Will you oppose to scientific conclusions if they'll lead to theology?

Unfortunately this isn't true, because science cannot refute solipcism. The best science can hope to accomplish is to develop accurate models about what we observe. That has nothing to do with any "objective truth" that may or may not exist. What if she did not want to be discovered? If that signature is of finite length, then it's already there. Just like all other numeric sequences of finite length - they all exist in pi. Or any other irrational number's decimal expansion. I guarantee you that the periodic table of elements is represented in the digits of pi. An infinite number of times.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-13-2005 11:16 AM

Oh? That's how you respond to arguments? With ridicule? Very mature. Not in the least. It's a fundamental constraint on what we can know. The simple fact that you don't like it doesn't make it go away. It's unambiguously there. An infinite number of times. If you want, it's preceeded by the message "hi, I'm god and this is my signature, the periodic table of elements" represented via Unicode. Or ASCII.In every known human language.Hell, if you want, the Bible is in there too. In every language. And the Koran. In every language. And every book in the Library of Congress. And every book that will ever be in the Library of Congress.In every language. Unfortunately, no, it can't. There's no way to make a finite sequence of digits more probable in an irrational number's decimal expansion; every finite sequence already has a probability of 1/1. If you could somehow raise the probability (perhaps by lowering the probability of all other sequences) then the number would no longer be irrational.And we know that pi is irrational. Not by inference but by proof.

As far as I understand it, yes. If it were otherwise then you could express it as the ratio of two integers, and it wouldn't be irrational.

I don't understand, and anyway that doesn't appear to speak to my point. My point was that since science is a human activity - I don't see aybody else doing it - and there's a fundamental limit to what humans can know, and that limit puts "ultimate truth about the universe" off-limits, then how can science hope to accomplish anything but the development of accurate models that explain what we observe?The model is not the reality; the map is not the territory. The universe is real, has a reality, by definition; that reality doesn't necessarily bear any connection to our models whatsoever, even if our models were perfectly accurate in predicting observations.Solipcism cannot be refuted; it's a fundamental limitation on what we can know, and science must proceed restricted by that limit. The real ultimate truth of the universe is not accessable to us.

I find nothing troubling with the colloquial definition of reality; that which is real independant of our knowledge of what is real. Absolutely, and I will too. But it serves no purpose to conflate that with universal truth, as you did.Science develops models that make accurate predictions about what we will observe. That's more than sufficient for me and I'm glad it is for you, too.

That's not what most atheists believe, though. Most atheists simply have no belief in God. That isn't, itself, a belief. It's the lack of belief. No, science proceeds under the methodology of naturalism. Science itself has no religion; though scientists themselves come in every religion. Including Christianity. Somehow, despite the fact that you think science is atheist, they do just fine at it. Not to get into an off-topic subject, but that's simply untrue. There is no Creationist interpretation of the radiometric data. They ignore it; they do not interpret it. That's a pretty surprising claim; could you document it? I'd like to know more. This is true; none of those things are therefore questions of science. If it can't be addressed through a natural methodology then it can't be addressed by science.

I disagree. With the exception of a few off-topic asides he seems to be very much on the topic of this thread.

The topic is whether or not science can accept a conclusion that would be pro-God. Related to that point are:1) Whether or not science/scientists proceed from an anti-God agenda; whether or not sciene is atheist, and, if so, if that atheism constitutes a religious position
2) What exactly science can investigate
3) If science has in the past denied obvious truth because it would be pro-Godwhich were all issues he raised.With the exception of a comment I noted as off-topic, the issues he raised and that I responded were intimately related to the topic; even if his presentation of them was a little fast and loose.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-23-2005 01:51 AM

When, in my post, did I bring up radiometric dating?Could you address the points I raised in my post, please? You don't appear to have done so.

No, it's a real society whose founder really believes in a flat Earth.But people join it as a joke; a friend of mine started a local chapter of it in college to scam refreshment funds.

Oh? You're a mind-reader, now?