[Vision2020] Kai's False Dilemma (Was "Dennis Avery. . .")

[Kai Eiselein]

My apologies, Nick, I didn't realize "Doc" was offensive. I'll have to let my father, also a PhD. who is called "Doc" by everyone he knows, that it is.
Now, since you tried to obfuscate the meaning of my comment about the "wisdom of the ancients" with your claptrap about India's caste system and the subordination of women, you are either not as intelligent as you are purported to be or your retort was simply a juvenile reaction.
Either way, I'll simplify it for you: I believe the universe was made by the hand of God.
In my mind, it does not conflict with the fact that dinosaurs walked the earth or that the cosmos are expanding. For me, and millions of others of various beliefs, it makes more sense than "nothing exploded".
Paul stated that science has not tried to explain the "Big Bang". That statement is wrong. Why has the History Channel run a program entitled "The Universe: Beyond the Big Bang"? 
The following is a program description from the HC website:
The universe began with a massive expansion, billions and billions of years ago, and it continues to expand with every passing second. The idea that the universe, and man's very existence, began with a "Big Bang" is no longer a topic of debate among most scientists--it is essentially taken as fact. How has man come to this conclusion, and how has our knowledge evolved so that we can recreate the very first seconds of our universe and all that has developed since? Interviews with the world's leading physicists and historians are woven together with animated recreations and first-person accounts to explain concepts such as the formation of galaxies, the creation of elements and the formation of Earth itself.
Ironically, the narrator of the ad for the program states, "In the beginning there was nothing. In three minutes it exploded, creating everything we know."
So, the question remains, "How did "nothing" explode?"
If there is nothing, then nothing can come from it. If nothing became "something", there had to be a causal agent that set everything in motion. Since "nothing", as we know it, can do "anything", it stands to reason that the hand of God was involved.
As for my lack of knowledge about scientific method, that is quite a statement coming from someone I've never met.
My father is an anthropologist, as a kid, I spent plenty of time with him on various projects, not to mention the fact that I took a number of science classes, including biology and geology, at the college level. I am aquainted with scientific method.
I am also well aware that humans make errors and that humans have intentionally falsified data. If you listen to NPR you'll know there was a report about this recently. 
Science is not infallible and should be constantly be questioned and debated. For anyone to do anything less is akin to allowing science and scientists to take on a god-like mantle.


Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:43:06 -0700To: fotopro63 at hotmail.comFrom: ngier at uidaho.eduSubject: Kai's False Dilemma (Was "Dennis Avery. . .")CC: vision2020 at moscow.comHi Kai,I find your calling me "Doc" just as offensive as Doug Farris calling me "Teach," so please cut out that crap. I address you as "Kai," so please address me as "Nick."You, along with millions of other Americans, do not know how science works.  The best scientists are known for their humility and acknowledgment of the limits of their wonderful methods.  There is no "dodging" involved at all.  It is simple methodological honesty, something sorely lacking in intelligent design proponents.As Paul nicely explained, the Big Bang is a theory that best explains the evidence, some of which Paul laid out for us.  You may remember that Fred Hoyle's "steady state universe" theory lost out to the Big Bang in the 1960s.  The empirical evidence simply did not support steady state.Paul was also correct in saying that questions about what happened before the Big Bang and where matter and energy came from are not scientific questions.  As I always told my philosophy students, scientific disciplines are not required to prove the existence of their respective subject matters.  (Did you ask your biology teacher what "life" was?) That is where philosophy of physics and philosophy of biology come into play.  God is not a scientific hypothesis (a title of one of my columns at www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/design.htm); rather, God, matter, and energy are metaphysical hypotheses.  These concepts can be approached with speculation and logic.  The principle that matter and energy can never be created or destroyed is an axiom, not something that can be proved empirically.Yes, you are correct: the ancients developed some amazing knowledge, most likely by quasi-scientific trial and error, certainly not by divine revelation.  The fact that today's scientists are confirming this knowledge only confirms the powers of keen observation and intelligence on the part of our distant ancestors.  It does at all mean that their myths are true.  The fact that the ancient Tibetans knew the diameter of the earth and the distinction between deep sleep and REM sleep is amazing, but it does not mean that Tibetan Buddhism is true or scientific because of this.You say you'll take your chances with the "wisdom of the ancients," but you surely you must place some conditions on that sweeping claim.  (That means that you will take subordination of women and castes along with the Hindu zero and Chinese science???)  I'd rather side with the scientists and critical philosophers who take what checks out empirically or conforms to current views of universal human rights.Nick
No false dillema, Doc.What happened "in the beginning"?Paul's statement that the big bang theory doesn't try to explain "the beginning", may be true, but is still a dodge.Any scientist worth his, or her, salt would ask "What happened before that? And before that? Why? How?"How did that "something" get there? What came BEFORE the big bang? HOW did matter originate?  What caused it to go bang?"Most, if not all, of the cultures on the face of this planet have a creation story. Those stories predate the written word, like it or not, those stories are a part of of humankind's collective memory; a memory that stretches back thousands of years.Modern science dates back, what, three, maybe four hundred years?Remember, modern science is just now tapping into the knowledge and collective memory of indigenous peoples in search of medicines. At one time science laughed at these same people as being backwards and unsophisticated, as it turns out their knowledge/memory, which reaches back into the earliest of times, may very well hold the key to cure many of our ills.Yet, creation stories are tossed off like so much chaff and we are to believe in science without question.While I'm not particulary religious, and I AM fascinated by our universe, I'll take my chances with the wisdom of the ancients that there was nothing before a Greater Being created something.


"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to human affairs."--Ralph Waldo Emerson"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it." --Mohandas Gandhi"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Max PlanckNicholas F. GierProfessor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIOhttp://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm
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