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This in spite of just about every foundational father and mother of science not only believing in a creator God but also using that belief to drive their research.

That's their prerogative, but your appeal to authority or majority is a fallacy of logic.  One could be the only athiest scientist on Earth and that would affect my position not at all.  And one can, and should, be a deist scientist if that's where your conscience lies, independent of all others.  That said, the theology of most of the great scientists you mention, in my research into same, is a great deal more complicated than faith in a Creator God as usually conceived by religious traditions, and usually has far more in common with those of mystical traditions.   

As for the benefits of belief, you don't have to enumerate them; my post above was entirely about the benefits of belief, of extending your awareness and your contemplation to the unknown.  I merely do not choose to follow you in your considerations of the same, because I find the conclusions you draw to be unsatisfying and implausible.  They are, however, equally as valid as my own.

As it happens, however, your attribution of strict athiesm to my position is inaccurate; I'm a Zen Buddhist whose conception of the divine is rather similar to that of Taoism.

Why is there greater incuriosity or finality in concluding that the world reflects design and was created than in the conclusion that everything is an intermediate part of an unbroken chain of cause and effect.  Is one less a profession of faith than the other only because of apparent, but not actual, sciencey-ness?

Because where do you go from creationism?  It's a final answer to just about every question.  Where else do you go from there?  It's a destination in itself.  It serves as a nearly complete answer to everything we don't understand about the universe, but provides no insight as to mechanism, history, or context.  Don't understand it?  "It was designed that way."  Don't understand how it happened?  "God did it that way."  Does it look like design? "Exactly, it was designed."  Does it not look like design?  "It was probably designed, just for reasons we don't understand."  It's an answer that provides zero insight and provides zero incentive to keep searching for other or more answers; for some, that closure may be reassuring, but I find it repulsive because of its lack of content.

Or would comprehending a creator's design take on an additional significance?

Not to me. 

While it is certainly true that people of any belief, including religious belief, can be incurious, it isn't obvious that a religious position requires anyone to be so.

For the reasons outlined above, I find the specific idea of intelligent design to be suppressive of curiosity, because it provides a pat answer to any question and in so doing suppresses inquiry.

Last edited by Turbiodiesel! (07-11-2008 06:56 PM)

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

Because where do you go from creationism?  It's a final answer to just about every question.

Wouldn't it just serve as a supposition to same degree a materialist narrative would?

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

Where else do you go from there?  It's a destination in itself.  It serves as a nearly complete answer to everything we don't understand about the universe, but provides no insight as to mechanism, history, or context.

Presumably, one would go from the belief to find the specifics of the design.  To suppose a materialist chain of endless cause and effect also in itslef provides no insight into the mechanism, history or context of things or phenomena.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

Don't understand it?  "It was designed that way."  Don't understand how it happened?  "God did it that way."  Does it look like design? "Exactly, it was designed."  Does it not look like design?  "It was probably designed, just for reasons we don't understand."  It's an answer that provides zero insight and provides zero incentive to keep searching for other or more answers; for some, that closure may be reassuring, but I find it repulsive because of its lack of content.

How do those answers differ from "It turned out that way through exclusively material mechanisms", "Cause and Effect did it that way", "Exactly as it turned out" and "It was certainly the product of a mechanistic cause and effect, just in ways we don't understand"?

I can understand finding one or another belief flawed or implausible, but process by which the belief would compel scientific incuriosity is what I find elusive.

I'm pointing to the authorities to illustrate how your claim of limitation by belief is patently false... unless you can empirically prove that people like Newton would have grown science a lot more if they didn't believe.

You seem to entirely misunderstand my position.  Please reread my first post slowly and in detail.  ALL science progresses by belief, by posing unanswerable questions and untestable hypotheses.  Newton's beliefs, at least most of them, did not serve as a barrier to his line of inquiry, though he did get distracted by a great deal of alchemical folderol that obviously bore no fruit.  There are certain beliefs, such as intelligent design, which I regard as deeply counterproductive, but I do not believe that holding religious beliefs as part of a system of natural philosophy is necessarily invalid or counterproductive.   

And stop throwing around terms like "empirically prove" in a discussion of belief in philosophy; your attempts to limit the debate in such a fashion are unproductive.

This paragraph is dissapointing for many reasons.  I'm sure this made even Darwin spin in his grave.  You have a pretty clear contempt for people of faith... that's too bad.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but the fact is I feel absolutely no contempt for people of faith.  I find your faith deeply unsatisfying, and I suspect this threatens you, leading to your supposition that I am an athiest sneering at you.  I am not.  I merely find your line of reasoning to be unsatisfying and implausible, and do not join you in your convictions. 

As I said - I'm a Zen Buddhist and Taoist, so I've got my own articles of faith, and a natural philosopher, so the art of extending from the known to the unknown is not something I'm uncomfortable with.  I merely see no reason to postulate a creator apart from the created. 

As for Darwin, I've read nearly everything the man wrote in his life....and have seen very little I disagree with.  If you're to presume to put words in the man's mouth, that's your business - but I'd be surprised if you've invested the time to do that with any confidence.

Last edited by Turbiodiesel! (07-11-2008 08:08 PM)

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

How do those answers differ from "It turned out that way through exclusively material mechanisms", "Cause and Effect did it that way", "Exactly as it turned out" and "It was certainly the product of a mechanistic cause and effect, just in ways we don't understand"?

If that's where you stopped, then it would be equally counterproductive.  However, most researchers do not merely stop there and attempt to ascertain just what those mechanisms, causes, and effects were, and understand how they arose, thus providing more depth of detail and understanding about history and context.

I agree with both sentences, but don't see why a researcher who posits an ultimate cause of the patterns he observes would not also attempt to ascertain just what the mechanisms, causes, and effects were, and understand how they arose, thus providing more depth of detail and understanding about history and context.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

Presumably, one would go from the belief to find the specifics of the design.

Which reduces us to mere chroniclers of details, devoid of context, cause, or effect.  There's very little to gain from that.  Ok, so God made birds' bones hollow.  They're very light.  It seems to make them light enough to fly.  Why do birds that don't fly have solid bones, though?  Uh, god made them that way.  But why?  I personally perceive no progress in merely delineating what is.

I don't see supposition of an ultimate cause as ruling out in any way intermediate causes and effects, or speculation about the teleology behind the things we observe. 

I agree that a too easily satisfied demeanor toward necessarily incomplete ideas describes the incurious, but suggest that the condition can arise from the too facile acceptance of a belief rather than the belief itself.

Simply because I believe that some articles of faith are obstacles to inquiry doesn't mean I believe they all are.  And by "repulsive" I mean exactly that - it drives me away, and I recoil from it.  It's not pejorative, simply a statement of fact; I simply find no interest, content, or satisfying explanation in the invocation of a creator and I turn away from it.  Like I said - faith is not necessarily a barrier.  It can be, it can not be; depends on what you're taking on faith. 

Creationism is merely one example.  Newton was into alchemy.  I'm equally dissatisfied with  arguments along the lines of "we're all just dreaming this" or "what if we're all just hooked up to electrodes".  Nihilism is another example. 

You have no contempt for people of faith... you just believe faith is a barrier to the progression of science.... which you happen to have a profession in...gotcha.

I'm losing patience with your continual misrepresentation of my position, and with your apparent determination to turn this into the nasty athiest scientist oppressing the man of faith.  Save that narrative for somebody else, because it doesn't wash.

I believe that SOME faith-based beliefs - including but certainly not limited to mainstream creationism - are a barrier to curiosity and progress.  I do not believe that all are, as should be entirely obvious. 

Nobody on this board and nobody that I've ever met or even read about wants science class to consist of a book that just repeats "God didit" over and over again.

If you believe that god designed everything, what else is there to say?  Like I said, where do you go from there, beyond tediously describing the details?  It's an argument of broad but entirely superficial explanatory power; it merely describes how things are rather than how they got to be that way and why they are that way.  And to merely rest at that is repulsive to me, even if it satisfies you.

I've also found that creationism focuses on individual species and structures, and admire evolution for its inclusion of ecological and historical context sorely lacking in creationist ideas.  I find the focus on individuals and singularities to miss the point entirely - that it's the biosphere and metagenome evolving, not so much individuals.

Last edited by Turbiodiesel! (07-11-2008 09:28 PM)

You're backpedaling, why?  I'm challenging the positions that you started a thread about.  If you felt this way about a narrow subset of beliefs that people hold why didn't you say that in the beginning?  Maybe you should review some of your prejudices.

Most people on this board will tell you that I'm a fundy but I'm not a witch hunting fundy.  I don't care if someone is an atheist, taoist or whatever.  Ask Dancer, she's a true Pagan and we get along just peachy.

If you believe that god designed everything, what else is there to say?  Like I said, where do you go from there, beyond tediously describing the details?  It's an argument of superficial explanatory power.

The same thing that Newton, Magellan or even Einstein may or may not say to different degrees.  God may have designed it but how?  More on this later... gotta run.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

God may have designed it but how?

So, tediously describing the details.  If that's what you wish to do, that's up to you - but merely reverse-engineering nature is perhaps the most uninteresting pursuit I can imagine.

It all goes to figuring out the same world, doesn't it?

To claim that precisely the same patterns you would observe anyway would be transformed into "perhaps the most uninteresting pursuit [you] can imagine" by the idea of a creator reflected in design is counter-intuitive.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

...fobbing everything off on a creator doesn't address them to my satisfaction.

I don't know anyone who suggests that.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

... you're assuming that history and context are basically irrelevant ...

Why?

I think you've tied quite a bit of excess baggage to the assumption of a created universe.

Turbiodiesel! wrote:

I think you've tied quite a bit of excess baggage to the assumption of a created universe.

Hardly.  It's the inevitable logic of creationism.  If that's anybody's baggage, it's that of the creationists.  By invoking a creator, you're automatically assuming that history and context took a back seat in the hierarchy of causes for the world's biological and ecological diversity, if it was even invited along for the ride at all.

Positing an ultimate cause does not inevitably rule out any intermediate cause, which appears to be your suggestion.  Tossing out intermediate causes because you suppose an ultimate one isn't logically driven.

It sounds more like a position you associate with a created world rather than a necessary component of that position.

Turbio wrote:

However, most researchers do not merely stop there and attempt to ascertain just what those mechanisms, causes, and effects were, and understand how they arose, thus providing more depth of detail and understanding about history and context.

That's precisely what a creationist thinks.  They do not stop with "God did it."  They then ask "HOW did God do it?"  I hope this dispells this false fear you have of the anti-evolutionists.

Turbio wrote:

Why do birds that don't fly have solid bones, though?  Uh, god made them that way.  But why?

Ironically, you're parroting what I actually see in the science media and scientific journals all over the place.  "Why do birds that don't fly have solid bones?  Uh, it's a beneficial adaptation.  But why?"  (Don't they dare say because it survived!)

The creationist would seek to understand the why.  These are some of the avenues they look in:  superior design, particular function, to fulfill a purpose in the larger biosphere, beauty.

Turbio wrote:

It's not pejorative, simply a statement of fact

Your opening post had a lot of them and I saw them as such.  People are free to hold their own opinions.  No feelings hurt over here, dude.

Turbio wrote:

I believe that SOME faith-based beliefs - including but certainly not limited to mainstream creationism - are a barrier to curiosity and progress.

It's your belief, but it is completely unfounded and cannot be justified.

Positing an ultimate cause does not inevitably rule out any intermediate cause, which appears to be your suggestion.  Tossing out intermediate causes because you suppose an ultimate one isn't logically driven.

At some point, that's a meaningless argument, because depending on your ultimate cause and when you feel comfortable drawing that line, you can claim that God created every single last organism one by one according to divine blueprints, that God merely created the Big Bang with preconditions that ensured that life would form, or any damn thing in between.   What causes are ultimate?  Which are intermediate?  Sounds like the old macroevolution/microevolution non-dichotomy.