Science and pantheism

Point taken, but the issue is truth, not personal experience.

Of course. I would agree we are both driving at the issue of truth.

I have seen this gravity argument presented before as if the theory of gravity is in some way equivalent to the theory of evolution- after all they both correspond and are related to ‘a theory’ as you imply, but when we look more closely at it, the theory about gravity and the theory of evolution are in entirely different existential categories.

The truth concerning phenomenon of ‘gravity’ can be experienced directly and in a way that theories concerning evolution cannot. If they belong in different categories then they cannot be regarded as equivalent. Only if we ourselves experience evolution for ourselves, in the same sense-experience way we experience gravity, can we say they are the same. I don’t know about you, but I have never experienced neo-Darwinian evolution or neutral drift. I have experienced the effects of gravity.

The phenomenon of gravity can be approached empirically as well as rationally and evidentially. Theories concerning evolution do not present themselves to us in the same way. They can only be arrived at via logical deduction and inference and usually via someone else’s data which may be open to false interpretation (view OP). The ‘truth’ or ‘falsehood’ of which depend upon an entirely different range of factors.

In sum, gravity is experienced directly which in turn become a direct proof of its existence. Belief concerning evolution is arrived at indirectly and we can in no way say that this is knowledge. Only belief. Belief in a theory, (which may 'be false) cannot be defined as knowledge because knowledge is justified true belief.

Experience of gravity is a form of evidence. We cannot say that personal experience is not in some way related to perceived evidential truth. So experience and therefore evidence of gravity can be regarded as a form of direct or ‘immediate’ knowledge in a way that theories concerning evolution cannot.

Yes, but that doesn’t give you a free pass to reject anything and everything about science that you don’t like.

Even if there is corruption in the system, there are other factors beyond peer review that might establish a theory’s robustness. For example, it may be a particularly mature subject with vast swathes of data behind it. Or it may have practical and commercial applications that wouldn’t work if it weren’t correct. Or it may have a whole lot of other science that depends on it.

With evolution, you have a theory that has been researched intensively for more than a hundred and fifty years. The number of scientific papers reporting on it runs into the millions. It has practical and commercial applications in medicine, in conservation, in public health, in agriculture, in oil exploration, and even in software engineering and artificial intelligence. The only legitimate debates about it are about the fine details – such as exactly how different creatures are related to each other and exactly when they diverged.

To put something of that scale down to corruption would require millions of scientists to have been colluding with each other to falsify and fudge evidence on an industrial scale for more than 150 years. If that really were happening, it would be a conspiracy on a scale that would dwarf every other conspiracy, real or imagined, before or since. It would be the mother of all conspiracy theories.

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Please let me respond to your post by first of all saying that I am not ‘anti-science’. Neither do I approach any subject with the paramount criterion of whether I like or dislike other peoples scientific findings. What I do believe is that real ‘science’ as ‘science’ has its limitations. Limitations which are often overlooked.

Are the illegitimate debates merely the ones that you don’t like? Your statement obviously depends on your definition of what you view to be ‘legitimate debate’ whereas others, including scientists, obviously have have a view of legitimacy different to your own. If this wasn’t the case then there would not be differences of opinion between scientists who hold to different views in a whole host of different subject areas. Such as:

Abiogenesis
Common descent
The actual mechanism which drives evolution
Missing transitions of human origins in the fossil record
The origin of moral consciousness…
etc. etc.

The list goes on. Not to mention other categories concerning Uniformitarianism and the philosophical basis of naturalism. So your above statement is simply not true.

The fact that there are so many shades of opinion by scientists even only this site discounts your basic proposition.

If you re-read my post I said ‘Peer review procedures can only be tentatively relied upon if there is no apparent corruption within the system. I have read articles by ‘insiders’ who would argue that this is not always the case.’

I have not said that the whole system is completely corrupt or as corrupt as it could possibly be.

Chris Shaw (PhD, Queen’s University, Belfast) is professor of drug discovery in the school of pharmacy at Queen’s University in Belfast. He is the author of hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and the co-founder of a biomarker discovery company.

He says this in his article ‘Pressure to conform leads to bias in science’:

'For many, science has become a new religion, endowed with an infallibility extending even to answering fundamental questions about our origins and the purpose of our existence- questions that once were the subject matter of philosophers and religious scholars. As a consequence of this new role, The scientific process has been increasingly departing from its objective basis to one of crass subjectivity, with regular highly speculative claims being made by renowned scientists in the popular media and even in the scientific press.

Phrases such as 'I/We believe that…" have become common among some scientists particularly in the fields of evolutionary biology and cosmology. The ‘high priests’ of this new religion- we’ll call it ‘scientism’ are the worst offenders…

But there are also a largely unknown dark side to this new religion: control of the freedom of thought:

As acknowledged by the major scientists, the allocation of research and the peer review system of scientific publications are both seriously flawed and serve to maintain the 'status quo within the establishment by filtering out perceived intellectual heretics.

New thoughts, ideas and insights are often viewed with suspicion and require evaluation not only of their worth but also, increasingly, of their potential to challenge widely accepted dogma. Indeed, this has been an almost universal experience in the early, ridicule-fraught careers of most Nobel laureates in the sciences. New recruits to the system must obey the rules if they wish to obtain training positions, tenure and career progression’. (end quote)

I have seen of situations where hoax papers have been submitted and actually published by peer reviewers who did not even recognise that the paper was intentional nonsense.

Your link to the article how old is the earth? is not is an issue with me as I have already stated.

Corruption within the peer review system does not depend upon your 'mother of all conspiracies. It simply depends on the fact that it is always subject to the flawed and often corrupt processes of human beings.

Here is a scholarly article about the downside of peer review:

This has nothing to do with the grand sweep of 400 years of science, i.e. the [A], [B], [C] kiddiz building blocks, which include the fact of [E] is for Electro-magnetism and Evolution.

Please GOD! Is there anyone down here who is humble like you?

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No, illegitimate debates are ones which do things such as:

  • Misrepresent evidence or scientific procedures
  • Fudge or cherry-pick measurements
  • Exaggerate or downplay the extent or significance of discrepancies in scientific methods or findings, or disagreements between scientists
  • Quote mine
  • Otherwise disobey the rules and principles of basic honesty and factual accuracy.

The whole point is that science has rules. More to the point, honesty has rules. Rules that have nothing whatsoever to do with “naturalism” or “secularism” or any other weasel word ending in “ism” but that are just concerned with honesty, factual accuracy, and fitness for purpose. Rules that are the same for everyone, whether you are a Christian or an atheist, whether you are Ken Ham or Richard Dawkins, whether you are the Dalai Lama or the Pope. It is adherence to these rules that determine whether a debate is legitimate or not. Whether you or I like them or not has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

These are all at the level of fine details. None of them concern the core fundamental findings that biological populations change and diverge over time, that different species are related to each other, and that in many cases the times at which they diverged can be clearly identified.

[Correction: Common descent is one of the core fundamentals. But it is not one about which scientists hold to different views in the way that you suggest. So it does not belong on your list.]

If you re-read my response to your post, you will see that I was not talking about peer review. I was talking about a level over and above peer review: where scientific theories are put to work in situations where getting them wrong would have consequences.

Science isn’t just done in the ivory towers of academia. A lot of it gets done in the harsh realities of industry. It’s one thing to dismiss scientific findings when they’re just published in a journal. It’s a completely different matter to dismiss them when you have to apply them to situations where people’s jobs, livelihoods or even their lives depend on them working as described in the journal.

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Have you ever experienced plate tectonics?

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My experience (not biology publications) instances of corruption in publications is fairly rare and in most cases eventually identified. The much greater problem is inept peer review, where the reviewer often glances at a paper and will recommend publication based on who is the author(s) and how it appeals to his work. Good review requires time and also expertise in that field, and many capable people may be too busy to give a significant amount of time to examine submissions for publication to many papers - thus, if a paper is significant to that field a capable scientist would consider spending time to perform an adequate review/critique. Otherwise they would decline an invitation to review.

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I take this as an ad hominem attack against my person rather than a scientific argument. I thought better of you. Honestly. Is this what you have to resort to?
Perhaps this is also another reason why other folk with similar views don’t voice them here. Its really another form of 'faith prejudice and ‘evangelical’ bigotry.

I have actually! A Richter 5 earthquake in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, England in 2008. Rocked me awake in my 5th floor apartment bed in Northampton. The instant I woke I yelled ‘Earthquake!’. The building rang like a bell.

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It’s a form of arrogance. Real faith is humble. Real faith does not attack reason.

Me too. Not this week but frequently enough here on the Pacific rim.

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And @MarkD ,
I can’t imagine. The teeny tiny vibrations I have experiences were more than enough for me. I wondered if the old buildings I had been in were finally giving in to gravity, of if I were about to experience a swoon.

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Not my comment about plate tectonics.

These are also assertions which derive from assumptions which cannot be scientifically proven. Which goes some way to ‘proving’ my point. These kind of value judgements correspond entirely to your ‘belief’ or ‘belief system’ which are arrived at without resort to scientific methodology. Belief shouldn’t be conflated with knowledge or ‘facts’.

At least I am prepared to admit that all my propositions here are according to my own personal beliefs. This (I believe) is the true position of humility i.e. one of philosophical scepticism on this topic. These are also factors many evolutionists are not prepared to admit. I actually believe that faith and reason do go together. I am not anti-reason but that like ‘science’ reason has its limitations too. They are inter-related. More so from a Christian perspective which proposes that the human faculty of reason was damaged at the fall and does not now work as it should. Vis ‘the noetic effects of sin’.

It is the Enlightenment philosophers who reversed this and believed that everything could be solved via autonomous human reason. However they did primarily rely upon the Christian worldview that the universe was an objective realty which could be understood.

Doctrinaire assertions regarding naturalistic evolution are very much related to enlightenment philosophy. This also should need be recognised by today’s evolutionists. One could say that the theory of evolution is built upon many of these a priory sets of beliefs. Philosophical beliefs and assumptions which many a scientist quite possibly doesn’t even realise that he/she holds.

So I would return to my position which is that throwing out a few questions and challenges, here and there, regarding beliefs concerning evolution should not be regarded as coming from a position of arrogance only from a belief system which is different to yours.

Vis- JP Moreland on evolution and philosophy and who gets to define ‘what is real’.

I understand your point. My point would be that ‘corruption’ is not necessarily always mindfully intentional but occupies a broader sphere which involves the noetic corruption of the universal human condition. This would include inept peer review.

Can you name some scientists in our own time who have ideas that are not given fair consideration?

But has eyeillustration experienced an earthquake for himself?

I agree with your list of illegitimate debates.

I also agree it would be a great world if everyone played by the same set of truthful objective rules. One problem is agreeing upon what these rules actually are and the other is where they come from.

One final point is that if Abiogenesis never really gets of the ground… The rest (as I see) is purely academic regarding Neo -Darwinianism.

Vis- JAMES M. TOUR, Ph.D. T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry Professor of Computer Science Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering

Please let message me if you think he he teaches anything which you think is is ‘grossly’ wrong.
I would appreciate it.

I’m prepared to believe ‘eye witness accounts’ if I have good reason.