Newest front on the creationism stupidity

YOU cannot overestimate," thundered psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz, "how threatened the scientific establishment is by the fact that it now looks like the materialist paradigm is genuinely breaking down. You're gonna hear a lot in the next calendar year about... how Darwin's explanation of how human intelligence arose is the only scientific way of doing it... I'm asking us as a world community to go out there and tell the scientific establishment, enough is enough! Materialism needs to start fading away and non-materialist causation needs to be understood as part of natural reality."
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I don't get it. What does Darwin have to do with this? And haven't they been declaring the eminent death of Materialism every year for the last 150 or so?
 
The connection to Darwin is probably just that the idea of a soul doesn't go very well with the idea of evolution. If they're both true, it would mean either that there are souls floating around out there that attach themselves to physical systems with a certain type of complexity, or that someone consciously put the souls into our bodies. If the second option is true, it seems likely that this "someone" would also be able to influence the process of evolution. The first option doesn't necessarily imply that there's a god, but it seems less likely than the second since these souls wouldn't "know" which systems have the right type of complexity unless they interact with matter. If they do, they are detectable. The fact that they haven't been detected already strongly suggests that this option isn't correct.

So in my opinion, the existence of souls would at least strongly suggest that there's a god.

Anyway, these guys don't seem to be the greatest logical thinkers in the world: "From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the brain, something non-material."
 
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Fredrik said:
The connection to Darwin is probably just that the idea of a soul doesn't go very well with the idea of evolution. If they're both true, it would mean either that there are souls floating around out there that attach themselves to physical systems with a certain type of complexity, or that someone consciously put the souls into our bodies. If the second option is true, it seems likely that this "someone" would also be able to influence the process of evolution. The first option doesn't necessarily imply that there's a god, but it seems less likely than the second since these souls wouldn't "know" which systems have the right type of complexity unless they interact with matter. If they do, they are detectable. The fact that they haven't been detected already strongly suggests that this option isn't correct.

So in my opinion, the existence of souls would at least strongly suggest that there's a god.

Anyway, these guys don't seem to be the greatest logical thinkers in the world: "From such experiments, Schwartz and others argue that since the mind can change the brain, the mind must be something other than the brain, something non-material."
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Many years ago when I finally gave up on religion I called myself a Theistic evolutionist and basically thats what most Christians are today. We evolved but Goddidit. As time went by I eventually came to the conclusion and I was also told by scientists that if God had used evolution as a creation vehicle there would be genetic markers. There are none.
 
Cainkane1 said:
...if God had used evolution as a creation vehicle there would be genetic markers.
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What does that mean exactly? I have a pretty good understanding of evolution, but almost no knowledge about molecular biology.
 
It gets stupider:
http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/BBS7.pdf
Neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behavior generally posits that brain mechanisms suffice to explain the psychologically described aspects of behavior. Terms having intrinsic experiential content (e.g., "feeling," "knowing" and "effort") are not integrated as causal factors because they are deemed irrelevant to the causal mechanisms of brain function. However, principles of quantum physics naturally integrate mental and physical phenomena. By exploiting this feature, neuroscientists and psychologists can more adequately and effectively investigate the neuroplastic mechanisms relevant to the growing number of studies of the capacity of directed attention and mental effort to systematically alter brain function.
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technoextreme said:
http://un.org/News/briefings/docs/2008/080911_NGOSymposium.doc.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026793.000-creationists-declare-war-over-the-brain.html
The resurrection of Cartesian Dualism is gaining more traction. The idea that the brain and the soul are two separate objects. :hb:
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As someone who has struggled with depression for most of his life, I have this to say. It is very dangerous to treat the mind as if it's somehow different or exclusive from the rest of the body. The way you take care of your body and your health has a direct impact on how well your brain functions, and vice versa. Just as your state of mind can affect your physical well being, your diet, lifestyle habits, and drugs / medication can affect your mental well being.

If I could have cured my physical ailments by willing it to be so, I would have done so a long time ago.
 
IasonOuabache said:
I don't get it. What does Darwin have to do with this? And haven't they been declaring the eminent death of Materialism every year for the last 150 or so?
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Here's your connection.
Schwartz is a supporter of Intelligent Design, being a signatory to the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism [2], and a proponent of mind/body dualism.
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Well on one had we let the astrophysics people come up with new types of matter on the other hand we haven't actualy run across a case of someone proveing there is a brain fuction that cannot be accounted for through biochemical and electrochemical mechanisms.
 
Silentknight said:
As someone who has struggled with depression for most of his life, I have this to say. It is very dangerous to treat the mind as if it's somehow different or exclusive from the rest of the body. The way you take care of your body and your health has a direct impact on how well your brain functions, and vice versa. Just as your state of mind can affect your physical well being, your diet, lifestyle habits, and drugs / medication can affect your mental well being.

If I could have cured my physical ailments by willing it to be so, I would have done so a long time ago.
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Totally. Even prolonged horrid stress can cause your brain AND body to react. I've been free from depression since I figured out that I can't "do it all", and put less pressure on myself. Of course, the meds helped me to chill out until I could chill on my own. Treating the mind like it is some otherwordly thing that can be driven like the energy bunny to the brink and not get damaged is a myth.

Mind over matter? pfft. - The mind IS matter.

A soul could only be some thing that is not connected to the body, including not being connected to body's man nerve organ-the brain/mind. It would not be able to sense/see/feel/be self aware, nothing. It would have to be like a hair. Once removed from the body, it takes something of us with us, but it's not aware it is away from the body.
 
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