Richard Dawkins - Page 18

heresiarch · #**256** Apr 10, '12, 7:17 am

Haha. That's awesome Jennet.

Maryann C · #**257** Apr 11, '12, 11:10 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul theApostle

Richard Dawkins and Cardinal George Pell were on tv today ,its on you tube

part 1-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNj-kumWIhc

2nd question was really the point of the whole argument. With all due respect to Him but the Cardinal is a bit weak really. Dawkins falls back on his "we are working on it argument' which is also weak and ought to be shot down.

Maryann C · #**258** Apr 11, '12, 11:29 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by JChapel

Here's an update on the Richard Dawkins radio debate situation from Patrick Coffin's personal blog: http://www.patrickcoffin.net/?p=932

Patrick is right ....pray for Dawkins.

atheistgirl · #**259** Apr 22, '12, 7:05 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maryann C

Dawkins falls back on his "we are working on it argument' which is also weak and ought to be shot down.

To be fair, I think an honest scientist will never pretend to know all the answers, or that the answers may not be subject to tweeks as more and more is discovered.

I think ''working on it'' is the only answer he can honestly give, because that is what scientists are doing.

Sarah x

Maryann C · #**260** Apr 22, '12, 7:15 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by atheistgirl

To be fair, I think an honest scientist will never pretend to know all the answers, or that the answers may not be subject to tweeks as more and more is discovered.

I think ''working on it'' is the only answer he can honestly give, because that is what scientists are doing.

Sarah x

Sorry Sarah in this case Dawkins is using it in the typically ( and I might add -unfortunately very British ) way of an intellectual who believes, nay knows , that he simply is right or WILL have the right answer sooner or later and that we must bow to his learned mind! In other words ...as an English woman I recognise his arrogant tone.
Frankly I would expect a better argument from a scientist and an intellectual of his proported abilities.

itullian · #**261** Apr 22, '12, 7:25 pm

CP's weak defense of the Eucharist was disheartening.

atheistgirl · #**262** Apr 22, '12, 7:30 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maryann C

Sorry Sarah in this case Dawkins is using it in the typically ( and I might add -unfortunately very British ) way of an intellectual who believes, nay knows , that he simply is right

Well in that case I agree with you. He can not know scientists will one day explain the origins of everything. I do agree with you he sounds arrogant, but I always put that down to a particular kind of British accent that comes across like this to untrained ears!

Personally, I don't think science will answer everything in any one person's lifetime. In other words I think we will always have unknowns we will continue to argue over in every generation.

Sarah x

InJesusItrust · #**263** Apr 22, '12, 11:47 pm

If we can demonstrate that there are classes of truth science can't prove we will have shown that science can not find all truths without changing the scientific method.

Such a class of truth is non-falsifiable truth. Suppose something is true but non-falsifiable. Can the scientific method deal with such a truth? No. Science requires truth claims to be falsifiable. So even if it were true it could not be proven by science.

AndyT_81 · #**264** Apr 23, '12, 4:11 am

Hi all,

Just some thoughts...

I agree - science is always open to new discoveries, which is why it has been so successful in learning new things about the physical world. However, it will always be an incomplete knowledge - due to its inability to answer certain fundamental questions, and the very pre-suppositions that science rests on. "Science" can't say much about the nature of beauty, what constitutes justice, what makes an act morally right or wrong, or why there is something rather than nothing. Scientists can of course, but only by doing philosophy about science, not from the science itself.

In addition, science cannot establish its own pre-suppositions or axioms. One such pre-supposition is the idea that universal laws extend through-out all of space time. Another is the idea that the physical world and its operations are inherently intelligible. Another is the logical rules that underpin mathematics and scientific inference.

Science is great and wonderful, but it is an inherently (not just practically) incomplete form of knowledge. This is where philosophy comes in, and ultimately, I believe, philosophy ends in religion.

God bless you all.

Maryann C · #**265** Apr 24, '12, 1:47 pm

Well said Andy.