Concordance of Science and Theology

[PoliticalChic]

When one is forced to hear the mutterings and prattle of those who aim to prove that they are au courant, the attacks on religion are never left out.
My feeling is that they are attempting to advance an image of themselves that even they don't believe: "How smart I am....I give no credence to religion."

Yet....accredited, famed scientists of all stripes do.



1. Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown, has written in “Finding Darwin's God,” that a belief in evolution is compatible with a belief in God.

Francis Sellers Collins , physician-geneticist, noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HG) has written a book about his Christian faith.

And Einstein: 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

Then there was Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, who said that "science and religion do not glower at each other…” but, rather, represent Non-overlapping magisteria. (above from Wikipedia).

a. " According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. "
Scientists and Belief Pew Research Center s Religion Public Life Project




2. Here, such a perspective from one:

"I have often heard the naive argument that there are no absolutes. Even in nature, the argument goes, we have the laws of relativity .

Really?

Are you not aware that the laws of relativity are entirely based on the constant speed of light? Absolutes abound in nature and they also need abound in human relationships.

3. Take away the Exodus and with it the Ten Commandments and humanity is 'out of business.'

We've seen that failed experiment time and again. The French Revolution embodied the warped wisdom of the Enlightenment hat human reason alone is supreme. In doing so it abandoned those absolutes and in their place instituted what was referred to as the "cult of reason."

Within a decade of the debacle, the Revolution devoured its own leaders and thousands of others."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).




From time to time, there arises a generation whose belief is that they have discovered what millennia of human experience would not reveal.Such is the hubris, the self-delusion of human rationalization.

And what did the French Revolution's raising of mankind to deity bring?

"If the French revolution was the end of monarchy and aristocratic privilege and the emergence of the common man and democratic rights, it was also the beginnings of modern totalitarian government and large-scale executions of "enemies of the People" by impersonal government entities (Robespierre's "Committee of Public Safety"). This legacy would not reach its fullest bloom until the tragic arrival of the German Nazis and Soviet and Chinese communists of the 20th century."
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/french/french.html

 

[Hollie]

When one is forced to hear the mutterings and prattle of those who aim to prove that they are au courant, the attacks on religion are never left out.
My feeling is that they are attempting to advance an image of themselves that even they don't believe: "How smart I am....I give no credence to religion."

Yet....accredited, famed scientists of all stripes do.



1. Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown, has written in “Finding Darwin's God,” that a belief in evolution is compatible with a belief in God.

Francis Sellers Collins , physician-geneticist, noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HG) has written a book about his Christian faith.

And Einstein: 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

Then there was Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, who said that "science and religion do not glower at each other…” but, rather, represent Non-overlapping magisteria. (above from Wikipedia).

a. " According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. "
Scientists and Belief Pew Research Center s Religion Public Life Project




2. Here, such a perspective from one:

"I have often heard the naive argument that there are no absolutes. Even in nature, the argument goes, we have the laws of relativity .

Really?

Are you not aware that the laws of relativity are entirely based on the constant speed of light? Absolutes abound in nature and they also need abound in human relationships.

3. Take away the Exodus and with it the Ten Commandments and humanity is 'out of business.'

We've seen that failed experiment time and again. The French Revolution embodied the warped wisdom of the Enlightenment hat human reason alone is supreme. In doing so it abandoned those absolutes and in their place instituted what was referred to as the "cult of reason."

Within a decade of the debacle, the Revolution devoured its own leaders and thousands of others."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).




From time to time, there arises a generation whose belief is that they have discovered what millennia of human experience would not reveal.Such is the hubris, the self-delusion of human rationalization.
And what did the French Revolution's raising of mankind to deity bring?
"If the French revolution was the end of monarchy and aristocratic privilege and the emergence of the common man and democratic rights, it was also the beginnings of modern totalitarian government and large-scale executions of "enemies of the People" by impersonal government entities (Robespierre's "Committee of Public Safety"). This legacy would not reach its fullest bloom until the tragic arrival of the German Nazis and Soviet and Chinese communists of the 20th century."
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/french/french.html

Oh gawd. PC is compiling yet another numbered list of cut and paste "quotes" in yet another effort to promote ID'iot creationism.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Given how often science and religion butt heads, I'd consider that when scientists seem to express a belief in God it isn't just a savvy politically astute remark designed to spill the wind from the sails of those who would oppose whatever research the scientist is involved in.

That said, I do agree that reliigon and science aren't mutually exclusive. Even if God created the universe, He obviously made it all work by way of science. Evolution doesn't disprove God in any way. Nor does evolution threaten a belief in God.

Only people who think it does are the ones ignorant about both religion and science.

 

[PoliticalChic]

4. Consider "abandoning unquestioned 'accepted wisdom' and replacing it actual data....[and when] those data fall into a pattern, truth emerges....This is exactly the scientific method.

Scientific discovery is based on observing patterns in nature.....[and when an] effect is constant and predictable, it becomes known as a law of nature.


5. NASA has a diagram that summarizes the current scientific view of how we, with all of our unique human characteristics developed from the burst of exquisitely hot energy that formed the universe: the Big Bang. [http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/190387main_Cosmic_Elements.pdf]



6. "The NASA diagram is likely the strongest theological statement that science has ever made....

We are shown that via the laws of nature, in this case quantum fluctuations and the laws of relativity, an expanding universe can be created from absolute nothing. Since our concept of time begins with the creation of the universe, and since the laws of nature create the universe from nothing, then by logic, the laws of nature must exist prior to the universe.


The laws of nature are not physical; they are not made of matter or of energy. They are forces that act on the physical. So....we have a force or forces that are not physical, that are outside of time, that created the universe from nothing."

So saith science.

"But it is also the biblical description of the God of the Bible."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).

 

[PoliticalChic]

"....a force or forces that are not physical, that are outside of time, that created the universe from nothing."



7. Well...an atheist scientist might rejoin, 'OK...you can call it God....but it is a deist God: one not active in the universe, or in your particular life.

So....it behooves theology to go further, from scientific discovery and advances, to the study of human characteristics.



Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.

Deuteronomy 32:7
Let's consider the possibility that NASA diagram is accurate....but left some middle feature out of their diagram of the Big Bang, leading to human beings.....



8. "If you believe that the energy of the Big Bang creation can, totally random processes, morph and morph and morph again and eventually become alive and self-aware, conscious of the emotions that make us human, then you don't need a Guide."

So saith science.

"I personally doubt that a super-powerful burst of energy (and energy is all that the creation brought into being) could come alive by random events...

....randomness fails as an adequate explanation."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).



So....Schroeder finds a concordance of sorts in the view put forth by science......but seems to need a little .....tweaking.

Quite the quantum leap from amino acids to an Albert Einstein.

 

[Hollie]

"....a force or forces that are not physical, that are outside of time, that created the universe from nothing."



7. Well...an atheist scientist might rejoin, 'OK...you can call it God....but it is a deist God: one not active in the universe, or in your particular life.

So....it behooves theology to go further, from scientific discovery and advances, to the study of human characteristics.



Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.

Deuteronomy 32:7
Let's consider the possibility that NASA diagram is accurate....but left some middle feature out of their diagram of the Big Bang, leading to human beings.....



8. "If you believe that the energy of the Big Bang creation can, totally random processes, morph and morph and morph again and eventually become alive and self-aware, conscious of the emotions that make us human, then you don't need a Guide."

So saith science.

"I personally doubt that a super-powerful burst of energy (and energy is all that the creation brought into being) could come alive by random events...

....randomness fails as an adequate explanation."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).



So....Schroeder finds a concordance of sorts in the view put forth by science......but seems to need a little .....tweaking.

Quite the quantum leap from amino acids to an Albert Einstein.

Not a quantum leap at all from a 6,000 year old earth to your ID'iot creation ministries.

 

[Moonglow]

When one is forced to hear the mutterings and prattle of those who aim to prove that they are au courant, the attacks on religion are never left out.
My feeling is that they are attempting to advance an image of themselves that even they don't believe: "How smart I am....I give no credence to religion."

Yet....accredited, famed scientists of all stripes do.



1. Kenneth Miller, professor of biology at Brown, has written in “Finding Darwin's God,” that a belief in evolution is compatible with a belief in God.

Francis Sellers Collins , physician-geneticist, noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project (HG) has written a book about his Christian faith.

And Einstein: 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

Then there was Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science, who said that "science and religion do not glower at each other…” but, rather, represent Non-overlapping magisteria. (above from Wikipedia).

a. " According to the poll, just over half of scientists (51%) believe in some form of deity or higher power; specifically, 33% of scientists say they believe in God, while 18% believe in a universal spirit or higher power. "
Scientists and Belief Pew Research Center s Religion Public Life Project




2. Here, such a perspective from one:

"I have often heard the naive argument that there are no absolutes. Even in nature, the argument goes, we have the laws of relativity .

Really?

Are you not aware that the laws of relativity are entirely based on the constant speed of light? Absolutes abound in nature and they also need abound in human relationships.

3. Take away the Exodus and with it the Ten Commandments and humanity is 'out of business.'

We've seen that failed experiment time and again. The French Revolution embodied the warped wisdom of the Enlightenment hat human reason alone is supreme. In doing so it abandoned those absolutes and in their place instituted what was referred to as the "cult of reason."

Within a decade of the debacle, the Revolution devoured its own leaders and thousands of others."
Gerald Schroeder, PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT).




From time to time, there arises a generation whose belief is that they have discovered what millennia of human experience would not reveal.Such is the hubris, the self-delusion of human rationalization.

And what did the French Revolution's raising of mankind to deity bring?

"If the French revolution was the end of monarchy and aristocratic privilege and the emergence of the common man and democratic rights, it was also the beginnings of modern totalitarian government and large-scale executions of "enemies of the People" by impersonal government entities (Robespierre's "Committee of Public Safety"). This legacy would not reach its fullest bloom until the tragic arrival of the German Nazis and Soviet and Chinese communists of the 20th century."
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/french/french.html

I am soo happy, now can we get back to the frickin' job of scientist....now about that cure for cancer you've had your hand out for over 100 years to pay for a cure...

 

[Moonglow]

I am more interested who created Gawd...

 

[PoliticalChic]

I am more interested who created Gawd...

In a mere two minutes you've managed two non sequitur and/or stupid posts.

I am forced to salute your .....efficiency.

 

[PoliticalChic]

9. Richard Dawkins, ("The God Delusion) among others, has embraced the ‘multiverse,’ [the Landscape] idea, that there could be an infinite number of universes, each with some permutation of the natural laws of physics, vastly different from ours.

Why, then, scruple at the Deity? After all, the theologian need only apply to a single God and a single universe. Dawkins must appeal to infinitely many universes crammed with laws of nature wriggling indiscreetly and fundamental physical parameters changing as one travels the cosmos. And- the entire gargantuan structure scientifically unobservable and devoid of any connection to experience.



Now, get this: Dawkins actually writes, “The key difference between the radically extravagant God hypothesis and the apparently extravagant multiverse hypothesis, is one of statistical improbability."
Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion"

Belief in an infinite range of laws of physics....one countering the other....is 'believable' for Dawkins???
And more 'statistically probable' than a single force that created everything?






10. And, major scientists....atheists and Marxist scientists, admit that absurdity is not a bar to their beliefs.

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,” the geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked equably in The New York Review of Books, “in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.
” We are to put up with science’s unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!”

 

[Hollie]

Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.....

1. It's difficult to forget those generations long past, and the damage done to humanity by the Christian church.

Galileo to Turing the persecution of scientists throughout history Wired UK

Galileo
 (1564-1642)
The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was trialled and convicted in 1633 for publishing his evidence that supported the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. His research was instantly criticized by the Catholic Church for going against the established scripture that places Earth and not the Sun at the centre of the universe. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" for his heliocentric views and was required to "abjure, curse and detest" his opinions. He was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained for the rest of his life and his offending texts were banned.

2. Oh, wait. Those days are not so long gone.

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, quoted Freethought Today, December, 1999, cited by Anthony T. Podestra of People for the American Way in, Dietz and Holden, Satiricon, p 44; quoted from Steve Benson "Latter-Day Saint To Latter-Day Ain't"; commemorating the "Tell It Like It Is" Freethought In Media Award, presented on November 5, 1999, by the Freedom From Religion Foundation; excerpted by PAM

 

[PoliticalChic]

Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.....

1. It's difficult to forget those generations long past, and the damage done to humanity by the Christian church.

Galileo to Turing the persecution of scientists throughout history Wired UK

Galileo
 (1564-1642)
The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was trialled and convicted in 1633 for publishing his evidence that supported the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. His research was instantly criticized by the Catholic Church for going against the established scripture that places Earth and not the Sun at the centre of the universe. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" for his heliocentric views and was required to "abjure, curse and detest" his opinions. He was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained for the rest of his life and his offending texts were banned.

2. Oh, wait. Those days are not so long gone.

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, quoted Freethought Today, December, 1999, cited by Anthony T. Podestra of People for the American Way in, Dietz and Holden, Satiricon, p 44; quoted from Steve Benson "Latter-Day Saint To Latter-Day Ain't"; commemorating the "Tell It Like It Is" Freethought In Media Award, presented on November 5, 1999, by the Freedom From Religion Foundation; excerpted by PAM

I must admit that you've finally given a legitimate avenue of expression to your anti-religion bigotry.

Finally....you've actually brought something to the table!

Bravo!

Those aren't, sentiments that I necessarily agree with....but, I'm sure you don't, agree with the 51% of scientists who believe in God, or some deity.


And the thread was designed to show that there is agreement, largely, between science and theology.

 

[Hollie]

Remember the days of old;
consider the generations long past.....

1. It's difficult to forget those generations long past, and the damage done to humanity by the Christian church.

Galileo to Turing the persecution of scientists throughout history Wired UK

Galileo
 (1564-1642)
The Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei was trialled and convicted in 1633 for publishing his evidence that supported the Copernican theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun. His research was instantly criticized by the Catholic Church for going against the established scripture that places Earth and not the Sun at the centre of the universe. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" for his heliocentric views and was required to "abjure, curse and detest" his opinions. He was sentenced to house arrest, where he remained for the rest of his life and his offending texts were banned.

2. Oh, wait. Those days are not so long gone.

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, quoted Freethought Today, December, 1999, cited by Anthony T. Podestra of People for the American Way in, Dietz and Holden, Satiricon, p 44; quoted from Steve Benson "Latter-Day Saint To Latter-Day Ain't"; commemorating the "Tell It Like It Is" Freethought In Media Award, presented on November 5, 1999, by the Freedom From Religion Foundation; excerpted by PAM

I must admit that you've finally given a legitimate avenue of expression to your anti-religion bigotry.

Finally....you've actually brought something to the table!

Bravo!

Those aren't, sentiments that I necessarily agree with....but, I'm sure you don't, agree with the 51% of scientists who believe in God, or some deity.


And the thread was designed to show that there is agreement, largely, between science and theology.

I must admit that this thread, like others you opened, is nothing more than a vehicle for your cut and paste "quotes" to be used to denigrate the sciences you hold in such contempt.

I must also admit that your reluctance to be honest and your demonstrated propensity to carelessly cut and paste fraudulent, edited and parsed "quotes" from all of the more notoriously dishonest fundie Christian creation ministries makes you an accomplice to fraud.

Praise jeebus!

http://www.wired.com/2012/06/famous-persecuted-scientists/

Henry Oldenburg (1619-1677)
Oldenburg founded the Royal Society in London in 1662. He sought high quality scientific papers to publish. In order to do this he had to correspond with many foreigners across Europe, including the Netherlands and Italy. The sheer volume of his correspondence caught the attention of authorities, who arrested him as a spy. He was held in the Tower of London for several months.

 

[PoliticalChic]

11. For those not wedded to atheism, or a political doctrine that require disbelief, insufficient thinking and study is often the answer to a rejection of religion.


Alexander Pope has written:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”



Werner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, wrote something astoundingly similar...

The nuclear physicist said that reality is designed in such a way that even the improbable is essentially possible.

The Nobel Prize winner then added,
"The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists - but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting."



QED.....the concordance of science and theology.

 

[Hollie]

12. Molecules to Medicine When Religion Collides with Medical Care Who Decides What Is Right for You - Guest Blog - Scientific American Blog Network

Many hospitals with religious sponsors (Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian and Jewish) are functionally secular and do not limit patient choices based on theology. In contrast, religious doctrine dictates what services will (or will not) be provided at some Baptist hospitals and all Adventist and Catholic health care institutions (HCIs). Religious restrictions affect not only reproductive care, which has garnered the bulk of attention, but affects access to new technologies, end-of-life care choices, vaccination, risk reduction counseling, and even access to scientific information.

QED.....the interference of theology in the disciplines of science.

 

[Steven_R]

Scientists are human beings and are free to believe in whatever they want to believe in on a personal level. Maybe it's something spiritual, maybe it's self delusionary, maybe it's just a preference. There is a God, it's Jesus, there's a purpose in life, there isn't a purpose in life, my kids love me, my wife is faithful to me, it isn't really cheating when I get my hot grad student to blow me at conferences, Pepsi is better than Coke, the Yankees aren't the Devil's work, whatever,

But there is no place for God in a lab and any scientist that says "I don't know how X works, therefore Godditit" isn't doing science..

 

[Steven_R]

11. For those not wedded to atheism, or a political doctrine that require disbelief, insufficient thinking and study is often the answer to a rejection of religion.


Alexander Pope has written:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”



Werner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, wrote something astoundingly similar...

The nuclear physicist said that reality is designed in such a way that even the improbable is essentially possible.

The Nobel Prize winner then added,
"The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists - but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting."



QED.....the concordance of science and theology.

It's not a question of being wedded to atheism so much as scientists being trained from day one to ask "where's the proof?" It's nice to see order in the universe and think it's all part of some grand design, but this idea that everything is God's handwork is just a romantic opinion until some objective evidence is presented.

 

[PoliticalChic]

11. For those not wedded to atheism, or a political doctrine that require disbelief, insufficient thinking and study is often the answer to a rejection of religion.


Alexander Pope has written:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”



Werner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, wrote something astoundingly similar...

The nuclear physicist said that reality is designed in such a way that even the improbable is essentially possible.

The Nobel Prize winner then added,
"The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists - but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting."



QED.....the concordance of science and theology.

It's not a question of being wedded to atheism so much as scientists being trained from day one to ask "where's the proof?" It's nice to see order in the universe and think it's all part of some grand design, but this idea that everything is God's handwork is just a romantic opinion until some objective evidence is presented.

"....scientists being trained from day one to ask "where's the proof?"


Since I posted this earlier in the thread, you must feel like an awful fool....

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,”the geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked equably in The New York Review of Books, “in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.
” We are to put up with science’s unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!”



Need someone to explain what this means?
"...the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories."


You really should stop imagining that scientists are a higher form of life than any other human beings.

Really.

 

[Hollie]

11. For those not wedded to atheism, or a political doctrine that require disbelief, insufficient thinking and study is often the answer to a rejection of religion.


Alexander Pope has written:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”



Werner Heisenberg, German theoretical physicist and one of the key pioneers of quantum mechanics, wrote something astoundingly similar...

The nuclear physicist said that reality is designed in such a way that even the improbable is essentially possible.

The Nobel Prize winner then added,
"The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists - but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting."



QED.....the concordance of science and theology.

It's not a question of being wedded to atheism so much as scientists being trained from day one to ask "where's the proof?" It's nice to see order in the universe and think it's all part of some grand design, but this idea that everything is God's handwork is just a romantic opinion until some objective evidence is presented.

"....scientists being trained from day one to ask "where's the proof?"


Since I posted this earlier in the thread, you must feel like an awful fool....

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs,”the geneticist Richard Lewontin remarked equably in The New York Review of Books, “in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.
” We are to put up with science’s unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, “we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!”



Need someone to explain what this means?
"...the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories."


You really should stop imagining that scientists are a higher form of life than any other human beings.

Really.

As usual, when PC is "quoting" material, it's presumed that her "quote" is edited, parsed and out of context.

That's exactly the situation with her "quote" in connection with Lewontin which she selectively edited and parsed.

Here's the full version:

Billions and Billions of Demons by Richard C. Lewontin The New York Review of Books

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.


Not strange at all how fundie zealots are all too willing to lie, cheat and misrepresent to further their religious agenda.

 

[Abishai100]

Perception Patience

How about Earth mobility themed comic book avatars such as Penguin (DC Comics), an eerie crime-master with a taste for experimentation?





Defenders of the Earth