Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

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Sherlock Holmes

Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Over the past thirty, perhaps even forty years, it's become increasingly clear to me how what is sometimes presented as "god vs science" or "creationism vs science" and so on, is actually the root of many of the perceived problems with these two areas of human thought. Because these are presented as contrasting, as alternative ways of interpreting the world, many people just assume that there is an underlying incompatibility.

But there is no incompatibility at all, there never was and the false implication that there is arose quite recently in fact. The vast majority of those who contributed to what we today call the scientific revolution and later the enlightenment, were not atheists - this might surprise some but it is true and should be carefully noted.

The growth of militant atheism (recently spearheaded by the likes of Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens) has seen increasing effort placed on attacking "religion" and discrediting those who might regard "god" and "creation" as intellectually legitimate ideas, by implying that the layman must choose one or the other, you're either an atheist (for science) or a theist (a science "denier").

It is my position that there is no conflict whatsoever, for example God (an intelligent agency not subject to laws) gave rise to the universe (a sophisticated amalgam of material and laws) and we - also intelligent agencies - are gifted by being able to explore, unravel and utilize that creation.

There is nothing that can disprove this view, there is no reason to imply that those who adopt it are deluded, incompetent, poorly educated or any of that, that attitude is a lie and its reinforced at every opportunity in this and many other forums.
Last edited by Sherlock Holmes on Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #241

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:32 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:21 pm
Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:52 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:45 pm How do you know it isn't for some people?
Because meditating and praying isn't "doing science" for anyone.
It's rather telling that these responses you speak of from the outset seem to violate the basic rules of discourse within the forum (might that have been the Christian I wonder?), of course you and you alone are responsible for what is posted under your username.
Like I said, I will remove any offensive words. Are you still interested?
You decide what you post Jose, not me.
I'll start with the one that was mostly focused on me.

Greg (biologist, non-Christian): "Hey [Jose]. I looked at that thread in the Debating Christianity forum like you asked and my reaction is, why do you waste your time arguing with idiots? Yes, I know the weather isn’t all that great but surely you have better things to do with your time! Arguing over praying being science? I suppose if that’s what you want to do though.

To answer the question (how would I react if you told [our group] that we would pray at meetings and you’d funded a prayer group) I would immediately object and if you persisted I would leave the meeting and report you to your supervisor. Anyone with a basic high school education should know praying isn’t conducting science. If it was, then I guess devout Muslims do science five times a day!

Really man, please find something better to spend your time on. So some [name calling] on the internet things praying is science. Who cares? I don’t and neither should you.

Take care and talk to you soon."
I'm curious why something you speculated about (having your team pray prior to meetings) is being discussed amongst you as if I had suggested it. I did not suggest that and never have and never would, as the record shows, it is a strawman argument, a fallacious argument, I think its clear to whom the term "idiot" best applies here.

So please show where I advocated asking others to pray collectively prior to meetings?

If you cannot then I respectfully request a public apology.

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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #242

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 2:13 pm I'm curious why something you speculated about (having your team pray prior to meetings) is being discussed amongst you as if I had suggested it.
I've no idea where you got that impression from. When I contacted my colleagues, I simply sent them a link to this thread and said the main question I was asking them to address was "How would you react if I said we would be praying at one of our meetings, or if I decided to provide funding to a prayer group".
I did not suggest that and never have and never would, as the record shows, it is a strawman argument, a fallacious argument, I think its clear to whom the term "idiot" best applies here.

So please show where I advocated asking others to pray collectively prior to meetings?

If you cannot then I respectfully request a public apology.
Try and read more closely next time.
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #243

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 4:51 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 2:13 pm I'm curious why something you speculated about (having your team pray prior to meetings) is being discussed amongst you as if I had suggested it.
I've no idea where you got that impression from. When I contacted my colleagues, I simply sent them a link to this thread and said the main question I was asking them to address was "How would you react if I said we would be praying at one of our meetings, or if I decided to provide funding to a prayer group".
I did not suggest that and never have and never would, as the record shows, it is a strawman argument, a fallacious argument, I think its clear to whom the term "idiot" best applies here.

So please show where I advocated asking others to pray collectively prior to meetings?

If you cannot then I respectfully request a public apology.
Try and read more closely next time.
Well it seems the real idiot is the person who advocated prayers prior to technical meetings since that's the thrust of your colleagues complaint.

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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #244

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:00 pm Well it seems the real idiot is the person who advocated prayers prior to technical meetings since that's the thrust of your colleagues complaint.
Well it's pretty clear that you've either completely lost track of this discussion, or you weren't ever paying much attention to it in the first place. You're the one who's advocating for prayer and meditation to be considered "doing science", not me. I simply took that concept and applied it to a real world scenario.
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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #245

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:57 pm I disagree with rules being imposed by biased authorities as to what is and is not permissible insofar as pursuing science, doing science, inventing abstract ideas, performing thought experiments and so on, it is not necessary. By all means critique a theory once proposed but do not impose restrictions on the means one can use to devise the theory.
Again you persist in this bizarre belief that the AAAS are some sort of police force, who upon finding out that some group is doing something the AAAS doesn't approve of, comes in and smashes their lab equipment, deletes files, and does whatever else is necessary to get the disobedient group to stop.

Meanwhile in reality, the AAAS does nothing of the sort, while creationist organizations like AiG and the ICR do whatever they like. The ID creationists at the Discovery Institute started their own "research arm" where they claim to have done research into ID creationism, and the AAAS did......nothing.

So if the AAAS really is this police force you seem to think, you have to at least concede that they're not very good at it, eh? Or it could be that you're completely wrong. But that's not possible, right? ;)
Last edited by Jose Fly on Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sherlock Holmes

Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #246

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:31 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:00 pm Well it seems the real idiot is the person who advocated prayers prior to technical meetings since that's the thrust of your colleagues complaint.
Well it's pretty clear that you've either completely lost track of this discussion, or you weren't ever paying much attention to it in the first place. You're the one who's advocating for prayer and meditation to be considered "doing science", not me. I simply took that concept and applied it to a real world scenario.
It doesn't matter Jose, I never once advocated team prayer as a means of doing science, I did not recommend it, suggest it, advise to you or anyone else to do anything with it Jose.

I did say that one might pray or meditate (you left that term out didn't you!) or do any number of things that might help induce the state of mind conducive for creative scientific thought.

You have this flawed idea that "doing science" involves following a predefined set of steps, with rules and regulations and prohibitions, but you are quite wrong, you conflate the end product of scientific investigation with the means by which a person achieves that end product.

The really noteworthy thing about all this - IMHO - is that it is only loyal evolution devotees that have this flawed grasp of science and human thinking, never ever ever have I run it this kind of weirdness with engineers, physicists, artists, musicians, mathematicians, doctors or almost any profession, it is always and only those who place huge importance on evolution, it is only that group that have such a huge insecurity.

Could it be that because biology is often regarded as a "soft science" that they have some sort of inferiority complex?

Sherlock Holmes

Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #247

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:42 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:57 pm I disagree with rules being imposed by biased authorities as to what is and is not permissible insofar as pursuing science, doing science, inventing abstract ideas, performing thought experiments and so on, it is not necessary. By all means critique a theory once proposed but do not impose restrictions on the means one can use to devise the theory.
Again you persist in this bizarre belief that the AAAS are some sort of police force, who upon finding out that some group is doing something the AAAS doesn't approve of, comes in and smashes their lab equipment, deletes files, and does whatever else is necessary to get the disobedient group to stop.

Meanwhile in reality, the AAAS does nothing of the sort, while creationist organizations like AiG and the ICR do whatever they like. The ID creationists at the Discovery Institute started their own "research arm" where they claim to have done research into ID creationism, and the AAAS did......nothing.

So if the AAAS really is this police force you seem to think, you have to at least concede that they're not very good at it, eh? Or it could be that you're completely wrong. But that's not possible, right? ;)
Please, did you not read the inexcusable history of the AAAS and eugenics? you had nothing to say about that did you? perhaps you'd like to be an apologist for this?

At least we can all be grateful that some of the damage done by the AAAS and the other participants in the "science of eugenics" had been curtailed by the time John Nash encountered his personal difficulties.

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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #248

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:51 pm It doesn't matter Jose, I never once advocated team prayer as a means of doing science, I did not recommend it, suggest it, advise to you or anyone else to do anything with it Jose.

I did say that one might pray or meditate (you left that term out didn't you!) or do any number of things that might help induce the state of mind conducive for creative scientific thought.
So to be clear, you agree that praying and meditating (whether in groups or individually) are not "doing science", correct?
You have this flawed idea that "doing science" involves following a predefined set of steps, with rules and regulations and prohibitions, but you are quite wrong, you conflate the end product of scientific investigation with the means by which a person achieves that end product.
My understanding of how to do science comes from.....get this.....doing science for over 25 years. And yes there are rules and established steps. Just the other day we were brainstorming around a research project and one of my colleagues pointed out that we hadn't yet developed a null hypothesis. So we crafted one.

Now why would we do that if science is a process with no rules, steps, or anything of the sort? If science were the sort of "anything goes" enterprise you think it is, couldn't we have just unilaterally declared that we didn't need a null hypothesis?
The really noteworthy thing about all this - IMHO - is that it is only loyal evolution devotees that have this flawed grasp of science and human thinking, never ever ever have I run it this kind of weirdness with engineers, physicists, artists, musicians, mathematicians, doctors or almost any profession, it is always and only those who place huge importance on evolution, it is only that group that have such a huge insecurity.

Could it be that because biology is often regarded as a "soft science" that they have some sort of inferiority complex?
LOL....biology is an outrageously hot field. Has been for some time now, especially with the advent of genomic sequencing and subsequent advances.

But I'm not about to be lectured on science by someone who thinks AiG is a scientific organization, believes that no population has ever evolved, and dodges published papers and direct questions like the plague. You may think yourself more of a science expert than just about every scientist on the planet, but don't expect anyone else to go along with that delusion.
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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #249

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 6:53 pm Please, did you not read the inexcusable history of the AAAS and eugenics? you had nothing to say about that did you? perhaps you'd like to be an apologist for this?
Huh? What does that have to do with your belief that the AAAS constitutes a type of police force?
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Re: Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

Post #250

Post by otseng »

Jose Fly wrote: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:32 pm Greg (biologist, non-Christian): "Hey [Jose]. I looked at that thread in the Debating Christianity forum like you asked and my reaction is, why do you waste your time arguing with idiots?
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