Oldskeptic wrote:

-Sylvan wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:In my experience it's not atheists claiming that evolution disproves God. It is certain creationists that think that if evolution is true then that would disprove their particular creator god. So, they attack evolution.

I defend evolution, but not because I think that it disproves the existence of a creator god. I defend it for the same reason that I would defend general relativity if some crackpot had some irrational belief that Newton had all the answers and that Einstein was wrong because Newton had everything right.

Evolution only shows that their creator god is not needed in the explanation of the diversity of life.

On the other hand a famous case is Darwin supposedly loosing his belief in a creator god because of his studies that led to evolutionary theory, but as far as I know he never claimed to have proof that there was no creator god. He just lost his faith in a creator god.

In the past, before Darwin, people had no real explanation for the diversity and complexity of life other than a designer/creator god, but Darwin took that away from them. No longer was there only one explanation, and for their explanation to be correct evolution by natural selection had to be wrong, and it goes on today.

It is creationists that think that evolution disproves a creator god, not the other way around.

What I meant was that I have witnessed a few atheists; implicitly and I'm sure mistakenly, assert an opinion that evolution is evidence in favor for there being no God(s).

It is evidence that certain creation myths are wrong such a Genesis or any other myth that has a creator god that poofs humans and or animals into existence. In my opinion it is a good argument against creation myths, and the particular creator god of that myth takes some collateral damage. Some people even consider evolution good enough evidence to leave off believing in "God." Reading The Selfish Gene certainly helped me along the way.

Let me clarify on this; when a run-of-the-mill atheist suggests this, they are encompassing not only modern Abrahamic religions, but any kind of creator that could exist or not exist outside of time. I guess I should have given a more succinct explanation on the dissimilarities of both assertions, but I'm sure you know what I am talking about now.

What is a run-of-the-mill atheist?

An ordinary atheist, like those you would find on Facebook pages like Global Secular Humanist Movement. Kinda like the general public of the "rational" world.
It was a generalisation used for the purposes of what I was discussing.
I would best describe them as being arrogant in their assertions.
Go see for yourself.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Mick wrote:

I have no idea what he's going on about in terms of their culture and ours. We're talking about the value of western philosophy. We're talking about considering whether it is necessary to be philosophical to live well, or even what it means to live well.

I'm done here.

No wonder you see that you're done, here. FFS, Mick, we're talking about what science can't do, according to some atheist sympathiser or something. Yes, of course that involves wibbling about what living well is all about, as you sit in a coffee shop somewhere typing nonsense into an internet forum using a laptop computer you would not have but for some science.

Want to talk about living well? Put your computer the fuck down and go help a homeless person. And take your crusty crix with you, because beggars can be no good choosers.

For what it is worth, I understood the points you were making, perfectly.

Oldskeptic wrote:Science is incapable of even addressing the existence of "God". So, philosophy is necessary. Well philosophy can't prove or disprove the existence for "God" either.

Actually philosophy can prove or disprove the existence of god, given a set of premises. The thing is: It can´t pick one set of premises over another, provided they are both consistent. If one were to show that god does not exist in any set of consistent premises, one has shown that god doesn´t exist and vice versa. It´s worth noting that for some conceptions of god we can actually show this and as it happens, those are the only ones in which science has anything to contribute. But as they are inconsistent anyway, this involvement is superflous.

Oldskeptic wrote:But science can ignore theological philosophy until such time that a good philosophical reason/argument is presented as to why science should ever consider "God" in any hypothesis.

Not the point. Science can´t consider god in any hypothesis. Period. Either a deity is defined in such a way that it has no implications for observations. Then that deity does have no implications for science and science can´t adress it at all. It´s empirically empty. Or a deity is defined so that it has implications for observations. Then it is either equivocation (i.e. the deity is identical with a physical object) or it is inconsistent.

Oldskeptic wrote:It's just non-overlapping magisterium all over again.

Sure.

Oldskeptic wrote:I understand intellectual integrity, but some with a philosophical bent go far beyond any rational edge. Science can't do this, and science can't do that. Who fucking cares except philosophers and theologians? No one that I know of has claimed that "God" has been disproved.

But you should care. He´s right in noting that understanding what makes science so great is understanding what science does. And that includes understanding its limitations.

Oldskeptic wrote:This is the problem with the God hypothesis. It is not needed by science, and some people resent this. Apparently this extends to some that would call themselves atheist.

Any god that is even worth discussing for a second is not a God hypothesis. A god for which there is no evidence may be possible, a god for which there is evidence is utterly absurd.

I think there are issues with the video - particularly that we had positive knowledge that put a man on the moon. Of course we didn´t - it was negative knowledge that allowed us to do that. There are certainly parts of his philosophy of science that could use tidying up...

Oldskeptic wrote:On the other hand a famous case is Darwin supposedly loosing his belief in a creator god because of his studies that led to evolutionary theory, but as far as I know he never claimed to have proof that there was no creator god. He just lost his faith in a creator god.

Not quite correct. Darwin did lose his faith because he was shaken by the painful slow death of his daughter. Something rather well established through his journals.

Oldskeptic wrote:In the past, before Darwin, people had no real explanation for the diversity and complexity of life other than a designer/creator god, but Darwin took that away from them. No longer was there only one explanation, and for their explanation to be correct evolution by natural selection had to be wrong, and it goes on today.

Well, there had been attempts and Darwin was not the first to postulate an evolutionary theory - Lamarck is probably the best known, but Erasmus Darwin also held such views. But Paley had argued (quite successfully) that these didn´t work. Paley based his reasoning on logic and a scientific premise - one that also appears in other proofs of god. Namely that the natural world runs on a particular type of causality - let´s call it "type 1". Lamarckism and other ideas in that vein relied on type 1 causality and Paley showed that it wasn´t enough. You needed something that runs on "type 2" causality. The cosmological argument for god also works like this, it argues that everything in nature runs on type 1 and you need something that is type 2 and "that is what everybody cals god".
Darwin had read Paley and got around this by stating that there was type 2 causality in nature. And by now we know that nature runs on type 2 causality exclusively. Thus Darwin (and the offshoots, like modern atomic theory) removed the premise in those proofs of god.
And that´s relevant, because traditionally atheist philosophers tried to figure out ways for the universe to run on type 1 exclusively to counter the proofs of god. Laplace, whom you have cited a premier example for this. And new atheism seems to be married to this idea as well. I think it´s time for an atheist philosophy that is based on type 2 causality, which seems to be undeveloped as of now (if nothing else that´s a big job for philosophers to get on).

susu.exp wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:Science is incapable of even addressing the existence of "God". So, philosophy is necessary. Well philosophy can't prove or disprove the existence for "God" either.

Actually philosophy can prove or disprove the existence of god, given a set of premises. The thing is: It can´t pick one set of premises over another, provided they are both consistent. If one were to show that god does not exist in any set of consistent premises, one has shown that god doesn´t exist and vice versa. It´s worth noting that for some conceptions of god we can actually show this and as it happens, those are the only ones in which science has anything to contribute. But as they are inconsistent anyway, this involvement is superflous.

I sort of agree. My problem with any philosophical argument regarding god/s is their premises. In order to make a premise, we need to have SOME sort of knowledge of what we are talking about.

If we take the deductive socrates argument, we know, by definition that socrates is a man and that men are mortal.

When we bring god/s into the equation, we are making assumptions. Sure, we can "define" god in any way we wish and create a perfectly valid argument, but it will not be a sound argument because we have no support for our premises.

So if one wishes to prove god, even logically, shouldnt it be required that there be evidence to support the premises? If there is evidence, it MUST be natural as we have no means of detecting anything OTHER than natural evidence. So if there is evidence, it must be natural and therefore it IS within the realm of science and can be tested.

So I just deductively proved that any evidence/argument for god can be tested by science!

nygreenguy wrote:I sort of agree. My problem with any philosophical argument regarding god/s is their premises. In order to make a premise, we need to have SOME sort of knowledge of what we are talking about.

If we take the deductive socrates argument, we know, by definition that socrates is a man and that men are mortal.

When we bring god/s into the equation, we are making assumptions. Sure, we can "define" god in any way we wish and create a perfectly valid argument, but it will not be a sound argument because we have no support for our premises.

So if one wishes to prove god, even logically, shouldnt it be required that there be evidence to support the premises? If there is evidence, it MUST be natural as we have no means of detecting anything OTHER than natural evidence. So if there is evidence, it must be natural and therefore it IS within the realm of science and can be tested.

So I just deductively proved that any evidence/argument for god can be tested by science!

The problem with the above is, that science does rest on premises as well. There is the Münchhausen trilemma (any argument ultimately rests on axiomatic premises, is circular or has a infinite regress) and it imples that any knowledge rest on one of these three. Under a congruence theory of truth it is sufficient for a system of axioms to be consistent for statements to be true (realtive to that system) if they are true within that system. I.e. we can justifiably state that there are infinitely many primes although we can´t justify the axioms of peano arithmetic with emprirical evidence.

Right off the bat, his definition of Science is a complete and utter failure. What he's describing would be better referred to as perhaps "sciency-sounding philosophy." He doesn't understand any of the OTHER terms he uses either.

My personal suspicion, is that he's yet another sneaky religious nut, who is trying to sneak in a side door, pretending to be an Atheist, while actually pushing blind faith. He's no different from that kid who was here earlier, ranting on and on about how he thought that "faith" was required to believe in Science, therefore all scientists are actually religious believers. Misunderstanding something in a fundamental way, and building a complete belief system upon those misunderstandings is an ancient fallacious indulgence.

One thing to watch out for in ALL people pushing ideas at you: the fact that someone has a large vocabulary, often causes non-vigilant people to assume that the large vocabulary is backed by deep understanding, and a broad and thorough education. That isn't true either.

The fact that this guy knows how to PRONOUNCE "epistemology," doesn't mean he has the slightest clue about the subjects he pretends to discuss.

igorfrankensteen wrote:Right off the bat, his definition of Science is a complete and utter failure. What he's describing would be better referred to as perhaps "sciency-sounding philosophy." He doesn't understand any of the OTHER terms he uses either.

My personal suspicion, is that he's yet another sneaky religious nut, who is trying to sneak in a side door, pretending to be an Atheist, while actually pushing blind faith. He's no different from that kid who was here earlier, ranting on and on about how he thought that "faith" was required to believe in Science, therefore all scientists are actually religious believers. Misunderstanding something in a fundamental way, and building a complete belief system upon those misunderstandings is an ancient fallacious indulgence.

I disagree. I am pretty sure he is a real atheist. Ive watched several of his videos in the past. I happen to just disagree with some of his interpretation of what he says.

Under a congruence theory of truth it is sufficient for a system of axioms to be consistent for statements to be true (realtive to that system) if they are true within that system. I.e. we can justifiably state that there are infinitely many primes although we can´t justify the axioms of peano arithmetic with emprirical evidence.

But how do you know that the peano axioms are consistent? That's rather the whole point of Godel's incompleteness theorems.

CliveStaples wrote:But how do you know that the peano axioms are consistent? That's rather the whole point of Godel's incompleteness theorems.

What Gödel showed was that we can´t prove the consistency of peano using peano itself or anything of lesser power. If you go beyond a certain point of expressiveness only inconsistent axiomatic systems prove their own consistency. However we can prove the consistency of peano using a "bigger gun" so to speak. And that of course has the same issue, but we can prove it´s consistency with yet another bigger... But basically this means that from a particular point on, we can not know for sure that some axiomatic system is consistent. We can however note that we haven´t encountered any inconsistency so far and tenatively accept it. Much in the same way that we tenatively accept scientific theories that are consistent with all observations so far.

-Sylvan wrote:What I meant was that I have witnessed a few atheists; implicitly and I'm sure mistakenly, assert an opinion that evolution is evidence in favor for there being no God(s).

Actually, to be rigorous about this, evidence that evolutionary processes work, without the need for any magic input, renders magic entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant, with respect to the biosphere. Indeed, every scientific development that demonstrates the sufficiency of testable natural processes, with respect to the behaviour of a particular system of entities and interactions, renders magic entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant for that system. Demonstrating superfluity and irrelevance for a given system does not necessarily imply non-existence of those superfluous and irrelevant entities, when considering the issue in a rigorous manner, but it does at a stroke rule out subsets of those entities that are asserted to be critically necessary for the operation of that system. Evolution doesn't rule out, for example, a deist god, or any god that is asserted to utilise natural processes in order to achieve various aims, and neither does any other scientific theory. But, scientific theories involving testable natural processes toss the entire need for magical intervention into the bin. As a direct corollary, we can rule out the sort of sad little magic man creationists believe in.

I happen to consider that even deist gods have a hard time of it in such a universe, because if they are pointless, serve no purpose and engage in no interactions with the physical universe, detectable or not, then why do we need to bother postulating their existence?

However, a god that uses natural processes to achieve various aims, and doesn't engage in wholesale kicking of the laws of physics into the bin in order to make things more administratively convenient, is slightly harder to rule out altogether. Trouble is, such a god would, in some respects, be doing an even better job of hiding himself than a deist god. At least all that a deist god has to do in order to remain forever inscrutable is sweet nothing. An interventionist god, assuming that said god doesn't want any interventions to be obvious, has to engage in some very intricate subterfuges indeed in order to keep those interventions hidden. Which opens up its own cans of worms that I'm currently minded to leave for another thread.

-Sylvan wrote:Let me clarify on this; when a run-of-the-mill atheist suggests this, they are encompassing not only modern Abrahamic religions, but any kind of creator that could exist or not exist outside of time.

See above.

-Sylvan wrote:I guess I should have given a more succinct explanation on the dissimilarities of both assertions, but I'm sure you know what I am talking about now.

Well this cuts to the heart of the distinction Dawkins raises, when he says that modern scientific developments make a god extremely unlikely, but don't necessarily reduce the probability thereof to precisely zero. I happen to think personally that the moment you render supernatural entities of any sort superfluous to requirements and irrelevant, you've dealt a sufficiently critical blow to the idea of supernatural entities on the basis of parsimony, because such entities constitute a massive violation of parsimony, and thus far, the evidence available to physicists is that parsimony is an excellent guiding principle with respect to the universe and its contents.

Mick wrote:

mark1961 wrote:Philosophy is nowadays only of limited use. In the past it did much to conceal the truth. There's a lot of energy being wasted out there futilely wasting energy by people chasing their tails like demented Jack Russell's.

You shouldn't judge philosophy on its instrumental value. Philosophy is worthwhile to study in and of itself. It involves the sort of questions which no reflective person can avoid. Actually, as far as many Greeks were concerned, it is essential knowledge to living well.

Except that the Greeks weren't living in an era when particle accelerators were an engineering reality. They were operating from an extremely limited knowledge base in comparison to today. On the other hand, any reflective person in the 21st century need only consider the question "why does basing one's views upon evidentially supported postulates, as scientists do, work so well, whilst basing one's views upon unsupported blind assertions fail dismally, as mythology does?" in order to illuminate their thinking enormously.

I dont see your point, cali. The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science. Take socrates for example. What did he ask which has any relevance to your post?

What crypto-theists can't do: represent atheism.

Mick wrote:The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science.?

That's because they didn't have any biological science, and had to wibble, instead. To an evolutionary biologist, 'living well' means being a species for awhile. Being extinct is not 'living well'.

Calilasseia wrote:

-Sylvan wrote:What I meant was that I have witnessed a few atheists; implicitly and I'm sure mistakenly, assert an opinion that evolution is evidence in favor for there being no God(s).

Actually, to be rigorous about this, evidence that evolutionary processes work, without the need for any magic input, renders magic entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant, with respect to the biosphere. Indeed, every scientific development that demonstrates the sufficiency of testable natural processes, with respect to the behaviour of a particular system of entities and interactions, renders magic entities superfluous to requirements and irrelevant for that system. Demonstrating superfluity and irrelevance for a given system does not necessarily imply non-existence of those superfluous and irrelevant entities, when considering the issue in a rigorous manner, but it does at a stroke rule out subsets of those entities that are asserted to be critically necessary for the operation of that system. Evolution doesn't rule out, for example, a deist god, or any god that is asserted to utilise natural processes in order to achieve various aims, and neither does any other scientific theory. But, scientific theories involving testable natural processes toss the entire need for magical intervention into the bin. As a direct corollary, we can rule out the sort of sad little magic man creationists believe in.

I happen to consider that even deist gods have a hard time of it in such a universe, because if they are pointless, serve no purpose and engage in no interactions with the physical universe, detectable or not, then why do we need to bother postulating their existence?

However, a god that uses natural processes to achieve various aims, and doesn't engage in wholesale kicking of the laws of physics into the bin in order to make things more administratively convenient, is slightly harder to rule out altogether. Trouble is, such a god would, in some respects, be doing an even better job of hiding himself than a deist god. At least all that a deist god has to do in order to remain forever inscrutable is sweet nothing. An interventionist god, assuming that said god doesn't want any interventions to be obvious, has to engage in some very intricate subterfuges indeed in order to keep those interventions hidden. Which opens up its own cans of worms that I'm currently minded to leave for another thread.

Excellent post. There is just one more thing to add.

Evolution rules out the existence of God. (That is, the God worshiped by most religions, you know the omnipotent, omnibenevolent sort). That's because evolution is a cruel and wasteful process. Evolution has all the organisms on earth engaging on an arms race with each other and mercilessly weed out those who are less adapted to their environment. What kind of all-loving all-powerful god would allow certain humans to perish just because they don't possess the right genes? Theists that believes in the theory of evolution calls it theistic evolution, claiming that that's because god guides the evolutionary process. Let's see, who does that remind you of? Think about someone who guides a process that weeds out certain human beings for not possessing the right genes. Does that someone strike you as all-loving?

Cito di Pense wrote:

Mick wrote:The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science.?

That's because they didn't have any biological science, and had to wibble, instead. To an evolutionary biologist, 'living well' means being a species for awhile. Being extinct is not 'living well'.

So, we've successfully reduced our ethical categories to "fucking" or "dead"?

Mick wrote:I dont see your point, cali.

Why does this not surprise me in the least?

Mick wrote:The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science.

What, including the various assertions they erected about the behaviour of the physical universe? You appear to have forgotten that back in the days of the Greeks, assertions about the behaviour of the physical universe came under their umbrella heading of 'philosophy'. Though to give Aristotle some credit here, he did regard empirical observation as important.

Trouble is, of course, a significant proportion of the subjects of study considered by the Greeks to form part of 'philosophy', no longer does so. Those nice people with the particle accelerators have taken over with respect thereto.

Plus, there exist reasons for considering ethics to be a discipline capable of admitting some degree of empirical verification of postulates. Reasons that arise from the scientific evidence that our capacity for ethical thinking, and our capacity for empathy, have a biological and evolutionary basis. You'll find I've presented the relevant papers in some detail. As a corollary, the idea that we can simply erect assertions within this discipline, and expect reality to rearrange itself to conform thereto, is a non-starter.

Mick wrote:Take socrates for example. What did he ask which has any relevance to your post?

Try the fact that the Socratic method was a precursor to the scientific method. Namely, formulate a hypothesis, test said hypothesis, reject the hypothesis if it fails the test. Just as the scientific method eliminates hypotheses that fail empirical test, the Socratic method eliminates hypotheses that are found to be based upon contradiction or paradox, at least, that was the original intention thereof. Indeed, one important lesson that Socrates taught, and one which was later taken up by mathematicians interested in axiomatic formulation, was that if you're going to talk about something, you'd better know what you're talking about, which again, takes us back to the scientific method. In short, Socrates was the first person to apply the maxim "bad ideas exist to be destroyed", which again means that a fair amount of the discourse attributed to him is entirely relevant to my post.

Indeed, I propose by way of hypothesis, that despite some of the views attributed to him (such as the entirely predictable belief in the existence of an 'immortal soul' that was impossible to escape from in a pre-scientific era), his development of the Socratic method was the first documented instance of bullshit detection in action. Consequently, his deployment of that method is entirely relevant to my post, the difference being of course, that his method of eliminating bad ideas was to home in upon contradictions and absurdities, as opposed to homing in upon empirical evidence supporting or refuting a hypothesis, which is the method considered most reliable by scientists, courtesy of an impressive track record in this regard.

Indeed, since in Socrates' day, many of the questions that, to use the words from your post, "no reflective person can avoid", were questions about the physical universe, the fact that many people in that era simply erected assertions, and declared that reality conformed thereto (see, for example, Ptolemy's model of the solar system, which was basically wrong), brings their contemplations thereabout within the remit of my post. But please, don't let elementary facts such as this stop you from peddling more apologetic horseshit, will you?

quas wrote:There is just one more thing to add.

Evolution rules out the existence of God. (That is, the God worshiped by most religions, you know the omnipotent, omnibenevolent sort).

Well, it certainly rules out certain classes of asserted magic entity, but I was careful to point out that some classes of magic entity aren't necessarily barred by evolution. Trouble is, it isn't members of the theoretically permitted classes of magic entity that are being upheld by mythology fetishists.

quas wrote:That's because evolution is a cruel and wasteful process.

From the standpoint of our deliberations, this is so if one includes ethical considerations within those deliberations. From the standpoint of pure biology, however, which doesn't include any ethical considerations, at least not in elementary analyses, evolution isn't wasteful because [1] it works, and [2] it recycles the failures as food for other organisms, and 'cruel' simply doesn't enter the picture.

quas wrote:Evolution has all the organisms on earth engaging on an arms race with each other

Actually, evolution has also produced some marvellous examples of co-operation. Such as the relationship between various marine Gobies, and an assortment of shrimps. Such as, for example, the partnership between various Amblyeleotris Gobies (9 species) and a range of Alpheid shrimps in the Genus Alpheus, though other Gobiid Genera also exhibit the same partnerships (e.g., 3 species of Cryptocentrus, 4 species of Ctenogobiops, Lotilla graciliosa, Mahidolia mystacina and Tomiyamichthys latruncularius). Then of course, there's the mutualism between various zooxanthellae (sessile dinoflagellate algae) and reef-building coral polyps, the 'cleaner fish' behaviour of Labroides dimidiatus and other wrasses in the same Genus (said 'cleaning' behaviour, feeding off exctoparasites, also exhibited by shrimps such as Stenopus hispidus, Lysmata amboinensis and at least two species of Periclimenes). Plus, the world's forests are all built upon one enormous class of mutualisms, between the roots of trees, and assorted mycorrhizal fungi. If those fungi die out, you kiss goodbye to every forest ecosystem on the planet. And of course, as an entomologist, I can hardly resist pointing out the exquisite mutualism between Attine ants (known colloquially as Leafcutter Ants) of the Genera Atta and Acromyrmex, and various fungi, which the ants cultivate. Oh, and whilst on the subject of interesting relationships, take a peek at this past post of mine, in which I covered the contents of a scientific paper describing how Monarch butterflies deal with parasite infestations by providing their young with medication against the parasites.

quas wrote:and mercilessly weed out those who are less adapted to their environment.

Actually, even Darwin himself would probably tell you that what counts is not the tired old "survival of the fittest" cliché erected by Francis Galton, but survival of the sufficiently competent. You don't have to be the acme of perfection to survive and reproduce, you simply have to be good enough to clear the bar.

Indeed, some mildly deleterious mutations can persist in a population for some time, because they don't lower the competence of those individuals possessing said mutations to the point where they can't clear the bar, so to speak. These can act as source material for the emergence of further mutations, which, instead of decreasing competence still further, actually increase competence with respect to the current fitness landscape. If you search the relevant literature, I think you'll find documented instances of a mildly deleterious mutation leading to an advantageous one. Indeed, in the case of humans, the sickle cell gene may be mildly deleterious, from the standpoint of the oxygen transport efficiency of haemoglobin molecules, but the gene confers a big advantage to heterozygotes, in the form of significantly increased resistance to attack by malaria.

quas wrote:What kind of all-loving all-powerful god would allow certain humans to perish just because they don't possess the right genes?

Or, as Darwin noted, would allow for the existence of ichneumon wasps, whose life cycle obligates them to lay their eggs inside Lepidoptera larvae, and for the wasp larvae thus hatching to eat their victims alive from the inside out? Or for such delightful organisms as Dracunculus medinensis, an obligate parasite of humans (Guinea Worm) that causes extremely painful, debilitating illness? Or Onchocerca volvulus, another obligate parasite of humans, that causes the condition known as River Blindness? Or Loa loa, the African Eye Worm, which is another obligate parasite of humans, and which can kill? Not to mention no less than twenty one species of Schistosoma flukes. You can find a lot more here if you're not squeamish.

Rather does rule out Abrahamic species of magic men, doesn't it?

Of course, it doesn't necessarily rule out a cosmic Populous player ...

quas wrote:Theists that believes in the theory of evolution calls it theistic evolution, claiming that that's because god guides the evolutionary process. Let's see, who does that remind you of? Think about someone who guides a process that weeds out certain human beings for not possessing the right genes. Does that someone strike you as all-loving?

Not really. But then I don't happen to think that mythological assertions dictate to reality.

think wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Mick wrote:The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science.?

That's because they didn't have any biological science, and had to wibble, instead. To an evolutionary biologist, 'living well' means being a species for awhile. Being extinct is not 'living well'.

So, we've successfully reduced our ethical categories to "fucking" or "dead"?

See above. This isn't an ethical view, it's a purely biological view. From the standpoint of biology, 'living well' consists of producing lots of offspring. From the standpoint of human ethics, however, there are occasions when producing any offspring is considered wrong, such as, for example, a child resulting from a girl being raped by her father. Not only has the girl in question suffered a great deal of demonstrable harm from the rape itself, but the child resulting therefrom is statistically more likely to face problems arising from the genetics of incestuous couplings.

Calilasseia wrote:

think wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

Mick wrote:The questions the greeks asked about living well or whatnot pertain wholly to philosophy, not science.?

That's because they didn't have any biological science, and had to wibble, instead. To an evolutionary biologist, 'living well' means being a species for awhile. Being extinct is not 'living well'.

So, we've successfully reduced our ethical categories to "fucking" or "dead"?

See above. This isn't an ethical view, it's a purely biological view. From the standpoint of biology, 'living well' consists of producing lots of offspring. From the standpoint of human ethics, however, there are occasions when producing any offspring is considered wrong, such as, for example, a child resulting from a girl being raped by her father. Not only has the girl in question suffered a great deal of demonstrable harm from the rape itself, but the child resulting therefrom is statistically more likely to face problems arising from the genetics of incestuous couplings.

I agree that it isn't an ethical view, but if it isn't an ethical view then its irrelevant to question of the good life as addressed in Greek philosophy, contrary to what Cito seems to think.

From the standpoint of biology, living well is a meaningless value judgement which may or may not correspond in some way to the content of biological theory. But I do appreciate that our ethical sensibilities have progressed to the point where we can affirm that incestuous rape is, indeed, a no-no.

think wrote:

Calilasseia wrote:

think wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

That's because they didn't have any biological science, and had to wibble, instead. To an evolutionary biologist, 'living well' means being a species for awhile. Being extinct is not 'living well'.

So, we've successfully reduced our ethical categories to "fucking" or "dead"?

See above. This isn't an ethical view, it's a purely biological view. From the standpoint of biology, 'living well' consists of producing lots of offspring. From the standpoint of human ethics, however, there are occasions when producing any offspring is considered wrong, such as, for example, a child resulting from a girl being raped by her father. Not only has the girl in question suffered a great deal of demonstrable harm from the rape itself, but the child resulting therefrom is statistically more likely to face problems arising from the genetics of incestuous couplings.

I agree that it isn't an ethical view, but if it isn't an ethical view then its irrelevant to question of the good life as addressed in Greek philosophy, contrary to what Cito seems to think.

From the standpoint of biology, living well is a meaningless value judgement which may or may not correspond in some way to the content of biological theory. But I do appreciate that our ethical sensibilities have progressed to the point where we can affirm that incestuous rape is, indeed, a no-no.

Look, if it helps you feel good to be able to say that something is 'wrong' or 'a no-no' as an ethical category, far be it from me to rain on your parade. The concept of 'living well' may indeed be all about 'ethical categories', but the belief that it spill over necessarily into the physical is pure woo. We can, as Cali points out, say that we understand how ethical concepts evolved, but we are still not done proving that they really yield something evolutionarily successful. Survival is marked by that which survives, and special sauce (today in the form of believing that ethical concepts have a predictable evolutionary value) is hooey. Not everything that evolves has any value to stave off extinction, least of all 'indefinitely'. Witness all the poor critters whose species are now extinct. And this talk of 'progress'? Puh-leeze.

Delvo wrote:A pseudointellectual doesn't necessarily need to be someone who doesn't know his stuff. It can also be someone who pretends there's more intellectual content to the stuff that he knows than there really is... or someone whose stuff that he knows is simply the art of explaining simple unremarkable ideas extremely inefficiently in the hope of getting his audience to mistake inefficiency for intellectuality...

It's clear that 'ethics' has some sort of ontology, at least as a 'conversation'. Beyond that, I doubt its function, other than to produce endorphins in those who get off on saying that something is right or wrong. Any more, and you get my cynicism as to what the legal profession has principally evolved to protect. It has, in some sense re-defined 'fitness' on a trajectory away from the role it plays in evolution, so successful reproduction becomes increasingly expensive, once you factor in the inflation in food prices. You see that righteous indignation is all about endorphins.

Cito di Pense wrote:

Look, if it helps you feel good to be able to say that something is 'wrong' or 'a no-no' as an ethical category, far be it from me to rain on your parade. The concept of 'living well' may indeed be all about 'ethical categories', but the belief that it spill over necessarily into the physical is pure woo. We can, as Cali points out, say that we understand how ethical concepts evolved, but we are still not done proving that they really yield something evolutionarily successful. Survival is marked by that which survives, and special sauce (today in the form of believing that ethical concepts have a predictable evolutionary value) is hooey. Not everything that evolves has any value to stave off extinction, least of all 'indefinitely'. Witness all the poor critters whose species are now extinct. And this talk of 'progress'? Puh-leeze.

We seem to have a lot of miscommunications, Cito. Is English a second language for you? If so, I will attempt to refrain from the use of irony and idiom in my future conversations with you.