Code, Information, and Design (Evolution)

by Matt, Sunday, June 08, 2008, 20:43 (5793 days ago) @ George Jelliss

I agree David. I appreciate your response and time George, but you have yet to give a cogent argument for any of your responses, other than quoting me and picking apart words; which are apparently defined within a very narrow and bias point of view, (I.E. personal interpretation) - Being a scientist by profession, I must take all things pertaining to "knowledge" into consideration. - 300 years ago, the speed of light was thought to be constant. From that time forward, (And I can quote over 20 published scientists, including Einstein) the speed of light seems to be varying, decreasing, or dependent on certain factors. I do not wish to present an argument over the validity of E=mc2, or the SOL theories (although able); just present a point of historical observance in connection to "belief". What one believes to be true will cause a momentum of forward movement toward the object of said belief. Whether that belief is an observable "constant" or an unobservable "cause" matters not; that we all continue to pursue knowledge and "truth" in forward movement, does. And it always takes a person of belief to move forward and not cling to a "known fact". - The point is, what one believes to be "true" may not be "true" in 50 years. Things are not constant, and we are always on the tail end of observation, observing and measuring the results; we then "guess" (or use other fancy scientific words for guessing) at causes. Sometimes a cause is evident, sometimes not. Either way, causes change. - We see craters on the moon, (I was looking at some last night), and we "guess" the moon was hit by meteors. We don't believe that someone dug all those craters. Why not? Because we've observed small meteors hitting the moon for hundreds of years. (Moon Stike) Therefore we guess that the cause of the observable strike is the cause of all other cratoric lunar features. However, this isn't science, it's belief and what most people call blind faith. The scientific community has its own vocabulary to eliminate the stigma belonging to these "buzz-words". We call this a hypothesis or theory. However, a hypothesis is still just an assumption, and what Joe down the street would call "guessing". The fact is as a scientist, I must leave the option open that all craters on the moon are caused by meteors -1. The minus one principle allows for other theories and postulations to be presented without fear of scorn. Scorn causes brilliance to be overshadowed by bias and ignorant arrogance. Even if one crater was caused by something else, then there is a possibility of +1. - I don't wish to bash anyone because I want to spend my time pursuing truth. I like Dawkins, but I find him to be presumptuous and arrogant. - When referring to "God", one has to take into account all belief. However all Abrahamic religions (50-55% of the world's population) subscribe to some theory of a God figure who is directly involved in the creation of the universe. The other 30-35% of Dharmic religions believe in some form of "cause". Only about 2% is atheist, and around 10% is agnostic. No religion in the world has historical belief in a "God" which can be understood or communicated with. All such belief is fairly recent on the world scene and mostly caused by the Westernization of Platonic philosophy. Science also falls into this category historically. The historical atrocities committed in the name of religion birthed a need for the oppressed to throw off religious oppression. The easiest target to attack is this "God" figure, whom close to 90% of the world believe exists; (along with committing the above historical atrocities and then justifying them in the name of said "God".) I am all for throwing off religion, but also don't think that science should equally oppress the belief of any person. All knowledge is useful, but also must handled responsibly. - That being said, since the age of universe is always decreasing with every new observation (it seems); and if the speed of light were a 10billion X's faster during the initial "big bang", it would make a certain amount of sense that people living 6,000 years ago were closer to a younger universe than we are today. It would also make sense to look at what they believed and test it against what we believe to be true today. How will we ever know the truth? Maybe we'll never know, we'll all probably continue to observe and guess... and each of us will choose to believe in whatever we want, according to our understanding. I just appreciate everyone's opinions and observations, and I find them all to be illuminating.