Is strict atheism a barrier to knowledge and truth?

[Starboard Tack]

In Iris Fry's book The Emergence of Life on Earth, she makes a statement that demonstrates a common, and possibly defective view of knowledge. The preamble to this statement is a complaint against people she refers to as "Creationists" who, in her opinion, pervert science to further their philosophical arguments. The context to the statement is that instead of billions of years for chemicals to self organize into life on the primordial earth, research has shown that the window has shrunk to around 10 million years, prompting those pesky "Creationists" to note that this isn't enough time for a purely naturalistic explanation for life's beginnings. The statement is this:

Notice the paradox that the findings of scientific research are seen fit, under the circumstances, to serve as evidence against science (by creationists). (page 125).

What is intriguing here is that the research simply argues against a long period of time for life to appear, and says nothing about the value of science. However, by noticing it, apparently the theists are guilty of being anti-science. This is a classic illustration of the topic I'd like to explore.

By adopting the view that a belief in God's existence and his involvement in his creation is a priori off limits, Dr. Fry believes that any suggestion that naturalistic explanation may lack explanatory power and be wrong is by definition anti-science. But is it?

God either does, or does not exist. In what form he/she/it exists is another topic, but is it not a given that there is at least a possibility, even if rejected, that he/she/it does exist?

And if it is a possibility, then by excluding supernatural involvement as a matter of philosophic dogma when trying to understand intractable problems doesn't the scientist who insists on pure naturalism guarantee that he or she may never be able to find the truth? In other words, if the existence of God is even the remotest possibility, isn't the rejection of that possibility without consideration itself anti-scientific? Directed panspermia is taken as a scientific proposition for life's origins, proposed by Nobel prize winners. Is that more scientific than the belief that the causal agent who brought the universe into existence is a personal being?

I can think of examples where scientific advancement has been stultified as a result of an insistence on a purely naturalistic understanding of the world. If so, doesn't it behoove scientists to entertain the possibility of supernatural intervention, even if only to be able to rule it out when a naturalistic explanation is found?[/i]

[ThatGirlAgain]

In my opinion, a thorough Christian researcher is more likely to come to useful conclusions than a thorough secular researcher.

It depends on what constraints have been placed on the Christian researcher.

Example: In supposedly evolution-friendly Catholicism it is nonetheless a mandatory Article of Faith that all humans who ever lived are/were descended from a single pair of individuals and that no 'animals' otherwise appear in the human family tree. To think otherwise blows away the doctrine of inherited Original Sin and the basis of most Christianity. One must either deny that humans have Neanderthal genes or admit that Neanderthals had human souls and were also descended from a single pair or individuals we call Adam and Eve. Research into whether orientals have Java Man genes faces the same problem. In fact in Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII stated clearly that evolution itself must not be considered a fact but that alternatives must always be considered.

Example: In Catholicism it is a mandatory Article of Faith that the human soul is a special act of creation by God. Implicit in this and part of the Teaching Magisterium is the idea that supposedly unique human characteristics arising from this 'soulness', such as a moral sense, cannot exist in animals. The characteristics taken as uniquely associated with the human soul cannot be the product of evolution.

Example: In Catholicism it is a mandatory Article of Faith that the universe was created by God from nothing some finite time ago. Classic Big Bang theory can accommodate this. But it means that Catholic scientists must never entertain Steady State ideas or their more modern successors like eternal inflation or infinite multiverses, some of which may be eternal. In fact the idea that this is the one and only universe is implicit in the doctrine that God created this particular universe as a specific arbitrary act of will, thereby demonstrating a personal God and allowing a tie-in to the Biblical God.

Catholicism does not mandate Young Earth Creationism, a literal worldwide deluge or similar scripture based beliefs. But various other Christian sects do and insist that scientists are wrong.

It seems to me that in general a Christian scientist is not going to be allowed to reach certain otherwise possible conclusions. Recall that in the Galileo affair, it was all about discipline, not science. The 1633 trial did not consider any arguments about the relative merits of geocentrism, heliocentrism or the Tychonian alternative. Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for life " and that mild a sentence only because he recanted " because he was told not to do certain research but he did it anyway.

[nygreenguy]

All space time theorems provide mathematical proofs that some kind of causal agent is responsible for the universe.

Im not sure most of them deal with a necessary "causal" agent.

Crossing off a personal agent is a purely unscientific and philosophical choice, is it not?

It is as valid as crossing off Zeus, Thor, elves, or any other possible supernatural being one can possible conceive. Crossing off something totally unknown isnt unscientific, its totally rational.

Science does occasionally use deductive methods (top down approach) to solve issues (see dark matter) but even then, they are still based in SOMETHING. The concept of a personal agent is one that is utterly unknown. Logically, yes, it is a possibility. Unfortunately, it also a possibility that we are in the matrix. Neither should get any more or any less credibility than the other.

Doesn't the mathematical proof of these theorems represent something that at least might be said to be known about God since a personal casual agent cannot be ruled out? Russell's teapot is not a good analogy since if it exists, it does so within the universe and the causal agent creating the universe exists outside the universe. That would be a red herring, I think.

My analogy was meant to illustrate the practical application of this logic. Remember, god can never be disproved, so god can ALWAYS be a possibility. If that is the case, how can we ever acquire knowledge about anything?

I'm not suggesting that the default position should be God dunnit,

Sorry, I didnt mean to imply that you did.

but rather that it is counterproductive to exclude God as a possibility simply because the concept makes you uncomfortable.

The concept doesnt make me uncomfortable, the logic does. How can we ever filter out what may be god and what may not be god? In order to do this, we must have knowledge about god and how a supernatural being would operate.

The default position should be, in my view, always a naturalistic explanation, but scientists should not put on blinders when considering intractable problems that cannot seemingly be explained naturalistically.

How do we discern from a problem which is intractable simply because it is intractable, versus a problem because of supernatural intervention? If we look through history, many of these intractable problems have been solved. So, how do we differentiate?

From Wikipedia: Pseudogenes are dysfunctional relatives of known genes that have lost their protein-coding ability or are otherwise no longer expressed in the cell. Because pseudogenes are generally thought of as the last stop for genomic material that is to be removed from the genome,[4] they are often labeled as junk DNA. Pseudogenes are characterized by a combination of homology to a known gene and nonfunctionality.

Functionless pseudogenes are expected in evolutionary biology. You don't need the bits that coded for gills anymore, but it takes a long time for that gene to disappear, so the assumption is that the pseudogene is the left over non-functional gene on its way to the scrap heap as described above.

Ok, however a pseudogene is different than non-coding DNA. While a pseudogene is non-coding DNA, not all non-coding DNA is a pseudogene. Pseudogenes have remnants of genetic expressions. We can see the markers which indicate it was once a gene. There are other non-coding regions which are NOT speudogenes.

I think you are illustrating my point. You say you can't do population studies tracing evolutionary development if these areas were functional.

It is because with the amount of evidence we have, it would be irrational to do otherwise.

Scientists approach these investigations under the assumption that the evolutionary paradigm must be correct, in fact is dogmatically correct, so a lack of functionality in the majority of a cell's DNA makes sense.

The evolutionary "paradigm" has not been falsified, so we are perfectly justified in using it. Its just like how we still use gravity in engineering. We dont call them dogmatic.

Here is a paper that illustrates a case where a pseudogene assumed to be functionless has function. There are cancer drugs that target the activity of the expressed gene described, but are less effective than they should be because the similar functionality of the pseudogene was not suspected and the drug was not targeted at the presumed functionless pseudogene

Where is this paper?

My only point is that junk DNA is a concept core to evolutionary biology, but would not be expected in a world created by a personal intelligence. The trend of research is to continue to discover function for these supposedly junk areas, which is consistent with the theistic perspective, but not the evolutionary perspective.

No one has ever claimed all "junk dna" is functionless. That is a strawman argument.

As for the theistic perspective, what evidence do you have that a supernatural being WOULDNT have functionless parts of the genome?

It is possible that the Bible is wrong while God does exist, or wrong and God does not exist. Granting however, that it might be right, then we are taught that we are created in the image of God.

This is only one God out of thousands.

From a theistic perspective, the machinery we observe in a cell bear remarkable resemblance to machinery man builds. Man designs sub-optimal systems that achieve optimum functionality, and we observe the same systems in cells.

God doesnt create like people. Look at the universe. We cant create anything similar. God creates from nothing. We can create anything similar. You claim that god created us in his image, but why do you ignore the possibility that people create god in their image? Biological systems are far more complex than anything we have ever created, so I dont see how you can reasonable compare the two.

There is no particular reason not assume that if God exists, there wouldn't be a vast amount of junk non coding DNA in cells.

How can you know either way? How much do we know about god in order to make such conclusions. If we look at the universe and presume that we are somehow gods special creation it seems like god LOVES to waste. The vastness of the universe, but he puts his special creation in a normal solar system, in the edge of a normal galaxy in a vast universe of countless other galaxies.

See above. There will be no perfect examples of the point. However, you must acknowledge that the trend in biochemistry has been to find function in DNA that has previously been assumed to be useless, and that presumption has slowed down understanding of cellular function.

I will grant you some DNA which was thought functionless has been shown to have function. However, this doesnt mean ALL "functionless" DNA will have function. That is a logical leap. Especially if we remember not all "junk dna" has been claimed to be functionless.

In a (human) designed system, one would expect less, not more functionless apparatus lying around.

I added the bold. That makes it an accurate system.

What has been the trend in biochemistry? To find more function or to affirm a lack of function?

Actually both. We still observe a loss of function.

Which trend is consistent with evolutionary expectations?

One has to do with evolution, the other is just science.

Lots of functionless DNA left over from ancestral genomes, or genomes predominately containing DNA that has specific function for the current life form?

Many genomes have VAST amount of "junk dna". In order for your statement to be true, we would have to be so WRONG, we shouldnt even be able to say we know anything about genetics. Even if half of proposed "junk dna" was fund to have function, that would leave millions of functionless base pairs.

I am curious as to what percentage of functionless DNA has been found to have function over all the genomes we have examined?

Many scientists no doubt share your attitude, but as can be seen from Fry's quote and the position of the National Academy of Science Education, the allowance of even the possibility that God exists is forbidden in terms of whether such a thing could be taken into consideration when studying scientific problems is widespread. Is that view harmful?

Harmful? Not sure, perhaps. It is, however, impractical since we could never differentiate.

Not true on all counts. Science progressed quite nicely and rapidly for centuries when the focus was on how God did it, so your statement that all investigation stops when God is considered is clearly wrong.

Not all were interested in how god did it. However, there have been countless times when unknowns were appealed to god (even now with irreducible complexity).

And I am not pointing to a God in the gaps phenomena, but a Science in the gaps phenomena. It is quite true that many problems have been solved by looking for purely naturalistic explanations, which should always be the first line of inquiry. However, there are problems in science where continued investigation simply makes the gap of understanding get wider, not narrower. Those are perhaps the areas where a consideration of divine intervention may be warranted while still looking for the naturalistic explanation.

Perhaps, but how could we ever investigate the god aspect?

An example of science is the gaps can be found in origins of life research. Sagan opined that life evolved over at least a billion years. We now know you have only about 10 million years for the inanimate to organize into the animate. The response of the "no God at all costs" contingent? Well, life must have evolved at lightning speed because it appeared so quickly. Science in the gaps with no mechanism provided on how this could ever happen.

Excluding the disagreement with your interpretation of abiogenesis, if we focus on god, we then rule out other possibilities like extra-terrestial sources and the like.

Even if we NEVER found a suitable answer, how could we say it was god?

Regarding evolution as a theory that explains everything, the reason why Daddy Long legs of 300 million ago look identical to Daddy Long legs today is explained by evolution. The reason cyanobacteria looks identical to cyanobacteria of 3.5 billion years ago is explained by evolution. The reason why mass speciation events occur with the creation of radical new life forms in a handful of millions of years is explained by evolution. It explains why things don't happen, and why they do. As I said, the universal theory at least as it relates to living systems. The question is, does militant adherence to a model that does a poor job of predicting what is observed serve the interest of science and the pursuit of truth?

Natural never claimed things MUST evolve. Remember, it is about selection pressures. Some organisms have simply had no pressure to evolve.

As for cyanobacteria, you fail to look at events like chlorophyll. Cyanobacteria, while some remained relatively stable, have managed to diversify.

As for prediction, natural selection does amazingly well. Its a bit trickier when looking in the past because it can be hard to figure out selective pressures but it still remains a highly accurate theory. How, specifically, does it do a poor job of predicting?

[Starboard Tack]

All space time theorems provide mathematical proofs that some kind of causal agent is responsible for the universe.

Thank you for that assertion. I was unaware that this had been proven. Please provide support.

Penrose and Hawking; The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A. 314, 529-543 (1970): If the universe contains mass and if general relativity reliably describes cosmic dynamics, then space and time must be created by a Causal Agent transcending space and time. Other theorems have been developed that don't require GR to be in effect that draw the same conclusion. By definition, a theorem is a proof subject to the assumptions. In the above, GR does reliably describe cosmic dynamics. Guth, Vilenkin and Borde only required that the universe be expanding over time for a past finite boundary to be required.

Crossing off a personal agent is a purely unscientific and philosophical choice, is it not?

It does not have to be. Is there any evidence that the creative agent is personal? Wouldn't Occam's razor imply a non-personal agent?

The best evidence, IMHO, presented for a personal causal agent are the design features of the universe. These are dismissed by some as unremarkable under the theory that regardless of the odds against something happening, it becomes unremarkable once it happens. That is called the fallacy of necessity. However, once one looks at the odds against a life supporting universe existing at all, the only out seems to be the multiverse, which I would argue is not the 'simpler' explanation.

I'm not suggesting that the default position should be God dunnit, but rather that it is counterproductive to exclude God as a possibility simply because the concept makes you uncomfortable.

It is counterproductive to exclude any option simply because the concept makes you uncomfortable. Are you asserting that atheist philosophers and scientists exclude God for reasons of comfort?

I don't know why they do, but if you examine Dr. Fry's statement logically, there must be some reason why she believes that any evidence supporting God must by definition be disallowed as unscientific, even when based on science. I would also point to Einstein's inclusion of his cosmological constant to do away with the results of his own calculations indicating a beginning to the universe. He did this because he was philosophically uncomfortable with the implications of a past finite universe.

Hoyle excluded the possibility that the universe was past finite because it made him uncomfortable, what with pointing to God and all.

Yes, that is a form of bad reasoning. Not because there actually is a God, but because the fear of supporting the idea of God clouded his judgement.

I think you just confirmed my observation that some scientists exclude God as a matter of comfort.

The default position should be, in my view, always a naturalistic explanation, but scientists should not put on blinders when considering intractable problems that cannot seemingly be explained naturalistically.

The problem with this approach is defining what is an intractable problem. Should scientists simply throw in the towel, when something gets difficult and fall back on "Goddidit".

An intractable problem is one that on examination becomes increasingly unsolvable the more is learned. Origins of life research would qualify.

[Filthy Tugboat]

It does not have to be. Is there any evidence that the creative agent is personal? Wouldn't Occam's razor imply a non-personal agent?

The best evidence, IMHO, presented for a personal causal agent are the design features of the universe. These are dismissed by some as unremarkable under the theory that regardless of the odds against something happening, it becomes unremarkable once it happens. That is called the fallacy of necessity. However, once one looks at the odds against a life supporting universe existing at all, the only out seems to be the multiverse, which I would argue is not the 'simpler' explanation.

I find it funny, in the very sentence where you suggest that the only response to the argument of fine tuning is the multi-verse theory, you discuss the notion that this universe is not another universe that you seem to think it could have been. The argument of fine-tuning rests on the multi-verse theory, it depends on the notion of things being different in order to suggest that we are lucky to be in a universe where everything is the way it is. As I have previously suggested, working within the constraints of the fine-tuning argument, we don't know any other different conditions that the fine-tuning argument proposes and can't honestly suggest that life could not exist in them. You discuss possibilities while counting unknown factors, it's nonsense.

[Clownboat]

Is strict atheism a barrier to knowledge and truth?

In my opinion, a strict atheist who has a settled faith that there is no God is no different from a creationist-fundamentalist who has a settled faith in the literal inerrancy of the Bible. Extremism is a barrier to the advancement of knowledge and truth.

I'm not an atheist, but I don't see how you can claim that atheists have faith that there is no god.

Faith = Belief without evidence.

If a person looks for evidence of a god and finds none, their belief is founded upon the fact there is no evidence. That is their evidence (that there is no evidence) that there is no god if you ask me, therefore it is not a belief without evidence like you claim.

Besides, you're an atheist too. Atheists disbelieve in all the thousands of proposed gods throughout history, just like you, they just take it 1 god further.
One god out of all the thousands is the only difference, look at all the examples of where you agree with atheists about gods not being real. I'm talking about agreement in the thousands and the disagreement is only about one.

Can't we all just get along

[Starboard Tack]

All space time theorems provide mathematical proofs that some kind of causal agent is responsible for the universe.

Im not sure most of them deal with a necessary "causal" agent.

If you look into it, you may reach a different conclusion.

Crossing off a personal agent is a purely unscientific and philosophical choice, is it not?

It is as valid as crossing off Zeus, Thor, elves, or any other possible supernatural being one can possible conceive. Crossing off something totally unknown isnt unscientific, its totally rational.

That's a remarkable statement. So when something is totally unknown, it is good science to cross it off the list of examination?

Science does occasionally use deductive methods (top down approach) to solve issues (see dark matter) but even then, they are still based in SOMETHING. The concept of a personal agent is one that is utterly unknown. Logically, yes, it is a possibility. Unfortunately, it also a possibility that we are in the matrix. Neither should get any more or any less credibility than the other.

The appearance of design is everywhere in the universe. Even atheist astrophysicists acknowledge that. Surely the appearance of design qualifies as "SOMETHING"?

but rather that it is counterproductive to exclude God as a possibility simply because the concept makes you uncomfortable.

The concept doesnt make me uncomfortable, the logic does. How can we ever filter out what may be god and what may not be god? In order to do this, we must have knowledge about god and how a supernatural being would operate.

I don't think we need to worry about even answering the question of when God applies or does not. I am merely suggesting that God be an option and that science should proceed looking for naturalistic causation without eliminating a possible explanation a priori. To do so seems, well, unscientific.

The default position should be, in my view, always a naturalistic explanation, but scientists should not put on blinders when considering intractable problems that cannot seemingly be explained naturalistically.

How do we discern from a problem which is intractable simply because it is intractable, versus a problem because of supernatural intervention? If we look through history, many of these intractable problems have been solved. So, how do we differentiate?

When the naturalistic explanation loses power as more is learned, then it may be desirable to consider divine intervention. In a more general sense, not precluding God as a possible causal agent of phenomena may result in more creative thought on how things work.

I think you are illustrating my point. You say you can't do population studies tracing evolutionary development if these areas were functional.

It is because with the amount of evidence we have, it would be irrational to do otherwise.

Fair enough, but isn't it true that if you assumed that the cell was in fact designed by God, it might change, even subtly how you looked at the biochemistry. And in the case I mentioned, might that approach have been more likely to look for function than to assume the pseudogene was merely left over baggage from earlier evolutionary functionality?

Scientists approach these investigations under the assumption that the evolutionary paradigm must be correct, in fact is dogmatically correct, so a lack of functionality in the majority of a cell's DNA makes sense.

The evolutionary "paradigm" has not been falsified, so we are perfectly justified in using it. Its just like how we still use gravity in engineering. We dont call them dogmatic.

I don't think the evolutionary paradigm can be falsified, which is one of the problems with it as science. The way gravity works is known so well we can use Newtonian physics to get a satellite into orbit around Neptune. However, evolutionary theory cannot explain the mechanism that brings about the Cambrian explosion, nor does the Darwinian model allow for non gradual change. I recognize that within the rubric of evolutionary theory, punctuated equilibrium is supposed to explain mass speciation events, but again, no mechanism is suggested.

Here is a paper that illustrates a case where a pseudogene assumed to be functionless has function. There are cancer drugs that target the activity of the expressed gene described, but are less effective than they should be because the similar functionality of the pseudogene was not suspected and the drug was not targeted at the presumed functionless pseudogene

Where is this paper?

Sorry, here is the link: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/ ... 5d3db68212

As for the theistic perspective, what evidence do you have that a supernatural being WOULDNT have functionless parts of the genome?

I don't. However, if we are created in God's image, and we don't build machines with useless, functionless features, why would God? Some people say that the universe represents a waste of matter and energy indicating that God could not have been involved. However, it does not appear that you can have a single planet like earth anywhere in the universe with the right metallicity without all of that stuff out there, so even on a cosmic scale, useless creation does seem to be apparent.

It is possible that the Bible is wrong while God does exist, or wrong and God does not exist. Granting however, that it might be right, then we are taught that we are created in the image of God.

This is only one God out of thousands.

True, so an examination of the truth claims of various religions should be undertaken and those with false truth claims should be eliminated from consideration. Agreed?

From a theistic perspective, the machinery we observe in a cell bear remarkable resemblance to machinery man builds. Man designs sub-optimal systems that achieve optimum functionality, and we observe the same systems in cells.

God doesnt create like people. Look at the universe. We cant create anything similar. God creates from nothing. We can create anything similar. You claim that god created us in his image, but why do you ignore the possibility that people create god in their image? Biological systems are far more complex than anything we have ever created, so I dont see how you can reasonable compare the two.

You seem to be making an argument for intelligent design here, and I agree with you. What man does is an image of, not the equivalent of what God can do. However, the complexity of what God created goes far beyond what man can create. Yet from a naturalistic perspective, even what man can't create is supposed to come into existence all by itself. Does that seem a bit far fetched to you?

There is no particular reason not assume that if God exists, there wouldn't be a vast amount of junk non coding DNA in cells.

How can you know either way? How much do we know about god in order to make such conclusions. If we look at the universe and presume that we are somehow gods special creation it seems like god LOVES to waste. The vastness of the universe, but he puts his special creation in a normal solar system, in the edge of a normal galaxy in a vast universe of countless other galaxies.

As noted above, this is incorrect. Given the laws of physics under which this universe operates, you would need exactly the amount of stuff we observe for life to have any chance of existing at all. The calculations have been done on this. The mass density of the universe can't vary at the moment of creation by more than the weight of a dime for stars and galaxies to form that could support life, or so says astronomer Hugh Ross in "Why the Universe is the Way it is". Ross is a theist, but I believe he references non-theists work in this calculation, which I can look up if you like.

See above. There will be no perfect examples of the point. However, you must acknowledge that the trend in biochemistry has been to find function in DNA that has previously been assumed to be useless, and that presumption has slowed down understanding of cellular function.

I will grant you some DNA which was thought functionless has been shown to have function. However, this doesnt mean ALL "functionless" DNA will have function. That is a logical leap. Especially if we remember not all "junk dna" has been claimed to be functionless.

I agree with you that not all will have function. However, a few years ago function was certainly not viewed as the norm but now as we keep discovering function attitudes are changing. Entropy will dictate some useless DNA, but my point is that presuming that evolution created the cells design while disallowing the possibility that God dunnit means it more likely for scientists to presume lack of function than the function they are now discovering in many cases.

In a (human) designed system, one would expect less, not more functionless apparatus lying around.

I added the bold. That makes it an accurate system.

What has been the trend in biochemistry? To find more function or to affirm a lack of function?

Actually both. We still observe a loss of function.

Which trend is consistent with evolutionary expectations?

One has to do with evolution, the other is just science.

I defer to your greater knowledge here.

Lots of functionless DNA left over from ancestral genomes, or genomes predominately containing DNA that has specific function for the current life form?

Many genomes have VAST amount of "junk dna". In order for your statement to be true, we would have to be so WRONG, we shouldnt even be able to say we know anything about genetics. Even if half of proposed "junk dna" was fund to have function, that would leave millions of functionless base pairs.

You're speculating. However, I'll make a prediction. As more is learned, more function will be discovered, which would be consistent with a Creator.

I am curious as to what percentage of functionless DNA has been found to have function over all the genomes we have examined?

I have no idea.

Many scientists no doubt share your attitude, but as can be seen from Fry's quote and the position of the National Academy of Science Education, the allowance of even the possibility that God exists is forbidden in terms of whether such a thing could be taken into consideration when studying scientific problems is widespread. Is that view harmful?

Harmful? Not sure, perhaps. It is, however, impractical since we could never differentiate.

I disagree and provide a way to sort that out above. Widening knowledge gap as more is learned - consider God. Narrowing gap? No God required. But in all cases, at least keep an open mind.

Perhaps, but how could we ever investigate the god aspect?

Not that tough, actually. A testable theist model of creation has been developed and it makes extensive predictions that can be falsified. It is described in "More than a Theory" by Hugh Ross.

An example of science is the gaps can be found in origins of life research. Sagan opined that life evolved over at least a billion years. We now know you have only about 10 million years for the inanimate to organize into the animate. The response of the "no God at all costs" contingent? Well, life must have evolved at lightning speed because it appeared so quickly. Science in the gaps with no mechanism provided on how this could ever happen.

Excluding the disagreement with your interpretation of abiogenesis, if we focus on god, we then rule out other possibilities like extra-terrestial sources and the like.

No, I don't think we can rule out extra-terrestrial sources of life, but that merely kicks the can to another planet. Besides, exobiology is virtually a data-free discipline, and there are good reasons why we should expect that if any civilization out there exists, it is unlikely to be any more advanced than ours. See the Weak Anthropic Principle developed by Barrow and Tipler.

Even if we NEVER found a suitable answer, how could we say it was god?

We probably can't, at least in this life.

Natural never claimed things MUST evolve. Remember, it is about selection pressures. Some organisms have simply had no pressure to evolve.

The range of cyanobacteria forming stromatolites has gone from everywhere to Shark Bay. Sounds like over 500 million years of evolutionary pressure following the Cambrian explosion without a single change. Again, I am sure evolution explains it, but it would. It explains everything, like why fish developed jaws to predate on cyanobacteria and why cyanobacteria didn't develop a response.

As for cyanobacteria, you fail to look at events like chlorophyll. Cyanobacteria, while some remained relatively stable, have managed to diversify.

Untrue. Stromatolites today are identical to fossil remains of 3.5 billion years ago.

As for prediction, natural selection does amazingly well. Its a bit trickier when looking in the past because it can be hard to figure out selective pressures but it still remains a highly accurate theory. How, specifically, does it do a poor job of predicting?

The Cambrian explosion, the Triassic/Jurassic radiation, convergent evolution, the origin of life, for starters.

[Starboard Tack]

Is strict atheism a barrier to knowledge and truth?

In my opinion, a strict atheist who has a settled faith that there is no God is no different from a creationist-fundamentalist who has a settled faith in the literal inerrancy of the Bible. Extremism is a barrier to the advancement of knowledge and truth.

I'm not an atheist, but I don't see how you can claim that atheists have faith that there is no god.

Faith = Belief without evidence.

If a person looks for evidence of a god and finds none, their belief is founded upon the fact there is no evidence. That is their evidence (that there is no evidence) that there is no god if you ask me, therefore it is not a belief without evidence like you claim.

Besides, you're an atheist too. Atheists disbelieve in all the thousands of proposed gods throughout history, just like you, they just take it 1 god further.
One god out of all the thousands is the only difference, look at all the examples of where you agree with atheists about gods not being real. I'm talking about agreement in the thousands and the disagreement is only about one.

Can't we all just get along

Actually, the word faith comes from the Greek, Pistis, which meant a belief based on confident knowledge. It has been redefined to mean believing in something without evidence. If I didn't have what I accept as compelling evidence for God's existence, I might still be a believer, but my faith would be a great deal less.

I saw a landscaper's sign the other day that said "Can't we all just get a lawn?" I liked that.

[Adamoriens]

And if it is a possibility, then by excluding supernatural involvement as a matter of philosophic dogma when trying to understand intractable problems doesn't the scientist who insists on pure naturalism guarantee that he or she may never be able to find the truth? In other words, if the existence of God is even the remotest possibility, isn't the rejection of that possibility without consideration itself anti-scientific? Directed panspermia is taken as a scientific proposition for life's origins, proposed by Nobel prize winners. Is that more scientific than the belief that the causal agent who brought the universe into existence is a personal being?

I can think of examples where scientific advancement has been stultified as a result of an insistence on a purely naturalistic understanding of the world. If so, doesn't it behoove scientists to entertain the possibility of supernatural intervention, even if only to be able to rule it out when a naturalistic explanation is found?[/i]

I find that the problem with theistic or supernatural theories is that they have difficulty predicting anything. Science runs by predicting and testing hypotheses, and unfortunately God doesn't seem to have presented himself in such a way that we could predict anything about him, and thus test and verify God-based explanations. I'll point out where you attempt (and fail, I think) to overcome this obstacle:

However, a theistic model would argue that God would not have put so much useless junk into a cell and advised their examination. That didn't happen because of evolutionary, naturalistic orthodoxy. The result has been that pharmaceutical compounds have been less effective in fighting disease because supposedly junk DNA was ignored that was later found to be active in the disease process. Now that we realize that the evolutionary prediction on this subject is invalid, we are saving lives that were lost when evolution dictated the research assumptions of the scientists.

Your overall point is predicated on the idea that God would not allow corruption in our DNA code. On what grounds would you make this prediction? There doesn't seem to be any way to answer this question without opening yourself to a crushing argument from evil; God has evidently allowed quite a bit of corruption, and there's no reason to think he wouldn't do the same for junk genetic code.

It is possible that the Bible is wrong while God does exist, or wrong and God does not exist. Granting however, that it might be right, then we are taught that we are created in the image of God. From a theistic perspective, the machinery we observe in a cell bear remarkable resemblance to machinery man builds. Man designs sub-optimal systems that achieve optimum functionality, and we observe the same systems in cells. There is no particular reason not assume that if God exists, there wouldn't be a vast amount of junk non coding DNA in cells.

Two points:

1. Do we have any empirical reasons to think that God would engineer things like humans would?
2. Why should I assume in the first place that God would prevent genetic corruption/disuse? If I can assume that, then I expose myself to the problem of evil, and God's existence on those grounds becomes so improbable that the viability of the God hypothesis would be much diminished.

In a designed system, one would expect less, not more functionless apparatus lying around. What has been the trend in biochemistry? To find more function or to affirm a lack of function? Which trend is consistent with evolutionary expectations? Lots of functionless DNA left over from ancestral genomes, or genomes predominately containing DNA that has specific function for the current life form?

Ditto. I would expect retractable genitalia, Cephalopod-style optic nerves and no genetic diseases. If functional DNA is evidence for God, then these evidences against. For a useful theistic hypothesis to succeed, we would need empirical insight into what God is likely to do or not do. Otherwise, we run the risk of just making ad hoc explanations, ruling from phenomenon x to God for no discernible reason other than that naturalistic explanations (thus far) are improbable. If we make the assumption that we have some insight into God's intentions, it seems to me that the problem of evil becomes extremely difficult to defuse.

[Adamoriens]

I can think of examples where scientific advancement has been stultified as a result of an insistence on a purely naturalistic understanding of the world. If so, doesn't it behoove scientists to entertain the possibility of supernatural intervention, even if only to be able to rule it out when a naturalistic explanation is found?

I want to point out also that we should also caution theists about stultifying science. As has already been mentioned, there have been plenty of scientific theories which, despite lacking explanatory power, remained "gospel" because they conformed to what we expected God to desire. Ptolemaic astronomy, with its symmetry, shapely perfection and geocentrism comes to mind. We might have forever remained with Newtonian physics if we took Newton's talk of the the divine Lawmaker to be obviously true.

[Starboard Tack]

It does not have to be. Is there any evidence that the creative agent is personal? Wouldn't Occam's razor imply a non-personal agent?

The best evidence, IMHO, presented for a personal causal agent are the design features of the universe. These are dismissed by some as unremarkable under the theory that regardless of the odds against something happening, it becomes unremarkable once it happens. That is called the fallacy of necessity. However, once one looks at the odds against a life supporting universe existing at all, the only out seems to be the multiverse, which I would argue is not the 'simpler' explanation.

I find it funny, in the very sentence where you suggest that the only response to the argument of fine tuning is the multi-verse theory, you discuss the notion that this universe is not another universe that you seem to think it could have been. The argument of fine-tuning rests on the multi-verse theory, it depends on the notion of things being different in order to suggest that we are lucky to be in a universe where everything is the way it is. As I have previously suggested, working within the constraints of the fine-tuning argument, we don't know any other different conditions that the fine-tuning argument proposes and can't honestly suggest that life could not exist in them. You discuss possibilities while counting unknown factors, it's nonsense.

The fine tuning argument does not rest on the multiverse theory, but on the observable universe we can interact with and measure. Opponents to fine tuning arguments suggest that if a vast ensemble of universes exist, then they may have different laws of physics and we naturally exist in the one supportive of life because we are here to make the observation. If this were true, then opponents of fine tuning could accuse supporters of fine tuning as possessing observation and selection bias, negating their viewpoint. However, if only one universe exists, then no observation and selection bias can be invoked and you have to deal with the fine tuned nature of what we observe.

You suggest that it is nonsense to suggest that life couldn't exist in a universe even slightly different from our own. That opinion is not supported by what we know of the requirements for life. You have demanded proof, but I suspect like others when I provide you with proof that your statement is invalid, you may demand proof in some other, unspecified form. Be that as it may, here is what Brandon Carter, mathematician has to say about the impact of possible variants to selected physical constants on the possibility of life:

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//ful ... 2.000.html

While Carter focuses on physical constants, fine tuning exists in the local environment as well. Here is a list of some of those local features that must be fined. If any of these parameters to not perfectly align, no life:

http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/teleo ... ng-faq.htm

For a complete list of fine tuned characteristics necessary for advanced human civilization to exist, Hugh Ross' compendium of 140 dependent factors with over 340 scientific references supporting their inclusion may be helpful:

http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium ... _part1.pdf

You should feel free to posit life on universes without the characteristics of our own. The only problem is chemistry, because chemistry will support life only within very specific and narrow parameters, all of which are dependent on the environment the life exists in. In other words, imagine life all you wish in a universe without stars and galaxies, but you will be hard pressed to describe its viability. Another problem is the complete lack of evidence that such alternate universes exist at all. There is one experiment under way now that is awaiting data from the Planck satellite that may confirm at least level 2 multiverse. If it fails, the multiverse will remain what it is today - reality only in the minds of those who believe in it.