Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Examining my beliefs: Evolution and Creationism

Debating belief systems is great. I'm all for it. In fact I do it a lot.
It's not science though and I think it's not a good idea to merge disciplines that are fundamentally different.
Intelligent design cannot be substantiated with objectively gathered evidence to support it. An omniscient omnipresent force cannot be observed from outside of itself. It is fundamentally a hypothesis without scientific foundation - ie an idea, a belief. In philosophy, theology etc., that's fine of course, but in science all theories are by their very essence substantiated. Science is not based on subjective belief systems, it's based on observable and recordable proof.

Yes of course there are unanswered questions about the origin of the universe - but just because science cannot or hasn't answered some of these yet doesn't mean that one or more religions automatically can. (and let's face it - the chicken and egg question is logically unanswerable even on the abstract conceptual level of philosophical debate without turning into a neverending circular argument - if the answer is that the only solution to the origin of the Universe is God or the existence of some intelligent "creator" then, the obvious question remains, what or who created the creator?) Another way of looking at it is this; at the end of the day we cannot prove scientifically that God exists - now of course we also cannot prove that God doesn't exist, but that doesn't really mean anything in scientific terms. It's an avenue not even worth going down as far as science is concerned.

I'm not contesting anyone's belief systems here, by the way - I of course have my own too. But they're not scientific.

The example often cited is of the giant teapot in space. Let's just say I believe a giant teapot exists in space and controls what happens on earth. Satellites cannot pick it up because it's out of range, but I believe it is there (perhaps lots of other people join me in this belief and before long lots of people believe in the teapot and do so for many centuries). At the end of the day you can challenge me by saying that I cannot prove that the Giant Teapot exists - I can respond by saying that you cannot disprove its existence. Now where does that leave us? You can perhaps understand in this context why scientists would be reticent to waste valuable time, money and resources trying to find the teapot in space just because myself and a large group of people have either learnt or decided to believe it exists? Where would they even begin their search? How could objective, observational methodology work in pursuit of an inferred belief?

Science and religion don't mix. Science is a methodology not a concept and we are in danger of thwarting the mysteries and adventures of true, unhampered scientific investigation and exploration if we begin burdening and restricting it with preconceived socio-cultural or religious ideas and concepts which happen to be popular or predominant at a given time in history.

Ingrid

PS: I'm not even a scientist by the way - I was really bad at it in school!
PPS: I am, no doubt like others on this forum, also very excited about the discoveries of quantum sub-atomic physics and how they have recently been linked with a melting pot of Eastern philosophies and ancient healing disciplines - I even enjoy a bit of Fritjof Capra and Deepak Chopra, but that still doesn't make any of this philosophical conceptualising scientific!