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Something From Nothing - a conversation w/ Richard Dawkins & Lawrence Krauss - ASU Feb 4, 2012
is a must watch.
The answer is no, because it is not up to science to confirm or disprove claims that are baseless. Science can only speak about what is visible, tangible, and evidential truth (hard facts). It falls on behalf of those making a claim to provide evidence for their beliefs. The reason behind this is that anyone can make a claim. Anyone can claim that a certain God, i.e. Zeus is responsible for thunder, this is questionable until those that are making this claim can provide hard evidence. Scientist can test claims if they wish, but it is not up to science nor is it efficient to use science as a tool to investigate every claim. If it was the other way around, science would be useless, and anything can happen theory would be the rule not the exception.
Suppose God did exist, what then..., what does the entity called God has to do with religion? Religion in all forms are human experiences that are culturally driven imposing their version of the truth on what God should be. It only takes one lie to question the validity of a religion, and we know first hand that many religions are contradictory. Take for example slavery and equality.... both are contradictory yet many religions speak of both them as truth. Perhaps religious texts are the work of human beings living in different times, sharing experiences, crediting God for their beliefs, while scapegoating God for human atrocities and violations.
The theory of evolution since its conception by Darwin has had an immense impact on our development as a specie. Yet survival of the fittest is perhaps an outdated concept within the theory of evolution, a better predictor of survival is the group. Not all successful species rely on individuals, take bees, ants, and termites, none of these species would survive without the efforts of the group, only one (the queen) reproduces and yet their impact is a group effort that covers almost every continent. It is the synergy (strength) between individuals that better explains survival mechanism, a specie that is individually fit will have a harder time to adapt than a group that is able to move in strength to meet new challenges.
I always find this question rather peculiar and self defeating. To me this question shows insecurity on the part of the person proposing the question itself. One of the many ways to correct for bias is to seek divergent points of views, to study the history of religions in all of their forms is to understand human necessity, to study science in all their forms is to understand human ingenuity, both forms seek to provide an answer to our place in the universe, and until one is able to understand multiple facets of human necessity, ingenuity, and concerns, one will always be bias towards their upbringing.
This is by far the hardest question to answer because it requires knowledge beyond any one subject. Evolution is not independent of the universe, in fact, it is closely related to everything around us. Like a puzzle, every piece from DNA, to fossils, to climate change, and environment has a cause and effect on the survival of a specie. All species are adapted to the current environment given that enough time is given to confront the new obstacles. To decipher its complexity is to decipher the history of earth and its relation to the universe, and how molecules and chemistry react to these changes. More experimentation will be needed to reach any consensus on how to answer this question.
The truth is (in my personal understanding), most scientists are agnostic. The existence of god or any god cannot be confirmed, therefore agnosticism is the lack of evidence for a god. Agnosticism also relates to everything in the cosmos, we can say that we are agnostic of leprechauns, wormholes, alternative dimensions, etc... until we have strong solid evidence/foundation for their existence. Therefore reality is subject to new findings, and any claim of objective reality (affirmation of the truth, i.e. Atheism) is illusionary at best. Examples: Life can survive without sunlight (deep ocean trenches)- we thought it could not survive without sunlight not too long ago. We believed we were the center of our solar system, then our galaxy, and now we don't know if a center exists in the universe.
The same way you build a house, the car you drive, and the internet you chat in. Morality is a tool, we give it purpose and a value, the same way we give purpose and value to our lives, beliefs, religion, science, etc..., if there were better tools than we would use those tools instead. Examples: from religion to science, from creation to biological development, from self-instincts to morality, from tribe to society, and so on and so forth. Research is the drive to understand the natural world, the value we assign to it is our own.
The fallacy that all things must have a beginning is due to the dreaded human condition called death. We are born, we grow, we reproduce, and we die... it is the life cycle of most biological forms. Yet death is a biological construct, because all forms, biological or not, are made of the same material. The material of the cosmos does not die, nor does it disappear, it never had to be born.... it has always been here, whether in its current form or in a pinpoint size described by the big bang theory.