Kansas Citizens for Science :: View topic - Does the theory of evolution disprove the existence of God?

Kansas Citizens for Science
KCFS website

FAQ

Memberlist

Usergroups

Profile

Does the theory of evolution disprove the existence of God?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next

Kansas Citizens for Science Forum Index -> Public Discussion

View previous topic :: View next topic

Author

Message

RF Brady

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 266
Location: Kansas

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 5:52 am Post subject:

I have a question, how does one "disprove" something for which no proof exists in the first place. I don't think it's appropriate to simply assume some deity exists solely on the empty assertions of individuals who would profit from the people believing in what they are asserting. _________________ The Bible [is] a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:42 am Post subject:

RF Brady wrote:

I have a question, how does one "disprove" something for which no proof exists in the first place. I don't think it's appropriate to simply assume some deity exists solely on the empty assertions of individuals who would profit from the people believing in what they are asserting.

After reading your question, I thought of Pasteur and the issue of "spontaneous generation". Would it be correct to say that Pasteur disproved the existence of spontaneous generation?
_________________
think

Les Lane

Joined: 23 Sep 2006
Posts: 687
Location: Lincoln NE

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 8:19 am Post subject:

Quote:

Would it be correct to say that Pasteur disproved the existence of spontaneous generation?

It would not be correct. He showed that it didn't occur under certain conditions. Others were unable to repeat his observations in the presence of spore forming bacteria. "Proof" is a mathematical term. The best we can do in science is test specific hypotheses.

Consider, for example, that (all known) living organisms are composed of cells. Are all living organisms composed of cells? Probably, but there's no way to prove it. Discovery of noncellular life would make one instantly famous. However devoting one's life to finding noncellular life would likely lead to obscurity (and ridicule).

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 10:05 am Post subject:

Hi, Les, Thanks for your comments. I see that the use of “proof” and “disprove” can be misleading in the discussion of this subject, because these words have different meanings when used in different disciplines or contexts. So, I better explain what I had in mind when I started this thread, and why I chose this title. Religious people explain the origins and diversity of life on Earth by attributing to God the role of Creator. But Dawkins, the renowned biologist, observes that the theory of evolution explains the origins and diversity of life on Earth without requiring the existence of a deity, adding that Darwin’s theory of evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Therefore, according to Dawkins, TOE presents a scientific alternative to Genesis, by showing that life can originate and develop within the framework of the play of natural mechanisms. Of course, if the latter proposition is true, then TOE is a viable alternative to the God hypothesis. This explains why it would make it possible for Dawkins to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. But is that the case? Has TOE, for instance, explained, using the scientific method, and based on irrefutable evidence, how life originated on Earth ? For, only in that case can Dawkins consider that TOE has made the role of God in Creation "redundant". Only in that case can he consider that Darwin’s theory made it possible for him to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. _________________ think

Greg Myers

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 1210

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:34 pm Post subject:

Aster wrote:

Hi, Les,
Thanks for your comments. I see that the use of “proof” and “disprove” can be misleading in the discussion of this subject, because these words have different meanings when used in different disciplines or contexts.

So, I better explain what I had in mind when I started this thread, and why I chose this title.

Religious people explain the origins and diversity of life on Earth by attributing to God the role of Creator.
But Dawkins, the renowned biologist, observes that the theory of evolution explains the origins and diversity of life on Earth without requiring the existence of a deity, adding that Darwin’s theory of evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
Therefore, according to Dawkins, TOE presents a scientific alternative to Genesis, by showing that life can originate and develop within the framework of the play of natural mechanisms.

I think this is a fair presumption.

Quote:

Of course, if the latter proposition is true, then TOE is a viable alternative to the God hypothesis. This explains why it would make it possible for Dawkins to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
But is that the case?
Has TOE, for instance, explained, using the scientific method, and based on irrefutable evidence, how life originated on Earth ? For, only in that case can Dawkins consider that TOE has made the role of God in Creation "redundant". Only in that case can he consider that Darwin’s theory made it possible for him to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

I don't think it is likely that anyone will ever explain how life originated "based on irrefutable evidence." Certainly no religion does anything of the sort. Religion offers hundreds of conflicting stories, all of them seeming less and less plausible as we learn more about the natural world.

When it comes to Origins of Life, we could, at best, expect to identify some plausible pathways, with important steps along the way demonstrated in the lab, and perhaps some strong evidence for the existence of appropriate conditions and raw materials. If we are really lucky, we might find some predicted traces in the environment that do not contradict our assumptions. Again, this is a far higher burden of proof than creationism meets, which simply makes (many different) assertions, and leaves it at that.

Being an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" is not the same thing as disproving the creator assertion - evolution simply supplies a non-theistic alternative to creationism that is at least as credible. You can be intellectually fulfilled without eliminating any possibility of an opposing viewpoint.

Where evolution does suggest that the creator assumption may be incorrect is when particular religious stories make claims that can be tested, are tested, and turn out to be false. If the specifics that can be tested are wrong, is it unreasonable to suggest that the claims that cannot be tested may be wrong as well? So while origins of life questions have not been settled, religious claims like the assertion that all living creatures were fashioned by hand, all at once, pretty much as we seem them today, or a young age for the earth, or assertions like a 6-day creation and a global flood have been disproven.

I suppose you are arguing that, since the creator assumption has not been disproven, it is still a possibility. Granted - but Russell made the same point about a teapot circling the sun. Not disproven, but given all we know, perhaps vanishingly unlikely.

You ask "Does evolution have a stand on the subject of God?" No. But it does have a stand on claims about the natural world made in the name of god. Though you claim that religion "tries to explain how the first living beings came into existence," I would suggest that that is a small part of what religion does. And there is an area of science (origin of life studies) that looks into this. Given that we have developed a number of strong clues about how this may have happened without the intervention of a creator, and given that the same religious stories that talk about the origins of life are wrong about how the diversity of life got here (which is the subject of evolution), why should region be privileged in the OOL arena?

So the argument goes like this - we know that religion got it wrong when it comes to the areas of life covered by evolution, and we have some good ideas of how OOL could have happened - that also contradict what religion tells us. Since religion gets it wrong where we can check, isn't it reasonable to assume that it also gets it wrong when we can't check (especially given that the entire story (what we can check, and what we can't) is supposed to be absolutely true))?

You write "the role of the watchmaker remains unresolved." The problem is that no role for the watchmaker has been found. You postulate, it seems, some role in cell formation or the transition from life-to-non-life. What value does this idea have, from a scientific point of view? Should we stop looking for the mechanisms of cell formation? Should we stop looking for pathways for the transition from life to non-life? Should we let "god did it" be enough in any area of study?

I'd suggest that we should continue to look for natural causes for what happens in the world. The success of this approach seems self-evident. No extra explanatory power is added by introducing a creator, and no insurmountable difficulty is introduced by leaving a creator out of the explanation.
_________________
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, 1799

Last edited by Greg Myers on Thu May 28, 2009 6:10 am; edited 11 times in total

RF Brady

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 266
Location: Kansas

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:51 pm Post subject:

Greg, you forgot the sun stopping in the sky so the length of a day could be longer. _________________ The Bible [is] a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

Greg Myers

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 1210

Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 7:55 pm Post subject:

RF Brady wrote:

Greg, you forgot the sun stopping in the sky so the length of a day could be longer. Shocked

You mean it doesn't work that way?
_________________
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, 1799

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:16 am Post subject:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

We cannot put religion and science on par when it comes to the explanations they provide on anything.
Religion doesn't have to prove anything. It's to be taken "on faith".
Science has to prove everything it says. Nothing is to be taken "on faith". So, we may have hundreds of conflicting religious stories about origins of life, and everybody believes one version or another (or none at all), based on his culture, education, environment, etc.
But we should have only ONE true explanation about origins of life on Earth. Before we get there, we can present hundreds of scenarii, more or less plausible, develop hundreds of hypotheses, speculations, etc. So long as we identify all this as scenarii, hypotheses, speculations and that we keep a clear separation between them and between scientifically established facts and propositions, everything is fine.
You'll tell me that science can't go further than that for decades and centuries to come. So, will it continue to say for decades that it knows nothing about origins of life, and has nothing to offer but scenarii and speculations?
My answer is definitely : Yes. Science is science, and it has rules and limits. Nobody expects science to explain everything, only to do its best to explain everything. But it should be able to know the difference between giving the true explanations, and between providing hypotheses and speculations. It should therefore know where it stands on the subject, at all times, and to tell the truth about that, at all times.
In fact, if science respected the above rules, much of the controversy between creation and evolution wouldn't exist. To teach the age of Earth as established by geologists doesn't constitute an offense to religious beliefs, since geologists aren't addressing themselves to religious beliefs. People can believe whatever they want, but in the classroom science doesn't question or ridicule these beliefs. It merely states the scientifically established facts and explains the scenarii and hypotheses, clearly distinguishing at all times between facts, scenarii, hypotheses and interpretations.
_________________
think

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:39 am Post subject:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

Being an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" is not the same thing as disproving the creator assertion - evolution simply supplies a non-theistic alternative to creationism that is at least as credible. You can be intellectually fulfilled without eliminating any possibility of an opposing viewpoint.

I have nothing to say about the situation of someone who is an "intellectually fulfilled atheist", if his situation is comparable to that of an "intellectually fulfilled Catholic" or an "intellectually fulfilled Buddhist." These are normal situations.

I thought that Dawkins was an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" because he found in the theory of evolution explanations which demonstrated to his satisfaction that religion was pure mythology, that there was no Creator, that life originated and organized itself on Earth spontaneously, based on natural mechanisms which science could identify, analyze and understand.
In that case, I say: I would like to know the evidence that the theory of evolution has to offer to back all these statements.
But if his fulfillment is based, not on scientific evidence provided by the theory of evolution, but by his own feelings about religion, and a little psychological help from his interpretation of the theory of evolution, then, as I said, that's another matter.
He's free to understand and interpret the theory of evolution and its impact on religious beliefs in his own way, knowing that other people will interpret the same situation differently, and even reach the opposite conclusion.
_________________
think

Last edited by Aster on Thu May 28, 2009 5:21 am; edited 1 time in total

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:55 am Post subject:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

Where evolution does suggest that the creator assumption may be incorrect is when particular religious stories make claims that can be tested, are tested, and turn out to be false. If the specifics that can be tested are wrong, is it unreasonable to suggest that the claims that cannot be tested may be wrong as well? So while origins of life questions have not been settled, religious claims like the assertion that all living creatures were fashioned by hand, all at once, pretty much as we seem them today, or a young age for the earth, or assertions like a 6-day creation and a global flood have been disproven.

I understand your point completely. I have no problem with it. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the "Creator assumption" (the God hypothesis) is incorrect. We could stop there. We have eliminated one hypothesis. We're left with the question: Do we have anything to replace it?
I would answer that we don't. The theory of evolution doesn't provide, today, a scientific explanation to substitute to the God hypothesis.

So, when asked about how Life originated on Earth, we may answer truthfully, within the framework of science : "We don't know". Or we may answer: There must be some unknown factor (Factor X) which caused it all to happen.
Now, the question is: what is the real difference between the 3 situations, Whether we call it Factor X, , or whether we say: "we don't know", or whether we identify the Creator as God (God being the Absolute Creator, with no rattachment to any particular religion).
_________________
think

Last edited by Aster on Thu May 28, 2009 5:33 am; edited 2 times in total

Aster

Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 158

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:10 am Post subject:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

You write "the role of the watchmaker remains unresolved." The problem is that no role for the watchmaker has been found. You postulate, it seems, some role in cell formation or the transition from life-to-non-life. What value does this idea have, from a scientific point of view? Should we stop looking for the mechanisms of cell formation? Should we stop looking for pathways for the transition from life to non-life? Should we let "god did it" be enough in any area of study?

I'd suggest that we should continue to look for natural causes for what happens in the world. The success of this approach seems self-evident. No extra explanatory power is added by introducing a creator, and no insurmountable difficulty is introduced by leaving a creator out of the explanation.

Of course, science must continue to investigate all the natural phenomena on Earth, and try to provide explanations and to develop a better understanding of all the factors at work. There is no subject which should be excluded from this investigation.
On no issue should science content itself to say : "God did it". That would be a ridiculous statement, because science can't hide behind God to explain the natural world and its phenomena. The Creator should be, by definition, left out of scientific explanations. Otherwise, there would be no difference between the field of science and that of the supernatural.
But, science cannot present as scientific facts, or findings, things which belong to the field of speculation, hypothesis, scenarii, etc.
That's all I see to make the difference between what is legitimate and what isn't in scientific work.
_________________
think

Greg Myers

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 1210

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:16 am Post subject:

Aster wrote:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

"I don't know" is pretty different from "God did it." "I don't know," especially in this case, means "We're working on it, and we've got some pretty promising leads." "God did it" means "No point in looking further, it was a miracle."

So do we have anything to replace it? Sure - natural forces at work in the world. When a rock rolls down the hill, and somebody asks us why, we could say "Maybe a ghost pushed it." From a scientific point of view, we cannot prove what caused the rock to roll - so we can't rule out the ghost hypothesis. But "I don't know" does not mean "maybe ghosts did it."
_________________
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, 1799

Greg Myers

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 1210

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:46 am Post subject:

Aster wrote:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

Both science and religion do make certain claims about the world. The clash between the claims of religion and the claims of science come when each asks you to reach different conclusions. When religion claims that the earth is young, and our reason (using to tools of science) show us the world is old, we have to either change the way we understand our religion, or reject the evidence in front of us. Over time, we may develop an overall understanding of the accuracy of faith claims. This overall understanding is not scientific - it is based, rather, on using the tools of science to investigate the natural world - and in the course of that investigation, discovering that some claims made by religion are not what they seemed.

So we can have a reasonable assurance that things have natural causes, without personally demonstrating that every thing has a natural cause, and even while realizing that exhaustively investigating past phenomena does not guarantee that future events will have a natural cause. Science cannot rule out the idea that the world was created last Thursday, with all our memories of the past.

So explain how teaching about the age of the earth in a science class does not imping on religious claims that the earth is young. It seems as if you are suggesting that we ignore science when dealing with faith, and ignore faith when dealing with science. How do you see this working? How do you resolve the conflict when information from each sphere leads to a conflict in public policy or personal moral choices?

As for your comment "Religion doesn't have to prove anything. It's to be taken "on faith". " I guess I don't quite understand. Surely religion is accepted because it has been demonstrated to be true. At some level (emotional, physiological, cultural) it has been experienced an accurate worldview - so much so that things that cannot be verified are taken on faith. Religions provide a comprehensive picture of the natural world, community, offer rules for living and set out personal and community obligations and duties.

Science is simply an approach to thinking about the natural world. Its conflict with religion comes via the way it challenges the comprehensive worldview religion offers. Theology used to be called "Queen of the sciences." Now you take pains to separate science from religion completely. This is some indication of how different religions are pre- and post- the scientific revolution. The challenge to religion is very basic - if religions claims about the natural world are wrong, what else has it got wrong? It invites us to use the same analytical tools that work so well in science in our understanding of religion.

Rather than accepting religious revelation as received Truth, we examine it as an artifact of human culture. This changes our relationship to the revelation, and transforms our experience of both god and the world. Religion is not something that must be simply taken on faith - it is a body of claims and assumptions that must be looked at, sifted thorough, interpreted - and one of the lenses through which it is examined is the body of scientific knowledge - and the assumptions we draw from that knowledge.

Of course, this examination is not dependent on science - we've had sects and denominations and splinter groups for as long as we've had religions - but science has given us tools to test claims and reach conclusions about the natural world that has resulted in a sea change in the way many of us understand religious claims.
_________________
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, 1799

Last edited by Greg Myers on Thu May 28, 2009 6:30 am; edited 2 times in total

Greg Myers

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 1210

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 5:54 am Post subject:

Aster wrote:

Greg Myers wrote:

Quote:

Why does the creator assumption have to be replaced only with an explanation that achieves scientific certainty?

The various religious claims are accepted on faith - why not assume a naturalistic explanation, not on faith, but on the reasonable expectation that such an explanation exists, even if it cannot be demonstrated to a scientific certainty? This seems reasonable to me. This is very different from saying that "god did it."

As to OOL, we may also truthfully answer that we've discovered a number of potential pathways, and though it may not be possible to know, there does not seem to be any barriers to figuring out how it could have happened. I think this is quite a bit different from "I don't know."
_________________
The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Francisco de Goya, Los Caprichos, 1799

Gary S. Gaulin

Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 718
Location: Massachusetts

Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 4:29 pm Post subject:

Greg Myers wrote:

I don't think it is likely that anyone will ever explain how life originated "based on irrefutable evidence."

I think it is very likely. But the science I know has virtually no limit to what can be coherently explained, so who am I to say hey?

Greg Myers wrote:

Certainly no religion does anything of the sort. Religion offers hundreds of conflicting stories, all of them seeming less and less plausible as we learn more about the natural world.

Generalization.

Greg Myers wrote:

When it comes to Origins of Life, we could, at best, expect to identify some plausible pathways, with important steps along the way demonstrated in the lab, and perhaps some strong evidence for the existence of appropriate conditions and raw materials.

The currently existing Theory Of Intelligent Design best explains the most plausible pathway possible because it shows how what you call "pathways" like Metabolism First, RNA World and even self-assembly are each a part of the origin of intelligence story not the whole thing. It's explaining power is why it can even account for Cambrian Explosion, as well as Adam and Eve. And so far you have not been able to explain all that with ET/TOE or anything.

Greg Myers wrote:

If we are really lucky, we might find some predicted traces in the environment that do not contradict our assumptions. Again, this is a far higher burden of proof than creationism meets, which simply makes (many different) assertions, and leaves it at that.

The four part mechanism required for a functional molecular (on up) intelligence works with the Krebs cycle going in either direction. It does not even matter to the theory whether there was first an O2 or CO2 atmosphere. But ET/TOE has no say at all in OOL science that all by itself is just a collection of highly specialized ideas where none go from molecules to cell.

Greg Myers wrote:

Being an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" is not the same thing as disproving the creator assertion -

I never heard of a "creator assertion". Did you invent that phrase?

Greg Myers wrote:

evolution simply supplies a non-theistic alternative to creationism that is at least as credible.

What?!!!

Evolution is just change over time which is why it's supposed to be made clear that "evolution" does NOT explain the origin of life that is what the science of "Abiogenesis" is supposed to be for but of course what only describes "changes" does not stop some from suggesting it also answers how we were "created".

Greg Myers wrote:

Where evolution does suggest that the creator assumption may be incorrect is when particular religious stories make claims that can be tested, are tested, and turn out to be false.

After being tested then tested and retested your whole man from ape like ape from ape world-view on human origins already fell to "Chromosomal Speciation" Adam and Eve and fruit-fly in the fruit-tree thinking. Therefore your Darwinian backed assumptions bit the dust. Genesis assumptions won!

Greg Myers wrote:

...religious claims like the assertion that all living creatures were fashioned by hand, all at once, pretty much as we seem them today,...

I don't recall seeing "fashioned by hand" in scripture or "all at once". Where is that found?

Greg Myers wrote:

I suppose you are arguing that, since the creator assumption has not been disproven, it is still a possibility. Granted - but Russell made the same point about a teapot circling the sun. Not disproven, but given all we know, perhaps vanishingly unlikely.

I hate to say it but it looks to me like if it were not for your misleading generalizations you have no world-view at all.

Greg Myers wrote:

Given that we have developed a number of strong clues about how this may have happened without the intervention of a creator, and given that the same religious stories that talk about the origins of life are wrong about how the diversity of life got here (which is the subject of evolution), why should region be privileged in the OOL arena?

And who is "we"? You make it sound like you have privileged knowledge of what's happening in the OOL arena when in fact you know as little as everyone else does.

Greg Myers wrote:

Should we let "god did it" be enough in any area of study?

Of course not.

Greg Myers wrote:

No extra explanatory power is added by introducing a creator, and no insurmountable difficulty is introduced by leaving a creator out of the explanation.

That might sound like great advice but doesn't work where the idea is to pull out the science-stoppers then throttling up the science machine to take us at least to "intelligent cause".

Display posts from previous:

	Kansas Citizens for Science Forum Index -> Public Discussion	All times are GMT - 6 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Next
Page 2 of 7

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum