Evolution is an illusion

Indeed, the adage "the right tool for the job", appears on the philosophical horizon.

Like symbols on a page, a tool does absolutely nothing unless it is "functionalised" -i.e. used, as a tool.

Any "problem" is then presumably the user's.

So therefore, that must connect with the idea that any object (we use) is an extension of our hands. Which connects with our brains. When does it connect with a user?
Again, we don't seem to be able to find out who's in charge around here...

 

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That was a bit confusing, must admit.

"Any 'problem' is then presumably the user's" Yet what you said here struck me as significant. These forums for example. Most often there is contention between the religious and the scientific. If the user is those that wield science then the actually problem isn't the tool of science and it does or does not validates it's the person behind the tool. Similarly the religous' problem would be using that same tool of perhaps multiple tool that don't actually work well toward the task they'd accomplish.

How do you discover the right way to use a tool.
Is there a right and wrong way? We can presume there is for science despite scientific arrogence and posturing but is there rightway for the religious nutt?

 

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Well, I think we probably are all religious, just that some don't like to admit it. The "tool" reference is along the lines: if used according to instructions, it should do the job; but no tool is idiot-proof, and you can't rely on someone telling you how it should be used, so its use isn't "idiot-free" either.

The astronauts and fighter pilots get real superstitious and all have good-luck charms and talismans and rituals, they're all highly trained, actually you just about need a PhD to become an astronaut.

For some reason, despite all the claims of objectivity and rationality, most probably do wonder about something like a power or force of some kind that's outside our knowledge. The question has to be: why do we, if it's a waste of effort?

 

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Alright, when was the last time some one had a real life problem (say, polio), and found the answer in the bible?

The nice thing about science's dogmatism is that it moves forward. We didn't put man on the moon by reviewing the finer points of Deuteronomy.

More evidence from more... trustworthy sources than claiming an invisible space magician did it.

I'm not doing it, you are. To treat a religious document as history is to equate religion and science. You turn to the bible for cosmology!

The function of science is explanation. The function of religion is explanation. Both require fundamental assumptions. Yet the explanations science gives us are usable.

Now, if you want to say religion is about feeling good and meditation, blah blah blah, yeah sure. If you need that crap, go for it. Certainly not science's cup of tea. But then you want to say that because religion feels good for your weak, simian brain, there's no such thing as evolution? That doesn't make sense. You've even admitted it yourself!

The whole "equal footings thing" is due to you; I don't give religion equal footing with science. Most people hold them apart, since it's quite obvious that religion can't compete with science in explaining reality.

Faith and hope are feelings.
Science is raw hard rocket engines and cars and all the nice trinkets that make modern living so stupendous! It's why we aren't in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were Dark because of men like you.

You know what I find more interesting?
How the bible is interpreted to read one thing, say, geocentrism, for millenia. Then, once science explicitly proves that no, we actually go around the sun, that you religious nutjobs come around to reinterpreting your passages the right way.

Every single time, science leads the way, and religion inevitably follows. Well, your interpretations of an old text that was meant for a pastoral hill people some 6,000 years ago. Whatever.

Because you seem to think other things that have to do wth reality such as the origin of species, the cosmos, life, falls into the realm of science. But you're trying to tell me that your book of fairytales actually holds the answer. How? You've already admitted that it's separate from science, and can't do such things.

That's nice.
We're not dithering with your 'moral' bullshit. Religious zealots would turn the earth into a stained glass holocaust, if they could get their hands on the things. But that's for another thread.

Here, we're discussing which is a better tool for explaining reality; science, or religion.

I posit science, since we get real, workable predictions from science, some very powerful ones.

I think it's in Kings. Or for their (the israelites) first king. David? David's temple? I'm not sure. The biblical value of pi is 3. A whole. Fucking. Number. Even the Egyptians and the Babylonians had better values of pi at the time, but clearly god changed the rules of the universe especially for that pot or whatever in the temple.

Even a little bit of calculus would have been great.
You know those heathen greeks had way better math than the Israelites could even dream about. How do you explain that? That a language as pure and beautiful and perfect as math is absent from the bible?

I'll start worrying about trolls, vampires, and other aspects of your fantasy universe when you start challenging science and national security with them. Until then, why bother.

 

And that is the unknown. It's the only truth that is everpresent. We're natually curious and inquisitive. As much as we would like to know everything we don't and the unknown is always a source of doubt.

 

A "complete theory", or the existence of "total" knowledge or measurement of some state, has to be an ideal.
Math lets us look into corners and around walls using logic (projection, association, discrimination), but it's a language that describes things (reality). The language of math is presumably devoid of expressive notation, unlike say, music. Math is polyphonic or polymorphic, but not polysemantic: it's meant to be accurate rather than general, at least.
It's a body of logical reference, somewhere safe to stand and look at how things behave. But we can't "know everything" about anything. We'll always be learning, we're always at the start of the "journey", or adventure, we're just better prepared now than we used to be.
Perhaps what our science can't tell us yet is the boogey-man here. The unknown--something that will remain beyond our reach--at least our logic? Or something we will "learn" about eventually (is analytical)? Or something that doesn't commute with our intellect (and never will), which can't be rationalised or explained with words or ideas, except indirectly or analogously, or "something"? Does such a thing "exist"?

 

"Xindi" you mean?

 

I'd concur with that. There is an acceptable level of accuracy and truth. These are determinable in many things. However there are many more in which any conclusion is fleeting.

 

Another point I'd like to add to the table here is that "something" indeterminate that "doesn't commute with our intellect (and never will)" looks at least a little like quantum "information".

We can play with entangled states, move them around, and do things with them. So they represent something. But until it's actually measured, no information exists in "our" reality.
Information is energy, and has a mass equivalent, and momentum. At least when we "know" about it it does.

There is something about the world that's related to the way we see it, quantum indeterminacy, and to the way energy moves around, that we haven't put our finger on yet.
But as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Or it's stranger than we can know.

 

Thank goodness the scientific zealots have no intention of creating any sort of technology that might give the religious zealots a chance to, huh?