[extropy-chat] Be[ing] or Not Be[ing]

[Johnius]

Olga Bourlin wrote:
>"In the fullness of time," he continued, "educated people will believe there
>is no soul independent of the body, and hence no life after death."
>Hmmm, the ... "educated"?  Don't the "educated" already know this?

Paul Bridger wrote:
>Unfortunately not. Even among scientists, where you would expect the 
>lowest incidence of non-rationality, there still exist a surprising 
>proportion of people who claim to believe such unsubstantiated claims.


	On UCSD TV, there was a recent series of lectures by
	'educated' people, including 'scientists', who took 
	great pains to poke holes in evolutionary theory and
	to try to prove that it is extremely unlikely that
	the universe wasn't designed.  These lectures were
	spearheaded by Michael Denton (_Evolution: A Theory in Crisis_,
	and _Nature's Destiny : How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose 
	in the Universe_), with appearances by Michael Behe (_Darwin's 
	Black Box: the biochemical challenge to evolution_), and William
	Dembski (_The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest 
	Questions About Intelligent Design_), to name a few.

	One episode seemed to have 12-15 different 'scientists',
	all of whom were doing everything in their power to refute
	non-theistic science.  I remember feeling a bit angry and
	frustrated with these guys, and with UCSD for giving them
	air time ... but after thinking about it, perhaps these
	religionists raise some valid questions about weaknesses
	in current theories of universe spontaneous order and 
	life evolution.  If we can rise to their challenge and
	answer their objections, then so much the better.  So,
	I suppose they have their function...

	Best, Johnius