we can actually observe.

i work in a lab studying the affect of temperature and CO2 change on different food crops. we grow plants, we take measurements on those plants and their yeilds. we have a server routing information from 4 different greenhouses and 8 different cultivars which are almost always growing plants. interestingly, the subject of god never comes up in our work. we find out the detailed interworkings of these plants and how they interact with the world around them but we never enter in the concept of a supernatural being pulling the string behind it all. that is because it just doesn't concern us. we know that our observations work and are true in the real world, and that is why we need them, so that we can learn more about the real world. if there is a god, he must work in the real world as well, because that is the only one we can observe. it doesnt matter if he exists in a different plane or dimension, or whatever--that would be similar to being supernatural, but more realistic--it would still affect the world we exist in.

Wall-dog wrote:Actually the article said that genes don't really do much individually but rather they act in concert with other genes. The interactions change. But since everyone's understanding of 'genes' is based on a gene-to-trait relationship, saying 'genes change' is a legitimate simplification. Whether or not the genes themselves change isn't important. What they do changes. Beyond that we are arguing symantics.

yes, but you were making it look like something it is not when you said that DNA changes because of lifestyle choices. this does not happen. genes and gene groups get turned on or off due to different chemical changes (which can be introduced by some lifestyle choices, i'm not too sure about homosexuality being one, but perhaps under the right conditions it might).

Wall-dog wrote:Don't be so hasty. There is plenty of physical evidence for ID. The complexity of the cell is physical evidence. But it's circumstantial evidence and I'll agree with that. But before you dismiss ID as unscientific, give me another logical explanation.

it will only be evidence when we have something to compare it to.

Wall-dog wrote:Proving or disproving God would be an excercise in futility for exactly the reasons you give. Proving or disproving a

need

for God however is much more practical.

yes it would be. but it is still far beyond our ability to do so at this point. the question of the exisence of god seems to hold humanity back. instead of looking for information about the universe, we are caught up in a question that really has no value for advancement. what does it matter if we answer the question? we should rather keep it as a matter of faith and just search the universe to see how it works. maybe after we have seen enough we can answer the question.

Wall-dog wrote:I'm a computer programmer with a degree in networking and programming. I'm not a scientist, but computer science is a science of sorts so while I'm only a layman on the subject, I don't think my knowledge is so weak as to be dismissable by ad-hominum arguments. If I'm that far off base you should have no problem discrediting my arguments without my education ever being an issue.

you keep misunderstanding me. i am not attacking you, i am conveying an observation to you.

Wall-dog wrote:Please see the first couple of quotes regarding naturalism and the scientific method. And I don't know why you would call me arrogant. I'm not saying I'm better than anyone else. I'm not even attributing anything to naturalists that they don't freely admit to. The rule that all things must have naturalist causes is there rule - not mine. I would say that their rule is arrogant. Personally, I don't care if a cause is a naturalist cause or a supernatural cause. I only care if it exists. When I talk about faith, that's a two-sided sword. It goes for naturalists too. If they really believed in their position why would they need that rule?

you were saying that you're description of naturalism was 100% accurate when it wasn't even anywhere near accurate. you were dead wrong. i'd say that's being a little arrogant. or at least foolish.

"Personally, I don't care if a cause is a naturalist cause or a supernatural cause. I only care if it exists."

this is naturalism. it doesn't matter what you call it as long as it exists. naturalism doesn't dismiss god, it only describes him differently.

Wall-dog wrote:I'm familiar with that experiment. The environment they created is not one that has ever existed on Earth. They didn't create an early Earth environment. They created the environment they thought was most apt to give them the result they were looking for. I'll again refer to Lee Strobel's book and the attached bibliography. When that experiment was done they thought the Earth looked like that, but they thought that based on the assumption that it must have looked like that because amino acids were created. That assumption has since been proven false.

i've come to agree with you on this. i have seen a lot of critisization of this experiment. but that only means that there is no evidence for anyone, evolution nor creationism. the failure of this experiment means nothing. that is, unless you can show me a good number of similar experiments that have failed. the fact is, we don't know until we have tried a lot. and even then we could be wrong.

Wall-dog wrote: Disproving the contention that 'something naturalist caused it, but we don't know what' is just as impossible to disprove as the notion that God did it. But one can take the probability of it happening, draw something else with a similar probability, and let the reader decide how likely it is.

its pretty much the same thing, saying god did it, or saying a natural force that we don't know of did it. but what i see a lot of extremists doing, mostly christian, sometimes scientists (which i would not even consider scienctists, but they are self-proclaimed) is using analogies or similar probabilities that are twisted from reality, or try to confuse the reader. such as: 'Which is more probable, that one day a bunch of apes just turned into humans, or that a supreme and divine being created them from the dust of the universe?' instead of trying to prove others wrong, you should be trying to prove yourself wrong.

Wall-dog wrote:Pick up a copy of Lee Strobel's book and read it for yourself. Then look through his bibliography and read his sources. Then tell me if you don't agree...

i don't have to. i have seen plenty of proto-man bones and i can see how they do not fit modern man. especially the head bones. the jaws are all different and none of them fit the skull of a different species of primate, no matter how closely related. the fossils that remain are so spread out through the timeline that we only see major differences. if we had the fossils of every single hominid that ever existed, i would bet my life that the differences, chronologically, would be minute and almost unnoticable. except for that there would be different species or subspecies living in the same time period sometimes.

by the way, i am still going to read that book when i find the time.

Wall-dog wrote:The difference is that The Bible provides an explanation and naturalism does not.

no.... the bible provides an explanation written in a 2000 year old dialect by people who were supposedly interpreting the word of god. things like that don't translate well, especially in human language. the bible is for the masses, for people to learn how to live. it is not the answer to everything. naturalism provides an explanation more in line with the language of god. they translate the language of genetics, of physics, of mathematics, of geology, etc.--they are all the languages of god. these explanations provide more detailed and conclusive answers to questions that the bible does not go into, or simply skirts around with entrancing metaphors. the bible is not an explanation. it is an introduction and a guide.

Wall-dog wrote:Starting from the same geographic location without civilization and then developing civilization millions of years later doesn't explain it. The similarities in the brain would explain it if it were true that similar brains come up with similar thoughts. That's just plain not true. Our argument proves that!

no, it doesn't. our argument is many times more complex than ideas of survival. you either survive or you don't. it is pretty easy to see that if you are alone then it is easier for you to die. in fact, communal feelings began developing in simpler creatures than humans. all primates live communally. living together is not just a human trait. even morality is not exclusive to humanity. apes, dogs, dolphins, and other animals have basic morality. they do not kill each other; they help each other to survive; they care for young. so even with other species, humans share similar thoughts and ideals. why is this idea so against your beliefs?

Wall-dog wrote:You haven't defined cognitive thought. You've described programming. As a computer programmer, I know the difference. Beyond that, explain how you got here, going all the way back to the origion of the universe and the origin of species.

i can, given enough time and motivation. i think about it all the time, but i don't have it all thought out in my mind right now.

just so we're clear on this, naturalism posits that everything is able to be observed, including god; that the supernatural is a made-up concept and that all we believe to be supernatural is really natural. it does not try to disprove god, or the supernatural, but rather it tries to describe them as being natural.