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Subject: 
Re: Holy crap! Four out of five scientists claim....
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:53:27 GMT
Viewed: 
719 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
   In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:

  
   Science will never come up with the answer period. Any speculation about the origin of the universe is pure flattery. Even if Science could prove that the entire universe began with all matter compressed into a sphere the size of a golf ball, it still can offer no explanation as to where matter came from in the first place.

Well, that’s as much a statement of faith as anything I’ve heard you make, and it borders on raw superstition. You claim that science will never know the answer solely on the basis of what science now knows. That’s equivalent to the statement, a few centuries ago, that we’d never be able to see microscopic objects because we could not currently see microscopic objects.

In fact, numerous “where did it all come from” solutions have already been posed, so science is certainly able at least to address the question. The problem is that, currently, we don’t have the tools to verify our hypotheses. All in good time.

But even if science doesn’t ever resolve the question, that doesn’t mean that God is the answer. To assume that God is the answer is a fallacy on numerous levels.

I have to admit that I am surprised we are even debating this because I thought that there was consensus here.

WRT to the origin of the universe, you say that “...we don’t have the tools to verify our hypotheses. All in good time.” Are those tools even theoretically possible?

That aside, let’s go back to the very beginning of the universe. Stuff comes from stuff, but where did the first, initial stuff come from? It is an illogical, infinite question, completely outside the limitations of logical, finite Science. To even suggest that Science has a prayer (figuratively:-) to even address such a question is sheer cheek in my mind, and this has nothing to do with the status of our current technological abilities.

Deists agree to let point 1 be “God”, and it seems to me that Science also needs to let point 1 be something for which it has no explanation or any hope thereof.

Throw me a bone here, Dave! I thought I understood this.

JOHN



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Holy crap! Four out of five scientists claim....
 
(...) Well, let's disclaim once again that science isn't in the business of proving anything as 100% fact, so I reserve the statement that science will always permit modification to existing theory. Science hasn't yet produced a supernova in the (...) (21 years ago, 16-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Holy crap! Four out of five scientists claim....
 
(...) That's called special pleading, and it's a fallacy. It's a double-standard based in circular reasoning and cannot be used in any logically sound argument. (...) Well, that's as much a statement of faith as anything I've heard you make, and it (...) (21 years ago, 16-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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