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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Death of Darwinism
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Petaflop:
[...]
So the question I arrived at is: What assumptions are made in going from protein sequence data to a theory of evolution? Or in other terms, if we didn't have the work of Darwin and fossils and just had protein sequence data, would we arrive at the same model, and how quickly?
[...]
In a phrase - nested hierarchies. We observe groups within groups, a repeated pattern where there's a common feature linking one group and defining it as separate from all others; within that group, there are common features linking elements within subgroups and defining them as separate from others within the original group. (How you classify each group of groups as species, genus, family and so on is thus a bit arbitary, which incidentally makes the creationist "macro verus microevolution" distinction useless without a very tight definition of what they mean).
There is no other way to explain this but as the result of common descent with modification - even if you knew nothing else, there is no other model that fits the data.
(There's some good discussion about this, including some of the complications which don't make things quite as pretty as that, at Talk Origins)
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Petaflop
Shipmate
# 9804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
quote:
Originally posted by Petaflop:
So the question I arrived at is: What assumptions are made in going from protein sequence data to a theory of evolution?
In a phrase - nested hierarchies. We observe groups within groups, a repeated pattern where there's a common feature linking one group and defining it as separate from all others; within that group, there are common features linking elements within subgroups and defining them as separate from others within the original group.
Oh - that wasn't the response I was expecting!
Nested heirarchies are, as far as I know, the primary tool used for grouping data by similarity. Most tasks in which data must be classified into groups seems to come down to cluster analysis, which is performed by producing by merging nearby data to produce a tree hierarchy. The groups are then isolated by selecting a level at which the merging process is stopped. See for example here: (link)
Now as far as I can tell this is a pure statistical technique, whose origins are nothing to do with biology. I had applied it to a number of problems before realising it was also used in sequence comparison. Therefore, the only assumption I see here is that some sort of grouping is possible or meaningful. Having made that assumption, the method is obvious. (Of course there are still questions of distance metric, merging method, and so on).
Or have I overlooked something?
Posts: 650 | Registered: Jul 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Petaflop:
Nested heirarchies are, as far as I know, the primary tool used for grouping data by similarity.
That is done in biology (so-called numerical taxonomy) but phylogenetic trees are these days mostly constructed (or rather tested) using metrics based on parsimony and maximum likelihood. Say I have a homologous gene sequence from a number of different individuals, and I propose various family trees that might connect them all, which is the smallest number of changes needed to build a tree?
There's lots of software around to do this, none of which can give a definitive answer because of the combinatorial explosion involved in comparing trees. I've got links to some of it on this web page Which I have just realised has some bad html in it. Duh!
And I have also just realised doesn't have links to the two most useful sites for this, PHYLIP and PAUP Even if you never need to run the programs the websites are a good introduction to how phylogeny is actually done. The nice people at Washinton state also have a great page of links to phylogenetic software.
quote:
Most tasks in which data must be classified into groups seems to come down to cluster analysis, which is performed by producing by merging nearby data to produce a tree hierarchy.
Doesn't have to be, there are other methods.
quote:
Now as far as I can tell this is a pure statistical technique, whose origins are nothing to do with biology.
Where else did all those statistical techniques come from? Cluster analysis was invented by and for biologists! (apparently the term was first used by RC Tryon who was, I think, a rat geneticist (I am not sure what his relationship was with the R Tryon who published on fern taxonomy in 1899 and in 1962 and in 1990... I know taxonomists are long-lied but htat's getting ridiculous!) In fact most of the commonly used statistical techniques were invented by or for biologists. Mostly in the next street to where I'm sitting now. The name of RA Fisher springs to mind, perhaps the second greatest genius of British biology, and the man who foisted Analysis of Variance on the world. Or Kendall who worked for the Ministry of Agriculture. And there were Sokal and Sneath, taxonomists both. And the rather dodgy set of methods that were developed by followers of the ecologist Braun-Blanquet. Or Galton and Pearson and Weldon, the original biometricians (and inventors of chi-squared tests and . Spearman (correlation coefficients) was a psychologist to start with. Gosset (originator of Student's T-test) was the microbiologist for the Guinness bewery.
Of course the biologists didn't invent statistics (philosophers and astonomers mainly did that) somuch as package them. This explains the difference between biologists and economists. Biologists are scientists who know they are crap at maths so they have had to invent all these packaged statistical techniques to help them wing it. Economists are not scientists, and they do not realise they are crap at maths, so they copied the stats from the biologists without understanding them. and they think they are scientists because scientists use mathematics.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I think it was Fisher who was the father of modern probability testing - and first decided that p<0.05 was a reasonable threshold.
He was an agricultural scientist.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Petaflop
Shipmate
# 9804
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Where else did all those statistical techniques come from? Cluster analysis was invented by and for biologists!
Ah! That is the important piece of information I was missing, having come initially from a computational physics background. (Physicists can be a bit insular).
Without this piece of information, lots of interesting questions are raised about why a particularly common method for grouping data just happens to be such a good model for phylogenetics.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Jul 2005
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I have to say, I thought the psychologists developed it first in grouping personality traits.... considerably before high-throughput genotyping was available....
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I can hear the Creationist hand-waving already:
"So what? It's just a modern bird"
"They found dozens? Must have been overwhelmed by the Flood!"
"I notice the report says "may have" - and they promote this as fact!"
"Huh. Probably a fake"
"Doesn't prove anything"
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Just for you, Karl.
Creationist hand waving
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Just for you, Karl.
Creationist hand waving
This is why I don't debate the creatonuts any more. It's pointless. You know what they're going to say, and you know that pointing out why they're talking bullshit won't make an iota of difference.
It's Morton's Demon, I tell you, Morton's Demon
(Morton's Demon)
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's Morton's Demon, I tell you, Morton's Demon
(Morton's Demon)
Excellent article! Thank you for linking to it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Karl, you're not accusing someone of being demonically possessed, are you? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Mad Geo
Ship's navel gazer
# 2939
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Posted
quote:
This is why I don't debate the creatonuts any more. It's pointless. You know what they're going to say, and you know that pointing out why they're talking bullshit won't make an iota of difference.
FWIW, you never know when cognitive dissonance will rattle around in people's heads enough such that they WILL change.
I'm speaking from (numerous) experience.
I understand completely though the frustration to the point of apathy.
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Diax's Rake - "Never believe a thing simply because you want it to be true"
Posts: 11730 | From: People's Republic of SoCal | Registered: Jun 2002
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Karl, Liberal Backslider posted:
It's Morton's Demon, I tell you, Morton's Demon
(Morton's Demon)
I think YEC's aren't the only ones subject to Morton's torments. I think many people carry their own particular little demons around with them. It's often much easier than thinking everything through yourself.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mirrizin:
quote:
Karl, Liberal Backslider posted:
It's Morton's Demon, I tell you, Morton's Demon
(Morton's Demon)
I think YEC's aren't the only ones subject to Morton's torments. I think many people carry their own particular little demons around with them. It's often much easier than thinking everything through yourself.
There may even be some evolutionary advantage to this behaviour, as it quite often works to our advantage. One of the things we do very well is create mental models (of lesser or greater accuracy) about what's actually going on out there. When we use a model, we're saying "I know what's going on here, I don't need to re-examine it in every detail, I can assume it works thus and so I can quickly decide what to do".
Lots of times that's a good thing, and if a model seems to works particularly well for you you'll be naturally resistant to reassessing it just because something at odds to it swims into your ken. Lots of times it's not such a good thing, but if you've fully retreated into the model to the extent that you've pinned your life on it then it's no surprise if you equate all potential upsets as potenially life-threatening.
If Dembski decided evolution was right, for example, he'd lose an immense amount of status, money and self-definition. The same isn't necessarily true in the other direction, of course; moving from the minority to the majority gets you at best a momentary flash of fame as your wings burn off, but moving the other way makes you a big time hero to the few regardless of the details. Anthony Flew's probably the best recent example.
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Mind you, the way some of the more excitable members of the ID/creationist community are talking, you'd think he'd just signed up as a member of the Discovery Institute and was embarking on a conservative evangelical mission tour.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The Inter Academy Panel on International Issues, an umbrella organisation for the various national scientific academies, has just released a short statement on the teaching of evolution in schools. BBC News story, with link to the statement itself.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
According to the Grauniad, 30% of university students are creationists. I'm not sure exactly what this means, though - the three options mentioned in the article are creationism, intelligent design and evolution, and the wording of the survey isn't mentioned. I suspect that a lot of moderate viewpoints could be shepherded into the two categories the Grauniad seem to want to identify as Fundieville if the question was asked in the right way.
I think the last few paras give the game away that this is a typical bit of fundie-bashing, disguised as a serious news story. But does it have any meaning beyond the probably misleading headline figures?
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It's almost impossible to figure out what, if anything, such surveys mean without the actual questions asked. And, I can't find anything on the website of the polling organisation mentioned about this work. Somewhere on this thread I think there's some discussion about something similar last year, which basically boiled down to very poorly phrased questions (ie: the "Evolution" option really only allowed the convinced athiestic materialist to answer because they defined "evolution" as meaning there's no role for a supernatural creator).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
Oh yes, I remember reading that. Interestingly, there's a hint that the same rather bizarre definitions are being used in the mention of 10,000 years for creationism, both in that survey and the Grauniad article. I wish I could get at the actual survey questions, but it looks like this is either the same survey or a very similar one.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
OK, the polling organisation has put the results of their survey online, pdf file here. The questions asked are on p5 (table 4), and have the same idiosyncratic definitions as the earlier MORI poll for the BBC quote:
The 'evolution theory' - Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process.
The 'creationism theory' - God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
The 'intelligent design theory' - Some features of living things are best explained by the intervention of a supernatural being, e.g. God.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
Thanks Alan. I tried looking for that, but couldn't find it anywhere. So, in conjunction with the BBC MORI poll, we can conclude that university students aren't dramatically different from the population at large, but possibly slightly more likely to have an absolute materialist worldview.
And they call this news? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
Why do you think 'absolute materialism' is implicit in these findings? That God is not a 'part' of any 'process' is implied by classical theism. If this belief is indicative of absolute materialism then Augustine and Aquinas were absolute materialists!
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insert amusing sig. here
Posts: 8705 | Registered: Jan 2002
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
Well, doing my best to consider what I'd answer if I believed x, I can only imagine giving the evolutionary answer if I were an atheist materialist. I read the bit about God not being involved as saying that He wasn't involved even in creating us at some point. I don't know if that meaning was intended, which is one of many reasons why it's a badly-designed survey, but the general implication of this option, compared to the others, seems to me to be a somewhat atheistic worldview. I might have that wrong, though.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
The option is indeed badly worded. Actually, I would have gone for that option, but that's because I would be putting some provisos in - starting the statement "From a purely scientific frame of reference" for starters.
What I mean is that I do not believe that one has to invoke God as a mechanism without which evolution will not work, any more than one has to invoke Him as a mechanism for how paint dries or how aircraft fly. God's position as Creator transcends the scientific explanations; He is behind all of them; creationism and it's malformed offspring ID propose however that God is Himself a mechanism, scientifically describable. The problem here is that it actually reduces God's sphere as Creator. If we say, as Behe might, that God specially created the blood clotting cascade, but evolution naturally took legs off of whales, we make God more the creator of blood clotting than He is the creator of whales. Rather a theological problem, in fact.
From a theological frame of reference, of course, God is intimately involved with the whole process, which leads me on to the fundamental error of all forms of creationism, which is that of a form of category error. Creationists try to describe God's creative activity within scientific categories, as competing explanations to natural ones. In creationism, either God created something or a natural process did. This guarantees God a gradually decreasing role. Creationists see that, I think, which is why they try so hard to refute scientific discoveries.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
A report in the Guardian today, that the Pope is preparing to embrace ID. You know, there are times when I wish something reported by the Guardian shows as much understanding of Christian belief as the wording of those opinion polls. Unfortunately, in this case, there may actually be a swing towards ID in the Catholic Church - even if the Pope himself is probably too canny to actually commit to one opinion or another.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
A report in the Guardian today, that the Pope is preparing to embrace ID. You know, there are times when I wish something reported by the Guardian shows as much understanding of Christian belief as the wording of those opinion polls. Unfortunately, in this case, there may actually be a swing towards ID in the Catholic Church - even if the Pope himself is probably too canny to actually commit to one opinion or another.
I don't know. The reportage on this one is all over the place - Father Coyne is 72 and apparently undergoing chemotherapy for colon cancer, so could reasonably be expected to be laying down his telescope - but given some of the RC dogma on contraception I don't have much hope of sanity breaking out.
On the other hand there's nothing illogical about being a Christian, a creationist and a believer that God is behind everything, providing you don't claim that it's scientifically verifiable. Il Papa could issue a thundering bull to that effect, and everyone (except the Discovery Institute) would be happy.
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
I wouldn't trust the Grauniad article as far as I could throw Alan Rusbridger. I suspect the Vatican's got the same problem as most of us - trying to affirm different answers to the "how" and "why" questions without giving a misleading impression. I'd have thought they'll be desperate to steer clear of alignment with ID, even if they want to support some of ID's conclusions. The slightest hint of ID in any papal statement will probably be reported as "Pope linked to US fundie nutjobs", or something like that.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
"Intelligent design" is a good label for my mind's fuzzy zone where faith and science meet. But I know it's fuzzy, and I know it doesn't belong in a science class. Maybe, maybe, sometime in the future there will be some hard math and physics to back up the idea with testable predictions of observable phenomena, but I ain't holding my breath.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
"Intelligent design" is a good label for my mind's fuzzy zone where faith and science meet.
Well, I suppose it could be if it was a fuzzy label. The problem with apply a label fuzzily is that if it has a clear and non-fuzzy meaning then that's just a recipe for confusion.
quote:
Maybe, maybe, sometime in the future there will be some hard math and physics to back up the idea with testable predictions of observable phenomena, but I ain't holding my breath.
Well, the non-fuzzy definition of Intelligent Design is pretty much that. Some "hard maths" (in the opinion of the adherents of ID) has resulted in a concept they call "irreducible complexity" which (they claim) can only be explained by the action of an "Intelligent Designer" (which, we all know is the Christian God, but they don't say that because they want it taught in science lessons which won't happen if it has a religious label). The claim of the Intelligent Design advocates is that there are observable phenomena that prove "God did it".
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Maybe, maybe, sometime in the future there will be some hard math and physics to back up the idea with testable predictions of observable phenomena, but I ain't holding my breath.
Well, the non-fuzzy definition of Intelligent Design is pretty much that. Some "hard maths" (in the opinion of the adherents of ID) has resulted in a concept they call "irreducible complexity" which (they claim) can only be explained by the action of an "Intelligent Designer" (which, we all know is the Christian God, but they don't say that because they want it taught in science lessons which won't happen if it has a religious label). The claim of the Intelligent Design advocates is that there are observable phenomena that prove "God did it".
And such irreducible complexity has, of course, been tested and found to be mathematically inevitable (see the Dover PA trial) and can occur by evolutionary methods even in such things as circuits (the classic Thompson experiment which not only showed irreducible complexity, but showed a method achieved by evolution that beat the theoretical best method).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Kepler's Puppet
Shipmate
# 4011
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
"Intelligent design" is a good label for my mind's fuzzy zone where faith and science meet.
Well, I suppose it could be if it was a fuzzy label. The problem with apply a label fuzzily is that if it has a clear and non-fuzzy meaning then that's just a recipe for confusion.
I have big problems with the way that the term intelligent design gets used, for that reason. Scientists take precision of meaning pretty seriously. If a term means something specific in science it's best never to apply it fuzzily because scientists usually won't pick up on the fuzziness. They will almost always take the term to mean what they've been taught it means in science.
I know a lot of Christians who claim to believe in "intelligent design" but when they are asked to define it they merely give me some version of the teleological argument. I don't know how many times I've heard "What's wrong with intelligent design? All it says is that things in the world are complicated so somebody/something must have made them. Why is that such a problem?" They usually refuse to accept that it can mean (and originally meant) something more specific, and they often have crap YEC literature, or crap articles from just about any media outlet (see, for example, the Guardian article a few posts up; it's easy to get the wrong impression from that), to demonstrate their point.
Day in and day out my scientist friends make fun of my non-scientist friends who believe in "intelligent design" because intelligent design is a debunked scientific theory. If my non-scientist friends would instead say that they believe the teleological argument, which is really what they're trying to say, there would be some murmuring among my scientist friends (heck, three quarters of them would say "The tay-lee-o-what?"), and the more extreme ones would still go off about faith and science being completely unmixable. But I reckon there would be some cooling of the overwhelming attitude among scientists I know that science is under attack from those stupid fundamentalist Christians.
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Most Likely Lurking
Posts: 1447 | From: Dixie Land | Registered: Jan 2003
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
You miss one thing - the confusion caused by the charlatans at the Discovery Institute peddling Intelligent Design is actually intentional. The goal has to do with replacing secular society with Theocracy as outlined by the Wedge Strategy.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
"Intelligent design" is a good label for MY mind's fuzzy zone where faith and science meet. But I know it's fuzzy, and I know it doesn't belong in a science class. Maybe, maybe, sometime in the future there will be some hard math and physics to back up the idea with testable predictions of observable phenomena, but I ain't holding my breath.
:sigh:
I'm not arguing that "Intelligent Design" is science. It's not even close at this point, if it ever will be. I repeat: "...it doesn't belong in a science class". I'm just saying the term resonates well for ME, personally and theologically, because while I believe that the mechanism of evolution works very well in explaining the world as we know it, I'm not a deist who believes theologically in the Great Clockmaker who set things running and left. Somehow in a way that is too big and too deep to be quantified (which is why it's theology not science) God is in the midst of creation which is ongoing.
That's all.
I realize the phrase "Intellegent Design" is too loaded with politics and lines drawn to be useful for me to apply to my own beliefs without a lot of explanation. And anyone's free to disagree with my fuzzy beliefs, anyway.
So on what terms do you guys think about the intersection of God with the physical world- theologically?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
So on what terms do you guys think about the intersection of God with the physical world- theologically?
"God in the midst of ongoing creation" works pretty well for me.
There are a couple of additional points I'd add.
One is that Gods presence is subtle, and He's not going to show His hand by the bit of occasional tinkering in the machinery of life to prove Himself to some scientists (He may, and I believe occasionally does, "tinker with the machinery" out of love for His creation to put right something we screwed up - we call these events miracles, and as one-off events don't really lend themselves to scientific scrutiny in the laboratory).
The second is that God created the machinery that orders the processes of this universe as well as sustains and upholds it all. "God did it" is a perfectly reasonable answer to questions like "why is the universe governed by regular patterns discernable to mere humans?" or "why is the universe here at all?" - ie: the sort of questions which science is spectacularly ill-equipped to address. "God did it" is a very poor answer to questions like "why does the blood clotting system work the way it does?".
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
I agree with all that, Alan. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Kepler's Puppet
Shipmate
# 4011
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Posted
Yeah, I agree with all that too.
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Most Likely Lurking
Posts: 1447 | From: Dixie Land | Registered: Jan 2003
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
So on what terms do you guys think about the intersection of God with the physical world- theologically?
I've always had a problem thinking why an omniscient, omnipotent creator God would need or wish to interact with or intersect anything we are sensible of. What is it God does not know before it happens, and why does God need to change stuff as time reveals it?
However, that's just me. A more interesting tack is that evolutionary theory posits random mutation followed by natural selection, and that since given a sufficiently potent deity there is no such thing as random the whole business falls naturally into the process of divine creation. Admittedly, it does look as if 'random' really is random at a quantum level, but why should we expect a subtle God to appear as anything else?
These are matters of faith. At the 'taste and see' level, there is no sign of an active creator at work - and I would expect science to be able to detect same if there was objective evidence.
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
So on what terms do you guys think about the intersection of God with the physical world- theologically?
Sacrament?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
In just the formal, church sacraments, MT, or in the sense that all creation is sacramental, imbued with the "energies" (have I got the right Orthodox term?) of God?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
The Orthodoxen have never limited the number of God's mysteries to 7. God is ever at work imparting grace to us through Her energies. I'm not sure I'd say "all creation is sacrament" though, as that seems equivalent to saying "none of creation is sacrament". To me, anyway.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Picking up a line of discussion from a thread in Purgatory so as not to incur further hostly displeasure ...
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Amy the Undecided:
This is stretching the definition of Intelligent Design so far as to be unrecognizable. The random generation of characteristics is an essential part of Darwin's understanding of evolution, and I've never read an ID thinker who accepts it. Many, many theists, yes; intelligent design "scientists," no. But please point me to any I've missed.
It is precisely my intention to re-assert "ID" as a name for a lot more than that recent focused attack by some on Darwinian (macro-)evolution. This narrowing of the meaning of ID may be convenient for grouping people into opposing teams, but it does not do justice to the possibilities available to a Creator in traditional theology.
The problem with your argument is that there's nothing to reclaim for the phrase "Intelligent Design" because it was coined by Behe et al to specifically describe their hypothesis that certain features show specific irriducibly complex features that can only be explained by the direct action of an intelligent designer. "Design" has a much broader history of use within Christian theology, and a case may be made for reclaiming it as refering to something much broader than the specifically defined "Intelligent Design".
Personally, the word I'd really like to reclaim from a very narrow understanding is "creation". I'd like to be able to say that I believe that "God created the heavens and the earth" without anyone assuming any particular mechanism or timescale for that creative act, nor anyone assuming any particular fingerprint left behind by the Creator.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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CrookedCucumber
Shipmate
# 10792
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Personally, the word I'd really like to reclaim from a very narrow understanding is "creation". I'd like to be able to say that I believe that "God created the heavens and the earth" without anyone assuming any particular mechanism or timescale for that creative act, nor anyone assuming any particular fingerprint left behind by the Creator.
I agree that it would be nice to be able to use the word `creation' outside the context of YECism. However, I suspect for most people the idea that `creation' can encompass anything other than Special Creation is likely to be a tricky concept.
As for the Creator's fingerprints: while I wouldn't expect to find any, I've never really understood the hostility among many Christians to the idea that we might do so.
Posts: 2718 | From: East Dogpatch | Registered: Dec 2005
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
It's more a hostility to creationism in general, CC. Scientists loathe creationism because it basically turns round to them and says "what you have dedicated your working life to, and what you have studied, and what you know far more about than I can every hope to, is crap. I know best and you're Satan's dupe."
Scientists are only human.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The problem with your argument is that there's nothing to reclaim for the phrase "Intelligent Design" because it was coined by Behe et al
I've been reading a book about Gosse, and he used the phrase "intelligent design" in the 1840s.
Though he was using it in the normal sense of the word - not as a label for a particular theory.
quote:
Personally, the word I'd really like to reclaim from a very narrow understanding is "creation".
Yes, exactly! That's why its a good idea to always be sure to say or write "young earth creationism" to distinguish it from the mainstream of Christian thought. St. Augustine, Calvin, the original Fundamentalists and the Pope are all creationists but none of them are Young-Earth Creationists.
Personally I'd like to popularise the word "Yeccie". Partly because it sounds silly, and partly because I think I may have coined it myself ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
There's plenty of room for invention in that field. I'm fairly sure I was one of the small group who invented "PRATT" (Point Refuted A Thousand Times) and definitely introduced LCW (Lying Creationist Weasel) at one forum.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
As for the Creator's fingerprints: while I wouldn't expect to find any, I've never really understood the hostility among many Christians to the idea that we might do so.
Because the ID(TM) view implies that God made mistakes. Did shoddy work. I'd rather say that all creation bears God's fingerprint, though in different ways. In particular humans, made in the image (ikon, character) of God, and in God incarnat3e in Jesus Christ.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Scientists loathe creationism because it basically turns round to them and says "what you have dedicated your working life to...
And also because many scientists are fed up with being lied to or cheated or tricked. There really are YECs our there who will deliberatly misquote scientists, twisting their words to make it seem they believe things they don't. I have met people that has happened to, and they are mde very suspicious by it. And there are plenty of stories of people being invited to take part in a supposed debate, only to find they've been set up to be humiliated, a sort of sacrificial victim in a show trial.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The problem with your argument is that there's nothing to reclaim for the phrase "Intelligent Design" because it was coined by Behe et al to specifically describe their hypothesis that certain features show specific irriducibly complex features that can only be explained by the direct action of an intelligent designer. "Design" has a much broader history of use within Christian theology, and a case may be made for reclaiming it as refering to something much broader than the specifically defined "Intelligent Design".
Coincidentally, there's a very interesting posting on The Panda's Thumb today from Nick Matzke, who was instrumental in discovering the precise way 'Intelligent Design' was invented as a synonym for creationism during the production of 'Of Pandas and People', the ID textbook at the heart of Kitzmiller. The whole post, linked above, is very much worth reading for anyone interested in the history of ID: it describes how Matzke painstakingly worked out how Pandas came about through multiple drafts and that the process contained vital clues about the ID movement's own genesis - in fact,it is an indisputable missing link that tied ID and creationism together beyond any form of doubt.
quote:
Although the Pandas drafts were obviously important in the Kitzmiller case, it is only slowly dawning on everyone just how significant they are. The drafts are nothing less than the smoking gun that proves exactly when and how “intelligent design” originated. This was probably the biggest discovery in creationism research since the finding that the Coso Artifact was actually a 1920s sparkplug (see RNCSE 2004 Mar/Apr; 24 [2]: 26-30). They prove that the cynical view of ID was exactly right: ID really is just creationism relabeled, and anyone who thought otherwise was either naively misinformed or engaging in wishful thinking.
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
How very, very careless of the ID mob to allow themselves into a courtroom where they could be subpoenaed for the early drafts of 'Of Pandas and People'.
And how absolutely priceless to find documentary evidence that Intelligent Design was (and I think the past participle begins to be justified) Creationism v2.0.
What, I wonder, will be v3.0?
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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