Victim of the Wedge?

This whole "debate" is unfounded because the two sides would have to be using the word "random" in different senses. We would have the men of the cloth using it in the colloquial sense of "non-deterministic" and the biologists using it in the technical mathematical sense, as in :
A random variable in maths is "a variable whose value is determined by a process that we cannot predict." (http://thesaurus.maths.org/mmkb/entry.html?action=entryById&id=2256) This allows maths to deal with processes such as dice throwing, games of roulette, without making statements about whether the underlying processes are deterministic or not.

The clerics are talking about determinism not mathematical randomness. When this is understood, we save ourselves the excretion of a lot of hot air .

The clerics (and followers) aren't intelligent or well-educated enough (on the whole) to understand this though. If they weren't so damned by their deity to remain ignorant (and be proud of it), there wouldn't have been so many of these problems historically either. When they turn to other religiously retarded people for advice, instead of to intelligent and well-educated ones, they just compound the problem.

I propose a new system of deology in which deities are classified into kinds by whether or not they genuinely survived various historical events and scientific discoveries. I'm sure a reasonable evolutionary lineage could be built up - with quite a few effective extinctions (despite possibly retaining followers).

With the "Catholic Church" as with other "religious" sects it is always about power, control, authority, and/or money as crass as that may seem to anyone. As the fundies grow in power so too must the CC respond in the currency (?) that seems to be working, i.e. appeals to fear, ignorance, and/or superstition. How terribly, terribly sad! It is a continuing attack on the Enlightenment that offered a threat to the Church's power, control, etc. Just can't have people thinking for themselves, can we?

Dr. Krauss didn't say anything about selection being unguided or unplanned and doesn't use the term "Darwinism" at all. It seems to me that Cardinal Schönborn is responding to a straw-man of Dr. Krauss's statements, perhaps having been influenced by the Discovery Institute's spin machine, i.e. biology = "Darwinism" = Atheism.

— Reed A. Cartrwright

This whole "debate" is unfounded because the two sides would have to be using the word "random" in different senses.

— PaulP

Expect matters to get worse. The young clerics coming out of Catholic seminaries theses days are hardcore ultramontanists. In Pope Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) they have a leader ready to take them back to the good old days of rigid hierarchical control. Ratzinger himself is the ideal pope in the minds of Catholicism's most vigorous activists, such as the folks at EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), Ave Maria University (in Naples, Florida, where a pro-life scholarship has just been established in memory of Terry Schiavo), and Catholic Radio (where "liberal" is a dirty word). Catholic Radio carries programs like their Open Line call-in show where creationism is routinely espoused and evolution is "only a theory", despite the teaching promulgated by John Paul II that evolution is a viable scientific theory.

And despite what SEF said above, many of these Catholic clerics and religious activists are very intelligent and educated people who use their skills in advancement of their religiosity. We may marvel that smart people can believe superstitious nonsense, but they can. To think otherwise is to underestimate the opposition and delude ourselves into thinking we're just smarter than them. We may be less enthralled by magical thinking than they are, but there are smart people working hard to turn the Roman Catholic Church into a bastion of creationism and antimodernism.

We may marvel that smart people can believe superstitious nonsense, but they can.

— TonyB

I didn't think, brainless me, to go back and check Krauss's piece myself - thank you for digging it up! It's very interesting - Krauss's comments are neutral and completely unobjectionable towards the Church . . . but they do oppose, very politely, the inclusion of intelligent design.

Does anybody know anything about all those " writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process" that Cardinal Schonborn is so angry about? I've never seen one, and certainly never dreamed that the Church might be endorsing anything beyond a throughly theistic evolutionary process.

If I was a Catholic, I imagine I would be somewhat embarrassed at this . . . it sounds like the Church is getting played . . .

Like a banjo.

The NYT confirms that the Op-Ed we linked to yesterday attacking science and reason was no fluke or misunderstanding: the cardinal who penned it spoke to Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and got the go-ahead to "correct" the decades-long stance of the Church which was to stay out of science since it had made a fool of itself in that area for so long that it undercut the Church's authority on moral issues. link

The NYT confirms that the Op-Ed we linked to yesterday attacking science and reason was no fluke or misunderstanding: the cardinal who penned it spoke to Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) and got the go-ahead to "correct" the decades-long stance of the Church which was to stay out of science since it had made a fool of itself in that area for so long that it undercut the Church's authority on moral issues. link

MisterOpus:

The Catholic Church does not disseminate official doctrine via Times editorials. What we're whitnessing here is an internal debate among the Curia, which has been taken to public media, as often happens. As I posted elsewhere, the Vatican does not have an office of public communications to make sure all Cardinals stay on message. They will often go out and publicly advocate views that do not necessarily agree with the Pope. This is especially true for things about which the Pope and Curia have not made up their minds.

Apparently, several important curial cardinals have fallen for Discovery Institute claptrap. They want to influence the pope and their colleagues. One way to do it is to write an Op-ed piece in a major paper. That makes their view more widespread, puts the arguments for it into the public domain, and makes it more likely to be seen as "mainstream." That, in turn, may make it more likely for other Curial members sitting on the fence to adopt it.

Seeing as how confused the Vienna Cardinal's piece was, and the ignorance of science that it revealed, I doubt it will have much impact, though. In fact, I predict it will backfire. At least that is what I hope.

--Adam

Edit: I apologize if I could not directly link this story.

— MisterOpus1

Paul wrote:

"This whole "debate" is unfounded because the two sides would have to be using the word "random" in different senses. We would have the men of the cloth using it in the colloquial sense of "non-deterministic" and the biologists using it in the technical mathematical sense"

Absolutely right! I agree 100%.

I've formulated it slighly differently. Let me know what you think. When statisticians say an even is random, they mean human beings can't predict it with certainty given all information available before it occurs. God however, can predict it, because he sits outside time and knows all things. Thus what is random for man is not random for God.

Hey, cool tool Dr. Elsberry, thanx! Unfortunately it appears that in order to edit my comment I need a password - which I don't recall ever giving here to post (but I could be wrong - I rarely post in the first place). So here's the direct link that the Tiny URL site gave:

http://tinyurl.com/ce6ln

Adam,

Understood, and I agree with you. Indeed, there is a likely clash going on in the Catholic church, and I'm fully aware that the gullible press are but useful tools to IDers and their ilk. However, what is a bit disturbing to me is the source from Americablog stating that a go-ahead to "correct" the Catholic stance came directly from Ratzinger himself. If this is true, I think we should simply cannot dismiss this as a mere tiff within the Church itself. At the very least, we should keep a close eye on the Church and the Pope itself for future hints and outright statements.

In the article, Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein write: "Many Catholic schools teach Darwinian evolution, in which accidental mutation and natural selection of the fittest organisms drive the history of life, as part of their science curriculum."

I don't think they should have used the phrase "Darwinian evolution" that way. It leaves out two kinds of events that have played huge roles in causing organisms to exist and be the way they are, namely genetic recombination and sexual reproduction. "Genetic recombination" is the phrase scientists often use to refer to the series of events that results in the existence of sex cells. In humans, it results in sex cells (gametes) that have 23 chromosomes in them rather than the 46 chromosomes that are in most human cells. Also, the nucleotides that make up the chromosomes of sex cells (gametes) are in significantly different orders than they are in regular cells.

After a sex cell exists, it may fertilize the sex cell of the other parent. This puts the two groups of chromosomes next to each other. None of the chromosomes supplied by the sex cells ever comes into contact with any of the others. They all are they own separate universes. Sexual reproduction results in significant differences from one organism to the next. For instance, I'm quite different than my parents. Had my mother chosen to reproduce with someone other than my father, their offspring would be significantly different than I. Vast numbers of reproductive events have resulted in the existence of organisms that are very significantly different that their descendents, for instance, Chihuahuas and Saint Bernards. Vast number of organisms sexually reproducing is the main cause -- or one of the main causes -- of humans being as different from gorillas as we are. There is a huge correlation between sexual reproduction existing on earth and differences among organisms. Sexual reproduction first evolved on earth maybe 650 million years ago. Organisms have, in general, been producing many offspring through sexual reproduction ever since. Finally, all sexually reproducing organisms share common ancestors. For instance, we are descendents of sponges.

Here is what Ernst May wrote about genetic recombination and sexual reproduction:

"It took more than 100 years of study to achieve a full understanding of the meaning and process of sexual reproduction. Darwin searched unsuccessfully all his life for the source of genetic variation. It required knowledge of the process of gamete formation and the difference between genotype and phenotype and their roles in natural selection, as well as an understanding of population variation.

"August Weismann and a group of cytologists found the answer. They showed that in sexual reproduction, gamete formation is preceded by two special cell divisions. During the first division, homologous maternal and paternal chromosomes attach themselves tightly to each other and then may break at one or several places. The broken chromosomes exchange parts with each other so that they now consist of a mixture of paternal and maternal chromosome pieces. This process is called crossing over. Each new chromosome is an entirely new combination of maternal and paternal genes. In the second cell division preceding the formation of the gametes, the chromosomes do not divide, but one of each pair of homologous chromosomes goes randomly to one daughter cell and the other chromosome to the other daughter cell. As a result of this 'reduction division' the 'haploid' number of chromosomes in each gamete is half that of the 'diploid' chromosome number of the zygote produced by the fertilized egg. This sequence of two cell divisions preceding gamete formation is called meiosis.

"Two processes during meiosis achieve a drastic recombination of the parental geotypes: (1) crossing-over during the first division and (2) the random movement of homologous chromosomes to different daughter cells (gametes) during the reduction division. The result is the production of completely new combinations of the parental genes, all of them uniquely different genotypes. These, in turn, produce unique phenotypes, providing unlimited new material for the process of natural selection" (What Evolution Is, p. 103-4).

many of these Catholic clerics and religious activists are very intelligent and educated people

— TonyB

The cardinal, Christoph Schoenborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not." He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process. [emphasis mine]

Dr. Francis Collins, who headed the official American effort to decipher the human genome, and who describes himself as a Christian, though not a Catholic, said Cardinal Schönborn's essay looked like "a step in the wrong direction" and said he feared that it "may represent some backpedaling from what scientifically is a very compelling conclusion, especially now that we have the ability to study DNA." "There is a deep and growing chasm between the scientific and the spiritual world views," he went on. "To the extent that the cardinal's essay makes believing scientists less and less comfortable inhabiting the middle ground, it is unfortunate. It makes me uneasy." "Unguided," "unplanned," "random" and "natural" are all adjectives that biologists might apply to the process of evolution, said Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown and a Catholic. But even so, he said, evolution "can fall within God's providential plan." He added: "Science cannot rule it out. Science cannot speak on this."

Evolutionary Creationism (EC). Despite its name, evolutionary creationism is actually a type of evolution. Here, God the Creator uses evolution to bring about the universe according to his plan. From a scientific point of view, evolutionary creationism is hardly distinguishable from Theistic evolution, which follows it on the continuum. The differences between EC and Theistic evolution lie not in science, but in theology, with EC being held by more conservative (evangelical) Christians (D. Lamoreaux, p.c). I will therefore move on to theistic evolution. Theistic Evolution (TE). Theistic Evolution is a theological view in which God creates through the laws of nature. Not just the physical laws, either: it is acceptable to TEs that one species can give rise to another; they accept descent with modification. TEs vary in whether and how much God is allowed to intervene -- some slide pretty close to Deists. Other TEs see God as intervening at critical intervals during the history of life (especially in the origin of humans), and they in turn slide closer to PCs. In one form or another, TE is the view of creation taught at the majority of mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the official position of the Catholic church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic TE position, in which God created, evolution happened, humans may indeed be descended from more primitive forms, but the Hand of God was required for the production of the human soul. (John Paul II, 1996).

The Times (July 9, 2005) has an article following an Op Ed last week by Cardinal Schonborn on the issue of Intelligent Design. The article starts:
>>An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.<<

One is tempted to think, "What took you so long?" Not scientific caution or concern over truth, it would seem. Clearly the previous position cited from Pope Paul was defensive public relations. Challenging Darwin in public is dangerous for public orgs in their PR mode, and the Dalai Lama and even most New Age gurus (with important exceptiosn) wouldn't dare mention the issue, lest their market share plummet. Maybe now public opinion has been sufficiently reworked from something a bit bolder, some old scams on the design front rehashed.
Now that the ID movement has tested the waters and taken the flak, the Catholic Church may be getting up the nerve to cash in on the public muddle created by the Darwin debate on both sides. The argument by design used to be Catholic dogma, perhaps they can get their old authority back, this time dressed up in the ID proponent William Dembski's statistical sophistries. So which is it? Statistics, or papal authority, and the 'plausibility' created by prior faith? At least Behe, Dembski and the Discovery institute indulged in the pretense of arguing the case. This situation can be dangerous, because the propaganda machine run by the Catholic Church is capable of immense harm in the influence it wields on innocent believers, and its ability to declare by fiat and the subtle intimidation of hierarchical authority.
In fact, the danger here is also the complete stupidity of Darwinists defending their own 'faith'. They will continue pronouncing the same Darwin dogmas to have scientifically resolved this issue once and for all as these reactionaries, unable to believe their good fortune, are handed a trump card they have no business playing. It is almost pitiful. Darwinists have set the secular public up for a fall, and have actually allowed religionists to upstage them with the criticisms of evolutionary theory.
What is needed is an intelligent secular Postdarwinism that can deal properly with the shibboleths of purpose that religionists are all to eager to claim from an age of Big Science frozen in positivistic methodology. In that context questions of faith must be shown up as the problematical legacies they are. Darwin's theory may be flawed, and questions of purpose my be relevant, but if this true we must not be too timid as to exempt Christian theology from a thorough critique, and a warning that authoritarian means of deciding these issues can wreak havoc on a public still lamentably in thrall to exploiting priesthoods.

Time to consider these issues in light of the eonic effect (http://eonix.8m.com), the evidence of non-random 'evolution' visible in history, evidence that comprehensively throws light on the place of religion, especially monotheism, in world history. Time to consider the facts of evolution here, what that means. One can only recommend the methodology of the eonic history/evolution discourse, in which the question of 'evolution' in its proper meaning overlaps with the historical enquiry into the emergence of civilization. There the great religions show their signature as evolutionary, not revelatory, constructs, and their remnants must confront the exploitation of Axial Age myths in their metaphysical presumptions. The issues of 'providence', and 'purpose' can be wrested from both the fallacies of reductionism, and the ideological propaganda the Christian churches wish to make of them. This creates a level playing field. If you wish to talk 'evolution', then the status of the Old Testament gets tabled immediately. The secular interpretation may be as wrong as the religious. So what is the meaning of the Axial Age in light of evolution, taken historically?
Thus, the Christian churches are certainly welcome to enter the fray, but can have no real place in the Darwin debate unless they can accept the findings of Biblical Criticism in the same way that they examine the flaws of Darwinism. And the ascription of purpose to the universe must allow challenge to the false teleologies built into Christian theology. This just for starters. In general, the risk here is that the Catholic Church will do what can to destroy real debate, if it can win back sufficient gullible assent to exert its authority over the issue.
One is suspicious that this kind of outcome was precisely what the Intelligent Design movement leaders wished for all along, in some form or another. Control by fiat, and the indoctrination by religious means of resurgent 'postmodern' anti-secularism. Their critiques of Darwinism ring a bit hollow, having been soaked up from dissenting scientists who did not think their critiques for rehashing the argument by design, or theistic metaphysical exploitations. It is the power to control gullible minds that is up for grabs.

Let us be clear what 'purpose' amounts to in these demented ideologies. Mad eschatologists wish to seize control of the future, by appeals to faith, otherwise by terrorist acts of---yes it all sounds familiar.

Challenging Darwin in public is dangerous for public orgs in their PR mode, and the Dalai Lama and even most New Age gurus (with important exceptiosn) wouldn't dare mention the issue, lest their market share plummet.

— John Landon

Longhorn -

Good point about the importance of recombination in sexual reproducers. In diploid or polyploid, sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms, this is a critical source of phentoypic variability between parents and offspring. But don't forget, most of the earth's biomass consists of unicellular, haploid life that reproduces asexually by necessity (albeit with exchange of genetic material between individuals, by a wide variety of mechanisms). Wherever there is biological reproduction there is evolution, with or without sex.

Everyone -

The cardinal's action smells, to my cynical nose, strongly of politics.

Logically, there is no serious connection between the theory of evolution and politics. Science cannot answer questions about how we "should" live. Some branches of science can make predictions about what will happen if we behave in certain ways, but that is not at all the same thing as telling us what we "should" do.

In practice, "opponents of evolution" have made this into a political battle. What follows may sound critical to some. I emphasize that I am NOT endorsing or condemning any US political party. My only political stance on this board is that I oppose any politician, of any party, who weakens US science education and research, at any level. I am simply explaining the motive behind the current pope's action (disguised behind the name of an underling and unclear language).

One major US political party has been courting religious support for years. This is likely related to the fact that during the Civil Rights Era in the US, opponents of segregation were able to point out (entirely correctly) that segregation, or indeed racism in general, is strongly at odds with the teachings of Jesus. Since then, the party that found itself on what was widely perceived as the "wrong" moral side of that issue has been trumpeting sexual issues in an effort to promote itself as "moral". This strategy also serves as a defense against those who argue, with considerable justification, that Jesus would want us to have great concern for the poor, refrain from violence, executions and torture, and so on.

Creationists, including ID creationists, have adopted the role of supporting the US political party I describe above, and this support has been reciprocated. Virtually all politicians, at every level from US senator to county school board member, who promote "anti-evolution" policies, belong to one particular party. This is true in New York, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, Utah, Tulsa, and anywhere else you look. The existence of one eccentric in Toronto, Denyse O'Leary, whose politics are unclear, hardly changes this fact. One need not be the "Isaac Newton of information theory" to see that this is vanishingly unlikely to be a coincidence. Does anyone seriously believe that the OTHER political party is popular around the offices of the DI, let alone AIG, or even that someone who supported the wrong party would be tolerated there for long?

My perception is that support for economic and social policies comes first, and adoption of a justifying "religious" stance comes second, and in evidence, I offer the bad behavior of "religious" politicians and their creationist cheerleaders, even by the sex-only religious standards they often claim to observe. Others argue that religious faith, misguided and authoritarian but sincere, drives them into politics. It doesn't really matter. They are there now, for whatever reason.

The current pope, who was active before the physical death of John Paul II, has made his stance blatantly clear. He overwhelmingly favors one US political party, to the extent that he deliberately downplays John Paul II's very clear teachings on war, execution, the poor, and so on, when they prove inconvenient to that party, and even endorsed the denial of communion to the Catholic candidate for the other party. Whether the pope is motivated by a sincere horror of stem cell research, early term abortions, and homosexual monogomy, to the extent that he believes in compromise on everything else, or whether he merely likes the style of one party better and says whatever he thinks will help them, is hard to say.

In recent months, the DI has been in trouble. Their Byzantine logical stance has frustrated their Protestant would-be supporters in Pennsylvania and Utah. "Sometimes it's God, but sometimes we can't admit it's God, we just have to wink and snicker" has proved a tricky tight rope, and strain is showing.

So here comes Pope Ratzinger, to the attempted rescue of his political bedfellows. The results will be mixed. By claiming that ID is Catholic dogma, the pope may have hurt it in court, in the short term. The more important goal - intimidating Catholics into supporting one particular political party, even if they don't like many of its policies - is likely to be well-served.

There are many, many, many Republicans and Catholics who advocate strong science education and research in the US. If you are among these, I would recommend that you strive to get your party, and your church, out of the fraudulent creationism business.

I like to quote St. Augustine, because he was an unltra-conservative saint who understood the dangers of the waters into which the Church is headed. St Augustine wrote: "If it happens that the authority of Sacred Scripture is set in opposition to clear and certain reasoning, this must mean that the person who interprets Scripture does not understand it correctly. It is not the meaning of Scripture which is opposed to the truth but the meaning which he has wanted to give to it. That which is opposed to Scripture is not what is in Scripture but what he has placed there himself, believing that this is what Scripture meant".
For what it's worth, I think the Times article was a PR move to run the idea up the flag pole and see who salutes. The Church has been wrong so many times about the real world, you might think they would tire of getting their fingers burned.

I included the description of evolutionary creationism (my position) because I find that the description was a fair description of what I believe.

— Rich

Harold worte:

"Since then, the party that found itself on what was widely perceived as the 'wrong' moral side of that issue has been trumpeting sexual issues in an effort to promote itself as 'moral'."

What load of crap! And you claim yourself to be non-partisan?

The first civil rights law of the 20th century was signed by a Republican president (Eisenhower, the 1957 voting rights acts). A larger majority of Republicans than Democrats in the Congress voted for the ground-breaking civil rights act of 1964. The only significnat oppostition came not from Republicans, but Southern Democrats.

The civil rights movement was a bi-partisan coalition of Republicans and northern Democrats.

Of course, there were notable exceptions. Lyndon Johnson, the man who signed the 1964 act into law, was a Southern Democrat. And yes, Republican Barry Goldwater opposed the 1964 act, but he was in the minority among his party.

But even Goldwater was a supporter of Civil Rights by other means. He helped found the Arizona NAACP and instigated the campaign to desegregate the Arizona National Guard, for instance. The only reason he opposed the 1964 Act was beacuse he did not believe the Constituion gave Congress the authority to tell employers whom they could and could not hire.

I'm sick am tired of this bullshit the the Republican party was somehow against civil rights.

MisterOpus:

I looked at the blog, and from what I could gleen, it seems that all the Holy Father did was give the Cardinal the go-ahead to write an article seeking to "clarify" the Catholic position. I seriously doubt the Holy Father anything more than a vague idea of what the Cardinal was going to write. Nor do I think the Holy Father is certain himself on how the Church's position on evolution is to be clarified. If he did have an idea on how it should be done, and he thought the Cardinal's approach was right, he would have commissioned him to write an encyclical. That he merely encouraged the Cardinal to write an editoral in an unofficial capacity, I think proves that at the very most, the Holy Father is sympatheic to but unconvinced of the Cardinal's opinion.

You can sure the Holy Father is carefully watching to see how the editorial is received. In fact, that is probably one reason he was interested in seeing the Cardinal publish it in a secular outlet. The worse reception it gets, and the more holes get punched in it by faithful Catholic scientists, the more likely it is to get dismissed.

I am very glad to see that people like Ken Miller are coming out against it early and forefully. They will have an effect.

Oh, and Harold:

I've got one thing to say to you. In the US Congress today, there is one (and only one) man who was once a member of the Klu Klux Klan. Do you happen to know what party he belongs to?

Adam -

It's true, I said that perhaps (a key word being "perhaps", since this is my reasoned but subjective opinion) the Republican party's embrace of supposedly "Christian" issues was defensive and hypocritical. Nothing you have said has changed my mind in the slightest (perhaps more the opposite), nor have you convinced me that the Republican party has been more whole-hearted in support of civil rights than the Democrat party.

I certainly did not say I was "non-partisan". But what I did say, in the clearest possible language, was that the only political position I hold with respect to this site is my opposition to ANY politician who attempts to weaken or distort the teaching of science in public institutions in the United States, at any level. If you want to discuss other issues, I'm not really interested, but you can feel free to suggest another venue.

As a Republican and a reader of Panda's Thumb, how do you feel about the relevant issue? Do you believe the public schools should eliminate the teaching of evolution, or teach "intelligent design"? How do you explain the partisan nature of support for "intelligent design", if it is a legitimate philosophical or scientific stance? Do you think that the Republican party should adopt promotion of "intelligent design" as a policy? If not, do you think that they should overtly distance themselves from it, given that there is already a strong association?

Using profanity and rudeness probably won't help you to make your points, and would violate many peoples' interpretation of Christian morality (including mine).

My cynical expectation is that you will respond with either a lot of irrelevant attacks on Democrat politicians, a lot of profanity and clumsy sarcasm, and a lot of irrational personal attacks, or that your response will consist of . However, you can certainly make me eat these cynical predictions with a well-reasoned and articulate response.

Adam is right. The republican party historically was on the "right" side of civil rights. After all, it is the party that first reached the presidency under Abraham Lincoln. And for more than a century the most virulent white racists in the country were to be found among folks describing themselves as southern democrats.

That was then. Where do you suppose all those southern democrats are now? [Hint: think Strom Thurmond].

Here's an interesting little statistical exercise: Go back to the comment by Harold, and the comment in which Adam takes exception to it. Tally the ratio of present-tense/past-tense verbs in each. What do you suppose is the significance of that?

Is the Holy Father the same thing as the Pope? As a non-Catholic, I find this confusing. I thought everyone in the Church down to the level of priest was a "father", and of course every last one of them is holy. Are some of them more fatherly, or holier, or both, than others?

I read harold saying that the Democrats have been depicted as being sexually amoral, which is something quite distinct from promoting equal rights. But I can see that when we're dealing with issues like abortion and gay marriage, the Republicans tend far more to position these as issues of absolute morality, and the Democrats as issues of equal rights for all citizens.

What's a "load of crap" here is to be explicitly told we're talking about SEXUAL ISSUES in so many words, and to completely ignore the words in order to rant about segregated schools, access to the voting booth, etc. Also a "load of crap" is to cherry-pick individuals from the last 50 years who stand out by virtue of being counterexamples of the general trend, and trying to pretend these exceptions reflect the pattern. There is no shortage of polls showing that those identifying themselves as Republicans tend FAR more than those identifying themselves as Democrats to oppose affirmative action programs, transfer payment programs to the poor, gay marriage, abortion, blue laws, laws against a multitude of sexual practices, and the like. Even though it is always possible to find a single Republican or Democrat who crosses these general lines on one issue or another.

I do agree (unsurprisingly) with all of the posters here who have inadvertently seconded my speculation that this editorial was written at least partially to see which way the wind is blowing, and was written in a muddy and ambiguous way so that once the wind direction stabilizes, it can be "clarified" in whatever direction is expedient.

There are two types of evolution theologists. In the first type, which might be the position of the Catholic Church, evolution happens but it is guided along the way by Big Daddy. This would seem to be the view of most IDers as well. In the second type, exemplified by Ken Miller and Howard Van Till, Big Daddy lets chance play the role suggested by Darwinism.

What is interesting about the latter position is that they are willing to accept that humanity is an accident. Big Daddy set up the whole thing, but allowed for many pathways to achieve his goals.

Harold,

Your hypothesis was that Republicans courted religious votes out of guilt for being on the "wrong" side of civil rights. It is quite obvious that Republicans were very much on the "right" side of the issue, which invalidates your hypothesis. I never said Republicans were more "whole-hearted" in their support of civil rights. My point was that the civil rights movement of the 60's was bipartisan. Both Northen Democrats and Republicans were instrumental in it. I don't think it's fair to give either group greater credit.

You might still think GOP support for religious conservatives is hypocritical, and I think you are right to a degree, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the civil rights movement.

I apologize for the profanity. Hearing this often-repeated lie about my party being "wrong" on civil rights makes me very upset. That's no excuse, however, and I'm sorry.

I agree that on Panda's thumb, we should be talking about science. However, I did not bring up the issue of civil rights. You brought it up.

As to issues relevant to Panda's thumb, I agree that evolution should be taught as both a fact and the only well-supported scientific theory explaining the fact is Darwinism. There is no controversy among scientists, so I fervently oppose all efforts to "teach the controversy" or to introduce pseudo-science like intelligent design.

I absolutely think the GOP needs to do everything possible to distance iteslf from ID and creationism. In the long run being identified with the two movements can only hurt us. I spend a good deal of time arguing with other conservatives about this on conservative forums like Free Republic. I am on the pro-evolution list and a frequent contributor to evolution threads.

Why do I think support for anti-evolution pseudo-science comes only from one party? Well, first of all, by no means do all or even a majority of Republicans support this stuff. But yeah, most of the voices for it are Republican. Obviously it is because conservative Christians make up a large chunk of the GOP's base, and American conservative Christians think (wrongly, I believe) that evolution and Christianity are incompatible.

Why do conservative Christians tend to support the GOP? Well, largely because the Democratic party moved radically to the left on issues of personal morality and became soft on Communism after the Vietnam war while the Republican party did not. Before the late 1960's, abortion was illegal in all 50 states and no mainstream poitican of either party questioned this. No mainstream politician opposed marginalizing homosexuals. Both parties were solidly anticommunist. To be sure, radical activists were questioning these things, but they were decidedly outside of the mainstream. The failure of the Johnson administration in Vietnam caused a major shakeup in the Democratic party and opened the door for radicals to gain influence. Their influence steadily grew, pushing the Democrats to the Left. Seeing this shift, the GOP moved right on moral issues and became more hawkish to capture those conservative Christian voters alienated by the Dems march to the left.

Some Republicans did it cynically, others did it genuinely. For most, it was probably a little of both.

I realize I should clarify something. I tried to make it clear before, but it bears even further clarification.

Strong science education in public schools should NOT be a "liberal", "conservative", "Democrat", or "Republican" issue, and the last thing I want to do is to make it one.

In fact, for many years, the attacks on science that irritated me came mainly from the "left" (with the caveat that the term "left" is virtually meaningless).

For example, I am an advocate of humane, responsible use of animals in research, and I don't agree with extreme positions against this, neither that it is inherently immoral, nor that it is scientifically useless or misleading. At the same time, I am very much an "animal lover" and a proponent of very strong laws against deliberate cruelty to animals, even including ostensible research or product testing in extreme cases. This is a complex subject in itself (neither I nor anyone else proposes treating cockroaches and dogs the same way, even though both are equally animals). I mention it here NOT to initiate discussion on this issue but ONLY to emphasize that I support science no matter which direction the attack comes from, or whether or not the attacker and I agree on other issues, and to emphasize that science is not inherently "liberal" or "conservative". (Actually, it's sometimes described as methodologically conservative, but that doesn't imply anything political.)

I have noted with dismay for some time that the creationist movement is becoming associated with the Republican party, or at the least, making a serious attempt to become so. This is a serious problem for all science supporters, more so for those who self-identify as Republicans, in fact.

The fact that a pope who has blatantly signalled support for the Republican party has come out in support of ID, with most suspicious timing, provoked me to comment on this dangerous development. It is potentially disastrous if EITHER major US political party feels obliged to hand out political plums to anti-science frauds and crackpots, either by attempting to sabotage science education, OR simply by attacking research. By the way, everyone understands, I assume, that trying to claim that some Democrat or other has some anti-science or pseudo-sciene agenda, which may well be true, is not relevant. Two problems don't make a solution.

I included my own conjecture as to why the Republican party might be susceptible to this kind of influence. I stand by that, but you can certainly disagree with my conjecture as to motives, without disagreeing with my rather obvious point that this is happening.

I invite any pro-science reader who self-identifies as a Republican or conservative to comment on these developments. Adam - please don't let this post distract you from answering the questions above.

Adam -

Thanks for the response, which did, in fact, disprove my most cynical predictions. It seems we posted simultaneously.

I am happy to see that, on this relevant issue, we have little disagreement. I hope you are right that the majority of Republicans will reject ID. I'm still worried.

We may well have some disagreement on some other issues, to say the least, but those aren't terribly germane to PT. There are abundant other venues for those discussions.

As I noted yesterday, this looks like the good Cardinal has been flim-flammed. He can sympathize with the Smithsonian, which got bamboozled into "sponsoring" The Privileged Planet. Not only are the DI folks wrong, they are also dishonest.

Here's their strategy: Find a point at which the mark will agree with you (like a Cardinal preaching that there is a purpose to existence, or the Smithsonian believing that science movies are a good thing). Then offer to "help" with promoting this activity. Then sneak in the coded words. Then trumpet the fact that the mark "agrees" with your distortions of evolutionary biology.

That's why debating them is a foolish tactic. They convince themselves that lying is justified by their beliefs. Growing up in the 50's and 60's we got a steady diet of J. Edgar Hoover telling us that that was what godless Commies did. Apparently the Creationists have borrowed the same tactic, so does that make them godless?

Flint:

1)To answer your question, Holy Father is an honorary, and unofficial title reserved for the Pope. An ordinary priest is just "Father."

2) I did not ignore any of Harold's words. Harold specifically said that the GOP was courting religious people because of the positions it took "during the civil rights era." (Harold's words, not mine). I talked about "segregated schools, access to the voting booth" precisely because these were the issues of importance during the civil rights era. I take great umbrage at your accusation that I was "ranting" or ignoring the main part of Harold's post. I submit that I was directly addressing his main hypothesis.

3)Those Republicans who supported the civil rights movement were not counterexamples. They were and are the mainstream of their party. All but 6 Republican Senators voted for the 1964 civil rights act. GOP Senate Minority leader Dirkson worked tirelessly and selflessly to get it passed. His leadership was just as essential as was Lyndon Johnson's.

4)It is true that most Republicans, myself included, oppose gay marriage, affirmative action, and transfer payments for the poor. I'm not sure what a blue law is, so I won't comment. But this is irrelevent to both Harold's post and mine. Harold's point was that GOP support for religious conservatives came from being on the wrong side of the issue during THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA. These issues weren't even being discussed back then.

Harold,

Thanks for the kind words.

I think one of the reasons a lot of conservatives are reluctant to get involved in this issue is because they sense a certain hostility toward political conservatism from many vocal pro-science people. Your long post about the civil rights movement and the GOP is a prime example of it. I know you did not indend for it to come off that way, but that is how it did come off, and that is why I felt the need to respond as forcefully as I did. Again, I apologize for the profanity.

By being a little more diplomatic, you will make a lot easier the job of people like me who are trying to move the conservative movement away from creationism.

I'd also suggest you be more diplomatic with respect to Catholics.

For example, it is simply untrue the pope has "blatently signaled his support for the GOP." All he's done is oppose pro-abortion politicians. Now while it is true more Republicans are pro-life than Democrats, there do exist pro-life Democrats, like the current minority leader. Al Gore used to be pro-life too at one point. And there are pro-abortion Republicans, like the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

It's also untrue that the Pope has come out in favor of ID. You are reading way too much into an editorial in a secular outlet by a Cardinal writing in his unofficial capcity. At best, it is a trial balloon, as someone else mentioned. And for reasons mentioned in above posts, I don't even think it's that.

This kind of exaggeration is only going to turn off a lot of Catholics who are potential allies in your cause.

Best,
Adam

Russell wrote:

"That was then. Where do you suppose all those southern democrats are now? [Hint: think Strom Thurmond]."

News flash. Strom Thurmond is dead.

Now let me ask you a question. To what party does the only sitting Senator who was a Klansman belong?

Russell again:

"Here's an interesting little statistical exercise: Go back to the comment by Harold, and the comment in which Adam takes exception to it. Tally the ratio of present-tense/past-tense verbs in each. What do you suppose is the significance of that?"

It would signify that we were both talking about the past. And since Harold's hypothesis was about positions the GOP took DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA, that should come as no surprise.

--Adam

I take great umbrage at your accusation that I was "ranting" or ignoring the main part of Harold's post. I submit that I was directly addressing his main hypothesis.

It seems as though the Cardinal, unless he has a deal of scientific background, has been suckered into supporting the ID propaganda machine in a similar way to Antony Flew. Professor Flew did at least have the integrity to update his statements by saying that he'd now explored the other side of the issue and realised that things weren't quite the way they'd appeared initially (even though he blamed other people for letting him get suckered in the first place).

I wonder if the Cardinal has read Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" and if it would make any difference to him if he did.

I also wonder if he really is in a position to say, as he seemed to be saying, that he represented the opinion of the Catholic church as opposed to the opinion of Cardinal Schonborn (or of the DI Fellows).

I don't quite see how this is supposed to be helping the DI case. You have a cardinal who doesn't seem to have grasped the essence of evolutionary biology (or of the scientific method in general) saying that nature exhibits signs of intelligent design which clearly point toward the Christian God, while the DI are industriously going around assuring everybody that ID has nothing at all to do with God and it might just as easily be down to aliens. OK, we know as well as they do that they don't really mean it, but is a High Rumtiddlypo in the Catholic Church really prepared to go along with this sort of deception? If he knows they're saying one thing while meaning another and is lending them his overt support, that doesn't say much for his integrity.

Flint wrote:

"From the discussion of tenses and events, I think I can safely conclude that you are talking about events of 40 years ago,"

Yes, because Harold's hypothesis, which I falsified, was about the impact of the GOP's position 40 years ago upon its current positions.

"And yet, the part of harold's post that you chose to quote, as though you were addressing it specifically, spoke only of sexual morality."

I was addressing Harold's hypothesis that the GOP was taking its current stand on sexual morality because it had allegedly taken the wrong side of the issue back in the 1960's. I disproved his hypothesis by demonstrating that in fact the GOP had overwhelmingly supported the Civil Rights Movement.

I find it strange how several people have bashed me, but not a single person has addressed my evidence.

"I think I'm in agreement with you that a majority of both parties, both politicians and their constituents, no longer oppose integration of races."

Yes.

"Sexual orientation is the next battlefield, and the lines seem drawn between parties fairly clearly today."

Yes, but the battle over homosexuality has nothing to do with the 1960's civil rights movement.

"I do suggest that your posterboy ex-Klansman is a counterexample."

Well, first of all, he was not the only supporting evidence I gave for my point. I also cited the fact that all but a handful of GOP Congressmen voted for the 1964 act, that the vast majority of GOP elected officials consistently supported civil rights legislation throughout the 1950's and 1960's. That is not a counterexample, but solid evidence that support for Civil Rights was the mainstream GOP position.

Furthermore, Klansman Byrd is not an isolated case. While it is true that many Dixiecrats migrated to the GOP, many did not. Al Gore's father is another prominent example.

"I personally find it hard to affiliate with either party. I VERY strongly favor gay marriage and abortion rights, though I oppose affirmative action and transfer payments to the poor. And I think I illustrate the line (or one of the lines) harold was trying to draw: My conservatism is more of a laissez faire nature, less government, much lower taxes, and absolutely no legal interference with our private lives. Increasingly, Republicans are being painted as self-righteous prudes who oppose sexual freedoms of all kinds (as well as evolution)."

I don't see what sexual morality has to do with evolution. At any rate, if opinion polls are to be believed, the public does not consider upholding traditional sexual mores to be prudish. Large majorities oppose gay marraige even in the most liberal states.

"But it also implies that 40% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans buck the pattern."

Not on issues like gay marraige.

"Also, the Times editorial is itself going to be newsworthy. It has real impact. It may not have anywhere near the formal power of an encyclical, but quotes mined from it will be (and are surely intended to be) plastered on every creationist website whose administrators know how to read. It will be linked to from everywhere. So it becomes the elephant in the living room."

Agreed. It's going to do a lot of damage, both to science education and the Church.

However, it does not help when people on Panda's Thumb and elsewhere make statements that exaggerate the doctrinal authority of this editorial, making it seem as though it represents official teaching.

In fact, this editorial carries zero doctrinal authority within the Church. It's just one Cardinal's opinion. Granted, he's an important Cardinal, but it's still just his opinion. Even the Pope's personal opinion on a matter carries no doctrinal authority.

People like you would help our common cause (of opposing ID and creationism) if you were to keep that in mind when writing on the subject.

Unfortunately, I've noticed that some people here behave as if they care more about bashing the Church, the GOP, political conservatives, and/or religion in general than they do about fighting for good science in the classroom. I hope you are not one of them.

The cardinal and Discovery Institute thought it was time to dismiss Darwinian evolution after a physicist attempted to reconcile religion with science. On this the church and I agree - there is no way to reconcile science and religion. Science is knowledge based on evidence and theory; religion is knowledge based on faith. Faith does not require evidence. In fact, genuine faith is only possible when reliable evidence is lacking. Once evidence becomes available, knowledge moves from the realm of faith to the realm of rational thought. I do not intend to dismiss faith; afterall, I've been a Red Sox fan my entire life so I know how faith can sustain during our neediest moments. However, it seems to me that the administers of faith have nothing credible to add to the evidence-based theory of evolution just as scientists have nothing credible to add to faith-based religion.

News flash. Strom Thurmond is dead.

The Times (July 9, 2005) has an article following an Op Ed last week by Cardinal Schonborn on the issue of Intelligent Design. The article starts: >>An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.<<

' "Unguided," "unplanned," "random" and "natural" are all adjectives that biologists might apply to the process of evolution, said Dr. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown and a Catholic. But even so, he said, evolution "can fall within God's providential plan." He added: "Science cannot rule it out. Science cannot speak on this."'

I get tired of Miller. For all the good he does his insistence on trying to merge what he knows to be true - evolution in a natural sense and his childhood faith is irritating. Evolution may well indeed fall within Gods providential plan but make the Christian world view very muddled.

In this regard the fundies are heads up on this guy. They at least maintain integrity in their belief system despite be completely wrong on reality and science.

Adam:

You've got it. Mathematical randomness permits us to quantify our ignorance.

Suppose for a second an asteroid collision wiped out the dinosaurs. Effectively this was a random event (because unpredictable), but without it we would not be here today. So it is not meaningful in biology to say that our evolution was guided or inevitable.
However to an omniscient being the collision with asteroid was foreseeable, as were all other such events that appear random to us. So to this being, our evolution appears inevitable.

Just to confuse you, the above assumes a deterministic universe. However if the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then fundamental processes are non-deterministic, which means omniscience is impossible. Even God plays with dice to decide the outcome of quantum events, in Einstein's formulation.

"A larger majority of Republicans than Democrats in the Congress voted for the ground-breaking civil rights act of 1964. The only significnat oppostition came not from Republicans, but Southern Democrats."

Virtually all of whom became Republicans, or voters for Republicans, as a result of Nixon's "Southern strategy".

"News flash. Strom Thurmond is dead."

A stunningly irrelevant fact. If they could have covered up the smell, he'd still be a sitting Senator. You won't find any Democrat talking about how right Byrd was back then, the way Lott did about Thurmond. Lott's only gone because Rove saw it as an oppotunity to put his puppet Frist into power (it was sad watching the Dems make fools of themselves by taking credit for Lott's departure, and actually believing it).

"Furthermore, Klansman Byrd is not an isolated case. While it is true that many Dixiecrats migrated to the GOP, many did not. Al Gore's father is another prominent example."

The key is that those who held onto their racism are the ones who switched. That Byrd was a klansman over 60 years ago is another stunningly irrelevant fact, and as for Albert Gore, you fail (in your fashion and the fashion of your party) to mention that he apologized for not voting for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and supported the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"the battle over homosexuality has nothing to do with the 1960's civil rights movement"

Uh, sure. The fact that those who sneer at "PC", multiculturalism, and affirmative action, and think there's something to "The Bell Curve", are generally the same people who talk about "the homosexual agenda" and "special rights" for gays is of no relevance. That the same ignorance, mean spiritedness, arrogance, chauvinism, tribalism, etc. etc. underlie racism and homophobia is irrelevant. The fact that anti-gay and anti-minority views are both commonly labeled "conservative" by both their adherents and their opponents is irrelevant. Uh, "right".

"I've noticed that some people here behave as if they care more about bashing the Church, the GOP, political conservatives, and/or religion in general than they do about fighting for good science in the classroom."

Good science in the classroom is just one area in which we battle for rational thought processes and against the forces of ignorance, oppression, and ethical corruption.

I point out that the fudnies are not "conservatives". Conservatives want to . . . well . . . conserve. They want to preserve things as they are or were. Fundies do not want to conserve things. Fundies want to change things. Fundies do not want to "get government off our backs"; fundies want to get government into our bedrooms. Fundies do not want to maintain existing social orders; fundies want to destroy existing social orders and substitute their own theocracy.

Fundies are not "conservatives". They are "revolutionaries", in the truest sense of that word.

It's interesting that the Cardinal threw in a dig at the multiverse hypothesis, which he says is another example at a deliberate effort to avoid acknowledging evidence for a designer (OK, Designer. He's not going to be in the space aliens camp, is he?).

This is, I feel, a tactical mistake. It opens up a second front in the Wedge Strategy, but one which the ID campaigners are even less equipped to fight than their (remarkably static) campaign against evolution. QM is astonishingly well documented and confirmed, so there is very little room for deliberate efforts to misguide research going undetected, and while the multiverse is controversial and by no means universally accepted even within the QM community it remains a logical and quite well supported idea - especially with working examples of quantum computers demonstrated. I wonder if the Cardinal Archbish can back up his claim, or whether we are expected to swallow it as ex cathedra?

I am completely unaware of any quantum Dembskis, although there is no shortage of crackpots on the fringe of QM, so it is a mystery to me where the Cardinal Archbish gets his scientific ideas from (warning: irony present).

If he is linking physics with evolution in the list of scientifically flawed ideas that must be reformed with theology, then he has embarked on the equivalent of marching on Moscow before disposing of Britain (warning: strictly military metaphor here, no Godwin's Law infraction implied).

R

Adam -

I'm glad we agree on science education. You're right that the pro-science camp contains people of almost all possible political and religious opinions, and that, as a result, you've probably seen pro-science posts that are openly or implicitly hostile to some conservative ideas. And other pro-science posters are conservative, or libertarian, etc. That in itself is strong evidence that accepting science as the way to describe physical reality is acceptable across broad political and religious differences.

I think we can all agree that turning away from science is one of the biggest mistakes this country could make right now.

For the record, I'm a Christian who strongly supports full civil and human rights for gay people. That certainly includes the right to CIVIL marriages, and the right to serve our nation in the military. Obviously, churches that oppose gay marriage shouldn't allow religious marriage services for gays. I'm also in favor of "transfer payments", if that means a basic social safety net. I support retaining existing affirmative action programs, but not creating new ones. I strongly support stem cell research. I appreciate the logical simplicity and elegance of defining human life as coming into being at the "moment of conception", but I don't see that as an appropriate basis for US law.

In general, although I'm no libertarian, I don't favor laws against individual actions which don't affect anyone except other willing adult participants. I like laws which protect my rights and, potentially, my body. As for my morals, I prefer making those decisions on my own.

I don't agree, for what it's worth, that you have falsified my hypothesis about what the motivation of one particular party to make hay with issues of sexual morality. You have merely stated a valid opinion to the contrary. I still think it's at least largely done to add a veneer of morality to past and present positions that may otherwise be suspect on moral grounds, certainly including the example I raised (note: I realize that many individual Republicans have had honorable records on civil rights). But you know what? That's just my opinion. I also continue to think that the current pope favors the GOP. Again, it's just my opinion. Maybe he really does believe that conception-related issues are more "grave" than other issues. I can't read his mind. Time will perhaps tell.

All of this is very interesting, but off-topic for PT, so I'm going to wrap it up here. There are inumerable internet sites for discussion of these issues.

News flash. Strom Thurmond is dead. Now let me ask you a question. To what party does the only sitting Senator who was a Klansman belong?

All this talk of Dixiecrats remind me of a story I read one. Remember Llyod Bentsen? VP candidate with Dukakis, later Treasury Secretary under Clinton? He was the Democratic candidate in a US Senate election in Texas in the 1960's (to replace LBJ ??). His views were so conservative that some Kennedy-style liberals urged Texas Democrats to vote for his Republican opponent, on the argument that if he were to lose because of such internal opposition, he and his like would leave the Democratic party and join the Republican party where his views would fit better.

The name of the Republican? George Bush Senior, who lost anyway.

I just LOVE politics

I get tired of Miller. For all the good he does his insistence on trying to merge what he knows to be true - evolution in a natural sense and his childhood faith is irritating. Evolution may well indeed fall within Gods providential plan but make the Christian world view very muddled.

Connect these dots:

The Cardinal of Vienna writes an op-ed in the New York Times vaguely attacking (though clearly misrepresenting) the sciences of evolution, which he calls "Darwinism".

It turns out he was working hand-in-glove with the Discovery Institute, sponsor of just about all the "intelligent design" school of creationism. DI's head honcho brags about it, one of their pet scientists has already broken the DI's wall of church-state separation over it, and the good cardinal borrowed deeply from their anti-"Darwinist" rhetoric. From this mating, a new variant of Catho-creationism emerges from the primordial jungle onto the savannahs of memespace.

The Disco Institute is largely funded by superChristian (Reconstructionist/Dominionist, etc) and superbillionaire (remember S&Ls?) Howard Ahmanson, whose money also recently bought the recall election which led to the Schwarzenegger subregime.

Cardinal Schönborn cleared this project with his former Bavarian neighbor Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now operating under a different name in what he claims is his own country.

What an historic feat of ecumenism, that these Christian factions are coordinating with such success!
(Is there anything in Revelations which prophesies this?)

I have the impression that Ahmanson doesn't always sing from the same page as the other major theocons, so this alliance implies much less than if, say, Dobson had Focused his Family on it. SFAIK (but I'd be the last person to ask), the televangelical kings aren't giving this much airplay - though that may change as soon as they hear about, say, Joan Roughgarden.

The Mother Church has much larger footholds in the American political apparatus than their new friends at the Disco, so the political repercussions of all this are merely a drop in that bucket.

- After all, how could defeating the demon of Darwinism top the agenda for more than a relative handful of the Phalangist priest corps reportedly preparing for worldwide deployment, when they see so many juicier sins to pursue?
- Similarly, the alpha males of the broadcast christocrats can only spare a few hounds for this hunt, having already smelled the blood of other prey.
- Through it all, of course, Bush-Hur races his chariot in the Land of Two Rivers.
(IOW, that this is trival does not provide reassurance.)

If any reader can draw a different curve than I do from these points, I would be sincerely grateful to see it.

The obligatory off-curve data point resulting from this collision of Catholicism & science may even offer potential for a countertrend. The context of the learned cardinal's dicta highlights a question I hope someone will ask said learned cardinal & his esteemed colleagues:
"Why is it that your 'culture of life' does not involve the wholehearted study of biology in all its forms?"

My apologies in advance for not filling in the missing links called for here (cybernetically, conceptually, & grammatically), nor even hacking some coherence into the metaphors, but it's been a long day and Dennis has already tweaked my electricity twice ...
[Postscript: still not having time to research links to support reasonably-well known facts, I'm opting to post this as is...]

News flash. Strom Thurmond is dead.

...we were both talking about the past. And since Harold's hypothesis was about positions the GOP took DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA, that should come as no surprise. --Adam

Virtually all politicians, at every level from US senator to county school board member, who promote "anti-evolution" policies, belong to one particular party. This is true in New York, Georgia, Kansas, Ohio, Utah, Tulsa, and anywhere else you look.

IIRC, that's from Eugenie Scott's "The Creation/Evolution Continuum." Although I thought that it was a very informative article, Scott could have said more than just a hint that there is a big gap between EC and ID. ID is where deliberate misrepresentation begins. Granted, there are honest believers in YEC and OEC who take it on "revelation" and realize that their belief cannot seriously challenge science. But with the leaders, particularly those who have adopted the "don't ask, don't tell" ID approach, it's all strategy. If one charts the leaders of the movements, rather than the "believers," the continuum is quite different, with ID and EC/TE at opposite ends rather than adjacent. ID is more determined than any of the classic creationisms at misrepresenting science. By avoiding testable claims it is even less scientific that flat-earthism. Meanwhile, EC/TE has all the scientific objections to ID/creationism as athestic evolution does, plus theological objections.

—

Good point about the importance of recombination in sexual reproducers. In diploid or polyploid, sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms, this is a critical source of phentoypic variability between parents and offspring. But don't forget, most of the earth's biomass consists of unicellular, haploid life that reproduces asexually by necessity (albeit with exchange of genetic material between individuals, by a wide variety of mechanisms).

"Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science."

Here the Catholic Church rejects with equal strength ID, Creationism and Atheistic Evolution.

The Church has always thought the Genesis not to be a literal text, it has done so since, at least, Augustine. This is not an endorsement of Protestant fundamentalism, because it goes against the Magisterium of the Church.

"Robert Byrd had the good sense to get out of the Klan early, and renounce it."

For the record, I bear ill will neither toward Robert Byrd nor Al Gore's father. And yes, I do think Byrd's renunciation of the Klan as well as Gore Sr.'s apology for voting against the Civil Rights Acts are a tribute to their character.

If you had read my comments on them in context, you would know that the only reason I mentioned them the was to refute the LIE that all Dixiecrats ended up in the Republican party. My point is simply that Dixiecrats ended up in both parties. That's it.

Also for the record, I addressed the whole question of why support for creationism and ID nonsense tends to come only from the Republican party. If you had read those comments, you would know that I am trying to do my part in purging my party of such pseudo-scientific nonsense.

I only got into this whole civil rights issue because someone on this forum, Harold, falsely asserted that the Republican party had a bad record "during the civil rights era" (his words). This is simply factually wrong, and I can no more tolerate misstatements of fact about history than I can about science. I am very dissapointed that Harold has not corrected them yet.

This is not a matter of opinion, Harold. It is a matter of fact. It was not just individual Republicans who supported civil rights movement. It he entire leadership of the party, and the vast majority of the rank-and-file. If you have any integrity, you will aknowledge that you were wrong.

Others have retored that the GOP civil rights record after the 1960's wasn't so good. Well, I disagree here as well, but that's a seperate question about which reasonable people can disagree. Further, it has no bearing on either Harold's innacurate statement, which was specifically about the 1960's, or my correction of it.

I'm truly astonished at how frequently my comments get ripped out of context and misrepresented in this forum, as well as the inability of people here to admit they are wrong. This is the not kind of behavior I would expect from people interested in truth.

Just to confuse you, the above assumes a deterministic universe. However if the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, then fundamental processes are non-deterministic, which means omniscience is impossible. Even God plays with dice to decide the outcome of quantum events, in Einstein's formulation.

Regarding the Schönborn text: It has now arrived in Austria, with a front page article in "Die Presse" (I did not check the other newspapers). Interestingly, in the course of the day several updates and additional articles were posted on "diepresse.com", where Schönborn clarifies that he mostly refers to a fine-tuned universe and not to ID in biology. Also, he strongly distanced himself from every YEC-viewpoint. Quote (my translation): "You cannot and may not act based on faith against knowledge. Faith and knowledge are bever contradictory. Attempts to reduce earths history to six days with preposterous hypotheses are void of any seriousness."
I think he got under heavy fire and I think that this was a surprise, given the number of updates and posts in the austrian press. The general viewpoint was, that the cardinal was far out of his depth and commenting on things that are not his "magisterium".

Good point about the importance of recombination in sexual reproducers. In diploid or polyploid, sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms, this is a critical source of phentoypic variability between parents and offspring. But don't forget, most of the earth's biomass consists of unicellular, haploid life that reproduces asexually by necessity (albeit with exchange of genetic material between individuals, by a wide variety of mechanisms).

"If you had read my comments on them in context, you would know that the only reason I mentioned them the was to refute the LIE that all Dixiecrats ended up in the Republican party."

Your comment about Byrd was directed to Harold. Harold never claimed that all Dixiecrats ended up in the Republican party so, as usual, it is you who are the liar.

I think he got under heavy fire and I think that this was a surprise, given the number of updates and posts in the austrian press. The general viewpoint was, that the cardinal was far out of his depth and commenting on things that are not his "magisterium".

Frank writes:

'There are strains of Christian theological thought, especially Process Theology, which are quite compatible with evolution, and in fact use it as a metaphor for the involvement of the Divine in the world. So to claim that Ken Miller is being naive, or dishonest, is inappropriate without real evidence. It's been a while since I read Finding Darwin's God, but I don't recall it as being naive.'

Look, lets be serious here. If you bend and twist your religious philosophy enough you can make it compatible with anything. I never said Miller was being naive or dishonest. Just that he refuses to admit the obvious. Even your example of Process theology is not a direct metaphysical Christian view although it can be made so to explain creation. It fails to explain many other aspects of the Christian faith.

As to Finding Darwins God, a good book that debunks many ID claims but also makes many ridiculous claims including the Christian nations being blessed with scientific prowess while other nations dominant in other faiths were not blessed. I guess the Asian and Muslim nations who helped science survive the dark ages didn't the message.

And this is just stupid:
'Oftentimes the discussions of theology on PT are as naive as the discussions of evolution on ARN (altho ARN's theology is no better than its science).'

No ones theology is superior to anyone elses. You can't prove anything outside of reality. So I guess whichever theology matches reality the closest is the winner. Otherwise they are all naive human attempts to explain the unanswerable. To pretend otherwise is simply mindpuking. :-)

I went over and read some of this 'process theology' stuff. Here are a few examples of this 'philosophy':

'The process theologian contends that if metaphysics describes those general concepts or principles by which all particulars are to be explained, and if God is the chief exemplification of those principles, then talk about God is eminently meaningful and basic to the meaningfulness of everything else.'

Of course eveidence plays no role here. So just substitute Santa for God and it'll work the same.

There are some good points such as the downplaying of the supernatural but overall it seems no more 'naive' than any other metaphysical view that spews forth.

No ones theology is superior to anyone elses. You can't prove anything outside of reality.

Your comment about Byrd was directed to Harold. Harold never claimed that all Dixiecrats ended up in the Republican party so, as usual, it is you who are the liar.

'No ones theology is superior to anyone elses. You can't prove anything outside of reality. Talk about begging the question!

"It was Russell who made that claim."

There is no "Russell" on this page. You were engaged in a discussion with harold when you mentioned the Klan, and you've lied about the context of that mention. Period.

There is no "Russell" on this page.

Ok, there's something wrong with my browser search function -- there is a Russell here. But you've lied about him claiming that all Dixiecrats became Republicans. What he actually wrote was

"Adam is right. The republican party historically was on the "right" side of civil rights. After all, it is the party that first reached the presidency under Abraham Lincoln. And for more than a century the most virulent white racists in the country were to be found among folks describing themselves as southern democrats.

That was then. Where do you suppose all those southern democrats are now? [Hint: think Strom Thurmond]."

That's about virulent white racists among southern democrats; it was not about *all* Dixiecrats, including people like Robert Byrd and Albert Gore.
So perhaps you didn't exactly lie; perhaps it was just a strawman resulting from inept reading.

Actually, it wasn't a problem with my browser search function (although there is one, with Konqueror, but I'm using Firefox at the moment), but rather the search direction. You see, I searched backwards from Adam's allusion to Robert Byrd, and there was no post from Russell. Adam mentioned the Klan in 37416, and Russell didn't post about "all those southern democrats" 37418. So Adam doesn't just owe an apology to Harold, he owes an apology to the human race -- for being a LIAR.

If you had read my comments on them in context, you would know that the only reason I mentioned them the was to refute the LIE that all Dixiecrats ended up in the Republican party.

Okay, fine. So I was anticipating the claim that all Dixiecrats bacame Republicans. I've heard that claim many times, so I was attempting to pre-empt it.

I find it fascinating that people here are nit-picking about minor points I was making instead of addressing my main argument.

And FYI, Byrd and Albert Gore were white racists. Yes, they repented, but so did the Dixiecrats that became Republicans.

For the record, I have nothing against Dixiecrats who changed their opinions.

I wish people would stop snipping at peripheral aspects of my argument rather than addressing the core.

As a devout Catholic, I thank God that Pope John Paul II came down squarely on the side of science and reason - with evolution. * If Cardinal Schönborn is annoyed by neo-Darwinists misinterpreting Pope John Paul II, he will be more troubled to see how his article will be used as a Catholic endorsement for the creationists' "intelligent design" movement. * Once we understand that the "system of thought" the cardinal is attacking is not some recently concocted ideology but the very cornerstone of modern biology and biomedicine, his contention that it "denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology" sounds nonsensical, because it is. * Official defenses, then, that serve only to belittle scientific theories abdicate the intelligent gaze toward creation that St. Francis offers. As such, I will stick with the saints. * Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is hardly the person to state an official position because he was outside the mainstream of Catholic thought when as the chief editor of the official Catechism of the Catholic Church, he accepted the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. * There is nothing more anti-intelligent than to suggest that your religious belief is scientific. Given devastating inherited childhood diseases and the underlying errors (that is, random mutations), manifesting as dysfunction at the cellular and molecular levels, that cause them, the overwhelming evidence implicates a not-so-intelligent design or chance, be it in evolution or quantum mechanics.

Oftentimes the discussions of theology on PT are as naive

I addressed the whole question of why support for creationism and ID nonsense tends to come only from the Republican party. If you had read those comments, you would know that I am trying to do my part in purging my party of such pseudo-scientific nonsense.

I leave aside for now the point that the Republicrats, for their part, are more interested in taking the fundie votes and money than they are ina ctually DOING anything for the fundies

I wish people would stop snipping at peripheral aspects of my argument rather than addressing the core.

The hypothesis of Christianity is that the world was created by an omnipotent and benevolent God. The nature of the world as revealed to us by science, and especially by evolution, is not consistent with that hypothesis. The world we actually observe around us is nothing like the world we would expect to see if the Christian hypothesis were true. That is the fundamental conflict. It's a conflict that confronts all Christians, not just creationists. Evolution shows us a world in which the development of life is a violent and chaotic process, full of false starts and dead ends, indifferent to suffering and all other moral concerns. Human beings appear to have evolved only because of a series of accidents, including an asteroid strike 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs.

I do not think blithe rationalizations like Krauss's "One can choose to view chance selection as obvious evidence ... that God chooses to work through natural means" are a remotely persuasive response to this. Yes, it's possible that the violence and suffering and jerry-rigged designs and apparent randomness that characterize the history of life is all part of some big plan that we just cannot comprehend. But it sure doesn't look that way. Evolution doesn't make Christianity impossible, but it does make Christianity look even more implausible. I think "theistic evolutionists" like Miller are simply refusing to face up to real challenge science poses to their religious beliefs.

Longhorn -

This is a dead track, I hope, but I should respond...not that we disagree, actually, but you seem to have straw-manned me a little.

"Harold, it's not just "recombination" that brings about differences from one sexually reproducing organism to the next."

I didn't say it was. You're post seemed to be drawing attention to recombination. I thought it was a good point, since we tend to use the term "mutation", which although ill-defined, doesn't imply quite the same thing.

"I think you are using the word "recombination" to refer just to the series of events that results in the existence of sex cells."

Sort of. Recombination was a term used to refer to the realignment of alleles in germ cells relative to parent cells, mainly due to chromosomal segregation and crossing over. The term may actually be obsolete now.

"And, yes, my sex cells are vastly different in terms of their genomes than are my non-sex cells."

Your nucleated somatic cells (non-gametes) all have essentially the same genome, at a gross level, hence the police can use DNA from a hair root and compare it to DNA from leukocytes to make an ID, and so on (I'm talking about the nuclear genome not the mitochondrial genome). Your somatic cells are, of course, genetic clones of your original cell, the zygote.

Of course, there are subtle genetic differences between normal somatic cells, since somatic mutations, and probably other changes are the inevitable result of division and differentiation, are introduced with the formation of each new cell (and sometimes in cells that are not dividing). And cancer cells have radically different genomes than the normal cells that once gave birth to them. And some very people have mosaicism.

Your gametes each have a totally unique haploid "genome" (which is really half a human genome).

So yes, indeed, this statement is very true.

"However, the fertilization event itself causes offspring to be the way they are."

That, and the environmental effects that impact on development.

"If I have sex with a woman, one of my sperm cells may fertilize one of her egg cells. This fertilized cell is vastly different than my sex cells. For one thing, it has 23 more chromosomes than do my sex cells."

Right, but it has exactly the same number of chromosomes as most of your somatic cells (actually you have some somatic cells with "missing" or "extra" chromosomes, especially if you're a man, and you have billions of red blood cells that have no chromosomes at all, but most of your somatic cells have 46). And it has the same number as the gametes that the child will eventually produce.

It's clearly true that the evolution of the diploid or polyploid genome, specialized gametes, and sexual reproduction were key in the evolution of multicelluar life. Diploidy and eukaryote status are probably related. Multicelluar eukaryotic organisms are more complex than prokaryotes. On all of this I agree. But prokaryotes and viruses are still a major part of the spectrum of life, and they evolve like crazy.

As I've always said, the fundies are in the same position vis-a-vis the Republicrat Party that the US labor movement (such as it is) is vis-a-vis the Democan Party. Both movements give votes and money to the party, both movements get jack-shit in return, but neither movement can leave for the other party because the other party won't give them the time of day. Hence both movements are systematically sucked of money and votes by the party, and get nothing but lip service in return.

If that "core" has something to do with evolution, I may have missed it in all the crossfire.

If that "core" is that the whole republican "Southern strategy" ever since Nixon does not have strong element of less-than-laudable appeal to white racism, I'll have to respectfully disagree.

What do you suppose Trent Lott did mean when he said "we wouldn't have had all these problems" if the nation had had the good sense to support Thurmond and the Dixiecrats?

Catholics believe in a supernatural being who intentionally brought about humans. Believing that and evolution takes a kind of doublethink, I would guess.

Evolution shows us a world in which the development of life is a violent and chaotic process, full of false starts and dead ends, indifferent to suffering and all other moral concerns. Human beings appear to have evolved only because of a series of accidents, including an asteroid strike 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs.

I disagree that the above conflicts with a benevolent God. The question is, to whom is he benevolent? And how? The answer is, to creatures that are made in his image, human beings.

Chaos, extinction, and death in the animal world are irrelevent. Man's immortal soul ensures that his existence does not end in suffering and death of the cruel material world, but eternal bliss.

Ken Miller makes an excellent case for how chance and accident actually stengthen the case for God. Without it, there can be no free will.

Adam,

Perhaps inadvertently, you underscore the case against creationism. Point to any fact situatiion, and intone "goddidit" and viola, you have the explanation. Oh, wait, we discover that we misunderstood and the fact situation understood in far greater depth is incompatible with our first approximation? No problem, intone "goddidit" and once again you have the explanation. You can't miss!

And if it should turn out that humans go extinct, and in a billion years or so another totally different species arises to ponder these questions, what will they conclude? If they're like us in this respect, they will conclude that they were made in the image of whatever god THEY fabricate, whose purpose was (of course) to create a universe that leads to their coming to dominate it.

And so the problem becomes fairly clear: we always find what we're looking for in the last place we look because once we've found it, we stop looking. And we can always postdict what was "intended" to happen by observation of what DID happen. The "god explanation" works great, AFTER you know how the dice came to rest. It's totally useless when it matters.

To some of us, defining some particular god as beneficial for people, and then declaring (in the total absence of evidence) that since eternity will be blissful anyway, very obvious pain and suffering in this world is irrelevant, is an amazingly transparent rationalization. When you start with an answer you define as right, and get to phrase questions accordingly, you can never be wrong. You will never advance human knowledge either. A lot of us want *real* answers, which means, answers to real questions. Yeah, yeah, we know the answer will be because that's the way your god willed it, AFTER we figure the answer out on our own, while your god provides no suggestions or hints.

While you're here, though, I've always wondered how many angels can dance on a pinhead.

I suspect, however that we do have something to worry about. That's because the fundies DO have another option: they can simply stay home and not vote. Or they can go third party and split the GOP vote. Both threats become credible should they become sufficinetly dissatisfied with the GOP.

Perhaps inadvertently, you underscore the case against creationism.

So God has a penis? Uterus? Brain? Spine? on and on. If so exactly what is God doing now? These are just questions I have from time to time.

Hmmmm.... I must have missed something in the previous conversation here. These would be bad things... why?

It [the republican "Southern strategy" having a strong element of appeal to white racism] actually has nothing to do with my argument, but I do deny that Nixon was pandering to white racism. His stellar civil rights record by itself more than refutes that claim. But that's a seperate issue, which we can take to another forum.

Adam -

I used civil rights as an example. I stand by even that example (see below), but my broader point was that a political party engaged in things that slant contrary to the teachings of Jesus, or Moses for that matter, on treatment of other people, may be making common cause with a concrete and unsophisticated religious interpretation, in order to put a veneer of morality on their policies (even while the power brokers of the party themselves may privately disdain said religious interpretation). This may be leading them to the unwise policy of attacking science.

If I gave the impression that I was saying that the Republicans were making the mistake of condoning creationism only and exclusively because of civil rights in the sixties, I misexpressed myself. That was intended as one example. The salient point of that example is that some people learned that Christian rhetoric can be powerful, and decided to co-opt some, as a defense against future attacks against their policies from a Christian perspective.

You have successfully reminded me that for many years, some Republicans were staunch proponents of civil rights for African-Americans. This is at least the second time that I have acknowledged that.

At the same time, others have pointed out that subsequently, a different face has been shown by some members of the Republican party in Southern states. You may argue, with considerable justification, that they can't realy bring back the past. True, and for many years, they have been making hay with abortion while knowing full well that they couldn't actually do anything about it. But they have played with the issue nevertheless. The Jesse Helms "They gave that job to a mi-no-rity" ad campaign and the George H. W. Bush "Willie Horton" ad campaign spring to mind. I realize that you will feel compelled to put a different spin on these, but I didn't like them. This an issue of opinion, in the end.

However, I must admit one further point of AGREEMENT with you. It is incorrect to say that science argues against (or for) a benevolent God, or any other kind of God, for that matter. Science is by definition the act of looking for explanations of purely physical things, without involving God (this definition of science excludes mathematics, of course, but I think that's valid). Of course you won't find God with science - you agreed not to look for God in the first place, that's what made it science! I'm personally a lot less annoyed when people say "I can't imagine God wanting the physical world to be this way, so there must be no God" than when people say "I can't imagine God wanting the physical world to be this way, so science must be wrong". At least the former people aren't hypocritically denying the evidence of their own senses, that they implicitly trust a million times a day. But to a large degree, it's the same logic.

You can do science until the cows come home, and it still won't tell what's "good" or "bad".

Sigh. It's pointless trying to discuss serious philosophy with someone who's this childish. Atheist fundamentalists are just as bad as religious fundamentalists.

If it's so stinkin childish then how come you aren't answering the damn question.

The great appeal of the Republicans to white racists is the fact that blacks typically vote Democratic. White Southerners of modest means have shown over and over again that they will vote against their clear self interest rather than identify themselves with a despised race. Don't forget, these are the descendents of the dirt farmers and mule drivers who willingly charged up Seminary Ridge to defend the privileges of their slave-owning betters, thus earning a rare unit citation from the Darwin Awards.

Injured pride explains a lot, including, unfortunately, much of the hostility of middling people to the theory of evolution, which is seen as another way in which elites look down on people who don't have very much.

What do you suppose Trent Lott did mean when he said "we wouldn't have had all these problems" if the nation had had the good sense to support Thurmond and the Dixiecrats? I have no clue. Trent Lott is an idiot, and I was very happy when he stepped down. I wish he would go crawl under a rock somewhere. The guy had the backbone of a jelly fish and the political sense of Michael Dukakis

> The salient point of that example is that some people learned that Christian rhetoric can be powerful, and decided to co-opt some, as a defense against future attacks against their policies from a Christian perspective.

This was explicitly planned and executed, in depth. Nixon's "southern strategy" was part of it, but it went much further than that. See
http://www.aclu-wa.org/Issues/religious/3.html:

"In the mid-1970s Viguerie used his sophisticated direct mail fundraising techniques to address another constituency: evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Viguerie sought to tap resentment toward Supreme Court decisions banning prayer in the public schools and establishing a woman's right to an abortion. His direct mail efforts not only brought money into the New Right's coffers; they disseminated a steady flow of appeals that encouraged evangelicals to become involved in politics." [there's much more]

> for many years, they have been making hay with abortion while knowing full well that they couldn't actually do anything about it

Not really; they've made many inroads, and now are on the verge of overturning Roe v. Wade. You might want to read
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/11/163059/846
Hadley Arkes is brilliant, sincere, committed to ending all legal abortion, and is on the way to fulfilling his roadmap for that project.

> I'm personally a lot less annoyed when people say "I can't imagine God wanting the physical world to be this way, so there must be no God" than when people say "I can't imagine God wanting the physical world to be this way, so science must be wrong". At least the former people aren't hypocritically denying the evidence of their own senses, that they implicitly trust a million times a day. But to a large degree, it's the same logic.

No, it's not the same at all. The default position is that God, Santa Claus, unicorns, and tiny green men from Mars don't exist -- per Ockham's Razor. Lacking arguments for the necessity of God, it's appropriate to deny God. And if people are making statistical arguments for the necessity of God -- such as the ID claim that it is more likely that goddidit than that it arose through "random" processes -- then it's perfectly appropriate to counter with any argument that challenges the plausibility of the goddidit claim.

> You can do science until the cows come home, and it still won't tell what's "good" or "bad".

But that's not the way the argument goes. Science tells us how the world is; we make the judgment as to whether it's good or bad. The reason that's relevant is that the common conception is that God is good (the words merge etymologically in goodbye and gospel). If science reveals a nasty brutish cruel world, that undermines the argument for God. As Darwin said, "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horribly cruel works of nature." and "But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice."

Sigh. It's pointless trying to discuss serious philosophy with someone who's this childish. Atheist fundamentalists are just as bad as religious fundamentalists.

"You have no clue what he meant? Are you serious?? I suspect you know full well what Lott meant, but you desperately don't want to admit it."

Don't forget, Adam is a proven liar, having claimed that "the context" showed that he mentioned the former klansman Senator simply to refute a "LIE" that all Dixiecrats became Republicans, whereas the actual context shows no such thing. He later backpedaled, saying that he was merely anticipating that such a lie would be told. Notably, however, no one ever made such a claim, before or after Adam's statement -- why would someone lie and claim that Robert Byrd became a Republican? The mind boggles. The statement Russell actually made was about "virulent white racists" who were southern democrats and are now members of the Republican party.
Russell mentioned Strom Thurmond; I'll mention David Duke, who got 19% of the vote when he ran as a Republican in 1998, despite being repudiated by the Republican leadership. The question is, who were those 19%? Duh.

Adam claims that the Dixiecrats who crossed over to the Republican party repented their racism. Even if this were true of the Congressmen who crossed over (it isn't), it wouldn't be to the point, since the southern strategy was to bring racist *voters* into the Republican party. And Adam claims that Nixon's civil rights record proves that he didn't woo racist voters -- that indicates a rather poor grasp of proof, and of politics. Nixon normalizing relations with China doesn't prove that he didn't woo anti-communist voters (many of whom were greatly dismayed by Nixon's China policy, and I'll bet some of them still blame Nixon for China's current economic strength).

Of course, any demonstration of his dishonesty or error is just "nit-picking" or an example of how his "comments get ripped out of context and misrepresented". Poor poor Adam.

"Chaos, extinction, and death in the animal world are irrelevent. Man's immortal soul ensures that his existence does not end in suffering and death of the cruel material world, but eternal bliss."

So does this mean that we all die in our sleep, and not from cancer or being hit by a truck or other sorts of death that are preceded by suffering? I must be missing something.

"Nice thought, hope it's correct"

Do you really? Suppose that Adam's unsupported claim is false, and your death means the end of your existence, like the end of the whirring of a fan when it is unplugged and dropped in the city dump. Why, exactly, is that worse than surviving ... FOREVER, without a body or a brain, without a planet or a sun, without a universe, without ears, eyes, tongue, skin ... or do we get these things? But without earaches, drymouth, or itching? Just what is this bliss stuff, and why in the heck do we expect to have it? Because someone wrote about it 2000 years ago? I'm sorry, but to me believing any of this or even *wanting* this indicates immense immaturity and denial of the simplest facts, failing to use one's brain, and inconsistent with science and rational thought. As you say, it certainly isn't "serious philosophy".

Adam:

I was trianed as a mere physicist. Metaphysics is beyond me. Sorry

As I've always said, the fundies are in the same position vis-a-vis the Republicrat Party that the US labor movement (such as it is) is vis-a-vis the Democan Party. Both movements give votes and money to the party, both movements get jack-shit in return, but neither movement can leave for the other party because the other party won't give them the time of day. Hence both movements are systematically sucked of money and votes by the party, and get nothing but lip service in return.

If that's true, then we don't have anything to worry about. I suspect, however that we do have something to worry about. That's because the fundies DO have another option: they can simply stay home and not vote. Or they can go third party and split the GOP vote. Both threats become credible should they become sufficinetly dissatisfied with the GOP.

I seem to get the impression that the Cardinal's commentary seem to make a much bigger splash here than over in Europe. Pure assumption on my part, but it does seem that ID and Creationism take a hold on people much more readily here in the States than in Europe (or anywhere else perhaps?).

Is this an incorrect assumption? Anyone travel internationally much to tell me?

You can do science until the cows come home, and it still won't tell what's "good" or "bad".

Pure assumption on my part, but it does seem that ID and Creationism take a hold on people much more readily here in the States than in Europe (or anywhere else perhaps?).

Evolution isn't real science; evolution is incompatible with religion; it's only fair to teach both sides

Equating "made in God's image" with physical similarities is at least as silly as claiming that morphological similarities are solely a result of similar functional requirements (as opposed to common descent). The Christian God is not a corporeal being, so from the start one rules out all the physical traits listed by GH. The traditional understanding of the Imago Dei is that it is reflected in our capacity for love, for reason, for relationships, and other non-corporeal capacities.

It is true that the harshness of the natural world contradicts the notion of God as both omnipotent and benevolent, but that problem has been around, and addressed in various ways, long before Darwin (it's called the theodicy problem). What is not usually recognized by people who use this as an attack against Christianity is that it's just as potent an argument in favor of Christianity. The alternative to a benevolent Creator is one who is malevolent or indifferent, or none at all. From a metaphysical perspective, it is at least as difficult, and in my opinion more unpleasant, to contemplate these three options and their implications, as it is to wrestle with the theodicy issue. And from a practical perspective, people will always prefer a benevolent God whose ways they do not fully understand to a meaningless universe.

The theodicy problem, and in fact the problem of suffering generally, cannot be solved via rational argumentation. Either you have faith that God is benevolent and omnipotent, or you don't. Either He suffered on the cross as a man, and thus participated in the suffering of the world, or He didn't. Either way, you can't fully explain why suffering exists, or what it's ultimate purpose is, if it has any. This is what Dostoyevsky was exploring in The Brother's Karamazov.

frank schmidt wrote: Tactically, however, the unverifiable conclusion evolution -> atheism plays into the hands of the DI and the like. It is odd that both Dawkins and Philip Johnson make the claim; the only difference is that Dawkins says that implies atheism is correct, while Philip Johnson says that implies evolution is incorrect.

"Evolution isn't real science"

But it is.

"evolution is incompatible with religion"

Evolution is incompatible with many claims of religionists and specific religions. Evolution is clearly not incompatible with the sort of Spinozan "religion" that Einstein favored, and neither Dawkins nor anyone else has ever claimed it is.

"it's only fair to teach both sides"

Teach whatever you want in religion class.

"Don't validate assertion #2"

Don't be stupid, and don't tell people not to make valid arguments just because you think they play into someone's hands; that sort of censorship is intellectually and ethically corrupt.

"The traditional understanding of the Imago Dei is that it is reflected in our capacity for love, for reason, for relationships"

So God has a brain?

"and other non-corporeal capacities"

Psychological capacities are "non-corporeal"? Welcome to voodoo vitalism.

"What is not usually recognized by people who use this as an attack against Christianity is that it's just as potent an argument in favor of Christianity."

They don't recognize it because it's not true.

"The alternative to a benevolent Creator is one who is malevolent or indifferent, or none at all. From a metaphysical perspective, it is at least as difficult, and in my opinion more unpleasant, to contemplate these three options and their implications, as it is to wrestle with the theodicy issue."

How difficult or unpleasant one finds the implication of an argument has no bearing on its validity. "A world without God scares me, boo hoo" is not "an argument in favor of Christianity".

"And from a practical perspective, people will always prefer a benevolent God whose ways they do not fully understand to a meaningless universe."

*Some* people will. But how widespread this sort of cowardice and confusion ("meaningless universe" is a category mistake) is has no bearing on the validity of Christianity.

"Either way, you can't fully explain why suffering exists"

Suffering is a natural consequence of selection pressure.

"or what it's ultimate purpose is, if it has any"

"ultimate purpose" is a category mistake. Neither suffering nor dirt has any "ultimate purpose".

Dawkins says evolution makes God unnecessary to understand the natural world (which is true, but it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist), and that, in the absence of scientific evidence for God's existence, the rational and philosphically appropriate conclusion should be that of atheism (which is a logically correct, if arguable, philosophical - not scientific - statement).

A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he though God's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about god, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's. Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence. The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't' have to bother saying so.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.

If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr's death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place. Especially if they also believe that that other universe is a paradisical escape from the tribulations of the real world. Top it off with sincerely believed, if ludicrous and degrading to women, sexual promises, and is it any wonder that naïve and frustrated young men are clamouring to be selected for suicide missions?

My last vestige of "hands off religion" respect disappeared in the smoke and choking dust of September 11th 2001, followed by the "National Day of Prayer," when prelates and pastors did their tremulous Martin Luther King impersonations and urged people of mutually incompatible faiths to hold hands, united in homage to the very force that caused the problem in the first place.

My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most dangerous one, by which a "they" as opposed to a "we" can be identified at all.

It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims. There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.

ts -

I don't want to get into a religion duel here. My religious beliefs don't compel me to proselytize, nor to worry that others will suffer terribly for not sharing them, so it really doesn't matter. But just for completeness...

"No, it's not the same at all. The default position is that God, Santa Claus, unicorns, and tiny green men from Mars don't exist -- per Ockham's Razor."

No, it isn't. The default position is that science doesn't attempt to study God. There are a lot of other things it doesn't attempt to study, as well. A God who would be "required" to drive the sun's chariot or hold the atoms together is a straw man God. 'Science' that satisfied itself with explanations involving such a God would be meaningless pseudoscience. In fact, it is - it's called "intelligent design". It's not entirely useless - it generates a lot of income for its proponents.

Ockham's razor is a useful guide for intellectual endeavors, not a rigid rule.

Santa Claus is highly ammenable to scientific study. Santa Claus is 'magical' in the sense that he has powers over the physical world that we don't have right now, but he operates in the physical world. We can easily verify that there is no house at the North Pole, that no-one flies a sleigh around on Christmas eve, that gifts to children attributed to Santa Claus are actually from other sources, and so on. 'Little green men from Mars' is a humorous way of expressing the idea that extraterrestrial intelligent, technology-using life might have features in common with such life on earth, such as bilateral symmetry, a central nervous system homologue, limbs not required for mobility (and thus free for environmental manipulation) and so on. I don't traffic in conjecture on extraterrestrial life, but the idea is not ridiculous on its face. Of course, we can be sure there's no such life on Mars.

"Lacking arguments for the necessity of God, it's appropriate to deny God"

First of all, why would something have to be 'necessary' to exist? What do you mean by 'necessary'? Is anything necessary? Is anything uneccessary?

This really is reverse creationism. I've even had a creationist argue with me that evolution is atheistic because it makes God "unecessary" for something! Reverse creationism is a LOT better than the regular kind, I hasten to add.

The premise goes - "If science can explain a lot without invoking God, God must not exist". The creationist accepts the argument, but concludes (or pretends to conclude for political or economic purposes) that, since God must exist, science must be wrong. The Hobbesian atheist also accepts the argument, but concludes that, since science does explain a lot, God must not exist. But they both accept the same premise, and differ only in drawing mirror image conclusions from it.

By the way, there are many atheists who don't justify their atheism with this logic; I'm not addressing them.

Here's the way I see it.

"Science is a way to study the natural world without invoking God, or the 'supernatural' in general, except certain supernatural mathematical abstractions which are necessary and uncontroversial. It explains a lot. It casts doubt on certain types of folk figures like Santa Claus, Thor, ghosts, and whatnot, some of whom are known as 'gods', who are actually imaginary natural beings with special powers. It doesn't say jack about God, but that's no suprise, because it wasn't supposed to in the first place!"

Looking for God with science is like trying to learn Japanese by studying Arabic. Deriding belief in God because it isn't required by science is a bit like criticizing Arabic class for not teaching good Japanese.

Can science be used to cast doubt on religion? It depends. The Aztecs believed that human sacrifice had an effect on the weather patterns. Science can study that type of belief, and cast doubt on it (or in theory, provide evidence that supports it). In a sense, though, that type of "religious" belief is more of a scientific belief. But science CAN'T deal with many other religious questions. In general, science is useless for a debate between atheism and religion.

No, it isn't. The default position is that science doesn't attempt to study God.

Santa Claus is highly ammenable to scientific study.

The premise goes - "If science can explain a lot without invoking God, God must not exist".

It casts doubt on certain types of folk figures like Santa Claus, Thor, ghosts, and whatnot, some of whom are known as 'gods', who are actually imaginary natural beings with special powers. It doesn't say jack about God

In general, science is useless for a debate between atheism and religion.

"In general, science is useless for a debate between atheism and religion." Depends, since there are two flavors of atheism.

"No, it's not the same at all. The default position is that God, Santa Claus, unicorns, and tiny green men from Mars don't exist �" per Ockham's Razor." No, it isn't.

The default position is that science doesn't attempt to study God.

Flint -

"Nothing that exists is off limits to scientific investigation, and there is no "default position" that science avoid such study."

Maybe you can help me with something. I have a friend who likes Mozart better than Beethoven. But I feel the opposite way. Let's design a scientific experiment to show test which is more beautiful, the music of Mozart or the music of Beethoven. I'm not talking opinion poll, or even neuroscience research on how music affects the brain, I want a scientific experiment that specifically addresses this very simple question - which music is more beautiful? After all, nothing is off limits.

You know, I have a friend who's trying to decide whether to be a Buddhist monk who dedicates his life to healing torture victims, or a to go on a spree of violent sadistic crime. It's one or the other, for this guy. He's having a hard time deciding. What does science say? Which is "right" or "wrong"? Which is "better"? Scientific answers only please.

A lot of raw nerves have been touched in this discussion thread, which was initiated by Adam's responses to a post of mine (note - not my 'religious' nerve, by any means - it isn't raw). Extremely inflammatory political issues have been broached. People are angry. Nobody wants to back down.

I've appreciated many of your excellent posts in the past, and I'm sure I'll do so in the future. When I read the line above (in quotes), my feeling was that, on this thread, people are going to pretty much say anything rather than back down, and it has as much to do with the history of the discussion as anything else. Science is not incompatible with my religious beliefs, and that's that.

The reason I argue with "proofs" of atheism that I find logically uncompelling, when they make use of science, is probably more public relations than anything else. I happen to sympathize with such people, and I respect their views (it's "proofs" of those views, and derrogation of other equally valid views, that I've been arguing against). But at a level of public opinions and politics, they play into creationist hands. And if the creationists win, the next generation may not have a chance to learn about science.

And I AM NOT ARGUING AGAINST ATHEISM, nor disrespecting the views of atheists. I Only against logical proofs of atheism that I find unconvincing. I have argued just as vigorously against silly "proofs of God", within this very forum.

I can accept science and have a religious perspective. Francis Collins can do it, the Dhali Llama can do it, and a lot of other people can do it. Some of them are nice, some of them are nasty, and that goes for atheists as well.

Ockham's razor is a useful guide for intellectual endeavors, not a rigid rule.

In general, science is useless for a debate between atheism and religion.

"Lacking arguments for the necessity of God, it's appropriate to deny God" First of all, why would something have to be 'necessary' to exist? What do you mean by 'necessary'? Is anything necessary? Is anything uneccessary?

This really is reverse creationism. I've even had a creationist argue with me that evolution is atheistic because it makes God "unecessary" for something! Reverse creationism is a LOT better than the regular kind, I hasten to add.

I have a friend who likes Mozart better than Beethoven. But I feel the opposite way. Let's design a scientific experiment to show test which is more beautiful, the music of Mozart or the music of Beethoven.

A lot of raw nerves have been touched in this discussion thread, which was initiated by Adam's responses to a post of mine (note - not my 'religious' nerve, by any means - it isn't raw). Extremely inflammatory political issues have been broached. People are angry. Nobody wants to back down.

Science is not incompatible with my religious beliefs, and that's that.

harold:

OK, I see what you're driving at. My statement was clearly too general, and thus left plenty of scope for the kind of questions you're asking.

I would speculate that at the limit, science could find some way to identify an appreciation of beauty or "rightness" down to the level of neural firings (and whatever else relevant goes on inside the brain), but I agree (I think?) that such things as beauty and morality do not "exist" in the way I used the word. In fact, there's a long list of terms describing what are not "things" in an investigatable sense. These are terms that describe people's attitudes.

But gods don't really fall into this category, as I understand the term. My understanding is that gods are depicted as real, measurable, objectively extant. If you are saying that gods are actually useful figments of certain peoples' imaginations, then I agree these are not "things" in a scientific sense, and it's as useless to even *define* gods as to try to define beauty.

I've written before that science can determine whether one person killed another, but science cannot determine if the fact situation involved should be socially permissible. So what you are talking about here, with Mozart and crime, is social conventions. Science can investigate the outcomes of following different conventions. The conventions themselves are arbitrary. If your god is visualized as an arbitrary convention, I agree it lies beyond the borders of science.

I didn't mean to imply that religion and science are inherently incompatible. My own attitude is that religious beliefs layer unnecessary complications onto otherwise complete and sufficient understandings, and contribute nothing of more than psychological value. Hard atheism contributes nothing of any value either, of course. I think it IS useful to hold as the default, that where evidence is absent, presumption of the existence of something despite lack of evidence is dangerous. The creationists demonstrate, at least to my satisfaction, that baseless assumptions, held rigidly, effective blind people to valid understandings of what could be observed were they only capable of doing so.

In other words, a religious perspective is perfectly acceptable, so long as it does not cloud your insights or short-circuit your curiosity. For me, as an individual, this means that a religious perspective at worst threatens creationist-style denial, and at best is harmlessly irrelevant. Belief in gods tends to distort our already-limited sense of our universe.

Tactically, however, the unverifiable conclusion evolution -> atheism plays into the hands of the DI and the like.

To those who complain that this plays into the hands of creationists, I say stop being such a pathetic simpering coward.

If you didn't fear that science undermines the rational basis for your beliefs, you wouldn't be so desparate to claim that science must stay away from them.

It hurts our side, and helps theirs.

And it's a mis-use of science.

If you were to say this to my face, I can pretty much guarantee you that you'll find, very quickly, that I am none of those things ... . .

I also think science should stay away from them.

Science cannot tell us if god or gods exist. Science cannot tell us if chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla. Science cannot tell us if blondes are cuter than brunettes. Science cannot tell us if murder is wrong, or abortion is not.

My enemy is the creationist. It should be your enemy too

I respectfully suggest that you stay the hell out of the way while you are doing it

Science is under assault in part because we allow the fight to take place on their turf. People will cling to a belief in the face of whatever evidence there is against it. One might say our brains were selected to do so.

Most people would sooner die than think. And they do.

The only way of reconciling the benevolent and omnipotent creator God of Christianity with the harsh and random natural world revealed by science is by making certain assumptions, such as the assumption that all the suffering is somehow necessary in order to ultimately bring about good, or the assumption that the apparently undirected and purposeless processes of evolution are in some mysterious way that we cannot understand guided by God. There is no support for these assumptions from science or reason. That's why they're assumptions.

Why are "theistic evolutionists" any more justified in making these assumptions than a young-earth creationist is justified in assuming that God created the world 6,000 years ago with the fossils already in place and the light from distant stars already on its way?

Again, if science is to prosper, it cannot be seen as inimical to the beliefs of those who pay for it and consume its products.

More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science's turf, restricting itself to morals and values. A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference. Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims. There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.

— Richard Dawkins

ts -

At this point, you're just in full troll mode. It's all there - the pointless insults, the irrational anger, the exaggerated tone of "scorn", the deliberate misunderstandings, the irrelevant references to "information theory", the Archie comic vocabulary of sarcasm ("sheesh" and "sez you" right back at you, and I raise you a "toodles" and a "ta-ta"). There's no possible moral, "social convention", or intellectual justification for this behavior. It doesn't prove your point is wrong, but it sure weakens it.

You're also, basically, a religious bigot. You're literally unable to tolerate the thought that someone else has a different view. You don't get to tell me whether my religion conflicts with science. I decide that. If someone comes on this site and says that they're a religious Christian or Jew or Hindu or Buddhist, anything else, but they accept science, it's really not your place to jump in their face with a bunch of frat house philosophy or irrelevant quotations from Dawkins. Dawkins isn't mixing it with a snotty tone of personal insult and clumsy sarcasm, and neither are most of the other atheist posters. You are, and it's an obnoxious combination. Is a bigot not so much one who feels intolerant, but one who EXPRESSES his intolerance in a childish and vulgar way? Perhaps indeed.

If someone comes on here and tells me that science conflicts with their religion, so science should be shut down and censored out of schools, then I argue. I argue politics, too, when it's relevant to the subject at hand.

I have a hypothesis. Predicting human behavior is a "soft" science, of course, but I think I'll give it a whirl. I predict at least one savagely insulting yet painfully irrelevant reply to this. I further predict that you'll "follow" me around the site and make a lot of pointless insulting replies to any posts I make, for the next few days. You'll do it even though I'm predicting it right here.

But you won't get any more replies.

At this point, you're just in full troll mode.

You're also, basically, a religious bigot.

I predict at least one savagely insulting yet painfully irrelevant reply to this.

I further predict that you'll "follow" me around the site and make a lot of pointless insulting replies to any posts I make, for the next few days.

Testosterone doesn't disprove cowardice.

For completeness -

Forgot a few other characteristic of troll posters -

1. Inaccurate reference to presumed motivation of other posters.
2. Inevitable inaccurate claim that they are the victim of an "ad hominem" attack (and they always use those words, "ad hominem").
And, last but not least...

3. Total lack of a sense of irony.

Please see above for demonstration of point "3.". And fulfillment of my first prediction.

"Science cannot tell us if god or gods exist."

Agreed. But science can tell us if god or gods do anything that is observable and repeatable.

Science can tell us if certain kinds of prayer work under defined conditions. Science can (potentially) detect the effects of a supernatural entity that periodically suspends the normal laws of physics.

None of this can ever rule out the existence of god or gods, but it does speak to whether god or gods regularly intervene in our normal existence. In that respect, I agree with Flint. It's hard to see any empirical reason to believe in god or gods.

"Science cannot tell us if god or gods exist."

Agreed. But science can tell us if god or gods do anything that is observable and repeatable.

There is no support for these assumptions from science or reason.

"But you won't get any more replies."

Well, that was a lie, wasn't hit.

"Total lack of a sense of irony."

I certainly sense the immense irony of your comments!

Much "science", like quantum mechanics, is at root, "unreasonable"

As I noted before, science can only deal with things that are amenable to the scientific method. About things which are NOT amenable to the scientific method, science can say nothing. And that is a very large portion of reality.

[quotge]You've confused your fantasies with reality.This is emphatically not so, in this case. Science gains all of its power by defining its boundaries so rigidly and fairly narrowly. Are political repercussions "real"? Are social conventions "real"? Damn right they are. Can they be assigned meaning using the scientific method? Nope. Does this make them meaningless or fantasy? Not hardly. At best we can apply game theory to identify optimal strategies and tactics within a given set of social rules to achieve a desired social outcome. Selecting the desired outcome, arriving at preferences, is something carefully outside the bounds science has defined for itself. But preferences are not fantasies nonetheless.

A great deal outside those bounds is important in our lives. Perhaps most of what's important in most of our lives isn't anything the scientific method can examine. And where DO most of us find meaning, how do we pick what satisfies or fulfills us? It's entirely appropriate to call the source of our preferences "religion" in a very general sense -- general enough to encompass values generally, including the value we place on satisfying our curiosity about the physical universe.

Of course, there is no need to make up imaginary invisible magicians in the the sky, who do absurd things like have themselves executed by mistake (and uselessly) in order to somehow have to justify some forgiveness for their own creations, whom they manipulated into doing these things anyway. That kind of doctrinal superstructure takes something I consider important (where values come from and what they're for) and stupidifies it.

Why are "theistic evolutionists" any more justified in making these assumptions than a young-earth creationist is justified in assuming that God created the world 6,000 years ago with the fossils already in place and the light from distant stars already on its way?

— Don P

You've confused your fantasies with reality.

This is emphatically not so, in this case. Science gains all of its power by defining its boundaries so rigidly and fairly narrowly. Are political repercussions "real"? Are social conventions "real"? Damn right they are. Can they be assigned meaning using the scientific method? Nope. Does this make them meaningless or fantasy? Not hardly. At best we can apply game theory to identify optimal strategies and tactics within a given set of social rules to achieve a desired social outcome. Selecting the desired outcome, arriving at preferences, is something carefully outside the bounds science has defined for itself. But preferences are not fantasies nonetheless.

Of course, there is no need to make up imaginary invisible magicians in the the sky, who do absurd things like have themselves executed by mistake (and uselessly) in order to somehow have to justify some forgiveness for their own creations, whom they manipulated into doing these things anyway. That kind of doctrinal superstructure takes something I consider important (where values come from and what they're for) and stupidifies it.

You think quantum mechanics is "unreasonable" because it doesn't match your intuitions developed within this mid-size environment.

Mike S:

If neither the assumptions required by young-earth creationism nor the assumptions required by theistic evolutionism are justified by science or reason, why shouldn't we reject both as irrational and unscientific? If young-earth creationism is unreasonable and disreputable, why isn't theistic evolutionism also unreasonable and disreputable? What I am attacking is the intellectual conceit of Christians like Kenneth Miller who assert that their religious beliefs are somehow consistent with science and reason whereas those of young-earth creationists are not. Neither of them are consistent with science.

And my original point still stands. "Science" and "reason" are not the same.

Neither of them are consistent with science.

Most of what happens around us is NOT amenable to the scientific method.

Would you mind using the scientific method to demonstrate this, please?

It's hard to know why you think this "point" is relevant. Yes, science and reason are not the same thing. Did anyone claim that they are? Did anyone make an argument that requires them to be?

Would you mind using the scientific method to demonstrate this, please?

Evolution has demonstrated it.

Yet we are told by Christians

Huh? Everything that happens around us is amenable to the scientific method.

Lenny Frank:

Posted by 'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank on July 12, 2005 10:19 PM (e) (s)

You've confused your fantasies with reality. This is emphatically not so, in this case. Science gains all of its power by defining its boundaries so rigidly and fairly narrowly. Are political repercussions "real"? Are social conventions "real"? Damn right they are. Can they be assigned meaning using the scientific method? Nope.

Does this make them meaningless or fantasy? Not hardly.

At best we can apply game theory to identify optimal strategies and tactics within a given set of social rules to achieve a desired social outcome.

Selecting the desired outcome, arriving at preferences, is something carefully outside the bounds science has defined for itself. But preferences are not fantasies nonetheless.

It's the difference between studying blackjack to determine how to win, and studying blackjack players and the playing of blackjack as human behavior. These are two quite different arenas.

Science can't tell you what ice cream flavoring tastes "better"

Please don't presume to tell me what I think. I know EXACTLY what I think.

QM is "unreasonable" because it's nonlinear, probabilistic, inherently unpredictable over the longterm, and follows no laws of cause and effect.

Don't agree? Then please feel free to explain to me why this unstable nucleus decays at this particular time, and not that one. Please feel free to be as "reasonable" as you like.

It's the difference between studying blackjack to determine how to win, and studying blackjack players and the playing of blackjack as human behavior. These are two quite different arenas. Indeed, they are. That being my point.

Science can't tell you what ice cream flavoring tastes "better" Why not?

Huh? Everything that happens around us is amenable to the scientific method. Reeeaaaalllyyyyyy. Please use the scientific method to tell me whether or not murder is wrong.

Please use the scientific method to tell me whether or not murder is wrong.

I've pretty much decided that you're not worth bothering with

"evolution is incompatible with religion"

It's often pointed out that this is true depending on the claims of the religion. You will still get people who say , "well then science is wrong because I know my religion is correct".

Ask them to explain to you what's wrong with being a Breatharian http://www.randi.org/jr/070105quality.html#14. Such people believe it is possible to live without food. Only science can show that's impossible. So why reject science in one case and not the other? Breatharians are as certain that it is possible to live without food as Biblical literalists that evolution is wrong. They too say "well science is wrong because my religion is correct".

Questions for Pope on Evolution Stance Three scientists, two of them Roman Catholic biologists, have asked Pope Benedict XVI to clarify the church's position on evolution... It is crucial, their letter says, "that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief." Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University, wrote the letter on behalf of himself and the two biologists, Dr. Francisco J. Ayala of the University of California, Irvine, a former Dominican priest, and Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University, a Roman Catholic who has written on the reconciliation of science and faith....

Huh? Everything that happens around us is amenable to the scientific method.

Reeeaaaalllyyyyyy.

Please use the scientific method to tell me whether or not murder is wrong.

What exactly is it here "that happens around us" that is not amenable to the scientific method? "murder is wrong" and "murder is not wrong" are not things that happen around us. But murders, social attitudes toward murder, and social views as to what counts as murder are things that happen around us, and all of these are amenable to the scientific method; they are things about which science can say something. That there is *something* science can't say about them is far different from the claim that "science has nothing to say".

I think you got that right. Lenny is like those creationists who say "C'mon, use the scientific method to prove evolution. Can't, huh?" Or someone saying "C'mon, use the scientific method to prove the four color theorem. Can't, huh?" With such a clownish approach to the structure of human knowledge, it's hardly surprising that he has such a limited view of the applicability of the scientific method.

Don't agree? Then please feel free to explain to me why this unstable nucleus decays at this particular time, and not that one. Please feel free to be as "reasonable" as you like.

I can see why you think it unreasonable, because you are making unreasoned assumptions. There's a mathematical model developed by Dr. Hugh Everett III which contains a world state for each possible time that the nucleus can decay. This mathematical model is quite "reasonable" -- amenable to reason. But Everett's meta-deterministic model isn't required in order to for QM to be "reasonable" -- non-deterministic statistical models are quite "reasonable". That they are non-deterministic does not mean that they are non-reasonable, it just means that they are non-deterministic.

Your claim was that "Most of what happens around us is NOT amenable to the scientific method." The morality of murder is not an example of "something that happens around us."

Ask them to explain to you what's wrong with being a Breatharian http://www.randi.org/jr/070105quality.html#14. Such people believe it is possible to live without food. Only science can show that's impossible. So why reject science in one case and not the other? Breatharians are as certain that it is possible to live without food as Biblical literalists that evolution is wrong. They too say "well science is wrong because my religion is correct".

Because "better" isn't part of the scientific vocabulary

It is crucial, their letter says, "that in these difficult and contentious times the Catholic Church not build a new divide, long ago eradicated, between the scientific method and religious belief."

Sorry Lenny I did not think my point needed further clarification.

Everyone accepts at least part of scientific knowledge. Suppose Mr Smith has a particular religious view that rejects e.g. evolution because it conflicts with his religious view and he says something like "I know better because my religion is correct". You can point him to Mr Jones the Breatharian. Mr Smith will agree that Mr Jones' religious views are nonsense - because they conflict with scientific knowledge - and that Mr Jones should ditch any of his religious notions that so conflict. At which point to can turn the tables on Mr Smith and ask why he does not take his own advice.

(It's very important to state that it is a scientific fact that people need food. Mr Smith could say the need for food is just common sense. But common sense is wrong about a lot of things, such as the sun orbiting the earth.)

Hopes this clears it up.

ts:

Sometimes you sound as though you'd be willing to use "science" to determine whether it's better to be a liberal or a conservative, and pretend to be satisfied that you had determined an objectively correct answer. Other times, you sound as though such questions are unimportant or irrelevant because science is not able to determine an objective answer.

But neither of these positions holds much water. Science can't answer the question, but the question is nonetheless very important, because how people answer it affects all of our daily lives, sometimes in critical ways.

Yes, science can presumably determine in accurate detail exactly WHY a given individual answers the question the way he does. Perhaps science can even suggest how we might manipulate peoples' experiences so as not to give the "wrong" answer. But science can NEVER tell you which answer is wrong. Science might accurately predict the social outcomes of different majorities in favor of which positions on which issues. But science can't tell you which outcomes are preferable. Two knowledgeable and sincere people can legitimately disagree on these matters, and all the science in the world can't resolve this disagreement.

Science, once again, is a specialized tool, excellent at what it's designed to accomplish, inappropriate outside that narrow range. Claiming the entire world is a nail so that the hammer of science becomes universal doesn't make it so. That can be a dangerous delusion. Nearly everything we do from moment to moment is in answer to questions (not usually articulated) involving complex tradeoffs, and how we make these tradoffs is informed by sophisticated, nuanced value systems we have developed over the course of our lives. All of which science has nothing to say about. Science might identify and quantify the tradoffs, but it can't MAKE them for you. Science simply DOES NOT determine the systems of values by which we guide our lives. Yet those values are the most important things in our lives.

Ultimately, science cannot address the question of why science is beneficial. It can produce what you might consider a benefit (and others might not), but it cannot assign itself a value.

Flint:

The issue isn't whether science and reason can answer everything (perhaps they can't); the issue is whether religion can answer anything. And by "anwser," I mean provide us with knowledge, rather than mere guesses, wishes, hopes, etc. I say that religion cannot answer anything at all. If you disagree, give me some examples of knowledge that you claim religion has provided us with.

And to get back to my earlier point, why are the assumptions that need to be made by theistic evolutionists like Kenneth Miller to reconcile science and reason with their religious beliefs any more justified than the assumptions that need to be made by young-earth creationists to reconcile science and reason with theirs?

the issue is whether religion can answer anything. And by "anwser," I mean provide us with knowledge, rather than mere guesses, wishes, hopes, etc.

If neither the assumptions required by young-earth creationism nor the assumptions required by theistic evolutionism are justified by science or reason, why shouldn't we reject both as irrational and unscientific?

— Don P

If young-earth creationism is unreasonable and disreputable, why isn't theistic evolutionism also unreasonable and disreputable? What I am attacking is the intellectual conceit of Christians like Kenneth Miller who assert that their religious beliefs are somehow consistent with science and reason whereas those of young-earth creationists are not. Neither of them are consistent with science.

The issue isn't whether science and reason can answer everything (perhaps they can't); the issue is whether religion can answer anything. And by "anwser," I mean provide us with knowledge, rather than mere guesses, wishes, hopes, etc. I say that religion cannot answer anything at all. If you disagree, give me some examples of knowledge that you claim religion has provided us with.

— Don P

If someone, like myself or Kenneth Miller or Pope John Paul II, believes in an omnipotent, benevolent deity, but also believes that the process by which He creates includes the process of evolution, how is that belief not consistent with science?

Likewise, in the case of the Creationist who accepts that the evidence does point to an old earth and to evolution, but insists that it must be wrong because of his religious beliefs (i.e. we're excluding Creation Scientists who insist, for example, that the Grand Canyon actually provides support for a young earth), how is that inconsistent with science?

Both accept that the scientific evidence says what the scientific community says it does - they just differ in their interpretation of the extra-scientific meaning of that evidence.

Science reveals a violent and chaotic world, with no sign of intelligent guidance or purpose, no sign that it was created by something that cares about suffering. Human beings appear to have evolved only because of a series of accidents. In light of this scientific picture of the world, how is the claim that it was created by a benevolent and omniptent God plausible?

This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about when I say you are smuggling in value judgements - why is the only standard of "usefulness" the production of knowledge?

Religion, generally speaking, doesn't (or shouldn't) compete with science in trying to explain how the natural world works.

As Flint said, "Religion cannot provide us with knowledge; it CAN (and does) provide us with a reason to value knowledge."

Some examples of knowledge that Christianity has provided us with (using a broader notion of "knowledge" than that used above, which is more like "technical knowledge") are the inherent worth of each individual human being

the notion that the natural world was created by a rational intelligence,

I asked for examples of knowledge that religion has provided us with. Do you have any to offer? Or do you agree with me that religion has not provided us with any knowledge?

You are saying that if YOU were the omnipotent god, given what YOU think is "good" (presumably less violence, more organization, more obvious direction, etc.) YOU would have managed things differently. Since they are not managed as YOU would do it, they must not be managed at all! How very convenient. Kind of silly, though. Judging God according to YOUR value system (and flunking Him for failure to live up to your standards) is worth a laugh, anyway.

If Miller wishes to see management, nobody can say he's wrong.

But for Miller, it adds personal appreciation of that understanding perhaps not possible for Miller otherwise. Why is this wrong?

RELIGION DOES NOT IMPART KNOWLEDGE.

IT PROVIDES THE CONTEXT WITHIN WHICH YOU CAN FIND MEANING!!

I'm saying that the claim that the world was created by an omnipotent and benevolent God fails the test of science and reason. There is no sign of benevolence. There is no sign of omnipotence. There is no sign of intelligent guidance or purpose.

You can only reconcile the world as revealed by science with the claim that it was created by the Christian God by making certain assumptions, such as the assumption that all the suffering is part of some divine plan to ultimately bring about the greatest good, or the assumption that all the apparent randomness and accident is actually part of some divine plan that we do not understand. Why are you justified in making those assumptions?

But there is no evidence of "management" (by which I assume you mean something like "direction by a benevolent and omnipotent God").

All the evidence we have suggests there is no such "management." There's just purposeless, undirected, uncaring natural law. Miller is making an assumption of management.

What is this "context," and what is the "meaning" that religion allegedly provides us with through this "context?"

You know, I have a friend who's trying to decide whether to be a Buddhist monk who dedicates his life to healing torture victims, or a to go on a spree of violent sadistic crime.  It's one or the other, for this guy.  He's having a hard time deciding.

— Harold

Indeed, the Catholic Church learned their lesson the hard way, from that whole Galileo thingie. The fundies, of course, never did learn that lesson. Perhaps the whole ID fiasco will enlighten them.

RELIGION DOES NOT IMPART KNOWLEDGE. IT PROVIDES THE CONTEXT WITHIN WHICH YOU CAN FIND MEANING!!

Science simply cannot test such a claim. Period.

Your statements are pure value judgments, nothing more.

Let's say that *I* insist that I see plenty of signs of omnipotence, intelligent guidance, and purpose.

You say there is "no sign of guidance" but how can you tell?

I have never once got up in the morning and wondered what my purpose was, I had to much to do that day.

Then on what basis do you reject ID? If science cannot test the claim the world shows evidence of intelligent guidance and purpose, on what basis do you reject that claim?

No, they are rational inferences from scientific evidence. The same kind of rational inferences by which I reject ID and other forms of creationism.

You look at the evidence to see if it shows signs intelligent guidance or purpose (or benevolence or omnipotence). Is this really so hard to understand?

How do you think anthropologists distinguish stone-age human artifacts like axes and spear points from ordinary rocks?

I don't think the ID claim can be rejected on the basis of science, because it is not a scientific claim at all.

You have started with an a priori value system, have used your assumptions as your evidence, and arrived at your conclusions.

But the universe could have come into existence 10 seconds ago complete with every appearance of age, and you could NEVER prove otherwise. Unfalsifiable statements can't be wrong anymore than they can be right. They are basically definitions. Definitions are true by definition, and you either accept the definition as useful, or reject it as useless.

Sorry Lenny I did not think my point needed further clarification. Everyone accepts at least part of scientific knowledge. Suppose Mr Smith has a particular religious view that rejects e.g. evolution because it conflicts with his religious view and he says something like "I know better because my religion is correct". You can point him to Mr Jones the Breatharian. Mr Smith will agree that Mr Jones' religious views are nonsense - because they conflict with scientific knowledge - and that Mr Jones should ditch any of his religious notions that so conflict. At which point to can turn the tables on Mr Smith and ask why he does not take his own advice. (It's very important to state that it is a scientific fact that people need food. Mr Smith could say the need for food is just common sense. But common sense is wrong about a lot of things, such as the sun orbiting the earth.) Hopes this clears it up.

You cannot determine whether something shows signs of purpose if you don't know the purpose. What you CAN do, of course, is MAKE UP a purpose, and then determine whether or not what you're looking at serves that purpose. What you are doing is supposing a purpose (whether or not you choose to admit it), and then determining that what you observe doesn't meet it.

But the larger question is, why is reason, or science, the only standard by which we must judge things?

No, I'm saying that the claim that the world was created by an omnipotent and benevolent God fails the test of science and reason. There is no sign of benevolence. There is no sign of omnipotence. There is no sign of intelligent guidance or purpose. There is no sign of concern about suffering. You can only reconcile the world as revealed by science with the claim that it was created by the Christian God by making certain assumptions, such as the assumption that all the suffering is part of some divine plan to ultimately bring about the greatest good, or the assumption that all the apparent randomness and accident is actually part of some divine plan that we do not understand. Why are you justified in making those assumptions?

By pre-specifying the purpose of the axes and spear points, of course.

You know, I have a friend who's trying to decide whether to be a Buddhist monk who dedicates his life to healing torture victims, or a to go on a spree of violent sadistic crime. It's one or the other, for this guy. He's having a hard time deciding.

What seems to be the problem?

Sciecne cannot answer any ethical or moral questions, nor can it answer any matters of subjective judgement. Those are a huge part of reality (or is it your view that ethics, morality and subjectivity are not part of reality?).

Sometimes you sound as though you'd be willing to use "science" to determine whether it's better to be a liberal or a conservative,

pretend to be satisfied that you had determined an objectively correct answer.

Other times, you sound as though such questions are unimportant or irrelevant because science is not able to determine an objective answer.

Don P. -

ID, and creationism in general DISHONESTLY claim that many aspects of the real world which can be explained by science, cannot be so explained. They introduce imaginary magical forces, and yet paradoxically claim to be scientific. Not only that, but their advocates and adherents behave in dishonest and unethical ways. To top it all off, they want their dogma-driven nonsense taught to children in public schools. One need not be an atheist to oppose this.

You are a committed and enthusiastic "hard atheist". You raise philosophical arguments, which you feel should "convert" us all to your beliefs. You are frustrated, and perhaps angered, that anyone would have a different religious or philosophical perspective than your own. My perception is that you are trying to argue than one must "choose" either ID or the brand of atheism favored by Richard Dawkins. If I'm wrong, please correct me, your posts above lead me to this conclusion. I consider this to be a false dichotomy. I have no problem with you or Dawkins believing whatever you want, of course.

Much material has been posted recently on the bad effects of religion, much of it lifted from material actually published by Dawkins. I'm not sure whether he and his publishers appreciate large blocks of quotes from his books, which he sells, being posted on the internet. He probably doesn't mind.

No-one can deny that much bad behavior has been committed in the name of religion.

I consider the implied analysis to be over-simplified, however. The assumption seems to be that humans become religious, and then do bad things because they are relgious. However, you lack a control group. What would have happened if humans had not been religious? Lenny Flank has pointed out that officially atheist societies are equally bad actors. We can dispute whether Marxism is a "secular religion"; Lenny's logical point is that the closest thing we have to a control group does not show a difference. All I know is, humans are strongly predisposed to behaving badly to each other, and strongly predisposed to forming religions. There is no particular reason to think that one of these propensities causes the other.

I've made these points for the benefit of any third parties who may be paying attention here (however unlikely that may be).

Lenny Flank:

For the umpteenth time, the evidence shows no sign of benevolence. The evidence shows no sign of omnipotence. The evidence shows no sign of purpose. It is possible that the world was created by an omnipotent, benevolent, purposeful God despite the lack of evidence that it was. But the belief that the world was so created is an assumption. Why are you justified in making that assumption? Answer the question.

Ultimately, science cannot address the question of why science is beneficial. It can produce what you might consider a benefit (and others might not), but it cannot assign itself a value.

— Flint

As I've said about 10 times now, the core was disproving Harold's hypothesis that the GOP caters to religious fundamentalists because of allegedly disreputable positions it took on the civil rights issues back in the 1960's. I proved that this is false because the Republican party consistently, and overwhelmingly, was on the morally correct side of the civil rights issue throughout the civil rights era.

harold:

If you agree with me that proponents of ID are wrong and that there is no scientific evidence that the world is the product of intelligent guidance and design, on what basis do you believe that it is?

Religion can tell us if it was a Good Thing, but is useless in determining whether it happened or whodunnit.

One other thing.

Much hay is made over "imperfect" design. This is really just a version of "the problem of evil".

It is a problem for ID, but only to the extent that the "designer" is presumed to care about humans, seek a human standard of "perfection" in nature, and so on. They could easily solve this problem by positing a quixotic or malevolent designer (of course, they would never do so, since this would radically reduce the commercial value of their product). I once heard a Gnostic argument that the human race is maintained in just the right level of suffering to maximize overall human suffering, by an evil god. Naturally, I reject this philosophy, but it is a potential answer to "the problem of evil".

The reasons for which I strongly accept the theory of evolution are not related to this philosophical dillema at all. The theory of evolution is a robust theory which has successfully explained the cellular life we observe on earth for well over a century. The more we learn about life, the more the theory of evolution is confirmed and expanded. I don't need to worry about whether life is "perfectly designed" or not, because I have an elegant and compelling scientific explanation for what's going on, that cuts across a broad range of philosophical positions.

Troll watchers - break out your binoculars. These posts could generate a rare simultanous "rival troll" attack, from creationist and atheist trolls.

The way the world is, can't be inconsistent with the claim of indetectible management, only inconsistent with managerial goals deliberately selected to be inconsistent. If Miller wishes to see management, nobody can say he's wrong.

It is a problem for ID, but only to the extent that the "designer" is presumed to care about humans, seek a human standard of "perfection" in nature, and so on. They could easily solve this problem by positing a quixotic or malevolent designer (of course, they would never do so, since this would radically reduce the commercial value of their product).

The reasons for which I strongly accept the theory of evolution are not related to this philosophical dillema at all. The theory of evolution is a robust theory which has successfully explained the cellular life we observe on earth for well over a century. The more we learn about life, the more the theory of evolution is confirmed and expanded. I don't need to worry about whether life is "perfectly designed" or not, because I have an elegant and compelling scientific explanation for what's going on,

RELIGION DOES NOT IMPART KNOWLEDGE. IT PROVIDES THE CONTEXT WITHIN WHICH YOU CAN FIND MEANING!!

— Flint

Not wondering what your purpose is, or not articulating one, doesn't mean you lack one, only that you take it for granted.

Science simply cannot test such a claim. Period. Your statements are pure value judgments, nothing more.

A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he though God's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about god, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's. Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence. The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't' have to bother saying so.

This thread and the parallel debate about the imperfect design of living things in a later thread shows one thing: attempts to defend theism by recourse to natural theology sooner or later make appeal to religious myths like the Fall of Man or the atonement that are strictly in the realm of faith. Unfortunately, the whole point of natural theology is to come up with arguments that have force for those of us who aren't already believers.

Note I'm not saying that Christians who buy into their own mythos are nuts, just that you can't expect a nonbeliever to credit your sacred story in the context of a rational debate. If you aren't a believer, after all, the story sounds pretty peculiar.

Don P -

"If you agree with me that proponents of ID are wrong and that there is no scientific evidence that the world is the product of intelligent guidance and design, on what basis do you believe that it is?"

Several answers. In the first place, however, I certainly do agree with you that there is no scientific evidence that the world is the product of intelligent guidance and design. I'm using world to mean the physical world we almost universally detect with our senses. You've set this up as a loaded question, to some extent, using words like "world" and "product", but in fact, I agree with you on this nevertheless. The world we detect with our senses and analyze by science shows no evidence of having been the product of human-understandable intelligent guidance and design whatsoever. It seems to have unfolded according to basic units that we call "natural" "forces". Our understanding of this process is very incomplete, yet it explains a great deal.

This is not why proponents of ID are wrong. They are far more wrong than that. A perfectly good scientist could say that a benevolent God set off the Big Bang, or set off whatever let to the Big Bang, or exists outside the universe, and so on, leading to the universe we can study with science, and that the 'problem of evil' merely reflects our own limited capacity to see the big picture. Proponents of ID are trying to do what I said above - insert the supernatural into science. They are trying to say that science-ammenable problems should be ascribed to imaginary supernatural causes. Sometimes, it is their own arbitrary supernatural entity, who endorses their own political views, yet is simultaneously the God of Jesus, whose teachings are at odds with many of their views. At other times, it is a "designer" whose only consistent characteristic is that whoever he (she? it?) is, he pretends NOT to be the Christian God. The latter one seems to have been designed to play chicanerous games in the US courst system, and finds a rather cold reception even at the door of his intended benficiaries.

I was an atheist for many years (albeit a tolerant and non-strident one), I eventually became intellectually disatisfied with the position. I came to realize that the very power of science is, paradoxically, its limitations. At risk of saying "one of my best friends", several of my best friends actually are still rather Hobbesian atheists (of a non-strident and tolerant variety). I've returned to a religious perspective which doesn't conflict with science. Humility (relatively speaking, that is), and the recognition that there is much I will never understand, is a big part of it. Demanding that God appear in the microscope or telescope isn't.

You have started with an a priori value system, have used your assumptions as your evidence, and arrived at your conclusions. Creationism is in principle not falsifiable. You can reject it as in violation of your preferences, or as useless for your purposes, and I won't complain. But the universe could have come into existence 10 seconds ago complete with every appearance of age, and you could NEVER prove otherwise. Unfalsifiable statements can't be wrong anymore than they can be right. They are basically definitions. Definitions are true by definition, and you either accept the definition as useful, or reject it as useless. You can't "prove" a definition right or wrong, because a definition is not based on evidence, but on convention. You accept it or not.

Humility (relatively speaking, that is), and the recognition that there is much I will never understand, is a big part of it.

I'm not "supposing" any purpose. I'm rationally inferring from the absence of evidence of purpose

Why are you justified in assuming that the world has a purpose?

The purpose of many prehistorical human artifacts is unknown. Scientists are able to distinguish these artifacts from natural objects because the artifacts show evidence of manufacture or design, because they possess characteristics that could not plausibly have been produced by natural processes.

Moral questions are "part of reality" in the same sense that the rules of chess are part of reality -- they are manifestations of human behavior, and can be studied as such.

Of course, we use science all the time as a tool in establishing preferences.

For the umpteenth time, the evidence shows no sign of benevolence. The evidence shows no sign of omnipotence. The evidence shows no sign of purpose.

Science can in fact address the question of why science is beneficial, *given certain premises*. Those premises come from outside of science; we provide them, based upon our values, which are a consequence of the contingencies of our evolution.

Religion can tell us if it was a Good Thing only in the same sense that *I* can tell us if it was a Good Thing.

You're just playing silly games here.

Science is *authoritative* as to whether it happened or whodunnit; religion is authoritative about *nothing*, thus it is "useless" for telling us things. The only way it is useful is in manipulating human behavior, not in determining the truth or falsity of claims.

Of course they can; no one can "see" what is indetectable. Sheesh.

Don -

"Now explain why you think you are justified in believing that the world was created an omnipotent and benevolent God."

Again, the language is a bit loaded here. This isn't quite a straw man, but it comes very close. However, I believe I can answer the question.

I'm not "justified". I didn't say I was. I can't "prove" my perspective to you, or logically compel you to accept it. I don't want to, although you're certainly welcome to share it some day. I don't come to PT to discuss my religion. I've argued against a few "proofs" of "atheism" that I find logicaly uncompelling, but that's not the same thing, nor is it an argument against atheism - I argue against illogical "proofs of God", too, and often, they're literally the same as the "proofs of atheism" turned on their heads.

I come to join other pro-science posters, from a broad spectrum of extra-scientific philosophies, in resisting creationism/ID. I also come to learn about science, and read creative and humorous posts, but let's face it, if it weren't for creationism, I probably wouldn't be here, and I'm always a little bit sad when a creationist doesn't show up. Francis Collins doesn't post here, as far as I know, and to some degree, that's part of why he's a successful scientist (he's probably planning new experiments and writing grants). My understanding is that he is a far more theologically conservative Christian than I am. So is Kenneth Miller. But we're all on the same side with respect to science education and freedom of conscience (ie not having peoples' children taught someone else's dogma as an "official religion"). So is Dawkins, when you get right down to it (of course, living in the UK, he has less to worry about). I do try to make it clear that if someone comes from a religious perspective but accepts science and opposes ID and other sleazy pseudo-science, their religion is irrelevant as far as many of us are concerned.

Demanding that God appear in the microscope or telescope isn't.

Don P:

When it comes to doing science, I regard religious belief as being like a pair of glasses worn by someone with perfect vision. If they're clear glass, they do no harm but why wear them? The more they distort what is seen, the more they handicap the effort to do science. Creationists wear religious glasses of the opaque persuasion.

I read Miller as wearing the clear glass variety. They add nothing to his scientific powers, but subtract nothing either. In matters scientific, religion can be no better than neutral and irrelevant.

But there are important nonscientific matters as well, matters of value and culture, sources of satisfaction and fulfillment in life science can't fully provide. Religion often can and does provide these necessities. The trick is to adopt (or be trained into) a value system that allows you to be rational and satisfied at the same time. I suspect only a minority ever manage this.

Can you understand how exasperating this self-contradiction becomes after a while?

You cannot possibly know there is an "absense of purpuse" unless you can specify which purpose is absent.

There is no "justification" for assuming either a purpose or lack of any purpose.

Sometimes they can't guess. Sometimes they later discover that the characteristics not only can be, but were, produced by natural processes that they didn't understand at the time. Sometimes they guess wrong. I can guarantee you museums contain totally natural but misidentified non-artifacts, and that genuine artifacts have been discarded in the field due to misidentification as well. And this is true despite our intimate knowledge of the artificer.

In your case, I have even less optimism than in Don's, because you seem to be avoiding the topic, and substituting belligerance for a willingness to accept that legitimate disagreement is possible.

And for one more time, these statements are meaningless unless we have some agreed-upon definition of what benevolence means, or what the purpose is.

I didn't claim to know that there is no purpose. I explicitly said that there may be a purpose. I also said that, with respect to the world, there is no evidence of a purpose.

And this applies to all Christians who believe there is such a purpose, including "theistic evolutionists" like Kenneth Miller.

Most of the time, they are able to distinguish man-made objects from natural ones, using science and reason

whether they know the objects' purpose or not. This contradicts your claim that it is necessary to know an object's purpose

"Of course, we use science all the time as a tool in establishing preferences." This statement is so completely false that I can only conclude we don't agree on the meaning of the words we are using. Preferences are by definition something science cannot establish.

Such ad hominem hypocrisy isn't really worth responding to.

I'm not "justified". I didn't say I was.

All your arrogant bad faith huffing and puffing about your exasperation and your lack of optimism -- what, that I'll come to share your conceptual confusion and poor reading comprehension? --do not impress me in the slightest.

I *didn't say* that science can establish preferences; I said *we* *use* science as a *tool* in establishing preferences. A hammer cannot build a house, can it?

But there are important nonscientific matters as well, matters of value and culture, sources of satisfaction and fulfillment in life science can't fully provide. Religion often can and does provide these necessities.

Whether or not evidence suggests a purpose, depends on the purpose selected.

Yes, of course. He needs no "justification" based on science or evidence. He has a justification based on his faith.

Ah, so those with whom you disagree are arrogant, confused, and uncomprehending.

No wonder you don't bother to support your claims very well.

Why bother, when the swine cannot appreciate your pearls, eh?

Then I don't understand your point, and I didn't make mine very clear.

Let's say you prefer green to red. How would you use science as a tool to "establish this preference" (I'm not sure what this phrase is intended to express)?

They are NOT using "science and reason", they are using experience with and knowledge of human design.

What are these alleged "necessary" "matters of value and culture, sources of satisfaction and fulfillment in life" that religion provides?

This trend clearly contradicts your claim that religion is "necessary," or even the weaker claim that it is merely beneficial.

Identify a (or the) purpose of the world proposed by Christianity, and explain how the evidence of science and reason supports rather than undermines that proposed purpose.

Why does faith justify belief?

Given two mutually contradictory truth claims that their proponents justify through an appeal to faith, how may we decide between them? Why is one more likely to be correct than the other? Why have faith in one of them rather than the other? Why have faith at all?

Y' gotta love it, Don. Flint is claiming that "scientists" aren't using science. Though I suspect that he has forgotten what the antecedent of "they" was. I'm sure the processual archaeologists who worked so hard to put archaeology on a scientific footing would be impressed to learn that someone over on some evolution blog was claiming that they aren't doing science.

one can use science to determine the outcomes of various policies, and then establish preferred policies as a function of which outcomes we prefer.

science is a formalization of folk techniques and procedures that *all* of us, including the Amish, use constantly?

I'm sure the processual archaeologists who worked so hard to put archaeology on a scientific footing would be impressed to learn that someone over on some evolution blog was claiming that they aren't doing science.

Belief can ONLY be justified by faith.

??? Did you think about what you wrote?

And amazingly, I extracted the only phrases in your entire post that were not deliberate insults. Are you enjoying yourself?

we would hardly expect everyone to agree on the same policies.

"I'm sure the processual archaeologists who worked so hard to put archaeology on a scientific footing would be impressed to learn that someone over on some evolution blog was claiming that they aren't doing science." I don't think I either said this or intended it.

They are NOT using "science and reason"

There are no known natural processes that could plausibly produce a finely-engineered metal or stone spearpoint, for example, so when we find such an object lying amoung a pile of rocks we rationally infer that it is almost certainly man-made.

What shape would they shatter a rock into, if they wished to zorrgle their grob? Hello? Science?

Processual archaeologists are, in almost all cases, cultural evolutionists. It is from this perspective that they believe they can understand past cultural systems through the remains they left behind. This is because Processual archaeologists adhere to White's theory that culture can be defined as the extrasomatic means of environmental adaptation for humans (White, 1959:8). In other words culture takes the place of biological adaptation as a means of increasing fitness relative to the environment. The result of this is that Processual archaeologists believe that cultural change happens in a predictable framework that can be understood by the analysis of its components. Moreover, since that framework is predictable then science is the key to unlocking how those components interacted with the cultural whole (Trigger, 1989:289). What this all means to Processual archaeologists is that cultural changes are driven by evolutionary "processes" in cultural development, which will be adaptive relative to the environment and therefore not only understandable, but also scientifically predictable once the interaction of the variables is understood. Thus one should be able to virtually completely reconstruct these "cultural processes."

If 'They are NOT using "science and reason"', where "they" refers to "scientists", specifically archaeologists, is not saying, and was not intended to say, that archaeologists are not doing science, then it's hard to treat the author of such a statement as the sort of agent having any discernable intent at all.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam.

If the claim is that the moon is made of green cheese, we have defined green cheese clearly enough to refute this claim.

How much respect do you suppose he just earned from his wife?

Perfect knowledge does not guarantee agreement where values differ. This is not a "strawman"

this has been the central point of the entire discussion

If 'They are NOT using "science and reason"', where "they" refers to "scientists", specifically archaeologists, is not saying, and was not intended to say, that archaeologists are not doing science, then it's hard to treat the author of such a statement as the sort of agent having any discernable intent at all. Blah blah strawman strawman blah blah strawman strawman strawman blah.

Don -

"So why do you believe it? Random choice? Because it comforts you? Because you were raised to believe it? Or what?"

Sure, that's all part of it, sort of. I also believe that the current state of the human brain has allowed certain realizations to emerge. There is more to reality than what we can measure with our yardsticks. That sure as spit doesn't mean we should stop measuring, of course. To some of us, however, the more we measure, the more we see that measuring alone isn't all there is. The more you actually learn about science, as a whole, without burying yourself in one narrow problem, the more you understand that science's power and its limitations are the same thing. Science is powerful because it limits and focuses itself. This is no more a "paradox" than the many "paradoxes" science forces the human brain to accept. Certain people have had insight into truths about human behavior and human relationship with the universe in a broader sense than mere refutation of the clumsiest superstitions. Buddha is a good example. Jesus has had the post-mortem misfortune of being used to justify a lot of un-Christian behavior, but he's another one.

"You keep emphasizing to me that you accept evolution, that you strongly dissent from creationists and IDers, and so on. I understand this. You don't need to keep telling me. I'm not really interested in discussing your scientific beliefs. I'm asking you about your religious beliefs."

Then why are you posting at this site? This is an evolutionary biology site, with an emphasis on confronting creationism and ID. If you're looking for a religious argument, go to a religion site. I came here to discuss science and attacks on science. My emphasis on the value of science and the intellectual and moral vacuity of ID and creationism is for all readers, by the way. The main reason I'm engaging you fundamentalist atheists (which I admit, you personally may not be, your questions are actually quite stimulating) is to demonstrate that science ISN'T the exclusive property of one religious sect. I don't happen to be a Hasidic Jew or Sufi, for example, but if a Hasidic or Sufi guy (or woman) is an advocate of good science and an opponent of its enemies, I welcome them here.

Do you get any satisfaction out of science? Why?

We are using the same word to mean entirely different things. I am using "religion" in the sense of an organized, coherent set of moral values and personal preferences.

If we decide to use "religion" in the sense of specific doctrines of organized Christian churches, then I agree with you, these are in decline. But values cannot possibly be "in decline", they can only change to different values over time.

Read it again.

All of which is to say that unless ID can identify the Designer and describe the Designers purposes, goals, and methods in some detail, we can't infer design. I doubt that processual archaeologists could reconstruct the Christian God through biological examination.

Processual archaeologists are, in almost all cases, cultural evolutionists. It is from this perspective that they believe they can understand past cultural systems through the remains they left behind. This is because Processual archaeologists adhere to White's theory that culture can be defined as the extrasomatic means of environmental adaptation for humans (White, 1959:8). In other words culture takes the place of biological adaptation as a means of increasing fitness relative to the environment.

Flint -

If you walk away right now, the outcome will be the same as if you address another thousand posts to you-know-who.

There's a lot of heavy emotional stuff going on there.

"Religion" does not mean "an organized, coherent set of moral values and personal preferences." Most religions include an organized, though not necessarily coherent, set of moral values, but that isn't what religion is. The fundamental component of almost all religions that your "definition" completely evades is their claims of truth about the world and about human beings, their origin, their fate, their purpose, and so on. And since virtually everybody, including atheists and non-believers, can be said to have an "organized, coherent set of moral values and personal preferences," your use of the word "religion" to refer to that is just worthless, not to mention deceptive.

If you walk away right now, the outcome will be the same as if you address another thousand posts to you-know-who.

But you won't get any more replies.

I have a hypothesis. Predicting human behavior is a "soft" science, of course, but I think I'll give it a whirl. I predict at least one savagely insulting yet painfully irrelevant reply to this. I further predict that you'll "follow" me around the site and make a lot of pointless insulting replies to any posts I make, for the next few days. You'll do it even though I'm predicting it right here.

Sure, that's all part of it, sort of.

I also believe that the current state of the human brain has allowed certain realizations to emerge. There is more to reality than what we can measure with our yardsticks. That sure as spit doesn't mean we should stop measuring, of course. To some of us, however, the more we measure, the more we see that measuring alone isn't all there is. The more you actually learn about science, as a whole, without burying yourself in one narrow problem, the more you understand that science's power and its limitations are the same thing.

Then why are you posting at this site?

If we decide to use "religion" in the sense of specific doctrines of organized Christian churches, then I agree with you, these are in decline. But values cannot possibly be "in decline", they can only change to different values over time.

Virtually all indicators of religious belief and practise in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world are in decline.

55,000 words in this section. Is that a PT record?

Depends on what you mean by a "truth claim."

I started posting in this discussion because I strongly dispute the claim that the Christianity of "theistic evolutionists" like Kenneth Miller is consistent with the evidence of science and reason, while the Christianity of fundamentalists and literalists is not. Neither version of Christianity is consistent with the evidence.

For the umpteenth time, the evidence shows no sign of benevolence

. The evidence shows no sign of omnipotence. The evidence shows no sign of purpose.

It is possible that the world was created by an omnipotent, benevolent, purposeful God despite the lack of evidence that it was.

But the belief that the world was so created is an assumption.

Why are you justified in making that assumption? Answer the question.

What seems to be the problem?

The problem is that "the scientific method cannot tell us whether murder is wrong" does not imply the falsity of "everything around us is amenable to the scientific method", you clown.

The position that there is no God is not a "pure value judgment", it's a value judgment based on evaluating *evidence*.

Or do you think discussions about whether murder is wrong, do not happen around us? If so, where do you propose they DO happen?

"The position that there is no God is not a "pure value judgment", it's a value judgment based on evaluating *evidence*." No, it's not, since the "evidence* can show no such thing. At best, the *evidence* can show that there is no current need to postulate the existence of any god or gods in order to explain any phenomenon that cna be studied using the scientific method. That is NOT the same as "there is no god".

That does NOT, however, mean there there definitely are no extratrrestrial intelligent life forms.

Absence of evidence, is not necessarily evidence of absence.

It is NOT perfectly valid for science, as science, to then go on to say "therefore supernatural entities cannot exist". Any more than science, as science, can validly conclude "we have no current evidence for any extraterrestrial life, therefore extraterrestrial life does n ot exist".

A friend, an intelligent lapsed Jew who observes the Sabbath for reasons of cultural solidarity, describes himself as a Tooth Fairy Agnostic. He will not call himself an atheist because it is in principle impossible to prove a negative. But "agnostic" on its own might suggest that he though God's existence or non-existence equally likely. In fact, though strictly agnostic about god, he considers God's existence no more probable than the Tooth Fairy's. Bertrand Russell used a hypothetical teapot in orbit about Mars for the same didactic purpose. You have to be agnostic about the teapot, but that doesn't mean you treat the likelihood of its existence as being on all fours with its non-existence. The list of things about which we strictly have to be agnostic doesn't stop at tooth fairies and celestial teapots. It is infinite. If you want to believe in a particular one of them -- teapots, unicorns, or tooth fairies, Thor or Yahweh -- the onus is on you to say why you believe in it. The onus is not on the rest of us to say why we do not. We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't' have to bother saying so.

Then you believe something that you yourself admit you are not justified in believing.

So why do you believe it? Random choice? Because it comforts you? Because you were raised to believe it? Or what?

the view that religious beliefs are justified if they are emotionally appealing. Is that it? Is that your defense of religion? Or what?

No, it's not, since the "evidence* can show no such thing. At best, the *evidence* can show that there is no current need to postulate the existence of any god or gods in order to explain any phenomenon that cna be studied using the scientific method. That is NOT the same as "there is no god".

The quoted statement does not assert that there is no god.

Quoting Richard Dawkins yet again:

So "the position that there is no god" doesn't really mean that ... well ... "there is no god".

May I ask when Dawkins became infallible ... ?

Add another item to the long list of similarities between the ideologue atheists and the IDers --- both are madly in love with the quoted argument from authority

But my dear Don, ALL of us hold subjective beliefs that we are not justified in believing.

I believe brunettes are cuter than blondes. Is that justified?

I believe that I deserve a raise at work, but that my co-worker doesn't. Is THAT justified?

After all, my co-worker believes exactly the opposite. Is that belief justified?

How can we tell?

There's a lot of heavy emotional stuff going on there.

Don P. -

"I usually don't. I started posting in this discussion because I strongly dispute the claim that the Christianity of "theistic evolutionists" like Kenneth Miller is consistent with the evidence of science and reason, while the Christianity of fundamentalists and literalists is not. Neither version of Christianity is consistent with the evidence."

If you claim that someone else' religion is inconsistent with science, simply propose a scientific experiment to prove their religious claims wrong. Not another 55,000 words of other stuff. Not "the evidence could be consistent with other religious views as well". That isn't what you said.

In the case of literalists, this has been done. It wasn't done to them on purpose. It's just the way it worked out. Science isn't consistent with a "literal interpretation of Genesis".

ID is even more out of whack with science than literalism. It isn't science at all, nor religion either. It's just a petulant insistence that science back off of certain scientific issues, apparently decided at random by its vendors, and declare that magic occurred. All the rest of ID is repetition of the same superficial arguments, often well-blended with pointless insults and declarations of superior "reason" and "intelligence". And they've produced a lot more than 55,000 words.

Kenneth Miller follows a religion that isn't inconsistent with science. If you don't like his religion, that's your business. If you treat him abusively or unfairly because his religion is different than yours, that makes you a bigot. It's your business if you want to be a bigot too.

If you claim his or anyone else's religion isn't consistent with science, propose a experiment to support that claim.

If you claim that someone else's religion is inconsistent with science, simply propose a scientific experiment to provide evidence that their religious claims are wrong. That's what would make their religion inconsistent with science.

You're an atheist, and you claim that this is consistent with science, too. You claim that Miller, me, or Lenny Flank can't use "reason" to convert you to our position, a point no-one would dispute. No-one is trying to "justify" their religion to you - why should they? But now you've made a scientific claim. And this is a science site.

If you claim that someone else's religion is inconsistent with science, simply propose a scientific experiment to prove their religious claims wrong. That's what would make their religion inconsistent with science. Either suggest a scientific approach to the problem, or find a non-science site to argue on.

This post has too many comments. Please wrap it up people. It will get locked in a few hours.

If you claim that someone else's religion is inconsistent with science, simply propose a scientific experiment to prove their religious claims wrong. That's what would make their religion inconsistent with science.

Harold,
I see what ts and Don P are doing as very intolerant for reasons that I don't have time to go into right now. However, I don't accept the proposition that science and religion can coexist peacefully. For what little time Dr. Cartwright will grant us can you answer a question? Is it possible to separate the claims of a religion from the religion itself? And if so, how? I would expect that a religion is only the sum of its claims and if you discredit them then you discredit the religion. The Christian Bible (the basis of your religion) make very specific claims about physical reality. How can it be taken seriously if those claims are demolished? Adam, please comment too, if you are lurking. Flint and Lenny as well, but ts and Don P stay out.
Sincerely, Paul

All of my life (this is my theme), I have heard Democrats sneer at and condemn the Republicans' "southern strategy." This was the strategy whereby, in 1968, the GOP peeled off white southerners, who had belonged, for generations, to the Democrats. Whenever a Republican hears the phrase "southern strategy," he's supposed to hang his head in shame. Well, really, what the Democrats are saying, in part, is: "Damn you. You stole OUR racists. Those racists belong to US. And you ruined it!" You might say, the Democrats had a "southern strategy" for a hundred years.

If you aren't a believer, after all, the story sounds pretty peculiar.

— Jim Harrison