Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Science vs. God Best thing I've read in a long Time!

Guess it has alot to do with faith...

Not just faith. Reason.

http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/existgod.html

Show me how.

I'm always puzzled by this and would like to hear a good explanation:

� The same event is recorded in the Bible and in other ancient literature, so the Bible account must be questionable.

� Russian and American scientists, working unbeknownst to each other, reach the same conclusion, so their conclusion must be sound.

To what end? Open up your mind???

So do cheap shots like "think a little deeper" evidence an open mind? I don't see them portraying either deep thinking or an open mind.

To whatever end you had in mind when you made the suggestion.

My current study list already includes Chaffee's The Thinker's Way, Gelb's How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Stine's Double Your Brain Power, and Thorpe's How to Think Like Einstein. Any li'l ol' efficacious thing that you can add will be duly appreciated.

As the old lady said when she squatted in the surf, every li'l bit helps.

Okay, try let's see. "The Origin of Species" Thick and dull, but incredibly insightful and well supported by 100 50 ys of data give or take a bit.

More modern times, you might try Flannery's "The eternal frontier : an ecological history of North America and its peoples" also well supported by many people's many years of research at many levels.

Meanwhile, I'm still wondering what you think all these scientist like myself are doing if we already know everything to the last detail as you have claimed.

Brent

Oh, I don't claim that at all!

In fact, I deride that notion that so many scientists seem to profess. Thought that my post (above � repeated below) made that clear enough:

Is ignoring or misreading what I said, to argue instead with what I didn't say, scientific, open-minded, or what?

Okay Ken, I reread what you wrote and I leave my question standing. Apparently, we have a failure to communicate.

Brent

Hello kenjs1 & everyone else!

I've only been reading at the campfire for about weeks and join last week!
I just thought it was a great debate,just as this thread is and The thread on A Question on Atheism!
I wasn't sure I'd get any replies but after reading both these threads I'm glad I did.

This (Campfire)is a wonderful place,Where people can debate,agree,disagree & dispute without any name calling,fighting
or throwing accusations at each other.
I'd say this is the most Mature Bunch I've ever meet on any forum yet!
Yes! I'm A Christian and believe in God and Christ is my salvation, but I also love these debates,it gives us all the opportunity the share our thoughts and at least begin to talk where as in public we may never take the time or have this chance!

Thank You All!

So let me try again.

Some scientists hold the notion that science has explained (with final, dead-sure certainty) every detail of life and the universe, and all else is meaningless superstition.

Countless numbers of highly respected scientific publications constantly announce corrections of long-held "scientific facts." Much of what science has long regarded as empty superstition often proves to be true, accepted as true even by science. So I do not have much respect for that idea of final certainty, even though I'm trained and experienced as a scientist (forester and wildlife biologist) myself and apply a predominantly scientific approach to my decades of research into the New Testament.

I love the scientific method enough to dislike its misapplication and to distrust those who claim its authority without adhering to its principles and processes.

Got it now?

I know of exactly ZERO such scientists like this and yet, I know quite well, hundreds of professional scientists on a personal basis. So, in my experience 0/hundreds = None.




Indeed, and none of those include replacing them with superstitions.

Have you read anything of the philosophy of science from folks like Kuhn or Lakatos or anyone else? Then you might understand how this works.





So, I'm curious, how do you do experiments on the New Testament?



Got this, but it ain't what you said. Meanwhile, do you only distrust those with whom you disagree? And are these specifically the people you feel misapply scientific method and who fail to adhere to its principles and processes? Cause I don't see that.

Brent

All right, friend � argue

like one hand clapping.

All the best to you and yours, now and ever!

'Bye!

Ken

Hmm, I see, nonresponsive. Nowhere to go, nowhere to turn.

Brent

Frustrating, isn't it?

Not really, seeing as you have made my point. You have made grandiose claims about the how science and knows everything and is misused and abused. Meanwhile, only you knows how to do it right and so on and so forth and yet, you cannot respond with any objective data - so much for your scientific methods.

But you set down have a good day now, cause I think your boat is rocking ....

Dec. 10, 2007, 11:01PM
Humans are still evolving, and at a breakneck speed
Study says pace is 100 times faster than historic levels


By KAREN KAPLAN
Los Angeles Times

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The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa 40,000 years ago, quickening to 100 times historic levels after agriculture became widespread, according to a study published today.

By examining more than 3 million variants of DNA in 269 people, researchers identified about 1,800 genes that have been widely adopted in relatively recent times because they offer some evolutionary benefit.

Until recently, anthropologists believed that evolutionary pressures on humans eased after the transition to a more stable agrarian lifestyle. But in the past few years, they realized the opposite was true � diseases swept through societies in which large groups lived in close quarters for a long period.

Altogether, the recent genetic changes account for 7 percent of the human genome, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The advantage of all but about 100 of these genes remains a mystery, said University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks, who led the study. But the research team was able to conclude that infectious diseases and the introduction of new foods were the primary reasons that some genes swept through populations with such speed.

"If there were not a mismatch between the population and the environment, there wouldn't be any selection," Hawks said. "Dietary changes, disease changes � those create circumstances where selection can happen."

One of the most famous examples is the spread of a gene that allows adults to digest milk.

Although children were able to drink milk, they typically developed lactose intolerance as they grew up. But after cattle and goats were domesticated in Europe and yaks and mares were domesticated in Asia, adults with a mutation that allowed them to digest milk had a nutritional advantage over those who didn't. As a result, they were more likely to have healthy offspring, prompting the mutation to spread, Hawks said.

The mechanism also explains why genetic resistance to malaria has spread among Africans but not among Europeans or Asians.

Most of the genetic changes the researchers identified were found in only one geographic group or another. Races as we know them today didn't exist until fewer than 20,000 years ago, when genes involved in skin pigmentation emerged, Hawks said. Paler skin allowed people in northern latitudes to absorb more sunlight to make vitamin D.


Other mysteries
Among the fastest-evolving genes are those related to brain development, but the researchers aren't sure what made them so desirable, Hawks said.

There are other mysteries, too.

"Nobody 10,000 years ago had blue eyes," Hawks said. "Why is it that blue-eyed people had a 5 percent advantage in reproducing compared to non-blue-eyed people? I have no idea."



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