February 3, 2003
SUPPORTER OF DINI SORE:
Evolution, religion conflicting theories (Michael Duff, October 31,2002, University Daily)When Dini stands up in the classroom and teaches evolution, he is not giving his personal opinion. He is not relying on his personal authority. He is not handing down revealed wisdom from the Grand Temple of Science in Provo, Utah.Dini is acting as a kind of journalist, reporting the results of experiments performed by thousands of scientists who came before.
The theory of evolution is not based on convention, authority or personal opinion. The theory of evolution is based on observations of physical evidence, conducted according to the scientific method.
A student can challenge the theory of evolution, but he better have a damn good reason, a good scientific reason for doing so.
Ultimately, this boils down to your definition of truth. Where does truth come from? Scientists say truth comes from evidence, from tedious, independently-confirmed observations of the real world.
Creationists say truth comes from God, from the ultimate authority figure and his anointed representatives. If you deny Dini's standard of truth, he'll withhold a recommendation letter. If you deny God's standard of truth, you'll burn in Hell for all eternity. And you thought Dini was tough.
We'd merely point out that in all of the biology courses we took there were labs in which we were required to conduct experiments and makeobservations ourselves, we didn't just have a teacher saying Z exists and A used to, so the following theory must explain how the intervening steps got us from A to Z. That non-evidentiary assertion may well be "reasoned" and even correct, but must, at least at this point in the history of science, be taken on faith. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 3, 2003 9:38 AM
This Duff trips over the same old fallacy that pervades the war over the Theory of evolution. The realm of empiricism -- science -- has no jurisdiction in the realm of metaphysics. A "truth" in the realm of the scientists is limited to that realm: the time-space universe of empiricism. That those scientists insist
that that is the only realm or Reality there is
, is an unscientific
statement (it is a metaphysical statement; it cannot be proven). Religion may have something to say about science (for example, a discussion of the ethical considerations of Mengele's human experiments or the moral considerations of human cloning attempts), but by definition, science has nothing to say about religion. That this Duff guy is talking about "definitions of truth" proves that he's out of his depth. Darwinism is more a religion than science because in its modern manifestation, its central tenet, that life has
to have been caused by random accident and absolutely could not
have been started by an intelligent agent, or designed, is an UNSCIENTIFIC, unprovable, religious claim. That they don't see that makes one wonder whether you are dealing with philosophical and scientific amatuers, or if there might be some other motivation, say political, cultural, or even budgetary.
Qiao Yang - Religion and science are both seeking truth, the one Truth that is reality. Religious truths and truths discovered by science have to fit together and be consistent. Thus, scientific discoveries can in principle lead to revisions of religious understanding. However, it seems unlikely that science will ever discover anything that challenges core Christian dogma (perhaps neuropsychology may one day challenge certain notions of Christian spirituality).
Duff doesn't seem to notice how foolish his argument is. Dini is clearly hurting his creationist students; but the creationists who speculate that Dini will burn in hell are doing him no harm. They
are not putting Dini in hell. So why does Duff say they
are tough? They only believe their God is tough.
Darwinism doesn't say anything definitive about how life began, thouigh it offers many suggestive insights. Some have been partially validated by experiment or observation, but no darwinist claims the matter has been conclusively demonstrated.
After life got going, though, there is evidence, of many kinds, and while Orrin (and many others) refuse to accept it, that does not mean it isn't there.
I'll agree with pj that nothing that biological research could ever do will add to our knowledge of virgin birth or whether a certain man was the son of god.
We cannot even provide any evidence that the certain man existed.
Harry:
Doesn't the absence of DNA evidence of his existence suggest He must have been resurrected. (Just trying to think Darwinian)
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The historical situation suggests absolutely nothing to a darwinian.
Besides being a darwinian, I am a mateialist and at
least an amateur historian. The situation of the evidence suggests something to those sides of me.
Odd, you finished your last comment by saying the absence of evidence precisely indicated evidence of absence. Thus, ever, darwin think.
Posted by: oj at February 3, 2003 8:04 PMIf an economics professor were to decline a recommendation to an adherent of Marxism, would anyone question that? (Ooops. I got that completely backwards. I meant to say "...adherent of market economics..."
Respectfully,
Jeff Guinn