Equating science with faith

Sounds like facts to me -that's a bit different from a theory which is more like a proposition based on incomplete factual evidence.The thing is whether, from what you know for sure, you extrapolate back through the human race or go the whole hog and take it back to your precambrian unicellular cousins or all the way back to the original hydrogen. That would of course be rational thinking based on material assumptions.If matter is all there is, then that is all that we suppose we have to work with.

You're missing the point. You are the one who claimed that you can't have a theory without a starting point. I'm pointing out that you can. Available evidence can allow you to determine the history of something even when it isn't sufficient to tell you straight off how it began. Just like my family migration: the evidence is good enough to confirm our family stories, even though we know nothing about the beginning of the family. Just like biology: the evidence is good enough to get a pretty clear picture of the history of life on earth, even if we haven't yet figured out how life began.

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. -- Kurt Vonnegut

You need to learn the difference between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism. The former is is a way of examining the natural world, the latter is the belief that the natural world is all there is (what you call materialism). Atheists are people who don't believe in any Gods. Atheism is the lack of faith in Gods. Atheists do not have to be metaphysical naturalists. They might believe in the human soul as a non-material entity, for example. Buddhists and Animists may or may not believe in any Gods, but believe in a soul that transcends death. An atheist could believe in ghosts.This all seems to be very confusing to the minds of biblical creationists, but it's actually quite simple. You seem to live in an unreal world in which the only possible God is yours. There's nothing to stop a God (or Gods, or Goddesses) creating universes in which things like biological evolution happen. If you disagree, do feel free to explain to us why an omnipotent God couldn't create a universe in which biological evolution could (or would, by intent) take place.Looking at the the topic title, "Equating science with faith", you seem to want to equate methodological naturalism with philosophical naturalism. Why?

Hello Granny Magda,
Good to see you're still up and running, mutating and surviving!
Actually I didn't really bail, I just went on a bit of a vacation from discord,nursed my multiple stab wounds and found that with time, I felt like coming back and arguing the point another day.
Sometimes these arguments really go round in boring circles and one doesn't seem to be progressing but now I feel my inspiration returning and so here I am. One doesn't really want to get stuck on any particular one of these topics but it happens since we are discussing evidence and whether science can be equated with faith. My point in all of this is to point out that since some evolutionary assumptions seem to be based more on faith than on evidence, the ruling scientific paradigm could easily be equated with religion and faith. Evolutionists seem to imagine that religion is about faith regardless of evidence but the same can be said about evolutionary assumptions.In reality, we all have evidence for our points of view and I just happen to find the 'intelligent design' perspective to be more faithful to the evidence than the evolutionary perspective.Moving onto a specific area of contention is just my way of demonstrating the point. No,not at all, it doesn't seem weird and freaky and therefore unreasonable. I fully understand why some people believe it but then those people start out with assumptions that matter is all there is. That's not weird and freaky, just prejudiced. Like what? Why don't you choose a less contentious area to discuss in order to illustrate our respective points of view? We can take it from there.

Well you may not have a starting point based on direct evidence but you have a theory about that starting point.You either believe, based on philisophical considerations, that your family tree goes all the way back to the apes and beyond (that would be your worldview) or you believe based on what we can actually see happening (the evidence) that humans give rise to humans and that your family starts and ends with humans.Somewhere in your view of reality, you have a starting point -perhaps you just haven't thought about it much but theoretically a starting point must exist in any worldview. Well that's the problem we have which is why we chat on this site -we differ as to just how much extrapolation we consider to be reasonable according to the evidence. We have facts and then we have interpretations of the facts. If matter is all there is, the extrapolation must go all the way back to the simplest matter and then back to the chemicals that arranged themselves fortuitously into living cells. Does the evidence actually show that or is that a philisophical extrapolation based on faith?Do you realize that matter is not all there is -information is there as well. Information is separate from matter just like a computer program allows intelligence to be transferred by a material medium. The information is not the matter and the matter is not the information. You could move that information from one medium to another but the source of that information had to come from intelligence.
The same appears to be true of the genetic code.

Please do not try to tackle moderation issues yourself. If you're encountering a problem please post to the Windsor castle thread.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Beretta,You can still type your messages into a word processing tool, then cut-n-paste them later.Threads close after about 300 messages. Moderators are trying to discourage practices like reading through a thread and responding to many messages. We're trying to encourage members to consolidate responses into one or a very few messages. Naturally there are other concerns, too, such as staying focused on the topic and keeping discussion constructive, that also factor into decisions about whether some enforcement alternative is required and which one.I'd be glad to lift the restriction completely if things go well for a while.Please, no responses to this message.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Well, yes, I guess you can believe this on philosophical grounds. I don't know of any like this myself, but I can't rule out their existence either.- Actually, our belief that life evolved from a common ancestor over the past three and a half billion years is based on what we can actually see.We can discuss the evidence if you want, although that would be more appropriate for another thread.-But you keep getting on a tangent off what I was responding to. Any theory about the origins of life is going to be based on a different data set (as yet incomplete) than the data set that shows the history of life after that origin (which is pretty conclusive). That is why we have a fairly good understanding (although not yet 100% complete) if how life has evolved, but we are still trying to understand how life originated.But this is the difference between science and faith. We have some good ideas about how life evolved, but this is not faith. This view has been shaped for over 150 years by the accumulation and study of actual evidence -- the opposite of faith. This is why we do not yet have a clear and detailed theory about the origin of life -- because we do not yet have the necessary data, which science (but not faith) requires.All that we know, like evolution, is based on evidence. Our admission of things that we do not yet know, like abiogenesis, is based on a lack of evidence.This is different than faith, which makes stuff up and holds onto the made up beliefs in spite of the lack of evidence, and sometimes in spite of contrary evidence.

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There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. -- Kurt Vonnegut

Hi Beretta,You'll likely feel you're being unfairly singled out, but that can't be helped. When fighting fires one attacks the biggest blaze first, and you're it.I'm upping your minutes-between-posts to 30. I want to see much, much less (like none) of these kind of contributions from anyone.From Obvious Child in the message you replied to: From you in your reply: Evidence, argument and rebuttal, evidence, argument and rebuttal, over and over again, that's all I want to see. Sounds boring, I know, but focusing on substance is how we encourage those with other proclivities to move on.No replies, please.Edited by Admin, : Added "no replies" request.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I suggest you read Granny Magda's Message 150 again. I couldn't have said it better myself.If you want to attack evolution you're more than free to do that, but please do it in a thread about evolution. If you'd like to argue that science is actually faith-based, then please go ahead by all means, but with evidence, argument and rebuttal. You're even free to use evolution as an example of faith-based science, as long as you keep in mind that evolution isn't the topic.Also, I'll be clamping down on bald, unsupported assertions, no matter from who.It occurs to me now that since you were gone for a while you probably don't know that EvC Forum went through a major sea change back in January. There are many fewer moderators, and moderation is now much more strict and by the book.Please, no replies.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Not if the Bible was inspired by our supernatural creator as a truth message for mankind. Is it the Word of God or is it manmade rubbish?
If it is a supernatural message based on the truth, there should be no clash with reality, I mean real reality not just man's version of what is real. Actually we do somewhat. You say 'faith-based beliefs will inevitably clash with reality." I say any faith that is worth having will not clash with reality or it's not worth having.Only a faith based on truth is worth having.Your 'inevitable clash' only works with faith based on rubbish.You clearly equate faith with rubbish - I equate the big picture of evolution with rubbish and don't believe that it is a faith worth having since it is not based on truth. Well that's the thing you see -if your faith is not based on reality, I don't believe it is worth having.That would be called 'delusion'. Our basic controversy here is which faith is based on imagination (evolution or intelligent design)and which is based on reality. You believe that truth is evolution and matter being the base of everything that is real and I don't. I believe we were created by an intelligence beyond the realm of simple matter and what if that is the truth and you just simply don't happen to believe it? There you go, the facts don't speak for themselves, conclusions have been drawn from the evidence. I have just drawn different conclusions from that same evidence. No you're right, they would assume God's non-existance and extrapolate from that starting premise -which may not be true. That's what science should be but unfortunately philosophy has crept in and now science makes pronouncements about reality beyond that which the evidence shows. We believe in the existance of protons and electrons by observing physical things -we can't actually see them but we know that they exist by the effect that they have. The same works with God -you can't see God but you can see what God has brought into existence.There is an intelligence out there and our ability to reason is enough to convince me that something beyond mere matter does exist. There are so many personal discussions going on here -maybe you haven't noticed but I do because I believe in Intelligent Design so I am a legitimate target in this forum I suppose.I am dishonest, delusional, ridiculous, blind to reality, stupid (by implication) and so on....I will attempt in future not to respond in kind - perhaps you are an exception so I take your log back.

Okay, great, but if we're both drawing conclusions from the evidence, how is either of us doing anything based upon faith? That's this thread's topic, that science is actually faith-based. If you think you have sufficient objective evidence of God then just go ahead and use it to convince others. But I still don't see how this is an argument for the thread's premise, that science is actually faith-based.Shifting temporarily into Admin mode: I'd let it drop. When you're no longer the biggest blaze it'll be easy for me to put out the lesser fires. If you've read my posts as Admin in this thread then you're aware I've already made a start on this.--Percy

Unfortunately there's a follow-up to that original Urey-Miller experiment. By the 1970's most geochemists were convinced (based on rock analysis) that the earth's primitive atmospehere was nothing like those used in the original experiment. They redid the experiment with a more realistic mix (CO2, notrogen and water vapour). Organic compounds were produced but NOT amino-acids.Instead toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and cyanide were produced.Miller himself conceded that glycine was the best he could produce in the absence of methane.In 1984, Heindrich Holland confirmed that mixes of CO2, nitrogen and water vapor yielded no amino acids at all.
The strange thing is that you won't hear of any of this in biology texts. Why? Because it doesn't support the hypothesis that the building blocks of life can arise naturally. These are the sorts of evidences that Intelligent Design supporters would like aired.
There are many more examples like this of selective evidence being used to promote a worldview/philosophy.
We should put ALL the evidence on the table not just that which is convenient.

Let us concede, solely for the sake of discussion, that biologists are hiding the fact that they have no idea how complex organic molecules might have arisen naturally. How does that make science faith-based?It feels like you're trying to argue that scientists are being dishonest in order to promote their own preconceptions or philosophical preferences, and so I think you may be in the wrong thread for the battle you're fighting. I don't agree with your position, of course, but I don't see how it's related to equating science with faith.--Percy

This isn't all that realistic a mix, either - we know from direct observation that organic compounds like methane can and do exist naturally in abiotic environments. Titan, for the perfect example, has literally oceans of methane. Indeed we should. Like the other experiments where amino acids were produced.

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In the 1950s and 1960s Sidney W. Fox, studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures under conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history. He demonstrated that amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides. These amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called microspheres.

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But then, abiogenesis isn't the topic here - science being equated with faith is. So, why don't we tie this back to the topic by asking whether the abiogenesis hypothesis is based on faith?Abiogenesis is the (promising) hypothesis that life arose from non-living chemicals. The current model is incomplete, but the steps taken thus far begin from the best models we have of the ancient Earth, and progress to amino acids and even proteins from compounds we know exist in abiotic environments. The hypothesis garners a great deal of attention due to its implications, and becasue it's a fascinating area of study, but while many people (scientists and others) believe that abiogenesis looks like to good potential candidate for the origin of life on Earth, there is currently no scientific concensus that abiogenesis is the most accurate model. It does not convey even remotely the confidence of, say, the Big Bang model, or the Theory of Evolution, or the Theory of Gravity. The model is simply incomplete.So what, exactly, is based on faith?The conditions of the early Earth? We have good evidence supporting our current model of that. Titan is strikingly similar to what scientists currently think the Earth may have looked like a few billion years ago, except much warmer due to proximity to the Sun. That's not base don faith, it's based on observational evidence.Is the formation of amino acids and even proteins based on faith? We have seen the spontaneous formation of amino acids and proteins in experiments under the conditions modeled for the early Earth. Nobody says "this definitely happened," we only say "this looks like it could have happened." That's not faith, that's a logical conclusion based on observational evidence.Is the formation of proteins into the far more complex structures found in current living organisms taken on faith? Nobody is saying that this happened - scientists are looking into it to see if it's even possible. While they've made remarkable progress towards spontaneous formation of complex chains of proteins, they have not yet succeeded, and so abiogenesis remains an incompletely tested, incompletely modeled hypothesis. That's not faith - that's investigation using observational evidence.So, where is the belief that lacks any basis in objective evidence?I'm not seeing any faith involved here, Baretta. I'm seeing the scientific method doing exactly what it does best - working through all of the available evidence to arrive at a reasonable conclusion based wholly on objective evidence, with no faith involved.