Applying Science to Past Events

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It's easy to blow your top when somebody so arrgoantly dismisses an entire field of labor, especially one you've watched a loved one pour sweat and tears into for the past several years.

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There were times in the past (and in some places still current) where access to education was strictly limited to a small group of rich and elite. In such an atmosphere, people like riverat (not to mention organized religion) thrived on pure ignorance...wonder why your kid was born with fused digits? Goddidit! Wonder why one fourth of the neighbors children hve some trait? Goddidit! Wonder why all the boys in a family have muscular dystrophy but none of the girls? Goddidit..If you don't agree, you are burned as a heretic etc. etc.Education is widely available but in addition to intelligence, understanding science (or anything else for that matter) requires a great deal of effort. While I agree with Nosyned that if you give a genius and an average person equal access to education, the genius will go further, both will benefit a great deal from education. However, in both cases, it requires an effort.Ultimately, people like riverat are in the painful position of wishing the "good old days" were still relevant where the majority knew nothing about how nature works and any ridiculous assertion spiced with appeals to a "higher being" spouted by anyone with a soap box and a vacant street corner was sufficient to be accepted as fact. They find it painful that in fact, people who are intelligent but more importantly, strive to understand by working, studying, and sacrificing a great deal to do both find explanations of how nature works that are overwhelmingly supported by evidence without appeals so invisible unknowable supernatural entities. Such people even once in a while generate things of practical importance such as medicine and technology. People like riverat CHOOSE to remain ignorant and stuck in the "good old days" of religious tyranny. They are comfortabe living in a world where they do not understand how the medicines they take or the technology they use work or what the process of development in generating them were. It is more convenient to treat is like magic or credit things like the development of recombinant insulin to the power of "pink unicorns" or other mythological beings rather than the cumulative knowledge, brainpower, and work of the scientists who developed it. Thus they lash out at science and scientists and equate any conjecture or musings they might entertain as being "equally valid" to scientific theories. The alternative would require them to actually make an effort and they are patently unwilling to do so. Next time your wife is upset because she struggles to understand something difficult, tell her that at least she does not ignore the challenge and assert that remaining ignorant because of laziness is preferable. Ignorance is not bliss.

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You have no idea who I am at all.

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That is not particularly relevant to the ongoing discussion. The issue is what you have stated and implied which is that and methodological naturalism (science, and conjecture are equivalent and that is patently false.

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You are living in a world where you think you actually know whats going on.

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Nope. However, the system of investigation in which I am trained in has been far more successful in achieving an undertanding of the biological world than any other even if it is largely incomplete.

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Even the smart scientist will tell you, the more we learn the less we know. Finding more evidence only leads to more questions.

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However, the dumbest scientist would not ignore, wish away, studiously avoid reading etc. the knowledge that ALREADY exists. Science is a cumulative effort and ignoring current data (even if it is wrong sometimes) is hardly admirable.

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By using my own subjective scientific method, that anyone could follow. Its in a book called the bible.

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As you yourself admit it is a "subjective" method leading to a wished for conclusion colored by your own bias and belief which can niether be tested nor verified independently. That is not meant to be derogatory but that is why religion is sustained by faith and science by fact based on observation. Any experiment or study I do can be performed independently by others regardless of their religious beliefs or background. That is not true in your case as your belief is personal. I am not really sure why you bring up the bible as it is irrelvant to the topic but I have read it...I liked the Iliad better...Lord of the Rings even more This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 09-21-2004 08:02 AM

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This is why I do not ignore the data. I just do not take it as an end all. There is just too much to know.

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However, every scientist or interested lay person tries to learn as much as possible. The combined effort of many scientists (especially these days where much of science works in huge collaborative projects)is what allows knowledge to advance. Nobody throws their hands up in the air and says it is too complicated and there is to much to know so I just will assume that it is not everything i.e. an end all. But the individual effort required is why scientists make up a relatively small proportion of the population. It is not for lack of interest.I agree with you that 1000 years from now some of the currently well supported hypotheses in every scientific discipline will collapse or be heavily modified. If this were not the case, people would not go into science in the first place as it would be boring if it were static.

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All the data.

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So you are claiming that we cannot know anything about anything in until we know everything? We cannot know anything about heredity for example until we have a full understanding of every aspect of quantum mechanics? Yet you accept the bible without a shred of evidence to support it and without knowing everything about god i.e. as you said all the data ? A rather strange concept and if you are to be consistent, you should not believe in god because there is no data.As Crashfrog pointed out, there is a difference between the tentativity of scientific conclusions and not being able to draw any conclusions.

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IMO this is way harder to fully accept as being 100% true than studying the bible, then comparing it to real life, and seeing first hand how it all makes sense.

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However, it is not the same. If someone making the observations using the spectorgraph encounters an anamoly, they can then proceed to figure out what causes the anomoly and find out if a specific hypothesis needs to be revised or thrown out. At the very least, the current hypothesis can be shown to not explain the phenomenon even if it is currently the best explanation available based on the evidence. In addition, anybody can re-do the spectorgraphic analysis regardless of their belief system. It does not hinge on their personal beliefs. In the case of the bible, if somebody reads it and sees that it is completely inconsistent with reality then you "subjectively" say that the person is looking at it wrong...thus, not anyone can duplicate your "experiment". In science a religious person of any faith or an athiest can evaluate the same evidence and it does not hinge on their faith or lack thereof...in your "scientific method" it a priori requires that you accept the premise. Thus it is not scientific.

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If we ever figure everything out, which would be many years from now, life would be whole lot different. we would then know all the limits of our universe, i.e. the speed of light theorized as the speed limit of the universe. Whats amazing to me, is that there are limits. Our demension we live in is a limit. All these are signs of God to me, and that we were created to live witihin these limits. Its like performing a test, but you cannot go beyond the limits. Kind of matches what the bible teaches us.

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I am not sure I agree that there are such limits. We simply do not know enough at this point about the universe to say there are such limits. As you noted, the more we figure out the more we realize there is to learn. Thus, I do not accept that we have found physical limits regarding the universe since what the universe is is not even partially understood.

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What I can't figure out though is scientists who don't believe in God, or an afterlife. Why would you spend the little time you have here on this beatiful blue ball trying to figure it out, when you know you won't? Why wouldn't you just enjoy life? I mean there is nothing after this right? Why dedicate yourself to something that will continue after your gone? It won't matter, you will be gone. I find that fact that we can ask ourselves these questions is proof that we will live on. Otherwise what sense does it make?

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Fair enough. First off, what makes you think I do not enjoy life by trying to figure out how things work? Why would I not dedicate myself to something that continues beyond me? I think it makes perfect sense to contribute to something that outlasts you since you yourself have an expiration date. From your argument it makes no sense to have children since you are likely not to see their entire lives. Besides, every molecule in your body will survive to be incorporated into something else. I think you put too much emphasis on the individual self as being central to the universe as opposed to the universe itself..and then assume therefore that there is something beyond it.I could turn the question around to...why bother wishing for an afterlife for which there is no evidence when you could spend your time enjoying your life? If you are wrong, you wasted your one shot as you pining for something you assume is better but non-existant. To me that makes no sense.

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Yes I enjoy that too, so I agree with you. But if you are trying to prove something by doing it, thats a little different.

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I am not sure what you mean by this. If you mean "prove", I do try to scientifically establish that my hypotheses are the best explanation for the phenomenon I observe. I do so by observation, experimentation and attempting to falsify my hypothesis through gathering of data. Somehow I think you meant something else?And to be slightly on topic...such a methodology i.e. methodological naturalism is easily applied to past events

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As far as wishing for an afterlife, I do not feel that way. If God showed himself to you in a way that you knew for sure he was there, then it is not wasted. I enjoy my life in the Lord very much. It is very gratifying. I try to do everything for his glory, and the benifits are wonderful. If I was a scientist, I would do it for his glory too.

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Actually, my point was more to clarify that one can enjoy life, be interested in how things work, and live a full life without belief in an afterlife which in your previous post you mentioned was difficult for you to understand.

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They spend their lives looking for answers, and trying to make a name for themselves, so that when they are gone, something will remain of them. Kind of like an afterlife. Why bother if you don't believe in an after life? What sense does it make to leave behind something if you can't even enjoy it?
Aren't you trying to create your own personal afterlife?

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Why is this different if you do believe in an afterlife? Why bother looking for answers or trying to make a name for yourself when after you die, you will just continue living somewhere else..and forever? You can just procrastinate all you want since you have forever to get around to it? Also you have a limited concept of enjoyment as you have defined it. Why would I not enjoy figuring something out now that might be of importance to people in the future whether I am around or not? Should you just ignore your children since you will be dead when they are old anyway?

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Because were we are going we may still be able to look down on earth and see directly the fruits of our labors. How sweet would that be. Then meet the people later on again.

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Or maybe you will see nothing the way you cannot see your afterlife from here..and then you are stuck in the same position as those who don't believe in an afterlife at all...or maybe after you are gone, your labors are perverted into something awful...or or or...none of this adds up to a shred of evidence for an afterlife or why not believing in one would have any impact on my quality of life except to emphasize enjoying it while it lasts instead of waiting for something else to come along.