Some Flaws in Creationist Epistimology
Creationists reason as if there were a binary choice:: Currently Accepted Scientific Theory vs. Biblical Literalism. This dichotomy is irrational, and it's at the heart of why nobody who understands science takes Young Earth Creationists very seriously in intellectual terms
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I think the Universe and the evolution of Life both awesome and spectacular. I just don't think it's supernatural.I think this is very well said, Jordan, because it reveals that the real clash is not in epistemology, but metaphysics ( ... )
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A process need not be "sapient" to "create" things in the sense of causing greater order to come into being. The more we study the Universe, the more we discover evolutionary processes operating in it, and all of them are similar. The products of some random, heritable variation are filtered through some sort of selection, imposed by the environment, and then the variation and selection are reiterated. Galaxies, star systems, and life all come about through such processes ( ... )
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There is also no evidence that there is any god or gods who are sapient and capable of creating anything
Oh, rubbish. Complete utter hogswallow. This is exactly what I meant in my post about category errors and unacknowledged presuppositions. There is ALL SORTS of evidence of the supernatural. There is no evidence of the supernatural that is provable by natural physical science. Natural things that are claimed to be the results of supernatural causes can be evaluated by science, but about the supernatural causes themselves, natural science must be silent. The category mistake is this: why should (and indeed, how can) the supernatural be evaluated by a scientific method designed to evaluate natural things? Your unstated presupposition is: "Only natural things, which can be evaluated by natural science, exist." It's fine if you want to believe that, but ( ... )
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What?
Stars neither eat nor prey. I have no idea what you're talking about.
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As I understand most of the currently accepted scientific theory, the Big Bang resulted in the formation, not of atoms, but of subatomic particles. Just protons and electrons(basic matter). The only element that would have formed from this material would have been hydrogen. The processes of covalent bonding, valence shells, and gravity brought this hydrogen together into clumps that would eventually become stars(much like amino acids clumping into proteins, wouldn't you say?).
The nuclear furnace of fusion turned that hydrogen into helium, lithium, oxygen, all the way up to iron. But that is as far as fusion will take matter. Its not until a star dies, not of hydrogen depletion, but first iron poisoning, that the explosion hyper-compresses the star's remaining elements into heavier metals and gasses like argon and titanium ( ... )
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Evolution through heritable variation by means of natural selection is not limited to life. All one needs is some source of variation (different vectors for gas or dust particles in a nebula) something which preserves variation (gravity clumping the particles together into larger bodies) and something which selects (the gravity of other objects either allowing objects to remain in orbits in system or casting them out of the system) -- and you get evolution. The concept is larger than biology.
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I know all about feedback loops, and they do not illustrate that an effect can cause itself. If the loop is taken as an entire system, it can seem that way. But taken individually, each effect initiates a new cause: E1 is also C2 which brings about E2, E2 is also C3 which brings about E3, etc. There still has to be a C0.
Although it does appear that quantum effects can work backward in time, that isn't what I meant by "antecedent." I mean logically antecedent, which in our day-to-day existence always coincides with temporally antecedent, but conceivably need not. If you don't get what I mean then it will take me some time to explain it ( ... )
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Which does not make it unintentional, or its products worthless. Understanding the causation does not change the effect. It merely helps us understand the process better.
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Things in the brain do not compete for processing.
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Very rudimentary findings, obviously; and not necessarily indicative of any decent model for how the brain works. But the initial findings are still highly suggestive, if nothing else.
Competing thoughts is more or less how researchers believe that humans, and really any organism, makes every decision. Especially when there is no clear advantage between the options (a piece of chocolate on the left, or an identical piece on the right; which do you eat first?). Neurons begin firing, and whichever has the healthier path wins (survival of the fittest).
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