Why science and religion are not compatible

[Wowbagger]

I'll grant that natural selection accounts for the bacteria becoming PCN resistant. But I am certainly not entitled to jump from there to the conclusion that given the penicillin resistance example, Obama, the whale and the sunflower are linked to a common ancestor through the process of selection pressure squeezing chance mutations in the direction of these three very different biological outcomes.

I agree with you on one point: Chance mutations could not possibly have evolved a bacteria into, for example, Barack Obama.

But, you must understand: Chance has nothing much to do with evolution! Bacteria can evolve, over looong periods of time, into people.. because they are driven by natural non-random selection pressures.

If you read Richard Dawkins' books carefully, this should have been made clear to you. At no point does Dawkins claim chance has anything to do with this. His books are all about breaking down the non-random selection pressures that lead to changes in survival strategies, etc.

Science and religion are going to butt-heads on these sorts of things, because science sees this distinction as very important. Whereas the religious are just fine with their strawmans and mischaracterizations.

How evolution works has a strong bearing on how, for example, morality works. Not getting the facts right could lead to profoundly insane conclusions.

 

[kerikiwi]

Not only does Dawkins not claim chance is involved, he is adamant chance is not involved.
That is the essential point.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How exactly would one create a testable hypothesis for something that behaves differently in exactly the same circumstances? If you drop a ball and one time it drops to the floor, the next time it flies to the ceiling, the third time it hovers in the air humming "God Save the Queen", and the fourth time it turns into Emeril Legasse, what prediction could you make about the fifth attempt?

Ahem....quantum mechanics is already there.

Some people have trouble with the uncertainty principle but how we apply the scientific process doesn't change.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Fair enough but..........my point is there is no evidence, nothing empiric that supports the contention "simple bugs" became people over 3.5 billion years owing to slow and steady adaptation, plus or minus saltations/leaps, the whole thing being driven by millions of chance mutations occurring over the course of time. Now THAT is bare assertion!

There is plenty of evidence for common ancestry among living systems, but showing evidence for common ancestry is not the same as demonstrating the validity of Natural Selection as being a force powerful and creative enough to account for the origin of species. There is no reason at all to buy into that. There is no evidence for it, NONE.

Please, stop declaring things you are so uninformed about are facts. You may not understand genetic science, but some of the rest of us do.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Not only does Dawkins not claim chance is involved, he is adamant chance is not involved.
That is the essential point.

You don't understand Dawkins' position on evolution. I suggest you could not find anywhere Dawkins said random mutation and selection pressures did not involve 'chance'.

 

[kerikiwi]

You don't understand Dawkins' position on evolution. I suggest you could not find anywhere Dawkins said random mutation and selection pressures did not involve 'chance'.

It's the mutation which involves chance, not the selection pressure.

 

[Craig B]

You don't understand Dawkins' position on evolution. I suggest you could not find anywhere Dawkins said random mutation and selection pressures did not involve 'chance'.

But see http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=53&ap=7

Dawkins easily blows away the argument that since the insect-trapping and purportedly "irreducibly complex" plant Aristolochia trilobata (Dutchman's Pipe) could not have happened "by chance" it therefore must have been intelligently designed. Of course, as Dawkins points out: "Design is not the only alternative to chance. Natural selection is a better alternative."

He agrees that such a complex organism was not created by chance.

 

[geni]

There is no evidence god beliefs resulted from alien encounters. There is overwhelming evidence people made the beliefs up to explain and/or deal with the natural terrestrial world. Is there a reason to generate an hypothesis for which no evidence points to it?

Non sequitur. your initial argument required that only human could generate religions. This seems at best statistically improbable.

Again, you fabricate an hypothesis for which there is no supporting evidence. That is not how I view the scientific process.

No I don't. I simply consider the totally of the problem and realise that it falls under "not solvable at this time".

You are using a definition of fiction that is useless. If you cannot distinguish between a work of fiction such as the Harry Potter series or mythical Greek gods and the theory of evolution or plate tectonics, of what use is the term, fiction?

I can distinguish between them but not when using the word fiction in the context that you initially did.

For that matter, of what use is the scientific process to you if Harry Potter and Zeus are no more, no less valid than the theory of gravity?

Well Lakatos would argue that the current theory of gravity (which we know is at best incomplete BTW) makes for a progressive research program while harry potter and zeus would not. Of course there is no useful way of showing that a religion can't make for a progressive research program (in fairness it's far from clear that it is possible to show that any given research program is progressive)

You can take the conclusion, "gods exist or might exist" and construct all manner of scenarios where that conclusion might be true. Or, you can do what we do in the rest of the fields of scientific inquiry and start with the evidence following where it leads.

Experimentalism? In the 21st century?

I find the latter is consistent with the scientific process

No it isn't. Scientists don't generally randomly collect data and then try and form theories. They tend to form theories then try to collect data relevant to that theory which they will then interpret in the the context of that and other theories.

and the former is an aberrancy used by the scientific and skeptical communities to either apologize for the obvious failure to find evidence when it comes to god beliefs or avoid addressing the god belief elephant in the room when one prefers not to confront the believer.

Not really. When considering very broad questions scientists often explore a very wide ideas space. For example consider the question "is time travel impossible". Most of the attempts to show that is not impossible involve highly improbable structures that probably can't even exist in our universe (Tipler cylinders and Van Stockum dust for example).

So goes the same with looking to see science and religion are compatible.

 

[Minoosh]

My own theory is that religion exists because people are afraid of dying

Why are people afraid of dying?

When did this start?

 

[Tricky]

Why are people afraid of dying?

When did this start?

Long before there were "people". Even very primative creatures struggle mightily to avoid dying. What humans add to the mix is a "magic" way to escape dying, i.e. an afterlife. And even though such a thing is ridiculous from start to finish, many, maybe even most humans will believe some form of life-after-death. Why do you think that is? Certainly not because of any evidence. All of the evidence is against it. But fear will make people deny evidence and make up the most incredible stories.

 

[FireGarden]

I agree with you on one point: Chance mutations could not possibly have evolved a bacteria into, for example, Barack Obama.

But, you must understand: Chance has nothing much to do with evolution! Bacteria can evolve, over looong periods of time, into people.. because they are driven by natural non-random selection pressures.

I feel a thread-splitting coming on, but....

Of course chance has something to do with evolution.
If you re-ran evolution on Earth, then the odds of Humanity evolving again would be small. There is nothing in the theory of evolution which says that the natural history of life on Earth had to be the way it is. It could have gone many different ways, that it went this way is pure chance.

I would guess that the odds of some kind of complex life arising from less complex life would be quite high. But what kind of complex life? That isn't decided and will depend on the available options and on chance events.

If you read Richard Dawkins' books carefully, this should have been made clear to you. At no point does Dawkins claim chance has anything to do with this. His books are all about breaking down the non-random selection pressures that lead to changes in survival strategies, etc.

I'm not aware of any statement of Dawkins which says that the evolution of Humanity, for instance, was inevitable. That we are here instead of our ancestors going extinct million of years ago, or just staying in the trees, is chance.

Rather than predict something like us must evolve, what the theory of evolution does is explain how we evolved. Regarding our presence, it is not predictive.

Not only does Dawkins not claim chance is involved, he is adamant chance is not involved.
That is the essential point.

Not if your talking about evolution as a whole.

Mutations are random. If you consider the roll of a dice to be random, anyway.

As long as some mutations are benefitial, then new characteristics can be selected for.

Even natural selection doesn't guarantee that the best adapted will have more children -- it just increases the odds. Identical twins don't always have the same number of children.

 

[FireGarden]

But see http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=53&ap=7 He agrees that such a complex organism was not created by chance.

If you have chance and natural selection, then you don't just have chance on its own anymore. But chance is still involved. I would be surprised if Dawkins says any place that the evolution of any particular thing was inevitable -- rather than point to the inevitability of some non-predetermined thing evolving.

ETA:
In fact, here's a longer quote: link.

Shortly after the bit you quoted, Dawkins says that the process is cumulative and "Each of the small pieces is slightly improbable, but not prohibitively so. When large numbers of these slightly improbable events are stacked up in series...."

I think that implies some chance.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's the mutation which involves chance, not the selection pressure.

So you mis-spoke then?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

But see http://www.epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=53&ap=7 He agrees that such a complex organism was not created by chance.

'Created by chance' and 'chance was not involved' are two very different things.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Non sequitur. your initial argument required that only human could generate religions. This seems at best statistically improbable.

You are ignoring what I said and substituting your own version. That is called a straw man argument. If you want to comment on what I've posted, pay attention to what I posted.

Evidence exists. The scientific process is a means of evaluating that evidence and drawing conclusions about how the Universe works and describing the Universe.

ALL the evidence about god beliefs that exists leads to the conclusion god beliefs are fictional constructs people invented to explain what they observed. NO evidence suggests real gods or ETs ever interacted with humans.

End of story. No need to construct god concepts that might exist but which are not testable. No need to start with the conclusion, gods might exist, and try to disprove that hypothesis.

No I don't. I simply consider the totally of the problem and realise that it falls under "not solvable at this time".

That's your prerogative. Personally I find there is more than sufficient evidence to call all gods, human generated fiction.

I can distinguish between them but not when using the word fiction in the context that you initially did.

Apparently you don't understand the definition of fiction as I used it.

Well Lakatos would argue that the current theory of gravity (which we know is at best incomplete BTW) makes for a progressive research program while harry potter and zeus would not. Of course there is no useful way of showing that a religion can't make for a progressive research program (in fairness it's far from clear that it is possible to show that any given research program is progressive)

Got any examples? Because your claim is nonsense IMO.

Experimentalism? In the 21st century?

I have no clue what you mean here.

No it isn't. Scientists don't generally randomly collect data and then try and form theories. They tend to form theories then try to collect data relevant to that theory which they will then interpret in the the context of that and other theories.

Totally misconstrues what I said. Who said anything about a random mishmash of data? And if you seriously think the theory comes first and the data collection second, you don't understand how VIABLE hypotheses and theories are generated.

Not really. When considering very broad questions scientists often explore a very wide ideas space. For example consider the question "is time travel impossible". Most of the attempts to show that is not impossible involve highly improbable structures that probably can't even exist in our universe (Tipler cylinders and Van Stockum dust for example).

Bad analogy. Time is real. It is observable. Generating hypotheses considering the nature of time is perfectly legitimate using the scientific process.

But one does not generate hypotheses that time is blue, for example. Because there is nothing contained within the observations of time that suggests color is a component of time.

God beliefs exist and we have lots of observations and evidence as to what god beliefs are and how they originated. None of that evidence or those observations suggest real gods underly any of the god beliefs. Just as there is no evidence time is blue, there is no evidence gods beliefs resulted from interactions with real gods.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

What I am saying is that natural selection as conventionally presented by modern day biologists doesn't have the creative power to turn a single celled bug into you over 3.5 billion years. Something else went on, and I imagine it may well be beyond the ken of our understanding to figure it out.

How do you know that? The examples you give cover simple single gene changes where the altered gene causes a simple change in a single protein that remains unchanged over the lifetime of an organism.

How much knowledge do you have of the structure of eukaryotic genomes and their regulation especially during early development? Interactions within the proteosome over time? Were you aware that if bone morphogenic proteins, which are important for the development of the ventral neuraxis, if present in high quantity earlier will ensure that neurons never even develop in the first place, ectodermal cells remaining skin? That the development of the spinal cord depends on hox genes working on caudal rostral development and BMPs and sonic hedgehog (or whatever they call it now) causing ventral dorsal development in a dose specific manner?

In development single gene changes can cause profound alterations since proteosome interactions are very complex.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I feel a thread-splitting coming on, but....

Of course chance has something to do with evolution.
If you re-ran evolution on Earth, then the odds of Humanity evolving again would be small. There is nothing in the theory of evolution which says that the natural history of life on Earth had to be the way it is. It could have gone many different ways, that it went this way is pure chance.

I would guess that the odds of some kind of complex life arising from less complex life would be quite high. But what kind of complex life? That isn't decided and will depend on the available options and on chance events.



I'm not aware of any statement of Dawkins which says that the evolution of Humanity, for instance, was inevitable. That we are here instead of our ancestors going extinct million of years ago, or just staying in the trees, is chance.

Rather than predict something like us must evolve, what the theory of evolution does is explain how we evolved. Regarding our presence, it is not predictive.





Not if your talking about evolution as a whole.

Mutations are random. If you consider the roll of a dice to be random, anyway.

As long as some mutations are benefitial, then new characteristics can be selected for.

Even natural selection doesn't guarantee that the best adapted will have more children -- it just increases the odds. Identical twins don't always have the same number of children.

Danger, Will Robinson. This argument typically goes on for pages and pages.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

I guess they are incompatible in a trivial sense. A science cannot be a religion and vice versa, ipso facto that they are defined as is.

 

[Leumas]

I happen to believe the mechanism, Natural Selection, lacks the requisite creative power to turn "bugs" into people. As I mentioned, a hot air balloon may float high, but won't take me to the moon, and selection pressure with random mutation may turn a previously penicillin sensitive bacterium into a resistant one, but in this latter case, it does not mean that one can parlay that reality, push it, and conclude the same mechanism accounts for bugs becoming people over 3.5 billion years time.

Likewise, sickle hemoglobin may provide protection against malaria, and I would be the first to agree that natural selection's hand can be seen at work here. But just because the sickle cell gene phenomenon is accounted for by the process of natural selection, that does not mean the same process accounts for the development of birds from dinosaurs. Certainly, birds may well be the direct descendants of dinosaurs, their relationship being descendant/ancestral. There is pretty good evidence for that. But that does not mean because that is in fact the case, one is entitled to conclude it is therefore a proven fact that the mechanism whereby dinosaurs became birds over time was one of random mutation "blindly responding to selection pressure" and driving the line of biological systems from dinosaur to bird.

If a sunflower, a rat, an amoeba, a tarantula, a sequoia redwood, a bristle cone pine, a whale and Obama all share the same genetic code, that suggests common ancestry to me. I'll buy into that. But how these organisms were derived from the same primordial ancestor is not a question answered by the observation of evidence which supports common ancestry. If somebody says to me, "Well, bacteria become resistant to penicillin when doctors over treat, or inappropriately treat too many patients with penicillin". I'll grant that natural selection accounts for the bacteria becoming PCN resistant. But I am certainly not entitled to jump from there to the conclusion that given the penicillin resistance example, Obama, the whale and the sunflower are linked to a common ancestor through the process of selection pressure squeezing chance mutations in the direction of these three very different biological outcomes. Showing evidence for common ancestry does not give one the right to claim natural selection is the driving force behind the commonality.

Patrick....watch this video.... make sure you also read the banners in the background and listen well to the IRONY in the video.

http://www.myvidster.com/video/316851/Futurama_-_Evolution_Debate_​

You really have not grasped what evolution is. You need to REread the books and the theory and try to grasp the ramifications of

• Errors in Copying the DNA
• Effects on the characteristics of the progeny
• Effects of environmental variables on the survivability of the organisms in it

But ABOVE ALL....you need to understand the EFFECT OF TIME....a loooooong time...... you are thinking in a too time limited manner.

 

[Lowpro]

Mah video!

Every time I hear "Elitist East Coast evolution" I crack up