Guess what’s wrong with this statement.
“Natural sciences are completely evidence-based. Natural sciences demonstrate their conclusions only by appealing to that evidence. Evidence and evidence alone is what natural science uses to determine “truth.”
Anybody know what’s wrong with those statements? Is there anyone willing to admit that there IS something wrong with those statements? No, I didn’t think so.
“As a lover of truth, I am suspicious of strongly held beliefs that are unsupported by evidence.”
Anybody know who said that? Here’s a clue. He also said, “Perhaps as many as a billion planets in the universe host life.” Still don’t know? One last clue, “Once the vital ingredient - some kind of genetic molecule - is in place, true Darwinian natural selection can follow.”
“Once the vital ingredient is in place.” It cracks me up every time I hear that.
Of course our hero and mentor Dr. Richard Dawkins made those statements. Besides me, a greater hypocrite than Dawkins would be hard to find.
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“Perhaps as many as a billion planets in the universe host life.”
Source?
What "cracks you up" about the vital ingredient quote? It's the difference between abiogenesis and evolution. (Disclaimer: I'm not a biologist)
I may as well say:
"In the beginning Jehovah created the heavens and the earth"
LOL! That just cracks me up!
That'd be just as substantial as your post.
“Perhaps as many as a billion planets in the universe host life.”
Source?
Likely a misquote of:
Suppose life's origin on a planet took place through a hugely improbable stroke of luck, so improbable that it happens on only one in a billion planets. The National Science Foundation would laugh at any chemist whose proposed research had only a one in a hundred chance of succeeding, let alone one in a billion. Yet, given that there are at least a billion billion planets in the universe, even such absurdly low odds as these will yield life on a billion planets. And — this is where the famous anthropic principle comes in — Earth has to be one of them, because here we are.
If you set out in a spaceship to find the one planet in the galaxy that has life, the odds against your finding it would be so great that the task would be indistinguishable, in practice, from impossible. But if you are alive (as you manifestly are if you are about to step into a spaceship) you needn't bother to go looking for that one planet because, by definition, you are already standing on it. The anthropic principle really is rather elegant. By the way, I don't actually think the origin of life was as improbable as all that. I think the galaxy has plenty of islands of life dotted about, even if the islands are too spaced out for any one to hope for a meeting with any other. My point is only that, given the number of planets in the universe, the origin of life could in theory be as lucky as a blindfolded golfer scoring a hole in one. The beauty of the anthropic principle is that, even in the teeth of such stupefying odds against, it still gives us a perfectly satisfying explanation for life's presence on our own planet.
First word of the first paragraph is "Suppose".
First word of the second paragraph is "If".
First word of my "quote" perhaps.
What's your point?
Because they are words that indicate speculation. It's being honest.
I think that both Dawkins and most atheists believe it. They have to. A multi verse with the possibility of anything and everything happening, including things coming into being from nothing without an external cause (Hey look! A Zebra just appeared in my kitchen.), and life coming from non life, and specified, coded, formulated, information being put in place without and Intelligent Agent, is the only way that atheism can stand.
It's speculation.
Yes, I know that atheism is based on speculation but it's lived as truth.
The statements starting to "if" and "perhaps" are speculation.
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