On the contrary. I would like warm and fuzzy feeling of having somebody watch over me (I don't worry about having to stick to It's ethics - my private version of it is close enough to that published by Christians), but, sadly, I don't see any evidence of such Someone's existence. Many early (and some modern) scientists found themselves torn between what they see and what more ortodox interpretation of their religion teaches.

What I mean is that science was under the control of religion, and religion main interest was not always the truth.

Religion per se came to being as attempt to make sense of the world, so it originally was interested in what we would now call scientific truth. For organized religion ('religious establishment', i.e. churches of all kinds) your statement holds, of course, because they are primarily political organizations.

Here's a question; has anybody heard of Darwin's Confession, where Darwin, nearing the end of his days, recanted everything he said about evolution? I've always hear that it's real or fake, depending who you talk to, but I've never seen any facts about. If anything to me, I've always had the belief that there is too much design in the world to of come together by chance, but whoever did it has long since left us by now.

I have never heard of "Darwin's Confession", but, one way or another, it is irrelevant. Evolutionary biology is not anchored in belief in Darwin's work. He was merely a well known pioneer (not even the first one). His work also has only historical signifficance (but huge one), as it was far too simplistic. He was a kind of biology's Kepler, not Einstein or Planck.

The whole point of "scientific method" is constant questioning of current assumptions and reeexamination of body of knowledge (which creationists seem to have difficulty understanding, but, as I said elsewhere, they prefer simple and definite answers). We currently don't know how the 'first spark of life' came into existence. Several ideas are in circulation (form classical 'primordial soup' to more current attempts to examine catalytical properties of some clays). However, virtual concensus among scientists is that Occam's razor leaves no room for direct Divine intervention.

Fine tuning of physical constants to make universe conductive to life is another matter. Obviously, if they were different we would not be here to observer them, but that statement is more avoiding the question than answering it. Two solutions seem to make sense: either there exist infinite number of universes with different physical constants (the tiny portion of them inhabitated), or the universe was designed so that life can (or, if you will, must) appear. This is old discussion; novices can google for 'anthropic principle'.

(Edit: I should finally learn to read the whole thread before responding; half of this post repeats Tony's response


Edited by bonzi (26/03/2003 03:49)
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