Posted by Mike O on: 01.04.2007 /
Siamang said in The Blasphemy Challenge,
If there is a God, GIVE ME A SIGN!
Several weeks ago in the My son’s World Views class discussion I asked, hypothetically, if evolution could be disproven, would that prove there is a God? I said this, which was followed by this from Drakim followed by this from Siamang followed by this from me. The general consensus among atheists was that inability of science to explain something (evolution vs creation in that example) would *not* prove the existance of God.
So, given that only science is acceptable as proof, and things science can’t explain don’t prove the existance of God, what sign would you have me give you (I ask this to the eBay Atheist audience at large, not Siamang specifically)? If someone were to take David S up on his Drano challenge … and succeed (doubtful!!) … would that be sign enough? Don’t go nuts here - I’m not suggesting anyone actually do it. But if someone did, and if they survived, would that constitute the sign you seek? Or would it be explained away by a myriad of possible alternative explanations?
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Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1 01/4/07 8:51 AM | Comment Link |This is a good question.
Realistically, when something which doesn’t fit a person’s beliefs/nonbeliefs happens I think they start by seeing if they can tweak their current beliefs/nonbeliefs to fit it in.
Changing beliefs/nonbeliefs is a last resort we only get to when all else fails.
I think this is true of everyone because changing beliefs/nonbeliefs requires such a radical rethink of everything. It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing.
So, yes, I’m sure atheists, if shown a ’sign’, would begin by seeing if there was an explanation for it they could somehow find within their current worldview.
But Christians would do the same - the last thing they would conclude from something atheists see as evidence there is no god, is that God does not exist.
This is why, no matter what I say to someone else, I think it’s very unlikely I will change their beliefs/nonbeliefs. I suppose that puts me in the same category as Christians who believe it takes a miracle to get anyone to believe in God.
In my experience, that IS what many Christians believe - they don’t believe it ever can happen without God intervening to supernaturally change a person’s mind.
The reason these Christians even try is because at the same time they are hoping God will intervene in that way, so suddenly what they say to people who aren’t Christians will start making sense after all and become convincing in a way it never was before.
For what it’s worth, many Christians also believe God supernaturally protects Christians from ceasing to believe in him.
Mike feel free to correct me if anything I have written misreprents what Christians believe.
Comment by: David S
2 01/4/07 9:38 AM | Comment Link |Ack, don’t take the Draino version of the challenge. Do the other thing and heal an amputee or someone with AIDS or something. There’s a win-win.
Comment by: Mike O
3 01/4/07 10:04 AM | Comment Link |Ahhhh, a kinder, gentler atheist! I like it.
Comment by: Siamang
4 01/4/07 10:34 AM | Comment Link |There are lots of signs which would have no possible other explaination.
That’s what would make them signs in the first place. Stuff with other possible explainations utterly fail as signs.
A dude walking on water, if examinable and repeatable just isn’t possible under any other explaination.
Spontaneous amputee healing, as David explained. Or words written in the stars that say “I am that I am”.
A star hovering motionless over bethlehem.
Animals talking.
Angels appearing.
Etc,etc.
The fact that none of this stuff ever happens, but we are supposed to believe it did, to save our eternal souls, tells me that either the Christian definition of God is so off-base as to be nonexistent in that form, or God is one incredibly manipulative guy to have sent Cecil B. DeMille type special effects in the old days when people were more credulous, and stopped it down to a trickle here in our modern world.
What kind of God demands faith and belief in the frankly unbelievable special effects extravaganzas of the past? Especially when he births us into a world where these miracles are long, long gone, if they ever existed (and we conveniently have no photos or videos).
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
5 01/4/07 10:35 AM | Comment Link |Thanks David - I much prefer the ‘no-one dies in the attempt if this doesn’t work’ challenges!
Comment by: David S
6 01/4/07 10:39 AM | Comment Link |The draino thing was a joke. If people are going to be serious do the healing thing.
As for the topic, I think people expect claims to be supported with sufficient evidence. In the case of someone claiming something exists (like a god or alien or big foot or something), direct evidence is the best. Present the thing so everyone can observe and examine it and it can be proved, case closed.
If there isn’t direct evidence and you have to go to indirect evidence then it gets trickier. You have to reason carefully if the evidence is sufficient for the claim being made. Photos can be faked, miracles can be tricks or misunderstood natural events, etc. It would really depend on careful examination of the indirect evidence.
If the indirect evidence was clear, objective, examinable, repeatable, etc. that’s a great start. I only say start because the miracle should be confirmed and a tie to the original claim has to be made somehow. It should be clear why the indirect evidence proves the original claim. For example suppose someone could heal amputees on command and we could all observe it. Does that mean god exists or is there some other explanation? What we observe is something new… something incredible.. but it’s not god we’re observing, it’s a seemingly inexplicable healing. So maybe it means there a god, but maybe there is some other explanation. What ties it to god? Is it enough that the guy just claims his powers are from god? What if he doesn’t know what causes his powers and just says it’s god because it’s a likely explanation in his mind? Perhaps if he can inexplicably heal but it’s because of aliens or something? What if there is a material explanation for what he can do? Wouldn’t we want to find it and understand it and perhaps use it if possible? It would be sad if there was a material explanation but we didn’t look to find it but instead all just assumed a miracle and started worshiping the guy. What a wasted opportunity for really understanding our world.
I’m not trying to be a pain-in-the-butt here, this is just what hits me as reasonable. For a “sign” from a god, I’d first prefer direct evidence. For indirect evidence I’d prefer something clearly supernatural that we all observe that contains a “link” to the claim supposedly being supported. Say the stars in the sky all moved and spelled out “God Exists” or whatever.
Comment by: Mike O
7 01/4/07 6:58 PM | Comment Link |I think there are signs all around us IN science, particularly in the evolutionary/creation line of reasoning. Forget for a moment the argument of whether or not we evolved or were created and just look at the order and completeness of the present state of things. I’m going to MASSIVELY oversimply things and I admit there’s a LOT I don’t know. I just have a lot of questions and a lot of reason to believe that life, as we know it, is the sign you seek.
The reproductive system - we have fully functional reproductive systems, whether by creation or evolution. If by creation, that’s the miracle. If by evolution, some lower life form became two different forms, male and female. And until the reproductive systems with all the myriad of moving parts were fully functional (yet seperate) in each, the two SEPERATE lifelines continued to evolve separately and codependantly. All the moving parts of the “male version” evolved to completion while none of the parts accomplished anything on their own. All the moving parts of the “female version” evolved to completion while none of the parts accomplished anything on their own. Neither had a roadmap or “target” to evolve towards, they just somehow each got there. And after billions of years, they were not only complimentary (they worked together), they were dependant (they required each other to work) and they were in close proximity (the same place, even!) on the planet. Possible as random chance? I suppose. Likely? No. And this then raises the question, which came first, the reproductive systems (male and female are completely different yet dependant with nothing in either indicating what is required of the other), the need for a new way to reproduce (until we had male and female, we obviously reproduced asexually. If sexual union was not required, how and why did it evolve? Both the male and female were unnecessary, yet evolved very complex systems which, today, work perfectly together.
Ditto the exratory, respiratory, circulatory and nervous systems. They are each complete, fully functional and dependant upon one another. And if any one of them were incomplete, humans/animals would not survive. And until they were complete, they were merely random, useless yet infinitely complex interdependant mutations with no purpose … until they worked. And now they’re required. Hmmm.
And that’s just man. Replicate the millions of random processes necessary to evolve a human across a myriad of species, each requiring a compatable partners. And each after billions of years setting up the pieces, finding that partner in near enough proximity to reproduce … and knowing how to reproduce (having no natural need or inkling of it prior) and having the desire to reproduce in this new, infinitely complicated way.
Let’s go micro for a minute … DNA - how did it get there? It does so much, but how did the first one(s) get there?
And what about plants? Did the earliest life forms require photosynthesis? I don’t know but I don’t think so. So plants evolved to use energy it did not require until it had the process in place to use it. Then it required it. Handy?? Sure. Nifty? Absolutely. But random?? I suppose it’s possible.
Let’s go macro … what about the planets? Why do they all spin neatly on an axis instead of tumbling about willy-nilly? And the earth being in exactly the right place to support life as we know it. Are we to surmise that if the earth had “accidentally” ended up a few degrees closer or farther from our sun and tumbled about like a rock thrown into space rather than spinning nicely, that we would have evolved differently to survive here? Could be, but then why don’t we see life on other planets?
And then there are the more etherial things in existance that are harder to explain … things like thought. What is thought? What is emotion? What is “the will?” Is it all merely a chemical process? What was the first thought? What was the first being to “decide” to do something rather than just let nature take it’s course? And how did it know that it could decide something? It would have had no frame of reference.
Why don’t we see critters in mid-evolution? By that I mean, why are all plants, animals and other living things functional and sustainable as is in this environment? Why don’t we see people with tails if we evolved from the apes? It seems to me that “random” chance wouldn’t have “cleaned up after itself” when man evolved from monkeys. We should have man as we know it, monkeys as we know it, and all variations in between. If evolution is the spontaneous advancement of species, where are the in-betweens? We have “what was” (monkeys) and “what is” (man), but nothing in between? Did monkeys stop evolving? If not, there should be in-betweens, and it should be a common site, not a rareity.
The seperation between species with no functional crossovers in existance (like a cat-horse, for example) seems odd to me in a world where things have been evolving for billions of years.
I guess what I’m saying is this … given what we have today with all the working systems in place, I can see how someone who doesn’t believe in God could look at what we have and derive a theory about how it came to be, and that theory is evolution and it even makes some sense.
But starting at the beginning and imagining all the different living things with all their interdependencies and all their dependant systems (assuming the circulartory system evolved and the respiratory system evolved, which came first? The need for oxygen or the the system that would carry it once the need was there? Why don’t the planets tumble? Why are all the planets in our solar system on a plane rather than scattered variously around the sun? Why do animals require oxygen and produce CO2, and plants require CO2 and produce O2? How does science explain the concepts of thought, emotion and the will?
Somehow, there’s an order to everyting. And a balance and a completeness. And that, I think, is your sign. No, it doesn’t “prove” God. But it sure make him a heckuva lot more likely than mere “unsupported wishful thinking”.
Comment by: Mike O
8 01/4/07 7:05 PM | Comment Link |Adding to that, what about the concept of parenting? At what point did chemical reactions get to the place where they would care for their young? And back to the reproductive system (sort of), isn’t it convenient that the female verson, along with developing the ability to fulfill the role of the female, also evolved the ability to produce milk for the offspring that didn’t exist yet? Again which came first? The milk, or the offspring’s need for it? Becuase the mother certainly didn’t need it (and is, to my understanding, quite irritated by the function of lactation). And in fact, lactation doesn’t happen until the offspring (which never existed before sexual reproduction) requires it for food. Did the female lactate prior to sexual reproduction? If so, why? The product of cell division doesn’t require nourishment from it’s source, does it? I could be wrong on that point. But isn’t it curious that the food to sustain the new life is also produced by a life form that neither needs nor has use for it?
Comment by: Siamang
9 01/4/07 7:19 PM | Comment Link |Man, Mike, when you wind up you really wind up.
Why ten-thousand questions in a post. Why not a couple?
….well, I know what I’ll be writing tonight after the kid goes to bed. The entire history of life on earth…. condensed edition!
;-)
Mike… can I just have your address and send you a really nice evolution textbook?
Comment by: Siamang
10 01/4/07 7:28 PM | Comment Link |Let’s start with a simple one: sexual reproduction.
Sexual reproduction occurred very late in the history of life on earth, but before the animal/plant split. Which is why both plants and animals have sexual reproduction in common.
You asked a question about milk specifically. Now I’d like to thread that through your knowlege of the animal world and your understanding of evolution so far to see if you really already DO know the answer. I suspect you do.
Let’s try a dialogue on the question, “which came first, the milk or the offspring?”
Okay, so my first question to you on that theme would be a question about the animal kingdom: What is the name for the type of animal that gives milk?
It’s pretty simple. Most children know it. Some animals give milk, and some don’t. What’s the name for the ones that give milk?
Comment by: Mike O
11 01/4/07 8:04 PM | Comment Link |I know … these question keep spinning in my head all the time.
The reason for ten thousand questions is that it’s the compilation of all the supposedly reasonable random occurrances that, at least for me, adds up to God. One question at a time is conceivable. But all of them working at once … that’s a whole different level.
I guess my point is that maybe it’s a “can’t see the forest for the trees” type concept. I can see science explaining individual pieces of the puzzle. But all the pieces fit so neatly together … that’s where I see God in the midst of science.
Comment by: Mike O
12 01/4/07 8:07 PM | Comment Link |Uuummmmm, mammal????
BTW, I’m hitting the sack, so I’ll try to look at this in the AM.
Thanks, Siamang!
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
13 01/4/07 9:09 PM | Comment Link |To quote Siamang,
“Mike… can I just have your address and send you a really nice evolution textbook?”
I’m at the annual meeting for the society for integrative and comparative biology. should i also be looking around for a good textbook to send? Since a lot of questions mentioned here have relatively easy answers that a class or two of biology can cure.
To pick a few at random,
“Why don’t we see people with tails if we evolved from the apes?”
Which has the two-part answer:
1) people are born with tails
2) besides random cases like #1, apes don’t have tails. Gibbons and siamangs, orangutans and gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, humans and our extinct comrades; none of us have tails. It’s one of the morphological innovations that defines the clade which all apes belong to.
And in case you don’t think about clades, or morphological innovations that define clades, don’t worry: apparently no one outside of evolutionary biology (or its fan clubs) care about them. One of my labmates was presenting a poster today about his research on a group of fossil organisms that might be ancestral to carnivorans. Apparently at least two of the conference-goers asked him what a carnivoran is.
When biologists don’t know what the “technical” term for a cat* is, I realize how disconnected relatively common evolutionary terms and ideas are from other scientists, let alone normal people.
*…and to be fair Carnivora includes cats and dogs and bears and mustelids and viverrids and hyenas and pinnipeds and…yeah. saying “cat” is simpler, but in no way complete.
Comment by: MTran
14 01/4/07 10:06 PM | Comment Link |Once again, Ir(Helen) writes with a great deal of insight. Thanks for sharing those thoughts with all of us.
But back to the question about what would it take to make a “believer” of me? Well, my approach is that if the god being referred to is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, then that god knows exactly what it would take to convince me of his/her/its/their existence. Because such an entity sure knows me better than I do!
I’m hesitant to state what specific things might convince me because I’ve seen a lot of rather weird things in my life and had plenty of experiences that would likely convince quite a few people that “There’s something more than the universe” out there.
But I don’t have any belief in god(s) or the supernatural at all, despite those things. Or perhaps because of some of those things. For instance, I’ve had so many “out of body” experiences
that I should win some sort of New Age Religion quest prize. But they became so mundane and unremarkable by the time I was 15 years old that I got tired of describing them to people who wanted to dwell on them as if they were metaphysically significant. I had figured out they were my misfunctioning body’s attempt at making sense of the world. That led me to learn as much as I could about neurons, cognition, memory and lots of other cool stuff.
Comment by: Eliza
15 01/4/07 10:39 PM | Comment Link |David S wrote:
Yeah, it would have to be something pretty clearly impossible by any other means, and examinable (or at least not a one-time deal observed by only a few people).
The star-message is good.
Another one that wouldn’t involve moving heavenly bodies might be if everyone on Earth heard the same message, in their native language, at the same time, and this occurred more than once (periodically would be nice). Once in a while, if not every time, it would be helpful to have the voice add, “This is God speaking” just to make sure those last remaining skeptics got a good shake-up. ;-)
Comment by: MTran
16 01/4/07 10:49 PM | Comment Link |Some of you may be interested in reading a short story about the nature of religion when there is no factual question about the existence of God and Angels, Heaven and Hell, and religion no longer requires faith.
The title is “Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang. It won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards the year it was published.
Chiang is a remarkably lucid writer whose simple prose can obscure the tremendous imagination at work in his tales.
In this story, humans get occasional glimpses of heaven and hell, briefly seeing those who have passed into the afterlife. Angels make sudden appearances proclaiming the power of the lord, then disappear, leaving destruction and blessings in their wake. People enter into heaven based on the depth and genuiness of their love of god.
Yet not everyone cares much about loving god or getting into heaven, while others devote themselves to revival meetings.
In the end, we are left to wonder whether the afterlife treats people with more fairness than regular life. And if you had a choice, would you choose to go to heaven or would you chose to spend eternity with the one you loved in hell? And why, when faith is not an issue, do bad things still happen to good people?
I (legitimately) downloaded the story years ago but this particular title no longer seems to be available for free. It’s included in an anthology, “The Story of Your Life” along with most of Chiang’s other works.
Comment by: Siamang
17 01/4/07 11:17 PM | Comment Link |Yeah, mammal.
Now if we remember the principle of common descent, we know that mammals descended from other animals, specifically reptiles. Reptiles descended from amphibians and amphibians from tetrapod fish… and we can keep going back to one-celled organisms.
But we know fish and amphibians and reptiles and they all have babies, most of them by laying eggs.
That, I assume, answers this question:
The answer is no. By the time mammals started making milk, sexual reproduction had been around for something like a billion years. So this is like a “which came first” question, but wildly disparate in time: ‘Which came first, the pencil or the Internet?’
Absolutely not… prior to sexual reproduction there was no such thing as a female.
But beyond that, prior to sexual reproduction we were single-celled organisms.
Here I’d like you to be more specific. I don’t understand your question. You and I are the product of cell division. We require nourishment. So I don’t get your question.
Mammals evolved from reptiles. Well, what happened is that one group of very small mammal-like reptiles living in the dinosaur days later after thousands of generations tended to a unique survival trait.
We know that mammary glands are modified sweat glands. This is a matter of simple anatomical observation. I think you can picture a way that a small animal, perhaps in the desert, “nursed” its offspring by letting the pups lick the sweat off of them. Okay, so those pups survive and spread their sweat gland ways… and now put your finger on the fast-forward button and zip through thousands of generations of those glands getting better and better. What if that gland had a nipple on it, to keep from sweating out unless the baby was drinking, and kept a resevoir of that sweat handy. Fast-forward thousands of generations… and maybe that sweat starts to get richer in calories and full of calcium.
But something else is happening as well…. the babies are becoming DEPENDENT on it. Generation after generation, the babies become more and more needy of milk.
So I’d like to get away from your picturing this stuff happening instantaneously.
Slow, slow, slow, and many many steps.
I don’t understand that quote. The food to sustain the new life IS produced by a life-form that does need and has use for it. Humans need milk as babies and humans give milk as adults. Adults need to give milk because they need it as babies.
Comment by: MTran
18 01/5/07 2:20 AM | Comment Link |Mike O.,
I should leave the details of your evolutionary biology questions to siamang but I think there are a few relevant observations you may want to consider.
First, I definitely understand, and share, your enthusiastic awe in the face of some wonderful and astonishing biological details. But if you are relying on misunderstandings about biology and evolution to support your faith, I think you may end up undermining either your biology education or your beliefs, when a better understanding of evo-bio does not necessarily require a person to give up their religious beliefs.
About the lactation questions you’ve posed:
You may want to reconsider the notion that breasts, nipples, and milk just suddenly appeared out of nowhere for the serendipitous advantage of some happy babies.
There is an order of mammals called monotremes. The platypus and echidna are in this order. These creatures produce milk but their lactation occurs not through breasts but from sweat-gland like openings that exude the milk onto the skin and fur, from which the young suck and lap it up. Monotremes are sometimes referred to as “primitive” mammals. Though I don’t think that word is always helpful, it does give some idea of how early mammals may have first gone about lactating and feeding their young.
Pigeons and doves also produce a thick milk like substance in their crops, which they regurgitate to feed their young. It is very nutritious and is produced by both sexes. I believe some flamingos and penguines produce a similar bird milk. So it would appear that long before full breasted mammals were around, there were creatures that were fed a type of milk during infancy.
Between pigeon milk and monotreme lactation I think we can see that lactating breasts were not the first or only method of getting milk to babies.
I’ve got to sign off now but if I get a chance I’ll give an answer to the question: “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” If siamang doesn’t get to that first!
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
19 01/5/07 5:08 AM | Comment Link |Thanks MTran!
Comment by: NCxian
20 01/5/07 5:43 AM | Comment Link |Mike’s question included:
I think, Mike, if you’ve taken as a given that only science is acceptable as proof, then this conversation is likely to be completely hypothetical (unless God’s character changes at some point). IMO, “proof” of God is not likely to be “clear, objective, examinable, repeatable”. God is just. . . something else . . .in my experience.
Comment by: Mike O
21 01/5/07 6:36 AM | Comment Link |NCXian, I’m saying that’s what atheists will accept as proof, not myself. But under that restriction, I believe there is “evidence,” not “proof,” within the limits of science and reason.
Comment by: Mike O
22 01/5/07 7:17 AM | Comment Link |Siamang, Mtran, Cautious, Eliza, etc … It’s a little hard to explain, but where I see evolution breaking down will not be in any lack found in evolutionary textbooks or proofs using today’s situation. Where I believe things break down is that evolution can only solve the problem (how did we get from there to here, from then to now) when working the problem backwards. But going forward, without the benefit of history, evolution could never work.
Take the lactation example … while we can explain now why and how mammals lactate and how it benefits their young and propogates the species from the today’s perspective, go back a couple billion years to a time before lactation occurred. From that place in history, the development of the lactation process began. Until it was a fully functional process, it was very likely not a useful mutation or series of mutations until it was complete.
Siamang clarified that lactation is a modification of the sweating process. Let’s say that’s true (it is). Assuming at that point in history mammals did not yet exist and mother’s milk was not yet useful or necessary for the propagation of the species, the first mutation towards the development of the lactation proceess supposedly occured (a process which would not be complete for millions of years after millions of individually neutral yet cumulatively beneficial successful mutations.) And, useless as that mutation was, it stuck.
Given the probably millions of succesful mutations required to complete the process, and given that the vast majority of mutations are either lethal or useless (getting in the way of this undesigned, random development), and given that there was no “target” that these successive mutations were working towards (animals weren’t trying to figure out how to lactate), and given that this new process “just happened to be” beneficial to an organism which had never before needed it, and given that this new, mutant process did not benefit the mutant at their present time or even it’s offspring for the forseeable future, why did a process that took several million years to develop and served no purpose to the mutant and which was unimaginably improbable ever happen?
But for some reason, mammals began to sweat this presently useless (billions of years ago), but eventually beneficial (millions of years later) substance we know today as “milk” (I’m greatly oversimplifying the process, I know). And for some reason the offspring of this new creature … this mammal … “just happened to” drink it and find nourishment from it, and this process “just happens to” occur only when the offspring needs it, well, the odds against it are astronomical. And that’s only one process. There are millions of equally (or more) complex, interdependant processes like this in existance today … within a species and across species. Evolutionists might say “lucky.” Creationists say, “too lucky.” At least this one does.
Comment by: David S
23 01/5/07 8:08 AM | Comment Link |Someone needs to explain the power of selection to Mike. Evolution is not random mutations, it is the non-random selection of random mutations. It is very much NOT random. It is a process that specifically chooses over time what best works. A basic text on evolution would probably be useful here… these are the very basics of what evolution is and how it works.
Comment by: Mike O
24 01/5/07 11:07 AM | Comment Link |That could be because I have by no means studied in depth the process of evolution. That would be akin to an atheist studying in depth Christianity to see for sure whether or not it could possibly be true, when you already know there’s nothing anyone could say or argue to make you change your mind. When you’re already convinced something is not true, how much effort can one be expected to put forth, and for how long, in an effort to come to a conclusion that has already been reached? Isn’t it better, once one’s curiosity is aroused to consider the alternatives (like mine is re: evolution), to attempt to glean basic starting blocks from those much more studied, and much more in favor of the premise? There are not enough hours in the day to study things in depth which you alreay don’t believe. Better to run to the experts. Besides, given that I (we?) have already decided what we believe for now, would I, left to my own devices, really ever fairly consider evolution on my own? I doubt it.
With that said …
This concept of “non-random selection” makes it sound like there is a purpose to the mutation … like it is building towards something. That’s the part I still don’t get. Who or what selected which random mutations to propogate forward? I mean, we still have the logical problem that there was no target to select towards. Unless the completed system, be it lactation or reproduction or circulatory or whatever, was “intended” somehow. But how do you “intend” to have something you’ve never even imagined? That would be similar to man intending to become able to survive unaided in space with no known means for accomplishing it by natural mutation. Plus, we have the added advantage of being able to think of what we intend to develop, which the lower life forms did not have. They did not have the ability to “intend” or “select,” did they?
Even if evolution were true, doesn’t it require, at least at some level, a design(er)?
Comment by: Mike O
25 01/5/07 11:14 AM | Comment Link |Socrates Cafe is a group of people (non-religious I believe - I just found them and have yet to attend a meeting) that is very similar to what we have here at eBay atheist. This link has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but does give some insight into what I’m trying to accomplish here with my topics on “Christian day” - Thursdays.
In particular, look at rules 3 and 4, and to some extent 5. The goal is not to convince or be convinced, but to discuss. To participate in an intellectual exchange of ideas without the requirement of convincing the other guy. If there’s an honest “trying to understand” of what the other guy thinks, we can all grow.
Comment by: Siamang
26 01/5/07 11:36 AM | Comment Link |Let me try another stab at this one.
I’ll insert my comments within the quote.
Sorry, that’s wrong. Mammals began to sweat a USEFUL thing. Water. Very useful. Life or death useful. Babies lapped it up. Over time, slowly, it became more and more useful. Mammals started to sweat stuff that had fat, and calories in it. Calcium and other nutrients.
Here you’re building it up for dramatic effect. What’s with the scare quotes around “just happened to drink it”? How strange is it that a thirsty baby animal might lap up the water on the fur of its mother??!? Not strange at all. The odds aren’t astronomical at all. The process “just happens to” occur only when the offspring needs it?!?! What? Things dring only when they happen to need water?
It’s not a miracle. The odds aren’t astronomical. An animal sweated. The sweaty animals were better able to take care of their young than the unsweaty ones. The sweaty ones passed on their sweaty genes to their sweaty young which became sweaty adults.
And that explains why today you need underarm deodorant. ;-)
It’s not luck. It’s not remotely luck. It’s a process.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
27 01/5/07 12:56 PM | Comment Link |I don’t mind at all if Mike and Siamang and others want to discuss evolution. But how about we take that to the discussion board and go back to discussing signs from God, here?
Comment by: David S
28 01/5/07 2:36 PM | Comment Link |It’s unfortunate that you see it that way. Evolution is science taught to and used by people of all faiths all around the world. It is science based on observation and experimentation, it is not an issue of faith. There are periods in history where some religious people refuse to accept, for example, that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around… it’s unfortunate observation of our world is sometimes seen as somehow threatening to faith (for a time).
Comment by: Siamang
29 01/5/07 3:12 PM | Comment Link |Here you’re mixing terms. There are two terms, selection and mutation. These are two very different things.
Mutation is one thing. It’s not too much of a simplification to think of it as being a random thing. It’s not entirely random, but if you think of it as being random you’re not too far off.
The other thing is SELECTION. Selection is absolutely not random. Selection is this: the slowest wildebeast gets eaten by the cheetah. It’s not random.
So if a wildebeast has a mutation that makes him slightly faster, say a mutation that makes him a better sprinter… he might survive better and pass that better mutation on to his offspring. But we know that the wildebeast that has a problem with a slow metabolism or obesity will get eaten. That’s selection. It’s non-random.
So let’s go back to your first sentence:
Okay, so mutations have no purpose. But SELECTION has a function (not a purpose, as it is not conscious). The function of selection is to weed out the bad mutations and keep the good. What is the definition of Good and Bad as far as selection is concerned? Whatever helps you survive to spread your genes to the next generation.
Life itself selects it. Only creatures which survive to sire or birth offspring can be called “selected”. If you have a birth defect that kills you at age 3 months, you’ve been selected out of the gene pool.
If you are a peacock without a colorful enough tail to attract a mate, and you die without mating, you’ve been selected out of the gene pool.
On the other hand, if you are a silverback gorilla who has the smarts and the strength and the social skills to successfully keep a harem of 9 females, and you sire offspring from each of them, you hit the genepool jackpot, and you might have 40 children over your lifetime.
It’s never intended. That’s the beauty of evolution. None of it’s designed. All of it is built jerry-rigged from the bottom up.
It isn’t. That’s what you’re not getting. Nothing is intended.
That would be similar to man intending to become able to survive unaided in space with no known means for accomplishing it by natural mutation.
Well, in essence that’s exactly what happened. We ventured out of the water as fish and conquered the outer space of the land. But very, very small steps at a time.
Nope, except the seclection of living and dying. Nobody INTENDED to grow in any particular way. Except the stuff that was better at living, lived, and the stuff that died, died.
Evolution is the designer. That’s the brilliance of it. If God created evolution, He could sit back and let “endless forms most beautiful” spring into being.
I think your mental block is that we humans are builders. We build stuff, and we live in a world full of things we build. Therefore we start to look at everything with a builder’s eye. Non-built things look built. If we didn’t know better, we might ask a mother, “how did you construct your baby?” But that’s not right. Nobody constructed a baby. Babies grow. Nobody constructed life… life grew.
If you look at any life-form with a builder’s eye, yes, it looks constructed. But if you look deeper, and watch the processes unfold in a laboratory, on a computer simulation, or in the fossil record, you will see that it’s a GROWING process, not a construction process.
Comment by: MTran
30 01/5/07 6:46 PM | Comment Link |Siamang,
Hope you don’t mind me jumping in here. You said: “If you look at any life-form with a builder’s eye, yes, it looks constructed. But if you look deeper, and watch the processes unfold in a laboratory, on a computer simulation, or in the fossil record, you will see that it’s a GROWING process, not a construction process.”
I like your distinction between growth and construction but I’ve got a completely different perspective on this point.
Whenever I hear people say that living forms look to be “designed” I do a double take. Because, except for a few notable exceptions, living things don’t look designed at all unless the “designed” look is redefined to cover any possible visually perceived thing.
Let’s take the classic example: We find a pocket watch on a stony beach. Even if it’s similar in color, shape and size to the water worn stones nearby, it is immediately recognizable as something that has been “designed” or “crafted.”
But why is the pocket-watch so easily recognized as a crafted or designed thing? First of all, we have a lifetime of experience with crafted & designed items. So we know it when we see it. But secondly, and more substantively: the pocket watch doesn’t look “natural”; it does not appear to be a part of the natural world.
So if we recognize design in the pocket-watch by its obvious difference from similarly sized, shaped, and colored things in the natural world then how the heck is it that the “natural” world gives rise to an appearance of “design?” I really can’t see it, myself.
To me, the contrast between designed things and naturally occurring ones strongly counters any “design inference” in the natural world.
Aside to Helen: Should this side-line conversation be rerouted to another page?
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
31 01/5/07 7:28 PM | Comment Link |MTran, yes - I would like it to be. Thanks. If someone would start a topic for it on the discussion board then post the link to that topic here that would be great.
Comment by: Eliza
32 01/6/07 12:06 AM | Comment Link |Sorry to keep harping on evolution, but Siamang’s comment about computer simulation in #29 suggests this mention of a computer game simulating evolution which is coming out later this year. The player(s?) get to decide what mutations to create; the “environment” of the game exerts natural selection, and the species evolve over time under your very eyes.
Comment by: Siamang
33 01/6/07 12:48 AM | Comment Link |A simpler one that runs on a pc or a mac is called Breve creatures.
http://www.spiderland.org/
It simulates little creatures with limbs that flail about, and “selects” the ones which move the farthest from their starting point. It then interbreeds the best crawlers and in a certain number of generations of a genetic algorythim, running creatures, walking creatures, wiggling and squirming creatures evolve.
It’s pretty cool. And it shows how specific complex things can evolve from simple rules, random chance and nonrandom selection.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
34 01/6/07 4:41 AM | Comment Link |How about this? If you all want to continue the evolution conversation here, go ahead. Mike, if you want more discussion about ‘what would convince you of God?’ go ahead and post a new blog entry about it.
In general let’s do our best to keep the original topic in mind as we interact in the comments sections. I think it makes the blog more accessible to visitors if the latest comments are somewhat related to the original blog entry topic. If they aren’t then it’s somewhat of a bait-and-switch to imply “Join in our discussion about this” and yet the latest comments are about something else entirely.
Maybe it doesn’t matter so much with this blog entry since Mike is here participating and interested in discussing evolution.
But it will matter next week, say, when I post something sent to me by a visitor. I don’t want her to come by and find that we’re discussing something other than her topic.
Comment by: MTran
35 01/6/07 8:46 PM | Comment Link |Mike O.,
Are any parts of these discussions answering your initial question, i.e., “What would it take to believe in god?”
Or your questions about evolution… Are they being addressed in ways that you find helpful?
I’m a person who was raised in main-line protestant faiths that did not rely on a literal reading of the Bible. So I don’t know if the way people are responding actually gets to the core of your concerns or just creates more difficulties.
Comment by: Mike O
36 01/8/07 3:52 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for that question, MTran. Actually what it shows is how we all look at the same information and see something completely different.
In 28, David S said
It doesn’t threaten my faith at all. In fact, I would say the same thing to evolutionists that by looking only at science and leaving all the other indications (emotion, thought, will, parenting, even life itself) looks to me as if they are a threat to your non-faith. But of course that’s only my perspective. But do you see how likewise, science is not a threat to mine?
One important thing to realize, I think, is that Christians (at lease me!) aren’t ignoring science in an effort to cling to our faith, rather we see things additional to science in an effort to explain the things we see that are just not covered by science. Things like choices, morals, and our will. Nothing I believe contradicts science, it just explains things outside the realm of chemistry and biology.
In 29, Siamang said,
My immediate response was, Yes, and if we look at things with a non-builder’s eye, built things look non-built. We all see things happening the way we think they did. In fact, the fact that we are builders, and from the Christian perspectivie we were created in the image of God, is in itself an indication, a sign if you will, that we were created … “built” by Him.
In 30, MTran gives the analagy of finding a pocket watch on the beach. I don’t know how to explain my perspective except to say that I see pocketwatches everywhere, and you see stones. Perhaps this goes back to Siamang’s “seeing through the eyes of a builder” comment, but that’s what I see.
There was a thread a few weeks ago, maybe it was on Hement’s blog, that made the comment that Lee Strobel stops short in his explanations of creation. That he should have asked more questions … better questions. That’s how I see this going. Each answer seems to be regarded as conclusive in your eyes, but to me they bring up a myriad of additional questions. I would take the questions a lot further, but it’s probably time to let it rest.
I see signs of a creator everywhere. Almost like that scene in “The Sixth Sense,” “I see signs. They’re everywhere and they look like regular science, only people don’t know they’re signs.” I know that’s a bad rendition of the quote
but that’s kind of where I’m at right now … it’s like I can see things that are so clear to me, but nobody else sees it. I don’t mean that to imply that it should be different, only that that’s what it feels like.
Comment by: cautiousmaniac
37 01/8/07 3:59 PM | Comment Link |I think there is a difference between ignoring science and being ignorant about science. Being ignorant about a subject matter is not necessarily a bad thing because it can be very easily countered by education, as you’ve been doing, Mike O.
Choosing to be ignorant is the bad thing, and I think that the number of theists who choose to be ignorant of whatever scientific theories and facts challenge their beliefs is colossal compared to the number of non-theists who ignore possibilities that challenge their lack of beliefs.
For example I think there are vastly more Christians who choose to ignore the old age of this planet and of life on it than there are atheists who, when shown a bacteria’s flagellum, go into convulsions.
And I don’t think that’s because of absolute numbers of both these categories of people. Faith (IMHO!) requires turning off parts of your brain in order to turn on that “God center” that we all hear about.
(that IMHO! thrown in there to make sure that I was not saying, definitively, that I know a darn thing about human brains)
Comment by: MTran
38 01/9/07 8:37 PM | Comment Link |I may not know exactly how you feel, but I’ve found myself expressing similar sentiments about things that affect me deeply. Perhaps we have more thought processes in common than some might think, if they look only at our ultimate conclusions, instead of our thoughts along the way.