New Video on Evolution and Latter-day Saints

[Canadiandude]

Last post for today, for any reader that might not understand the teapot thing.

Here’s a cute video on the matter.

Models change, and so have I. 

I am persuadable and can, and have changed my mind before.

Yet far from a weakness, I would contend that an argument’s falsifiability is actually quite beneficial in determining its likely veracity relative to other arguments.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Canadiandude

[longview]

5 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Wrong. Abiogenesis It’s about the transition from inorganic to organic. Evolution only deals with the organic.

The "target" of Abiogenesis is to become organic.  Amino acids are randomly "cooked" from inorganic matter.  There is absolutely no transition.  Only random chance events.  You should study up on Stephen Meyer.

5 hours ago, katherine the great said:

They may want to “explore” those things but we tend to emphasize the things that are within our area of expertise and leave the other expert opinions to the actual experts who have studied a particular field.

This is a huge cop out.  They don't have tunnel vision.

5 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Well if you are so concerned about it why don’t you write your own textbook?

You are just being silly.  I will go with Stephen Meyer.  He runs circles you and your priest-crafty colleagues.  

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, longview said:

This is a huge cop out.  They don't have tunnel vision.

That is like blaming pediatricians for not giving lectures on obstetrics.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Calm

[longview]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

That is like blaming pediatricians for not giving lectures on obstetrics.

Not so.  They have at least a M.D. degree and some overlap but are NOT inclined to lecture outside of their specialty.  The specialists @katherine the greatwas mentioning are all within the field of evolutionary sciences.  They are capable of comprehending each other's work in varying degrees.

[katherine the great]

53 minutes ago, longview said:

You should study up on Stephen Meyer.

Why on earth would I do that? I’m person of faith as well as science but “Intelligent design” is not science. 

 

55 minutes ago, longview said:

He runs circles you and your priest-crafty colleagues. 

Nice ad hominem attack. Is that your best shot?

[katherine the great]

46 minutes ago, longview said:

They are capable of comprehending each other's work in varying degrees.

Being capable of comprehending someone else’s work is hardly the same as writing a portion of a textbook on it.

[mfbukowski]

9 hours ago, Canadiandude said:

I 100% disagree. First off- when we speak of the sciences, we do not claim to ‘prove’ anything, but rather we make arguments, based on evidence, that can suggest a truth claim that can be reproduced, tested and tried in turn.

~

Furthermore, you never did answer my question:

Did I ever make the claim that to be an evolutionist is to be/become agnostic?

~

Not all arguments are equal, or equally supported by current evidence, and having a position that something like evolutionary theory is better supported by the evidence (so far) is not to precludes one’s possibility of being convinced differently by further evidence. 

~
 

I get that you’re post-modernist, but I’ve no obligation to accept your ontological commitments.

~

If we were to never discount any claim that failed to rigorously exercise its burden of proof, using both evidence and arguments that are sufficiently valid & reliable , then what happens to decision-making? Knowledge production?

It’s a post-modern wormhole.

~

You are completely misrepresenting Bertrand Russel, his position and his ‘teapot’ as it were.

‘The philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

 

Were it otherwise, the thinker would become trapped in having to find evidence against every conspiracy theory; every un-evidentiary possibility; every conceivable argument under and beyond the sun.

A good recipe for intellectual paralysis. 

~

The church makes truth claims. It also purports to be the only divinely-legitimate institution where saving ordinances received, and doctrines most correctly taught. 
 

Many of these claims can be empirically tested, and we too, can also examine the societal effects of many of these doctrines, policies & practices.

~

Methodological naturalism makes no claim to ‘superiority’ as it were.

It only asks that arguments be supported, based upon the weight of their supporting evidence, which must be demonstrated as sufficiently valid and reliable relative to other claims.

As more evidence is brought forward our models change.

~

But yes, either rigorously ‘Put up’, or get used to some serious questions re: the validity & reliability of your truth claims.

 

Define truth.

Publish it and see how well it stands. You throw the word around a lot, for not defining it.

And actually read the link I sent above on brother Bertie. 

Positivism is dead and buried

 "I’ve no obligation to accept your ontological commitments"

Best wishes, have a nice life, seriously.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Oh, and I never said that being an evolutionist meant you were an agnostic.  I AM an "evolutionist" and I KNOW God exists.  We converse regularly.

I have been defending evolution on this board for years.

Defend your metaphysics all you like.  

Evolution IS living Pragmatism.

Read some Kuhn, and then tell me about your "truth"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Canadiandude]

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh, and I never said that being an evolutionist meant you were an agnostic.  I AM an "evolutionist" and I KNOW God exists.  We converse regularly.

You really do have comprehension problems mate. You responded to me previously as though you believed that I was asserting that to believe in evolution was to be/become agnostic.

I never claimed anything of the sort.

~

As for the rest you keep assuming that the person you are engaging with as somehow intellectually inferior to you.

I never claimed to be strictly positivist, and I understand that every paradigm has strengths and weaknesses. All I’m asking for is evidence for your claims that can be reproduced methodically, with a high degree of validity and reliability. 
 

If that can’t be achieved, that’s fine but understand that a reasonable person might wonder at its veracity relative to other claims.

What makes you convinced of the theory of evolution if the methods used to advance and interrogate said theory are no surer than any other in figuring out how the world works??

Both validity and reliability are no less important quantities for good research in the social sciences than in the natural.

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Read some Kuhn, and then tell me about your "truth"

Again, why are you assuming that I haven’t just because I disagree with you?
 

I have actually. Currently in graduate studies for political science. 

Furthermore, why do you assume that the intellectual is obligated to accept your own metaphysics?
 

There are serious policy consequences for the church’s doctrines, beliefs & practices.

They affect many more people than just the believers, and so yes, I require more evidence than someone’s warm fuzzies to take them seriously.

 

7 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Positivism is dead and buried

Um evidence? Again, I don’t consider myself strictly positivist but I absolutely do believe in using what imperfect systems of corroboration we have.
 

Notice how I speak of truth claims, not “truth”. The differences are subtle but they are there.

If there is ‘truth’ that is supernatural, I’m not interested until I’ve surer valid & reliable evidence that it exists.

~

You speak as though I believe myself to be superior to you, yet you are consistently the only one in this conversation putting the other conversant (not the argument) down, making claims that ‘X is dead but my paradigm is the real thing’, and for what??

You could have said:

“awe geez, thanks man for also supporting my position that believing in evolution should not be thought heretical in the church”

Instead, you insinuated myself to have made some argument that to be an evolutionist is to be/become agnostic.

Show me where I said that.

~

for everything else:

Defend. Your. Teapot. Sir.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Canadiandude

[CV75]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Define truth.

Publish it and see how well it stands. You throw the word around a lot, for not defining it.

And actually read the link I sent above on brother Bertie. 

Positivism is dead and buried

 "I’ve no obligation to accept your ontological commitments"

Best wishes, have a nice life, seriously.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Oh, and I never said that being an evolutionist meant you were an agnostic.  I AM an "evolutionist" and I KNOW God exists.  We converse regularly.

I have been defending evolution on this board for years.

Defend your metaphysics all you like.  

Evolution IS living Pragmatism.

Read some Kuhn, and then tell me about your "truth"

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/

 

RE: your balancing the belief in and defense of evolution and keeping the faith:

While I appreciate the theory and scientific findings concerning organic evolution and am confident the knowledge gained thereby can help improve the human condition and build Zion, that is the extent to which I can say, “I believe in it.” I believe in the covenants more, no matter where Adam or “Adam” physically or “figuratively” came from.

To illustrate: a long time ago I was part of a group developing Church health policies, and one of the issues under discussion was the sealing status of children born through various donor combinations used for in-vitro fertilization. While some of us (like me) noodled over the sealing relationship between the egg and sperm donors, others said God doesn’t care where a child (insert “Adam”) comes from; seal them all. It could be said that those with my perspective believed in the covenants more (as supported by careful documentation a la D&C 128) , and the exact same thing could be said for those who said to seal them all (as supported by Abraham 2 and D&C 132). Belief in the covenants was more important to all of us.

[Canadiandude]

On 11/8/2021 at 12:17 PM, Canadiandude said:

Post it here if you find it. I’m game.

I don’t need people to arrive at the same state of agnosticism I’m at but I do think it’s high time for greater room for nuance.

I’d rather that fewer Sunday School lessons require a brave student to have to educate their peers on the basic mechanics of evolutionary theory.

This is what I said ^^^

You then responded thus:

On 11/8/2021 at 12:31 PM, mfbukowski said:

One need not be an agnostic to accept evolution, as long as we have an immanent God who is an "organizer" who can fiddle with the "laws of nature" at will. And then of course the story of Adam is about "everyman" if we see it that way.

We all have our own Falls from innocence 

I agree, and have been in agreement with you, that belief in evolution does not require that one is or becomes an agnostic.

~

Methodological naturalism doesn’t necessarily care about ‘absolute truth’ whatever that means. 

It’s not a faultless process, but its value still needs to be compared with that of other systems, and how reliable and valid these are in turn, in the claims they make about the world.

As a ‘thin constructivist’ I acknowledge that there’s plenty that is subjective about the world, but I just haven’t seen sufficient evidence that these (nor the material world itself) need be, or are necessarily best explained through deity or some supernatural power.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Canadiandude

[mfbukowski]

31 minutes ago, Canadiandude said:

This is what I said ^^^

You then responded thus:

I agree, and have been in agreement with you, that belief in evolution does not require that one is or becomes an agnostic.

~

Methodological naturalism doesn’t necessarily care about ‘absolute truth’ whatever that means. 

It’s not a faultless process, but its value still needs to be compared with that of other systems and how reliable and valid these in turn are in the claims they make about the world.

As a ‘thin constructivist’ I acknowledge that there’s plenty that is subjective about the world, but I just haven’t seen sufficient evidence that these (nor the material world itself) need be, or are necessarily best explained through deity or some supernatural power.

It doesn't NEED to be explained at all, since it can't be.   We've been asking for a few thousand years and still don't have an answer, so I guess we don't "NEED" one.

And sorry LDS people do not believe in the "supernatural" either.   God has better "technology" than we do- if you had a cell phone in 1500, it would be "supernatural".  God is an immanent super human if you want to put it that way to illustrate it at its lowest level.   He "organizes" matter just as we do- there is no ex-nihilo creation, just assembling the Legos does fine  He has better Legos though.

If you can't experience it, it doesn't exist.  And so we have poetry saying that "There was no death before Adam" which allegorically is exactly true.  Before humans experienced death, it did not "exist" in the pooled experience of humanity.  What was it like to be a dinosaur watching your mate being eaten?  Who knows?  Was that the way we humans experience "death"?   Of course not.  

Regarding constructivism, what perhaps you are missing is that EVERYTHING ANYONE knows has come through a subjective human brain that is built to only know what humans are capable of knowing, directly from their own subjective experience or pooled subjective experience shared through language, as augmented by gizmos like microscopes, sunglasses and cyclotrons.

Yes we construct Lego models of the world through our paradigms, but Legos are not conscious beings making their own subjective judgements about what they take to be the "world out there".

All we get is collective agreement on what's "out there" filtered through 1- my opinions -2- my ability to perceive -3- what the "scientist"'s observations tell him - and 4- how well he describes his experience and -5- how well I understand what he is saying.

And then -6- we have the limitations of language.  And so we call all these minimally 6 layers of ambiguous uncertainties "objective truth".

Good luck with that approach!

We need to understand is that all we have are paradigms of our collective observations, and all paradigms are, are ambiguous statements in confounded language (the Babel myth) to explain what works best for right now.   Read some later Wittgenstein if you want to understand linguistic confusions.

Is Pluto a planet this week?   I can't keep track, but if the experts say so I will agree.   I have to get there one of these days and check it out for myself I guess. 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, Canadiandude said:

Here’s a cute video on the matter.

Cute is about all it is, it is a ridiculous argument in Logical Positivism which is dead and has been for at least 50 years.   I quoted Russell to show that even positivist Russell could not "prove" that God does not exist- which is what this cute video states.   Yawn.

Belief in God is like a belief in moral principles, NOT like a teapot in space that no one can see.  It is an absurd argument.

Did Russell go around killing people he did not like?   Why not?  Because it was morally REPUGNANT to do so.

But where is the objective data confirming that one ought to treat people as they would like to be treated?   Perhaps in some sociologist's file cabinet as a social opinion poll etc. but how is that like a teapot in space?

Positivists do not live their own principles and are self-contradictory because they believe that "truth" must have objective evidence to be "true"

The only problem is that that assertion itself IS NOT based on objective evidence itself!!

It is self- contradictory.

And so positivism is dead.  Positivism was the last gasp of Enlightenment modernism dying.

And it was followed by Post-Modernism which questions the very foundations of what is called "truth" in an objective sense.  Best we can get is models that work for awhile until they are supplanted by another model.  

And so it is just as justifiable to believe in God as it is to believe that murder is wrong.  

It's not much of an argument- it entirely misses the point of religion.  We really don't care how much God weighs.   How absurd can you get?

Oh yeah, religion is wrong because we cannot weigh God.

Best wishes on that approach.

Edited November 9, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Canadiandude]

11 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Good luck with that approach!

Nice scarecrow but ‘thin constructivism’ actually exists, and there are actually many different kinds of constructivists. 
 

I’m not gonna make the same mistake as yourself and assume you haven’t read X, Y, Z, but I do think you could widen your pool of social constructivist theorists.

Wendt is a good start but there’s a lot more than just his own respective works.

I study IR so here’s a briefer on some of the applications of Social Constructivism to my field:

https://www.e-ir.info/2011/02/03/constructivism-an-introduction/
 

I have really been enjoying this book by Samual Barkin (2010). It’s specific to my field but an interesting blend of two theoretical traditions.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/realist-constructivism/2ED52C7C0957EF07FC26C9BA3AF06A79

 

36 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

It doesn't NEED to be explained at all, since it can't be.   We've been asking for a few thousand years and still don't have an answer, so I guess we don't "NEED" one.

Why does a few thousand years matter? What has time got do do with it?

One what? I regard the search for an all-encompassing ‘meta-theory’ that explains everything, as pseudoscience, but doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t seek more specific theoretical explanations, for specific phenomena, their causes and their interactions.

As for need, I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning. If you mean to ask why investigate religious claims through methodological naturalism, one example I mentioned before was policy.

Religions, including the church for example, produce (over time) doctrines, practices and policies that can have important material consequences for member and nonmembers alike, all on account of supernatural claims.

What makes religious actors less accountable for the material effects they produce than any other kind of actor?

Are you suggesting that preventing these harms and holding the actors, and systems accountable for them is an illegitimate endeavour?

You act and engage and do things for purposes that’s you deem as sufficiently important no? Even if you cannot find an ultimate explanation for everything.

We search for answers for many reasons, which makes the process through which we search for these answers important.

Hence why it’s important to determine an explanation’s reliability and validity in answering a question.

 

27 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We need to understand is that all we have are paradigms of our collective observations, and all paradigms are, are ambiguous statements in confounded language (the Babel myth) to explain what works best for right now. 

Therefore what? 
 

What knowledge claim can be produced thereby? How can it be corroborated relative to other claims?

Furthermore, the church has never pretended to be God’s only true (truest) church for merely those ask deity and believe to receive some confirmation of the fact.

They claim to be deity’s exclusively most correct pathway for everyone.

How does that work if all truth is subjective, and cannot be sufficiently corroborated to trust anything? 

You said once that you received confirmation by the spirit that the church is true.

How do you determine the reliability and validity of that process and result, relative to those claimed by other religious and non-religious processes?

You keep throwing this Post-Modern grenade into the conversation but ultimately what can be evidenced by such an argument?

How can we even be certain of our claims regarding language, or even the text itself if our senses cannot be sufficiently trusted to comprehend matter?

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Is Pluto a planet this week?   I can't keep track, but if the experts say so I will agree.   I have to get there one of these days and check it out for myself I guess. 

This remark is beneath you. I have already stated that I believe that subjective, social constructs exist and have great influence upon the world.

Making such a remark a second time, despite knowing that I have no issue with the phenomenon, serves no purpose.

Furthermore the smirk suggests you are attempting to insult me, and once again, it is yourself, not I that has been in the business of ‘putting down’ in this exchange.

I remain unconvinced of your particular teacup.

~

Finally, I ask again:

Did I ever make the claim that to be an evolutionist is to be/become agnostic?

If you cannot, please at least acknowledge that I never claimed such.

[Canadiandude]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Belief in God is like a belief in moral principles, NOT like a teapot in space that no one can see.  It is an absurd argument.

Did Russell go around killing people he did not like?   Why not?  Because it was morally REPUGNANT to do so.

But where is the objective data confirming that one ought to treat people as they would like to be treated?   Perhaps in some sociologist's file cabinet as a social opinion poll etc. but how is that like a teapot in space?

I never claimed to be positivist nor a strict materialist.

You already know that I believe that social constructs exist and have effect. 
 

 

How do I explain the subjective? Through chemical impulses, interactions between DNA and the environment, social learning and conventions. 

These subjects are routinely studied in the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science and more, though some are better at explaining different elements.
 

How do I justify morality? 
 

As far as I’m aware consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics does not require that the believer hold to any supernatural explanations nor deity specifically. 
 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Canadiandude

[Canadiandude]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

And so it is just as justifiable to believe in God as it is to believe that murder is wrong.  

It's not much of an argument- it entirely misses the point of religion.  We really don't care how much God weighs.   How absurd can you get?

You’ve got to be joking. 
 

I can contend a subjective argument that murder is wrong without an appeal to god, through arguments that do not rely upon the supernatural.

I don’t care how much a hypothetical god weighs either,

-but I certainly care about the validity and reliability of a religious body’s argument when they organize a special-interest campaign so as to deny mine and other’s rights, on account of what said god demands of society!

Edited November 9, 2021 by Canadiandude

[mfbukowski]

On 11/8/2021 at 11:17 AM, Canadiandude said:

Post it here if you find it. I’m game.

I don’t need people to arrive at the same state of agnosticism I’m at but I do think it’s high time for greater room for nuance.

I’d rather that fewer Sunday School lessons require a brave student to have to educate their peers on the basic mechanics of evolutionary theory.

You called yourself an "agnostic" while touting evolution and contrasting your brilliance to have to "educate" people of common sense who are guided by their hearts instead of overbearing false intellectualism.  

I said one doesn't have to be an agnostic to believe in evolution.  

That's all.  You have manufactured this alleged argument ex Nihilo, misrepresenting my position on this and everything else because you do not read the actual words I have said.

I don't have time for this.

The teachings of the church are family life, which has proven imo to be the "best" and happiest course of action to create and uphold civilization.  I think these mores probably evolved as much as life has evolved.  They have proven themselves to be the "best" in my book for happiness and survival value for mankind.  Because I find that to be a rational paradigm- perhaps THE most rational paradigm to emulate, I can represent that idea as the MOST "True" church invented by humans including our Human God.  Did we create God or did God create us?  The answer is "yes" to both.

God and family and moral living has "evolved" and proven itself to be the pinnacle of humanism.  But it has not "evolved" by chance.

There is no point in carrying this forward, no communication here at all.

[mfbukowski]

36 minutes ago, Canadiandude said:

As far as I’m aware consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics does not require that the believer hold to any supernatural explanations nor deity specifically. 
 

 

And I told you that I do not believe in the supernatural,  and that belief in the supernatural is not necessary to believe in God. Of course those are reasonable paradigms.  

I wish you well, but I feel that discussing this with you is fruitless.   I don't have the time.

Quote

 

" To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by mfbukowski

[Calm]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

 Legos are not conscious beings making their own subjective judgements about what they take to be the "world out there".

 

What?!? You are just being mean now. 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Calm

[Canadiandude]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

And sorry LDS people do not believe in the "supernatural" either.   God has better "technology" than we do- if you had a cell phone in 1500, it would be "supernatural".  God is an immanent super human if you want to put it that way to illustrate it at its lowest level.   He "organizes" matter just as we do- there is no ex-nihilo creation, just assembling the Legos does fine  He has better Legos though.

I mean but how do you know?

And how are these processes of knowing known to be more valid or reliable than the next assuming if postmodernism puts into question even naturalistic explanations and processes for corroboration?? 
 

I’m not trying to be rude and would’ve been happy to’ve simply received a “yeah, evolution is cool bro”! and leave it at that, but now that we’re here, let’s keep going.

(or not if everyone’s tired of this and the moderators say otherwise)

 

[mfbukowski]

32 minutes ago, Canadiandude said:

-but I certainly care about the validity and reliability of a religious body’s argument when they organize a special-interest campaign so as to deny mine and other’s rights, on account of what said god demands of society!

AHA!  That tells the tale.  It all comes back to evolution doesn't it.

[mfbukowski]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

What?!? You are just being mean now. 

 

Huh?

I thought I was affirming that human beings with spirits were not Legos.

How is that mean?

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Huh?

I thought I was affirming that human beings with spirits were not Legos.

How is that mean?

Joke…for me and my house, we love our Legos.

[Canadiandude]

11 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

You called yourself an "agnostic" while touting evolution and contrasting your brilliance to have to "educate" people of common sense who are guided by their hearts instead of overbearing false intellectualism.  

Except, that isn’t what I said, and that’s called paraphrasing.

Please, I’m not asking you to be convinced but please represent me fairly. Use direct quotes.

How is one to know it’s false, if we can’t be really certain of any process of knowledge-production?

I just ask that people return to what I said. What I actually said.

If people aren’t convinced of my argument, that’s okay, but I’ve suffered enough indignities from the church that the why, and the process for answering the why, is of great interest to me.

Have a great day.

 

[rodheadlee]

On 11/7/2021 at 1:23 AM, mfbukowski said:

Sure!

But they are always the garbled alleged interpretations of humans, not "things as they are"

Of course. To the victors go the spoils. History is a handmaiden, you can dress her up anyway you like..

 

Parts of the "TRUTH" can be found many places. It's still fun when I have the time. 

[The Nehor]

On 11/5/2021 at 3:19 PM, mfbukowski said:

YES, that is your position, but the question is WHY you think so?

What empirical evidence do you have for WHY you get out of bed in the morning? 

What do you get by not just staying in bed?

Speaking for myself: Nothing.