# Was It All An Accident...Or Did An Intelligent **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721 "2013-01-19T17:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/421 "2013-01-26T17:21:29Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > On second thought this comment is kind of telling. Do you think you can determine who is really an atheist and who isn’t, and do you think you are in a position to figure out which reasons for rejecting religion are valid and which are not? He has yet to show us what an atheist is in the first place, so any method he gives may be perfectly valid, but for a wrong definition. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/422 "2013-01-26T17:22:54Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > When I was an undergrad at Cal Berkeley, it was towards the end of the Free Speech Movement and the radical left. What year did you graduate? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/423 "2013-01-26T17:27:47Z")
That isn’t really relevant…besides I only tell that to friends…your the guy that’s been giving me trouble on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/424 "2013-01-26T18:19:19Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > He uses it to knock up teen aged girls. > [@Musicat](#): > > I understand He has a thing for virgins named “Mary.” Pervert. That doesn’t sound as immaculate as the bible would have us believe. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/425 "2013-01-26T19:30:16Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > However, I knew that if I mentioned that I believed in God. > > She would have said “are you kidding me” and end the relationship right there. You’ve suggested you didn’t believe in god back then. Why can’t you keep this straight? > [@God must be a sadist](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-must-be-a-sadist/645080/190): > > I basically believed what the lefties believed back at CAL. All that Marxist garbage about, “religion being the opiate of the masses.” > [@pchaos](#): > > Well, I belonged to a church before I became a “lefty” so it’s possible I didn’t really reject God at 21. Could have been youthful rebellion who knows? But I do believe that God is part of my rational universe right now. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/426 "2013-01-26T19:40:56Z")
Someone’s convictions and core beliefs aren’t really as strong as he insists they are. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/427 "2013-01-26T19:52:24Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Someone’s convictions and core beliefs aren’t really as strong as he insists they are. I don’t think his beliefs or convictions are weak. I think he’s playing word games to try to deny the obvious. On top of that it’s a bad denial and it’s in support of a really weak claim (our core beliefs don’t change in adulthood - [tell it to this guy](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/from-bible-belt-pastor-to-atheist-leader.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)) because something something empiricism or something. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/428 "2013-01-26T20:34:35Z")
Perhaps what **pchaos** is saying is that for most of us, we accept scientific theory, the part that does not directly affect us, in a way that resembles how religious people accept their mythos and doctrine. I know I personally have not gone to great lengths to check and confirm the work of Darwin, Bohr, Hubble, Einstein or Chandrasekhar, I kind of take it on faith that what they have discovered is more or less correct, even that continuing research supports their analyses. The biggest problem with the theory of evolution for religious people is that it conflicts with the biblical message that humans are endowed by Og with a special, elevated status. It is a choice between an existence that does or does not have meaning, in a universe that is either designed or evidently meaningless. By “a choice”, I do not mean to imply that one can simply choose to believe or not believe, any more than one can choose one’s food or sexuality preferences. I am not confident that I could choose to believe in any given religion and then genuinely believe beyond action and lip-service. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/429 "2013-01-26T20:49:05Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Perhaps what **pchaos** is saying is that for most of us, we accept scientific theory, the part that does not directly affect us, in a way that resembles how religious people accept their mythos and doctrine. I know I personally have not gone to great lengths to check and confirm the work of Darwin, Bohr, Hubble, Einstein or Chandrasekhar, I kind of take it on faith that what they have discovered is more or less correct, even that continuing research supports their analyses. Except that the scientific community has demonstrated it knows what it’s doing. We are surrounded by clear evidence that science works. Trusting science to keep doing what it has been doing isn’t the same as taking on blind faith the claims of religion, which has been relentlessly been shown to be wrong when it tries to make claims about the real world, and has no such accomplishments as science to show that there’s some underlying truth to it. Science works; and trusting something that works isn’t the equivalent of faith in something that does not work. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/430 "2013-01-26T21:18:13Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > That isn’t really relevant…besides I only tell that to friends…your the guy that’s been giving me trouble on the SDMB. If you think pertinent questions are trouble, then you brought in the trouble when you started making contradictory claims on this message board. When you went went to college certainly matters when you claim you went with the “leftys” yet claimed that you knew nothing about atheism. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/431 "2013-01-26T21:21:57Z")
The Free Speech Movement was in the mid-'60s. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/432 "2013-01-26T21:28:31Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The Free Speech Movement was in the mid-'60s. And > [@](#): > > …towards the end of the Free Speech Movement and the radical left would place it somewhere in the '69-'72 area, I think…but at Cal at Berkeley it would be more in the '71-'74 area. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/433 "2013-01-26T23:07:11Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Well…the scientist Gigobuster is talking about is more trustworthy because even though he agrees with Darwin he is willing to examine his observations more closely to see if he can elaborate on the findings…but I still see it as a process of rationalizing. I’ve read an entire rather large book with additional natural examples of evolution. The real way to check on Darwin is not by going back over what he did (and people have spent plenty of time studying the finches, btw) but by seeing if evolution applies to more species. And it does. If you have actually read the Origin you would know that Darwin gets the mechanism of inheritance totally wrong. (Not that he claimed to know for sure.) If people worshiped Darwin they’d defend his view, but in fact it has been abandoned - and what has been found to be true supports evolution even better. How this is rationalizing is beyond me. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/434 "2013-01-27T00:15:47Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Nope, what you are saying here is just a “mega fail” point. Double checking does also get science to topple down ideas that are wrong, even if the ideas are cherished as beneficial, just ask Fleischmann and Pons. . . . The other thing to take away from the Cold Fusion farrago is that damn near everyone wanted it to be true. The prevailing emotional bias was hugely in favor of the discovery. In contrast, the emotions ran hugely against the revolutionary discovery that stomach ulcers were caused by viruses. This ran against deep-set opposition from people who simply didn’t feel it was true. In both cases, science threw out what it wanted, and stood by the demonstrated facts. Science is not blinkered by what people emotionally prefer… At least not too very much. (Emotions sometimes get in the way a little. Scientists are as human as anybody else!) ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/435 "2013-01-27T00:20:16Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > . . . If you have actually read the Origin you would know that Darwin gets the mechanism of inheritance totally wrong. (Not that he claimed to know for sure.) If people worshiped Darwin they’d defend his view, but in fact it has been abandoned - and what has been found to be true supports evolution even better. How this is rationalizing is beyond me. Totally wrong? I was astonished to learn that he was able to figure out that heredity was “corpuscular,” instead of being some continuous or infinitely divisible spectrum of characteristics. That knocked me on my butt; I can only marvel at his vast patience, and his detailed record-keeping, which led him to that discovery. But, yes, certainly there was a hell of a lot he didn’t know. He was very forthright in admitting this. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/436 "2013-01-27T02:26:28Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Perhaps what **pchaos** is saying is that for most of us, we accept scientific theory, the part that does not directly affect us, in a way that resembles how religious people accept their mythos and doctrine. I know I personally have not gone to great lengths to check and confirm the work of Darwin, Bohr, Hubble, Einstein or Chandrasekhar, I kind of take it on faith that what they have discovered is more or less correct, even that continuing research supports their analyses. > > The biggest problem with the theory of evolution for religious people is that it conflicts with the biblical message that humans are endowed by Og with a special, elevated status. It is a choice between an existence that does or does not have meaning, in a universe that is either designed or evidently meaningless. > > By “a choice”, I do not mean to imply that one can simply choose to believe or not believe, any more than one can choose one’s food or sexuality preferences. I am not confident that I could choose to believe in any given religion and then genuinely believe beyond action and lip-service. Fairly accurate, that’s why I can say that Human Action made a rational summary of this thread at that point and time and still disagree with his conclusions. And for those that say the difference is science works. Well…there are plenty of people I know that are willing to say that religion works. All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/437 "2013-01-27T02:37:12Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > And for those that say the difference is science works. Well…there are plenty of people I know that are willing to say that religion works. All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it. We can show millions of case where science works. Not believe it works. Not think it works. Not say it works. We can actually _show_ that it works. At this point, what you _say_ about religion doesn’t even matter-_show_ us cases of religion working. Let’s see a limb grow back. Pray a building into existence. Ask God to give the pilot the proper headings the next time you take a flight. Find the answers to your driver’s test in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/438 "2013-01-27T02:41:33Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Well…there are plenty of people I know that are willing to say that religion works. All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it. You’ve said a lot more than that. Are you going to back it up at some point? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/439 "2013-01-27T02:41:41Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > Fairly accurate, that’s why I can say that Human Action made a rational summary of this thread at that point and time and still disagree with his conclusions. And for those that say the difference is science works. Well…there are plenty of people I know that are willing to say that religion works. All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it. And I can say that science works both for the believer, agnostic and unbeliever alike, one very good example is the display you are seeing right now in front of you. > **[Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs: A History of Liquid Crystals: Amazon.co.uk:...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soap-Science-Flat-Screen-TVs-Crystals/dp/0199549400)** > > Buy Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs: A History of Liquid Crystals Illustrated by Dunmur, David, Sluckin, Tim (ISBN: 9780199549405) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. > [@](#): > > As their story unfolds, the scientists involved and their works are put into illuminating broader socio-political contexts. In recent years, liquid crystals have had a major impact on the display industry, culminating in the now widely available flat-screen televisions; this development is described in detail over three chapters, and the basic science behind it is explained in simple terms accessible to a general reader. New applications of liquid crystals in materials, bio-systems, medicine and technology are also explained. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/440 "2013-01-27T03:29:01Z")
[QUOTE=pchaos;15941524All I’m willing to say is that religion sometimes works if you are careful with it.[/QUOTE] The problem word there sums the entire breadth of the religion problem: “sometimes”. Religious doctrine lacks the flexibility to tolerate “sometimes”, because its inspiration is divine and holy. If some scientific principle fails, we can figure out why and adjust – it may take a while, but adaptability is built-in. If dogma fails, there is nowhere to go, because it is declared to be absolute and correct: “sometimes” is just not satisfactory for a thing that makes those claims. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=23)