Feathered T-Rex

[Jack]

How do you know?

I observe.

What was your sample size?

42

[Wombat]

There is difficult and arcane stuff worth considering,
and the effort to support religion by appeal to the natural
order is like this, I submit--considerably more than empty
intellectualizing--if one closes with it.

But this stuff isn't particularly difficult. Part of my objection to this pre-Cartesian stuff is that it makes the incredibly difficult seem easy. That and the fact that, unlike science, it is ludicrously underconstrained by evidence.

[Lorenzo]

I observe.

What was your sample size?

42

No wonder! Don't forget to include coyotes...I strongly suspect they're doing something out there in my meadow besides drinking, and laughing at God.

[glauber]

What was your sample size?

42

No wonder! Don't forget to include coyotes...I strongly suspect they're doing something out there in my meadow besides drinking, and laughing at God.

Mail-ordering dangerous stuff from ACME.

[Caj]

There's really no need to have any dispute over the theory of evolution (or all the other theories that creationists dispute, in geology, physics, cosmology etc).

The fact is, scientists will use any theory that makes accurate predictions about what they observe. If there ever was an "alternate theory of scientific creationism" which did better, or had any other advantages, they'd use it. No hard feelings, no religious disputes, we just want to make accurate predictions.

School textbooks are also a simple matter: kids should be taught in science class the stuff that scientists actually use---just like kids in driver's ed are taught to drive cars, but not hovercraft or time machines.

So the whole dispute over teaching alternate theories in school could be solved overnight if creationists just wrote down these "alternate theories" they keep advocating, told us what specific predictions they make separate from evolution, and proposed some experiments which could confirm or disconfirm them. For whatever reason, however, this has never happened. We've only heard about these theories, secondhand, that they're out there somewhere.

Caj

[Walden]

Animals have language. Animals have culture, and animals can learn. No animals have religion.

How do you know?

I observe.

Well, I've certainly seen dogs and cats in church, in my days. I don't recall any barking hallelujah or meowing amen, but I did see a couple pigs run squealing through during the sermon, one time.

I recall a cat sitting in service, in one church I visited, with that "Oh please... what's going on here?" look that only cats can make, and I could so relate.

[Lorenzo]

There's really no need to have any dispute over the theory of evolution (or all the other theories that creationists dispute, in geology, physics, cosmology etc).

The fact is, scientists will use any theory that makes accurate predictions about what they observe. If there ever was an "alternate theory of scientific creationism" which did better, or had any other advantages, they'd use it. No hard feelings, no religious disputes, we just want to make accurate predictions.

School textbooks are also a simple matter: kids should be taught in science class the stuff that scientists actually use---just like kids in driver's ed are taught to drive cars, but not hovercraft or time machines.

So the whole dispute over teaching alternate theories in school could be solved overnight if creationists just wrote down these "alternate theories" they keep advocating, told us what specific predictions they make separate from evolution, and proposed some experiments which could confirm or disconfirm them. For whatever reason, however, this has never happened. We've only heard about these theories, secondhand, that they're out there somewhere.

Good comment.

When I was young, my teachers advised that I should study religion before I studied science. When I graduated from that school, and on to the next--as I grew older, my teachers advised that I should have studied science first. Looking back, I now would advise anyone to study science and history first. Only then can religion and philosphy become meaningful and assume it's proper place. The whys should be obvious to anyone who knows the difference.

[Bloomfield]

This was from 'our' Darwin. Mike, 'inference to the best explanation'
is common in science--this is the idea that we are justified
in accepting the best explanation to a phenomenon that
needs explaining. The Cosmo Argument maintains that
the activity of a non-Contingent Being is the best explanation
of the fact that there are some contingent beings rather
than none at all. That is a reason to accept that explanation.

How are you justified in applying a rule of empirical science to a metaphysical argument? Why is this not like looking through a telescope only to conclude that the temperature is "warm." This not a rhetorical question.

[Will O'B]

The following poem was based on an ancient fable which was told in India:

The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very much like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me it's mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very much like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very much like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“It's clear enough the Elephant
Is very much like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “Even the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very much like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very much like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has ever seen!

(Admit it, you had to wonder when this was going to show up on the thread)


Will O'Ban

[Walden]

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has ever seen!

(Admit it, you had to wonder when this was going to show up on the thread)

I contend that no fewer than thirty eight angels could dance on the needle, but that they choose not to.

[Darwin]

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has ever seen!

(Admit it, you had to wonder when this was going to show up on the thread)

I contend that no fewer than thirty eight angels could dance on the needle, but that they choose not to.

Sorry, but you gotta have at least 3 Google links to support any such contention. It's a rule.

[jim stone]

This was from 'our' Darwin. Mike, 'inference to the best explanation'
is common in science--this is the idea that we are justified
in accepting the best explanation to a phenomenon that
needs explaining. The Cosmo Argument maintains that
the activity of a non-Contingent Being is the best explanation
of the fact that there are some contingent beings rather
than none at all. That is a reason to accept that explanation.

How are you justified in applying a rule of empirical science to a metaphysical argument? Why is this not like looking through a telescope only to conclude that the temperature is "warm." This not a rhetorical question.

Let me then address your non-rhetorical question.
I disbelieve that there is a difference in kind between science
and metaphysics, or a firm line between them. I believe it's
all science, in fact, but some scientific questions are more
amenable to being addressed by observation and experiment
than others--we tend to call the others 'metaphysics.'
Russell perhaps captured this when he wrote that 'philosophy
(he means 'metaphysics') is science before we have
a good reason to believe it.'

Consider the theory that the present alone exists, the past
is no more while the future is yet to be. This is called
Presentism, which was stated by St. Augustine.
It's generally considered a metaphysical theory.
Now there are a lot of difficulties for it--for instance,
suppose the past is no more. Than there seems to be
no fact in reality to make true the claim that
WWII happened. So, the objection goes, a bizarre
consequence of presentism is that claims about the
past lack a truth value (just as Aristotle maintained
taht the claim that there will be a sea battle tomorrow
is neither true nor false until tomorrow rolls around).

Presentists try to respond to this, but whether or not it's a good
objection, it certainly is a principled one--Presentism is
supposed to entail something crazy, which counts against it.
We don't want theories about time that make astronomy,
physics, history, etc impossible. That claims about the past
are sometimes true is one of the phenomena we want
a theory of time to save. And this is pretty scientific
thinking in a way. Concerns like these govern theory
construction in physics--if theories have bizarre
consequences that make scinece impossible, if they
fail to 'save the phenomena' we want to explain, this
counts against them.

At the same time a consequence of General Relativity is that
there are entities, tachyons, that are moving backwards in
time. Now if presentism is true, there is a difficulty about
backwards time travel, for if the present alone is real
there are no past moments in time, so there is nowhere
for tachyons to go. This is the 'nowhere to go' objection.
Presentists do try to respond, still it's an intelligent objection.

Another difficulty is Special Relativity. If the present is
relative to one's inertial frame, how fast one is moving,
then what's present for me may be past for you.
Suppose I'm watching a soap bubble. According to
presentism only things exist that exist NOW. Well the bubble
is present for me and past for you. So
the soap bubble exists and doesn't exist.

These are three difficulties for presentism, the latter two flow
from scientific theories, yet there doesn't seem to be
a substantial difference between the first difficulty and
the second two--the first points out a difficulty for presentism that
would concern any intelligent person constructing theories.
All thing being equal, we don't want theories--scientific,
metaphysical, whatever-- that
have the consequence that statements about the past
are neither true nor false.

And presentism itself--is it a metaphyscial theory or
a scientific theory? Well, I don't think there's a fact of
the matter here. It's both, I suppose. There is no
difference in kind. All of these theories are about the
nature of reality, all are subject to methodological
constraints of an intelligent sort, some are more
amenable to observations than others but this
can change at any moment. So I think metaphysics
is science operating at level somewhat more removed
from observation, but still science and still constrained
by scientific considerations.

Scientific considerations about theory construction
which apply in science 'proper' apply in metaphsics too.
So Inference to the best explanation applies in metaphysics too.
The version of the Cosmo Argument won't provide a terribly forceful argument for
a non-Contingent being, it's no proof,
still I think it provides some
support.

The way Natural Theology operates these days, no one argument is meant to bear all the weight.
There's a bunch of arguments, none of which is a proof but
each of which is supposed to provide some support.
Even cumulatively they aren't supposed to prove God's existence,
either, just make it a good bet, plausible.

[Darwin]

Even if the universe is eternal, each stage being a necessary result of what went before, it is still full of contingent beings--that is, beings that exist either by chance or due to the agency of other things, hence needn't have been.

Ah, something I can disagree with.

First, I'll say that I cannot even imagine anything happening by "pure" chance. That is, anything that is uncaused. Usually in science, we use the term "chance" to mean either that there are causal factors impinging from outside the system being studied, or that the causal situation is too chaotic to grasp. In either case, we're just saying that we can't pin down the causal relationships, not that there are none. So, things that happen by chance still involve cause and effect. So, assuming you don't really mean "outside of cause and effect", I'll take "chance" to be no different from "the agency of other things".

The claim, however, that something that exists due to the agency of other things "needn't have been" is a bit odd. From the standpoint of cause and effect, everything that is is the inescapable result of everything that was. There are no alternate scenarios. Everything that happens at any point in time had to happen. What appear to be alternate possibilities (in the future or in the past) look that way only because we don't know enough of the details to make a prediction. We say, "The 8-ball may go into the corner pocket, and it may not." But if we knew all the factors leading up to the shot, we would know the result. My reason for believing this is experience. We are increasingly successful in subjecting various kinds of events to finer and finer levels of analysis. I see no theoretical constraints on this, only practical ones.

As far as I'm concerned, this covers human actions, as well. In other words, I see no place for any interesting meaning of "free will", because I don't see any reason to believe that there is any component of the individual that is truly "free" of the constraints of the totality of cause and effect. We feel that we are free of cause and effect because we don't really have clear insight into our motivations. (I've felt this way for a long time, but I'm happy to see that experimental neuroscience now seems to support this. When Francis Crick came out with The Astonishing Hypothesis ten years ago, I wasn't astonished at all. Now, sadly after Crick's death, hypothesis is becoming theory, and theory is becoming fact.)

Fortunately, chaos keeps things from becoming boring.

[jim stone]

First, I'll say that I cannot even imagine anything happening by "pure" chance. That is, anything that is uncaused. Usually in science, we use the term "chance" to mean either that there are causal factors impinging from outside the system being studied, or that the causal situation is too chaotic to grasp. In either case, we're just saying that we can't pin down the causal relationships, not that there are none. So, things that happen by chance still involve cause and effect. So, assuming you don't really mean "outside of cause and effect", I'll take "chance" to be no different from "the agency of other things".


Is mainstream quantum mechanics a counter-example?

[scottielvr]

There was a young lady named Bright
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And returned the previous night.

Sorry, gents. Do carry on.