Are Scientists playing God?

Dan From Smithville · Dec 29, 2019

Deeje said:
I don’t recall my natural therapist using any of that.

LOL. Settle down mate, you’ll give yourself a coronary.....

“Medicine” has lost its definition over many decades of medical school training. Drugs are the answer to everything....aren’t they?

I do not think that drugs are the answer to everything and it is a false claim to state that is the case of modern medicine. It is just that snake oil salesman sell lies and claim universal truths that unsettled me. I am not buying your spells and potions as universal truth or that you are some expert on all things.

McBell · Dec 29, 2019

Deeje said:
You mean you’ve never seen Dickie Dawkins strutting around a stage like King Farouk, “sticking it to creationists”? Where have you been?

Seriously?
That all you got?

Deeje said:
The fact is, that one explains the other, removing all doubts about the whole process. How are they not related?

The fact is, no they do not.
It matter not how life began, evolution still works.
So the creationists ploy of conflating the two is just that, a ploy.

Deeje said:
What is the point of concentrating on how things changed, if you know how they got there in the first place?

Two separate areas of science.
How much haveyou been keeping up with abiogenesis research?

Kangaroo Feathers · Dec 29, 2019

QuestioningMind said:
Nope. IF there is a god then god CLEARLY intended for us to figure out how to split atoms, otherwise he wouldn't have used the splitting of atoms to fuel our sun nor given us the intellectual ability to figure out how the sun is fueled.

Forgive the pedantry, but stars are fuelled by JOINING atoms (fusion) not splitting them (fission).

Dan From Smithville · Dec 29, 2019

Mestemia said:
Seriously?
That all you got?

The fact is, no they do not.
It matter not how life began, evolution still works.
So the creationists ploy of conflating the two is just that, a ploy.

Two separate areas of science.
How much haveyou been keeping up with abiogenesis research?

Yes. That is the best she has.

Dan From Smithville · Dec 29, 2019

Shadow Wolf said:
EVERY medical procedure and treatment inherently comes with risks. Now, would you rather take these risks and have a fighting against cancer or do nothing? Advanced medical screening to diagnose a tumor early, or just wait until you discover the cancer after it's metastasized?

My personal philosophy is an integrated approach to the treatment of illness. That could include well-documented alternatives supported by data.

However, based on what I have seen here, it appears that conspiracy theories, religious doctrine, misinformation, overstuffed self-importance and wild claims seem to form the basis behind the alternatives being touted.

sayak83 · Dec 30, 2019

Jesuslightoftheworld said:
I’m pretty sure God did not intend for an atom to be split. But we did it and look what happened. Do scientists try to mess with things that shouldn’t be messed with? I mean cloning a human, how do you they figure that can work? In my opinion God is the only One who can create life. I believe in the soul. How can a soul be cloned. I picture a twisted messed mass of cells tissue devoid of a conscience or soul that has no moral compass or sense of right or wrong. Scary...super soldiers? Thoughts?

In Hinduism, humans are God as well. So, acting like God is good.

Dan From Smithville · Dec 30, 2019

dfnj said:
The problem with people who worship science is their indifference to morality. Being rational means what is moral and what is immoral is the same and there is no compass. It is completely irrational to hold the belief people and people's lives are sacred. For someone who worships science above all else the word "sacred" has no meaning. For the people who worship science all we are and everything in the Universe is just patterns of energy swirling about according to the laws of physics where no one pattern of energy is more meaningful than any other.

People of science not only deny we have no soul, they deny we have consciousness at all. Most of the devout's believe we have no consciousness and our thoughts are just side effects of brain activity which can be cloned.

It's funny, for years I've heard atheists and people who worship science claim you don't need to have religion to be moral. This may be true, however, without the irrational thoughts of religion there's no moral compass or agreement on what is more valuable above everything else. The moment this World has nuclear war will be the day I will say, "see, all the scientists are immoral a holes for creating such terrible weapons in the first place by having no devotion to people being sacred above all else."

It's completely irrational to believe in the golden rule. It is completely irrational to think the people around you are sacred and should be treated like they way you would carry a priceless piece of art across the room. The purpose of religion is to tell us how to properly live our lives. Science has no purpose other than make sure your methods of inquiry cannot be criticized. Science doesn't care how it's used whether it is for "good" or for "evil". All science cares about is having good methods of scientific inquiry.

Scientists do not play God. in our society, given the power and threat of weapons of mass destruction, scientists ARE God!

I know people that are scientists. I know people that use the applications of science. I know those that appreciate science. I have never met anyone that worships science. Certainly, there are plenty of people that devalue science and try to deny it.

Most of the scientists I know appear to have the typical morals associated with religion. Many of them practice a recognized religion. None of the scientists I know would say they are God. They would laugh at the idea.

Knowledge can be used or good or ill. Most of the knowledge used for ill is not at the hands of scientists. Sometimes it is in the hands of the devoutly religious.

Heyo · Dec 30, 2019

dfnj said:
The problem with people who worship science is their indifference to morality.

1. Scientists don't "worship" science.
2. Scientists are not indifferent to morality. All faculties that deal with life have an ethics code for their methods of inquiry.
3. Science is a moral endeavour in itself. At least if truth and knowledge are among your basic moral tenets.
4. Scientist discover basic truths about nature. Engineers built devices based on the science. Polititians regulate the usage of those devices. Don't blame scientists for failures of polititians.

Deeje · Dec 30, 2019

Dan From Smithville said:
I have an aunt that was successfully treated for breast cancer years ago. She is alive and recently celebrated her 83rd birthday. My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer in the early 1970's, was treated and lived to be 78, cancer free. i worked with a childhood cancer survivor that is alive today. All were recipients of that devil, modern medicine. Your emotional arguments appeal to the ignorant, but are unencumbered of the facts.

You are free to have whatever poison they dish up.....I wouldn't have a bar of any of it.

Olivia Newton John is going down the track that I would prefer. Natural therapies don't make you sick...if they don't work then you haven't spent years or months barfing in a bucket and wishing you were dead. If the cancer doesn't get you, the 'medicine' will. I believe that there are much gentler ways to treat cancer that are just as effective. You can make the medicine in your own kitchen for free if you live in the right place.

The only one emotional about this conversation apparently is you....this is just information that I have gleaned in my own research....I have an opinion.......I haven't killed your mother or anything....

OK?

Dan From Smithville · Dec 30, 2019

Deeje said:
You are free to have whatever poison they dish up.....I wouldn't have a bar of any of it.

Olivia Newton John is going down the track that I would prefer. Natural therapies don't make you sick...if they don't work then you haven't spent years or months barfing in a bucket and wishing you were dead. If the cancer doesn't get you, the 'medicine' will. I believe that there are much gentler ways to treat cancer that are just as effective. You can make the medicine in your own kitchen for free if you live in the right place.

The only one emotional about this conversation apparently is you....this is just information that I have gleaned in my own research....I have an opinion.......I haven't killed your mother or anything....

OK?

An interesting passive aggressive personal attack. You get nastier with people the more they challenge your universal truths.

If you have cancer, then you are already sick. How do you not get that? Of course, I forget, you think diseases are caused by sex. Probably a conspiracy theory involving pharmaceutical companies, Larry Flint and Satan.

You have a good day dear.

Polymath257 · Dec 30, 2019

Kangaroo Feathers said:
Forgive the pedantry, but stars are fuelled by JOINING atoms (fusion) not splitting them (fission).

While true, there have been natural fission reactors.

metis · Dec 30, 2019

gnostic said:
A lot of good that did, when god supposedly gave dominion over the creation to man.

God tried to do a reset with the Flood, but again it did little good.

The questions then become, is god so incompetent that he cannot create anything right and “good”?

That largely depends on how one "defines" God, along with how one looks at scripture in the contexts of "Divine inspiration" and "inerrancy".

Revoltingest · Dec 30, 2019

metis said:
That largely depends on how one "defines" God, along with how one looks at scripture in the contexts of "Divine inspiration" and "inerrancy".

Some thoughts on those.....
God....Human constructs of great variety.
Scripture....More of the same.
Divine inspiration.....Unevidenced
Inerrancy....A statement reeking of hubris, ie, "It's right because it cannot be wrong."

Shadow Wolf · Dec 30, 2019

Deeje said:
I actually have other means of diagnosis that do not require invasive, painful or expensive tests.....and the natural approach addresses the problem of a sick immune system, which is why people succumb to illness in the first place. Fix up the immune system and the body heals itself, like it was designed to.

So, where are the studies amd evidence? If it were that easy, why were scratches and insect bites so potentially fatal before anti-biotics? Why habe heart attacks become more survivable with improves medical technology and treatments?

Deeje said:
Medicine today is about “pharmacology”....an expensive pill or a handful of them for everything, and people have been subjected to this form of “medicine” for decades and wondering why they are still sick, in spite of all the pills they take (side effects making them ever sicker in a lot of cases.)

Many meds are very cheap, especially generic brands. And, again, you need evidence that meds arent working and people are getting more ill. But penicillin does wonders do destroy microbes and your hypothesis. And why do so manu doctors promote a healthy diet, exercise, and prevention as the best treatment?

Shadow Wolf · Dec 30, 2019

dfnj said:
The problem with people who worship science is their indifference to morality.

Is that why ethical considerations have become such a huge part of conducting research?

dfnj said:
People of science not only deny we have no soul, they deny we have consciousness at all.

That's just malarkey. Consciousness and unconsciousness are accepted mental states in science. And sayimg we have a soul but no conscience? That just doesn't make sense.

dfnj said:
without the irrational thoughts of religion

Without those irrational thoughts there is little reason and justification for the hatred and violence the religious have shown themselves prone to. Without their "holy books" clouding their judgements, they have nothing to lead them to killimg witches and discriminating against various ethnicities.

dfnj said:
It's completely irrational to believe in the golden rule.

It is, because ultimately just because you may want people to treat you one way doesn't mean others will. The "golden rule" is short sighted, self centered rubbish. Proper moral considerations do not begin and end with what "I" want.

Shadow Wolf · Dec 30, 2019

Deeje said:
If the cancer doesn't get you, the 'medicine' will.

My mom is alive today, cancer free, because of this medicine you are demonizing. She survived some health problems and lived long enough to birth me because of these treatments you are demonizing. We both survived my birth because of the medical progress we've made by not sticking to herbs and old wives tales.

It Aint Necessarily So · Dec 30, 2019

Deeje said:
I support the noble and useful bits [of science]....and ignore the conjecture and assumptions substituted for facts.

No. You ignore all science except that which contradicts your faith-based beliefs, which you try to defend by mischaracterizing science as you have done here again. It is your religious beliefs that are all conjecture and assumption, with not a lick of evidence in support of any of it. Science has the evidentiary support to assert with confidence that its scientific theories are correct in the main. They work, They can be used to predict outcomes, unlike anything in your scriptures. The sine qua non of a correct idea is that it can be used in that way, and the evidence that an idea is wrong is that it cannot be used for anything constructive.

Evolution is a fact, not a conjecture. There is an accompanying theory that unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture. That's how we know that is is correct. Religious people dismissing all of that with a wave of the hand to defend their erroneous contradictory beliefs have no impact on the scientific and academic communities.

Contrast that with sterile ideas that can be used for nothing, such as creationism and astrology. Both are faith-based systems of thought founded on what we can say are wrong ideas based on their inability to predict or explain anything about reality. I shouldn't have to tell you that that is the sine qua non of a wrong idea, but I don't think that such things factor into your decision-making process, which is uninterested in evidence in determining what is true about the world.

I've asked you several times in the past why you think that anybody would trade in a theory that works for a religious belief that was useless, and you evade the question every time. I ask you again so that you can once again hide from the question, which, of course, is a tacit answer - there is no reason to do that. It would be foolish.

Deeje said:
I use knowledge to educate people about the fact that science doesn't always present proven facts,

You have no knowledge of science. You just have religious indoctrination that demeans it, which you are happy to serve as a vector disseminating your church's self-serving untruths.

Knowledge is the collection of useful ideas. Your teaching is destructive. And you attempt to indoctrinate others by merely repeated unevidenced assertions in the hope of drawing them away from reason and evidence based thought into your nihilistic, anti-intellectual world of wrong guesses.

Education is completely different from that. With education, one is shown evidence and the arguments that the best thinkers have generated defending their conclusions. This is offered so that one can come to these same conclusions if they are justified by the presented evidence and arguments, and also as training in critical thinking. Unlike Sunday school, where indoctrination occurs instead of education ("Jesus loves me this I know.."), you won't be asked whether you believe these conclusions - just whether you learned what evidence has been offered and what conclusions arrived at. This is a proud and productive tradition. Indoctrination is for preachers (which include religious apologists), advertisers, and propagandists.

Deeje said:
In promoting half-baked ideas as scientific facts, scientists use knowledge poorly IMO.

Science works, Religion is useless except to offer comfort to those who find it there.

Deeje said:
The gullible swallow everything they are told, no matter how far fetched it is.....because it is "science"

You are the gullible one. You believe without evidence.

Deeje said:
How is that not the same as putting faith in a 'religion'?

No faith is required to know that the science is largely correct. You know that as well deep down, which is why you are using your computer to communicate with people on the other side of the world, all based in scientific discovery and application. This is your tacit admission that you know that your claims that trusting in that is justified by evidence, not faith, and is thus not religion. You know that, but propagate your religious meme about science having no firmer foundation than your religious beliefs anyway.

Have you sensed yet that people consider that immoral and irresponsible? Not the effect you were hoping for, I suspect.

Deeje said:
If scientists could just figure out how life just "poofed" itself into existence by "natural" means one day, for no apparent reason, they would be sticking it to creationist like there was no tomorrow.

Nah. You can't reach those people with evidence. They pretend that they are responsive to it as you are now - as if you would be the least fazed by any scientific discovery - but in fact, they go on believing as before, because evidence can not move a person who didn't arrive at their present position by evaluating evidence, and can't be budged from it by any evidence. Faith closes the mind. If you cannot be shown that you are wrong when you are because you are impervious to the evidence that demonstrates that fact, then your mind is closed. You cannot be reached.

Deeje said:
"what if there is no tomorrow" for those who make God redundant in his own creation?

This is the latest version of Pascal's wager. What if we're wrong?

As Dawkins famously answered the Christian who asked him the same question, what if you're wrong? What if there actually are gods and an afterlife, but not the ones you imagined - gods not representing the values you were taught that a god would hold and reward you for, but gods with a more enlightened view that value reason over blind belief? You're gambling that there will be a god that will not chastise you for your choices. If there is an afterlife and we encounter gods more aligned to our best ideas than our worst, you might have some 'splainin' to do.

But worry not. I'll be there to put in a good word for you. We'll blame your religion. How were you to know that they were misleading you and making you dependent on them as the only way to achieve paradise just to fill their collection plates?

Deeje said:
My perspective is just fine....I am just not wearing the rose colored glasses that the 'Blind Freddy's' seem to have on.

You are fitted with a confirmation bias that allows you to see only what supports your beliefs. It's why you see nothing good about humanity or human society, and why you malign science. You've accepted that man is bad and science is just assumptions and speculation in the face of overwhelming evidence that there is good in humanity, human beings have accomplished amazing things, science makes life better (which is the evidence that its foundational principles and methods are sound), and that life has never been better for so many ever before. Your confirmation bias consistently filters these things out for you.

It Aint Necessarily So · Dec 30, 2019

Deeje said:
Not in that one important area that they are so quick to divorce themselves from....abiogenesis.The "sticking it to creationists" as far as evolution goes, is like pointing to an elaborate building and admiring the architecture, but not noticing that it has matchsticks for foundations. Would you risk your life in a building like that? Not me.

Scientists don't care about creationists, nor of sticking it to them. Science is blind to religion. It examines physical reality and reports on its regularities. If many of those reports contradict ancient beliefs, well, so what. They were wrong. Demonstrating as much improves the human condition as the acquisition of all truth dose.

But hey, don't feel put out about not being included in the discussion scientists are having among themselves. It not just the creationists' opinion they don't care about. They don't care about the opinions of those who agree with them and accept their conclusions. They don't feel less secure because of you or more secure because of me.

Deeje said:
Equally.....what if God showed up tomorrow and asked what kind of morons would assume that all that exists in the universe is just a monumental accident?

You're getting frustrated and voicing it using the vehicle of a god, a time-honored tradition. You express your own opinions, but give them the imprimatur of a god's thoughts or will. But it's you calling atheists morons, not a god.

But let's go with your lead. What kind of moron posits that the least likely thing to exist undesigned and uncreated must exist because he or she just can't imagine how nature could organize itself without an intelligent designer into living cells, for example.

Do you know how many fallacies that contains? An incredulity fallacy - you can't see how it could happen, so it didn't. An ignorance fallacy - if one cannot explain how life arose naturalistically, it didn't and therefore a god must exist. And a special pleading fallacy - complicated thing require intelligent designers, but intelligent designers can exist without other intelligent designers (other gods).

Deeje said:
I actually have other means of diagnosis that do not require invasive, painful or expensive tests.....and the natural approach addresses the problem of a sick immune system, which is why people succumb to illness in the first place.

Wrong. There are many other categories of disease, such as metabolic disease, or infectious diseases, that occur in people with healthy immune systems. You're not qualified to teach medicine.

Deeje said:
Medicine today is about “pharmacology”....an expensive pill or a handful of them for everything

Wrong again. Pharmacotherapy is just one modality of treatment, There is also surgery, physical therapy, radiotherapy, balneotherapy, and psychotherapy. You really are irresponsible spreading this misinformation.

Deeje said:
Don’t underestimate the greed that drives everything in this world

Really? You are aware of no other motive in human affairs?

Deeje said:
Would it unsettle you to know that alternative therapies have a better success rate, and have rescued people that the medical profession had given up on? They were told to go home and get their affairs in order. They visited clinics in Mexico or Europe and lived to tell their story.

Wrong again. All you have are empty, unsupported claims that you expect others to take on faith.

Dan From Smithville said:
What unsettles me is someone like you that assigns themselves authority without benefit of having earned it. Then goes to work publicly acting as if they have it.

I consider it immoral and irresponsible, and I suspect that you and several others posting here do as well. But let the buyer beware. I suppose those drawn in are the rightful prey of such memes for failing to think critically.

Dan From Smithville said:
The take away message here it is better to risk pain, suffering, and death from cancer than to do anything about it. Those horrible scientists and their many conspiracies. Medicine is the devil!

This is part of what makes her message so pernicious. And selfish. This misinformation is spread in the service of her church without regard for the harm it can do.

Dan From Smithville said:
I have an aunt that was successfully treated for breast cancer years ago. She is alive and recently celebrated her 83rd birthday. My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer in the early 1970's, was treated and lived to be 78, cancer free. i worked with a childhood cancer survivor that is alive today. All were recipients of that devil, modern medicine. Your emotional arguments appeal to the ignorant, but are unencumbered of the facts.

Scientists playing god and saving lives. How horrible.

It Aint Necessarily So · Dec 30, 2019

dfnj said:
The problem with people who worship science is their indifference to morality.

I have never seen anybody worship science, and those people I know who are most familiar with science are also among the most moral.

Those of us who respect, understand, and trust the scientific method and its output are not the ones worshiping, It's the religious, many of whom are people who attack science, and who by so doing, give others grounds to disagree with them - people with the unflattering quality of neither respecting nor understanding science, but who use it anyway. You call call attitude worship - teaching, respecting, correcting - but it is not worship. It is a respect for scientific truth.

dfnj said:
Being rational means what is moral and what is immoral is the same and there is no compass.

Being only rational might mean that, but rational people also frequently have a well-developed moral compass. They are moral agents..

dfnj said:
It is completely irrational to hold the belief people and people's lives are sacred.

Yes, it is. It's not an idea that can be derived from reason or evidence.

But perhaps you think that rational thought is the only kind of thought of interest to the unbeliever. We have many irrational experiences that we treasure, such as experiencing and satisfying moral urges, a sense of purpose, or the experience of love and beauty.

In fact, these are the most important kinds of conscious experiences. Reason is subordinated to the task of maximizing these desirable irrational experiences and minimizing the undesirable ones. Reason provides no pleasure in itself. It helps manage pleasures. Lose the irrational passions that give color and meaning to life, and you are left with depression and suicidal ideation.

dfnj said:
For someone who worships science above all else the word "sacred" has no meaning.

No, for those who need a sound reason to believe, there is no reason to believe that anything is sacred in the literal, religious sense. I use the word metaphorically, but in the religious sense, the word has no known referent. Just like sin. If there is no god, there is no sin and nothing is sacred.

This does not mean that unbelievers respect nothing, or hold nothing in high esteem. We just don't bring gods into the formula.

dfnj said:
without the irrational thoughts of religion there's no moral compass or agreement on what is more valuable above everything else.

I have a moral compass, but no religion. Religion did not inform my system of moral beliefs, which is actually more evolved than the religious system I traded in for it. Yes, those moral beliefs are irrational as are all moral beliefs, since there is no way to get from is to ought using reason, but not religious

Twilight Hue · Dec 30, 2019

Jesuslightoftheworld said:
I’m pretty sure God did not intend for an atom to be split. But we did it and look what happened. Do scientists try to mess with things that shouldn’t be messed with? I mean cloning a human, how do you they figure that can work? In my opinion God is the only One who can create life. I believe in the soul. How can a soul be cloned. I picture a twisted messed mass of cells tissue devoid of a conscience or soul that has no moral compass or sense of right or wrong. Scary...super soldiers? Thoughts?

Well, we are a part of nature so it's not really playing God. Still I think there is a need for precaution whenever we explore things we don't entirely understand.

My thoughts go to that resurrection of that 30000 year old virus years back. Lucky it dosent affect people.

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