The great Church debate!

@Sniper - I'm not sure if Dawkins is overrated or not. He must be a pretty good biologist, surely? I'm not convinced he needs to understand quantum theory to pursue his research either. No doubt it's correct to say that chemical and biological *properties* emerge once quantum systems achieve a certain level of complexity. But Dawkins is surely right to argue that, for the purposes of developing biological explanations, theories and models, we can take these higher level properties as given (for the vast majority of the time, at least). If we insisted that all explanations have to be cashable in the terms of our most fundamental physical theory at the time, science would never get anywhere. It's a bit like insisting that all chefs should fashion their meals from a store cupboard that contains only the chemical elements.

Back to Dawkins - I suppose my main gripe is that he lacks philosophical nouse, so his polemic against faith has no subtlety. Although I've yet to read it, I'm sure Dan Dennett has written a better critique of religion in "Breaking the Spell". Dennett has the philosophical chops to take on the defenders of faith at their own game. He's also a very intelligent guy all round - his exposition of the Theory of Evolution and its ramifications in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" is a masterpiece. I've just dug out my copy of "Breaking the Spell" and added it to the top of my "to read" pile - even if I disagree with it's conclusions, I'm sure it will be a stimulating read (in a way that TGD wasn't).

Regards
Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:
Oh. I thought the 'ill informed etc...' said that Quantum Physics was a "psudo" science?

Anyway, who ever said that there was an 'ultimate nature of reality'. Follow that train of thought and you end up with, er, "god". Oops.

Still no evidence...

The evidence for quantum theory is overwhelming and can not be considered to be psuedo science.

The ultimate nature of reality is, inter alia, what science is about. The rest of your post is drivel. What 'evidence' do you think I was offering?

Sniper,

Dawkins is quite correct to step back from an area of science which is not his field. Quantum theory is a complex and still developing field of science (for example, we still have no evidence for the graviton which is fundamental to a unified quantum "theory of everything" although gravity fits neatly into Einstein's approach based on classical physics).

I've heard it quoted (but I can't remember the source) that "if you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics".

Of course, quantum physics is hugely useful and in no way can be considered pseudo science, but perhaps we shouldn't try to apply it to everything at the moment. I am an electrochemist and there are many aspects of quantum theory which are very useful to me, for example in the interpretation of spectra of complex ions, but I would not presume to understand the fundamental mathematics underpinning the theory.

What are your qualifications?

One of the best philosophers of the 20th Douglas Adams said in HHGTTG:-


Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
God disappears in a puff of logic.

Please don't bother with reasons why this is in error or that , Spike Chumly-Warner said the same in 1879.

It seems as valid as anything else I've heard(in any language ) .

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

I think in putting in the boot and dismissing things out of hand - or indeed saying that literature written 2000 doesn't read like the BBC website - it is important to have the integrity and honesty to acknowledge if one actually starts out with an underlying base assumption that it is automatically wrong, which leads to a prejudicial eisogesis, which is not a respectable academic methodology.

A key problem with post-Enlightenment secular thinking is that it is extremely patronising towards any view but its own - only its view will do. There is the whiff of fundamentalism. As the philosopher John Gray puts it, there is a kind of liberalism that is "a species of fundamentalism, not a remedy for it."

It seems quite convenient for you to assume that "secular thinking" people arrive at their conclusions based on prejudice. Yours must be one helluva faith to allow you such enlightenment absent bias.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Dudley:

quote:

iven that you and I could never create something on the scale of this total experience and the Bible highlights that God seeks to have a relationship with us,

And there we have it. The Bible says...

So the bible says. So the Koran says. So the Upanishads say. So the torah says. So the Tibetan Book of the Dead says. So so so so so what.

Get your head out of the bucket and look around you.

I'm tired of trying to argue with numpties who seem to think that the wind is caused by the trees waving about.

Feh.

Interesting how you first of all latch onto the reasonable trueism (as part-quoted above), remove the context and then use it to beat me over the head with...

Speaking of which, where do "buckets" come into it? Are you going to answer that with another assumption about me?

Just a couple of observations.

Andrew Randle

Dawkins certainly polarises opinion doesn't he? I think he has done a great job at pushing back on those who would bring creationism to classrooms in the UK and going on the attack on the subject of religion generally. At the same time, his very robust style has clearly put a lot of peoples' backs up. Another style of approach might have worked better with a wider audience possibly.
He seems like a lovely man to me. My girlfriend thinks he's cute!
Cheers

quote:

Dawkins certainly polarises opinion doesn't he? I think he has done a great job at pushing back on those who would bring creationism to classrooms in the UK and going on the attack on the subject of religion generally.

Simon, on this we can agree. I have no time for fundamentalist Christians who would force schools to teach creationism (or ID) as if it were an alternative to Evolutionary Theory. In that respect at least, TGD is a necessary polemic. It's a shame his personal style has alientaed some moderates (on both sides of the debate - I have atheist friends who don't like the way he carries on). I think Dan Dennett's book will be a mellower read, though no less effective in its argument.

Regards
Nigel

I will read it Nigel, thanks for the recommendation.

No worries. In case you missed my earlier post, Dennett's book on evolution is superb ("Darwin's Dangerous Idea").

But you need to tell your girlfriend she's out of luck - Dawkins only dates Time Lords

quote:

Oh. I thought the 'ill informed etc...' said that Quantum Physics was a "psudo" science?

You really must try to keep up Mike. I never mentioned Quantum Physics.

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by droodzilla:
No worries. In case you missed my earlier post, Dennett's book on evolution is superb ("Darwin's Dangerous Idea").

)

Seconded. In my top five reads of last year (or any other).

The man is razor sharp and misses nothing. And, most importantly, he writes entertainingly and in such a style that us non genius types think we are.

I am afraid I have a similar view of Dennett to that of Dawkins - both are arch obfusticators in my view. The dynamic duo do more to keep people in the dark than anyone else. The point about Dawkins is he offers Natural Selection as an ultimate explanation for evolution driven by that is essentially (wait for it) a non-random random process - when seen from a quantum perspective this is shown to be wrong. He also acts as if Darwinian evolution is universally accepted amongst scientists - a view which Rupert Sheldrake and others would dispute. Dennett is another person who ignores the findings of quantum theory and adopts a naive materialist reductionist viewpoint in the tradition of Dr. Johnson cavalierly dismissing any evidence contrary to his crude thinking and only offers ridicule instead of argument. Dennett and Dawkins the dismal duo – how did they ever get work in academia? Dawkins is great when lampooning the Old Testament but even a kid can do that as it is full of unutterable tosh but I don’t see he offers anything deeply philosophically or scientifically satisfying. I see someone sensible gave Dennett a good duffing up in a recent edition of Philosophy Now magazine. Time marches on but Dennett and Dawkins are still trapped in mid nineteenth century science. I am not going to give my qualifications – my points stand or fall on their merits not on my position in the academic world.

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
I am afraid I have a similar view of Dennett to that of Dawkins - both are arch obfusticators in my view. The dynamic duo do more to keep people in the dark than anyone else. The point about Dawkins is he offers Natural Selection as an ultimate explanation for evolution driven by that is essentially (wait for it) a non-random random process - when seen from a quantum perspective this is shown to be wrong. He also acts as if Darwinian evolution is universally accepted amongst scientists - a view which Rupert Sheldrake and others would dispute. Dennett is another person who ignores the findings of quantum theory and adopts a naive materialist reductionist viewpoint in the tradition of Dr. Johnson cavalierly dismissing any evidence contrary to his crude thinking and only offers ridicule instead of argument. Dennett and Dawkins the dismal duo – how did they ever get work in academia? Dawkins is great when lampooning the Old Testament but even a kid can do that as it is full of unutterable tosh but I don’t see he offers anything deeply philosophically or scientifically satisfying. I see someone sensible gave Dennett a good duffing up in a recent edition of Philosophy Now magazine. Time marches on but Dennett and Dawkins are still trapped in mid nineteenth century science. I am not going to give my qualifications – my points stand or fall on their merits not on my position in the academic world.

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to how quantum theory could possibly be applied to the process of natural selection?

quote:

Originally posted by Sniper:
The point about Dawkins is he offers Natural Selection as an ultimate explanation for evolution driven by that is essentially (wait for it) a non-random random process - when seen from a quantum perspective this is shown to be wrong.

Sniper,
You have misquoted Dawkins. I think that the original quotation is as follows:

"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators."

I do not see any conflict with anything in quantum theory in this statement.

You say that your points stand or fall on their merits and not your position in the academic world. They do not appear to have much merit from my perspective, especially if you cannot understand the difference between what you quoted Dawkins as saying and what he actually said. If I have misjudged this, please give the reference for the "quote" that is in your post.

I have resisted posting on this thread for a week, but in the end have to say something about this.

A number of people in my family have a boundless and unreasoned faith. I have seen what their faith does for them in their lives, and I have to say it's all good. Faith can be a beautiful thing.

I can not bring myself to reduce that to ashes in the fire of logic.

So religion has become something I meditate about frequently, but never discuss.

Each to their own, and love thy neighbor.

Sheldrake. Now there IS someone who has been repeatedly accused of pseudo science, but here's an interesting character to be sure. I have not looked at enough of his experiments in detail to provide my own view.
Out of interest, what sort of theory of evolution does Sheldrake propose?

A quote from Wikki (not the most relaiable of sources!)

" In his Skeptic's Dictionary, Robert Todd Carroll stated, in an article highly critical of Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance, that "although Sheldrake commands some respect as a scientist because of his education and degree, he has clearly abandoned conventional science in favor of magical thinking."[36]

Sorry, magic doesn't do it for me.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:
I have resisted posting on this thread for a week, but in the end have to say something about this.

A number of people in my family have a boundless and unreasoned faith. I have seen what their faith does for them in their lives, and I have to say it's all good. Faith can be a beautiful thing.

Some religious fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their faith - how do you square this with your observation Mike?

Faith is neither 'good' nor 'bad' intrinsically - though it is, in my view, 'misguided'.

quote:

Originally posted by Svetty:
Some religious fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their faith...

And some atheist fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their atheism.

In fact the worst atrocities in the history of the world - idividually and cumulatively - have been committed by fanatical athiests.

The 'problem' (terrible things) is not faith, but tribalism.

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

quote:

Originally posted by Svetty:
Some religious fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their faith...

And some atheist fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their atheism.

In fact the worst atrocities in the history of the world - idividually and cumulatively - have been committed by fanatical athiests.

?????

What do five questions marks in a row mean?

Do they add usefully to the discussion?

If you would explain the meaning then perhaps the discussion would be enhanced. Otherwise they are without point, IMO

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
What do five questions marks in a row mean?

Do they add usefully to the discussion?

If you would explain the meaning then perhaps the discussion would be enhanced. Otherwise they are without point, IMO

ATB from George

Ok George. They express my enormous disbelief at the absurd nonsense dross that theists pronounce seemingly from planet gagawonky.

Even though I know it's coming I'm always staggered at the monstrous imbecility.

That better?


ATB, Paul.

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
What do five questions marks in a row mean?

Do they add usefully to the discussion?

If you would explain the meaning then perhaps the discussion would be enhanced. Otherwise they are without point, IMO

ATB from George

I read it as a nice way of saying the quoted text is bollocks.

quote:

Originally posted by mongo:

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

quote:

Originally posted by Svetty:
Some religious fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their faith...

And some atheist fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their atheism.

In fact the worst atrocities in the history of the world - idividually and cumulatively - have been committed by fanatical athiests.

?????

You need to read some history as well as science?

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

quote:

Originally posted by mongo:

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:

quote:

Originally posted by Svetty:
Some religious fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their faith...

And some atheist fanatics have done terrible things motivated by their atheism.

In fact the worst atrocities in the history of the world - idividually and cumulatively - have been committed by fanatical athiests.

?????

You need to read some history as well as science?

Have a degree in History and a well fed passion for it.

If you insist on making such super-sweeping statements, then, to be taken seriously, you must provide genuine and unassailable examples.

A statement like yours is just begging to be mugged.