We are talking about the two people in the OP. Are you going to tell them: "If you really want to learn, forget the sound bites and read a book."?
Because i am not trying to get out of a debate here.
Richard Dawkins Again Refuses Debate With Christian Apologist William Craig
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
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We are talking about the two people in the OP. Are you going to tell them: "If you really want to learn, forget the sound bites and read a book."?
Because i am not trying to get out of a debate here.
Real life doesn't stop and wait for one to sit down and think up a suitable response.
One ought to be able to think on one's feet. Being ready is all.
That's science. We constantly learn things, and just when we think we're sure about something, nature shows us new things that may change our understanding. There will always be loose ends, usually discovered by us as we figure out previous loose ends.
Having said that, evolution is one of the heaviest evidence-backed theories there is. The only reason it's painted as questionable is that it challenges beliefs that we've had for thousands of years. Religious people don't seem to have trouble with the theory of gravitation, even though we still don't understand much about it.
@Ellie --
Sigh, the lost art of actually reading a book, it's a shame really.
What lose ends are these? Evolution is the single most highly evidenced theory in all of science, period. Evolution is less subject to doubt than the fact that H2O is water due to the sheer weight of the evidence which supports it.
Sigh, the lost art of actually reading a book, it's a shame really.
What lose ends are these? Evolution is the single most highly evidenced theory in all of science, period. Evolution is less subject to doubt than the fact that H2O is water due to the sheer weight of the evidence which supports it.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
In the academic world, one reads philosophical texts (and theological texts as well) slowly, carefully and methodically. The reader needs to identify what the author's theses are, the precise details of how he or she argues for those theses, what presuppositions are assumed by the argument and so on.
Often arguments don't hold together very well logically and desired conclusions can't really be drawn from the arguments that proceed them. (That's called a 'non-sequitur' in the business.) Sometimes arguments are circular and implicitly introduce the truth of the conclusion as one of the premises in the argument for the truth of that same conclusion. (That's called 'petitio principii' and it often occurs in religious arguments.) And oftentimes, the force of arguments depends on readers' accepting often unstated assumptions that can be just as questionable as the conclusions that they supposedly support.
Do you really believe that participating in a debate might convince William Lane Craig to abandon his Christianity?
You seem to be confusing a philosophical dialogue with a debate. In a philosphical dialogue, both parties are presenting ideas and critiquing them back and forth, so that together they might grow in sophistication and perhaps draw nearer to the truth. Dialogues are cooperative enterprises. In a debate, each party defends a fixed opposing position on some thesis that's been assigned to them at the beginning of the debate. Then each party tries to argue for their own position and/or to demolish their opponent's as best as they are able.
But the fact still remains, that if an argument is to be philosophically convincing, the premises of the argument have to be true and the logic of the argument has to be sound.
In a real-time format, it's often difficult to be certain that's the case. That's doubly true if one party in a debate is unfamiliar with the other party's arguments beforehand.
It's a familiar rhetorical trick for debaters to unleash a torrent of impenetrable technical jargon, then insist with a flourish that the thesis that they are defending is thereby proven, with the dismissive implication that it's all elementary and that anyone who fails to see it must obviously be deficient. It's difficult for debaters to defend against weak arguents forcefully presented when they are expected to digest everything and to have their own response formulated in seconds.
But on a discussion board like this, people have the opportunity to read slowly and attend to the details. Readers can consult references if necessary. They have the opportunity to think carefully about everything that's being said, and sometimes more importantly, about what's not being said.
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And how do you expect to learn MORE if people are not able to question it? What you are telling me is you want more indoctrination.
Not for me. According to you i have to believe one or the other all the while leaving out the fact that many Theists do believe in evolution.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"
What in your estimation signifies extraordinary evidence in the theory?
Now i will tell you that few people would under normal circumstances believe that an animal changes into another animal let alone an animal to a human.
Like it or not that is one tough nut to crack.
LOL...no, i just prefer the sound of a soothing human voice. Is there any real difference?
There is no solid 100% undisputable evidence. People want facts and not theories. We can all have theories sure some better than others but what you are telling me is "well its good enough".
Evidence we dont have:
How life began on this planet. Now we may know, but keyword is may, and that is just the beginning.
@Ellie --
Yes for you too. For everyone. We have more evidence supporting evolution than we do for any other theory in science. Even gravity and QED(which is responsible for the most accurate predictions in all of science) don't have nearly as much supporting evidence as evolution does.
I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say that every single piece of evidence we have ever found has supported evolution by natural selection instead of contradicted it. In science, evidence trumps all and the evidence indicated evolution, not ID.
Irrelevant. What people believe doesn't change what actually is. For tens of thousands of years no one actually believed that the world was round, but that didn't mean that it wasn't. Besides, what people believe has often been shown to be based on either faulty presuppositions or merely a lack of insufficient data. Almost no one would believe that something can come from nothing or that something could become nothing, yet this is happening all the time everywhere in the universe.
What you accept has no bearing on what actually is.
Yes for you too. For everyone. We have more evidence supporting evolution than we do for any other theory in science. Even gravity and QED(which is responsible for the most accurate predictions in all of science) don't have nearly as much supporting evidence as evolution does.
I'm not even slightly exaggerating when I say that every single piece of evidence we have ever found has supported evolution by natural selection instead of contradicted it. In science, evidence trumps all and the evidence indicated evolution, not ID.
Irrelevant. What people believe doesn't change what actually is. For tens of thousands of years no one actually believed that the world was round, but that didn't mean that it wasn't. Besides, what people believe has often been shown to be based on either faulty presuppositions or merely a lack of insufficient data. Almost no one would believe that something can come from nothing or that something could become nothing, yet this is happening all the time everywhere in the universe.
What you accept has no bearing on what actually is.
Please learn what "theory" actually means.
Nothing to do with evolution.
This is why you should get an education.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
There is a lot of evidence that evolution happened one way or another but there is almost no evidence to support our current knowledge about it, so for the most part you're really exaggerating.
The part about something coming from nothing or "turning" into nothing is drivel.
@Ellie --
Fact: All living organisms known to mankind share a common ancestor.
Fact: The best explanation for this is evolution by natural selection.
Try to argue your way out of those two.
Ah, I think I see the problem here....well a problem at least. You're using the term "theory" as though the scientific usage and the layman's usage are interchangeable. Well they're not. You can find the scientific usage and the difference between the two here.
So what we have here isn't me saying that my "idea" is better than yours, it's me saying that a model which has been painstakingly crafted down to the tiniest details and has withstood more than a hundred and fifty years of the most brutal scrutiny is probably going to be correct. Theism in general, and specifically ID in regards to this forum, has not undergone such a test. In fact anytime any argument is made for ID it's been taken apart and ground into burger meat within minutes.
Evolution has stood the brutal trial of scientific inquiry, ID simply has not.
Yup, we don't know how it began yet, but we will. It's only a matter of time. However, like I said earlier, this doesn't mean that we're pissing in the dark and that anyone's piss is as good as another. The fact that it's dark doesn't mean that a piss that misses the target magically hits it now.
Fact: All living organisms known to mankind share a common ancestor.
Fact: The best explanation for this is evolution by natural selection.
Try to argue your way out of those two.
Ah, I think I see the problem here....well a problem at least. You're using the term "theory" as though the scientific usage and the layman's usage are interchangeable. Well they're not. You can find the scientific usage and the difference between the two here.
So what we have here isn't me saying that my "idea" is better than yours, it's me saying that a model which has been painstakingly crafted down to the tiniest details and has withstood more than a hundred and fifty years of the most brutal scrutiny is probably going to be correct. Theism in general, and specifically ID in regards to this forum, has not undergone such a test. In fact anytime any argument is made for ID it's been taken apart and ground into burger meat within minutes.
Evolution has stood the brutal trial of scientific inquiry, ID simply has not.
Yup, we don't know how it began yet, but we will. It's only a matter of time. However, like I said earlier, this doesn't mean that we're pissing in the dark and that anyone's piss is as good as another. The fact that it's dark doesn't mean that a piss that misses the target magically hits it now.
As an introvert and an intuitive I like to have time to digest an unfamiliar concept/argument... Sure, sometimes I can spot the holes immediately. But every now and then someone makes me actually think about what they have to say and what I "believe". Real discussion isn't a game of ping pong.
Why do you care to hear them debate? If you really want to understand, you need to take the time to understand.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
That is not a clear evidence of something coming from nothing or "turning" into nothing. There is not enough evidence in those to make that kind of claim.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
If you're talking about an "absolute nothing" and not using a different definition of nothing you're going to need much better evidence than that.
A pair of dox, since there's nothing to make anything out of (yet, a balance is seen in charge and matter/antimatter state and/or a gravity/stuff energy balance) and anything having been around forever would no source and no definition point (yet it has an amount, limited forms, and the forms have specific properties).
What is the answer to the mystery?
Something has to give here, but what?