With all of that said, I take your points about the predictions of evolution.

@Skeptikor: While I take your comment in the spirit it was intended, I have to disagree that atheism is the default position in the absence of proof to the contrary. Atheism makes the positive assertion “God does not exist.” The default in the absence of proof is agnosticism, or simply “I don’t know.”

Evolution most certainly has held up its end of Popper’s falsifiability, look at Haldane’s Precambrian rabbit that has yet to be found. This ability to explain an historical process, which could be invalidated at any moment by the fossil record yet never has, most certainly counts as a prediction. On future developments of a system, look at drug-resistant bacteria you would notice that it is perfectly predicted by evolution. However evolution can make the prediction that if one trait is selected for in either positive or negative way, this will have an effect on the allele frequency within that population.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/01/14/hunting-big-game-speeds-evolution-of-shrinking-species/.

Perfectly predicted by evolution by natural selection.

The problem seems to come when we bring in the casperitic notions of an invisible, incorporeal buddy. There is precisely as much proof for that as there is that the world is run by magical dwarfs, or that everyting was created five minutes ago, including our memories. I would hazard that little is to be gained by pursuing any of these musings.

To the poster who says that atheism is a belief system. You are quite right. It is the default in the absence of proof to the contrary. That is completely different from holding a positive affirmation (invisible buddy, dwarfs, etc.). The big difference is that it is amenable to change given the weight of contrary evidence (currently absent). Ergo, it is not faith and quite different from other belief systems that treat the question of evidence as an annoying irrelevance.

I’m not sure where I am “making stuff up.” The evidence you site as “proof” of evolution is, in fact, precisely what I stated above: the apparent changes in species interpreted after the fact as evolution. When the beak of the finch shrunk, did evolution make a prediction beforehand that it would be thus? No, it did not. The power of a scientific theory, for example, the Standard Model of Particle Physics or General Relativity, is its ability to offer an interpretation of a phenomenon or phenomena (which evolution does) AND to PREDICT the behavior of the system in the future (which evolution DOES NOT DO). Without prediction, there is criterion or condition, no state or event, that may be falsified. There is no experiment anyone can devise to “test” evolution. As such, evolution does not stand up to Popper’s criterion of falsifiability, which, in his philosophy of science, determines whether a hypothesis or theory is “scientific.”

As for the speed of light and hydrogen/gold comments, well, those are just plain silly. Upon acceptance of certain propositions (such as the external reality and measurability of objects), the measurement of the speed of light in a vacuum as roughly 3 X 10^8 m/s is perfectly reasonable. As for hydrogen/gold, did you actually suppose I would claim that one is greater than many (one proton versus seventy-nine)?

Next time, please leave the straw men in the corn field.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040024/ns/technology_and_science-science.

You say science supports concepts that are no more or less accurate than other description. So to you it is safe to say that light in a vacuum travels at 100 miles per hour is equally valid as stating that it ravels at 299,792,458 meters per second? That Hydrogen is actually more massive than say Gold?

Also, atomism is quite an old concept, going back to the ancient Greeks at least, and was very close to a belief, since no one at that time could make direct observations on the microscopic world. Further, Evolution by Natural Selection is not a falsifiable proposition. As has been pointed out for quite some time, the theory does no “work”; it makes no testable hypotheses , nor any predictions as to the future development of species. In short, it is merely an explanation after the fact. To be explicit, Evolution by Natural Selection is “merely” descriptive.

All of that aside, science is nothing more than a loose confederation of ontological and epistemological dispositions, that is, beliefs, no more or less accurate than other dispositions. The sooner scientists understand this limitation, applying the methodology of science to its specific domain (and no more), the better for science in general.

The hypothesis that “God exists” is not falsifiable, in exactly the same way. By contrast, the atheist hypothesis that “God does not exist” can be falsified, in principle. This makes it a more useful and realistic world view to follow until such time as it is falsified (if that ever happens). You are correct to say that atheism is a belief system (because we can never be 100% certain that the external world perceived by our senses is reality, and not some sort of illusion), but it differs fundamentally from religious belief systems in that it is based on a falsifiable hypothesis, and hence can be overturned if sufficient empirical evidence comes to light. That’s why you’re wrong to call science a faith. Science is the exact opposite of faith. Evolution by Natural Selection, General Relativity, the existence of atoms, plate tectonics, etc are not ideas that people have clung to for centuries because previous generations told them to (or threatened them with eternal suffering if they failed to believe) , they are comparatively new ideas that people adopted on the basis of cold, hard, tested evidence.

D J Wray
Packaged Evolution: The Intelligent Universe (PowerPoint)
http://www.atotalawareness.com/documents/packagedevolution.pps

“Why do many people feel that God is the creator of the universe? Because their consciousness is dominated by the 2nd universe. He created *their* universe. Similarly, God did not create the atheists’ universe. Why do people tend towards science (and technology) or religion but not both? Because of the competing influences of the two universes. The 1st universe rewards sharing important information. That is, information which is good for the species – which automatically includes information about how species evolve. The 2nd universe rewards people who think beyond nature. Science isn’t aware of the separate existence of the 2nd universe. “

Imagine a similar prize, say the Exxon Prize, which offers a $1.5M “honor” to the living person who ‘has made an exceptional contribution to affirming petroleum’s ecological dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works’.

How about a $1.5M honor to the living person who ‘has made an exceptional contribution to affirming tobacco’s healthy dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works’?

In other words (in case you missed my subtlety), the Templeton Prize is little more than a bribe for scientists to cater to religious sentiment.

I think the reason you can’t tell the difference between science and religion is because to you science -is- your religion, your faith. Atheism isn’t scientifically provable, it’s a belief system, and most peculiar in that it denies it is one.

(To be fair, you can’t prove scientifically that there -is- a god, either, and, like the militant atheists’ “disbelief”, trying to do so is a category error akin to mistaking a pointing finger for what it’s pointing at.)

he reiterated that science doesn’t have to contradict religion: “If they are properly understood,” he said, “they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters, and each is essential to human understanding” [Templeton Prize]. Referring to Picasso’s painting Guernica, which famously depicts the tragedies of war, Ayala noted that science helps us understand the painting’s proportions and pigments, but only a spiritual view conveys the horror of the subject matter.

Ayala is clueless. He has no argument for needing religion. Superstitious woo is only in the mind.

He is even worse in his understanding of Guernica. Picasso, the Communist and pacifist painted Guernica to show the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. It is NOT spiritual at all. Sheesh.

The Templeton Foundation is known for supporting woo and nonsense.