Problems with evolution?

[JewishPhysics]

People tend to think they can wrap up complex ideas such as the one being discussed into simple observations that bear little to no practical value.

I don't follow you.  Could you provide an example?  Looking at a previous post you made:

I was saying that the idea that all living organisms get better with time is ridiculous. I'm not denying that organisms change as they adapt to their environment, but I don't think that necessarily means that they become absolutely superior.

This is an idea I've never encountered from any scientist.  I've heard certain ignorant lay people put forth ideas like this, but this is just a non-issue.  Are there credible people who actually make statements like this?  If there are, I have never heard of them.

[Conservationist]

Science is generally applied by idiots.

No offense, but if you need linear experimentation... you're probably fucking stupid.

Hence the vast majority of science research being completely retarded.

Philosophy is a master science, only in it's in the hands of idiots now too. They got edumacated after their parents filed a lot of form 22102-Bs so they could go to college.

[JewishPhysics]

No offense, but if you need linear experimentation... you're probably fucking stupid.

Hence the vast majority of science research being completely retarded.

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but I think you're just dead wrong here.  Your objection raises a number of serious questions:
1) Who would have logically arrived at Quantum Physics without performing the double slit experiment (and who would have ever predicted the results beforehand and how long would it have taken them to do so)?
2) What would an experiment that utilizes parallel logic look like?
3) In what sense are you claiming the vast majority of research to be retarded?  I think it's completely fair to say the vast majority is ultimately flawed in some way.  I also think it's completely fair to say that the "soft sciences" have been politicized.  What exactly is retarded about the vast majority of, for example, chemistry research?  Is it the lack of perceived practicality or usefulness from outside sources?

Full disclosure: I'm a student of the "pure" sciences, so forgive me if any of this seems reactionary or overly defensive.

Philosophy is a master science

Not to drag this into semantics, but I think your phrasing here is providing a wrong picture.  It would be more accurate to describe philosophy as an intellectual field of which science is a specific subset.  Science is Natural Philosophy.

[Conservationist]

We are surrounded by stupid assholes.

On one side are the stupid assholes who want to deny evolution despite the obvious sense of it. They think this means that a personal anthropomorphic God created all of us deliberately and thus has us on his Santa Claus list to save our asses after death.

Well, shit, I'd like to believe that too, but wishing does not make it so.

On the other side are stupid assholes who will insist only on material science because when they got out of their 1,000 square foot shithole lower-middle-class-cum-working-class apartments and shithole suburbia, their damaged egos wanted to make them fucking important. Now they have their first degrees and want us to know that they have allegiance to the idea of Science, godfuckingdmanit, and anyone who disagrees is ignorant. They will howl about anything but strict material acceptance of evolution, shitting on intelligent design, etc.

We're caught between these two groups of stupid assholes.

I like the way this site takes a more mature response which is to say that evolution seems to be a method of whatever divine force exists, and we can't prove or disprove a divine force, but it's unlikely it's human-like, so instead we have to view it as some kind of highly abstracted intelligence.

That is a lot clearer than what the loudmouth stupid assholes of both sides want you to think. Stupid, stupid assholes.

[sidereal]

 

Science is generally applied by idiots.

No offense, but if you need linear experimentation... you're probably fucking stupid.

Hence the vast majority of science research being completely retarded.

Philosophy is a master science, only in it's in the hands of idiots now too. They got edumacated after their parents filed a lot of form 22102-Bs so they could go to college.

We are surrounded by stupid assholes.

On one side are the stupid assholes who want to deny evolution despite the obvious sense of it. They think this means that a personal anthropomorphic God created all of us deliberately and thus has us on his Santa Claus list to save our asses after death.

Well, shit, I'd like to believe that too, but wishing does not make it so.

On the other side are stupid assholes who will insist only on material science because when they got out of their 1,000 square foot shithole lower-middle-class-cum-working-class apartments and shithole suburbia, their damaged egos wanted to make them fucking important. Now they have their first degrees and want us to know that they have allegiance to the idea of Science, godfuckingdmanit, and anyone who disagrees is ignorant. They will howl about anything but strict material acceptance of evolution, shitting on intelligent design, etc.

We're caught between these two groups of stupid assholes.

I like the way this site takes a more mature response which is to say that evolution seems to be a method of whatever divine force exists, and we can't prove or disprove a divine force, but it's unlikely it's human-like, so instead we have to view it as some kind of highly abstracted intelligence.

That is a lot clearer than what the loudmouth stupid assholes of both sides want you to think. Stupid, stupid assholes.

This is a great way to drive talent away. The suggestion that the motive to identify the 'material' basis for all phenomena is at all times rooted in low self esteem is simply embarrassing. The suggestion that science is one simplistic split between people who dogmatically believe in a personal god and people who are dogmatically bent on reducing everything back to the material out of some blind unconscious obsessional is laughable. Most GOOD scientists I have read advocate the naturalistic outlook (materialism, in its different degrees) because this results in an explanation that stands up to objective scrutiny. They want to understand CAUSE and EFFECT so they look for a material basis for things like cognition, culture, organisational complexity, etc etc, and they reach just such an understanding of cause and effect. They know the limits of how far back they can take materialism as an explanatory basis (the big bang), but they still seek a natural/material causal explanation as far back as that, and even for that, because, SO FAR, this has resulted in the most success in understanding the universe, or 'the mind of god' as Einstein would have said. This is your nihilism, or looking past emotion to REALITY. This is just pragmatic, diligent and ultimately a sane approach. Go tell the tribal fisherman to suddenly stop the methods he has used which have resulted in the most fish caught and see if he doesn't throw you in the lake for being incomprehensible.

Viewing evolution as "some kind of highly abstracted intelligence", what ever you mean here, is great, but you will get much further in doing so by looking for the material basis of evolution, i.e. its basis in matter and the laws that EMERGE at a certain level of organisational complexity and govern this matter. There is reductionism, and then there is greedy reductionism. The later is tenacious and tries to reduce the laws of chemistry to those of physics, biology to chemistry, consciousness to biology etc. The former looks for new laws that emerge at each new level of complexity and recognizes the limits of dogmatic materialism. Science is, arguably, a beautifully open and revert attitude towards the universe and diatribes like the above are in danger of looking amazingly retarded and juvenile.

I would argue that looking at different phenomena in the universe in terms of being driven by some "highly abstract intelligence", like you advocate, is the sort of anthropomorphism nihilism is supposed to transcend. Go read about agency modules in the brain and how evolutionary psychologists believe we're over-inclined, due to survival reasons, to posit agency behind things in our environment. False negatives lead to being killed, false positives result merely in a bit of paranoia and being puffed out after running away needlessly. This is just one example of how the materialistic science you deride allows one to come to a greater understanding of the specific ways in which biology clouds one's perception of reality.

[Conservationist]

Most GOOD scientists I have read advocate the naturalistic outlook (materialism, in its different degrees) because this results in an explanation that stands up to objective scrutiny.

In a linear, material sense only, thus guaranteeing the split we talk about above.

[sidereal]

Most GOOD scientists I have read advocate the naturalistic outlook (materialism, in its different degrees) because this results in an explanation that stands up to objective scrutiny.

In a linear, material sense only, thus guaranteeing the split we talk about above.

Now you have me interested. In what sense does a sophisticated naturalistic commitment to investigating the world not lead to success? What better method do we have of getting past human perceptions and into unadulterated reality?

[Cargést]

The problem with that kind of thought is that it stems from human perspective.  Indeed, the problem with any attempt at "objectivity" of any kind is that objective reality is necessarily filtered through perception.  We do not encounter data, we encounter objects, colours, sounds.

Why is it assumed that the cause is only within the "natural" world/physical reality?  I've read so many suggestions that cognition is simply the result of chemical processes - all of these suggestions see one cause -> effect(s).  Assume, for a second, that consciousness is some extra-planar faculty which merely manifests itself in living (?) organisms.  In this scenario, the brain acts as hardware, the mind is software.  As any computer scientist could tell you, software and hardware influence each other - the hardware does not "create" the software through its machinations, it merely provides the platform from which the software can run.

[sidereal]

Hi Cargest, If consciousness is something outside the material realm then we probably won't be able to study it. It will just be there. We would study the point at which is interacts with the physical brain, but we probably couldn't go beyond that. Science is the best way we have of, as Prozac says, "crawling out of the ghetto of our own minds" (http://www.anus.com/zine/articles/prozak/belief_in_nothing/). Why? Because of the collection of institutions it is and the type of community it is (peer reviewed, people always checking other people's results: i.e. will to power harnessed and directed towards 'objectivity'). Now science happens to be equipped to dealing with the material world best (you can't empirically observe some "extra-planar faculty"), and shit, it seems to work. So why not try for a purely naturalistic explanation for consciousness or 'existence'? Why is this a defunct aim? Regarding consciousness, science is slowly getting closer to the answer, or at least getting to the point it has a clear idea of the questions to actually ask now. Teams of cognitive scientists, evolutionary psychologists, neuroscientists, are slowly closing in. You work out how the brain works (yes, MATERIALISTICALLY), and you get a greater knowledge of when your dealing with reality or just human projections.

Conservationist says that:

evolution seems to be a method of whatever divine force exists, and we can't prove or disprove a divine force, but it's unlikely it's human-like, so instead we have to view it as some kind of highly abstracted intelligence

And he proceeds to criticize, in the most stupidly retarded way, the search for the purely material basis for evolution, biological life, and most probably, consciousness. I don't know why. Never mind the fact that reducing something to a material basis doesn't necessarily rule out mystery or greater depths to reality. He believes that, as a metal head managing a forum, he knows some slice of primordial sacred knowledge that scientists don't, namely, that science done from a naturalistic/materialist starting point finds truth:

In a linear, material sense only, thus guaranteeing the split we talk about above.

Then I read all the topic created on this forum by him lamenting people who just post to boost their own ego? It seems to me there is often such venom and animosity towards the real world around here, and when it pops up, it reeks of bullshit and will only keep people away. You don't effect change in the world unless you stop bitching, get involved in things that are going on, i.e. in current science, philosophy, or environmentalism and drop the holier than thou attitude which reeks of slave mentality (i don't cut it at science, philosophy or whatever so instead ill just slander it from an internet forum).

[Veritas]

sidereal: for some purposes, the Scientific method, and the models which is both rests on and which it provides, are the most useful - however, this is not the case for all purposes. As for the creation of an objective, strictly increasing base of knowledge? Science may well be the best - however, human understanding can go far beyond this, and to let the mind be chained down by materialism is to severely limit the levels of understanding one can reach.

Whether or not we use Reason is a choice. To use it not as a tool, but as an absolute law, is to be a slave to it, to let it be Tyrant over you, and thus to deny your own Life.

[Chains]

sidereal: for some purposes, the Scientific method, and the models which is both rests on and which it provides, are the most useful - however, this is not the case for all purposes. As for the creation of an objective, strictly increasing base of knowledge? Science may well be the best - however, human understanding can go far beyond this, and to let the mind be chained down by materialism is to severely limit the levels of understanding one can reach.

Whether or not we use Reason is a choice. To use it not as a tool, but as an absolute law, is to be a slave to it, to let it be Tyrant over you, and thus to deny your own Life.

Sure, science isn't the best tool for everything, but it's tailor-made for just the purpose of discerning the objective nature of reality. Criticism that it doesn't do the job well seems rather odd then.

I also don;t understand what is meant by "a linear, material sense [of an explanation that stands up to objective scrutiny] ", nor what a higher abstract intelligence is supposed to be, or what points to its existence.

[Cargést]

I'm not disagreeing with the Scientific method, at all - I am an absolute supporter of those who are on the quest to establish the basic truths of our material existence.  However, I'm not so sure that we are completely cut off from other forms of experience (i.e. non-physical), and so I would prefer it if the consideration were there that physicality is not the be all and end all of all things, but, rather, merely a subset of the total reality which we inhabit and experience.  An important subset, of course - this is where our bodies live, and if the body dies, "we" no longer exist in this form - but a subset, nonetheless, of the whole of what truly exists.  I would very much like to see some actual research into certain phenomena which seem to defy the current understanding of our corporeal existence and surroundings.

Then again, one can't really place a value on knowledge of truth, as we can't really know whether or not what we know is true; we must simply assume (which is why it's much easier to establish communal "truth" on things that all people can [generally] agree on, like physical reality, which we all seem to share, in more or less the same way).

[JewishPhysics]

Whether or not we use Reason is a choice. To use it not as a tool, but as an absolute law, is to be a slave to it, to let it be Tyrant over you, and thus to deny your own Life.

We use logical reasoning because there is a logic to reality and certain laws it obeys.  We are slaves to it whether we recognize it or not.  If you are proposing that our attempts to approximate that logic are flawed, then I agree.

[sidereal]

I'm not disagreeing with the Scientific method, at all - I am an absolute supporter of those who are on the quest to establish the basic truths of our material existence.  However, I'm not so sure that we are completely cut off from other forms of experience (i.e. non-physical), and so I would prefer it if the consideration were there that physicality is not the be all and end all of all things, but, rather, merely a subset of the total reality which we inhabit and experience.

This is a lot more mature than this idiot:

On the other side are stupid assholes who will insist only on material science because when they got out of their 1,000 square foot shithole lower-middle-class-cum-working-class apartments and shithole suburbia, their damaged egos wanted to make them fucking important. Now they have their first degrees and want us to know that they have allegiance to the idea of Science, godfuckingdmanit, and anyone who disagrees is ignorant. They will howl about anything but strict material acceptance of evolution, shitting on intelligent design, etc.

But back to your comments, please give me an idea of how, exactly, we go about experiencing this non-physical side of "the total reality which we inhabit and [you say] experience". Regarding how we come to an understanding of the physical world: We have our five sense with which get information in from the material world, and we produce mental representations of this information in the brain. And we have meta-representation abilities which we use to represent the former representations at a more abstract level according to various sequential rules (deduction and induction, or whatever).

Also, Scientists don't necessarily rule out non-physical aspects of reality, they just haven't encountered any, haven't needed to posit non-physical causes, or are simply interested in trying to find physical causes before resorting to loose metaphysical speculation. And that's the real fucking problem, if you will consider it:

All too often conjectures of non-physical causes of phenomena in the world have simply been overturned by scientists who, after a lot of work, have identified and verified the naturalistic basis for things. If they had listened to the people telling them that the explanation is 'non-physical' then science wouldn't have half the understanding of reality than it does now. Two examples i can immediate think of are vitalism vs biochemical reactions in explaining the mechanical function of organisms and god vs evolution for the origin of spoecies. All This deoesn't prove that there aren't non-physical causes in reality, but, inductively (looking at what's right from past experience), it's a pretty good indication that anti-naturalism is simply a spanner in the works, a product of the human brain not wanting to grow up. Possibly a product of christianity (i'm not sure about your situation, so excuse me), fear, or generally human beings wanting the world to conform to their emotions. In other words... bullshit.

This sums it up pretty well, and i think indicates that science is pretty open minded.

Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena.... While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as "methodological naturalism" and is sometimes known as the scientific method. Methodological naturalism is a "ground rule" of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify. (Judge John E. Jones, III)

[Conservationist]

Scientists don't necessarily rule out non-physical aspects of reality, they just haven't encountered any, haven't needed to posit non-physical causes, or are simply interested in trying to find physical causes before resorting to loose metaphysical speculation.

False dichotomy.