Sigh.
Why do our conversations always get so bloated in such a short amount of time?
It's always so much work answering.
cuddly_tomato said:
Ahhh but you are. A rock is a product of billions of years of geological formation, astronomical formation, chemical bonding, being boiled in the earth, being frozen in space... been through a lot, your average rock.
Yes. But it's been through different things than a species developing.
Again, you're oversimplifying things. At the core of it you're right, both rock and I are matter. But how we came to be differ very much.
Natural selection is just another chemical process.
It's not something chemical. Mutations are chemical/physical.
At its very core, again, you're right, for mutations make it possible for populations to change. So chemistry is of importance for evolution as a whole.
But natural selection itself is about reproduction depending on what works better than other strategies. It's about populations and their differences becoming more pronounced over time.
Natural selection would happen even if the process by which differences in populations came about were not chemical but something different. It doesn't matter for natural selection (though, as I said, it does matter for evolution as a whole).
Why that would mean that lifeforms aren't something special is beyond me.
Why do you think that the fact that life can come about and change naturally somehow devalues it?
It is no more or less "important" than any rock...
I wasn't saying I was objectively more "important" than a rock, I said I'm different. Rocks are quite important in their way for this world.
What would a person, with an agenda, do with something like evolution and natural selection? What would he do with "survival of the fittest"? Well we know don't we.
How is that the theory's fault?
Let's just assume that it's true (although you seem to doubt it). Should we ignore fact because it might lead to bad things?
Should we close our eyes, stick our heads in the sand and say something different instead simply because truth can be a burden?
The problem is not with the theory of evolution or science, it's with what is done with it. Similar, you might say, to religion, as it's been exploited over millenia for political gain, warfare, genocide, oppression and so on.
I hope you remember that I have always said I'm not opposed to religion itself but to religious institutions gaining worldly power and the loss of separation of state and church.
It is up to us, as humans, to say:- "science tells us this is what happened, and continues to happen, but that doesn't mean we have to adhere to what it says. We can decide what to do with, not how to interpret, this information.
Nobody in their right mind gains their personal moral values from science but from their parents, peers and community.
Just because natural selection happens doesn't mean that we have to employ Social Darwinism or eugenics.
Science doesn't tell us what to do. Science just tells us what happened/happens.
I really don't get you. I consider myself a moral person and I'm deeply opposed to Social Darwinism yet I believe in natural selection. Why? Because, while I accept scientific explanations, I don't base my morals on some twisted image of that.
I know how scientists currently think that morals came about. I know what use they might have had in our evolution.
And you know what? I still follow those morals.
The fact that those morals came about naturally and weren't somehow inspired by something else doesn't devalue them!
They're still useful for us to live as a community. They minimize danger and suffering. They still help us propagate our species. Why would I want to give that up? Why would their origin make them useless all of a sudden?
Okay, you got me there, things can get out of hand.
We obviously need regulations.
However, note that I said "dictate its course", that's a bit different.
For example, I'm pro stem cell research because a) it might help paraplegics, Alzheimer's patients and countless other people one day and b) the embryos used are never going to be used for implantation anyway.
However, I'm opposed to creating embryos specifically to be used for said research.
Neither of these things, however, mean that I'd want to stop stem cell research altogether!
If I were, I'd not only hinder science travel that road, I'd change its course altogether.
I hope this little example helps get my point across: As with everything, we require the right balance. Damn, I say that a lot, don't I?
) I have had to rethink several aspects of my faith and quite happily class myself as a "Heretic" now. there are two main threads in theology, there is the one that people (including many theologians) like to laugh at, the revealed theology - something is true "Because it is written". and there is the more interesting (IMO) Natural theology, which attempts to work its way to a conclusion with as few preconvictions as possible. what I was saying in my post was that only an absolute fundie christian would not be willing to concede that science has a valid argument as to the "How"? questions in reality, and - I would contend - that only an equally fundie scientist will not concede that science is incapable of answering the "Why?" questions attempted by religion.
