If everyone were atheist, would atheists be more open minded regarding scientific theory vs fact?

[Scott C.]

3) you are putting too much confidence in your knowledge of your own first name.

Haha. Ok I found this quote online and I will assume it's a real quote:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past areillion no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.

- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

This guy may very well be correct on every point. I have no problem with that. None of this threatens my view of life or of God. But, are we really so smart that we know with absolute certainty that we got all of this right? Aren't there any nonreligious, non-creationist scientists who would challenge the assertion that these are absolutely irrefutable facts?

 

[fantome profane]

Aren't there any nonreligious, non-creationist scientists who would challenge the assertion that these are absolutely irrefutable facts?

You still don't understand. Nothing in science is absolute.

Even a fact is not absolute. A fact is something for which it would be absurd to deny. It would be absurd to deny any of those things, that is what makes them facts.

The only one talking about absolute 100% irrefutable certainty is you. I am talking about scientific facts. Evolution is a scientific fact. That means that it is absurd to deny it. That means the evidence is conclusive. It means that it will continue to be a scientific fact unless and until significant evidence is presented to show otherwise.


Go back and read that Lewontin quote again. You will see that nowhere does he use the word absolute, or the phrase 100%. He says they are facts, because they are facts.

 

[Scott C.]

You still don't understand. Nothing in science is absolute.

Even a fact is not absolute. A fact is something for which it would be absurd to deny. It would be absurd to deny any of those things, that is what makes them facts.

The only one talking about absolute 100% irrefutable certainty is you. I am talking about scientific facts. Evolution is a scientific fact. That means that it is absurd to deny it. That means the evidence is conclusive. It means that it will continue to be a scientific fact unless and until significant evidence is presented to show otherwise.

The scientist I quoted said that it's a fact that multicellular life began at least 800 million years ago. Do you think it would be as absurd to say that organized multicellular life is 700 million years old, rather than 800 million years old, as it would be to say that the earth is flat? I can't get my head around a "yes" answer.

 

[fantome profane]

The scientist I quoted said that it's a fact that multicellular life began at least 800 million years ago. Do you think it would be as absurd to say that organized multicellular life is 700 million years old, rather than 800 million years old, as it would be to say that the earth is flat? I can't get my head around a "yes" answer.

I think you are quibbling with the quote. But I would be quite comfortable saying that if someone claimed that mulitcellular life is only 6000 years old (or 10 000, or even 100 000) then yes, that is just as absurd as saying the earth is flat. If someone said that multicellular life was 100 trillion years old, that is also absurd. I am not going to start a "bidding war" over the reasonable range. But I think you get the point. (I don't know if 700 million is absurd or not, it has been many years since my university days when I studied this in detail and I have forgotten so much)

 

[Scott C.]

I think you are quibbling with the quote. But I would be quite comfortable saying that if someone claimed that mulitcellular life is only 6000 years old (or 10 000, or even 100 000) then yes, that is just as absurd as saying the earth is flat. If someone said that multicellular life was 100 trillion years old, that is also absurd. I am not going to start a "bidding war" over the reasonable range. But I think you get the point. (I don't know if 700 million is absurd or not, it has been many years since my university days when I studied this in detail and I have forgotten so much)

Fair enough. I may be beating a dead horse. I'll stick with my observation however, which I don't believe is biased by my religious views. When it comes to things like the big bang, black holes, and the origins of life, I find these less worthy of the label "scientific fact" than I do things such as the shape of the earth.

 

[LuisDantas]

But, are we really so smart that we know with absolute certainty that we got all of this right?

That is not really the issue. Smart people are often factually wrong, after all

We could perhaps wonder whether we are all being programmed certainty somehow, living a shell of illusion over unknown facts.

But at the end of the day, evolution is as much demonstrated fact as anything can be, and attempts to deny that are exercises in wild fantasy, not in legitimate skepticism.

Aren't there any nonreligious, non-creationist scientists who would challenge the assertion that these are absolutely irrefutable facts?

No. Not in a meaninful way. By definition, even.

 

[LuisDantas]

Fair enough. I may be beating a dead horse. I'll stick with my observation however, which I don't believe is biased by my religious views. When it comes to things like the big bang, black holes, and the origins of life, I find these less worthy of the label "scientific fact" than I do things such as the shape of the earth.

And yet the shape of Earth is as subject to revision as any other scientific fact.

It all comes down to what evidence and what condition of checking and falsefying it is available. Those resources do change over time, and there is no point in avoiding realizing those new findings and learning from them.

But at some point you just have to admit that, yes, it is very much a fact that human beings have skeletons. That they reproduce sexually. That sexual differentiation is subject to rare yet very much well-known exceptions. And that differentiation of species and biological evolution are indeed known facts.

 

[LuisDantas]

Yes, some creationists deny science. Let's drop this one.

No, you miss the point. Creationism is defined not by the belief in a creator God, as the word would suggest, but rather by the denial of a specific part of science.

There is really nothing else to it. Literally.

Forget about evolution. Do you agree that if we were 1,000,000 times smarter, bla, bla, bla, that many theories in which we now have great confidence may be turned upside down?

Who knows what being that much smarter means, even hypothetically? Is that even conceivable, let alone measurable?

You are in essence asking whether things would be significantly different if they were different enough for things that may very well be literally impossible to be known for a fact.

Of course they would, but that amounts to saying that high fantasy may be very different from known reality.

I'm surprised that the scientific community would be equally certain about what happened a billion years ago, as they are certain of what's on TV night.

That is not quite true, and misses the point of science enough to suggest that you might benefit from reflecting on the scientific method and falseability. If possible, describing them on your own terms yet accurately.

 

[Curious George]

Ok perhaps I used the word "theory" incorrectly. What I'm talking about is when scientists see evidence (not yet proof) that points them in a certain direction. They have reason to believe that something may be factual, but they need more evidence before they call it a fact. I was referring to this first case as a theory and the latter as fact.

Hmmm, just read through first page, but I will try to see if I can push out an acceptable answer.

First, a theory is aptly called such when it is supported by scientific evidence. A fact is so. For example, if I took one hundred people and had them drop rocks on their feet, I could observe that all one hundred people reported pain. Now I could develop a rock-drop theory (RDT) from the fact that all people reported pain. This alone wouldn't make RDT an accepted theory. However, it is fact that the people in the experiment reported pain. From this we can see that a theory needs facts in order to be a theory. Now, this theory must be testable also. So, I couldn't, for instance develop a theory that said pain comes from the rocks conscious will being transferred through the seventh dimension from the rock to the human. While this may even be true (not true, just made that up) it is not testable. So, it cannot be a theory. Yet we can come up with all sorts of disconnected causal explanations that may be true. These cannot be theories. They are just untestable ideas.

Now some theories cannot be proven. RDT for instance will only be able to show that reported pain, or at best some specific reaction that we associate with the feeling pain, occurred in experiments.

We would still have people arguing about whether or not untestable ideas were in fact true.

So, no: Lack of religion would not change people's "openness" imho (though I don't paticularly like the word choice used in the OP).

*edit to put in colon.

 

[Altfish]

Do you agree that if we were 1,000,000 times smarter, bla, bla, bla, that many theories in which we now have great confidence may be turned upside down?

There are NO theories that scientists don't have great confidence in. If there was no confidence in it, it would still be a hypothesis, i.e. an idea that is being worked on.

 

[Scott C.]

Ok, you guys may get tired of hearing this from me. No matter how you slice it, I don't accept that all life came from a single living organism roughly 800 million+ year ago, with the same degree of certitude that I accept that a couch is in my living room. Call me crazy.

I want to express another view, which is tangential to this discussion. Religious scientists, who believe that God created the world, and who espouse any particular dogma concerning how or when that happened, should never let those views bias their science. Science must be studied, evaluated, and taught in the classroom with absolutely no influence from religious beliefs. If a scientist discovers something which challenges his faith, he must run with it anyway, with the same conviction as would an atheist. Otherwise he is not a true scientist.

Evolution bothers some Mormons, but it does not bother others. It doesn't bother me. Now, take for example Brigham Young University, which is owned by my church and which exists in part to provide a strong religious atmosphere for fellow Mormons. I fully expect science professors to teach evolution exactly the same as it would be taught at UCLA or any other reputable university, regardless of whether or not any professors or students have trouble reconciling it with their religious views. And, I believe it is taught that way at BYU. However, since BYU is a religious school with a religious as well as academic mission, it's perfectly appropriate for a professor of science to conclude his lesson on evolution with his personal religious convictions that there is a God and that God created the world. None of that is done to negate his lesson on science.

Yes, that could be another thread, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

 

[Scott C.]

Are you claiming to be at least 10 IQ points smarter than Einstein or are you relating someone else's observation? If so, whose?

A joke.

 

[Sapiens]

Haha. Ok I found this quote online and I will assume it's a real quote:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past areillion no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.

- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

This guy may very well be correct on every point. I have no problem with that. None of this threatens my view of life or of God. But, are we really so smart that we know with absolute certainty that we got all of this right? Aren't there any nonreligious, non-creationist scientists who would challenge the assertion that these are absolutely irrefutable facts?

Lets see what is "fact" and what is not:

It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. - that is a "fact"

It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. - that is a "fact"

It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. - that is a "fact"

There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. - that is a "fact"

It is a fact that major life forms of the past areillion no longer living. - that is a "fact"

There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. - that is a "fact"

It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. - that is a "fact" with the exception of the initial "life form," but abiogensis is a different question and most authorities are of the opinion that it occurred once and only once, the pregenerative factors and the initial form's head start assuring the demise of any competitors.

Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. - that is a "fact

Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. - that is a "fact"

No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun. - a reasonable inference.

The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution. - absolutely!

Ok, you guys may get tired of hearing this from me. No matter how you slice it, I don't accept that all life came from a single living organism roughly 800 million+ year ago, with the same degree of certitude that I accept that a couch is in my living room. Call me crazy.

OK, "You're crazy!" No, you're not, but you do seem to be missing the level of perspicacity that comes with graduate level training in the field and a little inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is a logical process in which multiple premises, all believed true or found true most of the time, are combined to obtain a specific conclusion. It is in the inductive process that most (you too, I suspect) have trouble. The philosophical definition of inductive reasoning is more nuanced than simple progression from particular/individual instances to broader generalizations. Rather, the premises of an inductive argument indicate some degree of support (probability) for the conclusion but do not not entail it; that is, they suggest truth but do not ensure it. Induction goes from an observation to a theory which accounts for the observation, ideally seeking to find the simplest and most likely explanation. In inductive reasoning (unlike deductive reasoning, which most people are more familiar and comfortable with) the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. One can understand inductive reasoning as "inference to the best explanation". Deductive reasoning contrasts with induction thusly: In deductive reasoning, a conclusion is reached reductively, by applying general rules that hold over the entirety of a closed domain, iteratively narrowing the range under consideration, until only the conclusion(s) is left. In inductive reasoning, the conclusion is reached by generalizing or extrapolating from, e.g., epistemic uncertainty (systematic uncertainty, which is due to things we could in principle know but don't in practice. This may be because we have not measured a quantity sufficiently accurately, or because our model neglects certain effects, or because particular data are deliberately hidden) rather than aleatoric (statistical uncertainty, which is representative of unknowns that differ each time we run the same experiment. For example, a single arrow shot with a mechanical bow that exactly duplicates each launch: the same acceleration, altitude, direction and final velocity, will not all impact the same point on the target due to random and complicated vibrations of the arrow shaft, the knowledge of which cannot be determined sufficiently to eliminate the resulting scatter of impact points. The argument here is obviously in the definition of "cannot". Just because we cannot measure sufficiently with our currently available measurement devices does not preclude necessarily the existence of such information, which would move this uncertainty into the systematic uncertainty category.

So what does all this (much cribbed from a passel of wiki entries) mean? Let me try to use your couch example. Lets say that we blind you, does this change the certitude that you have that there is a couch in your living room?

I want to express another view, which is tangential to this discussion. Religious scientists, who believe that God created the world, and who espouse any particular dogma concerning how or when that happened, should never let those views bias their science. Science must be studied, evaluated, and taught in the classroom with absolutely no influence from religious beliefs. If a scientist discovers something which challenges his faith, he must run with it anyway, with the same conviction as would an atheist. Otherwise he is not a true scientist.

Here we are in complete agreement. The problem is that all the Mormon "scientists" I have come across do not (especially with regards to anachronisms of the BoM and Reformed Egyptian) fail the litmus test that you promulgate.

Evolution bothers some Mormons, but it does not bother others. It doesn't bother me. Now, take for example Brigham Young University, which is owned by my church and which exists in part to provide a strong religious atmosphere for fellow Mormons. I fully expect science professors to teach evolution exactly the same as it would be taught at UCLA or any other reputable university, regardless of whether or not any professors or students have trouble reconciling it with their religious views.

What is taught a BYU concerning the Pleistocene extinction of large New World ungulates? What is taught at BYU concerning the genome of Amerinds? The facts of these issues are in direct conflict with the LDS church.

And, I believe it is taught that way at BYU.

No, I do not believe that it is, even with respect to evolution. BYU evolution courses do not supersede the official 1909 First Presidency statement which is the predominant item in the BYU Evolution Packet (http://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/lds/byu-packet.php). The 1909 statement is easily and usually interpreted as anti-evolutionary. Duane Jeffery himself has called it "anti-science" and "quite anti-evolutionary."

However, since BYU is a religious school with a religious as well as academic mission, it's perfectly appropriate for a professor of science to conclude his lesson on evolution with his personal religious convictions that there is a God and that God created the world. None of that is done to negate his lesson on science.

That goes to the heart of the matter. When fact and church policy are at odds, what is the responsible and moral thing to do?

Yes, that could be another thread, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Please go ahead and start one.

A joke.

Glad to hear it.

 

[`mud]

hey Sapiens,
You're forgetting about the trumpets !
~
'mud

 

[Scott C.]

BYU evolution courses do not supersede the official 1909 First Presidency statement which is the predominant item in the BYU Evolution Packet. The 1909 statement is easily and usually interpreted as anti-evolutionary. Duane Jeffery himself has called it "anti-science" and "quite anti-evolutionary."
That goes to the heart of the matter. When fact and church policy are at odds, what is the responsible and moral thing to do?

I'm familiar with the 1909 statement which yes, certainly seems to deny evolution. But BYU teaches evolution with the same conviction as other universities. Students do not receive any anti-evolutionary tracts in connection with a science course. As far as I know, they don't receive any at all. But most of us Mormons are well aware of the anti-evolution statements made in the past by some church leaders. The stance of my church today is that we should leave these types of questions to the scientists. Members of my church are split on the subject because of their and some prior church leader's interpretation of scripture. Might a BYU student learn evolution in his science class and then go to his religion class where the teacher says he doesn't believe in evolution. It's possible, but I honestly don't know where BYU religion professors come down on this and how likely they are to voice an opinion. When you consider organic evolution in my church culture, it's mixed up. But I'm pleased to understand that the science department freely teaches the subject.