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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."
"...structure of the universe, the creation of planets and the foundations of life itself..."
:)
My ultra religious in-laws visiting me this week are in for a little torture tonight
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Cue rabid fundamentalists... NOW!
...But will they solve the riddle of why two socks go into the dryer and only one comes out?
Maybe they will have an introduction by an anamatronic Carl Sagan.
Don't groan, both meat sack Sagan and robo Sagan are made of 'star stuff'.
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.
"It's a simple question, if the moon were made of ribs ... would ya eat it? ...I know I would."
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
And, of course, for those who are interested in yet more alternative views, and more "fascinating information", here are some other nice links, as helpful as the above one:
http://www.flat-earth.org/
www.timecube.com
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.
Recording this show and watching it during each Presidential debate. You will become an astrophysicisist, and well the new President will be, ahhh....., well....., new.
Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
I just finished reading Bill Bryson's A Brief History of Nearly Everything which covers just about the exact same topics. It starts out with the creation of the universe, and works itself forward in the timeline, covering formation of the planet, early life, cambrian explosion, etc. until it ends up with the advent of homo sapien. Not a bad read.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
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.
You should be able to find in on torrent sites like suprnova.org within a few days.
*Fortitudo, aequitas, fidelitas.*
The Ship of the Imagination is now boarding for destination "My chances of ever getting laid"!
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spoiler warning! do not read below. If you do, you'll be disappointed that you already know how the show will end before you've even seen it. Well now that we're able to get past the lameness filter, here's the answer (scroll down...)
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Answer: 42
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!
If you miss the show, you can still get it on DVD and VHS sometime around November 15th from here.
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???Increasing numbers of scientists are rejecting Darwinian macroevolution due to lack of evidence.
And two of them are biologists.
Real biologists other than the fabulously foolish punctuationalist (and Marxist character assassin of E.O. Wilson) Stephen Jay Gould don't distinguish "macroevolution" from "microevolution". The "Cambrian explosion" is a mere artifact caused because organisms existing before the Cambrian didn't have shells that readily fossilize.
The explanatory power of neo-Darwinism has the potential to finally give us power over our own lives, and predictably, Michael Behe and his ilk are still making the "Argument from Personal Incredulity": "I can't conceive how an eye ^W^W a partial rotor could be favored by natural selection, so, since I can't figure it out, there must be a God ^W^W an Intelligent Designer."
Two hundred years ago William Paley couldn't conceive of how such an instrument of perfection as an eye could be formed by the blind processes of natural selection -- and he had a decent excuse, he lived before Darwin; but today we have the Darwinian model and today we have credible computer model of precisely how an eye could evolve, and how even rudimentary and partial eyes can be advantageous to an organism. There's no longer a credible excuse to prefer superstition.
So the "Intelligent Design" crowd waves their hands and says, well, ignore those eyes, but what about free-spinning rotors powering bacterial flagella? What about them? A partial rotor able to rotate through only, say, 180 degrees is still advantageous to any bacterium that needs to move.
Three billion years of evolution gives plenty of time -- and plenty of trials that didn't work out so well, to explain the variety of life of earth.
If you need the security blanket of a God, well, enjoy it. But don't pretend your emotional needs are science.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
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.
James Ussher (1581-1656) Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland, Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, etc. established the first day of creation as Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. He did this through calculation of the many "begats"in the Bible as well as correlation with Middle Eastern history. His calculations were actually incorporated into an authorized version fo the Bible published in 1701. If you google his name be sure to spell it "Ussher".
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
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.
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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?
I have been through those arguement a lot. Knowing a lot of fundies from being in a baptist congregation. I'd have to say none of them have a single clue about science. The ones who argue for creationism here are more intelllegent but have no idea how ludicrous their arguments sound to 1- a statician 2- a biologist 3- logistician 4- geneticist. I am a little of each and it sounds liek utter BS even though I'm a baptists.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
This is not practiced by the catholic church.
Your definition of creationism being something like "God created / is the cause of the universe etc." is not in conflict with science.
Fundamentalists believe that everything was created exactly (not figuratively) as it says in Genesis. If you believe in the Big Bang or that the Earth is more than 5000 years old etc. then you are not a fundamentalist.
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.