# Can science disprove God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 7, 2013, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301 "2013-11-07T03:01:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/441 "2013-11-11T17:21:27Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > It is what God gave us. > > Where do you think your logic comes from? You think that comes from humans too? Which God? And yeah, since there is no ‘god’ - it must have come from the human mind - refined (dare I say, evolved) over a long time. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/442 "2013-11-11T17:23:55Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Argumentum ad populum wrongus maximus. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/443 "2013-11-11T17:25:15Z")
> [@simster](#): > > And yeah, since there is no ‘god’ - it must have come from the human mind - refined (dare I say, evolved) over a long time. And, considering our psychological propensity towards certain cognitive biases and the necessity to train an average human brain before it is capable of forming adequate logical conclusions, it’s not one that is especially well suited to the task if it was indeed designed to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/444 "2013-11-11T17:35:27Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > It is what God gave us. > > Where do you think your logic comes from? You think that comes from humans too? How come he gave the Aztecs very different morality from what he gave us? How come morality 3,000 years ago is different from today? And where is the rule book? Don’t you think we need Rev 3 after 2,000 years? As for logic, I’m more familiar with the axiomatic definition of math. For most things we can derive all of arithmetic from a few simple rules - and they match up nicely with the real world. And we can Euclidean geometry for our normal world and non-Euclidean geometry for space-time. Can God create a universe where 1 + 1 = decimal 3? If not, then he also didn’t choose to create one where 1 + 1 = decimal 2 - he had to. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/445 "2013-11-11T17:38:47Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > When the public school books take abiogenesis out of the evolution unit, you can make the claim that they are unrelated. Show us one which claims to have “the answer” for abiogenesis. But I reviewed the proposed biology books for our district, and having only a few minutes read their sections on evolution - and I don’t remember any discussion of abiogenesis in any of them. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/446 "2013-11-11T18:41:07Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Argumentum ad populum More like an argument from authority, really. And it makes sense. Why, if there’s so much evidence out there that runs counter to evolution, does virtually every credible scientific organization in the world teach, support, or demand evolution? Is it because there’s a massive conspiracy to suppress the truth and spread misinformation? Or is it more likely that the evidence against evolution is simply unconvincing and/or dishonest? The latter, obviously. Of course, this appeal on its own isn’t meant to debunk any such evidence. But the claims made (ad nauseum) are _easily_ debunked by a quick trip to talkorigins, or so fallacious and specious that nobody who understands evolution would fall for them in the first place. The evidence for evolution _does_ hold up. And after discussion of this degree, this sort of appeal is not at all out of line. What you’re doing, however, is. It’s akin to taking a post which spends several paragraphs dutifully pointing out the numerous ways in which someone else is wrong, and then finishes with “you’re obviously clueless. Please learn something about evolution or go somewhere else”, then focusing on that and claiming that it’s an ad hominem attack. No, it isn’t. Now _this_ on the other hand… > [@reef\_shark](#): > > When the public school books take abiogenesis out of the evolution unit, you can make the claim that they are unrelated. _This_ is fallacious to the core. Whether or not the textbooks draw the association, the fact remains that abiogenesis is _not a part of evolution_. Evolution deals with the development and speciation of extant life forms. How those life forms got there in the first place is _not the purview of evolution_. School textbooks group the two together most likely because, in terms of pure logical ordering, it makes sense - after all, one common question when dealing with evolution is “well how did the first life forms get there”, and while this is not the question evolution answers, it’s still something worth addressing in the same general timespan. However, it doesn’t matter how many textbooks group the two together. Abiogenesis is a theory to explain the origin of life. Evolution is a theory to explain the _diversification and change of life_. Two entirely different things that are at best tangentially related. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/447 "2013-11-11T23:43:00Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But God can. And his agents will simply tell you how many goals Notre-Dame has scored on every other team, every time :). That’s just proof that God likes Baptists more. Oklahoma beat Notre Dame and then Baylor beat Oklahoma. I’d really like to see BYU play Baylor to further narrow down the field of his favorite religions. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/448 "2013-11-12T00:17:17Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > . . . Where do you think your logic comes from? You think that comes from humans too? Yep. Logic is definitely a human construct. Look at the matter of whether an universally quantified statement requires the actual existence of an instance. I can say “All unicorns are lesbians,” and this is a true statement, because there aren’t any unicorns. But that’s a choice logicians made many centuries ago. It is perfectly possible to construct an alternate logic in which “All unicorns are lesbians” is not true…because there aren’t any unicorns. There are other examples, but that’s about the most classical and the most comprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/449 "2013-11-12T01:39:10Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I can say “All unicorns are lesbians,” and this is a true statement, because there aren’t any unicorns. But that’s a choice logicians made many centuries ago. That’s always annoyed me, frankly, the convention that _If P then Q_ is assumed to be a true statement if _P_ is known to be false or _Q_ is known to true. What if it’s a clearly self-contradictory statement like _If the ball is red, then the ball is green_ ? It is impossible for _P_ to imply _Q_, yet it’s only declared false if the ball is indeed red and not green. I never quite understood the reasoning behind this. It seem to me that if _P_ is false, the statement’s truth value is unknown. By the way, unicorns? _Total_ lez-fest. I mean, Lilith Fair stuff. K.D. Langorama. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/450 "2013-11-12T02:21:53Z")
I think that the logical rule about “If P then Q” depends on a kind of independence of the variables. If the two statements have the kind of dependence you note – “If the ball is red, then the ball is green” – then you bump into complications. For one thing, there’s the unstated assumption, “Balls are always of exactly one color.” But, even with independent variables, you get absurdities. “If there is a third moon of Mars, it is named ‘Anxiety.’” And how do you deal with subjunctives, like, “If Abraham Lincoln were alive today, he’d be in favor of gay rights?” At one level of logic, it’s true, since Abraham Lincoln isn’t alive today. But at another level, one has to try to assess what his values might be, based on the writings he left behind, his speeches, etc. There are depths here, and they are murky. As for lesbian unicorns, clearly I hang around “Rule34” too much! ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/451 "2013-11-12T03:17:31Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > By the way, unicorns? _Total_ lez-fest. I mean, Lilith Fair stuff. K.D. Langorama. Dunno about unicorns, but Rainbow Dash likes girls. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/452 "2013-11-12T07:27:43Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Look , just ask yourself. Which is more likely? > > 1. All the thousands upon thousands of scientists, all over fucking the world, a lot of them religious at that, are all involved in a giant conspiracy to keep the truth from you. > > 2. A handful of (admittedly very loud) Americans are lying, to keep the truth from you. > [@reef\_shark](#): > > Argumentum ad populum Standing on its own. Yes it would be. I did not, however. intend this as real argument for evolution but more as a reason for **jstucker15** just to start considering that it just might be he who is the one being misled. Not, as he thinks, the rest of the world. In the ‘debate’ about evolution it is indeed clear that one side has to be dishonest. One side doesn’t want the truth ‘out there’. Either the ‘evolutionists’ are brainwashing people through propaganda while there is no real evidence for evolution, or the creationists are the ones distorting the truth. So, again, it is just meant as an incentive to start and look at the material objectively and look for clues who it is that is lying to the people. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/453 "2013-11-12T08:10:19Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Standing on its own. Yes it would be. > I did not, however. intend this as real argument for evolution but more as a reason for **jstucker15** just to start considering that it just might be he who is the one being misled. Not, as he thinks, the rest of the world. > > In the ‘debate’ about evolution it is indeed clear that one side has to be dishonest. One side doesn’t want the truth ‘out there’. > Either the ‘evolutionists’ are brainwashing people through propaganda while there is no real evidence for evolution, or the creationists are the ones distorting the truth. > > So, again, it is just meant as an incentive to start and look at the material objectively and look for clues who it is that is lying to the people. Argument from popularity and appeal to authority are only fallacious in certain contexts anyway. Both are legitimate arguments when the people you’re referring to are legitimate authorities. “All my friends say magic monkeys cause the Earth to orbit the sun” is generally a fallacious appeal to popularity, but “The vast majority of astrophysicists agree that magic monkeys cause the Earth to orbit the sun” is a reasonable, non-fallacious point. Same for appeal to authority, except replace “all my friends” with “President Obama” or “a respected Engineer”, somebody who has authority but not authority in a relevant subject matter. These arguments start to break down, of course, when you’re qualified in the subject as is the person you’re arguing with. There can be legitimate reasons to disagree with the consensus, but they’re only meaningful if you hold qualifications equal to the authorities you’re disagreeing with. (Also of note is that they’re inductive arguments so they remains fallacious in pure deductive logic, but only by proxy of the fact that induction in general doesn’t work in pure deductive logic) ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/454 "2013-11-12T23:01:51Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How come he gave the Aztecs very different morality from what he gave us? How come morality 3,000 years ago is different from today? And where is the rule book? Don’t you think we need Rev 3 after 2,000 years? > > As for logic, I’m more familiar with the axiomatic definition of math. For most things we can derive all of arithmetic from a few simple rules - and they match up nicely with the real world. And we can Euclidean geometry for our normal world and non-Euclidean geometry for space-time. > Can God create a universe where 1 + 1 = decimal 3? If not, then he also didn’t choose to create one where 1 + 1 = decimal 2 - he had to. The rules were carved out on tablets about 1500 BC. However, we have these rules written in our hearts. We know killing an innocent person is wrong. Before people start quoting Bible verses, I would like to point out that people rebelling against God 3,000 years ago and now is also wrong. So do you think logic emerged with humans? Or was there logic before we were created (or evolved for sake of argument)? For example, when was the Law of Non-Contradiction established? ---
**Author:** ![reef\_shark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bbe5ce/32.png) [@reef\_shark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/reef_shark)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/455 "2013-11-12T23:04:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Show us one which claims to have “the answer” for abiogenesis. But I reviewed the proposed biology books for our district, and having only a few minutes read their sections on evolution - and I don’t remember any discussion of abiogenesis in any of them. Depending on the grade level there may not be much on abiogenesis, but there is always mention of the big bang, and it is stated as fact (along with everything else) , not opinion, to impressionable young children. I recall my middle school introducing us to the term ‘primordial soup’. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/456 "2013-11-12T23:23:02Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > The rules were carved out on tablets about 1500 BC. However, we have these rules written in our hearts. We know killing an innocent person is wrong. No; that’s a conclusion we have largely come to in modern times, but it’s certainly not something that has been universally held throughout history. “Might makes right” is if anything more common historically. On the other hand, laws against murder and other crimes are older than Judeo-Christianity. And those tablets never existed; the whole Moses storyline is myth. > [@reef\_shark](#): > > Before people start quoting Bible verses, I would like to point out that people rebelling against God 3,000 years ago and now is also wrong. According to you; most people have never believed in your god at all, and even if he was real it’s not a given that rebelling against him is wrong in any way. > [@reef\_shark](#): > > So do you think logic emerged with humans? Or was there logic before we were created (or evolved for sake of argument)? For example, when was the Law of Non-Contradiction established? Can logic even “not exist” in the first place? > [@reef\_shark](#): > > Depending on the grade level there may not be much on abiogenesis, but there is always mention of the big bang, and it is stated as fact (along with everything else) , not opinion, to impressionable young children. Because scientifically it is “fact, not opinion”; as much as anything that distant in time can be. What’s your non-religious alternative that _should_ be taught to them? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/457 "2013-11-12T23:43:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Can logic even “not exist” in the first place? This is really an open question, and I’m not sure it’s one that can be answered in any “correct” (or even “satisfactory”) way. Obviously logic exists in the sense that humans have several semi-formalized collections of systems of rational thought that we group under the umbrella logic. But whether abstract concepts can meaningfully “exist” in the way material objects do is a question on its own, and even throwing that away as a meaningless question, there’s the old-hat unresolved philosophical debate about whether humans “invented” or “discovered” math and logic. If we invented it, then it didn’t exist until the first human used logic rather than sheer instinct (and even then, we can get into a debate about whether logic is just a specialized emergent form of instinct). If we discovered it then I guess it’s hard to say it “doesn’t exist” in the same way it’s hard to say that pi or G “don’t exist”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/458 "2013-11-13T00:05:14Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > Depending on the grade level there may not be much on abiogenesis, but there is always mention of the big bang, and it is stated as fact (along with everything else) , not opinion, to impressionable young children. > > I recall my middle school introducing us to the term ‘primordial soup’. The Big Bang - in general terms - is reasonably close to a fact. My friend Arno demonstrated that. In particular, the theory made predictions which turned out to be fulfilled. I discovered in reviewing the texts that the ones for the continuation school - pregnant girls and students kicked out of their regular schools - were much worse than the other ones. They may have oversimplified too much. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/459 "2013-11-13T00:12:58Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > The rules were carved out on tablets about 1500 BC. However, we have these rules written in our hearts. We know killing an innocent person is wrong. Before people start quoting Bible verses, I would like to point out that people rebelling against God 3,000 years ago and now is also wrong. I’m sure you’ll present me with peer reviewed archeological evidence that anyone mentioned our concept of god 3,000 years ago. Anyhow, did the babies rebel also? The Exodus never happened. But even if it did, not long after “Thou shalt not commit murder” God order the slaughter of a tribe that got in the way. So the definition of murder seems a bit flexible. > [@](#): > > So do you think logic emerged with humans? Or was there logic before we were created (or evolved for sake of argument)? For example, when was the Law of Non-Contradiction established? I’ll bring up math again. Much of the universe can be modeled by equations. This predates humans by a lot of billions of years. Did we invent math or did we discover math? Or is math just a way of expressing natural relationships? Interesting philosophical question, doesn’t have a lot to do with god. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301/460 "2013-11-13T00:21:27Z")
> [@reef\_shark](#): > > The rules were carved out on tablets about 1500 BC. However, we have these rules written in our hearts. We know killing an innocent person is wrong. Before people start quoting Bible verses, I would like to point out that people rebelling against God 3,000 years ago and now is also wrong. > > So do you think logic emerged with humans? Or was there logic before we were created (or evolved for sake of argument)? For example, when was the Law of Non-Contradiction established? You know what I don’t know in my heart? that Graven images are morally wrong, you know what else? Thoughts are not crimes (coveting thy neighbors wife) Quoting the 10 commandments when 3 of them are flat out laughable as evidence of god or morality is pretty silly. Logic is a method or type of thought. How it would exist independently of creatures without enough awareness to employ it I have no idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-science-disprove-god/673301.md?page=24)