You know our motto here at Kung Fu Monkey: "Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800's over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that."
Every now and then, when I go off on intelligent design, some people I ordinarily consider bright will say "Come on, you don't know what the truth is. And shouldn't we teach all the theories?" it is very very hard not to punch these people at this moment -- but I do not, because I must remember that such a statement reflects, with all due respect, complete and utter ignorance of how science works. Or even what science is.
Not that these people are stupid, no, not by any means. But this is the exact equivalent of me standing behind my car mechanic, hood up, and saying "well, you know, just make it go way faster. And just convert it over to the switchgrass stuff." Although I understand the general concepts behind internal combustion and the four stroke engine, I still don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.
Annnnnyway, nice interview here with one of the expert witnesses at the Dover trial, interesting not just for how she clearly and patiently explains how ID is a sham, but she does so by also very clearly and patiently explaining what science is, along with some very good points on why politicizing science is a bad thing.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
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I was going to write little rant in this box but then remembered what my mother always told me: it's impolite to make a mess on your guest's carpet. so I moved the rant to my own blog, where I don't mind.
But the gist: right on, Rogers!
I have sympathy for these folks. Every year, every day almost, it becomes more and more difficult to sustain a fundamenalist world veiw.
There is water on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. hell there's water on the moon.
We're cloning higher organisms and creating designer bacteria. We are on the doorstep of true postHumanity and, in all of that, where do you find a Judeo-Christian god? Or any god?
Sure, the two positions can be reconcilled to some degree, depending on the flexibility of the Believer's interpretation of dogma, but those folks who REALLY think the whole thing started with a word and two teenagers in a garden, well, they've got a problem. And they know it.
I think it's very sad that they're pinning all their hopes on their own misundersanding of the word "theory" when it comes to science.
As Asimov said, "The chief superiority of the religion of Science is that it works."
It's a big scary universe out there. Cold.
That's gotta be freaking terrifying when you've pinned all your hopes on a blazing shrub with a vocoder.
I’m sure this argument’s old hat by now, but there was a fun little op-ed piece on intelligent design and penguins in a recent issue of Scientific American. Check it out on their website: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=15&articleID=00039664-6A56-137A-AA2083414B7FFE9F
If one can get past the ridiculous notions fundamentalists have about the creation of the universe (basically just Earth in most religious texts), the question of whether or not the universe was created by a higher intelligence or just happened by accident is still a valid debate. The more one knows about how things work at the fundamental level of particles and how mind bogglingly complex it all is, it actually becomes easier to believe it was created by external intelligence. Of course, it all could have happened by accident as well. We'll probably never know. I'm agnostic on the subject of God. I don't discount the possibility, but the evidence isn't real good at the moment.
Hmmm.
I think one can be too open minded on some points.
In order to debate whether or not a "higher intelligence" created the universe, one would need concrete examples of that intelligence at work.
In order for those examples to be understood, one would have to have at least a rudimentary grasp of the intentions and processes of that "higher intelligence's" mind.
Even if such a mind existed, I don't beleive we would be capable of the level of comprehension necessary to grasp its motives and workings much less any messages it might wish to impart. When was the last time any of us ha a reciprocal conversation with an ant or amoeba?
We don't even know how our own minds work.
There are statistical models (wobbly ones, IMO) that some use to support the concept of ID but a statistical model is only as good as its sampling.
For myself, I'm getting closer and closer to believing in a purely deterministic universe.
The Big Bang occurred and every subsequent activity of the particles in the universe is simply the ongoing explosion.
Free Will and Life itself are functions of POV and are, essentially, illusory.
True points all of them. I never postulated that if an intelligence higher than us created this universe he or it would have any interest in having conversations with us. That would be an exceedingly self centered view of existence. Of course, if a higher intelligence created this universe then it just begs the question, what created them?...We get turtles all the way down.
As coltrane said
"if a higher intelligence created this universe then it just begs the question, what created them?...We get turtles all the way down."
Is there aplace we can get "Turtles all the way down" on a tee-shirt??
When I lived in Atlanta, there was this stray cat in our neighborhood. I can’t have cats (allergic), but I figured the poor thing could use a helping hand. So, I took it upon myself to become this cat’s survival sponsor. I left food out for it. Made sure there was always available water. Even set up a little “kitty castle” in the alley for those cold and rainy nights. Now, that cat and I had zero relationship. That’s the way I wanted it. You see, I’m not very fond of cats. Never have been. But the way I see it, nothing should go cold and hungry if you have the awareness and wherewithal to do something about it. So I did something about it. Not much, mind you (remember, I don’t like cats), just a little something to make this wretched creature’s existence a touch more tolerable. Regardless, it didn’t know who I was or where that food was coming from. And even if it did, that would still be miles away from really understanding how that food came to be there. Being a cat, there was no way this thing was ever going to grasp stuff like me needing a job to pay for the food, or the fact that there’s a whole manufacturing and distribution process involved in getting that food to the store so I could buy it. Or any of the countless rudimentary and complex systems that all came together to produce the result of that stray cat having a bowl of generic cat food waiting for it every morning in that alley. And no amount of soul searching was ever going to bring that cat any closer to the truth. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t there. Don’t get me wrong. While I have a tremendous amount of faith in some higher power, religion has no place in school. In fact, I firmly believe that organized religion is one of the most corrupt systems man has ever invented -- and if you know us, that’s saying a lot. You’re a moron if you don’t believe in evolution -- or at least ignorant on a massive scale. But please don’t assume that everyone who has faith is equally ignorant. Science is the language we use to describe our universe. True. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other languages we can learn. Art is one of them. Why can’t faith be another?
If the cat had postulated that you had created it, it would have been wrong. Even if it had tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of faith.
When I was getting my Religious Studies degrees, I once chatted with a fellow student who believed that we 'make our own reality,' and any person's reality is as valid as any other person's.
I said, in essence, "Fine. Then I'd like you to 'make a reality' in which you can build your faith temple FROM THE TOP DOWN, with nothing underneath supporting what you've built so far. Let's say that gravity exists in my reality, but you're making a reality in which it doesn't. Shouldn't be hard. I'll stand way over here, and watch you build your temple."
Funny. The guy never took me up on the suggestion.
Art and Faith are about the subjective experience of living. Science is about cataloging those things which are not subjective (quantum mechanics notwithstanding).
You don't use faith or art to understand the universe but to function within it.
GIR
Pamb asked;
"Is there aplace we can get "Turtles all the way down" on a tee-shirt??"
GET YOUR RED HOT
TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN SHIRTS
RIGHT HERE
http://www.cafepress.com/tresbarcos.50808226
Art is both subjective and objective. As is science. And both are open to interpretation even when there is evidence to the contrary. After all, it wasn't so long ago science "proved" that the atom was the smallest known particle and that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Now it says different. That's the beauty of science. It's always open to new possibilities.
And yes, you can use faith and art to understand the universe. In fact, some of history's greatest thinkers did just that.
Ahhh. No.
Art is entirely subjective as it can only exist via the interaction with the inner life of its audience. All art is contectual juxtaposition and requires a base set of concepts be accepted in its veiwers to be deemed art at all.
Scientific exploration, by contrast, is about empircal facts, those things that exist independant of the social context of the veiwer or even the existence of a veiwer (subatomica being a little wobbly in that area, I'll admit).
The scientist, whatever his or her specific field, postulates a layered universe, with everything we know, currently, falling under the heading of So Far.
So, while the ocassional scientist may put his or her feet down firmly on a given Eureka!, s/he also understands that that discovery is only one of many on a long ladder leading infintiely in both directions.
While Art and Faith make life sometimes easier to bear, or even beautiful, or the inevitablility of death more acceptable, they do not, as means of understanding "empirical" facts, work.
Hence the Asimov axiom.
Here's my thoughts. ID states that the universe and life in it is so amazingly complex, an Intelligent Being -must- have had a hand in it. OK, say I accept that as scientific fact. Now where did the greater intelligence come from? To create such a complex beings as ourselves, he would have to be even more complex... so he in turn would have to be created by something even more complex ad nauseum.
In other words, again -- "turtles all the way down"!
Or more accurately -- Designers all the way up! :-)
I have religious faith and belief in science. Not as hard as it sounds. A few points thrown out for the sake of argument.
1. I remember taking psychology in college and talking about random theory, how most "strange" things that happen to people or the world are coincidence. (i.e., there is no paranormal) If the events that led to our universe truly were random (possible), that's one hell of a coincidence chain. Or God was involved somewheres along the line(also possible).
2. That being said, if the universe truly were that random, wouldn't the odds favor there being other life out there? And other life more advanced than us?
If we're the most advanced species in the universe, that's a scary thought, ain't it?
3. As a Catholic, I find it amusing that many Catholics are ID believers and such, considering the Church officially acknowledges that humanity has evolved. I mean, the Catholic Church literally takes hundreds of years to render decisions about doctrine and such, they truly move at a glacial pace. They admiited they were wrong about Galileo, folks! The Cathlic Church never admits it is wrong!
Let's clarify one point: it is either unimaginitive or disingenuous to offer "intelligent design" and "accident" as a necessary alternative. This is, in fact, a false dichotomy exploited by creationists in many arguments from incredulity. For instance, "if you blew up a stand of trees, how likely do you think it is the wood splinters would fall into the shape of a house?"
In truth the word "accident" is almost wholly inadequate to describe the scientific position on the formation of the universe. Quite the contrary, the principal supposition of science, based on our thus far unchallenged observation that causality is inviolate, is that things are they way they are as a result of a specific causal process that is, at least in principle, knowable. There is a reason for things, but that reason was not necessarily invented by a mind.
I think you should have said "18th Century" not 1800's.
Although Paley most famously presented the intelligent design argument in the very early 19th century, through his "watchmaker analogy". It was a common idea in the 18th century.
Derham, Boyle, Niewentyt, and Voltaire all made this same argument, with the SAME analogy previously.
It's just a very 18th century concept. In fact, it's really an attempt to use enlightenment thinking to bolster pre-enlightenment ideas.
Oh, and the part about "these people" not being stupid.
They ARE stupid. Very, very stupid.
In fact, their position is not just stupid. It's stupidity on an epic scale. Stupidity write large. Monolithic, Olympian stupidity.
It's a T-Shirt saying "I'm with Stupid" with the arrow pointing up.
I hope I'm not the only person who's detected the irony inherent in the fact that the "evolution is just a theory" people are also the ones trying to cram an absolute, I'm-right-you're-wrong, the-Bible-said-it-so-it's-true Christian morality on us. Abortion, homosexuality, and thong underwear make the baby Jesus cry and are immoral and thus should be banned not just for me but for everybody, end of story, but science? That's just your opinion.
In other words, these people think everybody has their own version of science and their version is just as good as anybody else's, but morality is the Great Black and White.
I'm a practicing, every-Sunday-churchgoing Catholic and even I believe a literal interpretation of the Bible has no business within 100 miles of American law. This past Sunday at Mass, for instance, the first reading was the story of Abraham and Isaac, in which God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son to prove his faith, and then was like "Sike!" at the moment Abraham had his dagger poised above his son's heart. You're telling me God doesn't like to mess around with people? Fundies, are you positive that when you get to heaven, God's not gonna go, "That whole thing about an anthropomorphic snake telling Eve to eat an apple -- you believed that shit?"
Not stupid.
Just very very very very frightened. They deserve compassion along with the resolute opposition to thier veiw.
Fear is a motherfucker.
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