The Origins of Love, Life, and The Universe

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Guys,

I'm not claiming evidence of the existence of a creator. I'm not suggesting my beliefs be taught in public schools as "alternatives" to science or "teaching the controversey". I'm simply saying I beleive in a creator and what we perceive as abiogensis and evolution may be the creator steping back and watching the creation unfold. It's my belief, that's all.

[TrueMetis]

EB,

Aren't there speculations about an eternal multiverse? If there is an eternal multiverse why can't there be an eternal creator?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOYrlqF-IW0

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

DC

I've got a wild one: maybe the entire universe is made up of tiny vibrating strings or loops far to small to be tested or observed?

TM,

I've always really liked Carl Sagan. I watched "Cosmos" when it first ran on PBS as a child. The book Cosmos was the first science book I ever read cover to cover.

[Kelli Fury]

STU,

Also, if TBBT, abiogenesis, and evolution are accepted, and there is a creator, what does/did this creator do?

If there is a creator, why would you not assume that this was the means of creation? No matter what theories you ascribe to, there still comes a point where something has to come from nothing and some time after, life has to spring from the inanimate- ANY speculation on how this happened, religious or scientific, is based on faith. The only truly logical response to it is to shrug and say "I have no way of knowing that" and anyone who truly thinks their guess at how is more valid or informed than anyone else's is just being an asshole.

[TerraPrime]

Honestly, I don't see why you'd need anything else to be satisfied :P

I need to feel important. Otherwise, my sense of existence wil be crushed by the overwhelming realization that I am the result of random molecules colliding with other random molecules, and that will force to continually go through the emo phase.

[Ixodes]

I need to feel important. Otherwise, my sense of existence wil be crushed by the overwhelming realization that I am the result of random molecules colliding with other random molecules, and that will force to continually go through the emo phase.

I've got no problems accepting the random nature of my molecules but it was horrible when Coco said I am jiggling. He could have picked a less hurtful way to describe my charged particles.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

If there is a creator, why would you not assume that this was the means of creation?

Because it would be an extremely awkward way of creating stuff?

I must say I have a hard time getting my mind around the idea that faith and darwinian evolution are mutually compatible, other than in some special cases. Deism, where God has stepped back and is no longer interfering with the world, that would work. Directed evolution or some sort of intelligent design would also work (but that isn't what evolutionary science tells us).

What I'm getting at is that the way I see it, these two ideas are not compatible:

1) God used evolution to shape humans the way he wanted them

2) Evolution is the result of random mutations and natural selection in a competitive environment

The darwinian theory of evolution isn't just evolution - it's evolution by means of natural selection. This means the evolution is undirected. What you get is largely a result of chance, so humans might not have evolved at all. Even the most basic building blocks like complex-cellular life (eukaryotes) and multi-cellular organisms might not have evolved. The dinosaurs might not have died out - in fact, they probably wouldn't have if not for a freak accident. And even if we do assume that intelligent life would sooner or later evolve on Earth - something I personally believe is a very strong assumption - there's no saying it would look anything like the humans that walk the Earth today.

So if you're God and you want to create humans with a certain appearance in mind, you have to intervene all the time. You have to direct the asteroids so they hit the Earth at just the right moment. You have to move the continents around so they create ice ages and sea levels rising at the right time. You have to pull strings here and there so that these genes are merged, and this protein is folding the other way, and that this animal dies before it can spread its genes because it would take evolution in the wrong direction. Now of course, if you're omnipotent, you can actually do this, but it would be, as I said, an extremely awkward way of creating stuff. A creator that interferes in this way is also a pretty redundant theory from a scientific point of view because everything that he does could be equally well explained by darwinian evolution.

In short, using evolution as a means of creation makes no bloody sense.

I know, however, that a very large number of people claim to have no problem reconciling their acceptance of evolution with their belief in God, including biologists like Francis Collins and Kenneth Miller and religious entities like the Church of England and (somewhat surprisingly) the Roman Catholic Church. I've heard so many times that science and faith can coexist that I almost believe it myself, but so far I've never heard any really convincing argument for how it's done.

There are some people who think like I do, like ID proponent Jay W. Richards and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, but they seem to be in a minority. In any case, it's by no means a trivial issue and I'm rather puzzled why so many people dismiss it as such.

[Kelli Fury]

well, there is definitely a school of religious thought that God has planned for every possibility, from what you had for breakfast to the wind speed, and that while he doesn't necessarily control it, he knows what will happen. There are also those who believe he's there and does nothing. Nothing you posted, Erik, seems to make any difference for either. If you believe in a God to begin with, does it really matter is something is an "awkward" way of doing it? That seems a little ridiculous given the premise of the discussion

[TerraPrime]

Re: Kay

ANY speculation on how this happened, religious or scientific, is based on faith. The only truly logical response to it is to shrug and say "I have no way of knowing that" and anyone who truly thinks their guess at how is more valid or informed than anyone else's is just being an asshole.

Is it really that the two competing schools of thoughts, creationism and scientific premises, are both based on faith? That seems dangerously close to calling science itself a form of religion.

I'd contend that the scientific explanation for the origin of the universe is implicit that we don't know for sure, and that what we're offering is the best guess we have at this time based on our current understanding of the physical laws of the universe. The religious explanation, on the other hand, can't even offer that. They're not saying that this is the most accurate cosmology so far until we get more news from our deity, no?

I'd also say that the person offering a guess that's based on the currently accepted models of scientific knowledge is less of an asshole than the one offering a competing model based on a book derived from oral traditions that feature an ambivalently ethical supernatural being who has reformed his violent and capriciously cruel way by having his son die for mankind. But your bar for asshole-atry might be set to a different height than mine.

Re: Erik

There are some people who think like I do, like ID proponent Jay W. Richards and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, but they seem to be in a minority. In any case, it's by no means a trivial issue and I'm rather puzzled why so many people dismiss it as such.

I think it is because it's easier to function in a multicultural society if we don't look under the hood too closely. If some religious folks are willing to go far enough to say that their faith is compatible with science, then let's encourage them and use that to marginalize the other religious folks who're hellbent (hur hur) on suppressing science.

[Kelli Fury]

What I meant by it taking faith is that we have no recorded instances of life coming from unlife on earth or anything coming from a complete absence of matter, we have no science to back up that this is possible other than not having a better explanation. When you take it back that far, it takes equal faith to believe it came from nowhere than that it came from somewhere.

[Sci-2]

I think the thing here is you are asking people to explain faith. I can't explain why I have faith, I just do. Now, as noted above, I have no wish for my religious faith to decide public policy but I also don't have a problem if religion inspires someone to find an argument based in science for their viewpoint.

ETA: Of course my personal faith thinks most other faiths are steeped in bigotry and insulting God by using Her/Him/It/They to justify prejudice and are thus inspiring blasphemers to my own religion of one...

[TerraPrime]

What I meant by it taking faith is that we have no recorded instances of life coming from unlife on earth or anything coming from a complete absence of matter, we have no science to back up that this is possible other than not having a better explanation.

Oh, for sure. It's the same with evolution - we have no time-travel camera to record the gradual formation of species over time, do we? So, is it "faith" supporting the proposal that homo sapiens are descendants of hom erectus, or that butterflies and moths shared a common ancestor?

Also, science begs to be falsified, so that a better, more accurate, model can emerge. We don't have the perfect explanation, but we do have a decent one, and if you can find a better one, why, we'd welcome it (for the most part - resistance to change from the establishment notwithstanding).

I don't think that's the case with religion-based explanation of how our world began.

When you take it back that far, it takes equal faith to believe it came from nowhere than that it came from somewhere.

Except that the belief in the scientific explanation is implicit that we can be wrong, and that there could indeed be a different way for this to have happened. Although, it does indeed preclude anything metaphysical, as it is not something that can be addressed by science. So in that regard, that "faith" is qualitatively different than the "faith" in religion, far as I can tell.

[TheLoneliestMonk]

Kay,

I think you are taking a big leap in assuming there was ever an absense of matter. Also, while there are no recorded instances of life comming from unlife (other than with something that was alive dies, and is brought back), scientists have been working on recreating this since the 50s, and seem to be getting closer. I'll look for a link before I state this for sure, but I'm fairly certain I read somewhere that self replicating protocells had spontaniously formed in the right conditions in a lab attempting to recreate the environment on earth pre-life.

At this point, it seems possible that the only reason we have thus far been unable to recreate life from unlife is that we are not certain of what exactly the environment on earth was like, and it was varied throughout, so pinpointing exactly what the circumstances were is incredibly difficult. Still, I would be unsurprised if it happened in my lifetime.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

Is String Theory "begging to be falsified"?

[JGP]

Erik,

Science and Faith can coexist if you can subscribe to the ironic presupposition that, like Church and State, what must also be separated is the Church and God.

[Drowned Crow]

What I meant by it taking faith is that we have no recorded instances of life coming from unlife on earth or anything coming from a complete absence of matter, we have no science to back up that this is possible other than not having a better explanation. When you take it back that far, it takes equal faith to believe it came from nowhere than that it came from somewhere.

You're making the mistake of assuming that because you're ignorant of something everyone else is as well. There is in fact plenty of evidence to back up this possibility, even though no one has yet created cellular life from scratch. For example, the spontaneous formation of nucleotides, amino acids, and lipids. Or self-replicating lipid vesicles. Or evolving novel RNA enzymes. No one has put all these pieces together yet, but given the rate of progress it won't be all that long. And our evidence for a supernatural explanation will still be non-existent.

[Seli]

TP,

Is String Theory "begging to be falsified"?

Yes it is. People have been working for years to try and get testable predictions out of the maths.

And the constant questioning of what (if anything) the theories mean has led to the search of a definition of a unifying theory.

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

Guys,

I'm not claiming evidence of the existence of a creator. I'm not suggesting my beliefs be taught in public schools as "alternatives" to science or "teaching the controversey". I'm simply saying I beleive in a creator and what we perceive as abiogensis and evolution may be the creator steping back and watching the creation unfold. It's my belief, that's all.

Yeah, it could be a creator stepping back. But there is no evidence to believe in it. So why do you continue to believe in it?

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

If there is a creator, why would you not assume that this was the means of creation? No matter what theories you ascribe to, there still comes a point where something has to come from nothing

Completely terrible logic. Why couldn't the universe be eternal? Why is it impossible that our world has always existed? There is no logical standpoint that says there had to be a beginning. Try again.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

STU,

Because I have faith. I don't ask anyone else to share it.

Seli,

In Brian Greene's most recent book he states that even if the few predictions surrounding String Theory (Supersymmetry and a few others) are shown false String Theory is still a viable hypothesis because of the untestable nature of idea itself. Hence my question about whether there is a real effort to disprove String theory or whether it is possible to disprove string theory given there are very few testable predictions made by its proponents.