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No, science adjusts models to accommodates new data

You mean, for example, how physicists invent superstitious nonsense like dark matter and dark energy to explain data that contradicts their pet theories (e.g., general relativity)? Of course not. That would be preposterous. :-D

By the way, did any of you know that nothing can move in spacetime, by definition? Surprise! In Conjectures and Refutations, Sir Karl Popper (of falsifiability fame) called spacetime "Einstein's block universe in which nothing happens". Popper compared Einstein to good old Parmenides who, whith his devoted pupil Zeno, also maintained that nothing can move and that change was an illusion! And yet spacetime is the central model of modern cosmology. ahahaha...

Folks, the reason that gravity waves have not been found is simple: Einstein was wrong. Gravity is a nonlocal phenomenon and is instantaneous, just as Sir Isaac assumed centuries ago. This is the reason that Newtonian gravity is so accurate. Isn't it time for science to adjust the model to accomodate the data? I think so.

The saying wasn't original with Newton, so even if copyright lasts 382 years from the death of the author, you're probably OK!

I had a student staying after school to retake a quiz and was reading this thread. After he was done, I was going to share the comment some ways back about being grateful that Alabama is not the bad guy this time. Anyway, as soon as I got to the word "evolution," he come up with "evolution is basically a joke..." I tried to make the distinction for him between Darwin's theory of natural selection and evolution the observable fact. I asked him if something was observable, doesn't that make it a fact? He said no because you can't trust what you see. This boggled my mind. We talked for a while longer and finally I pointed him to Evolution as Fact and Theory. We'll see what he says if he reads it.

No he has a nuanced understanding of the term fact and theory. Stephen Jay Gould wrote an amazing piece on this in Discover in the early 90s. To quickly summarize: Creationist idiots use the vernacular meaning of theory (untested hypothesis or imperfect fact). However science has a different definition of theory which means a hypothesis that has been tested to a sufficient extent and proven to be an excellent model such that it should be called a Theory (big T) on par with Relativity for example.

So SJG suggested we use the term scientific fact to keep the creotards from using a semantics argument to suggest that even scientists don't believe that evolution by natural selection occurs or explains life on our world. He proposed a definition of a scientific fact as: "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

And in that regard Evolution is a fact (and a Theory with a big T.)

No one is saying we have to introduce creationism or try to make evolution appear only as a theory (which some might argue it still is), but there is no reason we need to teach our students to blindly accept it as fact, without doubt or admission of weakness.

Some people are saying exactly that. However, I accept that you are not. Your use of the phrase "only a theory" suggests that you do not understand what constitutes a scientific theory. A theory explains the available facts. Fact by themselves mean very litte. Consider "the car is red," which is a fact, versus "red cars get pulled over more frequently than other colors because etc" which is a theory. Clearly the theory means more and is more useful than the fact alone.

Beyond this, the word "evolution" has had its meaning confused. It is used simultaneously to refer to Darwin's theory of natural selection and to refer to the observable fact of evolution. Evolution can be observed, say, in bacteria. There can be a competing theory to explain why and how evolution occurs, but theories that disregard the observed facts are worthless.

Here is a much better explanation of Evolution as Fact and Theory by Stephen Jay Gould.

So to test the lunar theory of tides, do we need make or capture a second moon? Or to test the theory of evolution, should we be thinking of terraforming Mars, seeding it with primitive life and watching for a billion years? And of course testing anything to do with stellar formation is going to be hellishly difficult, how are we going to afford 2 billion yottagrams of gas at todays prices?

No-one from Popper onwards has restricted testing to experiment only. Popper's own example in "Science as Falsification" is the Eddington solar eclipse observations performed to test General Relativity.

You test a theory or hypothesis by comparing the expectations of that theory with reality. This can be by either experiment or observation. If you reject GW because we can't "do the experiment", then you are rejecting most of cosmology, biology and geology along with it.

It's because the word "evolution" is used ambiguously to refer to both the observable fact of evolution and I guess the theory of natural selection. The fact that biological species evolve can be observed in bacteria or fruit flies. There can be different theories to explain these observations of evolution. No theory that denies the observed facts can have much credibility. Other posters have pointed out that the only theories that say evolution does not occur are found in religion, which demands they be accepted without proof.

Here's the long answer by Stephen J. Gould.

I'm merely asking what is wrong with mentioning it, that people believe in it...

Nothing at all - in a social studies class. I don't know anyone who argues against that. But discussion of religious beliefs doesn't belong in a biology class.

No one is advocating preaching to kids that it happened

??? A heck of a lot of people certainly are advocating preaching to kids in the schools.

Hmm...then that explains why our currency has "In God We Trust" all over it

Like the insertion of "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust" was a Cold War invention, meant to unite us against those Godless Communists. It's ignorant bullshit - and a blatantly unconstitutional "establishment" of religion.

Much of our govt philosophy was based on Judeo-Christian tenets.

Not really. Many of the founders were Deists. The idea of democracy and the structure of the republic are Greco-Roman inventions, developed long before Jeshua ben Joseph started his schtick. The Treaty of Tripoli, which notes that "the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion", was ratified in 1797 without any furor.

Seems to me the only form of government that could be based on "Judeo-Christian tenets" (at least mainstream ones) would be a monarchy - the Bible is full of kings, but I don't recall any elections.

Here you go.

Surprising finding, actually (assuming we take 1998's results as fairly representative of what today's should be).

I'd say the breakdown of scientists that I've known is more like 50-50.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote an exceptional (and entertaining - bonus) piece in 1994 about selling Evolution to the lay public - combating the Creationist spin that evolution is 'only a theory' by calling it a 'scientific fact'. He justified this with... well crap, I should let the good Professor say it much better than I could: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

But why talk about anything "rational", when such an "irrational" reaction like yours is acceptable? After all, EVERY day is bash-a-christian day.

As a Pagan, I sit on the other side of the fence, so to speak. I don't think Christians realize how good they have it in the United States. You get to pray wherever you want, however you want; you pray in public, and everyone in government bends over backwards to accommodate you. Don't believe me? Look at how big a deal it was when Keith Ellison took his oath of office on the Qu'ran instead of the Bible!

But that's not good enough for some Christians. I'm not trying to tar you with this brush, but your brethren have some shit to answer for: trying to assert that the United States is a "Christian nation" when it is not ; trying to inject the Christian God into government and the public square at every opportunity, in the face of Jesus' own words to pray in private and to keep God separate from government; asserting that the Christian God is bigger than the Muslim God (which is a plain stupid remark, by the way, if you know anything at all about Islam).

So is every day really "bash-a-Christian day"? Or are you witnessing the backlash of everyone who doesn't want to live under the tyranny of a Christian theocracy?

current scientists who believe in God are a statistical majority. maybe they're onto something.

I'm curious, do you have a source? (We must also be careful with the definitions issue, as with Einstein - scientists using "God" to mean "nature" may be onto something, but that doesn't mean billions of theists believing in a personal interventionist God are onto something.)

At least one source disputes this - http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html .

72.2% disbelieve in a personal God? Yes, I suspect they are onto something.

science and faith are utterly and equally non-applicable to each other. science deal with the natural world and provable facts. faith deals with the supernatural world and non-provable mysteries. believe in either, or both, or neither. but don't try to apply them to each other. you will fail.

I agree entirely - I would be happy if religion was kept out of science, out of science lessons, out of politics, and anywhere else that concerned the physical world and dealing with facts. Keep faith to personal beliefs and the philosophical debates on the supernatural world and other unprovable things, and that's fine by me.

It took Darwin himself to derail this ancient tradition -- and he proceeded in the gentle way so characteristic of his radical intellectual approach to nearly everything. The ichneumons also troubled Darwin greatly and he wrote of them to Asa Gray in 1860: I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

Present day Christians might square it by saying the moral code is not binding on lower animals, but in Darwin's day, the reigning principle was something like Paley's watchmaker God to square the findings of science with theology. The thought of wasps feeling on live caterpillars were shocking to Darwin.

Neil Degrasse Tyson made a similar observation about the statistic that 93% of members of the Academy of Sciences doubt or actively disbelieve in the existence of a personal god . The 93% isn't really all that surprising. That makes sense. What is surprising to me is that 7% do.

Perhaps that's because of Pascal's Wager. Then again it could be because whereas science seeks to answer "how" a belief in a Supreme Deity answers "why". Myself, I have a problem with Pascal's Wager, it's easy enough to decide on whether a "God" exists or not but it becomes much harder when a person has to decide which "God" to believe in. The Semitic based religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all believe in a jealous "God" and forbid the worship of idols. Well what if the "God" a person worships is nothing but an idol?

Go look in a mirror. Explain to me why you have traits of both of your parents.

Is this not descent with modification? What exactly do you think evolution is?

A change in allele frequency over time. If that isn't what you thought evolution is then you can now stand corrected.

Evolution is the fact that offspring get traits from both parents. Natural selection explains why this offspring will be successful in reproducing or not.

It's really very simple.

Here are some links:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact-and-theory.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4161281,00.html

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-06/uor-nsf061203.php

Ever wonder why your physician demands that you finish off all the antibiotics he is prescribing? That's right, evolution. You see, the drugs will first kill the weakest of the bacteria infecting you. If you stop, the strongest, least effected will survive and reproduce passing on this ability to withstand the drugs. Next thing you know we have antibiotic resistant bacteria. Evolution via natural selection. It's really very simple, isn't it?

another link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance

To point out an error in your post. Evolution says nothing about life originating, that is abiogenisis. Evolution is what has been happening since life appeared.

So someone who belives in god (aka invisible friend) isn't a crackpot, as long as they accept science is the best way to the truth about the universe?

To quote Stephen Jay Gould:

To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists. If some of our crowd have made untoward statements claiming that Darwinism disproves God, then I will find Mrs. McInerney and have their knuckles rapped for it (as long as she can equally treat those members of our crowd who have argued that Darwinism must be God's method of action). Science can work only with naturalistic explanations; it can neither affirm nor deny other types of actors (like God) in other spheres (the moral realm, for example). Forget philosophy for a moment; the simple empirics of the past hundred years should suffice. Darwin himself was agnostic (having lost his religious beliefs upon the tragic death of his favorite daughter), but the great American botanist Asa Gray, who favored natural selection and wrote a book entitled Darwiniana, was a devout Christian. Move forward 50 years: Charles D. Walcott, discoverer of the Burgess Shale fossils, was a convinced Darwinian and an equally firm Christian, who believed that God had ordained natural selection to construct a history of life according to His plans and purposes. Move on another 50 years to the two greatest evolutionists of our generation: G. G. Simpson was a humanist agnostic. Theodosius Dobzhansky a believing Russian Orthodox. Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs--and equally compatible with atheism, thus proving that the two great realms of nature's factuality and the source of human morality do not strongly overlap.

I wouldn't quite consider what Mr. Hawks is doing to be "tearing the research to pieces". Mr. Hawks is a researcher with a competing viewpoint. Furthermore, the viewpoint that is expressed (and this may be largely due to the interviewer, and may not be the fault of Mr. Hawks in all fairness) doesn't give much in the way of evidence to support his viewpoint (note "I'm really thinking just the opposite of this paper," is about as strong as it gets in the article. www.johnhawks.net has a bit more). Mr. Hawks seems to be carrying on the research of his doctoral advisor, Milford Wolpoff, who strongly advocates the multiregional idea. It seems here that we have a researcher who started with a conclusion and is trying to find data to support it, rather than starting with a hypothesis, gathering data, and forming a conclusion (some things can work backward...science isn't one of them). Mr. Hawks seems to be a little ruffled now that someone has published research (which went the right way up the scientific method) which doesn't seem to jive with his view. If you want a great overview of evolution explained in a great manner, grab some books by Stephen Jay Gould (or read up at http://www.stephenjaygould.org./ By far, one of the greatest in the field of Paleontology (co-developer of the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium, which is quite important to this discussion. A shame that Mr. Hawks doesn't seem to be very familiar with this concept). More than worth the read for anyone interested in the subject.

Galileo ran into trouble because of remarks he made about the hope - politics was the problem, not science.

I can't believe this ridiculous white-washing of history. It's on par with the previous pope's remarks that the Galileo affair was just something like healthy "scientific skepticism" on the side of the church. He was tried by the Papal Inquisition for breaking the church edict that forbade promoting heliocentric model as more than a hypothesis, or heresy. Insulting Pope Urban VIII was not the crime his book was ultimately banned (until the 19th century!) for, or the crime why he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. The crime he was charged with was "heresy". Just read the recantation he was forced to read. The Church didn't even apologize until the 20th century, and even then they were apologetic.

Then there is also Giordano Bruno, who was burned on a stake for the heresy of going against the Catholic dogma. His works were banned by the Church for hundreds of years too. I wonder how you would construe that to not be a conflict of science and religion.

Try telling them that Christianity and science don't mix.

The statistics speak for themselves: science, especially the natural sciences, is corrosive for religious faith, and religion is corrosive for education. If you don't believe it fuels indoctrination of ignorance, just look at how Ken Ham teaches children, the exhibits in his "museum", or the Trojan horse of the religionists -- the ID creationism. It's almost amusing how you claim that there is no conflict between science and religion, and base it on the fact that there are many scientists with religious beliefs, as if that meant anything after thousands of years of religious, in this case Christian, hegemony. Duh!

Sure, if we go along with your false dichotomy that anything you think is a contradiction must be a contradiction and the explanations of those who know the Bible better, have studied it considerably more and arrive at a different conclusion are clearly wrong.

No one who has actually studied the Bible can honestly say that there are no contradictions. If they do, they really are wrong (most don't). Also, your usage of "false dichotomy" is nonsensical. If I think that 2 + 2 is not 5, is it also a "false dichotomy" just because someone might interpret that expression with his own arithetic in which there are different rules?

Indeed. Stephen Jay Gould wrote a fantastic essay called Nonoverlapping Magisteria on this subject. His point was that religion and science are essentially orthogonal domains of knowledge, and as such should stay the hell away from one other. Also interesting - Gould mentioned a statement issued by Pope John Paul II entitled Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, which confirmed the catholic church's official position on evolution - it does not conflict with theology.

Since I made the GP post, we've found out he was a South Korean national who was just completely messed up in the head.

To answer your question, though...

We have a huge media complex that likes to report bad news as much as possible. That being said, yes, this sort of thing seems to happen more in the US than anywhere else. It's probably because we're encouraged to NOT stand up and speak our mind (even with Free Speech) when we feel that something's wrong with our government or way of life. This leads to someone bottling up and eventually snapping. It isn't just Americans, it's a symptom, however, of America's other (less-violent) problems.

As to "you're country" being full of violent idiots - the whole WORLD is full of violent idiots. I don't necessarily agree that students carrying guns would have helped the situation, but it might have ended it at 3 bodies instead of 30.

Lastly, the "weird, paranoid, overbearing, attack-first culture" isn't mine. It's not this country's culture, either. It is, as I said, a culture that has emerged from other problems this country DOES have. I take severe issue with religious fundies trying to turn morality into laws, and I'm Christian. This country was founded upon some things that have been forgotten over the past couple of decades, and it sucks hardcore. As with my previous example, people seem to think these days that this nation was founded as a "Christian nation", when it WASN'T. The fundies will tell you that it was the founding fathers' intent to do so - if that's the case, why does Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli specifically stay it wasn't?

You see, people like you, outside of this country, have this misconception that we are a representative democracy. We were, but we are not, now. The states' governments typically DO represent the people, but the Federal government stopped doing that sometime in the 1950s. You blame the WHOLE COUNTRY for the acts of the few. It's a sad thing that I just said that, considering we're supposed to be a nation of one of many. We're not, we're being horribly represented as a people by the media, Congress, and our President. And on that note, for those who want to say I'm just a "Bush hater", I'm not. He's got a damned hard job, has made some horrible decisions, and should have been removed from office before he ever went into it, but since I don't know him personally, I can only go on the knowledge that he's got a tough-as-hell job, and some really piss-poor advisers (not to mention the coke habit long ago).

Anyway, bashing Americans for this idiot's actions is the same as blaming, say, all Irish for the IRA's actions. Or blaming every Chinese citizens for the actions of a few Party members. Or blaming all Russians for the actions of Stalin. Or blaming all Germans for the actions of the Nazi Party and government. You are no better than this "culture" you claim we all have here.

If you take the common view of what is considered "scientific fact" then, if you accept that:

1) An embryo is a collection of cells and has life (as much life as a bacterium, which I doubt you would deny).

2) At conception, the genetic structure is uniquely human.

Then you would accept it as fact that it is a living human.

I use the term "scientific fact" the same way evolutionists do. Evolution is a scientific fact.

It is not a philosophical debate.

little primitive nano -organisms (viruses, bacteria, single cell organisms) (even artificially created ones) are not as grave dangers as he paints precisely because they are primitive.

They are enough of a threat to wipe out between 50 and 100 million people, 2.5 - 5% of the human population, in one year. That is quite a sufficient danger that we ought to have some concern about "primitive" organisms.

Complex lifeforms such dominated all primitive lifeforms over the course of millions years, due to their inherent capability to adapt better to more varied environment and conditions

What are you talking about? Bacteria are found in more varied environment and conditions than any other form of life. They've been here for three and a half billion years. About 10% of your own body weight is bacteria. One good-sized rock hitting the Earth could wipe out Homo sapiens and most other "higher" animals, but anything short of the death of the Sun is not going to eliminate bacteria (and maybe not even that, since some live thousands of feet deep in the rock, living off geothermal heat).

As Stephen G. Gould puts it, "On any possible, reasonable or fair criterion, bacteria are--and always have been--the dominant forms of life on Earth."

that next step is more advanced and more complex entities (AI ,trans-humans or whatever) capable of far surpassing humans in the ability to advance technology

And also capable of far more advanced and dangerous fuck-ups.

(P.S. Please learn proper orthography. Spaces come after, not before, commas. Thank you.)

According to Stephen Jay Gould.org...
Was Hitler an atheist as some Christians say he was? Hitler's own words make this claim rather dubious. Scholars are still unsure whether or not Adolf Hitler was a believing Christian or just a politically cunning theist, but what is certain however is there is no evidence he was an atheist. This page documents some of his religious views, as he personally described them. Articles which examine the evidence in further detail can be found at the bottom of the page.
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_hitler. html

Ah. Here's your Hi Rez (that isn't a common expression in the states, or at least not my area)

According to a recent survey, belief in a god that is "in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and belief in "personal immortality" are most popular among mathematicians and least popular among biologists. In total, about 60% of scientists in the United States expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of deities in 1996. This percentage has been fairly stable over the last 100 years. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 93% expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in 1998.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_ religion_and_science

If you don't trust wikipedia, here's the Nature article cited:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.h tml

If you want an actual copy of Nature, shell out your $400/year...

I believe it was Dr. Dawkins who recently claimed that he knows exactly zero eminent scientists (and he probably knows as many eminent scientists as anyone!) who have confidence in the existence of the supernatural... I don't have a citation for that so don't hold me to it. But I hope my hi rez has corrected your misconceptions.

However, there is no evidence of one species becoming another and that is what would have to happen for a lower form to evolve into a human.

I would refer you to Stephen Gould's article Evolution as Fact and Theory.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact- and-theory.html

I agree - I'm going to try to condense your argument down, in my own words. Bayes is hardly necessary unless you want to get all formal (and Bayesian views suffer from the fallacy of equivalence for initial conditions, anyway - though natch, that's kind of inevitable).

Here's the thing: the flip side of the fallacy of ad hominem is the fallacy of equivalence, the notion that one should initially consider every single argument equally.

Yes, arguments should be considered on their merits and not upon their origins. However, in the absence of the complete picture (and truly, it's rarely possible to have that complete picture) it is often useful to consider the source and their ability to think clearly and without prejudice. This is especially true in complex matters such as global climate change, and highly speculative and ideological matters such as the impact of DRM.

So whether it's purely logical or not, it's certainly reasonable to give more consideration to a statement about evolution that came from, say, Stephen Jay Gould over one that comes from Pat Robertson.

So, in short, argumentum ad hominem should be viewed with suspicion but is not without its uses.

Oh yes - and Doctorow is kind of a self-important twit. If I want his opinions, I'll read his freakin' blog, I don't need it on /. too.

Anyway, you atheists and general critics of the Bible better get used to being on the defensive. As science advances, you're going to find more and more similarities between science and the Bible and will have to accept the fact that many of the things "discovered" by science were already known to Christians thousands of years ago.

Ha! You think we're killing the *planet*? Sorry, we're only killing our ability to live on the planet, if that. Earth's true species is the bacteria.

In the late 1970s, marine biologists discovered the bacterial basis of food chains for deep-sea vent faunas and the unique dependence of this community upon energy from the earth's interior, rather than from a solar source. Two kinds of vents had been described: cracks and small fissures with warm water emerging at temperatures of 40 degrees to 70 degrees F and large conical sulfide mounds, up to 30 feet in height, and spouting superheated waters at temperatures that can exceed 600 degrees F.

Bacteria had long been identified in waters from small fissures of the first category, but it was only in the early 1980s that John Baross and his colleagues discovered a bacterial biota, including both oxidative and anaerobic species, in superheated waters emanating from the sulfide mounds (also known as "smokers").

They cultured bacteria from waters collected at 650 degrees F and then grew vigorous communities in a laboratory chamber with waters heated to 480 degrees F at a pressure of 265 atmospheres. Thus, bacteria can (and do) live in high temperatures (and pressures) of waters flowing beneath Earth's surface.

Yeah. We got nothing on these guys when it comes to survival of the fittest. We've even given Earth's bacteria a ride out of the solar system on our space probes, decades or centuries before we'll make the trip.

Check out ye olde tree of life. We macro creatures are a paltry, small piece. We beat the odds for existing in a big, big way.

Now, as far as getting off the planet and anthropomorphizing Earth by giving it the desire to spread its apples: we already have Mars rocks on Earth, why not microscopic life bearing rocks from Earth on other planets?

Yes, macroscopic life does indeed exist because it works. Obviously. But you must recognize that our existence is not a pinnacle of evolution, not a spire, not even a foothill.

Now to your big, big flaw. We and no other macroscopic lifeform on Earth are in any way even remotely by any measurement of any kind anywhere close to "enslaving microscopic life." Not even on the cosmic scale. Not in a thousand, million, or billion years.

Retake an intro Biology course. We completely depend on microscopic life to LIVE. They don't just make life more comfortable, or easier, or help us along in a small way; we are utterly dependent on our symbiotic relationship with bacteria to support us.

But, for the millions of years on Earth before we macros came onto the scene microscopic life puttered along quite well. Sure they've adapted to exploit the chemical and biological riches that our bodies offer, but they are not dependent on us in the slightest.

Lesse, maybe I can provide you with some intro material...

Ah! Stephen Jay Gould's "Planet of the Bacteria".

Some quotes:


Bacteria exist in such overwhelming number and such unparalleled variety; they live in such a wide range of environments and work in so many unmatched modes of metabolism. Our shenanigans, nuclear and otherwise, might easily lead to our own destruction in the foreseeable future. We might take most of the large terrestrial vertebrates with us--a few thousand species at most.

I doubt that we could ever substantially touch bacterial diversity. The modal organisms cannot be nuked into oblivion or very much affected by any of our considerable conceivable malfeasances. ...

The accompanying chart, adapted from the work of Carl Woese, our greatest pioneer in this new constitution of life, says it all, with the maximally stunning device of a revolutionary picture. We now have a system of three grand evolutionary domains--Bacteria, Archaea and Eucarya--and two of the three consist entirely of prokaryotes: that is, "bacteria" in the vernacular, the inhabitants of life's constant mode. Once we place two-thirds of evolutionary diversity at life's mode, we have much less trouble grasping the centrality of this location and the constant domination of life by bacteria.

For example, the domain of Bacteria, as presently defined, contains several major subdivisions, and the genetic distance between any pair is at least equal to the average separation between eukaryotic kingdoms such as plants and animals.

Note, by contrast, the restricted domain of all three multicellular kingdoms. On this genealogical chart for all life, the three multicellular kingdoms form three little twigs on the bush of just one among three grand domains of life. Quite a change in one generation--from my parents' learning that everything living must be animal or vegetable, to the icon of my mature years: the kingdoms Animalia and Plantae as two little twigs amid a plethora of other branches on one of three bushes, with both other bushes growing bacteria, and only bacteria, all over. ...

Consider two aspects of ubiquity:

1. Numbers. Bacteria inhabit effectively every place suitable for the existence of life. Mother told you, after all, that bacterial "germs" require constant vigilance to combat their ubiquity in every breath and every mouthful, and the vast majority of bacteria are benign or irrelevant to us, not harmful agents of disease. One fact will suffice: during the course of life, the number of E. coli in the gut of each human being far

I think I may have an unfair advantage in this discussion over some, since I'm sitting here with Physical and Historical Geology courses (my major), Ahtropology, Paleontology, Botany and Zoology courses as well under my belt and forgive me, but I'm having a frustrated scientist moment. Please check out the writings of Stehen Jay Gould to learn what evolution really is http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library.html Please also understand the Hardy-Weinberg Principle when talking about population evolution (sorry about the spelling error before on that name) http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyP ages/H/Hardy_Weinberg.html Lastly, on a seemingly offtopic note, but equally as frustrating: for those of you who keep bringing up gods, creationism, and intelligent design and may wish it in our schools or discussed, it already is at the college level. It is a philosophy course on the "Teleological Argument" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument Sorry all. After reading all of these posts and making some of my own, I had to get that off my chest. I will probably suffer being moderated down for this, but I'm willing to take that. Kind of makes me feel like I'm a part of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" if it happens really. http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm Yes, science is a candle in the dark, please, don't hit it with your Bible.

Nobody should be allowed to comment on religion and science without first reading and understanding the late Stephen Jay Gould's essay, Nonoverlapping Magisteria (aka, NOMA).

It's very clear that when religion goes head to head with science, religion loses - because science is defined by what works . NOMA articulates the boundaries that intelligent, thoughtful people can use, between the realms where science is valid and where religion is valid.

If you're interested, the rest of the essay is here:

"Evolution as Fact and Theory", Stephen Jay Gould
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_fact- and-theory.html

Bacteria are already used to synthesize organic materials by reprogramming their DNA. For example, some antivirals and antibiotics are manufactured this way; the desired pattern is injected into the bacteria's genome and it will then produce that pattern. Venter's project is really just an extension of that approach.

I have doubts as to the likelihood of success using present science; in twenty years, perhaps it will be possible, but today it's really casting about in the dark. Even something as elemental as a bacteria is an incredibly complex thing, with a sophisticated genome and complex organelles working in biochemical harmony to reproduce, to "mate" by conjoining with other bacteria, and to adapt and thrive in a very wide variety of conditions.

Bacteria have been around for billions of years and, as Stephen Jay Gould put it, we are living in the Age of Bacteria. In a few short years it seems unlikely that even brilliant scientists can recreate these things. Modify some, yes, but completely create from scratch something that is going to be viable--well, that's going to be interesting to see.

That said, if they can pull it off the possibilities of its use, for good or evil, are endless. They can be encoded to synthesize all sorts of compounds, eat nasty pollutants, generate fossil fuels, attack disease microbes, or be diseases themselves. Luckily, the human body has a pretty comprehensive immune system that will adapt to just about anything except retroviruses like AIDS that reprogram the immune system itself.

Einstein was not "very religious", he was agnostic. From Autobiographical Notes (bolding mine)*:

Thus I came -- though the child of entirely irreligious (Jewish) parents -- to a deep religiousness, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of twelve. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true.

As for your assertion about the lack of correlation between intelligence and religion, most studies point to a negative correlation:

All but four of the forty-three polls listed support the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with degree of religious faith; i.e., that, other factors being equal, the more intelligent a person is, the less religious he is.

From the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Would you please not take thing out of context, and then misquote them, for instance it is not religion"." it is religion";"

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

If you read the whole thing some people would interpet it that we are not a christian country that attacks Muslum countries. It could be used to afirm that the U.S. is a christian nation.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli .html

Yes I am aware that this web page does not support this statement, but I am too lazy to find another one that does and has the full text of the treaty, :P

One of us is confused, and I'm not too arrogrant to admit that it could be me.

Confused is probably not the best word. I would just say that you probably have not followed the ID arguments to their logical conclusions in the scientific context.

But my understanding of ID is as stated above, that they embrace evolution by design (ignoring all the other absurdities for the moment). One other poster below this thread has noted the same distinction. I believe you are confusing "them" with "us", which was the reason for my initial post. Have a look at what they say again... at what the ID official stance is. I will happily admit if I'm wrong, but I think you'll find that's what they say.

Actually what most of them say is that they believe in some natural selection, but irreducibly complex systems show evidence of being designed by an intelligence.

The problem is, what they are saying is meaningless in a scientific context. If a piece of evidence contradicts an existing theory, the entire theory is wrong. For example if there was incontrovertible evidence that an "intelligent designer" had affected the development of life (if, say, we found a ©God symbol imprinted on the optic nerve), it would not just invalidate natural selection with respect to the eye, it would invalidate the theory of natural selection completely.

See, science is based on some ultra-basic theories. One of those is that the natural laws of our universe have not changed over time and don't change from place to place. It says that an electron had a charge of 1.60217646 × 10^19 coulombs 600 million years ago, that it does now both here and 100 million light years away, and that it will 100 million years from now. General relativity, quantum mechanics, the strong and weak forces--these elementary processes and forces are inherent, constant attributes of space time. So far this theory has not been disproven. We continue to refine our understanding of these attributes, and who know, maybe new ones will be discovered. But we haven't see evidence that they shift over time.

Biology is no different. The base principles of genetic heredity and natural selection are held to be the same for a virus and for a human. The only difference is the complexity of the system; obviously the simpler system is easier to study and model, just as it's easier to study the properties of elementary particles by smashing them into each other a few at a time. BUT, the processes are the same when there are 10 trillion atoms as when there are 2.

In other words, scientifically, it's all or nothing. Either a theory explains a fundamental process, or it is wrong. Either life is shaped by natural forces or by supernatural forces; both cannot be true simultaneously. If you believe that supernatural forces over-rode natural force to shape life, then scientifically what you are asserting is that supernatural forces are capable of trumping any natural phenomena...in other words, supernatural omnipotence.

Intelligent design is a Creationist argument because by intelligently designing life structures, the omnipotent intelligent being (whoever he is!) is in effect bringing about its creation in a supernatural way.

I'm not arguing that YOU yourself believe in ID just because you believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis. Rather I'm saying that those who are promoting ID believe the same thing you do--they just hide it. They do not have the courage of their convictions to speak up honestly, and wrap their belief in the blanket of science to try to pass it off among the unwary.

This is not just based on their "theory" too...there is a sizable online paper trail that documents the development of ID...try here to start, if you're interested.

This is a ridiculous, even laughable perversion of the entire Bible. Obviously you've never read it or else you wouldn't reduce yourself to such error. You needn't step beyond th

You joke, but gravity is just a theory.

You are using the wrong definition of theory. Nothing is ever "just" a theory; a theory is the very pinnacle of truth, explaining numerous facts, data, and observations.

I was reading your site and thinking to myself, "Okay, so this is different than the usual take on the universe from creationists..."

And then I hit on the following line, and I realized you're taken in with the frauds just like the rest of your ilk.

The answer is as clear here as it is in dealing with the irreducible complexity and specified complexity that shatter the flawed theory of evolution.

Why irreducible complexity is wrong
Why specified complexity is wrong

It is clear that this inaccurate and defective theory is being pushed by secular scientists seeking to further their anti-religious agenda.

Nice whine. "Ohhh no! The scientists are persecuting us Christians!" Look at what is ACTUALLY happening in government and you'll see that the real truth is that the religious people in power are using the government to further their anti-science agenda. They've attacked science education, environmental preservation, global warming, stem-cell research, and sex education, amongst many others.

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"--part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science--that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

While you're up, check Immanuel Velikovsky too.

That quote's not from George Washington, not precisely. It's from the Treaty of Tripoli, which was passed under John Adams, and I don't think it was credited as having been written by any one government figure of the time. That said, it was quite unanimously accepted.

More here.

--grendel drago

Last night, I read the essay A Philosopher's Day in Court, by Michael Ruse, a philosophy professor and expert in evolution called by the ACLU's legal team to the 1981 challenge of the Arkansas law mandating equal time for creation science and evolution in classrooms. It's an absolutely thrilling read and apparently it was a wonderful debate; they called in all the experts and prepared a beautiful case, putting together all the stuff that's often not available in casual debate. They had experts on radiocarbon dating, biology, the philosophy of science . . . by the time the defendents got to Stephen Jay Gould, the final witness, they didn't even have the energy for half an hour of cross-examination. Gould was terribly disappointed.

It's wonderful to read, a great story of rationality and science triumphing over ignorance and propaganda. The text doesn't seem to be available online, but you should be able to track down the essay. I found it in the collection Science and Creationism, edited by Ashley Montagu, which has a number of other essays -- including a particularly scathing denunciation and call to arms by Isaac Asimov. Great stuff.

(Note: when googling for specific text, I just learned, sometimes the "omitted results" are precisely what you want; the Asimov article only showed up there.)

Err... I thought evolution was a theory, rather than a fact.

No, evolution is a fact. The effect has been observed in bacteria and in some insects. The reason it has been observed in those living creatures is because they have extremely short reproductive cycles. That means in the past 100 years we have observed new species that are significantly different from their ancestors and better suited to their environment. A very simple example is certain bacteria that have evolved to become more resistant to antibiotics.

Evolution is also a theory. How can evolution be both fact and theory? It is a matter of context. Although evolution itself is a fact, there are many explanations that try to explain the mechanisms of evolution. Those explanations are collectively the theories of evolution. The best known theory of evolution is called Natural Selection. Another theory of evolution is that humans, apes and chimpanzees have evolved from a common ancestor. That's often the theory that gets the fundamentalists upset.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote a rather good essay he called Evolution as Fact and Theory. He describes all this far more eloquently and precisely than I have here. It should be mandatory reading for anybody who says evolution is not a fact, even educated people like yourself who do understand that evolution is a valid theory.

It's true that LitCrit professor are not physicists. Nor do/did they claim to be. They deferred to someone who really was in a position to share expert knowledge, and put it in a context of postmodernist theory.

The postmodernist literary criticism school of thought held that all forms of human understanding were best understood through the microscope of literary criticism. That is, literary symbols and imagery were supposedly a valuable way to study sociology (especially gender and race relations), politics, and even the 'hard' sciences such as physics.

So you had Jacques Lacan writing:

"Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of enjoyment, not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as a part lacking in the desired image. [...] That is why it is equivalent to the square root of minus one of the signification produced above, of the enjoyment that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of the lack of signifier -1."

Or, from Katherine Hayles, a proponent of the philosopher Luce Irigaray:

"The privileging of solid over fluid mechanics, and indeed the inability of science to deal with turbulent flow at all, she attributes to the association of fluidity with femininity. Whereas men have sex organs that protrude and become rigid, women have openings that leak menstrual blood and vaginal fluids... From this perspective it is no wonder that science has not been able to arrive at a successful model for turbulence. The problem of turbulent flow cannot be solved because the conceptions of fluids (and of women) have been formulated so as necessarily to leave unarticulated remainders."

In short, you mischaracterising Sokal's complaint and the whole point of his hoax.

For more details, please see this book review by Richard Dawkins.

Evolution is both a theory and a fact. The process of evolution is a fact, because it's describing observed behavior (mutation, speciation, etc). The theory of evolution encompasses good old natural selection (the aggregate effect of random genetic mutations "selected" by fitness over time), which is the mechanism by which the process of evolution occurs.

I wrote this slightly more verbose post a while back with additional links and information. Here's a quote from Stephen Jay Gould, which summarizes the issue in a fairly succinct (albeit opinionated) manner:

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact" part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus the power of the creationist argument: evolution is "only" a theory and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is worse than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory natural selection to explain the mechanism of evolution.

Source: Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

The URL you're looking for probably includes a list of observed speciation examples. Talk Origins has a couple of pages with examples of observed speciation, both natural and induced (artificial):

• Speciation FAQ
• More Examples of Observed Speciation

Hope this helps...

Some pages on the topic of Einstein's statements about god and religon:

http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~lesikar/einstein/p ersonal.html
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einstei n.html
http://www.skeptic.com/archives50.html
http://www.2think.org/einstein.shtml

If you look at it on a cosmic/universal scale (I'm assuming there is intelligent life elsewhere), then yes man's actions are normal given our current state of evolution.

But from the view point of simple natural selection on Earth (the universe excluded) it is not. For the first time in the history of the evolution of the Earth, there is one species which has the knowledge to change its own course of evolution (genetics/gene therapy). Thus we are in a way directly interfering with natural selection. Man has the capability to control nature by manipulating the very thing which codes for its diversity, that is DNA/RNA.

Back when I was at the university, reknowned biologist Stephen Jay Gould gave a talk regarding natural selection and history. During the question and answer session a bright student asked him the very same question ..are we not changing our own evolution and the process of natural selection? This seemed to anger him quite a bit. He couldn't even think about it logically/academically and began to try to refute it without any supporting evidence.

• Hitler's Christianity: by James Walker
  
• Hitler Was Not An Atheist: by John P. Murphy
  Religion and the Holocaust: by Richard E. Smith
  
• itler: Christian, Atheist, or Neither?: by Dean Mischewski
  
• Was Hitler an Atheist or a Theist? More Importantly, Who Cares?: by Mark Vuletic
  
• Copin' with Copan: The Defense of Zacharias that Fails: by Doug Krueger
  
• Hitler Aims Blow at 'Godless' Move: Lansing State Journal
  
• Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII: by John Cornwell
  
• Was Hitler A Christian?: by Solid Rock Ministries