Evolution Weekend is an opportunity for serious discussion and reflection on the relationship between religion and science. An ongoing goal has been to elevate the quality of the discussion on this critical topic, and to show that religion and science are not adversaries. Rather, they look at the natural world from quite different perspectives and ask, and answer, different questions.Maybe it's just me, but I thought that "serious discussion and reflection" means that all aspects of the conflict between science and religion would be considered. This includes the possibility that the conflict is very real and cannot be accommodated.
I was wrong. If you are a member of the Clergy Letter Project your mind is already made up.
Because religion and science use different methodologies to understand the world, and because religion and science ask very different questions, there is no reason to view them in conflict. One important facet of Evolution Weekend 2014, therefore, is to explore the questions each ask and to examine the different ways of knowing embodied in each.There's not going to be any serious discussion about different ways of knowing and which ones are successful.
One of the most important lessons of science is that life evolved from simple primitive organisms over a period of at least three billion years. The history of life can be fully explained by natural causes without any need for miracles or divine intervention. We have learned that the evolution of life on this insignificant planet, in an ordinary galaxy, in a vast universe, has no purpose or goal.
There aren't many religions that can accommodate those facts.
[Hat Tip: Panda's Thumb]
202 comments :
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 202 of 202"...I try very hard not to take credit for other peoples work and I'm a strong believer of the intentionality of the individual engineer."
I'm sure that you do and you are. I thought my parenthetical semi-joke was a bit harsh and thought about leaving it out, but I also thought there was a grain of truth in it: you are fair to people you work with, but not fair to GA's and to the evidence for evolution.
I take it "intentionality" is another supernatural power that humans have, according to the ID dogma. If ID was a serious attempt at science, it would be studying "intentionally" and design and intelligence to show in controlled, double-blind experiments that something outside the realm of physics exists and is responsible for them (and be prepared to abandon the hypothesis when no such evidence is found).
Meanwhile, I see from a current post at Dr. Coyne's blog that chemically-based emotions are thought to occur in flies, and Demascio's books on neuroscience detail with case studies that emotions are what motivate people, and that without them (due to brain damage) people can't decide what to do (because they don't care what happens, e.g. whether they win or lose at chess or card games) and therefore lack intentionality. Thus the evidence of which I am aware says that intentionality is something our evolution gave us (or rather our very remote ancestral species). (Since caring whether we succeed or fail is a survival trait.)
As Dr. Moran has reminded us, this thread was supposed to be about what ID proponents believe, rather than a podium for me to explain the deep consistency which see between natural evolution and human behavior, and how all the evidence hangs together. So I will try to restrain myself from further comments for at least a few days.
Andy,
I was thinking of this. I am willing to consider the possibility that you are both seeing the same thing and making the same interpretation purely because you have the same creation-colored glasses and not because of any further connection.
What's more important is the nature of both your misunderstandings, which you seem uninterested in exploring.
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