Science and pantheism

Faith & Science Conversation
61

Yes, but things like cosmological Darwinism, is a kind of naturalistic pantheism, which takes nature, the world, or the laws of physics for God

62

So what about the long list of claims in the OP that are at best tangentially related to your description of cosmological Darwinism? Also, do you have any information from reliable sources on cosmological Darwinism, something that gives a fuller description, background on it, where the ideas came from , etc? “They say” is hardly evidence.

63

And as you point out, it is hardly clear what is even meant by such a phrase. Even if it came from the lips of someone I knew I’d still want them to clarify what they meant.

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64

What fascinates me is how this spectrum of epistemology has evolved, that it obviously had survival value over hundreds of thousands of years but has none in the mid anthropocene.

68

If we are to take the definition of ‘science’ as - ‘the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence’…(I picked that definition up from Google BTW) It is only reasonable appropriate a clear grasp of what the difference might be between belief and knowledge. This would be the ‘scientific’ approach which leads us into areas of epistemology.

Plato described knowledge as ‘justified true belief’ this would take the form of a basic proposition accompanied by an account and would also follow in the tradition of ‘innate ideas’ and real objective forms.

‘justified true belief’ carries with it the notion that knowledge can never be a belief which is false and knowledge is never merely a baseless assertion.

Hope that partially answers your question. It is all very sketchy but the best I can do given the time and present level of understanding.

69

I see what you are driving at… I think.:sunglasses:

Thanks for taking the time to tap it out.

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70

At an objective, empirical level anything that has been or can be verified directly … so pretty much all of science can be relied upon as facts. Not to say science never takes a wrong turn. But with that there are is peer review and other procedures to allow for correction. Knowledge is always a work in progress but science is the good standard in that department.

Of there is also a standard for subjective truths such as trust in others, God belief and that which we hold as sacred. But it the standard varies radically between individuals so such truths are not easily communicated or readily transferred between individuals. We still carry on the best we can but there is no reason to assume objective empirical truths are on exactly same shaky ground as our personal subjective beliefs. That is what is known as a false equivalence.

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71

I would agree that it can be. But also that atheistic materialists would deny this out of necessity. It wouldn’t fit with their basic premise. I would nevertheless consider atheism as one form of cosmic monism as per Carl Sagan’s ’ ‘The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be’.

72

I would tend to view this as a pretty big statement. 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. This also does not account for disagreement between scientists within similar disciplines. ‘Science’ as such is not the monolithic pillar of certainty that a lot of people take it to be and the goal posts are ever changing according to new findings. I have seen it described as a form of democracy. A system full of problems but the least worst we have. I take it that you are a scientist?

75

Not remembering (senior memory is a bugger ; - ) whether or not you were a YEC, I went to your profile, and your very first post on the forum is very relevant now.
 

If you can see that the ‘mechanisms of how he does it’ in God’s providential interventions, marvelously free from temporal constraints while dynamically interacting with time and place, individuals and material, that those mechanisms are beyond what we can detect, then maybe you can see how I can accept that God is sovereign over ‘unguided’ evolution… and that the science is good.
 

ETA: @mitchellmckain likes to say that QM gives God a ‘back door’ to interact with physical reality without breaking the laws of nature.

76

Does anyone understand Quantum Mechanics?

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77

For the record here not a convinced YEC. Neither a OEC either.

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78

Yep, QM → quantum mechanics. :+1:

79

I was an OEC for several decades until four or five years ago when I learned about neutral drift and the neutral theory of evolution. It demonstrates that yes, evolution can produce complexity and no, contrary to what I understood, evolution does not depend on just one mutation at a time – it can take many mutations and many generations before a change in phenotype or morphology is observable.

80

So now you are YEC? Or that nothing is intentionally ‘created’?

I take it you still hold that neutral drift is a theory.

81

No, I was a YEC in my youth because I didn’t know anything else and was taught that evolutionary science necessarily implied atheism. My postnominal tag should be a pretty good hint as to what I believe: ‘evolutionary providentialist’. Big bang cosmology necessitated God’s involvement as Creator as have many things since that have been providentially guided, per our discussion above.

(Neutral drift and the neutral theory of evolution is a theory in the same sense that gravity is a theory. ; - )

82

I see.

Would you say that you experience the effects of the neutral theory of evolution ‘in the same sense’ that you experience the effects of gravity?

The former is information gathered and transmitted via someone else’s mind which in itself is subject to adverse noetic effects, while the latter is a phenomenon which is known via experience and direct aquaintance. We are in in contact with the external word and gravity via our senses in an entirely different way that we might come to understand another persons thoughts about the world through a book or a paper. So, I believe, it cannot be argued that they (even as theories) can be ‘known’, as you say, ‘in the same sense’.

83

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

84

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.

85

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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