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Author Topic:   Relevance of origins to modern science
Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 1 of 124 (707143)
09-24-2013 5:34 AM


Hi Everyone,
I have been following this forum for quite a while now.... Personally, I am overwhelmed by the amount of posts and topics listed on this forum. However I suppose this is a good place to vent the arguments that relate to beliefs.
I would like to pose, what i feel are two of the most important questions that determine whether scientifically explained origins are religious pursuits or not.
1) What significance does Cosmic/Chemical/Biological origins (And there connection) have, in our endeavors for modern Science?
-A case study for example: Can modern pharmacogenetics progress using genetic similarity alone?
-Also, Vaccine products can be identified using relatively short cladograms in e.g. viral genomes, why is it then necessary to have a whole tree of life?
2) Could the current origin theories, in this argument, biological, be biased inferences fundamentally based on Darwinist ideas? I.e. Because Darwin observed the similar beaks, inferences regarding similar genomes on a global scale, follow in his evolutionary idea...
Let me know what you think.

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by jar, posted 09-24-2013 8:47 AM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 4 by frako, posted 09-24-2013 9:20 AM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 5 by sfs, posted 09-24-2013 9:50 AM Ra3MaN has not replied
 Message 6 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-24-2013 10:23 AM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 8 by Coyote, posted 09-24-2013 10:34 AM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 9 by Percy, posted 09-24-2013 10:40 AM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 20 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-24-2013 12:21 PM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 27 by 1.61803, posted 09-24-2013 12:44 PM Ra3MaN has not replied

  
Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 7 of 124 (707157)
09-24-2013 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by jar
09-24-2013 8:47 AM


Re: The answer is...
Jar said: "Based on but not biased.
Darwin (and other) made the initial observations however since then those ideas have withstood testing using lines of inquiry that simply did not even exist in Darwin's time."
Just to comment
I would think that it is slightly biased. The reason being, in the discussion of most Scientific literature you would try to either relate (or appose) the empirical data to a current model, which you (the Scientist) may or may not be in favor of. So when Scientists infer according to how well the model fits with the darwinist ideal, this already prevents the inclusion of any other possibility. Furthermore, it often takes many years to discredit a current model, E.g. Einstein's theory on relativity was thought to be perfect, only to be found incomplete in latter years...

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 11 of 124 (707161)
09-24-2013 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by frako
09-24-2013 9:20 AM


Knowing how life originates for example can make it easier to find life elsewhere in our universe, why do we need to do that well our earth will be able to support us for about 2 more billion years at BEST. Then we have to find a new home if we want our species to survive. Now sure we could just terraform a planet but i suspect it would be much easier just to colonise a planet that already has life on it.
Interesting... That makes me want to disregard envorment protection . The stats in colonising a different planet is daunting. Our current rock seems to be the best place for life thus far.
-Also, Vaccine products can be identified using relatively short cladograms in e.g. viral genomes, why is it then necessary to have a whole tree of life?
Why have a whole road map when you can just have a map showing locations of cities but no roads.
Knowing the relationships between species can help for example in experimentation when you just dont want to use say humans because it might kill them. You can use the next best thing that is closly related to us
The difference with road maps is that we can travel to the common denominator in the "cladogram" at any time.
I understand. The data set, however, is genetics, so if comparing an ape with a human, there is much genetic similarity. The point I wanted to get across is that since there are genetic similarities witnessed in apes and man, there is already sufficient information to carry out testing (whatever that may be). Anything more is not necessary.

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 12 of 124 (707164)
09-24-2013 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by New Cat's Eye
09-24-2013 10:23 AM


Well, do you know how baby animals come to exist? They are offspring of their parent animals. Animals come from animals. If you follow then lines backwards, you're going to funnel up into the tree back to a common ancestors of whatever two animals you're looking at.
There's no other way for animals to get here except from other animals so it only makes sense that if you go back far enough then they're all related. How else could it be?
I guess that may be true. If Science tries to answer the origin questions, does that not challenge the beliefs held by people? Unfortunately,we can't live long, thus the scope if observations is highly restricted. We as Scientist have to hope that our assumptions of parameters that vary, are true, otherwise the model cannot work. E.g. the assumption that conditions were suitable for chemicals to form amino acids, RNA or simple Data molecules. Furthermore it would be a bias endeavor to infer that a certain type of rock would support the existence of such conditions.
Thus in support of my original statement, The scientist has to apply belief - which is not a solely religious word but also forms the basis of religion.
So that we are accurately mapping the territory. Its just to be thorough and there's no reason to stop.
Honestly, how far back do you need to map e.g. the Human Immunodeficiency virus before you can work towards vaccine candidates?

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 15 of 124 (707167)
09-24-2013 11:46 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Percy
09-24-2013 10:40 AM


Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that knowing the tree of life would have absolutely no practical value whatsoever, that it would be of purely academic interest. Why shouldn't we study it anyway?
I guess we are free to research whatever... we get funding for .
But to some, a simple statement such as, the ribosome is present in all self replicating organsims, therefore the ribosome is essential for life. Which sounds fine to the religious person. The non religous person, could say since the 18s segment is present in ribosomes of all eukaryotes, therefore all eukaryotes diverged from a single organism. The observable fact, became a statement of faith, since we can never see how, in the latter statement that level of divergence is possible. plausible perhaps...

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 18 of 124 (707171)
09-24-2013 12:05 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by New Cat's Eye
09-24-2013 11:46 AM


Yeah but.... fuck 'em.
haha, wow that is distasteful Scientific language. I guess the goal of the origin studies is to allow people to be answerable to no-one. You are already well on your way
Thus in support of my original statement, The scientist has to apply belief - which is not a solely religious word but also forms the basis of religion.
Meh, I don't see how that it matters?
Consider the god of the gaps argument. Religious people single out the gaps to justify why whole evolutionary thoery is inaccurate and built on assumptions. While non-relgious say that we don't know how, but it happened that way. Furthermore, a gap such as "what cause the big bang?" could remain unanswered. Saying that "we are trying to find out" is a useful defense to state, but it is also a cop-out and be compared to the the notion that rainbow ponies kicked nothing out of equilibrum and formed the universe via big bang.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by New Cat's Eye, posted 09-24-2013 12:22 PM Ra3MaN has replied
 Message 22 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-24-2013 12:27 PM Ra3MaN has replied
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 Message 31 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-24-2013 1:52 PM Ra3MaN has replied

  
Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 23 of 124 (707179)
09-24-2013 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Coyote
09-24-2013 10:34 AM


Re: The role of religion in science
How about if scientists leave religion out of their considerations entirely?
Why? Religion is conducted about 180 opposite from the way science is conducted.
--Religion relies on belief, scripture, dogma, revelation and the like, while science relies on evidence.
--When there are disagreements within religion you end up with wars (e.g., Sunni/Shiite, Protestants/Catholics in northern Ireland) or schisms (ca. 40,000 different sects or denominations of Christianity). Disagreements among scientists are decided using evidence.
--Finally, science deals with the real world.
I wouldn't say 180degrees though, The audience for in ancient times required less information and more instruction. I can admit that their proposed facts are significantly more vague statements e.g. "god created the heavens and the earth" or "multiply according to their kinds'' seen in the Torah and Bible, even that requires assumptions and inferences.
Science also relies on Belief, (scientific) Scripture, dogma, revelation (Primordial soup became us). The Jewish lineage is alive today and their account is too, the arabic people are around, so is there historical artifacts... there has to be evidence in order to substantiate your belief otherwise why would anyone believe it?
Wars yes, however Hitler's war was based on (race issues among others) Slavery in the US led to segregation, and revolt, additionally, there were countless land grab wars... currently there is violent strike action because of money. Wars are not specific to religious beliefs.

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 24 of 124 (707180)
09-24-2013 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by Dr Adequate
09-24-2013 12:27 PM


Well, no. There's no comparison.
Suppose I've lost my spectacles, so I look for them. Someone comes along and asks "Where are your spectacles, Dr A?"
Now, if I reply: "I don't know, but I'm trying to find out", is that really to be compared to the notion that rainbow ponies kicked my spectacles into nonexistence?
Of course not. Because "I don't know, but I'm trying to find out" is a known, verifiable truth. Whereas the bit about rainbow ponies is a bit of crazy speculation.
haha , relative to a big bang, if your spectacles are outside of your reality, then I bet you would not be able to find them, no matter how hard you looked. Who can know what is outside of matter, time and space?

This message is a reply to:
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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


(2)
Message 26 of 124 (707182)
09-24-2013 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Dr Adequate
09-24-2013 12:21 PM


But this is obviously a bad test.
To see why, consider this. Would you agree that it's a scientific fact that Saturn has rings? Or would you consider study of its rings to be a "religious pursuit"?
Obviously, you think it's science. And yet the fact that Saturn has rings has never done anyone any good and probably never will. So it would be simplistic and false to classify useful propositions as scientific, and useless propositions as religious.
Good point

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 35 of 124 (707234)
09-25-2013 6:26 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by New Cat's Eye
09-24-2013 12:22 PM


I made a joke, I apologize, I thought you didn't care about other people.
No, its not a cop-out. That's just the way science is performed
...And yet "gap" questions can be ignored until someone cares to study them. A really scary thing that I can't get my head around, is that neither of us can perform in situ studies to show bio divergence, or stellar formation and the like. Also, concepts, such as Abioigenises is a pivotal point in chemical history and yet it is seemingly impossible to assess without guessing variables to a large degree, even using inference upon inference is tricky. wouldn't you say?

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 41 of 124 (707294)
09-26-2013 4:17 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Dr Adequate
09-24-2013 1:52 PM


wow, I really wish that I had more time to read all these posts. I will just have to get through what I can as fast as possible...
haha, wow that is distasteful Scientific language. I guess the goal of the origin studies is to allow people to be answerable to no-one. You are already well on your way
Er ... but did you not notice that you're responding to someone who calls himself "Catholic Scientist"?
He believes that he is answerable to his God. Lots of the pro-evolution posters on this forum believe that they are answerable to God. The guy (Percy) who set up this forum believes in God. But because Catholic Scientist used the word "fuck" you combine the strawman fallacy with the genetic fallacy, and write: "I guess the goal of the origin studies is to allow people to be answerable to no-one." Because one person who actually believes in God used the word "fuck", you feel entitled to write that stuff.
I was wrong to Judge. I was more referring to his disregard for other people regarding their beliefs. This could include anyone, even his superiors even a Catholic god. Technically he is disregarding anyone how has opposing beliefs. profanity is a simple substitute for a well thought out challenge/insult in my opinion.
I guess this is a separate topic, but in terms of evolution, who does man answer to? private message me....

This message is a reply to:
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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 42 of 124 (707296)
09-26-2013 4:38 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by NoNukes
09-25-2013 11:11 AM


So what's your point? People have chosen to study those questions, and now they cannot be ignored. Exactly what are you advocating here. Are you saying that scientists are a bunch of trouble makers, or in league with Satan?
I am saying that until Scientists can answer ''gap'' questions, they can feel free to avoid it.
- How do chemicals become DNA? - "we are working on it...."
- What caused the big bang? - "we are working on it...."
- How does time cause matter and energy to become life? - "we are working on it...."
- Why are all galaxies not spinning in the same direction (conserved momentum)? - "we are working on it..."
- How can distance be measured in light years when the speed of light is subject to gravity... etc.?
how much of my questions can really be answered?
Do you get my point?
So you believe the only way to study stellar formation is to build one in a lab? Not being able to do so scares you? Just what do you mean to say here?
We have tried to cause a big bang in a lab, why not stellar formation... Scientist have never observed the formation of a star, and to my knowledge how to make one is pure speculation. If a star can't form under natural conditions, then how is the sun even in existence? one of our primary resources couldn't have just been magically formed by the hands of a higher power could it?

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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 43 of 124 (707297)
09-26-2013 4:57 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Dr Adequate
09-25-2013 11:28 AM


And yet it is possible to find out about the past.
Yes, you are definitely correct, but how far back can we really know? How many people were falsely convicted of crimes they didn't commit based on evidence. I have to say, since better forensics that number is less but these cases are weeks or years old as opposed to millions and billions, with high error margins.
that ceratopsians such as Triceratops once lived and walked the Earth. To disbelieve it would verge on paranoia
I can believe that. The fact: found a skeleton in layers of sediment. When it walked the earth is an inference, how it died is an inference, how it lived is an inference. what is more, all these are based on other inference, such as varve inference, ice layer inference, radioactive isotope degradation inference, etc...
Is inference upon inference really empirical science, or just making jigsaw puzzle pieces fit?
I will try to get to your other posts, you are really wise.... I am learning a lot from you.

This message is a reply to:
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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


(2)
Message 53 of 124 (707403)
09-27-2013 3:18 AM


Thanks for all the comments, I can't answer every single one... But I understand what you all are getting at.
I can't say that I will give up on my beliefs just yet. I will however try to test what I believe. The name of the game is scrutiny... I think this arguments here will definitely make me better in the lab too.
I see that Science as well as origin studies are still developing, so i will keep my mind open to the notions presented here...

Replies to this message:
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Ra3MaN
Member (Idle past 548 days)
Posts: 31
From: Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Joined: 09-23-2013


Message 55 of 124 (707410)
09-27-2013 5:04 AM
Reply to: Message 54 by Pressie
09-27-2013 4:39 AM


Are you under the impression that you have to give up your religious beliefs when accepting scientific theories?
Yes. How can you support the argument that a Creator did it, as well as the argument that nothing did it? I think this is an entirely new topic though...
It's OK to be a Christian or Muslim and accept scientific theories. You don't have to choose
I am in science, and I have molecular biology background. I can only say that I can't hold both views in equality, I tend to believe the one and test the other with extreme prejudice. What you believe will be reflected by how you live.
Edited by Ra3MaN, : No reason given.

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