God vs. Science

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GOclimb

Trad climber

Boston, MA

Jan 10, 2008 - 09:40am PT

GDavis wrote: Some people believe in a God.

Others believe you only got one shot on this rock.

If you only have one life to live, selfishness is the way to go. Lie, cheat, steal, whatever it takes to make your time the best, because its all you got, baby!

I'm a little more scared of a Godless world. Imagine what life would be like if 4 billion people (a guess, at least, probably more) didn't have saint hoochie coochie, or whatever coconut, to worship to and hope for something better after they dead.

Heeby Jeebies.

This is very interesting!!! And it ties into what Ed brought up about Nash and game theory.

Read some game theory and you will see that the above premise - that it's the belief in a higher power that makes people "behave", and without that, with pure selfishness, people would just be bad and trample over each other - is simply wrong.

Game theory doesn't prove that there is no god, or that "goodness" isn't real. But game theory does explain human behaviour, including selflessness, goodness, and cooperation, perfectly well, without any *requirement* of there being a god. At least after factoring in the gene's struggle for survival.

Incidentally, you cannot prove a lack of god with science. I say that as an atheist, by the way. The two (the scientific method, and faith in god) are simply different *types* of things. It's like trying to cut an orange with a math proof, or trying to water your lawn with a pastrami sandwich. It simply cannot be done, because they do not relate.

GO

GOclimb

Trad climber

Boston, MA

Jan 10, 2008 - 09:43am PT

werner wrote: where the fuk is Jody? It's his thread. Did he run away

Jody's just trolling under his own account. Throw some chum in the water and wait.

Oh, by the way - the original post definitely goes back further than 2006. I'm sure I saw it first in the 90s or early 00s.

GO

survival

Big Wall climber

arlington, va

Jan 10, 2008 - 10:13am PT

Werner,
You most definitely have a soul.
Whether or not there is a god, I don't know, but
the individual soul, that I believe.

Paulina

Trad climber

Jan 10, 2008 - 01:04pm PT

re: GO's points about game theory

And evolutionary theory (specifically, group selection) predicts the development of altruistic traits, damping of aggression and other social behaviors through gene selection at group level rather than individual level. Oversimplifying, groups compete for resources and groups whose members help each other out at less personal benefit (altruism) fare better than those whose members also compete against each other.
Among not only people, but species such as chickens who I think it is safe to assume do not believe in any gods.

Of course, evolutionary theory is descriptive, not prescriptive, to an individual's behavior. And game theory is prescriptive to a rational individual. But of course, people are either not rational, or we don't know what they're optimizing anyway.

In any case, there is room for all manner of good in a godless universe.

bob d'antonio

Trad climber

Taos, NM

Jan 10, 2008 - 01:35pm PT

K-wrote:But I'm still wondering how you can be so sure that "There is a GOD and he is a Person".

Because (in his mind) he wants to believe there is a God.

scuffy b

climber

Stump with a backrest

Jan 10, 2008 - 01:44pm PT

How can you be sure that God doesn't like Science?
Maybe God is a Coleopterist.

GOclimb

Trad climber

Boston, MA

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:14pm PT

Paulina - very well said. You clearly know a lot more about it than I. Fascinating stuff, though!

All in all, science cannot prove the non-existences of God. All science can do is prove that God's existence or lack thereof is entirely irrelevant and non-causal to anything and everything that happens in the observable universe. In other words, it can prove that God is outside of the realm of science.

Now why should this be upsetting to those who believe in God? Only because many of them belong to religions that have very specific theories, which, when disproven through the scientific method - show the fallibility of their leaders. I can see how this could be disturbing!

And why should the claimed existence of God be troubling to those who wish to engage in the scientific method? Again, it shouldn't, except inasmuch as believers have faith in specific theories which are at odds with the observed universe, but are not considered to be subject to the scientific method. You can see how that could be disturbing, too!

But there need not be any conflict between the two. Galileo, arguably the founder of the modern scientific method, was a staunch Catholic (despite significant persecution by the church) throughout his life. He simply considered science to be a method for learning more about God's universe, and refused to countenance any dogmatic teachings from the church.

GO

bob d'antonio

Trad climber

Taos, NM

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:20pm PT

Go wrote: All in all, science cannot prove the non-existences of God. All science can do is prove that God's existence or lack thereof is entirely irrelevant and non-causal to anything and everything that happens in the observable universe.

God hasn't disproved that man hasn't created him (God) in their minds.

This circle jerk can go on forever.

Phantom X

Trad climber

Honeycomb Hideout

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:22pm PT

Scuffy B. It's you again!!! Did you make up that word? I can't find it in the New World dictionary. Hey, maybe your computer spelled it wrong! You should take it in for repairs.

Ricky D

Trad climber

Sierra Westside

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:38pm PT

When one looks back across human history - one can find literally thousands of gods that to the people of those times were real and in existence.

Until such time as they ceased to believe.

Yet while the belief was alive - cannot one say that these gods existed?

Is it not possible that our current god is yet another construct of group imagination and that it too will be cast away in favor of another?

matisse

climber

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:40pm PT

I like this commentary.

KPBS COMMENTARY 103

EVOLUTION AND GOD by Tom Scott, Dean of Sciences at San Diego State University.

Students occasionally object to the fact that I assume the correctness of evolution in my courses. "It's only a theory" they say, as if that were tantamount to a guess. "And besides, I believe god created all life." So a word about the perceived competition between evolution and creationism.

A theory is an explanation for a series of observations. A theory organizes facts. It can never be proven the way a logical argument can be brought to a definitive conclusion. At best, it can only be strengthened by additional facts that support it. So a theory lives its life vulnerable to destruction by the discovery of some indisputable fact that it can't explain. A theory is always on trial.
Given this, there is no theory in all of science that organizes so many observations or that explains so much of the natural world as the theory of evolution. It has itself evolved to accommodate recent data, but the fundamental tenets of evolutionary theory have not been shaken in nearly 150 years. Biology only makes sense when viewed through evolution.

Now, the second point, that god created life on earth.
The only direct conflict between Judeo-Christian theology and science occurs when one reads the Bible as a literal document. A theologian once assigned himself the task of determining exactly when god created the earth and went back through the Old Testament adding up the years. As I recall, he concluded that the earth was created at 9 a.m. on Friday, October 26, 4004 B.C.

With the exception of such verifiably invalid interpretations, there is no essential conflict between the existence of god and the correctness of evolution. God is an agent, evolution is a process. A god could have decided to use evolution as a mechanism for distributing life. Evolution could be divinely inspired.
But science won't comment on that possibility. It has nothing to say about the existence of god because its domain is one of measurement, and there is no theometer, no instrument for measuring a deity.

So evolution and theology can coexist in parallel worlds of fact and faith. One should be taught in schools, the other in houses of worship.
For KPBS, this is Tom Scott, Dean of Sciences at San Diego State University.

scuffy b

climber

Stump with a backrest

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:42pm PT

Phantom X,
You're not the only one who thinks I need a new computer.
I had thought that the sentiment I expressed by the application
of the term you find puzzling could be attributed to Charles
Darwin (RIP) himself. I'm pretty sure somebody no longer living
said something like that.
As a former spelling champion, I am reluctant to allow my
computer to spell "words" on my behalf, preferring to shoulder
all blame for mistakes, to balance all the glory that typically
is showered upon me.

The perhaps apocryphal story I heard in the previous century:
Somebody (or other) asked Darwin (or someone) whether he believed
in God. The thrust of the answer was: not sure, but if there is
a God, he must surely be a Coleopterist.
A coleopterist is one who studies beetles (Order Coleoptera)

I'm still working on the high-speed crack adjusting technology.

Best,
sm

TradIsGood

Recently unshackled climber

the Gunks end of the country

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:47pm PT

Paulina - I agree that is interesting. But isn't there a corollary as well to the altruistic behavior that some selfish behavior is required for the health of a group (I.e. "evil" is necessary, too, for survival)?

Robert Axelrod in his book The Evolution of Cooperation (1984) studied this. IIRC, a purely altruistic population is unstable, with respect to invasion by one that was selfish. For those who have not read this book, Axelrod invited participants to write a program that would play the Prisoner's Dilemma game repeatedly. He published the results, which showed that programs that essentially played a tit-for-tat approach, i.e. if you are nice to me I will be nice to you next time, and if you are mean to me, I will reciprocate on my next play, performed best.

After publishing the results, the experiment was repeated. Even when everyone expected that some participants might adopt the strategy (and try to foil it), the approach was stable and optimal.

In short. Perhaps God's first universe failed, because it was only good, and evil was also necessary, which explains the one in which we live today.

(God in the above sense, being whatever "created" the universe, the concept of which seems human?)

John Moosie

climber

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:51pm PT

Bob wrote,

"K-wrote:But I'm still wondering how you can be so sure that "There is a GOD and he is a Person".

Because (in his mind) he wants to believe there is a God."

......................

What if you have an experience that appears to go against the norms of science? What if you are so pissed at what you think is God and so you go off railing against everything and in the midst of that railing you experience what can only be described as Love? Endorphins don't explain it because I have never felt this way in all my rages against ordinary everyday life. So what is it ?

Do you ignore this experience? Do you try to fit this experience into some theory that science hasn't discovered yet ? Do you rack it up to just being crazy ?

Phantom X

Trad climber

Honeycomb Hideout

Jan 10, 2008 - 02:57pm PT

Scuffy B. Thank you for your explaination champ. So the "B" refers to your spelling prowess. What is the biggest word you ever spelled?

cintune

climber

Penn's Woods

Jan 10, 2008 - 03:07pm PT

That story is really about evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane who allegedly said something like:

"If there really is a God, he must have a special fondness for beetles."

John Moosie

climber

Jan 10, 2008 - 03:09pm PT

LOL,

Wasn't on any meds at the time.

They don't exist. I looked.

John Moosie

climber

Jan 10, 2008 - 03:16pm PT

No Problem Dingus. Believe me, I tried a lot of different pharmaceuticals. Both legal and illegal. Nothing comes close to this expereince. Hahaha..... it makes me laugh to think of all the different drugs I did looking for this experience. Yowzer.

Not even close.