Why is it always one or the other? I've searched your forums and found very little open minded conjecture regarding the possiblity that there may be correlations between things.

Why do Christians (especially Christians) argue against evolution?

Why do atheists so often argue against creation?

The fact of the matter, the only thing that we DO know - is that we don't know.

None of us. We all believe. What we choose to believe in hits a point of departure at some linear mark as if it could be measured quantitatively rather than in it's true qualitative nature.

Science, for all of it's logic and glory, has yet to prove a single thing anywhere in the known universe.

Hell, even me saying "the only thing we know" is less than accurate. Not only do I not know everyone on earth, but I don't know whether or not there are other intelligent, aware beings either here or on other planets or in other dimensions.

It should be obvious at this point that whenever we don't have evidence for something, there's no way to form a reliable guess about its nature. However, just to drive the point home conclusively, let's do one more thought experiment. I have, on my desk at this moment, a picture of something. What is it?

Clearly, you have no idea. Perhaps, through random chance, you will guess the subject of the picture correctly, but it's highly unlikely. The only thing you know is that the subject can be rendered in picture form. You don't even know for certain that it exists on earth. Perhaps it is a photo of a far away galaxy, or of the upper atmosphere on Mars. (You don't even know if it's a photograph. Perhaps it's a drawing of something imaginary!) The point is that with no evidence, there is absolutely no way to make any kind of guess about what a thing is.

Suppose I ask you to now make a bet with me. If you guess correctly, you get ten thousand dollars, but if you guess wrong, you owe me ten thousand dollars, immediately. Unless you are a complete fool, you wouldn't dream of taking the bet, and for good reason. You have virtually no chance of winning. Now, suppose I gave you more information. Suppose I told you that it is a photograph of a baseball helmet. Would you be comfortable making the bet now? Probably not. If I added more information, and told you that it was a helmet from a Major League team, you would still only have a slim chance of guessing it – Far less than fifty-fifty, at any rate. However, if I told you that it was either a Chicago Cubs helmet or an Atlanta Braves helmet, you might feel sufficiently brave to take the bet.

Now, imagine that I told you that it's a photo of a Chicago Cubs helmet, and then asked you to make the bet with me. You'd be a fool not to take it, right? Or, would you? If you examined the evidence carefully, you'd realize that all you had to go on was my word. In fact, I would have a very strong motivation to tell you something inaccurate, so the weight of my testimony is almost nil. However, if I invited you over to my house and showed you the photo, allowing you to examine it to your heart's content, you would then have enough evidence to confidently take my bet.

This, again, is a step by step explanation for how (and why) science works. Some evidence is more reliable than others, and certainty can be measured in degrees. Imagine that I invite three people to make the same bet with me, and give each three sets of evidence. To the first person, I say only that I have a picture of something. To the second, I say that I have a photo of a Major League baseball helmet. To the third, I provide the photograph itself. Each one of these three people, if forced to make a bet, has a certain likelihood of getting it right. The first person's chance is virtually zero. In fact, we could probably let him take thousands of guesses with confidence that he would not get it right. The second person, on the other hand, would certainly guess it within thirty tries, since that is the number of teams in Major League Baseball. The third person, unless he was monumentally stupid, would guess right on the first try. Though we cannot be 100% certain of his guess, it's fair to say that for all practical purposes, he will win ten thousand dollars in the next few seconds.

All of this, I hope, seems really straightforward and simple. Perhaps it is even insultingly so. However, it is apparently something that needs to be drilled into a lot of heads. The number of times I have had to defend the scientific method against other “sources of truth” is staggering. In fact, I have no doubt that there are many people who, upon reading this, will still cling to the idea that science isn't the only way to get knowledge.

 

The Problem of Induction

Most objections to science come from people who have heard of the Problem of Induction, but don't understand it. Put simply, it is the observation that nothing empirical (that is, existing in the material universe) can be known with certainty. People who subscribe to a philosophical concept called solipsism insist that the only thing that can ever be known is self. That is, I can never know for certain that anything besides myself exists. In fact, I can never know exactly what I am, only that I am. This is sometimes referred to as the “Brain in a Vat” theory. That is, we might simply be brains in vats, and that everything we perceive of as reality is an intricate illusion.

This supposed problem is not nearly as difficult to resolve as you might immediately suppose. For one thing, there's an obvious issue with the “Brain in a Vat.” Even if it is true (and we can't conclusively prove that it's not) we cannot help the fact that we can't test the idea in any way. If we are trapped in an illusion, then we are trapped, and the illusion, for every conceivable purpose which we might have, is real.

Furthermore, if there is some evidence that we are brains in a vat, the theory becomes testable. If we discovered a “tear in the Matrix,” for lack of a better term, we could scientifically study it, and if there was enough evidence to sway our opinion to the conclusion, it would no longer be in the realm of philosophy. It would be scientific fact.

We must, it appears, conclude that all the available evidence suggests that reality is what it appears to be, that other people exist, that our senses are basically reliable, and that through rigorous testing, we can verify the reliability of our observations.

Nevertheless, some will argue that even granting the reality of this existence, the fact that science cannot prove anything with certainty negates the value of science. This is clearly absurd, and we can prove it with the somewhat tedious examples I gave in the previous section. When provided with overwhelming evidence – the actual photo in question, in this instance – we can say with virtual certainty that a thing is a fact. We can clearly demonstrate that some sets of evidence are stronger than others, and that for all practical purposes, science does have measurable value.

Finally, (and forgive me for getting a little bit technical) scientific certainty isn't based on guesswork. It's based on deduction. Math is deductively true. That is, it is 100% certain. Probability equations are math, and therefore, based on deduction. When we can say with mathematical certainty that a thing is 50% certain, for example, it is certainly 50% certain. What we cannot say is that the two things we're assigning probability to are 100% certain. However, as we've seen, we can be so overwhelmingly sure that there's no point in questioning them.

Consider this very simple example. Suppose that I am in a soundproof room (and suppose that I have used science to prove with overwhelming certainty that it really is soundproof) and there are only four things in the room – three boxes and me. The boxes are all across the room from me, and there is a noise coming from that general direction. With no other information at all, I can say that I am scientifically certain that the noise comes from one of the three boxes. However, at this point, any box I pick is only 33% likely to be the correct box. Now, suppose I ask an assistant to remove one of the boxes that is not making the noise. Now, I have a 50% likelihood of guessing correctly. If the assistant removes another box, and the noise persists, I can be 100% certain that the box is making the noise, even without doing any more experiments.

Here's where we need to be sure to separate empiricism from probability. I cannot be 100% certain that I am standing in a room, or that if I am standing in the room, I am not the subject of some elaborate hoax, or that I am not suffering from a hallucination. As I've shown, I can find ways to be so certain that it would be absurd to suggest otherwise, but to be pedantic, I am only nearly certain. However, if reality is what it appears to be, it is 100% certain that there is a 33% chance of each box being the source of the noise. In other words, once we have decided to trust our senses, we can invoke mathematical certainty and be completely certain of the numbers.

In many cases, this is what science attempts to do. When there are multiple possible explanations, scientists try to eliminate as many as possible. If they can do this successfully, and only one explanation remains, they can feel certain that it is the correct one. At every step of the scientific process, everything is questioned, tested, and retested. Nothing is ever assumed until it is demonstrated to be so certain that it is worth assuming. Even then, scientists are perfectly happy to concede that new information could exist which would change their conclusion.

However, it's important to note that there is also a way to calculate the probability of this happening. Suppose that science has observed a phenomenon thoroughly, and has determined that it has happened one hundred thousand times, and in all cases, it happened in exactly the same way. Furthermore, the explanation of the phenomenon made it logically necessary that a certain other phenomenon happen in a very particular way, and that has been observed a hundred thousand times, without incident. Now, suppose that there is a chain of events, where there are a hundred thousand things that would logically have to happen a certain way, and all hundred thousand have been observed a hundred thousand times, without a single instance of deviation.

How likely is it that the logic is wrong? How possible is it that our predictions are wrong, and that there is some other explanation for our observation of all of these events? Obviously, it's staggeringly improbable. It's so improbable that without any other reason to believe otherwise, we can say that this is a fact of nature. Again, this is what science attempts to do – demonstrate things so many times that certainty becomes nearly complete – so nearly complete that it becomes unnecessary to provide a disclaimer because of the “Problem of Induction.”

Christianity, is a sad, sad deprature from a way of living that used to unify people when they were still jews. Yeah, I said it. Christians are lazy Jews. Jews... 613 rules. Christians, 10. Lazy, lazy bastards.

The point of this post, however, after my ranting, is that it doesn't ALWAYS have to be a "vs" issue with one right and one wrong. Everything being equal, interpretation is the key.

God scoops up some dust. POOF Adam. Can't that for one momnent be interpreted as :

God scoops up some elements on a beach in a perfect environment that is conducive to sustainable life.

God Created the earth as such so as to produce storms with ionic clouds, hence lightning.

God has lightning hit dust, life is born, microbes swim around in shallow seas, evolve over billions of years and then one day man is on the scene.

Sure, that's not as quick as saying *POOF*, but why can't it be like that? Can someone point it out to me?

In the bible, people seemed to live an extraordinarily long time.

Is it because they were super-long-living people? Or because the concept of time was not only different then, but is still arguably imperfect.

Personally, there's no way I would buy into the Christian God. Such a sadistic and egotistical bastard.

Technically, none of you are arguing anything more than an opinion that has as of yet not been disproved.

I'm going to have to side with the Atheists, because their arguments are based on logic and common sense. Probably why I'm an atheist. Anyway, can someone tell me why these things cannot coincide in such a manner?

Science, for all of it's logic and glory, has yet to prove a single thing anywhere in the known universe.

Again, two things are that you have to use the word "if" we trust our senses and you're still putting a quantitative quality on everything trying to measure it and math is NOT perfect, as Godel showed us. Be thankful for that, because if math was perfect, Hitler would have won.

In any case, I mostly agree with you, but the point in it's entirety is that you're defining God for the most part in these forums in the sense of the Christian God.

What made it happen? We have no idea. Not even a good starting point, although we're getting there. Give us time =)

God is not an entity of awareness for all people.

Atheism is too set against that and thus the definition becomes closed off and accute. I realize the need for that in trying to dispute the Christian bible, but because your primary arguments tend to be with them doesn't make it OK to generalize in such a manner.

Don't you think that if there were a 99% certainty that 2 branes collided billions of years ago, that someone would consider that to be God?

I have company, I'll come back and finish this tonight maybe. Good boards though.

Again, two things are that you have to use the word "if" we trust our senses and you're still putting a quantitative quality on everything trying to measure it and math is NOT perfect, as Godel showed us.

Be thankful for that, because if math was perfect, Hitler would have won.

In any case, I mostly agree with you, but the point in it's entirety is that you're defining God for the most part in these forums in the sense of the Christian God.

This is obviously an absurd fairytale.

Jews do not define God in this sense. The 'vs' question is kind of like saying... you're being counter productive.

All the heart of the story of creation says is that the physical universe was created and things came to be. This did, in fact, according to science happen.

What made it happen? We have no idea. Not even a good starting point, although we're getting there. Give us time =)

God is not an entity of awareness for all people. Atheism is too set against that and thus the definition becomes closed off and accute. I realize the need for that in trying to dispute the Christian bible, but because your primary arguments tend to be with them doesn't make it OK to generalize in such a manner.

Don't you think that if there were a 99% certainty that 2 branes collided billions of years ago, that someone would consider that to be God? I have company, I'll come back and finish this tonight maybe. Good boards though.