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Jeremy England could change the way we think about evolution

19 points by wasi0013 10y ago

quadrangle 10y ago
Click-bait title and framing. Article on someone interested in the definition of life and questions about how life begins/began is interesting but isn't about one-upping Darwin in any sense. I would hate to be in England's shoes where just being an intensely curious researcher gets journalists to prophesize about you getting acknowledged as better than Darwin or whatever. What a bunch of distraction to have to be humble and downplay that or to defend the audacity etc. I bet lots of people will find it hard to avoid some bias against England just to spite the careless and unjustified way the journalist writes about him.
- juice_bus 10y ago
  The article pushed "Look! He is a Jew! and a scientist! its so incredible! Sneakers!" way to hard.
  - jonshariat 10y ago
    I've come to loath articles that stretch out a mildly interesting news and bio into a long narrative that muddies the interesting part.
danielmain 10y ago
https://youtu.be/16ZF-9ZjPAU https://youtu.be/16ZF-9ZjPAU
azakai 10y ago
Side note, > Christianity and Darwinism are generally opposed That's not fair to Christianity. For example, the largest Christian group, the Catholic church, is in no way opposed to Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution
- peteretep 10y ago
  As a committed atheist, I find people who try and create antagonism between science and religion to be lazy. If you're religious, and you think science squeezes out God, you're just putting limitations on your all-powerful God by suggesting he's constrained by the world He created. If you're a scientist, you're missing the starting point that God's the guy who (allegedly) programmed this world and so he's free to fudge whatever he likes, and apparently so far he likes to simulate a measurable ruleset — he's like a False on a proof tree, you can stick whatever you like under it.
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    I agree with everything you said. Curious, why are you a committed atheist?
    - jernfrost 10y ago
      Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether one believes God exists or not but whether one thinks he is necessary to explain the world we see. I personally don't believe in God, because I don't see the need for God to make sense of the world. Also I don't really get why people mean by God, as he/she/it is typically explained and defined in extremely vague terms to the point of being utterly useless to a person with inclinations towards science and logic. I would be very interested to hear how a man like England would have defined or explained God.
      - alphapapa 10y ago
        > Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether one believes God exists or not but whether one thinks he is necessary to explain the world we see. It's definitely a good question, but I don't think it's as important of a question, because whether we think it's necessary for God to exist doesn't have any bearing on whether God exists. If God exists, it is so regardless of what we think. Humans are finite, one might say "very finite" on the universal scale, so I don't think it makes sense to expect humans to be able to even answer such a question authoritatively. We get so many things wrong, and looking at human history, humans have been getting things wrong for a long time. Now we have science and computers and space programs, but on the universal scale, I think we haven't begun to scratch the surface--and if that is so, how could we even begin to answer the question of whether it's necessary for God to exist? And there's always the question of what caused the universe to exist: whether one believes it was a Big Bang or anything else, what caused that event? How can we say whether it is necessary for God to exist to have caused it? What if "God" is simply whatever caused the universe to come into existence? One may not believe that the universe was created by God, but that leaves the question of the universe's origin unanswered; and having no answer for that question, it seems unreasonable to rule out the existence of God.
yazbo_mcclure 10y ago
Gretchen quit trying to make god happen it's not going to happen

19 points by wasi0013 10y ago

Click-bait title and framing. Article on someone interested in the definition of life and questions about how life begins/began is interesting but isn't about one-upping Darwin in any sense. I would hate to be in England's shoes where just being an intensely curious researcher gets journalists to prophesize about you getting acknowledged as better than Darwin or whatever. What a bunch of distraction to have to be humble and downplay that or to defend the audacity etc. I bet lots of people will find it hard to avoid some bias against England just to spite the careless and unjustified way the journalist writes about him.

juice_bus 10y ago
The article pushed "Look! He is a Jew! and a scientist! its so incredible! Sneakers!" way to hard.
- jonshariat 10y ago
  I've come to loath articles that stretch out a mildly interesting news and bio into a long narrative that muddies the interesting part.

danielmain 10y ago

https://youtu.be/16ZF-9ZjPAU https://youtu.be/16ZF-9ZjPAU

azakai 10y ago

Side note, > Christianity and Darwinism are generally opposed That's not fair to Christianity. For example, the largest Christian group, the Catholic church, is in no way opposed to Darwinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

peteretep 10y ago
As a committed atheist, I find people who try and create antagonism between science and religion to be lazy. If you're religious, and you think science squeezes out God, you're just putting limitations on your all-powerful God by suggesting he's constrained by the world He created. If you're a scientist, you're missing the starting point that God's the guy who (allegedly) programmed this world and so he's free to fudge whatever he likes, and apparently so far he likes to simulate a measurable ruleset — he's like a False on a proof tree, you can stick whatever you like under it.
- alphapapa 10y ago
  I agree with everything you said. Curious, why are you a committed atheist?
  - jernfrost 10y ago
    Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether one believes God exists or not but whether one thinks he is necessary to explain the world we see. I personally don't believe in God, because I don't see the need for God to make sense of the world. Also I don't really get why people mean by God, as he/she/it is typically explained and defined in extremely vague terms to the point of being utterly useless to a person with inclinations towards science and logic. I would be very interested to hear how a man like England would have defined or explained God.
    - alphapapa 10y ago
      > Perhaps the question shouldn't be whether one believes God exists or not but whether one thinks he is necessary to explain the world we see. It's definitely a good question, but I don't think it's as important of a question, because whether we think it's necessary for God to exist doesn't have any bearing on whether God exists. If God exists, it is so regardless of what we think. Humans are finite, one might say "very finite" on the universal scale, so I don't think it makes sense to expect humans to be able to even answer such a question authoritatively. We get so many things wrong, and looking at human history, humans have been getting things wrong for a long time. Now we have science and computers and space programs, but on the universal scale, I think we haven't begun to scratch the surface--and if that is so, how could we even begin to answer the question of whether it's necessary for God to exist? And there's always the question of what caused the universe to exist: whether one believes it was a Big Bang or anything else, what caused that event? How can we say whether it is necessary for God to exist to have caused it? What if "God" is simply whatever caused the universe to come into existence? One may not believe that the universe was created by God, but that leaves the question of the universe's origin unanswered; and having no answer for that question, it seems unreasonable to rule out the existence of God.

yazbo_mcclure 10y ago

Gretchen quit trying to make god happen it's not going to happen