Re: The "church of Darwin" insult


<jgrisham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1138042179.278932.275870@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
> > You will notice that these fundies demean the theory of evolution by
> > likening it to what they have -- a dogmatic religion.
>
> While you don't quote a specific instance, I suspect that
> fundementalists have a much broader perception of what constitutes "a
> religion". While dictionaries insist on some connection to deity, the
> average American has been propagandized to associate "belief systems"
> with Communism, Fascism, Naziism, Terrorism, perhaps even Capitalism.
> Take any "ism" too seriously and for all intent and purposes it seems
> to behave like an intolerant and dogmatic religion.

Intolerant ideologies are intolerant ideologies. They are not religions.

>Proponents like
> Dawkins have a particularly dictatorial view which helps to associate
> evolution with a dogmatic belief system.

Dawkins has balls and calls a spade a spade. This is not dictatorial.

> > The implication is
> > that being a religion is NOT a good thing.
>
> Religions are man-made social institutions, which can be or usually
> become corrupt (i.e., power corrupts, absolute power corrupts
> absolutely). All religions and all "isms" are built on perceived truths
> or facts. Humans tend to be highly irrational about such essential
> building blocks to their particular belief. Historically, the dominant
> method of entrenching such ideas in a society has been war (a.k.a., the
> survival of the fittest). It takes a significantly twisted logic to
> unconditionally describe this struggle of ideas as "a good thing".

?

> > With which I agree
> > completely. However the Theory of Evolution is a science not a religion.
>
> Actually, TofE is far more than a science. It's the manifestation of a
> philosophy, Materialistic or Methodological Naturalism. This particular
> philosophy begins with the assumption that deity does not exist.

Methodological naturalism assumes that any entity for which there is no
evidence is irrelevant for the understanding of how the world works. This
thing you call "deity" falls into this category.

> While
> the intent of that assumption was to support method, it is often
> twisted to suggest proof of the non-existence of deity (proving
> non-existence of anything is illogical).

Science is not about proof -it is about evidence. Absence of evidence is
evidence of absence. In any case if you are able to explain how things work
without resorting to "deity" (whatever "deity" might be), you dont bother to
consider "deity" in the explanation.

>In other words, if I were
> using a method to determine flavors of ice cream and established for
> the sake of method that vanilla was not a flavor, then after compiling
> a list of flavors, of which, vanilla could not exist, it would be
> twisted logic to use my data to suggest proof that vanilla does not
> exist.

Indeed, however your analogy is faulty -at best. Vanilla is known to exist
as a flavour, we have experienced it, and furthermore, we have isolated and
purified the molecule that causes the flavour vanilla. We know the nature
and properties of such molecule and we know how it interacts with receptors
to elicit the flavour vanilla. In the case of your "deity", all we have is
the word "deity", which so far has not found any correlate in reality. We
dont know the properties or the nature of "deity", therefore we dont know
what "deity" is capable of doing. Therefore it would be rather silly to try
to include "deity" as part of any explanation.

>It's only after the use of such illogic disguised as science
> that it gets into arguments of philosophy and science takes on
> dimensions of a belief system.

This is simply a twisted, biased, fallacious and seriously ignorant view of
how science works.


> > It can be falsified empirically.
>
> Empirically means by observation. You can't observe the animal that
> died and became fossilized. The fossil record is not an uninterupted
> document of geological history. Fossilized remains are subjective data
> conformed by opinion into a perceived chain of associations which
> change perpetually as different scientists bring different perspectives
> to the same evidence. At best, Evolution is a historical science
> written by whatever opinion is currently winning peer-reviewed support
> and at worst a narrative... a creation story.

You are a funny chap. Stick around.

regards
Milan
>
> JTG 1/23/06
>
> >
> > Bob Kolker
>


.

Relevant Pages

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