From: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Date: 16 Dec 1992 22:49:05 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Distribution: world
Reply-To: carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <V1XuVB1w165w@kalki33>, kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
=O'Keefe accepts that life developed on earth entirely through physical
=processes of the kind envisioned by Darwin. He stresses, however, that
=many features of the laws of physics have just the right values to allow
=for life as we know it. He concludes from this that God created the
=universe for man to live in -- more precisely, God did this at the
=moment of the Big Bang, when the universe and its physical laws sprang
=out of nothing.

And of course, in so concluding, he commits a fallacy.  Were the laws of
physics otherwise, he wouldn't be around to contemplate them.  There is no
information about whether or not the universe was designed for human life to be
found in the observations.  At best, one can conclude that it's not impossible
that the universe was designed for human life.

=To support this idea, O'Keefe quotes Pope Pius XII, who said in his
=address to the Pontifical Academy of Science in 1951:

An appeal to authority.  What's that got to do with science?

=        In fact, it would seem that present-day science, with one
=        sweeping step back across millions of centuries, has succeeded
=        in bearing witness to the primordial Fiat lux ["Let there be
=        light"] uttered at the moment when, along with matter, there
=        burst forth from nothing a sea of light and radiation, while the
=        particles of chemical elements split and formed into millions of
=        galaxies.[3]

Pius XII apparently didn't know much about physics or chemistry.  He's
apparently just mouthing platitudes that make it appear that his religion
somehow explains the science of which he has no obvious grasp.

=Quantum mechanics ties together chance and the conscious observer. Dyson
=uses this as a loophole through which to introduce mind into the
=phenomena of nature. But if random quantum events follow quantum
=statistics as calculated by the laws of physics, then mind has no choice
=but to go along with the flow as a passive epiphenomenon. And if mind
=can make quantum events follow different statistics, then mind violates
=the laws of physics. Such violations are rejected not only by physicists
=but also by evolutionists, who definitely do not envision mind-generated
=happenings playing any significant role in the origin of species.

I'm afraid you're wrong on this one.  Or are you claiming that a decision to
engage in selective breeding of crops and animals isn't a "mind-generated
happening"?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl J Lydick | INTERnet: CARL@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU | NSI/HEPnet: SOL1::CARL

Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.