Iconoclastic Atheist Turns To Belief In God

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
321

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

Appeals to authority are not useful without data. My passing acquaintance with Pauling, Szent-Georgy, Berg, Kornberg (the father–the son was a hermit) and Lederberg are not useful except as name-dropping to get the chicks.

I understand but I don’t have the wherewithall to start pumping out reams of data here on TN and as I said, I am just a layman.

[/quote]
Of course! We are all layman, which is wonderful!
How about this version of flagellar history?

"[i]Doubters of evolution are fond of pointing out that the flagellum, as this tail is called, needs every one of its parts to function. They argue that it could not have evolved bit by bit; it must have been created in its present form.

But by comparing the flagellar proteins to those in other bacterial structures, Mark Pallen of the University of Birmingham in England and his colleagues have found clues to how this intricate mechanism was assembled from simpler parts. For example, E. coli builds its flagellum with a kind of pump that squirts out proteins. The pump is nearly identical, protein for protein, to another pump found on many disease-causing bacteria, which use it not for building a tail but for priming a molecular syringe that injects toxins into host cells. The similarity is, in Pallen’s words, “an echo of history, because they have a common ancestor.”

Scientists have discovered enough of these echoes to envision how E. coli’s flagellum could have evolved. Pallen proposes that its pieces�all of which have counterparts in today’s microbes�came together step-by-step over millions of years. It all started with a pump-and-syringe assembly like those found on pathogens. In time, the syringe acquired a long needle, then a flexible hook at its base. Eventually it was linked to a power source: another kind of pump found in the cell membranes of many bacteria. Once the structure had a motor that could make it spin, the needle turned into a propeller, and microbes had new mobility.

Whether or not that’s the full story, there is plenty of other evidence that natural selection has been at work on the flagellum. Biologists have identified scores of different kinds of flagella in various strains of bacteria. Some are thick and some are thin; some are mounted on the end of the cell and some on the side; some are powered by sodium ions and some by hydrogen ions. It’s just the kind of variation that natural selection is expected to produce as it tailors a structure to the needs of different organisms.[/i]" (http://carlzimmer.com/articles/2006.php?subaction=showfull&id=1177181530&archive=&start_from=&ucat=9&)

Plausible explanations may not satisfy every critic, but no critic can dismiss them all, “with a wave of the hand.”

Enough self-flagellation for one day!

322

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:

Occam and stuff.

So, with respect, Friend Push, and even Friend Aragorn if he is reading, the wonder here is that we are given brains that can encompass these concepts, and to give credit to the Designer, we should all use those brains to further understanding and not defeat it.[/quote]

I always enjoy reading your posts because they are so well put and so respectful. It’s a far cry from trying to speak with most of the people that try to get me to talk about politics/religion/philosophy/etc.

I agree on the point that Behe is most definitely not the “go to” guy that every creationist wants to point to. He is, however, highly educated, well researched, and well published/established. I think part of the reason that he gets so much press is that lay people are simply unable to grasp the technical science without protracted deep reading.

Notice I did not say “unable to” but simply qualified that with “extended reading”. There are certainly lay people (in terms of pure biochemistry) that I listen very acutely to on certain subjects because they have put in a large amount of time.

Of course, friend Skeptix, your example moves in the opposite direction as well–I can point to a large, exceedingly large, number of incredibly retarded things that highly respected (evolutionist) biologists have said on a number of theories. Highly educated people make mistakes routinely just as others do.

My primary difficulty is that there are many more “highly educated” scientists types than Behe that agree with him on Intelligent Design. I don’t like the idea that these people are relegated to the outside of the academic community and non-existent funding opportunities simply because of their views on ID. This is punitive action on a grand scale and is against the principles of academic freedom.

Just because someone a) finds serious holes in Darwinism OR b) maintains a belief in the plausibility of ID (notice I did not say “proof” or “likelihood”) does MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean they cannot do good science. They can be fantastic biochemists, chemists, neuros, etc etc.

They can do fantastic research, they can reason well, and it appalls me that it is a career killer to even mention the phrase “Intelligent Design” in any way. Note again that I did not say that they are proponents of ID.

That’s what I hate–they’re not retarded. They don’t somehow automatically lose the ability to perform high level productive research because of these views. That’s as far as I go on the whole Evolution/Creation debate. It is, for the most part, an exercise in futility that goes both ways.

323

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

Occam and stuff.

So, …
Just because someone a) finds serious holes in Darwinism OR b) maintains a belief in the plausibility of ID (notice I did not say “proof” or “likelihood”) does MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean they cannot do good science. They can be fantastic biochemists, chemists, neuros, etc etc.

They can do fantastic research, they can reason well, and it appalls me that it is a career killer to even mention the phrase “Intelligent Design” in any way. Note again that I did not say that they are proponents of ID.

That’s what I hate–they’re not retarded. They don’t somehow automatically lose the ability to perform high level productive research because of these views. That’s as far as I go on the whole Evolution/Creation debate. It is, for the most part, an exercise in futility that goes both ways. [/quote]

Well said.

Stephen J. Gould, himself a noted evolutionist statistician and baseball fanatic, said in parallel that science and faith belong to nonoverlapping magisteria
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

The question of evolution vs ID then boils down to a “boundary war,” and in such matters, Maimonides had an answer.

325

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

Occam and stuff.

So, …
Just because someone a) finds serious holes in Darwinism OR b) maintains a belief in the plausibility of ID (notice I did not say “proof” or “likelihood”) does MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean they cannot do good science. They can be fantastic biochemists, chemists, neuros, etc etc.

They can do fantastic research, they can reason well, and it appalls me that it is a career killer to even mention the phrase “Intelligent Design” in any way. Note again that I did not say that they are proponents of ID.

That’s what I hate–they’re not retarded. They don’t somehow automatically lose the ability to perform high level productive research because of these views. That’s as far as I go on the whole Evolution/Creation debate. It is, for the most part, an exercise in futility that goes both ways.

Well said.

Stephen J. Gould, himself a noted evolutionist statistician and baseball fanatic, said in parallel that science and faith belong to nonoverlapping magisteria
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

The question of evolution vs ID then boils down to a “boundary war,” and in such matters, Maimonides had an answer.[/quote]

I read a few paragraphs in, but I think I will save the majority of it for later. Dr. Gould is always one of those writers I find I have to devote more time to reading or “decoding” (not derogatorily used at all here) than some other equally erudite writers. I’m not sure what it is. Style probably. He is a very articulate person, and was a very curious person, uniquely fit for science in many ways I think.

In regards to Maimonides, I am not quite sure what you are referencing–are you referring to his position that one can only refer to God with negative statements (such as “God is not multiple” in place of “God is One”) ? If that is the case I am not sure I agree, but I am unclear on what point this scholar serves to convey in your post in any case.

I have left the Debate as a largely intractable and punitive affair. I believe you can most probably hold both evolutionary and theistic views without contradiction.

Furthermore it seems to me that in addition the probable false dichotomy between theistic belief and evolutionary views, there is another far more menacing and entrenched false dichotomy which I touched upon in my earlier post.

This is what has driven me away from the debate: I find it extremely offensive that so many evolutionists think any sort of ID proclivity – I am extremely cautious using that word because I don’t actually mean an ID believer here – must be a scientifically illiterate bum incapable of teaching science, doing academic research, or understanding biochemical mechanisms in common study.

I frankly don’t want to talk about it for professional risk. It is an interesting subject to think about (most often in tandem with philosophical debates), but the punitive cost is too high and I want good positions and good research because of some sort of misconceived notion that I am an ID kook or something if I say something even remotely construed as “pro” ID, even in passing.

326

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
Aragorn wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

Occam and stuff.

So, …
Just because someone a) finds serious holes in Darwinism OR b) maintains a belief in the plausibility of ID (notice I did not say “proof” or “likelihood”) does MOST CERTAINLY NOT mean they cannot do good science. They can be fantastic biochemists, chemists, neuros, etc etc.

They can do fantastic research, they can reason well, and it appalls me that it is a career killer to even mention the phrase “Intelligent Design” in any way. Note again that I did not say that they are proponents of ID.

That’s what I hate–they’re not retarded. They don’t somehow automatically lose the ability to perform high level productive research because of these views. That’s as far as I go on the whole Evolution/Creation debate. It is, for the most part, an exercise in futility that goes both ways.

Well said.

Stephen J. Gould, himself a noted evolutionist statistician and baseball fanatic, said in parallel that science and faith belong to nonoverlapping magisteria
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

The question of evolution vs ID then boils down to a “boundary war,” and in such matters, Maimonides had an answer.

…

In regards to Maimonides, I am not quite sure what you are referencing–are you referring to his position that one can only refer to God with negative statements (such as “God is not multiple” in place of “God is One”) ? If that is the case I am not sure I agree, but I am unclear on what point this scholar serves to convey in your post in any case.
…[/quote]

(Off topic: Oooh, I remember that, now. I thought of it differently: If God is the subject, human beings cannot offer a predicate. Human experience cannot encompass the nature of the Divine.)

I was alluding to something different.
From a Stanford website on Maimonides:
“As a sacred document, the Bible is a source of truth. While the truths contained in the Bible may not always be apparent, we know in principle that they are there if one wishes to dig deeply enough. It follows that if one’s interpretation ascribes to the Bible a doctrine that is demonstrably false, such as the claim that God is corporeal, the interpretation is incorrect no matter how simple or straightforward it may seem. Should human knowledge advance and come up with demonstrations it previously lacked, we would have no choice but to return to the Bible and alter our interpretation to take account of them. Anything else would be intellectually dishonest.”

In my “ham-fisted” way, I remember something different, that he distinguished, like Gould, that science and faith offer different methods and interpretations. Since the nature of faith is acceptance of the unprovable, it is the duty of the faithful–not scientists–to push back ignorance, and reserve the magesterium of faith for the truly unknowable.

This is on topic. I suppose ID doesn’t have to be religious, or dependent on Divinity. But it sure sounds that way. But neither, you, nor Gould, nor Maimonides disrespect the religous–or the ID theorists. And I would be sure that Push doesn’t disrespect scientists. They all–faithful/ID and scientists alike–just have to work harder.

327

[quote]

I frankly don’t want to talk about it for professional risk. [/quote]

Wow Doc, that itself says a lot. Good discussion.

329

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
Aragorn wrote:

This is on topic. I suppose ID doesn’t have to be religious, or dependent on Divinity. But it sure sounds that way. But neither, you, nor Gould, nor Maimonides disrespect the religous–or the ID theorists. And I would be sure that Push doesn’t disrespect scientists. They all–faithful/ID and scientists alike–just have to work harder.
[/quote]

Interesting stuff on the Maimonides front. I would respond, but I think I shall save that potentially interesting discussion for some place more on topic ;).

I think intelligent design is probably by definition dependent on a certain definition of theistic worldview. I don’t really mind either. I tend to value both logical/philosophical and empirical/scientific arguments both highly. In my opinion a cogent position can not violate either. So, to me, philosophical argumentation does not worry me as long as it is well reasoned. It cannot by definition answer the “whats” of the world–what is the world made up of, etc. (ala Gould in your link) as well as the empirical science can. There are, however, myriad areas where empirical science just isn’t up to the task, and this is where philosophical argumentation comes in.

My point from earlier that a theist is not inherently a bad scientist or incapable de facto, which I think we’ve amply discussed by now with no need to revisit. I agree with you also regarding Gould, me, Push, etc., as well.