Problems understanding naturalistically the beginning of the universe

[robvalue]

Yeah, I think he is. How dull.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I do not accept any of the other accounts of scientific speculation to whether the life emerged from a primordial soup or from the outer space or whatever else because this is just speculation, and these speculations appear just because there cannot be accepted that this a being exists because there would be consequences for it, and there is a strong commitment to materialism at this moment by a large part of the scientific community, as Richard Lewontin a geneticist and self-proclaimed marxist would say: "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.".

*ahem* Ladies and gentlemen, a general announcement:

I FUCKING HATE QUOTE-MINERS!!!

You have completely and utterly misrepresented what Dr. Lewontin was saying, in that bit about "just-so" stories. Ironically, he's talking about trying to educate the public about science when they are in fact ignorant of it (and the class-revolt of the non-elites, since he's a Marxist, which included a fundamentalist backlash against naturalistic science), and therefore many people must simply accept what the scientists are telling them, even when it goes against what might be "common sense" to them. For instance, Quantum Mechanics defies "common sense" in numerous ways. Doesn't make it wrong. Do I understand it, truly? Nope! I'm not a physicist... so I take their word, even though I still struggle to understand concepts like subatomic particle probability field interactions.

Here's a broader context of the quote:

"With great perception, Sagan sees that there is an impediment to the popular credibility of scientific claims about the world, an impediment that is almost invisible to most scientists. Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them? Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen. When, at the time of the moon landing, a woman in rural Texas was interviewed about the event, she very sensibly refused to believe that the television pictures she had seen had come all the way from the moon, on the grounds that with her antenna she couldn’t even get Dallas. What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.” Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

(Emphasis my own. In short, he's saying that because science cannot refer to magic, it sometimes makes guesses that are wrong, or even when proven right, that mystify the public more than the magical ones.)

And here's the source: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/01/...of-demons/

Edit to Add: Oh, and you copied-and-pasted your citation from this Creationist website, word for word, including referring to him as "a self-proclaimed Marxist", here: http://creation.com/amazing-admission-lewontin-quote

[TheRocketSurgeon]

More from what Lewontin actually said:

Second, to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out. People believe a lot of nonsense about the world of phenomena, nonsense that is a consequence of a wrong way of thinking. The primary problem is not to provide the public with the knowledge of how far it is to the nearest star and what genes are made of, for that vast project is, in its entirety, hopeless. Rather, the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth. The reason that people do not have a correct view of nature is not that they are ignorant of this or that fact about the material world, but that they look to the wrong sources in their attempt to understand. [...]

Carl Sagan, like his Canadian counterpart David Suzuki, has devoted extraordinary energy to bringing science to a mass public. In doing so, he is faced with a contradiction for which there is no clear resolution. On the one hand science is urged on us as a model of rational deduction from publicly verifiable facts, freed from the tyranny of unreasoning authority. On the other hand, given the immense extent, inherent complexity, and counterintuitive nature of scientific knowledge, it is impossible for anyone, including non-specialist scientists, to retrace the intellectual paths that lead to scientific conclusions about nature. In the end we must trust the experts and they, in turn, exploit their authority as experts and their rhetorical skills to secure our attention and our belief in things that we do not really understand.

[Wryetui]

How can you tell me something like that? On what are you based for calling me a "troll"? I was trying to mantian a conversation but if you think you are too good enough for it and that "I must be trolling" is entirely up to you. If you believe you know more about "The Bible" than someone who is studying Theology at college I doubt it. Besides insults and condescendence I have received nothing, the truth keeps being the same, there is no point in having a naturalistic cosmology because it does not make sense, and no one actually has proven me that it does, just speculation and commitment to nothing.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

How can you tell me something like that? On what are you based for calling me a "troll"? I was trying to mantian a conversation but if you think you are too good enough for it and that "I must be trolling" is entirely up to you. If you believe you know more about "The Bible" than someone who is studying Theology at college I doubt it. Besides insults and condescendence I have received nothing, the truth keeps being the same, there is no point in having a naturalistic cosmology because it does not make sense, and no one actually has proven me that it does, just speculation and commitment to nothing.

Wryetui, a "troll" is someone who comes to atheist forums for the deliberate intent of "poking us with a stick", so to speak. We also use the term "Poe", after "Poe's Law", which states that it's impossible to tell a devout fanatic from a troll. They're expressing the belief that you may not really be as crazy as you sound to them, but simply be entertaining yourself at our expense. It happens.

You deliberately misrepresented what a scientist said about naturalistic cosmology, via a Creationist website, and you expect us to take you seriously? Come on!

[Alex K]

More from what Lewontin actually said:

Second, to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out. People believe a lot of nonsense about the world of phenomena, nonsense that is a consequence of a wrong way of thinking. The primary problem is not to provide the public with the knowledge of how far it is to the nearest star and what genes are made of, for that vast project is, in its entirety, hopeless. Rather, the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth. The reason that people do not have a correct view of nature is not that they are ignorant of this or that fact about the material world, but that they look to the wrong sources in their attempt to understand. [...]

Carl Sagan, like his Canadian counterpart David Suzuki, has devoted extraordinary energy to bringing science to a mass public. In doing so, he is faced with a contradiction for which there is no clear resolution. On the one hand science is urged on us as a model of rational deduction from publicly verifiable facts, freed from the tyranny of unreasoning authority. On the other hand, given the immense extent, inherent complexity, and counterintuitive nature of scientific knowledge, it is impossible for anyone, including non-specialist scientists, to retrace the intellectual paths that lead to scientific conclusions about nature. In the end we must trust the experts and they, in turn, exploit their authority as experts and their rhetorical skills to secure our attention and our belief in things that we do not really understand.

As a writer of popular science articles and books, to me the latter paragraph really summarizes the challenge one faces when presenting research.

[Minimalist]

Sure isn't.

Do these guys really think they have figured out more than scientists have about the past, by using a story book and a bunch of bare assertions?

That's pretty much it, Rob.

[Redbeard The Pink]

He seems to think that the Bible is evidence of itself. Anyone wanna explain that a claim can't prove itself, or are we just letting that one go?

This is a wrong way of seeing. I have heard the circular argument myself and I find that it gets life from theoligical ignorance. "The Bible" is not a book. It is a collection of writings that was given that name, so "The Bible is not correct because the Bible is so". The revelation of God was given to the prophets and some of them (some by God's command) wrote it, for example, Isaiah. How do I know that God created the world? He revealed it to Moses, and when He came on earth, he didn't disprove Moses's revelation but supported it.

So a guy from the book supported what the book says, and that means the book is true?


No, that's still circular, my friend.


Anthologies are books. Your book is a book, you dodgy little bean-sniffer. The Bible is the source of your claim, so it cannot be evidence of that claim.

[Mister Agenda]

Now, I want to clarify somethings. Even though I said I want this thread to be religion-free because it would lose its atheism if so, religion still appeared.

It is not true that "I cannot ask this question about my God" or about my religion. The universe is the Creation, and the creation was created ex-nihilo (out of nothing) by God, that is transcendent to it. God Himself is without a beginning and without an end, because beginning and end are adjectives that require contingence. God say that His name is "I AM", showing one of the deepest theological conditions about Himsel; God is existence as existence is. However, we cannot at all think that the matter is eternal since it is clearly not, we have seen it. The word "eternal" belongs to religion, not to naturalistic science.

I believe this is the last barrier for science, after all, it would only be speculation to talk about it, scientifical speculation. Just as I have heard in this forum the phrase "There are literally billions of galaxies", which is a claim based entirely on a scientifical speculation.

LOL, 'lose its atheism'. That's so awful that happened!

There is no atheist cosmology. Atheism is a property of people who can believe in or withhold belief from ideas like gods. You seem to mean the science of cosmology, but really, there's no need to cede all of science to atheists. There are plenty of believers who work in biology without evolution being a problem for their faith and in cosmology without a natural explanation for the universe troubling their religious serenity.

The problem with natural explanations for the universe is that they're so easy to come by. Their are multiple hypotheses that fit the known evidence and for which the math works; but at present we cannot perform the experiments that would allow us to say which, if any of them are actually the case.

However, science not knowing the definitive answer for the origin at present does not add a microgram of support to supernatural explanations (of which there are thousands, not just yours).

[Alex K]

Every dot is a galaxy. And this is just our relative cosmic neighborhood.