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Post by bjorn on Feb 8, 2011 8:58:23 GMT
Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini raise what they see as problems with evolution, but they basically reveal their own ignorance of the subject. I've already pointed out the 'populations evolve not individuals' an obvious fact of evolutionary biology that completely pasted them by. That alone shows that no one in biology will take them seriously. So, no one in biology takes Dawkins seriously? At least he is not ... precisely on Wilson's side in "The Group Delusion" at richarddawkins.net/articles/2121-the-group-delusion
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Post by Al Moritz on Feb 8, 2011 15:08:13 GMT
Are there ‘uncaused’ events in science? Let us look at science in practice. As far as I know, being a scientist myself, in the tens of thousands scientific laboratories around the world the principle of looking for natural causes to natural effects is still very much alive. In fact, science as it is currently practiced and will be in the foreseeable future, is firmly based on this central principle. It obviously includes the broader assumption that every effect has a cause. There appears to be some confusion, however, as to whether the findings from quantum mechanics suggest a loosening of the bond between cause and effect. Such a loosening does not really take place. Yet what does happen in the realm of quantum processes, is that a cause does not have a deterministic effect anymore, but a probabilistic effect. That the bond between cause and effect is unbroken is proven by the fact that the statistical distribution of the effects can be represented by exact mathematical formulas. This can be well illustrated by radioactive decay: [snip] You will have to forgive me I'm just a person who lives in reality, yes I have a biology degree but how does that equate with anything. One of my best friends has a biochemistry degree from Manchester university no less and yet he is a young earth creationist and is studying theology. Ken Ham wants to build a theme park to the extermination to all mankind and all land dwelling animals (that didn't make it to his ark) like this is a good thing. OK there is a god and it is very interested in what we get up to in the bedroom. Please spare me this f**kwitterey, I don't care if there was a first cause or any cause to the universe. Your god is an arsehole don't take my word for it just read your bible. I am not going to join your insane cult just so I can become sexist, racist, homophobic and hate the 'other.' Ignore our own critical thinking abilities and believe any fairy tales you want just don't pretend science led you to them conclusions or you will be shown to be delusional. With fairly technical argumentation I was just pointing out that you cannot argue, based on science, that there are 'uncaused' events. To get such a reply is utterly irrational, as others already have alluded to. And atheists are supposed to be rational? A few (a distinct minority) are, certainly. But to show me that you are as well, you have to do substantially better than this.
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Post by gymnopodie on Feb 8, 2011 16:45:10 GMT
davedodo007 wrote:
The nuts and bolts of Christianity is not something the philosophic and theologic crowd wishes to discuss. If belief or faith in God cannot be applied in a socially appropriate manner, what use is it? Its practical application is a far more important issue than cosmological arguments which does not directly affect people's lives.
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Post by davedodo007 on Feb 8, 2011 19:29:27 GMT
You will have to forgive me I'm just a person who lives in reality, yes I have a biology degree but how does that equate with anything. One of my best friends has a biochemistry degree from Manchester university no less and yet he is a young earth creationist and is studying theology. Ken Ham wants to build a theme park to the extermination to all mankind and all land dwelling animals (that didn't make it to his ark) like this is a good thing. OK there is a god and it is very interested in what we get up to in the bedroom. Please spare me this f**kwitterey, I don't care if there was a first cause or any cause to the universe. Your god is an arsehole don't take my word for it just read your bible. I am not going to join your insane cult just so I can become sexist, racist, homophobic and hate the 'other.' Ignore our own critical thinking abilities and believe any fairy tales you want just don't pretend science led you to them conclusions or you will be shown to be delusional. With fairly technical argumentation I was just pointing out that you cannot argue, based on science, that there are 'uncaused' events. To get such a reply is utterly irrational, as others already have alluded to. And atheists are supposed to be rational? A few (a distinct minority) are, certainly. But to show me that you are as well, you have to do substantially better than this. Sorry about that Al, I got a bit carried away, scientist who believe in god bring out the worse in me. Especially when I'm drunk. You didn't deserve that so again I apologize.
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Post by noons on Feb 8, 2011 19:37:08 GMT
Sorry about that Al, I got a bit carried away, scientist who believe in god bring out the worse in me. Especially when I'm drunk. You didn't deserve that so again I apologize. Expect to have the worst brought out in you a lot more.
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Post by krkey1 on Feb 8, 2011 19:37:14 GMT
I was not aware Christianity was sexist ( my church has a lot of women leaders) racist ( my church has more then it's fair share of black members and leaders) and as for homophobic I will simply observe the worst attacks on homosexuals right now are being done in Eastern Europe and Russia, which have the largest percent of atheist on the planet. Interestingly enough movements such as the skinheads and neo Nazis are making a comeback in East Germany, which coincidentally has the largest amount of atheist in Germany. But these pesky facts must surely be a coincidence, ehh.
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Post by noons on Feb 8, 2011 19:38:50 GMT
I was not aware Christianity was sexist ( my church has a lot of women leaders) racist ( my church has more then it's fair share of black members and leaders) and as for homophobic I will simply observe the worst attacks on homosexuals right now are being done in Eastern Europe and Russia, which have the largest percent of atheist on the planet. Interestingly enough movements such as the skinheads and neo Nazis are making a comeback in East Germany, which coincidentally has the largest amount of atheist in Germany. But these pesky facts must surely be a coincidence, ehh. I'm not sure you can really establish a link there. And remember, worse things are done to homosexuals in the Muslim world than in the former USSR and with greater frequency.
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Post by Al Moritz on Feb 8, 2011 19:55:14 GMT
Sorry about that Al, I got a bit carried away, scientist who believe in god bring out the worse in me. You mean, among others, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Faraday (electromagnetism), Lemaitre (Belgian Catholic priest, postulated the Big Bang) or Gregor Mendel (Catholic monk, rules of inheritance)? Very rational attitude, I must say. Apology accepted.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Feb 8, 2011 20:11:09 GMT
I was not aware Christianity was sexist ( my church has a lot of women leaders) racist ( my church has more then it's fair share of black members and leaders) and as for homophobic I will simply observe the worst attacks on homosexuals right now are being done in Eastern Europe and Russia, which have the largest percent of atheist on the planet. Interestingly enough movements such as the skinheads and neo Nazis are making a comeback in East Germany, which coincidentally has the largest amount of atheist in Germany. But these pesky facts must surely be a coincidence, ehh. I'm not sure you can really establish a link there. And remember, worse things are done to homosexuals in the Muslim world than in the former USSR and with greater frequency. I agree with Noons wholly here, for although objections to homosexuality in Russia are frequently very violent, I haven't heard of homosexuals being hanged in Russia. Russia is not exactly atheist anymore, though. The Russian Orthodox Church has made something of a comeback, though I can't find anything on nominal adherents in the CIA Factbook. Anyway, whatever one thinks on the subject of issues like same-sex marriage, calling opponents homophobic is neither particularly honest nor polite. Besides, from what I know, neo-nazis and neo-fascists are generally not very happy with of Christianity, though it will vary by location, given its Judaist roots. But maybe I have read too much about some fringe groups in Asatru.
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Post by krkey1 on Feb 8, 2011 20:27:50 GMT
I can careless to defend Islam. However I simply wanted to observe parts of the world with a large percentage of atheists in their population have no problem attacking homosexuals and certainly do not have a problem with any sort of racism. It just seems odd to me when atheists act like these things do not happen in their demographics.
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Post by merkavah12 on Feb 8, 2011 21:40:43 GMT
Remember David: Friends don't let friends drink and post.
*This Public Service Announcement was paid for by Forumites Against Tipsy Posting Or Typing (FAT POT).
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Post by himself on Feb 8, 2011 22:34:57 GMT
Dawkins...constantly says his language is metaphorical and can be cashed out; but he has never done so. + + + This is BS, there is a difference what the selfish gene does what it does and a social group does what it does which incidentally enhances the propagation of that gene, If you and all the other morons don't understand group genetics then at least stop commenting on it as you show yourselves to be idiots. Sad to say, it was Dawkins who has let his metaphors get away from him. Aside from calling everyone in sight a moron, it would be well to address what Gould, Midgley, Margulis, Fodor, and others actually had to say. Again, Fodor's complaint, from his atheist perspective, was that natural selection was "too teleological." The problem as he saw it was down in the logical bone. But too many acolytes immediately label an atheist like Fodor a theist. Soon, he will be labeled a "known creationist." This is the equivalent of calling someone a "heretic" because he has written or spoken heterodoxy. Anyone who thinks the theory of evolution was too teleological before this dimwit showed up is living in la la land. That would include Darwin. But you keep saying "theory of evolution," which while popular is a little like saying "theory of astronomy." It is "natural selection" which is the theory and it was "natural selection" which Fodor questioned -- and which Darwin regretted. [Fodor] either does a course in evolution and genetics or but[t] out of a subject he knows naff all about. The theory of natural selection is rather metaphysical, and it was the underlying logic and metaphysics which Fodor was questioning. You [or Dawkins] should either take a course in logic and metaphysics or butt out of subjects you know "naff" about. + + + Again I don't care if the universe was caused or uncaused, whether quantum mechanics has any say on it one way or the other. IOW, you couldn't be bothered to read the two relatively accessible articles on the transaction theory of quantum mechanics. An opportunity lost to further your secular education. There is no evidence for your magic man in the sky and it doesn't answer your prayers so just give it a rest will you. You are following the teaching of bronze/iron age goat herders who's book doesn't advance are understanding beyond anyone who had an IQ of 50. If you want to worship this idiot feel free to do so but don't mind us laughing at your gullibility and lack of critical thinking abilities. ;D It is you who have obsessed on some sort of "magic man in the sky" and seem here to be rather foaming at the mouth over it.
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Post by davedodo007 on Feb 8, 2011 22:41:44 GMT
Remember David: Friends don't let friends drink and post. *This Public Service Announcement was paid for by Forumites Against Tipsy Posting Or Typing (FAT POT). ;D
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Post by himself on Feb 8, 2011 23:06:20 GMT
Meanwhile, contra Fodor, we have a biologist, J. Scott Turner, who holds that we need to revive the notion of teleology in biology. For this, he has been called, per the usual denunciation of heretics, "a known creationist." Much to his surprise, as he is not. After 400 years of philosophical squid ink, Aristotelian concepts have been making a quiet comeback, and this is one of them. People whose fear of magic men in the sky coming to get them so overwhelms them may overlook that Aristotle did not derive a God from the telos he saw naturally in nature. Turner's basic theme is that living organisms have a telos, that is, they exhibit "goal-seeking behavior" by which they build their own environments. This may be as simple as going somewhere else where they can prosper, or as complex as altering their present physical environment to suit themselves. He says, "What I have tried to do is cut through the metaphors a bit, to get to the actual mechanisms whereby adaptation works." The metaphors are things like "natural selection." [More intriguing is the reaction of some colleagues to his latest book. He writes, "There has been some private correspondence from colleagues that, to put it mildly, surprised me. So the issue itself does seem to unhinge people a bit." Heresy must be punished!] He is interviewed here by John Farrell, who also wrote The Day Without Yesterday about Fr. Lemaitre and the Big Bang theory: blogs.forbes.com/johnfarrell/2011/02/08/evolution-and-embodied-physiology/A few quotes from the interview: - the whole issue of purposefulness and teleology has been at the heart of evolutionary thought since before Darwin
- While there is clearly a radical materialist/Neodarwinist school of evolutionary thought, evolutionary biology is not monolithic in this regard. Evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) is probably the most prominent area that has grappled seriously with the issue of teleology. Niche construction theory is another.
- For the most part, these disciplines are trying to reconcile the obviously purposeful nature of embryonic development and ecology with the materialist/atomist mindset of modern Darwinism, but there’s still a group of people (of which I’m one, Lynn Margulis and Simon Conway Morris are two other voices far more prominent than mine) who think the two are probably irreconcilable.
- Right now, I think we’re at a very exciting time in evolutionary biology because the idea is emerging that we are now bumping up against the limits of the materialist/atomist philosophy, and are coming to realize that there is indeed something special about life that simply must be understood. There are various opinions out there about just what that special quality is (my two cents is the special quality of homeostasis), but no matter how it comes out, I think we’re on the verge of a major philosophical shift in biology.
- One of the points I’ve tried to develop in both my books is that physiological function operates at multiple scales, both within the body, with its organizational hierarchy of cell-tissue–organ etc, but also as “embodied physiology” outside the organism. In fact, this kind of embodied physiology is ubiquitous. ... Coral reefs, for example, are organs of extended physiology for the colonial polyps that build them, operating as an interface between water and organism that aids in the capture of energy for the polyps. The interface even scales fractally, just like in the lung.
- The metaphor [natural selection] falls down a bit when organisms become masters of their environment rather than its slaves, though, because now organisms are essentially selecting themselves. This paradox has been around for a long time, in fact, and attempts to resolve it date back to Sewall Wright’s ideas of “adaptive landscapes” and Hutchinson’s notions of ecological “niches”.
- What’s missing is a coherent view of the physiological dimension, the living systems that make adaptation possible. And that dimension plays by very different rules–physiological rules, like homeostasis–that aren’t derivable from first principles of natural selection. A coherent theory of evolution will account for both. Currently, it doesn’t, in my opinion.
- At first, of course, the rediscovery of the Mendelian gene was thought to be the death knell for Darwinism.
- Even though, for much of the 20th century, the scientific case seemed to be swinging decisively in favor of the “parsimonists”, the other side never really went away, and it has re-emerged in schools like evo-devo, or niche construction theory, or in Simon Conway Morris’ ideas about the importance of convergence. Most of these ideas ... are ... rooted in older ideas–evo-devo draws heavily on the work of D’Arcy Thompson, for example, who was a trenchant critic of Darwinism–that were part of an incredibly rich intellectual debate over evolution that was thriving prior to the modern synthesis.
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Post by davedodo007 on Feb 9, 2011 0:54:37 GMT
Fodor & Piattelli-Palmarini raise what they see as problems with evolution, but they basically reveal their own ignorance of the subject. I've already pointed out the 'populations evolve not individuals' an obvious fact of evolutionary biology that completely pasted them by. That alone shows that no one in biology will take them seriously. So, no one in biology takes Dawkins seriously? At least he is not ... precisely on Wilson's side in "The Group Delusion" at richarddawkins.net/articles/2121-the-group-delusionWell Dawkins hasn't done much work in biology in the last 30 years, though his promotion of biology and science in general is much appreciated. This is just a spat between biologist about survival strategies. I back Dawkins against the Wilson(s) on this one. Saying there is a 'altruistic gene' is just a side swipe at Dawkins, biology is just as competitive as any over endeavour. The fact that the host of the DNA uses different strategies for its own survival (lone predator, colony, pack animal) does not change the 'nature' of the genes which is to just replicate itself. Hence the metaphor for that behaviour 'selfish.'
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