Is Richard Dawkins a good scientist?

McBell · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
There was more evidence for the civil war than whatever happened over a billion years ago. There are battle reports, eyewitnesses, a thousand scholars writing books based on these things as well as others. They are still debateing and dissagreeing about hundreds of issues concerning the war. There is written records (obviously) of Shakespear. They can't agree whether he was one man, more than one, or he existed at all. They don't even know the names of some sonnets. How in the wild world of sports do you think anyone knows what happened a billion years ago.

Because god told them?

I mean, is that not EXACTLY what creationists claim, that god told them?
Or that god told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone... ...who told someone who wrote it down.....

1robin · Aug 10, 2012

Mestemia said:
Why is it that you do not hold your belief in god to these same standards?

Where have you been? I do. And experts do as well. The bible is the most studied and scrutinised book or events in human history. Scholars such as histories greatest expert on evidence presentation have confirmed it's suffeciency for modern requirements for evidence presentation it is also said top be more than suffecient to justify faith.

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853) was the famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University, and succeeded Justice Joseph Story as the Dane Professor of Law in the same university, upon Story's death in 1846.
H. W. H Knott says of this great authority in jurisprudence: "To the efforts of Story and Greenleaf is to be ascribed the rise of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position among the legal schools of the United States."
Greenleaf produced a famous work entitled A Treatise on the Law of Evidence which "is still considered the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure."
In 1846, while still Professor of Law at Harvard, Greenleaf wrote a volume entitled An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In his classic work the author examines the value of the testimony of the apostles to the resurrection of Christ. The following are this brilliant jurist's critical observations:
The great truths which the apostles declared, were, that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in Him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling errors that can be represented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
"Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

That site contains statements from some of the worlds greatest experts on evidence and science etc......

Simon literally wrote the book on evidence presentation. I doubt he would have the same opinion concerning the first cell from a bilion years ago for which there is no text or empirical evidence.

1robin · Aug 10, 2012

Mestemia said:
Because god told them?

I mean, is that not EXACTLY what creationists claim, that god told them?
Or that god told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone... ...who told someone who wrote it down.....

THis discussion isn't about creation.

McBell · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
Where have you been? I do. And experts do as well. The bible is the most studied and scrutinised book or events in human history. Scholars such as histories greatest expert on evidence presentation have confirmed it's suffeciency for modern requirements for evidence presentation it is also said top be more than suffecient to justify faith.

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853) was the famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University, and succeeded Justice Joseph Story as the Dane Professor of Law in the same university, upon Story's death in 1846.
H. W. H Knott says of this great authority in jurisprudence: "To the efforts of Story and Greenleaf is to be ascribed the rise of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position among the legal schools of the United States."
Greenleaf produced a famous work entitled A Treatise on the Law of Evidence which "is still considered the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure."
In 1846, while still Professor of Law at Harvard, Greenleaf wrote a volume entitled An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice. In his classic work the author examines the value of the testimony of the apostles to the resurrection of Christ. The following are this brilliant jurist's critical observations:
The great truths which the apostles declared, were, that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in Him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling errors that can be represented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teachings of His disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments, and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience, and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.
"Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations, and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for its fabrication."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

That site contains statements from some of the worlds greatest experts on evidence and science etc......

Simon literally wrote the book on evidence presentation. I doubt he would have the same opinion concerning the first cell from a bilion years ago for which there is no text or empirical evidence.

You claim that "what ever happened on the early Earth is in no way what so ever reproducable and testable especially since it has to violate a biological law for it even to be possible".

Why does this not hold equally true of your god?

McBell · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
THis discussion isn't about creation.

I never said it was.
I am merely showing how you are actually arguing agianst your own beliefs.

Why is it that your beliefs are immune from meeting your standards?

jarofthoughts · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
The empirical only view besides being invalid is also narrow and boring that is why we don't use it.

It is the view that has built modern society, including the device you use for reading this.
I'm sorry you find it boring.
I do not. I find science and the natural world to be highly fascinating.
But then again, reality does not owe you to be entertaining.

1robin said:
How do you know that reality wasn't created 5 min ago with the appearance of age?

I can't know that with 100% certainty, but I have no reason to think it was.

1robin said:
How do you know astetic value exists?

Aesthetic value is based mainly on evolutionary factors, i.e. why most people find the look, taste and smell of a fresh apple to be appealing and the look, taste and smell of rotting meat to be repugnant.

1robin said:
How do you know what is actually good and bad?

Subjective and collective value judgments often based on some form of reciprocal altruism.

1robin said:
What does meaning mean?

Meaning | Define Meaning at Dictionary.com

1robin said:
How do you know if anyone loves you?

Observational evidence.

1robin said:
How do you know about the evolution on the early earth?

A number of different sources of collaborating scientific evidence.

1robin said:
None of these are empirically provable but yet we each believe them among a thousand others.

As outlined above, you are wrong about that.

1robin said:
It is only a double standard that insists on epirical evidence only in biblical claims.

Why?
We do so for other truth-claims about reality.
Why should the bible be exempt?

1robin said:
It is not even classified as a non-fictional book and so is not comparable. Fiction works are evaluated by a completely different standard than a non-fictional work. The fact that you are intelligent enough to know that but posted this anyway is telling.

I consider the bible to be a work of fiction.
So there is that.

1robin said:
That is why the majority of science is based in faith. That is also why faith based on evidence is used in every area of science but seems is invalid for religion. However countless legal and other experts dissagree with what you say is only a claim.

Clifford Herschel Moore, professor at Harvard University, well said, "Christianity knew its Saviour and REdeemer not as some god whose history was contained in a mythical faith, with rude, primitive, and even offensive elements...Jesus was a historical not a mythical being. No remote or foul myth obtruded itself of the Christian believer; his faith was founded on positive, historical, and acceptable facts."
OR
Armand Nicholi, of Harvard Medical School, speaks of J. N. D. Anderson as "...a scholar of international repute and one eminently qualified to deal with the subject of evidence. He is one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law...He is dean of the faculty of law in the University of London, chairman of the department of Oriental law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London."
This outstanding British scholar who is today influential in the field of international jurisprudence says: "The evidence for the historical basis of the Christian faith, for the essential validity of the New Testament witness to the person and teaching of Christ Himself, for the fact and significance of His atoning death, and for the historicity of the empty tomb and the apostolic testimony to the resurrection, is such as to provide an adequate foundation for the venture of faith
OR
This was the conclusion to which a former Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, came. At a private dinner party the talk turned to the truth of Christianity, and particularly to a certain book dealing with the resurrection. Placing his fingertips together, assuming a judicial attitude, and speaking with a quiet emphasis that was extraordinarily impressive, he said, 'We, sa Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be sceptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be, just surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favour as living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.' "
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2
This site has the professional opinions of some of the greatest minds in history.
Bolding mine.

Argument from Authority; hence a fallacy.

1robin said:
No it isn't, it is what scientists like to say they use to give their claims more weight.

Evidence for this?
Or is it just your opinion?
Oh, and just so that we are clear; your opinion is worth exactly diddly squat in this context.

1robin said:
Evolution requires more faith than God.

Also wrong.

1robin said:
I saw two science programs the other day back to back. One said the universe is actually two dimensional (based on no empiricle evidence), the second show said the universe must have 11 dimensions (this was based on string theory which can't even have empiricle evidence). So we had 2 dimensions and 11. Both stated as true. The bad thing is they were the same scientists on both shows.

It didn't occur to you that from a certain perspective and in a certain context, both might be true?

1robin said:
Another is the stupid multiuniverse theory. Scientists don't like the implications of the fine tuning, or cosmological arguments of the universe we know exists so they invent a concept and act like it is a probabality when it can't ever provide any evidence it exists.

Actually, unlike religion, science puts its money where its mouth is:
Will the Planck Satellite Find Evidence that We Exist in a Vast Multiverse?

1robin said:
How many people alive today will claim to have experienced a fairy. A dozen or two.

Probably not many, because it is not socially acceptable to believe in faeries.

1robin said:
How many for Jesus. A couple of billion, hardly comparable.

People are strange like that.
Say you believe in an almighty magical entity that there is no evidence for, and people are fine with it.
Tell them that you believe in small forest-dwelling magical creatures with butterfly wings and they thing you are crazy.

1robin said:
That is spiritually witnessed testimony. Which is no less valid a detection method than sight.

Anecdotal evidence is worth just about zilch in a scientific context.

1robin said:
How many book about faires make over two thousand detailed prophecies that have been fulfilled.

You mean biblical prophecies came true?
Do enlighten me!

1robin said:
What a silly comparison.

I'm merely comparing two concepts that both have no evidence for them.
Seems like a fair comparison to me.

If you just say you do not like Christianity and so apply unreasonable and arbitrary standards of proof then the conversation would be much shorter and not full of illogical comparisons.

1robin said:
See above. This isn't even contended in debates.

Well, I'm not seeing any examples of the 'greatest issues that concern man' that aren't 'accessable to empiricle study'.
So I'm contending it.

1robin · Aug 10, 2012

Mestemia said:
You claim that "what ever happened on the early Earth is in no way what so ever reproducable and testable especially since it has to violate a biological law for it even to be possible".

Why does this not hold equally true of your god?

A biological test isn't applicable to or referred to in God's case. It is what is used and refered to in evolutions case even though it fails it's own test most of the time. These questions belong in a differenty thread.

1robin · Aug 10, 2012

Mestemia said:
I never said it was.
I am merely showing how you are actually arguing agianst your own beliefs.

Why is it that your beliefs are immune from meeting your standards?

My beliefs don't rely on the scientific method (most scientific ones don't as well) and so they are not comparable. It is not my criteria. I am using their ctiteria to show that even their own claims don't meet it.

McBell · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
A biological test isn't applicable to or referred to in God's case. It is what is used and refered to in evolutions case even though it fails it's own test most of the time. These questions belong in a differenty thread.

So you do not hold to the very thing you claim proves your point?

McBell · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
I am using their ctiteria to show that even their own claims don't meet it.

Please let me know when you start...

1robin · Aug 10, 2012

Mestemia said:
So you do not hold to the very thing you claim proves your point?

It is very simple, science rests or so they claim on the scientific method and empiricle evidence. I pointed out that not only science but many of the things you and everyone else believes are not proven by either method. It is not my criteria and has no application for my views which are not the subject of this thread. This missdirection is not a good way to escape from having no defence.

jarofthoughts · Aug 10, 2012

1robin said:
I pointed out that not only science but many of the things you and everyone else believes are not proven by either method.

And I have addressed each and every point you made and shown why you are mistaken.

charles brough · Aug 11, 2012

Riverwolf said:
Of COURSE he is. He's a biologist, and from what I understand, a darned good one at that.

It has been shown that those biologists of the National Academy of Science include a larger percentage of atheists than in any other scientific field.

What Dawkins is, also, is a social theorist. That is, he is one who tries to take the data from all of the other social and natural science fields and interpret it. This is what he has done.

So, he is supporting not just atheism but a whole interpreting of the human social world, an interpretion that is correctly atheistic but far from the only, and I believe, the best atheistic interpreting of the whole of social science. A better atheism would show how societies evolve and the evolutionary function that religions serve.

You see, the only thing holding back our understanding of social evolution is the disinclination of social theorists to propose that religions serve to bind us into large groups. But that to serve that function, they have to maintain their same aging doctrines rigidly. And that means they always, throughout history, finally became so obsolete they were replaced by one that was more advanced.

That is what is needed now.

McBell · Aug 11, 2012

1robin said:
It is very simple, science rests or so they claim on the scientific method and empiricle evidence. I pointed out that not only science but many of the things you and everyone else believes are not proven by either method. It is not my criteria and has no application for my views which are not the subject of this thread. This missdirection is not a good way to escape from having no defence.

1robin · Aug 11, 2012

Mestemia said:

Who can argue with such brilliant scholarship?

McBell · Aug 11, 2012

1robin said:
Who can argue with such brilliant scholarship?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing....

paarsurrey · Aug 12, 2012

charles brough said:
It has been shown that those biologists of the National Academy of Science include a larger percentage of atheists than in any other scientific field.

What Dawkins is, also, is a social theorist. That is, he is one who tries to take the data from all of the other social and natural science fields and interpret it. This is what he has done.

So, he is supporting not just atheism but a whole interpreting of the human social world, an interpretion that is correctly atheistic but far from the only, and I believe, the best atheistic interpreting of the whole of social science. A better atheism would show how societies evolve and the evolutionary function that religions serve.

You see, the only thing holding back our understanding of social evolution is the disinclination of social theorists to propose that religions serve to bind us into large groups. But that to serve that function, they have to maintain their same aging doctrines rigidly. And that means they always, throughout history, finally became so obsolete they were replaced by one that was more advanced.

That is what is needed now.

He could be wrong in his interpretation; as time goes on the data won't remain the same.

jarofthoughts · Aug 12, 2012

paarsurrey said:
He could be wrong in his interpretation; as time goes on the data won't remain the same.

Everything is possibly wrong and nothing is 100% certain.
Get used to the idea.

As the data change or become more accurate we must also change our conclusions or sharpen our views.
That is how science works.

Here, I'll let someone more qualified than me explain it to you:

[youtube]dwCma2_X3_I[/youtube]
Richard Feynman on Science and God - YouTube

charles brough · Aug 12, 2012

paarsurrey said:
He could be wrong in his interpretation; as time goes on the data won't remain the same.

The data will become more accurate and more voluminous. Dawkins' atheism won't be disproved by that, but his rationalizing about religion, ignoring its social evolutionary function (which social theorist's also rationalize about) and his inability to really explain why religions (ideological systems) have always exist and new ones develop that replace old ones. Does he see East Asian (theistic) Marxism, a defective ideology that it is, as a ("secular") religion or not? What else is it? Does he even deal with the subject?

charles brough · Aug 13, 2012

jarofthoughts said:
Everything is possibly wrong and nothing is 100% certain.
Get used to the idea. As the data changes or becomes more accurate we must also change our conclusions or sharpen our views.

Yes, there is no such thing as "truth" in science. Its just an old-religion word. How could something be "more true" than something else?" And what would happen if we ever finally did achieve "truth"? Would we no longer need science because we had come to finally know everything?

What we and science do is better and more advanced than that. We improve the accuracy of our data and the accuracy of how we interpret it. We keep doing that and in that way, keep advancing our understanding of ourselves and the universe. That is progress; that is science.

Is Richard Dawkins a good scientist?

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