|
Post by Jason Thompson on Dec 9, 2008 7:53:31 GMT -4
We can only say "the current theory seems the best fit to the facts in evidence." But that's how all science works.
|
|
|
Post by Data Cable on Dec 9, 2008 9:42:10 GMT -4
Science by itself cannot require any kind of behavior, and what is moral or immoral is outside its perview. Couldn't have said it better myself. Just as some groups use religion as their support for immoral behavior. But as you have already stipulated, religion itself can also be the source of immoral behavior, and not just used as an excuse for it. Science cannot.
|
|
|
Post by Data Cable on Dec 9, 2008 10:10:33 GMT -4
It seems that we have great evidence that life adapts to its circumstances, but does this adaptation really result in the creation of distinct species over time? Yes. Speciation has been observed in the laboratory.Can you cite evidence for another mechanism? Doesn't that apply to any historical question? How do we absolutely know if the Apollo program was authentic? Or what really brought down the twin towers? Or within which political borders Barack Obama was born? As the other Jason already pointed out, that's the most you get out of any scientific theory.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 12:01:15 GMT -4
We can only say "the current theory seems the best fit to the facts in evidence." But that's how all science works. Not precisely. Usually science works with what is directly testable and repeatable. Events in the distant past are not directly testable or repeatable, and so we are less sure about what exactly happened in the distant past. We create models and theories based on the assumption that observable current conditions also held in the past, but we could be wrong; and experiments are usually onlyapproximations of real events - there could be real conditions that effect the outcome that we did not know about.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 12:18:00 GMT -4
Just as some groups use religion as their support for immoral behavior. But as you have already stipulated, religion itself can also be the source of immoral behavior, and not just used as an excuse for it. Science cannot. I also said that I can't think of any instance where religion actually was the source of immoral behavior, only where a particular relgious group behaved immorally and used religion as their excuse. In the same way science can indeed be a source of immoral behavior, when a scientific idea is re-expressed in moral terms (which it shouldn't be, but often is) by particular groups. Natural selection is a scientific idea, and is itself morally neutral. However some groups in the past have taken the idea that the best suited to environmental conditions survive and expressed it as "only the best should survive, and we should actively remove the inferior as part of the natural process".
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 12:22:13 GMT -4
Of course, in those instances there was an intelligent designer involved. Whether I can come up with an alternate theory or not does not prove that the current theory must be correct. Yes it does. That's why history is not generally considered a "hard" science.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Gnomon on Dec 9, 2008 14:25:12 GMT -4
Just as some groups use religion as their support for immoral behavior. But as you have already stipulated, religion itself can also be the source of immoral behavior, and not just used as an excuse for it. Science cannot. I also said that I can't think of any instance where religion actually was the source of immoral behavior, only where a particular relgious group behaved immorally and used religion as their excuse. Perhaps you need to be more specific in your distinction here, between "source of" vs. "excuse for" immoral behavior. I'm not limiting "religious groups" in this context to contemporary Americans. I'm viewing it globally, and deeper in time. I think most religious groups who are viewed as "immoral" by others view others as Immoral for NOT engaging in the debatable activity. Morals are not hard-and-fast. They're much squishier to define than you might think. Is eating meat immoral? What about eating pork? What about eating human? Marrying your sister? What about dancing? We can find a religion somewhere at some point in time that advocates doing and another that advocates not-doing each of these examples. Was it moral for the Spanish Conquistadors to slaughter Aztecs or murder the Inca (king of the Quechua) after receiving the asked-for ransom? They did so in the name of God, to help the "heathens" find "salvation." Is allowing a sick child to die, instead of getting easy medical care, "moral?" People who believe in Faith Healing think so. Is Sharia Law moral? Jack Parsons, inventor of the JATO Bottle and co-founder of JPL was a buggering Satanist. I'm sure that kind of sexual liberty is what you have in mind when you talk about using religion as an "excuse for" immoral behavior, but he was engaging in his religion with full-faith, with willing participants. Bringing things back to evolution, we can talk about the "fitness" of ideas. Differential fertility vs. differential mortality of ideas, not just creatures. Most of the ancient religious ideas that modern Americans would view as "immoral" have died out -- they didn't propagate themselves through time. If an idea has a difficult time finding new believers, it dies.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 15:01:04 GMT -4
Perhaps you need to be more specific in your distinction here, between "source of" vs. "excuse for" immoral behavior. The idea probably could use some refinement. I suppose I could consider a religion the source of immoral behavior if the behavior is specifically outlined and praised within the literature of the religion in question. It becomes an excuse for immoral behavior when the plain meaning of the religion's teachings is distorted or ignored to excuse behavior. It can be difficult to define when this occurrs because at least some of the teachings of many religions are open to interpretation. For instance, Christianity does not advocate converting others to Christianity by the sword or destroying the heathen in its teachings - the Crusades and the conquistadors used "bringing Christianity to the heathens" as their excuse without any solid foundation in the teachings of Christianity. That is an example of what I consider fringe groups advocating something immoral that is not actually present in the teachings of their base religion (Christianity). Christianity does teach that faith can heal, but not that modern medicine is evil. I have heard that it is debatable whether Islam actually advocates the imposition of Sharia law on nonbelievers. I'm not an expert on Islam, so I couldn't say for sure myself.
|
|
|
Post by echnaton on Dec 9, 2008 15:11:10 GMT -4
This kind of runs to my main observation about religions. Namely that they are faulty inventions of man. In them people attempt to form a community in which they may live a life by some moral code. The religion may or may not have much to do with the underlying spiritual guidance. Nor do they require a deity to exist. Environmentalism and socialism both have "religious" elements within them. One can believe in nature, history, the volk or whatever with equal fervor that one believes in God. And do equal evil.
Therfore I don't fault God or religion in general for the misbehavior of people, rather I look to the people that are misbehaving. Christ's gentle guidance of the new testament to love and serve one another is often disregarded by people who prefer the righteous fervor of the superseded old testament. They elevate themselves to the level of prophets or even God to carry out some agenda that have very little to do with Christ's words and example for living a holy life. That is not Godliness but hubris. A common failing of people, religious or not.
Sometimes I wish it were possible to knock heads together for the leaders of some stupid institutions. Or even prosecute them under some RICO like law to protect us from backward ignorance. But alas, the price of protecting ourselves from tyranny is to suffer the widest possible range of human nature.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Gnomon on Dec 9, 2008 16:10:48 GMT -4
Huzzah!
|
|
|
Post by echnaton on Dec 9, 2008 17:06:17 GMT -4
Had to look that one up. You don't hear it much in Texas.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Dec 9, 2008 18:13:16 GMT -4
This kind of runs to my main observation about religions. Namely that they are faulty inventions of man. I believe that nearly all religions are at least in part inspired of God, but that the organized groups and how they apply those religious teachings are the faulty work of man, so the end effect is much the same. I wish more anti-religionists understood this fact. Ironically enough, even atheists can be this sort of fervant believer.
|
|
|
Post by gillianren on Dec 9, 2008 18:16:08 GMT -4
Depends on where you go, Echnaton. There are some pretty big ren faires in Texas.
There are all sorts of contradictory examples of doing/not-doing even just in faiths that use the same Book. There are Christian faiths that forbid music, for example, despite the Psalms that specifically mention singing, despite King David's euphoric dancing. Then, of course, there are the Bible's condemnations of prostitution and homosexuality, both practiced as part of the neighbouring Babylonian religion. (Leading to scholarly speculation that it's at least part of why there is Biblical condemnation of those things.)
No, to say that evolution compels immoral action is a bankrupt statement. First, of course, is seeking who defines morality. Second is determining where, exactly, evolutionary theory compels anyone to do anything.
|
|
|
Post by Data Cable on Dec 9, 2008 20:22:56 GMT -4
I also said that I can't think of any instance where religion actually was the source of immoral behavior, only where a particular relgious group behaved immorally and used religion as their excuse. So, when a Christian Scientist lets their child die of an easily-treatable medical condition, are they just using their religion as an excuse to commit filicide? Which is, at best, a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, or at worst, mere lip service attempting to cover one's own bigotry.
|
|
|
Post by Data Cable on Dec 9, 2008 20:26:49 GMT -4
Usually science works with what is directly testable and repeatable. So then, archaeology, cosmology, and theoretical physics aren't sciences? Which holds true for all experiments, so no experimental results are ever valid?
|
|