Saturday, December 04, 2010

Taking science on faith

Paul Davies argues that "[science's] claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

Several well-known scientists respond critically to his article, with varying degrees of rationality (e.g. Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers, Lee Smolin, Alan Sokal).

Davies' rejoinder closes out the debate.

BTW, Vern Poythress discusses this point about universal, immutable scientific and mathematical laws (as well as more) in the first chapter of his book Redeeming Science (PDF).

10 comments:

  1. Typical "God of the gaps" argumentation.

    Even if the universe had a creator, why would anyone conclude it was your dogmatic right wing Calvinist God?

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  2. EXREFORMED SAID:

    "Typical 'God of the gaps' argumentation."

    Not to mention your typical "godless of the gaps" counterargumentation.

    "Even if the universe had a creator, why would anyone conclude it was your dogmatic right wing Calvinist God?"

    Try not to be a simpleton. One argument doesn't have to prove everything.

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  3. Thing is, your "one" argument proves nothing.

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  4. Exreformed,

    Saying "Typical 'God of the gaps' argumentation" does nothing to address what has been presented, but is instead evidence of the only thing your tiny little mind can retort with when your precious castle of sand is knocked down by an ocean wave.

    If you want to display your intellectual insecurities on-line, go to Oprah's website or something.

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  5. EXREFORMED SAID:

    "Thing is, your 'one' argument proves nothing."

    Thing is, your bare assertion to the contrary proves nothing.

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  6. Exreformed,

    Saying "Typical 'God of the gaps' argumentation" does nothing to address what has been presented, but is instead evidence of the only thing your tiny little mind can retort with when your precious castle of sand is knocked down by an ocean wave.

    If you want to display your intellectual insecurities on-line, go to Oprah's website or something.

    Typical Calvinist crap, constantly belittling and insulting people.

    tiny little mind
    intellectual insecurities

    LOL, this coming from someone who believes in talking donkeys.

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  7. exreformed evasively writes:

    "LOL, this coming from someone who believes in talking donkeys."

    Aside from the fact that you're changing the subject again, how do you get "talking donkeys" from one incident that the Bible itself portrays as supernatural? If there is a God, then presumably that God could make a donkey speak. If you're assuming naturalism, then your comment is only as good as the naturalism you're assuming. And you've given us no argument for it. If the Bible said that all donkeys have a natural ability to speak human language, then it would make sense to criticize that. But that's not what the Bible says, so simply mentioning "talking donkeys", as if a mere mentioning of it is sufficient, reflects poorly on you rather than the Bible.

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  8. Aside from the fact that you're changing the subject again, how do you get "talking donkeys" from one incident that the Bible itself portrays as supernatural? If there is a God, then presumably that God could make a donkey speak. If you're assuming naturalism, then your comment is only as good as the naturalism you're assuming. And you've given us no argument for it. If the Bible said that all donkeys have a natural ability to speak human language, then it would make sense to criticize that. But that's not what the Bible says, so simply mentioning "talking donkeys", as if a mere mentioning of it is sufficient, reflects poorly on you rather than the Bible.

    Oh yes, I forgot, it's supernatural. It has nothing to do with faith. Yet you do not believe anything supernatural at all about Joseph Smith's vision. Why?

    If, If, there was a God? That is a big IF.

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  9. exreformed,

    Your post was caught in Blogger's spam filter. I don't know why. I just saw it and released it.

    You wrote:

    "Oh yes, I forgot, it's supernatural. It has nothing to do with faith. Yet you do not believe anything supernatural at all about Joseph Smith's vision. Why? If, If, there was a God? That is a big IF."

    I wasn't discussing whether the incident "has nothing to do with faith", and I don't see how raising that issue addresses what I said.

    You'll have to explain the alleged relevance of your comment about Joseph Smith and how you supposedly know what I believe about "Joseph Smith's vision".

    Whether there's a God is a big if, and you haven't supported your implied assumption that there is no God. (In contrast, we've argued for the existence of God in depth on this blog. We're not on equal footing here. We've laid our cards on the table far more than you have.) You're the one who brought up the talking donkey issue. Instead of defending your initial comment, you're trying to change the subject to Joseph Smith's vision, the fact that God's existence is a "big if", etc. I'm still waiting for you to explain your use of the plural "donkeys" and to explain the rest of your reasoning.

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  10. Of course, exreformed hasn't given us any reason to treat all religions as the same, as if the falsity of Mormonism has anything to do with the veracity of Christianity. How would exreformed like it if we said Nietzsche was wrong, therefore Dawkins is wrong?

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