Methodological Atheism of Science

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_Some Schmo
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _Some Schmo »

The problem is not with modern science itself, but rather with a faulty view of science: the idea that science is a complete framework for understanding man and the universe, so unscientific claims should be automatically rejected.

I've never heard a scientist claim that science is a complete framework for understanding man and the universe. The implication this guy seems to be making is that scientists think we can discover everything there is to know through science. This is utter nonsense (if that is, in fact, what he's implying). I've heard many scientists say about many different things, "That's a question we'll likely never be able to answer."

However, for the things that are knowable (or discoverable, more accurately) in this existence, science is the only reliable framework we have. Everything else is just one variety or another of guesswork. And within the context and framework of science, unscientific claims should be automatically rejected. Should we expect something different? Doing science means sticking to science.

The entire chapter was riddled with these kinds of false suppositions about scientists and the way they think and operate (the one I just commenting the first of many). As someone else commented, it was a big pile of strawman arguments, and difficult for me to take seriously.
Last edited by Alf'Omega on Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
_Daniel Peterson
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _Daniel Peterson »

Gadianton wrote:the SMPT (where I will be presenting shortly)

Really? What's your paper on?
_marg

Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _marg »

dart wrote:It isn't that science hasn't found him therefore he mustn't exist; it is that science is designed to reject him as a beginning premise.


Science, the scientific method rejects assertions which offer no predictive capabilities which can be tested and confirmed or least potentially can. So science doesn't reject God as you say, it rejects/ignores those claims which are mere assertions and nothing more... and that's what a God claim is.

That science ignores God claims is not a rational argument that a God is likely to exist. Obviously one can speculate infinitely anything they wish, but the burden of proof logically rests on those making the assertions and the burden of proof for a God, or Gods has not ever been met.

So imaginations have infinite potential possibilities. That one can imagine a God doesn't make is so.
_antishock8
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _antishock8 »

Here you go, Dart:

Image

Clearly D'nesh is vindicated.
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Scream the lie, whisper the retraction.- The Left
_antishock8
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _antishock8 »

Anyway.

It's not a secret (and not something denied by anyone) that in pretty much every_single_new_area of scientific inquiry a person is using inference. There's much more art involved than science in science's early stages. It's guessing. It's following a hunch. The groundbreaking scientists have sensed patterns amidst the claptrap of religious dogmatism, secular shennanigans, political posturing, etc... Whether it's Kepler looking at the stars or Mendel looking at peas, it's incredibly intuitive and observant people who see things most of us do not, and then proceed to incorporate the scientific method to test their hunch. If his hunch is wrong, the reputable scientist abandons it as folly. If his hunch is right, he formulates a theory, and then opens it up to the scientific community for crticism, testing, and whatnot.

What YOU'RE doing is submitting your hunch to others as fact, with no discernable methodology to it, and then attacking atheists/"atheist scientists" for rejecting it as plausible. That may work for an apologist or a believer looking for one part smoke and another part mirror, but it's not science. It's not even close. It's just a hunch.
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_JohnStuartMill
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _JohnStuartMill »

dartagnan wrote:
Those scientists are confident that science will prove them right. If science indeed presumed atheism, then those scientists wouldn't care about using science to disprove religion, now would they, you stupid f***?

You don't know what you're talking about, as exhibited by your increasing frustration. You're just a typical cocky student, confident in his atheism and now pissed off that so many distinguished scientists have blathered the way they have, undermining so many of your assumptions, so you're trying to make excuses for them even though they don't want you to. Forget it. They have spoken. They Trump whatever authority you think you have.

I don't claim to speak on any authority except whatever logic my arguments might exhibit. You choose to disregard the arguments I make, and opt to throw up a bunch of important-sounding names instead. It seems that you haven't grown out of your religious upbringing, with its contempt for logic alone, and its inexplicable need for authority figures. Pity.

This makes perfect sense. You said that science precluded spirituality; I provided an example of how spirituality could be accommodated by science, if it existed. I showed that your dunderheaded assertion about science was wrong.

You showed no such thing other than your ignorance on the subject. Miracles are not predictable, therefore they are not testable using any modern scientific method, period.
Thank you for admitting this.

ou do what Dawkins does, because that's all you know apparently. You both embarrass yourelves by insisting religion and religious claims can and must be tested on your terms. You're even willing to misrepresent spirituality in the same way he is willing to misrepresent every aspect of religious faith.
It's not my terms -- it's science's terms. You seem very eager to shroud religious claims in the guise of science, without subjecting religion to the disproof that other objects of scientific inquiry are liable. You can't have it both ways.

Incidentally, I was watching a debate between Dawkins and a Bishop last night and Dawkins started tearing down this straw man attacking the Bible, insisting it should be interpreted literally, even though centuries of biblical scholarship has rendered most of it metaphorical. He asked the bishop, "How do you know it is metaphor and poetic?" in reference to Genesis. I wanted the guy to scream outloud, "how do you know it isn't?" But the guy just looked at him like the fool he is, because Dawkins is not interested in learning facts that undermine his agenda. He's read virtually nothing on the topic. He ignores centuries of biblical scholarship to his own detriment. You're just a minature version of the same character.

Don't you think that the bishop should have some reason to believe that the Bible is metaphorical and poetic, if that's what he wants to say? Probably not, because reason is obviously not very important to you.

I should also ask how the bishop knows which parts to interpret metaphorically -- why can't all the parts about the existence of God be metaphorical, too?

Fine, then -- insert "prayer alone" wherever I said "prayer" above. Now do you get it? I'm not holding my breath.

Huh? How many times will you show an incapacity to comprehend? I said prayer alone doesn't make miracles, so how the hell will "inserting" prayer alone somehow make your case that spiritulity can be tested?
Let's get this back to the original point: you said that science precluded spirituality. I showed a scenario where spirituality could be championed by science. That shows that your assertion was wrong. Please admit that you were.

Wow, dartagnan gave an arrogant non-response! Holy s***, am I surprised.

What exactly does the God hypothesis explain, and why doesn't this explanation fit in the paradigm of modern science, idiot?

I've explained this on numerous occassions and I have even tried to solve your comprehension deficiency by posting the same explanations by authors who write with far more eloquence than I. And yet you insist on playing the ignorance card. I guess this is to be expected by a sciolist.
Nice dodge. Just answer the question.

No, they begin with an anti-stupidity premise, which I suspect is why you're having such a problem with it, you twit.

You still can't come to grips with the citations I provided can you? You don't get it. The bomb has already gone off. These scientists have already drawn us a picture of what's going on. They have a better understanding of modern science than an arrogant kid like you ever will. So who do you think you're kidding?
I addressed the citations.

That God exists? Which one? What characteristics does He possess that we can determine because of Big Bang research?

Here you are again trying to ignore the evidence by using the typical derailment techniques offered by Dawkins. What your mind is to small to understand is that the evidence proves a divine intelligence at work and scientists have acknolwedged this.
The evidence does no such thing, and the scientists who follow this argument as credulously as you do are a small minority (not that I give a crap about what scientists think, if it doesn't make any sense).

Scientists have already acknolwedged this. So my point is established. This is strong scientific evidence for the existences of a creator. Stephen Hawking made it perfectly clear that it is reasonable to assume a creator if the universe has a beginning.
Hawking wasn't stupid enough to say anything about that creator, though. Even if you take these first-cause arguments seriously (and you shouldn't), you can't impute any of the characteristics of "God" to this creator. Hawking didn't say that this creator was all-good (it could be amoral, or even evil), or all-powerful, or even intelligent.

Besides, Hawking didn't say that belief in a creator was required if the universe has a beginning, anyway -- "reasonable" is a long way away from your "proof".

Science proved the universe has a beginning. This means strong evidence for God. Case closed. A child can understand this simple deductive logic.
Science hasn't proved dick about the universe having a beginning -- that's outside of its realm of inquiry (at least for now).

Why is the God hypothesis superior to the null conclusion, that "We don't know"?

After months, you clearly don't have the necessary knowledge to argue the points let alone understand them. You don't understand the history of science and the argument from teleology. Is it mechanistic? Of course not. But that doesn't make it anti-science, it just makes it unscientific in the "modern" sense.
"Magic" is only unscientific in the "modern" sense, too.

And it says nothing about whether it is true or not.

I'll agree that it's not the final word, at least.

What I have proved here is that modern science operates on several assumptions that they cannot prove. Materialism is not proved, but it is the underlying premise. This is why idiots like Dennett are trying to explain consciousness as strictly material-based mechanistic processes in the brain. It is just an illusion for him because it needs to be. His version of science puts a straight-jacket on his understanding. The problem I have with these kinds of scientists is only this:

They make philosophical conclusions driven by their atheistic slant, and present them as "science" when it is no such thing. The nonsense of trying to explain why humans procreate is just one of many examples. Nobody here can provide the scientific method used to determine that it is a result of selfish genes manipulating the body to have sex. But Dawkins says so so it must be true, and every gullible parrot on this forum will relay the same dogma without ever questioning it.
I disagree with Dawkins on a few things. But the fact that you don't understand evolution is not exactly compelling evidence that is doesn't exist.

Now, you're pretty stupid, and you probably won't understand why this is important, so I'll give you a hint: you're the puddle, bub.

Runt, you clearly don't understand the force of the argument, as the puddle comment is idiotic and doesn't even begin to grasp the multiplicity of necessary, mysterious coincidences that make life on earth possible. The argument is one that recently swayed career atheist Antony Flew, and has astronomers writing about its philsophical consequences right after left. But I don't expect you to read much outside evolution literature. That is yoru atheistic safety zone. You don't have the gonads to step outside and deal with the cosmological evidences as illustrated by John Leslie in "Universes."
Except that that's exactly what I've been doing. Your tapdancing around the substantive issues is getting very tiresome.

Necessary for producing life as we know it, Cap'n, sure, but self-replicating entities altogether? The substrate-neutrality of the basic principles of natural selection suggests otherwise. Not that you'd understand what that means, s***-for-brains

The more you babble like this, the more you prove you haven't the faintest clue about the issues. Stop pretending you're qualified to speak informatively because you say you read an article once upon a time. You're not addressing the arguments because you are willfully ignorant of them. Natural Selection tells us nothing about the origin of life, and neither does evolution. Again, the atheist Francis Crick agrees with the theists who say the world did not exist long enough for life to create itself from random chemical reactions. At least he has the integrity to admit this, along with many other scientists. But unfortunately for you, his alternative explanation is that ET came along and planted the first cell on earth.
Why should I accept the Gospel according to Crick? I don't.

Natural selection doesn't tell us anything definitive about the origin of life on this planet, but it does provide plausible theories, and points scientists in certain directions. Natural selection doesn't just operate on things with DNA, you know: it also can and does operate on simpler molecules.

And in modern science, that's not worthy of ridicule, nor is the notion that a trillion universes exist, for the sole purpose of explaining away the anthropic principle, nor is Michael Ruse's hilarious argument that life began when cells "piggy-backed on crystals"!
What's so hilarious about Ruse's idea? I'm not saying that's the answer, but it does provide a possible explanation for the origin of life. You're not really interested in explanation, though, and prefer the "I Dream of Jeannie" mode of creation, so I can understand why you'd want to ridicule people who are actually trying to figure stuff out.

You guys wax eloquently about evolution but the fact is the elephant in the room still proves just how little you really know. Evolution only takes us back to a point. How life began is not explained by modern science. You cannot even begin to explain how life originated by mechanistic processes, nor can you explain why gravity is what it is, or why the nuclear forces are what they are, or why the laws of the universes are mathematically intertwined. The only rational explanation is that this is by design. Theists accept all that science has proved, and atheistic scientists have proved they have shut their minds to the possibility that knowledge can be gained outside of science. You guys are the ones acting irrationally.

You're absolutely right -- we CAN'T explain how life originated, at least we can't right now. The difference between our side and yours, though, is that we know what we don't know, while you guys put "God" labels on every unexplained phenomenon, then high-five each other as if you'd actually done something useful.

You haven't.
"You clearly haven't read [Dawkins'] book." -Kevin Graham, 11/04/09
_Chap
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _Chap »

JohnStuartMill wrote:I don't claim to speak on any authority except whatever logic my arguments might exhibit. You choose to disregard the arguments I make, and opt to throw up a bunch of important-sounding names instead. It seems that you haven't grown out of your religious upbringing, with its contempt for logic alone, and its inexplicable need for authority figures. Pity.


JSM nicely sums up the reason why I concluded some time ago that the best thing to do with dartagnan's seemingly interminable posts is to scroll through them as quickly as possible.

If on the other hand dartagnan would simply make an argument plainly and modestly, in his own words, he might give us something worth reading.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_EAllusion
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _EAllusion »

The thing is that the majority of relevant authorities would disagree with Kevin here. He's making more of an argument to cherry-picked authority, if that.
_Thama
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _Thama »

Chap wrote:JSM nicely sums up the reason why I concluded some time ago that the best thing to do with dartagnan's seemingly interminable posts is to scroll through them as quickly as possible.

If on the other hand dartagnan would simply make an argument plainly and modestly, in his own words, he might give us something worth reading.


And that's a wrap. Longwindedness is tolerable when there is substance present, and when the reward for reading through everything and engaging the arguments is an honest discussion and reciprocal engagement of the other's arguments. Dart is either unwilling or incapable of discussing anything in this fashion, so why even bother?
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains.
_John Larsen
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Re: Methodological Atheism of Science

Post by _John Larsen »

Thama wrote:
Chap wrote:JSM nicely sums up the reason why I concluded some time ago that the best thing to do with dartagnan's seemingly interminable posts is to scroll through them as quickly as possible.

If on the other hand dartagnan would simply make an argument plainly and modestly, in his own words, he might give us something worth reading.


And that's a wrap. Longwindedness is tolerable when there is substance present, and when the reward for reading through everything and engaging the arguments is an honest discussion and reciprocal engagement of the other's arguments. Dart is either unwilling or incapable of discussing anything in this fashion, so why even bother?

I agree. This topic interests me and I would like to contribute, but I just simply cannot make it through the OP.
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