Practical Consequences (Humans)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, November 02, 2009, 20:26 (5291 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: "... she moves onto three specific areas. In each of them, she understandably attacks the religious position (I have no quarrel with the argument that there is no scientific evidence for God), but seems blissfully unaware that all her comments apply equally to the atheist position."-By this I take it that you mean that "equally there is no scientific evidence for there not being a God". These are not equivalent propositions. The atheist proposition requires no special, strange or extraordinary assumptions, only the existing knowledge we have of physics, chemistry and biology. -dhw: "... how does she know the intentions of the designer? Maybe he meant it to go wrong, so that individual creatures wouldn't live for ever, or maybe - as Matt suggests - he's not perfect, or - as Frank suggests - he's not all-powerful."-That's three distinctly separate theologies there! All with different extraordinary assumptions. The idea that a designer would design the universe so that it looked as if it wasn't designed is a contortion of logic worthy of Philip Gosse's Omphalos.-dhw questions whether we can say that evolution proceeds "exactly as we would expect if evolution were an entirely natural, physical process of descent with modification" I think we can. He says: "at least until it's all been understood (assuming it will be), how can anyone talk of what one would expect?" Well if we waited until then (which would probably be for ever) it wouldn't be what we expect it would be what we actually know.-dhw: "Until all the above questions are answered, the belief that the process is ENTIRELY biological is just as much faith-based as the belief that something else is involved." It is not faith-based. It is evidence-based. There are not just two equal positions here. There is one position, that pointed to by the evidence, and multitudinous different positions based on speculation, fancy and anecdote.-dhw: "As I said at the beginning, in my view she's right that there's no scientific evidence to support the claims that God directs evolution, that there is an immaterial soul, that the universe is sentient."-We agree on that then.-dhw: "Her assumptions that she knows how a designed life ought to be, how evolution normally works, and how consciousness will eventually be explained, do not constitute evidence" -They are perfectly reasonable expectations based on the evidence we have.-dhw: "... any more than do the assumptions of believers who consider the many unsolved mysteries to be indicative of a conscious power beyond our comprehension."-Which is an entirely arbitrary fanciful assumption.-dhw doesn't seem to understand that science is agnostic, in the true sense of agnostic, that of being clear about what we do know and what we do not know about anything. dhw's brand of agnosticism is to treat all forms of speculative ideas as equally likely to be true as those based on scientific extrapolation. He doesn't like us talking about what "seems" to be the case on the balance of the evidence. He wants absolute certainty. Until that day comes (which will be never) he sits on all the fences he can find.

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GPJ