As Gwyn Boudreau says, there really is too little time as it is to get into detailed discussions about the conflicts between evolution and creation. Especially when Joe Zabel seems to have made a determined effort to put this thread back on track (and on to comics).

I’ll limit myself to random comments and PROMISE not to answer any future criticism (about creationism as opposed to comics) in deference to the dictates of this message board.


Pat, I’ve already mentioned the fact that creation is a theory. We disagree about whether it can be considered a truly scientific theory. To this I would reply, only inasmuch as evolution can be considered a truly scientific theory. Evolution as a theory is limited by the same constraints as Creation. You mention one of these - it can’t be demonstrated by scientific method. I have already mentioned the examples of the so-called demonstrability of evolution in my previous posting and limited myself to broad comments against these because we could be here arguing until cows come home (or maybe grow grey hairs and die) and it still wouldn’t be settled.


>>>>IN DEFENCE YOU SAY: No, evolution is a fact; natural selection is a theory that explains that fact, and natural selection is under constant revision, as all good theories are when new evidence is constantly being presented. The latest major revision to the accepted theory of natural selection is "punctuated equilibrium" which states that, most of the time, species remain in status quo; that it is only in times of extreme environmental stress that large-scale evolution takes place--droughts, ice ages, geographic separation from the main group, etc.

I’ll need to know what you believe the term "evolution" means before I can answer this statement. What we’ve got here is a question of semantics, not science.

>>>?instead they come up with ludicrous ideas such that rocks that carbon-date older than the earth really is (by their reckoning) are placed by God as a test of faith or some such

Pat, you really must tell me where you get these ideas. I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again, no intelligent scientist who believes in the possibility of creation would even go near such a stupid statement.

Among other things, creation scientists base their criticisms of the absolute sanctity of radiocarbon dating around the fact that radiocarbon datings of human artifacts are based on the assumption that the radiocarbon assay of the world is in a steady state. Even secular scientists who are not at all interested in creation have questioned this assumption. The arguments with regards radiocarbon dating (especially over older dates) is far from over. Radiocarbon dating is not sacrosanct.


>>>PAT LATER WRITES: And here we reach the crux, again, of why "creationism" is not science. If creationism presumes that the data we gather from experimentation and observation of the real world can be false from the get-go, because God can do anything He likes in creating the world--including creating rocks that seem to be very old but really aren't--then no data can be held as reliable and all scientific experimentation and observation is useless.

Don’t you see how the above statement suggests the utter inflexibility of the science you are preaching. I know you will find this hard to believe, but scientist who believe in creation don’t base all their thoughts on a single idea. For the sake of argument, many of them will accept all minerals and rocks as set at "zero time" to begin with, but even so there remain criticisms of radiometric dating with such an assumption (I have already mentioned a few of these in brief in my original posting). With regards your above argument, creation scientist are prepared to work through two possibilities in relation to the original constitution of minerals and rocks. Evolutionary scientist will only work through one. If this isn’t close-mindedness, I don’t know what is.

>>>>PAT: You do realize that, by "creation science" and the fundamentalist beliefs that underly it, Copernicus and Galileo must be wrong? That the sun must revolve around the earth, not the other way around, since (as an example) Joshua stopped the sun in the sky?

The kind of mistake you are making is so common it’s frightening. The bible, which I’m sure you’ve read, is written for the common person and is written in common everyday language. Ever thought why modern day meteorologists speak of things like "sunrise" and "sunset"?

You would have made a slightly stronger point if you had asked how this "stopping of the sun" was achieved in the first place.


>>>>ME: Stephen Jay Gould hold some of these examples as proof of the fact of evolution but he is in the minority in this case. There isn’t enough space on this message board for a detailed discussion of this topic.<<
>>>>PAT O’NEILL: Anyone who thinks Gould is in the minority among scientists probably isn't worth arguing with any further. He's the foremost evolutionary biologist in the United States--holder of the major biology chair at Harvard and a lecturer at other universities, a curator of the American Museum of Natural History

I never said Gould was in the minority. I merely said he was in the minority in this case. You may well consider him the Pope of Evolution but that doesn’t exclude him from occasional perceived mistakes (as pointed out by his peers). And, no, I don’t believe in papal infallibility (and its assorted compromises) either.

And just in case you need proof of people disagreeing with Gould (disagreement being one of the basis of science), here are some examples with regards punctuated equilibrium (your example). Firstly, the aforementioned Richard Dawkins being slightly rhetorical in Nature:

"Darwin’s own bulldog, Huxley, as Eldredge reminds us again, warned him against his insistent gradualism, but Darwin had good reason. His theory was largely aimed at replacing creationism as an explanation of how living complexity could arise out of simplicity. Complexity cannot spring up in a single stroke of chance: that would be like hitting upon a combination number that opens a bank vault. But a whole series of tiny chance steps, if non-randomly selected, can build up almost limitless complexity of adaptation. It is as though the vault’s door were to open another chink every time the number on the dials moved a little closer to the winning number. Gradualness is of the essence. In the context of the fight against creationism, gradualism is more or less synonymous with evolution itself. If you throw out gradualism, you throw out the very thing that makes evolution more plausible than creation."


Turner, John, "Why We Need Evolution by Jerks," New Scientist
"Twentieth-century man was as upset by the new attempts to link him to the animal as his Victorian ancestors had been by Darwin. It was the turn of E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins to be denounced, not this time from the pulpit as atheists, but by radical movements as fascist sympathizers. A Harvard group denounced Wilson’s work as being in the intellectual tradition of Adolph Hitler."
Later:
"Stephen Gould, who has repeatedly urged the need to see man as essentially different from animals, and was one of the signatories of the ‘Hitler’ statement about E. O. Wilson, has found the answer in the punctuated equilibrium theory."
And, later:

"The point is not that the punctuated equilibrium theory is wrong. It might be right. The point is that despite its very poor scientific foundations it is attracting an enormous amount of attention. And as the Harvard radicals so cogently argued in the case of race and IQ, when an essentially meretricious scientific theory causes such a fuss, we must look to non-scientific causes."

(You can judge for yourself how serious this disagreement actually is)


Alters, Brian J., and William F. McComas in American Biology Teacher
"Gould and Eldredge content that: ‘Phyletic gradualism was an a priori assertion from the start—it was never "seen" in the rocks; it expressed the culture and political bias of 19th century liberalism.’ By the same token, while many feel that punctuated equilibrium postulates how speciation occurs, its occurrence is not based on empirical evidence but on the apparent lack of evidence—gaps in the fossil record…. Bodnar, Jones and Ellis suggested that one would not see intermediate forms in simple eukaryotes in the fossil record because there are no intermediate forms. A single mutation in a regulatory gene caused the change in one leap of evolutionary development."

Scientist don’t often call each other names in public but they do disagree and while Gould’s ideas are often held up by the majority (as in the case of punctuated equilibrium?), this is not always the case.


In finishing, I would just like to say that popular portrayals of Christianity (and creation science for that matter) probably have as much worth as popular depictions of comics. That is, most of these would have been better off aborted at conception. You really have to be interested in Christianity to understand how much criticism and thought goes into its understanding. Going to church and listening to sermons (for the most part) are less than useful with regards a proper understanding of the religion.

Now back to the comics.

It seems I'll have to continue playing the game of catch-up for a while, commenting on things that were written a couple of days ago.

On the question of whether or not atheism is a religion:

Charles is right. It is absurd to claim that atheism is a religion that requires a leap of faith. Do you believe in elves? If not, does that mean you are a member of an elf-doubting religion? Is your non-belief in elves a leap of faith that there are no elves? Of course not.

In practice, belief and unbelief come about in a number of ways. Unbelief generally comes about in two ways:

1) The person was never taught a religion and never acquires one, and is a lifetime-unbeliever.

2) The person was formerly a believer in a religion, and abandons it. This is called backsliding. It is a tossing off of excess baggage, not a 'leap.' According to Webster, faith is the unquestioning belief in something. Backsliding is a result of questioning, which is the opposite of faith.

Religious belief also apparently comes about in a number of different ways:

1) The person is indoctrinated in the religion from birth, and does not know of a life in which religion is not a part. This kind of faith is the product of social conditioning.

2) The person turns to religion as the result of personal problems. Former drug addicts, for example, often convert to a religion as a means of establishing order in their lives.

3) The person has a revelation with no apparent cause, and becomes religious as a result of it.

So belief and unbelief, faith and the lack thereof, are really more complex phenomena. Trying to pin labels on them only serves to obscure the actual psychological states.

But the labels have political consequences. The religious right wants to define atheism, secular humanism, and science itself as 'religions' because of the doctrine of separation of church and state. If science were a religion, the theory goes, then it could not be taught in public schools. Of course this is especially true of the scientific fact of evolution, which the religious right perceives as a threat to their beliefs.

I think there's a relationship between this conflict and the debate about school vouchers and the funding of private schools. It may also have been popularized by the 'white flight' of students to private schools, which has been occuring since public schools were desegregated.

There's currently a widespread hostility towards teachers and the public school system like nothing we've seen before. We may be seeing the breakdown of the educational system that's made the US the leading industrial nation of the world.

It will be interesting to see how this conflict plays out. Private religious schools provide a superior means of thought control, which can prevent the backsliding that religions naturally want to avoid. But they also produce minds which are less questioning and less agile, and probably less capable of adapting to changing future circumstances.
------------------------

Johanna quoted me and then commented:

">>Considering how little exposure I've had to atheism, I can't help but wonder how knowledgeable religious people are on the subject. After all, they don't seek out information on the subject like I do.<<

What, are there no former atheists who became Christians? (Using your above reasoning to demonstrate knowledge.)"

Johanna, I'm afraid I don't follow you. Call me dense, but could you explain again the point you were making?

Johanna again quoting me and commenting:

">>Young people are taught to be tolerant of and accepting of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Amish, and Mormons. It is not at all unreasonable to expect that they should be taught the same about atheists. <<

Since atheism is another belief system, sure."

Why is it necessary for atheism to be a belief system in order for people to be taught tolerance about it? Since most atheists would argue that it is, rather, a LACK OF a belief system, does that mean that those atheists should not be tolerated?

Johanna also said, 'Which gets me back to comics, in a roundabout way, since every created artifact has some sort of belief system behind it.'

Do you really think that? That suggests so many 'belief systems' that the term becomes meaningless!

Johanna again: 'An atheist thinks that most kids are brought up Christian. A Christian thinks that most kids are brought up non-religious. Hmmm.'

I think that the majority of kids around the world are brought up in the context of some religious belief. Is that not factually correct?

>>could you explain again the point you were making?<<

You had said that you knew about Christianity because you were raised in church as a child but chose another path. I was making that point that some Christians knew about atheism because they were once believers of that but chose another path. (C.S. Lewis springs to mind.)

>>Why is it necessary for atheism to be a belief system in order for people to be taught tolerance about it?<<

It's not. My point is that atheism is a belief system (by which I mean, the way a person chooses to answer the big philosophical questions and what informs their moral/life choices), so of course it makes sense to be tolerant about it.

>>Since most atheists would argue that it is, rather, a LACK OF a belief system, does that mean that those atheists should not be tolerated?<<

Atheists should only not be tolerated if they're rude. Just like anyone else. :-)

(It seems as though you're equating "belief system" to "religion", but I'm not.)

>> 'every created artifact has some sort of belief system behind it.'

Do you really think that? That suggests so many 'belief systems' that the term becomes meaningless!<<

Yes, I think that cultural ideas (or mindsets, if you prefer) inform the creation of cultural artifacts.

Johanna

Joanna,

Atheism is not a belief system unless other topics are fundamentally informed by atheism. Similarly, belief in a god is not a system unless it informs other truth judgments. I would argue that belief in a god doesn't rationally connect up to anything. For instance, morality is often posed as the atheist's bugaboo. However, simply stating that a god created morality does nothing to justify following morality. If a god created morality via fiat, then morality is arbitrary (i.e., why should we follow a god's irrational whimsy?). If morality is in fact rational, and that's why we should obey moral dictates, then a moral god is subservient to the same moral system that we are. (This was Plato's critique -- I wish I could take credit for it.) You'll find that in dealing with any given rational belief, god adds nothing to the equation. Therefore, god is a particular belief that only nonrationally informs other presumably rational beliefs (e.g., coveting thy neighbor's wife is supposed to be wrong because God said so; the believer feels it to be related). As has been continually stated to no avail, the atheism best describing me, Joe, and all the atheists I know of (except that dastardly O'Hare, albeit kudos for keeping religious zealotry out of public schools) is equivalent to the rational default, and, as such, it's not a positive belief. You might say operational skepticism is the belief system that informs our thinking of the preternatural, in addition to sundry other things. Belief in nothing is equivalent to no belief. The nothing is not a thing, so how can one believe in a non-thing? As soon as it becomes a thing of belief, nothing is no longer a non-thing. (I feel a bout of existentialism coming on ...)

[This message has been edited by Charles Reece (edited 10-14-1999).]

I'm deleting this message, as the second version is the more correct one.



[This message has been edited by Pat ONeill (edited 10-14-1999).]

>>Pat,
Okay, I'll bite. Guess we can throw out ecosystem and every other system that involves living organisms, right? I would have labeled your comments with more weight had you came back with a counter argument that you do not recognize our environment as a closed system which is the cornerstone of said law. Since you didn't and went to pseudo-science, I'm not obligated to rebut any of your other comments. <<

Once again, the second law of thermodynamics:

The second law of thermodynamics defines a quantity called entropy. Entropy can be understood as a measure of a system's closeness to equilibrium or as a measure of a system's disorder. The law states that the entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. Thus, when an isolated system achieves maximum entropy, it can no longer change. The second law can be used to show that heat will not pass from a colder region to a hotter one unless work is done.

No organic being--plant or animal, smallest bacteria or massive blue whale--is an isolated system (or, Sam puts it, a "closed" system). A closed or isolated system has no input from outside itself. Once it begins to function, there is no further addition of energy and it runs down; entropy takes over, in other words.

But organic beings constantly take in energy from outside themselves and transform it into other forms of energy. That is, by definition, what life is. Therefore, they are not closed systems.

Neither is an ecosystem a closed system, and that includes the macro-system that is planet earth. Again, energy is constantly being absorbed, transformed and given back by this system in many forms.

Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to organic beings or ecosystems, because they are not closed or isolated systems.

Further, the second law says nothing about the complexity of systems, only the orderliness of them (systems with more energy are less ordered, as witness the difference between an energetic gas and a comparatively unenergetic solid). A single-celled being is not less ordered than a multi-celled being, only less complex.

Best, Pat

Pat,

Do you have a particular reference that you're using for entropy, or is it just general knowledge? I'd like to get a good science reference (i.e., written for the layman) for such things.

Yee-haaaaw! Every message board board needs a rousing thread devoted to religion, atheism, physics, Creationism, and evolution...and we've got ourselves a doozy here!

Charles, my thoughts on most of these subjects are similar to your own so I don't want you to think I'm being adversarial, but I want to ask you some questions.

First, as a self-professed atheist, does it bother you to be described in terms of something that you are *not*? (The word "atheist" meaning, of course, "without theism".)

Second, you state:

"As has been continually stated to no avail, the atheism best describing me, Joe, and all the atheists I know of (except that dastardly O'Hare, albeit kudos for keeping religious zealotry out of public schools) is equivalent to the rational default, and, as such, it's not a positive belief."

Ah, but is disbelief *really* the "rational default"? I don't believe so! [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/smile.gif[/img] Shouldn't a truly rational, logical person resist the urge to make a conclusion *either way* (to believe or disbelieve) until s/he is certain that they have all of the facts necessary to arrive at a conclusion? And once you are "certain" enough of your facts to come to a conclusion (How can you ever be certain that a "god" does or does not exist somewhere in the universe? And how can a theist ever be certain that one does exist? Such arrogance!), you have now formed a belief regarding the subject in question.

Me? If you haven't already guessed, I'm an agnostic. I think. [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

And as to the meaning of the word "religion", I've read that it means "a return to logic"...and if you take that in a truly historicaL context, it makes sense. The first religions were planet-based, and their primary preoccupation was the mapping and observation of the planets and stars. I believe that Earth once suffered some major cataclysm(s) involving an extraterrestrial object(s), (every ancient religion tells of a Golden Age that was disrupted by fire/water sent to destroy mankind by an angry god) and it was only logical thereafter to keep an eye on anything that might come our way again.

But hey, I'm rambling. Fascinating posts, people!

~Robert

Pat,

You wrote:

"Once again, the second law of thermodynamics:

The second law of thermodynamics defines a quantity called entropy. Entropy can be understood as a measure of a system's closeness to equilibrium or as a measure of a system's disorder. "

Here Pat and I are in agreement. I might have used quality or concept rather than quantity.

"The law states that the entropy of an isolated system can never decrease. Thus, when an isolated system achieves maximum entropy, it can no longer change."

What is an isolated system and how is it not subject to gravity or radiation? I can't wait for you to answer this one.

"The second law can be used to show that heat will not pass from a colder region to a hotter one unless work is done."

No argument and this can go in reverse.

"No organic being--plant or animal, smallest bacteria or massive blue whale--is an isolated system (or, Sam puts it, a "closed" system). A closed or isolated system has no input from outside itself. Once it begins to function, there is no further addition of energy and it runs down; entropy takes over, in other words."

See above comments on "isolated systems".

"But organic beings constantly take in energy from outside themselves and transform it into other forms of energy. That is, by definition, what life is. Therefore, they are not closed systems."

Pat has now given the argument that cars meet his definition of life. Further comments would be superfluous.

"Neither is an ecosystem a closed system, and that includes the macro-system that is planet earth. Again, energy is constantly being absorbed, transformed and given back by this system in many forms."

See above comment.

"Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to organic beings or ecosystems, because they are not closed or isolated systems."

Sort of reminds me the story of the boy who got drunk after drinking three times where water was the common demoniator. And the "obvious" element which got him drunk. False conclusion.

Sam

Robert L.,

Please read some of the previous posts regarding agnosticism vs. atheism (e.g., between me and Gwyn). The main point has been that I don't think anyone can ever be 100% sure of anything (at least rationally speaking, that is), so I go with the best possible explanation. Within this scheme, rational agnosticism is equivalent to saying, "I don't know" when there's a 50/50 split between 2 alternatives. However, others (e.g., Gwyn) suggest this is agnosticism, while Rachel pointed out that Huxley invented agnosticism as a replacement synonym for atheism, due to the negative connotations of the latter term.

And: I suppose the term 'atheism' is somewhat unfortunate, since it only has meaning in deference to theistic faith. There's no need for 'atheism' once people stop positing a god. To me, atheism is how we come out of the womb. Others then fill our heads with a bunch of gobbledy-gook about the spirit realm, from which point a few of us eventually acknowledge that said gobbledy-gook hasn't been proved, and thereby get negatively defined for returning to what should be considered the natural disposition to begin with.