Is Postmodernism An Inherently Atheistic Philosophy?

[Patrick]

Scientists will never have as much authority as MLK. We are still reeling from his loss. He had real authority, but he found this authority outside of science.

MLK was a great man. I remember the civil rights era as a boy. As a boy, I couldn’t understand how he was a minister but it seemed that all the white ministers were against what he was preaching. Was God colorblind? I went to integrated schools in NJ so I didn’t know what the big deal was about until the race riots of 1968. I remember 1968 as the year the country tore itself apart. MLK and my boyhood hero Robert Kennedy killed, race riots, anti-war demonstrations. Comparing 1968 with today, it really has gotten better in all aspects of life for most (not all) people in the past 50 years.

[Patrick]

I’m convinced that God is just. He will treat you fairly, what ever it is that you believe.

Thank you for that. However, since I will be dead after my death I really won’t mind what is happens to me.

[Revealed_Cosmology]

is a modernist in that he…
believe[s] in an absolute authority that tells you what to do

His authority is scientific authority.

But he told me that he “does not accept the authority of anything”. Further, if scientific authority really was his authority he would not have blown off the study from Nature which you tried to show him.

[swamidass]

. Further, if scientific authority really was his authority he would not have blown off the study from Nature which you tried to show him.

Good point…

[Patrick]

But he told me that he “does not accept the authority of anything”. Further, if scientific authority really was his authority he would not have blown off the study from Nature which you tried to show him.

I don’t accept the authority of anything/anyone. Certainly not mainstream science.

I blew off the Nature paper for two reasons 1) It is from 2004 and is missing an enormous amount of data from sequencing of ancient genomes and 2) It is a single paper that hasn’t been proclaimed as the next Nobel Prize winner or a paper that is cited as truly a breakthrough idea or discovery. There are thousands of Journals producing thousands of papers a month. Progress in science moves incrementally building on past results and insights. For science papers there is an index called impact score. Find out the impact score on that paper. Is it high, meaning it has had high impact on the science? If not, it is just an incremental result with maybe some usefulness to someone in the future.

[Revealed_Cosmology]

I blew off the Nature paper for two reasons 1) It is from 2004 and is missing an enormous amount of data from sequencing of ancient genomes and 2) It is a single paper that hasn’t been proclaimed as the next Nobel Prize winner

You blew it off for one reason. It contradicted what you wanted to be true.

Or maybe you can cite a more recent paper that refutes the conclusions of that one?

The sequencing of more ancient genomes is irrelevant to the point that this paper is making, except that they too show tremendous mixing since 6000 years ago. They too show that populations which were separate 15000 years ago are now more admixed than they were then. If I am wrong, explain to me exactly how and why the newer genome data refutes the conclusions of that study in any way…

[swamidass]

The sequencing of more ancient genomes is irrelevant to the point that this paper is making, except that they too show tremendous mixing since 6000 years ago

That is a key point. Ancient genomes are validating the key presumptuins of the study in spades. We see interbreeding everywhere.

That study was seminal too. Population geneticist quote this study all the time. The fact that has stood unchallenged on the literature for so long is part of what increases our confidence. Once again, read the refs in the paper. They show an amazing record of confirmation.

[Patrick]

You blew it off for one reason. It contradicted what you wanted to be true.

What I 'want" is irrelevant. I certainly want to know what is true and what is not true. But in science nothing is absolutely true. Everything is provisionally true until new knowledge comes in. That’s what I enjoy and want.

The sequencing of more ancient genomes is irrelevant to the point that this paper is making, except that they too show tremendous mixing since 6000 years ago. They too show that populations which were separate 15000 years ago are now more admixed than they were then. If I am wrong, explain to me exactly how and why the newer genome data refutes the conclusions of that study in any way…

I think David Reich’s new book does a good job of telling what we know now to be true about human history.

[swamidass]

I think David Reich’s new book does a good job of telling what we know now to be true about human history.

This is a both/and moment, not either/or. Both accounts can be true at the same time.

[Revealed_Cosmology]

I was going to say, I feel confident that nothing in that book, no study cited in that book, in any way refutes the conclusion of the Nature study.

[Patrick]

This is a both/and moment, not either/or. Both accounts can be true at the same time.

When you say both accounts can be true at the same time do you mean real earth history and the Genesis creation story? Natural History Museum or Creation Museum? Richard Dawkins or Ken Ham?

[Patrick]

I was going to say, I feel confident that nothing in that book, no study cited in that book, in any way refutes the conclusion of the Nature study.

ok, but so what? How are the conclusion of the Nature study useful in find what is actually true about actual human history?

[swamidass]

When you say both accounts can be true at the same time do you mean real earth history and the Genesis creation story? Natural History Museum or Creation Museum? Richard Dawkins or Ken Ham?

I mean the Natural History museum and a Genealogical Adam, which is one reading of Genesis. I’m not even insisting both must be true, only that both can be true at the same time.

ok, but so what? How are the conclusion of the Nature study useful in find what is actually true about actual human history?

It better delimits the limits of what we’ve found through genetics. To be clear, Ken Ham is wrong still, how ever it is not scientifically accurate or honest to say that science has disproven a literal reading of Genesis. Ken Hams creation museum is implausible, bit there are ways to make space for some of his followers in mainstream science.

Bringing them into mainstream science does more to undermine the Ark Museum than Dawkins or Nye could ever accomplish, if that is your desire. As for me, I’m just trying to be honest with people about what science does and does not say.

[Patrick]

Ok, let’s say you get the average Christian science student to agree that maybe there could have been a Homo Erectus Genealogical Adam under that right assumptions in a particular time and place, it is just one aspect of the story. The story is hokey from beginning to end. Given your Genealogical Adam, how do you rationalize it with the rest of the story? God walking around the garden looking for his naked children who have ate from a forbidden tree? The story seems to be have been written as a story to be told to young children. As a teaching tool. Not as summary of the history of the universe. The Catholic Church going back centuries never took Genesis as historical fact. It is too allegorical, too childish even in bronze age middle east.

[swamidass]

Ok, let’s say you get the average Christian science student to agree that maybe there could have been a Homo Erectus Genealogical Adam under that right assumptions in a particular time and place, it is just one aspect of the story. The story is hokey from beginning to end. Given your Genealogical Adam, how do you rationalize it with the rest of the story?

Homo sapiens, not erectus.

To understand my answer further you’ll have to learn some more about how Chrsitians read Genesis. Are you up for that?

[Patrick]

Homo sapiens, not erectus.

oh come on. Even Buggs is a greater than 700,000 years. Add in Neanderthals, Denosivans and other archaic homo species and you are in the millions of years ago range.

[swamidass]

oh come on. Even Buggs is a greater than 700,000 years. Add in Neanderthals, Denosivans and other archaic homo species and you are in the millions of years ago range.

Genealogical ancestry, not genetic. No bottleneck required.

[Patrick]

And not scientific. Go ahead give it a try. I really don’t have a dog in this fight. But at least be aware of the risks from attack from the bigger secular science left leaning corporate world.

[Patrick]

To understand my answer further you’ll have to learn some more about how Chrsitians read Genesis. Are you up for that?

Not really, the nuns in Catholic school in the 1960’s told me that Genesis was allegorical, my seven year old mind accepted this as reasonable. I got through the next five decades pretty well with that view. I am not up revisiting that now in my 60’s. Just keeping up with real science innovation and discoveries keeps me busy full time.

[Patrick]

Bringing them into mainstream science does more to undermine the Ark Museum than Dawkins or Nye could ever accomplish, if that is your desire. As for me, I’m just trying to be honest with people about what science does and does not say.

The Ark Museum is what is wrong with American Evangelical Christianity. It is so divisive. Muslims and Jews hate it. Ken Ham now lights it up with rainbow colors to take back the rainbow that he says the gays have stolen. How can mainline Christians and Catholics tolerate this. A 10 year old looking at this monstrosity is going to laugh and ask to be taken to DisneyWorld where the real fantasy land is. It makes a mockery of Christianity more than Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion.