re: I have a couple questions about science.....

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1. One thing the history of science has taught us is that it's always been premature to credit a deity for things we do not presently understand.

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I think it's best to always keep beliefs and observations separate. If a person wants to believe that a deity created everything, fine. However, if that person then faces a situation wherein he wonders how, say, a diamond is made he will be cheating himself of knowledge if he just reasons, "God did it, so I don't have to think about it."

If, however, he decides to research the subject he'll learn that a diamond, a natural one at least, comes from extreme pressures within the earth on carbon deposits. He hasn't violated his belief in a Creator. He has merely learned how the diamond came to be.

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2. Science is hard work.

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Yes, it is. Scientific knowledge grows from human generation to generation. The ability of humans to store knowledge counteracts the limited lifetime of the individual person.

This has been the status quo for a few millennia. It's about to change, perhaps within the next 20 years.

Imagine if another Einstein was born and didn't have to die. He could continue to actively attain and process new information for an indefinite time.

The possibilities for new technologies are staggering. The word intelligence just wouldn't be adequate anymore. We'd have to upgrade it to superintelligence.

Presently, artificial intelligence (AI) is rudimentary. We are nearing a point where we can turn over the development of AI to AI. When this happens, AI will very quickly become SAI, super artificial intelligence.

A new species, our successor, will have been born. We will have input into its evolution for only a short period. If we are to continue as the intelligence that gave rise to a superintelligence, it is critical that we instill our best qualities into SAI and hope, I suppose, that it continues to view those qualities as being valuable.

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I think not believing in God is being "illogical".

Since no one really knows if God exist or not, logic would tell you to hedge your bet. If God doesn't exist, then at death you've lost nothing. If God does exist and you've lived the way you describe???

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Which god should I believe in? All of them, just to be on the safe side?

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This didn't work out so well with Skynet.

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No, it certainly didn't. In the story it's apparent that some of humanity's better qualities were incorporated in the machines but many bad characteristics made it into them, too.

We humans seem to use science fiction as a way of testing futuristic concepts. Lesson learned from the Terminator series of movies: When good and bad human qualities are juxtaposed in sentient machines, the machines get to decide which are good or bad for themselves. That can be a very bad thing for humans.

I have some time to kill so, I'll address some of ken's latest nonsense

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There is evidence of common descent that all life on Earth is descended from the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the LUCA of all organisms living on Earth.

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There is precisely zero evidence for ucd and serious evidence against it. It’s speculative at least and fanciful at most.

As for your specific citation, all life forms on earth could share 100% of the same genetic profile but that would not irrefutably mean they all came from a common ancestor. Correlation does not equal causation. But you knew that scientific maxim already didn’t you?

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You exhibit a bewildering misunderstanding of science.

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Says the person who apparently hasn’t studied popper

Here is a list of your silly statements I challenged that you haven’t substantively responded to:
religion, bad. science, good – pointless overgeneralization
Nothing is excluded from research – patently false
There is no evidence for God - ignorant
I don't believe in anything/I have no worldview - naive and foolish

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Even a basic understanding of biochemistry illustrates that life is a chemical chain reaction that is perpetuated by reproduction which is dependent upon a continuous energy flow.

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First, this statement in no way addresses the infinitesimal likelihood of life arising from lifelessness. An amino acid chain is not “alive” in the same way that a sentient, conscious being is and there is an apparently insuperable gap between the two. Second, even if this statement is acceptable, it doesn’t show that abiogenesis has been proven to be possible sans intelligent intervention.

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If it's scientific evidence it is.

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Do you realize that even scientists disagree on things, i.e. “consensus?” They absolutely do not agree on the “evidence” in all matters. “Evidence” is not static and absolute. It is always and in every case provisional, subject to refinement or change as a result of different or more accurate observations (Ptolemaic astronomy, phlogiston, aether, caloric, special relativity, etc). You are demonstrably wrong and yet you lecture others on what science is. It’s like you learned about science from a comic book

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You've never had an original thought in your life, have you?

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I responded using the well known and time honored tradition of citing experts. I already enumerated this when I said that an academic study of something is to know who the proponents are and their contributions to the field, to know the opponents and their contributions to the field and to know whether the view has contributed anything that advances the discipline. You don’t seem to be familiar with scholarship and how academia works.

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Science is independent of you

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Still wrong. It is in no sense independent of any person and repeating it doesn’t help your case. The very conceptualization of science, qua methodological naturalism, itself is born from human cognition and perception.

If you’ve studied hume, you would know that he argued quite persuasively that we can’t know regularities for certain. We can only know the appearance of regularity.

Kant argued that we cannot know the ding an sich. Our knowledge is mostly synthetic a prior and our observations of phenomena are often unreliable.

It’s like you don’t know what research bias is. It is a confirmed, well known dynamic in science and no scientist is absolutely devoid of it. Sheila Jasanoff (i’m sure an accomplished scientist like you knows who this is) said that “who should define what counts as good science when all scientific claims incorporate social factors and are subject to negotiation?” Would you like to correct her? You seem to think that science can be bifurcated from the human intellect but, that is a category mistake. The nature and operation of science is wholly dependent upon what we make of it. We invented, sustain and refine what science is. It is not some disembodied, untethered enterprise that we are trying to understand. It is an approach to knowledge from observation that we have invented.

I realize you won’t read these but I will provide them anyway so you won’t have an excuse to be confused on the matter

disagreement over evidence

confirmation bias

research bias

subjectivity among scientists

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And metaphysical/supernatural has precisely nothing to do with reality.

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only for people who are ignorant on the subject

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No, thanks

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that’s what i thought. you’re no scholar and you’re not interested in substantive discussion or learning how you’re wrong.

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that person then faces a situation wherein he wonders how, say, a diamond is made he will be cheating himself of knowledge if he just reasons, "God did it, so I don't have to think about it."

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you don’t even realize this is a caricature. It’s amazing that even in this day and age, there are still ignorant people who think faith is nothing more than blind, irrational trust.

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he decides to research the subject

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you act like Christians by default are opposed to research or aren’t vocational scientists. I personally know scientists who are believers and are internationally respected in their field. Contemporary science owes much of its origins to christian thinkers who were driven to know God’s creation better. Iow, their beliefs were perfectly in line with an empirical approach to knowledge, quite the contrary to your juvenile characterization of them.

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This tactic has worked with the majority of humans ever since

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Then how do you explain that many of the smartest people in the world today are monotheists? Sort of blows your ridiculous tripe of a theory out of the water.

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please don't bring up Intelligent Design

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Until you provide a substantive response, the point stands. I realize you don’t like that but, that’s how debate works

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More evidence that you are illiterate regarding science

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You first say that science is objective and independent of human activity, both of which are absolutes. Then you say that there are no absolutes in science. And you’re telling me I don’t understand science. Seriously, figure it out. It’s one or the other, not both.

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bfniii

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane_Craig

No offense but who are you trying to convince? It's like you are trying to convince yourself.

Let's take your premise. You believe that an omnipotent, omniscient being created you and everything else in the universe. This being has then decided to form relationship with you that can be characterized as benevolent. OK. So you are basically friends with Supreme Being of the universe. And yet you feel compelled to defend this relationship bitterly.

I can think of no real reason for such behavior.

Unless...


You are not certain yourself. You have the doubt that can only be eliminated if no others can ever express doubt. This is all too common in those who adhere to a religious viewpoint.

If you truly believe you would have no reason to ever try and force or convince to believe. You would not need to. It would be the equivalent of trying to convince someone water is wet.

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If you truly believe you would have no reason to ever try and force or convince to believe.

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An interesting argument.

I personally believe that God exists... and that he hates the University of Arkansas sports programs. A divine being that enjoys hitting the smite button on his computer is really the only logical answer for our misery.

I'm fairly certain "And the Lord spoke and he said "Yay verily, the University of Arkansas sports shall know unending agony!" was in the first draft of the King James version of the Bible.

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as if reality is limited to what you think or imagine

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Reality is what you experience via sensory input, not what you imagine. You can predict reality using your imagination but it's dangerous to confuse the two.

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who are you trying to convince?

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no one. just responding to kentucker's wacky nonsense. thanks for asking

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you feel compelled to defend this relationship bitterly

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bitterly?

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This is all too common in those who adhere to a religious viewpoint.

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link?

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If you truly believe you would have no reason to ever try and force or convince to believe

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i'm doing no such thing. i am clearing up misconceptions in a discussion forum dedicated to these types of topics. you can't possibly think there's anything unreasonable about that.

do you have anything substantive to say on the topic or are you just playing armchair psychologist troll?