Re: “Umm, no Evolving Squid did not write that. I know quote attribution can be difficult in this kind of message thread, but just so it’s clear… That quote was from Celtic Evolution.”

Sorry about that, guys. Thanks for not taking it personally. I got confused.

Thanks for pointing it out to me. It was a late night.

Celtic, I’ve got some follow-up to your last response to post later. Thanks for your patience (assuming we continue the discussion).

my evolution is tentacled, his involves warm beer and organ meats

That just made me spit out my McEwan’s all over my Haggas! Curse you, cephalopod!

Interest wise, marine biology has the potential for much study of things that have tentacles. I’m sure there’s a PhD in the study of “behaviour of the California school of humbolt squid when presented with presidential candidates”.

Astrophysics is just plain ol’ fascinating. Studying how the universe works just doesn’t get any cooler.

. . . but it becomes difficult to not get frustrated and lose your composure when faced with a person who refuses to see something that seems so obviously clear, at least to you. At least that’s how I feel on occasion when getting into these debates with IDers and Creationists…

Umm, no Evolving Squid did not write that. I know quote attribution can be difficult in this kind of message thread, but just so it’s clear… That quote was from Celtic Evolution. Evolving, yes, but my evolution is tentacled, his involves warm beer and organ meats

Evolving Squid, you said you majored in physics, correct? I am curious the environment in which you now work, if you work (who knows?) and specifically, is it corporate or academia?

Corporate. I am a security consultant who does primarily government work. My work occasionally touches on academia, but not often. I’m not really cut out for academia. I find many academics to be frustrating to deal with for a variety of reasons which probably aren’t worth discussing here, but suffice it to say that my personality is more suited to a corporate environment.

Do you mean you believe people are aware of the thought process they are using from one moment to the next? Something like ‘DOUBLETHINK’ from ‘1984? except with more or less conscious self-awareness of their thoughts while they are thinking?

hmmm… not sure I simplified it in quite that way, but let me answer this way: I think that there are many people who do not think and are not really aware of their thought process from moment to moment… they simply regard what they are told as truth without question. But, I don’t think it’s those people who become the thorn in the side of the scientist. It is those people who are aware that their thoughts and beliefs are in direct opposition to what they know to be true, and do so to further their own personal goals and agendas. It’s a power thing, I think, and I do think that falls under tha category of “human nature”, unfortunately.

If from #1 humanity is consciously self-aware of their thought processes, the lack of opposition is what ‘holds back progress and knowledge?’

Keep in mind that I said ‘parts’ of humanity… not humanity as a whole. And no, not quite… I’m not sure that the willfully ignorant I mention from part 1 of your question are “actually’ holding back progress and knowledge… but it is often their goal to, and it is that goal that is a source of frustration for the scientific community that I refer to.

The lack of active opposition is interpreted by the scientific community as passively supporting religious dogma?

Now, what you did here was carry forward a question from your own supposition above that I never stated or intended, and made sound as if it were a point I made. To clarify, I never made the claim that the scientific community has a problem with, or a perception of a “lack of opposition” to religious dogma. The scientific community has no need to actively pursue a course of active opposition to religion. Science only even regards religion at ALL when religion attempts to impose itself onto science. Otherwise it would pay religion no mind whatsoever.

The problem of contention between science and religion often occurs because science, by its very nature, attempts to explain natural phenomenon that have often already been “explained” by spiritual texts. And through no fault of its own, science often comes to conclusions that either don’t support or completely refute accepted spiritual understandings of the world around us. Science did not go out of its way to attack religion. It simply is a process for understanding using observation and testing. That it conflicts with religion so often is not the fault of science, and science, in a vacuum, could care less. But science, and scientists as an extension, will not accept or tolerate explanations that do not allow for a process by which the assumptions can not be either observed or tested.

So the frustration is not over the lack of an active opposition to religion, it is over an active campaign of religion trying to force itself into the science curriculum and be treated on the same plane with science. Otherwise, science and the scientific community could give a hoot about religion.

I’m not sure I can explain it any better than that, and I’m not certain I’ve done all that good a job of it, truthfully… but I made an effort…

An answer to your question 4 can be found in the paragraph above, as long as you replace “humanity” with “parts of humanity”.

And as for question 5… well, again, I’d have to point out that I speak of “parts of humanity”… but using Galileo as an example… even after hundreds of years of KNOWING the truth about the solar system, it took the Catholic Church until the 1980’s to finally pardon him. Kowingly turning a blind eye to obvious fact is not a new tactic for parts of humanity… AND, I should point out, is not reserved for religion alone.