Comments on: Overcoming Bias: Excluding the Supernatural http://dmiessler.com/blog/overcoming-bias-excluding-the-supernatural grepping intervals Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:36:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: shane http://dmiessler.com/blog/overcoming-bias-excluding-the-supernatural/comment-page-1#comment-203399 shane Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:37:17 +0000 http://dmiessler.com/blog/overcoming-bias-exclusing-the-supernatural#comment-203399 <p>First, I am an atheist (sometimes agnostic) "evolutionist".</p> <p>But I take a little issue with this: <blockquote>This is the difference, for example, between saying that water rolls downhill because it wants to be lower, and setting forth differential equations that claim to describe only motions, not desires. It’s the difference between saying that a tree puts forth leaves because of a tree spirit, versus examining plant biochemistry.</blockquote> So science explains the how and ignores the why. The why is irrelevant. Water is pulled down the hill by gravitational forces. Why there is gravitational forces pulling the water down is... irrelevant to scientific study. It is not irrelevant to religious study. Maybe a "God" wanted trees to put forth leaves and so wrote plant biochemistry to get it done. The science is still there and christians can still feel happy inside knowing that God did it and God loves them.</p> First, I am an atheist (sometimes agnostic) “evolutionist”.

But I take a little issue with this:

This is the difference, for example, between saying that water rolls downhill because it wants to be lower, and setting forth differential equations that claim to describe only motions, not desires. It’s the difference between saying that a tree puts forth leaves because of a tree spirit, versus examining plant biochemistry.
So science explains the how and ignores the why. The why is irrelevant. Water is pulled down the hill by gravitational forces. Why there is gravitational forces pulling the water down is… irrelevant to scientific study. It is not irrelevant to religious study. Maybe a “God” wanted trees to put forth leaves and so wrote plant biochemistry to get it done. The science is still there and christians can still feel happy inside knowing that God did it and God loves them.

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