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posted by martyb on Thursday February 14 2019, @06:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the scientific-method dept.

Earlier this month, a long kept list of Ph.D. scientists who “dissent from Darwinism” reached a milestone — it crossed the threshold of 1,000 signers.

“There are 1,043 scientists on the ‘A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism’ list. It passed the 1,000 mark this month,” said Sarah Chaffee, a program officer for the Discovery Institute, which maintains the list.

“A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism” is a simple, 32-word statement that reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

https://www.thecollegefix.com/more-than-1000-scientists-sign-dissent-from-darwinism-statement/


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Thursday February 14 2019, @07:27PM (17 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday February 14 2019, @07:27PM (#801141) Journal

    Whether there is any evidence for the existence of god?

    It'd be a pretty short debate. There is no such evidence thus far. After 2000 years for the currently in-fashion $Deity, the odds of any showing up are really pretty poor.

    A: Got any consensually experiential, reproducible evidence for God?
    B: ...uh... no

    Debate over.

    --
    Reality is that thing which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @07:56PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @07:56PM (#801165)

    It'd be a pretty short debate. There is no such evidence thus far. After 2000 years for the currently in-fashion $Deity, the odds of any showing up are really pretty poor.

    A: Got any consensually experiential, reproducible evidence for God?
    B: ...uh... no

    Debate over.

    Out of curiosity, what "evidence" for God would you find convincing? Just asking.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:14PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:14PM (#801175)

      Come to me in person, create some world for me to see. Sure God can do that without any problems.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:27PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:27PM (#801185)

        I already did, you are looking at it.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @05:19AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @05:19AM (#801418)

          I have some complaints about this one. Where is the returns department?

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:33PM (2 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:33PM (#801189) Journal

      Out of curiosity, what "evidence" for God would you find convincing? Just asking.

      Let's have some miracles on demand. I can think of any number of them that I would find convincing. Miraculous multiplication is right in there; as is healing the sick with a touch (a nice place to start would be in a children's cancer ward, but there's much more to do of course. And I would expect it to be done, too. Everywhere. All at once. Animals too. And fix the mess we've made of the planet, why go half measures, anyway.)

      I'd even take a personal demonstration as sufficient evidence; just drop a trillion or so dollars with a legitimate audit trail (which of course must be created out of whole cloth, instantaneously) into my bank account in the next five minutes, that'd be great. I absolutely guarantee I'll use all of it to support the poor and infirm and otherwise truly needy. And cats. Inasmuch as far as I can tell, they're the coolest non-human thing to ever walk the earth. :)

      Or heck, just make me healthy and young again, right now, no waiting. I'll accept a self-centered miracle, no problem there, either. Don't need one though, any of the previous would be fine.

      All well within the advertised capabilities. Let's go. I'm ready.

      --
      Physics: There are some laws you can't break.

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 14 2019, @08:44PM (#801197)

        So basically the federal reserve is your God?

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday February 15 2019, @04:32PM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday February 15 2019, @04:32PM (#801631) Homepage
        It's hilarious that god botherers think that such a question would be hard for us to answer. The number of good answers is practically unlimited. Fuck humanitarian "miracles", those are for do-gooders, just give me the mathematical ones: I'd like to see the rolling of 180 sixes on 180 fair dice in one roll, a p=10^-140 event.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 14 2019, @09:45PM (3 children)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday February 14 2019, @09:45PM (#801232) Journal

      If you are talking about God as Christians define it-- supernatural, omnipotent, and omniscient-- that's a loaded question. It presumes that God is part of the natural world, and His existence (or lack) can be discovered through scientific methods. That's much the same mistake Creationists make.

      The answer is that there is no natural phenomena that can expose whether we are in a supernaturally perfect simulation of reality, or are in reality. If God wants to exert His supernatural power to reveal Himself to us, He can do so. Just use that omnipotent power to simply make everyone accept His existence. Or make a bunch of miracles happen, that is, events that are impossible to explain as natural phenomena, and which we can tell are impossible.. Apart from that, no.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @01:17AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @01:17AM (#801322)

        The answer is that there is no natural phenomena that can expose whether we are in a supernaturally perfect simulation of reality, or are in reality.

        Errr...that was kind of my point. I doubt that there is any natural phenomena/experiment that would be convincing to an atheist/agnostic.

        If God wants to exert His supernatural power to reveal Himself to us, He can do so. Just use that omnipotent power to simply make everyone accept His existence.

        So, you would be OK with being transmogrified into a mindless drone? While some creationists might like that, this idea just leaves me cold. YMMV, I guess.

        Or make a bunch of miracles happen, that is, events that are impossible to explain as natural phenomena, and which we can tell are impossible.

        I am going to write something which may, at first, look heretical, but it is actually not. As a scientist, I don't "prove" scientific theories. My work is to demonstrate that a given set of data is consistent with a given theory. (Or not, as the case may be.) When I am presented with data that goes against the current paradigm, my first reaction is not "A miracle must have occurred!" My first reaction is, "Wow! That was strange. I wonder what caused my experiment to fuck up?" If I get more data that confirms the first set of data, my next question is what could be wrong with the theory. My colleagues will not be impressed with "a miracle must have occurred" as an explanation. Just so you know.

        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday February 15 2019, @08:52AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday February 15 2019, @08:52AM (#801465) Journal

          But is there a possible phenomenon where the only reasonable theory explaining it would be "a god did it"?

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 15 2019, @02:26PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 15 2019, @02:26PM (#801535) Journal

        If God wants to exert His supernatural power to reveal Himself to us

        Reveal what, exactly? It's not like we have built-in God detectors that can determine when we're speaking to an omnipotent, omniscience being rather than a really powerful being with good information sources. This whole thing is an exercise in futility on many levels.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mhajicek on Thursday February 14 2019, @10:16PM (3 children)

      by mhajicek (51) on Thursday February 14 2019, @10:16PM (#801252)

      I think if there were an omnipotent and benevolent deity, he could and would spare five minutes to have a little one-on-one with everyone, rather than have everyone murdering each other over disputes about him.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by SpockLogic on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:40PM

        by SpockLogic (2762) on Thursday February 14 2019, @11:40PM (#801282)

        May You Be Touched by His Noodly Appendage.

        --
        Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @12:22AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @12:22AM (#801295)

        If you look at the general scheme of things on this planet at least, non-interfering deities makes far more sense than classical religion lets on. Consider purpose just for a moment, would it do well to interfere with an experiment? Wouldn't it taint your result to stick your nose into the cage and spit on the rat that's trying to solve elementary math constantly?

        • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:37AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:37AM (#803897) Homepage

          Geez, Zeus, can we not go raping the experiment for a change??

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday February 15 2019, @03:08AM

      by dry (223) on Friday February 15 2019, @03:08AM (#801363) Journal

      Out of curiosity, what "evidence" for God would you find convincing? Just asking.

      Consistency would help. There's how many religions, including defunct ones? Given a God, I'd expect all the holy books and stories to show some consistencies. Sure the Inuit might have more snow in their version but the basics should be much the same as the desert dwellers.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @12:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 15 2019, @12:01AM (#801288)

    You'd also have to prove that it doesn't exist, unless you're unwilling to make that assertion being agnostic. And let's not fail to negotiate the idea of God, is he Christian, Muslim, Hindi? Is he a scientist from another planet that launched a rocket 12 billion years ago with the intention to proliferate his species?