Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster appeals to Kansas School Board

They don't. But the fact remains that science is naturalistic by its nature. It explains natural phenomena in terms of natural processes. It doesn't appeal to miracles and supernatural interventions.

It's as wrong-headed to insist that science classes teach religion as it is to insist that religion classes teach science.

Intelligent design is just the latest eruption of the age-old argument-from-design, one of the traditional theistic "proofs". Anybody that embraces intelligent design would have to be a deist at the very least, simply by definition.

Whether they are more than that would depend on how far beyond natural theology they go into (supposedly) supernaturally revealed theology.

 

Data does not contradict philosophy. Any (reasonable) philosophy, Hawking or otherwise. It can (and will) contradict current prevailing scientific theories. That's how scientific revolutions happen, you know. Read any good popular book on Einstein or, for that matter, the "Brief history of Time".
BTW, once again: I feel that whatever Hawking believes (you call it "materialism") works extremely well AT LEAST AS A WORKING ASSUMPTION. And, or course, the belief itself is not science, it's philosophy.

You don't know much about science, do you? After limitations on Newtonian mechanics becabe apparent in the early 20th century, TWO new theories arose: relativity and quantum mechanics. Both are incredibly successful in explaining known phenomena and predicting new ones, but BOTH are known to be "wrong" in the sence you mentioned. In fact, they can't both be true. And that is not bothering anyone - just makes physicists work hard on multiple versions of "Grand Unified Theory", that are as of today, sadly, untested (and largely untestable). So apparently, there is at least one major scientific revolution still to come.

So you propose to greatly expand science curriculum? That's admirable, but sadly does not leave much time and taxpayer dollars for ID, wich is, by your own admission, also just a "faith", and, unlike say Christianity, aggressive anti-scientific one.

 

Read it, good book.

And Einstein himself worked on a GUT for decades without success. I don't know really all that much about the mechanics of science, but I've certainly heard of quantum mechanics and relativity. What about my post would lead you to believe I have not? In fact, Stanislav, I mentioned relativity in my post and stated that I regarded it as the prevailing theory.

I'm nonplussed--did you read my post or just scan it with heavy confirmation bias that I'm an "idiot" 6,000 year-old earther in the back--and front--of your mind?

My wife got a minor in physics, I have a very close friend with a PhD in physiology, my next door neighbor has a PhD in Microbiology and is a tenured professor, I enjoy conversing with these people about more than the weather, and I consider myself a committed amateur in the subject of the philosophy of science vis-a-vis faith.

No, I propose that we tell students the truth. It doesn't have to state a word about ID, just state the theory of macroevolution or naturalistic explanations for the origins of the universe, state the evidence in support thereof, and state the evidence against it. Be up front about everything

Also, it's fascinating that apparently you don't consider failing to be forthcoming about evidence to the contrary of a prevailing theory antiscientific. And to think that I'm the one who you imply is being metaphysical here. Go figure.

I suggest we tell the truth--real science--rather than Stephen Gould's notion of the philosophy of science. Is that too much to ask?

 

I'm not asking for that. I'm not saying that science teachers must open to the book of Genesis. I'm not stating that they should say "there is a G-d, and He's proven due to this-or-that observation in our telescopes". But I am saying that people like Sagan are fools when they pretend that science can disprove G-d. And Sagan most definately did say it. Gould essentially says it. And they are ignoring volumes of evidence to the contrary of naturalistic explanations for the Universe. If science limits itself to purely naturalistic explanations, that's fine. But if there is a G-d who created it all, then scientists will be forever interpreting data that points to this G-d in light of naturalistic explanations that are dead on wrong.

When they see things that counter prevailing theories, the answer may not always be to say: we can't understand this, but of course, a naturalistic explanation will one day be found. Because such an answer is grounded in a presupposition that there can exist nothing but the natural. And if that supposition--based on faith--is wrong, then science will be forever chasing its tail.

The only way in which what you are saying makes sense from an intellectual or logical point-of-view is if we start from the unshakable premise that matter and energy is all there is or can be. And that supposition may be dead wrong. And if scientists stick to it without regard to data to the contrary (and such data is currently piled up past Everest), then they can no longer pretend that science is in any way concerned with a search for ultimate truth, but rather has already made up its mind and is now searching for data to support this pereconception. That's why I call it religion--materialistic religion, but religion all the same. Blind faith.

 

Science does not require that one can't also believe in God or religion. Some may say that but, I don't believe that it is true.

Some things in the bible have been proven incorrect if taken literally. That shouldn't cause people to much consternation if they can accept that it need not be literally true and still have meaning.

 

And for dessert the Cookie Monster.

When it comes to things historical how do we know that a lot of stuff wasn't made up? Especially of the ancient world where the netherworld seemed to be mixed with reality. How do we know they weren't just couch potatoes trying to impress future generations?

The Greeks seemed to honor their deities as though they were real. Were they? Was there a Neptune, Hercules etc.?

As far as the Big Bang theory goes where would the materials required for this explosion have come from? Can something be made from nothing?

 

Yes, of course it doesn't; it doesn't even touch on the issue.

I'll give you that there are places in the Bible where things are allegories, parables, poetry, shorthand descriptions and the like, but what precisely are you referring to when you suggest that there are some things in the Bible that "have been proven incorrect if taken literally"?

Such as?

 

Good point, just another of those evidences of a Creator, but it's so obvious that many who like to deny the possibility of something greater than them just gloss it over or wave it away with a specious rhetorical flourish.

 

...and relativity is also "wrong", just like Newtonian mechanics. Yet it is, as you noted, "the prevailing theory" (actually, "a prevailing theory" - along with the "standard model of quantum mechanics". They both are considered "true" in the weak sence, in wich the Neutonian mechanics is also "true". If you'll follow relativity "religiously", then classical mechanics, being proper special case of it, is "more true" than QM, a theory that is logically inconsistent with GR. Yet we have experiments that confirm both GR and QM). My point is, you dont' have to be "true" and without problems to be science. Just like evolution is a "prevailing theory" in biology.

BTW, what purpose your comment on Einstein serve? The man helped not 1, but 2 major scientific advances; don't you think he deserves some break for not formulating GUT (a task not yet achieved by dozens of researchers over just under a century)? Sure he worked on GUT - he was at the roots of the contradiction!

Well, I'm a math major, my best friend is a nuclear physicist (PhD) and another one is a researcher whith PhD in applied mathematics. I also work on my PhD in computer science and hope someday to study philosophy of science professionally. By now, sadly, I am also just an amateur, just like you. What any of this have to do with the argument?

That's 'cause you (and a crowd that now identifies with "ID") try to butcher the argument and present "evidence to the contrary of a prevailing theory" as "evidence to the contrary of science", wich it clearly isn't. Hell, it's hardly even an "evidence against evolution". Also, ID crowd try to teach ID as an "alternative theory". It's not a theory - it doesn't explain anything, can't predict anything, can't be falsified - it's a non-knowledge that only serves to impede advancement of real knowledge. Mind you, I'm all for giving students all the information - but also the tools to distinguish between science and pseudoscience!

 

There are many examples? For example, creating woman from the rib of a man.

 

Well, worked thus far...
Science is, explicitly, the study of the natural. So if scientists would just dismiss everything they couldn't really understand as supernatural and therefore unknowable (medieval Arystotle tradition), there wouldn't be any advancement on science and a good portion of our ancestors would just die of diseases, and therefore we wouldn't sit there and have this conversation.

 

This is Clay's territory, BUT if I understand Hawking et al., correctly, all of the stuff you see around you really COULD have come from nothing. And, at least according to these folks, likely DID.

 

I guess that any event might be the result of a miracle. Unfortunately I'm not sure how informative that speculation is.

What science does is try to explain unknown phenomena as instances of observed regularities and principles that are already reasonably well understood. That's why scientific explanations leave us knowing more after the explanation than we did before.

Having recourse to magical 'explanations' that transcend human knowing is just going to mystify things.

 

But a mechanism by which something could come from nothing is still something. I'll not let Hawking off that easy, and he shouldn't be. It astonishes me that Hawking or any scientists would make it--you at least should be able to keep a straight face, or you shouldn't be allowed to say it. An auto mechanic of average intelligence would hoot that one down.

It's the same old argument, and it's specious.

 

nosborne:

And it would have had to in order to make their theory work. But what possible purpose could have been served by an explosion that set in motion the eventual existince of mankind? Who decided that? The question for me is not how did we come to exist but why do we exist.

One reason I believe in God is because all throughout history typically every culture had a god of some sort that suggests man's inherent need to believe in a higher power. Add free will and the existence of good and evil and it seems to me difficult to believe otherwise.

 

I am not suggesting that!

I do not think that the scientific method should be discarded or all of the post-Enlightenment advances. I do not think that everything that is not easily explainable must be chalked up to bad spirits or a big green monster throwing balls of radiation in outer space. I am glad that in the last three hundred years, numerous advances have resulted from empiricism. The U.S. Constitution itself--one of my favorite documents in the world--was in many respects a product of the Enlightenment philosophies. I've begun every single class on American Government for the last two plus years with a lecture on the Enlightenment and its effect on our Founding Fathers.

But let's put it this way: if scientists had ignored data that was as obvious as the flame on their bunsen burner and the possible implications of it due to their preconceived notions and quasi-religious philosophies, I doubt those advances would've come about.

I don't know why everyone is insisting on debating my evil--and idiot--strawman twin!

 

I'm not even saying that that wasn't a literary device, it may possibly have been. You know, I assume, that the first chapter of Genesis is a Hebraic poem, I believe in 32 verses.

But in any event, let us assume a priori that the Bible is claiming this as literal history, in the sense that it actually happened and is not a metaphor--how can you say it's "proven incorrect"? I'm mystified.

This is the problem that I run into continually, people don't understand the meaning of the word "proof". It's similar to conversations I've had with skeptics; when they say the Bible is proven untrue, and I ask them how, without a hint of irony, they'll answer, "Why the miracles, of course: parting waters, floating axeheads, virgin birth, raising the dead, healing the sick, other such nonsense--you kidding?"

And they never realize--or when confronted with the truth of the matter, they turn away like one staring into the sun--that they have a huge set of preconceived notions at work that influence their opinions, and that these preconceived notions--namely, that all phenomena, even the very creation of our Universe, must be explainable purely by reference to the natural--are no more valid than Flying Spaghetti Monsters.

 

Maybe he's talking about Song of Solomon 4:5: "Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle."

 

That 22nd book is a little on the racy side. There are some arguments advanced by some scholars--and they seem persuasive--that there are references to a certain type of sex that goes by two words, first word beginning with "o". In fact, my wife, unaware of the theory, was reading through SoS a few months back, and said: "Mike, this actually seems to be referring to o--- sex!"

Disclaimer: I ain't saying it's so, I'm just advancing it as a very real possibility. But G-d forgive me if I'm wrong and just being vulgar.

But irregardless, G-d is no prude, no Victorian He. He invented sex, Hollywood had zilcho to do with it.

 

Little fauss, I know what proof means. There is no need for me to delve into the realm of miracles. You seem to be evading the point.

Perhaps it has not been proven false in your eyes (assuming a literal translation of course since that was my assumption in this case). If it hasn't been proven false in your eyes then so be it. The making of the earth in seven days was not described as a miracle. It was a theory, a cause and effect story. It is about the earth that we live on. The earth is known to us all. The story in the bible has been proven false. (again, assuming a literal translation)