Originally posted by jeremiah
Help me with this.
An example in the ridiculous would be that science has proved that two humans could not reproduce a fish as an offspring. That would be an example of a "closed" gap? Or a man could not run the 100 meters in less than a second? {On earth today , unaided by wind or mechanics.} A closed gap?
A filled gap: The natural cause of the "Black Death" plague.
Another filled gap: A cure for and prevention of the plague.
A yet unfilled gap: A cure for Lou Gehrig's disease.
If this is what Bob Enyart is arguing - and I think it just may be - then the basic problem lies with a very common misunderstanding as to just how "science" operates (or possibly better phrased as what "science" IS).
"Science" - by which I mean the scientific method; science is a process, not a group of individuals or a body of knowledge - is not concerned with the "proof" of ANYTHING. Scientists do NOT "prove" things, despite a common misunderstanding by the lay public (involving phrases you're never going to here a scientist use except in very casual speech, such as "scientific proof"). Let me elaborate on this a bit, in the hopes that it may help clear some things up.
The scientific method is concerned with really just two types of "knowledge" - empirical data, which is sometimes loosely referred to as "facts" (i.e., that which we can observe directly), and the conceptual models which attempt to explain this observed data. This latter sort of knowledge is referred to as "hypotheses" or "theories", depending primarily on how much testing has been performed (to see how well the model corresponds with the observed world, to see if it makes useful predictions), etc.. "Theories" are NEVER "proven", meaning accepted as truth beyond ANY possibility of contradiction. A theory is used just as long as it has NOT been shown to be contradicted by observed data ("facts"), and, if the scientist is doing his or her job honestly, is either abandoned or modified when such a contradiction is found. In short, a scientist freely admits that all such theories are ALWAYS, to some degree, treated as tentative (although clearly some have stood sufficient testing as to be very commonly accepted and used). It can also therefore be said that science is not involved with "proof", but rather "disproof" - the purpose of scientific experimentation is to see if a given notion stands up to the test of agreeing with the real world, but even if it passes that test, it is simply considered as not DISproven YET. When the non-scientist attempts to disparage a given notion (such as, say "evolution") by using the comment "it's just a theory", all they are really doing is demonstrating ignorance of just what a "theory" really IS. In science, EVERYTHING that is not directly observed fact will AT BEST be "a theory".
One of the upshots of all this is that a scientist - meaning anyone who is attempting to determine "truth" through the application of the scientific method - must remain at all times willing to abandon or change a belief which has been shown not to agree with observation, and similarly to embrace a better model - a better explanation for what is observed. I am forced to note that this is one of the primary distinctions between those schools of thought that we label "scientific" and "religious", the latter being without this internal self-correcting mechanism. (Which is not to say that religions do not change or "correct themselves", but rather that the mechanism of such change is considerably different.)
Now what I think Bob is saying is that Science has, as reasonable people look at things, closed the gap that natural processes could have produced life on earth.
Bob may be saying this, but he has yet to show it. His arguments to date in this area have ALL been based on a misinterpretion or misrepresentation - I cannot say which - of the available information. And while the following is not itself a conclusive argument (and I don't intend it as such), I have to ask - do people REALLY believe that, if such fundamental and obvious flaws existed in current scientific thinking, that such ideas would still be presented with a straight face in mainstream science education? Does anyone truly believe that, say, biology professors are out there right now saying, in effect, "well, yes, we KNOW that's an obvious and fatal flaw, but we still require you to believe this stuff becase we want to advance our mean ol' atheistic agenda at all costs?" I've attended my share (and possibly then some!) of science classes, and if such IS going on, I've never seen it. Instead, a very carefully reasoned line of argument is presented, building on observed data and going from there.
Just as science has "proved" that a fish could never be the ofspring of humans, it has also "proved" that life could not arise from nonlife.
Strictly speaking, "science" (and I have to ask just who you mean when you use the term in this context) has not "proved" the first statement - such an event, however, DOES seem to be very, very unlikely!
But "science" certainly has not said the latter, since there is a clear POSSIBLE path for life to arise from non-life (and in fact, such a thing MUST have happened at least once - we're merely arguing about HOW it happened). It is not possible to "prove" that this is what DID happen, but the theory does agree very, very well with the totality of observed data.
Or that it has closed the gap that it can say that the universe and its matter-energy had a "natural" beginning. There is no possible explanation for the material of the Big bang other than, it was there!
Sorry, but this is a case where "there is no possible explanation" has been misused - I believe it would be more correct to say that YOU are not aware of the explanation (unless you are claiming to be both aware of all explanations, and competent to judge the "possibility" of all of them).
All discussions of origins are, in fact, doomed to this same problem; you can always ask, of ANY proposed "first cause" (including God!), "but what caused THAT?" To say that God was "just there", and yet to claim that this is not an acceptable answer for any other supposed cause, is applying a double standard without justification. The only thing it "proves" is that you have defined "God" to mean "that thing that created the universe, and which was always there!". It winds up being just an exercise in doubletalk, no matter which way you're arguing. The bottom line is that no matter how we believe the universe came into being, there MUST be a point in its past beyond which we cannot "see" - we can speculate all we want, but we will never be able to say with certainty what came "before".
It seems to me that the atheist way of looking at things is to say, well it remains a scientific possibility that absurd things could happen. Science never rules anything out.
That's almost correct; science never does truly "rule anything out", but that's not the same as saying that "absurd things" are the only explanation being offered. In this case, these things have been painted as "absurd" through incorrect arguments, and so it's hardly reasonable to claim that "science is saying absurd things!" A more accurate statement, from the perspective of Bob Enyart, for example, would be "Science is saying things that I THINK are absurd!" - but we already knew that, and simply having Bob think they are absurd does not make them so, unless Bob is to be considered infallible.
Bob is saying that science has ruled certain things out. The possible answer to questions is God did it. Atheists don't seem to be able to acknowledge the questions, and yet seem to think that science will provide the answers.
First, as noted above, Bob is making this claim, but that's quite far from it actually being the case. Secondly, the problem with the answer "God did it!" is that it's really a non-answer, IF we are expecting both sides in the discussion to live up to the same expectations. It is not reasonable to require that "science" (again, whoever we think THAT is) to explain everything before it can be accepted, and yet consider "God did it!" -
without further explanation as to the nature, origin, etc., of "God" - to be an acceptable answer. Either both sides must offer the same degree of evidence and reasoning, or both should be able to use the equivalent of "it just happened". And, like it or not, "God did it!",
again in the absence of further explanation, IS the logical equivalent of "it just happened."
I am confused by the terminology, please correct me if I have used them in error. However I would like an atheist to give me an example. if they think there are any? of a gap that science has closed? Could humans produce fish? Could the matter for the BiG Bang always have existed?
I hope you won't mind my answering this one, since, as noted earlier, I do NOT consider myself an "atheist." But I'm afraid you're not going to like the answer much, anyway - I'd have to say that the question as stated is poorly made. You need to be a bit clearer as to what "closing a gap" really means. If it means being absolutely certain about the answer to any given question, then no - science isn't in that business, as noted earlier. If, however, you mean answering questions to a degree of certainty sufficient for the knowledge to be useful, then I would have to say that examples are all around you.
Another significant difference between scientific and religious forms of knowledge is that science acknowledges that our understanding of the world will never truly be complete - that there must always remain "gaps" in that knowledge. It's a bit like constantly moving just half the remaining distance toward a goal - you'll never REALLY quite get there. (You can, of course, get close enough that there's no practical difference between that and "being there"!
) Most religions, on the other hand, have (in the form of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being) an explanation that literally covers everything completely. (Some would argue that human religious thought originally came from a desire to have explanations, but that's not really relevant here.) This doesn't by itself say anything about the relative validity of the two forms of knowledge, but I think it is important to recognize that the two are coming from very different viewpoints in this regard.
