Does your Theology Align with Reality? (page 8)

bohm

Okay so with the broken arm, we should behave and talk like normal people. With regards to evolution or the idea the earth is round, we should waffle around endlessly with questions like: how do you define flat, how do you define round....

slimboyfat

What is so waffly about objecting to the claim that a certain description of reality is 100% absolutely certain? I did the same in my mock doctor's reply in case you didn't notice. I'd prefer that to a doctor who was 100% certain of his diagnosis and not open to any possibility of changing his mind. Wouldn't you?

adamah

Bohm said-

Okay so with the broken arm, we should behave and talk like normal people. With regards to evolution or the idea the earth is round, we should waffle around endlessly with questions like: how do you define flat, how do you define round....

Such discussions are often pedantic, IMO, unless the person is actually a practicing scientist who formulates new thypotheses/theories OR is acting as a unofficial spokesperson for science, as if they're representing the beliefs of scientific community. Then it's NOT so pedantic, but possibly harmful, and only the same ol' dubious 'appeal to authority'. It's embodied in the egotistical arrogant doctor who cannot admit to misdiagnosing a patient: in real life, most patients prefer a doctor who's attitude is not "my way or the highway", but instead who LISTENS to them, and works WITH them to resolve their symptoms in a caring and compassionate manner.

But like others have pointed out, JWN isn't primarily a forum for scientific discussions, but for ex-JWs who should be offered enough correct information about science on which to based an informed decision, offered in a manner that shows compassion and dignity for their RIGHT to make a decision on their own.

I dare say Cofty intended to do that with his OP, and most participants in this thread can likely agree on that point!

Adam

bohm

Sbf: whats waffly is your insistence turning everything into an epistomological pissingmatch. Fine, we might be naked brains in vacuum, so everyhing is a litle less than 100% certain, but why not simply do that mental substitution for yourself and not bring it up every flippin time there is a post on science? The problem here is what number less than 100% we are going to go with, theres no way to really quantify it so 100% might as well be as good an approximation we can get.

cantleave

I earned a doctorate in science many decades ago

I'd love to read your paper, could you provide the references please.

slimboyfat

100% is certainty. There is no certainty. To point that out is not pedantic, it has real implications for how the discourse is carried on.

Again, I'd prefer a doctor who told me he was almost certain what was wrong with me but was open to changing his mind, rather than a doctor who was 100% certain what was wrong and what should be done about it. That's the sort of real life difference we are talking about, and I am on the side of reasonableness and you are not.

cognisonance

(I am aware DNA is said to point to a common origin for all life on earth, but is that really certain either? Or just a good construction on the basis of the current understanding?)

I assist with bioinformatics at a lab studying evolutionary biology. The probability that Humans and Chimpanzees share a more recent common ancestor than Gibbons, Gorillas, and Baboons is so high (or for many other phylogenetic analyses), that we might as well call it “really certain.”

Studying the DNA relationships between organisms and determining how they are related by common ancestry commonly uses Bayesian probabilities. In this statistical framework evidence (data) about whether something is true or not is expressed in terms of degrees of belief, how certain something is to be the case.

So with common ancestry as mentioned above, there is a very high probability that humans and chimps share a common ancestor.

So no, in this specific example, I cannot say with 100% certainty that humans and chimps have a common ancestor. However, when you take this evidence and combine it with other forms of DNA evidence, and especially other independent fields of science all coming to the same conclusion (common ancestry), it becomes very difficult to see evolution as anything other than a scientific fact, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and accepted as true. Such trueness is provisional of course, since it can be improved upon.

Think of it this way. Gravity is a scientific fact. Has been that way back in Newton’s day, through Einstein’s, and up to our day. Yet, the specifics about gravity have changed overtime. What people accept as fact in the 1800s has changed. But the underlying fundamentals have not. Common ancestry is just one of those fundamentals. It’s a scientific fact.

Comatose

Personally, if I had fallen and hurt my arm and it was bent at a wrong angle, then I had x-rays which showed a clear break... I'd be really annoyed with a doc that refused to just say I had a broken arm and needed a cast. I honestly do not think you all are right on this at all.

Mankind is right now in space and looking at the earth. It is not a flat pancake like object as people use to believe. So whether or not it looks flat when standing in a desert, we all know the earth is not flat.

To argue over this is really silly.

Frazzled UBM

Does Science involve faith? Faith in the scientific process, faith in the truth of a particular scientific paradigm until it is overturned by a new scientific paradigm?

Cofty - as an Atheist and Rationalist I am with you but I think we also need to challenge ourselves and our assumptions. And if faith is not harmful and it promotes well-being, happiness and ethical behaviour - who are we to condemn it?

Science does not have all the answers because there are limits to the ability of the scientific method to generate absolute truth - what happens after we die in a spiritual sense is one of those. While science suggest that the essence of a person ceases to exist when the body ceases to function, can we really be certain of that? Medical Science has not yet worked out exactly how the brain and body interact - one's mental state and will may be critical to whether someone becomes ill and how quickly they recover - bloody mindedness is correlated to longevity but we don't know exactly why.

bohm

Sbf: the problem is so far the only effect your observation has had on your contribution to these topics has been a wholo lot of saying the same thing again and again. but enlighten me, whats the positive effect of not being certain the earth is not flat?

Does your Theology Align with Reality?

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