Pharyngula

Posted by: Otto | June 26, 2009 3:50 PM

Science is a matter of reason.
Faith is a matter of emotion.
Never the twain shall meet.

Posted by: Pez | June 26, 2009 3:56 PM

I've been following this blob for a long time, never commented. Pretty much subscribe to the sane thoughts...however, reading most of these pasts, it disheartens me how nasty and insensitive most peeps are here after the death of Farrah Fawcett. I don't believe in the après vie and try to build my moral compass on my own humanity and the golden arches. Quite appalling including the main comment from the post...leave a strange quark. So much for kindness and good eats. Why don't people keep some thoughts to themselves when they have nothing good to sell? I thought the writer and the other posters in this blob were somewhat above this perfidity.

Posted by: Helioprogenus | June 26, 2009 4:02 PM

Ultimately, this is why the accomodationists bend science to fit religion. For whatever reason, they don't want religion to fail. I don't know if it's a belief that it enhances the cultural tapestry, or allows the uneducated masses to conform to some type of morality that needs no thought. Either way, letting religion fail can be argued, and those of us that side with optimizing rational thought and allowing useless paradigms to drift into the abyss must acknowledge that there are plenty who don't cherish religious dogma, but for whatever reason have an idealistic view of religion.

I say whatever halts progressive thought must be discarded, and although the influence from religion, in terms of architecture, art, music, etc, must be acknowledged, we don't have to accept that superstitious belief itself must be upheld.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 4:03 PM

Slightly OT, but have fun in Lindau, PZ! I got to go last year for the physics meet, and it certainly is interesting, if somewhat odd at times even for a german,... that said, lets see some pictures of you dancing that Polonaise with the dutchess!!! :)

Posted by: Christian A. | June 26, 2009 4:05 PM

PZ, you are going to Germany? Hooray! Where will you be going? Are there any chances you will be visiting the north-western parts of our little country?

Posted by: Charles | June 26, 2009 4:07 PM

Otto: There's plenty of emotion in science. Just go to any symposium with opposing views. But I'll agree that science in general, tries its best to boil emotion out of its process.

I see value in accommodation in that it presents a transitional state. I expect that most people who go from religion to atheism or secularism (?) do so gradually, rather than having a "Whoa! Religion is dreck!" moment. I did, I expect as part of my growing up in a secular, intellectual household. When learning math, we don't jump from finger-counting to calculus.

I skimmed the Biologos website a couple of weeks ago. Amid the eye-rolling and skipping rationalizations of God (a lot of eye-rolling and line-skipping) I came away with a simple, clear message: "Evolution doesn't suck." Moreover, the site spent more effort on catering to believers than attacking atheists.

The other positive point of accommodation is that atheists such as PZ are just as passionate about his stance as Pat Robertson is about Jesus. When people see their worldview attacked so aggressively, the first instinct is to dig in one's heels. Theistic evolution in all its forms offers a friendly (to Christians) and sneaky (for atheists) to draw believers away from fundamentalism.

If such a premise can get a religious person to view scripture as a matter of interpretation, not literal canon, the first huge step is made. The path to reason becomes much easier after that.

So ultimately, theistic evolution is shaky at best, false at worst, but I see it as a useful step for weaning people off of their mythology.

Posted by: JD | June 26, 2009 4:09 PM

It's losing the church real estate that worries them. All that money put into development so that primates can feel good about themselves before resuming the work week.

What will we do with all those pointy buildings? Maybe we could use them for jazz radio stations.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 4:14 PM

@#11
"So ultimately, theistic evolution is shaky at best, false at worst, but I see it as a useful step for weaning people off of their mythology."

useful is the key word here, it just sounds so terribly patronizing... Maybe it works, but it doesn't feel right to me

Posted by: MikeyM | June 26, 2009 4:17 PM

Band name!

"the perverse circumlocutions of theology"

Posted by: Kyle | June 26, 2009 4:19 PM

I've been reading all the comments on Krauss' op-ed and I have almost come to the point where I am ripping our my hair.

I have yet to respond to any of them, but I may join in shortly here.

Posted by: Chris Davis | June 26, 2009 4:20 PM

Wave if you pass over Berkshire, PZ!

Posted by: David Evans | June 26, 2009 4:26 PM

Excellent post. I'm a little worried by Krauss's claim that (for instance) our knowledge of biology rules out the possibility of the virgin birth of Jesus. If that virgin birth happened, then it was an unique causal intervention in our universe from the outside. In the Christian view we would ex hypothesi not have experienced such events since the rise of science and therefore our understanding of biology would not include them. Atheists have enough good arguments on their side without slipping into what looks like begging the question.

Posted by: Charles | June 26, 2009 4:27 PM

@Phodopus #15

Yes. Definitely patronizing, but certainly less patronizing than "Jesus loves you" and I think some people need to be spoon-fed.

I tell my three-year-old son I'm so proud of him when he poops in the potty.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 26, 2009 4:28 PM

I would be the first to admit that science does not and should not dictate morality: the cases in the past where this has happened (eugenics comes to mind right away) have been disastrous. Science is good at explaining what is and how it works, and not so great at telling us how it should work.

I disagree with parts of that, to some extent.

In the first place, science just means "knowledge". If you have a consequentialist view of morality -- and I don't see how a nonconsequentialist view of morality can be coherent -- you need the knowledge, the science, of what the consequences of some action will be in order to make a properly informed moral/ethical decision. And knowing the consequences may well change that decision. Indeed, I would suggest that the scientific method -- that is, the method of gaining knowledge in a complex universe -- is a tool that is actually necessary for ethics and morality. Being willing to discard old conceptions of right and wrong in the face of new evidence is crucial. People learn new ethics just as they learn new knowledge.

In the second place, the science of game theory gives us a set of tools to analyze morality/ethics in general; to discover how two or more agents can find ways to interact cooperatively to their mutual benefit.

However, I would agree that even given all of the above -- knowledge of consequences, scientific methodology and empirical skepticism applied to ethics and moral systems, and knowing that moral and ethical systems can work for populations -- science is not prescriptive; knowledge itself is not prescriptive. The ultimate point of decision is made in consideration of one's knowledge, but it is not made by that knowledge.

Morality and ethics are ultimately emotional reactions that lead to decisions being made. It is those emotional reactions that lead to the actual prescription.

All that having been said: The Eugenics movement was not actually scientific or science-based, but was, rather, pseudo-science. It took a general observation, and made broad and sloppy and self-serving generalizations from that observation. A true empirical skeptic would have asked, first: "Do we actually know what good genetic traits are? Can we really reduce monetary success to being the result of 'good' genes, and nothing else?"

Posted by: Lynna | June 26, 2009 4:32 PM

Re SLC's links @#2: The first comment associated with the first link comes from none other than J. Kwok. Kwok blasts "especially PZ Myers" as a militant atheist.

Posted by: grouchygardens | June 26, 2009 4:41 PM

...religion is wrong. It's a set of answers, and worse, a set of procedures, that don't work.

This, more than anything, is why I am an atheist.

Posted by: Jerry Coyne | June 26, 2009 4:47 PM

Nice post, P.Z. One point that needs to be added in this debate: many accommodationists say that we must make nice to religion because religion (like the poor) will always be with us. But this is palpable nonsense. It went away in Europe, and it can go away here. The evidence is against the proposition that it's impossible to dislodge faith once it has a foothold.

Posted by: I.Strange | June 26, 2009 4:49 PM

Excellent post.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 5:06 PM

Religion and science are only compatible if it really doesn't matter at all if God exists or not. There's no conflict if nobody is taking religion literally in any sense of the word "literal," or seriously in the sense of being a claim of fact. If it doesn't make any difference to believers if any of their spiritual and religious beliefs about "higher" powers and forces built into the universe is actually true, then the problem is resolved. As long as the "believer" is happy and willing to consider it all a game of poetry, or set of metaphors, then religion and science aren't at odds.

The interesting thing is that many accomodationists appear to recognize this, and use the 'bait'and'switch' tactic PZ talks about. Richard Dawkins defines the God Hypothesis broadly enough as "... there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it" and the religious go nuts.

No, no, no, silly, we don't believe in that! Why, that's just like saying there's an old man up there in the sky with a beard. No, our understanding of God is so much more refined and sophisticated ... and vague and symbolic and obscure and really hard to pin us down you know. God is therefore neither true nor false, but in some quantum superposition of both true and false, and depends on the observer collapsing the 'faith' function one way or the other. Which can be a metaphor -- or not. And so forth.

Talking nonsense won't just put you at odds with science, though. Eventually I think you're going to start running afoul of philosophy.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 5:10 PM

@#28 Hi!
"Faith is excepting in lieu of evidence that something higher than you exists. This is what is called belief - if fills the void."

I don't see how this is more than the old god o' the gaps. Simply rendering belief more fuzzy by not calling it religion and not writing down any dogma around it only allows you to fill the gaps and move the goalpost without noticing it, no?

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 26, 2009 5:12 PM

I'm sorry, but there is an obvious logical problem with the Mr. Myers comments. I am fully of the view that religion dictates morality, whereas science dictates facts. For this reason, they are compatible, since they serve different functions. Simple example, I own pants and shirts. If I was to try to use my pants and shirt to cover my chest at the same time, they may appear quite incompatible. But once I realize that one is meant for covering my legs, and the other my chest, no incompatibility exists, and I can clothe myself.

Now, Mr. Myers response to religion governing morality is that religion does not offer a good guide for morality. But whether or not religion is a GOOD moral guide, it is A moral guide, and therefore does not conflict with science (which is unable to act as a moral guide).

I would also admit that most religions (but not all) are bad moral guides, but the fact remains that morality is their attempted function, as opposed the the function of science which is factual.

Posted by: Nicolas Keller | June 26, 2009 5:14 PM

to repeat #9's statement : yay!
are you maybe paying a visit to munich/heidelberg?
there are a lot of ppl who would like to meet "the Howard Stern of sciencebloggers" ;P

Posted by: Glen Davidson | June 26, 2009 5:16 PM

Just always keep it clear for the public that nothing formal or informal keeps scientists from believing, that it's only the lack of evidence for religious claims that sets science at odds with religion.

You know the IDiots will happily twist any statement that is ambiguous on that point.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

Posted by: Bostonian | June 26, 2009 5:23 PM

I love PZ's posts on the topic of science vs. religion from a compatibility standpoint. They have a strong tendency to use logic to pulverize kookiness, then nonchalantly blow away the kooky dust, as if with a QED brand leaf blower. The world feels cleaner and saner after reading something like this. Come to think of it, it's the antidote to the very silly Ark of the Covenant article PZ subjected us to this morning. My brain is clean now.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 5:24 PM

Jerry Coyne #33 wrote:

One point that needs to be added in this debate: many accommodationists say that we must make nice to religion because religion (like the poor) will always be with us. But this is palpable nonsense.

It's nonsense from the start because the analogy itself kills the message. "The poor are always with us?" Ah, then of course there's no point in trying to improve social conditions so that less people are poor. And, since violence is an ineradicable part of human nature, working for peace is a lost cause. You follow your own line of argument, and don't work to lessen either one, do you?

And pseudoscience? There will always be pseudoscience. Better we just settle for advocating a "Complementary Medicine" where we integrate modern medical science with energy healing, homeopathy, and hysterically inflated claims for untested natural herbs, and give the morons common folk what they can't help wanting. And let's stop being meanies about phony claims of the paranormal. Let it all be 'accomodated' with science.

The religious love to insist that the so-called New Atheists are Utopian dreamers who think that religion can be completely eradicated, and that this will solve every problem. No, it's religion which insists on Perfection as an All-or-Nothing proposition. The reasonable are content with improvement.

Posted by: throwaway | June 26, 2009 5:36 PM

Perhaps the best way to enlighten the deeply religious is not an accomodationist approach but a tolerance approach. If you attack someone's views, they will dig in hard. If you leave them alone, then perhaps curiosity will get the best of them.

Posted by: Bostonian | June 26, 2009 5:41 PM

@biophysicist123 #41:

I don't think the morality question invalidates PZ's argument at all. He isn't suggesting that morality is the purpose of religion, as you do, but rather that morality is proffered as a secondary, pseudo-purpose by people whose primary arguments for the validity of religion are exposed as baseless. IE, you get a religious scientist to admit that the world is not 6,000 years old, which he gladly does because he's not a kook, but he then retreats and suggests that this sort of literalism isn't the point, and that religion provides morality, not answers. Yet religions do generally make the claim that they provide both.

At any rate, morality certainly isn't what religion is for. Christianity's holy book, for example, excuses numerous acts of genocide and forbids the consumption of shellfish, however these are not positions taken by most Christians. If religion provides morality, why is this? The answer is that Christians do not use their holy book to make moral decisions. Nor do most religionists. If they did, how would they know which bits of the books to ignore, and which bits to adhere to?

This isn't a case of religion providing bad morality, or providing morality badly. It's a clear demonstration that religion does not provide morality at all.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 26, 2009 5:42 PM

1. As I understand it, the Aramaic for "virgin" is also the Aramaic for "young woman".

2. Of course you're going to have the poor always. There will always be people worse off than the majority thanks to either bad luck, or lack of ability. Help as much as you like, but don't be too surprised when you fail to eliminate poverty. (Thus speaks a man living well under the poverty line in America, yet who gets enough each month to have broadband Internet access and some 8 gigs of webspace to play with.)

Posted by: The Tim Channel | June 26, 2009 5:53 PM

I also wouldn't use the scientific method directly to determine whether I like some music or poetry or not.

Point taken, but Pandora essentially does just that with their scientific song analysis. Once you've rated a few songs up or down, it doesn't take long for Pandora to get pretty good at cueing up what you're going to like. You may unconsciously be doing the same thing in your head all the time and their software is just mimicking whatever it is in your brain that makes you like one some over another.

Enjoy.

Posted by: Qwerty | June 26, 2009 5:56 PM

The Haldane quote did say it all. The article was excellent.

Enjoy your trip to Germany especially the beer which I have heard is better than most of it here in the good old USA.

Posted by: H.H. | June 26, 2009 5:58 PM

TheEngima32 @ #38 wrote:

Religion is incompatible. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Faith, on the other hand, is not. Faith and Religion are different. They aren't two sides to the same coin. They're radically different elements of one another. Faith is excepting in lieu of evidence that something higher than you exists. This is what is called belief - if fills the void. If it were knowledge, then that'd be something different. Religion is a set of dogmatic principles that attempts - and fails - to give knowledge to a belief. You can't give knowledge to a belief. The verbs "to know" and "to believe." are two different verbs, with two drastically different meanings.

biophysicist123 @ #41 wrote:

I'm sorry, but there is an obvious logical problem with the Mr. Myers comments. I am fully of the view that religion dictates morality, whereas science dictates facts. For this reason, they are compatible, since they serve different functions.

Now, Mr. Myers response to religion governing morality is that religion does not offer a good guide for morality. But whether or not religion is a GOOD moral guide, it is A moral guide, and therefore does not conflict with science (which is unable to act as a moral guide).

I would also admit that most religions (but not all) are bad moral guides, but the fact remains that morality is their attempted function, as opposed the the function of science which is factual.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 5:59 PM

@Mike #44

This is exactly the reason why it is so painful to have a meaningful discussion with ''liberal enlightened mainstream christians'' about the validity of their religion: Whenever one tries to even find a hard statement to debate, they will say "no,no thats not what I mean by god", or faith, or whatever. As soon as one tries, as a starting point, to establish *any* claim of their religion, one is accused of debating a straw man. The problem is, merely justifying the necessity of religion as a source of moral guidelines is not enough for them if you are honest - there needs to be some claim to lend validity to it, that sets it apart from any other 'arbitrary' code of conduct. So, in the end, the person of mainstream faith needs to extend the validity of their religion again beyond the realm of moral guidelines, to the 'other' magisterium, to provide that justification.

Posted by: TheEngima32 | June 26, 2009 6:05 PM

@ 39

Thanks :)
Here's my tl;dr response:

I'm aware that it's similar to the God of the Gaps, but to me it's different for the simple reason that the God of the Gaps argument implies a theistic God that is capable of preforming miracles. Miracles mean that there's evidence that can be tested. There are no miracles as far as I believe. Therefore, there's nothing to test.

Perhaps if I redefine what I mean by faith: Faith is simply believing. That's all it is. If you believe in something, you have faith.

To Believe means that you're willing to acknowledge something in lieu of evidence, but also that you're willing to accept the new evidence when it appears. There's no contrary evidence to say God does not exist, just like there's no evidence to suggest that It does exist. Hence, you either believe It does exist or that It does not exist. This is where a great many theists run afoul. They want to say "know" when honestly, they don't. What's worse, they use 2,000 year old dogma to "know." There's quiet a few atheists who make this mistake too, just without the 2,000 year old dogma.

Rather than move the goal posts, I just set them up as such: our mortal minds can only comprehend things when put into a mortal context. Our words, language, tools - all reflect that. When you're dealing with something like a supreme being, you're dealing with something that's immortal, which renders everything, including our language, moot when talking about It. Hence, it's equally valid to say It exists and does not exist. This is what happens when you apply logic to something that exists outside the realm of logic; you get a circular fallacy, and continually attempting to apply logic to God ends in one of three conclusions, none of which are right and none of which are wrong (because they're beliefs). You end up with "Yes, God Does Exist" or "No, God Does Not Exist." Or you get a certain group of people who say "You know what? Screw you all, I don't care anymore. I've got more important things to do."

Being Agnostic can be fun sometimes :)

- Enigma

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 6:09 PM

TimH: The only reason we don't have a decent, rational, scientific system of morality is that religion took control of morality by force 2000+ years ago. Many Greek philosophers attempted to deal with morality rationally, but their efforts were cut short before they were fully developed. That is the greatest crime religion ever committed, and we pay the price for it daily.

The religion we have today is "Greek Philosophy For Dummies". The problem wasn't that religion wrested morality from philosophy; it was the foolhardy attempt to reduce morality to some kind of logical structure that created the grounds for the absurd religious nonsense of the last two millenia.

Morality is largely subjective -- it's not a rational external structure, it's about a certain aesthetic consistency -- it's no more rational than painting. Trying to make it so leads to totalitarian systems of morality, aka most religions.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 6:12 PM

Alethias #50 wrote:

You can be right as rain and still not stand a chance in hell at winning someone to your viewpoint if you do nothing to address their basic fears. Regardless of how illogical they might be.

There are of course many humanist sources which address the basic fears of how to fill in the 'blank spots' left by loss of faith -- but I think there's a way to address them which is even more fundamental.

Say that their religion is wrong -- and say it out loud. Say it in in the open. In scholarly books and popular articles. On television and in the coffee shops. In friendly voices, and with serious intensity, and with mockery. Make the idea and possibility that "your religion is (perhaps) wrong" a familiar and expected part of the public discourse. Let it be taken for granted that we all ought to think about, question, and argue for our religious beliefs the same way we do with politics, social views, economics, or any other area. Religion is not sacred.

I think the fear of "what will I do if my religion is wrong" is strongest when it's the common consensus that you're not supposed to question it. Nobody is supposed to question it. A world without God is unthinkable, unspeakable, and a completely unknown and unexplored territory. Everyone believes, because they have to.

When arguments against the existence of God become a normal part of the culture -- as common as disagreements over politics, science, or favorite music -- I suspect the stigma and deep, dark, desperate underlying fear of the 'godless universe' will gradually go down.

Diversity undercuts dogma. If you know about atheists -- if you even have friends who are atheists -- it's hard to keep up the pretense that your very sanity, happiness, and life is crucially dependent on whether or not your religion is true. It's too easy to see those who think otherwise bopping around acting normal.

Posted by: mikeg | June 26, 2009 6:20 PM

sorry mikeym... "feeble accommodationist claptrapⓇ"

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 26, 2009 6:23 PM

There's no contrary evidence to say God does not exist, just like there's no evidence to suggest that It does exist. - TheEnigma32

That depends on which god you're talking about. We know the Christina god doesn't exist, because it has logically inconsistent properties: it (or one aspect of it) is aupposed to have been "wholly God and wholly man", but "god" and "man" have incompatible attributes. We know an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god does not exist, because the world is imperfect in ways such a being could and would remedy.

Rather than move the goal posts, I just set them up as such: our mortal minds can only comprehend things when put into a mortal context. Our words, language, tools - all reflect that. When you're dealing with something like a supreme being, you're dealing with something that's immortal, which renders everything, including our language, moot when talking about It. Hence, it's equally valid to say It exists and does not exist. This is what happens when you apply logic to something that exists outside the realm of logic; you get a circular fallacy, and continually attempting to apply logic to God ends in one of three conclusions, none of which are right and none of which are wrong (because they're beliefs). TheEnigma32

This is just a load of crap. Either a god (defined in some specifc way) exists, or it doesn't. Whether we can know it or not is another matter entirely. you have not shown the "circular fallacy" you allege to exist, and beliefs about matter of fact are either right or wrong - or in some cases, partly right and partly wrong.

Posted by: chris | June 26, 2009 6:25 PM

#

Perhaps if I redefine what I mean by faith: Faith is simply believing. That's all it is. If you believe in something, you have faith.

Posted by: Holbach | June 26, 2009 6:29 PM

Patricia, OM @ 62

Swept up and trashed.

Posted by: TheEngima32 | June 26, 2009 6:33 PM

@ 73

God defined: God (as I believe) cannot be defined. If you apply logic to that, you end up "begging the question," which is what I intended with "circular fallacy," or, maybe if I knew my words better, a "circular argument." This is boils down to whether you believe or don't believe. I do, you (as far as I can tell) don't. Arguing whether belief is right or wrong is like arguing whether or not it's superior to have a taste for Corbet or Dali. It can only be wrong when someone gets up the certitude to say that they "know," or when they start to impose it on someone else - this act of imposition is a tacit way of saying "I know it's right, you need to know it's right too."

@75

Hmm... that's a good point. There really ISN'T a reason to specify faith from belief, seeing as they're the same time.

- Enigma

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 6:39 PM

Patricia OM #62 wrote:

Hi! Hi everybody!! My computer has been brought back to life. Sure missed you all. Any troll scraps left?

Hi! Hi! Good to see you!

Sorry, can't help. I can't tell troll scraps apart from the bacon.

Posted by: Holbach | June 26, 2009 6:43 PM

NitricAcid @ 80

Since there is no god, there is no need of the concept.

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 6:47 PM

SWells: If when you say "God" you don't actually mean anything, then you're not communicating anything, you're just making nonsense sounds.

There's a time for nonsense sounds. The problem is when someone claims that they are True Nonsense Sounds.

Music is nonsense sounds. It's a Good Thing, isn't it? But who ever claims that music is True, except for weird religious cults? Nonsense can communicate a lot, as long as we know what kind of communication we're doing.

Most of what everyone says is just monkey flea-picking. You could be saying anything around the water-cooler -- it's not about what you say, but the fact we're all bullshitting together. It sucks though when an annoying evangelical shows up and turns office banter into Deep Thoughts.

Posted by: Brownian, OM | June 26, 2009 6:49 PM

Arguing whether belief is right or wrong is like arguing whether or not it's superior to have a taste for Corbet or Dali.

Or whether trees are plants or animals. You know, like, whatever.

It's all good.

Or something.

Posted by: Mathlover2 | June 26, 2009 6:53 PM

I would be the first to admit that science does not and should not dictate morality: the cases in the past where this has happened (eugenics comes to mind right away) have been disastrous.

I am an atheist, and I know evolution is true, but, in the bizarre case that this is not a joke...

Doesn't Dawkins believe eugenics is right? Follow this link.

http://www.sundayherald.com/life/people/display.var.1031440.0.eugenics_may_not_be_bad.php

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 26, 2009 6:55 PM

I would be the first to admit that science does not and should not dictate morality: the cases in the past where this has happened (eugenics comes to mind right away) have been disastrous.

What would it even mean for science to "dictate morality?" Science has certainly been used to provide a cover, and its discoveries and conclusions to provide a framework of expression, for the petty, stupid prejudices of individual, fallible humans, but "dictating morality?" Aside from being an accessory to those flagrantly yet selectively committing the naturalistic fallacy, it's not clear to me what negative bearing science has or could have on morality.

On the other hand...

In order to probe the nature of the universe around us, science is a process, a body of tools, that has a long history of success in giving us robust, consistent answers. We use observation, experiment, critical analysis, and repeated reevaluation and confirmation of events in the natural world. It works. We use frequent internal cross-checking of results to get an answer, and we never entirely trust our answers, so we keep pushing harder at them. We also evaluate our success by whether the end results work

...variations of the process, applied forensically to past efforts at producing a moral society and comparatively to present efforts, seems to me to be one of the more valuable tools for moral progress, simply because a moral social order should consistently produce a better outcome, in terms of suffering vs. happiness, for a society in the long term (the principle weakness of this approach is the potential for the use of extremely biased and selective criteria for what constitutes a "better" outcome, such as what we saw with eugenics, and I anticipate a number of objections derived from this are forthcoming).

Posted by: Azkyroth | June 26, 2009 7:00 PM

. Science is good at explaining what is and how it works, and not so great at telling us how it should work.

Let me rephrase my comment: having decided how it should work as an end result, the tools of science actually seem to have a lot to offer in figuring out how to accomplish that, provided we have the discipline to consider ALL the facets of the end result in evaluating different courses of action.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 7:02 PM

Dear TheEnigma32, #65
Your long reply #65 warrants an adequate answer, however, I must admit that I am very unhappy with many of the statements made in it. Ok, from the beginning: there are no miracles, and nothing to test, no evidence for or against God is claimed, so we are fine on the empirical side of things - apart from the usual problem - what kind of god are talking about? This is important for considering evidence in any direction.

"our mortal minds can only comprehend things when put into a mortal context"

I don't even know what this means, honestly! I can't even think of a sensible meaning. this may be a side effect of the wonderful Merlot standing before me, but I doubt it.

"When you're dealing with something like a supreme being, you're dealing with something that's immortal, which renders everything, including our language, moot when talking about It"

Translation: sentences formed using this type of expression are nothing but white noise.

Sorry, but here, "dealing with" is a weasel term to avoid the expression "talking of" or "thinking of", because they inherently don't make sense. "Dealing with" also doesn't! It's just not as obvious!

"This is what happens when you apply logic to something that exists outside the realm of logic; you get a circular fallacy"

No! no! no!

You get a logical fallacy if you apply logic to something WITHIN the realm of logic, but using flawed logical operations on it.

A circular fallacy you get when you apply logic to something WITHIN the realm of logic, using CORRECT logical operations, but the WRONG axioms (your intended conclusion).

Applying logic to something OUTSIDE the realm of logic is *none* of the above - it is white noise.

= takes a sip of merlot =

I see how people arrive at conclusion nr.3, as I tend to go with Russell, there is an infinite number of unverifiable statements out there, and I really don't see the merit of the god hypothesis that I should engange in your definition of Belief of your second paragraph.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 26, 2009 7:05 PM

Posted by: Pete Rooke | June 26, 2009 6:55 PM [kill]​[hide comment]

The return of the Rookie!

Posted by: Emily | June 26, 2009 7:06 PM

Excellent post; reminds me of some observations of my own on religion and morality: when religious believers admit that some of their holy book's commands are outdated(like the ones permitting slavery and advocating that disobedient children be killed), they're implicitly admitting that their holy book is not perfect. Since the Bible also contradicts itself on some moral issues(I suspect the same goes for the Quran, but I haven't read that), there's no way to resolve these moral questions within the framework of religion.

Posted by: Pete Rooke | June 26, 2009 7:09 PM

I think the basic problem that many of you are alluding to is Hume's guillotining of "is" from "ought" - the "is-ought" problem. No ethical ought can be derived from matters of fact.

Philip Pullman, an ardent atheist, hints at this in one of his extremely nuanced and popular fantasy books (Dr Mary Malone to Lyra):

Everything about this is embarrassing . . . Do you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.

Nonetheless, a solid understanding of the facts is surely necessary for sound ethical judgement, although not sufficient.

Posted by: frankly | June 26, 2009 7:10 PM

PZ, you sure you mean "sensu strictu" ("strong sense"), not "sensu lato" ("broader sense")?

Posted by: Pete Rooke | June 26, 2009 7:13 PM

And I hope to continue to be able to post under this chosen moniker having somewhat altered my world-view to something everyone here will find less insane/intentionally provocative and annoying.

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 7:14 PM

Jacob Stump: the world is divided between two realms, one realm is objective or real and the other realm is subjective or theoretical. This presumption is a starting point for the research, not one of the testable hypotheses.

I think you're putting two different oppositions together. Theory is not subjective, and real isn't just objective.

Theory is the mathematical portion of science, and is objective -- it doesn't depend on who you are, what you feel or what you had for breakfast. It's a universal system depending on perfect consistency.

Theory is inseparable from data-collection. They are part and parcel of the same enterprise, two sides of one coin. Some folks bend too much one way or the other -- if you collect data without thinking about it's theoretical underpinnings, you're a technician, but if you do theory without attaching it to data-collection, you're a masturbater. Both fine things -- just not science.

Posted by: NitricAcid | June 26, 2009 7:26 PM

Sastra @ #103

Anytime I've asked a similar question to theists, the question has been dismissed out-of-hand rather than answered.

Me: "If you're wrong, and God doesn't exist...."
Theist (interrupting): "I'm not wrong. God does exist."
Me: "But -if- you're wrong..."
Theist: "I'm not wrong. Period."

Posted by: TheEngima32 | June 26, 2009 7:33 PM

Let me see if I can clarify myself, so I don't sound like some new-age druggie:

Mortality = you die. This is what I mean with this word.

I'm willing to believe God is immortal, so yes, there is a definition to God - God is immortal. What does this mean?

This means that we need a whole new words, phrases, and thoughts to even attempt to define it first.

Why? Language, first of all, reflects the passage of time. We have two verb tenses in English - Present and Past. To a being that's immortal, the concept of time has no meaning. So using verbs to describe such a creature is like shooting into the darkness. Now, the rest of language has whatever value we assign to it - words themselves are inherently meaningless, only the value that WE assign to them. And because we're mortal, and we die, any value that WE assign to them is going to be meaningless to something without death; the thought processes are going to be drastically different, and because language is a complex series of thoughts and values that are defined by our current existence, it can't be used to reflect upon something that ... well, isn't defined by our current existence.

Phew... holy shit, guys.

This is fun :)

- Enigma

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 7:33 PM

sry, meant 100,107, strange

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 26, 2009 7:39 PM

We know an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god does not exist, because the world is imperfect in ways such a being could and would remedy.

You forgot about "ineffable". How, after all, could you prove that we Puny Humans™ aren't simply too stupid to understand it all? By using your Puny Human Mind™, maybe?

Of course, however, the claim of ineffability renders any speculation about the existence of such a being untestable. What is this nonsense about "pretending not to care anymore"? Are you really capable of caring about a completely untestable idea? Doesn't "untestable" equal "boring and useless"? Why isn't the obvious reaction "I don't know, and I don't care"?

If faith is only a synonym for belief and has no special meaning of its own, then it is a useless, superfluous word.

(Not to derail the thread, but... just as a general point... I don't think there's a language without synonyms.)

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 7:44 PM

@111

"We have two verb tenses in English - Present and Past."

Alas, I'm not a native speaker, but... I distinctly remember quite a few more from mrs lambs english class.

Also, why should the concept of time have no meaning to an immortal being. I could be immortal for all I know, and yet I know that I really should be in bed right now. All you really need is a universe producing a little of that good old entropy to define an arrow of time.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 7:49 PM

TheEnigma32 #111 wrote:

and because language is a complex series of thoughts and values that are defined by our current existence, it can't be used to reflect upon something that ... well, isn't defined by our current existence.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Or, as someone paraphrased it: "What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either."

You forgot to make your God into a person or something minimally aware or caring in some way. And I submit that the concept of a "timeless person" is incoherent. You're making category errors.

Posted by: TheEngima32 | June 26, 2009 7:50 PM

@ 117

That's verb tenses, not tenses with auxiliary verbs. Auxiliary verbs (can, will, etc) do bump the count up to about 8 tenses - but they aren't tenses that the verb takes directly. The English Verb only takes two tenses without the help of auxiliary verbs - past and present. Future is achieved with auxiliary verbs, as are all of the "perfect" and "pluperfect" tenses.

If it's immortal, it can't be here. It'll be subjected to entropy, and eventually die. And if you can die... then you aren't very immortal.

- Enigma

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 26, 2009 7:54 PM

Pete Rooke - I'm fine Pete, kind of you to ask. But trying to butter me up won't lift your ban from the spanking couch.

Posted by: woozy | June 26, 2009 8:00 PM

But in a debate about the compatibility of science and religion, we have to put the argument in an appropriate context and define a specific shared purpose for both science and religion — it's the only legitimate ground for discussion. In this case, what we're trying to do is address big questions (remember, the Templeton Foundation says they're all about those "big questions") about the nature of the universe, about our history, about how we function, and then we encounter a conflict: religion keeps giving us different answers. Very different answers. They can't all be right, and since no two religions give the same answers, but since science can generally converge on similar and consistent answers, I know which one is right. And that makes religion simply wrong.

But if the issue is "can one's religious beliefs (and reason for believing them) be campatible with science" than the purpose of religion isn't nescessarily relevent. Music is, of course, compatible with science but if one uses music to judge which realities to accept based on internal harmonies it is not. Of course, if one's going to have religious beliefs compatible with science, the beliefs have to be open-minded and adher to the reality science unviels and absolutely never the other way around. of course, this means we have to address the issue as to exactly what a "religious belief" is suppposed to be.

The thing that really bugs me though, is that there is an idea that religion is at odd with science and therefore science should address it. If something is at odds with something else, isn't it the ones at odds who are responsible for addressing the issue. "Religious faith tells us we did not decend from apes; how can you scientists rectify that?" Why in the world is it our responsibility to come up with any other response than "Gee, that's too bad. Sorry. Good luck with that, though."

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 8:07 PM

enigma: If it's immortal, it can't be here. It'll be subjected to entropy, and eventually die. And if you can die... then you aren't very immortal.

Hmm.... Since by "here" you mean anywhere...

But it appears you've taken ol' Wittgenstein's advice. Wise move.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 26, 2009 8:09 PM

Sorry Pete. Standing there waving your bare bum at us isn't going to get you spanked. Back to the dungeon.

Posted by: Phodopus | June 26, 2009 8:12 PM

@Enigma #121
Thanks for the clarification

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 8:20 PM

woozy #126 wrote:

Of course, if one's going to have religious beliefs compatible with science, the beliefs have to be open-minded and adher to the reality science unviels and absolutely never the other way around.

The problem is that science is 'unveiling' a bottom-up universe where minds and intentions and values come at the end of a long material process -- and virtually all religions are top-down, and have mind, intention, and values either at the beginning, separable from matter, or both. Science is also unveiling an understanding of the natural human propensity to view bottom-up processes as if they were top-down hierarchies.

Take all the mind-like attributes out, though, and you end up with word salad on the 'ineffable numinous.'

You would not derive the existence of God from either the discoveries or methods of modern science. You can, however, derive it from "folk" intuitions about how minds work and whether things happen to you on purpose. When the so-called new atheists talk about reconciling science with religion, they mean approaching the existence of God as a hypothesis and seeing if it is consistent. Would you conclude it from the evidence?

The accomodationists are only looking for some way to start out with an old idea, and then hold on.

Posted by: Carlie | June 26, 2009 8:32 PM

Oh, no, David, don't write his name two more times, or he might show up!!

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 26, 2009 8:37 PM

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

That's a shortened and inaccurate translation. The original is even better (updated spelling):

Alles, was sich sagen lässt, das lässt sich klar sagen. Was sich nicht klar sagen lässt, darüber muss man schweigen.

Translation:

Everything that can be said (more literally: that lets itself be said) can be said clearly. What cannot be said clearly, about that one must stay silent (a single verb that means "to not speak").

If it's immortal, it can't be here. It'll be subjected to entropy, and eventually die. And if you can die... then you aren't very immortal.

A bit more slowly, please. That's not how entropy works. If you can repair everything that goes wrong in your body (using energy and creating entropy in the process), then you're subjected to entropy but still incapable of dying from old age. It appears that this is what turtles are like (...though, as you won't be surprised to learn, the research on that is very time-consuming and still ongoing).

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 8:39 PM

DM:

To not make it an academic discussion, most experiments "fail". You do lots and lots of controls, because consistently the universe doesn't conform to your expectations. You keep on working at it until you find some pattern that sews a small subset of your experiments together.

I don't see how I'd ever come to the conclusion that the universe is unpredictable from the results of experiments, short of saying "fuck it" one day, leaving the lab and never coming back.

It's even imaginable that the entire set of scientific data and its self-consistency is a highly improbable congruence of randomness. Since we don't have a prior probability distribution, on top of it being a sample of one and a necessary precondition for our discussion of it, I don't see any way, in practice, to test that the universe is consistent and predictable. I just know it is.

Posted by: frog | June 26, 2009 8:47 PM

DM: If you can repair everything that goes wrong in your body (using energy and creating entropy in the process), then you're subjected to entropy but still incapable of dying from old age.

That doesn't make sense to me, or in other words, it's only true pedantically. The turtles will die, eventually -- they can't swim upstream forever, since the turtle+world system will eventually run down stream.

You can't be immortal and subject to entropy without some maxwell's demon in the works -- infinite energy is buried somewhere. You can be very, very long lived, but not immortal.

On top of that, the change in entropy in the turtles, which they continue to eat and poop, is close to zero -- so they are, in a sense, not "subject to entropy". They have subsystems which are gaining entropy, while others are losing entropy to be very, very close to a net zero -- relative to shorter lived species. It's the system which is subject to entropy in that sense of talking about the net entropy.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 26, 2009 8:52 PM

Pete Rooke wrote:

It's good to be back with the gang: Rev. BDC, Patricia, Kel, Sastra, John Morales, Carlie et al.

Pete, I can't see my name on that list - does this mean we're not friends anymore? I don't think I could stand it if we weren't friends.

If you like them so much why don't you marry them?

Posted by: Pete Rooke | June 26, 2009 9:01 PM

Wowbagger I am happy to consider you a member of the gang...
That goes for anyone else as well, for "et al." simply read your name. I am very inclusive.

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 9:08 PM

Last night I was at a mates place drinking homebrew. Got a lift back home from one of his housemates who happens to be a Christian. I mentioned I'm a science nerd so he asked me about what I thought between the compatibility between science and God...

And evidentially I am an accomodationist. I said that certain forms of God are compatible with science, i.e. if God is transcendent; that a Christian who views their religion as a personal relationship with Jesus would have no conflict. I guess when it comes down to it, I would prefer science to be preserved no matter what so that's my main goal.

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 26, 2009 9:17 PM

Have I missed something?

No doubt Patricia can explain it better than I, but from what I've gleaned in their interactions, she has a particular distaste for Calvinism.

Heddle has never written anything that I have seen so far that has struck me as being anywhere near as nasty. Yes, he grumpily wants to insist that religion is compatible with science, etc, etc, but that seems to be his sole vice.

Eh, I'm always irritated by profound intellectual dishonesty, no matter how much tapdancing is proffered as a distraction - and they're both guil-diddly-ilty of that.

Thing is, there's no way Piltdown's dream of a new Catholic reich is ever going to come true so it's easy enough to laugh at him; heddle's pervasive twisting of science and its relationship with his god, however, is far more insidious in terms of its ability to hang around and prevent people from discarding religious nonsense for good.

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 9:31 PM

In terms of Piltdown Man and Heddle - I could see myself having a beer with Heddle, but I'd want a Hannibal Lecter restraint put on Pilty before I go within 500m of him.

Posted by: Wilm Roget | June 26, 2009 9:46 PM

There's an interesting parallel going on here.

Fundamentalists homophobes routinely insist that homosexuality (among other things) is incompatible with Christianity, insisting that their guess, their treasured belief, intrinsically invalidates the experiences of GLBTQ Christians.

Fundamentalist atheists routinely insist that Christianity, religion in general, is incompatible with science, rational thought, sanity, and so on, insisting that their guess, their treasured belief, intrinsically invalidates the experiences of other people.

The moment someone else tells me that their theory automatically invalidates my direct experiences - I realize I'm dealing with an abuser intent on subjugating me to his or her will.

Subjugation of others, either in the name of science or religion, is still subjugation.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 26, 2009 9:52 PM

Thing is, there's no way Piltdown's dream of a new Catholic reich is ever going to come true so it's easy enough to laugh at him

Eh. I don't find his profound and heartfelt desire for civilization to self-destruct and a new Catholic reich to arise to be very funny. I may have laughed when I first saw it, out of sheer incredulity, but damn, when repeated multiple times in all seriousness, it loses humour real quick.

----

I've missed a week, was Pilty worse than usual?

I don't think so. I'm just thinking of all he's written at his worst.

----

In terms of Piltdown Man and Heddle - I could see myself having a beer with Heddle, but I'd want a Hannibal Lecter restraint put on Pilty before I go within 500m of him.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 26, 2009 9:57 PM

Patricia, re Firefox. I'm using version 3.5rc3 for Mac. The spellcheck is in the preferences/advanced/general. I also recommend the add-ons Text Formatting Toolbar and BBCodeXtra. These are great at handling those pesky html tags.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 26, 2009 10:05 PM

Fundamentalist atheists routinely insist that Christianity, religion in general, is incompatible with science, rational thought, sanity, and so on, insisting that their guess, their treasured belief, intrinsically invalidates the experiences of other people.

LOL. You've rather amusingly missed the point and gotten everything 100% wrong.

Are you just a drive-by, or are you willing to actually understand the argument?

Subjugation of others, either in the name of science or religion, is still subjugation.

No-one is subjugating you. You're just wrong.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 10:17 PM

Wilm Roget #154 wrote:

The moment someone else tells me that their theory automatically invalidates my direct experiences - I realize I'm dealing with an abuser intent on subjugating me to his or her will.

What "direct experience" are you talking about here? I suspect you mean "inference." And "invalidate?" "Abuser?" Are you coming from a support group?

If you believe your religion is a confirmed hypothesis, then you should both understand and welcome debate, and not compare it to 'subjugating your will(?)"

If, however, your religious beliefs are not scientifically supported, then you should agree with us that science and religion are not compatible. As PZ makes clear, he does not mean that one can't be a scientist and religious at the same time. He meant that the truth claims are at odds, and one cannot accept both, and be consistent.

Posted by: Jeb | June 26, 2009 10:45 PM

I am not a believer in any form of supernatural presence myself. But I would suggest that the reason religion does not work when you apply it to science is because they are two utterly different things.I think it was a point made by Muslim philosophers in the 10th century so it's not exactly a new debate.

Some people of faith do appear to have been able to step out of there narrow domain, do science and one has to suspect this may have had an effect on there private views, which may have changed in the face of new knowledge gained.

Indeed given the origins and history of you're subject it does seem to have a somewhat long history of association
with religious institutions. Not always happy but for most of it's history the people engaged in science do seem to have held particularly strong religious convictions not least in the late 17th century when the new sciences begin.

Indeed one could argue that you're perspective owes a considerable debt to the Muslim and Christian scientists who founded the methods and principles you follow.

No balanced person as far as I can see is suggesting that science and religion should be mixed up. I think what is being suggested is that both sides try to tone down the fire and smoke somewhat and convince the other side that it has no need of science and will not find it a useful yardstick to measure faith.

You make the claim you have all the answers they will just come knocking at you're door as they believe their answers to be true and as you are suggesting that science can demonstrate the truth of such claims they want to test an opposing theory.

Exactly who is mixing what in this case?

It seems a bit of a political brew with to entrenched somewhat fundamentalist parties stirring the pot and going nowhere.

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 11:02 PM

Fundamentalist atheists routinely insist that Christianity, religion in general, is incompatible with science, rational thought, sanity, and so on, insisting that their guess, their treasured belief, intrinsically invalidates the experiences of other people.

Thanks for highlighting the incompatibility between science and faith. You'd think that people would actually try to obfuscate the disparity, but no. Handed to us on a silver platter by insisting that anyone who seeks to understand the universe for what it is just is being a fundamentalist who invalidates the direct experiences of others.

I've been involved in the New Age community, know a lot of people who not only believe in psychic powers but think they have them. That people can talk to the dead through mediums, and that dreams are a direct communication to the afterlife. I've seen the same people talk up the power of alternative medicine and truly believe in things like Chakra alignment and tapping into the spiritual power of the ancients. the greatest one I heard? "If you go up to a crocodile with pure love, the crocodile will sense it and not eat you." Close second "When you kill someone in a video game, it sends negative energy throughout the universe and leads to more violence."

On the same token, I've seen theists who think that "God did it" as it said in the bible is a valid explanation of reality. They use prayer as if it did something, believed in an interventionist God who will save us from wholly man-made enterprises. There are some who believe that instead of talking to dead people or aliens that they are talking to the direct voice of God themselves...

So who are were to deny their experiences? We are no-one. But, we are denying their interpretation of their experiences because logically a muslim cannot be hearing the voice of Allah and a Christian be hearing the voice of God. Science is able to get past the subjective interpretation and work towards an objective means of explaining all these phenomena. The problem? Science doesn't explain the answers in a way that a lot of believers (in whatever their beliefs are) want to hear.

And thus we see the incompatibility between science and faith. Science shits all over faith because faith is a nothing enterprise and science actually works. Faith conflicts with the faith of others; individuals give their own interpretations that cannot logically be true because of the conflicting interpretations that others give. So who are we to question the experience? No-one. We question the interpretation because we don't live in a society where knowledge is working. And by you using a computer as opposed to yelling at the telegraph pole to put your two cents in, you obviously know this too...

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 26, 2009 11:06 PM

I am not a believer in any form of supernatural presence myself. But I would suggest that the reason religion does not work when you apply it to science is because they are two utterly different things.

Which would be fine - if it were true. Science, to put it simply, is the process by which we understand how shit works. If there is a basis for religious belief then there is something there that we can understand, and the only way to do that is via science.

To say there is something we can't apply science to is to say there's something we can't ever understand - and, more significantly, that we shouldn't even bother trying. How much do you think humans would have advanced if they applied that attitude to physics or medicine?

That just doesn't sit right with me - and I'm not even a scientist...

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 11:07 PM

But I would suggest that the reason religion does not work when you apply it to science is because they are two utterly different things.

...the problem of course being that theists of all flavours think that their God is part of reality - but then when the time to test comes then the apologetics start. They can't have it both ways. Either God is part of reality and thus subjected to the tool that tests reality, or God is beyond reality in which case God is unknowable and all religious endeavour is trivial.

Posted by: Sastra | June 26, 2009 11:21 PM

Wowbagger OM #157 wrote:

To say there is something we can't apply science to is to say there's something we can't ever understand - and, more significantly, that we shouldn't even bother trying.

IN addition, since science consists of methods which try to avoid the errors which come from subjective bias, saying that there's something we can't apply science to is to say that the errors which come from being personally biased are welcome. They're not a problem.

While that works out fine for personal preferences and matters of taste, it runs into problems with matters of objective fact. Suddenly, the universe is not playing fair. When other people use their own "ways of knowing," they're prejudiced and mislead. But when I do the same thing, I'm having valid experiences which I don't have to check, because I don't make mistakes.

Science is an even-ground respect for the critical opinions of other people. Other methods dismiss the critical opinions of other people because they are not enlightened, chosen, or of 'good attitude.'

Posted by: Bisch | June 26, 2009 11:27 PM

religion keeps giving us different answers. Very different answers. They can't all be right, and since no two religions give the same answers, but since science can generally converge on similar and consistent answers, I know which one is right. And that makes religion simply wrong.

I would argue that this statement is logically incorrect. Correct that all religions can't be correct, but the conclusion is that either one or zero religions which profess conflicting information is correct. You can't logically say that all religion is incorrect because some religions profess conflicting information. Right?

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 11:39 PM

I'm sorry, but there is an obvious logical problem with the Mr. Myers comments. I am fully of the view that religion dictates morality, whereas science dictates facts. For this reason, they are compatible, since they serve different functions.

Science is limited to explanation, but it's explanation covers morality. What if we find genes that explain certain propensities for behaviour, or that certain chemical stimulus is again a modifier on behaviour? Surely this changes how we view morality. As would the findings of neuroscience - what if it turns out that a lot of behaviours are a product of being hard-wired in the brain? Does that not affect morality?

Then comes the big bombshell - that morality is a means for for genes to propagate by dictating our behaviour. This directly conflicts with the biblical account of morality being objective and given by God or that God has programmed us to behave in certain ways. Either way, science does away with religious morality as it shows religious morality to be based on a false view of how humans behave.

Indeed I have come across many a Christian who still fully subscribe to the idea that we have free will in the trivial sense and that behaviour is dictated by beliefs. That they fear atheists as we have no beliefs that decide our moral behaviour. Morality by all scientific accounts simply does not work that way (neither does free will), yet we have to concede that religion is prescriptive objective morality so that we can say one is compatible with the other? I think not.

If morality does indeed turn out to be just another survival strategy, that our genetic make-up defines our reality, or even our experiences within a society make up our moral base, then where does this leave religion? Should we concede that astrologers can still interpret celestial signs now that we know that the stars are orbiting due to the effects of gravity an the wandering stars are nothing more than the displacement of earth by us orbiting the sun or vice versa? I don't think that we can. Just as if the theist morality relies on us having free will and objectives handed down from a higher power, how can we concede that theist morality is compatible with science? I can't with any intellectual honesty concede that.

Posted by: Kel | June 26, 2009 11:46 PM

Heh, me too. Did you also find the "validation" rhetoric at post #153 sadly familiar?

Posted by: Bob | June 26, 2009 11:54 PM

Post 153: "The moment someone else tells me that their theory automatically invalidates my direct experiences - I realize I'm dealing with an abuser intent on subjugating me to his or her will."

The problem with this thought is that it totally discounts the influence of chance on experience. Sure, God does (seem to) answer your prayers on occasion. Unfortunately, the percentage of time when God answers prayers is indistinguishable from random chance.

Posted by: Trismos | June 27, 2009 12:03 AM

"I also wouldn't use the scientific method directly to determine whether I like some music or poetry or not."

A fascinating topic of discussion: Is reason adequate to explain why one likes the color purple over any other color? Is there a reason, a logically coherent explanation, why one human prefers classical music over freestyle jazz? Why might one person associate a given aroma with sex while another might be brought to tears by the same smell?

The term 'association' probably has a lot to do with it. In growing up we come to associate many of our specific immediate sensual experiences with the things that are going on about us at the time. If we are having enjoyable experiences while smelling cinnamon, we may very well like cinnamon. If on the other hand we are slave laborers in a cinnamon factory, working 20 hour days and getting beat for it, the smell of cinnamon is probably somewhat 'off-putting'.

Yet a classically trained musician might have very valid reasons why he likes the type of music he (or certainly she) does, and might claim to know what 'better' music is. In the context of ability and complexity, classical music is hard to beat. Still, if the purpose of music for a given individual is experiencing the expression of emotion, and hip hop provides that for an individual, is one genre of music any better than another?

Perhaps one cannot use reason to explain why they like or dislike a particular piece of music or poetry. What then would you use? (If you were asked of course... no one's telling you you should have to explain why you believe what you do... Oh wait, this is Pharyngula)

My wife is a pediatric oncology nurse. And my daughter, a vivacious 14 year old, is the victim of a traumatic vehicle accident where she was later diagnosed with global aphasia. I have always had great perspective on life. These two things have increased my empathy a thousand fold. I have always had great empathy for my fellow human being. How can you not look at the plight of those in Somalia or any third world country and not ache for them? I've always maintained a good healthy balance by appreciating how lucky I was to be born when and where I was. Never mind to have been born at all. I think semantics and politics have played a great disservice to many an important relationship. For example I notice Ed Brayton has no problem espousing the good things PZ Myers does, but Myers is loathe to do the same in return... they would make a good team for reason. But, like many of you, Myers is stuck on this anti-libertarian crusade. It appears to be more of a passion than even the anti-creationism. But where Myers comes up with awesome well thought out rational argument against creationism and religion as a whole, he merely comes out with petty invective against those who might claim to be libertarian, and his sheep follow along, chastising those who found Ayn Rand to have any worth at all as a spokesperson for the hero's we all worship,calling them down as being less than human, and certainly less than those bizarre believers who would hold you as slaves to a ghost that does not exist, and an ideology who would have you all as slaves to a figment of their imagination.

So where did this come from? I've been an avid fan of Pharyngula for better than 3 years. Why? Because I love Myers's well thought out arguments against irrationalism, and his unapologetic attitude. I just don't understand why there is rational, objective thought put into the theory of evolution, but not into the social interaction between men.

There are some extremely intelligent and thoughtful people who post regularly here. I've always wanted to see a good discussion on human rights here. I know I would learn a lot. What are human rights? What makes something a 'right'?

I am a capital L Libertarian, and I truly believe what I do. But I don't think most of you really know what that is (including Myers). Or tell you what. Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe I don't know what it is. But what I see are Libertarians and Liberals who have a common enemy in the irrational direction of superstition.

Yet I find the rational argument against superstition consistent with the Libertarian philosophy of rational objectivism and my personal interptetation of the rights of man. I am not sure I can consolidate the Liberals wish for freedom from the chains of the God of Abraham with the desire for the chains of socialism.

Posted by: John Morales | June 27, 2009 12:09 AM

David @130, cheap trick? Nay, that's informative. Thanks.

Posted by: ChurchedAtheist | June 27, 2009 12:28 AM

"if you just like to go to church because you enjoy the company"

I do! one thing secular groups haven't destroyed religion on is sense of community(at least not in my area)

Posted by: genesgalore | June 27, 2009 12:32 AM

the bottom line is: all monotheists die brainwashed

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 12:38 AM

You can't logically say that all religion is incorrect because some religions profess conflicting information. Right?

Consider Lamarkian evolution versus special creation. They both conflict, but evidentially neither could possibly be true.

Posted by: Citizen of the Cosmos | June 27, 2009 12:51 AM

Fantastic post, one of the best I've read here so far. Sadly, lots of people will not understand it, or they will misunderstand it, or they simply don't want it to be true, which it is.

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 27, 2009 1:08 AM

With that remarkable posting of hillbilly speak, I'm off to bed. My brain has already left the building.

Posted by: trismos | June 27, 2009 1:13 AM

Patricia... actually, I hold you as one of the more intelligent people here..... Did I not present a worthwhile discussion?

Posted by: Trismos | June 27, 2009 1:37 AM

Thanks John ... I'll have to think about your awesome response for a while. I'm sure I'll be a better man for it.

Posted by: trismos | June 27, 2009 1:44 AM

My apologies then Patricia... you have been awarded the OM... perhaps I gave you more credit than you deserved?

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 27, 2009 1:54 AM

Thanks John ... I'll have to think about your awesome response for a while. I'm sure I'll be a better man for it.

Did it perhaps occur to you that John gave you exactly the response your post warranted?

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 27, 2009 2:05 AM

trismos - Perhaps you did. Those of us that have our chief education as christians deserve no credit for intelligence. We are fools.

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 2:09 AM

Maybe... but you are just as evasive as he was then. Why play games? How about discussing the topic?

but you can write us off as sheep and pretend that the decades of learning some of us have had are all irrelevant because we found a blog where the political ideology is similar to our own. Yeah, it's us who are sheep and not you who is putting rhetoric as a means to dismiss peoples valid arguments...

...and as for libertarianism, it has been discussed an nauseam on here - especially during the latest presidential election. Thread after thread with any waft of political rhetoric became a discussion for libertarianism - which PZ didn't participate in at all. But of course, we're the sheep...

Posted by: Trismos | June 27, 2009 2:20 AM

That's ok Kel ... it's not your fault that you have it all wrong.. You've been sold on an interpretation of Libertarianism that is quite frankly a lie. Just like the creationists that try and lie, so do the liberals. American anyways. I'm Canadian. Don't quite have your politics figued out.

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 2:34 AM

That's ok Kel ... it's not your fault that you have it all wrong.. You've been sold on an interpretation of Libertarianism that is quite frankly a lie.

Anyway, I don't want this thread to descend into another libertarian fuckfest. Why is it that libertarians have to hijack every fucking thread they possibly can to espouse their ideology? But it's nice that you can call us sheep to show that we don't understand. It might not be that in politics I come to a very different conclusion than libertarians do through rational thought. I must be a sheep because I'm on here and I'm not a libertarian...

Go espouse your ideology elsewhere. Typical fucking libertarian trying to turn another fucking thread on here into a discussion on libertarianism. Why the fuck do libertarians keep doing that? They're fucking worse than creationists!

Posted by: Steven Carr | June 27, 2009 2:39 AM

'"Hey! I'm a Christian, and I'm a scientist, therefore they can't be incompatible!"'

I guess Christianity and slave-owning are compatible as many slave-owners were Christians.

Posted by: John Morales | June 27, 2009 2:43 AM

AK,

I hope I made sense there.

It seems grammatical, it parses; but it doesn't make sense to me.

(You did ask.)

Posted by: Trismos | June 27, 2009 2:49 AM

ummm... ok Breathe deep now.... you'll be ok.

I was looking for a rational debate. Don't die on me or nothing huh?

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 27, 2009 3:00 AM

How does inability to understand something render it untrue? I may be reading you wrong, but that's the impression you're giving me; that because we can't understand God He therefor cannot exist.

No, I don't that's it at all.

The point is not that God is incomprehensible. The point is that the very concept of God as a person is incoherent.

People have attributes, and demonstrate those attributes. If God is a person, God would have those attributes as well, and demonstrate them as well. God does not demonstrate those attributes, so it makes no sense to claim that God has those attributes in the first place.

What then of magnetism? Do we fully understand magnetism and how it works? Is what understanding we have necessarily correct? We have a model we use when describing magnetism, but aren't there elements of the phenomenon that contradict that model?

But that's a false analogy. Magnetism is a force; we have evidence for it, and with out getting into the physics which is above my head anyway, it behaves in a predictable manner. We don't need to understand it in order to make falsifiable predictions about it, which do indeed work.

But there's no evidence for God, and there would be if God existed.

Now, you can start playing definitional games -- as Brownian wrote, you could get all pantheistic and say that the universe and everything in it is God. But that's still not God as a person; an entity that has the attributes of a person. It's actually pretty impersonal.

When you get right down to it, by the available evidence God is not necessary;

Or rather, by the lack of available evidence, God is not necessary.

and I think He's cool with that.

If he's not necessary, why even posit that he exists in order to be cool with not being necessary? Parsimony.

Then again, I am fond of the idea that the universe is a solid sphere of space-time, with little bits of a space-time property zipping around, forming patterns that form patterns that form the particles we know, and which by their motion and space-time's resistance to change form the forces we know as gravity, electro-magnetism, the strong nuclear, and the weak nuclear. In short, it's not just that the universe is bent, but how the universe is bent.

OK, now Brownian's 'shrooms are starting to kick in.

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 27, 2009 3:07 AM

Gah. I bollixed up the first sentence in my previous post.

"I don't think that's it at all".

I hope I made sense there. Not knowing how to say what you want to say is -or so I've heard- one sign of Aspergers.

The snark of the final sentence in my previous post notwithstanding, it may also be that what you are trying to say is not an internally consistent and coherent notion to begin with.

Posted by: John Morales | June 27, 2009 3:23 AM

I always refer to the Christian god as 'it', not 'he'.

Why would a singular deity be sexed? It's not like there's a goddess to mate with...

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 3:29 AM

I always refer to the Christian god as 'it', not 'he'.

Posted by: Katkinkate | June 27, 2009 4:54 AM

Posted by: Tilsim @ 14 "I'd start my own blob, if I knew what to paste there"

The idea of (web)blogs is that you use it to put out your own ideas/interpretation/world view out there. Blogs consisting of copy and paste posts of other people's work with no original input/commentary are boring. So if you don't have something of your own to present to the blogiverse, don't bother.

Posted by: Tilsim | June 27, 2009 5:35 AM

Katkinkate 225

I'm aware of what makes a blog worth visiting... I read some of them avidly.
I was just reacting to Pez's hingeless statement (about blobs, pasts and quarks).

Posted by: Phodopus | June 27, 2009 7:42 AM

theistic copulation, of course... or magic

Posted by: bobxxxx | June 27, 2009 9:10 AM

@11:

Theistic evolution in all its forms offers a friendly (to Christians) and sneaky (for atheists) to draw believers away from fundamentalism.

Sneaky? It would be more accurate to call it dishonest. A dishonest atheist deserves nothing but contempt.

When I see anyone attaching the disgusting word "theistic" to my favorite branch of science, I point out that the person is a bloody idiot and he or she should not be mixing superstition with scientific facts.

I tell religious retards I would rather they believe in their childish magical creation myth than pollute science with their theistic bullshit.

Posted by: Anri | June 27, 2009 10:29 AM

Bob at #176 sez:
"As an atheist, I'm having trouble envisioning a "House of Atheism"(TM). What would we do to bind ourselves together? Most of us have nothing in common that isn't explained by random chance; i.e. have no common rituals or beliefs. Sure, we could have discussions on critical thinking, but how much of that can you tolerate before you wander back to whatever you were doing before you got sidetracked into this formal atheism thing?"

Well, there's a blog somewhere called Pharyngula...

I kid, I kid, I know what you meant.

The answer, it seems to me, is to not get together because of our belief (or lack thereof) in god(s) at all. Get together because you like jazz music, or enjoy good coffee, or black & white films, or long-distance bicycling.

I am reminded of a line from the Lord of the Rings, I believe from the Council of Rivendell - Gandalf was talking about Sauron, it went something like, "...that we would throw him down and place ourselves on his throne is his great fear. That we would throw him down and put no one in his place has not yet entered his darkest dream."
That, really, is what we would like to do with religion. Not have anything in its place, and let that social void be filled with other, better, (or at least less desperately wrong) things.

Like good coffee.

Mmm, coffee.

Posted by: Alan Kellogg | June 27, 2009 10:55 AM

Joseph, #232

How so?

Posted by: anti-supernaturalist | June 27, 2009 1:33 PM

. . . you're being too soft PZ.

**christo-myth is poison, always has been **

No need to worry about which parts of xianity are frauds -- the whole of this disgusting near eastern monstrosity is counterfeit.

It is a jewish heresy -- whose central documents offer not one shred of evidence that a “Jesus” ever existed. And, of course, they do not establish that a jewish messiah had arrived; the jews have always denied it. Nor do they establish the equally obnoxious view that a messiah would be a god of any sort. (Try getting some facts in your noodles -- xians and atheists alike -- say like reading "The xians as the romans saw them". Wilken. Yale Pr.)

From its inception the christo-myth absorbed ever more gross pagan cultic symbolism and ritual. But root and stock it is jewish heresy -- a hellenistic jewish heresy.

Paul, an apostate hellenistic jew, tried to usurp both judaism and hellenism, and put xianity on its road to eventual political power and the destruction of western intellectual growth and high culture for more than one thousand years. (Try reading your NT, 1st Corinthians, chapter 1 for starters.)

We in the US, are still paying an onerous price for this so-called “sacred” legacy of vituperation, revenge, social control, and political nihilism.

Fundies and RCs -- along with their codependents and enablers among wishy-washy protestants -- pervert the teaching of science, obstruct biological research, undermine the guarantees of the first amendment, and seek to overthrow the republic. They want an xian "utopia", like the dystopia skewered in "The Handmaid’s Tale" by Canadian author, Margaret Atwood.

‘Xian truth’ -- for 2,000 years a contradiction in terms.

anti-supernaturalist

Posted by: Bob | June 27, 2009 1:47 PM

anti-supernaturalist #237: "**christo-myth is poison, always has been **

No need to worry about which parts of xianity are frauds -- the whole of this disgusting near eastern monstrosity is counterfeit."

Fortunately, Christianity has been civilized nearly to the point that they can get along with their neighbors - at least the American variety - kind of. And, let's face it, the world's ~7 billions aren't going to be breaking out in a fit of rationality any time soon. So, given the choice of alternatives, I think there's a better chance of surviving as an atheist in a Christian community, vs Catholic, Jewish, Islamic, or whatever other insanities there are out there.

Posted by: Alex Deam | June 27, 2009 4:20 PM

But in a debate about the compatibility of science and religion, we have to put the argument in an appropriate context

PZ, you dirty framer, you!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 27, 2009 5:21 PM

Thank you for that succinct summation. Is it only coincidental that it invalidates your entire argument?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 27, 2009 5:58 PM

Hey I'm only mostly inarticulate.

Posted by: 386sx | June 27, 2009 6:05 PM

What would Christian faith be at odds with science for? I don't see a problem.

Posted by: Paul Flocken | June 27, 2009 6:11 PM

Posted by: Patricia, OM | June 27, 2009 12:26 AM #181 - Take it to Waltons blog.

I googled 'walton's blog' and found nothing that seemed right. May I ask for a link, please?

Posted by: Owlmirror | June 27, 2009 6:29 PM

I googled 'walton's blog' and found nothing that seemed right. May I ask for a link, please?

  http://nevercallretreat.blogspot.com/

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 27, 2009 7:18 PM

@252

"Well, it's certainly a fact that people exist."
Ok, I'll give you that one.

"It's also a fact that the concept of property exists, although we could probably get into a long debate over what exactly the concept means, at base."
Nope. As social creatures, we have created the concept of property because it allows us to have stable, capitalistic societies. We don't need to debate what it means. Native americans (and I believe aboriginals) had no concept of property, so it's not a necessary fact of life. And even if it was, its not a fact based in science, its a fact about our metaphysical nature as social creatures.

"That's not the biblical creation story. That story is: God created us in his image, and feels so threatened by the ancestral disobedience of the first man and woman that he curses us forever. Then he gets so angry at the cursed descendants of the first man and woman that he kills almost all of them, and almost every other living being."

All I hear is another moral lesson that can be derived from the creation story, that is not dependant on the factual nature of the story (at least the cursing part, not the killing). Although an uglier interpretation, I believe it still makes my point.

Posted by: 'Tis Himself | June 27, 2009 7:25 PM

The only fact this depends on is that God exists and that he created us in love, two facts that are well beyond the realm of science (though I'm sure someone will argue me on that point).

Your evidence for these "facts" is what? Wishful thinking and faith aren't evidence.

Posted by: Alex Deam | June 27, 2009 7:31 PM

I am not sure I can consolidate the Liberals wish for freedom from the chains of the God of Abraham with the desire for the chains of socialism.

Please, stop watching Fox News. Liberals, by definition, can't advocate socialism, since then they wouldn't be liberals anymore, but SOCIALISTS.

Posted by: Alex Deam | June 27, 2009 7:41 PM

All I hear is another moral lesson that can be derived from the creation story, that is not dependant on the factual nature of the story (at least the cursing part, not the killing). Although an uglier interpretation, I believe it still makes my point.

Owlmirror wasn't arguing that the Biblical creation story wasn't a morality tale, but specifically that it's bad one, since you had said it's a "great work of morality".

Posted by: John Morales | June 27, 2009 7:56 PM

Jesse,

Atheists often imply that religions are identical, other than using different books, but this is simply not true.

Jesse, I doubt that we do, except in the generic sense that religions are all in a similar category.

But, to clarify, how would you define religion?
Let me try:
"A religion is a set of beliefs and practices based on the supernatural or transcendent which is acquired and sustained by faith, and which gives meaning to the believer's life and is the source of their morality."

I think that works, as it's neither misleading nor inapplicable to any religions of which I'm aware.

Posted by: Alex Deam | June 27, 2009 8:14 PM

Some fundamentalists claim that religion can explain facts about the world (earth is 6000 years old and such). These people are fools, and I think they are abusing religion and science. I am only referring to religions that do not make factual claims about the world.

1. The 6000 years old claim come from Christianity, a religion that does make factual claims, and if you take the religion literally, the 600 year old claim is not "abusing religion", since it's a claim implicit in the Christianity.

2. What religions are there that don't make factual claims about the world?

Posted by: Wowbagger, OM | June 27, 2009 8:31 PM

All I hear is another moral lesson that can be derived from the creation story...

How can a 'moral lesson' be drawn from a creation story? The only thing you can draw from a creation story is 'something created something else'.

Which is one of those things Christians seem to forget when they're claiming that their god created the universe - even if they could show that things were created by some sort of deity, to just assume that that deity is the one they happen to believe in is pure supposition.

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 9:01 PM

That should say "Name one religion that does not make a claim about the world" because none of the claims are factual.

Posted by: Kel | June 27, 2009 9:54 PM

Even if morality were purely a social construct, that doesn't take it beyond the realms of science. Just as language, writing skills, and even religion itself is there to be studied and understood. It might be that music is completely non-adaptive in an evolutionary sense, but why should that stop any empirical investigation into how the brain handles it?

Though any person with half a brain would know that morality is not purely a social construct, but that we have moral instincts. That we have an innate feeling of right and wrong, we have empathy and drives to be social creatures. And we aren't the only creatures on earth to have this either. For instance, dogs have an innate sense of fairness. There's a species of Vole that will be monogamous throughout its life then grieve the death of its partner. Baboons that will raise the offspring of a female while living in colonies of over 100. Chimpanzees will hunt in groups and share the spoils among the troupe. Vampire bats share blood with those who miss out, but will not share with those who never contribute.

Higher thinking does come into it, but only to an extent. And even if moral codes such as the one found in the bible were valid modifiers of behaviour - it is a skyhook morality. One commanded by a god as absolute. The concession to the bible being a source of morality means that we have to concede that the bible is a socially-constructed human-edited volume (it is) and that the absolute commandments are nothing more than an illusion. Which again shows a conflict between science and religion.

Posted by: Steven Sullivan | June 28, 2009 12:03 AM

I couldn't resist posting to the WSJ comments on Krauss' article. The mix of 'theological'/philosophical/True Scotsman preening ('Dr. Krauss apparently has never read Aquinas...." "Science is just another belief system"....oh, *fuck off*, you pompous asses), gratuitous global warming skepticism, suggestions that we all should read Behe and Hugh Ross,and occasional outbreaks of plain rightwing paranoia (scientists and academics are liars, is all!) is depressing.

Posted by: Tulse | June 28, 2009 10:02 AM

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices based on the supernatural or transcendent which is acquired and sustained by faith, and which gives meaning to the believer's life and is the source of their morality

While the first part this definition seems reasonable, the part about meaning and morality seems unnecessary to me, and a rather modern interpretation. It's my impression that personal "meaning" was not historically an important part of religion, certainly not in the same way that modern liberal Christians would define the term. In many religions the gods were rather impersonal.

Also, the definition misses one of the central features of most historical religions, which is explanations of the natural world. Most cultures believed that the supernatural played an enormous role in such things as weather, harvest, disease, etc., and placation of the unseen beings was largely about getting the physical world to work in a manner beneficial to humans. The notion that religion is primarily about addressing personal existential issues is a decidedly modern interpretation, and one that we have largely because we have abandoned the supernatural as explanations for the physical world.

Posted by: TrueEyes | June 28, 2009 1:41 PM

Religion makes people feel good. That's the whole thing, most people (especially the ones with lower IQ) will chose what makes them feel good over what is logical every single time.
Who cares if some parts of the bible aren't logical or are in contradiction with the evidence, what's important is that everything has meaning, that my soul will live forever, that there's a reason why my uncle died in a car accident and so on.
For most of the world population science is something complicated and boring, something far away. Religion is a shoulder you can cry on, insurance that it's all going to be OK, gives meaning to things people don't like.
Of course people will chose religion, it's what makes them feel good, no matter that it's bullshit.

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 28, 2009 6:29 PM

OTOH, they do retain enough sense of community and love of country to send their children off to wars in foreign places - Bob

You say that like it's a good thing. While I'm by no means a pacifist, a good deal more scepticism about the wars in foreign places would be wonderful; willingness to send your kids into any war some bunch of neocon liars wants to start is not an admirable trait.

Secular humanism, libertarianism, and liberalism all tend toward failure when faced with an enemy of true believers with a mindset they no longer can relate to; an enemy such as we face today.

The presentation of a disorganised rabble of terrorists and dreamers as an existential threat would be laughable if it were not having serious consequences.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 29, 2009 1:27 AM

OTOH, they do retain enough sense of community and love of country to send their children off to wars in foreign places; not something you will see liberals bragging about, for the most part. Secular humanism, libertarianism, and liberalism all tend toward failure when faced with an enemy of true believers with a mindset they no longer can relate to; an enemy such as we face today.

are you suggesting we should martyr ourselves and our children? what a stupid concept. and really, that kind of "patriotism" and dedication to a cause is what gave us the suicide bomber. I think I'll pass.

Posted by: bd | June 29, 2009 5:02 AM

I wouldn't say, science and religion are *ad odds*.
I'd rather see religion as "science 0.1", a precursor for 'modern' science. Both science and religion contain the search, why things are happening the way they are.
Why is a lightning striking? If you are an ancient shepherd without the slightest clue about elementary physics, the idea of some higher beeing, throwing some forged item to the ground is a possible hypothesis, as good as any other idea this guy might come up with.
And maybe it is part of the human nature to use these ideas to rule and exploit others, e.g. "give me some of your possesion and you'll not be struck by a lightning..."

Posted by: John Morales | June 29, 2009 6:41 AM

Paul Wright @242, thanks! Downloading now...

Posted by: Lee | June 29, 2009 8:26 AM

"Science doesn't need to conform, religion does"

If science doesnt need to conform why is it The Big Bang Theory, Evolution Theory are being forced into school etc and if you dont believe it or agree with it you are irrational/mentally ill?

Isnt alot of science theories? The end of the day there is a lot of of stuff that people will never have the answer to whether they are scientists, christians, muslims, scientologists!! So why cant people be free to believe what it is they want to believe?!

"Science and religion are incompatable" thats like saying you cant support a football team if you like baseball!

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 29, 2009 8:45 AM

Jesus motherfucking Christburger Junior, but you're an ignorant arsehole, Lee. The Big Bang theory and evolutionary theory are taught in school science (where lamebrained bigots like you have failed to get your lies accepted) because there is extremely strong evidence that they are true.

"Isnt alot of science theories?"
Yes. You clearly have absolutely no idea what "theory" means in science. It doesn't mean "guess". It doesn't mean "hypothesis". It means a coherent explanation for a large body of well-attested facts. Now go and get some education, shit-for-brains.

Posted by: Josh | June 29, 2009 8:57 AM

So why cant people be free to believe what it is they want to believe?!

Way to mischaracterize the issue. Good job.

People are free to believe what they want. What we would rather have people not do is teach mythology in science class as science, or lie to American schoolkids about science (e.g., "Evolution is just a theory;" "Evolution has gaps in it so big you can drive a Mac Truck through them;" "Intelligent Design is a scientific theory;" "A theory is just a hunch;" "There are no transitional fossils in the fossil record;" and so on).

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | June 29, 2009 9:00 AM

Lee, Let me play good cop. When you play the game of science, you sign up to play by the rules. Rule #1 is that the evidence is supreme. You can have the most beautiful theory in the world--one that explains everything--but if the evidence contradicts it, it goes on the trash heap. Maybe you can salvage some of it. Maybe you can't.

Rule #2 in science is that we look for naturalistic explanations to things. We do this because we have a hope in hell of understanding naturalistic explanations, because they work and because they offer us some hope of controlling things to our advantage in future applications. However, there's an even more important reason: If we allow a supernatural explanation, then we could ALWAYS explain any evidence by invoking GODDIDIT. We could no longer falsify the theory. If we don't have Rule #2, Rule #1 can't work.

There are lots of other rules, etc., having to do with scientific consensus, etc. but those are the two main ones.

Now when you take a science class, you are by your presence consenting to play by the rules of science. If you take a position that contradicts the evidence, you'd expect to be criticized--just as if you picked up the ball and ran with it in a soccer game, right? Consider yourself lucky. The science nerds may call you stupid or crazy when you break the rules, but they don't pants you and flush your head in the toilet.

Posted by: David Marjanović | June 29, 2009 11:14 AM

frog, sorry for replying so late. When I called it a scientific hypothesis that reality is reasonably consistent, that's exactly what I meant. I never said or implied it could be proved. For the reasons you mention, science cannot prove.

the greatest one I heard? "If you go up to a crocodile with pure love, the crocodile will sense it and not eat you."

Unless it's hungry, of course. LOL.

Really, mother crocodiles won't eat their own little children, but apart from that, crocodiles aren't Good. They're Neutral Hungry. They're beyond good and evil. That's why they grin (…no, really, it has to do with their jaw mechanics, so, the "Hungry" part).

religion and science are essentially one in the same. each attempts to explain how energy manifests itself.

What?

science has the upper hand, especially in the last two centuries. . science is not encumbered per se with needs and wants of soceity: it deals with what can be proven.

No, it deals with what can be disproven. It is not a quest for truth, but one for falsehood: a quest for everything that can be shown to be false.

Or take the creation story (biblical version), a great work of morality. It tells us that god created us in his image and that he loves us

That's not the biblical creation story.

It is – one of them: Gen. 1:1 – 2:3.

That story is: God created us in his image, and feels so threatened by the ancestral disobedience of the first man and woman that he curses us forever. Then he gets so angry at the cursed descendants of the first man and woman that he kills almost all of them, and almost every other living being.

That's the story of Gen. 2:4b onwards.

It can't be stressed often enough that there are two independent and heavily contradictory creation stories in Genesis.

Native americans (and I believe aboriginals) had no concept of property

That seems to have varied a lot. Those in Virginia, for example, had a concept of property, even of owning land, for example.

Theirs is an ideology that will burn itself out.

Has already happened in Iran. Remember the Iran-Iraq war? (…Well, I don't really, I was too young, but I've read about it.) It was just 10 years after the Islamic Revolution, and masses of Iranians threw themselves and their children into Iraqi gunfire. But the longing for death as a martyr has disappeared. The current events in Iran consist mostly of both sides trying hard to avoid a civil war, instead of just going ahead and dying for their causes like the previous generation did. Even religion itself is on the retreat in Iran.

Remember the wisdom of Gen. Patton (at least the movie figure): "Nobody ever won a war by dying for his country! They won by making the OTHER guy die for HIIIS country!"

The end of the day there is a lot of of stuff that people will never have the answer to whether they are scientists, christians, muslims, scientologists!!

We know full well that science can't prove, only disprove. It's just that religions can't even disprove. They can't answer the question "if I were wrong, how would I know?".

So why cant people be free to believe what it is they want to believe?!

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

Some people don't get the difference between these two.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 29, 2009 12:25 PM

Lee your opinion is one thing and you are allowed to hold any opinion you'd like.

Being wrong about what a theory in science means is a whole other and you can have an option about it and be 100% wrong.

From what you wrote above and we responded to it seemed pretty obvious you were repeating the same ignorance we've heard thousands of times here.

"It's just a theory".

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 29, 2009 12:30 PM

See what I mean question something or state an opinion and you can’t have an opinion! So what I don’t know the ins and outs of science as I am not a scientist so that means I have no education. How do you know? Is that scientifically proven?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 29, 2009 12:44 PM

Harry Callahan has something to say about Opinions.

Posted by: Lee | June 29, 2009 12:50 PM

I am glad you think that "I am full of shit" I haven’t been to the toilet yet so another factual bit of science there 10 out of 10.

I know all I need/want to know on evo and big bang I used to whole hardly agree with you unless the documentaries on discovery etc is full of rubbish.

I didn’t say anything about not teaching it in science class, I mean teaching it without giving people the choice to learn about other stuff as I am aware there aren’t any faith schools refusing to teach it and yet there are secular groups wanting faith schools not to teach faith.

Atheist or scientists whatever religion it is you are so closed minded that you call people with theistic religion mentally ill!

What makes science so good?
What makes religion so bad?

Thoughts please.

Posted by: Josh | June 29, 2009 1:00 PM

How do I know what is fact and what is opinion?

It's not always that easy to know, unfortunately. It often requires at least a little education in the topic at hand. In science, a fact is essentially an observation (a piece of information; a datapoint) with an associated error (a degree of confidence as to how "good" the fact is) attached to it. If someone makes a statement about science that they cannot immediately tie to specific observations, then it's probably an opinion.

If we're still talking about science, then another dead give away to an opinion versus a fact is when the person or group making the statement in question is using terminology incorrectly or shows a demonstrated lack of understanding of the terminology.

Case in point:
A group of nonscientists run around saying that evolution "is just a theory" and do so to argue that the fact that evolution is a theory means that it is flawed, weak, or premature.

A group of scientists respond that no, the nonscientists are misusing the term "theory;" the fact that something is a theory does not imply weakness or something that is incipient. Scientific theories explain observations; they are the cornerstone of science, not some hunch. The oftrepeated ranking of hypothesis > theory > law is false. It is a misunderstanding of how science works. Laws are not stronger than theories; they do different things. You are all creating a controversy where there simply is none.

The group of nonscientists replies with: "Yeah, but evolution is just a theory!"

In this case, even a cursory understanding of the topic should be enough to show that this group of nonscientists doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

So you have to sit there and listen to what people say are fact, how can an everyday Joe go and scientifically test everything? The media is so full of rubbish these days who knows what to believe?

Again, if we're talking about science, then I'd suggest ignoring the media and trying to find out what the scientists themselves are saying about such and such issue (this might require a bit of legwork, but part of the reason that there's a lot of confusion out there is due to simple laziness). AND, when I say scientists, I mean those who are in that field. As a geologist, I don't expect most chemists are going to give two shits about any criticism of modern Atomic Theory that I might have (and rightly so in most cases). Simiarly, if a chemist is going on and on about "gaps" in the Theory of Evolution, then I'd be asking for what papers they've published on evolution, because my BS detector would be going off hard.

Posted by: Lee | June 29, 2009 1:07 PM

I am not one of these creationist who think the world is only 6000 years old and dinosaurs didnt exist!!

I believe the intelligent design theory. Opps i used theory again but is this in the right context if its a theory? Is it a scientific theory which are so great are random theory?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 29, 2009 1:10 PM

I didn’t say anything about not teaching it in science class, I mean teaching it without giving people the choice to learn about other stuff as I am aware there aren’t any faith schools refusing to teach it and yet there are secular groups wanting faith schools not to teach faith.

Posted by: Thanatos | June 29, 2009 1:15 PM

Hi all!

Just wanted to say hello to all my fans.....you know the ones who attempted to bombard my e-mail with porn, junk mail, etc.

Oh and Myers.....your an idiot. I visited your school last month...and I can see why you have this blog. Most people I spoke to thought you were an idiot. Especially the students.

Hope to cause you all sorts of grief in the future.....and I hope you get over your disturbed childhood. Yes I know.

Thanatos

Posted by: Josh | June 29, 2009 1:18 PM

Is it a scientific theory which are so great are random theory?

ID is not a scientific theory. ID is an idea, and as far as we can tell, a religious one. It has no place in a science classroom.

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 29, 2009 1:23 PM

What if 10, 20 30 years and science proved the existence of God

Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 29, 2009 1:25 PM

Lee, willfully ingorant creationist liar @ #305:

I believe the intelligent design theory.

There is no "intelligent design theory". There isn't even an intelligent design hypothesis. Even the IDiots who started the whole thing have admitted they don't have a theory. All they have is dogma and lies, ignorance and misrepresentation and endless obfuscation to hide from their total lack of evidence. And they aren't even original lies, just relabled creationist bullshit.

Intelligent design is not science. It's just creationism in a stolen, soiled labcoat, propaganda trying to pass for reality, and failing miserably. Not a speck of evidence, nor a shred of honesty in the whole cult. Lee, you're a great representative of your cult, a pathological liar who would rather die than learn anything.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 29, 2009 1:31 PM

How do I know what is fact and what is opinion?

Start by looking up what the technical term "fact" means.

Notice I asked a question not stated anything! Thus the question mark - ?

The question itself was wrong: it showed that you don't know what the technical term "theory" means. It means "great big overarching explanation that applies to lots of seemingly unrelated facts". Examples: theory of general relativity (explains things like the movements of planets and galaxies, gravitation lensing, GPS, the color of gold, and much more); theory of quantum electrodynamics (explains just about everything else about matter); theory of evolution (explains the diversity of life in time and space).

Is that scientifically proven?

As mentioned before, science cannot prove – only disprove.

I know all I need[…] to know on evo and big bang

You don't give me that impression.

I didn’t say anything about not teaching it in science class, I mean teaching it without giving people the choice to learn about other stuff

Like what?

What other scientific theory is there that competes with the theory of evolution or with big-bang theory?

as I am aware there aren’t any faith schools refusing to teach it

There are lots. There are even public schools in the USA that don't teach any such science in science class, because the teachers either feel threatened by the parents or are creationists themselves.

and yet there are secular groups wanting faith schools not to teach faith.

What?

Posted by: phantomreader42 | June 29, 2009 1:37 PM

Too late, CowardLee has already run away.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 29, 2009 1:39 PM

So then in say 10, 20 30 years or so a new theory of how the world came about would you defend the evolution?

Fuckin' a. For a self proclaimed scientist you sure don't know shit about how science works.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 29, 2009 1:45 PM

I believe the intelligent design theory.

If you believe in a theory, you're doing science wrong.

Opps i used theory again but is this in the right context if its a theory?

No, it's not a theory. It's far too simple for that: whatever fact one brings up, it answers it by saying "the Designer did it, somehow" – without even trying to explain the "somehow" part.

Is it a scientific theory which are so great are random theory?

Please translate this sentence. I don't understand it.

So then in say 10, 20 30 years or so a new theory of how the world came about would you defend the evolution?

That's not for me to decide, that's for the evidence to decide. If the new theory explains everything that the theory of evolution explains, and then some, I'll jump over. :-|

what came first the chicken or the egg.

Single-celled organisms. The very concept of "egg" only applies to multicellular ones.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 29, 2009 1:51 PM

I forgot something important: the Intelligent Design people haven't even proposed a way to distinguish designed features from evolved ones. As long as they can't do that, it's not science.

(OK, Behe has tried, but he has failed pathetically.)

Posted by: frog | June 29, 2009 1:54 PM

DM: When I called it a scientific hypothesis that reality is reasonably consistent, that's exactly what I meant. I never said or implied it could be proved. For the reasons you mention, science cannot prove.

I don't see the advantage gained by framing it as a hypothesis. We know, for example, that the universe is primarily unpredictable --- consistency is different, that's mathematical. The 3-body problem is not integrable -- the universe is composed of at least 3 bodies. Ergo, it is unpredictable -- outside of a given envelope.

What we've done scientifically in the 19th century was shift the problem from deterministically mechanical, to stochastic problems that we can determine within an envelope. Ergo, suddenly the universe is predictable again, as long as we properly define predictable.

That's the problem -- that's why it's not a hypothesis, but a context for action. We hunt for predictability -- it's a hypothesis only if it's a trivial hypothesis, that the universe is to some extent predictable. And no one but the insane would disagree with that!

Here I stand on Wittgensteinian ground. Predictability is the context within which we do science, when spoken as a generality. When spoken in specifics, of course we can determine the predictability of an activity within a theory -- that's just testing a theory. But used as a universal word -- well, it's a tautology of the scientific method itself, as long as we exclude "bizarro world".

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 29, 2009 2:23 PM

Ergo, suddenly the universe is predictable again, as long as we properly define predictable.

That's the problem --

Why?

Predictability is the context within which we do science, when spoken as a generality.

Fine, but we don't need to prove complete predictability for that. Only the Sith think in absolutes. :-)

Posted by: frog | June 29, 2009 2:36 PM

DM:

Ergo, suddenly the universe is predictable again, as long as we properly define predictable.
That's the problem --

Why?

Because we will always move the goalposts. There's no collection of data that will not allow us to refine the meaning of predictability in such a way that we throw out the concept. So treating it as a "hypothesis" in the same way that we say "More of bacteria X will grow in salt-water than agar" is kind of silly.

Predictability is the context within which we do science, when spoken as a generality.

Fine, but we don't need to prove complete predictability for that. Only the Sith think in absolutes. :-)

We don't need to prove predictability at all. Everyone already assumes it -- otherwise we couldn't even speak to each other. Scientific predictability is no stronger than what we already assume to get food in our mouths, and put one foot in front of the other. Science is just a method to extract maximum information out of the already assumed predictability.

I assume predictability just as I assume I think.

It's one of the deepest insanities of the religious that we can have a sensible discussion about the unpredictable and inconsistent. Language is a formal system, and therefore can only describe things insofar as they are isometric with a formal system. Aka, they are predictable and consistent.

Even poetry only gives up one level of consistency -- the explicit dictionary level -- for another at the level of sound.

The religious "hypothesis" of miracles is nonsense -- it's outright insanity and not a valid null hypothesis. If you can't predict it (at some level, within some envelope), you can't circumscribe it in words. Insofar as the universe is unpredictable and inconsistent, we cannot speak -- we can only sensibly speak about the predictability of the universe.

Posted by: Britomart | June 29, 2009 2:45 PM

Hey folks, please sign at http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/SupportDan
thank you

Posted by: James Sweet | June 29, 2009 3:27 PM

Dear Jeebus, three hundred plus comments... Welp, I'm not reading all those, so I apologize if the following point has already been made:

It's an irrelevant point; it assumes that a person can't possibly hold two incompatible ideas at once. We know that is not true. We have complicated and imperfect brains, and even the most brilliant person on earth is not going to be perfectly consistent.

To go even further, I would argue that it can even sometimes be a good thing to hold two mutually incompatible ideas at once, under certain circumstances and as long as the person is aware of the contradiction.

For instance, I believe I know with certainty my wife is the most perfect woman for me on the face of the Earth. I am also simultaneously aware that I have dated only an insignificant fraction of the three-billion-odd women on this planet. These two ideas are clearly incompatible, but discarding either one of them is going to be very bad. Discarding the first would negatively impact my marriage, while discarding the second would make me a complete moron.

So I hold both ideas simultaneously, and I really don't lose any sleep over the contradiction. Of course, I also recognize that one of those ideas is objectively factual, while the other is probably only subjectively true.

And I think if religious people could do that -- if they could admit a) that their religion contradicts science and that they are okay with that and don't need to reject science as a result, and b) that their religion is only true in their own personal subjective reality, and has no bearing on objective reality or on other people's subjective truths... if they could admit those things, then I don't think religion would necessarily be a problem.

Posted by: frog | June 29, 2009 6:42 PM

JS: But what I am saying, is that people coming together based on shared hobbies does not necessarily fulfill all of the community-related roles that religion does. (Whether those roles are necessary/desirable is a question on which I am still making up my mind)

I'd say that "hobbies" absolutely doesn't fill in those gaps. Those are, if anything, atomizing, while the positive role is integrative. It's like the village square of olden times, where multiple generations synchronize at multiple levels in their lives -- musically, aesthetically, morally and intellectually.

The problem is that most religions are shit -- not that binding together is shit. People haven't come up with anything but religion to do that. Back in the early 20th century, labor unions played that role in many major cities, with unions doing literacy, art and social services.

But the anarchist dream was killed everywhere. It failed on the battlefield, it failed on the political field and on the economic. That's what the "new atheists" lack -- they think that being technically correct is sufficient; of course, evolution shows that a quick and dirty solution is better than "correctness". Religion is a way that thieves hack/crack solidarity -- and if no one produces anything better, the truth of the matter will be buried under practical issues.

Posted by: Kel | June 29, 2009 8:52 PM

Umm, if morality is instinctual, it is CERTAINLY beyond the realm of science.

Ok, I'll name a religion that does not claim facts about the world- most non-Christian religions. Though I'd say Catholicism does a decent job (at least after John Paul II). Buddhism is probably the best example, it claims much about the supernatural, but little about the natural world, and derives it moral system based on the supernatural.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 29, 2009 9:06 PM

Ok, the post I was replying do indicated that morality was derived by instincts. Obviously we can test the instincts of animals, but that's not the point. What I meant to say was "Morality derived by instinct is not testable by scientific knowledge nor dependant on scientific facts, and therefore beyond the realm of and compatible with science"

I don't see how Karma disagrees with evolution. Does Karma say anything about what traits are passed to our offspring? Or does evolution say anything about whether killing someone will reincarnate us as a rat or a human in our next life? By the way, there are several different forms of buddhism, and some do not depend on a caste system, as you may be implying, I'm not sure.

"deeds in this life do not count for our physical and mental status in the next."
Scientifically testable? How?

Posted by: Bobber | June 29, 2009 9:18 PM

Ok, the post I was replying do indicated that morality was derived by instincts.

Yes.

Obviously we can test the instincts of animals, but that's not the point. What I meant to say was "Morality derived by instinct is not testable by scientific knowledge nor dependant on scientific facts, and therefore beyond the realm of and compatible with science"

I would say that humans are animals, just with relatively more complex brains that allow for more complex behaviors than other animals. I still don't see where morality can be definitively divorced from scientific scrutiny. While there are still mysteries regarding human psychology, there is research being done by experts in various scientific fields, attempting to discover the origins of human behavior, the how and why of human thought and identity, and so on. This claim that morality is somehow "incompatible with science" sounds suspiciously like a modified "God of the gaps" claim.

Posted by: Kseniya | June 29, 2009 10:00 PM

Umm, if morality is instinctual, it is CERTAINLY beyond the realm of science.

Good lord... I see we have been visited by yet another soldier in the Army of The Smugly Wrong.

(Could he be in league with Syn TenB, or whatever his name is?)

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 12:24 AM

On a positive note for Buddhism, it seems there actually could be light at the end of the tunnel. Now if only other religions would take the attitude that science trumps belief...

The Dalai Lama’s confidence in “critical investigation” means that “if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims,”
It's somewhat god-of-the-gaps but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Posted by: Justin Brierley | June 30, 2009 3:25 AM

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You can listen to PZ's discussion with Denis Alexander here:

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And if you want to get eh MP3 the podcast is here:

http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx

For more info visit the showpage http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 30, 2009 4:59 AM

#350 = appeal to authority. irrelevant. evidence is all that matters.

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 5:37 AM

Richard Dawkins is a scientist, Richard Dawkins says there is no God. Therefore there is no God...

is that how it goes?

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 5:58 AM

But it says scientific evidence from a scientist, what makes him wrong?

Q: But the Genesis story doesn't sound like any science book I've ever read.

A: Let's take the sequence of events in Genesis step by step:

Genesis 1:1 Creation of the universe
1:2 Earth is covered with water; story is told from the earth
1:3-5 Light becomes visible; day and night
1:6-8 Clouds and water cycle
1:9-10 Ocean and dry land
1:11-13 Plants
1:14-19 Sun and moon become visible in the sky
1:20-23 Fish and Birds
1:24-25 Animals
1:26 Man

This is the exact same sequence we find in modern science books. This is an outright falsehood. A basic history of the universe

(BYA = billion years ago)

• 13.7BYA Big bang
  
• 13.7BYA Light
  
• 13.6BYA first stars
  
• 13.5BYA the milky way formed
  
• 4.6BYA the sun formed
  
• 4.55BYA the earth formed
  
• 4.52BYA the moon formed
  
• 4.4BYA the oceans formed
  
• 3.7BYA the origin of life
  
• 1BYA plants
  
• 900MYA multicellular animals
  
• 500MYA fish
  
• 400MYA tetrapods
  
• 200MYA mammals
  
• 150MYA birds
  
• 250TYA man

While this is a greatly simplified list, it looks nothing like what this crackpot proposed. The origin of the universe was 13.7 billion years ago, and it took almost 10 billion years before the earth formed. The sun formed before the earth, indeed you need the sun before you get plants.

That webpage is very wrong, and it's a downright lie on there that the biblical story is told in scientific textbooks. A lie for those gullible enough to want to affirm their faith...

Again, more evidence that science is incompatible with religion.

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 6:03 AM

Blockquote fail. From where the initial quote is to where it is in bold is what is on the website.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 30, 2009 6:31 AM

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com But it says scientific evidence from a scientist, what makes him wrong?

There is plenty wrong with the following quotes:

Belief in a Static Universe Led to Darwinian Evolution

Wrong.

Of all world religions, only Judeo-Christian theology says Time has a beginning

Wrong.

My sons and the atheists are assuming that God is confined to time in the same way that we are. But the Bible and the equations of General Relativity tell us that the entity that brought the universe into existence is not confined in time like we are, or the way that the universe is.

[Citation needed]

When I was a young man, questioning the holy books of the religions of the world, I knew God must exist because of the Big Bang. There's a beginning, there must be a beginner.

Fallacious.

The universe contains a trillion galaxies. But ours may be the only one that has the necessary conditions for life to exist.

How do you know that? Visit 0.1% of those galaxies i.e, a billion of them then if you find no life whatsoever we'll talk.

All we have is evidence that a certain species exists for a certain period of time without significant change, which then goes extinct to be replaced at a different time with a radically different species, with no connection from the previous species to the next one.

Completely wrong.

Some Christians like to claim that this is all fraudulent, but that's not true. There are bones. They can be seen in museums and they are definitely bipedal species. But they existed long ago. They are extinct, and there's no relationship between those bipedal primates and human beings.

Started off good, but ended badly.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 30, 2009 6:49 AM

LMAO! I love how he answers the question on what's the difference between him and the Institute for Creation Research:

I believe that the universe is 17,000,000,000 years old [that was the best figure available in 1994; today we know the universe is 13.7 billion years old – Ed ] and they believe that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. We only differ by a factor of 1,000,000. That's only six zeros

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 6:56 AM

Evolution is the survival of the fittest right? It gets rid of weak.

So why Did the dinosaurs die out? Surely they would have been able to deal with primitave man?

Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 30, 2009 7:04 AM

Evolution is the survival of the fittest right? It gets rid of weak.

No it doesn't. It weeds out those who are unfit.

So why Did the dinosaurs die out? Surely they would have been able to deal with primitave[sic] man?

The period of the dinosaurs never overlapped with humans. As for why the dinosaurs died out, see here.

The people in 3rd world, should be left to die? Because they are weak and the strong must survive, so lets all cancel charities?

The theory of evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, it says how the diversity of life arose. It doesn't say how you should act morally.

Is this what science is after?

Nope, it's what the Republican Party is after though.

If everyone in the world stopped religion and became athest[sic] zombies then everyone would be selfish and depressed.

No evidence for this. In fact, in Europe there is a high degree of atheism. Compared to the religious US, they have better social programs (i.e, are not as selfish) and are generally more content as well. Within the US it's also seen that atheists are underrepresented in prisons.

It's funny how conservatives in the US preach against "Darwinism" and "scientific materialism", but are quite into social Darwinism and consumer materialism.

the bottom line is i can not accept that we are on this planet because of random mutation which means we have no meaning.

The meaning of life is what you choose. You are free to decide what you meaning should be. I'm sorry that freedom scares you.

Posted by: Josh | June 30, 2009 7:11 AM

Evolution is the survival of the fittest right? It gets rid of weak.

That's not how evolution works at all.

Surely they would have been able to deal with primitave man?

No human ever saw a live non-avian dinosaur.

The people in 3rd world, should be left to die? Because they are weak and the strong must survive, so lets all cancel charities? Is this what science is after?

Again, this isn't what evolution says at all. Like I said yesterday, do some homework and you'll understand why this is the wrong set of questions to ask.

If everyone in the world stopped religion and became athest zombies then everyone would be selfish and depressed.

And of course you have evidence to support this, right?

the bottom line is i can not accept that we are on this planet because of random mutation which means we have no meaning.

The bottom line is that it really doesn't matter what you can accept. The evidence suggests that the universe doesn't really give a shit whether or not you can cope.

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 7:20 AM

I think the ones who come to understand it cease being creationists.

But yeah, I'm getting frustrated just how badly these people misunderstand the theory. Especially as they are so damn vocal in their rejection of evolution, unwittingly setting up straw-man arguments which are absurd.

Posted by: Lee | June 30, 2009 7:46 AM

Considering i used to believe in evolution for 25 years (and still do in some respects) of my life and was very interested and even only last week went to a museum with a celebration section for Darwin's birthday i think i know enough to make an educated choice for myself to think there must be more to life than this. That something got the ball rolling. I think its arrogant that man can be so big headed to say we are the be all and end all.

How do you know a big meteor wiped out the dinosaurs?

"The meaning of life is what you choose. You are free to decide what you meaning should be. I'm sorry that freedom scares you"

If freedom scares me then why are you having a go at me for express my free opinions!

"No evidence for this. In fact, in Europe there is a high degree of atheism. Compared to the religious US, they have better social programs (i.e, are not as selfish) and are generally more content as well. Within the US it's also seen that atheists are underrepresented in prisons.

It's funny how conservatives in the US preach against "Darwinism" and "scientific materialism", but are quite into social Darwinism and consumer materialism"

Are you European? Do you know what it is like in the UK from first hand experience?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 30, 2009 7:59 AM

even only last week went to a museum with a celebration section for Darwin's birthday i think i know enough to make an educated choice for myself to think there must be more to life than this. That something got the ball rolling. I think its arrogant that man can be so big headed to say we are the be all and end all.

And you call others arrogant?

You traipse through a Darwin exhibit and then decide you can easily dismiss the overwhelming bulk of the work in the scientific community that supports the scientific consensus of evolution as the best explanation for the diverity of life? Support that puts the Theory of Evolution up there with the best supported scientific theories out there?

Arrogance you're doing it right, science you're doing it wrong.

What precisely do you find wrong with the ToE? Can you point to something that supports your opinion?

Lee did you ever state the scientific theory of Intelligent Design?

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | June 30, 2009 8:07 AM

Are you European? Do you know what it is like in the UK from first hand experience?

Do the statistics change when viewed from inside Europe?

Posted by: Lee | June 30, 2009 8:12 AM

I didnt say i studies evolution i believed in the concept of evolution blah blah fish went on to land grew legs became amphibian then reptiles then blah blah
Thats enough for me thanks!

if a big meteor killed the dinosaurs then thats nothing to do with evolution unless evolution made a big meteor and sent it to earth or is that what it was?

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 30, 2009 8:26 AM

Lee, you sound incoherent. It might help if you would cite the peer reviewed scientific literature to back up your assertions. That would mean going to a college/university library and actually looking up information. You present ramblings, which a less than coherent, will not do anything for our opinions. After all, blah blah blah means blah blah blah.

Posted by: Josh | June 30, 2009 8:30 AM

How do you know a big meteor wiped out the dinosaurs?

We don't know it definitively. However, the hypothesis has been rigorously studied for more than two decades* and is very well-supported at this point. There is very little doubt that something big smacked the Earth (probably in the Yucatán) at ~65Ma and created a rather big stir. This event is almost certainly directly responsible for the extinction of numerous marine and terrestrial groups. Despite what you might have seen in documentaries, however, what we don't yet really know is how much trouble the non-avian dinosaurs were in before the impact (related to other issues) and how many taxa were really extant when the bolide hit.

But regardless of how the non-avian dinosaurs met their end, the 65 million years of geologic history that came after the K/T impact is completely devoid of definitive non-avian dinosaur material.

*See: Alvarez, LW, W Alvarez, F Asaro, and HV Michel, 1980, Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction. Science 208:1095-1108.

Posted by: Lee | June 30, 2009 8:45 AM

I only used blah blah to simply terms. You all know what i mean. My references or my school science teachers, various websites and various scientific documentaries.

I didnt just skip threw the Darwen section, i just think well where did it come from which is a question which i cant remember which atheist scientist said this "it doesnt matter about the why"

May seem ironic but why cant we ask why?

There are unanswered questions that people want answers to and science just as much as religion can not answer so how can things be so certain.

yes there was a big bang, yes things evolved.. but why? Where did the stuff to cause the big bang come from? Where did the first cells come from? For it all to be just random is just as silly as answer as you say you cant say God did it.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 30, 2009 8:50 AM

Lee have you defined the testable scientific Theory of Intelligent Design for us yet?

Posted by: Josh | June 30, 2009 8:56 AM

May seem ironic but why cant we ask why?

I'm not sure it's any more ironic than rain on your wedding day, but that's beside the point. We ask why all the time. That's not really the question you're asking. It's not why. The question you want to ask is "what's the point of it all?" "What's the meaning of this tree growing right here?" That's easy. The answer is 42. You're asking the wrong question.

There are unanswered questions that people want answers to and science just as much as religion can not answer so how can things be so certain.

If religion can't answer the questions that science can't answer, then what use does religion really have...?

For it all to be just random is just as silly as answer as you say you cant say God did it.

Scientists are not saying it's all random. Word choice is important in science.

Oh, and which god did it? How do you know?

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 9:09 AM

I didnt say i studies evolution i believed in the concept of evolution blah blah fish went on to land grew legs became amphibian then reptiles then blah blah Thats enough for me thanks!

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 30, 2009 9:14 AM

I suggest we send lee to Burning Man this year. With the strawman army he's building from his ignorance of not just the Theory of Evolution, but of science in general I think he'd be a huge hit at the lighting party.

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 9:19 AM

For it all to be just random is just as silly as answer as you say you cant say God did it.

And that's true of pretty much all that is in science. Randomness is but our observation point, but everything we observe as random is still causal. A meteor hitting the earth 65 million years ago is only random because we put significance on it, truth be told it was the fundamental forces of nature that made such an event happen.

As for evolution, it is an inherently non-random process. Mutations are "random" in respect to the survival of the individual, but selection is non-random. The environment dictates which genes get selected. Consider Yale was taking applicants for next semester, and they have a cut-off at 1500 on the SAT. People from all around the country apply for Yale, each with their own result. They are but random numbers to the point of view of Yale, but the selection process means that when it comes down to it the class will be filled with people who scored over 1500.

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 9:24 AM

Thats what it says on the header at the top of the page.

Are you trying to put the false dichotomy between randomness and design?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | June 30, 2009 9:25 AM

Scientists are not saying it's all random" Thats what it says on the header at the top of the page.

are you referring to this?

Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal

Posted by: James Sweet | June 30, 2009 9:28 AM

Lee is either an obvious troll (I have trouble believing anyone can actually spell that badly and get out a nearly coherent sentence) or else he is hopelessly retarded. I recommend ignoring him.

All you have to say to Lee is this: You are the most faithless asshole I have ever met. If you actually had faith in your pathetic sectarian bully-God, why would you seek evidence? The definition of faith is belief without evidence. By seeking evidence, you are denying faith.

If your sick judgmental asshole of a God is real, he is obviously going to make you burn in Hell forever because of your inability to have faith in Him.

Posted by: speedwell | June 30, 2009 9:45 AM

Lee is so worthless that engaging with him is taking time away from engaging more interesting, productive, and insightful objections. He obviously lied pathetically about being a scientist, and he's incapable of listening to reason, and I'm wasting time even typing any more of this objection.

Posted by: Lee | June 30, 2009 10:26 AM

Nope nowhere at all have i said i am scientist!
Nowhere have i said i am theolgian, nowhere have i stated my particular belief, i have said what i dont believe and parts what i believe.

I will tell you what I am - i am bored, i am at work now with little to do, i posted a comment with no intention of it escalating to this conversation it has and i found it amusing and has passed my shift on very well thank you to all who have replied, i must admit i have enjoyed it and i am sorry if some of my posts have been jumbled up it was hard reading all the replies and trying to remember what i was saying!

So anyway, i will finish up now and maybe call back some other time with some more intellicutal conversation for you all!

God bless!

Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | June 30, 2009 10:38 AM

So anyway, i will finish up now and maybe call back some other time with some more intellicutal conversation for you all!

God bless!

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 30, 2009 10:45 AM

There's no collection of data that will not allow us to refine the meaning of predictability in such a way that we throw out the concept.

Imagine you drop stuff repeatedly, and it falls in different directions all the time (or just hovers in the air), at frequencies that change all the time, and also depend on the place, and… Sure. Sooner or later I'd throw the concept out.

We don't need to prove predictability at all.

We can't prove predictability, or anything, at all. That's part of my point. Another is that (fortunately) we don't need to be completely, totally, metaphysically certain of predictability.

(I actually wanted to put both "prove" and "complete" into boldface or something, but that would have been confusing, I think, so I didn't do it…)

For instance, I believe I know with certainty my wife is the most perfect woman for me on the face of the Earth. I am also simultaneously aware that I have dated only an insignificant fraction of the three-billion-odd women on this planet. These two ideas are clearly incompatible, but discarding either one of them is going to be very bad. Discarding the first would negatively impact my marriage, while discarding the second would make me a complete moron.

So I hold both ideas simultaneously, and I really don't lose any sleep over the contradiction. Of course, I also recognize that one of those ideas is objectively factual, while the other is probably only subjectively true.

Actually, that contradiction can be eliminated, I think. What happens if you modify your first assumption into the (for practical purposes identical) idea that your wife is – by far! – good enough for you, so that you don't need to look for an even better one?

Obsessive-compulsive perfectionism has its place, but underlying assumptions might not be part of that place. :-)

I was just discussing this on the way back from a road trip the other day... That's all fine and good for those of us with nice comfy lives in the suburbs, but how do you facilitate coming-together in an economically devastated urban ghetto?

By doing something against the economic devastation first.

Which, to his great credit, is also among the things Obama does. Keyword: health insurance.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com

This guy is a scientist

Then why isn't he doing science?

As long as he's not doing science, he's not being a scientist.

BTW, it's fairly clear that he's relying on bad translations of the Bible:

A: Let's take the sequence of events in Genesis step by step:
Genesis 1:1 Creation of the universe
1:2 Earth is covered with water; story is told from the earth

Gen 1:1–3 should be read as a single sentence: "In the beginning of Gods'* creation of heaven and Earth, when the Earth was vast and chaotic, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Breath of Gods hovered above the face of the waters, Gods said: 'Let there be light'; and there was light."

* Usual disclaimer about 'elohim being a plural, but taking singular verbs in the preserved texts, yet still getting to say things like "let us make Man".

Please do keep in mind that the original text contains no punctuation whatsoever and no whitespace whatsoever (in addition to containing no short vowels whatsoever and usually not making the long ones very clear).

Evolution is the survival of the fittest right? It gets rid of weak.
So why
Did the dinosaurs die out? Surely they would have been able to deal with primitave man?

Different question, Lee: Do you know anything? Have you even been to school, or were you hoamsgooled by parents who didn't know anything either?

the bottom line is i can not accept that we are on this planet because of random mutation which means we have no meaning.

Not that it matters, but do you actually want to be a tool that was made for a purpose?

But I repeat: it does not matter; the argument from consequences is a logical fallacy; whether I like an idea or not doesn't say anything about whether it's true.

Considering i used to believe in evolution for 25 years

If you believe in a scientific theory, you're doing it wrong. Plain and simple.

i think i know enough to make an educated choice for myself to think there must be more to life than this.

You have demonstrated very blatantly that you have no idea about evolution, so allow me to disagree…

That something got the ball rolling.

If by "ball" you mean "universe", that's a different question. Evolution is defined as descent with heritable modification; only living beings and languages can do it (and computer simulations of such).

I think its arrogant that man can be so big headed to say we are the be all and end all.

We're not any such thing. There isn't even any such thing in the first place.

How do you know a big meteor wiped out the dinosaurs?

We've found the crater. It's a great big hole in the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in southeastern Mexico, filled in by younger sediments (so you don't see it from the surface, except as a half-ring of cenotes; look up what "cenote" means). It has the right age and the right size and the right location (in layers of dolomite and anhydrite, which generate carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid when evaporated together with water).

We've found a splinter of the asteroid in the Pacific, in a layer of the right age.

We've found chemical traces of the asteroid in a layer of the right age all over the world, in continental as well as in ocean sediments. The closer to the crater, the thicker the layer gets, and the more glass spherules or weathered remains of those it contains.

And right at that time, we find a mass extinction in land and sea.

What have I missed?

If freedom scares me then why are you having a go at me for express my free opinions!

You keep misunderstanding. Nobody deletes your comments! You have complete freedom to express your opinions.

You just don't have the right to forbid everyone else to criticise those opinions. Nobody has the right not to be criticised.

And nobody has the right to their own facts.

Are you European?

I am. I have even been among the godless Czechs and liked it.

fish went on to land grew legs

Wrong. First they grew legs, then they went (hint, hint) onto land.

Exhibit A: Acanthostega. Has limbs, but eggshell-thin shoulder girdles and a pathetic connection between the hips and the vertebral column; couldn't support its weight on land. Also, retains internal gills.

Exhibit B: Ichthyostega. Much more robust, but incapable of putting its hindfeet on the ground; it could, at most, have dragged them along like a seal. And besides, it also retains internal gills.

I could go on.

if a big meteor killed the dinosaurs then thats nothing to do with evolution

Yes. That's our very point. :-|

I said it’s arrogant that you can’t even contemplate something got the ball rolling a greater power.

And what, pray tell, makes you think we can't contemplate such a thing?

We all have contemplated it – and found it to be an unnecessary hypothesis. We don't need it to explain anything. It's useless.

Despite what you might have seen in documentaries, however, what we don't yet really know is how much trouble the non-avian dinosaurs were in before the impact (related to other issues) and how many taxa were really extant when the bolide hit.

You should try to keep up with the dinosaur literature. :-) The longer people look at it, the more sudden it looks. That includes an abstract from last year's Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | June 30, 2009 10:55 AM

"Scientists are not saying it's all random"

Thats what it says on the header at the top of the page.

The stupid! It burns!

Please. Learn to read. No way you're even 25 years old. British? You're a hoamsgooled teenager in Oklahoma.

Posted by: Jadehawk, OM | June 30, 2009 12:23 PM

Considering i used to believe in evolution for 25 years (and still do in some respects) of my life and was very interested and even only last week went to a museum with a celebration section for Darwin's birthday i think i know enough to make an educated choice for myself to think there must be more to life than this.

you most certainly do not know enough to make an educated choice about anything involving the ToE; you neither know what the ToE is (hint: it's not "survival of the fittest"), nor do you even know what "theory" means. You lack the most basic knowledge about science, so no, you're making an emotional decision ("there must be more to life!1!one!"), not an educated one.

Posted by: Josh | June 30, 2009 12:26 PM

You should try to keep up with the dinosaur literature. :-)

Right. Because of course I don't ever do that*.

The longer people look at it, the more sudden it looks.

Yep, it's certainly getting better, but there are still dataset size issues to deal with (both of dinosaur specimens and of relevant outcrop), still issues of taxonomic resolution of the census data to deal with, still issues of sedimentation rate to deal with. The situation is by no means bleak, but I think it's fantasy to say that we know the bolide caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs at the same level of confidence that we know that there was an impact, which is basically what I wrote in #381 (and do keep in mind that I was trying to get Lee to understand what I was getting at...).

That includes an abstract from last year's Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

Conference abstracts impress me less and less as the years go on. 250 words or whatever just says so little. And there is still a fairly large percentage of talks/posters that never end up making it into the real literature.

*Sorry--that probably came off really snarky. A little cranky today. Feel free to throw something heavy at me.

Posted by: ereador | June 30, 2009 1:08 PM

@#57: Pandora essentially does just that with their scientific song analysis.

I use Pandora and enjoy it very much. Remember, though, that their analysis begins with my statement of my taste. For example, I could choose to have a Paul Simon channel because I generally enjoy Paul Simon's music. Then the service uses its tabulated analysis of musical characteristics to suggest music that is similar in those characteristics. Pandora also uses data from other members who chose similar music. I choose again from these suggestions, allowing Pandora to narrow the analysis of my taste statistically, in order to provide further suggestions more consistent with my tastes. Once the channel exists, I can add other music, which I do when I feel they are omitting something I would like to have in my channel. All of this gives them more data, which improves their predictive ability.

My point is Pandora is not telling me what my tastes are, nor that I should enjoy a particular type of music, they are using my choices (and the choices of others) as a dataset in an attempt to predict statistically what music I might enjoy. Will Pandora ever be able to provide a perfect description of my tastes? Of course not, because all the data (a lifetime's worth) are not in yet, and, anecdotally speaking, Pandora still occasionally will toss in something like Da Ya Think I'm Sexy with Paul Simon. Must be their Musical Era parameter.

The Pandora service is actually a very good example of how science (in this case, statistical analysis of self-reported and pre-screened data) can give me input on decisions which are, at least from my perspective, not primarily rational. This is exactly what scientists are trying to do when they make recommendations to social agencies and governments regarding much bigger concerns, in order to allow those entities to make more educated decisions.

I can choose to go either with anecdotes or data analysis. Anecdotes may get me thinking, but if I have to make an important decision, I'd rather have data. I can only hope that social agencies and governments will do the same, and I am willing to live with the results, if they will just do that. Alas.

Posted by: 386sx | June 30, 2009 1:17 PM

Probably switching back to Firefox pretty soon...

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 30, 2009 1:38 PM

Owlmirror,

Well, I actually agree with most of post #27, sorry missed it before, there are quite a few posts to go through. There's just one point I disagree on. Knowledge certainly informs our decisions that we should make, but if does not inform the principles that those decisions are made on. And those principles are not based on science or knowledge. For examples, take the principle that taking human life is wrong. We want to know whether abortion is moral or not. To make the decision, we need a scientific understanding of when and how life begins. Thus our decision to have or not have an abortion is scientifically based, but our principle of not taking life is not scientifically based.

#348 "Can we at least agree on some definitional rules -- that "property rights" is a moral prescription, and that humans having the concept of property is a fact that can be scientifically tested?"

Seems like you are going the instinctive route, same as #343
"While there are still mysteries regarding human psychology, there is research being done by experts in various scientific fields, attempting to discover the origins of human behavior, the how and why of human thought and identity, and so on"

So let's take it as a psychological fact that we have a "concept of property," I suppose you can prove that we have it scientifically. But just because we have a psychological urge, does not mean it translates into a moral principle. Some people have a psychological urge to become mass murderers, and this is also studied by professional psychologists and can be scientifically demonstrated. Just showing that we have a psychological basis for something does not make it moral, because for it to be moral, it has to be something we SHOULD have, not just something we have. And science has no method for testing the "should".

"Actually, we do -- that why I added "parsimoniously", which you unfairly ignored. Science does have the principle of parsimony, and we do hold science to that standard.

Not all scientists are parsimonious, but the principle is always there, waiting to slice away the conceptually useless -- or at least force the admission that the concept is useless."

Um, parsimony is only a concept applied specifically to certain field of science, say genetic tree construction as one example. It is not a general principle, and is not adopted by all scientists. Additionally, I'm not sure how one would "parsimoniously reject the nondisprovable." Does this mean only rejecting certain non-disprovable statements but not others (i.e. only rejecting non-disprovable that contradict provables)? I think that is what you mean, and I agree with you. An interventionist God does not make sense, but you cannot throw out a non-interventionist God.

Concerning religions:
@348
"No. Modern Catholicism makes many exemplary concessions to science -- but Catholics makes fact claims as well.

Consider the fact claim that "life begins at conception", as but one example. Or "Condom use spreads AIDS" (or even "Condoms are deliberately designed to infect people with AIDS")."

I have never heard Catholics say that "Condom use spreads aids", and I would not claim that such a view is not central to their beliefs. The statement can be throw out without major consequence to Catholicism as a religion. And I talked about abortion earlier.

Basically, there's two possible arguments here: 1) that religions in their current form, are incompatible with science or 2) that it is impossible for a religion to ever be compatible with science. My view is that most religions, if you look hard enough, have said something at some point that is in contradiction with a scientific fact. But most (non-fundamentalist) religions are really about offering moral principles, and that this purpose is compatible with science. It is theoretically possible to have a religion compatible with science, since thy occupy separate spheres, ask different sorts of questions. And by the way, I listened to the podcast that this post is based on, and I think the British scientist makes this point very well.

Let me offer another view. Philosophy, law, and religion offer moral guidelines about how to live our life. These field are often in conflict with each other, often within their own fields. Different religions are in conflict with each other, as are different philosophies and legal structures. But law, philosophy, and religion are all compatible with science, because they ask a different subset of questions. I really don't think you can uphold the view that religion is incompatible with science without also saying that philosophy is incompatible with science, since they ask the same sorts of questions.

Posted by: Bobber | June 30, 2009 2:00 PM

But law, philosophy, and religion are all compatible with science, because they ask a different subset of questions.

By incompatible, am I to assume that you also mean "cannot be informed by"? But that's clearly not the case. Science is not limited to that practiced by PhDs in labcoats playing with test tubes. Scientific methodology can also be used in the fields of the social sciences, which can (and should) be used when we craft laws. Whenever a religion makes a claim about the natural world ("all human beings have souls"), that claim is open to scientific scrutiny and potential disproval. When a religious doctrine proposes a moral behavior - "Do not consume the flesh of pigs" - that, too, can be open to scientific scrutiny, because we can ask "why?" How we discover "why" can very much be through the scientific method - even if it's not through the HARD sciences. Are you saying that it is not possible for a historian to use research methods to determine how a moral belief came to be? Or that an anthropologist can't find the roots of human morality in the study of other primates?

Perhaps my definition of "science" is too broad, then.

Posted by: Bobber | June 30, 2009 2:04 PM

Error on my part: You were saying "compatible with" on the sense that they do not conflict because they ask different questions - but my response is meant to say that that isn't the case at all. We can use science to explore the meaning, the origins, and the results of moral ideas, as they are put into action.

If that makes it clearer. : )

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 30, 2009 2:13 PM

Bobber,

I think you understand my argument. You might want to read Owls post on #27. I agree that science can inform moral questions when decisions need to be reached, but it cannot prove the moral principles. I would call some forms of historical research a branch of science. For example, figuring out when and how something came about is science, but it does not tell us whether that thing that came about is good or bad.

"When a religious doctrine proposes a moral behavior - "Do not consume the flesh of pigs" - that, too, can be open to scientific scrutiny, because we can ask "why?""

What is the scientific questions that addresses "why?" What sort of experiment cannot be constructed to test "Why we cannot eat pigs?"

Posted by: biophysicist123 | June 30, 2009 2:26 PM

#425

"What fields don't rely on parsimony?"

What is meant by the principle of parsimony? You mean Occam's razor? It's a loaded term, define it and I'll tell you. I agree with this though:

#420 "It doesn't mean the parsimonious hypothesis is more likely to be right, it just means you need to rule it out first, before testing less parsimonious hypotheses."

Posted by: Josh | June 30, 2009 2:36 PM

I didn't say the Principle of Parsimony. But as you agree with #420, then you don't really mean that science doesn't rely on parsimony (the way I was thinking of it), and we basically view it the same way. I don't think there is any substantive disagreement here.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 30, 2009 4:00 PM

While we are on the topic of the Principle of Parsimony I'd like to bring up a topic that has been mentioned here before: The minimum description length principle (MDL). To oversimplify, it's basically a information theoretic version of Occam's Razor, with the definition "simplest" formally.

A paper on the subject claims to show that:

[D]ata compression is almost always the best strategy, both in model selection by using an ideal form of the minimum description length (ideal MDL) principle and in prediction of sequences.

Perhaps the MDL can play an important role in the philosophy of science. Rather than "the Principle of Parsimony" taken as an axiom, it could be viewed as a result of information theory.

Posted by: Alex Deam | June 30, 2009 5:38 PM

The bible may be a bad work of morality, but its intended purpose is offer moral principle, not facts about the world. Thus, the comment still makes my point.

Since when was that it's intended purpose? Do you have evidence of this?

Ok, I'll name a religion that does not claim facts about the world- most non-Christian religions. Though I'd say Catholicism does a decent job (at least after John Paul II). Buddhism is probably the best example, it claims much about the supernatural, but little about the natural world, and derives it moral system based on the supernatural. Also, I should clarify, by "facts" I mean physical facts about the natural world, not unprovable, supernatural facts like "God exists." Supernatural facts are untestable by science, so a morality system based on them is not in conflict with science (even though, I will admit, some religious-based ones are ridiculous).

Way to move the goalposts. You quickly scrambled back and redefined "factual claims" as "physical facts about the natural world", when most normal people would see any supernatural claim like "God exists", as a factual claim. Redefining the term in such a way, makes your point completely meaningless (if we ignore the fact that religions do make naturalistic claims about the world, as others have pointed out they d, making you still wrong even with this new arbitrary definition), since isn't claiming God exists rather an important claim to make?

Are you European? Do you know what it is like in the UK from first hand experience?

Don't know who you were addressing here, but I'll say that I'm from the UK, so yes to both for me please. And I can say that a fair percentage of people over here are atheists, with a large body of people being very apathetic towards religion. The majority of people are Christians, however, does this have any bearing on the truth if religion? Are you going to go all argumentum ad populum on us?

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 30, 2009 5:50 PM

We only don't know what happens to consciousness after death in the sense that we don't know what happens to the speed when the car is scrapped. - Stephen Wells

Neat - I'll be pinching that!

Posted by: Knockgoats | June 30, 2009 6:00 PM

Actually, I believe "duelism" or the idea that mind and body are distinct entities, has been in and out of the psychological literature for the last hundred years (I'd have to go back to my notes from college to check). - biophysicist123

No. You will find dualists working in psychology and neurophysiology (generally religious believers), but dualism has had no place in the scientific literature for at least a century, because it gives rise to no fruitful lines of research whatever.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 6:22 PM

Kel: Suffering in this life is caused by our past lives. Surely you can see that absurd in what we know about science?

I don't believe that is the universal take on the Buddhist stance. Buddhists don't believe in the ego as an object, but simply as a temporary and transient structure -- therefore they can't mean that you suffer in this life because of your past lives -- there's no "you" to have lives.

It is a common interpretation, probably believed by most Buddhists. But some do believe in something that isn't contradicted by science -- that past activities determine the future, not just mechanically but also informatically.

The ideas and perceptions "I" have don't belong to "me" but are part of a larger information processing system -- the set of all human minds, "culture", etc. So, whether you live or die, those ideas affect the rest of the system. Suffering is therefore transmissible.

In other words, suffering is part of the software of the human collective. It's instantiated within human brains, but like software it doesn't "belong" to a piece of hardware, but is an abstract pattern shared by many pieces of hardware. The continuing existence of the software isn't dependent on any particular piece of hardware, but on the behavior of all appropriate hardware over time.

Of course, the Buddhists couch it in extremely archaic language which is difficult to cipher out, and has a natural tendency to be misinterpreted. But that's always been a problem of philosophy -- since there was no information-theory before the twentieth century, folks were always trying to riddle out things without a decent formal system to describe it. So even the good embedded within religions turns to crap, because the language used is crap.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | June 30, 2009 6:52 PM

frog,

Are those symmetries empirically observed? I'm not sure we can say that

Well by "spatial symmetry" it means that the laws of physics do not vary in space. I think this has been observed to be accurate both by way of experiments here on Earth and by observation of stars. As for time symmetry, that means the laws of physics don't change with time. This has been observed as well, thought it's more problematic as the age of our species has been only a tiny fraction of the age of the universe. We can put some limits however. For example, I remember reading once under the hypothesis that if gravity were 10% stronger 4 billion years ago the Earth would have been too close to the sun for life to form.

So then does it make sense to say that the conservation laws are "observed"? It's at least a little bit misleading to say so.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. First year physics students collide pucks and verify the conservation of both energy and momentum. More sophisticated experiments have been done, and so far these conservation laws have been shown to hold.

Both the symmetries and the conservation laws have been tested separately and seem to hold. What Noether's theorem does is provide a connection to these two seemingly distinct ideas. It says anytime you have a symmetry you have a conservation law, and vice versa. There are other examples of symmetry/conservation law pairs.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 7:29 PM

feynmaniac:

So then does it make sense to say that the conservation laws are "observed"? It's at least a little bit misleading to say so.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. First year physics students collide pucks and verify the conservation of both energy and momentum.

I know what the symmetries mean. My conversational question is a bit more subtle.

Before you throw the pucks together, you've set up an experiment. This entire experimental structure is already assuming that say, if I do X at time Y, that is comparable to doing X' at time Y'. You set up the experiment to find a set of invariants over and above the necessary invariants needed to understand the experiment.

To understand the experiment, to make it an intelligible act and not some form of dadaistic performance art, you are already assuming translational invariance and time invariance -- you are setting it up to rigorously specify what you already know.

I'm not even sure that a non-space and time invariant universe is really imaginable. The only ones I know that aren't just arbitrary strings on a page are religious models that, as I said, are inherently dishonest. "That special time" and "That special place" are always unobservable, take-it-on-authority, that are even then not different from now-and-here. "God is in heaven", but you can never see heaven -- and even so, it's just like here except to get around it's own inconsistency.

I'd propose that time and space invariance is a necessary part of the human mind -- it's how our minds relate to the world, and therefore the physics derivation is just making mathematically and empirically rigorous what is in effect the only possible way for us to perceive the world (at least sanely).

Then our "observations" aren't exactly observations. Even if the universe is different -- it can't be for us. At some level we have to go beyond the scientific project -- and simply recognize how we see the world. Those things aren't exactly empirically derived, but are consequents of another kind, another category, all together.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 7:56 PM

Morales: CP violation

So what? I didn't argue that all symmetries are essential to cognition, or are inevitable from formalizing how we must think.

Most everything is empirically derived. But there are a few things that go to the definition of sanity. I don't see how charge conjugation and parity symmetries at all are necessary. You can perfectly well setup an experiment without any subtle assumptions about CP symmetry, or most of the elements of the Standard Model.

Space and time are special, like predictability. Those are necessary for our communication to be intelligible in the first place -- for their to be communication and experiments. But the number of dimensions in which quarks interact? I don't think so.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 8:26 PM

Kel: If we want to talk about whether an individual can be fully supportive of science and not have it contradict their religious beliefs, then of course there are those people. But those people are usually the exception to the rule, that the dogma is still prevalent....
But again, there are non-scientific concepts such as the karmic wheel and reincarnation that are at great odds with science. The whole mind/body dualism too is at great odds with science.

In Christianity, "those individuals" are swimming upstream. The dogma, the core beliefs, are clearly dualistic and involve massive superstitious faith.

In Buddhism, on the other hand, go as far back as we can ascertain, "those individuals" were fairly common and can plausibly claim to have a better and "more traditional" understanding of the belief system. One of the Buddhist dictums ascribed to Gotama is "find out for yourself".

Dualism is rejected in Buddhism not by outliers, but very old and traditional sects. "The wheel of karma" can't reasonably mean the same thing it does in Hinduism -- because Buddhism rejects the ego. So reincarnation is nonsense --- just gibberish -- unless it means something quite distinct from some ghostly spirit going from body to body. In some traditional Buddhist sects, it's much more like what I was describing -- mechanisms of ideation and perception that are self-propagating. That's not terribly different from contemporary ideas about information; the language may be less than ideal, but it's not outright nonsense like having a ghost go to an extra-dimension where it lives forever, or having a ghost go from body to body suffering again and again.

I'm not saying that they're the same -- and I'm not saying that Buddhism isn't filled with bullshit. But I am saying that what you're describing as "Buddhism" is really Hinduism -- and the specific aspects of Hinduism explicitly rejected by Buddhism.

It's kinda interesting reading the Pali cannon. You can find multiple threads of narrative, some clearly more primitive than others, running in parallel. What appears primitive shows a Buddha who, outside of believing a demon-ridden world which would have been obvious to a person of the time, is incredibly practical. Not much about souls, or "reincarnation" or authority, etc. A vegetarian who died from eating a bad piece of pork who didn't want funeral arrangements, and who, when one of his disciples asks him to live forever, tells the man that he's an idiot -- everybody dies, especially when they've gotten very old. (Of course in parallel to a much longer and "theologically sophisticated" discourse on why he won't use his magical powers, and why it's the disciples fault! They rewrote the passage, but couldn't bring themselves to expunge the original -- one paragraph in contrast to the magical version which is something like 10 paragraphs long)

You can't say all religions are the same. Some have at least the seeds of being consistent with what we've empirically learned. Some say explicitly that what you learn by experience -- the heart of empiricism -- is paramount.

And some say "Don't believe your lyin' eyes".

Some things are very, very bad -- and some sorta similar things really aren't so bad, and may have something useful embedded in them.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 8:42 PM

Feynmaniac: Perhaps this hard wiring is partly responsible for the fact that ideas such as vitalism and dualism were held for so long and have yet to die out despite the massive evidence against them

Vitalism maybe -- we may have a natural tendency to see faces where there aren't any.

But my impression is that dualism is actually a recent innovation. It seems to appear in both Greek and Chinese philosophy at the same time about the 5th century BCE (maybe coming from India or Egypt, or both?). Before that, I don't see folks believing in a spirit that inhabited the body, but the body as an extension or part of a larger entity. That's not dualism -- it may be wrong, but it's not dualistic.

For example, the Sumerians seemed to believe that the soul was just a kind of left over dross of the body. Not a separate animating entity, but just an aspect of a corpse.

It may have been part of the spread of bureaucracies and literacy. When you have words on paper, you have an idea that is separate from (and superior to) it's physical manifestation. When you have an organization writing down laws, making censuses, and otherwise reducing people to marks on a paper, it seems likely that you'd transfer that to thinking that the paper is capturing something that the body doesn't.

Dualism may be the psychological counterpart to imperialism and authoritarianism.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 8:50 PM

And one last point -- I'm always astounded by how often scientists believe in dualism, even when they explicitly claim they don't believe. It's almost impossible to get away from language that distinguishes the neurological from the psychological, the organic from the cultural, and so forth.

Folks always seem to think that they're two different things, rather than two different analytical techniques for the same thing. The worst is that they then dismiss one for the other as being "more real" rather than just asking which one is most useful for a given problem.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 9:06 PM

I've heard that in Aymara, the directionality of time is backwards -- one faces the past rather than the future.

I have no idea what that implies.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 9:34 PM

Feynmaniac: And, like predictability, empirically determined*, though I note that predictability is only so on a probabilistic basis in QM.

We're talking in circles know. What is the universal prior probability distribution for predictability? Is there even a way to make that sensible? Give me an equation which I can compare with the data -- and not an equation for a specific physical phenomenon, but one for everything -- one which tells me whether the universe is predictable to some degree.

To understand the experiment, to make it an intelligible act and not some form of dadaistic performance art, you are already assuming translational invariance and time invariance -- you are setting it up to rigorously specify what you already know.

Not exactly what I mean. The experiments do make the concepts more rigorous -- just as mathematics is more rigorous than the geometric intuition it formalizes.

But I am arguing that certain "paradigms" can't be altered by a high-school experiment, or even by multimillion euro high energy particle accelerator experiments.

Lastly, "in principle" doesn't mean much to me, when in practice it would never happen. "In principle" is only meaningful as a formal way of describing practice. Otherwise, it is just another empty abstraction.

Posted by: John Morales | June 30, 2009 10:00 PM

frog, you seem to be getting tired*; maybe time for a break?

BTW, 'in principle' is not an empty abstraction in this sense; it refers to that which cannot be excluded as a possibility. If you really consider it refers to that which "could never happen", you are going against common usage.

--
* Yeah, I know, an innocent misattribution. But it's evidentiary and I draw conclusions therefrom.

Posted by: frog | June 30, 2009 10:08 PM

JM: frog, you seem to be getting tired*; maybe time for a break?

You are correct -- I've been parallelizing matrix operations for many, many hours. All I can see are multiple dimensional slices of real numbers and their operators. You ended up on the wrong slice!

BTW, 'in principle' is not an empty abstraction in this sense; it refers to that which cannot be excluded as a possibility. If you really consider it refers to that which "could never happen", you are going against common usage.

If it could never happen, I exclude it as a possibility. I'm Jamesian that way -- if a statement doesn't distinguish two realities, its an empty abstraction to me. I can't imagine a reality where a high-school experiment overturned a major paradigm of science -- that's just lip service to an ideology, and not a real description of how science functions, even as an approximation.

But hey -- it would be wonderful to see it otherwise. It's always nice to find out you have an extra hook to hang your hat on.

And with that, I bid you goodnight and adieu ;-)

Posted by: John Morales | June 30, 2009 10:13 PM

Catch you next time, frog! :)

Posted by: Kel | June 30, 2009 10:42 PM

Time after time I've had religious people try to frame morality in the matter that you say there, you must realise that "God commands this" is not only prescriptive but descriptive. Morality is not a gift from God, and being moral is not being obedient to God. Like I said before, if it was just a guide to behaviour then there would be no problem. But that's not how Christians view morality, and they take this warped version and apply it to others. That morality is not only doing as God commands, but morality comes from God. Scientifically, this is utter nonsense.

Surely you can see that by saying that morality is based on God's commandments how that lends to descriptive (the realm of science) as opposed to prescriptive (which is a different realm of understanding). Again, you're highlighting the incompatibility between science and Christian faith by trying to allow Christianity to define a whole facet of scientific knowledge as "God did it"

Posted by: Dennis Hockabout | July 1, 2009 3:33 AM

Although I'm almost 60 I remember what my science teacher told me in 7th grade science class: Man can not create or destroy anything; merely combine chemicals or change their state. Cosmologies change,(remember when science said the sun went around the earth?) And science continues to disagree with itself. To deny that we are created doesn't make sense to me. I've never seen or heard of a mortal creating anything out of nothing. Scientist say the universe may have 13 dimensions. Maybe God is hiding out in one of them.

Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2009 4:42 AM

I've never seen or heard of a mortal creating anything out of nothing.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 1, 2009 5:30 AM

Theists use the argument "something can't come from nothing, there God did it". The premise that ex nihilo nihil fit ("nothing comes from nothing") seems intuitive, however it has the disadvantage of being wrong.

Particles pop in and out of existence in a vacuum i.e, something coming from nothing. This is actually predicted by quantum mechanics and the effect of this has been demonstrated empirically (see Casimir effect). Some have even proposed that the universe itself is just one big vacuum fluctuation. We have no idea if this case, however theists are wrong to suggest that creatio ex nihilo implies God.

Posted by: Dania | July 1, 2009 5:55 AM

Of course the answer to that is "god always existed", well then why can't we same about the universe itself?

I've asked that many times and never got a straight answer from a theist. Theists simply assume that matter and energy had to be created, but they never justify this assumption. They may think it is intuitive, but it still needs to be justified, and I don't think they can do it.

I find it really odd that so many people think it's more likely the existence of a supernatural being that violates the laws of physics and has always existed, than the idea of an Universe that wasn't created. Do they have any good reason to postulate the existence of God in the first place? Dennis?

Posted by: Josh | July 1, 2009 6:40 AM

Maybe God is hiding out in one of them.

Maybe it is, but until you can find a way to test this statement, it isn't science.

Oh, and which god?

Posted by: frog | July 1, 2009 12:16 PM

Kel: You're wrong in thinking there is a "highest level". Certainly the "roots" of moral judgement are in the (bioculturally determined) way we feel; but our feelings, unlike a set of axioms, need not be (and frequently are not), consistent.

You're right -- I oversimplified. There is an element that is pre-rational that makes it all "hang together" -- that gives reason motivation, as Natrina #432 pointed out. I argue that the pre-rational is the linchpin -- it's the "root" in your words -- of morality.

Rationalists sometimes have a tendency to fall into the dualistic fallacy unintentionally -- of seeing reason as the end-all and be-all, disregarding emotion as purely an animialistic and irrational left-over.

We have to take into account our inherent perceptual mechanisms, and not try to turn everything into a logic/empirical puzzle. Some of our understanding is consistent with what we see -- but they are consistent not just because of what is "out there", but because of how we work.

That's why I've hung on this thread -- the reduction of certain truths to empiricism, as if they just depended on carefully observing the world seems crazy to me. The predictability of the universe, certain qualities of the universe seem unavoidable for entities like us. The universe may be different -- but we could never see otherwise, because that's how we see. Which means that any arguments that the universe is otherwise are insane -- meaning, you have to be insane, you have to be denying your own perceptual mechanism, to say otherwise.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 1, 2009 2:20 PM

@470

"'m a consequentialist, but there is no single type of consequence I'm concerned about: minimising human and other sentient suffering, enhancing opportunities for human and other sentient freedom and fulfilment, equity, the growth of knowledge and understanding, the preservation of biodiversity, natural beauty, and beautiful or historically interesting artefacts... all these are things of importance to me in making moral judgements (and for most of them, there are questions about tradeoffs over time and with regard to risk)."

I think the argument about there being a highest level does not mean there is an ultimate axiom, a single consequence. there can be multiple reasons, just like you listed. For example, let's say you don't pollute because that is good for ecosystem health because you want to preserve biodivesity, because... you think that is a good thing to do. The highest level almost always comes down to what I think frog is refering to as an emotional choice. If you keep asking why, you go to higher and higher levels of reasoning, until you get to a why question that you just accept because you think it is right. A religious person may end up with "because that's what god wants me to do." In either case, you end up with a higher level reason that is not dependant on scientific analysis.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 1, 2009 3:05 PM

Let me point out that no one, excepting Owlmirror, has even attempted to demonstrate how science does or could dictate morality. This is the only way that science could be incompatible with a religion that only dictates morality.

Gah. I have not argued that science "dictates" morality. I have either not expressed myself clearly, and/or you have not been reading what I have been writing. I suspect the latter is more significant; you seem to have problems with reading comprehension. Is English your first language?

My contention was that scientific knowledge informs us of everything we know (or can know) about how morality arises as a mental function; it informs us of how altruistic morality functions as a successful strategy in populations and thus allows us to infer that the evolution of morality makes biological sense. As a method of systematically gathering knowledge, science gives us a more rigorous way to understand the consequences of our actions by showing clearly what those consequences are, and can be.

More briefly, I have been trying to argue (the rather reasonable position, it seems to me) that science informs us about morality, and, as an extension of general experiential knowledge, science informs morality (as in making an informed decision).

I have not argued that information is a dictate.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 1, 2009 3:35 PM

I am not aware of any scientific experiment that has demonstrated something about the nature of morality. What sort of experiment could even test the hypothesis "Morality is not obedience to god"? To test that you'd first need to know "Does god exist?" and "what is the nature of god?" two other questions which cannot be answered by scientific methodology.

This is only true if "God" is defined as being non-interventionist.

An interventionist God is indeed disprovable, and is disproven by such science as the experiments involving intercessory prayers for the ill, and more generally, by the observation that no one religious group has any greater health or other benefits when examined over the course of history.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 1, 2009 4:29 PM

Owlmirror,

#479
You ignored the second line of the quote you took from me (which I'll say is a result of a moral failing rather than incomprehension). Yes, it is true that you did not say the words "Science dictates morality." But I was assuming that was your point, because that is the only way to show how "science could be incompatible with a religion that only dictates morality." If you are admitting that science only informs and does not dictate morality, you have conceded my point.

Put simply, religion dictates moral principle. Science informs us about the nature of the world. Understanding the nature of the world allows us to transform our moral principles into codes of behavior. Science and a religion that only dictates moral principles have separate functions, and are therefore compatible.

Example. Religion (or philosophy) says taking life is wrong. Science tells us that someone in a coma is still alive. Therefore removing life support from someone in a coma is wrong.

Posted by: Stu | July 1, 2009 4:46 PM

religion that only dictates moral principles

Name one.

Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2009 5:51 PM

I am not aware of any scientific experiment that has demonstrated something about the nature of morality.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 1, 2009 6:00 PM

Put simply, religion dictates moral principle

Religions dictate their versions of moral principle. If moral principle was the same across the board, someone needs to let everyone know which version it is.

Example. Religion (or philosophy) says taking life is wrong. Science tells us that someone in a coma is still alive. Therefore removing life support from someone in a coma is wrong.

That's an odd example to use. People pull the plug on people in comas all the time.

Societal standards tell us that taking a life is wrong. Standards that existed well before religion as we know it. Religion came along as a means to give force to the expectation of living up to the societal, group, tribe, whatever you want to tag them standards. Those that didn't abide by these standards and upset group cohesion as a means of increased survivability worked against said survival.

Religion was a tool created by man to enforce these standards as well as to try and explain the unexplained.

Religion as the sole source of morality is ridiculous. If anything religion is a bi product of people's need to enforce their standards to increase the survivability of the group.

Posted by: Stanton | July 1, 2009 6:26 PM

Example. Religion (or philosophy) says taking life is wrong. Science tells us that someone in a coma is still alive. Therefore removing life support from someone in a coma is wrong.

Also, would it be wrong to remove a comatose person from his or her life support if it is obvious that he or she will never wake up from the coma?

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 1, 2009 6:33 PM

My god, you people are really good at taking a sentence out of context, interpreting it literally, and then thrashing through the strawman you have created.

#487
I haven't read the book, but I have read the selfish gene. And I have already discussed the difference between understanding the origin of morality or the biological basis for morality, and understanding the justification for morality. Science does not justify moral principles, science does not dictate morality. Describing is not justifying.

#488
Logic, not science, would show such a contradiction. And I have admitted that religious moral principles can be in conflict with other religious moral principles or non-religious moral principles. It still remains that elaborating such principles is the function of religion and not the function of science.

#489
"Religions dictate their versions of moral principle. If moral principle was the same across the board, someone needs to let everyone know which version it is."
I have agreed that religions can dictate controversial moral principles, and that they are not the sole source of morality. We don't know which sources of morality offer the "correct" moral principles, we pick the ones we like and live our life by them. We could pick societal standards, we could pick religious standards, your choice.

Ok, let me choose another example, outside the realm of religion. A fishery scientist performs a stock assessment of salmon, and determines that the population of salmon is 10% of previous standing stock and in decline. The scientists presents the data to the local senator. Does the scientist say "Stop fishing because you will destroy the salmon population"? No, of course not, because that statement carries a value judgment, and science does not make judgments. It is objective, impartial. The scientist says "If you keep fishing at your current intensity, the salmon population will die off," and the politician says "Well, I am concerned with preserving biodiversity, so I will regulate fishing" or "I value sustainable fishing so I will regulate fishing" or "fuck it, we need to feed people right now, so fish em out."

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 1, 2009 6:38 PM

I am not aware of any scientific experiment that has demonstrated something about the nature of morality.

Your ignorance is not proof of anything.

- An empirical study of moral intuitions Petrinovich, L., O’Neill, P. & Jorgensen, M. (1993). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 467-478.

The study found common moral judgments in many areas to be consistent across the two different cultures (American and Taiwanese college students) studied.

- Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements Nature Letters Vol 446 19 April 2007

As the title suggests, prefrontal damage ends up making a person more utilitarian.

- Since there is a limit to the number of links allowed in the comments (3 or 4, I can't remember) I'll just add that you should check out http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/morality.htm to find many more articles demonstrating how science has contributed to the understanding of morality.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 1, 2009 6:39 PM

I have agreed that religions can dictate controversial moral principles, and that they are not the sole source of morality. We don't know which sources of morality offer the "correct" moral principles, we pick the ones we like and live our life by them. We could pick societal standards, we could pick religious standards, your choice.

Thanks for sort of ignoring my point that societal standards are essentially what we call "morals". Religion came about as a result of these standards, not the other way around.

Science can explain this, religion ignores it.

Posted by: SC, OM | July 1, 2009 6:46 PM

The scientist says "If you keep fishing at your current intensity, the salmon population will die off," and the politician says "Well, I am concerned with preserving biodiversity, so I will regulate fishing" or "I value sustainable fishing so I will regulate fishing" or "fuck it, we need to feed people right now, so fish em out."

What would be one religious value or principle concerning fishing, and how would it be derived (on what would it be based)?

BTW, new film:

http://endoftheline.com/

(I haven't seen it yet. Sounds good.)

Posted by: John Morales | July 1, 2009 7:07 PM

@498, isn't it clear?

Science relies on empiricism and testability as a way of knowing, religion relies on intuition, unsupported authority ('Revelation') and dogma.

Or, more succintly, science makes truth claims and religion makes Truth claims.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 1, 2009 7:17 PM

$495
I flipped through the abstracts, I don't have the time to read through any of the articles, but they all seem to be descriptions of our moral faculties, not justifications for our moral principles, which is an issue I already addressed.

$497
I didn't ignore your point, but I don't think everyone derives their morals from "social standards," I certainly don't. There are also contradicting social standards, for example right-wing versus left wing standards. And I don't agree that the origin of religion came out of enforcing those standards. That is your (rather opinionated) view of history. Is that enough?

#501
Ah, I see. Their methods are different, I agree, but so is the knowledge that they (should) attempt to explain, which you differentiate as truth and Truth. My argument is that they are attempting to answer different sorts of questions or describe different sorts of knowledge (or that they have different purposes): therefore, compatibility.

Let me lay out my argument one more time, and I'll avoid the "circling."

1. Science does not and should not dictate moral principles.
2. Religion and philosophy should dictate moral principles and only dictate moral principles. This is not to say people should be forced to follow those principles. And obviously many actual religions in practice do more than just dictate moral principles; in doing so they are wrongfully overstepping their bounds.
3. Since science and religion have different purposes/functions, they are compatible.

I don't feel anyone has offered an acceptable argument against this line of reasoning.

Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2009 7:26 PM

I haven't read the book, but I have read the selfish gene. And I have already discussed the difference between understanding the origin of morality or the biological basis for morality, and understanding the justification for morality. Science does not justify moral principles, science does not dictate morality. Describing is not justifying.

Again, if religion were purely prescriptive, there would be no problem. But religion in its means to prescribe morality describes morality (and implicitally describes the universe as being under the whim of an interventionist deity - but that's a whole other matter) and that's my contention that there's an irreconcilable difference between the two.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 1, 2009 7:40 PM

Yes, it is true that you did not say the words "Science dictates morality." But I was assuming that was your point, because that is the only way to show how "science could be incompatible with a religion that only dictates morality." If you are admitting that science only informs and does not dictate morality, you have conceded my point.

OK, I think we're a little closer in agreement now. But I still disagree with your wording. The problem may indeed be semantic, so let me try and explicate the source of my disagreement.

Put simply, religion dictates moral principle. Science informs us about the nature of the world. Understanding the nature of the world allows us to transform our moral principles into codes of behavior. Science and a religion that only dictates moral principles have separate functions, and are therefore compatible.

First of all, by "morality", I mean "that set of rules that describe behaviors that affect others". That places a certain meaningful limitation or boundary conditions for what can even be described as "moral".

Secondly, your use of the word "dictates" suggests a stubborn inflexibility involved; dictates are meant to be unquestioningly obeyed. Well, the analytical rational empirical skeptical method of science is all about asking questions; about finding the right questions to ask, and abiding honestly by the answers. That's part of what I was trying to say @#27. If religion rejects questions; if it rejects being informed by science, then there is indeed an incompatibility between religion and science.

Finally, given both of the above, I would therefore argue that religion, for the most part, does not dictate morality or moral principle; rather, religion dictates behavior -- and some of those behaviors may be moral and some might not. But if religion rejects analysis of whether a behavior is moral, then we are, again, at an incompatibility between religion and the analytical and skeptical methods and results of science.

Example. Religion (or philosophy) says taking life is wrong. Science tells us that someone in a coma is still alive. Therefore removing life support from someone in a coma is wrong.

Consider a counterexample: Religion says that a religious symbol -- such as a wafer over which a religious officiant has mumbled certain words -- has in some way become infused with God and must be treated as more important than a human being. Science tells us that the wafer is unchanged. Religion rejects the scientific analysis, and insists that harming the wafer is wrong.

Or another counterexample: Religion says that cursing God is wrong. An analysis of the concept of blasphemy tells us that cursing God cannot possibly harm anyone: It is not directed at any human; it cannot harm God even if God exists; and the worst that curses do anyway is make someone feel bad -- a very minor harm rather than a major one. Yet religion rejects this rational analysis, and insists that blasphemy is the worst evil there is; worse than murder and theft.

This is what I, at least, mean by religion being incompatible with science: it rejects the very concept of skeptical rational analysis of its dictates in special privileged circumstances.

Posted by: John Morales | July 1, 2009 7:41 PM

biophysicist123 @503:

Their methods are different, I agree, but so is the knowledge that they (should) attempt to explain, which you differentiate as truth and Truth. My argument is that they are attempting to answer different sorts of questions or describe different sorts of knowledge (or that they have different purposes): therefore, compatibility.

Sigh.

Epistemologically, the only Truth that can be known is mathematical and logical (proofs based on given axioms and a formal inference system) and semantic (analytical propositions).
Religion doesn't address those (except in a trivial way using theology, where the axioms are arbitrary (and indeed unnecessary), and where generally its propositions are incoherent and indeed often contradictory).

What 'knowledge' do you think religion tries to explain, other than morality? The only knowledge religion explains is knowledge of that religion, so far as I can see.

Religion and philosophy should dictate moral principles and only dictate moral principles.

The branch of philosophy called 'ethics' is indeed appropriate for that, but religion?
Sheesh. You might as well say astrology should dictate your behaviour, nevermind you'll find different versions of pabulum from different astrologers; or that feng shui should dictate your furniture arrangement, nevermind common-sense and practicality (and the usual different recommendations from different woo-meisters).

Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2009 8:10 PM

As soon as religious people stop trying to define morality, then I'll agree that there's no incompatibility. But when we see theists time and time again misrepresenting what morality is in order to push their moral agenda, what else are we to conclude? Should we say there's no incompatibility between doctrine and faith while Ken Ham's creation museum is raking in the millions?

Evidentially there is an incompatibility, so we can talk until we are blue in the face about how they are "non-overlapping magisteria" and all we are doing is talking about a characterture that simply does not exist in reality. Evidentially people still look to religion to describe morality, because the prescription relies on a description that is at odds with scientific understanding. This is nowhere more apparent in how evangelical communities deal with homosexuality.

Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2009 8:24 PM

There are still theists who argue that god exists because we are moral. That morality has to be objective, otherwise anything is permissible. And that the only way to have objective morality is through God. Why can't an intellectually honest person who sees this sentiment time and time again voice a concern about an incompatibility between this view and what science tells us about a) what morality is, and b) how we behave?

So please biophysicists, I respect that you think they are non-overlapping. But I see this sentiment time and time again, God pervades morality, it hijacks the concept - to the point where the absence of belief in God is considered the height of immorality. Liar for Jesus^TM after Liar for Jesus^TM has the veracity to judge others by their prescriptive stance because their prescriptive stance is justified by the descriptive core. Take the description that morality is God-given away and the theist doctrine of ethics crumbles to nothing.

I've seen it time and time again who argue that morality must come from God, expressing personal incredulity that such a system could evolve. How is this not an incompatibility between science and religion?!?

Posted by: John Morales | July 1, 2009 8:28 PM

[OOT]

SC, re AG, it was here.

Posted by: SC, OM | July 1, 2009 8:55 PM

SC, re AG, it was here.

Ah. Thanks.

If I may butt in,...

Don't butt in! I (among many others who preceded me) am trying to get biophysicist123 to think this through - not looking for verses!*

*Um, did you notice the link to my childhood Bible camp on a recent thread?

:)

Posted by: Michael Lonergan | July 1, 2009 9:54 PM

Church women are easy.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 2, 2009 1:44 AM

Re @#452:

The result is a profound difference in navigational ability and spatial knowledge between speakers of languages that rely primarily on absolute reference frames (like Kuuk Thaayorre) and languages that rely on relative reference frames (like English). Simply put, speakers of languages like Kuuk Thaayorre are much better than English speakers at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are, even in unfamiliar landscapes or inside unfamiliar buildings. What enables them — in fact, forces them — to do this is their language.

I found this fascinating, but I wonder if it is exactly this.

I am aware that various organisms use magnetoception, and I remember reading that when humans are physically implanted with magnets under their skin, they can then detect magnetic fields.

I wonder if perhaps this population of humans has that particular sense, either resulting from an actual mutation that causes them to accumulate magnetite, or from some environmental factor.

There might also be some other unusual sense involved in perceiving direction -- light polarization, maybe?

Or they might just have a mutation which gives them a much better sense of direction in general, in the sense of being able to much better remember the changes in direction that they have made.

But while the hypotheses are interesting, and I certainly think that experiments that try to test for possible factors that might be providing some additional orientation ability would be very interesting indeed, if said experiments they don't pan out, the linguistic explanation itself is also pretty cool; that just by speaking a language that emphasizes absolute cardinal direction, the speakers of that language just learn to automatically pay attention to changes in direction and refer to them.

I was also reminded of this quote from Pratchett's Lords and Ladies:

It must be hard for humans, forever floundering through inconvenient geography. Humans are always slightly lost. It's a basic characteristic. It explains a lot about them.

Elves are never lost at all. It's a basic characteristic. It explains a lot about them.

Elves have absolute position. The flow of the silvery force dimly outlines the landscape. Creatures generate small amounts of it themselves, and become perceptible in the flux. Their muscles crackle with it, their minds buzz with it.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 2, 2009 12:34 PM

Ok, two general points. First, I used dictate wrongfully, let's go with the word prescribe instead.

Second, I'm not going to argue about whether or not actual religions do more than just prescribe moral rules. I think some do and some don't, but I think for many of the ones that do, their moral principles do not depend on the factual claims they make. Obvious these points are debatable, but I say we leave them aside for now because I don't think they are crucial for my argument. I also think that where religions do make factual claims, they are wrong and should be told so.

When I say religion, I mean an ideology that prescribes moral principle based on the supernatural nature of the universe. If the religion defines an entity, then the entity in non-interventionalist, but I don't think the entity is necessary. When I say religion, I mean something like Buddhism, which I think we have all agreed is at least close to an "acceptable" religion. I will also say that any claims about the supernatural made by the religion must be consistent with any factual knowledge of the universe.

Now, I've basically defined a religion that is compatible with science. I think the real question is, can this religion still prescribe moral principles in such a "weak" format? Or does this religion have any substance? My answer is yes, therefore it is possible to have a religion that is consistent with science, and we shouldn't uniformly try to discard all religious thought. Though we all shouldn't be forced to proscribe to it either.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 2, 2009 1:27 PM

I also think that where religions do make factual claims, they are wrong and should be told so.

Hm. Yet fact claims are not necessarily wrong. As I keep saying: ethics must be based on facts; be informed by facts.

But see below.

When I say religion, I mean an ideology that prescribes moral principle based on the supernatural nature of the universe.

Yet why is "the supernatural nature of the universe" even necessary? Would moral principles not exist if it were the case that the universe was not in fact supernatural?

No, I think that ultimately, any ethical philosophy, whether religious or atheistic or whatever, must be based on values; on valuations of natural human concepts -- that good is better than harm; that one set of behaviors and the expected consequences of those behaviors are better than another set of behaviors and their expected consequences; and so on. The supernatural is unnecessary as the source of the ethical reasoning and valuation.

Regarding Buddhism -- it's noted above @#447 (and from what I've seen elsewhere) that gods and the supernatural were not really appealed to a necessary component of the Buddha's original teaching. He was looking at humans and human behaviors, and try to distill rules based on ethical valuations. While there is superstition in Buddhism, I think it might be fair to call the Buddha an ethical philosopher, who argued from fact-based experience and observation of humanity, and offered value-based ethical principles and guidelines for living.

And later ethical philosophers can analyze his teachings and discard the superstition, trying to find principles that are better informed by science, and a better understanding of humanity.

Now, I've basically defined a religion that is compatible with science.

I've defined an ethical philosophy that is definitely compatible with science.

I think the real question is, can this religion still prescribe moral principles in such a "weak" format? Or does this religion have any substance? My answer is yes, therefore it is possible to have a religion that is consistent with science, and we shouldn't uniformly try to discard all religious thought.

If religion is defined as ethical philosophy (perhaps with some additional non-parsimonious dualism and maybe some cultural traditions that are not actually involved with the moral prescriptions made), well, I suppose that could work.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 2, 2009 1:44 PM

When I say religion, I mean an ideology that prescribes moral principle based on the supernatural nature of the universe.

No. Sorry. There is no evidence of a supernatural nature of the universe. Again, this is religion wanting to give the assumed supernatural nature of the universe credit. Credit without any evidence of it existing or it having anything to do with what they are positing.

Where science can explain the origin of "morals" via the evolution of man and society, religion tries to assert they came from something without any support.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 2, 2009 1:50 PM

@525

I would can religion a subset of ethical philosophy. Ethical philosophy is "the study of morality; and ideology that prescribes moral principles and translates them into rule for behavior" Religion, when practiced correctly is "an ideology that prescribes moral principles based on the supernatural natural of the universe." There is no "need" for supernatural principle to prescribe morality, but that is the route that religion has gone.

Also, Buddha is an ethical philosopher, but it is tied into supernatural views about reincarnation.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 2, 2009 2:05 PM

@ 508

" Unless you're putting forth the idea that morality that religion pushes as the correct one can only be divinely inspired? If that's the case, the vastly different ideas on morality that we see across the world of relion would be strong evidence against that very idea."

Religion, by its nature, only pushes morality based on supernatural causes. This is not to say that all religions are consistent or that one is the correct one. In fact, I'd argue that there is no objective criteria one could use to determine which morality, religious or non-religious, is the correct one.

"How does a particular religion explain its version of morality if it doesn't come from the way group dynamics and empathy evolved?"

Religion does need to explain how its views came about, that is the job of historical science. It just needs to justify them.

@509
I have to say, epistomology was never my strong suit, I always had trouble understanding the differences.

"What 'knowledge' do you think religion tries to explain, other than morality?"

Morality and whatever supernatural causes it needs to explain to derive its morality.

" The branch of philosophy called 'ethics' is indeed appropriate for that, but religion?"

Refer to #526. Philosophy of ethics is another branch that prescribes moral principles, similar to religion. No one is forcing you to accept religion's analysis of the matter. I'm only trying to convince you that religion is like ethical philosophy in that both prescribe moral principles, and both are compatible with science.

@512
"More generally, if "Religion and philosophy should dictate [!] moral principles," how are these to be derived - on what are they based?"

Change dictate to prescribe. Also refer to #526. There is no objective basis, ultimately. I can give examples of how a religion or philosophy starts with principle and goes to rules for behavior, if you want.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 2, 2009 2:32 PM

Biophysicist123, are you familiar with game theory studies that have derived some aspects of morality via interactions as simple as repeated Prisoner's dilemma trials. The only principle at work there is an ability to discern which strategy is in one's interest--yet you can get behavior approaching altruism.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 2, 2009 3:42 PM

Biophysicist123,

Let me try and use an analogy. Human beings are born with an innate capacity for language. We come with an universal grammar. Each language how it's own parameters (names for things, how to construct sentences, how to organize a subject-verb-object sentence, etc.). As we acquire language we learn what the locally agreed upon parameters are. Nowhere in this do we need to invoke philosophy or religion prescribing what the rules of grammar are. I think the case for morality is analogous.

Also, most people make moral judgments quickly and unconsciously. They don't usually analyze moral problems by the axioms thought up by some philosopher or by the commandments set by their religion.

Philosophy cannot follow the "analytical rational empirical skeptical method of science,"

I would like to see philosophy be analytical, rational and skeptical. When philosophers aren't any of those things the result is often bullshit. As for empirical, I'd like them to be empirical if they are talking about the real world. Personally I view philosophy as studying things that science has yet to have a definitive say on.

In "Problems of Philosophy" Bertrand Russell wrote:

It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

I think issues of morality and ethics were once limited to philosophy, but are beginning to come within the grasp of science.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 2, 2009 6:22 PM

Biophysicist123 says: "Simply proving that altruism can come about using game theory is not enough to make something morally right."

No, but societal values can dictate normative behavior. And if harmony in social interactions is essential for survival, and altruistic behavior is essential for harmony as well as with self-interest,it is not difficult to see how the behavior that advantages the social group becomes "moral" Every social animal exhibits similar behavior--from dogs to elephants. We're merely the only one that gives it a fancy name to make ourselves feel superior.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 2, 2009 6:59 PM

You know, when I was in Sri Lanka, I came across some fundamentalist Buddhists--people who really believed the Buddha had actually visited the island by flying through the air and landing on Adam's Peak/Sri Pada. The conservative Buddhist clerics were among the most vocal opponents of any compromise with the Tamil minority--they probably kept the civil war going an extra 10 years at least. They were willing to see the country bleed itself white before they would defile their "Buddhist" homeland.

I'm a big admirer of Buddhism. If I had a religious bone in my body, that's probably the way I'd go--that or atheist Jew. But the Buddha, himself, knew not all of his followers would be perfect or even good.

Posted by: Feynmaniac | July 2, 2009 7:16 PM

biophysicist123,

Philosophers or holy texts prescribing what is moral is just as meaningful as me declaring that the universe ought to obey Aristotelian mechanics. It doesn't mean anything. At best, these philosophers and holy books are making a set of rules that either describe one aspect of morality or overlap with it. At worst, they end up creating a system of arbitrary rules that goes against our moral intuitions. What makes things right or wrong is a combination of innate moral capacity and social norms.

You have yet to show why philosophers or religions declaring by fiat what is moral is nothing more than wankery.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 2, 2009 8:34 PM

@538

I mean, I pretty much agree with you. Many religions in their current form are not compatible with science. And we should be telling them to shape and get with the science. What we shouldn't be telling hem is that science says that their religion is fatally flawed, and that the two can never coexist. That's the message I am getting here.

#537

the prescription: do "behavior that advantages the social group"
Or actually, fundamentally I think the prescription in your argument is that "survival is a good thing." If survival wasn't a good thing, why would we be trying to achieve it?

#539

"Because the vast majority of the population has an emotional revulsion for being murdered, an emotional revulsion for murder in general,"

So you define morality as those actions which the majority of people show an instinctive preference for? Interesting way to define morality. There's a whole lot of people who show an instinctive revulsion to abortion, but I don't think that's any reason to declare abortion immoral.

I don't think there is any objective basis that religions and philosophers do or can use to define morality. A religion or philosophy puts up a set of principles, which you either accept or don't accept. Because there is no ultimate, objective basis for prescribing the ultimate principles, I think morality will be beyond the analysis of science.

I think everyone has an instinctive capacity for what is good and bad, but that does does not justify those good and bad actions, it simply explains them. Arguing morality from instincts (based on social norms or not, doesn't really matter to me) is just as arbitrary as someone offering a subjective set of principles to follow. The difference is that I can use my judgment to choose a set of principles that I like, whereas I'm stuck with my instincts.

Are you guys really claiming that morality is based on instinct and instincts can be studied by science, so therefore morality can be completely understood through science?

Posted by: Baron | July 3, 2009 4:41 AM

I wrote a blog post on this. See the link above.

Scientists don't know it all.

Christians don't know it all.

Only bad theology or bad science holds that it knows everything.

To hold two incompatible ideas, you simply have to acknowledge the gap, and allow them to be in parallel.

Posted by: John Morales | July 3, 2009 7:16 AM

biophysicist123 @530:

"What 'knowledge' do you think religion tries to explain, other than morality?"

Morality and whatever supernatural causes it needs to explain to derive its morality.

What part of other than was unclear? :)

As you say, epistomology is not your strong suit; apparently, neither is an ability to answer a simple question clearly.

N.B.: As truth machine (I paraphrase) once pointed out, "a justified belief is knowledge only if it is in fact true; justified beliefs that aren’t true are not knowledge."

Posted by: Bernard Bumner | July 3, 2009 8:18 AM

Baron @545:

To hold two incompatible ideas, you simply have to acknowledge the gap, and allow them to be in parallel.

...acknowledge the gap... - shouldn't acknowledge, actually read invent? The supposed "gap" is simply an ad hoc rationalisation to avoid cognitive dissonance. People who accept the methods of science whilst simultaneously embracing the supernatural are forced to sometimes abandon the former, and certainly to limit the latter.

Posted by: biophysicist123 | July 3, 2009 1:12 PM

@544

Before I respond to anything, I think we may have to agree to disagree. You seem to think morality is governed by instinct in some way, and an instinct-governed morality can only be understood by science. I think morality is decided when we chose a set of moral principles using our reason or instinct some human faculty. This decision is implicitly and subconsciously behind most of our decisions, but I don't think that makes morality only and solely instinctual. I also don't know how I could ever convince you of my view.

"I would agree that survival being a (generally) good thing is either an axiom of an ethical philosophy, or something close to being an axiom. Do you disagree?

But it's also something which we can see exists empirically as a general instinct."

Yes, but I would say the instinctual nature does not justify the urge. At some point we chose to acknowledge that urge as morally good, and are at that point implicitly accepting some sort of philosophy/religion. Of course, we could be accepting a personal philosophy that we have made up.

ME: "I don't think there is any objective basis that religions and philosophers do or can use to define morality."

Owl:"Which means you're putting science in conflict with religion again -- you're denying that morality should be informed by objective facts."

No, not exactly. Defining morality is constructing the moral principles of morality. Those principle are beyond objective analysis, but can be informed by science when used to make behavioral decisions. I've gone over this before.

"Completely understood? No, I don't think I would claim that. But I would insist that the methodology of science really is the only way to even approach a proper understanding."

So the bit that's not part of the complete understanding- which bit is that? Can it ever be understood or described by anything? To what field does that last bit apply to, religion, philosophy or science?

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 3, 2009 1:31 PM

Biophysicist123, OK, how does calling an action "moral" accomplish anything beyond elevating the action (and our opinions of ourself) in name only above social imperative (which all social animals have) and self-interest?

I can't think of a single moral principle that is both universal and cannot be explained as 1)necessary for social harmony and/or 2)consonant with ones true (rather than perceived) self-interest. It always makes me a little sucpicious to posit supernatural entities and mechanisms that don't actually do anything.

Posted by: Owlmirror | July 3, 2009 3:23 PM

Before I respond to anything, I think we may have to agree to disagree.

I am not even sure what we are disagreeing about -- you have both agreed with some of what I (and others) have said, then reasserted or restated your words in contradiction to that. I am not entirely sure I understand what you are arguing -- and I am not sure that you do either.

You seem to think morality is governed by instinct in some way, and an instinct-governed morality can only be understood by science.

I think that's a more-or-less accurate summation -- I might want to quibble a bit about semantics and exact meanings, or at least more approximate meanings.

I think morality is decided when we chose a set of moral principles using our reason or instinct some human faculty.

And this, to me, seems both grammatically and semantically incoherent, especially towards the end. I can understand making grammatical errors as the result of rewording a complex thought, but in this case, the meaning of what you were trying to write seems to have gotten lost.

Try again?

But if you were trying to express that moral principles arise from reason and/or instinct, well, I don't see how that is any different from what I have been saying all along.

This decision is implicitly and subconsciously behind most of our decisions, but I don't think that makes morality only and solely instinctual. I also don't know how I could ever convince you of my view.

I don't think you could convince me because I don't think you can coherently make a distinction between "an implicit and subconscious decision" and "an instinctive decision". But feel free to try...

"I would agree that survival being a (generally) good thing is either an axiom of an ethical philosophy, or something close to being an axiom. Do you disagree?

But it's also something which we can see exists empirically as a general instinct."

Yes, but I would say the instinctual nature does not justify the urge.

What would justify it? Does it even make sense to assert that the urge must be "justified"?

Defining morality is constructing the moral principles of morality. Those principle are beyond objective analysis, but can be informed by science when used to make behavioral decisions.

See, this again looks like a contradiction, or at least an inconsistency. If the principles can be informed by science, then science can make an objective analysis of the principles -- where they arise from, and what the extrapolated result of their implementation would be.

"Completely understood? No, I don't think I would claim that. But I would insist that the methodology of science really is the only way to even approach a proper understanding."

So the bit that's not part of the complete understanding- which bit is that? Can it ever be understood or described by anything? To what field does that last bit apply to, religion, philosophy or science?

I am tempted to echo the Buddha here -- these are questions which do not edify.

I am also reminded of David Marjanović's translation of Wittgenstein @#137 :
"Everything, that can be said, can be said clearly. What cannot be said clearly, about that one must stay silent" ( Alles, was sich sagen lässt, das lässt sich klar sagen. Was sich nicht klar sagen lässt, darüber muss man schweigen. )

I would say that the unknown can be speculated about, by philosophers and scientists, and even by religionists -- but the honest thing to do is to acknowledge it as being unknown.

But what religionists all too often do is not speculate, but make dogmatic assertions about the unknown -- which is dishonest, and therefore somewhat immoral.

Posted by: Bryan | July 4, 2009 9:32 PM

If a scientific theory is, " A general explanation of important natural phenomena, developed through extensive and reproducible observations," then my question is: Where is the extensive and reproducible observations made by Darwin when he proposed the theory of evolution? My friend hit me with this question and I cannot answer it, can someone help me.

Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space | July 4, 2009 9:58 PM

Bryan, You've got to be kidding, right? What the hell was the whole Beagle voyage about if not observations of common traits of critters. As to "reproducible" it was there for anyone to see--and indeed, you could call the work of Wallace a reproduction of sorts.

Darwin's notebooks are full of the sorts of painstaking observations that only come with intense concentration and painstaking attention to detail. The theory of evolution was the theory that explained all of this observatoin in an amazingly simple way leading to deep understanding. Dude, read The Origin of Species--it's truly one of the great achievements of the human mind.

Posted by: Kel | July 4, 2009 10:13 PM

Where is the extensive and reproducible observations made by Darwin when he proposed the theory of evolution?

Evolution doesn't live or die with Darwin. It's now been 150 years since publication of The Origin Of Species and there have been millions of scientists working in biology. The scientific literature is filled with falsifiable and repeatable experiments that demonstrate the validity of evolution. Remember that just 2 years after TOOS was published that they found the transitional fossil Archaeopteryx. And since then many more transitional fossils for different lineages have been found. We've now cracked the genetic code and can see the unity of life by looking at the genomes of different species.

The evidence for evolution has well and truly established the theory of evolution as scientific truth. So much so that any new information is merely fine-tuning aspects of the theory as opposed to bringing any new revolution that will overthrow the neo-darwinian synthesis.

Posted by: Owlmirror | August 15, 2009 7:32 PM

What does ontology say about the nature of empiricism?

Alles, was sich sagen lässt, das lässt sich klar sagen. Was sich nicht klar sagen lässt, darüber muss man schweigen.

what does Popper say of empiricism, particularly science?

Many things, none of which support the existence of an interventionist God or the meaningfulness of theorizing a noninterventionist God.

Someone argued parsimony against me earlier. That should oblige them.

I agree that the most parsimonious inference is that you are an equivocating, disingenuous, foul-mouthed, goalpost-shifting hypocrite and a fraud. All very bad hobbits.

Posted by: Carlos teran | November 3, 2009 5:11 PM

Didnt religion and science start out as the same thing? If something was proven in ancient times to be scientifically sound wouldnt the people have taken this as a sign of a creator's acceptance of said act? For an idea to succeed wouldn't some entity have made it so it is possible within our confines of space-time and physics? I know that in andean tradition all things are given a sort of spiritual quality including scientifically derived technologies or ideas.

What i'm trying to say is, the exclusivity and dogma of religion is incompatible with science. But couldn't science BE a religion of sorts?

With new concepts and old perceptions of reality constantly in flux within science I suppose the weaker hearted will fear this idea, but it would cause alot more people to think and question the supposed Whys for how society, being and our relations to one another should or can be shaped rather than blindly and unquestionably following what is.

It seems most are easily lead astray but hard to see the truth.