Will we ever stop running away from the source of the problem?

I am a religious person. I am also a science professional. I think those who feel there is neccessarily an incompatibility between faith and science are victims of poor religious education. There is a lot of anti-Catholic propaganda in the world, but I feel that I must point out that it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago.
Remember Gregor Mendel and George Lemaitre?

What humans need is the best education that they can receive.

Science education should be done with no regard for people's delusions and superstitious beliefs.

#1:
No, religion and science are not compatible. They are entirely different.

From the article:

"Mr. Campbell quietly rejoiced in their final draft. Under the proposed new standards, high school students could be tested on how fossils and DNA provide evidence for evolution. Florida students would even be expected to learn how their own species fits into the tree of life."

I must be out of touch with curriculum standards. This is cause for rejoicing? This shouldn't be a victory - it should be a given.

Teaching reality- why is it so hard? Talking snakes and 6000 years old earth is beyond absurd. How about that secularism thingy?

Wow am I glad there are REAL teachers out there.

If you keep doing that, how long will it take before you have a lack of scientists? When will you stazt falling behind? And the important question: Why do some people want that to happen?

Ummm.... Yeah they are different... so they don't neccessarily have to interfere with eacthother. It only becomes a problem if one thinks that God wouldn't have created the universe to act according to principles that can be discovered through science and reason. Or if one wants to deny evidence (such as fossils) by saying that the devil just planted it to confuse believers.

So a religion should be evidence based? Except for the existence of god, of course. That's one thing we still can believe without any shred of evidence, which of course opens the door for beliefs in an infinite number of things. But why?

Before we get completely off target, might I suggest that people start linking to (or writing) rebuttals of the book "Evolution Exposed"? It is mentioned in the NY Times article (and thus its claims are not dissected), and a basic google search ('evolution exposed', 'evolution exposed review') fails to bring up any non positive reviews.

No, religion and science are not compatible. They are entirely different.

Only according to your definition of what religion ought to be. With respect to what we actually find in real world religions, many of them do attempt to address questions that science is much better equipped to tackle, which is where the conflict occurs.

The "non-overlapping magisteria" is wishful thinking.

Dan:

Where did PZ say Catholicism was the only problem religion? Where did he even mention it in this post?

Now, I think I know what you meant, and I'm more than a little sympathetic. Nevertheless, I'm firmly in the camp of people like Sleeping at the Console here when I observe that science and religion are not, ultimately, compatible. This really shouldn't be hard to realize. Yes, plenty of religious people are good, practicing scientists. This is classic human compartmentalization and cheerful irrationality. One only has to think of the words "faith" and "evidence" to see how science and religion differ at their cores.

What sort of "good religious education" would allow this alleged compatibility? One that crams God into all the unknown, indeterminate, vague, untestable gaps in our knowledge of the universe--or strives to create new unfounded dimensions or gaps to hold It? How is a universe that operates under (material, regular) principles that can be discovered through science and reason with a God waiting Deistically in the wings different from a universe that operates as such without one?

Quote from Frank Rich's editorial in today's NYT:

"We don't have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they're too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.)"

I must be out of touch with curriculum standards. This is cause for rejoicing? This shouldn't be a victory - it should be a given.

Our new public school science standards in Florida are a big improvement from the old standards which did not even mention the word "evolution". Now Florida has successfully joined the 21st century instead of being stuck in the 18th century. I agree it's ridiculous it's taken this long for Florida to properly teach biology, but we are lucky the new standards survived the relentless attacks of the Christian extremists who infest our state.

it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago. - Dan

Some do. Even those who don't, are required by their church to believe all sorts of other crazy nonsense - that a virgin gave birth, that people have been resurrected after dying, that illnesses have been and still are cured supernaturally, that a man in a dress mumbling a few words can turn a cracker (invisibly) into the flesh of someone dead for centuries. It's only because most people in western societies have been brought up to believe this particular set of myths, or at least to respect them, that they are not recognised as nonsense on a par with belief in zombies, witches who can steal mens' penises, shamans' ability to commune with the ancestors, etc. They are no more compatible with science than any of these other beliefs.

Dan -- Thanks! I'll sure sleep better at night knowing that the child-rapist-coddling, anti-condom African-AIDS-supporting, homophobic bigots that constitute the Catholic magisterium are so well educated.

It's amazing to me, the power of Catholicism to drain its victims of any remnant of an actual conscience.

Pz, sadly, the theistic evolution approach is the best way to win hearts and minds to science; then, with the seeds of a scientific education sown, let them struggle to the higher itellectual echelons. But don't begrudge Campbell an approach that gets students to listen.

Pz, sadly, the theistic evolution approach is the best way to win hearts and minds to science; then, with the seeds of a scientific education sown, let them struggle to the higher itellectual echelons. But don't begrudge Campbell an approach that gets students to listen. Yours would lose them forever and radicalize a new generation of anti-evolution culture warriors against us. Pragmatism in high school; let them get farther on their own if they can, but first, do no harm. "imagine no religion," sure: but that's as far as you'll get with that approach.

Another wonderful question, in my opinion, is Kent Hovind's (hi, Kent!) favorite: "Were you there?". Isn't it a great opportunity to explain what the historical approach in science is and how we can learn about what happened when we weren't there? Add a few words about police investigations, and you've won.

Whether science has any quarrel with religion today depends upon the state of scientific knowledge now, not what scientists knew in the past. It also requires grasping at least the outlines and contours of the entire sweep of that knowledge, as it is all to easy to be a careful, scientific reasoner within one's own narrow specialization while cheerfully claiming that the fingerprints of Jehovah are over there, in the other fellow's field. (He's saying the same thing about yours.)

It only becomes a problem if one thinks that God wouldn't have created the universe to act according to principles that can be discovered through science and reason.

Why not throw out the Bible, then, and start using a holy text which actually describes such a god? Job will have to be cut from the canon, of course. We could, in addition, file the Virgin Birth in the same folder as the generation of Aphrodite from sea-foam, dismiss Laban's goats as a folktale from the days when people believed in sympathetic magic, and quietly shake our heads at the picture Genesis 1 gives of a sky made of beaten metal sheets. . . No doubt the Gideons would be pleased at the reduction in their printing costs.

Sorry. iPhone comment fail.

Richard Feynman once said "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

Seen this way, the scientific method is a type of applied skepticism. The practice of science is the act of winnowing out truth from a sea of guesses, suppositions, and assertions. It is a way of unfooling ourselves. It is the only tool we have for distinguishing between what is and what is not.

To believe in the existence of god despite the complete absence of current evidence is a violation of this basic principle of science. Even if god exists, the faith that he does cannot be justified by the current evidence. Thus, religious faith is an act of intentional self-deception. A conscious decision to embrace irrationality. It is perversely wrong to consider the act of deliberately fooling oneself "compatible" with the a method dedicated to eliminating such biases. Religious faith is in no sense compatible with science.

Faith in the existence of the unseen and undetectable is about as anti-science position as is possible to adopt. Plenty of practicing scientists do, of course. This is not evidence of compatibility between science and religion, however, but of human beings enormous capacity for irrationality and contradiction.

As a HS bio teacher, I can sympathize with the teacher in the article. I love teaching evolution and go full bore in doing so. But recently, I had my superintendent allow students to leave class and get "alternative" assignments during the formal evolution unit. Fortunately, when I fought back and refused his request to give a creationism lesson, and he found the school board sympathetic to my view, he re-evaluated policies and admitted he was wrong.

But while I can tell my students what the science is and that it is supported by evidence and other pseudo-scientific view are wrong, I do have to take an exception to what PZ said. You can't tell them their religious beliefs are wrong or say that god doesn't exist for the same constitutional reasons we can't be made to teach creationism. When a student asks about the probability of evolution happening, I would love to say "a lot higher than the existence of talking snakes, magic trees and Middle Eastern sky gods" but I can't. It's a science class and we need to stick to that and not take time evaluating the efficacy of any religious statement.

Dan @ # 1 Your statement that "there is necessarily an incompatability between faith and science are victims of poor religious education", is appalling in it's irrational meaning, and ambiguous in the general meaning. So this means that one who is deficient in the basics of chemistry and physics are victims of poor science education? Your remark is totally incompatible with the tenets of science and reason. We know that Jupiter and its moons exist because we have photos and data that prove that they are there, whereas there is no proof whatsoever that imaginary gods invented by humans exist in any form you deign to explain. There is absolutely no compatability between science and religion; one is the real and tangible world that science has proven, the other of imaginary gods that will never be proven to have never existed. My use of double negatives only enhances my total disregard and contempt for insane ideas and of the minds that hold them.

ames #19 "Sorry. iPhone comment fail."

Eat up Martha

You know, it's been 5 years and I'm still amazed how sheltered I was in high school. Creationism wasn't even acknowledged as existing, evolution was rigorously taught, and Inherit the Wind was a required movie for biology classes, which was itself a class required to graduate. But guess what, it was a public school in New Hampshire. Please don't paint all states with the same brush, some of aren't preoccupied with religion... Heck, we had a bill making wearing seat belts mandatory, and another enabling same-sex marriage: the seat belt bill was more controversial (and did not pass, unlike the same-sex marriage bill).

As a teacher in the south, and a new teacher at this school, I could get fired for violating someone's religious beliefs and I'd have no recourse. This is a culture where faculty meetings are opened with prayers, every athlete is expected to join the FCA, and every day has a moment of silence for people to pray if they want. We also have no unions to protect our rights. Fighting this culture could mean me losing my job, and frankly in this economy I can't afford to be that idealistic.

I do not kowtow to the kids' religious beliefs, but I also avoid certain topics so I don't have to. (As a chemistry teacher, I can avoid evolution most of the time.) I choose my words carefully to be just ambiguous enough that my point gets made without directly attacking religion. Please be careful when blaming teachers!

This quote represents the specific arrogance that I despise:

"Evolution is telling you that you're like an animal,"

What makes humans so much better than the rest of the animal kingdom? These people can't stomach the fact that humans ARE animals.

This is exactly the type of inherent ignorance that religion purports.

JT wrote:

I do not kowtow to the kids' religious beliefs, but I also avoid certain topics so I don't have to.

That is kowtowing.

Holbach - you say, "So this means that one who is deficient in the basics of chemistry and physics are victims of poor science education?"

ummm.... yes..

Look trying to generalize a theory and judge an entire religion, or all religions based on the behaviours of only a portion of its' members - isn't really a rational, or scientific approach. Wouldn't that be like me stating that ALL science teachers are dummies because P.Z. gave the example of Ms. Yancey in the post?

"A potentially falsifiable or verifiable god is a legitimate target of scientific investigation...."

The anti-science dogma of creationism, in contradicting the evidence, is a valid target. Students should be made aware that there is no support for it in peer-reviewed scientific literature and that it is not an alternative scientific view. To use it as a point for refuting religion in general in a public school classroom, however, would violate the Establishment Clause. Campbell was in the right.

While I agree about his "chicken-hearted" answer, I have to say I think that the high school classroom is not the place to address such a thing. They shouldn't be talking about personal religious matters at all, IMO. For that matter, trying to gain the students trust on this matter would probably be easier with that small compromise (don't mistake me- I'm not saying the "F" word).

#25: This is a culture where faculty meetings are opened with prayers

JT, I can understand your not wanting to be fired, but this praying at faculty meetings should not be tolerated. If I worked at a place where I had to listen to prayers, I couldn't keep quiet about it no matter how bad the economy was. I'm not sure what I would say. Perhaps I would as politely as possible tell my coworkers they should pray in their closets because I don't want to listen to them show off how holy they are. If I didn't care about being fired I would tell them to grow up and stop acting like idiots.

WOW WOW while all of our Bogeyman competitors are busy studying "nature" using science to get a competitive advantage and bring their societies prosperity we have to be soooo careful not to offend the religious prejudices of the religious ignorant lest they cut the education budget even more (to get rid of the waste) that we barely keep up with the past let lone make any advances
without the help of immigrant scientist.

it just seems so irrational, now if it was football instead of science and politics it would be entirely different.

my feelings and thoughts about all this drive me to despair until all the words collide in my fingers. It like some bad dream novel by Sinclair lewis or Bradbury let me wake up soon.

What you're dealing with. (Just found on Reddit)
http://ufailpix.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/freethinker.jpg

A wee bit OT, but related subject: John McCain at Saddleback clearly said (and he and supporters are proud of his "definitiveness" versus the wishy-wonky answer that Obama gave): human life begins at conception. If McCain really means it, then he must outlaw those forms of contraception that prevent implantation of fertilized eggs and not just "abortion" at *any* stage. How many voters realize the implications of that? I think they need to be reminded, since so many of them (and compliant SCL, MSMemia) think McCain is a moderate/maverick with no intentions of instituting hard-line conservative values.

The only point that I take issue with is that this is an "indictment of the educational system in this country." Rather, I would argue it is an indictment of the educational system in Florida. I teach AP biology and chemistry on long island and I never have to deal with this twaddle.

Of course, all of us in NY are godless swine...

But we aren't judging all religions based on the behaviors of only a portion of their members, Dan. We're saying that there are things fundamental to the very definitions of "science" and "religion" that are responsible for this incompatibility.

And I'd suggest you read Dawkins (God Delusion is a good example) and earlier posts from PZ to note that we think it's pretty weak to protest that "oh, you're just unfairly citing the worst examples of religion." The sad fact is that the anti-science, anti-reason elements of the dominant religions in our culture are not lunatic fringes. They are large, loud and strong. And when one considers both explicit supporters and passive assenters--the people who usually stay quiet but when pressed, admit their beliefs largely align with the "fringe" and who abstain from any effort to oppose them--we think these people are typically in the majority of the membership.

Oh, and MH @ 23: Bwaaahaha!

So to the science teachers here, do you suffer repercussions for failing kids who give erroneous answers? I'm with PZ. If they want to make a religious statement on their science homeworks and exams, let them. Then they can learn a nice life lesson about dealing with failure.

As for mandatory prayers in the AM, I see two approaches (but I work for the gummint, so I'll not be in that predicament): can you ask for a Santeria commemoration? Tell them you'll bring a live chicken. Or just refuse to hold back on the giggles.

kdaddy wrote

But while I can tell my students what the science is and that it is supported by evidence and other pseudo-scientific view are wrong, I do have to take an exception to what PZ said. You can't tell them their religious beliefs are wrong or say that god doesn't exist for the same constitutional reasons we can't be made to teach creationism.

I wish the fire-breathing atheists on this board would read that carefully and understand it. In the public schools it is not permissible to advocate for or against a religious view. Commenters here have excoriated John Freshwater for pushing his religious views in the classroom, but exactly the same constitution governs public school teachers who explicitly deride their students' religions views. In addition to being wholly ineffective, it's unconstitutional, kiddies.

No one on this board can challenge my pro-science and anti-creationism credentials (or my atheist credentials, for that matter). I have been involved in this battle for years, starting with writing for the Committees of Correspondence on Evolution Education (predecessor to the NCSE) in the 1980s. The involvement includes having worked for years at the local and state levels, lobbying state and local school board members, speaking at local and state board meetings on the issue, providing materials and support to board members and to teachers, working for and contributing dollars to the campaigns of candidates in state and local school board elections, writing letters to newspapers, all the things citizens can do to affect policies. Hell, this fall a member of a local school board will be taking my course on the history of the evolution/creationism controversy.

My point is not what I've done, it's what so many here have not done. My bet is that damned few commenters on this board have done much of anything about the problem beyond commenting on this board. It's real easy to be an anonymous fire-breather in a comment thread on a web board; it's a lot harder to make the time and money commitment to do the actual work on the ground, the political work. Too few do that. It's easy to write a comment here in a few minutes and imagine that one has done something useful. But one has not.

I get a little tired of smack-talking commenters who have not the faintest idea what these teachers face every day. kdaddy has it right, and should be supported to the hilt.

Get off your asses and get out there and do the actual work.

Ms. Yancey and her blizzards have a point. Who's ever heard of a bird with scales?

*

One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can't be answered is that it is a bad question -- it's not even wrong. Science doesn't answer it, but then no discipline can, because it's a garbage question like "what color are invisible elephants?"

Whatever the answer is/if there is one, that statement shows lack of understanding of philosophical reasoning. It is debatable whether "falsifiability" is a proper criterion of meaningfulness; that's what Popper thought but well, "he isn't God." We can even cast doubt on falsifiability with examples like: specific unrecorded events cannot be back-engineered in Laplacian fashion due to the uncertainty principle - but most would admit, "here we are now saying specific things" etc. when talking etc. If LP was literally true, then there couldn't be a specific "what is happening now" since it would be inaccessible in principle to future (or even most current) investigators.

The philosophical treatment of the question (which isn't even related to the issue of religious traditions, textual revelation etc.) works off abstract issues like necessary and sufficient existence/being, the awkwardness in terms of principle of sufficient reason for some possible worlds but not others to exist, etc. The inexplicably still-popular attitude" "This universe just exists, and that's that" is logically very shallow. WITSION is not ultimately about applying already-granted laws to their outcomes. Really, it is logically clumsy for a universe like ours to "exist" but not all the others with other properties to exist also. I haven't gotten good answers yet to the problem: one possible universe existing and not others is just like if the number 23 was reified in brass numerals etc., but not other numbers. Hey, they are all numbers, who or what can "pick out" one or some of them to be "real" instead of the others? Being "real" is too fundamental of an abstract property to logically attach only to universe/s with a restricted set of peculiar principles, or even a set of them however huge like the string-theory "landscape." (In logic, "peculiar" means properties that aren't logically necessary, like a fine structure constant around 1/137 - and I mean unrestricted "logically necessary" with no cheating based on circular reasoning that recycles what's already like that.)

As far as I'm concerned, either "everything exists" (which causes problems I can explain better later) or "someone/thing" somehow "manages" what exists and what does not. Philosophically sub-literate pretend metaphors and facile positivism just don't cut it, whatever else may.

RBH and kdaddy, I wouldn't push you to deny anyone's religion in class. It's a fine line you have to balance upon. Can you at least deflect,like saying "this is not a comparative religion class"? Well,unless it IS a comparative religion class.

kdaddy @ 21: "I do have to take an exception to what PZ said. You can't tell them their religious beliefs are wrong or say that god doesn't exist for the same constitutional reasons we can't be made to teach creationism"

Well, let's be clear. I don't think that PZ is proposing that public school teachers stand up in front of their classes and announce that religion is wrong, god doesn't exist, etc. I think he is proposing that, if the scientific curriculum conflicts with a student's religious beliefs, that the teacher shouldn't back off, excuse the students from learning the material, or be obliged to spout mealy-mouthed platitudes about non-overlapping magisteria.

I also think PZ is talking about more than just what public school teachers can do in class. The issue is whether public discussions of evolution and science education should tiptoe around the fact that in most cases, religion does conflict with science.

FYI, Minnesota's science standards are about to go public (1-2 weeks iirc). For those living in MN, please take some time and look them over and comment. If you find problems or even like them as is, say so, because there will be people who don't like science all that much who comment ad nauseum. It will be helpful to those of us on the committee to have some ammunition to fire back. One thing I've found is that even though there are, at worst, a few anti-science folks (creationists or creationist leanings) on the committee, the talking points of the insane have been raised.

Let's stop dancing around it. The U.S. is close to becoming a genuine theocracy. What will put the American Taliban into complete control are the nimrod idiots themselves; the vast majority who refute science and rational thought.

The education system (what an oxymoron, BTW) is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm simply at a loss for a suggestion how to turn this around.

I feel like vomiting my lungs out. That's how disgusted I am with these morons.

Dan @ 28 Why is it so demanding and difficult to slough off all religious nonsense and just get on with the ordeal of living a sensible and meaningful life without the trappings of irrationality, especially the stultifying stigma of religion? I assure you that you will still be able to brush your teeth, start your car, and perform all the quotidian things you do without the senseless additions of invoking imaginary entities. Do you say, as you brush your teeth, "this is only possible because of you, dear god". Of course you don't, and neither is it necessary to appeal and invoke something that does not exist to explain your existence. Why do you find it so difficult to comprehend that religion has the stamp of human invention on it since we developed brains to give birth and illogical meaning to gods? It is not your fault that there are no gods; this insane idea was drummed into you as a malleable child, and surely held onto as an adult because you refuse to accept the human development of all irrationalities, especially religion. You may wish it to be true, but it does not make it so, and this only proves your chosen inability to accept rational facts as a telling weakness of mind and character on your part. Prove to me that your imaginary god exists with unequivocal evidence and I will definitely believe it. But you will never prove it and will go to your grave after having lived
needlessly with that irrational belief. And you most assuredly will not prove it when you are dead, as your mindless belief will perish with you and only be perpetrated in those still living with a like belief. So sad to have wasted a life on lifeless irrationalities.

I find it a little bit weird that they would rather be related to dirt than other animals.

How exactly does being told you're a dirt golem "teach people to lead a good life and not do wrong."? I don't see the connection.

BobC #12 "Now Florida has successfully joined the 21st century instead of being stuck in the 18th century."

Not really, Florida may have taken this one grudging step toward the 19th century but that step must be proven by some result. There is no output to measure yet.

I'm glad my son will be going to school in New York. This would never fly here. Religion is a handicap.

RBH: I wouldn't deride anyones' religion in a class. Ever. Nor would I actively seek to raise the topic. Are you suggesting, however, that it's inappropriate to deconstruct bad claims made in a class, whatever their origin? Are you saying we should just clam up, say "oh, well, I can't respond to that because it's religious?" I get the impression that you're reading a bit too much into the fire-breathing here. Though I readily admit I know I don't speak for all of us in that.

Neil B: As one of the philosophically sub-literate, could you put your point about "the universe just is" in layman's terms to me? I always see this response associated with the religious "everything has a cause, the universe's is God, who just is" argument, with the assumption that if we're going to slap the "it just is" label on something, we might as well cut an apparently frivolous layer (God) out of the system. But I get the impression you've got a different approach...?

If a child has a religious belief that the Holocaust never happened, or that there are 27 states in the USA, could a teacher tell them that they are wrong? I would say taht any teacher who didnt correct errors of that nature should be fired. But somehow if it is a religious belief that the world is 6000 years old, we CANT tell them that they are wrong? Is that the way it is meant to be?

A few points:
"I think a big reason evolutionists believe what they believe is they don't want to have to be ruled by God," said Josh Rou, 17.
This is a pretty presumptuous statement. Is there a god? Plus, it reminds me of something someone once posted on Daylight Atheism: "These people don't really believe in freedom and liberty, they believe in servitude and their master has all the trappings of a Stalinist dictator or a plantation slave owner." Who are you to tell me that I have to be ruled by God?

"Evolution is telling you that you're like an animal," Bryce agreed. "That's why people stand strong with Christianity, because it teaches people to lead a good life and not do wrong." So, evolution somehow robs people of dignity because it says that humans evolved from other species (although that does not prevent a person from choosing to be good). Yet christianity tells us that we are created from dirt, inherently sinful and deserve death. And people think that is uplifting.

Okay.

Posted by: Greg Esres | August 24, 2008 2:36 PM

No, religion and science are not compatible. They are entirely different.

Only according to your definition of what religion ought to be. With respect to what we actually find in real world religions, many of them do attempt to address questions that science is much better equipped to tackle, which is where the conflict occurs.

The "non-overlapping magisteria" is wishful thinking.

Oh crap. Who's got the wishful thinking? Religion is just fairy tales. It has nothing necessary, rational or useful to say about the world in which we live. This includes the human condition and the mythical "soul."

Nothing that religion 'does' cannot be explained better through science. Even abstract things like love, truth and beauty can be explained better by science than religion.

All religion does is poison people's minds through its shared delusion and is nothing more than a mental illness spread through a viral meme that corrupts, or even destroys, everything it infects. And for every positive benefit we may kid ourselves to believe, there is a negative that far outweighs the positives.

Neil B said

As far as I'm concerned, either "everything exists" (which causes problems I can explain better later) or "someone/thing" somehow "manages" what exists and what does not.

But why would this particular someone/thing exist to manage what else exists and what does not, as opposed to all the other possible someones/things? Wouldn't a different manager necessarily manage things differently? Looks like your solution suffers from the same problems it seeks to correct. It appears that you either haven't thought very deeply about your theism, or you are trying very hard to give an intellectual gloss to a profoundly bad idea that you refuse to relinquish for non-intellectual reasons.

Aren't we missing the important point in this story? Florida students must now be taught evolution! That's a win people. Sure, science didn't pitch a shut out here and there's still plenty of work to do but let's take a moment to celebrate the advance of reason when we see it.

Post #20. Best post I've read in a LONG, LONG time. Hat tip to you.

How exactly does being told you're a dirt golem "teach people to lead a good life and not do wrong."? I don't see the connection.

The Master decides right and wrong. A golem must obey its master.

Neil B, you have quite the topic drift in comment 40. Each sentence has a slightly different topic than its neighbors... this makes the whole text very confusing to read.

Really, it is logically clumsy for a universe like ours to "exist" but not all the others with other properties to exist also.

So what? Why do you act as if that were a problem? Go ahead, believe in a multiverse, believe even in the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics. Not falsifiable at present, AFAIK.

And what exactly do you mean by "clumsy"? Is there some law of universal symmetry and justice that I've overlooked?

Moses @ #55, thank you for seeing past the typos. My kingdom for an edit button!

RHH #47:

Not really, Florida may have taken this one grudging step toward the 19th century but that step must be proven by some result. There is no output to measure yet.

I agree. This is the first year for the new standards. At least now biology teachers are able to tell the Christian thugs who harass them that they are required to teach evolution.

A big question is the quality of our biology teachers. I doubt many of them are as competent as Mr. Campbell in the New York Times article. I also think a significant percent of Florida's biology teachers are creationists like Teresa Yancey who tells her students "I think God did it." These bad teachers should be fired but I think that's unlikely to ever happen in Florida. The parents and students, who are mostly creationists, are not likely to complain about bad teachers. They prefer to attack the best teachers.

St. Augustine in the fourth century knew that the story of Genesis was an allegory, for Christ's sake!

As a high school student in Florida, and one whose favorite subject probably would be biology, I can say that teachers suck. Most teachers of biology have that theistic evolution bent. You know, where they pretend like science can't really work all that well but it's probably right; oh and they can't explain this random question so ha, their favorite magic man exists. Their understanding of mechanisms dealing with evolution are really rather poor, and guess why

I once created some "Religion Based Ignorance Indices of Some Christian-based Countries" based upon a country's percentage of belief in the bible, the devil, hell and finally evolution. It was simple, I used some statistics from ReligiousTolerance.Org ad others. I simply divided the percentage in a country for each religious-based belief (bible, devil, hell) by the percentage of persons with a reasoned belief in evolution and then averaged them for a composite index. Thus an ignorance index of one (1.0) meant that equal persons believed in both the religious beliefs as evolution.

The composite index for the United States was the only country ABOVE one - at 1.21. We shared the top in religious-based composite ignorance indices with such countries as Northern Ireland (0.80), Poland (0.70), the Philippines (0.61), and Ireland (0.42). Other countries such as New Zealand, Norway, Great Britian, and Germany were all under 0.25.

What a country!

Neil B,

In the context of science the questions are "Is there evidence for it?" and "Where's your data?". So while all of that may be wonderful in a philosophy class it has no bearing in a science class. In a science class the analogy is perfect. And a philosophy class is where such things, to include god and religion, should be discussed.

I read all that and think that it's so much intellectual masturbation. And about as productive. But I'll not go into a philosophy or religion class and start going on about it. The religious should show science class the same respect.

rrt wrote

RBH: I wouldn't deride anyones' religion in a class. Ever. Nor would I actively seek to raise the topic. Are you suggesting, however, that it's inappropriate to deconstruct bad claims made in a class, whatever their origin? Are you saying we should just clam up, say "oh, well, I can't respond to that because it's religious?" I get the impression that you're reading a bit too much into the fire-breathing here. Though I readily admit I know I don't speak for all of us in that.

Nope, far from suggesting that, I'm suggesting (via my remarks about supporting teachers and educating school board members about the issue) that we arm teachers with the information and background they need to counter the bad claims on an appropriate basis: science. Bear in mind that a fair proportion of science teachers in the public schools do not have degrees in the disciplines they teach. Further bear in mind that many public school biology teachers have never had a course in evolutionary biology. They are unarmed in the face of bullshit like the Disco Institute's Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher or Hovind's Lies in the Textbooks.

Every scientist on this board ought to read the "Ten Questions" and watch the "Lies" video and find the various rebuttals that are out there and make the rebuttals available to public school science teachers. Make friends with those teachers, particularly if you have children in the school, and support them.

One of the problems we had in Ohio was getting scientists to actually stand up and speak publicly about the issue. Too many think it's not their problem, that their own research (mostly) and teaching (secondarily) are more important than being active in supporting honest public school science education. They'd maybe sign a statement that someone else wrote, but that's about the extent of it, and it was discouraging to those of us who were putting in the time and effort and money over years. If scientists in this country expect to maintain the level of public support and financing they have enjoyed for the 50 or so years following WWII and Sputnik, they had better get off their asses and do the political and public educational work necessary to ensure that the people coming up through the public schools learn and appreciate honest science.

There's more (I may write a Panda's Thumb post on this if I can find time) but finally, learn the difference between atheist and secular. The latter is what's germane to the science education issue in the public schools. I'm fully aware that PZ and Dawkins are fighting a larger war, one that I fully sympathize with, but I'm also aware that the war will be won or lost in the multitude of small and large battles in public schools, and that is a political battleground, not a scientific one or even a religious one. The very first article I wrote for the Committees of Correspondence on Evolution Education in 1987 made exactly that point, and it's still valid. If we lose politically at the local and state board of education levels we're screwed, regardless of what the actual science is. Look at Kansas. Look at Ohio. In neither case did we win on the science as such at the state level. The wins, such as they were, were political.

Find good candidates and get them elected and stay in contact with them and lobby them. Support good science teachers with time and materials. Organize with like-minded people and stay vigilant. That and only that will win the science wars.

"That's the dark evil gnawing at the heart of the American public."

That's a way-nice way to put it, PZ!

I remember a video game, "Zombies Ate My Neighbor?" The religious are like those zombies in that game.

RBH: Right on. :)

#64

Yes please make an easy rebuttal to the "10 things" and "Lies in the textbooks" for us!

Who wants to give me ideas for how to counter the "I just don't believe it" students when I've listed countless evolutionary examples and gone through comparative embryology and biochemistry and blah blah blah. What I've been telling them is that if they want to debate it with me, they can stay after school, but funny, noone ever does!

Any ideas for us teachers? And remember, we can't tell our students that they are mindless fairy tale worshippers. Also keep in mind that if some teachers skillfully deal with these indoctrinated students, perhaps they will one day begin to question their religious backgrounds and end up on OUR side!!!

Blue Nine: " Yet christianity tells us that we are created from dirt, inherently sinful and deserve death. And people think that is uplifting."

Sure, it's uplifting. For a certain definition of uplifting, at least... It tells us strongly that life sucks (which is congruent with experience, on the whole), gives a reason why (a colorful, entertaining one, if not very reasonable) and leads us to expect much better after death (but only after death). I makes perfect sense, in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way.

I find it somewhat depressing to think that a world without religion is not going to be a world without evil.

I still think it'd be a better place, though.

It is debatable whether "falsifiability" is a proper criterion of meaningfulness; that's what Popper thought - Neil B.

No it isn't. Indeed, he explicitly denied it. He thought (wrongly IMAO) that it was the criterion of whether a claim was scientific.

Sure, it's uplifting. For a certain definition of uplifting, at least... It tells us strongly that life sucks (which is congruent with experience, on the whole), gives a reason why (a colorful, entertaining one, if not very reasonable) and leads us to expect much better after death (but only after death). It makes perfect sense, in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way.

This made me smile

Freidenker, #69:

I'm not sure what people mean when they refer to "religion". If religion simply means beliefs based on irrational thinking (a definition that I don't use myself), then I doubt that we will ever have a world without irrational beliefs, at least unless the human race comes to an end. In that case, it will be without evil since evil is an mental concept created by humans.

I think this is indicative of another problem, namely that so many schools today act as though it is their job not to educate students but to "protect" them from the teacher and any possible discomfort that might come along with the learning process (like, say, homework, or actually reading stuff). A friend of mine is a HS English teacher, and she is constantly battling the administration because they will entertain ANY nonsense put forth by students or parents. Kid doesn't turn in his homework? Teacher's fault for not calling the parents and telling them about the assignment. Kid doesn't revise his paper? Teacher's fault for not...I dunno, following him home and standing over his shoulder while he does it? Definitely her fault though.

That sort of thing. Incredible disrespect for teachers and the entire enterprise of education. How soon before a kid can graduate without reading a word because he was illiterate and reading made him feel bad about himself?

So I can only imagine the tension when you inject religion into the mix. It's an incredibly depressing situation. To me, the truism that "creationism is not science" should nip things in the bud: science class is for science. You're welcome to walk out and call it BS and cry to your pastor or religion teacher, but keep it out of the science classroom. But what good is rationality against institutions that wallow in gilded ignorance.

"St. Augustine in the fourth century knew that the story of Genesis was an allegory, for Christ's sake!"
Thank You Davis....

I don't know how one can be a scientist and not be in awe at the mystery of exsistence. I guess that is why I see no contradiction between science and faith. There may be some things that a scientific experiment can't prove - yet.... but that doesn't prove that the 'thing' doesn't exsist. One may try to make the argument that one should live as though the 'thing' doesn't exsist, but remember, there was a time when science had not proven gravity. Remember too, that our concept of the sub-atomic world is just that - a concept. Humans try their best to come up with a model of how the 'particles' or 'waves' are, but it boils down to us trying to explain what we are observing.

The believer feels that what they observe/experience DOES have as its' best explanation - God.

Here is a hymn that an 'observer' wrote a long time ago. He is Ephraim the Syrian.

Oh good lover of mankind! If Thy grace pours forth upon the grass, the flowers and all earthly vegetation in its time, then the more so shalt Thou grant to Thy servant that which he requests of Thee.

For the air becomes clear and the birds adorn their voices with varied melodies, singing glory to Thy great wisdom. All the earth is clothed with a raiment of many-colored flowers woven without human hands, and is glad and celebrates the holy day.

Water also my heart with the dew of Thy grace, Oh good Lover of mankind! Just as a sown field cannot sprout and nourish its plants without sufficient rainfall, so my heart is incapable of producing things pleasing to Thee and of bearing fruits of truth without Thy grace.

Lo, the rain nourishes the plants and the trees are crowned with diverse flowers. May the dew of Thy grace also enlighten my mind and may it adorn my heart with the flowers of contrition, humility, love and patience.

May my prayer draw near to Thee, Oh Lord! Grant me Thy holy seed, that I might bring Thee a harvest of sheaves abundant in good fruits and say, "Glory to Him Who gave me this that I might bring it unto Him," and bow down to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I know what you mean, Irene, but I think the point technically still stands. After all, their argument is based on the specific assumption that your status as an animal and ancestry of "lesser" animals, if true, degrades you. Coming from dirt, then, would necessarily be relevant, whatever magic was done to it--otherwise the "magic" could just as easily have made "coming from 'monkeys'" kosher as it does dirt. It's a silly argument, nevermind the silliness of attempting to deny our animal status in the first place.

I live just across the bridge from there...this area is dipped in religion and sprinkled with fundamentalism...

Dan,
Keep your stupid prayers, to a non-existent being that would be evil if it did exist, to yourself.

"I find it somewhat depressing to think that a world without religion is not going to be a world without evil".

I've often wondered if we NEED a world without religion? Why not a world where religion simply "keeps up" with humanity?

What would be so wrong to have a religion where goodness and good deeds were worshipped to help alleviate our anxieties over the basic facts that we contend with?

A religion where that which is known is accepted, and that which is a mystery is acknowledged as such, and the very fact that each of us "made it" through the maze of other possible outcomes and "got here" was cause for rejoicement and celebration hallelujah! and all that?

There could be a book that teaches moral lessons with allegorical tales and shows us the historical tapestry of our march toward our present condition?

Imagine, a religious book that describes Hitler's evil and the good deeds done by good-deed-doers from all over the world? A book that shows where we actually came from and how we dispersed across the planet...

Would that be an evil thing?

Now, if we can just find an epileptic "seer" to claim they were "given" this book for humanity...

Thanks RBH.

I don't want to be misinterpreted either. I've had students say things like "Adam and Eve are good enough for me" and "Well, I believe in God." I cannot disagree with or battle them on that point because of their religious rights. However, if they bring up any of the ID/creationist pseudoscientific claims like "the eye is too complex to evolve," I will unmercilessly point out what is wrong about the statement and all the evidence that supports the claim that it did evolve while being as polite as I can toward the student him or herself.

TrueBob @ #37:
If a student states their religious beliefs on a test, my state's (IN) law prevents me for giving negative consequences to them, nor would I in any situation. But if they don't answer the questions with the correct scientific response as well, they most certainly will not gain credit. Other than the students who were taken from my class and didn't take the test, I've never actually had a student fail to answer the question as asked though.

Nick - I was hoping that when people read what I posted they would find themselves praying by accident....

By the way - Gott means 'God' in German.....

I'm gratified to have gotten intelligent and even-tempered answers this time to my Socratic twiddlings. I tried to shoe-horn pretty much the whole outline of the questioning about the subject into one package typed in a few minutes (borrowed from another post of mine, but still), and it could hardly be elegant. Not such bad points in reply, and I appreciate the hit against the "equally unfalsifiable" speculations of multiple worlds, etc. (That's right, thinkers have little more cause to throw them around than the idea of "God" despite the supposed "scientific" veneer, but they are still popular. Maybe because they can serve as a foil against the awkward existence of a single universe that just happens to be like this (as I already discussed), friendly to life to boot, etc. Just as in politics, whether something is intellectually "acceptable" usually depends on whose ox is being gored.)

I also fully agree that the question doesn't belong in science class, barring unexpected literal evidence of meddling from "out there." However, PZ made a philosophical point IMHO with apparent attempted reference to core "intelligibility" in the general sense. BTW, "clumsy" means that something with definite features is "picked out" without explanation - per the example of exclusive reification of the number 23, it is indeed a high-level "symmetry" problem.

H.H. | August 24, 2008 4:26 PM: The big distinction between my critique of the awkward uniqueness of "this universe" versus "someone/thing" somehow managing all the modally real possible worlds is, the specificity of the former versus the generality of definition of the latter. This world is a *particular example* that we actually have, so I have actual features in hand to wonder, "Why these features and not others instead"?

But, I refer by definition to the abstract category, "something that manages the possible worlds" - well, that means whatever it actually may be. There's no problem justifying a given, particular description of such a being (in philosophy of course, not "religion") withing the larger category of "anything that has self-sufficient existence and is responsible for the organization of the possible contingent worlds." The latter statement calls forth by definition and is completely different in kind from providing a specific example of something (like "our universe.") There is no "particular" such something offered to compare to other "particular" such somethings.

Different variations of this fallacy infect many complaints about the idea of the necessary being, such as "which God is the one that really exists", with philosophically irrelevant reference to cultural icons like Jehovah, Allah, Brahman, etc - albeit some descriptions could turn out more accurate than others, if we had any way to know ;-)

"tyrannogenius"

When speaking about whether religion teaches people to not do wrong, I was reminded of an e-mail I received from a very religious acquaintance that TOTALLY misses the point of the story. The subject of the e-mail said - Wonderful

**********
An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof--and the horn--screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

Priceless!
************

This person, and I assume everybody else who she sent it to and who had received it before her, completely misses the point that the blue-streak-cussing, hitting-the-roof-and horn, flipping-the-bird miscreant in the car IS a Christian who put those things on her car. They think it "Priceless!" that the cop assumed only a non-Christian thief would do something unlike WWJD.

Talk about missing the forest for the trees! Or missing the Christian for the bumper stickers!

I ask myself this question without having a satisfactory answer - how do we reach people that deluded?

Ah, but Dan, you're leaving out the part where scientists always tack on (even if frequently unsaid): "...until new evidence comes along." I'm a bit surprised you would even bother to make the "science has been wrong or changed its mind or didn't know everything before!" argument.

Moreover, what do we call it when believers feel that what they observe/experience does have as its best explanation God...when they have no evidence to support that conclusion?

I don't know how one can be a scientist and not be in awe at the mystery of exsistence. I guess that is why I see no contradiction between science and faith.

Except faith is not "awe at the mystery of existence," it is the blind acceptance of an explanation which claims to answer that mystery, but for which no evidence can be offered."

See the inherent conflict with science a bit better now?

Scott from Oregon,
I'm amused to see you prove in an entirely different way from your political views what a fool you are. A big part of what's evil about holy books is precisely that they are treated as beyond questioning - as the book you describe would be.

One rebuttal can be found right here:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/ten_questions_to_ask_your_b…

RBH:, I would say that your assumption that few on this board are active in the political battle between science and religion has little supporting evidence. Posting on a blog does not imply not engaging in political activity.

This re-wording of one paragraph is more clear (relatively speaking, ;-) :

But, I refer by definition to the abstract category, "something that manages the possible worlds" - well, that means whatever it actually may be. In this case, we don't have the problem we'd have in justifying a given, particular description of such a being (in philosophy of course, not "religion".) I am just specifying by semantic fiat a broad category, "anything that has self-sufficient existence and is responsible for the organization of the possible contingent worlds." The latter statement calls forth by definition and is completely different in kind from providing a specific example of something (like "our universe.") Hence, no "particular" such something offered to compare to other "particular" such somethings, and the problems attaching to the latter course are avoided (not that it's just perfectly clear either, I'm just trying to deflect the unwarranted types of criticism.)

BTW, I noticed the presence of the "ah" sound in many of the "Gods" mentioned above - maybe that represents the expression of a "primitive" sense of awe and wonder. Apply such sentiments as you please, BION it's OK with me.

Dan,
You're an offensive little creep.

I haven't had to think about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes since I was in high school in the early 80s. They were huge in my suburban Texas school, and widely known for their bullying behavior.

Dan @ 74 No matter how seemingly profound it sounds, all religious prattle is but useless platitudes to a non-existent thing. There is as much non-insane(religious) if not more, paens to the glory of reason and rational living and thought. You can spout that insane drivel till the earth ceases to be, and yet never prove your imaginary god exists. You only have to bring your god down to prove it. This will never happen as there are no gods, just what you can imagine in your brain, the seat of all thought, whether it be the epitomy of reason or the depths of abject irrationality. If I were a supreme being and one of my creations questioned my existence, I would appear in a flash of believability. Give up this senseless quest and condition; it will be of no avail, whether alive or dead. and all your sanctimonious prattle will not alter reality one iota. Life with religion is a pathetic sham; life without religion is life worth living.

Awe at mystery does not equal saying you know 'who' is responsible and what they want.

Worship in general can not be justified. It's sick, it's stupid, it's servile, it's pointless.

Call them on their beliefs. It's put up or shut up.

Whenever the cretin claims to have some religious belief, tell them that they're lying. You don't believe they're being honest. Tell them you know they're lying, and you're trying to get them to admit to it -- confession is the first step in undoing deception.

It's fun to watch them spit and screech.

"A big part of what's evil about holy books is precisely that they are treated as beyond questioning - as the book you describe would be".

Ummm, why? The first sentence in the book could be, "Nothing in this book is beyond questioning".

Methinks you just like to call people "fools" for some personal reason only you may be aware of.

I bumped into this interesting vid about schools and history and a different perspective on governing. Slightly off-topic, sure. So click only if you find politics from many angles interesting...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt4Ohq0LKiI

bio teacher urged

Yes please make an easy rebuttal to the "10 things" and "Lies in the textbooks" for us!

For answers to the 10 Questions, see Miller & Levine.

For the Lies in the Textbooks video I don't know of a straight point by point rebuttal. I've watched the video (air sickness bag handy), and it's awful. I'll hunt around to see if anyone has done a point-by-point rebuttals.

bio teacher asked further

Who wants to give me ideas for how to counter the "I just don't believe it" students when I've listed countless evolutionary examples and gone through comparative embryology and biochemistry and blah blah blah. What I've been telling them is that if they want to debate it with me, they can stay after school, but funny, noone ever does!

The goal, at least as I see it, is not to bring students to "believe" it; it's to bring them to know it and understand it. Shoot, I don't "believe" evolution; I accept it as the best available scientific account of the diversity of life on earth. Putting it in "belief" terms is a mistaken approach, in my view.

There are those who will resist even learning about it. I had a conversation a few weeks ago about science and religion with an adult fundamentalist, and when I recommended that he read some of the scientists who are Christians -- specifically, Francis Collins and Keith B. Miller -- he said he would not do so because, he said, he didn't want to read something that conflicted with what he already believes. Such a person is a lost cause. Our aim is to increase the number of people who actually know the science, at least at a rudimentary level, and who can be induced to at least think about it knowledgeably. If they then choose to believe in fairies then that's their choice. But at least help them make that choice in knowledge, not ignorance.

"anything that has self-sufficient existence and is responsible for the organization of the possible contingent worlds." - Neil B.

You have given no reason to suppose there is any such thing.

Please consider supporting the National Center for Science Education, if you don't already-all of you great commentators. Support the troops! Don't cut and run.
www.ncseweb.org. Chris L.

Ummm, why? The first sentence in the book could be, "Nothing in this book is beyond questioning". - SfO

Are you really fool enough to think this would stop the high priests "interpreting" the book to justify their own authority? If you are, I refer you to the history of Buddhism. I'm not in the least surprised at your fondness for holy texts, since you've made it quite clear you worship the US constitution (without the heretical 16th amendment).

Chiroptera - I was, and this relevant to Scott too, speaking in rather simplified terms. When I wrote "religion", I was referring, specifically, to the really bad outcomes of religion, as they are most relevant to this post and furthermore - how they inflict humanity in other ways rather than hurting science and education.

Of course irrational thought is natural, and without a doubt will persist long after organized religion perishes. Irrational thought happens every day, on a larger or smaller scale. There's no avoiding it... Although severe cases such as those that occur due to religious dogma would not be greatly missed once their gone.

Scott:

I totally agree, and in that case, let me rephrase what I wrote to fit to your idea: I find it depressing that even a world in which religions are not extinct, but no longer cause the mess they do, and are doing nothing but good to humanity (in whatever way that might be, and I don't think that's impossible) -

I still don't think a world like that would be a world without evil. It just occurred to me while reading that post that PZ, although being absolutely right about religion (as far as I can see, and I read Pharyngula several times a day) - I don't think that the only reason people are evil (nor am I saying that I think PZ says it's that way) is because they're religous.

This is obviously trivial, but still, I find it really numbing to think that an "enemy" as huge as the enemy religion is sometimes, even if completely and utterly destroyed, is not going to leave anything like Utopia behind it.

echnidna wrote

RBH:, I would say that your assumption that few on this board are active in the political battle between science and religion has little supporting evidence. Posting on a blog does not imply not engaging in political activity.

In fact it has no supporting evidence at all beyond my subjective impression from years of working actively in Ohio and observing how difficult it is to get scientists out there working actively, too. Mostly it was for rhetorical effect born of frustration. If every single commenter on this blog were equally active in his or her home community in some of the ways I've suggested, we'd be well ahead of where we are now.

And I am dead serious when I say that any scientist who thinks it's not his or her business is, in that passivity, a non-trivial part of the problem.

Let's stop dancing around it. The U.S. is close to becoming a genuine theocracy.

ROFL!

Here's a quote from the article:

"Spurred in part by legal rulings against school districts seeking to favor religious versions of natural history..."

there's an oxymoron for you.

This actually seems like progress to me. Last year we didn't require evolution to be taught here and this year we do. But it will take generations to reverse all this.

RELIGION, n.
A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
"What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.

"Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."

"Then why do you not become an atheist?"

"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."

"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants." ~~ Ambrose Bierce

doov

Oh, let them have their non-science and quasi-education. I think it will make them more tractable when the pragmatic Chinese show up and tell them they are all slave labour.

In a world with Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Eastern Europeans all learning at least two languages and attending university, I hope the Stoopids aren't awaiting the Second Coming of the 1970s. A time when you could drop out of the ninth grade and earn a living wage in a factory. Oh wait, those jobs went to China. The Chinese did the work cheaper, faster, and with less attitude.

I really resented the smugness of the 'Mericans that felt that wealth was their eternal birthright. Barely washed, illiterate, uncultured UglyMericans went overseas and whined that the locals didn't speak English...didn't have familiar foods...wore different clothes...didn't worship at megachurches...and nevertugged at their forelocks to make it easier for the buffoons. Must have been nice, being a fourth-grade dropout waving 'Merican dollars in the face of university-trained 'furriners'.

I have seen Neil B.'s comment #40 before (at the excellent "Cosmic Variance" blog). While I still can't say I understand what he is getting at, it reminds me of some things I just recently read in James Gleick's Isaac Newton. Such as Leibniz's rejection of Newton's Law of Gravity on philosophical grounds:

"The fundamental principle of reasoning is, nothing is without cause. [In proposing that all matter attracts other matter, without a mechanical explanation for how this attraction occurs] [he] is admitting no cause underlies the truth that a stone falls toward the Earth."

According to Gleick, Newton was a prime mover in the divergence of science from philosophy, such that science concerns itself with how things are, not why they are. Another quote, from one E.A. Burntt in 1924: "... as a philosopher, [Newton] was uncritical, sketchy, inconsistent, even second-rate."

So perhaps Dr. Myers is in good company when he is criticized on philosophical grounds. I also think Dr. Myers and Newton would be on the same philosophical side with respect to this last quote:

From Newton's "Rules of Philosophizing": No more causes of natural things should be admitted than are both true and sufficient to explain their phenomena.

Duvenoy @ 103 My regards to one of my favorite persons, Ambrose Bierce, but being an atheist is far removed from being ashamed of it. I think atheism is the apex of thought, as that very thought is free from the taint of all religion and unreason and proclaims to ourselves and other rational minds that we are able to think and live without the insane trappings of any and all dogma. The Universe is all there is and is our origin and extinction. There is no shame in the Universe, only in the human creastions of unsound minds. Proud as can be, and proud to know there are others of like soundness.

bio teacher @ # 67 - echidna @ # 86 has the quickie Cliff's Notes answer to your question. For the full-length text, try the Index to Creationist Claims (which I had thought recently published in paperback, but cannot find on amazon.com).

"Are you really fool enough to think this would stop the high priests "interpreting" the book to justify their own authority"?

At some point I can only assume your self-righteousness comes from a lack of something in your life and that your name-calling is a symptom of something you'd rather not talk about.

I just present the idea because from an anthropological perspective (and maybe even a Darwinian one) humans have shown themselves to be predisposed toward "group thought" and "like-mindedness".

It doesn't ever really seem to matter WHAT is believed, as long as it is a collective belief and it allows for "membership".

One way to combat the myriad "superntural" religious doctrines is to offer a choice. One packaged in terms of universality and ease of understanding.

That there are those who exist that may take advantage of such a modern belief structure simply points out what is already extant.

As for "worshipping the Constitution", again, I can only assume you have "issues" that are personal to you, that would cause you to find the need to be derogatory and ill-at-ease with simple ideas being expressed that may differ from your own.

The Constitution is foundational for the laws of the US. You either accept them or you don't if you find yourself under US jurisdiction.

Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God.

Scientists can be believers. They may just believe that science is discovering the laws by which the universe operates.

A space alien coming across the Voyager spacecraft may scientifically examine it and feel that because they can determine how it operates, and what its' chemical make up that this proves that it wasn't made by those silly looking entities in the drawing (since they only have 4 appendages) but it wouldn't be true.

"God wrote the universe in the language of mathematics"....Galileo

Dan #109: "Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God."

But it can prove or disprove particular gods - for example, ones that interact with the physical universe in some measurable way. I think we can pretty categorically rule out gods who are both non-deceitful and powerful enough to make their aims known to humans. And I think that there takes care of the Christian god, who is supposed to have both of those qualities.

And again for bio teacher, the NYTimes today published the answers to the 10 questions. (Probably requires registration)

#1: "What humans need is the best education that they can receive."

That automatically excludes from participation in education all the believing ministers, pastors, priests, etc. who make a career of shoving religion down our throats and all of the parents who fall for their bullshit and mindlessly pass it on to their children.

The bible is a biology textbook and gods specialty is Ox & Donkey; page, after page, after page, Ox & fucking Donkey. Even talking one's!

Neeeeehhhhh......... Wilbur?

bio teacher:

Who wants to give me ideas for how to counter the "I just don't believe it" students when I've listed countless evolutionary examples and gone through comparative embryology and biochemistry and blah blah blah. What I've been telling them is that if they want to debate it with me, they can stay after school, but funny, noone ever does!

That is a tough one.

1. In the first place, students aren't required to believe anything. Nor can schools make them believe anything. They are supposed to know what scientists have found out about life and why. Whether they believe in SARS or drug resistant staph is their problem.

2. Some real world examples might pique their interest. Biology is esoteric to most and they can live their entire life not knowing that 99% of all life is extinct or the universe started 14 billion years ago in a Big Bang. Our whole society depends on highly bred (evolved) crops and our medical system depends on evolutionary thought to keep pathogens at bay, treat cancer, and fight emerging diseases. Evolutionary thought is significantly responsible for feeding 6.7 billion people and lengthening our lives by 30 years.

3. The creo arguments are centuries old and never change, just get recycled. talkorigins.org, PT, and dozens of googleable sites have refutations. That is how and why I found PT and PZ. Some wild eyed old guy who turned out to be a bit of a nutcase was spouting all sorts of nonsense that I had never heard of before and I knew was wrong. One of his points was that humans are the only animal with a 4 chambered heart. This is wrong, all other mammals and birds do also.

Don't be confrontational or make it too complicated. It may not look like you are getting through but some kids actually do eventually wake up enough to realize they've been sold a pack of ancient superstitious lies.

Dan wrote: "Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God."

Why not?

Dan @109 (and earlier posts),

"Scientists can be believers".

So what is so special about belief? Why accept something to be true without evidence for it? Why abdicate reason at all? Just because something is mysterious (such as the universe) why fling your arms up into the air and say goddidit? Rather than accept the dogma from ancient times, why not just dig deeper into real evidence?

Clearly, you're not much of a scientist. So why don't you just become a minister and preach your nonsense to those who swallow it?

At some point I can only assume your self-righteousness comes from a lack of something in your life and that your name-calling is a symptom of something you'd rather not talk about.

Yes, you're a mean one, Mr. Gotts! Thanks, Scott ;). That's the funniest thing I've read in some time.

*grins, contemplating truth machine's return...*

Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God.

If you mean "prove" in the mathematical sense then you are correct, though that also means you can't 'prove' a whole score of things you currently take as bald fact. If, on the other hand, you mean 'prove' in the colloquial sense then you are wrong

Any god who can be claimed to exist and known by his material, mortal, followers interacts with the physical world by definition. The claims of what this god has done can be tested, and if they can be explained without recourse to a deity, then that is a strike against that god. Gather enough strikes and that god goes. Find an outright contradiction, of religious claim and physical fact and the need for multiple strikes goes as well.

And as PZ said, the fallback version of the quality-free god is so amorphous as to be irrelevant.

Thus, science does, can and has disproven many a god in the common meaning of the word 'prove'. But that doesn't mean that followers of a certain sect won't continue to partition their minds or outright reject contrary evidence. Protecting ourselves from uncomfortable truth is one thing we humans are best at.

Scott wrote:

The first sentence in the book could be, "Nothing in this book is beyond questioning".

Scottty, boy, have I got a religion for you!
It's called "Discordianism."

Dan @ 109 The Voyager spacecraft is real, and space life other than us may come across it to examine and wonder about it's origins, but Voyager is real and the alien who intercepts it will also be real. But your imaginary god (hope you notice the lower case for your non-existent thing) is not real and will never found to be so. The chances of finding life in another galaxy is just a question of distance and time, and one which I do not think present day humans will discover because of that very immensity of time and distance. Can you fathom and comprehend the possibility of life being discovered in the great Andromeda Galaxy, and when questioned about the gods we have intruded into our planet by force of unreason, they will have no inkling of what the crap you are talking about, and you will conclude with the statement that your god only is concerned with planet Earth. Can you appreciate the enormity of this deranged idea? There is no god, and all your deranged thinking will never bring it into reality no matter how many trivial platitudes of sappy implorations you throw to the skies. Let's see your god.

Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God.

Yes. Exactly. Which means that the only reasonable position is to withhold belief. You need POSITIVE evidence to justify POSITIVE belief. Lacking that, disbelief is the default. In a tie, atheism wins.

I'm loath to vocab-Nazificate, but this is at the climax of your post. "Temerity" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. Should it be "timidity"?

Dan: What Michael X said at #118! And though he touches on it, I'd like to focus on it more, since this is the part that I think you're whistling past: "And as PZ said, the fallback version of the quality-free god is so amorphous as to be irrelevant."

That quote isn't just "how we feel," it's drawing on a fundamental aspect of science. If there's no evidence for a hypothesis (God in this case) then we assume the null and reject it. That's why many of us here (provisionally, until evidence comes along...) reject God.

Can you whistle past this point and be an effectively normal, practicing, productive scientist? Sure. But you've created an unresolved double standard to do so. You refuse to apply the scientific method to the God hypothesis. In the absence of evidence, unlike everything else in your professional work, you accept it on faith.

Interesting article and commentary. I'm happy to leave it as-is; I think PZ's commentary is excellent.

The article mentions that some students come "armed" with "Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution.". I looked this up and found a version here.

PZ is looking for people to fight with him and for the cause of knowledge, honesty, and science. Am I ready? Are you ready?

I thought it would be a particularly interesting challenge to the readers here if we see how many of these questions each of us can answer, from our heads to our paper without fact-checking (or spell-checking!) online.

I'll try it out when I have time and post my results (i.e. how many "reasonable" answers I came up with. I'll be using this article with responses as a guide.

(Note that I'm not sure these answers are any good, I haven't read them (and won't until I do my own answers))

If others attempt this, please post the final results for yourself (# "correct" and even comments about what was hard, what was easy, and anything else). Be honest--don't only post "good" results, just HONEST results. After all, PZ's campaign is ultimately one about honesty. Science doesn't necessarily give us the truth, but it gives us an honest approach to searching it out and gathering evidence.

Ben

I became a science teacher, because I wanted students to understand the fabulous information we are discovering--particularly in regards to evolution since mapping the genome. Prior to this, I had been a genetics counselor, and I was studying law. The "breathtaking inanity" espoused at the Dover Trial inspired me to change careers.

The other day I overheard two of the newly hired science teachers talking about how evolution conflicts with their faith. They are going to be teaching "intelligent design", apparently and they feel rather moral and proud about this. I felt like crying. I tried to speak up, but I immediately activated their holier-than-thou defenses and they clammed up to whisper in furtive tones to each other where I couldn't hear them. They can spread their beliefs as truths, yet if I spread the facts as FACTS, they'll do what they can to silence me.

Faith ruins reasoned thought. And we all pay. This kids will grow up to vote and indoctrinate others with this inane idea that the truth can be found through faith and feelings. They'll utilize the wonders of science as they dismiss scientists as arrogant and praise whichever gurus can convince them they've got some "higher truth".

"Scotty, boy, have I got a religion for you!
It's called "Discordianism.""

You gave me an idea. What about a religion that "evolves", like a WIKI entry? Sort of a humanity created self-image...

Perhaps the same ground rule for adding to the religion, that it meet specific evidence-requirements and be subject to consensus?

A religion that evolves as human knowledge evolves...

...just think...

That was a wonderful piece. Glad to see you shook out the cobwebs from your long trip. Welcome back.

#125:

The other day I overheard two of the newly hired science teachers talking about how evolution conflicts with their faith. They are going to be teaching "intelligent design", apparently and they feel rather moral and proud about this. I felt like crying. I tried to speak up, but I immediately activated their holier-than-thou defenses and they clammed up to whisper in furtive tones to each other where I couldn't hear them. They can spread their beliefs as truths, yet if I spread the facts as FACTS, they'll do what they can to silence me.

That is horrifying. Are you in the United States? Is there any way you can verify whether these teachers are in fact teaching ID, and bring discipline against them? Is the principal or superintendent or school board sympathetic to science? You must not let this stand if you can help it.

Luckily (and unluckily) for me, I'm the only science teacher in my small town high school, so I can see to it that my students never have ID falsely presented as science in an academic setting. (This is as long as none of the other teachers overstep their bounds, and I have no reason to imagine that any of them would do anything like that.)

I can't understand why PZ is so determined to turn a winnable war - in favour of proper science, proper education and against creationists, crackpots, and con-artists - into an unwinnable war against religion in all its manifestations.

But religion is the root of the problem! Well, maybe. But you ain't going to defeat religion at its root no matter how angry you get about it, however my frackin' crackers you destroy. The numbers of people lined up against you, and the depth of religious feeling is simply too much for you to stand a chance.

I advise a large does of realism first: you're not going to defeat religion across the board. Accept it.

So prioritise: what's the really important battle? The integrity of science and science education, for sure.

And next some tactical thinking. Maybe forging alliances where you can, rather than alienating everyone who believes in God.

There's an example right here in this post: this should be a fight for science with PZ and David Campbell united against Ms Yancey.

But no, Campbell believes in God, so you don't want him on your side, not if you're fighting against religion instead of for science. So you redraw the battle-lines as PZ on his own versus Campbell and Yancey together.

Does that seem like such a good idea: fewer people fighting a tougher battle, instead of more people fighting an easier (and more important) one?

bio teacher,

Note that the answers to Wells' 10 fraudulent questions in both the above links were prepared by the National Center for Science Education.

As PZ noted when he posted the information, NCSE is the go-to organisation for teachers and others having problems with religious interference in science education.

You are not required to make them believe what they don't want to believe. Just make it clear that while their beliefs are their own, they have to understand evolution and its implications, as taught.

Scott wrote:

A religion that evolves as human knowledge evolves...

Define religion.

What you're talking about sounds more like science.

And religions already do evolve, speciate, go extinct, can be placed on evolutionary trees... it's just that the most religious people are in denial about it.

Dan @ # 1 Let me return to your comment here, as my reply did not come out as I intended in # 22. What was implied but not worded correctly, was your statement "victims of poor religious education". What I meant to say was, if the students had a good religious education would that dispel the incompatability of religion and science? So a better and more thorough religious education would bolster the existence of a god and make this more amenable to the compatability of science and nonsense? No matter how you state it there is still no god, and the incompatability will always remain in spite of your wishful statements to the contrary. You are like two people who have three oranges put before them and one of them says there are four oranges; you may think and say there are four oranges, but reason will prevail and your incompatability with reason will mark you as unsound. Oranges are real; your imaginary god is not. Why is this difficult to comprehend? There are no gods in my brain, yet they exist in yours. Is there something here that borders on insanity?

Ally, have you been to other countries? Seen their curriculum? Compared it to ours? I'm going to venture a guess: No.

SfO,

How are you defining "religion"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

Constitutions, forms of human social organization,... that evolve as human knowledge evolves...

Ally, I'll restate that so the point is clearer. Other nations have done just what you're saying is impossible. They are predominantly secular and have reduced religion to a powerless entity, thus empowering their science education.

I hope I don't sound too complacent, but really that's amazing for Florida.

Kids are being taught evolution, even in Florida!

I find that amazing and very heartening.

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District is slowly but surely taking effect.

So, Ally, do you think we're winning this war for good science education? We're not, because we keep doing the same cowardly act every time, over and over -- we shy away while the religious get louder and more aggressive.

The war on religion can be won, and has been won in more enlightened countries than our own. That's what we ought to aspire to.

Like RBH says, that doesn't mean pushing atheism in the classroom, but it does mean advocating for secular education. It also means that parents, educators, and citizens in general must be more assertive about opposing creeping religiosity, and turning it back.

Por ejemplo,

http://www.repac.org.bo/destacados/CPE-Final-15-12-2007.pdf

I'm taking a high school biology class taught by a creationist. She teaches evolution as mandated by law, but the 'controversy' is discussed in class. It hasn't come up yet this year, but in the past even the honors students almost all rejected evolution. I want to be prepared to state a case for evolution and hopefully get some of my classmates thinking more rationally about it. Can anyone reccomend any particular books or resources to read and pass on? Any tips if you've delt with this situation before? I know the basics of evolution but most of these kids have been indoctrinated with religion from birth. I need all the help I can get.

Carlye,

Here's one:

http://www.iom.edu/CMS/28312/50460.aspx

Dan, why do you continue to post here? You must have a reason. Please explain it. If it is an attempt to covert us to theism, try somewhere else. For me, either show conclusive. verifiable, and repeatable proof for your god or go away.

PZ & Michael, I live in a more enlightened country than yours (no disrespect intended - I'm a fan!). Science education over here is mostly unhindered by creationist assholery (though it wouldn't be right - sadly - to characterise our whole education system as secular).

But here's the thing: I don't believe, at all, that we'd have got where we are if it had been framed as a campaign against religion (Britain still has a majority of people who believe in God) rather than as the advance of science and education.

I totally agree with PZ's final paragraph of comment 137, but its emphasis jars against the final paragraph of the post. And I really want to hear an explanation why you think it's a good idea to turn Godly friends like David Campbell into enemies.

Re #140: I agree with PZ's post, and have many problems with the book I linked to. Nevertheless, it's a potentially-useful resource.

I'm taking a high school biology class taught by a creationist. She teaches evolution as mandated by law, but the 'controversy' is discussed in class. It hasn't come up yet this year, but in the past even the honors students almost all rejected evolution.

You're in school in August? That's odd.

Well, color me shocked Ally. But I still take issue with your assumptions. To begin, it is not the case that I wish to turn anyone into an enemy. But, when someone teaches nonsense as truth, that statement will be taken to task, be that person my friend, enemy, or outsider. This isn't to demonize them, but to correct that which is false and taught as true.

As for where we are today, we are faced with a situation where the plain cause of our troubles is directly and plainly linked to religion. (And I also have my doubts as to your claim that your country got to where it is without a concerted effort to resist religion) In this time and place, to ignore religion while attempting to advance science is akin to fighting symptoms while ignoring the cause. You would then be fighting a battle that you would never win.

You also assume that the battle to advance science is easy compared to beating back religion. But this is again to assume that they are not solidly linked. As if you could today advance science without having to confront the very religious causes that found the problem itself.

Again, I'll state that other countries have become greatly secular. Regardless of how, the fact remains that religion can indeed be rendered powerless.

And lastly, I'll add that your stance on how we should proceed has indeed been what we've done. And look where that got us. From where I'm standing, it would seem that to take issue with religion and irrationality in general is not only prudent, but the only course left to us.

You're in school in August? That's odd

I don't know where the OP is from, but here in Utah, it's quite comon for school to start in the last week of August. Sometimes it starts in the 2nd to last week of school. This does not include 'year-round schools' of which Utah has many, and which approximately 3/4 of students are in school during the month of august.

JT if the entire USA was how you described living in the South I would leave this country seeking religious freedom. Prayer groups at work and school are ridiculous. I know a guy that grew up in TN and he said if you didn't go to church on Sunday you had to run laps at football practice. This was a public school. How any rational person could put up with this is beyond me.

I don't know where the OP is from, but here in Utah, it's quite comon for school to start in the last week of August. Sometimes it starts in the 2nd to last week of school. This does not include 'year-round schools' of which Utah has many, and which approximately 3/4 of students are in school during the month of august.

Wow. Yuck.

Carlye asked

I'm taking a high school biology class taught by a creationist. She teaches evolution as mandated by law, but the 'controversy' is discussed in class. It hasn't come up yet this year, but in the past even the honors students almost all rejected evolution. I want to be prepared to state a case for evolution and hopefully get some of my classmates thinking more rationally about it. Can anyone reccomend any particular books or resources to read and pass on?

Given the time constraints and the context (high school classroom), I myself wouldn't get the book SC recommended. I've got it, and it's too unfocused for your purposes. The best general resource at that level is the Berkeley/NCSE Understanding Evolution site. From there you can push on into TalkOrigins, specifically the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution section. That'd be my recommendation for a crash course.

"SfO,How are you defining "religion"?"

I'll say something like this one...

"Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments."[6]"

Seen in this light, one can easily imagine a modern 21st century religion accomodating science with ease, leaving in such wonderful moral tenets as "hold bake sales and feed the poor" and "gather in a cool old building and sing songs together"...

Not everyone is a scientist. As humans, we have basically conquered the elements of nature. Are we continuing to be naturally selected upon when we can always throw on a jacket when it's cold, take antibiotics or a vaccine when we're sick, or beautify ourselves with cosmetic surgery, orthodontics, and make-up? We've finished evolving physically because we adapt niches to ourselves instead of adapting to niches. Random mutations to our code that impart increased fitness to specific conditions don't really matter when our conditions are continually optimal.

But we will continue to evolve behaviorally and philosophically as long as there are conflicts such as these. Not every child is susceptible to indoctrination. Some will believe in gods and some won't, even if all are exposed to it. Religion only 'infects' those who are wired for it, so it's not like we're 'losing' scientists through this. The simple existence of religion creates an important divergence to perhaps be selected for or against.

I'm halfway thankful this debate rages on because it means we still may be changing as a species, but only halfway thankful because it's causing a distraction in the scientific community requiring energy to be debated, energy that could be better spent on... oh... say... research?

Let the Scientist think
Let the Creationist pray
We'll see who remains
At the end of the day.

@ RBH #38 - Thank you for being a voice of reason.

Stacy

Given the time constraints and the context (high school classroom), I myself wouldn't get the book SC recommended. I've got it, and it's too unfocused for your purposes.

Well, fine. It was just a suggestion. :-Z (Seriously, though, Berkeley/NCSE's a great site. Whatever works best for you, Carlye.)

"Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought... it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments."[6]"

Dude.

Seen in this light, one can easily imagine a modern 21st century religion accomodating science with ease, leaving in such wonderful moral tenets as "hold bake sales and feed the poor" and "gather in a cool old building and sing songs together"...

If you think acts of solidarity (charity - blech) and group-singing have been the exclusive province of religion, you really need to study the history of modern social movements. Perhaps you could take my class...

P.S. Singing songs together isn't a "moral tenet."

Watching the reactions of apologists for religion in the face of such incidents reminds me of watching a seriously wrecked addict facing a crisis in their life brought on by their dependency. They'll wiggle and wobble and find seventy million other things to blame it on, twist and turn and turn reason to a pretzel to avoid facing the root of their problems. Ain't the booze, ain't the drugs, it's anything else. I'm just fine. Leave my habit alone, it makes me happy, really, it's all good, yadda yadda...

The difference of course is: an addict generally faces some social censure. Eventually, if they live long enough, and if they have friends who are strong enough, they're half likely to get a chance because the chorus of condemnation grows loud enough they can't ignore it, and somewhere, at least, they've heard: this stuff isn't good for you. Religions, on the other hand, there's a lot less chance of this ever happening. Since, odds are, most of everyone *else* around 'em is protesting just as hard in its support.

(... So it's not a perfect metaphor.)

Carlye - I'm a HS biology teacher. On behalf of those of us who aren't crackpots, may I commend you. If you'd like to join my class in Wisconsin, you're more than welcome :)
Seriously, though, you're in a hard place. You want the best education you can get, and you also want a grade that accurately reflects your knowledge. I don't have any specific advice, as I'm usually dealing with exactly the opposite situation... might be worth asking (in a nice way of course) why she attributes evolution to God but not the rest of the concepts - why haven't we heard about this during the rest of the semester? I'd be curious to know what she says.
Good luck, kiddo.

Science!!!: Um. I'm glad you're a supporter, but FYI, that's a fairly shallow understanding of evolution. It's not just about diseases or lack of insulation. It might be impossible, or nearly so, to "stop evolving" as long as we are error-prone self-replicators in a material environment. We've just shifted some of the selective forces around for some of the planet's populations. Evolution is happily chugging away in the world's prosperous populations.

Re Dan's inanity:

The believer feels that what they observe/experience DOES have as its' best explanation - God.

And thus ends all inquiry... stagnation ensues.

I was hoping that when people read what I posted they would find themselves praying by accident.

Did you really think any of us would bother reading your "Woo!" when you tipped us off by writing:

Here is a hymn that an 'observer' wrote a long time ago. He is Ephraim the Syrian.

Yeah, Dan, this was a triumph
I'm making a note here, huge success!

Apologies to Jonathan Coulton.

Is there some kind of "bat signal" you can used to get these guys?

But on balance, and I'm sorry to disagree with a lot of people, I think America is winning against the ignorant. They have nowhere to go, and their activism is evidence that they're very insecure about that.

Carlye | August 24, 2008 8:51 PM, #139

"I'm taking a high school biology class taught by a creationist. She teaches evolution as mandated by law, but the 'controversy' is discussed in class."

She's breaking the law and should be fired.

I don't think I'd call his answer "chicken-hearted", just lacking in further explanation. He could have answered "good question", since it did fit the bill, then given further examples (or asked for more before offering some himself), such as "Do Leprechauns exist? Do Unicorns exist? Do purple swans exist? Was Thor real?, Does Allah exist?, etc"

He might also have added that, since such questions are fundamentally unanswerable, no one can claim to know the answer. Therefore anyone claiming such things are definitely real, is not basing their claims on any verifiable evidence. Therefore it's just a belief, in the same way that many young children believe in Santa.

This would put the original question into context rather than leaving just the impression that science "can't disprove God", which is obviously the intended result of the question.

Tony @158,

What about the possibility that their activism is evidence that they believe they have the power to influence parts of society that they never had the chance to effect before?

Increased noise can also be a sign that the noise maker is getting stronger.

So then, which is better supported by what's going on in the country? I certainly wouldn't claim that we are experiencing a waning of religious belief. Though, I'd be open to good news I was unaware of...

The anti-science dogma of creationism, in contradicting the evidence, is a valid target. Students should be made aware that there is no support for it in peer-reviewed scientific literature and that it is not an alternative scientific view. To use it as a point for refuting religion in general in a public school classroom, however, would violate the Establishment Clause. Campbell was in the right. - - Teaching evolution as the correct scientific theory would violate the Establishment Clause only if you think science is a religion. It's not.

I just did a double take. Thanks for the link, Dr. Meyers. Mr. Campbell was my high school biology teacher, and speaking from personal experience, he's an excellent instructor and a really decent person. I think a support email might be in order.

Dan @#109:

Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God.

No, but specific claims about what god does or does not do can be tested, if the claimed action would have observable effects. You've mentioned prayer a couple times in this thread - does god answer prayers? If your answer is no, why bother praying? If your answer is yes, I suggest a little experiment.

On average 7 people are killed by lightning every year in Canada. 60 to 70 People are "seriously injured" Why don't you pray that I be the only Canadian to get struck by lightning in the remainder of this year. If you like, you can pray that I only get seriously injured rather than killed, although it really doesn't matter to me whether you do or not. I'm trying to make a point here. If god answers your prayers, the net effect will be a small but statistically significant reduction in injury and death by lightning in Canada, and the specific result that I will be hit. The status quo will be evidence - not proof - that prayer does not work.

Go for it. Get your friends on the job too, if you like.

Carlye,

You have my sympathies.

It is seldom easy to tell a teacher or school administrator that what they are doing is academically unsound and possibly illegal.

I suggest that you become comfortably familiar with the law, the course substance, the school district's policies, and the instructor's personal foibles before speaking up in any major or public way. Because if you blow your early opportunities to express your concerns, your complaints may be dismissed without a thought and it will be harder to recover your credibility as a knowledgable dissenter at a later date.

TalkOrigins Archive is a great resource, although it can be overwhelming. Some one has already suggested the UC Berkeley / NCSE evolution site and I found it to be a good, user friendly site.

Another resource is the opinion written by Judge John E. Jones in the Dover School Board "intelligent design" case. It's a long decision (well over 100 pages - but it's double spaced!) but if you wade through the legalistic language at the outset of the case, you should find that many of the "scientific" arguments that are typically asserted by creationists are refuted in language that is both legally and scientifically sound.

Good luck to you.

"For the full-length text, try the Index to Creationist Claims (which I had thought recently published in paperback, but cannot find on amazon.com)." - Pierce, #107

Perhaps you meant Mark Isaak's The Counter-Creationism Handbook? It's at http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Creationism-Handbook-Mark-Isaak/dp/052024…

Until politicians are prepared to step up and support proper science education standards then people will feel free to promote the lies of creationism.

This seems unlikely, though, since it involves them having to tell the brain-dead, zombie-worshiping sheep that their ooga-booga sky daddy isn't real. This, of course, would make them very, very unpopular - especially with the lying scumbags who depend on the credulous for their incomes; they would just tell the flock to vote for someone who did love Jebus; au revoir political career.

As long as votes are more important than truth I'm afraid you're going to have to put up with it.

I am always surprised how supposedly informed people attempt to convince people by calling them stupid and arrogant. at any opportunity they ridicule the want for someone to console themselves with unscientific thought instead of vigorously defending evolution with the mountain of evidence. Yes, evidence! And then let the students decide. They have every right to be skeptical and fail those bio tests. Teachers can do science teaching a service by taking the opportunity when this debate arises to show how science and religion have different explanations of the same phenomena because they draw from two different methods of analysis. It's up to the student to decide what method will shape their world view: observable evidence or blind faith. Both can be equally infuriating.

Honestly I don't know what's worse. The religious people who try to inject their beliefs into institutions that should be immune to them, or the caustic ridiculing atheists who think that the best way to convince people of anything is to say they are stupid and the beliefs they cherish are stupid. Good luck with that.

Students should be made aware that there is no support for it in peer-reviewed scientific literature and that it is not an alternative scientific view.

No need to be so dogmatic. Use creationism as an example of how to do science and treat it as a way to explain what a 'theory' is. The predictive power of the creationist 'theory' is really fun to talk about. As is the evidence for it. Then you can talk about weighing evidence ...

Personally I get a chuckle out of the ID proponentists because they don't realize they are cutting religion's throat. When twits like Behe say there are gaps in evolutionary biology they're setting the stage for a scientific examination of the gaps in creation theory. Gaps? It's all gap!

icure,
Science and religion are not equal ways of knowing, and it's sad that someone speaking from a high horse would so easily trip and fall in the mud.

Your assumptions show you up without any of us having to resort to ridicule.

Any religion that admits the existence of miracles is incompatible with science. Here's why. Scientific progress is fundamentally based on the idea that theories are evaluated by their ability to make testable predictions. If a theory predicts an event that unambiguously fails to occur given the conditions under which it was predicted to occur, that theory is known to be false. If one admits the possibility of miracles, however, one can happily claim that the theory is still true, but that a miracle, a temporary suspension of the laws of nature, has taken place. The problem is, this way out is available every time a prediction fails to materialize, and it becomes purely a matter of personal taste as to how often one wishes to invoke it.

In other words, a law of nature with exceptions noted only after the fact is no law at all.

Oh, I know, icure. We're the meanest of the mean. Why, I've eaten seven puppies just today, and I'm still behind on my quota! I'll have to make up for it by making a few more creationists feel stupid by showing them mountains of evidence that contradict their cherished beliefs. Ain't I a stinker?

Caryle, good on ya! And good luck.

You, and others, might also make good use of Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense." It's good sound science, of course, and an easy read besides. It's easy to print, and very well suited for most high school level readers as well as the lay public in general.

I'm rather reluctant to make a hero out of St. Augustine. Though he did argue that some parts of the Bible were allegorical, he nevertheless believed that it had a lot of literal truth in it. In Book 18 of his City of God he harrumphed at the pagans who claimed that the Universe is much older than what one calculates from adding up the begots in the Bible. And in that book, he treats the Bible's history as literally true, even the parts that most Biblical scholars nowadays consider legendary, like the Patriarchs and the Exodus.

And I notice a certain reluctance by many evolution defenders to challenge the fundies' theology -- even by those whom you'd expect to have excellent credentials for doing so. This reluctance to challenge the fundies' theology is like trying to rid a lawn of dandelions by plucking all the dandelion flowers -- they soon grow back. And challenging their theology is important because their theology drives their "science".

Religion isn't a 'way of knowing'. It's a way of being robbed and deceived.

Dan writes:
By the way - Gott means 'God' in German.....

Yeah, I know. I learned that from my belt buckle.

I think I see what the problem with the whole debate regarding the teaching of evolution and science in general is.

The problem is that there are people on BOTH sides that try to present the situation as one in which science inherently conflicts with religion. The creationists make it look like acceptance of science is anathema to belief in god, while the anti-theists/anti-religionists make it look like belief in any sort of god is anathema to acceptance of science. In other words the problem is being presented as a dichotomy. But it is not a dichotomy; it is a war between the opposite ends of a spectrum. If you want to end this you have got to stop parroting what your enemies are saying.

But there is also a problem in that attacking religion in general rather than the specifics of Biblical literalism, you're forgetting that religion never has been evidence based. People believe in a higher power, whether it be the creationist god, the Christian god, or Vishnu, not for reasons related to explaining the natural world, but for reasons that are more personal. That is why it is called faith. Belief in god and/or the afterlife satisfies that part of the individual that for all but a cultivated minority can not by satisfied intellectually; and that part is what I have heard many people refer to as the 'god hole'.

If the goal is to convince as many people as possible of the validity and accuracy of evolution and the rest of science, a compromise must be made. And in my opinion it is a compromise that closely resembles Stephen J. Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria. Certainly, science and religion are mutually exclusive in their methods, but that doesn't mean they can't co-exist. Science should be presented as a tool for exploring and describing the natural world, but keep it to that, after all that is what its job has always been; don't assign it to positions for which it is not designed. At the same time though, assign religion to a position that science can not fulfil, and there are such places.

Certainly the Catholic Church has made SOME effort in moving in that direction, and Buddhism is definitely to be admired for not trying to pick a fight with the endeavour of science. In its past Islam was open to intellectual inquiry, and certainly fostered it. In fact Islam should shed its skin, as it has grown so thick and come to resemble a shell so much that it is starting to burden the religion.

I will also add that I do not think atheism is the most logically tenable intellectual position. Rather a position like that of Bertrand Russell's is preferred, where while one describes themselves as being an atheist by not believing in a god, they at the same time hold the position of agnosticism, as one can prove neither the existence or non-existence of any such being. To that end, I describe myself both as an atheist and an agnostic, as well as an apatheist and a theological non-cognitivist.

As someone said earlier, you're not going to win in a war against religion. And the reason for that is that while you can theoretically knock down any intellectual argument for god, the afterlife, the supernatural or whatever, you can not raze the foundations as they are grounded in emotion not logic. It is why so many people feel they have been offended by what someone like Richard Dawkins says.

Havent read through all the comments,but the one thing that bothered me about this story was this:

//Throughout the story, the teacher is striving to be respectful to religion (he's an Anglican himself) while the students are being arrogant dumbasses who refuse to listen to this evolution stuff//

So the problem is actually not only to get science education and evolution into the classrooms,then you have to deal with brainwashed kids that have long lost the ability to think for themselves.

IMO,same as giving your kids booze before they are 18,bringing them up with religion should be an offense under the law and punishable.
I really cannot imagine how tough it must be for teachers in the U.S.

From #177:

"That is why it is called faith."

It's called faith because to call it what it really is, make-believe knowledge, is impolite.

To Carlye, #139:

I've been teaching physics in a conservative religious town for twenty years and have changed a lot of students' minds about evolution merely by leaving copies of The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins) around the classroom for them to pick up on their own. It blows their minds.

If you have not read it, I recommend it highly.

I should hasten to add that our biology teachers are all unafraid to endorse evolution, so they do their part. But most students do arrive with a pretty religious outlook, even with regard to science, and I figure I should help out in fighting that.

Oddly enough, I see #7 poster and #177 to be the spectrum in this...
People, the real conflict is exactly as it is put forth...
keep your religion to yourselves, don't interject in any conflicting way- or non-conflicting way with any of the public schooling systems subjects. If you refuse to discuss biology, or evolution or why facts are held up as tenable ideals to teach too, then you flunk, period.
Evolution will weed you out, somewhere, somehow, always has, always will. Nature won't tolerate blatant stupidity for long.

It's been stated throughout the thread that the brainwashing of children hurts the mental capacity of the nation, and that many potentially great scientists and thinkers are lost.

Personally, I don't buy that.

I was raised in the fundie tradition on Hamster Plantations like Missouri and Oklahoma.

Fundamentalism is sooo ridiculous and illogical, that even a child of any mental capacity should easily sluff off this crap right after they wise up to the Santa Claus myth.

By the time I was ten years old, i was LAUGHING at these idiots, and their Noahs Ark, and all the fairy tales. Not only that, but none of the other kids I knew were religious either, we all sat through Sunday School and church because we were forced to.

Anybody who reaches puberty and still buys this fundamentalist version of reality does NOT possess the sort of mental capacity that would suggest they have potential for becoming a great thinker or a scientist.

Lets face it, they grow up and fulfill their potential quite nicely in the scheme of things.

We need truck stop waitresses and cannon fodder.

Some people say we even need strippers, but that's only about 50 % of the population.

If the goal is to convince as many people as possible of the validity and accuracy of evolution and the rest of science, a compromise must be made.

Science has deferred to religion in the past, and religion has taken this for granted. Yes, the only way forward is through compromise - but you're forgetting that it isn't science advocates attempting to tread on religion's toes; it's the other way around.

I haven't heard any stories of any science-minded people muscling their way into churches and calling out the priest/reverend/whatever for the failure of scripture to adhere to facts. 'Teach the controversy' is a one-way street in religion's favour.

The religulous have crossed the line in coming to the classroom to try and replace science with god; they need to be pushed back - hard.

scooter,@ no 182 :

//We need truck stop waitresses and cannon fodder. //

yeah,and properly educated biology teachers,by the sounds of it.
This was not so clear to me before today,how many teachers in the US teach subjects they actually havent studied.Having gone through school in Germany,this is a totally alien concept to me,and probably at least in parts explains the poor outcomes in teaching evolution to some of these students.

Thank you, Mike G. I can't help but read through these comments and laugh. This hostile attitude and refusal to compromise is exactly why nobody in this little group is going to accomplish anything more than a cameo on Doctor Who, while people like David Campbell are actually getting evolution taught in schools.

I am far from being a teacher, but I was a student once.

It seems to me science teacher's are teaching "science" while they teach biology and evolution, and part of that instruction (and at the center of ID debate) is teaching JUST WHAT SCIENCE IS.

By starting out an evolutionary biology semester teaching ID and evolution simultaneously, a teacher could demonstrate quite readily that ID HAS NO EVIDENCE, and simply let it atrophy in the student's minds.

Most of evolutionary theory, I imagine, is taught by presenting evidence for it. If students are asked to participate in the evidentiary process, Intelligent Design is left with "god didit" on something like day three, and now you have the rest of the semester to try and cover a portion of the evidence for evolution.

Teaching the method of science along the way, just MIGHT sink into the minds of many of these kids.

When the parents come to complain, you can show them your "god didit" syllabus and tell them that you covered that as capably as you could, you just didn't have much evidence to display...

@ No 185,Brandon :

//This hostile attitude and refusal to compromise//

By calling a spade a spade?
Its the moderates and polite ones like yourself that cause the most damage to society AFAIK.
And I am not talking about demanding atheism in the classroom,or as mentioned upthread,doing something that would conflict with your role as a teacher.

But being prepared to refute creationist silliness,to ridicule and mock,and point their silliness out to them,is what is going to show people the full scope of their stupidity.
If they interpret that as hostile,too bad.

Slightly off-topic, but I can't help but laugh (and NOT in a happy way) at the people who assume that Europe is some kind of secular paradise just because we don't have this whole "teach the controversy" issue in our schools.

At least in Germany, there is no clear, dividing line between the Christian church and the state. We have Protestant and Catholic religious education in state-run schools (some schools even have school masses). The government collects "church tax". And a government-financed institution like, oh, a kindergarden or a hospital, which is only nominally run by the Protestants or Catholics, can still refuse to employ anybody who isn't a member of their denomination.

We "won the war against religion" MY ASS.

dickhead at no 188 wrote :

//We "won the war against religion" MY ASS.//

Who said we had?Learn to read.

//We have Protestant and Catholic religious education in state-run schools (some schools even have school masses). The government collects "church tax//

That you can opt out of,the education and the tax.You forgot to mention that.
And no such luck in the US.
If you think Europe is bad and not secular enough,grow up,travel,make yourself knowledgeable.

"nobody in this little group is going to accomplish anything more than a cameo on Doctor Who"

Yeah, that Dawkins guy hasn't accomplished anything in his life....

Why put science on the defensive? Read page ii of the good book, The Origin of Species, and you'll note that Darwin quotes Bacon's statement which boils down to "read God's works and God's book". If what God's works in the world appear to contradict what you're reading in the Bible, then you're reading one of them wrongly, and with the overwhelming findings of scientists of all faiths and none confirming evolution, look again to see if you're reading the Bible wrongly.

If repeatable testable scientific findings strongly contradict some faith position, that's a problem those holding that faith position have to answer, not one that science needs to answer. Students don't have to believe that they're kin to a chimpanzee, but to understand the science they have to know that science finds all the similarities at so many levels, and it's up to them to choose whether that shows common descent or some weird message from God the prankster who just chose to poof such similar species into existence separately.

My limited personal experience with this sort of potential BS from students went much better. (Teaching sections of Into Bio for non-bio majors)

I just gave the little disclaimer along the lines of:
"This is not a philosophy class, and we aren't talking about Truth with a capital T. You can believe in you heart of hearts that the universe was created last Tuesday for all I care. Evolution provides a very useful model which all the different facts of biology fit into. Quite simply, it is a lot easier to understand and remember everything I'm going to be teaching you in the context of evolution. If you refuse to even accept it as a useful model, well then I hope you like memorization... because that is all biology will ever be to you."

I got no 'creationist' challenges in any of my sections. Though I did get whining about my quizzes being harder than the other sections (short answer vs multiple choice) by students who didn't understand the concept of normalization or appreciate the fact that my sections ended up better median exam scores and final grades. The f-ing prof was a big enough ass to 'grade' me 'unsatisfactory' for completely childish reasons, but that is a different story. Sorry that last bit is just OT venting ;)

I think this quote belongs on this thread.

Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced state, with which I am directly concerned, but they have still got control of that of children. This means that the children have to learn about Adam and Noah instead of about Evolution; about David who killed Goliath, instead of Koch who killed cholera; about Christ's ascent into heaven instead of Montgolfier's and Wright's. Worse than that, they are taught that it is a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them a prey to quacks of every kind in later life, and makes it very difficult for them to accept the methods of thought which are successful in science.

-- J.B.S. Haldane

clinteas, has that attitude ever worked?

Creationist: I believe the Earth is 6000 years old.
Atheist: Bwah hah hah! You're so stupid! Stop being exactly like Osama bin Laden!
Creationist: You're right. I'm going to be an atheist now.

Creationist: I believe the Earth is 6000 years old.
Atheist: You're a genius. I'm going to be a Christian now.

Regarding the request for resources, a recent NAS book available as a free pdf download gives outline coverage of Science, Evolution and Creationism, suitable for schools,
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11876

More thorough and well referenced coverage of creationism and intelligent design comes in a freely available published paper by Genie Scott and Nick Matzke, (May 2007). "Biological design in science classrooms". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.0701505104

The latter shows the important point that creationism in the U.S. arose in the 1920s out of the theological reaction of a new bunch of Biblical literalists against the modernist theology which by then was dominant, and which treated the Bible as a historical text that could be analysed in terms of what it meant to its authors and compared against other evidence, including ancient texts and archaeological findings. The argument is between two different theological ideas about how to read the bible, anti-evolution was a spin-off.

Funny how science is good enough for the faithful when it suits them - it betters their lives through technology and help them when they're sick - but isn't good enough to explain the diversity of life on our planet.

I just wish the religulous were more consistent in putting their faith in the lord; that way they'd all follow the strictures of christian science and forgo medicine in favour of prayer and anointing themselves with oil. It wouldn't be too long before they'd discover first-hand that natural selection works.

@ 193,BobC

Thanks for the quote,thats exactly how I feel about this.

@ 194

Brandon,
sorry mate,but if you think that is how I argue with religionists,than its probably pointless to be debating you.

The Haldane quote alludes to what I always feel is the problem with trying to integrate science and religion - that if you subscribe to religion you can always turn to 'god' as an answer and stop looking. Science has no such intellectual dead-ends.

If this were allowed in any other fields of inquiry then there'd be no progress at all. Aeronautical engineering? Nope, sorry - god says humans aren't meant to fly. Oncology? Nope, sorry - god says humans are supposed to die of cancer (well, unless you want to try and pray them better).

The acceptance of the existence of god is a limitation of the boundaries of human understanding - and can only be harmful to progress.

We need truck stop waitresses and cannon fodder.

It's not as simple as merely being about that though. While it will always be the case that some humans are more stupid, ignorant, dishonest and/or insane than others, the important factor for the more intelligent, informed, honest and sane is the culture in which they have to try and survive.

If the fundies succeed in regressing the US back to a full-blown theocracy, the few people who never fall for the religious lies or who soon see through them will be living in very real fear for their lives, liberty, well-being etc. Fundies, being basically dishonest people, aren't content to wait for their mythical end of times (and quite possibly don't genuinely believe in it if push comes to shove). They want their burnings, stonings, tortures etc of unbelievers in the here and now. How's a scientist going to do science in a country where firebombing them is not only legal but positively encouraged by the state instead of only by the imagined gods of relatively isolated individuals and groups.

You need to take a more holistic view of the intellectual environment. Your "truck stop waitresses and cannon fodder" (which you're rhetorically using as examples of exclusively dead-end jobs - quite literally in the case of the latter!) and the society around them need to "know their place". Specifically, they need to know why that's their place, why they're only allowed limited responsibility commensurate with their limited abilities and what, if anything, they could do to increase their scope legitimately. I.e. by them taking the trouble to improve on any of their own abilities that they can, instead of insisting the rest of the world stoop to their level in order to make them look better than they are - which is the fundy cheat.

People need evidence-based assessment of their prospects in life in order to have a realistic approach to improving them. Praying for a raise is as futile as praying for rain. The reality-based view of life as a method for achieving success goes way beyond just being confined to science and the acquisition of scientific knowledge and technology.

Could advocates for compromise be a little more specific about where the compromise should be?

Teaching science in science class would seem to be not negotiable in any reasonable framework.

I know of no example of a science teacher infringing on "religious territory" except in cases where religious teaching conflicts with established fact; that is the age of the earth, and evolution.

Teachers are currently in the unenviable position of needing to teach children who have been actively misinformed and prejudiced against science as "non-godly", which seems a strange way to refer to knowledge about the world we live in. A god who expects compromise on the truth seems a poor god indeed; which is why the Catholic position is that evolution is perfectly acceptable, since "truth does not speak against truth".

This is the type of thing I never really understand from xtians... Jesus "said" something to the effect of, "whoever has FAITH the size of a grain of mustard...", not, "whoever has EVIDENCE of me blah-dee-blah..."

Aren't the xtians disobeying their lord by trying to scientifically prove his existance?

The religions all talk a good fight but they're losing hearts and minds.

See Religious Decline in U.S. Follows Europe, by Matt Cherry, executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies.

After summarising the results of two studies of religious belief conducted in late 2006 (PEW and Harris), Cherry concludes that religious belief is declining throughout the west, including the US, and that the mode of decline comprises both a modest decline in religious belief as people age and (comparing the results with earlier polls) a marked decline in religious belief in each successive generation coming up.

Scott from Oregon@108,

Study of the history of religions indicates pretty conclusively that however they begin, they end up as tools of oppression. I suggest you go off and write your new holy book, and come back when it's finished, since there's no possible danger anyone will be persuaded to adopt it. If you fail to take this advice, I'll in future avoid expressing my irritation at your idiocies, since this is obviously getting to you, and you're clearly a well-meaning idiot.

An excellent article, PZ.

But is 'temerity' the right word to use in your final paragraph? 'Timidity', perhaps?

#9 Greg

I agree about non-overlapping magisteria, statements from religion are statements about the real world and must therefore pass the test of science. But what I mean is that religion and science are two very different ways of constructing worldviews. One is based on evidence and logic, the other is not.

#179
"It's called faith because to call it what it really is, make-believe knowledge, is impolite."

I personally don't see any need to tell someone that they believe in fiction; and as long as they keep it to themselves I have no problem. And if it makes them a better person, then good for them.

#183
"but you're forgetting that it isn't science advocates attempting to tread on religion's toes; it's the other way around."

There are people of particular religious denominations though, that feel that science is treading on their toes. Of course, we know that that isn't actually the case; science is simply doing its assigned job. But for all those that aren't convinced of that, they are not going to listen if it appears that science is trying to tread on god, and individuals like Richard Dawkins aren't helping to dissuade that misperception, they just strengthen it. In my opinion, when it comes to critiquing religion, scientists should stay the hell out of the debate.

#187
"Its the moderates and polite ones like yourself that cause the most damage to society AFAIK."

No, it is the extremists at BOTH ends, religious and anti-religious, that cause more damage than anyone else. They are the ones that create the conflict, especially with all their antagonism. It is not conflict that should be sought, but rather dialogue. You are not going to open up a conversation if you attack them.

By way of example: It was not moderates that flew the planes in to the World Trade Centre, and it's not moderates who are pushing for pseudoscience to be taught in science class.

"But being prepared to refute creationist silliness,to ridicule and mock,and point their silliness out to them,is what is going to show people the full scope of their stupidity."

Critiquing and refuting the creationist/ID talking points is one thing, but antagonizing religion is completely different; it is unproductive. We want these people to open up to evolution, and not feel alienated. Mocking and ridiculing religious beliefs is only going to push those people who adhere to such beliefs further in the direction of creationism, and make them even less amenable to science, most importantly evolution. Like I said, religion is based on emotion and not logic, hence why people are more likely to feel offended rather than enlightened if you mock their religious beliefs.

#201
"Could advocates for compromise be a little more specific about where the compromise should be?"

A compromise would be: science agrees to keep to matters of measurable empirical inquiry, and religion agrees to keep to matters of the soul and spirituality. The major churches of the world have already agreed to that, as well as the majority synagogues, and the moderate mosques. But unfortunately there is a concentrated minority of creation story literalists that have managed to hide that reasonable comprise from their congregations. Those people that have been sheltered all their lives need to be presented with this option; they need to be shown that a compromise can be reached between belief in god (including belief in Jesus as the saviour) and what science has to say.

In my opinion, when it comes to critiquing religion, scientists should stay the hell out of the debate.

Wow. Somebody sure is against freedom of speech. He wants to muzzle scientists.

they need to be shown that a compromise can be reached between belief in god (including belief in Jesus as the saviour) and what science has to say.

Compromise with idiots. Great idea!

Let's also compromise with the terrorists.

A compromise would be: science agrees to keep to matters of measurable empirical inquiry, and religion agrees to keep to matters of the soul and spirituality. The major churches of the world have already agreed to that, as well as the majority synagogues, and the moderate mosques.

Nonsense. All the major churches, and AFAIK most religious authorities in other religions, insist on belief in miracles of one form or another. Empirical enquiry shows no evidence they ever happen, and they violate well-confirmed empirical hypotheses.

I don't like the word "compromise", especially when the other side is insane.

There are no sane theists. The idea there's a fairy hiding in the clouds is crazy and childish. I refuse to compromise with people who are out of their minds.

See BobC,

and thats why you are a bad,bad hostile atheist !

Borrowed a post from myself because it is appropriate to my sentiments here:

I really think - and I am a live and let live type of guy - that strict religious indoctrination of children IS unmitigated child-abuse. The children suffer, society suffers in near and short terms, and sometimes war and the like are a result. It should be "outlawed" (cannot bring myself to really say OUTLAWED - but effectually I say we have to make it unacceptable).

Religion is always POTENTIALLY dangerous even in moderate forms because it trains the mind to accept authority on face-value and to ignore reason when it conflicts with prescribed doctrine. It is deleterious mind training. That said I grant that if moderate most people rise above it intellectually and emotionally as they go about life, and keep it just for cultural ties and some social camaraderie.
But in its more virulent forms religion is dangerous even for strong minds and hearts. It is mind-control, it is slavery, it is child-abuse. Period. So why not stop it?

Why do we draw the line at mind control (allowing that) yet bar implementation of some doctrines (like below age girls being put into marriage etc. on a compound) that the religion claims valid as per their god revealed doctrine? Why will we allow the indoctrination on the compound that sets up the slavery -just as long as the implementation waits until the girls come to legal age?

My point is we (those of us sane) know the many religious doctrines are full of shit and wrong for children yet we allow the indoctrination because we have a principle that says parents have a right to raise their children as they see fit especially when it comes to religion, regardless of its attendant prejudices, hatreds, and irrationality.

Yet shouldn't we have a right to fight this child abuse with force at every turn? At least be allowed to tell little Johnny like it is without reservation in the classroom and demand that no child be denied (or self-denied) a legitimate fact based eduction (even demanding that private schools be held to a secular standard in some way)? Why not have laws that demand PUBLIC school boards follow strictly secular legitimate educational agendas? Why should those in the right compromise to insanity and abuse?

I know that battling the abuse at the grassroots level in the really offending areas of the Country is dangerous for those teachers that have jobs to worry about but some how some way we have to support those willing to join the battle and protect them.

Let's also compromise with the terrorists.

Don't knock it. It got the commies out of Afghanistan. It's how we fought the commies in Vietnam. It's how we put good men like Leopoldo Galtieri and Pinochet in power in South America.

No, Christophe Thill (comment #17), it wasn't Kent Hovind who asks the question "were you there?". It is Ken Ham, and I still cringe when I think of it and his nauseating Australian accent (I have a very pleasant Australian accent). I just hope that Ken has taken out American citizenship, so Australia can disclaim any responsibility for him. After all, he did try to set up his Creation "Museum" in Queensland, but couldn't get enough support for it there.

Religion can, and is being, defeated.

In many parts of Western Europe religion plays no significant role in public life and increasingly plays less and less of a role in people's private lives. Whilst countries there do vary in religiosity the trend is towards religious belief decreasing, not increasing.

comment #13 really struck me with the notion that some people are literalists (like one would expect from a computer). I think some of that is justified sometimes - but it is also a point that can be attacked. Do any others have thoughts they wish to share about this?

anaonymous@217,
#13 was mine, but I don't understand your comment. #13 was in response to Dan saying Catholics were not literalists with regard to Genesis - I responded that some Catholics are, and went on to list some of the absurdities Catholics are required by their Church to believe. Please restate your point.

From BobC:
"Wow. Somebody sure is against freedom of speech. He wants to muzzle scientists."

Straw man.

Why would you consult a lawyer on the validity of evolutionary biology? Likewise, why would you consult a scientist on matters pertaining to the after-life? The point is, in a debate on spiritual matters science has nothing to say, thus it has no place at the table.

"Compromise with idiots. Great idea!
Let's also compromise with the terrorists."

&

"I don't like the word "compromise", especially when the other side is insane.
There are no sane theists. The idea there's a fairy hiding in the clouds is crazy and childish. I refuse to compromise with people who are out of their minds."

Could you be anymore dogmatic?

#210
"Nonsense. All the major churches, and AFAIK most religious authorities in other religions, insist on belief in miracles of one form or another. Empirical enquiry shows no evidence they ever happen, and they violate well-confirmed empirical hypotheses."

When was the last time the Roman Catholic Church "confirmed" something as a miracle? It was decades ago. Those types of events that have generally been regarded as miracles have slowly disappeared over the centuries, and I'll hazard a guess and point to science as the cause of that. Certainly in centuries passed injecting someone with a vaccine and curing them of an ailment would have seemed like a miracle, but we know it is not because we know what is going on. I think you get the gist of what I am saying. Miracles don't exist anymore because we possess the necessary knowledge to explain pretty any phenomenon that we can currently observe.

The major religions may still believe in miracles, but thing is they don't occur anymore. We have wised up enough to rise above such absurdities, and the religious authorities have no choice but to follow the rest of us, lest they get stuck in the past.

The Catholic Church has created saints a lot more recently than that, and in order to confirm someone a saint the Church requires evidence (or what they call evidence) of the person having performed a miracle.

The last Pope created more saints than all his predecessors in something like 400 years.

So contrary to your claims otherwise at least one major Christian denomination thinks miracles can and do still happen.

Mike G@207: regarding what a compromise (in the science classroom) might be:Those people that have been sheltered all their lives need to be presented with this option; they need to be shown that a compromise can be reached between belief in god (including belief in Jesus as the saviour) and what science has to say.

Sorry, that won't work. You can't ask for science to deal with only the material world i one breath, and then ask for science teachers to give religious instruction in the next.

If religion conflicts with the the real world as verified by science, it is up to the religious leaders, or parents, to bridge the gap. There is no room for compromising the facts.

The only compromise would be to say "science does not disprove the existence of a spirit that does not interact with the world", except this is an incredibly weak statement of the same order as "science does not disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns".

We may be talking about different things here; I am interested in what teachers can do in the science classroom. I don't believe compromise is possible - the kids (and teacher) are behind the eight-ball as it is if they have been fed misinformation before hand.

Evolution will weed you out, somewhere, somehow, always has, always will. Nature won't tolerate blatant stupidity for long.

That's why bacteria are Earth's most successful life form. They're geniuses. Einstein was no match for E. Coli.

Powerful brains are extremely expensive. They're quite rare in nature - evidence that natural selection only favours them in highly unusual circumstances. Stupidity is cheap. This notion that evolution always selects against stupidity is contrary to all available evidence.

Mike G,no 219 :

//We have wised up enough to rise above such absurdities, and the religious authorities have no choice but to follow the rest of us, lest they get stuck in the past.//

You might want to tell that to the kids that died because their parents prayed for them instead of seeking medical attention.
Or to the women stoned for adultery.
Or to the half million worshipping a rotting corpse in Sydney.
And dont go all no true scotsman on me,it doesnt fly.

//The point is, in a debate on spiritual matters science has nothing to say, thus it has no place at the table.//

As long as you discuss your "spiritual matters" behind closed doors,I dont care,but if you try and make them learning material for children,I do care.

We need truck stop waitresses and cannon fodder.

How humane.

Rather, I would argue it is an indictment of the educational system in Florida.

I would agree. And I've got plenty of first-hand knowledge, having attended Florida public schools myself and being married to a math teacher in a Florida high school. When my parents first moved us down here from suburban Detroit, the difference in educational quality between my old school district and my new one was shocking, even to my seventh-grade sensibilities.

Education is not valued here, probably because it costs money. The great irony is that the good ol' boy network that still runs this state apparently thinks they can create some sort of high-tech industry corridor between Tampa and Orlando without having a world-class research university - or even high-quality public school systems - anywhere in the area. Delusional, I know, but it's par for the course in this state.

I see many in this thread are arguing over compromises. I think compromises are often good things, and at many compromises are necessary for the operation of any effective organization. And that's why in November I'll be voting for a theist who promotes taxpayer-funded faith-based organizations, and who allowed an anti-choice zealot to give the closing prayer at his party's convention.
But compromises can't change the rules by which the Universe works. No matter how much one might compromise with religion, Obama's sky fairy will never (to a first approximation) answer prayers, abortion restrictions will always do terrible damage to women's rights, and there's no evidence whatsoever that any intelligent entity influenced the structure or laws of the universe, or the evolution of life on earth (prior to the breeding of dogs by humans). More relevant to this thread, no amount of compromise will change the fact that bacteria will evolve resistance to antibiotics, insects resistance to pesticides, weeds resistance to herbicides, and damn near everything will evolve in response to global warming, global over-fishing, and the myriad other ways in which we are transforming our environment.
Policy makers must have some grasp of evolution, and some willingness to trust scientists who make recommendations based in part on knowledge of evolution, in order to make useful decisions which maintain our environment in a state which feeds and shelters 7 (soon to be more) billions of us. Compromising can't change that. And in America, most people can vote, can write letters to policy makers, and can contribute money to political action organizations - and thus can influence policy makers. Compromises will affect who makes policy and how ordinary people can affect those policy makers. But no amount of compromise can affect the need to understand evolution.

I don't know if any of you have facebook accounts but there is a prime example here of why creationists cannot listen to reason.

"Ryan Hemelaar (Queensland Tech) wrote
on Aug 18, 2008 at 4:55 AM
Many people think that theists just believe in God on blind faith. I disagree. I think it is the most rational viewpoint to hold that God exists. There are good reasons to believe that God exists, one of which I think is very compelling is the Kalam Cosmological Argument. Take a read of it here: http://operation513.blogspot.com/2008/07/kalam-cosmological-argument-fo…

What do you think?"

I think this is an example of a perpetual motion machine in work.... round... and round... and round... until all the people with any sense get off, as they are all feeling a bit sick, ... this leaves the stoopids... going round... and round... and rou.. You can't talk to them, they're going so fast. Now if only we could find a big enough stick to poke in their spokes.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2373072738&topic=14983&start=0&ha…

You're in school in August? That's odd.

Not at all. In many parts of the U.S., public schools go back into session around August 15; my niece in Indiana has already been back in her middle-school classroom for a while. If you'd ever found a public swimming area (especially in the Midwest) closed during a mid-August heat wave because all the lifeguards had to go back to high school, you'd know this.

I was lucky. I had been indoctrinated by religion as a kid and when I first started learning about evolution in sixth grade, I refused to answer questions on worksheets about it or read about it. I would write "I don't believe in evolution" on the papers.

One day, my science teacher called me to stay after class, sat me down, and very politely and patiently explained to me what evolution REALLY was, not what I'd be taught to believe it was. He did it in a way I could easily understand and accept. And when all was said and done, I wondered how I could have possibly been against such a thing in the first place. It just made so much... sense.

This teacher's name was Allan Caffey, by the way, and I never was able to get back into contact with him again, but if I could, I would thank him for taking that huge effort o help just one kid. It made a difference for me.

Dan (#74):

One may try to make the argument that one should live as though the 'thing' doesn't exsist [sic], but remember, there was a time when science had not proven gravity.

Uh, Dan, gravity is an observable phenomenon that we experience every day. Science doesn't need to "prove" it. What science does do is describe it and explain it (even if the latter is still something of a work in progress). Gods, on the other hand, are not observable phenomena, and are at best inferred. So bad analogy.

Remember too, that our concept of the sub-atomic world is just that - a concept. Humans try their best to come up with a model of how the 'particles' or 'waves' are, but it boils down to us trying to explain what we are observing.

A slightly better analogy, but still flawed. The Standard Model makes specific predictions about what we would expect to observe, and so is testable. And, for the most part, those predictions pan out. That's why we can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that the entities described by the model (or something like them) exist - because the empirical support for the model is evidence that they do.

The God hypothesis lacks any comparable predictive value or empirical support.

The believer feels that what they observe/experience DOES have as its' best explanation - God.

Except this "feeling" is baseless. Attempted uses of God to explain the facts of existence invariably run into one of the following problems:

(a) the "explanation" assumes what it purports to explain, and so either is unhelpfully circular or simply pushes the problem back a stage.
(b) the "explanation" fails to indicate how the phenomenon in question is an expected consequence of the hypothesis.
(c) the "explanation" is so vague or all-encompassing that it explains P and Not-P equally easily, and (as they say) a hypothesis that explains everything explains nothing.

God, in short, is a non-explanation.

Here is a hymn that an 'observer' wrote a long time ago. He is Ephraim the Syrian.

Ephraim's "observing" seem to consist largely of a heightened emotional reaction to a few cherry-picked phenomena, an enthusiasm for banal metaphors, and the right-wing authoritarian mindset not untypical of Christian liturgy. This is about as far from reasoned inference and empirical rigour as you can get.

Not at all. In many parts of the U.S., public schools go back into session around August 15...

Yes, this was already pointed out above (see #146 and #148). I think I was just a bit suspicious of Carlye's story, which didn't read like something written by a high-school student. Eh, if it is some strange form of trolling, it's a productive one - good for people to put up links to those resources periodically. :)

Alright before I get to any of the responses, let me point something out. As far as I'm concerned, theology is pretty much nonsense, and because it is nonsense you can make it say pretty much anything you bloody well want. And as such, you can make it fully contradictory to science, or you can make it fully consistent with science. And like I said, if people want to believe nonsense then I don't care, (they have a right to believe whatever they want), and I don't have any problem either if that nonsense makes them a better person. My only problem is when they don't keep their nonsense to themselves and insist on forcing it on others; in other words, preaching, proselytism, and evangelism. The reason why the only respect I have for religion goes to Buddhism.

#220
The Catholic Church may still be canonizing individuals and making them saints, but of all those done so by the previous pope, only a handful were born in the 20th century, and of the twenty or so appointed sainthood by Benedict, only two were from that same century. The church is able to get away with canonizing individuals by selecting those whose supposed "miracles" occurred long enough ago that there is no way of empirically invalidating them.

#221
"Sorry, that won't work. You can't ask for science to deal with only the material world i one breath, and then ask for science teachers to give religious instruction in the next."

I know. Science teachers can't teach religion in their classes because it would violate science education, and in the US it would run afoul of the First Amendment. Providing religious education would ideally be delivered by religious scholars, or philosophers, or theologians, or someone who at least has a proper education in matters of religion.

What needs to be taught, and by the appropriate people, is that acceptance of scientific paradigms and belief in a personal god are not mutually exclusive, one can have a position that includes both. It simply requires a little imagination and a bit of creativity.

#223
Clinteas, I find those cases just as abhorrent as you do. Denying a child a blood transfusion on the ground of religion, or denying a toddler a simply injection of the vitamin B12 to remedy a deficiency of that vitamin for the same reason, that is nothing less than monstrous, and I would never consider them defensible by any means. But certainly one can't condemn all religions because of how a minority use their religious beliefs. You wouldn't fault the entirety of the Muslim world for 9/11 would you?

"As long as you discuss your "spiritual matters" behind closed doors,I dont care,but if you try and make them learning material for children,I do care."

I just have to add that I do believe there is something spiritual in all of us, but that it has nothing to do with theology. My understanding of the spiritual is that it is in fact a natural part of us that is purely internalized; it is that experience that does not directly derive from the physical senses, rather that it is emotive in nature and tends to surface as an overwhelming surge of emotion, and that it tends to be associated with a sense of awe. This may sound like nonsense, but I can think of no other way of describing it. I know I have felt it at least; it usually comes to me from watching nature documentaries. Also, it is my opinion that the majority of religious language simply acts as a vehicle for expressing that personal experience, but in that assigning it to something other than our individual selves is an act of dishonesty.

The Catholic Church may still be canonizing individuals and making them saints, but of all those done so by the previous pope, only a handful were born in the 20th century, and of the twenty or so appointed sainthood by Benedict, only two were from that same century. The church is able to get away with canonizing individuals by selecting those whose supposed "miracles" occurred long enough ago that there is no way of empirically invalidating them.

Nice wriggle.

You were still wrong, and I suspect wilfully so.

Enough with all the bickering about science and religion asking different questions, occupying non-overlapping magesteria, or whatever. They both ask the same questions; how does the universe really operate and what is our relevance to the rest of everything?

The difference between science and religion is not WHAT they ask, or what answers they offer. The difference is how each tries to answer its questions, and its a difference that even the most lunatic godbots have to acknowledge... because most of them are proud of it.

Every religious answer to life, the universe and everything comes back to an argument from authority. Every one. The entire mindset of religion is based on the premise that there is a non-questionable ultimate authority hovering out there in space, and if you're a minion of this cosmic mastermind you're also above questioning. It's a pyramid scheme of ever larger and more ridiculous "authority" figures, each one a blank stone wall blocking the path of actual knowledge.

This is the ultimate, final, fundamental difference between science and religion: authority. Science doesn't have authorities that are above questioning. In science we accept heroes not because they say they're heroes with some deep, mystical understanding of their own little fantasy world, but because they demonstrate something amazingly cool that no one knew before, and which the rest of us can go out there and test for ourselves. In contrast, the Pope asserts something he came up with in a dream, or the shower that morning, or where ever fiction writers come up with their ideas, and a billion people just say "yes, master".

This is also the reason that religious people keep insisting that science is a religion. They can't imagine anything else. They can't imagine that it is possible to think about uncomfortable possibilities or new paradigms without asking someone's permission. It's the permission part that separates the rational people from the ones with a god infection. I don't need permission to think for myself and conclude that two plus two is actually four.

As a scientist, when I get asked something about my field, I reference the work of others so they get fair credit for being first to demonstrate something, but you better believe I'm also the first to point out any and all flaws in their work. Even my scientist friends. Even my most respected science heroes. Every science book every written contains flaws, imperfect explanations, voids where I'd love to see evidence instead. Those voids are where the future work starts. But in religion, those voids are "mysteries" that cannot be questioned, or must be papered over by apologists who weave convoluted retconning explanations like something out of a Marvel comic. What? The tales of other virgin-born, miracle-wielding gods who came back from the dead centuries before Jesus were just stories put there by Satan after he went back in time? Yes, and Jean Grey didn't really die when she shot herself with a blaster dug up from ruins in the Blue Area of the Moon when she was the Dark Phoenix, because in reality that was the Phoenix Entity who had taken her place and had long ago put Jean's hibernating body in stasis on the bottom of the ocean after she saved the X-Men when they were about to crash in a space shuttle. Please.

NeilB (#81):

I appreciate the hit against the "equally unfalsifiable" speculations of multiple worlds, etc. (That's right, thinkers have little more cause to throw them around than the idea of "God" despite the supposed "scientific" veneer, but they are still popular.

Whilst agreeing that multiverse hypotheses are untestable (at least not at the moment and not directly), I'd make one point in their defense in terms of explanatory value: They quantify across entities of a known type (i.e., universes), rather than invoke vague unknowns like "anything that has self-sufficient existence and is responsible for the organization of the possible contingent worlds." That's an advantage in that it puts the apparent peculiarities of our universe in a context where it is not unexpected that those peculiarities will occur somewhere or other.

Consider the following analogy: Suppose it is a fact that Fred is 186.25 cm tall. In that case, it's a perfectly meaningful question to ask "Why is Fred that particular height?", but if Fred is considered entirely in isolation, then it's also a rather puzzling one. Maybe it's a matter of chance - perhaps Fred could have been of any height. Perhaps there's an unknown Height Monitor who is responsible for such things. Neither answer is particularly satisfactory. However, once you allow the possibility that Fred is just one of many similar entities (call it the multihuman hypothesis) which may vary in height, much of the puzzle disappears. Fred's particular height is no longer an isolated fact but a statistic, something to be expected given a large enough population. Of course, this is not a complete explanation. One would still need an account of the factors that result in humans varying in height, of how they grow and develop. But the multihuman hypothesis still provides a context in which the precise value of Fred's height is rendered less surprising, less unexpected.

Ditto with multiverse hypotheses vis a vis "fine-tuning". They may be untestable, but they nevertheless retain a degree of explanatory value.

"Why these features and not others instead"?

Another thing I think you're overlooking (although this may not answer the entirety of your point) is historical contingency.

Not all states of affairs can be realised in the same universe. For example, it cannot simultaneously be the case that there are dogs and that there are no dogs in a given universe. Which state of affairs actually obtains depends on how the universe develops over time. If the common ancestor of dogs and (say) bears had become extinct without leaving any daughter species, then there would be no dogs, there never would have been any dogs, and there never will be any dogs (although similar organisms might well evolve at some other place and time - they just wouldn't be members of the Family Canidae).

So universes, as they develop over time, acquire a lot of very specific features not because there's some over-riding plan, but because some states of affairs have to be realised one way or the other, and which one of them gets realised is more than adequately explicable in terms of local contingent factors.

Of course, the specific features you're referring to are presumably things like the "fine-tuned" constants that allow dogs to arise (or not) in the first place. However, one advantage of multiverse hypotheses is that they open the door to explaining these properties of our universe in comparable contingent terms.

The church is able to get away with canonizing individuals by selecting those whose supposed "miracles" occurred long enough ago that there is no way of empirically invalidating them.

Christopher Hitchens has debunked those claimed for Mother Teresa.

You can't expect children to check their religion at the door when they enter a science classroom. Beating them over the head with a lot of facts and saying, "Evolution is right, your religion (and everything you knew before now, including your identity) is wrong, so deal with it" is not going to do anything but make them withdraw further. What we need to do is take a constructivist approach: build on what they know, their experiences, and go from there. They need to start with a firm understanding of the nature of science; this can begin in primary school, with their very first science lesson. Only later, once they have incorporated an understanding of the nature of science into their own framework, can we successfully show them that evolution by natural selection does, in fact, make sense of everything biological.

I personally don't believe in any god. However, there is a difference between us not being able to prove a god exists and proving there isn't one.

If the dafinition of this god involves testable and measurable aspects of the world, then we can refute those and, assuming these as premises to the whole "God hypothesis", refute the hypothesis as a whole. The thing is, as you say, these allegated premises are shifty. Once they've been refuted, someone will figure a new interpretation (a more metaphorical one, usually) for the same issues.

This isn't the problem here though. The real problem is that most people don't really go for the interpretation change. They just choose to ignore the evidence. This is what's wrong with education systems all over the planet. We are not teaching people how to think for themselves, how to analyse data and how to verify the soundness of the logic presented before them.

Here's one answer to the issue of compatibility between science and religion, from an authoritative source that religious believers will accept:

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."

This is not a winnable argument period. As my father is fond of saying you cannot out shout a loud mouth and you cannot argue with a know-it-all. As a person who believe in God, yes I know it is irrational, and lives in the belt buckle of the bible belt, Tennessee, I can tell you both sides the religious and the scientific for the most part have their collective heads up their asses.

It will take nothing short of Jesus coming again and telling these young-earthers that they are wrong before they change their minds and even then its a crap shoot as they probably would ignore him as he is not the right shade of white. And to you science guys, and I'm one of them, if you are atheist, cool beans if not oh well you will never win an argument with anyone when they do not have the ability to think critically. The majority of churches and other religious institutions actively discourage critical thinking as it tends to cause questions to be asked that the layperson cannot answer.

I agree that religion should stay the hell out of school, especially science, unfortunately that will not happen. And the best way to guarantee that it stays the way it is now for years to come is to bash the shit out of others' beliefs, as most on this blog do on a regular basis.

Should we have better science education? YES
Should those that believe in God be allowed to keep doing so? YES
Should those who wish to not believe in any God be allowed to do so? YES

On a side note in Tennessee we have "bible thumpers" those who try and shove their beliefs down everyone's throat. We don't bitch about the occasional encounter with a person trying to spread the "Word" by giving out bibles. What should I refer to people who constantly bash the hell out of religion and try to shove their beliefs down my throat about God not existing?

In science you go from assumption to fact based on evidence, in religion its called faith, no evidence required because if you had evidence it would not require FAITH.

There are a lot of us out here who believe in God and know science is right about evolution, the big bang, and other such fun shit.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF PETE STOP LUMPING US TOGETHER WITH THE YOUNG-EARTHERS.

--
kjb

"The last capitalist we hang will be the one who sold us the rope" -- Karl Marx

Chris Crawford @ 239 The second part of your statement should be rendered insane and voided.

Then stand up to the young earthers and demand better science education and that creationism and religion be kept out of the classroom.

We lump you together because unless you do something to prevent the problem, you're part of the problem.

Amy,No 237 :

//You can't expect children to check their religion at the door when they enter a science classroom//

Now there's the problem right there,this is the crucial point: What religion are you talking about,Amy? The one their parents have brainwashed them with,I assume.Well,substitute brainwashed with the nice-sounding term of your choice,but thats what it is,and thats what has to stop,the indoctrination of children into some religious cult when they are too young to understand and will trust your authority.It reminds me of pedophiles,most of them were abused themselves and are later returning the favor.

//Beating them over the head with a lot of facts and saying, "Evolution is right, your religion (and everything you knew before now, including your identity) is wrong, so deal with it" is not going to do anything but make them withdraw further//

No,and I cant imagine anyone doing that,see the comments of teachers upthread.

Amy. Parents and ministers are telling them "believing" in evilution will get them into hell.

You can't just teach science... you do have to confront kids when they bring religion into the science class. Let them know... this is science, these are the facts, it's not negotiable whatever your religion is.

Steve_C sums it up nicely:

//We lump you together because unless you do something to prevent the problem, you're part of the problem.//

Exactly !

Beating them over the head with a lot of facts and saying, "Evolution is right, your religion (and everything you knew before now, including your identity) is wrong, so deal with it" is not going to do anything but make them withdraw further.

So this is a framing question. Science does not need to be framed. It is what it is, a study of nature and exploration of reality. You can take it or leave it. And if you leave science, you might as well leave modern society.

Holbach @241 writes: "The second part of your statement should be rendered insane and voided."

The utility of that second part ("and unto God the things that are God's") is that it doesn't define what constitutes "God's things" -- other than to suggest that they are NOT Caesar's things. If the religious believer accepts the common interpretation -- that "the things that are Caesar's" refers to the secular world -- then God gets left with everything non-secular. Which is fine by me, because "non-secular" means "non-physical". God becomes the ruler of a spiritual -- or fantasy -- realm, with no existence in the physical realm. What's wrong with that?

Then can you explain why in Western Europe the argument is being won ?

Why is it that increasingly in Western Europe is simply proclaiming something is against god's teaching no longer considered a tenable position ?

Why are countries like Spain, Ireland and Italy throwing of the tyranny of the Catholic Church and increasingly deciding social policies without taking heed of religious dogma ?

The fact is the fight can be won, in being won. It can be won in the US as well, as long as those who should know better do not decide to admit defeat before battle is joined.

Steve_C writes in #244: "unless you do something to prevent the problem, you're part of the problem."

That's an old meme and a faulty one, because it's vulnerable to the subjective interpretation of what constitutes "meaningful prevention". In other words, your interlocutor could shoot back "You're not doing ENOUGH to prevent the problem, so you're part of the problem, too."

Don't blame one person for another's crimes.

Strawmen on parade.

Then don't whine about being lumped in.

@242, 245

Many of of do fight. Do we spend our life savings filing lawsuit after lawsuit? No, but one can fight in other ways by actively trying to ouster school board members that are flaming idiots. Actively monitoring what our kids are being taught in school. I have a reputation at all of my son's schools for going in and ripping the administration a new asshole when I see something I don't like. I get shit done, I have had 3 teachers fired for their religious BS, one was a principal. I have in the last week, went off on the new science book for my son's grade which glosses over evolution and does in fact not even have the word in the book. Last year I wrote on his test that he his answer was correct that change over time is EVOLUTION, i know its a dumbing(sp??) down but it is a 5th graders science class, demanding that he be given full credit for the right answer despite the nut bag teacher's belief(it was a substitute science teacher that was fired based on my ranting in the administration's office).

So please tell me WHAT THE FUCK MORE WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO?

Matt Penfold @ 248 writes: "can you explain why in Western Europe the argument is being won?"

Herein may lie the heart of what I object to. The argument is NOT being won in Western Europe. Religion has already lost its grip on the public discourse, but that's NOT because of any kind of victory against religion. Rather, it's a matter of tolerance. Religion itself hasn't been rejected -- its intolerance has been rejected.

If you think in terms of war, combat, battle, victory and defeat, then you will lose, because nobody ever wins a war. What is needed here is tolerance, and you can't cram tolerance down another's throat by being intolerant of them.

Steve_C and clinteas:

I AM a teacher. Kthx.

But what you want is impossible. You will never, EVER wipe away religion from the face of the land. This is a fact. So what do we do, as science educators? We work with what we've got and hope for the best. And like it or not, you do have to be sensitive about where people are coming from. For these people, religion is not just a set of beliefs, it defines who they ARE. Sort of like how my nonbelief defines who I am.

I don't want to wipe religion from the face of the land. I just want it to become unimportant. Like folk dancing, or tarot card reading. And yes you can be sensitive AND honest.

And religion is easily shed, it's not who they are.

Herein may lie the heart of what I object to. The argument is NOT being won in Western Europe. Religion has already lost its grip on the public discourse, but that's NOT because of any kind of victory against religion. Rather, it's a matter of tolerance. Religion itself hasn't been rejected -- its intolerance has been rejected.

Then explain why increasingly people ARE rejecting religion in Western Europe. Simply lying about it does not change the facts Chris. Nor does cowering in the corner hoping the religious bullies will go away make them do so.

Europe used to be as religious as the US. It is not so anymore. It seems claiming religion can never be defeated in the US just do not want to be bothered fighting.

No one is saying fighting religion in the US will be easy, or even that quick (but then just look at Ireland to see how quickly change can happen). However saying the battle can not be won concedes defeat.

To all those people who keep saying religion will never be eradicated--we know! However, it's your opinion that therefore we shouldn't even try that's faulty. It's like crime. We will never eradicate crime, but it doesn't stand to reason that there is therefore no reason to try to fight it. We fight crime so that criminals do not rule us. Indeed, it is the same with religion. You can't eliminate it, but you can limit it. You can beat it back, constantly prune it like an ever-growing weed.

But ignore it and do nothing? That's the recipe for disaster. Anyone who thinks you can teach good science to brain-washed cultists is more insane than they are. You can't cure the symptoms without treating the cause, and that means addressing the problem of religion.

To all those people who keep saying religion will never be eradicated--we know!

I agree that it is probably impossible to totally eradicate religion.

However I think it is possible to arrive at a situation where arguing for certain policies based on religious belief, or arguing against others on the same grounds, becomes something no one is willing to do any longer. By all means argue for or against polices, but do so on the basis of evidence. Religion can be pushed back into solely the private realm, and it can be rendered so impotent as a result it no longer poses a threat.

How do we know this can be done ? Well it has been done in countries like Sweden, and it is being done in other countries.

Look. I'm not suggesting that we coddle children and allow them to go on thinking that their beliefs and life as we know it don't clash. Far from it. What I am saying is that kids spend the formative years of their lives immersed in their primary discourses - their families, their communities, and all of the associated cultures and beliefs. You are not going to simply wipe that away by telling them the facts, by assailing them with mounds of evidence. Old habits die hard. I think we need to take their beliefs into account and ease them into a scientific way of thinking. I firmly believe (as does Rob Pennock, with whom I have discussed this matter and who will hopefully serve on my committee should I pursue this topic for my dissertation) that the first step is teaching about the NOS. Skepticism, if it ever comes, will, I trust, arrive on its own.

Chris Crawford @ 247 How can you render anything unto something that does not exist? You can expostulate forever and it still will make no sense nor will it materialize. How about rendering unto the Easter Bunny the things that are his? Caesar was certainly real and had many things rendered to him by way of spoils or appropriation. This imaginary god is only rendered real by unsound minds.

Look. I'm not suggesting that we coddle children and allow them to go on thinking that their beliefs and life as we know it don't clash. Far from it. What I am saying is that kids spend the formative years of their lives immersed in their primary discourses - their families, their communities, and all of the associated cultures and beliefs.

Unfortunately in the US you have a political system that lets totally unqualified people decide what does and does not get taught in schools. Political governance of schools has its place. Provision needs to be made for changing enrolment numbers for example, but why are people with no qualification in teaching, in the subject or who even understand the needs of employers deciding what the curricular should be ? Why should it not be made clear to kids that science is an important part of what they will learn in school, and that unless they understand the subject they cannot, and will not be allowed to pass. And it should also be made clear to them how many career options they will rule our by not having science qualifications.

Amy,

I have said this before tonight,we have to get to a point where children do not inherit their parents religious beliefs,where handing down your own delusions to your kids from a position of authority is considered child abuse,where you give children a chance to make up their own minds about how the world works.

Neil B. babbled as usual:

As far as I'm concerned, either "everything exists" (which causes problems I can explain better later) or "someone/thing" somehow "manages" what exists and what does not.

What manages the existence of the existence-manager? Either all possible existence-managers exist, and among them they would have chosen every possible universe, or the existence-manager itself needs a manager.

Your logic makes no sense, unless you start with "everything" in existence, and the existence-manager chooses by destroying all other possibilities. Is it some sort of cross between Krishna and the Highlander?

Then can you explain why in Western Europe the argument is being won?

Because North American religionists are the more convincing and persistent liars?

My wife taught at an elementary school here in Jackson MS (PUBLIC) and I can testify as to the amount of religion that gets fed into these kids every day DESPITE all the supposed bans against it. Funny thing too. The school is almost 100% minority Black kids on some type of government assistance or another.

Racism is mostly dead around these parts, but overt racism remained fairly strong here until the Government forcefully stepped in. Funny thing that the Black people who were subjugated by White folks for so long continue to perpetuate their subjugation by adopting a book that was used as a basis for their subjugation.

My wife is about as outspoken and liberal as you could imagine. You CAN NOT fight the system in Mississippi on the issue of church/state separation and keep you job. It's just that simple. And we are just now working our way out from under the WORST KIND of RELIGIOUS HOKUM. Our Superintendant of Schools (who allows this bullshit) is suspected of being a closeted HOMO, and it is my experience that closeted homo religious nuts ARE THE WORST. Google Jackson Public Schools on the issue if you think I'm making this up.

All men are created equal is not a quote you will pull from the bible.

Enjoy.

Because North American religionists are the more convincing and persistent liars?

That is quite possible I suppose.

Western Europe used to be as religious as the US is now. The Catholic dominated countries I thin it can be argued were even more under religious dominance than the US is today. I suppose it could be that the religious in Europe were, and are, either less willing, or not as good at, lying as their US counterparts.

//Then can you explain why in Western Europe the argument is being won?//

I think that is actually a fascinating question.
To many europeans religion is just a non-issue,its as relevant as Disneyland,its there,but you dont feel like going most of the time.

Why is it different in the US,I seriously dont know.Are people dumber? More arrogant? Have a greater need for a sky-daddy because of the harsher socio-economic conditions(health insurance)?
Its a fascinating question really.

Steve_C @255 writes: "And religion is easily shed, it's not who they are."

This is incorrect. Religion has always been a major component of personal and cultural identity in the vast majority of societies. In many cultures, religion is the central defining element -- look at Islam. I decry this fact, but I do not deny it. It's almost as hard to give up one's religious identity as it is to give up one's family.

Matt Penfold 256 asks "Then explain why increasingly people ARE rejecting religion in Western Europe. " I think you misinterpret what's going on in Europe. My read is that they are turning away from religion but not rejecting it. The difference here is one of tolerance. While Europeans in general are decreasingly religious personally, they do not oppose religion socially. There are few calls to turn cathedrals into museums, and little in the way of attacking religion. The attitude is more "live and let live" -- a lesson we Americans would do well to learn.

"However saying the battle can not be won concedes defeat."

Again, you're thinking in militaristic terms when in fact the solution lies in irenicism. Even a rabbit will fight when cornered. Cleansing society of religion's destructive effects will not be accomplished by smashing religion, but by coming up with better solutions to the needs religion meets.

Holbach @260 objects to my "render unto Caesar" argument: " How can you render anything unto something that does not exist?"

You're missing the subtlety of the point. It's a ju-jitsu argument, conceding the small point while proving the large point. Yes, render unto God absolutely everything that is God's -- which is everything that doesn't exist in the physical world. When the religious person has accepted that point, then it's all downhill from there.

Several people have voiced frustration at the foibles of democracy. How can we let the people -- who happen to be idiots -- decide what is taught? Well, the answer is that we have no better alternative.

If you want to reduce the grip of religion on people's minds, you need to offer an alternative. The difference between religion and secularism in American culture is that religion offers stronger social ties. People go to church to feel that they're part of a group that supports and sustains them. It's an immensely powerful force, this social glue, and if you attack it head-on, they'll just close ranks. If you really want to get activist, found a local group that provides the same social services a church does -- without the religion. Coming up with the right formula will be quite a trick, but I think it can be done.

Clinteas @267 asks regarding the decline of religious belief in Western Europe: "Why is it different in the US"?

I can suggest a number of factors. Europeans live in higher density housing than we do and have a better-developed sense of community. Americans living in suburbs have almost no sense of community so they need something to fill the hole. They resort to religion. If this hypothesis be true, then we should see higher rates of religious participation in suburban than in urban populations -- and I believe that is in fact the case.

Why is it different in the US,I seriously dont know.Are people dumber? More arrogant? Have a greater need for a sky-daddy because of the harsher socio-economic conditions(health insurance)?

I don't think Americans are any less intelligent than Western Europeans. I think you are onto something with regards socio-economic conditions though.

If we look at Ireland, it began to throw of the yoke of Catholic domination around 20 years ago. At the same Ireland also started a prolonged period of rapid and extensive economic growth. Spain has undergone a similar transformation, although the situation there is complicated by the fact it was a dictatorship until the mid 70's.

I don't think it is as simple as the more social equality in a country the less religious it is, but social equality is certainly a factor and a significant one at that. There is also the question as why a country has greater or lesser social equality. Which comes first, the decline in religion or the increase in equality ? What role does socialism play ? What role does liberal Christianity play ? The welfare states found in much of Europe came about in part as a result of Christians pushing for a more equitable society although non-religious humanists and atheists also had a role.

//Then can you explain why in Western Europe the argument is being won?//

I'd say it's because of the influence of state-run churches. The only thing dumber than religion is religion run by government.

Religion IS easily shed. It happens all the time. And I meant on an individual basis. People give it up every day. Societies take longer of course.

kingjoebob writes: "PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF PETE STOP LUMPING US TOGETHER WITH THE YOUNG-EARTHERS."

Assuming you deem yourself a christian, it is you who lumps yourself in with the young earthers by aligning yourself with an ideology that purports a young earth. Sure, you can deny/reject a literal acceptance of the parts of the bibble that purport the idea of a young earth, but that simply begs the question: Why stop there?

There's a fundamental disconnect between religion and rationalism, and it leads to a lot of futile head-banging on all possible sides of the issue. In the short term and in the context of K-12 education, we may be thinking in the wrong box. Why not take the None Of Yer Beeswax approach to a student challenge?

"It is not anyone's business whether another person in this room practices any particular religion, or if so, which one. It is no more appropriate or relevant for us to discuss your religion -- or your lack of it -- in this class than it is for you to tell the class details of your medical history, or how much money your parents make.

"You are not being forced to believe anything as a condition of attending this class. You are required to demonstrate an understanding of how science works, as a condition of passing this class. And it would be as illegal, bigoted, and dishonest for me to teach science differently to people of different religions as it would be for me to teach science differently to people of different sexes or skin colors."

Why is it different in the US,I seriously dont know.Are people dumber? More arrogant? Have a greater need for a sky-daddy because of the harsher socio-economic conditions(health insurance)?

I think the answer has its roots in American history. Christianity spread from the cities of colonial America in the hands of people who would come to value hard work and faith more than erudition and skepticism. Literacy rates declined, and that decline precipitated a corresponding mistrust of city folk and their lofty education. The Bible was the most commonly-found book on the frontier, and whoever was able to read it, aloud, with passion and conviction made the best preachers. Nuanced interpretations of scripture was for those city folk, not for the hard-working salt of the earth folk that were pushing westward.

This is a very young country by most standards. We're not far removed from frontier days, and even less so from frontier attitudes. Texas, anyone?

Since Dan seems to have abandoned the ship that began sinking as soon as he put in the water, perhaps another godbot would like to take a stab at answering a simple question posed to him regarding his spouting of the all too oft repeated, invariably unsupported-in-any-rational-manner maxim, "Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God."

Why not?

I think you misinterpret what's going on in Europe. My read is that they are turning away from religion but not rejecting it. The difference here is one of tolerance. While Europeans in general are decreasingly religious personally, they do not oppose religion socially. There are few calls to turn cathedrals into museums, and little in the way of attacking religion. The attitude is more "live and let live" -- a lesson we Americans would do well to learn.

My reading of what is happening in Western Europe is that religion is increasingly becoming irrelevant. It is true there is no demand to tear down churches, although they are increasingly being used for non-religious purposes as the result of declining congregations. I suspect one reason they are not being torn down is that many are rather nice buildings from an architectural perspective. Where religion is confided to personal belief, and those beliefs are not used to justify how others are, or should be, treated, then it is fair to say that Western Europe does not much mind. Where religion is used to justify or oppose social policy, especially polices concerning equality and access to services, then I think Europeans are less willing to "live and let live". Simply saying it is your religion's teaching becoming less and less a viable position to hold.

So you are right in as far as religion remains a personal matter, and does not seek to impinge on others. Of course few religious denominations are happy to remain so confined. Hence why here in the UK we are seeing the Catholic Church become increasingly vocal over the refusal of society to let religious bigots discriminate against those who happen to be gay.

Mike G wrote in #219:

The point is, in a debate on spiritual matters science has nothing to say, thus it has no place at the table.

Religious idiots are constantly making false scientific claims. God did this. God did that. And you want scientists to shut up about it. You want censorship of everyone who doesn't agree with your appeasement of religious insanity. Perhaps you are a religious idiot yourself. You're definitely an idiot.

You actually said "Jesus as the saviour". That's the way brainwashed fundies talk. If you're a religious nut, I have no respect for you. If you're an atheist who wants to respect religious nuts, I have nothing but contempt for you. Whatever you are, you're part of the problem and you should be ashamed of yourself.

If this hypothesis be true, then we should see higher rates of religious participation in suburban than in urban populations . . .

... and even higher rates in rural areas.

and I believe that is in fact the case.

As do I.

BobC @279 writes: "If you're an atheist who wants to respect religious nuts, I have nothing but contempt for you. Whatever you are, you're part of the problem and you should be ashamed of yourself."

That's the problem, Bob: you're so angry that you approach this problem emotionally rather than rationally.

Crawford, What's rational about respecting insanity? What's rational about respecting people who want appeasement of insanity?

BobC @281 asks: "What's rational about respecting insanity? What's rational about respecting people who want appeasement of insanity?"

The rational approach is to figure out what must be done to ameliorate the situation. Getting angry at the people who create the problem does nothing to solve the problem. In this day and age you are not permitted to exterminate them. Therefore, you must convince them to change. Regarding them with contempt will not convince them to change, and will therefore accomplish nothing in the way of solving the problem.

Crawford, what I had a problem with is Mike G's desire to censor scientists.

He said: "The point is, in a debate on spiritual matters science has nothing to say, thus it has no place at the table."

He also said: "In my opinion, when it comes to critiquing religion, scientists should stay the hell out of the debate."

He wants scientists to shut up.

I don't much care for censorship or people who want censorship.

In this day and age you are not permitted to exterminate them.

Where did I suggest genocide?

Therefore, you must convince them to change. Regarding them with contempt will not convince them to change, and will therefore accomplish nothing in the way of solving the problem.

How would you make a brain-dead theist give up Jebus? It can't be done. Their disease is incurable. It's not possible to reason with idiots.

It's important that religious people understand they deserve all the respect a racist deserves, which is no respect at all.

OK, Bob, if you object to the idea of scientists being denied the right to debate spiritual matters, then you cannot object to the idea of religious people having the right to debate scientific matters such as evolution. You can't have it both ways.

"It's important that religious people understand they deserve all the respect a racist deserves, which is no respect at all."

And they will treat you with equal contempt, and you will never accomplish any change. It sounds to me like you have given up.

Is it any wonder why some of us who wish for our children to receive a sound education now homeschool them? I am not religious and am preparing them for college without any religious agenda whatsoever. As budding engineers, they learn calculus and physics, courses rarely offered in public high school in their full rigor. It is a sad state of affairs indeed that beliefs now supercede substance in the classroom. Mythology is where all these religious ideas should be taught.

It is this increasing deference to religion in the US that is eroding our edge in science and technology. Anyone who doesn't want to face the reality of science should not enjoy the fruits of science either.

I just read Greg Laden's post on how teachers should deal with creationism brought up by brainwashed students. The point was not to prevent scientists debating religion, but that science class is the wrong place to do it. Keep the debate out of the classroom and you won't let the other side into it.

Tyler wrote:

Dan wrote: "Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God."

Why not?

Because the idea of "God", at least as held by most monotheists, describes a being of absolute omnipotence, and you can't test or sample for the presence or absence of an entity that can change the conditions of the investigation in any way and at any time without leaving a trace.

There are a lot of good social and political reasons why hefty infusions of secular rationalism would probably give this society a much-needed lift, but as far as experimental sciences go, it doesn't matter whether you believe, disbelieve, aren't sure, or don't care -- the question of whether god(s) exist is not suited to constructing a logical hypothesis.

I'd say it's [decline of religion in western Europe] because of the influence of state-run churches. - chancelikely

AFAIK, no western European state has state-run churches. Some have established churches - a particular church has some privileges. In the UK there are vestiges of a "state-run" condition for the Church of England - the Prime Minister formally approves the appointment of bishops - but in practice the church runs itself.

Mike G:

The Catholic Church seems to be confirming miracles as of July 3, 2008:

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080810/B…

And while the candidate for sainthood it is attributed to died more than a century ago, the supposed miracle itself occurred in 1998-1999:

On a doctor's visit on Oct. 2, 1998, a month after cancer was first detected in her lungs, doctors expected the tumors to have grown. Instead, they had shrunk, and by May 1999 tests confirmed that they had disappeared without treatment.

Chang and a half-dozen other doctors, including a cardiologist, oncologist, pathologist and radiologist, couldn't explain it. Chang, who does not belong to any religion, urged Toguchi to report it to the Catholic Church.

The Vatican conducted an extensive review and concluded Toguchi's recovery defied medical explanation.

On July 3, Pope Benedict XVI agreed and approved the case as Damien's second miracle, opening the way for the Belgian priest to be declared a saint. The Vatican requires confirmation of two miracles attributed to a candidate's intercession before canonization or sainthood.

Dan wrote: "Science does not, has not, and can not, prove OR disprove the existence of God."

Tyler wrote: Why not?

Julie Stahlhut wrote: Because the idea of "God", at least as held by most monotheists, describes a being of absolute omnipotence...

Tyler wrote: An idea which, as you're seemingly aware, is utterly absurd. Of course, not all (mono)theists deem their god(s) omnipotent, so while those who do can be disregarded as patently idiotic as soon as they answer the question thus, the question still stands for those who don't. Even so, your response doesn't necessarily answer the question unless one assumes...

Julie Stahlhut wrote: ... you can't test or sample for the presence or absence of an entity that can change the conditions of the investigation in any way and at any time without leaving a trace.

Tyler wrote: Which simply begs the question: Why would this 'god' do such a thing?

Julie Stahlhut wrote: ... the question of whether god(s) exist is not suited to constructing a logical hypothesis.

Well, of course not, when the idea of 'god' is internally inconsistent, logically. ;)

Chris Crawford, I've never seen scientists claiming that religious people shouldn't debate scientific issues. If they actually want to have a serious argument over a current scientific problem, that would be great.

The problem is that you can't seriously debate most scientific issues without alot more knowledge then a non-scientist usually has. How would you be arguing with me over whether a recent experiment demonstrated supersolid behavior in helium if you don't understand what bose-einstein condensation is? There is a background of knowledge that is simply necessary in science for anyone to even understand what the issue is.

The required knowledge on most subjects dealing with religion is much easier to acquire, especially for religions that are part of one's own culture (i.e. I'd have a much harder time attacking/defending islam or buddhism then christianity).

Actually, Christianity loves a good debate. Without contoversy it would stagnate. Its detractors wouldn't have a clue about The Christian ethos, apart from innuendo, and that would result in its essence being lost to all, including to it's most fervent and ardent proponents.

To throw down a gauntlet, by means of intelligently participating in these discussions is the mechanism through which growth and continuity are assured. The same logic applies in the furtherance of the atheist philosophy and to that of the other organized religions, as well as to agnostics who occupy a place somewhere in the middle.

Coriolis, the problem here is that religious people believe that they are being perfectly serious when they use the Bible as evidence in a scientific debate. You and I both know that's BS, but they consider it to be valid reasoning. I myself would rather just keep the two areas of inquiry completely separated.

Tyler: I personally don't believe in Robert Anton Wilson's "gaseous vertebrate of astronomical heft," and don't see any internally consistent way of doing so, especially if you take the question apart piece by piece instead of treating it as a black box. But the question as stated is much simpler: Can we use scientific methods to test for the presence, or a specific action, of such a being?

Why a god, if one existed, would bother to crawl into your Eppendorf tube and muck up your experiment is another question, but it's not a question amenable to good experimental design either. An ant, maybe, especially if the Epi tube had a sugar solution in it. A non-physical being with supernatural powers, no. Maybe a colorless green idea just happened to be sleeping furiously in there.

It is debatable whether "falsifiability" is a proper criterion of meaningfulness; that's what Popper thought - Neil B.

No it isn't. Indeed, he explicitly denied it. He thought (wrongly IMAO) that it was the criterion of whether a claim was scientific.

Why wrongly? (Assuming that by "scientific" you mean "within the reach of science".)

There may be some things that a scientific experiment can't prove - yet....

There is nothing a scientific experiment can prove. Only math and formal logic can prove. Science cannot prove -- only disprove.

I was hoping that when people read what I posted they would find themselves praying by accident....

What, you really believed...?!? Your wishful thinking is extremely unrealistic. Stop being ridiculous.

According to Gleick, Newton was a prime mover in the divergence of science from philosophy, such that science concerns itself with how things are, not why they are.

Which, incidentally, has meanwhile turned out to be the same. Everything is the way it is because it got that way -- and how everything got the way it is is an entirely scientific question.

Science does not, has not, and can not, [...] disprove the existence of God.

Provided that God is ineffable enough, yes.

One of his points was that humans are the only animal with a 4 chambered heart. This is wrong, all other mammals and birds do also.

And so do the crocodiles (the closest surviving relatives of the birds).

I feel that I must point out that it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago.

I would wager that a poll of practicing Catholics worldwide would find large majorities in favor of both views.

Julie Stahlhut wrote: But the question as stated is much simpler: Can we use scientific methods to test for the presence, or a specific action, of such a being?

(As PZ alluded), I agree.

A non-physical being with supernatural powers, no.

Sure, such a being (the purported existence of such immediately bringing to mind McKown's, "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.") cannot be scrutinized, but, as has been suggested, its alleged actions certainly can.

I feel that I must point out that it is NOT the Catholics who are biblical literalists, or who believe that the world was created 6,000 years ago.

Scott de B. #297 said,
"I would wager that a poll of practicing Catholics worldwide would find large majorities in favor of both views."

Scott you don't know much about what the Catholic Church teaches concerning scripture. Here is a link directly to the Catholic catechism concerning scripture:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm

You can see for yourself that it states plainly that there are literal and spiritual and allegorical and anagogical ways of interpreting scripture. A quick internet search may also demonstate plenty of evidence that Catholic don't take the Bible as a 'cook-book' for creation.

Second the question to Dan.

Why are you posting here? Inquiring minds want to know.

One final comment. It seems to me that on this blog there are many militant, angry atheists, who act just like there counterparts on the side of faith. That is they resort to name calling, and if I may so so - they have a 'holier-than-thou' attitude when dealing with a believer.

It seems to me that the atheists cling to their 'faith' in much the same way as a believer does. Does the believer have scientific proof that God exists? - no. Does the atheist have scientific proof that God doesn't exist? - no.

Isn't the position of an agnostic a more defensible position?

Yes. When these kids are all working for the Chinese in 20 years and asking, "Why, why, WHY?" there will be a clear answer for them: You were not bright enough to think outside the box.

My kids will do just fine, btw; they're atheists. :-)

To Patricia...

Why not?

I wondered a lot why a science professor would be posting so much concerning religious beliefs, but then I decided that he was posting these posts to get exposure for his blog and his views.

so I ask YOU - why shouldn't I?

Matt Penfold (#261): Oh, I agree completely. And ultimately what it comes down to is the teachers: it doesn't matter what the state or national benchmarks say, in the end they will teach what they want. Most teachers aren't carefully monitored, so it is easy for them to get away with it. That's why something like 16% of public school biology teachers include creationism in their courses, even though teaching creationism is unlawful (read some of the work done by Randi Moore on this stuff, he's a good guy).

We need to change things on so many levels, and we are (I am a PhD student in a Teacher Education program; one of the best in the country). However, I think we need to catch them at a young age. We need qualified teachers, who have received rigorous evolution education in their own teacher education programs, to teach young kids about the nature of science and evolution. The thing is that religion is extremely pervasive and influential. It's not a losing battle, I don't think, but it's going to be a long slog. Be comforted to know, however, that there *is* something being done about it in the world of education.

Clinteas (#262): Yeah, well, good luck with that.

Bobc #284 says: "How would you make a brain-dead theist give up Jebus? It can't be done. Their disease is incurable. It's not possible to reason with idiots."

Interesting, because Steve C says that religion is easily shed. There is dissension among our ranks!

Chris Crawford: I think you are very reasonable person. Thanks.

Having studied the history of US education, I find it fascinating (and a little depressing) that absolutely nothing has changed in the last 150 or so years.

There is nothing a scientific experiment can prove. Only math and formal logic can prove. Science cannot prove -- only disprove. - David Marjanović, OM

If you disprove proposition P, in doing so you necessarily prove proposition ~P. Popper was wrong in thinking (apparently) that only universal generalisations are part of science. It has been proved, for example (in the everyday sense of that word), that hereditary information in many organisms is stored in molecules of DNA. It couldn't be proved that all hereditary information is stored in molecules of DNA even if that were true - because that's a universal generalisation. In fact, as we know, this has been disproved, thus proving the proposition "Some hereditary information is not stored in molecules of DNA. Of course, you could say "Well, maybe we've somehow been deceived and hereditary information is not stored in DNA", but for this to be true, some form of extreme scepticism must be true (e.g. that an evil demon is deceiving us, that the nature of the world chnaged 5 seconds ago and hereditary information is now stored by angels on pinheads, etc.) - but one can equally well make the same kind of objection to mathematical proofs: maybe a demon merely deceives us into thinking there are an infinite number of primes. I don't mean that mathematical and scientific proof are the same, clearly they are not, but that doesn't mean science never proves things. It does, and it's about time people stopped saying it doesn't.

Dan,
No reason you shouldn't post, except that you have nothing of the slightest interest or originality to say. Cutting and pasting prayers really is pathetic. As is the old "atheism is a faith" crap. Why, Dan, do you cling to your faith that there are no leprachauns? On what grounds do you refuse to believe in Thor? Not believing in entities for which there is no evidence is the default position, so even with regard to gods in general, it is as rational to be an atheist as it is to be an aleprachaunist. In the case of the Christian god, who is supposedly both omnipotent and benevolent, the evidence against it's existence is overwhelming - that of Thor is far and away more plausible.

I'm afraid I cannot be with you on this one, PZ. We all now how deep the trenches between religion and science are in the USA. Guys like Bryce are not the exception; they are the result of an system of uneducation, of indoctrination, and resistance against that is just building up in your country. Wouldn't an all-out confrontation just put people like him off and alienate him?
Even more important: The struggle against religion should not be fought inside the classrooms, right? The Creationists attempt to bring their worldview into the classes was criticised by many people. Let's keep this conflict out there altogether, because in the end we would fight this over the heads of the pupils. Fight them in public, in the media, in politics, but not in the classroom. Let's keep that one for teaching.

Nick, the thing is... For me the wonder of science, nature, mathematics, and so on.... IS part of the proof for God. I don't accept, and firmly believe that there is much childishness in what many people believe, that I why I said earlier that better religious/spiritual education is needed.

I think we look at the same things and see them differently. I happen to know PhD physicists, and MD's who believe - they are not stupid people at all.

I know that many posters on this blog have gotten upset at the 'trolls' -- well, you have only to thank P.Z. for that. He made and continues to make posts specifically to stir up those who he feels are beneath his intellectual heights. I for one question why a grown man and scientist and educator would bother. When I step back and view it rationally, it does seem a lot like children teasing eachother on a playground. It doesn't seem worthy of either the scientific or religious community.

Dan. Yeah you're a smart guy and you believe in a sky daddy. Stop wearing it like a badge of honor.

It's like saying hey "I believe in gravity AND that yoga masters can levitate."

You don't have the high ground for being rational and deluded at the same time.

Dan,
the thing is... For me the wonder of science, nature, mathematics, and so on.... IS part of the proof for God.

Don't. Be. Silly. You can't just proclaim that something is "part of the proof" of something else, without the slightest attempt at justification, and expect to be regarded with anything other than contempt by rational people. Why aren't these things "part of the proof" of the existence of Thor, or of leprachauns?

When I step back and view it rationally
Something you've made abundantly clear you are quite incapable of doing.

Here lies Dan in his grave, the insane beliefs bleached from his decayed brain, with no place to go and no one to come and get him. He lived his life as a wimper, and left without a prayer. Where is your god?

Hey people get some life experience. Volunteer in some homeless shelters, go vist a childrens hospital and watch the little ones trying to be brave for the sake of their parents. Try working night shift in a convenience store right in the 'projects' just to put yourself through college. Spend several years among drug addicts and watch a few die, and a few manage to dig themselves out. Hey, this would be politically correct - visit Walter Reed hospital and snicker at the loss of faces, limbs, and pieces of brain matter that the young men and women have lost. Tell them they are so stupid, since they lost it for nothing. Try telling the guy that feels completely spiritually and emotionally shattered because he knows that he killed a bunch of humans and maybe children that he shouldn't bother worrying since there isn't any God anyway.

Do I believe in God - yeah, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've seen the devil......

Dan,
You really are a contemptible little shit. You know absolutely nothing about the people who comment here, what life experience they have, yet you think you have the right to lecture them just because you've had hallucinations.

Blake Stacey wrote:

Why not throw out the Bible, then, and start using a holy text which actually describes such a god?

For the same reasons we don't 'throw out' the Iliad or Paradise Lost, I suppose. Genesis is not a science text, and taken as a whole is not even primarily a cosmogeny.

RBH wrote:

In the public schools it is not permissible to advocate for or against a religious view. Commenters here have excoriated John Freshwater for pushing his religious views in the classroom, but exactly the same constitution governs public school teachers who explicitly deride their students' religions views. In addition to being wholly ineffective, it's unconstitutional, kiddies.

Right on.

Holbach wrote:

Life with religion is a pathetic sham; life without religion is life worth living.

Funny, but this seems like a religious statement to me. And no, I don't think I'm projecting. It's a claim that is inherently subjective and could only be held on faith...right?

Kingjoebob wrote:

expurgated

I don't really have a (clean) comment to make other than I totally share your frustration at the increasingly-blatant attempts of some to interject their sectarian beliefs into the public schools....and that there's no point in getting pissy with the hardcore atheists here who want to treat all religionists the same, which is to say with the zeal of a true believer. Saul, Saul, it is hard for you to kick the pricks and all that.

Dan (#312) wrote:

Do I believe in God - yeah, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've seen the devil......

No, Dan. It has something to do with the fact that you're batshit crazy and a shit-for-brains asshole.

You saw the devil? You're a disgrace to the human race. Grow up moron.

Dan #312 wrote:

Do I believe in God - yeah, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've seen the devil......

Interesting. This seems to be an admission that the reason people believe in God (or, perhaps, the reason you believe in God), is because it provides comfort. Whether God exists or not, one ought to try to believe that it does, because it helps get one through tough times.

Is this how you see it?

Dan wrote (possibly in summation):

One final comment. It seems to me that on this blog there are many militant, angry atheists, who act just like there counterparts on the side of faith. That is they resort to name calling, and if I may so so - they have a 'holier-than-thou' attitude when dealing with a believer.

Dan, while I am mildly sympathetic to your comments (see my previous post), I think you misread the situation. Pharyngula is a haven for atheists, and particularly for outspoken atheists. It's PZ's demographic. This blog is wildly popular for a science blog, in part because it serves said demographic. And, as a theist who posts here, I have found many times that I have been subject to strong criticism. In general, I try to take that in stride because my personal take is that this really is their haven and not mine. I'm a guest here, and I try to act like a guest and not be drawn into an insultfest or something like that. Keep in mind that, like a lot of us, many of the posters on Pharyngula are fellow human beings who have been wounded by religion as practiced. Many of them have comparable life experiences to you and I, doubtless. It seems arrogant to suggest or imply otherwise. We should try to walk in their shoes and understand their point of view and engage them as people, rather than as placeholders for ideology.

It seems to me that the atheists cling to their 'faith' in much the same way as a believer does. Does the believer have scientific proof that God exists? - no. Does the atheist have scientific proof that God doesn't exist? - no.

I would point out that the position of atheism is an intellectually-defensible response to the absence of evidence for God's action in human affairs, and certainly a rebuke to the problem of evil.

Isn't the position of an agnostic a more defensible position?

Yes, but the position being defended is kind of like the Falklands, strategically.

I can suggest a number of factors. Europeans live in higher density housing than we do and have a better-developed sense of community. Americans living in suburbs have almost no sense of community

Europeans? Sense of community? What? Not in the cities (where, of course, almost everyone lives).

IMHO one important factor are the centralized school systems. Curricula are a state or national affair, there are no local school boards. The disadvantage is obvious: you can easily imagine what the curricula of dictatorships looked like. The advantage is also obvious: actual experts get to decide on the curricula, not people who don't know what they're talking about.

Another is that "highschool" teachers are required to have studied the subjects they teach at a university. The proportion of teachers who don't know what they're talking about seems to be greatly reduced as a result.

Yet another is a feedback effect: there are no creationists (except for Jehovah's Witnesses and Maciej Giertych), so there are no parents who complain when their children are taught about evolution.

The welfare states found in much of Europe came about in part as a result of Christians pushing for a more equitable society

Correct. This includes several popes in a row.

although non-religious humanists and atheists also had a role.

Yes -- in making conservative governments adopt their positions to take the wind out of their sails.

I'd say it's because of the influence of state-run churches. The only thing dumber than religion is religion run by government.

Even vaguely state-run churches seem to be a northern specialty (Scandinavia, UK, Russia before 1917).

I think comment 275 explains it best. Note how both American religiosity and antiintellectualism turn out to be the same thing.

I suspect one reason they are not being torn down is that many are rather nice buildings from an architectural perspective. Where religion is confided to personal belief, and those beliefs are not used to justify how others are, or should be, treated, then it is fair to say that Western Europe does not much mind. Where religion is used to justify or oppose social policy, especially polices concerning equality and access to services, then I think Europeans are less willing to "live and let live". Simply saying it is your religion's teaching becoming less and less a viable position to hold.

Bingo.

--------------------------

The same logic applies in the furtherance of the atheist philosophy and to that of the other organized religions, as well as to agnostics who occupy a place somewhere in the middle.

1) There is no such thing as "the atheist philosophy". "There is almost certainly no god" is a bit too little to qualify, don't you think?
2) Few agnostics are anywhere in the middle. What about "I don't know, and you don't know either" is "middle"? Because that's what "unknown and unknowable" means. That's an extreme position, don't you think?

----------------------

Maybe a colorless green idea just happened to be sleeping furiously in there.

Verily, this is ineffable...

----------------------

Isn't the position of an agnostic a more defensible position?

In fact, I consider myself an agnostic, and under a sufficiently wide definition of agnostic (respectively a sufficiently strict definition of atheist) more or less all people here are agnostics. You will hardly find people who believe it has been proven that there are no deities. What you'll find are people saying 1) there's no evidence for any, 2) the assumption that any exist is not necessary to explain anything, and 3) Ockham's Razor therefore argues against that hypothesis.

I wondered a lot why a science professor would be posting so much concerning religious beliefs, but then I decided that he was posting these posts to get exposure for his blog and his views.

You have overlooked that the good man lives in God's Own Country. He is daily confronted with cretinists who insist on teaching his children nonsense and demand loudly that he stop teaching well-tested science to his students. How do you expect a scientist to react? I expect him to get some holy wrath and take up the metaphorical war rock hammer, and that's what PZ does.

----------------------

If you disprove proposition P, in doing so you necessarily prove proposition ~P. Popper was wrong in thinking (apparently) that only universal generalisations are part of science. It has been proved, for example (in the everyday sense of that word), that hereditary information in many organisms is stored in molecules of DNA.

Hmmmm. It's a quarter past 1 at night, so I hope I don't write bullshit here. The important point is that there isn't just a single ¬P. Sure, if you disprove P and every single ¬P except one, then this one ¬P is proven, but finding every single ¬P is, at the very least, very difficult, and not all of them may even be falsifiable in the first place.

For example, I think it's imaginable that the hereditary information is instead stored in something unknown and perhaps somewhat ineffable that is attached to DNA, for example. The transcription machinery attaches to both DNA and the real carrier of heredity, and so on...

Sure, this is laughably unparsimonious, but, remember, we're not talking about the principle of parsimony here, we're talking about falsification alone. Parsimony is the next step.

maybe a demon merely deceives us into thinking there are an infinite number of primes.

Good point.

--------------------

For me the wonder of science, nature, mathematics, and so on.... IS part of the proof for God.

Call it evidence if you like, but proof? Please.

--------------------

I happen to know PhD physicists, and MD's who believe - they are not stupid people at all.

Yay, an argument from authority.

Try telling the guy that feels completely spiritually and emotionally shattered because he knows that he killed a bunch of humans and maybe children that he shouldn't bother worrying since there isn't any God anyway.

Huh???

Oh, now I get it. You imply that the only reason to feel shattered is fear of punishment. Is that it?

Because you don't believe that yourself.

Do I believe in God - yeah, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've seen the devil......

Non sequitur. If personified evil exists, how does this require personified good to exist? Is it beyond your imagination that perhaps the universe really does suck? Have you considered the Sumerian afterlife? Not to mention the Great Cthulhu...

Mu mu mu mu ( <-- that's what I'm told Japanese videogame laughter is).

<-- that's what I'm told Japanese videogame laughter is).

I forgot I can't simply use < here with impunity.

The important point is that there isn't just a single ¬P. - David Marjanović, OM

Well yes, there is, at least in any logic that includes the law of the excluded middle. ~P is just the negation of P: exactly one of the two must be true, and one false. Where P is a universal generalisation, ~P is an existential statement, which can be proved by exhibiting an example of what is stated to exist. I think what you mean is that for any set of data, there are multiple mutually contradictory universal generalisations that could encompass that data - but as I say, science does not consist only of universal generalisations. Moreover, I don't think your alternative to the DNA hypothesis stands up even as a thought experiment: we know a great deal about how DNA stores hereditary information, and makes it available for use. It is inconceivable that any future scientific revolution will overturn the hypothesis that some organisms store hereditary information in DNA molecules - unless at the same time, it shows that some form of extreme scepticism is justified, which would cast the whole scientific enterprise into confusion; and as you admit, even mathematics is not immune to that possibility.

Moreover, I don't think your alternative to the DNA hypothesis stands up even as a thought experiment: we know a great deal about how DNA stores hereditary information, and makes it available for use.

Sure, any alternative would require a lot of imagination, perhaps so much it wouldn't even be falsifiable. But if P isn't falsifiable, how can ¬P be proven by disproving P?

When a student tries to defy a science teacher with a religious answer, the teacher should proceed with firm stepd to the students desk, and rap the student on the knuckles with a ruler and send them home. That's all it's about, defying the teacher's authourity and trying to disrupt the classroom. And the teacher must prevent that. When the students become to big to discipline effectively, hire some atheist kids to beat him up after school.
If they don't learn to acknowledge the authourity of the teacher, how will they ever learn to acknowledge the authourity of God?

@322, It can't - but if P is a universal generalisation, ~P is an existential statement, is not falsifiable, but is provable - and just as scientific as P. "There are viruses that store hereditary information in RNA" is an existential statement, therefore provable (and, as it happens, true and proved), and as scientific as any claim you can formulate.

Amy,No 237 :
You can't expect children to check their religion at the door when they enter a science classroom

I think you have to expect just that. Trying to build a bridge between religion and science is a colossal waste of time, and quite possibly the wrong thing to do.

You talked of the constructivist approach - perhaps the thing to do there is to make sure that kids understand that science builds on the real world, and to do science you need to keep it real. Students need to understand that their religion is their own affair, but that the facts of the universe don't change for the sake of religious belief, and that religion does not get discussed in the science (or maths) classroom, by teachers or students.

Articles like this remind me of why I had so many arguments as an academic... science is, at its core, descriptive rather than explanatory and there is no way around this simple fact. Any "explanation" that is based on what we consider to be science is by necessity an act of faith because it depends _completely_ on the acceptance of one or more axioms as a starting point.

And yes, I mean axiom in the mathematical sense. The other common definition (a self-evident truth) is something that I have never encountered in peer-reviewed literature that is taken seriously.

If science and religion were built upon the same axioms, then we would be witnessing a conversation and arguments between peers. Instead, what we have are theological conversations and arguments between atheists and non-atheists with science as a peripheral talking point that ultimately has nothing to do with either camp.

@324 - I should have added for complete clarity, "There are viruses that store hereditary information in RNA" is not falsifiable. How could you ever be certain you had examined all viruses to make sure that none of them use RNA as hereditary material? (Unless of course you define "virus" to exclude this possibility, but of course that makes no difference to how the world is, or the content of what we can and can't prove.)

Any "explanation" that is based on what we consider to be science is by necessity an act of faith because it depends _completely_ on the acceptance of one or more axioms as a starting point. - mongo

No it doesn't.

Hi, Dan. You really are a clueless hate-mongering fucktard, aren't you?

Hey people get some life experience. Volunteer in some homeless shelters, go vist a childrens hospital and watch the little ones trying to be brave for the sake of their parents. Try working night shift in a convenience store right in the 'projects' just to put yourself through college. Spend several years among drug addicts and watch a few die, and a few manage to dig themselves out.

You say this as if you have some basis for thinking that the commenters in this forum haven't had experiences like these. You don't. Many of us have had such experiences, and many others besides.

Hey, this would be politically correct - visit Walter Reed hospital and snicker at the loss of faces, limbs, and pieces of brain matter that the young men and women have lost.

What kind of soulless shit-eater are you that such things would even occur to you?

Tell them they are so stupid, since they lost it for nothing.

See above question.

Try telling the guy that feels completely spiritually and emotionally shattered because he knows that he killed a bunch of humans and maybe children that he shouldn't bother worrying since there isn't any God anyway.

Yeah. You really are a clueless, soulless, hate-mongering fucktard. You truly have no idea what fills the minds and hearts of atheists... but you fill that ignorance with your own projected cruelty and malice quite well.

Do I believe in God - yeah, but it may have something to do with the fact that I've seen the devil......

And the devil looked an awful lot like you, didn't he?

Scott Hatfield OM @ 314 You seem to ascribe religious overtones to my statement, whether infered or referenced, when I stated that "Life with religion is a pathetic sham; life without religion is life worth living". There is nothing of a religious nature to be read in my statement, and I think it is wishful thinking on your part to infer it as so. I am an ardent atheist without one iota of religious nonsense in my nature, thought, deed or my dealings with known religionists with respect to acknowledging their stricken nature. You admit to being a theist, and to my mind you have branded yourself in my estimation as not being equal to my atheist rationalizations. I am totally devoid of all religious nonsense, and this includes religious painting and music which I have been critized as lacking a sympathetic response to their value in itself. You could not be more removed from realization in thinking I harbor any semblance of a religious nature in the minuest bit. Perhaps you surmised that my statement smacked of that insane fraud, Fulton Sheen, whom I almost paraphrased? I can do my own thinking and need no prompting when it comes to deriding religion in any form or manner. Your religious banter is wasted on me; stick to your fellow religionists.

Hi, Dan (re Comment #328):

LOL... Feel free to elaborate. :-)

I've seen God a couple times.

Well, a more accurate description of the experiences would be more like, "I was standing in the front row while Mary Prankster played 'Irresponsible Woman' and a breeze came through the courtyard to gently tousle her hair and give everyone a contact high because it blew past the Senior House dormitory. . . ." Good times, good times.

You know, calling the sort of atheists who hang out around here "militant" stretches the word so far as to be an insult to our men and women in uniform. We write words on the Internet. Some of us go to bars and hang out with other atheists who write words on the Internet. Upon occasion, we buy books recommended by atheists who write words on the Internet. If that's your definition of "militant", then every church with a light-up sign out front is a hotbed of militant Christianity.

mongo,
You seem a little confused. #328 was my comment, and had nothing to do with Dan. You made an unjustified assertion @326, which I denied @328. Scientists giving an explanation do not need to be able to specify the axioms they are assuming, as mathematicians do, so on the face of it, your assertion appears to be false. If you want to argue for it, go ahead; and (at some point - it's 01:30 where I am and I'm off to bed) I'll either dispute your arguments, or admit I was wrong. Otherwise, there's nothing more to be said.

Hi, Nick (re #333):

First of all, my apologies for the mistake -- I am both reading and writing after work and a couple of pints.

I am arguing that a clear statement of axioms, explicit or implicit, is necessary to provide the framework for testing any hypothesis. I would welcome the chance to discuss any assertions that are contrary to this.

Contrary examples would be most helpful in this regard.

Dan @ 312 I notice that you want to foist all that humane volunteering onto humans. Instead of appealing to humans, why don't you appeal to your imaginary(love this word!) god for all that magical volunteering? Or has prayer and supplication escaped you in your hour of need and you must rely on human intervention? Come, come, let's see your god!

Dan,
There is no God. Those drug addicts you mentioned? They are faulty meat computers that have fatal glitches that will kill them unless they are programmed otherwise. Those little children you whimper over? Little fleshy robots that are suffering from rust. Human life is nothing but a meaningless void where we try to fit in our chemically induced feelings to feel whole, but it's all bullshit. There is no soul. There is no free will. When a human is hit by a car there is no difference from a planet getting hit by a comet. Random chance occuring to bits of matter that are ambulatory and deluded that they are conscious by the hidden actions of chemicals. Let it go.

It won't work, PZ. Kids would just dig in their heels. Why should teachers be missionaries for atheism when all kids have to do is go to your website or Richard Dawkins's website and learn all about the arguments for atheism. That's not their job; it's yours. Also, militant atheists like you and Dr. Dawkins seem so certain of the answers to the big questions like "Is there a God?" But in a universe tens of billions of light-years across, there's room for humility. But in closing, I'd like to express my admiration and support for teachers like David Campbell.

Dan wrote: Waaaaaaa... persecution complex... waaaaaaa... delusions of grandeur... waaaaaaa.... appeal to 'authority'... waaaaaaa... deadly sin of pride... waaaaaaa... sheer and utter presumptuousness... dodging pressing questions... waaaaaaa... waaaaaaa... waaaaaaa.

How predictable a demonstration of exactly why you and your ilk have no business proposing educational standards for the children you've been abusing with that sickening, anti-human mindfuck for centuries on end.

Enjoy wallowing in your willfully ignorant, self made hell, sir.

Richard wrote: Why should teachers be missionaries for atheism...

Straw man.

Christ at an BDSM convention... you cretins are more predictable than a child alone in a toy store.

Ignore Richard, I've seen his act before.

Also, militant atheists like you and Dr. Dawkins seem so certain of the answers to the big questions like "Is there a God?" But in a universe tens of billions of light-years across, there's room for humility.

And gaps... don't forget the gaps.

Wow, Dan, when the gloss wears off it wears off hard, dunnit?

From the beginning, you have refused to recognize the point, made repeatedly by many commenters, that at a fundamental level your faith and your love of science are incompatible. I know it's uncomfortable--the lashing out makes that quite obvious--but being honest with yourself is a start towards feeling better. You need to confront your fear and look inside your double standard.

#303 - Dan - There is no reason why you shouldn't post here. I am just wondering why you do? Are you hoping to 'save' us? Could you be stirring up PZ's Ilk with your godbotting to get naughty comments for a blog? Printing out how many hits you get to impress your pastor with your piety? Sorry Dan, gawds minions have been here too many times before you. We recognize the smell.
So you've seen the devil Dan. OK fair enough. Some of us here have seen GOD. It's not impressing this crowd.
No grog & swill for Dan.

mongo,
Any "explanation" that is based on what we consider to be science is by necessity an act of faith because it depends _completely_ on the acceptance of one or more axioms as a starting point.

you really don't know much about science, do you?

Stop thinking about the science you were taught in church. Leave biology alone for the moment; you religion is interfering too much for you to see it. and start looking at some physics and chem. Try studying some fluid mechanics, then some electro-magnetism, and then the wave-particle duality of light. High-school stuff, but you can go a bit deeper if you like.

Now you are ready to realise that biology is just like the others: take real-world observations and make sense of them. No faith required.

#284 - BobC - It isn't impossible for one of the gawdsoaked, ignorant, uneducated, religious fucktards to rise to the surface of the scum pond, take a breath and then swallow the red pill. I did it. I gotta tell you Bob it's great on your side of the matrix. I'm happy every day. No gods, no sin, no hell - no master. Sweet!

Paul Burnett @ # 166 - Thanks for setting me straight!

Ally McBeelzebub @ # 129: ... you're not going to defeat religion across the board. ... So prioritise: what's the really important battle? The integrity of science and science education, for sure. (and others making parallel arguments)

Or is it the right of women to control their own bodies? Or of gays to enjoy the same rights as straights? Or protecting the First Amendment of the US Constitution? Or of having public policies decided on the basis of evidence and rational thinking?

There are an awful lot of "really important battles" in the US culture wars these days which all somehow involve resisting religious institutions and the people who run (and profit from) them. It would not be pragmatic to attempt to create one pro-science, pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, pro-Bill-of-Rights, pro-reason organization and expect it to work effectively on all those fronts simultaneously - but it would be spectacularly dumb for those engaged in each of these (and other) struggles not to identify, analyze, and recognize the nature of their opposition.

Hi, echidna (re# 344):

My area of study was Galactic astronomy, so your concerns are a matter of opinion rather than fact. There is no need for any condescesion on your part, and I am not speaking from a theological perspective.

When you say "make sense" of biology, you are (I hope) speaking of forming and testing hypotheses based on repeatable observations. These hypotheses are based on, at some point, one or more assumptions that you take for granted so that you can get an answer from your tests(s) -- you never address the question of causality. On the subject of physics, if you take a serious look at, say, the Standard Model or (closer to my heart because I worked on part of it) the Cosmological Distance Ladder, you have to work with axioms that you simply cannot _explain_.

I am still awaiting a counter-example and you have not provided one. Keep to the spirit of the argument if you can. :-)

Quick correction to #347: You never address the subject of causality from your initial axioms.

Any "explanation" that is based on what we consider to be science is by necessity an act of faith because it depends _completely_ on the acceptance of one or more axioms as a starting point.

one of the many reasons this is wrong, is that in addition to the explanatory value of scientific endeavor, there is the predictive nature of it as well.

Testing the predictions generated from our hypotheses necessitates challenging the "axioms" you idiotically ascribe to 'faith'.

so, to correct you futher:

These hypotheses are based on, at some point, one or more assumptions

yes...

that you take for granted

not hardly.

...and it's the same whether we are talking biology, chemistry, physics, or mathematics, for that matter.

we tend to toss ideas that fail to have sufficient predictive value.

so, you see, there is no "faith" whatsoever. In fact, there is a complete absence of anything even remotely resembling it.

you need to stop projecting your religious ideology where it is so inapplicable.

Hey people get some life experience.

The insipid arrogance never stops.

"These hypotheses are based on, at some point, one or more assumptions that you take for granted so that you can get an answer from your tests(s) -- you never address the question of causality."

This is pretty opaque, you seem to be claiming that since one is abstracting away relatively inconsequential details (e.g., the quantum effects inevitably lost in decoherence) that you are taking these things "on faith". If so, you're talking a bunch of a nonsense. It is distinct from faith in that it A.) has operational and instrumental value and B.) is based on premises that are subject to evaluation by the evidence.

It's time for this ol' ex-sinner to toddle off to bed. But I wish to leave dear Dan with a good night sentiment.
Peter asked Jesus -
"What is the sin of the world?"
The Teacher answered:
"There is no sin."
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene 7:13-15
Here ya go Dan. No sin.
I really must object. There hasn't been one flipping troll on this thread worthy of my: "Descending into obscenities".
They just don't make trolls like Brenda anymore.
Goodnight you demon infested sweethearts!

I'm too lazy to look upthread...is Patricia godbotting or being ironic?

Okay nvrmnd, I just got off my e-ass and looked upthread. She is indeed being ironic.

is Patricia godbotting or being ironic?

Definitely not godbotting.

mongo @ 347,
//These hypotheses are based on, at some point, one or more assumptions that you take for granted so that you can get an answer from your tests(s//

Ahem,
i might just be a simple doctor,but that doesnt sound quite right to me.
What kind of scientist takes his assumptions for granted?

@ No 350,Kseniya,

//The insipid arrogance never stops.//

I liked it how the gloss came off that one so quickly,and the arrogance and repressed violence and hatred came out in all its glory.
Patricia is right,this month's batch of loons has been rather disappointing.

Hey, Ichthyic! So glad to see you back. I was starting to worry.

By the way, if anyone tries to tell you that MAJeff and I are the most ignorant skeptical trivialists in the greater Boston area, it's a vicious lie. We are the second most ignorant. (And I do so well watching Jeopardy!. WTF?) Not even lame enough to win a lousy prize. *grumble*

P.S. Thanks, Rebecca. :)

On the subject of physics, if you take a serious look at, say, the Standard Model or (closer to my heart because I worked on part of it) the Cosmological Distance Ladder, you have to work with axioms that you simply cannot _explain_.

Could you give us some examples of what in your opinion are such axioms?

Wow!!! I find it interesting that in this day and age in the twenty-first century this issue is still as prominent as ever. It is hilarious to me that the religious folk still cling to their ignorant beliefs making themselves look only like the idiots they portray themselves as. I find it even more hilarious that scientist find it so offensive that they can not just leave the religious to their own rediculous folklore. The fact that so many scientist feel personally attacked and feel that they need to take on this fundamental issue which can never be solved, is essentially something that scientist have no place in. No amount of scientific evidence is going to appeal to anyone who doesn't want to listen to it.

I am Catholic, and attend church every Sunday, I also am currently doing my Masters at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. What is wrong with this picture, you ask??? Perhaps people like me, are underrepresented in the whole war on creation vs. evolution. I don't feel that it is such an astronomical theory to believe that God created life through evolution. However, I suppose if one must reject Adam and Eve to come to this conclusion, they would have accepted the evolutionary proof in the first place. My ultimate thought is that so much effort is spent by both parties trying to prove the other wrong, when the argument is completely futile. Maybe we should leave the data to whom ever would like to interpret it, in whatever way they would like to like most other data is presented, with lack of scientific objectivity.

mongo@348,

You never address the subject of causality from your initial axioms.

You've lost me. I can't find enough detail in your rhetoric to have any clue about what you are trying to say.

I'm not sure what you mean by "keep to the spirit of the argument", but as far as I can make out, the topic is high school science, and the pickle teachers get into when their students have been faith-washed to the point where they can't accept established facts, and feel as if study of the natural world is a betrayal of their God and community.

You have taken the word "faith" and applied it ambiguously - and blurred the distinction of the word using both it's religious content (no evidence required) and to the concept that working assumptions in test conditions require "faith" (of a sort).

I'm not convinced you are a scientist, protestations regarding galactic astronomy notwithstanding. Scientists don't play rhetorical games in science forums (unless they want to be annoying).

Rebecca Richone,@ 360,

congratulations on your personal success at compartmentalizing,but the topic here is teachers and how to deal with religious nonsense in the science classroom.
I think we are all aware that you can be a scientist and go to church on Sunday,that is not what is being discussed here.

//My ultimate thought is that so much effort is spent by both parties trying to prove the other wrong, when the argument is completely futile//

Im sorry,but if thats your ultimate thought,then I dont want to hear the others.
The onus is not on atheists to prove anything,the religious ones are proposing a higher being must exist to create the universe,the default position here is that of unbelief,since there is no need for a god to exist to explain that what is around us.

If you are such a reasonable sciencey person,than you should have no problem conceding that the burden of proof is on you,since you are the one proposing there is a god,not me.And surely you agree that a science classroom is a place to teach about science?

I am arguing that a clear statement of axioms, explicit or implicit, is necessary to provide the framework for testing any hypothesis. - mongo

No you're not; you're asserting it. If you would actually like to argue it, there might be something to discuss. Until then, there isn't.

mongo,
Apologies, I hadn't read your #347 when posting my #363. I see where you're going wrong: the provisional or working assumptions made (usually implicitly) in science are very different from the axioms of mathematicians. The scientist's provisional assumptions are assumptions about the world, and are always liable to revision in the light of later discoveries. The axioms of the mathematician are not. The difference is perhaps seen most clearly on those occasions when mathematicians act like scientists, making provisional assumptions they are aware they may have to revise in the light of later discoveries. For example, much work in computer science assumes that the two classes of problem known as "P" and "NP" are not equivalent - that some problems in NP are not in P - but this has not been proved. To take a converse example, it was long assumed in physics that space provides an absolute frame of reference. Experimental and theoretical work conducted under this assumption, however, eventually led to discoveries (e.g. in the Michelson-Morley experiment of 1887) that showed the assumption was false and must be dropped. Causality (I assume by this you mean the assertion that all events have causes) is likewise not beyond the possibility of revision - indeed, at least some interpretations of quantum mechanics abandon it.

A mathematical axiom, on the other hand, cannot suffer this fate (unless it is shown to be self-contradictory). That is why there are no axioms in anything like the mathematical sense in science. (To mention a complication, it is possible to "axiomatise" particular scientific theories, in the sense of attempting to capture their content in a formal language; but such a formalised theory is simply a mathematical structure: that it actually describes the real world remains at most a provisional assumption. Indeed, you can just as well axiomatise a theory known to be false, as one believed to be true.)

Even what is perhaps the most basic of scientific assumptions, realism (that there is an external world with consistent properties) might have to be abandoned in certain circumstances - say, if magic spells started to work, or fossil rabbits turned up in the Precambrian - although that might (depending on exactly how the assumption turned out to be false) mean the end of the scientific project. We do not have, and do not need to have faith in any of our scientific assumptions, indeed it is a crucial part of the responsibility of scientists not to have such faith, but to follow where the evidence leads. If it appears that the evidence cannot be consistently understood, it is the scientist's right, duty (and pleasure) to strive to identify explicit or implicit assumptions that can be questioned.
Of course, individual scientists, and even scientific communities, can make the mistake of becoming so attached to some assumption that they treat it as an axiom. This is exactly what most theists do as a matter of principle: they treat the existence of a god, and many assertions about the properties of that god, as axiomatic, beyond all possibility of revision.

I should have made clear that in referring to "computer science" in #364, I meant theoretical computer science, which is a branch of mathematics.

Hi, clinteas (# 356):

// Ahem,
i might just be a simple doctor,but that doesnt sound quite right to me.
What kind of scientist takes his assumptions for granted?//

All kinds of them, sadly. At one point there was talk that physics might be a dead science, at least until a fellow named Maxwell challenged some bedrock assumptions that no one questioned rather successfully. :-)

Science is run by scientists, and this means that the fruits of their labour can be just as fallible as other things that our cooked up by our dreary little minds.

Hi Nick (#364):

I don't disagree at all with your reply. Your summary covers the ideal that scientists aspire to, however, and the extension of those ideals to the real world are fraught with peril.

Mathematics is an integral part of science, and far too many (my opinion) confuse the success of modeling a physical phenomenon *mathematically* with the discovery of some underlying truth. I think that I'm just more cynical about this than you are. :-)

We do not, in fact, need to have faith in our assumptions. However, when we use them to formulate a theory as opposed to a simple hypothesis or a topic for discussion, then the way that we treat those assumptions changes and sometimes they are clung to with irrational fervour.

Tyler (#298):

Sure, such a being (the purported existence of such immediately bringing to mind McKown's, "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.") cannot be scrutinized, but, as has been suggested, its alleged actions certainly can.

But while certain specific claims about the actions of God may sometimes be empirically testable, the disproof of those specific claims would not disprove the existence of God. What you're testing is the claim "God did this", not "God exists".

However, the theistic hypothesis is the greased weasel of hypotheses - it's all but impossible to pin down (and when you think you have, you find that it has a slippery protective coating of ad hoc excuses that deflect any contrary evidence). Consequently, even minor claims of the "God did this" variety are pretty much immune to testing. If someone asserts that God cured them of their explosive diarrhoea, then how on earth would one go about testing this claim? You can show that there are perfectly adequate non-God explanations, but this doesn't disprove their claim - it just makes it redundant. Because God basically works by magic, there are no specific observable consequences to the hypothesis that would tell for it or against it.

That's why "God exists" (along with most subsidiary God claims) isn't scientifically decidable. It's not a well-formed hypothesis with any explanatory content. It's "not even wrong", and in a very big way.

Dan (#308):

For me the wonder of science, nature, mathematics, and so on.... IS part of the proof for God.

Hmm. That would probably be:

(b) the "explanation" fails to indicate how the phenomenon in question is an expected consequence of the hypothesis.

In any case, why should your subjective, emotional sense of wonder at the universe be proof of anything? One could just as easily turn it around and argue that the universe is too damned awe-inspiring to be the creation of a puffed-up, petty, tribal deity like the God of Christianity.

mongo,
Your #367 is unexceptionable, but here you say (correctly) "We do not, in fact, need to have faith in our assumptions.", while @326 you said "Any "explanation" that is based on what we consider to be science is by necessity an act of faith because it depends _completely_ on the acceptance of one or more axioms as a starting point.". I am impelled to the conclusion that you don't know what you mean.

Science is run by scientists, and this means that the fruits of their labour can be just as fallible as other things that our cooked up by our dreary little minds.

What specifically do you mean by "the fruits of their labour" in this sentence?

Hey people get some life experience. Volunteer in some homeless shelters, go vist a childrens hospital and watch the little ones trying to be brave for the sake of their parents. Try working night shift in a convenience store right in the 'projects' just to put yourself through college. Spend several years among drug addicts and watch a few die, and a few manage to dig themselves out.

Who says we haven't?

Hey, this would be politically correct - visit Walter Reed hospital and snicker at the loss of faces, limbs, and pieces of brain matter that the young men and women have lost.

Would you care to meet Broken Soldier, a regular contributor here? Someone who received unstinting support from all of us? You don't have to agree with a nation's positions to have compassion for the people who suffer from doing its dirty work.

If the devil existed, he would be you, you sanctimonious monster, for assuming anyone would wish pain upon another, simply because you have some sociopathic need to feel better about yourself.

Talking of proofs for God (#369 and others), experimental science by reason of its own method can't prove God's existence; neither can our subjective feelings of awe before the natural world. But what about philosophy and metaphysics (that unfashionable science)? I have never yet heard a convincing reply to the so-called cosmological argument for God's existence. Both Kant and Hume gave bogus answers that proved they hadn't really understood the argument, and most subsequent thinkers based themselves on one of these two. The only way out I can see is to deny the principle of sufficient reason - but that would be a betrayal of reason itself, which is always entitled to ask "why", even to the very fact of existence in general.
This is the argument, as clearly and fully as I can manage, in case you aren't familiar with it:
1) There are beings
2) Beings are either contingent or necessary (contingent = might not have been, necessary = might not not have been)
3) No being in the material world is necessary
4) All material beings are contingent (2+3)
5) It is impossible that, from non-being (in the absolute sense) should come being
6) All contingent beings must come from some other being (5+2)
7) If from another contingent being, then this in turn must come from some other contingent being, and so on ad infinitum without ultimate necessity
8) The totality of contingent being as a network of dependency/complexity is not necessary
9) The totality of contingent being is contingent (8+2)
10) The totality of contingent being must come from some other being (6+9) (Let "the universe" be the totality of contingent being as a network of dependency/complexity)
11) The universe must come from a being that is not contingent (6+10)
12) The universe must come from a necessary being (2+11)

"And this we call God". Notice that God is not merely the first link in the chain here; rather, God is the Being that accounts for the whole of contingent/material existence qua existing, whether we want to conceive that as finite or infinite in time and extension. God doesn't just set a process in motion, he holds the whole process, from start to finish, in being. "Why are there things at all??" - that is the fundamental question, and it isn't good enough to say "because of other things", since these too are included in the question. Neither is it good enough to say, "No reason", or dismiss it as a senseless question: this is unworthy of human reason; it is a denial of the principle of sufficient reason, and is an illegitiamte curtailment of the constitutive "why?" of our intellectual endeavour.

Note: in case anyone objects that point 5 is an illegitimate axiom, asserted but not proven, let him remember that the whole enterprise of science also assumes this axiom. If (s)he wants to dispute it, (s)he must also postpone any judgment about the validity of scientific knowledge at all until (s)he has resolved the question of scepticism. For my part, I suggest leaving the ghosts of scepticism to haunt the dusty chambers of academia, leaving us to answer more vital questions.

re Tyler (#298): Sure, such a being (the purported existence of such immediately bringing to mind McKown's, "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.") cannot be scrutinized, but, as has been suggested, its alleged actions certainly can.

Iain Walker wrote: But while certain specific claims about the actions of God may sometimes be empirically testable, the disproof of those specific claims would not disprove the existence of God. What you're testing is the claim "God did this", not "God exists".

Sure. And I didn't suggest otherwise (other than the McKown quote, which was not intended as a suggestion that disproving a purported effect disproves the purported source of the effect).

That's why "God exists" (along with most subsidiary God claims) isn't scientifically decidable.

Again, this assumes that the 'god' in question is necessarily 'supernatural' (whatever the hell that actually means). Sure, with few exceptions, this is the hand waving most theists will resort to when they're left with nowhere to go, but that's exactly what I was driving at. I was attempting, originally, to get Dan to either state his 'god' wasn't 'supernatural' or engage in the hand waving that is the 'supernatural' cop out - the latter which he did, if only implicitly, by dodging the question I originally posed to him.

It's not a well-formed hypothesis with any explanatory content. It's "not even wrong", and in a very big way.

By and large, I couldn't agree more.

Johnny, #373: But what about philosophy and metaphysics (that unfashionable science)?

Because rigorous logical proofs require absolute belief in the premises to be convincing. That is their flaw: one can prove all sorts of things, and people have proven all sorts of things, things that end up being shown to be wrong after empirical observation.

That is why people stopped using pure reasoning to investigate the objective real world and developed empirical science. Pure reasoning doesn't tell us anything about the real world; at best, it only tells us what conclusions are consistent with the premises that we assume for the sake of the argument. And if there is one thing that we have learned from scientific investigations, it's that our premises almost always have had some errors.

And personally, I think that we've made much more progress in understanding the objectively real world in the last two centuries than in the previous two and a half millenia. But that may be a personal bias.

-

For example:

5) It is impossible that, from non-being (in the absolute sense) should come being

I don't accept this as indisputable fact.

That's the most obvious problem I have with this particular argument; there are more subtle ones.

Johnny, #373: Oops. I forgot to comment:

Note: in case anyone objects that point 5 is an illegitimate axiom, asserted but not proven, let him remember that the whole enterprise of science also assumes this axiom.

Actually, it doesn't. At all. It is a conclusion based on empirical observation that in the situations that we are familiar with, in the circumstances that we understand, that things don't just "pop" into or out of existence within the universe. A conclusion that can change if we should ever observe "a being come from nonbeing".

That's why "God exists" (along with most subsidiary God claims) isn't scientifically decidable.

The problem with questions of that type, is why should anyone care if it exists or not, if it has no measurable relevance of any kind.

The question of deity existence is moot, without starting from a position of relevance based on observable actions.

...no observable actions?

Then the question is no different from asking whether the FSM, sky pixies, or unicorns exist.

in short, useless.

I'd further that line of reasoning to suggest that the question of the existence of any specific deity is actually even completely irrelevant to the religion(s) constructed around it, given that the only way theistic religions maintain themselves is most certainly NOT by being of value in a causal sense.

so, for one specific example, the existence or non-existence of the Abrahamic god is actually irrelevant to the propagation and maintenance of the the various (over 30000 at last count) sects of xianity.

...and it always has been.

so stop trying to imply that science, or anyone for that matter, should even be concerned with such a question, until you, or anyone, has actual evidence that any proposed deity actually does have an observable effect on reality.

Hence, there would then be an actual reason to propose the existence of such a thing to begin with.

Johnny@373,
In addition to Chiroptera's objection:
1) The idea of a "necessary being" is incoherent, if "necessary" is taken to mean logically necessary - because it is logically possible that nothing should exist - and if it does not mean that, it is not clear what it does mean.
2) "The only way out I can see is to deny the principle of sufficient reason - but that would be a betrayal of reason itself, which is always entitled to ask "why", even to the very fact of existence in general." The fact that you can ask a question does not mean there has to be the kind of answer you want. "No reason at all" is a perfectly good answer to a "why" question. Moreover, "reason" does not ask anything at all, and the stuff about "betrayal of reason" is just emotive guff, which does nothing to establish the validity of the "Principle of sufficient reason".
3) Where does your 8 come from? What is it supposed to mean?

Johnny wrote:

5) It is impossible that, from non-being (in the absolute sense) should come being

Note: in case anyone objects that point 5 is an illegitimate axiom, asserted but not proven, let him remember that the whole enterprise of science also assumes this axiom.

Chiroptera wrote

Actually, it doesn't. At all. It is a conclusion based on empirical observation that in the situations that we are familiar with, in the circumstances that we understand, that things don't just "pop" into or out of existence within the universe. A conclusion that can change if we should ever observe "a being come from nonbeing".

You are right otherwise, but things do actually pop in and out of existence in this universe. They are called virtual particles. So science has done exactly what you suggested, and amended itself to include this fact.

I suppose that Johnny might protest that the particles don't come from non-being "in the absolute sense", but the axiom that things can't come from absolute non-being is completely unnecessary in science, since we never observe absolute non-being.

Nick (#378),
1) I mean a being whose existence is not contingent - it is not the case that it might not be. It is necessary in and of itself. The necessity of God's being is a real necessity, not "logical" (as in formal logic) - but the disjunction is due to the limitations of our thought and the insufficiency of our concept of "God". In logic, yes, one can negate all propositions indistinctly, but this aspect of logical systems doesn't necessarily correspond to the structure of reality. If our idea of God was truly adequate, the necessity of his existence would be clear.
You might disagree with all that, but I hope you will grant that it is at least a rationally coherent position.

2) I cannot think of any why-question regarding some real thing/event/experience where the answer would be "no reason AT ALL". Can you?

Actually, I think that human reason understands things by tracing out real relationships of causality in the world - and beyond, if need be (that is, if the phenomenon is still not properly explained having traversed the causal possibilities within the world.) In doing so, it manifests the unity of the world. By our rational investigation, the world appears as a unity both through relations of causal dependency, in a chain-like manner (lateral), and through the discovery of deeper levels of commonality beneath phenomena (vertical) like subatomic particles "beneath" the visible elements, and (maybe) string structures beneath them. Thus, I think that reason really shows us the causal and material unity of the world, and that this effectively excludes an answerless question.
But just as the faculty of reason/thinking transcends the world, so is its scope open to objects of investigation that transcend the world. So the "why" is not bound to stop at the limits of the material world if it is led beyond them by its own nature. That's my take on it, for what it is worth: you needn't agree, obviously. But I would like an example of a question as specified above with no answer.

I know that reason doesn't ask anything, but people do and people have reason. It's just a manner of speaking, Nick.

3) Sorry, I was trying to be concise, but the result was abstruse. I mean that the whole universe (the totality of contingent being) is contingent. I added the bit about complexity and dependence to emphasize that the universe is nothing other than the causal chain of being (dependence) and the 13 billion year-long emergence of complexity from simplicity (complexity). God relates to all of this at every moment as its eternal Source, not just as the first of the series of causes.

(1)You might disagree with all that, but I hope you will grant that it is at least a rationally coherent position. - johnny

No, certainly not.

(2) "Why did that atom of radium decay when it did, rather than earlier or later?"
"No reason at all."

(3) God relates to all of this at every moment as its eternal Source, not just as the first of the series of causes.
You have provided no reason whatever to think the universe needs an "eternal source", no any clear idea what that might mean.

Thanks for replying, Chiroptera(375-6).
I have to confess, I find it hard to see how anyone could doubt that being cannot come from nothing. I might concede your point about science, that it isn't true that science must assume axiomatically that being can't come from nothing. (I'm not sure yet).
But the source of the axiom is not science, since it doesn't actually depend on empirical verification (although experience does indeed verify it). Neither is it just "assumed" as a premiss - for let us assume the contrary:
Things can come into being from nothing. Therefore, nothing (strictly conceived) may sometimes be active in producing beings. But anything that is active has to be something. But nothing is the very opposite of the something, by definition. The opposite thesis thus implies a contradiction, the absurdity that nothing (strictly conceived) is something.
If you (unreasonably) object to the statement "nothing must be active in producing beings", then let's adopt its contrary: nothing is not active in producing beings. But beings are produced. If not from nothing, then, they must come from being, since between nothing and being there is no intermediate (although there are many kinds of being). But this is an affirmation of my original thesis: that being is what produces being, and not nothing in the strict sense.
If you object to the word "produced", saying that not-being might not necessarily "produce" beings for them to "come from" not-being, well, even the words "come from" testify against you, since they imply a point of departure as well as a point of arrival, and a point of departure is something, not nothing.

This seems like boring pedantry and has an unfashionable scholastic air about it. But it should be evaluated for its rational force, which is authentic.
If however I say that beings "come from" God, this avoids all these absurdities, and also affords sufficient reason for the existence of beings in the first place.

Johnny@382,
Can you really believe all that guff means anything at all?

If however I say that beings "come from" God, this avoids all these absurdities

No, it merely obscures them, by propping up a much larger absurdity in front of them. Religion's first weapon: The Big Lie.

Johnny, did you not read #379 or did you choose to ignore it? Things do come into being uncaused, admittedly within the fabric of spacetime, but how the hell do you know what happens outside it? Logic and strict deterministic causality are misleading even when looking at the tiniest particles within our universe. Causality is just a description of how macroscopic objects behave in our particular bubble of spacetime - why do you assume that it functions the same everywhere?

If however I say that beings "come from" God, this avoids all these absurdities, and also affords sufficient reason for the existence of beings in the first place.

"Why does something exist rather than nothing? For 'nothing' is simpler than 'something'. Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe... which has no need of any other reason... must be a necessary being, else we should not have a sufficient reason with which we could stop"
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace

"So don't stop"
Written on the margin by Carl Sagan

Johnny, #383: I have to confess, I find it hard to see how anyone could doubt that being cannot come from nothing.

Yeah, I get this a lot when I bring it up. Me, I just don't see what's so hard about the concept about things just appearing or disappearing. Mass and energy conservation are empirically observed facts (at least as far as we know), not something that (at least to me) is inconceivable.

Now the beginning of the universe (whatever that means -- since this is where time itself begins -- there is no "before" before the universe) is such an obviously unique, special event, I would hesitate before applying our usual understanding to it. Especially since scientific laws, besides being contingent on observations made in our particular place in the universe, concern what happens to things in the universe, and so may not be relevant to considering the universe as a whole.

Me, I think that the universe simply exists, without reason or cause. It just is. I don't see why some people have trouble with this concept -- it is actually the only concept that I don't have difficulty grasping.

The necessity of God's being

well, there's your problem right there, ma'am.

the rest is just rust.

To Darwin, Chemistry and Physics were just as much created by God as Evolution. Someone just forgot to tell "the creationists" that Science is no longer heresy. It is the Glory of His Creation.

Joseph Brenner @ 388 The glory of whose creation? I seem to recall that Science was formulated by humans for the betterment of mankind and to understand the Universe we are a part of. These same humans also formulated your god at the dawn of history with undeveloped brains to give vent to natural happenings all around them because they could not think on a higher plane until later in history when the idea of imaginary gods was considered irrational and needless. Evolution developed us; humans irrationality developed gods because of fear and ignorance. Simple as that. And to prove otherwise, let's see your wondrous imaginary god to spite evolution and rational thinking.

Holbach, in response to one of my comments (#314) wrote:

You seem to ascribe religious overtones to my statement, whether infered or referenced, when I stated that "Life with religion is a pathetic sham; life without religion is life worth living".

He goes on to take exception in rather florid prose to that inference, detailing his atheist credentials.

Allow me to clarify. I don't really think Holbach is religious, sorry if that offends him or her. All I did was note, correctly, that the above statement was subjective and could be only held on faith. Doesn't mean that Holbach is wrong, just possessed of a certitude on this point that can't be justified by facts. Holbach continues:

You admit to being a theist, and to my mind you have branded yourself in my estimation as not being equal to my atheist rationalizations.

Well, I'm not sure how that follows. I would hesitate to conclude that simply because someone holds beliefs different from my own, that they were necessarily not my equal, or worthy of correspondence.

I am totally devoid of all religious nonsense

Let's grant that this is true. You might still be guilty of non-religious nonsense, as in making blithe assertions which are entirely subjective and impossible to adjudicate. Which, you have to admit, describes a lot of religious statements. I mean, if I'm wrong on that point, you can correct me.

Holbach concludes:

Your religious banter is wasted on me; stick to your fellow religionists.

Actually, I would rather stick to my comrades in science and education who don't immediately take exception to my presence. I again regret giving offense, but I have to point out that my observation was philosophical in nature, rather than religious. I am not, after all, attempting to deny the possible validity of your point of view nor cramming my belief system down your throat. If you would be so good as to read my other post on this thread (#317), which is a critique of some of Dan's comments, you might view my observations in a different light.

Peace...SH

Johnny (#373):

1) There are beings

Well, you've already broken one of the first rules of philosophy, which is "Always define your terms". I'll assume that by "being", you mean an identifiable individual or particular such that it can be truly or falsely said to exist.

2) Beings are either contingent or necessary (contingent = might not have been, necessary = might not not have been)

That's not what "necessary" means in this context. "Might not not have been" is logically equivalent to "might have been", which is just another way of characterising contingency. But you've corrected yourself in #380, I see.

3) No being in the material world is necessary
4) All material beings are contingent (2+3)

Granted, although I'd have put it as 2, 4 and then 3 (from 2+4).

5) It is impossible that, from non-being (in the absolute sense) should come being

Hmm. You're no longer talking about "being" as an individual thing, but as an abstraction. That kind of ambiguity is rarely helpful in an argument. It would be clearer to say that it is impossible for a being (i.e., individual thing) to come into existence from a state of affairs in which no beings exist.

6) All contingent beings must come from some other being (5+2)
7) If from another contingent being, then this in turn must come from some other contingent being, and so on ad infinitum without ultimate necessity

Assuming a sufficiently broad definition of the term "being" (e.g., one that includes fields as well as objects), then OK. But note that this is an over-simplified characterisation of how ontological dependence works. It would be better to say that a contingent being is dependent for its existence on the existence of one or more other beings, and if those other beings are also contingent, then they much be likewise dependent, and so on.

8) The totality of contingent being as a network of dependency/complexity is not necessary
9) The totality of contingent being is contingent (8+2)

8) is an unsubstantiated assertion, and at this point your argument seems to commit the fallacy of composition. You need an additional argument to show that the existence of the totality of contingent beings and their inter-relationships must also be contingent, since your argument so far has only discussed ontological dependencies at the level of individual beings.

10) The totality of contingent being must come from some other being (6+9) (Let "the universe" be the totality of contingent being as a network of dependency/complexity)
11) The universe must come from a being that is not contingent (6+10)
12) The universe must come from a necessary being (2+11)

Commits the quantifier shift fallacy. The very most the argument can demonstrate is that the "universe" is dependent on one or more ontologically necessary beings. It provides no basis for assuming there to be only one.

"And this we call God".

And you just had to include Aquinas' silly question-begging non sequitur ... Do I really have to point out that the argument gives no reason whatsoever to suppose that an ontologically necessary being has any of the other properties of the God of theism? It could just as well be some blind, impersonal force without any of the attributes of agency.

So, to summarise the flaws in the argument:

Firstly, you have not adequately demonstrated that the totality of contingent things is itself a contingent thing (as a logical step it may look reasonable, but you still need to show why it doesn't commit the fallacy of composition).

Secondly, you have not demonstrated that only a single ontologically necessary being exists.

Thirdly, you have not even tried to demonstrate that your ontologically necessary being is identical to God.

And finally:

"Why are there things at all??"

Why is there an ontologically necessary being at all?

Don't forget that ontological necessity is not the same as logical necessity. If an ontologically necessary being exists, then this is still a logically contingent fact. For something to be ontologically necessary is simply for it to be independent for its existence on any other being or state of affairs, but that means only that if it exists, then it has always existed and it cannot cease to exist, and that if it doesn't exist, then it can never come into existence. Consequently, positing an ontologically necessary being doesn't answer the question, because it is still legitimate to ask "Why does such a being exists?". It just replaces one mystery with an even more impenetrable one.

Johnny (#382):

Things can come into being from nothing. Therefore, nothing (strictly conceived) may sometimes be active in producing beings.

Nope. To say that something can "come into being" from nothing is simply to say that something can begin to exist without anything else having to exist beforehand. It implies no activity on the part of anything.

If you (unreasonably) object to the statement "nothing must be active in producing beings", then let's adopt its contrary: nothing is not active in producing beings. But beings are produced.

Says you. Beginning to exist is not the same as being "produced".

If you object to the word "produced", saying that not-being might not necessarily "produce" beings for them to "come from" not-being, well, even the words "come from" testify against you, since they imply a point of departure as well as a point of arrival, and a point of departure is something, not nothing.

"Come from" is your choice of words. "Begins to exist", on the other hand, is nicely self-contained and carries no such implications of a source of existence.

I'm not strongly arguing that a definable something really can begin to exist given an antecedent state of affairs of literal nothingness. However, your argument to the contrary is simply an exercise is semantic misdirection, since it depends entirely on the use of arbitrary colloquial terms to describe the situation, and then exploiting the literal meanings of those terms. Re-describe the situation using a less loaded terminology, and your argument vanishes.

I.e., you may not be wrong, but your argument as it stands is a bad one.

If however I say that beings "come from" God, this avoids all these absurdities, and also affords sufficient reason for the existence of beings in the first place.

Actually, it affords no such thing. For A to be a sufficient reason for B, it must be the case that B is inevitable, given A. If it worked (which it doesn't), then the argument from contingency would show that God (and only God) makes the existence of the universe possible, but it doesn't show that God makes the existence of the universe inevitable. That's a necessary reason, not a sufficent one.

In any case, saying "beings come from God" suffers from a severe lack of explanatory adequacy. We can understand and describe the processes underlying relationships of ontological dependency between contingent states of affairs. That's a large part of what science is about - studying the processes by which things come into existence and by which their existence is maintained. But what are the processes underlying the dependency between God and the universe? Until you can give an account of that, such that we can see how the universe is dependent upon God, you haven't explained a thing.

For all that you've rendered the existence of the universe any more intelligible, you might as well say that it is ontologically dependent on phlebotinum - which in fact is precisely what you're doing.

A modest proposal:

Make an alliance with the math teacher. Have him post or distribute the following verses:

1Ki 7:23.
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: [it was] round all about, and his height [was] five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

2Ch 4:2
Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

If any Xians can pass a basic geometry test, point out the contradiction.

This suggests a T-shirt design:
Is the Bible inerrant?
π ≠ 3

Johnny's proof fails for the usual reason: namely it commits a fallacy of composition. Just because any individual thing is contingent, it does not follow that everything as a whole is. More concretely, in a naturalistic world view, the universe (not the hubble volume, physicists!) is eternal but that just means it is self-perpetuating from stage to stage. Think (unrealistically, since it makes use of absolute time, but ...) of a universe of three particles A, B, and C which can combine. At one tick [AB, C] might exist. Then [A, BC]. Then [A, B, C]; and so on. No individual combination lasts forever, but the situation can perpetuate itself.

Incidentally, "logical possibility" is rigorously a property of propositions, and not of things. This also vitiates a lot of metaphysical argumentation about god and such. Pity.

Holbach @ 389: If I weren't a rational thinker I might think you DO believe in GOD, and that you see Him in the mirror every day. However, you clearly misunderstood my use of the word science. I was referring not to the human study of the universe, but to the actual substance, and forces which govern and shape it. Forces as invisible as GOD Himself, but real, nonetheless.
What I meant to convey is that there has never been anargument between GOD and Science.Mankind has contributedthe argument

WTF?
Joseph Brenner: misunderstood my use of the word science. I was referring not to the human study of the universe, but to the actual substance, and forces which govern and shape it.

Science is the methodology, the study, the discovery, the method.

I don;t know what the fuck you are prattling about, but it isn't science.

Are you channeling Johnny?

there has never been an argument between GOD and Science. - Joseph Brenner

Well you're right there, since God, even if fully capitalised, doesn't exist, and science is an abstraction.

Well, GOD doesn't believe in atheists, therefore you don't exist.

Well, GOD doesn't believe in atheists, therefore you don't exist.

Actually, I do believe in atheists.

The only people I don't believe in are those who put words in My mouth and pretend to speak for Me, particularly those who claim that I don't believe in some set of people.

The only people I don't believe in are those who put words in My mouth and pretend to speak for Me, particularly those who claim that I don't believe in some set of people.

Are You messing with a believer's tiny little mind again?

Are You messing with a believer's tiny little mind again?

Is there some reason that I shouldn't?

Besides, he isn't really a believer. He's actually an atheist in denial.

I like pi[e]...

http://www.joyofpi.com/pilinks.html

Mankind has contributed the argument

just so, since the very concept of god to begin with was contributed by mankind.

however, because of that, saying the "controversy" is man-made is entirely inane.

Is there some reason that I shouldn't?

No, no reason at all.

I just thought that was wonderfully twisted.

Besides, he isn't really a believer. He's actually an atheist in denial.

As is that.

I just thought that was wonderfully twisted.

Don't sprain your arm patting Myself on the back.

Just please let me know when a scientist figures out how to create life from dust. I REALLY would like to see how it's done.

"Actually, I do believe in atheists.

The only people I don't believe in are those who put words in My mouth and pretend to speak for Me, particularly those who claim that I don't believe in some set of people."

Even I might agree with that logic, except that they weren't my words, but the words of Christ in Matthew 10:32-33. "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

Even I might agree with that logic, except that they weren't my words, but the words of Christ in Matthew 10:32-33. "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

First of all, those were not the words you used.

Second of all, you are not Jesus. You don't get a free pass to speak for him.

Third of all, those words weren't My words either.