Jihad needs scientists
in [Design]
|
From: lucasea on 18 Oct 2006 00:29 "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote in message news:cfGdnVrm2JcngajYnZ2dnUVZ8qqdnZ2d(a)pipex.net... > > Generally speaking any belief system does no harm to scientific > exploration in that manner. The problem comes in when the belief tries to > answer scientific questions. Well put. That's what I was trying desperately, and failed miserably, to say. > Yet despite this many, many, scientists (including Darwin) have held > strong religious beliefs. Of course religious belief doesn't necessarily prevent one from becoming a good scientist. There are many, many examples, including many of the greatest, who were great scientific minds and also deeply religious--Newton, Galileo, and I believe even Einstein. In some sense, I've heard scientist friends who also happen to be religious say that, far from conflicting with their religion, science gives them all the deeper appreciation and awe for their god. Certainly that's how Darwin was reported to have felt. I'm somewhere between agnostic and atheist, but I can understand and appreciate that. Eric Lucas
From: lucasea on 18 Oct 2006 00:42 "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote in message news:9YudneJsm-X4vajYnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d(a)pipex.net... > > The key issue is this is a peer reviewed article, it is safe to assume > both right and left wing people have gone over the methodology. Well, that may and may not be a fair assumption. Academics in this country are generally somewhere between left-leaning and radical left. That trend is starting to change, but unfortunately, if media reports are to be seen as representative, it's not changing by everybody moving more toward the center...the average is moving back toward the center due to a small amount of radical right backlash in academia. Still, given the controversial nature of the study, the Lancet would be abbrogating its responsibility if it didn't find a right-leaning reviewer or two to look over the article before it was published. In any case, attacking an article on the grounds that "I don't believe it" and a general indictment of the methods used is no substitute for actually understanding the statistics behind those methods and understanding precisely why they are or are not valid, based on sound mathematical arguments rather than "well, gee, that sure doesn't sound right". Sound bites and intuition don't work here--statistics is one field where intuition serves *very* poorly. For example, did you (the rhetorical "you") know that if you sample 10 people in an opinion poll, the standard deviation of your result is exactly the same whether those 10 people represent a village of 500 people, or a country of 300,000,000, as long as the sample is chosen randomly? How's that for a non-intuitive result? Eric Lucas
From: John Larkin on 18 Oct 2006 00:46 On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:11:06 +0100, "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote: >> If the origin of the universe is unknown, and maybe >> unknowable, feeling that it was designed on purpose does no harm to >> scientific inquiry. > >Generally speaking any belief system does no harm to scientific exploration >in that manner. Exactly. >The problem comes in when the belief tries to answer >scientific questions. Science shouldn't be so fragile that it is threatened by peoples' beliefs about stuff like this. Until it is proven otherwise, the universe may have originated in intelligent design, vacuum fluctuation or (as one serious theory has it) time is an illusion and the universe had no date of origin. Why are so many amateur scientists so hostile to the idea that the universe was designed? I figure there's a chance that it was, and a bigger chance that DNA was designed. These speculations invoke hostility, for no logical reason I can figure out. The Jesuits have a long history of science and mathematics. They somehow didn't find them mutually exclusive to belief. John
From: John Larkin on 18 Oct 2006 00:49 On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 03:27:54 GMT, <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > >"David Bostwick" <david.bostwick(a)chemistry.gatech.edu> wrote in message >news:eh3g6g$1fm$2(a)news-int.gatech.edu... >> In article <K38Zg.17285$6S3.4370(a)newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>, >> <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: >>> >>>"John Larkin" <jjlarkin(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in >>>message >>>news:100aj2tujd38kum9omn0ni4tcbd22cfdbe(a)4ax.com... >> >> [...] >> >>>> >>>> There are plenty of tax-exempt nonprofits on both sides, or rather all >>>> sides. >>> >>>The ones I'm objecting to are the religious ones, and they're almost >>>invariably aligned with the right. >>> >>> >> >> So you haven't been in many African-American churches, eh? > >No, not really. They don't have much use for Renaissance/Baroque recorder >quartets. :^) > >However, it is my understanding that the trusim that black churches vote >Democrat is now dated. I understand part of the reason that Bush carried >the South in 2000 and 2004 is because the black churches gave up on the >Democrats who had largely been ignoring them for many years. Not true? > True, but more of an issue of turnout than switching sides. John
From: lucasea on 18 Oct 2006 00:51
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:4535424A.C08609A3(a)hotmail.com... > > > T Wake wrote: > >> <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message >> >> > Certainly a lot of the details of Darwin's theories have been subject >> > to >> > question and modification over the years. What has not changed is the >> > basic idea of evolution. >> >> Very true. There is a conflict of terminology and if the people on the >> radio >> show were talking about "Darwin's theories" specifically they are a bit >> behind the curve. Modern evolutionary theory has progressed beyond the >> specifics Darwin described. > > I've noticed that there is now a common tendency for those who reckon they > know > better to dismiss such things as 'just theories' as if that meant they had > no > vailidity ! There appears to be a tendency in humans to want certainty in life. Science provides absolutely no certainty, only explanations of varying degrees of usefulness. Religion provides absolute certainty, and religious explanations are therefore very appealing. In some sense, some of the theories of science (notably, evolution, but I think there are others) cast doubt on this certainty, and the religions appear to be fighting back by highlighting the uncertainty of the science, and the certainty of their religious offering. Sadly, the result is the ongoing decline of US science education, and a dearth of good American-born graduates at all levels of many sciences. Who knows where that will lead, but my gut feel is that it ain't good for the US economic or technical world hegemony. Eric Lucas |