Is Evolution a Radical Idea?

quote:

---

The idea of evolution and the idea of abiogenesis fit together like matching gloves.

---

They don't have to at all.There could have been a supernatural start to life and evolution took over.Or, abiogenesis could have occurred and there was a supernatural act to help things along.

quote:

---

If there were no evolutionary ideas, the only answer is special creation. We don't need that answer anymore.

---

Actually, if there were no evolutionary ideas, another answer can be "We don't know".

quote:

---

This then--science's explanations in general--is a devastating blow to religion in your view?

---

They don't seem to bother the Buddhists.

quote:

---

Eastern religions are vague: vagueness can accomodate anything.

---

So?

quote:

---

Well, Schraf, if the ideas are vague enough, it could mean most anything we like, and so it means nothing at all.

---

But your point was that scientific findings are devastating to religion.Buddhists don't have a problem with science.Buddhism is a religion (with many millions of adherents).Therefore, your premise is invalid.Perhaps you'd like to narrow your premise?

quote:

---

I meant it was logically devastating to religion.

---

Scientific findings are not logically devastating to Buddhism.Buddhism is a religion.Therefore, your premise that scientific findings are logically devaststing to religion is false as stated.Perhaps you'd like to narrow your premise?

quote:

---

And I don't give a monkeys how he arrived at it: creation as is or by a process of evolution. Either are jaw droppingly astonishingly mind boggling

---

I care.It's really wonderful to understand how things work.

quote:

---

Seeing hows its all going to be junked in the end renders a prime interest in that somewhat silly (from my perspective).

---

By that logic, we shouldn't ever bother trying to cure disease since people are just going to die eventually anyway.I often think that some Christians focus so much upon the next life they gamble on having that they completely squander the one they know for sure they are living right now.

quote:

---

Much more fun to find out the workings of something that goes on forever. The workings of the gospel and that which it talks of in the future is rivetting stuff to investigate in comparison

---

Meh.Philosophies and old myths are not that interesting to me.

quote:

---

I have no problem with evolution. It is when people go beyond evolution and use random chance as a first cause. That is not scientific.

---

You are both right and wrong here.If you are calling Abiogenesis "using random chance as a first cause of life", then you are right to say that it isn't evolution and wrong to say that it isn't scientific.

quote:

---

That evolutionism explains reality so well that it is devastating to religion.

---

It's not devastating to Buddhism.

quote:

---

Real science is done despite the faulty assumptions it rests on. Also, proving the theory false is very hard since it rests on so much elaborate interwoven speculative scaffolding by now with so much embedded scientific data it appears to be inextricable (though much of it really fits creationism better).

---

Then you must conclude that thousands of scientists must then be either liars working furiously to perpetuate an enormous conspiracy against the rest of humanity, and/or the rest of them must be such imbecilic morons to have been constantly and continually making the same enormous mistakes when testing the ToE.That is the inevitable, logical conclusion of your claim.

quote:

---

I figure the ToE has a lot of charisma going for it, and 99.99% of scientists don't take on the theory itself or work on the cutting edge of it, but simply work within it, taking it for granted, accepting the various ways it is justified, casting their work in its terms.

---

All current science, in any field, is always based upon past findings.If the findings of the scientists of the past are erroneous, then why don't current scientists notice that the predictions they make on the basis of that historical work constsntly fail to be borne out?Why do they instead find that using past findings as a basis for current work leads to successfully borne out predictions?

quote:

---

Taking a LOT for granted, MANY assumptions.

---

So, thousands of scientists, according to you, are just really bad at doing science if they accept the ToE, is that correct?

quote:

---

Where would they get the motivation from to challenge it anyway?

---

Er, maybe because toppling the ToE would instantly propel them into the scientific celebrity stratosphere and put them in such rarified company as Einstein, Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin.They would become internationally famous, and would certainly win the Nobel.Faith, what do you think scientists do all day?Do you imagine that they sit around agreeing with each other about every single thing?To be a scientist is to challenge and test theory.They do their best to falsify their own theories.They try to break them. Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

---

"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson