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#1 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Wild West
Posts: 12,518
Local Time: 12:19 PM
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Observable Natural Selection
One more of the many cases that supposedly don't exist
__________________Quote:
It isn't a revolutionary finding since population dynamics is investigated quite a bit but it's still cool. |
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#2 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: A far distance down.
Posts: 28,601
Local Time: 06:19 PM
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I heard that story on the radio earlier.
__________________How do we know that God just didn't create a new kind of butterfly (The tenth one)? all this gene-talk is just a bunch of gobbledy goop to hurt our beliefs |
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#3 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Under Angel´s falls in Venezuela
Posts: 3,603
Local Time: 09:49 PM
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Thanks for the article, I can´t believe I´m finding something about evolution on interference
![]() I won´t comment because I really don´t want to start a discussion about evolution and God and etc... Do you know how hard is to be a Catholic biologist? ![]() |
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#4 | |
War Child
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Frontios
Posts: 758
Local Time: 10:19 PM
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#5 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Under Angel´s falls in Venezuela
Posts: 3,603
Local Time: 09:49 PM
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Quote:
Yeah, kind of, at least in my faculty the Catholic professors are very openminded |
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#6 | |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Wild West
Posts: 12,518
Local Time: 12:19 PM
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Quote:
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#7 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Under Angel´s falls in Venezuela
Posts: 3,603
Local Time: 09:49 PM
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Probably, but there´s more than Science in this life and certainly fails miserably to proof a lot of things
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#8 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 3,566
Local Time: 10:19 PM
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Wanderer, I'm curious as to your approach towards the soft sciences (other than the parts of them that can result in hard data) and humanities. (I'll leave theology out of it for both of our sakes)
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#9 |
ONE
love, blood, life Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The Wild West
Posts: 12,518
Local Time: 12:19 PM
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I think that the material world is in principle if not in practice reducable to rational explanation, I don't think that we can ever hold solutions and complete understanding but I do think that however far we delve it can always be based on reality. Now this is not mutually exclusive to some very strange answers in terms of the nature of reality (basically any physics since the turn of last century).
But we are social organisms and understanding eachother is beyond the scope of analysing every thought process of every person from the neuron up, it demands a different approach. The humanities can inform an understanding of human behaviour, putting events into their proper context, producing pieces that appeal to our minds; I think that art and the capacity to appreciate it is an artifact of conciousness and that life is better for it, should we one day discover the mechanisms in the human brain that grants this appeal it couldn't diminish it. I find the history of scientific discovery and the philosophy of science to be two areas with tremendous overlap (and an area that I find interesting - I have a history book on continental drift that presents the development of the theory with equal parts sociology and science, engaging and informative), I think that Stephen Jay Gould was right in proposing that religion and sciences are nonoverlapping magisteria, in that they deal with different things and can't truly conflict (although conflicts still do occur). This can be extended to some of the humanities but there are definitely areas where understanding the development of scientific ideas demands a humanaties based apporach to their origin and the people that contributed, in those cases it isn't so much science and humanities mixing rather having them inform eachother. Both science and humanities demand sharp minds, they both demand ingenuity and can improve and understanding or appreciation for the world. I find myself as mentally aroused by palaeontology as no doubt a poet is by wordplay, I get to see how far I can push that interest later on but in principle I don't think that either is inherently more useful - just in different domains. Theology is still a product of humanity, treating it to literary criticism and historical analysis does more to expose it for what it's worth (for better or worse) than scientific investigation can. As far as the nature of my own atheism and the way that I think, it would be fair to say that I don't see the need for God in explanation as a tremendous ammount of the evidence can be explained better without it and that which cannot isn't within the scope of investigation (yet). The big issues like the origin of man, the rising of the sun, the formation of the Earth and the age of the Earth and to an extent the universe have been settled (until of course a better explanation can come along and explain the evidence better) and there is no guiding supernatural power. It isn't impossible that there is a God but if such an entity exists/existed then it would probably be the God of Spinoza rather than any petty interventionist deity. If and when the evidence points towards any higher power perhaps then there is something to consider or worry about but until that day comes I find the real world more engaging. I am trying to improve my cultural literacy, and I suspect it pays off when dealing with other people, and it provides a decent enough distraction. |
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#10 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 3,566
Local Time: 10:19 PM
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I grew up with a stronger bent toward the humanities than I did toward science. I wasn't sure whether that was where my interests naturally lay or whether I always got stuck with the bad science teachers and the good humanities teachers. Anyway, by the time I got to college, I was dreadfully behind and intimidated by science. (The absolute humorous contempt my chemistry for non-science majors--"chemistry for poets"--professor had amused the hell out of me. "We study electrons because they're so cute." lol. That was his actual introductory lecture. God, he hated being stuck with our class, I think, but he treated us kindly.)
__________________I don't think I gained much appreciation for science until young adulthood when I could begin to see the wonder of it and the connection with the way I thought anyway. I was always an observer, capable of being passionately dispassionate even when I was intensely involved. I would suspect it was astronomy more than anything else that drew me back in. I'm not skilled at science, but I have more of a sense of wonder about it, more curiosity so I've always appreciated your mini-seminars and have enjoyed some of the books you've recommended. This is a difficult forum in which to discuss things, sometimes. I most always looked at the concept of God from the basis of humans, fascinated more by the process of the creation by man of a god than the god itself (and certainly more than than doctrine, dogma and the supernatural end of it). I don't study religions (most of them bore me to tears, which is the cardinal sin in my book) and have no interest in them. But I do have an interest in the psychological construct of a god concept. It is almost as if there is belief man can understand his humanity only by pitting himself against a god even when he does not believe in that god. It is a theme that courses throughout literature (English major). And I am interested in finding out the reason why. I certainly don't believe some god is calling to us. I'm not sure that I completely accept your take that it is fear of death or a stopgap for the questions we have yet to have answered, although I think those are elements of it. There's a primal feel about it that has nothing whatsoever to do with god. I have theories about it, but none of them satisfy me completely. I would call myself agnostic--allowing the possibility of a god without accepting the probability of one. The existence of a god interests me less than what humanity has done to create one. |
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