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Discussion for "evophil science religion comments others menu owen"

Comment by GD on 2007-10-03 at 19:22:23:

A very good summary of the subject which seems to deal with most (maybe all) of the objections people have with evolution. Well done.

Comment by SM on 2015-10-12 at 09:46:10:

Re: "Does Evolution Contradict Occam's Razor?", didn't Ockham's principle of parsimony include the Bible ("Sacred Scriptures") as one of the necessary authorities in positing entities?

Comment by SM on 2015-10-12 at 10:55:47:

"Morality has no external source when supernaturalism is discarded" - How do you produce the moral "ought" from the naturalistic "is"? Social conventions of behaviour cannot be the preconditions for normative moral standards. How can what one particular social group perceives as being moral, be normative for those outside of the group, especially if morality is still evolving? As a society, was what Nazi Germany deemed ethical treatment of the Jews, immoral in any objective sense?

"Anyone who doesn't have a strong moral sense will not survive well in a social organisation with other people" - But what would make it wrong for a society to kill off a subset of their group, so as to have a better chance of survival?

"Science should be morally neutral." - How does naturalism supply you with the normative ethic assumed in this sentence? WHY should science be morally neutral? What would make it wrong for a scientist (or group of scientists) to "fudge the data", in order to get some desired result?

Comment by SM on 2015-10-12 at 16:11:50:

"Evolution sees no need for the supernatural because everything can be explained through natural processes" - Can the principle that, "...everything can be explained through natural processes", be discarded from evolution, without the evolutionary paradigm being affected?

Comment by SM on 2015-10-14 at 09:50:02:

"...expecting science to answer the question "is God good" is ridiculous because science states that the supernatural doesn't exist" - Isn't it ridiculous to allow science to make ontological statements, such as, "the supernatural doesn't exist", while not expecting it to answer ontological questions?

Comment by OJB on 2015-11-01 at 19:56:36:

In answer to SM's comments...

1. I think the modern interpretation of Occam's Razor excludes any special pleading associated with giving Christianity a "free pass". That was included in the original formulation simply because the author was a Christian.

2. I think that morality is based on social norms which are in turn based on the beliefs of the majority of sane, normal people. I know this is a bit imprecise but it's really the best we can do for this type of philosophical issue. Note that morality can't be from an absolute, objective source because it changes. That fits my explanation better than yours. And science, in its pure form, is amoral. It seeks the truth. What is good or bad is irrelevant.

3. Yes, evolution can work if supernatural processes are present, but they are unnecessary. Also, it is unclear exactly what we would expect to see in experiments and observations if a supernatural entity existed.

4. Science can answer questions regarding the existence of various phenomena. While it is difficult to completely disprove the existence of anything there is a point where we say the evidence for the existence for something is insufficient to conclude it exists. Since there is zero good evidence a god exists we make the interim conclusion that there isn't one.

Comment by SM on 2015-11-03 at 12:23:04:

"I think that morality is based on social norms which are in turn based on the beliefs of the majority of sane, normal people."

By what normative (moral) standard do you declare the majority, "sane, normal"?

Comment by OJB on 2015-11-03 at 17:16:35:

You will see that I conceded that using that definition is somewhat imprecise but it is maybe the best we can do in this situation.

The key facts are this: Morality is something created by people. This is partly innate (many civilisations have similar rules) and partly based on cultural norms (there are some differences in what different societies consider moral). It also changes with time (many things we consider moral now weren't moral in the past). There is no need for an external source for moral rules.

Comment by SM on 2015-11-04 at 10:00:53: Thank you; appreciate the discussion.

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