Well, sure. If you're inclined to adopt a "non-materialist" stance - dismissing scientific evidence because it's "materialist" - then you could use that as an excuse to deny that there's good evidence for evolution. Pretending that scientific evidence doesn't "count" as evidence requires quite a high degree of the personal belief scaffolding you refer to, however. It's also somewhat disingenuous, because typically the same people who reject science when it comes to topics like evolution routinely accept science when it comes to topics that they don't perceive as threatening to their religious faith.
You mean, dismissing a hypothesis due to its lack of evidence. I'm not even talking about evolution. We're talking about abiogenesis. Why are you trying to change the subject? And it's your own straw man that anyone denies scientific evidence. You use to be better than this. What happened? What "people who reject science" are you talking about? Maybe you should go talk to them instead. I believe what we can repeatably test and demonstrate. I presume you'd hold the same stance for God. You'd believe if it could be demonstrated. How is my belief of an unsupported hypothesis any different?
What claims of mine are you referring to, specifically?
Abiogenesis. They may be qualified claims, but unless they are falsifiable, they're aren't science.
Well, evidence of creation by a God would falsify it, for starters. But we don't have anything like that, do we?
In fact, any evidence that showed that life was created by anything other than natural processes would potentially falsify abiogenesis.
That's more of an answer than I got from anyone else here. Everyone else just said abiogenesis was the "only answer". Thanks for the intellectual honesty.
I presume that you're willing to wait indefinitely for actual evidence of abiogenesis, before seriously doubting it on its own merit. Kind of like people waiting for Christ to return.
Cliches often become so because people notice valid patterns of thought and behaviour.
They can also be of the thought-terminating variety.
What do you regard as the "territory of God"?
Just this morning, I posted in another thread about my own opinion on the "non-overlapping magisteria" idea put forward by Steven J. Gould to try to avoid arguments between science and religion. The problem is, it doesn't really work. Religion has always made pronouncements about the natural world, along with its pronouncements about the supernatural one. Stuff in the natural world is firmly in the magisterium of science.
Cause of the Big Bang, origin of life, at least the perception of free will, hard problem of consciousness, mind-body problem, etc..
Science is often used to make unsupported claims which it has thus not proven is even in its magisterium, like the aforementioned territory. And there are always people in either camp who will overreach. That doesn't mean Gould was wrong, only that some people are.
Mere weight of evidence never stopped anyone believing in falsehoods, or refusing to believe in true things. Examples are easy to find.
If there was good evidence for God, that wouldn't negate people's ability to disbelieve in God, any more than evidence for evolution has negated people's ability to deny that it happens.
I didn't say like evolution, I said like a chair. If you're honest, you have to admit that there is less evidence for evolution than there is a chair. Anyone can see, touch, and sit on a chair for themselves.
I agree, but far less of a leap is needed to make abiogenesis plausible than an omnipotent personal God, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Sure, for you. Believers have compelling personal experience that you do not, and no evidence of abiogenesis on the other side of the scale. You have materialist beliefs and no personal experience of God on the other side of the scale.
Actually, any theory that says (or suggests) that things came to be as they are without the intervention of a supernatural deity tends to contradict the idea of a Creator god. This is why biblical literalists get so riled up against science in general.
Like I've told billvon, if you want to talk to literalists, go find one. Otherwise you might as well be pissing into the wind.
If there is a creator God, whatever evolution may have occurred is necessarily a product of its creation. Intervention is not necessary if it was designed to be so.
I believe that I have taken issue with certain proposed definitions of God that were logically inconsistent or incoherent; call that a refutation if you like.
As for arguing for abiogenesis, I certainly argue that, given our current knowledge, it is the most likely explanation for the origin of life. At no point have I claimed it is the proven origin of life, because it hasn't been proven that life can be created without supernatural intervention. On the other hand, nobody has proven that life can be (or was) created by supernatural intervention, either. I'm content to wait until the evidence is in, either way. But it is silly to pretend that "God did it" is any sort of real explanation for how life started. Claiming that "God did it" doesn't actually explain how it happened. It's just a stopper to explain away a gap where actual knowledge would be preferable. God of the gaps, in other words.
Like I said, a bit disingenuous to call out discussion about abiogenesis as being off topic when you're engaging in it yourself.
I agree, no one has, nor likely ever will, prove that life was created by a God. That would entail proving the existence of God, which would negate free belief. Again, like a chair you sit in, you can't disbelieve it without being insane. Being insane is not free will.
God-of-the-gaps is still just a thought-terminating cliche. I get that you don't like God as an explanation, but until science has evidence to claim that territory, it's not in the science magisterium.
