Sorry I missed this. As I said in the cited thread, we don’t know if the reviewers were properly picked, since their identity is confidential (as is appropriate.) However it is a breach of ethics for anyone to accept an article without some level of oversight. This is said from my experience as author, reviewer, program committee member, journal editor and program chair.
If this is the only way the ID community gets papers accepted, it is pretty sad.
Since we don’t know what the reviewer’s comments were, we don’t know if the author addressed them. In journals I’ve been involved with, papers that got significant changes requested go back to the reviewers for a second round, where they can be accepted (the usual case) or rejected. Conferences don’t have time for this. In reading about this case, including the note from Steinberg, I didn’t see that this happened. It’s easy enough for an author to ignore reviewers’ comments if the editor allows it. (Sometimes that is the right thing to do - reviewers screw up also.)
Science and faith are not mutually exclusive, and I don’t think there are any scientists or religious people that would tell you otherwise. But there have been many incidents where statements presented as facts in the Bible or other religious texts have been disproved through scientific methods.
This is where problems begin to arise because it opens the door to doubting the veracity of the entire book. Obviously there are many things in the Bible that cannot be proved or disproved. This does not make them true or untrue. It simply removes them entirely from the realm of science. Scientists tend to think that where there is no evidence, there is no validity; thus, they tend toward dismissing religion. Religious people tend to think that because the statements in their religious texts are not able to be disproven then they must be true.
The fact is that neither of them can say with authority that these beliefs are true or untrue. But as science continues to disprove more and more “facts” in religious text, it is building a pretty good case against the religious texts and thus the religions in general. Like a lawyer who demonstrates that the witness is unreliable, so science is demonstrating with religious texts.
So religious people are left with a problem. Do they pick and choose what to believe? What is their religion if the text it is based on is being discredited? I think this is where the enmity between science and faith arises.
Of course, scientists also have a problem. How can you believe in God/Gods in the glaring lack of evidence for God’s existence? And yet how can you dismiss God/Gods in the glaring lack of evidence for God’s non-existance?
Everyone has to make their peace with these questions. I think currently the difference between scientists and religion is that scientists can be comfortable with a God but no religion. Organized religion on the other hand by definition can not be.
Well, of course there is! The Church of Scientology! I mean, why else would they call it that?! 
The same way one can dismiss unicorns and fairies. There is no less evidence for such creatures existence than for God.
Respectfully, I disagree. While I agree that there is no scientific evidence, there is what could be considered evidence in things that outside of science’s realm. Morality, for instance. The sheer beauty and wonder of the universe is another. I am an atheist at heart, but I do not disagree that life and consciousness aren’t, for lack of a better term, miraculous.
Of course I do accept (and in fact embrace) the possibility that humans may one day be able to explain these things. That it is lack of understanding that causes us to call things like the emergence of life on earth miracles, or to believe we have a soul. I do not think it is unscientific to reserve judgement.
You’re just using one unfalsifiable proposition (the existence of morality other than as a construct of the human brain) to justifiy another.
It is not true that scientists believe that when there is no evidence there is no validity. Say someone comes up with a hypothesis to explain something as yet unknown. What is the probability of this hypothesis being true? The answer is we cannot know. (50% is definitely the wrong answer.) The logical thing to do is to withhold belief in the hypothesis until there is evidence. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for evidence for it, or ways to falsify it, though.
What is the probability that some god exists? We don’t know, though the lack of evidence for means we should withhold belief. When you ask about a specific god, the story can change, because there might be evidence against that one. As claims by a particular religion continue to be falsified, we might reasonably give up on believing in that religion. But there are lots of gods out there. Atheists can’t be faulted for noting that none have evidence for them, and can’t really be faulted for believing that none exist when god n+1 is as unsupported as god n. That doesn’t mean anyone claims to be able to prove that no god exists, though.
Morality is a human invention, and has nothing to to do with a God. Frankly, I’ve always found it disgusting how religion tries to steal the credit for something so many have died for.
Again, not evidence for a god of any kind.
The only people who call the emergence of life a “miracle” are religiously motivated; the is no evidence once was necessary. That’s creationism, not reality. Nor is there any evidence for a soul; there isn’t even evidence that one is possible.
The flaw in your comparison is that in religion’s case, there is nothing to explain. It’s like coming up with a hypothesis that violates a dozen physical laws to explain zeta-twist particles ( which violate even more physical laws ), without bothering to come up for evidence that zeta-twist particles even exist.
Since there is no evidence for a god, and the “god hypothesis” is so extreme is a scientific sense, I consider it as much disproven an fairies, like I said. The only reason this is considered an argument for considering gods is because of the word games people play with the word “proof” when religion is involved. By the standards applied to non-religious beliefs, believing in a god is just silly. After all, most people make fun of those who believe that the UN intends to conquer earth and is mutilating cattle in black helicopters; that’s actually less silly and implausible than belief in God. After all, we know for a fact that the UN, cattle and helicopters all exist; that puts such conspiracy theories a massive step up in plausibility over religion.
Or perhaps a religious person might admit his/her own fallibility in understanding the text. If it is truly divinely inspired, one would think the source of the problem would be obvious.
At the time the god hypothesis arose, there was plenty to explain. Sure, today religion is a far worse explanation than science.
As for your other argument, absurdity is not the same as a disproof. Plenty of quantum physics is absurd in the common sense meaning of the term - it’s still true, so far as we can tell.
Your analogy doesn’t work. We have plenty of evidence for quantum mechanics, after; none for God. It’s not “absurd” if we know it exists. Bizarre, perhaps, but it’s never silly to believe the truth.
Religions and the various sects within, through the centuries, have been forced to adapt to the findings of the various fields of science. :eek: I believe that has been well established in the preceeding thread. Why then does it seem that the religious zealots of the world still cannot grasp that this is going to be a continual process as we become more cognizant of the workings of the universe around us? :smack: Why not just come out and say, “Hey, this writing/teaching/philosophy/explanation was presented as the best available at the time.” I do not believe the people of biblical times would have hardly been expected to understand quantum mechanics and genetic theory. You want to ask someone to have “blind faith?” 
Many aspects of creationism, natural phenomena and the like were explained in allegories, easily understood by common people, or at least more easily understood than carbon-14 dating.
As such, I see the problem with religion and science as a problem of pride. As an engineer, a practical scientist, I do not see that science precludes religious tenants, but that the religious tenants, immobile and steadfast, preclude science.
Consider something: We were made in the image of God. That would suggest that many of the behaviors of man and society are similar to the behavior of the Diety. Why then, as suggested by my dialogue above, do we find it so unbelievable, that God would present his children with the basic fundamentals of knowledge to begin to grow with, allowing them to graduate to a higher level of understanding with time, while still allowing for the religious need for faith. We do not sit our two year old children down with lego expert builder sets and expect them to build a train, much less not choke on the parts. When we tell our children the sky is blue because God knew we would believe it was beautiful (or whatever other simplified explanation may be given), even when we know the long, drawn out, scientific answer, it is not because we intend to deceive them, so much as give them an answer that will satisfy them until a time when they will have a better understanding and appreciation for, as well as the patience to hear, the real answer. Seriously, if we were created in the image of God, then why do we have such an issue with equating God-nature with human-nature. Why would God not make himself subject to his own laws, the natural and physical laws which science holds so dearly?
As is the case in so many other arguments, there is no black and white answer to the question of science and religion. The case is convoluted and murky and I do not expect that to change any time soon. However, I do have to give the award for “More adult-like behavior” to science. Anyone who is a parent knows that “Because I said so” is a cop out and not what the perfect parent would say if he were not so busy abiding by his own natural laws to come and chit-chat.
Interesting how scientists are not so alarmed when the texts they base their beliefs on are discredited.
Adding to my previous…
In fact, religions could truly benefit from the economics of science. How many here have had to spend another $100 on the next version of a textbook for a class because of the updates requires by new science or whatever discipline being studied? :mad: K-ching! ;j Not that this doesn’t happen, but every few hundred years is not the way to do things. And consider how many volumes the Bible would have to be split into to incorporate the modern day understandings of events therein! This may even have a positive impact on reversing the decline in the rate of U.S. citizens studying the sciences and engineering! Yes, religion could have a positive impact on the state of the nation in international affairs!
Lack of evidence is an excellent reason not to believe in something, but different from a disproof.
Since we often get accused by theists of claiming that we can disprove god, I want to be very clear about the fact that we don’t have to. They have to provide evidence for god, which they have not done very well. Why let them move the goalposts?
Certain types of gods we can disprove, at least beyond a reasonable doubt.
The difference is, when religions update their texts, they claim that both the mutually contradictory old ones and news ones are both 100% correct.
(Used up all the smilies yet? )
Is this the, “Ah, that was a good poop!” smiley? 