Should Science Speak To Faith?

[PhilOchsLives]

Choobus wrote

Of course science should speak to faith. It should say "hey, faith, go fuck yourself you retarded cumchugger".

Amen, brother!

As Bertrand Russell said, no good has ever come of religion. (I think he did make exception for some religions that made detailed star charts.)

NO.


Science should call faith up late at night and just breathe heavily into the phone...

[Philboid Studge]

An oldie but goody from PZM's archive:

Nick Gotelli wrote

Dear Dr. Klinghoffer:

Thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more recent relabeling as "intelligent design") with a speaker from the Discovery Institute. Your invitation is quite surprising, given the sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you yourself posted on the Discovery Institute's website:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/

However, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific community has come to expect from the creationists.

Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars. Creationism is in the same category.

Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren't members of your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish. Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the prominent mainstream journals.

"Conspiracy" is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke, because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and on new empirical studies that overturn previously established principles. Creationism doesn't live up to these standards, so its proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books, blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don't maintain scientific standards.

Finally, isn't it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation at a little university in northern New England? Practicing scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science departments around the world, often on controversial and novel topics. If creationists actually published some legitimate science, they would receive such invitations as well.

So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation.

In closing, I do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation and for your posting on the Discovery Institute Website. As an evolutionary biologist, I can't tell you what a badge of honor this is. My colleagues will be envious.

Sincerely yours,

Nick Gotelli

P.S. I hope you will forgive me if I do not respond to any further e-mails from you or from the Discovery Institute. This has been entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching.

[PhilOchsLives]

Nice!

[Philboid Studge]

PZM really hates it when Faith tries to speak to Science.

We often get this vague claim that religion is a different methodology and a different way of knowing things, and that judging religion as a science is a category error. Very well: different way of knowing what? What are these different questions that they are asking, how do they propose answering them, and why should we think these questions are even worth asking, and that their answers are valid? They never seem to get around to the specifics.

I mean, religion might well be the only avenue for addressing the question of how many bicycles are being peddled by angels right now, but that's because it's an irrelevant question that doesn't affect our lives or the universe in any way, doesn't have any way of being answered, and is built around imaginary referents, "angels", for which we don't even have evidence of their existence. But if religion is a way of knowing, how do they know what the answer is? What is their methodology? How do they verify their answers? Why is it that every religion, and even every individual within a religion, comes up with different answers?

I feel his pain, but he's still trying to apply a scientific paradigm (Methodology? Verify?) to a crackpot way of non-thinking. But of course, he realises that:

I think the fruitful conversation we need between science and religion is more of a loud roar from the science side to silence the lies of the faithful. This argument that we need more input from religion comes almost entirely from those already committed to the superstition — personally, I think we could use entirely less babbling gobbledygook from the apologists. ... It's time for the theologians to grow up and move on to questions with some heft and meaning, that are actually applicable to our lives and our culture.

[ghoulslime]

Philboid Studge wrote

PZM really hates it when Faith tries to speak to Science.



I feel his pain, but he's still trying to apply a scientific paradigm (Methodology? Verify?) to a crackpot way of non-thinking. But of course, he realises that:

That's PZ's own little way of asking, "Do you do anal?"

[calpurnpiso]

Faith is the deluded abomination of science

[Philboid Studge]

PZM points to the estimable Larry Moran, who smacks Shitlord Franny Collins upside the head. Collins, who makes a small fortune being the poster boy for jeebus 'n science, goes through the tired and idiotic laundry list of stoopid: anthropic principle (aren't we special?), free willy (the beautiful gift from God that we weren't supposed to actually enjoy), and of course Goddiditism (evolution -- that was His plan all along ...).

Moran:

I can think of six, perfectly scientific, questions that could be asked.

1. Is there any evidence of purposeful "fine tuning"?
2. Is there any evidence that humans were inevitable?
3. Is there any evidence of a Moral Law?
4. Is there any evidence of a soul?
5. Is there any evidence that humans have something called "free will" that other species lack?
6. Is there any evidence that such a personal God exists?

I think the answer to all six question is "no," therefore, believing those things conflicts with science. They are supposed to part of the natural, observable, universe and they should all be detectable, if they exist.

Gnome Ass-bandit Collins founded an organization that treats science like a crack whore, pimping it to the drooling god-gobblers.

[ILOVEJESUS]

Science speaks to faith as much as it does to the rest of us. Faith just decides not to listen.

[lostsheep]

ILOVEJESUS wrote

Science speaks to faith as much as it does to the rest of us. Faith just decides not to listen.

Nice.

[lostsheep]

"It's time for the theologians to grow up and move on to questions with some heft and meaning, that are actually applicable to our lives and our culture."

IOW, what Cap'n said.

[Philboid Studge]

This fellow babbles a bit but his point is about right, if weakly stated: religion is "compatible" with science as long as it doesn't try to compete with it. Because when religion tries to explain anything sciency, it ends ends up leaving a shartstain on your epistemology. (Or words to that effect.)

This fellow, perhaps more apt as a Cuntwatch candidate, doesn't like that. His riposte to the above goes something like this: Many historical facts can't be tested by science, and they are nevertheless true facts. Jayzus walking on water is an historical claim, so do the math and suck it, science.

[justthetruth]

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory announced on Wednesday the discovery of Kepler-21b, a new planet that's close to the size of earth and is only about 352 light years away.
"By astronomical standards, that's right next door," Katy Garmany, the Deputy Press Officer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, told HuffPost.
Astronomers frequently discover new planets (according to Time magazine, we're up to over 2,000), but Garmany said that what's exciting about Kepler 21-b is that the planet is relatively Earth-sized. While its mass is about 10 times the size of our planet, its radius is only 1.6 times the size of Earth's.
"Until a few years ago, the smallest extra-solar planet that we had discovered was the size of Jupiter or Saturn, which are about ten times bigger than the Earth," Garmany said. "Now we're getting down to something almost the size of the Earth, showing that we have the technology to find the earth-size planets."
The new planet has a star that's just a bit bigger and hotter than Earth's sun, although it's substantially younger. But because the planet is so close to its star, it's far too hot to have liquid water, the base for life as we know it. At only 6 million kilometers (about 3.7 million miles) away from the star, Kepler-21b's temperature is a blistering 2,960 degrees Fahrenheit, according to scientists' estimates.
By contrast, Earth is about 150,000,000 km (93 million miles) from its own sun.
The discovery of Kepler-21b was a collaboration of both sky (the Kepler observatory) and ground-based telescopes at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, writes in Discover Magazine that researchers examined the planet for 15 months. The results of the study will be published in Astrophysical Journal.


If they could only find another earth with life they would have the evidence to dis prive God. Good luck, it is not out there. Life is only found on this planet. God just did it that way for his own pleasure. Sorry

[psychodiva]

fucking moron

[Smellyoldgit]

justthetruth wrote

God just did it that way for his own pleasure. Sorry

I think she just called god a wanker - there's really no need to apologise.