Anger Acceptable for Atheists

[billvon 3,092]

>How is evolution--or indeed any scientific theory which makes hypotheses
>about processes that require many human lifetimes to complete--testable
>by the scientific method?

One example:

Hypothesis - organisms, when placed under selective pressures, will evolve into new species.

Test - observe speciation in organisms

Conclusion - Organisms evolve into new species when placed under selective pressure.


>Isn't there a strong element of faith on both sides of this issue?

Nope. If a scientist discovers that the DNA->RNA->protein pathway is not unique, and can prove it via repeatable, verifiable experiments, then other scientists accept it. They don't have "faith" that DNA->RNA->protein is the only possible path.

Now, imagine that a scientist discovers the remains of Jesus, and therefore proves he died a natural death and did not "ascend into heaven." Many religious types will discard his result, having faith that the Biblical account is the only possible one.

[jakee 1,582]

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But it is not clear to me how...

Then learn more.

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Isn't there a strong element of faith on both sides of this issue?

No. That is (with all due respect) a pathetic attempt to put the two on a seemingly equal footing.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Shotgun 1]

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Now, imagine that a scientist discovers the remains of Jesus, and therefore proves he died a natural death and did not "ascend into heaven."

How would they be able to prove that the remains were actually Jesus and not someone else?

[SivaGanesha 2]

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One example:

Hypothesis - organisms, when placed under selective pressures, will evolve into new species.

Test - observe speciation in organisms

Conclusion - Organisms evolve into new species when placed under selective pressure.

In other words, the scientist provides strong, repeatable, evidence of speciation occurring within relatively short time frames. The scientist then extrapolates as to what would happen if the same process were extended over millions of years. The extrapolation is not a repeatable experiment unless the scientist has millions of years on their hands. That is where the faith comes in.

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Now, imagine that a scientist discovers the remains of Jesus, and therefore proves he died a natural death and did not "ascend into heaven." Many religious types will discard his result, having faith that the Biblical account is the only possible one.

I'd be very skeptical of a claim to have identified the remains of Jesus. Scientists weren't able to fully identify the remains of all the members of the last Russian royal family, and that is less than 100 years ago with many living relatives, with a known relationship to the family, available to provide DNA evidence.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[billvon 3,092]

>How would they be able to prove that the remains were actually Jesus
>and not someone else?

Genetic match between the remains and traces at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would be one way.

[Muenkel 0]

To answer the simple question that was originally asked, anger is an emotion that all human beings experience. How we act on that emotion makes the whole difference.

Do Athiests have the right to anger? Yes.

Do they have a right to break a law or cause harm due to that anger? No.

_________________________________________
Chris

[JackC 0]

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Genetic match between the remains and traces at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would be one way.

If someone has genetic material from Jesus, just clone the dude and be done with it.

[jakee 1,582]

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That is where the faith comes in.

No, it's not.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 3,092]

>In other words, the scientist provides strong, repeatable, evidence
>of speciation occurring within relatively short time frames. The scientist
>then extrapolates as to what would happen if the same process were
>extended over millions of years.

He initially extrapolates over the course of decades and then observes whether or not similar changes occur. Again, hypothesis/experiment/result. He then extrapolates over a century or so, and the next scientist verifies his work.

So you have experiments that validate evolutionary changes over the course of a century or so.

Scientists then look at the actual biological record, at records that show changes in animals and plants throughout recorded history, to see if such forces were at work. They observe the "forced evolution" that turned gray wolves into chihuahuas and great danes; they observe the breeding that has given us all modern food. Again, they verify the same processes at work.

Scientists then look at the fossil record, to see if there is evidence of common ancestry for diverged species. And indeed there is, along with evidence of how their environment shaped their development.

Scientists then look into molecular biology to see if the organisms we believe to have common ancestors have molecular clocks that agree on a date of divergence from a common ancestor - and they do. Further, the more different the organism is from another, the further back those molecular clocks go. When artificially separated, organism's molecular clocks proceed at the rates predicted, thus validating their usefulness.

So from several fields - paleontology, agronomy, archaeology, biology - we have strong, repeatable evidence that the evolutionary process has shaped life as we know it.

>The extrapolation is not a repeatable experiment unless the
>scientist has millions of years on their hands.

Untrue. We can see back millions of years just by looking at the stars. We can propose experiments to better measure the radiation from stars millions of light-years away, mount them on a rocket, shoot them into orbit, and run experiments on the radiation reaching us. That provides a repeatable, verifiable experiment.

Likewise, we can accurately date materials from millions of years ago, and research what happened back then. We can propose experiments to run on remains and validate our guesses about what happened. We can, for example, propose various experiments to determine what happened at the Oklo nuclear reactors and get quite good data - even though they haven't been operating for billions of years.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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No. That is (with all due respect) a pathetic attempt to put the two on a seemingly equal footing.

The difficulty is that scientists rarely, in presenting material to the general public, distinguish between those statements that they are reasonably certain are accurate because of repeated experiments--and those statements that are speculation or of dubious accuracy. Scientists are almost certainly more honest than religious types, but they could help their own cause a lot more by being more willing to admit when they might be wrong.

An example: Carl Sagan made much of the fact that the star Vega was allegedly 26 light years from Earth in his novel Contact. However, right around the time that the movie Contact came out, new scientific measurements came out showing that Vega is actually only 25 light years from Earth. Kind of embarrassing for Mr. Sagan, wouldn't you say?

The average person does not have time to pursue a PhD in all of these fields to be able to fully evaluate all claims made by scientists. If we cannot count on a certain level of honesty from scientists about when they might be wrong, then unfortunately (and tragically) science does drop to the common denominator of religion in terms of the reliability of their claims.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[Hausse 0]

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If someone has genetic material from Jesus, just clone the dude and be done with it.

Wow as far as I see that would be a proof that there is no god. If we can clone the son of god it would become really obvious.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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We can see back millions of years just by looking at the stars.

See my comment on Vega. If Carl Sagan was off by a year over a time scale of about a quarter century (25 light years being the current alleged distance of Vega from Earth) how can we possibly be certain about claims of "seeing back millions of years" having any degree of accuracy at all?

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[jakee 1,582]

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The difficulty is that scientists rarely, in presenting material to the general public, distinguish between those statements that they are reasonably certain are accurate because of repeated experiments--and those statements that are speculation or of dubious accuracy.

Like?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 3,092]

>If Carl Sagan was off by a year over a time scale of about a
>quarter century (25 light years being the current alleged distance of Vega
>from Earth) how can we possibly be certain about claims of "seeing back
>millions of years" having any degree of accuracy at all?

?? Are you asking "since people sometimes make errors, doesn't that mean that there is no truth?" If so, the answer is no.

If you look at a star that's ten thousand light years away, you are seeing it ten thousand years ago. Due to gravitational distortions of the light path it might be 9600 years ago or 10,100 years ago. Gravity can change the distance that light travels; Carl Sagan cannot.

Today you could claim that the moon is made of cheese. And tomorrow a conspiracy theorist could say "See? There on DZ.com, someone said the moon was made of cheese, even though NASA claims it's made primarily of rock! This PROVES no one knows anything about the moon!"

And he'd be just as wrong.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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The difficulty is that scientists rarely, in presenting material to the general public, distinguish between those statements that they are reasonably certain are accurate because of repeated experiments--and those statements that are speculation or of dubious accuracy.

Like?

Again, see my example about the distance to Vega being previously cited as 26 light years.

It is, of course, understood that certain numbers in science are known only to a certain degree of accuracy. However, generally when a non-round number like 26 light years is used, there is an assumption that this figure is valid to at least two significant digits. In this case, it turns out it was only valid to, at most, one significant digit.

In stating the figure of 26 light years as the distance to Vega, Sagan (and many other popularizers of science--the 26 l.y. figure was quite commonly bandied about) was claiming a level of certainty he did not actually have.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[jakee 1,582]

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The difficulty is that scientists rarely, in presenting material to the general public, distinguish between those statements that they are reasonably certain are accurate because of repeated experiments--and those statements that are speculation or of dubious accuracy.

Like?

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In stating the figure of 26 light years as the distance to Vega, Sagan (and many other popularizers of science--the 26 l.y. figure was quite commonly bandied about) was claiming a level of certainty he did not actually have.

In a work of fiction?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[Hausse 0]

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We can see back millions of years just by looking at the stars.

See my comment on Vega. If Carl Sagan was off by a year over a time scale of about a quarter century (25 light years being the current alleged distance of Vega from Earth) how can we possibly be certain about claims of "seeing back millions of years" having any degree of accuracy at all?

That is exactly the same argument that fundamental christians use to "prove" that carbon dating does not work. Sometimes it is off a little, so it must never work.

Look at your driving and apply the same idea. You can not drive 100% accurately in the middle of your lane, so you can not drive at all since you would with 100% certainty crash. I don't think so.

[nathaniel 0]

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The extrapolation is not a repeatable experiment unless the scientist has millions of years on their hands. That is where the faith comes in.

Faith is more than a good inference based on the available evidence.

Many religious types, I'd hazard most these days, would be offended at the principle that they might switch faiths upon making a different reading of the stars.

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Royd 0]

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Now, imagine that a scientist discovers the remains of Jesus, and therefore proves he died a natural death and did not "ascend into heaven." Many religious types will discard his result, having faith that the Biblical account is the only possible one.

And if they ever found Noah's Ark, what kind of song and dance do you think unbelievers would be doing?

[SivaGanesha 2]

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In a work of fiction?

Yes, Contact is a work of fiction, but the figure of 26 l.y. as the distance to Vega was bandied about by all astronomers prior to 1997, when it was corrected (ironically the very same year that Contact the movie came out).

I took an astronomy class as an undergrad in the 1980's. The professor turned out to be one of the biggest drunks on campus. Usually he didn't even show up to class, but on one of the days when he was able to stagger in, he commented on the Hyades star cluster. He said that all of modern astronomy depended on the computation of the distance to the Hyades star cluster, and that if that proved to be incorrect, it would completely screw up modern astronomy.

Because he was drunk, he was letting us students in on a few of the secret vulnerabilities of astronomy that a more sober professor would have kept secret.

What happened in 1997 is that--true to this drunken professor's prediction--the distance to the Hyades star cluster was, indeed, discovered to have been miscomputed--and the whole structure of the universe had to be reassessed as a result. Hence--among many other things--the correction of the distance to Vega.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[billvon 3,092]

>And if they ever found Noah's Ark, what kind of song and dance do
>you think unbelievers would be doing?

I imagine the same sort of dance they would do if scientists discovered the earth was really flat, and the stars fixed in a vault above it.

[Royd 0]

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An example: Carl Sagan made much of the fact that the star Vega was allegedly 26 light years from Earth in his novel Contact. However, right around the time that the movie Contact came out, new scientific measurements came out showing that Vega is actually only 25 light years from Earth. Kind of embarrassing for Mr. Sagan, wouldn't you say?

They think nothing of tossing around a few million years here on earth. Why should 1 yr. of light speed make a difference?

[Everon 0]

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Any governmental agency should be absolutely neutral concerning religion.

Doesn't that mean neither supporting nor denying the idea of ID? How can anything be "neutral" and only discuss one side of it?

Actually I meant the "neutral" comment concerning religion and government (not ID in particular). Any governmental entity should be absolutely neutral concerning religion - it should not promote one over any other - this is what Newdow is fighting to preserve. "In God We Trust" is just as offensive as "In Allah We Trust" or "In Zeus We Trust" to me.

As has already been mentioned ID is not a scientific theory, and for that reason alone it shouldn't be discussed in biology classes. Where should it be discussed? Church, home or religious studies courses.

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[SivaGanesha 2]

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They think nothing of tossing around a few million years here on earth. Why should 1 yr. of light speed make a difference?

Well, it is a 4% error. Is that a significant error--does it make a difference or not? Who knows--just as no one really knows whether a 4% error in the amount of time since Cro Magnon Man became extinct has any bearing on the theory of evolution.

I did a PhD myself in a scientific discipline. I became accustomed to the idea that a 4% error was nothing anyone took too seriously. It was well within the scientific "margin of error". A certain "fuzziness" was acceptable to these scientists.

When I took my PhD and got myself a job as a quant on Wall Street, I found myself in for a rude awakening. On Wall Street, people do consider a 4% error to be significant. If you lose 4% of someone's money on Wall Street, you better have a pretty good explanation for it or you will find yourself out of a job.

Charles Darwin was a smart guy but somehow I don't think he would have lasted very long on Wall Street. Natural selection, you know

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[jcd11235 0]

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However, generally when a non-round number like 26 light years is used, there is an assumption that this figure is valid to at least two significant digits.

Generally, with significant figures, the last significant digit is assumed to be an estimate. For example, If I take a meter stick with millimeter graduations and use it to measure my desk, I can legitimately arrive at a length such as 97.54 cm. The 4 is an estimation; maybe 97.53 cm or 97.55 cm is more accurate. The 4 serves to give an indication of the desk's length relative to exactly 97.5 cm and exactly 97.6 cm.

If I read 26 light years, I think approximately 25 - 27 light years. If I read 26.0 light years, I think approximately 25.9 - 26.1 light years.

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