logo Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
2024-03-29 07:38:34 CoV Wiki
Learn more about the Church of Virus
Home Help Search Login Register
News: Check out the IRC chat feature.

  Church of Virus BBS
  General
  Philosophy & Religion

  Science Is in the Details
« previous next »
Pages: [1] Reply Notify of replies Send the topic Print 
   Author  Topic: Science Is in the Details  (Read 2039 times)
David Lucifer
Archon
*****

Posts: 2641
Reputation: 8.89
Rate David Lucifer



Enlighten me.

View Profile WWW E-Mail
Science Is in the Details
« on: 2009-07-27 17:21:57 »
Reply with quote

author: Sam Harris
source: NYT

PRESIDENT OBAMA has nominated Francis Collins to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health. It would seem a brilliant choice. Dr. Collins’s credentials are impeccable: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist and the former head of the Human Genome Project. He is also, by his own account, living proof that there is no conflict between science and religion. In 2006, he published “The Language of God,” in which he claimed to demonstrate “a consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony” between 21st-century science and evangelical Christianity.

Dr. Collins is regularly praised by secular scientists for what he is not: he is not a “young earth creationist,” nor is he a proponent of “intelligent design.” Given the state of the evidence for evolution, these are both very good things for a scientist not to be.

But as director of the institutes, Dr. Collins will have more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. He will also be one of the foremost representatives of science in the United States. For this reason, it is important that we understand Dr. Collins and his faith as they relate to scientific inquiry.

What follows are a series of slides, presented in order, from a lecture on science and belief that Dr. Collins gave at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008:

Slide 1: “Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.”

Slide 2: “God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.”

Slide 3: “After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the moral law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.”

Slide 4: “We humans used our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.”

Slide 5: “If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”

Why should Dr. Collins’s beliefs be of concern?

There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident, and many are counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist. But few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion.

Dr. Collins has written that science makes belief in God “intensely plausible” — the Big Bang, the fine-tuning of nature’s constants, the emergence of complex life, the effectiveness of mathematics, all suggest the existence of a “loving, logical and consistent” God.

But when challenged with alternative accounts of these phenomena — or with evidence that suggests that God might be unloving, illogical, inconsistent or, indeed, absent — Dr. Collins will say that God stands outside of Nature, and thus science cannot address the question of his existence at all.

Similarly, Dr. Collins insists that our moral intuitions attest to God’s existence, to his perfectly moral character and to his desire to have fellowship with every member of our species. But when our moral intuitions recoil at the casual destruction of innocents by, say, a tidal wave or earthquake, Dr. Collins assures us that our time-bound notions of good and evil can’t be trusted and that God’s will is a mystery.

Most scientists who study the human mind are convinced that minds are the products of brains, and brains are the products of evolution. Dr. Collins takes a different approach: he insists that at some moment in the development of our species God inserted crucial components — including an immortal soul, free will, the moral law, spiritual hunger, genuine altruism, etc.

As someone who believes that our understanding of human nature can be derived from neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science and behavioral economics, among others, I am troubled by Dr. Collins’s line of thinking. I also believe it would seriously undercut fields like neuroscience and our growing understanding of the human mind. If we must look to religion to explain our moral sense, what should we make of the deficits of moral reasoning associated with conditions like frontal lobe syndrome and psychopathy? Are these disorders best addressed by theology?

Dr. Collins has written that “science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” and that “the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted.”

One can only hope that these convictions will not affect his judgment at the institutes of health. After all, understanding human well-being at the level of the brain might very well offer some “answers to the most pressing questions of human existence” — questions like, Why do we suffer? Or, indeed, is it possible to love one’s neighbor as oneself? And wouldn’t any effort to explain human nature without reference to a soul, and to explain morality without reference to God, necessarily constitute “atheistic materialism”?

Francis Collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. And that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

Sam Harris is the author of “The End of Faith” and co-founder of the Reason Project, which promotes scientific knowledge and secular values.

[Can someone explain the reasoning behind "If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil."? I don't get it. --Lucifer]

Report to moderator   Logged
MoEnzyme
Heretic
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 1.66
Rate MoEnzyme



infidel lab animal

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #1 on: 2009-07-27 19:42:58 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (1.66) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

« Last Edit: 2009-07-27 21:54:38 by MoEnzyme » Report to moderator   Logged

I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme


(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
Mermaid
Archon
****

Posts: 770
Reputation: 8.79
Rate Mermaid



Bite me!

View Profile
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #2 on: 2009-07-27 19:44:27 »
Reply with quote

i dont know what collins means in the first part of slide5, but i am actually comfortable with the theory that there is no such thing as 'good or evil' and that 'it's all an illusion'. "good" and "evil" is all just too relative. this is not to say that i dont view and slot actions as 'good' or 'evil'. of course, i do. i try to remember that my definitions means nothing to someone else living in a different reality.

i can see the motivation behind an individual/group's adoption of a set of rules to categorise an act/intent/speech as 'good' or 'evil'. perhaps that is necessary for some. just as religion is necessary for some. it would be fine and dandy if they'd keep it to themselves. that, i feel, is not too much to asked for...

i cannot think of anything that any one of us can come up with as an example of good/evil that is not contested by someone else with a different worldview. i dont understand the perceived tragedy that is conveyed through slide 5.
Report to moderator   Logged
Hermit
Archon
*****

Posts: 4290
Reputation: 8.92
Rate Hermit



Prime example of a practically perfect person

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #3 on: 2009-07-28 11:03:40 »
Reply with quote

[Hermit] First reply seems to have been lost. So this is a second and shorter for it.

Slide 1: “Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of complexity over long periods of time.”

[Hermit] Variation in background microwave radiation has proves that the complexity we see in the Universe today was already present by Planck time. So complexity didn't "develop," it inhered in the Big Bang. Why Dr. Collins introduces any "gods" at all is unknown, let alone an "almighty god." Certainly the idea appears to contravene Ockham and sense. Where they came from is also as unclear as where how he determined their attributes. Why Dr Collins ascribes this god the attributes of being "unlimited in space and time" - invalidly attempting to separate the components of space-time and violating Special Relativity is also unknown. If he was thinking of the Judeo Christian gods, rather than the more somewhat more sensible gods of Plato, then he appears to be engaging in poor religion too, as the babble states that when one of these hill gods fought on behalf of the Jews it was not only not almighty, as it could not defeat people who had "chariots with wheels of iron", but also that it had to "stop the sun in the sky" in order to have sufficient time to indulge in its genocidal urges.

Slide 2: “God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to create the marvelous diversity of living things on our planet. Most especially, that creative plan included human beings.”

[Hermit] Marvellous. So Dr Collins' god or gods carefully planned syphilis, gonorrhoea, tape worms, Onchocerca volvulus and the potential for spinal bifidea and pancreatic cancer. Wonderful gods. I don't think. As for the intentional creation of human beings with a lower brain capacity than their forbearers, our DNA tells a story from our origins to the current date and that story is a story of accidents, near total elimination and the repeated termination of near human species. Were these failures as preplanned as our survival? Or is Dr Collins committing the fallacy of assuming that because we are present, that we must have been planned?

Slide 3: “After evolution had prepared a sufficiently advanced ‘house’ (the human brain), God gifted humanity with the knowledge of good and evil (the moral law), with free will, and with an immortal soul.”

[Hermit] I'm not sure why Dr Collins thinks that "free will" or an "immortal soul" exist, or indeed what they are supposed to be, but as shown in Church of Virus BBS,General,Philosophy & Religion,Virian Ethics: The End of God Referenced Ethics,Hermit,2002-03-06 humanity had to have had a "moral sense" before inventing gods, and animal research shows that the other great apes also show a "moral sense." As we diverged from our remaining cousins between 18 MYBP (gibbons)and 6 MYBP (chimpanzee and bonobo), this implies that these gods postulated if not exactly theorised by Dr Collins must have "given" the "gift" of the "knowledge of good and evil" (which is definitely not as the Ancient Greeks perceived it, but is not exactly how the Judeo Christian's bible portrays it either so one wonders where he obtained his ideas) to our early ape ancestors who separated from the Old World monkeys at about 25 MYBP sometime before the split with Gibbons at 18MYBP. Unfortunately, the intelligence and ability to speak and communicate developed much later which appears to utterly invalidate Dr Collins' suggestions.

Slide 4: “We humans used our free will to break the moral law, leading to our estrangement from God. For Christians, Jesus is the solution to that estrangement.”

[Hermit] Yes right. What "moral law." Until shown to exist, it cannot have been "broken." But if the probably mythical prototypical "Jesus" is the answer, what the fuck was the question? If we talk about a human child slaughtering and, or, suicidal parent/schizophrenic, we would not hold them up as a perfect moral compass. Why on earth does anyone do so when talking about gods. Particularly when this was a culminating child sacrifice ("this was a custom in Israel") intended to "solve" an "estrangement" allegedly caused by the gods.

Slide 5: “If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil. It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked. Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”

[Hermit] If "moral law" exists, then "good or evil" might exist. The existence of "good and evil" does not depend on the origin of "moral law" if there is indeed such a thing. So this is both a false dichotomy and non sequitur.

[Hermit] What is "all an illusion"? "Good and evil"? "Moral law"? "Evolution"? Dr Collins does not say. Why is "it all an illusion"? Dr Collins does not say.  Why does it matter if "it" whatever "it" is, is "all an illusion"?

[Hermit]  When Dr Collins states, "We’ve been hoodwinked." who does he imagine has been hoodwinked and by whom?

[Hermit] I suggest that this ridiculous progression suggests once again that only "strong atheists" are capable of living a reality based life.

[Hermit] Irrespective of moral law, of good and evil, even of life itself, one can only live one's life based on what one perceives and do one's best with what one has. Interestingly this allows one to live a perfectly satisfying and fulfilled life and even to be perceived as virtuous by other humans - without the need for gods.

[Hermit] Perhaps this means that Dr Collins is correct. That he has been hoodwinked into irrationally believing that gods are required to behave "morally." Perhaps. What this does do is that it invalidates Dr Collins' assertions and conclusions and once again demonstrates that irrational beliefs (religious in this case) and the process of science are mutually incompatible. Which might explain why disbelief in gods and "higher powers" is much higher amongst scientists than the general public.

[Hermit] Which leads me to wonder why an irrational believer has been nominated top a scientific position where he will have to manage people many of whom reject his thinking entirely.
Report to moderator   Logged

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
MoEnzyme
Heretic
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 1.66
Rate MoEnzyme



infidel lab animal

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #4 on: 2009-07-28 17:45:53 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (1.66) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

« Last Edit: 2009-07-28 17:53:47 by MoEnzyme » Report to moderator   Logged

I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme


(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
Walter Watts
Archon
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 1571
Reputation: 8.85
Rate Walter Watts



Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in

View Profile WWW E-Mail
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #5 on: 2009-07-29 00:02:42 »
Reply with quote


Quote from: David Lucifer on 2009-07-27 17:21:57   


<big snip>

[Can someone explain the reasoning behind "If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil."? I don't get it. --Lucifer]




For some reason I'm assuming, seekers of the real "truth" still rather quaintly believe in such things as good and evil.

I need not present the least bit more evidence of their own hand-wrenching insanity.



Walter
Report to moderator   Logged

Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.


No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
Hermit
Archon
*****

Posts: 4290
Reputation: 8.92
Rate Hermit



Prime example of a practically perfect person

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #6 on: 2009-07-29 04:58:41 »
Reply with quote

I answered it in my first, lost response and forgot to address it in the second . The religious (not just xians) tend to believe that religion makes people moral by "teaching" them about "good and evil". It is one reason why many regard atheists as immoral. So when he says "“If the moral law is just a side effect of evolution, then there is no such thing as good or evil." he is eliding "If God didn't set moral rules, then there are no moral rules." and "If we evolved then God didn't set the moral rules." both pretty standard BaptiFundiPentacostalistianTM assertions.

As for the centre of this stew, I am not sure that he was thinking sufficiently to decode it. " It’s all an illusion. We’ve been hoodwinked." Bending over backwards to find a meaning he might have intended, perhaps he intended, "If the gods didn't "gift us" with morality, then there is no good and evil, morality does not exist, mankind is not civilized and it is ok to run around raping and murdering one another." Which might, in what passes for a mind in such a person, be a suitable straw man to precede, "Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”"

I think that this clown is clever and is carefully trying to avoid losing his credibility courtesy of a fundamentalist label, by steering clear of the more obvious godfish speak, but using all their cues. As another example, "Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of mankind." is standard Creationist Institute wording, but makes the anthropomorphic fallacy obvious.





Report to moderator   Logged

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
MoEnzyme
Heretic
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 1.66
Rate MoEnzyme



infidel lab animal

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #7 on: 2009-07-29 06:14:49 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (1.66) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

« Last Edit: 2009-07-29 06:29:27 by MoEnzyme » Report to moderator   Logged

I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme


(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
Blunderov
Archon
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 3160
Reputation: 8.85
Rate Blunderov



"We think in generalities, we live in details"

View Profile WWW E-Mail
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #8 on: 2009-07-29 12:56:03 »
Reply with quote

"Are any of us, especially the strong atheists, really prepared to live our lives within that worldview?”

[Blunderov] Similar to the Pascal's wager error which assumes that it is possible to choose to believe (weyken, heh). Belief is compelled not selected as if from a buffet of tempting treats. 
Report to moderator   Logged
MoEnzyme
Heretic
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 2256
Reputation: 1.66
Rate MoEnzyme



infidel lab animal

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #9 on: 2009-07-29 14:14:10 »
Reply with quote

[[ author reputation (1.66) beneath threshold (3)... display message ]]

« Last Edit: 2009-07-29 14:23:46 by MoEnzyme » Report to moderator   Logged

I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme


(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
Hermit
Archon
*****

Posts: 4290
Reputation: 8.92
Rate Hermit



Prime example of a practically perfect person

View Profile WWW
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #10 on: 2009-07-29 15:09:00 »
Reply with quote

[Blunderov] Similar to the Pascal's wager error which assumes that it is possible to choose to believe (weyken, heh). Belief is compelled not selected as if from a buffet of tempting treats. 

[Hermit] Of course, the worst issue with Pascal's Wager is the presumption as to which gods will be chosen. To my mind, Plato's ideals are far less offensive than Judeo Christianity, but believers proposing Pascal's Wager in one form or another often seem taken aback when I respond to their babbling with the response that if Pascal's wager made any sense at all then a neoplatonic belief would be much reasonable than a JudeoChristian one. This tends to leave them gasping, what fun.

[MoEnzyme] Philosophically, I suppose I'm more of an agnostic, but the idea of being a "strong atheist" seems appealling

[Hermit] Agnosticism and atheism speak to different things. Agnosticism is one of many possible reasons for atheism. Refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

[MoEnzyme] I'm one of those "strong atheists" -- whatever that means

[Wikipedia] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism Strong atheism is a term generally used to describe atheists who accept as true the proposition "gods do not exist". Weak atheism refers to any other type of non-theism. Historically, the terms positive and negative atheism have been used for this distinction, where "positive" atheism refers to the specific belief that gods do not exist, and "negative" atheism refers merely to an absence of belief in gods.[1] Because of flexibility in the term "god", it is understood that a person could be a strong atheist in terms of certain portrayals of gods, while remaining a weak atheist in terms of others.

[Hermit] For example, I am a strong atheist in respect of the idea of all gods with which I am acquainted, but remain a weak atheist in the sense that however unlikely it may be, I accept that there may be some things out there in the Universe which, if I knew their attributes, I might acknowledge as being god-like-thingies or even god-thingies. The reason I find this ever more unlikely is because the more we learn about the Universe, the more we find the generally accepted attributes of godhood (omniscience, omnipresence, omnibenevolence etc.) incompatible with the baryonic Universe in which we live and the more of an omniridiculous waste of time discussions in this area appear.
« Last Edit: 2009-07-29 15:12:57 by Hermit » Report to moderator   Logged

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Walter Watts
Archon
*****

Gender: Male
Posts: 1571
Reputation: 8.85
Rate Walter Watts



Just when I thought I was out-they pull me back in

View Profile WWW E-Mail
Re:Science Is in the Details
« Reply #11 on: 2009-08-01 18:50:20 »
Reply with quote


Quote from: Hermit on 2009-07-29 04:58:41   


<snip>

I think that this clown is clever and is carefully trying to avoid losing his credibility courtesy of a fundamentalist label, by steering clear of the more obvious godfish speak, but using all their cues. As another example, "Almighty God, who is not limited in space or time, created a universe 13.7 billion years ago with its parameters precisely tuned to allow the development of mankind." is standard Creationist Institute wording, but makes the anthropomorphic fallacy obvious.




With full reverence for the "real" driving force behind evolution (exaptation), this pew-sitter can envision a rather diverse and acutely interesting variation among this taxonomic hobgoblin "mankind" that we are supposedly rigidly "tuned" to.

Sheeeeesh!



Walter

Report to moderator   Logged

Walter Watts
Tulsa Network Solutions, Inc.


No one gets to see the Wizard! Not nobody! Not no how!
Pages: [1] Reply Notify of replies Send the topic Print 
Jump to:


Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Church of Virus BBS | Powered by YaBB SE
© 2001-2002, YaBB SE Dev Team. All Rights Reserved.

Please support the CoV.
Valid HTML 4.01! Valid CSS! RSS feed