Missing the God point entirely

"cranky old fart said...

Radar,

Guess you missed the point, as usual.

"we don't know" IS very, very different from Goddidit.

"I would also say that if you can honestly say, "I don't know" you might also wish to try to find out"

Duh.

That's what science is all about.

Goddidit has nothing to do with the "finding out". It, as a practical matter, explains nothing. It covers the unknown with a blanket of scripture leading nowhere.

The bankruptcy of Godidit "explanations" are revealed by returning to our fundamental question:

Name one, just one, invention or scientific advancement brought about through the incorporation of a supernatural explanation."


Wrong question. I'll name an invention or discovery based on Goddidit as soon as you show me one based on chancedidit. But I will say that Goddidit is more useful, scientifically, than chancedidit.

If one understands that God, did indeed do it, then that not only provides an explanation for why everything seems to be designed (Duh! It was!) but then allows man to concentrate on learning from the design and not waste time trying to figure out how the dang thing ever came into being. If God designed it, it was well designed and worth studying and applying as we might. Nanoengineering is the science of applying God-designed concepts into manmade systems, for instance. I am sure there are nanoengineers who don't care to admit to God as being the designer of the systems they study, yet they do study those designs and try to incorporate them into our lives.

If one believes chancedidit, then one cannot count on chance doing it again and one must approach all systems with the idea that they may have great flaws and are not to necessarily be copied. Meanwhile, one spends much of one's time researching how chance may have done it. Why? To prove that chance did it. Why? To prove there is not a God. This is why such endeavors will fail. No one will be able to prove that there is no God.

Back when most scientists took for granted that God created and that all things were designed, they concentrated on the "how things work" aspect of science rather than chasing after the mythical unicorn of evolutionary origins.

Below is a post that not only illuminates my point to an extent, it is also about a great deal of very wasted effort, an attempt to find what will not be found. It is also ironic that their very methods fly in the face of evolution!

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SETI: Design in Spite of Itself

by David F. Coppedge

Researchers involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) use scientific equipment, collaborate with scientists, attend scientific conferences, publish scientific articles, and generally look and smell like scientists, lab coats and all. Most have degrees in science. This has not made them immune from accusations, though, that they are engaged in a quasi-scientific religious quest.

Novelist Michael Crichton and science historian George Basalla have been among the critics. Leaders in the Intelligent Design (ID) movement also have taken great glee in pointing out SETI's assumption that intelligence is detectable with scientific methods. Twice recently, leading SETI spokesmen have fought back against these charges, defending their work as scientific and materialistic. But did they succeed?

A better defender could hardly be found than Seth Shostak, Director of the SETI Institute. He appeared briefly in the ID film The Privileged Planet, not defending Intelligent Design, but explaining that "unless there's something very, very special—miraculous, if you will . . . about our planet Earth . . . then what happened here must have happened many times in the history of the Universe." Apparently irked by the suggestion that SETI uses the same assumption as ID that coded messages indicate an intelligent cause, he attempted to rebut this claim head-on in an essay for Space.com (12/01/2005).

Shostak argued that SETI is not looking for a complex code or message, but a "persistent, narrowband whistle" in a context that would make it appear artificial instead of natural. Yet SETI is clearly not restricted to such a narrow goal. From the beginning, SETI devotees have wished to communicate with other intelligent beings and learn from them; does this not explain repeated attempts to send messages out, whether on radio waves, Pioneer plaques, or Voyager records?

Shostak also made a false distinction between complexity and artificiality. ID argues that specified complexity is detectable by scientific means. The point is that if an intelligent agent wishes to communicate, it can use natural materials to convey a message, and humans can discriminate such attempts (e.g., smoke signals) from natural processes.

More recently, David Darling of the SETI Institute responded on Space.com (06/01/2006) to charges that SETI is a religion. He tried to contrast the scientific-looking appearance of SETI researchers and their equipment to religious believers praying in a worship service. He compared SETI to other research endeavors that took time to prove. He also claimed that we already know about non-human intelligence: apes and dolphins. These responses, however, create false dichotomies and comparisons. They attempt to hide the reality that no evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence has ever been found.

Opponents of creation argue that belief in God (or a designing intelligence) brings science to a halt. They say scientists should seek for underlying natural mechanisms, not just throw up their hands and say "God did it." If SETI researchers ever do detect a signal and conclude "aliens did it," could we not counter-argue they are bringing science to a halt by inferring design?


* David F. Coppedge works in the Cassini program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.