Why science and religion are not compatible

[Paulhoff]

I disagree. God doesn't need to have an origin. The Jewish/Christian God is unchangeable and therefore is eternal.

If this god is eternal, this earth stuff would have been done with an eternality ago.

Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I actually make no claims myself. I personally think science has limits and this is probably one of them, though I may well be wrong and that would be OK. That said, main stream scientists have yet to present anything like compelling evidence for "evolution's mechanism".

I stand eagar to be convinced of the truth they can show me, but they never show us anything, just empty words about what should be the case.

Religious people at least follow through on their beliefs in a way the evolutionary biologists don't follow through on their BELIEFS. That is exactly what the evolutionary biologists are entitled to call their opinions with regard to "evolution's mechanism", they are nothing more than BELIEFS.

I agree that science has limits. I am not convinced that what you are pointing out is one of them.

First of all, none of us here is an expert in this particular field, but there are several folks who have good knowledge of the available data at least from a few years ago.

We do have excellent evidence for rather large body changes from single gene alterations in eukaryotes, so I think that part of your objection is well answered. Using penicillin resistance and sickle cell anemia as your paradigm for what single gene mutations can do is part of the problem.

I agree with you that most biology textbooks do a poor job of providing the molecular genetic evidence; but part of the reason is that most of this information has not filtered down to the high school level yet and teaching embryology (which much of this would require) requires much more time than anyone at a high school, and often college, level is willing to devote. To get much of this information you would have to look for it specifically or be a molecular biology major or PhD candidate or work in the field.

 

[Patrick1000]

Nor am I sure it is a limit.

I agree that science has limits. I am not convinced that what you are pointing out is one of them.

First of all, none of us here is an expert in this particular field, but there are several folks who have good knowledge of the available data at least from a few years ago.

We do have excellent evidence for rather large body changes from single gene alterations in eukaryotes, so I think that part of your objection is well answered. Using penicillin resistance and sickle cell anemia as your paradigm for what single gene mutations can do is part of the problem.

I agree with you that most biology textbooks do a poor job of providing the molecular genetic evidence; but part of the reason is that most of this information has not filtered down to the high school level yet and teaching embryology (which much of this would require) requires much more time than anyone at a high school, and often college, level is willing to devote. To get much of this information you would have to look for it specifically or be a molecular biology major or PhD candidate or work in the field.

Nor am I sure it is a limit. I only suggest it may be given the difficulties inherent in understanding how biologic information might arise in the first place and change over time. The DNA is the medium and not the message as they say. This is a unique and vexing problem.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I disagree. God doesn't need to have an origin. The Jewish/Christian God is unchangeable and therefore is eternal. The changes we see can all be accounted for by natural processes. The existence of the processes themselves can't be accounted for by anything natural (in my opinion).

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that religion needs to keep moving the goal post and unfortunately, that's correct. What bothers me is that Thomas Aquinas had already placed that goal post so far back (to the level of existence itself) that there would be no need to ever move it to accommodate science (as Catholic, I'll just blame the reformation for that).

That assumes that eternal presence entails intention. Why would that be the case necessarily? I think the best we can say is that existence is a mystery that we can't solve. We can call the ground of being God, implying intention, or we could leave it at ground of being.

Religions invoke, as Patrick1000 has mentioned more than once and I think quite correctly, intentionality. It is the idea of intention that adds an extra, unnecessary dimension from the viewpoint of philosophical naturalism. If intention is not necessary for natural processes or for Being, then why invoke it?

 

[Paulhoff]

The DNA is the medium and not the message as they say.

They?

DNA is the information on how to build living things on this planet. Change parts of it and the living thing will change, happens all the time.

Paul

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Nor am I sure it is a limit. I only suggest it may be given the difficulties inherent in understanding how biologic information might arise in the first place and change over time. The DNA is the medium and not the message as they say. This is a unique and vexing problem.

I don't want to suggest that any of this stuff is easy -- aside from Darwin's basic idea, which is very simple -- but we do know a lot more about it than what is in most biology textbooks.

And, yes, I share your concern over difficulty in understanding how biologic information arises in the first place. Quite frankly, embryology is weird. That sonic hedgehog in different concentrations determines that cells in the CNS develop into different types of sensory neurons is very strange. But we certainly do have evidence of it happening.

 

[Paulhoff]

This is a unique and vexing problem.

Your misunderstanding is not unique but is a vexing problem.

Paul

 

[Peterson]

If this god is eternal, this earth stuff would have been done with an eternality ago.

Paul

Not necessarily. If this universe has it's origin from another, then it's possible that matter has existed from eternity but this in no way invalidates the creation by God (he is still the cause of the existence of the matter). Also, God sees the whole of creation as a single moment which leads me to believe that the universe could have, in some way, existed from eternity (I'm not sure about this though).

These are not scientific questions but they are questions that the guy who wrote the article implies may be answered by science some day.

 

[Paulhoff]

Not necessarily. If this universe has it's origin from another, then it's possible that matter has existed from eternity but this in no way invalidates the creation by God (he is still the cause of the existence of the matter). Also, God sees the whole of creation as a single moment which leads me to believe that the universe could have, in some way, existed from eternity (I'm not sure about this though).

These are not scientific questions but they are questions that the guy who wrote the article implies may be answered by science some day.

No, it is simple, if this god is eternal, this stuff would have been done an eternality ago. No amount of wording changes that. So the bottom line is, this god is not eternal and had a beginning.

Paul



And that beginning is with man.

 

[Patrick1000]

Riddle me this then?????????????

They?

DNA is the information on how to build living things on this planet. Change parts of it and the living thing will change, happens all the time.

Paul

Riddle me this then?????????????

The mitochondrial membrane protein, Cytochrome C, has been studied intensively across a wide range of species; insects, mamals, birds, Republicans, monkeys, plants, bacterium and so forth. The Cytochrome C sequence divergence across the range of organisms studied is astonishingly limited. From bacterium to sunflower the divergence is 69 %, bacterium to man 66%. Cytochrome C wise, a sunflower is as "distant" from a bacterium, molecularly speaking, as is a man/woman.

If changing the DNA means "changing the organism", why are rabbits, fish, penguins, sunflowers and people all equally divergent from a bacterium as a person is, Cytochrome C wise anyway(64%-69%)?????? AND!, if Cytochrome C has diverged that much in these higher forms, 66% say on average, why should it "work" at all???????????? 66% divergence and it still functions as Cytochrome C in the mitochondrial membrane? I thought changing the DNA would change the function??????? AND boy!, this is a big change, more than half the molecule, 66%!!!!!!!

So what gives there mate?

Keep in mind, there are absolutely NO INTERMEDIATES FOUND THAT FILL IN THE GAPS. All higher forms are roughly 66% distant Cytochrome C divergence wise from ANY ARBITRARILY SELECTED BACTERIUM SPECIES.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Not necessarily. If this universe has it's origin from another, then it's possible that matter has existed from eternity but this in no way invalidates the creation by God (he is still the cause of the existence of the matter). Also, God sees the whole of creation as a single moment which leads me to believe that the universe could have, in some way, existed from eternity (I'm not sure about this though).

These are not scientific questions but they are questions that the guy who wrote the article implies may be answered by science some day.

However we want to cut it (multiverse model, single universe model, etc.) some universe (the totality) has existed 'from eternity' because there can be no point in time before it. Speaking of 'before existence' has no meaning.

What science can provide is an explanation that does not need intention. That was Darwin's contribution to origins within life. Carroll simply postulates that science might be able to provide explanations for a multiverse that do not require intention.

None of that disproves God, but it removes a need for God as an explanatory force.

Philosophically we are left with a decision as to how we want to view 'creation'.

 

[westprog]

Can you provide the evidence for your claim?

Well, yes. There are no experiments going on. There are no journals of Theology Science. There's a paucity of Ph.d and Msc theses which disprove the existence of God. There's a scientific consensus that disproving God is not the proper purview of scientific investigation.

Now, proving all this is a bit difficult. I'd have to go through all the published scientific papers. Disproving it would be very easy. An example of a scientific paper. E.g.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECAY OF BETA PARTICLES IN A STRONG MAGNETIC FIELD AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NON-EXISTENCE OF AN OMNIPOTENT DEITY

And speculation by Hawking or Dawkins or Penrose don't really apply. A scientist is as entitled as anyone else to roam the metaphysical boundaries - and cosmologists in particular like to peek over the border. No harm there, provided that they pull back when they are doing proper scientific research. Dawkins is a famous scientist, and a proselytising atheist, but he's not putting his atheism into his published scientific papers - he's putting it into popular books.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Riddle me this then?????????????

The mitochondrial membrane protein, Cytochrome C, has been studied intensively across a wide range of species; insects, mamals, birds, Republicans, monkeys, plants, bacterium and so forth. The Cytochrome C sequence divergence across the range of organisms studied is astonishingly limited. From bacterium to sunflower the divergence is 69 %, bacterium to man 66%. Cytochrome C wise, a sunflower is as "distant" from a bacterium, molecularly speaking, as is a man/woman.

If changing the DNA means "changing the organism", why are rabbits, fish, penguins, sunflowers and people all equally divergent from a bacterium as a person is, Cytochrome C wise anyway(64%-69%)?????? AND!, if Cytochrome C has diverged that much in these higher forms, 66% say on average, why should it "work" at all???????????? 66% divergence and it still functions as Cytochrome C in the mitochondrial membrane? I thought changing the DNA would change the function??????? AND boy!, this is a big change, more than half the molecule, 66%!!!!!!!

So what gives there mate?

Keep in mind, there are absolutely NO INTERMEDIATES FOUND THAT FILL IN THE GAPS. All higher forms are roughly 66% distant Cytochrome C divergence wise from ANY ARBITRARILY SELECTED BACTERIUM SPECIES.

I don't think the statement that there are no intermediates to fill in the gaps is correct.

In eukaryotes cytochrome c is conserved because it is so very important to cell respiration. There is some, but not a whole lot of, variation in different eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are actually colonies of bacteria. What seems to have occurred is that one bacterium incorporated another that developed into our mitochondria. The cytochrome c from that bacterium is the progenitor of the mitochondrial cytochrome c that we see in all eukaryotes, with only very slight changes in the DNA sequence -- again because this protein is so important that it is conserved.

There are wide ranges in size, subtypes, DNA sequence, etc. amongst bacterial cytochrome c. That is where the 'intermediates' are to be found.

 

[Darat]

Well, yes. ...snip...

Sorry that my post was not clear regarding the claim you had made. The claim I would like to see your evidence for is the highlighted part of your post: "...Certain definitions of God are possibly testable. Most aren't...."

 

[Peterson]

That assumes that eternal presence entails intention. Why would that be the case necessarily? I think the best we can say is that existence is a mystery that we can't solve. We can call the ground of being God, implying intention, or we could leave it at ground of being.

Religions invoke, as Patrick1000 has mentioned more than once and I think quite correctly, intentionality. It is the idea of intention that adds an extra, unnecessary dimension from the viewpoint of philosophical naturalism. If intention is not necessary for natural processes or for Being, then why invoke it?

A lot of it is faith but you have to admit that things at least look like they are intentional. "Natural selection" implies an end, survival. If something with property x is more likely to survive then something with property y, it's not crazy to think that x > y. Since x is greater you can say that it is a good or better property. So even something unintelligent strives for the good. Since when humans strive for something good, we act with intention, it appears that Natural selection is intentional. Since something unintelligent can't act for an end, it must be directed by something intelligent and that would be God. I realize that last assumption is a big one and I'm not the biggest fan of this argument but that's a rough outline for it.

 

[Patrick1000]

By intermediate I mean an organism with 10%, 20%, etc. divergence.

I don't think the statement that there are no intermediates to fill in the gaps is correct.

In eukaryotes cytochrome c is conserved because it is so very important to cell respiration. There is some, but not a whole lot of, variation in different eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are actually colonies of bacteria. What seems to have occurred is that one bacterium incorporated another that developed into our mitochondria. The cytochrome c from that bacterium is the progenitor of the mitochondrial cytochrome c that we see in all eukaryotes, with only very slight changes in the DNA sequence -- again because this protein is so important that it is conserved.

There are wide ranges in size, subtypes, DNA sequence, etc. amongst bacterial cytochrome c. That is where the 'intermediates' are to be found.

By intermediate I mean an organism with 10%, 20%, etc. divergence.

There are none.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

A lot of it is faith but you have to admit that things at least look like they are intentional. "Natural selection" implies an end, survival. If something with property x is more likely to survive then something with property y, it's not crazy to think that x > y. Since x is greater you can say that it is a good or better property. So even something unintelligent strives for the good. Since when humans strive for something good, we act with intention, it appears that Natural selection is intentional. Since something unintelligent can't act for an end, it must be directed by something intelligent and that would be God. I realize that last assumption is a big one and I'm not the biggest fan of this argument but that's a rough outline for it.

If my eye were a flashlight everything would look bright, too. We see intention largely because it is an integral part of how our minds work. Without valuation we couldn't function in the real world because then nothing would be more important than anything else.



It is not crazy to think that x>y, but that implies a value distinction that is not necessary. If one property leads to survival, then it leads to survival. Only those surviving can leave behind progeny, so only those surviving can leave behind their set of genes. Those genes are represented while those of the dead animal are not. Sure, it looks like it proceeds toward an end, but that is because we impose that way of thinking on the process. The process, itself, just is.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

By intermediate I mean an organism with 10%, 20%, etc. divergence.

There are none.

I'm no expert on bacterial DNA sequences, but are you sure? Have you sampled all the available bacteria on the planet? The claim may be entirely correct, I do not know, but if so that points to one big lacune in our knowledge base, but I'm not sure it points to much else.


ETA: There are two obvious explanations if that observation is correct. One is that we simply haven't looked at enough bacterial species and certainly not the one from which mitochondria were derived. The other is that the 'intermediate forms' no longer exist and are lost to time. A third possible explanation is that it's all just magic, but that isn't very satisfying.

 

[westprog]

Sorry that my post was not clear regarding the claim you had made. The claim I would like to see your evidence for is the highlighted part of your post: "...Certain definitions of God are possibly testable. Most aren't...."

Well, there's two approaches to this. One is pragmatic. If there were a test for an omnipotent being, why hasn't anyone suggested it? By this I mean a scientific test, not of the metaphysical speculation kind. While a test might be impractical under present conditions, it could certainly be designed in principle.

However, the main reason is very simple. If a finite, limited being is playing hide and seek with an infinite, all-powerful being, then clearly the omnipotent player is going to win. No matter how hard the finite being searches, he has to accept the fact that he won't find a God that doesn't want to be found. You can perfectly well speculate in philosophical terms as to the likelihood of such a being existing. You can deduce metaphysically that there is no necessity for him. However, scientifically speaking you have to accept that the God thing is a dead end, and that there is no way to have a definitive answer for it.

 

[Resume]

A lot of it is faith but you have to admit that things at least look like they are intentional.

Lots of stuff looks intentional, or can be interpreted that way. Then upon further review, the play on the field is overturned. For instance the happy bits next to the crappy bits.