Another question for atheists...

[Skavau]

Sorry, but I disagree because i don't think you've applied correctly the theory behind cognitive dissonance. Either that, or you've misunderstood it.

Models of cognitive dissonance treats "beliefs" as choice variables.
Previous research in this field has used choice (or beliefs) as basic propositions of their model of cognitive dissonance, and showed that preference is defined over beliefs and that beliefs are subject to choice.

While a more optimistic outlook makes one feel better about the past decision, the agent recognizes that adopting more optimistic beliefs would take him or her further from the "truth" and thus would lead to sub-optimal choices in decisions still to be made. The optimal belief is determined by making this trade-off.

There is considerable evidence in (social) psychology that people like to view themselves as being smart, and in particular, as having made correct decisions in the past. Thus they may change beliefs after taking an action and become more optimistic about its possible consequences, in order to feel better about having chosen it.

There's nothing to say here other than that you're inserting the word "choice" with no justification at all.

 

[Gadarene]

The theory of evolution bears all the hallmarks of a belief system as far as I can see.

Thankfully we are not limited by what you can and cannot see.

Are you really claiming to be completely unbiased with every piece of scientific information you observe?

It is not just I who makes these observations.

I suspect there is at least an element of trying to explain a piece of evidence WITHIN the framework of evolution. Everyone has a bias - I think its impossible not to. No evolutionist can prove molecules to man evolution - it is therefore a theory that you happen to BELIEVE is best explanation of the world around you. You are very unlikely to change your beliefs in the theory of evolution (just like I am very unlikely to change my belief that the world was designed) even though both are impossible to prove. Most of our analysis of the world around us will operate through the lens of our worldview.

Evolution is not a worldview either. The fact that we're unlikely to change our views however does not imply that our reasons for doing so are identical, so this attempt at trying to gain parity by projecting your failings on to me fails.

What do you consider to be the difference between a scientific theory and a belief system?

The former requires supporting evidence, for the latter it's entirely optional and can be disregarded if the belief is questioned.

You will have to help me out here - I have no idea what you mean by this...

Every time you ask us why we think what we do, you ignore us and insert your own [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]-and-bull story instead. Why bother to have a thread asking us questions if you're just going to ignore the answers? Just lecture to us and have done with it.

I notice that out of my reply you've entirely ignored the actual response I made to what you posted as evidence for design (irreducible complexity and fine-tuning), and are again trying to nitpick at what I claim my stance is based on instead (after I specifically pointed out I was tired of that crap). Instead of dealing with the evidence, you just try and make out that evolution is equivalent to ID which is most certainly is not. Why is that, Danny? Is your stance not as justified by the evidence as you think it is?

Frankly, if you want to pretend that a theory with 150 years of evidence backing it stands up to some repackaged fallacy like irreducible complexity, you've got another thing coming.

 

[tonybeer]

What do you consider to be the difference between a scientific theory and a belief system?

A scientific theory must make useful predictions about the nature of any evidence currently held, and also any future evidence.

So for example we expect to find old skulls somewhere between an ape and a human with an age corresponding to the time frame inbetween humans and apes. This is the predictive element. We have found evidence of this so it backs up the theory.

A belief system doesn't require this and actually doesn't require any evidence.


If you wanted to create a scientific theory of God making everything in its current form you would have to first suggest a hypothesis and then use it to make predictions that can be verified through any fossil or DNA evidence.

So for example a YEC would have a hypothesis that the Earth is 6000 years old and all animals/plants etc were created then.

What do we expect to see in this case? Firstly all fossils would have to dated 6000yrs old or less. This is not the case so the hypothesis becomes invalid.

Your hypothesis cannot just be "God created it all" without making any predictions about what you expect any new evidence to look like, as it is a claim that is not testable. This doesn't make it untrue, however it is not testable without making any further predictions.



Does that make sense and can you see how this system is completely unbiased, at least in principle?

A good analagy would be someone who claims to know the result of the upcoming lottery. If the only evidence is after the event he tells you he got it right, then you have no way of verifying this.

To verify it he must make a prediction before the event, which can then be tested.

Just believing him without testing it would be the equivalent of a belief system.

 

[ianb321red]

There's nothing to say here other than that you're inserting the word "choice" with no justification at all.

The justification is that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to social psychology. I can point you in the direction of the research papers if you like?

 

[Bungle_Bear]

The justification is that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to social psychology. I can point you in the direction of the research papers if you like?

In that case you really ought to know that cognitive dissonance is the result of holding conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, choices, emotional reactions, moral values etc. You are making the mistake of equating different cognition types i.e. belief = choice.

When we are talking about beliefs & choices, what usually happens is that, having made a choice, the information on which the belief was founded may change. The person therefore changes their belief based on the new information. That is not the same as choosing a belief.

Previous research in this field has used choice (or beliefs) as basic propositions of their model of cognitive dissonance,

But it has not used choice as a substitute for belief. They are both variables, but they are not interchangeable.

and showed that preference is defined over beliefs and that beliefs are subject to choice

Correct. What that means is that we can make choices that may have an influence on our beliefs. It does not mean that all choices influence our beliefs and it does not mean we can choose to alter our beliefs. It simply means that some choices might have a knock-on effect.

Of course, if you can give an example where a person can actually choose a belief I will accept your argument.

 

[Skavau]

The justification is that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to social psychology. I can point you in the direction of the research papers if you like?

Perhaps you do, perhaps you don't. You are still though inserting the word "choice" without justification to describe belief. I have not seen any argument by you or anyone else in this thread as to how anyone specifically 'chooses' to believe in anything. I and others have explained how we don't, and how it is incoherent to suggest we do. The counter-argument appears to be just inserting "choice" before using the word belief, as if saying it enough justifies it.

 

[Danny777]

A scientific theory must make useful predictions about the nature of any evidence currently held, and also any future evidence.

So for example we expect to find old skulls somewhere between an ape and a human with an age corresponding to the time frame inbetween humans and apes. This is the predictive element. We have found evidence of this so it backs up the theory.

A belief system doesn't require this and actually doesn't require any evidence.


If you wanted to create a scientific theory of God making everything in its current form you would have to first suggest a hypothesis and then use it to make predictions that can be verified through any fossil or DNA evidence.

So for example a YEC would have a hypothesis that the Earth is 6000 years old and all animals/plants etc were created then.

What do we expect to see in this case? Firstly all fossils would have to dated 6000yrs old or less. This is not the case so the hypothesis becomes invalid.

Your hypothesis cannot just be "God created it all" without making any predictions about what you expect any new evidence to look like, as it is a claim that is not testable. This doesn't make it untrue, however it is not testable without making any further predictions.



Does that make sense and can you see how this system is completely unbiased, at least in principle?

Thanks for this explanation - it makes more sense.

From my understanding, I would suspect that in reality it is very difficult to be completely unbiased in practice. Surely evolutionists have a bias that is as least at risk of packaging data that fits and not really addressing observations that may suggest a problem with the theory? (The same is of course with me!)

Something we have already touched on is the issue of how a fish mutates from a "gill" system to a "lung" system. There does not seem to be a clear journey from A to B without the whole system failing and it seems to me there is no strong evidence to explain this.

This "missing" links you alluded to:

Again, from my understanding, would you not expect to find a multitude of these missing links littering the planet? The fact that they have universally been called "missing" links is surely quite damaging to the theory? I know that a small number have be found but even some of these have shown to be fraudulent or dishonest. I would expect to find an abundance of evidence - not rely on a small number of "debatable" skulls etc...

If you were a skeptic of the theory of evolution (like me) would you not consider this a problem? Surely a true scientist should remain a skeptic rather than declaring the theory a "fact"?

 

[King Mob]

Thanks for this explanation - it makes more sense.

From my understanding, I would suspect that in reality it is very difficult to be completely unbiased in practice. Surely evolutionists have a bias that is as least at risk of packaging data that fits and not really addressing observations that may suggest a problem with the theory? (The same is of course with me!)

Something we have already touched on is the issue of how a fish mutates from a "gill" system to a "lung" system. There does not seem to be a clear journey from A to B without the whole system failing and it seems to me there is no strong evidence to explain this.

This "missing" links you alluded to:

Again, from my understanding, would you not expect to find a multitude of these missing links littering the planet? The fact that they have universally been called "missing" links is surely quite damaging to the theory? I know that a small number have be found but even some of these have shown to be fraudulent or dishonest. I would expect to find an abundance of evidence - not rely on a small number of "debatable" skulls etc...

If you were a skeptic of the theory of evolution (like me) would you not consider this a problem? Surely a true scientist should remain a skeptic rather than declaring the theory a "fact"?

SBG.

 

[SithDoughnut]

From my understanding, I would suspect that in reality it is very difficult to be completely unbiased in practice. Surely evolutionists have a bias that is as least at risk of packaging data that fits and not really addressing observations that may suggest a problem with the theory? (The same is of course with me!)

Of course, but the bias isn't concerned with whether evolution exists or not, because the Theory of Evolution is not there to argue for its existence. We know it exists, we've physically watched it happen multiple times, it's an observable phenomenon. The bias exists when explained how it happens, and there are many arguments (sometimes quite heated) over various competing ideas on the particular way something evolved.

Something we have already touched on is the issue of how a fish mutates from a "gill" system to a "lung" system. There does not seem to be a clear journey from A to B without the whole system failing and it seems to me there is no strong evidence to explain this.

There are competing theories over the details, I believe. What is important to remember is that the explanation of evolution does not need to be complete for us to know that it exists. It's like having a jigsaw with a few missing pieces - you can still work out what the overall picture is, even if you don't know every detail. For example, the human eye (something else often brought up in these discussions), has quite a detailed amount of information over the likely way it evolved, simply because many of the stages still exist today - the debate over lungs does not invalidate this.

Again, from my understanding, would you not expect to find a multitude of these missing links littering the planet?

No. The conditions under which fossils are created are very specific - we're often lucky to have the information we do.

The fact that they have universally been called "missing" links is surely quite damaging to the theory?

Again, no. Unless evolution magically works in some cases, but doesn't in others (for example, the common creationist trope of "microevolution is fine, but macroevolution is unproven" - which relies upon the existence of some unexplained magical "block" on evolution), it is not unreasonable to extrapolate the countless cases we have across all areas of life to fit all of them.

I know that a small number have be found but even some of these have shown to be fraudulent or dishonest. I would expect to find an abundance of evidence - not rely on a small number of "debatable" skulls etc...

There is an abundance of evidence - it's just that the sum total of all organisms that have ever existed is unimaginably huge, and it's impossible to expect physical evidence about all of them.

It is also worth remembering that a considerable amount of fraudulent "evidence" has come from the creationist camp - don't forget to judge both sides by the same standards. If evolution did turn out to not exist, creationists would still need to provide the evidence that creationism is true.

If you were a skeptic of the theory of evolution (like me) would you not consider this a problem? Surely a true scientist should remain a skeptic rather than declaring the theory a "fact"?

The theory is not the phenomenon. Evolution is observable - it is essentially a thing that we see and requires explanation. The theory is concerned with explaining what it is that we are looking at.

It is like lightning - a long time ago, people were not able to effectively explain lightning. There were numerous different ideas on why it existed, and none of them had any definitive evidence to back them up. Does that mean that it would be correct to be skeptical of the existence of lightning?

 

[Gadarene]

From my understanding, I would suspect that in reality it is very difficult to be completely unbiased in practice. Surely evolutionists have a bias that is as least at risk of packaging data that fits and not really addressing observations that may suggest a problem with the theory? (The same is of course with me!)

Well, no, because within science there is as much to be gained by disproving a theory as there is for proving it.

There is no investment in evolution as there is in ID or creationism. ID/creationists are desperate to prove their god exists, but there is no desperation to prove that evolution is true - because it in itself does not prove that god does not exist. It might cause trouble for particular interpretations of the Bible, say, but those interpretations had little to no credibility in the first place.

This "missing" links you alluded to:

Again, from my understanding, would you not expect to find a multitude of these missing links littering the planet? The fact that they have universally been called "missing" links is surely quite damaging to the theory?

It's not a term popular with the actual scientists as I understand it - all fossils are intermediate in some way or another.

As SithDoughnut said, fossilisation is a somewhat rare process given the sheer amount and breadth of life that's ever existed. That's hardly the only evidential approach to verifying evolution, mind, the genetic evidence is arguably even stronger these days.

I know that a small number have be found but even some of these have shown to be fraudulent or dishonest. I would expect to find an abundance of evidence - not rely on a small number of "debatable" skulls etc...

Well, not all skulls are ' "debatable" ' and you haven't really specified what ' "debatable" ' means - and tacking this on to a remark about fraudulent fossils, I can't help feel you're tiptoeing round an accusation that you think more of them are fraudulent than are already thought to be so.

It's worth pointing out that many of the most infamous forgeries were never taken particularly seriously by scientists in the first place - and they were all shown to be forgeries by the scientists themselves. Creationism sure isn't capable of that - in fact many creationists, in their rush to recategorise hominid fossils as either ape or human can't seem to agree whether a particular case is ape or human.

You'd think God would be able to speak more clearly to them.

If you were a skeptic of the theory of evolution (like me) would you not consider this a problem?

Depends on how much you know and understand about evolution. Not everyone claiming to be a skeptic is necessarily competent on such matters or is even being properly skeptical.

Surely a true scientist should remain a skeptic rather than declaring the theory a "fact"?

Not all scientists do - I know one or two (Coyne/Dawkins perhaps) have gone down the positivist route like that, and I don't particularly care for it.

Evolution is a fact in that we know life changes over time. The theory tries to explain why and is backed up by observed facts.

That said, just because there isn't 100% cast iron metaphysical proof for a scientific theory doesn't mean we should just discard it. We understand gravity a heck of a lot less than we do evolution, but completely by coincidence(!) we don't see Christians rejecting the theory of gravity en masse.

 

[tonybeer]

Thanks for this explanation - it makes more sense.

From my understanding, I would suspect that in reality it is very difficult to be completely unbiased in practice. Surely evolutionists have a bias that is as least at risk of packaging data that fits and not really addressing observations that may suggest a problem with the theory? (The same is of course with me!)

Something we have already touched on is the issue of how a fish mutates from a "gill" system to a "lung" system. There does not seem to be a clear journey from A to B without the whole system failing and it seems to me there is no strong evidence to explain this.

This "missing" links you alluded to:

Again, from my understanding, would you not expect to find a multitude of these missing links littering the planet? The fact that they have universally been called "missing" links is surely quite damaging to the theory? I know that a small number have be found but even some of these have shown to be fraudulent or dishonest. I would expect to find an abundance of evidence - not rely on a small number of "debatable" skulls etc...

If you were a skeptic of the theory of evolution (like me) would you not consider this a problem? Surely a true scientist should remain a skeptic rather than declaring the theory a "fact"?

First off no, that's not how biologists would go about it. Science is all about disproving hypotheses, rather than sticking religiously to one.

There would be far more to gain for a biologist to disprove evolution than to stick to it. Fame, fortune and a Nobel prize for a start.

The consequences of doing what you suggest, i.e. fitting data to what you want are massive. You would lose your reputation. At university even in tiny little 2 hour practice experiments we did on very well understood science, e.g. testing the strength of gravity, you could be kicked out for faking data to fit what you wanted it to show. It is taken that seriously!


What do you term a missing link? I think you may have a slightly different idea of what happens in evolution than the actual theory. You are therefore expecting to see evidence based on your understanding of evolution, rather than the correct theory.


I'm guessing you are not a biologist (neither am I), but your question about gills to lungs has been answered by biologists (it's not actually gills to lungs). Here is a copy and paste:


Gills and lungs are not related structures. Lungs did not evolve from gills. Instead, fish evolved the ability to swallow air and absorb some of it through the lining of their digestive system, the same way many fish do today. In one line of fish, parts of the digestive system became specialized for this purpose, forming a pocket for air with better absorption. This pocket became more and more specialized into lungs over time. In fact, the connection between our lungs and our esophagus that continues to exist today makes not a bit of sense from a design standpoint if you don't recognize that lungs evolved there and haven't managed to shake off the shackles connecting them yet.


The Australian lungfish (alive today) has both working lungs and gills, so this shows that this is possible: Queensland lungfish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Gadarene]

Gills and lungs are not related structures. Lungs did not evolve from gills. Instead, fish evolved the ability to swallow air and absorb some of it through the lining of their digestive system, the same way many fish do today. In one line of fish, parts of the digestive system became specialized for this purpose, forming a pocket for air with better absorption. This pocket became more and more specialized into lungs over time. In fact, the connection between our lungs and our esophagus that continues to exist today makes not a bit of sense from a design standpoint if you don't recognize that lungs evolved there and haven't managed to shake off the shackles connecting them yet.


The Australian lungfish (alive today) has both working lungs and gills, so this shows that this is possible: Queensland lungfish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually, iirc, we have the genes for gill slits ourselves but they don't develop in utero anymore.

 

[ianb321red]

In that case you really ought to know that cognitive dissonance is the result of holding conflicting cognitions: ideas, beliefs, choices, emotional reactions, moral values etc. You are making the mistake of equating different cognition types i.e. belief = choice.

Points taken on board; thanks...

p.s. - yes, I do know/ remember cognitive dissonance and I don't disagree with most of what you're saying here but I'm not on board with this choosing/ changing element of beliefs..sorry

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Points taken on board; thanks...

p.s. - yes, I do know/ remember cognitive dissonance and I don't disagree with most of what you're saying here but I'm not on board with this choosing/ changing element of beliefs..sorry

Like I said, if you can show how it is possible to choose a belief I will accept your argument.

 

[ianb321red]

Like I said, if you can show how it is possible to choose a belief I will accept your argument.

I personally can't show how it is possible to change a belief; but I do know that it is possible to do so.

How do you explain (for example) a staunch atheist for many years converting to Christianity?

What about the blogger called the raving atheist - who has now become a Christian?

http://ravingatheist.com/

Here's another one who did the same:

http://heatherdhawkins.blogspot.co.uk/

and another one:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...r-leah-libresco-converts-to-christianity?lite

I'm sure all of these would have previously dealt out all of the arguments being banded around on this thread. But yet, they have now become Christians....

How do you explain that?

 

[ianb321red]

Next question on beliefs v choices.

If you cannot choose your beliefs (in god as we are discussing here) then why is there such a movement among certain atheistic groups versus religion (primarily Christianity and Islam)?

For example, why would people go on the offensive versus the historicity of Jesus? Why attempt to undermine the authenticity of the bible?

If you have no choice other than to be an atheist, then why don't you simply accept that lack of choice and leave it at that? What doesn't tie in for me is that fact that I have to defend what I believe in as a Christian.

If I also have no choice then I am in the same situation as you are.

If we had no choice over our beliefs then I don't see why I am answering so many questions on this forum explaining why I believe them

Surely we should mutually accept our non-choice and agree to disagree?

Correct me if I've misunderstood/ misrepresented anyone or anything here; it is not my intention to so my apologies in advance if I have done so..

 

[Gadarene]

I personally can't show how it is possible to change a belief; but I do know that it is possible to do so.

How do you explain (for example) a staunch atheist for many years converting to Christianity?

What about the blogger called the raving atheist - who has now become a Christian?

http://ravingatheist.com/

Here's another one who did the same:

~ No Creed but Christ ~

and another one:

Atheist blogger Leah Libresco converts to Christianity - U.S. News

I'm sure all of these would have previously dealt out all of the arguments being banded around on this thread. But yet, he has now become a Christian.

How do you explain that?

They didn't just choose to change their minds. Their minds were changed by becoming aware of different arguments or evidence. To say they had the exact same mental state and just chose to believe something else is incorrect.

 

[Gadarene]

Next question on beliefs v choices.

If you cannot choose your beliefs (in god as we are discussing here) then why is there such a movement among certain atheistic groups versus religion (primarily Christianity and Islam)?

For example, why would people go on the offensive versus the historicity of Jesus? Why attempt to undermine the authenticity of the bible?

If you have no choice other than to be an atheist, then why don't you simply accept that lack of choice and leave it at that? What doesn't tie in for me is that fact that I have to defend what I believe in as a Christian.

If I also have no choice then I am in the same situation as you are.

If we had no choice over our beliefs then I don't see why I am answering so many questions on this forum explaining why I believe them

Surely we should mutually accept our non-choice and agree to disagree?

Correct me if I've misunderstood/ misrepresented anyone or anything here; it is not my intention to so my apologies in advance if I have done so..

Because it's not about simply choosing to change your minds. People change their minds in the face of arguments and presentation of evidence.

We're both in this debate, but we're not the ones insisting that you can just choose to be an atheist.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

I personally can't show how it is possible to change a belief; but I do know that it is possible to do so.

How do you explain (for example) a staunch atheist for many years converting to Christianity?

What about the blogger called the raving atheist - who has now become a Christian?

http://ravingatheist.com/

Here's another one who did the same:

~ No Creed but Christ ~

and another one:

Atheist blogger Leah Libresco converts to Christianity - U.S. News

I'm sure all of these would have previously dealt out all of the arguments being banded around on this thread. But yet, they have now become Christians....

How do you explain that?

I explain it by saying they saw new evidence which caused them to change their beliefs. I'm guessing your explanation is that they made a choice to change belief. The problem with your explanation would be that it makes no sense for ardent atheists to suddenly choose to change beliefs, does it? But it does make sense that they examine new evidence and change.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Next question on beliefs v choices.

If you cannot choose your beliefs (in god as we are discussing here) then why is there such a movement among certain atheistic groups versus religion (primarily Christianity and Islam)?

For example, why would people go on the offensive versus the historicity of Jesus? Why attempt to undermine the authenticity of the bible?

If you have no choice other than to be an atheist, then why don't you simply accept that lack of choice and leave it at that? What doesn't tie in for me is that fact that I have to defend what I believe in as a Christian.

If I also have no choice then I am in the same situation as you are.

If we had no choice over our beliefs then I don't see why I am answering so many questions on this forum explaining why I believe them

Surely we should mutually accept our non-choice and agree to disagree?

Correct me if I've misunderstood/ misrepresented anyone or anything here; it is not my intention to so my apologies in advance if I have done so..

I think I see what your problem is here. You are struggling with the difference between choosing a belief and choosing to expose yourself to situations which may influence your belief. I have chosen to come to CF. There is a chance somebody or something here will convince me to convert. If that should happen, would that mean that I had chosen to change my belief? No it wouldn't.