The IRA, after a hundred years of strife, has announced it’s laying down arms and wants to work toward its goals using non-violent means (as Kathleen has noted over on her website.)
So let’s say we flash forward ten years, and Al Qeada is still strong, in business, and a major terrorist force. Iraq is still a fragmented mess. And suddenly Al Qeada announces that it wants to lay down arms and work toward a peaceful unification of Iraq and the Muslim world.
Do we accept that? Do we start working with them?
PAD
• 
Hm. A better way to look at this is that people often confuse the rules on how science operates with how scientists look at the universe (methodological naturalism vs. philosophical naturalism).
By the nature of scientific methodology, scientists can’t allow God into their research—because how can you research something that can break and change the rules (which is inherent in the nature of God)? That’s entirely different from allowing God into their lives and how they look at the universe….and the two shouldn’t be mixed up.
Jim –
Fasten your seatbelt – we may be here a while.
Tim, I realize that this is where I don’t understand evolution. Yes, specific things (such as mutations, genetics, etc.) are observable. But those are evidences that are then used to add up to Evolution. Most ID and/or Creation scientists do not argue that these things exist, but they disagree with the conclusions that are drawn from them. So while specific pieces of evolution are falsifiable, the overarching theory itself does not seem to be.
That is perhaps a misstatement on my part. A theory needs to make concrete, testable predictions: if the predictions are verified, the theory is strengthened, and if the predictions are shown to be false then the theory needs to be altered.
The theory of evolution has made and does make such predictions. ID, to my knowledge, does not – if you have a specific example of a specific testable prediction it makes, I’d love to know it.
The issue is not that some systems cannot be adequately explained, at least for me. The issue is that we have gone down not just to the cellular level but also the molecular level, and things remain incredibly complex. If this was 50 years ago, I would say you have a point. But at this point, we have gotten down to virtually the bottom without really solving the riddle.
That’s essentially Richard Dawkins’ “blind watchmaker” argument taken a few steps further down. Ten or twenty years ago, the example used was “look at the eye – it’s just as complicated as a camera, and how on earth would it have shown up naturally?”
At this point, we’ve got a pretty good answer there.
Another example: mitochondria. You may not know, Jim, that most cells have two different types of DNA: nuclear and mitochondrial. That seems inefficient, to say the least. However, a very plausible hypothesis that’s been gaining support and evidence over the last decade-plus is that a mitochondrion used to be an entirely different and separate organism that was somehow subsumed by another (eaten and not digested, perhaps?), and that a mutually beneficial relationship started up. Over time, some of the functions of the mitochondrion mutated away, since there was no longer a need for them (gathering food, for instance).
The “incredibly complex” system you’re referring to on the molecular level is probably DNA, and I’ll certainly agree we don’t understand its origins particularly well yet. However, keep in mind that it’s only been a little bit over half a century since DNA was even discovered, and the technology to really look at genetics has been around a lot less than that. Why would you expect us to know everything instantly?
You might, however, want to look up the “RNA world hypothesis”, not to mention research sections of DNA called introns. DNA is neither as unprecedented nor as “perfect” as the ID folks tend to argue.
So to ask you a question, what do you do when you get to the most basic building blocks of the universe and you still have no idea what system formed it in the first place? You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?
You seek to understand everything up to that point as best as you can, and you continue to find new ways to question and to investigate.
There’s every possibility that we won’t ever be able to fully understand everything. In fact, some aspects of quantum mechanics suggest rather strongly that we will NEVER been able to take our understanding further back than something called the “Planck time”, which is 10**-43 seconds after the Big Bang. (The reason? Time itself is quite possibly quantized in units of that size, which means that you can’t really define time once you go further back than that. Does your head hurt yet? 🙂
I’ve got no problem if you want to believe in a designer, Jim. None. As I already said, I’ll happily concede the possibility of same if you’re willing to place said designer back about 12-14 billion years. As Den already put so well, however, I’m not willing to say that the story ends there.
Science is about the process and the manner of thinking, not about “the final answer”, with all due respect to Regis Philbin. (Science, BTW, also in no way presupposes the nonexistence of a deity. They’re different realms. One of the best biology teachers I’ve ever met, who’s also one of my best friends from our “California period”, is also one of the most deeply believing Christians I’ve ever known.)
Jim rather nicely demonstrates the real gap between our worldviews right there. One does not need to be a “believer” in evolution any more than one needs to believe in gravity — both are empirically observed processes.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
Absolutely and unequivocally wrong. Sorry, Jim.
Gravity is a lot more complex than you think.
Many observations have been made and tests done before the “all-encompassing” theory of gravitation was put in place – and even now we know it’s not a perfect theory, since general relativity and quantum mechanics don’t really knit together very well.
A proper understanding of gravitation is one of the most difficult areas in physics you can study. It’s hard enough that when a reporter asked Sir Arthur Eddington in the 1920s if it was true that he was “one of only three people who understand relativity”, Eddington’s response was to wonder who the third person was.
Gravitational theory is full of controversial and in some cases very strange predictions. Black holes. Neutron stars. Gravitational waves.
If you think evolution is more all-encompassing than gravity, then with all due respect you’re showing that you don’t get what “gravity” actually is.
A great, great, GREAT book on the subject (for you, or anyone else here who’s interested) is Kip Thorne’s Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. I’ve had students read it and like it, so the level is certainly fine for anybody here who wants to take the time.
I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action?
Bobb has addressed this, so I’ll just ask a counter-question: can you show me where we can actually observe a black hole? A gravitational wave?
I don’t believe God is constantly “tinkering” with the rules. I believe the universe has consistency. But if God does exist, he by definition exists in a higher plane/dimension than ours.
Whose definition would that be? It’s a neat idea, but it’s no more than an extra assumption.
I personally believe in a literal 6 day creation, which would not require God to “tinker” anyways, at least not after he is done creating. Miracles are not “tinkering” with the laws of physics, but just the intervention of a higher dimension on a lower one.
Six days as in 6 24-hour periods, not six “periods which were called days but which could have been a lot longer?” The latter is more often what I hear.
In any case, you are more than welcome to believe in whatever form of creation you like – but you are not welcome to insist that it be taught alongside legitimate peer-reviewed science.
On to monkeys and typewriters:
You have left out one crucial aspect in this analogy: time.
No, I haven’t. You don’t understand what “infinite” means … but I’ll leave that there, since others are addressing this argument well.
You say that “many ID scientists” accept the age of the universe as 10-15 billion years. Do you? Do you also accept the age of the Earth as being 4-5 billion years? If so, how do you reconcile that with the “literal 6-day creation” you described earlier?
Whew. Okay, done now. 🙂
Oh, wait – more links. A great starting point for evolution is the PBS site for the series they aired a year or two back: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/about/sitemap.html . I would in particular suggest that you go to the “Life’s Grand Design” essay connected with episode 2: it discusses the eye and makes a lot of very good points.
TWL
I am saying that if you start with the concept that God is, by definition, a being outside of the natural universe, the rest makes sense.
Maybe to you, but I for one am still wondering what is “beyond” God then?
But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that “god” does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe.
As someone who teaches a college-level science class, I can tell you that this generally does not happen. In most cases, the subject of God just doesn’t come up.
Science strictly deals with what is observed. So if I did see a man who had his ear cut off and it was instantly and fully restored or someone who was dead and buried for 4 days suddenly come back to life and full health (i.e., a miracle), then I would have to deal with that observation.
Science does deal with what is observed, but here is the problem with your argument: No one alive today has observed the events you described. All we have are translations of translations of secondary accounts written several decades after the events allegedly took place. You could just as well say that a young boy became king of the Britains by being the only able to pull a magic sword out of a stone or an infant half-god throttled two snakes in his crib.
That is not say that any of these events absolutely could not have happened, just that since they is no direct evidence that they did happen, you cannot say with scientific certainty that they did. That is where science and faith part company. The fossil and geologic record is evidence left behind of both the age of the Earth and the fact that life on Earth has looked very different at different time periods than it has today. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that species do change and evolve over time. Otherwise, we’re back to mental constructs like the devil did it.
I would suggest that we should not be so quick and certain that something “supernatural” does not exist.
And my counter argument is that we shouldn’t be so quick to simply accept a supernatural explanation. Let’s assume for a minute that God did set the universe in motion by whatever mechanism you want and that we are the end product of that mechanism. A simple fact is that we have minds capable of perceiving the world around us and drawing rational conclusions. Observation tells us that the universe behaves in a manner that is consistant with predictable equations and logical conclusions. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that God wishes us to observe and learn about the way the universe works. A something that seems supernatural could be actually something that is outside of known scientific and natural explanations or it could be something that we just haven’t found the correct natural explanation for. Believing that the sun and all the stars revolve around the Earth might be a fine explanation for nomadic shepherds, but it doesn’t serve NASA’s needs very well. Likewise, other things that we think are supernatural may actually be the result of someone have more advanced knowledge than we way. A man reattaches an ear not by magic, but by a skill he learned from some source unknown to us at this time.
To believe in a supernatural explanation for anything we don’t as yet understand closes the door on further knowledge. If God is out there, I believe that he wants us to explore how life began on this world because that will bring us closer to truly understanding him.
I agree that my theological discussion would not be appropriate in a science class if you are talking about the nature of “god.” But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that “god” does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe.
And I would agree with that. In thirteen years of teaching, I’ve never once spoken as a teacher to say “God does not exist.” If asked, I’ll talk about my own opinions on the matter, but I make it exceedingly clear that they’re my own opinions and nothing more. If the issue comes up, I usually try to say that science and religion are different things examining different spheres of thought, and don’t have to be in conflict unless individuals choose to make it such.
If that’s really your only problem, then it’s an issue of teacher sensitivity and nothing more. Why does the teaching of evolution bother you in the first place, then?
TWL
Hey, Den, what do you teach? Just curious.
TWL
Anyone remember the Far Side there the kid is raising his hand in class saying “teacher, may I be excused? My brain is full and it hurts…”
Jim said “I agree that my theological discussion would not be appropriate in a science class if you are talking about the nature of “god.” But neither is it appropriate to say in a science class that “god” does not exist and that he/she/it does not ineract with our natural universe.” And I agree with you. But where are these science classes that say God doesn’t exist? I think your statemet sums up the whoe creation vs evolution argument: creationists say evolution is a false statement not borne out by the Bible and their faith, and evolutionists say a literal 6 day creation isn’t borne out by the evidence we have before our eyes. But whil creationists want evolutionary theory to go away (since it’s considered “wrong,”) evolutionary proponents just want to be able to continue their research, and maybe provide a scientific explanation for the story of creation…where the Bible just uses 6 days as a metaphor for the billions of years science tells us it took for the Earth to form. There’s nothing inherant in the evolutionary study that says “there is no God.” It’s only when literal creationists start saying that the Bible is the literal and true Word of God, and that creation took a literal 6 days (24 hour periods), and that suggest anything else is to deny God, i.e., evolutionists say God does not exist.
But it’s the creationist that imposes this belief onto the evolutionist. Many spiritual people (myself included) hold a very deep belief in an ultimate creator (God), and look for ways to fit our understanding of the world into that Religious belief. When you lack the science to examine the creation story, you accept that it’s true. When you uncover evidence that the Earth can’t possibly be only 15,000 years old, you adapt. Which isn’t all that different from what literal creationists do, they just adapt the other way.
(somewhere, a lightbulb goes off over Bobb’s head)
And if THAT little religious split isn’t an example of macroevolution of a religious belief, I don’t know what is.
I teach Introduction to Environmental Science.
I teach Introduction to Environmental Science.
Cool — we need more good teachers in that field.
TWL
Jim, you also suggest that, even with billions of years, microevolution won’t result in the type of macroevolutionary change required to go from a T-rex to an eagle. On what basis? You suggest that we can oberve things like a beak getting longer. Let’s say that change takes 100 years to observe. So other similar, somewhat cosmetic, albeit physically different, changes take around the same time. Like plumage differences, etc.
There are 10 million 100-year intervals in a billion years. For that matter, there are 3 million 100-year intervals in 300 million years. That leaves room for 3 million microevolutionary changes for dinosaurs to have experienced over time. And evidence indicates that at least 2 (or is it 3) massive extinction periods occured during the 300 million years covered by dinosaur fossil records (massive extinction is important because rapid changes tend to occur during these periods). Let’s say a 40′ T-Rex shrinks 1% every 100 years. In just 20 100-year periods, 40′ long T-Rex has shrunk to just shy of 33′. In 40 periods, 27′. In just 60 100-year periods, 40′ T-Rex has shrunk to just shy of 22′, nearly half the size it was 60,000 years ago. We’ve not even hit 1 million years yet, and there are 299 million more years to go through, and already T-Rex is starting to look like a totally different species. Imagine what other 50% changes have occurred…it’s tiny front arms, proportionaly growing at a similar 1% every 100 years. After 100 100-year periods, T-Rex has evolved into a creature not even 15′ long. In just 100,000 years, T-Rex has undergone a 63% reduction. In another 100,000 years, at that rate, T-Rex’s descendants could be as small as 6′.
Bobb: Yeah, I remember that Farside. Wasn’t there a Farside where the professor was writing out this huge equation on the board, and about five steps before the end, in the equation he had written “And then something magic happens” and then proceeded with the rest of the equation to the answer? I’ve thought of that one during this whole discussion several times…
Ah, I miss the Far Side. My only recent run-in with Mr. Larson’s insanity was to have to explain to my wife why we needed to keep the intact Off the Wall Calendar. I told her it was the last one ever made (not that exact one, but the last version published). I hope that’s true, cause if not, it’s going to be Clean Sweepsville for some more of my junk.
Jason,
If it’s the cartoon I’m thinking of, it’s not a Far Side — it’s a Sidney Harris cartoon. A professor has lots of math, then “Then a Miracle Occurs…”, then more math. The caption is simply a second person saying, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”
I have a T-shirt with that on it; I wear it every final exam. The kids aren’t impressed, but it’s not for them. 🙂
TWL
Thanks for the feedback. I am leaving town so can’t keep up with all of it. 🙂 But I hope to read it when I get back. I don’t have time to go out and read 300 page books right now, but I welcome links to websites that give more explanation than we should bother posting on PAD’s site.
Iowa Jim
Tim, it very well could be something other than a Farside comic. I enjoy all kinds of humor in that vein, so it’s hard to keep it all straight sometimes.
Jim, I hope you have a good trip. I will say that this debate has been very refreshing and educational for me; while probably not resulting in conclusions you agree with, I did go and research ID because of this. This is the kind of conversation I love coming to this blog to find and sharpen my own skills with, so I will look forward to another opportunity to debate something with you.
Yeah, this has been SO much better than the usual creationist/evolution debate. Maybe there is something good that will come out of the ID thing after all. personally, I don’t dread having to discuss ID vs Darwin because, for me, Darwinism is the obvious winner. Creationism has thrived, in part, because science has ignored it, in much the same way that paranoid theories about the kennedy assassination or the 2004 elections have been able to flourish. When the mainstream has no interest in shining a light on a subject it is better able to fester and grow. (Not that I expect legitimate science to waste much time dismissing ghosts as a cause of cancer).
Most science classes and scientists would rule out any possibility that “god” was involved and say it had to have a natural explanation. I would suggest that we should not be so quick and certain that something “supernatural” does not exist.
I teach bio and environmental earth science. I spend a bit of time in the first few weeks on pseudoscience and the differences between western science and other views of why things happen. I freely admit that I can’t disprove the effectiveness of voodoo or the view, which is probably held by a mojority of the human race, that curses and spirits can affect our health. Neither can I say with absolute assurance that the rock which I am telling them is the result of lithification of organic sediments wasn’t actually formed by God saying “Hey, let’s put some coal over there.” But can you imagine what rubber room I’d be put into if I spent any time talking about how Hawaii was formed by a fight between the fire goddess Pele and her sister Na-maka-o-kaha‘i ?
Someone mentioned transitional fossils or missing links. You can’t win wioth this one. If you have creature A and creature Z and you find transitional creature M the creationsists will now demand that you find the missing links between A & M and M & Z. When you oblige and find fossils D and T you will be startled to discover that you now are expected to find the missing links between A&D, D&M, M&T and T&Z. Every success results in the creationsists claiming that there are even more “missing” links.
“I freely admit that I can’t disprove the effectiveness of voodoo”
Well, , was worried you were going to ruin my plans to take over the world with zombies.
“When you oblige and find fossils D and T you will be startled to discover that you now are expected to find the missing links between A&D, D&M, M&T and T&Z. Every success results in the creationsists claiming that there are even more “missing” links.”
The funny thing is, they’re right…there are countless missing links that we’ll never find, because they were never fossilized. But even with those gaps, we can see the patterns of evolutionary change, and conclude that these changes stretched over great lengths of time result in some rather dramatic evolutionary links.
Compare this to DNA…we have only a small percentage of the human DNA strand mapped. Yet you don’t really see people running around claiming, simply because it’s an incomplete picture, that the whole idea that DNA holds the building blocks of life is bunk. Mainly because admitting DNA has this information doesn’t challenge any closely held religious beliefs. Not so with evolution, as to accept the findings means a stark re-structuring of the literal creationist view.
Off the topic we were discussing off topic but it turns out that all that talk about Americans flocking to Canada to escape the terrors of 4 more years of republican rule turned out to be, well, not so much–actual numbers of people actually moving actually fell by about 1600 people.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050804/wl_canada_nm/canada_canada_usa_immigration_col_1
Wow, that hockey strike last fall had far-reaching ramifications of which we’re only now feeling the impact…
Either that or a bunch of Californians discovered the true meaning of the word “cold”.
Luigi Novi,
Thanks again. You are my favorite poster on this board, even though we disagree quite often. And no, I did not hear (or hear about) the incident with the radio caller you mention, so I cannot comment one way ot the other on it.
Truth is, I have NEVER listened to Hannity’s radio show, or O’Reilly’s. The only one I can currently receive on my radio is Rush Limbaugh’s, and I have not listened to him in years.
Tim Lynch,
“Yes, Jerome, bigotry is ugly no matter who it’s directed towards”
Well, at least we agree on something:)
I will respond to the rest of your post later tonight.
Hmmm… Just thought I’d throw a somewhat random thought out there that occurred to me catching up on posts. It’s seemed to me for quite some time, that anything that is witnessed to occur within the observable, real universe is, by definition, natural. Anything not natural is likewise not possible, because we all know, “Ye canna’ change the laws of physics.”
Now, if we accept the presence of an IDOC (Insert Deity Of Choice) which, on occasion, intervenes in small ways from time to time, and accept that such a being/force is of nearly or truly infinite intellect and wisdom, it would surely have had the foresight to design the universe in such a way that 1) Things like life would have turned out the way it wanted with minimal interference, and 2) It would have had a set of natural laws built in that it alone could use when it chooses to do so. Sort of a cosmic debug mode. Still perfectly natural, just beyond our comprehension.
On a personal note, that’s one of the reasons it upsets me when the fundies use the word “unnatural” in reference to anything they don’t like. Just because their little primate brains can’t comprehend it doesn’t mean the universe has to comform to their view.
Well, best get back to work before I start to rant…
-Rex Hondo-
Someone mentioned transitional fossils or missing links. You can’t win wioth this one. If you have creature A and creature Z and you find transitional creature M the creationsists will now demand that you find the missing links between A & M and M & Z.
Well, I don’t think you actually “win” in an arguement with a creationist no matter what point you try to make because their default thinking is that you are either lying or being deceived by the devil.
Off the topic we were discussing off topic but it turns out that all that talk about Americans flocking to Canada to escape the terrors of 4 more years of republican rule turned out to be, well, not so much–actual numbers of people actually moving actually fell by about 1600 people.
I think it’s already been well-documented that most of that was just post-election grumbling. When Democrats lose elections, they make empty threats to move. When Republicans lose, they start drafting impeachment resolutions. 😉
Interestingly enough, I picked up this month’s issue of Analog and Stanley Schmidt wrote and essay about the assault on education by the anti-science crowd. He touches on many of the points that I tried to make here.
Some thoughts on a couple of points that have cropped up:
Luigi, just for the record, I think you’re confusing the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions. The CDF, which the then Cardinal Ratzinger headed, was indeed the descendant of the Roman Inquisition, but the history of that organisation bears no comparison with the infinitely more agressive Spanish Inquistion, with which it wasn’t, in any case, connected.
Jack, your potted history of backpedalling in the creation debate is genuinely amusing, and in some respects not far off the truth, but it’s a bit trickier than that, especially if you look at the Fathers of the Early Church. Origen and Augustine, for example, recognised that time was as much a creation of God as space is, and argued for the creation account in Genesis to be of theological rather than historical value.
There was a creation debate, sure, but it tended to be over whether the Genesis account ought to be taken literally or not, and even whether it mattered, in a historical sense. The modern creation debate is a very different matter, mind, and I do rather approve of your caricature on that one.
It’s interesting seeing how intense the feelings are that this debate stirs up over on your side of the Atlantic. Here in Europe there’s no ‘creationist’ lobby at all, except perhaps on the smallest of scales. Evolution is basically accepted across the board, in one sense or another.
As for Peter’s initial question? In general I’m with Churchill on jaw-jaw being preferable to war-war. On the other hand, I tend to agree with all those who talk about the IRA and Al Qaeda being almost incomparable.
The IRA’s a structured paramilitary organisation, inextricably entangled with Sinn Fein, a legitimate political party. What’s more, it’s always had practical and realisable goals, the kind of goals that can be negotiated towards.
You can, roughly speaking, divide the organisation into Realists, Idealists, and Gangsters. All three have a record of being willing to kill to achieve their aims, but the Realists have tended to see such action as largely futile; the Idealists are the die-hard ‘Brits out by any means necessary’ brigade, and the Gangsters have been simple criminals, using the organisation as a way to gain money and power; the other two factions have largely tolerated them on the principle that it’s better to have them in the tent pìššìņg out, for now.
The Realists, led by Adams, have been trying to shift the overall organisation towards a conventional political struggle for about twenty years, and have made slow and steady progress in that direction, bringing most of the Idealists and most of the Gangsters with them. The organisation has, in effect, been on ceasefire for a decade. What the Realists have been trying to do is to persuade the organisation to stand down with dignity – and in effect that’s what’s happened.
Idealists who had broken from the main organisation overplayed their hand with the Omagh bombing a few years back; it became pretty much clear then that physical force Republicanism was dead, that it had lost support across the land. This grouping was to get into further trouble after the Al Qaeda attacks on the Eleventh of September, as traditional American funding and support for terrorism in Ireland began to dry up, and probably suffered further when Islamic terrorists hit London a month back.
The Gangsters overplayed their hand at the end of last year, first with the bank robbery and then with the McCarthy murder; these events caused the British and Irish governments to lose patience with the IRA-Sinn Fein leadership and the ordinary people of Northern Ireland, the traditional grassroots supporters of the organisation, to threaten to turn away.
The recent UK elections massively strengthened Adams’s hand, as Sinn Fein replaced the (far more admirable) SDLP as the main party of Northern Irish Catholics, while Ian Paisley’s DUP replaced the UUP as the main party of Northern Irish Protestants. Bear in mind that the DUP were the only significant Northern Irish party to refuse to engage in the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement, an agreement that was endorsed by a huge majority of the Northern Irish people. The DUP have a record as a party that refuses to deal with people, and are widely viewed as anti-Catholic bigots. Whether that’s true or not isn’t necessarily important.
So what’s Adams done? He’s publicly dropped the IRA card from his hand, and by doing so has staked everything on constitutional politics. The IRA is, in effect, gone. It can’t come back without thoroughly discrediting its leadership. He’s put the ball firmly into the DUP court, who now have to chose between working within agreement they opposed from the start, or revealing themselves for the Seventeenth Century bigots they surely are.
It’s hard to see any comparison between the IRA’s actions and Al Qaeda’s. We’d need Al Qaeda to be a structured organisation, for starters, rather than a loose network, linked mainly by ideology; as things stand, Bin Ladin looks mainly to be an inspirational figure, rather than a leader, and you can be sure that many of his followers are far more loyal to the cause than to the man. Even if he changed his mind and offered to help, so what? Could he bring those he has inspired with him?
But yes, if all the necessary conditions were in place, and if such an offer were possible, then yes, surely if Al Qaeda wanted to talk, then it’d be irresponsible not to respond. It might be a case of supping with the Devil and using a long spoon, but you’d have to do it nonetheless.
“Of course, I’ve come to believe we exist in six dimensions. But that’s a discussion for another time, I think. :P”
No time like the present. I for one would love to hear the reasoning behind that…I think I see some of it, but I would like to see your line of logic. I am sure that a few others here would too.
and to go a little theological here, as far as I can tell, the actuallity of the Creation has nothing to do with Christianity. As far as I can tell; I and all other Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, that he died for our sins, and was resurrected, and will come again.
I see nothing in there about when the world was created, how it was created, or anything else.
In my experience as an actor, there is a term used for when you do something simply because you want to, and not because it advances the action or adds to the character. That is called theatrical mášŧûrbáŧìøņ. In my mind, a lot of what Jerry Falwell and cronies do is theological mášŧûrbáŧìøņ: It is for their own pleasure, serves no useful purpose, and freaks people out when they see them doing it.
It is a really, really, really, REALLLY big universe, that has been around for a really, really really REALLLY long time, I think that life is not only here, but a lot of places. There have been some interesting thought experiments done that have turned up Silicon instead of carbon based life forms, seeing as silicon is actually more common then carbon. ID is, as an old saying goes, “Niether fish nor Fowl, nor good red meat,” it is not science, or theoology, but simply an attempt to attack what doesn’t exactly jive with the world as they want it to be. I believe it was Augustine who argued that, once God had created a universe with certain laws, he could not violate those laws, so it isn’t hard to see that God could have placed certain protocols for life in place, or possibly “nudged” evolution at times. this would eliminate the problem of when/where/how/why/who for God created the world, and also allow the evolutionists to feel happy. Personally, I feel that God made the thing, so he can do whatever the hëll he wants to with it, ol’ Jerry notwithstanding.
As for the original subject of this thread, one point I haven’t seen discussed is the posibility of an Islamic/NATO coilition against a common threat, such as China. If China decides that they are the new USSR, and that there is all this great land and oil to be had in the Middle East, then we might very well end up not only calling a truce with Al-Qaida, but actually working with them, similar to how we armed them against the Soviets. O’course we might go back to fighting, but there is an interesting tendency in history for nations that have fought together to remain (somewhat) at peace afterwards. England and France are excellent examples of this.
This is all not to mention the fact, that, despite the fact that we would be “supping with the Devil and using a long spoon” (I like that, remind me to steal it sometime.)to negotiate with AQ, we would have no choice but to come to the table, if only to avoid looking bad on the world stage. Really, that would be a Win-win for AQ. If we come to the table, then we are negotiating on their terms, and they get a cease-fire/breating space. if we don’t, then we are bad guys for not wanting to bring peace and unity to Iraq/the Middle East. Our best bet would be to issue a standing offer to negotiate a peace settlement at any time. That way, if they do come, it is on terms, and we look good for trying to bring peace at any cost, even if we have to accept some evil to get it.
Well, I’ll try not to ramble too much. I’ve come to think of time not as the fourth dimension, but the next three, through a, to my knowledge, somewhat unique combination of philosophies.
First off is reincarnation, and more specifically, past life regressions and other such experiences. I know here in the west, a great many don’t believe in such things, but I’m not here to debate it. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc… Going on personal experience, strong anecdotal evidence and realizing that 1) Memory is stored chemically in the brain and therefore does not start “recording” until an as-yet undetermined time post-conception, and 2) a being existing in one dimension would be incapable of witnessing anything at any other point along the line, time must at the very least be curved to allow those gifted with the ability or who can learn to see, however faintly, other lifetimes.
*Whew* Stick with me, I’m getting there.
Now, the other piece of the philosophical puzzle I’m assembling is the concept of free will. Even the Christina fundamentalists will have little problem with this one. In order to allow people to choose their own path amongst literally infinite choices, lateral movement must be allowed along the time stream as well as forward movement. (Not backward, as nobody has figured out how to counteract temporal inertia yet)
So, what we end up with, or at least the way I envision it, is time being an infinite sphere, or, if you like the thought of time being cyclical a la The Wheel of Time, a merely immensely huge sphere.
-Rex Hondo-
Wow. I think I follow what you are saying, Rex, that in essence we move along the time stream in three dimensions, similar, or at least analagous, to how we move in our own three dimensional space. Time is in essence another three dimensional “sphere” that we move in, along with our own, familiar three dimensional world. You could almost view this as one of the original models of the cosmos, the medievial one, with the speres-within-spheres concept.
As for you worrying that eastern mysticism is out of place here, you obviously haven’t read a little tome called “The Tao of Physics!!” It really helps to understand some of the freakier crap in the universe if you can get out of the western mindset.
I was thinking about what you said about past life digression. If, for simplicity, you view traveling along the timeline as a two dimensional map, you would see these as long curves from the past suddenly intercepting the future, and if you expand it into three dimensions, you get a series of loops, and curves as someone passes through time, or as past intercepts present. This would look almost exactly like quantum foam. I don’t know how familiar you are with quantum physics, but this is the idea that, at its smallest, the universe is a constanly shifting “Foam,” in which particles can appear out of nowhere, and pretty much anything goes. the point is, is that when you graph or draw this, it looks pretty much like what your idea of time would look like.
or maybe I misunderstood you. But I don’t think so.
actually, also just realized that if what you say about not being able to travel backwards in time is true, your model might look more like a cone, with the tip of the cone coinciding with the big bang, and expanding out from there. Hawking did some stuff with this idea in “A brief history of time.”
just an idea.
Origen and Augustine, for example, recognised that time was as much a creation of God as space is, and argued for the creation account in Genesis to be of theological rather than historical value.
Indeed, there is certainly a long and healthy history in both Christianity and Judaism of understanding Genesis in a less-literal fashion than do modern fundementalist Christians. I’d even go so far as to say that a great many ancient religions distinguished between mythic truth and day-to-day truth. They had no trouble believing in myths that contradicted each other, or contradicted observable facts, because the truth of the myths was on a different level.
After all, if God is all-powerful, can’t He make contradictory things true? If He can be simultanously Father, Son and Holy Spirit, couldn’t he have formed man from dust a few thousand years ago AND had him evolve from other apes millions of years ago? Seems a rather limited conception of God if He’s bound by human logic.
A very nice evaluation of the IRA, I might add. One of the most difficult aspects of al-Qa`ida is that they DON’T have any realistic goals. They can’t possibly hope to bring down Western civilization, no matter how many planes they crash.
Even if you could explain the evolution of man from the formation of the universe billions of years ago, you are still left with the question of where the universe came from.
You, on the other hand, are left with the far more difficult question of where God came from. From an Occhamian perspective, yours is the more complex solution, since you assume something MORE COMPLEX than the universe (i.e., God) exists without a creator, while I simply assume that the universe itself exists without a creator. You cannot use the complexity of the unverse as an argument for a creator without implicitly requiring that the creatory have a creator as well.
Sceince doesn’t know “where the universe” came from. Such a question may very well be meaningless, since it relies on a very conventional model of time. Time doesn’t necessarily function in quite the same way on the quantum level, or when dealing with massive amounts of matter or energy. And, as Tim mentioned, there may be a simple limit before which there simply exists no information. It may not be possible, from a scientific perspective, to know where the universe came from, although we might learn a lot about what happened almost immediately after that.
Bottom line, you are left with either the belief/faith that nature itself is in some way eternal, or that a “designer” / “god” of some sort exists and designed it all.
That is a false dichotomy. There is also the option of simply admitting ignorance. That is the fundemental difference between scientific and religious epistemologies: science doesn’t claim it has all the answers.
You may argue we are not there yet, but my question is what do you do if this were to happen?
I would collect my Nobel Prize and be deeply satisfied that I had INCREASED mankind’s understanding of the physical world, even if I couldn’t complete it.
Evolution is a much bigger and all encompasing theory then gravity alone.
Come now. Gravity (or what we call gravity) spans the entire universe, affects all matter, energy, space and time, and may be a manifestation of the literal fabric from which all things are formed. Evolution explains why there are so many kinds of bugs on one particular chunk of soggy rock.
I again ask where you we can actually observe evolution itself in action?
Go hang out in a hospital and see the nasty new strains of bacteria they have to deal with.
The few examples I have read are weak stretches (such as the change in the length of a beak of a bird) that do not demonstrate the formation of a new and more complex system.
How much more complex do you need? It’s an incremantal process. To argue that these incremental changes can’t add up to significant canges over time is like Zeno’s arguing that an arrow can’t ever reach its target. If you admit 1+1 is 2, you have to admit that 1+1+1+1… is EVENTUALLY going to add up to a million.
But if God does exist, he by definition exists in a higher plane/dimension than ours.
Were that the case, then science could tell us nothing about this god, since science deals exclusively with observable, measurable, repeatable phenomena. If your god isn’t bound by physical laws, it is not possible for it to be measured, so it isn’t within the realm of science. Saying a god created the universe is, from a scientific perspective, like saying love makes the sky blue. There is no way to test it.
Miracles are not “tinkering” with the laws of physics, but just the intervention of a higher dimension on a lower one.
If the laws of physics can be tinkered with, they aren’t laws. Science relies on these laws in order to draw conclusions and make predictions. Every time we’ve checked, light has moved through a vacuum at just under 300 m/sec, so science assumes it will continue to do so. If a god is not bound by these laws, science can’t gather any reliable, objective information about it.
But when you quantify that the monkeys can type X keystrokes a minute, and that when you add up the keystrokes needed to write perfectly the sonnet, you suddenly realize that it is statistically an impossibility.
The problem with the monkey/typewriter analogy is that evolution is NOT a random process. Evolution takes place because there are various pressures which make some individuals more likely to pass on their genes than others. The “monkeys” who happen to type in real “words” get “bananas”, and the closer they get to “Shakespeare”, the more “bananas” they get.
Well, I don’t think you actually “win” in an arguement with a creationist no matter what point you try to make because their default thinking is that you are either lying or being deceived by the devil.
Like evolution, it’s an incremental victory. The very development of “Intellegent Design” and before it “Creation Science” are victories, in that the creationists were conceding the validity of scientific method and, eventually, of the more glaringly obvious aspects of evolution. If we can keep them from ruining science education, each generation will see more and more concessions until they come to accept the facts.
Like evolution, it’s an incremental victory.
My choice of words was bad. Evolution is incremental, but it isn’t a “victory”, since it has no specific goal or purpose.
Jack,
That’s why i keep coming here–thanks to you I now have read up on Zeno’s paradox.
And my head hurts.
That’s why i keep coming here–thanks to you I now have read up on Zeno’s paradox.
All of it, or just the first half?
TWL
see, zeno’s paradoxes, while fun academic exercises, never really make a point. For instance, take his first, most famous paradox. achilles and a turtle get in a race. since achilles is a nice guy, he gives the turtle a 100 yard lead. For sake of convience, we will say achilles runs exactly ten times as fast as the turtle. so achilles runs the 100 yds, by which time the turtle has run ten, achilles runs the ten, and the turtle has run one….and so on ad infinitum.
My problem with this is that it ignores phyisical reality. Achilles cannot run 1/10,000 of a yd.
Supposing that his strides are a yard long, and that he takes one a secong, and that the turtle’s are 1/10 of a meter. at some point, achilles would simply take a single stride that put him past the turtle.
Physical reality trumps intellectual gibbering any day of the week. and twice on Saturday.
James, there’s no problem with Achilles running 1/10,000 of a yard. There’s no condition that each of these events occurs in a single step.
The real problem with Zeno’s paradox is that it’s possible for an infinite series to have a finite sum. Saying “it takes an infinite number of steps” isn’t a problem unless you’re also arguing each step takes the same time.
That’s the real difficulty, I think. The paradox is cool, but more as a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture exercise than anything else.
TWL
All of it, or just the first half?
Are you TRYING to give me an embolism?
James, Actually, I don’t look at past life regression so much as past intersecting present as looking at a different spot back along the timescape, thus the analogy of traveling along an (nigh) infinite sphere.
Of course, this is all purely in the realm of philosophy since, as yet, we do not truly percieve time itself, merely witness evidence of time’s “passage” and impose arbitrary units of measurement for our own convenience.
-Rex Hondo-
Jack, I don’t think intelligent design is a concession by the creationists, it’s merely their attempt to acheive in incremental victory first by generating doubt about the validity of evolution and use ID as a bridge to bring people back to standard creationism.
So much to comment on, so little time…
“Jim, by its very nature, science HAS to look at natural causes and can’t look at anything else. It HAS to be quick and certain to rule out “supernatural causes” by its very definition. Anything that’s supernatural is inherently outside of science, and trying to force that into science is an exercise in futility.”
That’s always been my difficulty with science: if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong. It’s a little bit like a cop saying “aha! A murder has been committed and it MUST be someone in this room!” He could find motive, opportunity, and means for someone within the room – enough even to convict the guy – but that doesn’t mean the accused was guilty. It could be someone across the street, but since the cop isn’t investigating that, oops! (Don’t read into this that I am “anti-science” it’s just a quibble. Nor do I think a scientist can investigate across the street in the supernatural. It can’t even rule out the supernatural because it doesn’t have the tools).
I rather like Micha’s observation of the watchmaker starting with simple mechanisms and it evolving to a more complex watch. That IS creationism. I’m not a 24/7 creationist. I’ve had the same problem with teaching creation in school as others…(okay, now what will you teach on the second day?). I think ID is a good way to force thought on evolution (how can an allegedly irreducibly complex eye evolve? What would the transition look like?). But the depth of evolution in public schools almost does more harm than good because it is so simplified that it’s practically a straw man (we had the poster of the horse’s evolution on the wall with the fact that the stair-step progression of the animal’s size wasn’t representative of their order in the fossil record. Knocking that down doesn’t falsify evolution, it just points out the simplicity of the level taught.) So using ID in schools, while interesting (I loved it when Creationists came into our science class – I was an atheist at the time and it was amusing. Truth was, I didn’t know enough to be arrogantly amused, so the joke was on me) it would be a limited value as a litmus test for evolution, and doesn’t belong in a biology class as anything else. A logic course, maybe…
I do disagree that gravity and evolution are analogous, though. Both are complex, yes, but an apple drops from a tree to the ground. When my dip-headed nephew uses that to believe in gravity, that’s cool. When he says he 100 percent believes in evolution but can’t tell me a single thing about it, he believes only by authority not by observation.
One of the concepts of creationism that I find interesting, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to believe one way or the other, is that common design is mistaken for common decent and that new “information” doesn’t evolve, but that all “information” already exists within the DNA and just isn’t yet expressed. Do we know enough to say that isn’t true?
Showing my ignorance yet again, let me ask: is the taxonomy classification just an overlaid representation? That is, do we have evidence that one classification has turned into another classification? Or is “life” really a continuum with somewhat arbitrary demarcations of class? That would make macroevolution a bit more hard to pin down since speciation is hard for some of us to swallow (at what point does Tim’s shrinking T-Rex become a different species? We like to say “a long billed finch is still a finch” is it appropriate to say “a T-Rex is still a T-Rex even when he’s a swan?”) Since we don’t know what “Kinds” refers to in the Bible account, there’s all sorts of wiggle room in what that meant. Does evolution exist within kinds but not across kinds? Is a T-Rex and the majestic swan a single kind, but a T-Rex and a billy-goat are not the same kind?
For me, God is literally self-evident. I have less problem with science and faith working hand in hand than many of my Christian friends, but I don’t just give a pass to any evolutionary thought, either.
Last question: Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial (X-Men notwithstanding?)?
“at what point does Tim’s shrinking T-Rex become a different species?”
At the point where their genes are so different they can no longer produce fertile offspring. For instance, a Mastiff and a Chihuahua could (in theory) have puppies who were perfectly fertile, thus, they are both still Canis lupus familiaris.
Lions and tigers on the other hand, can produce offspring, called ligers ( no “Napoleon Dynamite” jokes!) or tigons. These however, are sterile, thus the lion and tigers are different species. (Panthera leo and Panthera tigris respectively.)
“Last question: Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial.”
Most aren’t. 99.9% are really, really bad. (cancer, anyone?) it is the .1% that can be benificial over looooong times or many generations. an excellent example of this is the flu. In 1919, there was a massive flu pandemic that killed millions. there have been none since, partially because of improved hygine and medical knowledge, but also because the flu virus mutated into a less deadly form. It isn’t good for a virus to kill it’s host, a virus wants the host to live and spread the virus. Thus, a less lethal form of the virus was a very benificial form of mutation.
if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong.
See, the difference between science and religion is that, when science is ‘wrong’, it makes an effort to correct its stance on where it was wrong. 🙂
then science is limited and its answers may be wrong
Guess what. Working scientists are keenly aware of this.
The shrinking T-rex example, by the way, wasn’t mine — I believe it was Bobb’s.
And as for the “how could the eye evolve?” question you mentioned — you might want to go back and look at one of the links I posted earlier in the thread, as there’s a very nice discussion of exactly that.
TWL
Showing my ignorance yet again, let me ask: is the taxonomy classification just an overlaid representation? That is, do we have evidence that one classification has turned into another classification? Or is “life” really a continuum with somewhat arbitrary demarcations of class? That would make macroevolution a bit more hard to pin down since speciation is hard for some of us to swallow (at what point does Tim’s shrinking T-Rex become a different species? We like to say “a long billed finch is still a finch” is it appropriate to say “a T-Rex is still a T-Rex even when he’s a swan?”) Since we don’t know what “Kinds” refers to in the Bible account, there’s all sorts of wiggle room in what that meant. Does evolution exist within kinds but not across kinds? Is a T-Rex and the majestic swan a single kind, but a T-Rex and a billy-goat are not the same kind?
One should keep in mind that much of our way of classifying life is comepletely arbitrary. We say, for example, that anything with a feather is a bird and all birds have feathers and right now that works out ok. Since there is ample evidence that at one time there were many reptiles that had feathers it should be obvious that this is not a hard and fast written in stone definition.
I’m a bit amazed when creationists talk about the second part of your comment–the idea that “kinds” could be a very broad based thing. So, as one explained to me, Noah took just two turtles on the ark and from these basic turtles came about ALL of the speices of turtles that exist today–from box turtles to sea turtles to giant Galapagos Tortoises, etc.
And I mean WOW! Talk about macroevolution! From feet to fins (or visa versa) in just 5000 years! And there’s your answer to “Have mutations ever been proven to be beneficial?” If you throw a box turtle into the ocean or drop a sea turtle in the sands of a desert you’ll find out tragically fast that each is very well adapted to its own environment and not so much for the others. It’s kind of like the story of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse, only with dead turtles.
Now I’m not saying that one has to believe in Noah’s Ark to be a creationist but for those that do there is a major problem–way too many species of animals exist now for the story to be true and any attempt to lower that number requires evolution on a scale undreamed of by Darwin himself.
But, Bill, aren’t turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation? Or am I misunderstanding mutation? The environment begins to select flatter feet, and flatter feet until it’s completely flat. A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don’t know).
That’s always been my difficulty with science: if there IS the supernatural, then science is limited and its answers may be wrong.
Well, if you define what is apparently supernatural as anything that is outside of natural law, then yes, science does paint an incomplete picture. I prefer to think of it as simply something that is natural, just not 100% understood.
For instance, a Mastiff and a Chihuahua could (in theory) have puppies who were perfectly fertile, thus, they are both still Canis lupus familiaris.
I actually use the chihuahua-mastiff crossbreeding as an example to define what is a species. For one, they are two extreme body types within the same species and for two, I think anything is funny when you throw in a chihuahua.
Lions and tigers on the other hand, can produce offspring, called ligers ( no “Napoleon Dynamite” jokes!) or tigons.
The more classic example is the donkey-horse crossbreeding to produce a mule.
One should keep in mind that much of our way of classifying life is comepletely arbitrary. We say, for example, that anything with a feather is a bird and all birds have feathers and right now that works out ok. Since there is ample evidence that at one time there were many reptiles that had feathers it should be obvious that this is not a hard and fast written in stone definition.
While this is true to some extent, biologists are turning more and more towards genetic similarities to define species rather than just gross physical similarities. For example, while it was known for a long time that the two major groups of orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra didn’t mate when brought together, it’s only been recently that biologists have considered the possibility that they are in fact two separate species. Of course, genetic similarity is not without controversy, as some biologists have argued that chimps should be reclassified as hominids because of their genetic similarity to us.
aren’t turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation?
What exactly do you think natural selection IS, Robbnn? How do you think it occurs without some sort of mutation?
If you think mutations have to be huge (a la the example you gave), then I respectfully submit that you’ve been reading too much comic-book science and not enough of the real thing.
TWL
“The more classic example is the donkey-horse crossbreeding to produce a mule.”
well, yeah, but which is cooler, a mule or a liger?
“A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don’t know).”
noooooo…that would be a deformity. A mutation would be a slightly flatter foot, which aided in walking in wet sand, and gradually getting flatter, until they served as flippers, opening up a new source of food and/or shelter in the ocean, thus making that turtle more likely to live to mate and pass on it’s genes, which have the flat foot gene.
as for eyes, many creatures, right down to protazoa, have light sensing capabilities.
The development of the eye was most likely an improved way to avoid pradators. As camoflage got more sophisticated, so did the eye. For instance, in a picture of a tiger in a forest, you can pick out the tiger based on its color. An animal which sees in black and white would have a much harder time just seeing the pattern. More highly developed eyes are a very useful survival tool, which is why virtually every creature that doesn’t live deep in a cave has them.
well, yeah, but which is cooler, a mule or a liger?
Well, can a liger pull a heavy cart up a steep mountain road?
But, Bill, aren’t turtles an example of natural selection rather than mutation? Or am I misunderstanding mutation? The environment begins to select flatter feet, and flatter feet until it’s completely flat. A mutation would be foot to fin in a single generation (or a couple, I don’t know).
Ahhh, I begin to see where you’ve gone wrong (no offence intended and you are far from alone). To get back to something that Tim said earlier, I might disagree that 99.9% of all mutations are bad–most are probably neutral, since most of our DNA does nothing more than sit there and take up space. Most mutations in actual gene sequences are likely to be damaging as well–a box turtle born with slightly flattened feet has little or no advantage in walking on sand. But if conditions change–say, the climate begins to get wetter–those feet, ever so slightly better at navigating short distances in water, might help him escape from the ever increasing number of flash floods. Continue this process over millions of years, with the former desert now the edge of a great ocean and natural selection always favoring those random mutations that make feet better at swimming and the descendents of our desert friend now are completely different turtles.
The idea that one could go from a box turtle to a Leatherback in one generation would require so many random spontaneous mutations as to be almost mathematically impossible. But that’s not the only kind of mutation that happens–mostly it’s just a few base pairs of DNA. I can’t say that no “hopeful monster” ever existed but there is the added problem of finding a mate–even if one lucky (?) sea turtle was born in a clutch of box turtle eggs and managed to crawl to the ocean (and it’s unlikely that his turtle brain would figure that out as the correct course of action) he would face a lonely life waiting for that same extraordinary set of events to happen again, this time with a female.
Also keep in mind another common fallacy–if a box turtle eventually mutated into a sea turtle, why are there still sea turtles, I am often asked. Well, it isn’t like all box turtles mutated at once or even that going to the sea was the ONLY way to survive. A small subset of the overall poulation may have been subjected to different natural selective pressures than the rest of them and thus would be sent off in a different direction (it helps if they are isolated, to keep their genes from mixing with the parent population). Best example–the giant tortoises of the Galapagos, freed from competition with mammals, able to reach gianormous proportions. (I’m aware that “gianormous” is not an actual word but I’ve spent about 2 months now with my teen daughters, so stop the hating, beyoches.)