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Origins Mini-Series Airs Tonight
SeaDour writes "The much-anticipated NOVA mini-series Origins begins tonight on PBS (check local listings for time). Hosted by Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, the ambitious show plans to journey all the way to the Big Bang and back again, "blending astrophysics, geology, chemistry, biology and even paleontology to knit together insights about the structure of the universe, the creation of planets and the foundations of life itself." MSNBC has an interesting write-up on the show that's been four years in the making."
I have to say I have low expectations for this since when I did go to the Hayden Planetaium at the NY Natural History Museum (it was featured in KPAX). The show sucked.
They have the huge star machine, and it was only used for like 5 minutes out of the hour long show. The rest was just LCD projectors projecting video on the dome. It was so dumbed down I think even public school students could understand.
When you have a kick ass setup and location like the Hayden you should really give awe-inspiring shows that have a modest amount of educational value for someone who has a post-secondary education. Not stupid stuff narrated by Harrison Ford.
All in all the Hayden sucked.
make me glad we still have Public Television. Sure, we have things like the Discovery Channel, but even that suite of networks has been taken over by ratings. I've noticed that the most recent documentaries are somewhat shallow, and sound bite driven. The Learning Channel used to be great, seems like all they have on now are wedding planner shows and interior decorating. What does that have to do with learning? I'm not claiming PBS is the greatest channel in the world, but at least they still value education.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
You mis-speak before you even finish your first sentence. The problem for people who cannot accept the process of theory, evidence, new theory is that their position has no foundation upon which to rest. The overwhelming body of evidence does not support their fringe theories. This bothers them to no end so they try to frame evolution as but one "point of view." It is not a point of view, it is a theory that is backed up by a huge body of evidence. Creationism is not an "equal" belief - it is a belief that has no concrete evidence behind it.
Probably a mindless troll, but I'll bite. WTF !?!? Science is science, period. It's only 'liberal' in the narrow mindset of people who think the earth is 4000 years old, and the fossil record is a trick by god to test someone's faith. It's called liberal because some people get so defensive when it points out the errors in their misguided, fantastical, untestable notions they cling to -- since the universe is too complex or scary to them.
The great thing about science is it doesn't have a preconceived notion to hold onto - if a theory is sound it holds up, if not, it is replaced or adjusted with further testing and observation by the originator or other scientists. Science itself does not have an agenda like an institution such as the vatican does.
Now, trying to teach 'creationism' in schools as anything but pure fiction, THAT'S political.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Scientific theories [should] have no relation to political alignments.
What you and the previous responses seem to ignore about the parent is the fact that he did not say anything about evolution at all.
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
The problem with apologetics is that they attack the same areas of uncertainty inherent in all of the natural sciences. But due to the fact that evolution speaks to the origin of man, it is the one held to the highest standard of consistency.
The field of physics is full of contradictions and surprises. Not many fundementalist organizations take issue with electronics, for instance, and how the theoretical foundations of the science make your computer work.
Most criticisms of evolution attack the scientific method without completely understanding it.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Sagan criticized the Cold War, and so he would criticize the misguided "war on terror" (which followed decades of propping up fundamentalist regimes to combat communism). The way to bring peace to the world is to lead by example, to educate, to promote free speech, to restrict the proliferation of all types of weapons, to reduce inequality, and to limit corporate meddling in other nations' affairs.
But of course science and politics are completely unreleated according to today's standards. I fear all we can hope for from this series is a watered down version of the science and none of the politics. With that attitude, is it any wonder that just three months ago, 48 Nobel Prize winners complained that "the Bush administration is undermining the nation's future by impeding medical advances, turning away scientific talent with its immigration practices and ignoring scientific consensus on global warming and other critical issues"? [source] Sadly, most scientists only bother to speak out when it is too late, if even then.
Okay, so I'm going OT on this but it has to be said. There really needs to be some way in /. to allow raising the view-priority of a parent post based on some selection in the child post. Take the parent post as an example. On my screen it looked like DAldredge (2353) was replying to spin2cool (651536). When clicking on spin2cool's home, I see a nice reasonable home page -- nothing controversial. In reality however, DAldredge is replying to the (hidden on my screen) ancestor suso (153703), whose home page seems to be advocating Communism as if it were a new idea.
/. would be for DAldredge to have a check box during a reply post to tell my viewing of the page to raise the parent up a bit so that I can see the thread correctly. This happens a lot when browsing at score 3 for me and constantly clicking on Parent to make sure I understood the context is getting annoying.
My wish list item for
Anyway, enough of my whining. I just had to get that off my chest.
What is the problem with alternative explanations for natural phenomena that we observe? The concrete evidence we have is what we can measure, from a strictly scientific point of view. Evolutionary theory puts the pieces together to determine our origin as starting from simple building blocks building up to complex ones, while creationary theory assumes we all started complex and explains the observations from there. People seem to get riled up over the assumption, but I haven't read that many arguments against the explanations (there are a few, I know.)
Looking at Darwin's case study... Not being a biologist, it is hard for me to determine the extent that evolution shapes the animal environment versus natural selection. If you started with a whole bunch of species, it's not too hard to imagine the best species adaptable to their environment sticking around and surviving. I know the evolution argument... that's what I grew up on.
Another hot topic is actually *questioning* carbon dating (gasp!)... what is the accuracy of carbon dating? Would what the site asserts (Each system has to be a closed system; that is, nothing can contaminate any of the parents or the daughter products while they are going through their decay process) be true? I would really appreciate it if people on both sides got more to defending their sides than just saying "This isn't true."
Come on. There's real questions, observations, and theories out there. Stop trying to box the scientific questions that a study of creationism can pose into mere fables. And creationists should stop trying to say that evolution was completely invented either... but you can understand the resistance when that's all that's been taught for the last 40 years.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
Sigh. Creationists are like Uri Geller, thinking that if they rub Paley's Watch enough it will start ticking again. "Intelligent design" is just the latest variant.
That's because physics is an experimental science. Archaeology, anthropology and paleontology are not.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
I must have missed that part. Can you refer me to the relevent episode?
criticized religious fundamentalism and pseudoscience,
That doesn't sound political to me, as those mindsets are the antithesis of pure science
and warned of the dangers of nuclear war
Sagan did have this on his agenda, though it was usually only implied in passing remarks. Still it doesn't seem very political.
Mixing science and politics is dangerous. Science should remain agnostic to the prevailing political climate, or it risks being subject to that ever-changing climate.
Doesn't that imply a Creator?
Oh, you're talking about the formation of the planets!
Croporations do not want educated populaces, as educated people are bound to be critical and will question endlessly public policies.
This is one reason why the USA is extremely religious, because organized ignorance is the best way of having docile populations that will not thwart the powerful people who dominate it for their own benefit. Kings have known for centuries that religion is the best way to prop-up authoritarian regimes who let a small elite rip-off the rest of the population.
As of peace, what better way than war to make people endure far more than they would consider accepting in times of peace???There is already one glaring flaw on the opening page:
(begin quote)
The theory of evolution depends upon three conditions.
1. Life Happens
2. Creative Mutations
3. Lots of Time
Let's look at each of these conditions, one at a time.
(end quote)
They left out recombinatorial DNA (sex). This is an important element of evolution. It allows more efficient "non-fatal" experiments than pure mutations would. It is especially helpful for more complex organisms.
Table-ized A.I.
The scientific method allows us to conjecture, observe, test, and accept or reject based on how well our ideas pan out. Anyone willing to make the effort can do this. It works.
The bedrock of science is that an idea or hypothesis is falsifiable. That is, one does not assume the outcome in the phrasing of the question.
Scentific creationism violates this principle because the root of creationism is the belief in the inerrancy of the literal interpretation of the biblical account of creation. Once the answer has been assumed, what is the point of the question?
Evolution did not develop this way, rather it was developed by many scientists who asked the basic question, "What is the origin of life?" The answer is not assumed, as in creationism.
At any time scientists may develop theories that question or even contradict evolution based on the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, prediction, experimentation and refinement or refutation of the original observation. We haven't found compelling evidence to do so, but there is nothing in science that says evolution is the end all be all. Science is self correcting in that any evidence along the chain of discovery that refutes the original observations will cause the process to begin again. This process is conspicously absent from scientific creationism, which seems wholy concerned with finding evidence to invalidate evolution and boolster creationism, however tenuous.
It is sad, really, that some people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. I think the problem stems from the belief that science has something to say about religion, and religion has something to say about science.
Arguing that because something is complex it must have been created by "intelligent being" (i.e. God) is not an acceptable scientific argument and would disqualify him in "pursuite of knowledge using accepted scientific principle". It is like saying "because I don't understand how rain forms, it must be God's tears" - no difference in fundamental logic. Just pointing out weanknesses in evolution won't do it either because its strength so overwhelming (how it fits with almost every scientific field from Astronomy to Geology to Zoology) that minor discrepancies (if you could even call it that), does nothing to devalue it. That my friend is how science works - truth prevails (after many years of trials and tribulations and proofs). Not by some wackos who submit conjectures (unproven) and call it a theory (proven).
It's just a theory guys, like the other ones. Sure I think holographic theory and some of the others are cool too, but you need to watch out for all the "the establishment doesn't believe in my work" lines those guys throw out. Seriously, holographic theory made the cover of Scientific American last year. So don't go calling a popular theory with a lot of evidence behind it "misinformation". It may turn out to be wrong in the end, but the people putting it on aren't trying to mislead anyone.
-sig removed for tax purposes-
For example, evolution. There are still lots of unanswered problems with this theory. In a few years, there will likely be a few changes to this theory, as the data improves.
Yes, it's true that there are controversies within evolution and biology that need to be worked out, just as there are in, say, reconciling quantum physics with relativity. But these are advanced topics that teachers generally don't have time to get to in K-12 science classes.
Just b/c Newton didn't get everything right doesn't mean we don't teach the commonly accepted Theory of Gravity. (Those who are interested can learn more about relativity on their own.) And just b/c there are still unanswered questions in biology doesn't mean that schoolkids shouldn't learn the standard model of Darwinian evolution. After they've learned enough of the fundamentals, they can then start reading about advanced topics in biology and see what the thornier issues are.
At the K-12 level, there is NOTHING that should be controversial about the Modern Synthesis, which combined Darwinism and Mendelian genetics more than half a century ago. All evidence over the last 50 years from molecular biology, developmental biology, and paleontology has simply strengthened the Synthesis.
Why does biology need to meet a higher standard of evidence than other sciences?
Big Bang theory predicted 3' Kelvin background cosmic radiation. And what do you know, when they measured background radiation of the universe, it turned out to be 3' Kelvin. That, my ignorant friend, is how a conjecture becomes a theory and how science works. Just because you call it a theory, does not make it a theory. In science, theory is something that is proven by the facts. Come back to me Intelligent Design predict something and it is proven to be true.
I'm sorry, did somebody observe a Big Bang while I wasn't looking? How can you observe "universal physical laws" and relate them to the Big Bang if the Big Bang was an extraordinary event (i.e. doesn't happen every millenia, or even every year)? Answer: you can't. The Big Bang is a "theory" that has not been observed in nature, so there's no way of telling whether it actually happened or not. Yes, you can conjecture this and that and look at various gases and the like, but there's no hard proof that it happened.
What gets *my* goat is that people call the Big Bang a theory, but get mad when people say that it's only a theory. Huh? The Big Bang requires just as much faith as does the existence of God.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
1) You can't observe him!!
2) You can't test him!!
3) You can't repeat him!!
That's a red herring. It has nothing to do with the conversation.
My point is that there are people that accept the THEORIES of evolution and the Big Bang as "fact", when they cannot be repeated.
Repeating tests are nice, in that they show that the subject reacts the same way when a certain set of steps are done, but it doesn't prove anything by itself.
REPEATABLE means that one should be able to start at a point and do things to DUPLICATE what is being observed. Creating the universe from nothing, for example, has never been duplicated, and is therefore not repeatable. Nobody has ever created one species out of another.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
How about a correlation of my own? Are you familiar with the term "bread and circuses"? The Roman Empire propped up corrupt regime after insane emperor by providing the populace with the finest in debauchery and cruel diversions. They also, in a proto-socialist manner, made sure that the roman citizens (tough luck on the conquered) were provided for.
This is the exact sort of "empire" the left wants to build in America.
Your way makes no sense unless a hereditary regime is in power.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Are you suggesting that the Theory of Evolution is more solid than electronics?
Yes. Some electronic devices work, some don't -- but no matter what antibiotic you want to use, bacteria will evolve resistance. This isn't a matter of faith. Perhaps evolution was only a theory in Darwin's day, but you can sequence bacteria from a culture before exposure to antibiotics and after and you'll see genetic change -- that's evolution. Evolution's an experimental science now.
Where, unfortunately, "undereducated" means we think anything which breaches our a priori assumptions about the nature of the universe is dumb.
By that standard, most people, most scientists are "undereducated". For the longest time geology avoided anything that smelled of catastrophism, paleontology avoided anything that smelled of a flood, and astronomy avoided anything that smelled of structure.
For good scientific reasons? Not a bit of it. Because they were afraid of being labelled as one of the enemy, those insidious creationists, and ostracised like J Harlan Bretz was for 40 years.
A very highly qualified scientists have been brave enough to state outright that they are not impartial, like Richard Lewontin and his famous "cannot let a Divine Foot in the door" statement, but they are the exception.
The result in each of the above cases was that the science in question was held back by decades.
Meanwhile, one D Russell Humphreys had made some fairly specific predictions (in 1984) about the magnetic fields Voyager would find in the outer planets, which turned out to be both bang on the money and well wide of any other expectations when those fields were measured two years after publication. One of the more spectacular demonstrations that this "alien" and "impossible" perspective has predictive, scientific merit.
Anyone wondering why more such papers don't appear in the mainstream scientific press need only turn to the furor which exploded when the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington published a carefully peer-reviewed paper from well-known Intelligent Design advocate, Stephen C. Meyer. The then-editor, Dr. Richard M. v. Sternberg (a double PhD with many published articles himself), goes to great lengths on his website to explain that every positive scientific and journalistic step of the process was followed for the paper and had been independently verified and approved by highly qualified scientists before publication.
It is quite clear that the paper is being criticised on political/philosophical grounds, not because of any scientific merit or demerit.
The Origins show is based on philosophy, not on science. This is well and good except that it is presented as being purely based on science.
I need hardly point out that such misrepresentation is in itself unscientific, a meta-flaw under which to group all of the unscientific teleological statements about features "appearing" (ex nihilo, apparently) and organisms having "figured out" and "striving" to achieve "goals" without any guiding hand. Nevertheless, it will go ahead, and millions of viewers will be taught that random numbers have hidden intelligence and/or miracle-working ability which repeatedly transcends mere statistics, and introduced once more to a capricious goddess who goes by the name of Nature - all the while suffering the constantly asserted doublethink mantra that there is no supernature.
Meanwhile, back at Reasons , Hugh has had the more obvious inconsistencies and contradictions among his theories publicly pointed out to him
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I am happy to see other creationists, open-minded agnostics, or at least cynics of Darwinian evolution posting at /.. I personally hadn't thought much about the importance (or validity) of a literal, Biblical Genesis until a group at church (a non-denom church in Georgia at that) started watching Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis videos recently.
Since then, I've done some other research (Darwin's Black Box, Tornado in a Junkyard, articles from the Christian Research Institute, and so on.
Before the tired tirade of "fundamentalist / Christian wacko / moron / anti-science" begins, it is important to note that Christians can be scientists too, and visa versa. It seems to me that more and more credible, scientific evidence has scraped and scratched its way to the surface that calls out many of the theories that the secular world has taken for granted regarding the origins of the world, life, and intelligence. Without arguing nitty-gritty details, it is interesting enough to look at the questions of biochemical processes, discrepencies in geological and fossil records, the fundamental flaws in carbon dating, and the political motivations of secularists
This is obviously a poor attempt at a thoughtful statement, but I just wanted to throw a couple things out. I would encourage anyone with similar questions about discrepencies in carbon dating, fossilization, speciation, etc... would at least consider the scientific rebuttals to Darwin and other secularists.
I just think it is silly to have the scientific community launch on the religious fanatics and vice versa.
:)
In fact, the best would be for the two groups to just leave each other alone. Science is science, religion is religion.
Science will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of a God or otherwise, and similarly it is not like religion is a substitute for science either. They both have their place in society. Problems only arrise when people in one camp start opposing those in the other camp.
Now, some scientific nuts may go smug and think "oh yeah we will, we'll show them!" but I really think it'd be futile. Not too sure about this, I'm talking out of my ass here, but once I heard a mathematician friend talking about some Gödel theory where it says that for a given system, there are conclusions that just can't be drawn just from the information within the system itself.
And humans are only a tiny part within a very huge system (the whole universe?)
For all we know God might actually be living on the far side of Andromeda and looking smugly at us through his quantum telescope. So that's how he appears to be omipotent to some!
Bah, whatever, anyhow I'm not a religious fanatic. Just my 0.00000002 cents. It's so worthless that there is no currency for it
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Alrighty then. What's your stand on the war in Iraq? Sure, Saddam was a bad guy...with all those WMDs...I mean, with all those ties to al Qaeda...I mean, he tried to hurt GWB's daddy!
Anyway, why divert tax dollars to take care of Saddam? If it's such a good idea, the private sector will just pick it up, right?
And what's with a department of homeland security and this tax money we're spending on intelligence? If there's really a terrorist threat, private security firms would be pouring MILLIONS into it.
And on the issue of EMBRYONIC stem cell research, GWB did not stop all federal funding. There is continuing funding for research with existing cell lines. If this is really such a dead end with no potential for practical applications, why continue funding? If an embryo really is a little person, why does GWB thing we should continue to experiment on them?
It's a bad idea to fund new cell lines, but a good idea to fund existing cell lines? Talk about a flip-flop. If GWB had been the first beat cop to Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment he would have stopped the killing, but let Dahmer finish eating the people already in the fridge.
Equating "religion" and "faith" doesn't take away from what faith is. It's the conviction of the preponderance of evidence.
Um, NO.
Faith is belief despite the absence of evidence, or even against available evidence.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I've always had aproblem with this viewpoint. You say: look at how complex life is! It couldn't have arisen by natural processes.
So you posit a God, Intelligent Designer, whatever, to be the entity that solves this little problem. It's perfectly simple you see, God did it (TM).
So now let me turn the question back on you: You mean there is a being intelligent and powerful enough to create all the life as we know it (and then some)? You can't escape the next question:
HOW THE HELL DID THIS BEING COME INTO EXISTENCE???
Ahhh, but you say: "God doesn't need a creator, he/she/it is a self-existent entity." Well that's all fine and dandy, but now you have two little problems:
1) This is an ad-hoc response. You have absolutely no supporting evidence to back up this claim. That's it, argument over.
2) The very reason you have given for the need for God's existence is the complexity of life, but then you go and posit an even MORE complex entity to create life, yet refuse to apply your same argument to it. This is iconsistent.
Face it: you believe in God because you WANT TO, not because the evidence compels you. That's fine, but at least admit it.
Proper scientific theories provide a possible answer based upon observable phenomema, make predictions about possible future observations and provide tests that can confirm said theory.
The only explanation that ID provides is that something causes whole species to pop into existance - properly designed and fit for purpose of course.
We have changed whole regions of landmass to make them unfit for their original biological inhabitant - why hasn't something come along and inundated our metropolis' with some form of city-dwelling orangotan?
When we have to avoid stepping in urbanite monkey poo scientists will consider this a real contender.
I like genetic programming. I like the whole concept of genetic algorithms (GA). However, I think you are stretching things a little when you say they can be used to prove macroevolution. The fact that GAs provide a different way of tackling problems does not imply that this is the same way that nature tackles problems. GAs can be 'scary' until you understand them. Once you realize that any 'odd' results coming from them are necessarilly encoded in the solution space which you've provided, they get a lot less spooky.
We computer people tend to be myopic. I used to think that GAs provided a good analogy to biological evolution processes, too, but I now believe that there is a heck of a lot more going on in nature than GAs - and more than can ever be accounted for by GAs alone. There are deeper biological layers of complexity and processes at work here.
Nothing I (or the great-grandparent poster) said has anything to do with why the universe began. Assuming it's even meaningful to utter the phrase "when the universe began," then yes, when the universe began, entropy was lower than it is now. Whether the universe was created by some intelligent entity, or simply sprang into being for no reason whatsoever, or was born out of an egg lain by an enormous turtle, who knows? That's not what we're discussing, and whether or not evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics (it doesn't) has nothing to do with it!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Here's one reason not to believe it:
How did this nice valley we live in come to exist?
Religion: the gods carved it at the beginning of time.
Science: erosion.
What's that bright warm thing up in the sky?
Religion: that's the sun god!
Science: it's a star, like any other.
Where did all these animals come from?
Religion: one day, *poof*, there they were, and there's this cool story about a magic boat too...
Science: 3.5 billion years of evolution.
What caused the big bang?
Religion: Oh that's easy, our god did it.
Science: We dunno yet.
Ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf?
Cthulhu loves you.
That so many of those who accept evolution as true become so extremely irritated with those of us who do not. Why do you care whether we believe in evolution or creation?
I don't have a problem with you believing something bizarre and absurd. I have a problem with creationists who deliberately misrepresent and outright lie about the study of evolution to "refute" the theory. I have a problem with creationists who claim that evolution covers things like the origin of the universe and the ultimate origins of life when arguing against it. I have a problem with creationists who want to shove a religious agenda into a science classroom. I have a problem with creationists who want to construct a bizarre non-scientific explanation for the origin of the species and demanding that it be given equal time.
It's not the beliefs of creationists that bother me, it's their desire to foist their non-scientific beliefs into science classrooms and their patent dishonesty when attempting to support their agenda.
Now please, spare me the fallacious arguments regarding "belief". I'm not so stupid as to believe that "belief" that a chair will support my weight is the same as belief in a god. Please look up the equivocation fallacy.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!