A Guide to the tactics of Evolutionists

Hi Randman,I wasn't actually expecting a reply to an Admin post, but since you did and since you raised some interesting questions I think it's probably a good idea to respond, which I'll do as Percy. Some evolutionists are atheists, some aren't. Some scientists are atheists, some aren't. But evolution is not atheistic, and in broader terms science is not atheistic. Someone recently quoted Wittgenstein to me when I echoed his sentiments, but I like Wittgenstein's words better: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."In a scientific context this means that science cannot comment about things for which it has no evidence. Regarding God, in the absence of evidence science can say neither that God exists, nor that God does not exist. Science simply cannot say.So when you go on to say: It's simply untrue.I think a lot of confusion revolves around different interpretations of what is natural and what is supernatural. There's no one right way of describing the proper realm of scientific study, but there are wrong ways and inconsistent ways. Let me try to offer one of the right ways.Science is the study of natural phenomena. A natural phenomena is anything that we can detect, whether by direct means (see it, hear it, etc.) or indirect means (microscope, telescope, thermometer, etc.).Technological restrictions are not a consideration in this regard. An example is radio waves. Radio waves did not suddenly become natural phenomena only after we developed the ability to detect and broadcast them. Radio waves were always natural. All that changed was our awareness of this natural phenomena due to improving science and technology.But consider if back in, say, the year 1000 some monk had come up with a theory about radio waves. What would the science of the time, such as it was, have to say about radio waves? Well, with no actual evidence of radio waves, and assuming he didn't duplicate Maxwell's work 900 years early in order to provide a theoretical foundation, science could only remain silent. Science could say neither that radio waves existed, nor that they did not exist. Science simply couldn't say. But that doesn't make the science of that time a-radiowave-istic.It is the same way today with science regarding God. In the absence of evidence science can say nothing about the existence or non-existence of God. Science simply cannot say. Science is not atheistic. Science isn't theistic. It is neither. If/when evidence of God is uncovered then that could change, but until such a time science just has nothing to say about God.Where we certainly disagree is about whether evidence of God has been found. Science can be likened to a growing apple where the core and the fruit represent established science while the skin represents the expanding frontiers of science where most of the debates about evidence and theories and most of the vicious arguments over credit and precedence take place. I understand that you truly believe that scientific evidence of God has already been found, and if you want to call those scientists who disagree liars and frauds and cheats, well, I guess sometimes scientists use those names on each other as well.But I think it would be much more productive to take a positive outlook by simply recognizing that even if you really do have evidence of God that you're still on the scientific frontiers, and that acceptance of your evidence will happen much more quickly through concerted successful research efforts conducted under the auspices of mainstream science than by name-calling, the founding of independent organizations unaffiliated with established scientific institutions, and lobbying of school boards, text book publishers and state legislatures. These are quite recognizably the efforts of people who sincerely believe in God the creator, but is not recognizable as science by most in the scientific establishment.In fact, much of it appears anti-science, particularly the Discovery Institute's wedge document stating the undermining of naturalism as one of its goals. You know how members of professional sports teams are cautioned not to provide upcoming opponents with bulletin board material? Well, the wedge document is major bulletin board material. The scientific community in general wasn't too concerned about organizations like ICR and CRS, it all seemed so pathetic scientifically, but the activities of the Discovery Institute has the scientific community alarmed, particularly since our country's success in the world community is tightly bound to our scientific expertise, and the secular community is marshaling against creationism and ID at a level of energy totally surprising from the perspective of just a few years ago. We can argue about this some other time, I'll just point out that one doesn't follow deterministically from the other. I already explained why science is not atheistic above. That's your theory? Brainwashing on a massive scale? Millions of people over a hundred and fifty years? No supporting data, we just believe it because we were told it? No successful research, just secret meetings of the evolutionist cabal's leaders once a year to agree on what new developments are going to happen? No genius evolutionist ever uncovered the secret, not renegade evolutionist ever let out the truth?Please.Look, even if you believe we're all a bunch of brainwashed, lying, cheating atheists, try to keep these thoughts to yourself and just have a nice civil rational discussion for a change.--Percy

This is just a lengthy redeclaration of your initial premise that science is atheistic, and I already provided rebuttal of this premise in Message 169. I'd be happy to respond if you'd like to address something I actually said, but my response to a repetition of the initial premise would just repeat my rebuttal, and there seems little point in doing that since it appears just above. Yes, this is the way I see it. If you're going to call people's detection of God real, then you also have to allow as real people's detection of Thor and Zeus and unicorns and dragons and speaking with the dead and ESP and UFOs.Obviously not everything people have "detected" is real. Science is a way of separating the wheat from the chaff. While certainly information from myths about Troy and Scylla and Charybdis can provide the impetus for investigation of the possible truths of these myths, the mere existence of the myths themselves is not the kind of evidence upon which science can build consensus and theory. I was presuming that the monk who theorized about radio waves attempted to detect them and was unable to find evidence of them, but let us instead presume that a concerted scientific effort was made over several hundred years from 1000-1300 to detect evidence of radio waves, and the effort came up short. What could science then conclude about radio waves? Well, it could not conclude that radio waves existed, and it could not conclude that radio waves did not exist. It simply couldn't reach any conclusions either way. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I think it's more a matter of extremely fuzzy thinking on your part. You don't really care about science or the advancement of knowledge, you really only care about the advancement of your own ideas. If you cared about science then such fuzzy thinking would be anathema to you.Let us say there is a religion that believes in a cosmic turtle as the creator of the universe. The cosmic turtle appears to believers giving them advice and reassurances about their daily lives. Believers testify to their experiences with other believers and to anyone else who will listen. Is this to you acceptable scientific evidence of the cosmic turtle that science should accept? Hopefully the answer is no.Now let's say there's a believer in the cosmic turtle who is deathly ill and the doctors are sure he will die. But his friends and family pray to the cosmic turtle to spare his life and he miraculously recovers. Is this then acceptable scientific evidence of the cosmic turtle? In this case the answer is "possibly", but only if the prayer were conducted as part of a double-blind study or some other scientifically structured research.You see, the evidence of God that you want science to accept is of the same unscientific quality as evidence of many other beliefs that would contradict your belief in God. What you consider evidence of God is just as easily evidence of Allah or Vishnu or nirvana or the cosmic turtle. I mentioned Discovery Institute because of their stated desire to undermine naturalism, which I thought was a position you agreed with. If not then forget I brought it up. But if I actually did correctly perceive the undermining of naturalism as something you advocate then I thought you would be interested to know that views like this are beginning to cause a significant reaction from the secular scientific community. This is like a mantra that you just keep repeating to yourself. It is religion, not science, that is based upon myth, as exemplified by the fragmentation of religious belief into tens of religions and hundreds of sects. For every religious person who believes as you do, there are far more who do not. The common element in religion is disagreement.Science is the opposite of religion because it is based upon evidence instead of faith. It is why those who accept the theory of evolution all believe in the same theory of evolution. It is because of the evidence that science has not fractured into many different theories of evolution in the way that religion does, as is reflected in the many different beliefs residing under the creationist umbrella.Other than reaffirming your belief that evolution is really just a massive brainwashing conspiracy, you've offered no substantiation whatsoever. Conspiracies that last over a hundred years and involve millions of people cannot remain secret, and to think so is the height of irrationalism.--Percy

No, I wouldn't say that's an accurate summary of my thinking. There is no way I could know whether God is natural or within the realm of science. What I do know is that if God is detectable by us that he is therefore natural and within the realm of science. Yes, this is true. But neither can you assume that it is within the realm of science.At this point in your message you seemed to understand that our focus was on the spiritual, but you next seemed to forget that and to instead assume I was speaking generally about everything you believe: But you're thinking is fuzzy about the spiritual. You want science to concede that there is scientifically valid evidence for the spiritual when such evidence does not exist. As I just explained previously, the stories from myths like Troy and Scylla and Charybdis can serve as an impetus to investigate their possible truth, but the myths themselves do not serve as any kind of scientific evidence. And anecdotal stories about appearances of gods and angels can serve as an impetus to investigate the truth of such possibilities, but they do not themselves constitute scientific evidence. Your thinking is fuzzy because you want such evidence accepted as scientific when it clearly isn't. You again seem to have forgotten that we're talking about evidence of the spiritual. The quote you provided from me talked about evidence of God and how that evidence is of the same unscientific quality as that for other beliefs in other gods or spirits. There was no mention of Pakicetus or any of that other stuff. Address what I said. We're all familiar with ID's bob and weave to avoid addressing the lack of evidence and clear contradictions. Well I guess the only response to bald, unsupported, off-topic declarations is more bald, unsupported, off-topic declarations, but I'll leave that as an exercise for you since you're so good at it. Simply invert your above statement.--Percy

If you're going to rephrase my position into a form where the existence of God is tacitly assumed, then I can only reject the reformulation.You originally asked back in Message 176 whether I admitted "that God as a concept is natural and so within the realm of science, correct?" I think one of the most significant flaws in your approach is made clear just from the fact that you're seeking admissions instead of understanding. I assume, given your history, that you think I'm reluctant to make concessions about things that I nonetheless know are true because it would reveal the lies behind my position, and so from your point of view you're trying to argue me into a corner from which admissions can be forced.I'm only trying to make my point of view clear to you. Your belief that I really know deep inside myself that you're correct is causing you to keep asking me if I agree with ("admit to") statements of your own viewpoint that are expressed using my terminology.This isn't going to be a productive discussion if you continue thinking this way. I am not someone who agrees with you inside but just can't admit it because of the side I'm on. I am someone who disagrees with you. That means I don't see things the same way you do. Progress can only be made if we both view this as an exercise in seeking mutual understanding, rather than as an exercise for forcing reluctant admissions.In other words, I appreciate the progress indicated by the restraint you exercise in refraining from things like calling me dishonest and so forth, but by your very approach you're proving unable to hide you're underlying attitude that I actually know the truth, I just won't admit it.So, to finally answer your question, from a scientific standpoint you don't even have a phenomenon you can identify as God. I can only give the same answer for God as I would give for pink dragons and leprechauns on Mars: anything that is detectable by us is part of the natural universe. I was addressing the conclusion rather than the phenomena. For instance, if today you pray for your blind nephew to regain his sight and tomorrow he regains his sight (the example is from the discussion with Truthlover in the Who won the Collins-Dawkins Debate? thread), is that evidence that God exists, is natural and is within the realm of science? Most people would conclude that there's a long chain of missing evidence and reasoning there. Scientifically, QM involves only that for which we can gather evidence.--Percy

I was pointing out something very important for you, which is that you will be unable to maintain a civil dialogue with people who you believe are liars but just won't admit it. The same is true with people you believe have been indoctrinated. Even if you were absolutely right about indoctrination, insulting and rude behavior is not the solution. The same is true of people you believe are engaged in sophistry, as you just accused me.My answer concerning "a specific concept about God" is unchanged. I don't see God any differently than I see Martian leprechauns or pink dragons. They are all phenomena for which you have no scientific evidence. All I can say is that anything detectable by us is part of the natural universe.--Percy

Is that what this is? You don't like what people are saying in other threads, so you're taking it out on me here by demonstrating that simple civility and rational discussion actually do mean little to you?The way you show up your critics is not by behaving worse than them, which you manage to a great degree and with great ease, but by behaving better. In a discussion the winners are those who make the most rational arguments, not those who cast the most mud.I really don't understand you. Be nice to people. That's all it takes.--Percy

Well, yes, of course it's wrong, but that's not the way the argument goes. Science doesn't exclude God any more than it excludes pink dragons. Science can consider any phenomena of the natural world, which means anything we're able to detect. To the extent that you can detect God and his causal actions on the universe, he is natural.So the argument that you were attempting to summarize isn't that science cannot, by definition, deal with God. It's that science cannot, by definition, deal with undetectable phenomena, and we have not so far been able to detect God using any scientifically devised experiments or observations.--Percy

If you read back in the thread you'll see where Randman and I agreed upon a definition of "detectable". It doesn't refer only to things that *have* been detected, but to everything that *can* be detected given time and appropriate technology.Looking through your list it looks like in some cases you're just unaware of what science has actually accomplished, and that in other cases you're confusing indetectable phenomena with phenomena for which we haven't yet detected an actual instance in nature, but were one to occur it would be perfectly detectable. Reviewing your list:

• absolute zero
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  You're right about this one, nothing's ever been measured at a temperature of absolute zero, but that's not a temperature that can be reached through cooling technology. Absolute zero is just the low end of the temperature scale that happens to coincide with complete cessation of molecular motion. We've never observed 30 gazillion degrees, either, but temperature itself is eminently detectable.
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• action at a distance
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  I assume you're referring to what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance", and what we know today as quantum entanglement. I don't know why you've included this one in your list because the phenomenon is detected all the time. Quantum entanglement is beginning to form the basis of practical applications, such as secure communications, and the principle is the foundation of quantum computing.
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• gravity waves
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  I looked this up over at Wikipedia, and the preferred term is apparently gravitational waves. That article also says that they haven't been directly detected yet, but have been show indirectly to exist. In fact, surprisingly, and I didn't know this, the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for this work. Scientists are at work now devising experiments for the direct detection of gravity waves.
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• neutrinos
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  Like action at a distance, this one also doesn't belong on your list. Neutrinos are detected all the time. There are a number of neutrino detector experiments going on around the globe at any given time.
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• dark matter
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  This is yet another one that does not belong on your list. Dark matter was detected because of its effect on the formation and structure of galaxies.
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• speciation
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  Yet another one that does not belong on your list. Speciation has been observed both in the lab and in the wild.
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• abiogenesis
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  I don't think this belongs on your list, either. Were abiogenesis to be carried out in a lab it would be a perfectly detectable phenomena. The fact that the abiogenesis event that resulted in us occurred about 3.8 billion years ago when we weren't around to observe it directly doesn't mean it is an indetectable phenomenon. And if any evidence is left over from the process (doubtful because of the passage to time, plate tectonics, and the strong possibility that life would have considered pre-life a handy food source), then we might find evidence of it.

So after going through your list in detail, it doesn't appear that you included any accepted scientific phenomena that are indetectable. Given currently available evidence, I agree.--Percy

That isn't an accepted idea within science. As I said in the For Herepton and any others interested thread, and you agreed, the task before intelligent design advocates is to design sets of experiments and/or observations whose results can help build a consensus for their ideas across the community of scientists. Even if Wheeler believed as you think (and I don't he did, but that's a different discussion), this isn't an idea that has much acceptance within the scientific community today.--Percy

I have no doubt that the argument is often misstated, but you said that one of the objections against ID is that "science can never, by definition, deal with the reality of God as a causal agent for the universe and physical reality. My hope is you can see this is wrong."I answered, "Well, yes, of course it's wrong..." It's not a valid rebuttal because it misstates the position of science on issues for which no evidence exists. Last time I checked I wasn't omniscient, omnipresent or all-powerful, so there is little I can do to counter misstatements of the nature of science other than to correct them when I encounter them in discussion.The way you often see science's position on God stated, and it's been expressed this way at EvC Forum many, many times, is that science cannot say anything one way or the other about God. Science cannot say that God exists because there is no evidence, and science cannot say God does not exist because absence of evidence cannot be construed as evidence of absence.--Percy

Well, at least when all is said and done you'll be able to say you did it your way.--Percy

Hi Hoot Mon,I think you're still missing what detectability means. Wherever abiogenesis takes place, whether here or elsewhere in the universe, whether now or billions of years in the past or future, it is still thought to be a physical and chemical process that is eminently detectable. Whenever and wherever it occurs, if there's someone there then they'll be able to monitor the process.I think you're hung up on some kind of "If a tree falls in the woods when no one's around did it make sound" misunderstanding. Things that happen when no one's around aren't indetectable phenomena, they're merely unobserved phenomena. Imagine there's a planet orbiting a star in the Andromeda galaxy where a lightning bolt suddenly splits the night. That's not an indetectable phenomena. If there's intelligent life on that planet then they'll detect it just fine. But it is a phenomena that we here on earth will never observe.Another way of defining natural is anything that can have an effect on the universe in which we live. Naturally there are tons of things going on this universe that we'll never actually observe ourselves, but that doesn't mean they're not natural.--Percy

Oh yeah, that other guy, discoverer of the double helix and author of the timeless book by the same name, good old Nobel Prize winning what's-his-name. Continuing: I don't think you mean that Rose said it was himself. I think you meant to say Francis Collins. Collins is a convert to evangelical Christianity. He believes in a personal God. That's why I made the point in that thread that Wilson and Watson's comments about God's existence were in the context of a personal God. Had they had in mind scientists who believe in a God of any type, including an impersonal God who perhaps set the universe in motion but otherwise lets it run its own course, then they would have been able to name many, many scientists, some of them very well known such as scientist and author Paul Davies.So what Wilson and Watson were saying was that they believe that Darwinian evolution makes it impossible to believe in a personal God. Watson's fellow Nobel Prize winning scientist Stephen Weinberg likes to say that science didn't make it impossible to believe in God, it just made it possible to not believe in God.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

Whoa, that's pretty funny, pretending to be offended by someone poking fun at you for being forgetful. I'm sure glad you're joking, because otherwise it would mean the next stage in the illness would be hearing voices inside your head. Uh, they did say that. Watson said, "If it`s a personal god who interferes with our lives and listens to our prayers and aware of our existence, I really -- I can only mention one person that I know who believes that, who`s a serious scientist." See you're own excerpt at Message 32. Wow, another joke, you're on a roll! --Percy