Will Science Discover How Life Originated? (evolution, God, verse, Roman)

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by sandy whitelinger

And in your steadfast adherence to your "scientific truth" are you not doing the same?

That's pretty much my stance too. Because something is possible does not mean that it happened. All that scientists have ever said is that it's either "possible" or "probable" noone will ever explain how this wonderful place came about. I don't think even death will bring enlightenment because ultimately it is irrelevant. It is what we do now that matters.

[Seyorni]

Originally Posted by sandy whitelinger

And in your steadfast adherence to your "scientific truth" are you not doing the same?

Certainly not. Science is not sacred or writ in stone.

Science is an ongoing examination and critique of truth. Science continually tests its theories and modifies them as new facts come to light. A scientist invites criticism of his theories and willingly drops or modifies them if they're found erroneous or can be improved.

Go dig out some of your college textbooks in the hard sciences. Isn't there a little notice in the front inviting readers to notify the author if errors, omissions or inaccuracies are found?
Now compare an edition of a science text with its previous or subsequent editions. They're different, aren't they.

Try finding similar invitations and modifications in a religious text.

[sandy whitelinger]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

Certainly not. Science is not sacred or writ in stone.

Science is an ongoing examination and critique of truth. Science continually tests its theories and modifies them as new facts come to light. A scientist invites criticism of his theories and willingly drops or modifies them if they're found erroneous or can be improved.

Go dig out some of your college textbooks in the hard sciences. Isn't there a little notice in the front inviting readers to notify the author if errors, omissions or inaccuracies are found?
Now compare an edition of a science text with its previous or subsequent editions. They're different, aren't they.

Try finding similar invitations and modifications in a religious text.

Nice deflection, I wasn't talking about science.

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by sandy whitelinger

Nice deflection, I wasn't talking about science.

I suspect you might have misjudged the relevance of Sey's post here. Is there some reason you could offer us as to why you feel his response was a "deflection"?

[Victor]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Although I am unsure I entirely agree with his attempt to explain why it is as it is, I do believe Sey has a point here that the willful ignorance, irrationality, and unreasonableness of at least some theists concerning such things as abiogenesis is very well documented even here, on our Forum, in the many threads on creationism. That is, one needn't even go to a site like Answers In Genesis, or whatever it's called, to see these things. You can go through so many threads here alone to see them. So, I cannot imagine how anyone can deny that some theists are willfully ignorant, irrational, and unreasonable on this issue. What, then, does it matter why they are so?

I hope you don't think I was denying this?
My response had more to do with "religious axioms" then theist vs. non-theist. There is a difference.

[sparc872]

Science can speculate and make educated guesses as to the origin of life, but it is impossible to prove without a doubt how life began. We can never be 100% sure that what we decide is what happened is exactly how it happened.

[SoyLeche]

I haven't read through the thread, so maybe this has been said before.

I voted No, but I need to qualify that. Do I believe that someday a scientist will be able to "create" life? Sure, it might be possible. I won't say that it can't happen. Will Science come up with better theories about how life could have started? Yes, I believe they will. Will they ever be able to say, "This is definately how life started"? No, they will not. There was nobody there to observe it, so the best they can get is a theory that answers the questions involved, and gives a convincing story. The theory will continue to have detractors though.

[Sunstone]

It seems to me that many of the posters in this thread are arguing that science will never discover how life originated by setting for science a standard of truth so rigorous and idealistically high that they themselves would not practice such a standard for truth in their own lives.

For instance: If you require science to absolutely prove any theory of biogenisus then why don't you personally require in your own life that you have absolute proof your car will safely make it from point A to point B? After all, if you're a stickler for absolute proofs, I would think you'd want even more than you would want absolute proof of biogenisus, absolute proof that you won't die in an car accident trying to make it from point A to point B.

Put differently, isn't it a bit irrational to require absolute proof from science before we believe something it has amassed a weight of evidence for?