Let's look at it in more detail
On 6/2/07, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is an interesting debate touching on this subject:
>
> http://media.www.columbiaspectator.com/media/storage/paper865/news/2006/11/21/News/Forum.Debates.God.Science-2505679.shtml
>
> David Xia reports,
> "Dawkins, a British evolutionary scientist, wrote that the science of
> evolution disproves the existence of a god and the abolishment of religion
> will effectively do away with violence."
>
> So how is Brownback supposed to discount the entire set of Dawkinsonian
> thinkers?
Ignore them? Why repeat the same mistake? And perhaps David Xia may
want to familiarize himself with Dawkins' arguments?
> And, one has to ask, if evolution != accident, why do so many scientists
> claim it does?
Sigh...
> Or perhaps they don't really?
>
> Here's a shocking quote from Hefland (the atheist chair of Columbia's
> astronomy department):
>
> "I don't think science can prove anything," said Helfand who described
> science as only a method of describing the natural world through models and
> not a way of explaining why things are the way they are.
Well she is right, science does not prove anything.
> Wow. See if he gets tenure at Iowa State! ;)
If she shows promise in her publications, funding and other activities
then sure why not?
> My question is what are the implications of all this for the naturalistic
> world-view?
> Evolutionary patterns can be an accurate description of the history of life
> (and I believe they are), but does that mean we know what is going on, what
> was going on, and both the proximate causes and the ultimate causes? I
> would like to see more details about the these subjects before being told by
> anybody that I (or my school board) must embrace naturalism.
Noone is telling you that you should embrace naturalism. So the
question now becomes, how do we best explain the data we have
collected so far.
Is such an explanation accurate? Only to the extent of it capturing
the data so far. If it survives adding additional data, it gains
strength, otherwise it disappears into obscurity. Do we know what
happened? Perhaps never, but we can make some informed estimates,
without jumping to blaming neptune for the waves and winds on the
oceans, or proposing a deity in charge of keeping our planets in
proper orbit.
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Received on Sat Jun 2 21:23:57 2007
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