Sure, who's to say it doesn't pop up every single nanosecond in the exact same state it was before. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, so I don't really care. It's still in the realm of possibility, and trying to tell me that it's not happening just tells me that you don't have enough of an imagination. :)

Well, if it's not distinguishable from gravity, that's not the realm of science. Science says that stuff will fall at a measured rate. Until scientists have figured out the mechanism of gravity empirically (which is not settled yet) it may as well be a series of elves as warped space. Doesn't really matter, as long as it's predictable.

I think that the "god of the gaps" argument only shows that people were looking for it in a place where it was not to be found. That does not mean it doesn't exist. In case I haven't been clear, I am absolutely sure that God exists. I also think that God is not entropic, and looking for it in any place where entropy rules is a fool's errand.

Why should I not ignore the "intent of the writers"? They were, after all, ancient peoples who had a very different way of looking at the world than we do. That does not mean there is not some value in the allegory.

Science says nothing about the probability of a God. It is only concerned with what is testable. God is not testable (and I think deliberately so), so probabilities don't even have a bearing on the conversation.

Put another way, if God does not want to be seen in a specific context, it will not be seen - and that will appear as a low probability. Any God worth its salt would be able to show itself in a manner of its own choosing, when and how it feels appropriate. And it would seem that the realm of scientific discipline is one of those situations where it does not feel it appropriate. And frankly, were I in its place, I'd do the same thing.

Difference being - that's based on what you can see right now. You can test gravity, you can figure out what causes it, you can see the ball at the height of its parabola and measure its descent down into its lower energy state. You saw how the system began and ended, and thus you know for a fact that gravity did its thing. You don't know *why*, but you can measure it. That's not a nonzero chance. You never saw an elf.

You never saw the earth at the beginning. Thus, all you've got are guesses. Unless you can somehow build a time machine.

Technically, he is, to a degree, correct. The pressures at the center of the sun that cause initiation of fusion are caused by gravity. What we are seeing now is a balance between the outward pressures caused by fusion and the inward pressures caused by gravity. The reason supernovas are so violent is that the star runs out of fuel, the outward pressures get too high, and the whole thing just collapses in on itself very quickly.

That said, if he is denying that fusion is the process (or one of the major processes) that keeps the star from collapsing in on itself and creates the energy that causes the radiant heat we see, well, he's beyond hope.

Incorrect.

I have no doubts that based on the evidence that we see *now*, that evolution appears to be the correct way that life came to being. Scientifically, that's not within doubt. However, I do not treat the idea of evolution as a religion, because I am aware of one little fact that many people seem to overlook:

It's *all* circumstantial.

I realize this is fanciful, and the odds are really high that this didn't happen, but who is to say that six thousand years ago something didn't just pop everything into existence fully formed, *including* all of the evidence?

They're really high, but not nonzero.

I prefer to think that this did not happen, but I don't dismiss people who might think it did as complete crackpots. Very, very unlikely, improbable, perhaps even vanishing - but possible. Unless you were there from the beginning of the Universe and saw everything happen, there's no way to tell. All you've got, and will ever have, is a best guess. A probably correct one - but not certainly correct.

I agree with your general premise but I don't think you quite understand how natural selection works. For example, an eye may have started (I'm not sure the exact story here) with a simple little light sensitive organ which allowed a little critter to find a plant that grew better in the sunlight than shade, for example. And that proves to be advantageous, so it's kept. And then, a mutation occurs and the little organ can sense colors. Oh, look, that's bright AND green, I think I'll eat that. And so on, and so on. Nothing appears fully formed.

There is a group of people who do not care about the evidence - the Bible says so, so there it is. That's not going to change just because you amass more evidence.

On the other hand, there are a group of people who believe in God who also believe evolution was the method God used to create all of the different kinds of life we see. That is not something you can prove or disprove, therefore it's not in the realm of science. In other words, you want people to keep their religions hands off science, great. Keep your scientific hands off God. They don't have to be mortal enemies.

Seriously. It'd be nice to have a UI designed by someone who actually knows how we work rather than how the computer expects us to work. Larry Wall is a linguistics expert - he took that skill and wrote perl.

Of course it does. The foolish bit comes in when people start thinking that it's *all* based on science. Of course it's not. There are some aspects of medicine that are just as wishful thinking as homeopathy.

And the very fact that side effects exist is a testament to our not understanding what we're doing half the time.

Some scientists do not think it is worth their time to study things that they have already decided are not worth their time to study.

By the way, I'm not defending homeopathy. But there are other things out there - many having to do with energy work - that do not have foundations in current science but are sworn by. I have personally felt its effect firsthand.

... of worshipping science to the extent of all else.

Some "traditional medicines" are bupkus. Some are not. Just because science has not discovered something does not mean it doesn't exist. To think otherwise is arrogant. I can think of quite a few things in my life that science cannot (or at least does not at present) explain.

There are things about the human body and mind that science does not understand yet. And as long as their mindset continues to be "if I can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it, or hear it, it doesn't exist" that will continue to be the case.

I already do that. I have a Mac Mini attached to my TV running XBMC as a media server, and I use my iPad using rowmote as the controller. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Apple - but it Just Works. In fact, I like the setup so much I made the mac mini my dedicated media server and got an Airbook for development and everyday computing.

Only thing I don't like is the Mac Mini doesn't have BluRay. Other than that, everything I could want.