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Kansas Challenges Definition of Science
nysus writes "Anti-evolutionists have made classrooms in Kansas a key battleground in America's culture war. Again. The New York Times reports they are proposing to change the definition of science in Kansas: 'instead of "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us," the new standards would describe it as a "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."'" From the article: "In the first of three daylong hearings being referred to here as a direct descendant of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, a parade of Ph.D.'s testified Thursday about the flaws they saw in mainstream science's explanation of the origins of life. It was one part biology lesson, one part political theater, and the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator."
It's nice to see they have taken "seeking" out of the definition, but it's too complicated. Science is easy. ...continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.
Science: The overcomplication of human perception.
Effective Treatment: Unknown
Suggested reading: Carlos Castaneda, because he's a total nut!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...if there is a "supernatural" creator or force that has created the Universe (and the confluence of circumstances that led to its creation from essentially manifestly nothingness, and also life itself, could be considered on what I'd call a "supernatural" scale itself, but that's another topic), why must the scientific processes that describe any such events, and any potential forces that may transcend our understanding of the physical world, have to be mutually exclusive?
Many years ago, a student in my 7th grade biology class asked specifically about creationism during our section on evolution. My biology teacher gave a very short, thoughtful, and diplomatic answer. His answer, after quite a long pause:
"Well, some might say that the Bible tells what God did, and science explains how he did it."
Now, looking back as an engineer and scientist by education, I have always found the simplicity of that statement compelling, and have never had any trouble reconciling whatever beliefs I have in notions that could be described as "supernatural" with scientific fact and sound scientific theory.
I think the problem you have is with the people who literally believe that a white-bearded man in a robe literally created the Universe and Earth in 6 days around 6000 years ago, and then created the life to go on on it, and who discount valid science wholesale. Even though "creationists", and people who believe my last statement, may use "intelligent design" as a tool to further their agendas, that's not my interpretation of "intelligent design".
Personally, I rather liked Picard's response in "Where Silence Has Lease":
DATA:
I have a question, sir. What is death?
PICARD:
You've picked probably the most difficult of all questions, Data.
There is the beginning of a twinkle in Picard's eyes again. It is the sort of question that his mind loves.
Some explain it by inventing gods wearing their own form... and argue that the purpose of the entire universe is to maintain themselves in their present form in an Earth-like garden which will give them pleasure through all eternity. And at the other extreme, assuming that is an "extreme," are those who prefer the idea of our blinking into nothingness with all our experiences, hopes and dreams only an illusion.
DATA:
Which do you believe?
PICARD:
Considering the marvelous complexity of our universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that... matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, pattern, I believe our existence must mean more than a meaningless illusion. I prefer to believe that my and your existence goes beyond Euclidian and other "practical" measuring systems... and that, in ways we cannot yet fathom, our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality.
Really: what's wrong with seeing the Universe and the wonderful complexity of everything from the scale of galaxies to the scale of atoms - or smaller - and our very lives as something more than the sum of its parts?
New Kansas Method:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As long as its nowhere near a science class.
Fix it - with your votes. Make sure the vote is counted and the databases aren't hacked though.
The USA is quickly becoming the laughingstock of the world. I mean - fellow Europeans - do you do anything but laugh when you read an article like this?
That entire school board should be fired. They're putting superstition before education. Mind you, when you have a well documented quote from George Bush saying "I think that, for example, on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth." I guess it sets the playing field for the kooks in Kansas to create a generation of drooling WalMart greeters...
Trolling is a art,
This makes me so angry, and more than a little sad.
"We're all afraid to change, and willing to fight against it. We don't want to have to admit that there are things we don't or can't understand. We need to be able to say 'This is absolutely true' if we're going to sleep at night."
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
disproving the existance of $deity in increments
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
I wonder how many of them were atheists... or biologists for that matter.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm a little confused. I don't see anything wrong with the definition above ! I beleive its more complete and doesn't seem to be pushing any creationism around !
This must be taught in our schools: "Before time began there was no heaven, no earth and no space between. A vast dark ocean washed upon the shores of nothingness and licked the edges of night. A giant cobra floated on the waters. Asleep within its endless coils lay the Lord Vishnu. He was watched over by the mighty serpent. Everything was so peaceful and silent that Vishnu slept undisturbed by dreams or motion. From the depths a humming sound began to tremble, Om. It grew and spread, filling the emptiness and throbbing with energy. The night had ended. Vishnu awoke. As the dawn began to break, from Vishnu's navel grew a magnificent lotus flower. In the middle of the blossom sat Vishnu's servant, Brahma. He awaited the Lord's command. Vishnu spoke to his servant: 'It is time to begin.' Brahma bowed. Vishnu commanded: 'Create the world.' A wind swept up the waters. Vishnu and the serpent vanished. Brahma remained in the lotus flower, floating and tossing on the sea. He lifted up his arms and calmed the wind and the ocean. Then Brahma split the lotus flower into three. He stretched one part into the heavens. He made another part into the earth. With the third part of the flower he created the skies. The earth was bare. Brahma set to work. He created grass, flowers, trees and plants of all kinds. To these he gave feeling. Next he created the animals and the insects to live on the land. He made birds to fly in the air and many fish to swim in the sea. To all these creatures, he gave the senses of touch and smell. He gave them power to see, hear and move. The world was soon bristling with life and the air was filled with the sounds of Brahma's creation."
Kansas: state who seeks to overcomplicate the definition of science. The current definition is fine, and a much better explanation then that boiler-plate, chopped up scientific method.
Yet another jackass writer who says that intelligent design is the new and emerging idea. Well, lets see here, when did Darwin propose his ideas? The 1800s? When did Christianity or any other religion have it's creation myths, ideas, believes, what-have-you? Thousands of years? Yeah, all this sounds about right.
Those intelligent design people may be wrong, evolution may have happened, there may be no God (my opinions will kept to myself), but these jackass writers need to go back and learn history before they call one a newcommer.
The thing that I have never really understood about the anti-evolution Christian types is why it matters to them if their kids understand what the rest of the world is thinking? Its like the goal is absolute ignorance of everything not in the Bible. Nothing that I read in the Bible supports that viewpoint. Can anyone explain this?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Kansas Challenges Definition of Science...Rest of World Changes Definition of Monkey.
Maybe I need to check my eyes, but what about that definition even suggests a "supreme being"?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
But if a great portion of hte population finds that the theory of evolution has too many holes in it for them to believe 100%, they have every right to pursue another explaination for life on earth that they find more plausible. They really do. And in the end, it really IS NOT hurting you if they do.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
If everything of any significant complexity was deliberately created, who created the creator?
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
This story touches a nerve -- why is there no dialogue on whether or not creationism and evolution are compatible. I personally believe they are. Consider this: some translations of the bible (Old Testament) translate "day" to "epoch" so when they say that God created everything in 7 "days" it could really mean 7 "epochs". Besides, why take everything so litterally? I think religion evolved in an attempt to explain the unexplanable (ie, why the sun rises, the stars, water, fire, life, death, etc).
Seem to me if these people in Kansas would drop their silly campaign of trying to undermind science and look to expand their understanding of their beliefs then it'd be a whole lot easier to get along.
Hey, I have no problem with people having faith in their religion, or believing things according to faith. But that's all it is - faith.
If you want to teach creationism, do it in religious studies class, not science. Creationism or whatever euphemism you want to use (Intelligent Design) has no scientific basis at all. So by all means, if you want to teach it go ahead, but please don't do it in a science class. If you are willing to consider it as science, then I propose we should teach creation myths of every single culture in science class. I mean seriously... in this day and age it surprises me that people try to push creationism as a science.
Anyway, here is a good site that includes rebuttals to a lot of creationist arguments:
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cefac.htm
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I guess speaking the truth can be painful, eh Grub?
My biggest complaint with Intelligent Design and other creationist arguments is that it doesn't really answer the question of origin. It just moves it.
If we decide a supernatural power created us and everything we see, where did the supernatural power come from? We haven't answered the question of how the universe came to exist.
Ever been to Kansas (you know, the state where this trial is taking place)? It's SO FLAT there that there is nothing to obstruct your view (like hills and mountains). Basically, everyone there is crazy because the can see to infinity, which would drive anyone mad. "We're so crazy, we ignore observation and reproducible scientific evidence!"
In Kansas, you can watch your dog run away for ten days.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...another argument against government school in the US.
Saying 'I'm part of a continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena' will be a pussy magnet line when she asks what you do for a living.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Let's just say for the sake of argument that we all agree that the Judeo-Christian "God" does exist, and created the world. (Work with me here; it's a valid hypothesis.)
...or...
Which would be more exemplary of the sort of omniscient, omnipotent God portrayed by religious leaders:
* A God who created an imperfect world, then constantly had to intervene to set things right due to flaws in the design...
* A God intelligent enough to come up with "interesting" laws of physics that were not only self-consistent, but allowed for the formation of intelligent life capable of making free-will decisions. To paraphrase Einstein, perhaps God not only plays dice with the Universe, but built this randomness in so that free will *could* exist.
(After all, He'd already know all of the possible scenarios that would result from all the choices we *could* make, so He could still be omniscient and omnipotent...)
Is there really a NEED to go against what thousands of scientific observations have shown us -- just to justify a very narrow, limited view of God?
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Science isn't defended via cross-examinations.
Science is defended via hypothesis and experimentation.
"Open the pod by doors, Hal" > "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" sudo "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" > alright
If you look at the universe as a whole it is much more than a story thought up in a time a few thousand years ago, when it was fashion just to make up a creationist story (every religion back than had this simply story of a being or a number of beings doing that one way or the other, some had it by describing the act of birth). The funny thing is, that the universe as a whole and evolution does not exclude god at all, even the Catholic Church admits that and accepts the first bang theory within the scope of the catholic view of the creation. Creationists just dont have the mental scope of being able to recognize that the universe and thus the creation itself does not exlude god, but is far bigger and wonderful, than what a tribal man around 3000 years ago could think of and thus ended in the Tora and Bible. Creationists are just stupid hardliners which try to find god by ignoring the greatness of gods creation by being stubborn and stupid, guess that sums it up best in their own words :-)
Private schools are parochial (religious) schools are super hot in Kansas. Booming enrollment.
I figure that if the state can figure out a way to force as many people as possible to go to private schools to get their kids a real education, instead of the mess that the state serves up, they get to continue collecting the taxes, but will have fewer kids to educate. Free money!
Thats probably not their goal, but they sure seem to be heading that way.
Seriously, I wonder about Kansas sometimes. The people I know don't seem backwards and closed minded, yet the legislation that keeps getting passed is like a trip back to the dark ages.
Who cares what the intent is of the group proposing the change. If the reality is a wording that is clearer and more complete, is that not better?
I have yet to see arguments against the new wording as compared to the old. It seems that if you mention religion some people just fly off the handle and rational thought goes out the window, from otherwise logical folk.
Judge the wording on the merits and don't dismiss it out of hand.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wouldnt it be a lot better, for "intelligent design' to be part of a Philosophy class? I.D. doesn't hold up to modern day biological science. The crux of it from what I gather (boiled down and very generic) is that the odds of the all in compassing awesomeness that is mankind just seems very unlikely to occur naturally.
;)
To which biologists and evolutionists basically reply "Yeah, holy shit it is very unlikely, and it is still very amazing, but here are the truckloads of scientific evidence that does infact support evolution, which makes the awesomeness that is mankind all the more amazing."
I.D. is a pseudo-science and should be adapted to be taught in a Philisophy (itself a pseduo science) class. It seems to me that everyone can be categorized into three types:
Those who believe that, regardless of what means lead to humans, there had to be some basic starting point and creation of basic matter that makes us up and the universe.
Those who believe that basic matter always existed, that we as humans have a hard time of believing in a concept of "no begining", that matter "always existed".
And of course, there is the last group of people that don't give a shit really
But seriously, shouldnt the debate be philosophical, as the debate I have laid out, truly (I hope can be agreed upon by all parties) can never be really 'solved'?
It would seem for all the intelligence attributed to their creator is insufficient to allow for the idea the he created evolution. Their tactics sicken me, let's please do all we can to stop this.
I promise to give Intelligent Design my full attention when one of its supporters can explain to me where the purported designer came from. If it was created by a meta-designer, where did *that* come from?
Show me how you can call ID an "explanation" rather than an exercise in infinite logical regression, and I'll consider it.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
I am very anti-creationist, but I actually like their definition more. It recognizies that there isn't always a "natural" answer to the problems that science faces given the current information. In fact, looking for natural answers can be very unscientific.
For example, the astronomers of yore tried to explain the planet movements with natural answers that were not based on good scientific methods. Same with the people who wrote the Bible. The new definition actually outlines the methods that are essential to science, such as experimentation and theories.
The big issue in U.S. science education is not evolution anyway, it's the lack of competent science teachers. K-12 teaching is simply not an attractive career to most people who have good math and science training, partly because of the low pay.
Find free books.
Why not just state "can be falsified + explains natural phenomena"? By the way - intelligent design cannot be falsified. What discovery could actually prove that anything hasn't been designed by a superhuman being?
The mainstream science community is pretty much ignoring this so-called "trial". While I can respect that position, I think it's a mistake. Conservative Christians are attacking science at many levels, and the general public may begin to believe them if the world class experts do not speak up loud and clear on the side of science.
Ok, lets start burning books and people to shut up that science nonsence...
We should start also to send people like Brian Greene and Stephen Hawking to jail for Witchcraft and Black Magic and maybe burn them later too.
All jokes aside, we should be really carefull not to fall into another "Dark Age". It took us almost 1000 years to get out of the last one...
Nuke it flatter than a....
oh wait....it already is...
nevermind
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I'm about to take a final on the subject in 15 minutes. Therefore, instead of writing a long, drawn out reply to the topic, I'll reference everyone to my LiveJournal, where I wrote something on the topic.
The religious fundies scare me, and should just shut up when it comes to science.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
sci*ence (si'ens)
n.
I must say that I find this very strange. Infact I am almost speechless. First of all evolution does not negate the existence of G-d. All it does is negate inaccurate account of creation in judaeo-christian religious texts.
The thing I most find disturbing though is the fact that these people most likely have nice cars, live in nice houses, have indoor plumbing. These are all things that are possible because of science. I think everyone wishes there was an after life but I think these people are no more sane then Scientologists.
Anyway if you want a good laugh on this crazy argument check out Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
It all comes down to the fact that most people can't accept the simple truth that you're born, you live, you die, that's it.
All the rest is a tribute to human imagination, or the result of a vested interest of anyone in a position of power within any given religious movement.
Get over it, for Christ's sake (pun intended
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Silly red states and their never-ending crusade to eradicate science in the name of a God, in a country where "seperation of church and state" and "freedom of religion" sorta make forcing your Christian beliefs on others illegal. That doesn't stop them from trying though.
Insert obligatory George Orwell reference
Insert obligatory Da Vinci Code reference
Insert obligatory "She's a witch!" Money Python quote
Typical... When the masses won't let you change the bible anymore, you might as well try to change Science.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
This is nothing new, of course. Those of us in the Skeptic community have been fighting this battle for years, on small and large scales. Some feel that the these things go in ebbs and flows... that a small gain here for creationist nonsense is not that meaningful in the long run because, ultimately, science always marches on and dogma drops away.
It really depends on if you view the war between religion and scienece in the short or long term. Inevitably, sceience is what leads to what we know as our way of life much more than religion. It is simply that scienece gives us stuff and asks nothing in return (except perhaps funding hidden in the cost of products we buy and to some degree taxes). But religion demands of us every day and its biggest benefit to one personally only happens convienently in the afterlife.
So even though a rabbid creationist has no trouble hopping on a plane to fly to kansas after reading about the debate on the internet to debate why God is the only possible thing that could lead to the complexity of life... he seldom even consideres none of that was possible without science. And that in the time it took to create those things, and many more, out of science religion has given us nothing new to better our lives.
Worst of all, religious explainations have no predictive value. You can't use the dogma to predict what will happen next, or what you will discover next. Only science gives us that ability. So even at the basic level, the two are apples and oranges when it comes to trying to compare them.
But the fundemental ignorance of many people lead them to not even understand what science is. And the dogma they've swallowed turns them against it before they even know what it is.
It's sad, but ultimately religion always has to make room for the advances of science. A bone headed school board will hurt some children in the short run, but ultimately will never prevail.
David Whatley
Ignorant fucks shouldn't be allowed to take advantage of the benefits that science has given mankind. We can start with penicillin. I'd put electricity next on the list.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Many of us are horribly embarrassed by this fiasco. Please don't hold this against all Kansans.
One of the irritating things about this is that while I believe in evolution, I also believe that it's God's method for our developement. So, in a since, I believe in an intelligent design type of concept; but I can't say that now without being associated with those who say they are for intelligent design but are in fact proponents of creationism.
Anyhow, the hearings are being conducted and "judged" by the proponents of ID. The scientists and evolutionists have boycotted the operation as being a farce. I have to agree with them. The witnesses will all be from the ID side, and the 3 school board members who are running the hearings are all ID proponents also.
It's an embarrassing joke.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Essentially, if they can slip that in to the definition, they will be able to use inductive reasoning and call it science. Which will move the conversation from what can be observed and and tested to what we can posit through logic proofs. Which will then absolutely requre Intelligent Design to be considered pure science.
Call me crazy, but I prefer to keep science and philosophy in separate textbooks.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
Pride is the fall of any civilization. Once we think we know everything we know nothing. For example, how old is our earth really? Billions or thousands of years old? Could it be both? Some Jewish scholars/scientists have a very interesting article on just this one fact. http://www.aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Age_ of_the_Universe.asp
There's so much we just don't know yet to be close minded to new ways of approaching science.
Has anyone ever stopped to think about how well evolution works? And that it's all encompassing.
It's an inescapable law of nature. Everything from our software and computer designs (meme's) to music, language and DNA based life is affected by evolution.
Not only that, it's impossible to create something not effected by it.
Even our views of God and our religions evolve. (what blasphemy)
After studying evolution for some time, I became a believer in GOD! Because only god could have created something as powerful as evolution.
My argument goes like this. If we are made in Gods image, and we make machines and tools to build more complex things. Then shouldn't God also? If God were to what would that tool look like. EVOLUTION....
So all this arguing over GOD vs. Evolution is totally stupid. No Evil.
I see science as the study of God's creation. It's sort of our responsibility to understand is and in doing this we can come to know God better
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Here's an article overviewing this bullsh!t (pdf) from Scientific American. Clearly there are limits to the scientific method... but that doesn't make non-science science.
Even as they described their own questioning of evolution as triggered by religious conversion, the experts testifying Thursday avoided mention of a divine creator, instead painting their position as simply one of open-mindedness, arguing that Darwinism had become a dangerous dogma.
"There is no science without criticism," said Charles Thaxton, a chemist and co-author of the 1984 book "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories."
"Any science that weathers the criticism and survives is a better theory for it," Mr. Thaxton said.
There may be no science without criticism, but by "criticism" we must mean "constructive analysis of the theory in question, based on falsifiable alternate interpretation of the available evidence". The criticism being levelled in places like Kansas is not this kind - it is an assault on scientific rationalism by the forces of dogmatic religion and ignorance, using deceit, subterfuge and manipulation of the political process.
The ultimate goal of the people fighting for "intelligent design" to be taught in schools is nothing less than the extermination of genuine evolutionary science, to be replaced by comforting lies based solely on Christian scripture.
Freedom: "I won't!"
... the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator
Yet for some reason we fall back to this "theory" because we don't understand what's going on? Ridiculous...
Just because we don't fully understand an aspect of nature yet doesn't mean that a natural process is so complex and impossible that a higher power had to make it... it only means that we are flawed and must wait until we fully grasp what is going on.
I'm sick of people filling in the blanks with "god did it!" without thinking "well... maybe we just need to study it more." Before you call me atheist, realize that I am a roman catholic, yet I can easily conceive how our life came to be after the big bang (let's not debate that right now) without any nudge from a higher power.
You are quick to argue that life could not have been created in nature, but forget the fact that God created nature itself.
look all around you. Look at everything. How can anyone not see proof of evolution?
click me
Now the state has fallen under the control of a few redneck pastors and their evangelical megachurches like Jerry Jones, and real nutjobs like Phred Phelps and his band of fruitcakes.
Kansas actually has a three party system now. The Republican Party here has split in two, with one side representing the Republicans of old (like Lincoln), and the conservatives on the other side. The conservatives are the defectors from the Democrat Party who couldn't abide Lyndon Johnson's stand on civil rights.
I choose to stay and fight the rednecks, and take back my state for the cause of reason.
I am not a crackpot.
It got over 3000 comments, actually.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Pi is legally "3"! God told me, in a conference call with Karl Rove!
--
make install -not war
that there are not very many Buddhists living there. (Being from Missouri and Buddhist, myself, a somewhat rare combo also.)
I was doing something I rarely do, the other day, actually watching a made-for-TV science program, from the UK and about the small people found in Indonesia. The presenters were casually discussing the course of human evolution over the last hundred thousand years or so. It suddenly occurred to me that, free speech notwithstanding, before long not many schools in the US would be able to show that program without giving equal time to a book-thumper telling the kids that carbon dating is the devil's mumbo-jumbo. Now that's depressing.
And this from barbarians so ignorant of even their own religion that most of them could not read the first word of their first sacred book in the original.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Certain groups think the popular adoption of religious doctrine in public institutions is a good thing. In a decade when sermons are required to be approved by the Federal Spiritual Communications Board, they'll understand the separation of church and state was designed to protect them, not marginalize them.
So does north Korea, and possibly a few other countries who keep it quiet. People laugh at the states because their views are so provincial - as to forget that that "yes virgina, there is life in other parts of the world, most of them smarter than us."
Ass is Ass, quit being so picky!
If God is the Way, the Truth, and the Life we can therefore scientifically say that:-
If God is all life, then the true Way promotes life. And that is the truth.
I'm not sure if I've solved anything by looking at this logically, but in case I have... well there you are. Live and let live.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
He wants his Trojan Horse back. For those who don't get it that is excatly what this ID theory is.
Undoubtedly someone will notice that this comment might equally well apply to those who "worship" Darwinism. That would be true. The key difference is, of course, that Darwinism can be understood and is continually being updated to reflect what we observe. Therein lies the key difference: we can update Darwinism to make it more correct. It's awful hard to update received wisdom.
Thankfully, Kansas and Ohio are leading the charge against the atheistic forces of E-Ville that seek to make critical thinkers out of our population. I'm sure that they will also "balance" their curricula to include classes that critically analyze received wisdom.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If their goal is really to scrutinize the science for the betterment of all then great. But if what they'll really after (and what its sounds like) is to muddy the waters so much that creationism and "intelligent design" is the norm then it'll bite them in ass when all these mis-informed kids hit adulthood and and realize the world has left them behind.
Man, I don't even get why this is an issue. I grew in up in a very socially religious country. We had prayer 3 times a a day in a government run High School for God's sake, but I never heard once in a biology class talk about creationism.
Why can't they realize these are seperate issues? Why is time being spent rehashing 80 year old arguements?
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I was quite pleased that the article used the word "supernatural" when describing the beliefs of intelligent design advocates. We all know that their theories are really just proxies for religious faith, so it's important to specify they think a deity is involved. There are major differences between "intelligent design" and a more generic willingness to acknowledge the possibility that some other life form was involved with the beginning of life on Earth. Such an acknowledgement is merely rational science. If you don't know exactly how something happened, you must admit to a variety of possibilities. ID-ers go much further, filling in gaps with speculation and poorly-formed "logical" reasoning.
We must not let "intelligent design" advocates masquerade as anything other than the proselytizers they are. Insist on strict separation between rational scientific acknowledgement of the unknown and absurdist theories.
Too bad I can't use my mod points on the posted stories. The entire posting reeks of -1, Flamebait.
It's a little frustrating to realize, but I guess the cost of maintaining an intelligent, civilized society is a constant battle against ignorance. It is important that ordinary people speak out against attempts to change the science curriculum through political processes that are not subject to oversight (ie. inserting their own agendas into science curriculums without checks or balances).
I heard an excellent talk about the strategies of anti-evolutionists from the director of the center for science education recently. Two of her major points were that: (1)creationists seek to circumvent the usual curriculum review process and insert themselves directly into school board decisions politically, because they have come to realize that on careful examination, their ideas are untenable; and (2) the fundamental misunderstanding about the words behind the debate.
More specifically, in order for an idea to become incorporated in to a scientific education curriculum, it first must be proposed, examined by scientists, published, reviewed, tested for flaws and counterexamples, and then it becomes accepted as a theory (which by the way, means an idea that ties together consistently all aspects of the evidence, NOT just a "theory", or guess). Creationists, or intelligent design advocates, simply come up with an idea, and go right to the school board. Where are the checks and balances? The testing? The oversight?
And secondly, about the language. Normal people commonly feel that at the top of the hierarchy of importance are Facts. To them, facts are facts, immutable. You can't debate fact, as in "evolution is not a fact, so it doesn't occur." Observations are next, things that you see with your own eyes. And Theories? Theories are at the bottom of the scale, almost comparable to hopeful guesses. This is in part the fault of the language, that "theory" has come to mean "I, crackpot, have a theory about that."
But in fact, in science, Theory is at the top of the scale -- an idea that has consistently shown to uphold all the observations, and has been tested. At the bottom is just the opposite from what is commonly believed -- facts. Facts are things that you see every day, and carry no unifying meaning in themselves.
If we are to succeed in educating the population about the process of science, and *especially* why it is valuable to us a country, we need to get involved in the debate about the language and politics. Other countries, who don't have the luxury to squander valuable resources, are beginning to capture and exploit the wonders of science much more than we are -- and it is showing.
TZ
Me! I live there! And actually, this isn't really necessary - Topeka is already like what the rest of the world will be like after the bomb. We like to refer to it as the armpit of the midwest. If you could figure out a way to nuke everything west of Lawrence, and somehow miss Aggieville, then let me know and I'll do whatever possible to get the ball rolling.
I ain't evil, I'm just good looking.
My problem with creationists is that they explain any question that can't be answered away with 'magic'. Basically, God's magical, he can do whatever he wants. It's in the Bible, it must be true, even though the Bible is just words on a page, origin unknown.
It's like saying, "David Copperfield created the world with a Genesis torpedo," because I read it online somewhere.
You can't logically argue with that.
Rick
In it's ill-considered fight against science.
Which is a shame.
There are things that science will never be able to teach us, that desperately need to be taught. Things religion could, if it chose to stop wasting time arguing over whether speciation will occur given no outside (read: supernatural) influences.
Science will never present us with a peer-reviewed study proving once and for all that you should be good to your fellow man, and treat him like a brother. Particle accelerator runs will never hint that we all have it within us to put an end to petty bickering, violence, and even earth-shattering wars.
Will the next economic theory show once and for all, that there is so much more to be gained if every child went to bed without hunger? That great things could happen if we ignored greed and lived lives unblinded by mindless pursuit of wealth?
Every time a biblethumper gets pissy about "larnin' evomoluzhun in ar skools" they've missed their mark so completely, I don't know whether to chuckle or cry.
Just because evolution can't explain some things yet doesn't mean it won't be able to eventually. Creating some pseudoscience because it fits with your religious beliefs then forcing that to be taught in science class is obsurd.
Intelligent Design theories are not science and have no place in the science classroom
"Anti-evolutionists have made classrooms in Kansas a key battleground in America's culture war. Again."
I saw Thomas Frank, author of What's The Matter With Kansas? on that paragon on fake news The Daily Show with Jon Stewart . And basically he said the Kansans used to be normal but they are all whacked out now on Jesus Juice.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
All the scientists need to do is prove the evolution theory. Easy as that. Proving a theory as important as evolution will forever change the status of religion and science.
:)
here's a starter. MRSA. Multi-Resistant Staph Aureus. How did it get the Multi-Resistant you might ask? EVO-FREAKIN-LUTION.
Wanna win a Nobel Peace Prize and be hailed as the #1 scientist in the world, write that up and make sure you cite your sources.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Yes there is. Teaching creationism as fact or even an alternate viewpoint has absolutely no place in a science class. If you want to teach creationism in a religion class, and represent a broad spectrum of religions, fine. Or if you have a parochial school, you can teach your little nuts that the world is 4000 years old. But not in a public school.
As for the "both sides," I think other religions would see this as a multi-sided coin, or maybe a D20 for the DD freaks here. I think the Vikings would be offended that the possibility has been left out of mankind being created from a cow licking a salty ice-block.
I fear the fundamentalists and their likely effect on what remains of our society's will to understand its surroundings as much as the next guy. But the new definition is better. It is a correct definition. I'm quite pleased with it.
The first one is kind of vague and looks a bit 'dumbed down' -- to be precise, it looks as if the wording 'natural explanations' was put in specifically to oppose creationism.
I, for one, welcome our new scientifically-challenged but lexicographically-correct fundamentalist overlords.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
That would be The Handmaid's tale and it's by Margaret Atwood (a fellow Canadian, by the way), not Alice Walker.
Regardless of who is right or wrong, consider the following double standards: Those who object to Creationist theories (Intelligent Design, other views/hypotheses, etc) being taught in schools are by large are failing to realize one key point - that those on the other side feel exactly the same way as you do. Really - for a family that believes in God and Creationism, how do you think they feel when teachers are telling their children their beliefs are all wrong and are nothing more than myths? You'd be pretty upset also, just in the same way you are upset that something other than macro evolution is/might be taught in a school. My point: why go pointing fingers when you are equally to blame?
In fairness to the folks in Kansas, parts of the theory of evolution are contradicted by the fossil record.
Evolution predicts that small random changes happen over many generations. The "good" changes have a higher tendency to survive and reproduce than the "bad" changes so they dominate.
The fossils show that this does in fact happen for tens of thousands of years. Then, suddenly, creatures which are significantly different from what came before appear. They're often similar to prior creatures, but the changes are nearly instantaneous in geologic time. The "missing link" is only the best known of these occurances.
Evolution offers no adequate explanation as to how such sudden major changes happen. According to its predictions, such changes shouldn't happen.
The Scientific Method says that when a theory disagrees with the evidence, the theory is disproven. It's not a weight of the evidence thing. A single valid counter-example disproves the theory.
The Theory of Evolution survives despite being disproven because there are no better theories to be had. Intelligent Design is a joke: as proposed it can neither be proven nor disproven, one of the core requirements for applying the scientific method. Evolution is at least Scientific, even though its disproven.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Sound statistical bases are emerging for the study of material objects to discriminate those which are works of chance and design. Reactionary ideologues such as worshipers of athe, Marxist "scientific materialists", Randian "objectivists", and credulous "skeptics" would like to stifle any inquiry that threatens their protected worldview, but history shows that honest inquiry will eventually overcome the establishment prejudices, albiet after much human cost and perhaps centuries of delay.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
U.S. society seems to be getting more and more religous every day. I don't understand it. Personally I have no need for faith in an all powerful being, but I do understand that many people do.
The thing that really irks me though is that the people causing this trial are a bunch of liars putting up smoke and mirrors. They say that they want a new definition of evolution for "science" sake, but really they don't agree with science at all. They want to do away with anything that contradicts their religious texts, and that is pretty much everything in science. They don't agree that the universe was created billions of years ago. Most don't agree that even small scale evolution is possible. It's rediculous.
Any good scientist knows that there can be flaws in any theory, but you go with the best evidence you have on hand. You don't dismiss evidence just because you don't like what it suggests.
These people are using several thousand year old religious texts that were written by men, not a God. The texts themselves were first carried through oral tradition and written down by scribes with their own biases. They were copied by additional scribes who added their own interpretations, biases, and just plain human error. They were edited by the Catholic church for the purposes that the Catholic church deemed necessary, and they were translated from language to language page to page. This whole process can lead to nothing but a work that even if it were true at the beginning is highly inaccurate, at best. It's like playing the telephone game over several hundred years, languages, and cultures. There's no way it can come out right.
So now they're trying to apply this stuff to science. This shouldn't even be legal. Since it's the public school system, it's the definition of the seperation of church and state.
Its simply an opinion, and it requires a zealous blind eye to overcome flaws in its composition. No different than any other religon - be it christian, hindu, or what-have-you. It comes down to faith, and to have any 'faith' indoctrinated in children will rattle nerves. Why is it so difficult for most /. readers to understand that anyone else's indoctrination of children is going to cause a completely understandable resistance among parents?
Worse, why is it considered 'right wing conservatism run amok' to oppose the exclusive teaching of Evolutionism? A hindu would be just as offended as the so-called xtian extremists.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Well, if that subject didn't get your attention, nothing will.
I'm an inquisitive type. I could go either way on the whole creation/evolution thing. And actually the two aren't mutually exclusive, unless your a fundamentalist from either of the camps. If you're for complex design, who's to say it wasn't designed to evolve? hmm....
I found this collection of quotations from MANY pro-evolution scientists/believers to be quite interesting...
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/bias.htm
It left me puzzled as to why there is even a debate. We've got one faith based opinion vs. another as far as I can tell.
Fire away oh feuding fundamentalists! I know I'm surrounded, but I've got asbestos underware on.
I didn't want to have positive karma anyway!
Recent headlines about our state of science and technology are backing up my theory that in the U.S. there are many people who are not intersted in progress. If it were up to them, then women would still not vote, school kids would recite the Bible every morning and our laws will be written by priests. Unfortunately, I am not dreaming.
Look, if you give up on science and technology, what are you going to use in order to progress? Sex with little boys? This sickens me because a good fraction of U.S. students are already getting a shaft when it comes to education. Why make it worse? If you ever travel through mid-Westerm or Southern states, do me a favor and visit rural schools. Heck, I suppose any rural school will do. How come some schools get to have 20 AP courses while others teach only AP English and AP History? What is going to become to average Americans when basic scientific theories will be taken away from them? If you don't want to teach evolution, how will you teach theories about parallel universes, strings and multiple dimensions.
I do not trust the Bible and I do not believe that the modern theory of big bang holds a complete answer either; however, I am going to stick with the latter. It is more promising than the old book of tales.
I see that they have solved all the other problems in their state. No wonder the Midwest is mocked everywhere.
If you want your kids to become stupider and learn this type of stuff, sent them to catholic school or something, where they have no problem teaching you psuedoscience. Leave the public schools alone, its bad enough when we go to school we have to learn from textbooks that are either completly wrong, or just full of half truths and lies. We dont need to add more crap like that to the schools. And to the parents in Kansas shame on you for not giving your kids a chance to learn and make their own dissicions. ITs bad enough you force, and black mail your children into believing what you believe, but now you want to make sure the job is complete and completely screw these kids up by teaching them silly superstions in school. If you want you child to learn about Intelligent Design, teach him or her yourself, dont ask or make the schools teach something which most people agree is way off base. ITs like asking your school to teach that the sun revolves around the earth because that is what the chuch said hundreds years ago or some crap. If you want to teach your child that, then do it, but dont make everyone elses child as dumb as you are, by forcing this in to the school. Next they are going to want to teach that snakes talk, dragons exist, and Giants walked the earth, all because it said it somewhere in the bible.
...but after reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" I'm convinced the Catholic church and its ilk are attempting to subvert science by consuming it like they did pagan religions centuries ago. By using intelligent design as their trojan horse, they can introduce religion into science and public schools without referring to any particular religion.
There are billions upon billions of stars in the universe. Most of the stars will have planets, some planets will be in an area in which life could emerge. Even if only one in a billion of these planets could have life, we have a billion planets each with a spark of life.
Then we have the random chances of mutation and adaption. Then add billions of years of evolution.
The inteligent deisgn of life of this planet has taken more time than we can actually comprehend.
Mankind has looked to explain the world around him. 4000 years ago in would make more sence to primitive man that the sun is infact a God or spirit, than a huge ball of firey gas millions of miles away.
As we evolved so did our beliefs, many Gods/Spirits gave ways to the few and then to the One. While there are many things science can not explain (for a long time to come), given time it will.
I doubt that a small quibble over the definition of science will invalidate educational credentials for a whole state. It really is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Alice Walker? Who is that? Alice Walker, best known perhaps as the author of The Color Purple, was the eighth child of Georgia sharecroppers.
Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939. She published her first book of poetry in 1961 while attending the University of Toronto. She later received degrees from both Radcliffe College and Harvard University, and pursued a career in teaching at the university level.
Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale in West Berlin and Alabama in the mid-1980s. The novel, published in 1986, quickly became a best-seller. The Handmaid's Tale falls squarely within the twentieth-century tradition of anti-utopian, or "dystopian" novels, exemplified by classics like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984.
Yes I agree that the US seems to be trying to develop a theocracy in recent years. Of course the nice thing about democracy is that the madness comes in waves. At some point the pendulum should oscillate back and the US will calm down.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
that conservatism seems to be waking up, if only slowly, to the problem of the rise of fundamentalism.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Who was it who said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"? I find it a both curious and frightening twist that the main "irreducable complexity" tenet of the intelligent design cabal is basically "If we don't understand X, then the existential cause of X must be a supernatural being."
Nonsense. Actually, it's worse than nonsense, it's aggressive Luddites at the door. Next thing you know, they'll be blowing up museums of science & technology because they don't understand how to think about causal relationships, abuse basic logic, and can't accept that some things are not currently knowable. No, someone needs to remind these neoLuddites that curiosity is not evil, but willfull ignorance is.
J
I think not...(*poof*)
Just thought I'd mention The Handmaid's Tale is by Margaret Atwood.
I just want to say that I went to catholic school more than public school duing my 1st grade through high school years, mainly because the public schools in California were really bad.
Anyway. I think its interesting to point out that even in a Catholic Jr High and High school, Biology teachers taught only evolution. I took regular Biology and AP Bio II in cathloic school and the only time I ever heard about creation was during freshmean year in theology I.
My theology teacher was also quick to point out that the Old Testament was basically a collection of stories and fables passed down via oral tradition and used teach people how to be good people and follow God, not real. Even the Israelites who told the stories didn't believe they actually happened but each story has a teaching or two you should come away with.
So, maybe public schools can just offer a theology class. You don't have to take it, have it cover all types of religion, and teach about creation. Theology is actually quite interesting and I think this whole fundamentalist problem we have now is due to that the only theological education these people are getting is from crooked priests and pastors.
"Intelligent Design" is necessaryily either science fiction or religion with no real wiggle room for unlikely, or even EXTREMELY unlikely natural processes.
After reading some ID literature, I confess that their argument is fairly compelling, if not based upon a fairly fuzzy assumption that any event more unlikely than 1:10^15 is essentially unacceptable as an event that could occurr naturally.
If I concede their position and logic are completely correct, then we are all the product of specific and intentional design and not of complete chance. This means we 100% were designed or guided by non-human intelligence. If this is supposed to be a secular, non-religous "science" they're saying that Aliens created life on Earth.
OK, lets teach our kids that, I'm all for it.
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.)
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
to the argument that there is more to science than meets the eye. However, science already accommodates for this in terms of its process. It never claims to represent the ultimate truth, only the best working understanding of the observable phenomena around us.
Yet, "God", as I would define it, is only a metaphorical/allegorical concept that refers to the "unknown". To that extent, there should be harmony between the two. Einstein and many other scientist are known to have referred to God in one shape or another in a way that was completely different from how it would be considered in a religious context.
So, it's a matter of a brand "God" being pulled in different directions. Before Islam started its intellectual demise, it was well known for a tremendous balance between religion and science. It's basic tenet "there is no god but God" is a very open minded, philosophical concept that indicates that any time you have found "truth", it is not "The Truth". It pretty much says you can never arrive at the truth rather commit to seeking it, which is ironic given how many people see islam as a very fixed set of dogmas.
However, the same applies to any tradition, culture, group expression where the group considers their way the One True Way. The same error (sin) can apply to scientists who become attached to their perspective of theory to the degree that they cannot accept new information that disproves it to an acceptable degree. Old religions were merely early scientists who used only myth and theory to describe the world as they had a lack of knowledge and understanding to augment this with a high degree of mastery of the material realm.
And you bought it.
I wonder why creationist theorists want to replace science with scriptures. It's not like Christianity is the only religion to believe in a Supreme Creator. I'm a Hindu by religion and that's what our scriptures say too (or at least that's what those who've read the scriptures say they say). But even those that are considered Hindu religious fanatics seldom act so stupid, trying to change science textbooks to fit their theory of life, the universe and everything.
I personally prefer to have science shape my reasoning and let religion shape my faith. No crossing over.
Slashdot. News for Nerds. Stuff that's old.
Free MacMini
If the public schools can no longer teach science, then parents should be given vouchers to send thier children to private schools that can.
They are winning in AMERICA.
The rest of the world will just laugh at the morons, and go on learning about science and technology.
This is just the beginning of the end for the American Empire. Considering the two emerging superpowers of China and India are in a race to advance technologically and scientifically, there is absolutely no way America will manage to pollute the rest of the world with their Dark Ages shift.
Don't worry - America is becoming irrelevant to the world, and in another 100 years it will enjoy a lovely equal status as Africa and other 3rd-world countries.
"A witty saying proves nothing." --Voltaire
Make religious institutions give equal time in their communications to alternative (e.g. scientific) explanations. This would be required in order for them to maintain their tax-free status.
Seuss - I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends. My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends
My car is a wonderous piece of machinery, which I do not fully understand how it works. Therefore GOD must have created it.
If I do not understand something surely it must have been created by GOD, its the only way to explain it. How concited and egoist is that. If I was GOD I will slap the arrogent fools that throught that shit. Of couse things would be a LOT different around here [insert rathful/vengful].
Screw Darwin and natural selection or any scientific explainations.
GOD created boobies, and it was good.
I apologize...we're not all crazy...
plus, as a recent graduate from a Kansas high school, I feel I've got to remind you all of how little we actually retain from our high school biology classes. The way I see it, this issue is simply a place for politicians to rattle their cages while all of the real problems are being forgotten about on a daily basis...
What was god doing before he created the universe?
So they wanna redefine "science" to mean using the scientific method to discover the truth about nature. Wow. Truly revolutionary. How ever did we arrive in the 21st century without this definition of science? Apparently until now, science was all about making wild-ass guesses to explain natural phenomena...
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
If you search Google you'll see that Issac Asimov put forward his take on the matter.
That sounds good to me. If you need to be able to test hypothesis in order to qualify as science, then intelligent design doesn't have a chance, does it? I mean, you could theoretically test evolution, but how can you test intelligent design? The only test I can think of is to find a fresh, new world, toss down some microbes, wait 10 billion years and see what happens. Even then, whether anything happens or not, it still doesn't prove or disprove intelligent design, it could only prove that evolution is plausible, not that it happened in the particular case of Earth.
Also, these people who say we couldn't have gotten here by chance are just incapable of grasping really, really large numbers. No matter how unlikely life is, it's got millions of billions of stars and worlds to multiply those small odds against.
The way we're going, we may soon see a knowledge divide that makes the digital divide irrelevant. Evolution and other "controversial" science is just the beginning.
Adults from different regions will be separated by a giant chasm between their intellect as most are taught by a progressive, science-friendly system (or as much as the education system can be) while the remainder are led to believe in nonscience "theories" that do much more to please religious leaders and believers than to satisfy an iota of truth.
The knowledge divide will be noticable in geographic quantities as large swarms of the populace have been completely left behind. People from Kansas will have no hope of competing in any meaningful way with people from California, for instance. There will be a third vs. first world mentality and it will be what tears us apart.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Belief in evolution is not science.
Belief in intelligent design is not science.
Science is a process for organizing
observations into statements about
the real world which have predictive
value.
So I don't believe in evolution, except
in so far as it is a framework for
interpreting observations and making
accurate predictions about more
observations. That makes evolution a
useful hypothesis -- which in the press
is often rendered as "fact".
Intelligent design does not make predictions,
and the theory has a gaping hole (the prime
intelligence) which is a Deus ex Machina (!)
to avoid being shown false.
If we teach the scientific method effectively,
then the urgency to inculcate the dogma of
evolution diminishes.
And THEY had "Scientific Socialism", which had about much science in it as do the wing-nuts in Kansas.
The USSR fell when it became a joke to everyone, and so will these clowns.
I'm sure you'll understand WHERE their wording has a hole in its execution when they try to drive the religion bus through it.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
We are fighting fundamentalism in the Middle East and not here.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Kansas, they Evolution Doesn't Happen!
Rest of world say, what happened to Kansas? Oh, they all died of drug-resistant disease strains. Never mind.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Creationists often argue that evolution is just as unscientific as creationism, because you can't test related hypotheses*. By explicitly mentioning this in the official definition of science, it demotes the theory of evolution to pseudoscience, paving the way for them to declare creationism to be at the same level of scientific truth as evolution. Therefore, they can argue with a straight face that if "pseudo-scientific" evolution is taught in science classes, "pseudo-scientific" creationism should be too.
* Not arguing one way or the other here.
the biggest stage yet for the emerging movement known as intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator
The argument that life is so complex that can not be explained without a supernatural creator is completely nonsense. Here is why:
For any system S that is so complex that it requires a system T to exist, system T also requires another system to exist, because complexity(S) less-than complexity(T).
In other words, if there needs to be a God for our universe to exist, because our universe is very complicated, then God itself must have been created by someone else, since God must be more complex than our universe. It is not possible for God to be simpler than our universe, or be of equal complexity, because then, by definition, it would be a part of our universe. Since God is not part of our universe, then God is more complex than our universe, and since our universe's complexity implies a creator, then the existence of God implies an even more complex creator, ad-infinitum. This is not possible, so the "intelligent design" argument is not valid.
Anyone can be a poor public speaker; I forgive Bush his many gaffes at the podium where he says ridiculous, even stupid, things. I'm not a good public speaker, and I don't think a president necessarily needs to be able to make public speeches 100% eloquently in order to make informed, intelligent decisions about the running of the country.
Now, with that said, that statement about evolution was actually the most diplomatic thing Bush could have said. Think about it; all the morons who voted for him who seriously believe in a benevolent all powerful being outnumber the rest of us with brains who have already figured out for ourselves how primitive peoples resort to worshiping inanimate and/or unseen objects as a method of putting off fear of death and starvation. It's transference.
Now, considering that his popularity depends on these nutcases and intellectual infants, what else could he have said? If he had agreed with evolution, his popularity would plummet.
Personally, I don't know enough about Bush to hate him. I've heard bad things about the war, and about Bush being implicated in some bad things, but I've realized one thing about politics -- if I cared, it would consume me. The government is such a colossus, and the corruption and sincerity of its members are so questionable and intermingled that I believe it would take constant vigilance to know the system and its participants well enough to make judgment calls about an individual.
In my mind, politics is an all-or-nothing lifestyle, and I prefer to focus my energies into creative projects, enjoying my life, pursuing those entertainments that I find pleasurable. I have a lot of respect for those people that become interested in politics and fight for what they perceive as right. I'm just not one of those people.
Actually it is Russels paradox, but it is pretty much alike, only that Goedel looks further.
Now excuse me, I have to drink my tea, if you want more details, use google, or hire me for a 15 minute talk. I'm kind of terse, so that is plenty of time.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Being in the US all I hear about are fundamentalist Christian groups having issues with evolution.
Do faiths such as Islam, Buddhism, or others have similar objections about evolution.
First, teachers seldom get a paid day off during the school year. They get "all summer" off (glossing, but that's the rationale). They are even less likely to get a paid day off to attend a political event, whether it affects their curriculum or not.
Secondly, her concern over being laughed at reveals a lot:
I'm not sure about the last point, of course, but it's also not important. What is important is that the argument is not just between people who disagree about the definition of science, but that the shape of the debate leads to closed minds on both sides. Both sides are also convinced that their minds are open and the other side's minds are not.
Few things are harder to fight than a closed mind. One of those things may be a mind that thinks it's open.
sigs, as if you care.
The Intelligent Design proponents had better be careful, or they might end up proving God out of existence.
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
This is an issue that's always percolating in my mind. One group says - here is a useful theory, look at all the stuff we successfully predicted, and look, here is the source, have a look, try it yourself, fix the errors.
The other group says - here is the way the universe is. Trust us. Have faith.
Science is a tool to predict things. That's it. There is no need for an "official" "science is this" sentence.
Evolution predicts that we can study animals and learn something about ourselves. The whole genetics field is centered on this.
Ah, but on slashdot I'm preaching to the converted anyhow...
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Now it's become downright scary. *sigh*
clicky!
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Look at both defintions here. Neither is really that objectionable. What has everyones panties in a bunch is who pushing it. The name calling begins, the intelligent design folks are aligned with religon, therefore they are ignorant. The second definition has the word continuing. That must be stupid because we already know absolutely everything about how life and consiousness began. The comments can be mostly summarized as: Anyone who doubts anything about darwin is just ignorant. Look at 90% of the comments here, darwin has become dogma. Nobody seems to question anything anymore. I'm not saying there is an intelligent creator, maybe there is, maybe there isn't. But I really hate all the name calling, and absolute zealousness here. What if their both partially right?
Some people may think there're a lot of 'overlaps' on science and religion in areas like evolution, world-creation/big-bang, supreme-being/creator...etc. and make it a necessity to mould them into one big puddle. I really don't see the need of that, because religion and science have two different purposes. Religion asks the question 'why are we here'. Science asks the question 'how do things work'. Leave them in their seperate classes.
Since time is a property of our universe, time-based concepts (like eternity or 'before') really have no relevance when talking about things that are outside our universe. Whether you want to say god created it or that it sprung out of some other dimensional space, time doesn't apply to this external thing.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
A little nitpick-- Alice Walker doesn't write books like A Handmaid's Tale. She writes books like The Color Purple.
Margerat Atwood writes books like A Handmaid's Tale.
And I write books like A Handmaid's Tail.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
This brings up a number of points.
These include the fact that those who argue for the existence of a deity mix science and faith together (often unintentionally). And it partly comes down to the definition of "believe" (and of "God"; see later)
I believe (ha!) that this word has at least three distinct meanings; that of faith, that of believing something based on observable fact (*), and that of opinion.
Belief in the third sense often surreptitiously invokes the first sense to add weight to something that, when it comes down to it, is never more than a matter of opinion or personal morality.
However, the first and second senses, although they use the same words, are oil and water. If you want to take something on faith, fine. But (except for (*) below), you cannot use this as the basis for scientific argument. Ever.
Now; assuming we are arguing for an actual deity, as opposed to 'intelligent design' (a vague concept; even if it were true, the argument is often subtley used to imply that intelligence --> God), here is my problem:-
Who, or what, is God?
People ask "Do you believe in God?" or "a god?" or something similar, but neglect to define what this would be.
Do they mean aliens with a higher level of intelligence than us? Are we arguing about intelligent aliens (science) or 'God' (faith)? Because, for me, this non-concrete "definition" of God, rooted in faith, is used in a scientific context, and yet I fail to see how we can do reputable science when we don't even know what we're discussing.
The problem seems to be that, as soon as you pin God down, he is no longer God, he is an intelligent alien. Or something else altogether.
(No; this isn't a reference to the HHGG "puff of logic" passage referenced in the title. It's my genuine opinion that, in making people pin down the meaning God like that, He/She/It would cease to be the God that they were originally discussing)
(*) Of course, there are some things that we must ultimately accept without proof; such as our perception of reality- if reality even exists, and is not an illusion. You can reject this, of course; but in rejecting it, you must reject *everything* around you as unproven, including your own thoughts.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
As I look at the parent post I cringe that as of now it's ranked as funny.
It's dead on insightful, and here I thought Slashdot, with the avergae intelligence raised a bit, that that bar would be raised accordingly.
Now I'm scared.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
An amazing book on this subject is "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. I read it because Douglas Adams recommended it in some of his writings.
The subtitle of the book is "Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design". It explains in great detail and clarity how in the long run natural selection allows only the mutations that are beneficial to continue to exist, leading to lifeforms that might *APPEAR* to have been designed, even though they were not.
One of the cases he looks at is the eye, with all of its complexity. Someone naively looking at it might easily assume that it is a clear example of something that must have been designed by a creator in advance. Dawkins shows how, over millions of years, tiny incremental advances could allow the eye to develop without any creator.
The only things required are 1) that whatever mutation that started as the eye, as simple as it may have been (perhaps a cell with the ability to detect light, for which brain cells have been shown to have the potential), gave at least a slight competitive advantage to the lifeform and 2) each additional mutation that took place over millions of years gave some slight advantage to the lifeform. Over a long time, in an environment with light, development of the eye becomes almost assured.
Complex biological systems work not because someone designed them to work, but because any deviation that does not work DIES. This naturally and inevitably leads to greater and greater complexity.
1) Like-minded fundies will be inclined to move there, making the rest of the country more rational. Keeps 'em from causing much trouble in the rest of the states.
2) It's not like Kansas has any other attractions.
3) It gives comedy writers a focus for jokes about religious nuts. Properly handled, Kansas will be the laughingstock and not the USA.
4) Destroying their state's reputation and their educational/research institutes will hurt their cause more than anything their opponents could do.
It's too bad we can't teach people like this a lesson by preventing them from benefitting from the technology that springs from science, including the theory of evolution which plays a large role in modern medicine and - ironically for Kansas - agriculture. But I'll settle for watching them flounder. Sometimes the best tack is give fools enough rope to hang themselves with.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
So what's the fuss here? Really? Who has what to lose?
It's obvious that there are religious ID'ers who want their views to be exposed. But they're not introducing a religion. If you think they are, then get rid of Christmas vacation, Easter vacation, and most of the other holidays.
If you're a vehement athiest, then what's the danger to you? Do you think children of ID'ers won't receive a good dose of ID at home or in church? Isn't it a good idea to expose athiest children to the tactics of their enemies?
Am I totally wrong about what the ID'ers want to teach in school? Or how they teach it? Are there any examples of how it's taught IN SCHOOLS? As long as we're all jumping in to bitch about it, can't we see what this evil is?
--Jim (me)
I say the play 'Late Nite Cathecism' the other night, which is a one actor play starring a real nun. Mixed in with the comedy (excellent show by the way, and I am agnostic) were tidbits of truth. She got onto the subject of Cain and Abel, the original Bush twins of early history. Her question was 'who did they marry?'. WHat this lead to was a statement that the Catholic CHurch official position on Adam and Eve is that it is a parable, not literal, and represents the beginning of human life. If the Church can move off of a literal stance, why can't Kansas?
A most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a bit.
The usual question that the hypothesis of a created universe arises is: if there was/is a creator, who/what created him?
A paradoxon, you might say. But I see something else in here: a fractal pattern. The creator is created by a creator is created by a creator etc. Following this thought it says that we are creators too, which is quite correct - we create, both good and bad things. So, the scale is the only difference. Maybe the scale distances between us and the higher scale of the creator of the universe is so high that we cannot recognize it. Just imagine that in each quantum a whole universe would exist - the people in there would hardly be able to recognize their creators out there.
Of course, this boils down to the fact that the creator is no supernatural being - maybe we are our own creator. (Then again, this structure would be of such a magnificent naturse that one could call it supernatural.)
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
We need another Civil War and this time we do everything we can to help the South secede from the Union. Then we put up a big fence around it. Enjoy!
That if humans are the product of intelligent design, that we were designed by something with a crappy intellegence.
1) Humans are far too shortsighted (philosophically that is). Man can't keep from screwing up his own planet. Look a tthe self destriuctive behaviors that humans undertake in groups and singly every day. Anyone who has been stuck trying to make a left turn in Queens can see that humans rarely take the long view. (everyone pulls all the way into the intersection, blocking people trying to turn left in front of them. When both sides of the road do this, no one can turn left.) Most people are trying to maximize their short term progress at the expense of long term goals.
2) The human body is far too fragile for what we use it for. Humans are essentially big bags of soft tissue suppoorted by fragile endoskeletons. If we were designed from an intellegent standpoint, why are some major organs not protected by the rib cage? We can live without intestines and kidneys, but not without a appendix? Why are our joints and bones so prone to stress and breakage? Why do we need sleep? Seems like an easy way to get eaten by a predator, and impinges on the time we could be using to amass food, procreate, and play HL2.
3) Humans don't get along with each other very well. The species seems dedicated to proving the superiority one small group or another. Sounds like survival of the fittest to me. A more intellegent design would be to have less murderous instinct, more sense of community.
I grew up in the south, and some of the things I heard coming from the religious nuts mouths was unbelievable. I once heard a church youth group minister give a talk about how Satan had planted all the fossils all over the world. His goal was to cause man to question the existence of God.
As sad as this is, these are the people who get elected to office because they pander to people who, as an earlier comment pointed out, are afraid to say "we don't know how man was created, it's easier to believe that someone is out there taking care of us".
As Bill Maher put it, God is an imaginary friend for grownups.
A man didn't understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box. manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. "But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren't there?"
-- Douglas Adams, a parable spoofing creationism that Adams often told, as retold by Richard Dawkins in "Lament for Douglas" (14 May 2001)
Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?.
-- Douglas Adams, from Last Chance To See ("a great book on natural history, extinction, and how we're managing to stuff this planet up fairly badly," says Iain)
Clark Kent grew up in Kansas right...Smallville was the town IIRC. I think the scientists should present the "Superman defense".
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
If they talk about lame ducks like Intelligent Design or Creationism and say something to teh effect of, these might be correct but they aren't science because they aren't falsifiable then I don't see a problem. THey could also say how it would be impossible to prove that the universe was created 5 minutes ago and everyone was given memories and the universe was created with age.
That is as equally possible and proveable as ID and should be taught also.
Supernatural means beyond the scope of the natural world and not bound by natural laws. Therefore, any theory with a supernatural explanation cannot be tested. Science cannot disprove a hypothesis based on the supernatural. (Did you take a picture of the vampire?... I couldn't they can't be photographed)
So to included hypotheses based on supernatural explanations into science is a waste of your time... science cannot test such hypotheses, and cannot do anything with them. You gain nothing by including the supernatural in Science, and you lose all of science's utility in eliminating hypotheses.
That does not mean that supernatural explanations should necessarily be discounted... it just means that it is beyond the scope of science. Science is limited to the natural world and natural phenomenon. To deal with questions of the supernatural you need to employ philosophy and religion.
It is pure idiocy to try to redefine science to include the supernatural. If they succeed, we'll just have to go and invent another word to mean what 'science' used to mean... because it's meaning is a very useful and profound idea that will persist no matter what P.C. word is chosen to go with its meaning.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Ok, the intelligent design of whom?
1. Observe battle lines being drawn ...
2. Set up your stall selling weapons, shields, armor, bandages, salves...
3.
4. Profit!!!
You know it'll be the lawyers winning this one, no matter what.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The problem with these people, and most of these "lesser-educated" Bible-thumpers from the south and mid-west, is they don't realize that:
Religion != Chrisitianity
These people want the nation, no, the world to view Christianity as the one true faith, the one true way it happened. They do not realize that Christianity is no more valid or proven than Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Buhdism, Voodoo, Greek Mythlogy, Native American/First Nation spirits, and aboriginal/tribal worship.
They want Christianity to be recognized as the only true religion, and all other religions are just cults or "less advanced peoples" worship.
Most of these Christians do not even know the history of their own faith, including the fact that Jesus was the son of a wealthy family, married Mary Magdeline (who was also wealthy, and not a whore) and was not the son of God. The "son of God" part was made up by emperor Constantine who had a vote on how divine Jesus should be in the faith they were creating, by combining old Christianity and the pagan beliefs of Europe. It was in fact ripped off from the story of the goddess Isis and her son. Which is why Jesus's birth was slapped on December 25th, the birthdate of Isis's son, which also marks the Winter Solstice and holiday Yule (changed to Christmas), even though most theologists place Jesus's actual birthday sometime in August.
If we have to start including the Christian God in all science textbooks as possible explanations, then why don't we start mentioning Zeus, Allah, Odin, and Big Turtle Island? They're all just as valid as the Chrisitans' nameless God.
People these days look back on histroy, at the crusades and wonder how so many millions of people could be killed in the name of God. They do not realize that these crusades are still going on. America did not progress very far from the puritanical pilgrims who founded the country. Thank God (or whoever's out there) for the immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Africa, Asia and the rest of the world, or else this country would just be full of WASPs and even worse off than it seems now.
The two definitions of science both seem reasonably sound.
The second definition replaces the "natural explanations" with "more adequate explanations". They're using technobabble to confuse the unprepared reader. By not having "natural explanation" in the sentence, they can truly claim that creationism _IS_ science.
The ID folks forgot the following line of their instructions:
/dev/life
cat
Damien
This makes me angry.
It's not only the absurdity of rehashing a debate that took place 80 years ago. It's also that the proponents of "Intelligent Design" are identified as conservative. Why Republicans hitched their wagon to the religious right is beyond me. Being conservative means favoring a limited scope for government and greater responsibility and privacy for citizens. Where did this religious component come from? Religion is great and for the most part makes the world a better place. But I feel like the conservative banner has been hijacked by a vocal minority who feel emboldened by the attention they have received over the past 10 years from the Republican party.
Don't they realize that they're hurting the very children that they claim to want to help? How is the next generation of American engineers going to compete in the world if they think that world is flat?
I will never understand, why Creationists (or Intelligent Designionists) insist on believing in a God who's essentially a moron.
So now we have this "marvelous complexity of our universe, its clockwork perfection" (as quoted from Star Trek in an earlier post), so beautifully designed that after a few billion years --without any further interference-- evolution of life kicks in, and plants and animals start growing and filling previously dead environments (God must have jumped of joy that it all worked as planned!).
Instead, they insist on believing in a God who formulated all these complex laws and rules of nature, yet still needs to build all the stuff himself.
Which God is a more "intelligent designer"? One who builds a machine that works with perfection once it is started, or one whose machine requires a permanent turning of knobs and pulling of levers because all would stop if he didn't.
Science is about refusing to accept lack of knowledge and trying to figure things out.
Religion is about rejoicing in lack of knowledge and refusing to figure things out.
Infuriate left and right
Yup, we can't understand something, so it must have been created by some GOD we can't understand. That makes thinks so much easier, as long as we don't try to understand GOD. So they want an easy way out and remain ignorant to what makes life tick.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
At least it's better than the nightmare world of "The Color Purple" as envisioned by Margaret Atwood!
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Even when super symmetry is simulated on computers evolution stops when it reaches the basic mitosis with no further need for evolution. It's looking more likely that intelligent design will come out on top by default.
Put down the church pamphlet and step away from the big words.
You mean to say that that you're backing this up with the fact that a computer can't solve the problem, so by default intelligent design must be a logical scenario. You wouldn't know a logical argument if it XOR'ed you in the backside.
Let's have a history lesson:
17th century scientist: Look, I put two pieces of ground glass together and I can see very small things...they seem to be made up of other things.
Church spokesman: Heretic!
17th century astronomer: I have witnessed 1,000 hours of planetary observations, and I have developed a mathematical proof that the earth, and a number of other planets, orbit the sun.
Church spokesman: Heretic!
You would probably be bewildered by a kindergarten science fair, and yet you seem to be satisfied that if a computer can't explain evolution, then by default, it's not true.
I think religions and i mean ALL of them should be out of the schools,endoctrination is the worst thing a mind can have, because it blinds you to other beliefs,it promotes hate between cultures, it separates us. Theology should be the natural replacment of religions in school, i think, at least, people would learn all religions and after a while they could make up their mind (if they still want god in their life) to choose one that fits them.And it should also be a class about discussion and idea.
Intelligent Design is just as threatening to the "young earth" Christian as it is to the evolutionist. If ID starts to take off, you'll actually start seeing more evolution taught in churches. ID doesn't say that evolution doesn't happen, it just says that it is a more complicated process than can result from pure natural selection - hence the need for a deliberate creative force to "get everything going."
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
The problem is that the concept of a supernatural being begets far more questions than it answers.
But since in that philosophy the awnser invariably becomes "because God said so", it saves a lot of time you'd otherwise spend on tedious thinking.
You can't take the sky from me...
Think of how many thrive to turn their "beliefs" into empires of wealth and excess, and worse, how many actually support it.
The Catechism (the 'rules' for catholics basically), essentially says that any thing science discovers goes along with Catholic teaching because God is so far beyond human understanding we can't comprehend what he things or why everything is the way it is. It just is. God made it that way. Anything science can discover, God was and is capable of creating since he's infinitely more complex then us and supreme, etc. etc. This basically comes down to people who insist that a literally reading of the Bible is the only way Christianity can be understood and rules can be obtained from. That and the arrogance that people have thinking they can know what God thinks...
Let me get back to you after the next election.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
the Great Green Arkleseazure. Why don't they just name him after all??? Science should be all about finding out what we should do when the great white hankerchief cometh...
/.'ers: "Okay, we in! were do we start?"
/.'ers: "ummm......ahhh.....uhhhh....."
me: "uh, what's in Kansas again?"
me: "nevermind."
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
While we are all busy debating about this one issue, I think we should step back and look at the long term effects that this 'radical' movement is taking.
It may be just the idea of Evolution now but say tommorow schools eventually banish this idea in favor of Intelligent Design aka Creationism today. What's next? School's then force all their students to read from the bible everyday? The elimination of all other religions from school? Which brach of christianity are we going to follow? Orthodox? To what level is the bible going to define our day to day lives and whose interpretation are we going to implement in our lives?
Does this situation remind you of anything else. It seems that in fighting Osama and the Taliban, we are becoming like them. Radical Christianism anyone?
I think the majority of people are sane and it is clear that the long term effects of such a trend if it were to continue would be devestating and i think most people would understand that. I think we just need to open their eyes!!!
Erm. What about self-reproducing systems? Genetic algorithms? Neural nets? These things quickly get very complex, at some point it becomes hardly possible to oversee the complexity. Of course, the brain itself is an stunningly complex system, but if there is one plausible possibility of ID, then its in self-reproducing systems. This also implies that God exists/existed in our universe. It does not require God to be more complex than the creation, it does not even require him to exist after the beginning.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Having a religion or some notion of a spirit world is one thing. There are plenty of people who go to work every day, drive cars, pay taxes, and do all the other things people do: but they always have THE WEIRD VOICES IN THEIR HEADS.
The voices to them are real, and they take medication to keep them at bay. Religion is much like that. You can love the voices in your head as much as you want, but when they tell you to enact legislation based on antiquated notions from people who lived millennia ago who also had voices in their head, and this legislation runs counter to the scientific method and its ancillary reasoning systems (such as Occam's Razor) then you need to tell the voices to fuck off.
Civilisation is on the verge of complete collapse from over population and a running out of energy stocks. It is imperitive that clear headed rational peaceful secular thinking reign in this time of impending crisis and catastrophe. Otherwise, the religious zealots will run away with the ball and all our descendants will be living in caves - in a neolithic level of Hobbesian misery, or, in a crude medieval state of ignorance and oppression.
The religious right is correct, this is a fight. What the secularists don't seem to get through their thick little heads is:
a: this really is a fight, and if they don't fight back, they WILL LOSE, and this country is good as cooked.
b: that it's a fight to the finish. It's a Civil War - but a Cold Civil War. However: the outcome will be just as crucial and important for the future of the species.
The USA may only be 5% of the planet, but it has lots of nukes.
If it looks like the right wing is going to completely triumph both culturally and militarily in he USA, I urge the people of the EU, Japan, South Korea, and China to tell your leaders to pull the plug. Sell their American Bonds, sell their dollars. Let the USA sink into the oblivion of its multi-trillion dollar debt. If they complain, tell them to ask Jesus for the money. It'll be tough, but you all can get along without us. The destruction of the USA won't be accomplished with guns or bombs. It willbe accomplished with electronic money transfers, bond sales, and the will to put down a bunch of ignorant greedy bible thumping suburbanshees before they do us all in with their wasteful ignorant ways.
Is this flamebait?
sort of - it depends on whether you view a demand that the people of reason, tolerance, and science stand up and save the world from the ignorant and stupid.
And if you're a scientist who believes in God - fine. It's good to see you have caged the voices. That's progress.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Clarification required: why does the argument accept the presence of one god as possible, but not the existence of an infinite number? What's the distinction between one and lots (and lots and lots and...)?
(Personally, I'm in the "probably not any gods out there but the jury's still out" camp).
what intelligent designer would design us so that we used the same tube for both respiration and eating?
Yea, and who put a sewer line in a recreational area!?
Someone following the "scientific method" usually acts in the following manner:
1. Observe something happening.
2. Create a hypothesis about that something.
3. Make predictions about the future using that hypothesis.
4. Do testing and further study, and compare the results of those tests and studies to the original hypothesis.
5. If the results of #4 show that the original hypothesis is incorrect, adjust it as necessary to fit the new observations if possible.
6. Keep on doing 3 through 5 indefinitely.
It's always possible that new information will prove an old hypothesis to be incorrect. That is an accepted (and perhaps even expected) result, at least given enough minds and enough time.
There's a lot more to "science" than simply tossing pet theories at a wall and seeing which ones stick -- the process of experimentation and verification is absolutely essential to the integrity of the conclusions that are drawn as a result.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I don't think intelligent design even attempts to prove that something supernatural exists (that would make no sense). Rather, they are trying to prove that we were created.( and then they imply the assumptions about what thing(s) created us)
It is interesting that Creationists are adopting this Intelligent Design philosophy, as it cannot prove what they think it could.
Let us assume intelligent design is correct, and that we are very complex and have an orderly "design": so much so, that we must have been created. They often use a watch as an example, stating that we do not assume that metatillic compounds joined together, by chance, to form a watch. But note that we do not assume that the watch was created by a single, all powerful, all knowing, eternal being either. Really, the conclusion of intelligent design would only imply the following:
- We are complex, non-magical machines
- We were designed/created by intelligent beings
- Those creator beings were likely as complex or more complex than ourselves, therefore, they were created by other beings.
We are on the verge of creating intelligent machines ourselves (biological/genetic or silicon), so intelligent design should not be a crazy idea to us. Though to assume that we are a god-like creature would be somewhat crazy depending on what god means.
"Just let the kids from Kansas be like their redneck fore-fathers and work in the fields"
I think you should be careful. Just because you disagree with these people doesn't give you license to disparage them. Yes they are idiots, but call them idiots for being idiots.
Working in "the fields" is an incredibly important, honorable activity. Don't be an asshole and take it out on farmers (or rednecks) when it's CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS who are responsible. Otherwise you're just as bad as the people who claim "blacks are stupid" or "gays are perverts".
People are free to believe whatever they way. That's what makes the US a great country. (In theory, at least.)
However, to call something that is not testable "science" is like calling haikus mathematics. (You can have a mathematical haiku, I'm sure.) The issue isn't with belief, or the suitability of evolution as a sufficient explanation for life on earth. The issue is ID is *not* science.
A poet with no background in math might claim the Pythagorean Theorem is riddled with holes, as well, but that doesn't make her right. You can have as many anti-Pythagorean Theorem non-math poets as you want, and that will *still* not change the fact that Pythagorus was right.
Group stupidity is still supidity, for all size groups.
And in the end, it really IS NOT hurting you if they do.
Yes. Yes it is.
Their belief is their belief. That's fine. But now they wish to destroy the process of science so they can get their pet belief taught in schools. This destroys any chance these kids have of learning science. Once you remove the fundamental basis of scientific study, you no longer have science, you have dogma and rhetoric.
I don't know about you, but I want my science to be pure science, and not laced with religious zealotry.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Because the people who are pushing "intelligent design" aren't pushing "intelligent design". They're calling "intelligent design", what is really "the great lorb jebus and almighty creator". There is no room in their mind for any "intelligent design" other than specifically what arises from the pages of the bible.
It's kind of like how we call it "planned parenthood" even though it's really a place to go to avoid it via abortion and birth control.
The usual argument that avoids your circular reasoning is that God created everything in it's final form. For some reason, the proponents of that view feel that for God to use evolution would signify a weakness on God's part. It implies that he could not create everything in its final (and therefore perfect) form right off the bat. Given that choice, I would prefer the added complexity of everything having been created to always remain the "perfect" version of whatever it may be, and that implies the ability to continuously adapt; that in turn implies evolution or a similar mechanism.
Not that I love Karl Popper on every matter of scientific philosophy, but his criterion of falsifiability is an essential component of any definition of science.
This is the problem with "intelligent design". It is unfalsifiable by construction. In ID this issue is relatively subtle; in "young earth creationism", it's painfully obvious. How can you possible falsify the following hypothesis: the universe was created 10 seconds ago, with you already reading this comment, light already on its way from distant stars, fossils already in the ground, radioactive elements already distributed to give the impression of great age of the earth, etc. The answer, of course, is that you can't.
If an intellectual construct is not falsifiable, then it's not science. Period.
How do you know you are not just a brain in a vat being fed eletric stimulus so that your entire reality is an illusion? In that sense, doesn't your reality become a theory?
It is no longer considered a theory because it is able to be scientifically applied. Evolution led to genetic advances being discovered through animal and plant ancestries. Had eviolution been 'just a theory', it would not be able to be applied so well.
But as such, it is applied daily and until this 'god theory' can have a bit more evidence (irony: proof denies faith), then creationism is nothing more than a fairy tale.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Shouldn't that be an obfuscation of Ph.D.'s?
That any competent designer would have done a better job of designing humans (and everything else). Let's face it, we're not exactly perfect. Easy to kill, prone to illness (HIV, for example), etc. etc.
I guess those in favour of ID would say 'that's $deity$s way of testing us'. But would an 'intelligent designer' want to test the design?
The great thing about evolution is that, since it has no intelligence, it can make mistakes (hopefully to be fixed later).
A few problems:
1) Kansas isn't in the south, or even in the South.
2) The South isn't landlocked.
3) Bush is from Texas. That's more West than South.
4) There are idiots and conservatives everywhere.
5) As others have pointed out, you got both the title and the author of The Handmaid's Tale wrong.
Painting all Southerners with the "ignorant, theocratic redneck" brush is as accurate and useful as painting all Northerners with the "rude asshole" brush or painting all West Coasties with the "flaky New Age neo-mystic" brush. It's just not that simple.
If you continue to perpetuate the myth that living in the South automatically and without significant exception indicates that that person is uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent, then you are showing even less capability for logical, rational thought than those dipshits in Kansas about whom this story was written.
Your comment isn't being modded insightful (as of this writing) for the simple reason that it ISN'T insightful. It's wrong-headed, factually incorrect, and blames the wrong people for the wrong things.
The people you're mad at are the religiously conservative, and they're everywhere. We in the South simply have a larger infestation of them than you appear to, wherever it is you live.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Pardon my venting but I've never entirely understood this confusion between religion and science. They don't have all that much to do with each other. What is clear to me is that most people seem very uncomfortable with admitting that it is ok to not understand everything. As a result they create mythologies as a sort of catch-all to reassure themselves. Worse, people seem even more uncomfortable with the idea that their "explaination" based on their religious teachings isn't the "right" one and they engage in all sorts of absurd and even cruel behavior as a result. As a result we get events like the Scopes Monkey Trial.
Science is simply the act of creating models of what we observe. Science does not answer appear to be capable of answering fundamental questions of why, it simply is a process which tries to create models of what we mutually observe with predictive utility. The only time religion and science "conflict" is when some group of people have created a mythology to explain some physical phenomenon they don't understand. But if we later figure something out, these same people are often loathe to admit that their might be a better way to describe/predict an event than invoking a deity.
As far as I'm concerned, it's ok to believe in a deity of some sort if that helps somehow to get through the day. But belief is not necessarily fact. And trying to insist that a belief in a supernatural being (or however you define your unknowable deity) is a common fact everyone can agree upon is never going to work. I do not believe in a deity, certainly not in the judeo-christian sense of the word. Any argument that utilizes the bible or any religious text as a basis for an arguement is likely to be immediately discounted as nonsense by me.
The only way to have a stable agreement between any two people is to base it upon common facts that both can agree to. This is why we separate church and state in the US. It forces us to create laws based upon mutually agreeable facts, instead of unprovable and irrational beliefs that differ from person to person. Even if these folks in Kansas are successful in their pursuit of putting intelligent design into textbooks, there are no common facts about it we can agree to and as such it is a fundamentally unstable situation.
Evolution already happened, it's the thoery of natural selection that describes the process.
Gravity, electricity, and magnetism are thoeries. You can't touch or see those things (usually), but you can test and measure them, whereas you cannot test or measure a god of any sort.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
The current definition does not allow Genesis to be considered since it states only "natural" explainations can be used (no positing a super-natural creator).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Your believes are great as long as they do not interfere with the secular government and schooling systems. Why do I say that? Because given the diversity of religious believes around the globe and given the fact that science is a standard the humanity has agreed upon, any sane person would agree on the necessity of having the global standards that need to be implemented within governments and the schooling systems for any given person to be able to deal with the rest of the world.
Given what I just wrote and what I understand about some american citizens it is not surprising that the ID is raising its ugly head: if the people of a country decide that they do not need to deal with anyone else but their own kind it is not necessarily true there is a need for a global standard for communications with others and it is not true that people need to be taught some common truths that rely on this global standard - this includes the theory of evolution.
You can't handle the truth.
There is no double standard, because scientists aren't permitted to fudge their teachings to avoid upsetting people - if it was discovered that there was better evidence for a God at work than for no God then science would teach that and tell the atheists to take a running jump if they protested.
Science is cold and dispassionate. It doesn't care whether it's rubbishing someone's cherished beliefs. It is also, imo, the absolute best approach we have to determining the truth of a given hypothesis. If you can't stand the fact that your hypotheses might be wrong, you do not belong in the science classroom.
There *is* a right answer. There *is* a wrong answer. We're not 100% sure (and probably never will be) which is which, but I know I'm not willing to pretend to be less sure than I am to avoid hurting people's feelings, especially about something this important. That would be a betrayal of the scientific community and of my own ethics. The Bible says "thou shalt not bear false witness". On this point, at least, I agree completely.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
From TFA:
Why are these breaches of the separation of Church and State allowed to go on? I guess because of a flaw in the system:
The problem with democracy is that idiots breed and vote, and thus can create a tyranny of the majority. So long as one group manages to be bigger than any other group, and keeps the rest divided, they can rule.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yet another reason besides Fred Phelps not to live in KS.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
It's funny how the self-reinforcing isolation of the religious types in the American south is similar to the same sort of thing going on in Iran. What other developed country in the world has so many citizens with such a keen attachment to propagating ignorance in their children? If knowledge is power, then what is creationism?
Indeed, if your argument is correct, then it seems that the Universe can't have been created by an even more complex system. However, there is still a fallacy present.
The fallacy with this argument is the assumption that if the Universe was created, then its Creator must be a "system".
What leads you to believe that the Creator of the Universe (if we assume, for sake of the argument, that there is a Creator of the Universe) must be a system?
Your argument proves nothing at all about whether the Universe was created, only that it was not created by a "system".
The question of what brought about the Universe is necessarily a philosophical pursuit. It cannot be answered by Science.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Funny how radical Christians are always extolling their faith at the same time they desperately grasp for evidence to prove God's existence.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Evolution is so elegant and beautiful though that to my mind it shows Gods power, not a weakness.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Personally, I don't really see the creationists as being too much worse than that particular demographic of atheists who worship Darwin as God. *Excessive*, irrational veneration of evolutionary theory is just as unscientific IMHO as creationism. Of course, the main difference between the creationists and the pseudo-atheistic "Darwin => God" squad is that fundamentalist Christians more customarily have fascism on their side, and attempt to make use of such to shut Darwin's cheerleading squad up.
However, another group who I think desperately need to get lives are those who are frantically seeking life on Mars, purely/primarily because they hope they can use such proof to discredit creationism altogether.
I believe the best way that evolutionary advocates can win this particular battle is simply by not fighting it. The capacity for logic is the one element which fundamentalist Christians tend to lack more than any other, and as such I cannot see how any attempt at argument with them could be anything other than futile.
Mind you, this isn't to say that I advocate simply allowing them to win the argument, but rather waiting them out. This is a situation in which ironically, evolutionary theory will validate itself, as we will presumably end up seeing the fittest (more accurate) meme ultimately surviving.
The other crucial thing about pacifism of course is that it gains the practitioner the moral high ground, and will ultimately prove to any outside observers just what a group of moronic, jackbooted fanatics the creationists really are.
If the creationists insist on having their beliefs promoted in the classroom, fine. Simply withdraw and let them have it. This might mean that a certain percentage of one or two generations will grow up with a belief in creationist thinking, but it should be the task of more scientifically oriented parents to teach their children about at least *some* things, anyway.
The other issue of course is that *at the moment*, because of President Bush's own theological inclinations and his fascist approach to governance, concepts which exist outside the approved fundamentalist mould are unlikely to gain mainstream public favour. The key point to remember here is that Bush will not be in office forever, and therefore the ascendancy of his fundamentalist Christian base cannot last forever either. So give ground for the moment, and wait. When he leaves office, it is likely that the public will also have become so tired of the fundamentalists that the fundamentalists will be unable to make their voices heard for a substantial period of time. That will be the time when the public will be open (indeed, probably eager) to ideas from outside the orthodox Christian establishment, and thus it will also be the time, (slowly and quietly at first) to gradually reintroduce evolutionary theory back into the education system, where that time it would stay.
*ALL* science is theories. Why should evolution be singled out as the one theory that gets a sticker pointing out that ITS A THEORY??
How about we attach another sticker to your "evolution is a theory" sticker that says "A theory that has withstood over 100 years of peer review can essentially regarded as fact until proven wrong"?
The word "theory" as it is used on these stickers is intended to convey some sense of "uncertainty". This is a complete misuse of the word. We only have theories to explain how electricity passing through tungsten results in light, but that doesn't mean that we are not pretty damn certain the theories are correct.
Same with evolution. It is "just" a theory, but we are pretty damn certain it is correct. If you want to put a sticker on a textbook about evolution, you might as well put one on there for the theories of electromagnetism as well.
Well, before people completely bash the South, there are those who live down here who a) believe in God and b) think that science and the theory of evolution are quite true (in general). While I agree with a lot that the parent comment has said (and it scares me it was modded funny) I also know we are not all incoherent Bible-thumping, scripture quoting, non-thinking individuals. I firmly believe that God gave me a mind to USE and THINK for myself. To decide things for myslef based on the facts at hand and weigh what I read (Bible, science texts, Internet, wherever, whatever) and hear and learn and extrapolate the meaning behind it. There is nothing in the Bible that says a person is not supposed to think for themselves, to decide what is true or not. Sure, there are guidelines to help a Christian along his path but they are not absolute in my opinion. In short, don't take the vocal majority to be representative of what you'll find in the South (or anywhere else in the world for that matter).
;-)
Not to mention that, in general, Southerners are damn hospitable folks who'll gladly welcome you to town, serve you some fine home-made food, sweet iced tea, and a dose of Southern charm to top it off. Probably a mint julep or two as well
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
I am a fan of Sir David Attenborough, whose documentaries for the BBC are simply fantastic. In my community, you can borrow most of them from the local library.
The following is a section from wikipedia, showing his rather sharp response to questions about creationism. It is quite possibly the best answer I have seen regarding the relationship between evolution & creationism.
From Wikipedia:
NT
I think the proof that a benign power doesn't exist, or at least is not interested, is the current state of things. If such a being existed and cared about its creations, I doubt Africa, the Middle East, All of post Tsunami SE Asia would be in the state its in. (These being locations with a great concentration of very religious people).
So, you can't prove it doesn't exist, but you can prove that it is either powerless, helpless, disinterested or an asshole/malovent diety. In any of those cases I have no interest in it, and don't know why anyone else would either.
This is like shooting fish in a barrel. It is just a shame that so many people are too brainwashed to see this for the silliness that it is.
"The turtle moves"
Sorry...couldn't resist...
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Because I.D. is a crutch for religious zealots to skip the hard parts of science. A good old fashioned Jesuit would probably like the Picard quote, but they have been both religious and asking the hard philspohical questions for a long time.
I.D. just lets you dumb down the difficulties and contradictions inherent in science to the level of the hicks and retards in your constituency. They've got a statue of a caveman riding a dinosaur in their museum, FFS!
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Every time I hear ya'll talk about "those who hate freedom" and it is considered valid grounds for killing ... every time someone says "if you don't like it, leave!"... every time a school board notices that their children don't meet their minimum standards, so they drop their standards... every time elected officials stand in their governmental buildings and pray to their deity... every time a government branch considers company profit above what is right... every time Bush speaks...
I say it whenever any of the above occur in such a way as to give me a headache, and now, thanks to this, I have to say it again...
"We let you people have nuclear weapons???"
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
If you continue to perpetuate the myth that living in the South automatically and without significant exception indicates that that person is uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent, then you are showing even less capability for logical, rational thought than those dipshits in Kansas about whom this story was written.
The percentage of votes casted for Bush in the south (Kansas included), say otherwise... (I mean, it wasn't even close!!!)
* If faith is such an intregal part of religion, and no amount of science or evidence is ultimately relevant, why do these people care whether or not evolution is taught one way or another in schools?
* If one is so confident in the disposition of their beliefs, why are they so desperate to discredit alternative theories?
* Isn't it suspicious that the religious right have to redefine everything around them so that it jives with their narrow view of the world? They call themselves "pro life" but this only really is true when they pervert the defition of "life" to primarily apply to fetuses and select brain dead medical patients with comprehensive insurance. Other forms of "life" don't fit their definition.
It seems to me this issue is the latest in a string of ongoing "redefinitions" that the church has continued to perpetrate, including "life", "sex", "marriage", "morality", "truth", etc. Why should anyone be surprised? It took the church 300+ years to acknowledge that the planet wasn't the center of the universe, and unfortunately, none of us would be surprised if they decided to challenge that definition... after all, it IS just a theory...
Anyone who believes that the world was created 6000 years ago can't possibly believe in science. Unfortunately for them there is hard scientific proof that this is not the case. On the other hand there are many Christians who believe(as it says in the bible) that god's time is not our time. In other words, god's time progresses more slowly than our own. Whether thats a supernatural thing or something to do with relativity is a question unanswered. I'm personally of the opinion that the supernatural is just something we haven't yet been able to explain with science.
Just because we can't explain for certain how the universe started, doesn't mean it was "supernatural". Some day we very well may find the "missing link", explain the origins of the universe etc. That won't mean that god doesn't exist. The only time we'll be able to answer that question for certain is when we die. I can wait to have that question answered. In the meantime we believe what we feel comfortable believing. If the thought of a creator makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside then so be it. Personally I fall on the side of agnosticism. I don't care to follow any particular faith because I think that there is no way they can all be right, so how can any of them be right?
The dangers many Christians face is in taking up the position that evolution couldn't have happened because if it did happen then god doesn't exist. Its a bad position because if evolution were to be proved scientifically they'd have dug themselves a hole. On the other hand if they believe that evolution and god could go hand in hand they are on firmer ground. Instead of trying to fight each other, scientists and people of faith should be examining the evidence before them. We shouldn't forget though, that many scientists are people of faith too.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Who cares what the intent is of the group proposing the change. If the reality is a wording that is clearer and more complete, is that not better?
The new definition is more wordy, but it keys off of a word without a precise definition: "adequate".
The whole definition would make what is and is not science much more murky. The key to the original definition is that science limits itself to things with natural causes... this is because natural causes can be tested. Supernatural causes cannot be tested. The new definition turns itself around to limit science to natural phenomenon, but leaves open the door to supernatural causes.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I once knew an egg by the name of Steve,
born by a moo-cow I believe,
wore pants, suspenders and a tie,
only washed his face on the 9th of July!
Steve the Egg!
Steve the Egg!
How'dya wear pants when ya ain't got legs!
Steve the Egg!
Steve the Egg!
Steve took a nap in a frying pan
and woke up next to sausages!
Steve the Egg!
Steve the Egg!
How'dya wear pants when ya ain't got legs!
Steve the Egg!
Steve the Egg!
Woke up next to sausages!
(Sorry, Dave the Barbarian.)
...or maybe not.
Well, the arguments (pro/anti) which taks about creator takes it for granted that creator HAD TO create!! My question is - even if there was a creator, what forced/enticed/interested him to create anything at all?
It is kind of super-cause to the cause(creation) of the effect(the universe).
Really read up on evolution. There are huge missing factors and gaps in logic. Darwin knew this. - there are no gaps in logic or missing factors. There is only missing knowledge which is being worked on at all times even as we speak here.
I read plenty of Darwin and NOWHERE EVER did he say there were laps in logic. Please give references.
That being said, evolution is as much a theory as creationism - you have no idea then that a scientific theory is much more than a supposition, do you? How can you equate a scientific theory and a phylosophical supposition? Creationism is not a scientific theory it is a conjecture based on a logical fallacy. Creationism has no logic behind it at all - only a religious believe.
You are crazy, man
You can't handle the truth.
I guess I should qualify my stereotypes.
'... the majority of their redneck fore-fathers...'
JK
or my definitions.
When I use the term redneck, I'm am referring to someone who takes pride in being ignorant.
Rednecks use terms like
"them kids an't gonna git notin useful from an ed-jew-kay-shun"
"why don them my-grants speek en-gish?"
So, in this case we have christian fundamentalist rednecks, since they want to spread a particular kind of ignorance.
I'm not taking anything out on the farmers other than their desire to keep running a business that is not economically viable. They forget than when Great-Grandpaw started the farm *it MADE money*, thats why he did it. If it would not have made money, Great-Grandpaw would have done something else. Its about common sense, not tradition.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
You are assuming that the laws that we know are the only laws, and that they are unchanging. If there are other laws, perhaps some meta laws that determine the formation of portions of the universe like ours and the laws that portion has, then things could go on forever. If the laws can change over time, ditto. We still don't know for sure that inflation won't suddenly reverse so that everything comes crashing back together again, ready for a new big bang.
Finally, if the universe is infinite, just because everything has already happened doesn't mean it isn't also happening now. You are assuming a viewpoint outside of infinity, looking in and saying"it's done." Infinity doesn't work like that.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If God, or a pantheon of gods, exists in any meaningful way, then it can be studied scientifically.
The canonical experiment would be to get a bunch of people together and have them pray for an event to occur, then measure the results.
Of course, we will swiftly determine that the God or gods do not respond equally to all prayers (...otherwise Bingo night at St. Alphonse's wouldn't make any money ...) but that is no barrier to science; after all, not all objects fall equally, yet we can still study gravity. We just have to make the study more sophisticated:
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
when these people can/will run over our consitiution like this. Is this not the country founded on the principle of the protection from the "trynany or the majority"?
Here, have a look at some of their (creation science) web sites:
http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/
You simple can NOT argue with them. Here is an excerpt from the first site I listed:
Do You Believe that Evolution is True? If so, then provide an answer to the following questions. "Evolution" in this context is the idea that natural, undirected processes are sufficient to account for the existence of all natural things.
Lets disect this. "Natural" - okay, I can buy that. "Undirected" - absolutely NOT! They are right, using this terminology I can not defend evolution. However, evolution IS directed. Thus, the whole point of natural selection. That is, a particular allele is selected for dependent on its fitness for a specific environment.
So, where does this get us? There is simply no argument to be had. They will continually push for the abolishment of evolution until they get it.
Now for what should REALLY scare you. Listen to Christian talk radio every now and then. What is coming down the pike is scarier than what they are doing "publicly" now. The new thing seems to be to "push" women back into their rightful places. That is, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Women should not have careers, but rather they should be "life-givers" and subordinate/respectful of their benevolent husbands. You think I am kidding??? I CHALLENEGE you to listen to the radio. Here, I'll save you some time:
http://www.reviveourhearts.com/nancy/
I prefer that my wife has a brain/career. We'll have kids when we're good and ready.
Oh f*$%, here goes: I, for one, welcome our new FUNDAMENTALIST christian overlords...
The key difference between religion and science is not trust, it's what you trust.
Religion believes in Facts: God exists, he created the universe, he sent his son on earth, etc.
When you believe in science, you don't believe in "facts". Science is a PROCESS that actively seek out and correct errors in those "facts".
In case you're not seeing a trend, these are the same people who recently voted to outlaw same-sex marriage in Kansas. This is incredibly narrow-minded, anti-intellectual, and reactionary.
As the WalMart post said, this is a really sad and dangerous trend. Kansas school children are some of the people who can least afford to be left behind in terms of education, science, and a broader world view. This doesn't bode well for their future.
How could anyone think this new definition is clearer? It has three times as many syllables.
It's not "more complete" either. Adding a roll-call of methodologies (measurement, hypothesis testing, etc) only begs the question of what has been left out. Like peer review, parsimony (aka Occam's razor), mathematical modeling...
The phrase "more adequate explanations" is the real zinger. Who decides what's adequate? How is "more adequate" clearer than "natural"?
These ID guys are America's shame. I once tried engaging some of them (William Dembski, Michael Behe, Philip Johnson) in email discussions. None of them would go beyond one or two emails once they figured out I wasn't on their team. They have an extreme agenda and everything they say/do/propose should, IMO, be regarded with extreme suspicion.
When Evolution Is Outlawed
Only Outlaws Will Evolve
#!
I'm not arguing about any specific religion, or any particular advocates of it. Scroll down past this post, and see how many (wrongly, in my opinion) think science is the "how" and religion is the "why".
Religion shouldn't be the "why". It should be the "now that we understand this process, what can we do with it, what should we do with it ?"
Nothing seems to claim to do this for us. Religion does it capriciously, when it feels like it, when it's bored with nothing else to do. Science says "I just built the damn airplane wing, I have no clue where we should fly!" and follows up with a "Give me 50 years and $4 million more in research funding, and I'll map out places that we can go".
We were given an entire planet to use, and use wisely. One with enough resources to turn it into a paradise rivalling anything that any bible might describe. It doesn't really matter if God gave it to us, or if pure random chance gave it to us, now does it? Only what we do with it. And look what we've done. Are you proud?
If you continue to belittle all the hypocritical religions, whether because of their greed, or the obstacles they put up to education, you'll have that much less time to figure out any of the important truths yourself.
Some day, evolution in general, and that humans themselves evolved, may be proven. Religion will fight that, tooth and nail, til the bitter end. As likely as evolution seems to me, I regret that that day may come. It will be the day that sociopaths concoct assassination viruses in their basement, where spoiled rich kids grow barbed tails to piss off their parents, and you and I are forced to alter our bodies at the genetic level just so we can have affordable health care. That's the best case scenario.
And if it did happen that way, religion could have spent the time between then and now, putting all its effort into articulating what we should be doing once we had that technology.
Don't worry - America is becoming irrelevant to the world, and in another 100 years it will enjoy a lovely equal status as Africa and other 3rd-world countries.
That's silly. We're just going to be the new France. No one will know what the hell we do over here, but we'll have a few pretty buildings for the tourists, once they get old and antiquey, and we'll occasionally issue smug, condescending statements to more important countries. We're well on our way.
(I say this as a big fan of France, despite all that stuff, so please don't -1 me too hard.)
While no theory can completely prove a known fact, whatever a theory proposes must be testable. If it cannot be tested in some fashion then it is not a theory.
That is the cruxt of the matter. Proving whatever a theory proposes. We know for an absolute fact that Darwins theory is correct because of horses. Horses you say? Yes, horses.
The fossil evidence shows, without a doubt, that horses were not always horses. The modern day horse is descended from a creature about the size of a large dog but which in no way can be considered a horse.
Thus, what Darwins theory has proposed has been tested and can therefore be considered a valid theory. The same can never be said of Creationism/ID.
The biggest mistake that those who oppose Darwins theory being taught in schools make is that they misinterpret what Darwins theory actually says. The theory does not say all creatures must evolve from other creatures. Rather, the theory says that all creatures may evolve from other creatures. A noteworthy difference.
No, this is just the latest attempt to drag this country back to the Dark Ages where people believed that various gods and demons caused everything from earthquakes to the passage of the Sun and Moon across the sky.
Since Creationism/ID relies on a being who can never be proven or disproven it is not a theory and never will be.
What is truly sad about this whole situation is that these people don't want to learn. Their outlook on life must be one of: "Well, I don't understand it so I guess it's a supreme being taking care of things."
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
disclaimer - I live about six miles from the KS border in Indep, Mo, the place that Christ is supposed to return to; Kansas has no monopoly on religious zealotry /disclaimer
That said, I want to make one observation about the Trial to Make Monkeys of Kansans. When one begins discussions of TCP/IP, or general networking, or branch chain prediction, or locality of reference in data theory, people wave their hands and admit that it's so far over their heads that they couldn't possibly have an opinion on the subject without years of study and some experience. They know intrinsically that such complex and specialized knowledge informs situations and implications that they cannot *approach* at their current level of understanding.
And yet these same people will make completely unfounded assertions and express concrete opinions about things that are every bit as complex ( ie, cosmology and biology ) and specialized, characterizing anyone who doesn't agree with them as bigots of one flavor or another.
The fact is this: The "Intelligent Design" agenda completely dismisses the Scientific Method informed by thousands of years of reasoning, and refined to a hard point by Karl Popper. Not that it's a dogma, but it's a very good yardstick to use as a bullshit detector.
In the end, the claims of ID could be 100% true, but they *would not be 'scientific'*; science and religion ask, and answer, entirely different questions. It's only when adherents of one or the other become sufficiently confused by scope and ontology that we start to have this kind of buffoonery in the Public Forum.
Thinking outside my Head
Using the scare-word "supernatural" displays the same kind of ignorance that the ID people themselves are directing towards evolutionary science.
Many of the ID group do not believe in any sort of "supernatural" beings.
Proponents of evolution science are hurting their own cause by boycotting these hearings and by falsely insisting that ID is synonymous with biblical fundamentalism.
It appears that the evolutionists in Kansas are either incapable of defending their beliefs, or unwilling to try.
We perceive three spatial and one temporal dimension.
What if there were two temporal dimensions? We would still perceive just one, because our spatial configuration, including our neurophysical memory, can only have one past.
However, if there is more than one temporal dimension, then when we die, our consciousness may transcend from our three dimensional spatial configuration into the four dimensional body of our entire timeline from the beginning of consciousness as an infant to our last waking moment, because death closes that timeline in the geometrical sense, in that it is no longer an ill-defined boundary.
Can you imagine what it will be like to be a four dimensional being, a human body in width and a lifetime in length? I can only begin to do so. As we close in the first timelike dimension, it will become spacelike.
Wave mechanics are very different in even-numbered dimensions, so as we enter the second timelike dimension, we might not have sight across time, but only the perception of each moment at once. If we act to change anything, we might undo our death, extending our life and falling back into the first timelike dimension again, or we might simply move our timeline radically from the point of each action, from the chaotic disturbance of the first timelike dimension's state.
Frankly, I hope I can remember each time I ever had sex in full detail.
I was really hoping that the media wasn't going to pick up on this too much. It pains me to see this performance.
Please be vigilant in your local politics. This could happen to you too. The ultra-conservatives were put in the minority after the last escapade surrounding evolution. Attention diminished and they have once again hi-jacked the school board. Undoubtedly most will be removed from office again but that won't get reported.
If I hear this goddamn phrase one more time, I'll puke in my own hat.
There IS NO CULTURE WAR. This is a phrase invented by the media to get us all riled up and polarized into three groups of people: those who don't believe in god, those who do and think everybody else should too, and those who do and don't care what other people do. All this so we'll watch/read/buy more news on this non-existant war.
Bullshit.
"Intelligent Design" is a refuge of quasitheologans who don't understand the existing evolutionary theory well enough to understand that a supernatural creator isn't dismissed by evolutionary theory. A supernatural creator is simply not important to the working of the theory itself.
Here is the issue. Many random mutations exist at any given point. Most of these actually hurt survivability and die off or at least never really develop. However when they do help it is usually because they help to move an animal into a more vacant niche. Thus we see a punctuated equalibrium develop, where evolution rarely moves any faster than say climate change, but where sudden drastic effects happen, it can move quickly. Thus evolution is *adaptive* rather than *progresive.* Believe it or not this was one of Darwin's major contributions to the field (previously dominated by the likes of Lamark). Yet, it has taken until a couple decades ago to really develop this concept of a punctuated equalibrium and most grade school textbooks skip over it.
So we see evolution move fastest where the biodiversity is smallest, and where there are many vacant niches. The products of natural variation within a species will allow it to diversify in such circumstances, and this will allow for divergent evolution in a short time frame.
So the real driving forces behind evolution are things like asteroid collisions, greenhouse gas changes, etc. And it is one of those fields where the groundrules ultimately define the finished product (or current biosphere). A supernatural creator would have merely had to create the universe as it was and let it run its course to create life as we know it. The point is that a creator would not have to interfere to maintain the system.
If you were the creator, which would you prefer? A system that required your direct hand in maintaining and developing it or one which allowed you to create it and just watch it run?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
There's only one problem with your theory. America is being taken over by people who have an apocalyptic vision AND America has a humongous stockpile of nuclear weapons. America's problem is everyone's problem.
Stephen Jay Gould in his book The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, 1400 hundred pages of Gould at his best, forwarded an argument that goes to the heart of the idea of intelligent design when he described evolution as a random walk, wherein the idea of contingency, might preclude the evolution of our species were the "tape" of evolution to be played over again. The idea of intelligent design is founded on hubris and chavunism. As a Christian belief there is an interesting tie in with 42, ancient numerology and the Greek idea of Logos. There is also a tie in to the patriarchical aspects of Christianity, the subjugation of women and a strange development of Christianity as a spritually, homosexual system of belief, but that would be another post.
cheers
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
I think one of the greatest statements one can make in science is "maybe." Such as, "maybe this apple fell for a reason." I mean, aren't scientists supposed to be objective and willing to look at all possibilities while dismissing social pressures? On both sides, materialistic scientists and those who are more spiritual there is fear, mocking and slander. What's the point? Why not just stop for a second and say, "maybe?"
I believe God created everything, but I don't know how he did it. Despite what many fundamentalists(I am a fundamentalist) think, Genesis 1 is rather vague and is probably symbolic of some deeper spiritual reality. Some aspects of evolution are compelling, but I still hear athiest scientists marvel at how wonderful the design of life is. They often times don't notice that they had just used the word "design," but since I'm a creationist I do.
Often times children think they understand everything. "It's so obvious." However, as so many have said, the more you know the more you realize you don't know. I think the more scientific a person becomes the more they will say "maybe."
There is a lot of bad blood on both sides of the debate. We've all made mistakes, myself included. However, it doesn't mean that we're all wrong, nor is it likely any of us are completely right. I have a theory that if we don't mock each other maybe things would be a little better.
-peace
Why not just allow the IDers (or Creation Scientists, or whatever they call themselves this year) have their day in school? I claim that doing so will uncover the vapidness of their "science" faster than any debate or argument could. There's quite literally nothing to be said about it after the initial premise is stated. I.D. consists solely of the observation that a lot of people disagree with current scientific explanations of biology and prefer to attribute it to a sentient Creator. All else reduces to "yes, but it could be that He wanted it that way!" They have no positive observations to fall back on, only weak refutations of Darwinist theory. I claim that no area of serious study with so little foundation can exist for long in the light of day.
Follow along: what happens if Kansans mandate that such a thing be taught in their schools? Do you think anyone could create a full-semester course in I.D.? There's nothing there to teach! So could they require biology/botany teachers to give equal time to ID? That would consist of ending each lecture or textbook paragraph with a restatement of the it-can't-be-cause-I-don't-believe-it argument. After the 4th or 5th time, students will recognize it as meaningless and will tune it out. If they attempt to push the argument any further, it would be obvious to all that it was religion, yes? So what? Students will survive even that indignity.
After all, I was forced to attend church regularly until the age of eight or so, with a couple of Summers consisting of something called "Bible Camp." (I kid you not!) All of this happened several years prior to my introduction to anything like biology, botany, evolution, or any hard science. I suspect the same thing happened to a majority of /.ers as well, many for much longer than 8 years. What was the result? Did I or many (any?!?) of us buy it? How many intelligent people do you know who disavow the truth of evolution by natural selection? Be real, now. I know way too many people who profess to believe in a "higher power" or God or Cosmic Muffin or whatever, but almost none of them insist that we should refute Darwinism. The spittle-spewers who believe that are pretty much outside my sphere, and are really a minority. There are scads of people doing e.g. research in pharmacology who also go to church regularly. But do we see Blessitol, "the only antibacterial medication approved by the Holy See!" down at the local Walgreen's? (Yes, yes, I know they have "holistic" and "homeopathic" crap at Walgreens, and yet ... life goes on, doesn't it?)
For centuries now, a segment of every society has choosen to study the hard sciences in an attempt to better explain stuff. This in the face of powerful arguments in favor of more simple-minded explanations. That's not going to change! If exposure to mysticism were enough to dispel rational thought, then everyone would be a preacher/mystic/prophet/guru/naval-gazer. As a militant rationalist, I am proof-positive that such is not the case.
What would Darwin do? He'd say "Tsk, tsk, those unfortunate fools!" and go on about his business studying barnacles or fruit flies or whatever.
Ok, I'm done for now.
Yer pal, DrDanny
.nosig
... with "Intelligent Design" is that it begs the question.
The concept of evolution has itself changed over time, but is based on observed phenomena. This is the keystone of the scientific method - observable and reproducible results. And be assured, there ARE observed instances of evolution. Anyone who doubts can ask doctors about anti-biotic resistant strep, or exterminators about insects that developed resistances to various pesticides.
So, where are the observable phenomena for the "Intelligent Design" camp?
In that case, how does it qualify as science?
Tell you what, just to make sure that nobody can call me unsporting, I'll make a deal. The "Intelligent Design" crew can teach their ideas to our children in science class in school, but only if evolution is granted equal time in Sunday School.
Doesn't that sound fair?
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
We all know that the real origin of life, the universe, and everything is that God sneezed an enormous sneeze and the universe is the resulting snot that emerged from God's nose. Since a few seconds to God are trillions and trillions of millenia for us, we can expect, some several trillion years into the future, the great white handkerchief. In the meantime, we're all down here fighting and quarreling about the origins of life.
Bless you, God.
No way can you explain the toilet right being next to the snack bar?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"I have no need of that hypothesis."
Actual computer science, as opposed to programming is interested in finding out new things.
Or do you think Mathematics is artificial?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Science seeks to explain observed phenomena in nature. It is axiomatic to science that nature runs in accordance to laws, not due to the mind of an unseen intelligence.
People have incorrectly used "God" to explain the gap in there understanding (ie, those lights in the sky are angels changing the scenery for the end-times, rather than being a meteor shower).
But if there is a God, science will never find it because it is axiomatic that you don't use God to explain observed phenomena. So in order to explain things of complexity in nature, science has to find an explanation that does not include God. Sometimes this produces theories that are accepted for a time, but only later to be discounted.
Science naturally produces theories like the Big Bang and evolution, because those are theories that explain how complex things come into being without the need for a God. But even those theories cannot escape the "gaps" in understanding, which are sometimes passed off as "something that obviously happened, we just don't know how."
Evolution theories get more an more complex (right or wrong). Since science must explain the existence of humans without God directly and constantly intervening, evolution makes the most sense. But when the data is put to the theory, gaps occur. Like when one species of humans scientifically cannot have evolved from species A to species B, then is it proposed that both species A and B must have had a common ancestor C, even if there is no evidence of a species C. Then some may go looking for species C to fuel the evidence for this model, and then they may or may not find something they claim to be species C. If they don't find something they can claim to be species C, then the theories are reworked. If they do find something attributed to species C, then the cycle usually repeats itself (then what is the ancestor of species C?).
The evolution ancestor tree or more like a sprawling bush now, but since the exclusion of God is axiomatic, and evolution is the best theory of scientific explanation, it must be true that the ancestor bush is correct. "Data" never says anything. You can't "look at what the data says." You can only come up with a theory and see if the data fits.
But the point can be made that evolution cannot be tested because we can't actually observe the ancestor bush. We can observe things that seem consistent with evolution (fruit flies and DNA patterns) but we can't watch the single cell ancestor slowly become a modern human. So evolution becomes inherently un-falsifiable until someone acutally starts an experiment that does exactly what evolution theory says happened in the past. But even then, it would only show that it could have happened a certain way, not that it only could have occurred that way.
Creantionists (or whatever ID-ists) have the same problem. They take what they read in the Bible (or other evidence of a supreme intelligence) and show that observed natural phenomena could have been caused by "God" (a great flood is consistent with observed phenomena, so does that mean the observed phenomena could only have been caused by a great flood?).
The debate about evolution has always been about the existence of God. But I submit that science will never give proof of God because it is axiomatic that there is no "supernatural" interference in observed phenomena.
Creationists will continue to try to show that their theories are consistent with observed phenomena. Evolutionists will continue to show that humans can exist now without the need for a God to explain their existence.
What if there is a third option? The Big Bang was the only widely accepted theory of the origin of the universe and now that is losing traction. Will the theory of evolution ever fall out of favor with scientists?
What if science uncovers dimensions previously unknown to us? Or forces, or theories of matter, or genetics that cause us to rethink a lot of our theories?
What if science figures out a better theory than e
Personally, I don't really see the creationists as being too much worse than that particular demographic of atheists who worship Darwin as God. *Excessive*, irrational veneration ...
Thanks for providing us with a poignant example of excessive, irrational, statements. Speculating that there is any significant faction of people on this planet who, in any way, "worship Darwin as God" is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
If there's one thing that really annoys me, it's an intellectually deficient side's desperate attempt to compare the end of a cigarette to the surface of the sun and claim they both put out the same amount of heat and therefore negate each others' significance or severity. Intelligence insulting hogwash!
However, another group who I think desperately need to get lives are those who are frantically seeking life on Mars, purely/primarily because they hope they can use such proof to discredit creationism altogether.
Huh? Are you kidding me? Are you wearing tin-foil underwear?
I believe the best way that evolutionary advocates can win this particular battle is simply by not fighting it.
Unbelievable. You advocate not standing up for what you believe in, and this will somehow make everything rosy? Have you not studied even a sliver of history of any civilization in the world?
This is interesting, but if what Paul Feyerabend says about the institution of science is true, then this rebellion will be crushed in due time. The dominance of science must prevail!
There is nothing inherent in science or in any other ideology that makes it essentially liberating. Ideologies can deteriorate and become stupid religions... the science of today is very different from the science of 1650... Like the heretics of the Catholic church, Heretics in science are still made to suffer from the 'most severe' sanctions this relatively tolerant civilization has to offer
Fear not for science is the next Catholic church and the ensuing Inquisition will quell this heresy of 'Intellegent Design' and 'Creationist theory'.
I am troubled by the decision by scientific groups to boycott these hearings. Wouldn't it be better to take these arguments on squarely and address them on the merits? Science is supposed to be open to challenge, its entire structre is designed to allow for changing theories in response to evidence. By boycotting the hearings it makes it look like science has no answer to the points which the Intelligent Design proponents are raising.
It's no secret what their arguments are. They are posted widely on the net and promulgated by ID websites. Scientists should prepare responses to these points that are simple, concise and can be explained and understood. People like Richard Dawkins have written whole books on the topics. There are plenty of engaging, articulate and intelligent scientists who could do a good job of making the case.
I know the arguments against it: that the hearings are rigged, or that this dignifies the opponents by making it appear that their weak arguments are even worth responding to. But first, even if the hearings are rigged, it is important to put the facts into the public record. This is a subcommittee, and the full school board has to make the final determination. The scientifically oriented board members need ammunition to strike down claims by religious members.
And as far as dignifying the creationists, they are already gaining political power! Refusing to argue with them won't change that. The right and honorable thing for science to do is to deal with them on the level of scientific argumentation. Explain why their arguments don't work, show the problems in their theories. This has been done successfully in other forums.
Look at the Scopes trial: Scopes lost! A fact often forgotten today. (Actually Darrow requested a guilty verdict so he could appeal the case and make it set a precedent.) The point is that winning or losing in the local setting doesn't matter that much. What matters is making the case forthrightly, honestly and fearlessly.
Scientists shouldn't worry that they are dignifying the opposition. People do deserve to be treated with dignity, after all. Science should merely respond calmly and factually to the charges, and should inquire carefully after any flaws in the logic of the ID proponents. This is the method of science, it is what has made it so successful, and it is how science should proceed today in these hearings.
I'm not sure what the proponents are trying to accomplish with that definition (and no, I'm not so naive that I don't imagine they're trying to accomplish something), but on its face, that's actually quite a fine definition -- about all you'd need to make it really complete would be to add "rigorous debate and criticism" to its list.
I've always thought that a nice, side-by side comparison of creation and evolution, presenting the evidence for each (this one book plus a whole lotta faith on the one hand, versus all this direct and indirect evidence on the other), would make an excellent object-lesson on the scientific method, though I suppose it'd be too subtle for some (and too unpalatable for many).
Is intelligent design anything new? Or isn't it nothing more than the good ol'teleological argument? Also known as argument from ignorance...
I understand there is some kind of mathematical theory behind the resurfacing of these ideas, but since I've read Frank Tipler's "The Physics of Immortality" (well, most of it...) I believe that you can "almost" prove anything, as long as you are verbose enough to make people forget about your initial assumptions.
"Also, just because most people who are "ignorant" believe in Jesus..."
People who believe this and propagate it are no less a part of the 'ignorant society' of which you speak. There are ignorant Christians, but there are also ignorant Muslims, ignorant atheists, etc. What all of these people have in common, and by your statements you included, is that they align themselves so much with a political doctine that is anti-"something else" that they lose all power to objectively consider more than one explanation or be tolerant of others with differing beliefs.
People like both yourself and the 'ignorant' Jesus-believers you chastise suffer from the same affliction of using religion to further their own bigotry and bias instead of embracing it or tolerating it as a doctrine of love and morality which extremists often pervert.
the slippery slope towards facism.
(Or are we there already?)
Few people understand Occam's Razor in its original context so here it is.
When confronted with the question of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, William of Occam stated (according to two translations I have seen from his Latin reply): "One should not needlessly multiply entities."
One should not needlessly multiply entities. That is a powerful statement that when taken literally can impact scientific theory, engineering, programming, theology, etc.
How do I know that birds can fly? Well, the issue is that we define our concept of reality to be such that if enough other people say they can see birds flying too, then they must fly. Of course Hinduism says that this is all an illusion.
Why is this important? Because our definitions of what we call reality and what we include in an empiracal scope very much impacts how we see the world around us. I consider Neoplatonism to be the direct ancestor of Science (most of the "Foudning Fathers" of science were Neoplatonists including Francis and Roger Bacon, Issac Newton, and others), and they included religion in the empiracal world. Many of them sought to build a model which would include all known religions or at least would validate all known religions.
It is particularly interesting to read the works of Henry Cornelius Agrippa or Paracelsus from this perspective. Here you have the ancestor of science which included an empiracal look at all matters from spirituality to chemistry (at least from their perspective). The psychological model that they developed would eventually be largely disregarded but it is still the basis for some psychological exersizes that some psychologists (such as Roberto Assaglioli) have derived.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I'm not sure if you're aware but all accounts of historical events are passed on by written word, or hearsay as your article calls it. There's no less reason to believe Jesus existed (and there are more accounts than just the Bible) than there is to believe anything else in our history books.
De-certify every science degree from any Kansas school when an applicant wants to transfer out-of-state.
Am I the only one who finds it ironic how the Scopes Monkey Trial has evolved into this?
Yeah, it was nice AC flamebait, but it overlooked one important fact. Those African nations don't have the most overwhelming military the world has ever seen.
If Germany had the kind of military and battlefield advantage that the USA has in today's world, Slashdot would only be in German today. Slashdot wouldn't exist, we'd be learning about racial purity, and if you're not white, you wouldn't be reading this at all.
So, what am I saying? I'm saying that every nation that has a staggering military advantage resorts to using it, and if the United States goes through anything like Weimar Germany, you'd better fucking duck or expect the U.S. to detonate a nuke in India or central europe to "reset" the economy back in it's favor. The World Bank still uses dollars. The US is already holding down the world's oil reserves, and fucked over the French and Chinese who sneaking oil out of Iraq during embargo years. All your base belong to them.
Just to expand on what I said above....
Here's what was used against Galileo:
From the book of Joshua
10:12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
Clearly it states that the Sun stood still, not that the Earth stopped rotating. Therefore clearly the Sun revolves around the Earth, and the Earth does not go around the Sun. To say otherwise is blasphemy.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
You're right and it bothers me as well. It's the fear issue which is on both sides. Neither side wants to be the one that loses. If both sides practiced real tolerance it wouldn't happen. However, that would require rational thought, which both sides seem to be lacking.
I think that you've done a nice job of supporting my assertion that there are idiots living everywhere.
Again, for the simple-minded out there - Kansas isn't in the South. Saying it is won't make it so. Kansas is Midwest.
The fact that more people in the Southern states voted for Bush than for Kerry in no way supports the assertion that "living in the South automatically and without significant exception indicates that that person is uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent". It supports the assertion that the majority felt that Bush was a better President than Kerry. I personally feel that that is a monumentally incorrect feeling, but then I know several perfectly intelligent (non-Christian) Southern people who cast votes for Bush. I don't understand it, but there you go.
"Casted" is the incorrect form for the past tense of "cast". The word you wanted was "cast".
What wasn't close was the religious vote: 59%-40% for Bush among Protestants, up to 78% for evangelicals. People who cited moral values as the primary issue determining their votes voted 80% Bush, and people who cited terrorism voted 86% Bush! Kansas voted 62% Bush, and Alabama (which IS in the South) voted 63% Bush. Interestingly, 7% of Alabama Democrats voted Bush. Florida voted 52% Bush, and that is close despite being a Southern state. Again, 14% of Florida Democrats voted Bush for unknown reasons.
In any case, I would consider (as an example) the 40% of Mississippians who voted for Kerry to be a "significant exception" to the implicit assertion that all Southerners voted Bush and therefore all Southerners are "uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent", to quote you quoting me.
This just in: Kansas, STILL not in the South. You might want to write that one down - you CAN write, can't you?
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
...the more science I learn, the more I see how that the can be nothing except "intelligent design" to how the universe is put together and how everything in it functions. Things such as the very tight mathematical tolerances that govern how fusion is sustained within a star and how heavier and heavier elements are subsequently generated, how the electron shells of atoms can interact to allow the formation of protein molecules, and how those protein molecules can interact to become both a programming language and a programmable machine, etc, that there is no way that all these things could exist because of some "accident". There is definitely a great scientific and engineering mind behind creation.
WTF?
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Quite the object lesson - open up your religious text with the idea that knowledge has extremely negative consequences.
Begs the question, though, is religion a tool for understanding or control?
As a TOTAL sideways topic to this, it's interesting to compare the serpent in the garden to Prometheus of Greek legend. They essentially accomplished the same thing (granting humanity knowledge that allowed them to become more godlike).
Probably a function of the society both legends spawned from, but Greeks considered Prometheus to be a hero for his actions, with Hercules later rescuing P from his eternal punishment.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
... and I'm not the only one. Don't take it personally.
Democracy doesn't just mean you have a say in government; you also share responsibility for its actions, even if you are opposed to them.
You have three options:
1) Reverse the decision (somehow)
2) Move out of state/country
3) Develop a thick skin
It is an embarrassing joke, but the joke's on you as a Kansan and on both of us as Americans. Don't feel too bad when the saner portions of the country do their best to pin it on Kansas specifically.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Since recorded history only goes back thousands of years and evolution has been at work for MILLIONS of years I could simply say "your reference frame is too short" and leave it at that. Or I could say "look at the fossil record" which shows plenty of evolution.
However, in fact there are plenty of readily observable cases where mutations are beneficial. Viruses and bacteria are constantly mutating and evolving to more successfully compete in their environments. Plants have also been observed to mutate to better deal with changes in their environments.
And this is just the stuff we can see before our eyes. Heck, you can experimentally cause bacteria to mutate in just a few days.
Multiply this by MILLIONS of years. Do we expect to see some amazing new mutation to appear in humans or other animals over a short thousand year time frame? Of course not. Most (in fact, nearly all) mutations are detrimental. But the few that are helpful (ie, give the lifeform a slightly higher chance of survival) get passed onto future generations. The detrimental mutations do not. Over MILLIONS of years, lots of complexity can evolve through this weeding out process.
Over a long time, in an environment with light, development of the eye becomes almost assured.
So much, in fact, that the idea was hit upon several times during evolution - we don't have one type of eyes on this planet, but well over a dozen. That's a crazy designer if you ask me ("now the insects, I think I'll give them completely different eyes, just for fun").
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Read it more carefully. In the first, the explanations must be natural. In the second, the explanations describe natural things. What's the difference? The explanations need not be natural. The first scientists called themselves "natural philosophers" They tried to describe nature in its own terms, rather then guessing or making reference to a super-natural force. What's supernatural is not a part of nature, and thus not a part of science. This new definition can include supernatural explanations. The extra words are there to confuse the issue, nothing more.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Sure: the mutation that causes sickle cell disease. This is a single base change to a hemeglobin gene. If you get two copies of it you get sickle cell disease. If you get one copy of it you'll be resistant to malaria. There will always be more people who have once copy rather then two copies, so the net effect is beneficial. How about a mutation that increases longevity in mice and worms? These are just a couple of the more spectacular examples from off the top of my head. Consult any text on genetics for more examples.
Actually, I like the new definition.
If you're not a scientist, you probably define the two words like this:
Theory: "Someone's wild-assed guess. Same thing that some eggheads call a hypothesis." The opposite of Theory is "A Law", something that you believe has been proven to be true.
Natural: "Something anybody can understand!" The opposite of Natural is "Synthetic", something eggheads in white coats invent.
The scientific meaning of "theory" isn't the same as Joe Sixpack's meaning of "theory". This discrepancy allows Joe Sixpack to say "but evolution's just a theory".
The scientific meaning of "natural" is also different from that of Joe Sixpack. How many times have you heard fundie freaks say things like "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! Because Adam and Steve isn't natural!" I'm sure if you asked a fundie, he'd say that because it's divinely inspired (and because he can understand it, and because that thar science stuff is too confusing to his itty bitty mind :), the Biblical account is the more natural explanation for how humans came to be.
Evolution is easily falsifiable. Just find a dead human inside a tyrannosaurus and the Theory of Evolution will have been falsified since the theory says this can't happen. As to hypothesis testing, Evolution provides many specific hypotheses that can be tested. Most of the biology journals are full of such tests. Indeed, much of modern biology simply would not exist without the Theory of Evolution.
The "Theory" of Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is not falsifiable, is not a Theory as most philosophers of science define a Theory, and is not science.
Evolution is based entirely on observation and theory building and has no hypothesis testing beyond showing simple species-specific traits can be passed along.
Sounds like your high school was one of those where teaching Evolution was avoided, something all too common these days since many teachers are terrified of controversy. But instead of remaining ignorant, try reading a book by Richard Dawkins or Steven Jay Gould.
FreeSpeech.org
"Let's not abondon all reason simply because we have faith. Nor let us abondon all faith simply because we have reason. Like the shoes on our feet we can get further with both than either one alone." paraphrased -JMS
God is not. Ergo, God is not science. Ditto for creationism.
Unless you can tell me how you could be proven wrong, you ARE wrong.
BTW, I think some people believe in the scientific method too much. Even though most scientists accept it, I guess many ordinary people will not admit that it is a more effective way of gaining knowledge than other, maybe less rigorous, methods. There is no use in explaining to people that the theory of evolution is better because it is derived using the scientific method, if the latter is more controversial than evolution itself.
Some say... right. How many times are you going to post and repost the same drivel?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
- The origin of life - evolution says nothing of the origin of life.
- Natural selection - natural selection is one of several selection mechanisms Darwin proposed, but there is more to the theory of evolution than just the selection mechanisms (causes of variance for example)
- Survival of the fittest - this isn't even natural selection let alone evolution. Natural selection is not a life or death selector, an organism can both survive and breed yet still have its genes slowly edged out over generations by the propagation of others. I don't know where "Survival of the fittest" came from, Darwin never said it. Eugenics maybe?
- Darwinism - Darwinism is an explanation of how evolution works, it's a damn fine one and has stood the test of time, but if tomorrow we found out it was wrong we would still know evolution as fact - it's something we can and have observed happening even if Darwinism turns out to not explain it.
Evolution is simply the idea that species changed/adapted/diverged slowly over time from a common ancester.Granted, Darwisim/theory-of-evolution is often what we mean by evolution, but it's still important to know that the evidence for evolution happening can stand regardless of our theory on mechanics behind it.
And speaking of common ancesters, there's also that myth that evolution claims we're descended from monkeys, I reckon that one gets propagated deliberately.
With all the misinformation floating about the place, it's a wonder anybody believes it, though I guess when you look at what "the other side" is pushing...
When did "designed" start implying only one designer?
Three engineers sit outside having lunch. One a mechanical engineer, the other an electrical engineer, and finally the last a civil engineer. They begin pondering the concept of God. The electrical engineer goes God has to be an electrical engineer just look at the complexities of the human nervous system. He is quickly cut off by the mechanical engineer who disagrees and says God must be a mechanical engineer given the simple complexity of the human vascular system. The civil engineer laughs then says your both wrong. Only a civil engineer would put a septic line through a recreational area
You know, the religious right controls the whole of America right now. From the presidency which they terrorized everyone into supporting to the judicial bench which will soon be completely stocked with yes men for the Bush dynasty (George, Jr., Jeb, Neil, etc...) They will run this country into the ground while lining their own pockets. ALong the way the seem to want to devolve the whole of the country, what they will do is only destroy the whole of their supporters. Life is poretty easy on Earth right now so everyone gets all cushy and forgets how to survive. THe Earth will be a much more difficult place to live in the coming years and large amounts of the population will be dead and forgotten. I figure if these people want to be backwards in Kansas, or Dover PA, or wherever, then freaking let them! Let them get what they deserve, let them retard their children even more. While the rest of us who know how to think evolve ourselves, these people will devolve to a useless state. They most certainly won't survive the coming energy crunch when large amounts of the current population can no longer feed itself easily and will have to get very creative to survive. They will prove THROUGH their ignorance and eventual death the very definition of evolution! It will take time, but the human mind will either evolve or completely shut down. Let these retards shut their minds down. I for one will be the first to thank them actually. Thank you for refusing to evolve, thank you for making your lesser, ignorant race even less able to compete with us advanced and obviously far more evolved huiman species. Thank you for dying off and letting us usher in a new era of humanity devoid of your ignorance. Those of us with the capacity for boundless ideas and our genes will survive on a harsh, post oil-economy world. Your closemindedness will simply be a footnote of the survivors of how ludicrous and against any kind of god's plan 'intelligent design' would be in the first place. Jesse
As nefarious as the actual purposes are, I rather like the new definition of science:
"Continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
Well, I think it needs a Harvard comma in there for clarification of the disjoins, but overall it seems almost Kuhnian.
Of course, a definition won't magically act in isolation when the real subtext and agenda are to replace science with religion through a pretext of "golly, we just don't know."
Buy Text Processing in Python
Flash! - Kansas secedes from the Union, becomes a theocracy - then dies due to insufficient gene pool - oops, you morons dont believe in genes, either... Please secede. Please - I'm a 3rd yr trying to become a scientist. If any of you fools actually understand science, please read the recent paper on the EVOLUTION of Caenorhabditis Elegans (a lowly flatworm). This is only one paper among thousands that conclusively proves the Evolution model: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/548 8/2342
She probably is made of plastic after all.
I take all my stuff, place it around my residence and something comes to life. That is fact, not resemblance of any intelligence.
I would rather see this like the thoughts behind "Men In Black". We could be the mold in the corner of the Galaxy of junk. Piles of "stuff" tends to grow something when the right pieces of "stuff" comes together....
We do not even have the means to understand or know enough that would be considered even a "mark on a ruler" of the universe. Why would anyone believe otherwise without any measurable level of evidence or knowledge?
A nanometer is not a mark on the milage counter of this universe.
Evolution is easily falsifiable. Just find a dead human inside a tyrannosaurus and the Theory of Evolution will have been falsified since the theory says this can't happen. As to hypothesis testing, Evolution provides many specific hypotheses that can be tested. Most of the biology journals are full of such tests. Indeed, much of modern biology simply would not exist without the Theory of Evolution.
Actually "falsifiable" normally applies to the results of an experiment, but I'll accept your point.
A second thing that would demonstrate that it was falsifiable would be if aliens show up and say, "Oh yeah, we created all of this to get the Ultimate Question." I guess that would validate be Intelligent Design...
And who do you worship, little man? Is it....SATAN??? -- the Church Lady
>> Then I drop a duck, and it flies off. So I revise my guess: "All inert objects fall."
>
> Your girlfriend is inert?
After we 'trew 'er off the cliff, she done stopped movin'. So we left 'er dere. In'ert? Why, she's under six whole feet o' 'ert!
we were seeded by aliens and earth is nothing but an intergalactic reality show.
The honest answer is (aside from the fact that we don't even know whether the Universe is open, closed, etc) - we don't know, and there isn't any way to test this state here on earth, because any such experiment would exist within the Universe, and is thus not closed unto itself.
Now, I am not a cosmologist, physicist, etc - I am just talking out my posterior here, so what I say is most likely just a bunch of nonsense in this context. However, one of the current theories about what the universe was just right after the "Big Bang" (provided that theory holds, of course), was a "soup" of "quauntum foam" - that is matter was composed of quantum bits - quarks, mesons, etc - that gradually "came together" due to various base forces (electromagnetic, gravity, etc) - and formed more recognizable matter, which clumped together, and things cooled off, expanded, etc - ie, Entropy increasing.
As entropy continues to increase in this system - what happens when all the energy is gone? Does matter "fall apart" when entropy becomes "infinite"?
Ultimately - could the "creation" of the Universe be cyclic, going from Big Bang to Big Blackness to Quantum Foam to ??? to Big Bang?
Ok - so a lot of "what ifs", and I am probably completely wrong in my speculation and reasoning - so ultimately we may never know - and thus there will always be room at the bottom for adherents to religion (and philosophers, of course - though I place those individuals above religious practitioners - though sometimes they are one and the same)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
If you want to call it a "problem", the problem is simple. There is no applied science that comes from evolution. As such, telling the average person that we come from tomatoe monsters, god or apes does not affect them. Now telling the average person that electrons only move when god tells them to move will not get you very far, because the average person can pull out a basic electronics book and tell you the know better.
I say this without judgement, religion fills a void in many peoples lives. Religion fills the void for that which cannot be explained. That is why religion used to explain we are in the center of the universe, until of course applied science blew caused a problem.
I don't have an issue with intelligent designs folks except to say that is no excuse to stop looking. Evolution clearly exists in certain forms, that is a fact. We should not stop looking into how nature works just because it is complex. Scientists should continue to understand how we come about and that means searching. At this point evolution is the strongest theory.
If intelligent design people are serious, their next step would be to figure out how our DNA made it on this planet, or how "we" made it on this planet. I don't see any research from them on that part. Seems like they just want to give up.
-Nuke the moon
If that happens in the States, then the seats of learning, innovation, and production will long have moved to a more welcoming country, leaving the US, er, Jebusland, to its own devices with its well-deserved Caviar Tastes and Cat Food budget.
Yeah, right.
in my opinion, i think the word "yet" should have been the last word in the above slashdot writeup.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
. . . when colleges are going to start automatically putting freshmen from Kansas high schools in to remedial classes, since they simply have not been taught how the world, or science, works.
So you're saying the Bible is a Mainframe app? interesting...
They should not stop here. They should stop teaching evolution completely. Silly theory.
Biology needs to be revised since it does not take God into account. Enough about cellular processes, it's God's little hands!
Physics and its theory of relativity should go next as it implies that God could not be everywhere and anywhere at once. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical abomination and so much less elegant than stating "God does it" (Occam's razor, don't forget!)
Algebra was perfected by heathens so that should go too.
Once Kansas is done overhauling and improving its education system to the pinnacle of enlightenment not long will pass before the U.S. will be awash with cheap, young, uneducated burger flippers to quickly replace the influx of illegal immigrants.
Selfless in the name of national security. Kansas, I salute you!
Sure... and why not let Joe Sixpack redefine the definition of quantum theory while we're at it...
I apologize to you, because I should have been clearer. My comparison between the American South and Iran was not meant to perpetuate stereotypes. Factually, in both places there has been a concerted effort by a vocal minority to hijack the State in order to enshrine idiosyncratic religious beliefs, and to inflict them upon the populace at large. California does not fit this description yet. Arkansas does, in this case and the case of the Ten Commandment monument in their state courthouse, among others. Also see Blue Laws on private sexual behaviour, prayer in schools, etc.
The universe and its origins, on the other hand, have NO provable theory behind them. To say that all around us was designed by an intelligent 'creator' is just as valid a theory as saying it 'just happened'. Neither one can ultimately be proven to the satisfaction of scientific standards at this point in time. There is evidence that a God exists, but there isn't proof. Likewise there is evidence that evolution is real and that we may have been derived from some single-celled organism which came from a big bang and chaos and so forth, but there isn't absolute proof of that either. Neither theory satisfactorily answers the questions it poses, like 'Who created God?' or 'What was before this big bang?'
A proper analogy would enter the realm of the unknown. Scientist 1 says 'I think this is the complex way all matter works based on my tests and nothing disproves this so far.' Scientist 2 can say 'Well I have a different theory, based on my observations' but it is stupid and meaningless for him to say 'Yeah well there's no proof that invisible flying elephants don't exist but we don't believe that now do we!?!'
Ah, you must be one of them if-you-don't-believe-in-my-sky-ghost-then-you-obvi ously-have-no-moral-compass type of people.
Assuming we're discussing Yahweh, the laws he purportedly passed down to Moses listed the preservation of Yahweh's ego before the preservation of human life. That's not, to me anyway, an indication of a deity with healthy priorities.
I do good with no expectation of reward for it. Can you make that same claim?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
A scientist needs to convince himself and then others that an idea is "correct". And in the end, if he really thinks about it, its because he "feels" its right. Isn't this the same method religous people use? - in a word? No.
There is a big difference between what a scientist does and what a religious person does.
First of all a scientist is supposed to be impartial. He is not trying to convince himself of anything, he is looking for an explanation. I am not sure if a religious person is really trying to convince himself in something, I am sure a religious person is trying to convince others to follow him, that's true.
A scientist observes a phenomena, gathers data, builds a hypothesis and then tries to use the hypothesis to make predictions of the future. If his predictions work out well within statistical error margins, he presents his work as a scientific theory and tells others how to do the same experiments as he did. Others now can poke at the theory and try it for themselves. It takes time for a theory to become accepted not because people 'believe' a scientist but because they tried something themselves and the theory made pretty darn good predictions of the outcome. And it was repeatable within a statistical margin error.
Now anyone can come up with a better hypothesis and try to it to predict the future outcome. If his hypothesis does a better job (the error is smaller, the predictions are more often right than the first theory,) it will be accepted after another period of scrutiny.
Now please, are you telling me that religion also operates on this level? Don't be a fool.
You can't handle the truth.
Boy, I sure wish I still had some mod points. Great post. One sad thing that I'm noticing is that most of the well thought out posts in support of evolutionary theory are from Europeans while the ones like the ancestor of this one are clearly American. What happened to us? How much farther will the pendulum swing to the religious right? I'm pretty sure that I don't want to live in a theocracy.
> Actually, civilization itself introduces problems with evolution.
Not at all. It simply moves the effect of natural selection around. When civilization doesn't exist, evolution tends to favor physical survival traits. When it does exist, evolution tends to favor intellectual traits.
> Sure, more people give rise to more offspring, but traits that would have terminated certain genetic lineage in the abscence of modern medicine, for example, are allowed to continue and extend into future generations. So, instead of evolution being dominated by survival of the fittest (engendering "best of breed" traits), at best, civilization takes the scatter-gun approach... engender every combination of traits, even bad ones, and let them all continue. It adds to diversity but at such a cost...
The effect isn't realistically a cost, because higher intelligence tends to create problem-solvers. Physical traits that would once have resulted in certain death for a family are suddenly conditions to be fixed or mitigated. Because civilization exists, we see the use in solving problems that we wouldn't otherwise bother with (curing cancer isn't so important when half your tribe can't get sufficient food), and in solving those problems we advance the state of our entire species. Therefore, the diversity that is lent by civilization is beneficial to the continuation of the species, which is what adaptability is all about.
Virg
"went to the olathe website, and there was a greeting from your mayor.
p age/cvbrot ate_1a.jpg"
oddly this was the picture.
http://www.olathe.org/images/cvb_splash
You should have seen the last clown that got elected.
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
Please mod parent down. He speaks from ignorance.
/.ers out there more enlightened than me. I humbly invite your corrections.
Buddha's philosophy does not see treating other people kindly "in a negative light". Buddha would not condone seeing this in a "negative" or a "positive" light. Buddhism would not condone doing kind deeds while thinking in terms of a "negative" or "positive" light. Let me explain: Buddhism is concerned with seeing things *as they are* and seeing how the mind creates our many "life's problems"--i.e. to see how humanity's problems are not metaphysical (some ancient curse from some supernatural being because of eating some ancient fruit, etc.) but personal (are you being greedy? impatient? ignorant? letting desire overcome you? etc.). With this comes the realization that we are, despite all our differences, the same. We were all born young and innocent, and have a core that remains so despite the experiences and struggles of later years. Compassion arises naturally then, for you see the same person in every stranger as well as in the mirror. Everyone is close to you like a family.
Christianity was like this once. That is probably why they tried to preserve it by using family titles: "Father" John, "Sister" Mary, "Brother" Joe. Unfortunately, the introduction of a god into all of this puts one thing above everything else in status: an unknowable being. That is all right, because younger or "weaker" people need something to hold onto before they can start making realizations and spiritually maturing on their own. The trouble is, what was a tool along the way became a fixation. Now you don't do good because you FEEL compassion for all sentient beings, but because if you don't some powerful being will punish you and make you suffer eternally.
Note: I am only 25, and this is merely what I've learned and realized so far. I'm still maturing and growing spiritually, and know there are literally millions of you
If you want to learn more, I would recommend "365 Tao" by Deng Ming-Dao. Don't worry, Taoism and Buddhism are, ultimately, the same thing: mere names and aspects for the same universal truth (barring cults and perversions... they pervade the world).
I'd talk about Confucius too (he was greatly misunderstood to be a strict disciplinarian who emphasized conventions, which is too bad), but I'm late for my tutorial! This is especially bad, since I am the TA!
These "educators" need to understand the principle of Occam's Razor. How you can propose that something as fantastically complex as the Universe requires something EVEN MORE fantastic (God) to explain it?
Check out this site for a great (and very civil) set of back-and-forth essays on this topic by ID proponents and evolutionary biologists, first printed in NATURAL HISTORY magazine; it also provides suggested links for further research by all participants in the colloquy. http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.ht ml
As Blofeld observed, "Well, if we destroy Kansas, the world may not hear of it for years!"
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
That's it! I am so sick of these little minded twits. I want to start suing churches. Let us have some warning stickers on bibles that ram a little science down the preachers throat. Protest outside churches saying that God is not the only answer. Have cameras inside the holy conclave to see the arguments as the "Holy Spirit" moves the bishops to elect the next pope (after they murder the one they just elected). Science can stand to have a bright light shined upon it. Can religion?
These proponents of "intelligent design" are doing nothing more than pushing their particular brand of religion in schools, invariably some form of Christianity. I say that if they can pull this shit off, they should have to teach the creation myths of every religion out there. I mean, if they can stomache that crap about their god doing the whole shebang in six days then what's to say that the universe didn't start from the cataclysmic meeting of fire and ice, and that the first man wasn't licked out of a giant ice cube by an even larger cow?
Who's to say that Odin isn't the "intelligent designer" and their christian god is nothing more than a johnny-come-late charlatan?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
This has gone beyond a mere culture war. This is a war being waged by the insane in their effort to subvert and ultimately subdue sanity itself. To replace science with Pentacostalism, replace teaching with preaching, and replace truth with myth.
Correct.
These maniacal, land-locked Southerners are determined to hammer out their new techno-theocracy at any cost, and they are winning, people. They are winning.
First of all. These Pentacostal types had massive growth in California starting in the 70's. In fact, most of their growth has been on the left coast and upper mid-west, not the South. As someone pointed out, Kansas ain't the South. In fact, the only Southern States which are land-locked are Tennesee and Arkansas, both of which border the Mississippi. Everthing else is on the water, and no we don't consider Texas to be part of the South, it's Texas, there's a difference. We sent all our criminals and kooks to Texas to annoy the Mexicans, look up Texas history sometime.
Secondly, while they may be currently winning, this has happened at least two other times before this. I really think this is just another "Great Awakening". We must stand vigilent while the nation goes through it's gyrations, but it's not the end of the world and these people don't have as much power as they think.
They have seized control of the terms of all debate, seized the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and are within a hairsbreadth of controlling the entire Judiciary. We are heading inexorably toward the nightmare world envisioned by authors like Alice Walker in books like A Handmaid's Tale. All it's going to take is one more 9/11-style attack and you'll be having to recite Bible verses in order to leave your house in the morning.
Don't Panic. You can still beat these people in any rational debate if you know your position. That's really the problem, is that most people don't know how to articulate their own epistemology in the face of religious fantacism. I wouldn't worry about anyones vision of dystopia other than Kafka's The Trial myself. Given that the history of Western Law has been precisely about ridding society of the arbitrariness of The Trial, I don't think these people can make a persuasive enough argument to radically change the entire fabric of Western civiliation. They're annoying, and it's unfair that rational people have to put up with this nonsense, but that's life. Quit waiting for the sky to fall and learn how to deal with these people effectively.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Why wouldn't you want your kids to learn as much as possible and then continue on to discuss and debate it? Thats how things get stronger and improve. I am an atheist and strongly believe in evolution. Is it perfect, no of couse not, but neither is science. I was always taught that science starts with a hypothosis and then comes the proof. Many times a proof isn't found or is inconclusive.
Now that being said, religion has no place in a public school. If this is just a way to push creationism, then it is an outrage. But from what I gather they are simply trying to offer the idea that it might not be completely correct. I am very okay with that. And if they do prove it wrong, well great, I look forward to seeing it on Nova.
Evolution does not claim to explain or even try to address the origins of life. It only describes what happens after life is already present, regardless of how that life began. Any arguments against evolution which refer to the origins of life, or which use the fact that evolution cannot answer the question as to the origins of life are pointless.
A second point: It has taken many decades for the theory of evolution to be thouroughly considered, tested, analyzed, etc. by many, many professional scientists before it (evolution) became a standard part of teaching biology. Those who want creationism or intelligent design to be included in biology curriculums must subject their ideas/theories to the same rigours. Until then they must stay in religion classes.
Where on earth did you get that bizarre idea about the Buddha's teachings?
Let me quote directly from The Buddha's Advice to Sariputra, which is the first example that comes to hand:
As you see, the focus isn't on how other people might react at all. It's not even mentioned. The Buddha's advice isn't even negative in the sense of focusing exclusively on avoiding misdeeds; there's also emphasis on positive attributes.
In fact, one of the common criticisms of Buddhism is exactly the opposite of yours--that it focuses too much on the individual, and doesn't pay enough attention to how that person should engage with the outside world, instead encouraging withdrawal and disconnection.
[Yeah, I know, way offtopic...]
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
nice clear objective thinking. Thanks
Well, first it might be wise to ask why there can't be morality with religion, even though all known real examples tend to show otherwise.
There are fewer anti-monkeyman types around these days but they're much more organized and outspoken than in the past. Most interpret their increasing noise as an increase in numbers but really, they've just painted the number 11 on their amp.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
From my overly long experience in graduate school (physics), I noticed some patterns in students' and professors' views of religion:
- Very religious students often had already as ungrads come to terms with the intersection of science and religion, either by witholding judgement on problematic issues (creationism and cosmology, eg.), or by becoming more secularized.
- Almost no non-religious students became more religious.
- Professors seemed to be more secular (or at least, lower key about religion) in general, until they entered their 60's, when some of them began to question their place in the universe again. I knew of one professor that converted from Judaism to Christianity and became an ordained minister.
For me, the main conflict has been that scientists are trained to question results, and religion seems to take more on faith. Plus, science seems to make more reliable predictions about the world than religion.
intelligent design, which posits that life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator
This quote from the original post is so false. (the "supernatural creator" part.) I wish people would get a clue about ID before they criticize it. In ID, the nature of the designer(s) is NOT specified. It is simply that life on earth bears marks of having been designed, and where this design came from --- whether (natural, physical) aliens, or the Metaclurians, or Allah, or whoever --- is not included. It is NOT necessarily a religious enterprise, even if many of the participants are religious people. (Some are atheists...)
I believe in evolution, but I don't see how anyone can say they've been shown proof (or anything like it) that random mutation and natural selection are the key components.
ID should not be taught in schools because it is doesn't explain either the "intelligent" or the "design" part. You can't simply observe a complex structure and say "nothing that complicated could happen by accident, so it must have been created by an intelligent designer".
I'm really more interested in the hostility displayed by slashdotters towards religion and religious ideas here. Scientists are going way out of their way ridicule and denigrate people of faith for having these ideas. If the facts are on your side, why all the hostility, and why resort to logical fallacies like ad hominem attacks? Why even bother to attack or disprove ID if it is such a farce? I'm detecting a high level of sensitivity. And as far as the school children of Kansas goes, public schools are always going to teach what the community wants them to know, as long as they don't get into the area of state sponsored religion. I'm sure there are many communities that teach as an absolute fact that Humans are causing an imminent global warming catastrophe, when no such thing has been proven.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
Bush is from New Haven, Connecticut. Bah.
+ bush+birthplace
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=george+w
everyone's entitled to my opinion.
Ask yourself what you mean by "pure evolution theory." The phrase is a remarkable syntactical construction that subtly implies a distillation of all the myriad loose ends of evolution into one or two simple concepts. Yet you present no evidence that you have a good working knowledge of those concepts.
Are these efforts by creationists in USA new (only in the 3-4 recent years) or a constant happening? I mean the attempts to change definitions in text-books etc., I know that creationism has existed for a while.
I will try to take a stab at the "why it matters" question, since no one else appears to have addressed this from a strictly Biblical viewpoint. Christians believe that the first man Adam sinned and thereby condemned the whole of humanity to separation from God. Jesus Christ was the perfect atonement for that sin, and thereby saves those who believe from that eternal separation from God. If there was no man Adam, there is no need for a savior. Evolutionary theory challenges the concept of a special creation of Adam, and so challenges the need for a savior.
imho, it appears they are explicitly trying to give equal value to exercises in "logic" as is given to the other criteria.
this is properly called philosophy.
sum.zero
here is an entire organization of them: http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/biologicalsc ientists.html
Damn cultists.
Ok so I'm agnostic; that means I don't believe in god, gods, God, nor Gods but I also don't not believe in them - I simply don't think I know the answer.
...) and this force decides to build a world that is self consistent and appears to be really really old when examined from within. I am defining "vastly powerful" such that given enough time to construct such a thing it could be done.
Religion has and will continue to serve mankind. Not all religions, not all followers of every religion - but some by some for all more or less.
I am big into science - I love *love* understanding how things work. I am constantly surfing about learning, learning about technology learning about people learning about almost everything.
Science is about finding explanations for our observations and engineering is about applying that knowledge.
There is nothing in science that makes it more concrete than the absolute beliefs of a deist in their creator.
I believe in evolution but I can't prove the world is more than a day old. If you find this hard to believe take some time to ponder it. I offer you this seed to germinate if you care. Imagine for a moment that there is a vastly superior force out there (Borg in a million years, a million immortal telepathic Einstein clones on their trillionth anniversary,
This doesn't answer the question "is there such a thing or is it possible in reality." The point here is that science is a belief system - a belief system that values knowledge.
The bigger point here is that social values and individual values are what matter and not the belief system through which they interpret the world. So long as you are helping life (my value system) I am content with you as you are; cross that line and you earn my ire whether your cause is religious, scientific, economic, or political.
How you get a Ph.D. and be this incredibly stupid is beyond me.
This creator nonsense explains nothing. If all life is explained by an intelligent creator, then (duh) who created the creator?
This is the question that exposes these religious lunatics posing as legitimate scientists. No matter what excuse they come up with to answer it, it's not an explanation. It's just pushing the problem up a level.
If the creator has "always" been here, then maybe we've just always been here as well. Any suitable explanation for how the creator was created is equally suitable for how life (ie us) was created, and vice versa.
It's creator fairy tale is just skirting the issue, nothing more.
By definition Faith is "Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."(from dictionary.com). Both science and religion are forms of faith. Even with the logical process that science uses there can be unknown variables that could disprove scientific theory.
How I see it is life is a series of questions like a test at school. Both science and religion are different answer keys for that test. As humans our brains need to have answers to those questions for life to make sense. The main difference between a test in school and this "life test" is you can't fail this "life test" because no one is grading it. Not answering a question is just as good as answering it. Personally, I would rather admit to myself that there may not be an answer then use faith to put one in. There is a lot of power in not answering and if you can wrap your brain around that then you eventually realize that faith is by definition ridiculous.
Humans by nature fear what they don't understand and faith squashes that fear. What people don't seem to realize is admitting that they don't know squashes the fear in the same way. Pick something that scares you because you don't know what it is. Now say to yourself "I don't know what is it but thats ok". Doesn't that feel better?
I don't see the need for a conflict.
My mother is a fairly devote protestant from a long line of preachers. Growing up she demonstrated her in a heartfelt and open fashion.
After a while I asked my father what his beliefs where and he looked me in the eye and said, "Do you bereave in god?"
At which point I had to say, "well no not really."
We then had a hart to hard where he basically said, "I find the belief in god one of mankind's stupider dilutions."
From his perspective all you have to do is prevent sloppy thinking and your kids will notice just how silly a belief in god is. Which is how I plan to deal with it. If my wife wants to do the whole Santa or god thing then I can sit back and keep my mouth shut 99% of the time and still win the argument in the end so why fight over it?
You've expressed what the whole argument boils down to: those who are willing to accept that they don't know something and those that require an answer to every question. God has always been used to fill in the blanks. Those with closure issues can't handle the thought that they will never know how they came to be. And they'll never know what happens when you die until you die. And we still don't really understand how the brain works. So god is used to answer the questions. It's very convenient since everything can be explained with "him".
I see nothing wrong with having faith in a god. But don't use him/her to fill in the blanks when other natural theories fit them very well.
Developers: We can use your help.
Let's really put this into context. While I find this to be a complete embarrassment, I think people are overreacting. Most of the people are this board on just spouting anti-American comments. And they call us racist.
Let's face it, in a world where people burying children alive as part of a religious ceremony, kill others in the name of Allah, and believe in Papal Infallibility, this surprises you? Really?
Hopefully this will either be laughed out of existence or maybe people will realize the disservice they will be doing to their children.
But just because one school system in one state decides to question science doesn't represent the downfall of mankind, much less whole of the USA.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
One argument against you, although I appreciate your point, is that schoolyard politics come into play. Survival depends on a number of things, and being intellectually more capable won't help anyone staring down the barrel of a shotgun at some podunk inbred who would prefer you dead. One of the things the bullies have learned is that controlling the military can do wonders...look who controls the military, the police, etc.. It isn't bleeding heart liberals. In fact, liberals tend to be more peace-loving and pacifistic - when the bully comes around, brains don't help much except soften the blow from getting tossed in a trash can. Educated folks may need to learn how to kill people, unfortunately, to survive.
man rtfm
My reply to that was similar the argument in your post, with another point - the eye is nowhere near perfect. It's got a large spot on the retina that has no photoreceptors (the blind spot). Surely an eye can be fashioned to not have a blind spot in it, but we got stuck with the 'bad' eye model. Just goes to show that the eye evolved from something else. A creator would've given us the good eye to begin with. And our eye is so developed now that the process of getting a 'good' eye would involve the eyes de-evolving and kind of start from scratch (which would be bad for us, so it doesn't happen).
Not everyone in Kansas is a back-woods Bible-thumping hillbilly that can't tolerate evolution and supports these intolerant actions. There are many people in Kansas who may or may not believe in evolution due to their personal spiritual beliefs but are reasonable/tolerant enough to not object to it being taught in schools. So the favor I'm asking is this: Don't lump all Kansans into the same boat when you're referring to the actions of the intolerant. I'm sure you don't like it when a European refers to a war-loving American anymore than all Kansans like being called a Bible-thumping hillbilly.
Most people automatically assume that if a God existed, that he would be the God as told in the Jewish/Christian Bible. Frankly, I see no reason for that to be true. The lack of a divine apology for the December 26th tsunamis and cancer are some of my arguments against a detail-oriented God, who created man in his own image, and takes a personal interest in the salvation of every person. The existence of malaria, SIDS and spider-infesting wasps are good reasons not to believe in a benevolent God.
It may not be possible to prove/disprove the existence of a god or two who can subvert the physics of our realty. The specific personality of the God in the Bible can be judged against what we know. Judged, and found wanting.
For a lighter note, I invite you to learn about Hank.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
A lot of these arguments will place Creationism against the evolution strawman and will miss the entire point of the intelligent design theory. What I've read of the intelligent design argument is that there really are a bizarrely huge number of coincidences that exist that allow for living creatures to exist. Change even one and the entire sytem will falter. The only decent argument to refute that I've managed to come up with is to consider that in a endless universe there are limitless posabilities.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
It should never have been "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us", but rather "seeking explanations for the natural things what we observe around us" or some such.
Look, the average Afghan hated the Taliban, but they were still in POWER. These religious groups, like the Parents TV Council, Focus on the Family, etc ARE acting like the Taliban and they're increasingly getting the Republicans to do what they want. Hell, Frisk was just on a spectacle for one of these groups that want to end the fillibuster process. These people wanna censor everything, wanna teach the bible in schools as scientific fact, wanna KILL the judicial system by having only Christians as judges who judge according to the bible, they hate gay people and think they have a mental disability.. THESE PEOPLE ARE THE AMERICAN TALIBAN. they are religious EXTREMISTS and they are DANGEROUS. i know the majority of christians dont support them, but the majority of Christians apparently aren't into their shit as much as these wackos are dedicated to their "fight", their "jihad". and the SICK thing is that people, americans, the media, the politicians, EVERYONE pretends this is fine, its no big deal, theyre good people. NO. they are BAD PEOPLE.
"and" only means that you may use one or more, but are not limited to one.
"or" limits you to a single criteria.
most schools of writing dislike "and/or" as it is imprecise, but i can't comment on the specific usage in scientific writing.
sum.zero
1. The universe must have been created by an intelligent designer because it's too complex to explain any other way.
2. The designer's existance can't even be proven let alone explained. Period.
So how is it that the only way to explain the universe is by the existance of a "Designer" who's existance can't be explained?
Intelligent Design is nothing more than identity theft. Creationists were kicked out of the schools and they think that replacing the word "God" with "Intelligent Designer" somehow makes thier belief secular and scientific.
I've got a novel idea...
Teach science in school.
Teach religion in church.
I think the reason creationists are unable to play by these rules is quite obvious: they aren't concerned about teaching their own children, they are concerned about teaching YOUR children.
The rise of the west was predicated on the decline in the influence of the church. This reverse heralds a return to the domination of the irrational, myth-based reasoning that kept Europe in the "dark ages" for so long. Have we learned nothing in 500+ years?
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Bush isn't from Texas. He's as New England as John Kerry. Went to Yale. He bought that ranch in Crawford in 1998.
I wouldn't worry about them kansans. Even if this craze envelopes the nation, the rest of the world is on the right track, and these arguments never last. The church has fought various scientific ideas for millenia, and always loses. Terracentricity, heliocentricity, big bang, base-10 numbers (arabic numbers, esp. zero); the list goes on. They even gave up on Creationism not too long ago, realizing evidence had piled up too high, and they needed to bury their heads in a new kind of BS, namely (un)ID. They're like little kids crying over nothing, ignoring them is the best recourse. I'd like to add that in Nature this week was a chart showing that as education increases, so does acceptance of evolution. Don't invest in bio-companies from Kansas.
I also reccomend "The Selfish Gene" by Dawkins. In it, he goes into detail about the mechanism by which evolution happens, our genes. It's a fascinating book.
Actually, our little girl is due in August. I should probably change my sig. Sorry I got your hopes up! I'm really excited, though.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
How dare these religious fanatics disparage my ancestors! It's like saying that slaves from Africa contributed nothing to american culture. My ancestors were amphibious, it's in the science! It's like saying babies come from storks, and pig ignorant. How anyone can get a PhD and stand opposed to science boggles my mind.
Alas, I feel that the solution to this problem is to take matters into our own hands, taking a page from the book of the dominionists.
There are three things parents can do individually.
First, they should spend time with their children. Find out what is being taught in the school, teach them what the schools are leaving out, unteach what the schools have taught wrong, and prepare to go to bat for the kids when a dominionist teacher grades them an F for speaking the truth.
Second, where possible (and I recognize that not everyone has time for this), home-school. This is kind of an extension to the first idea. It is also taking a page straight from the dominionist playbook.
Third, (and I recognize that not everyone can afford this), send children to private schools that teach students the truth. I am the product of such an education. My parents sacrificed a great deal to put me through high school, but I got a first-rate education.
www.wavefront-av.com
We've 'created' odd critters, such as ligers, but they can't reproduce on their own, and most likely would not have mated of their own accord in the wild since they live in such different areas. Inspection of the available fossil record shows, if anything, the gradual DE-speciation of earth, not the increase/betterment that we would expect if following macro evolution to its logical conclusions.
Scientists have no reasonable explanation available for where the stuff came from to produce the Big Bang. By insisting that matter has existed for ever, they have created their own faith and belief system, but have assigned god status to matter, rather than a deity who made it.
Any observed and extrapolated results (for that's what a hypothesis is, an assumption based off a sample of data) must lead back to a point where there was nothing, or that what we have now has existed for eternity.
The definition of the Scientific Method, as quoted from [http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Append ixE/AppendixE.html], "The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation of the world."
Nowhere in the realm of Science is there a way of proving or disproving creationism or macroevolution. Later in the article: "the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of the scientist's bias on the outcome of an experiment. That is, when testing an hypothesis or a theory, the scientist may have a preference for one outcome or another, and it is important that this preference not bias the results or their interpretation." Scientists who do not pursue every avenue of explanation, allowing for results which indicate that their personal preference or bias may be wrong, are not true scientists. "The scientific method is intricately associated with science, the process of human inquiry that pervades the modern era on many levels. While the method appears simple and logical in description, there is perhaps no more complex question than that of knowing how we come to know things."
I happen to be a creationist. I believe the Genesis account of creation, and I believe that God made the earth look 'old' to start with. Considering that we have no idea what a 'young' planet would look like -- we've never seen one being made -- there's no scientific reason to discard the Biblical account of creation in favor of an account of spontaneous generation of life in all its different out-workings as we see it today. I also firmly believe in microevolution, the process of minute changes made and propagated through succeeding generations of a given organism. It's seen daily in the birth of children, where each child gets a unique mixing of the DNA of their parents. There are little teeny changes between generations in terms of resistance to disease, tolerance for certain foods, etc. But there's no recorded point where a species jumped from itself into another, new one.
The 'new' definition of science in Kansas is just a realization that there has been error in the past, and they want to correct it now. Every major scientific discovery has changed the way people think and feel, and has given new light on old beliefs and thoughts. The world is flat. The earth is the center of the universe. Man can't fly. They've all been proven wrong through better observation, experimentation, and the willingness to throw out the old ways of thinking that have true flaws in them.
antipaucity
V'ger, of course!
Decker: V'ger... expects an answer.
Kirk: An answer? I don't know the question!
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
More like: "It is unknowable whether he exists or not."
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.
If the Earth's ecosystem were a game, like say, an RTS, people would be complaining endlessly about how it's "not balanced", and how all any player has to do to win is choose human.
Free Hans!
obref: what amounts to a definitive dismantling of pseudo-scientific ID arguments may be found in young & edis why intelligent design fails. this is a surprisingly readable collection of essays that should be accessible to anyone with an operating brain and an undergrad-level science understanding. very highly recommended to slash-dotters.
nous
It drives me nuts when the science that brings us cars, cell-phones, computers, sewer systems, etc. is only called into question when it "conflicts" with some interpretation of the bible, a document that conflicts with itself.
Also note that these are the same people who were against in-vitro fertilization until it proved useful and who are rallying against stem-cell research until we find a use for it.
Of course, if they were being honest in questioning evolution and teaching other creation mythologies, then I would suggest Bhuddism, a variety of different Native American beliefs, Hindu beliefs, so on and so forth. But that's not what they're proposing. Apparently science only supports Jesus.
2. Let's say you could prove that Jesus (the man) existed. Would that prove that he is the son of God? I can prove Muhammed existed because he is mentioned in far more places than the Koran and by far mroe people than those around him.
3. Let's say you could prove that he was the son of God...well, then you win and I'm becoming Christian.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
This is how science progresses: make assumptions, assume that they're right until something shows otherwise, and then methodically try to prove them wrong.
I wish science worked that way more frequently. I think what you've described is a very naive view of science. In reality, "science" works quite differently.
The people making assumptions are often people who are trying to win money in the form of a government grant. The people in charge of awarding the money ("funding projects") are the same people who have proposed the "current prevailing theory." What if that theory turns out to be specacularly wrong? There are ego, careers, prestige, and money at stake. So if someone else comes along and proposes an alternate theory that shows that the "current prevailing theory" is incorrect, then those people making the proposal are viciously attacked. Maybe the heretics will be denounced as "unscientific" if the current Powers that Be are feeling charitable. Maybe they will instead branded as trying to kill people and suggestions will be made that they should be put in prison.
Don't think it can happen? It happened before with a disease known as pellagra. Pellagra was killing lots of people in the Southern USA in the early 1900s. In 1915 the surgeon general of the USA sent Joseph Goldberger to investigate and discover the pathogen which was causing people to die. After doing some observation, Goldberger put forth the idea that pellagra was caused by diet instead of a pathogen. This meant that for 15 years scientists were barking up the wrong tree, so Goldberger was denounced and his crackpot theories were ignored. Years later, in 1937, Conrad Elvehjem showed that pellagra was cured in dogs when niacin was added to their diet. Today, pellagra is known as niacin (vitamin B6) deficiency. That means scientists shit all over what turned out to be correct for 22 years. My guess is that massive egos were tied up in maintaining the status quo. I mean, you're a top-knotch scientist using taxpayers' money to learn how the natural world works. You don't want to be shown to be a fraud, do you?
Fast forward to 1984. Richard Gallo announces in a press conference that he has discovered the "virus" that causes AIDS. 20 years and $150 billion later, scientists still cannot explain how HIV causes AIDS, who isolated HIV, and why no lives have been saved. Maybe scientists are, once again, barking up the wrong tree, since their lack of results and foaming-at-the-mouth treatment of any heretics seems awfully familiar.
Oh well, it's not bad for everyone. Pharma corporations sure are making a killing.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
oh well
Thank God! For once it isn't Indiana being stupid in public...
Rb
Ok, I admit it, I admit passing judgement against rednecks. I also did not say rednecks are bigots, I do find it interesting that you inferred this. I am sure there are ignorant people and rednecks who are definitely not bigots. I said that my definition is, "someone who takes pride in being ignorant". This is quite different from someone who just happens to be ignorant.
I don't think I ever tried to DEFEND this position as you say. I don't think I would want to.
Perhaps you confused the two words
ignorant and bigot
To be bigoted against them (int the denotative meaning) I would have to take a side with a group and not tolerate them because of my association. However, in the conotative meaning of the word you can definitely say I am bigoted against them. The word predjudiced doesn't really apply here because, predjudice would mean no knowledge of a person before passing judgement, and my definition requires a level of knowledge before the judgement can be passed.
Now when I put down a redneck farmer, I am not putting down farmers, one is a subset of the other. To suggest that is, to suggest that someone who doesn't like apples must hate all fruit.
I do admit that I did take a cheap shot to the farmers (regarding economics of) responding to your post. I was offtopic, and should not have added that to the discussion. I was wrong.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
With humblest apologies to Mr. Adams, whom I am given to understand is spending the decade dead for tax purposes....
Kansas: The existence of life is PROOF of the existence of Go..er..Intelligent Design!
Oolon Colluphid: And yet, if you have proof of supernatural creation, that denies faith in the Supreme Being's existence.
Kansas: Er...yes...well...you see, trickle-down economics shows---
Oolon Colluphid: And without faith, the Supreme Being could not exist, and could not have been able to create the Universe...including Kansas!
Kansas: Oh dear, I hadn't though of that... ***vanishes in a puff of logic***
"Bush is from Texas. That's more West than South."
More west than south? That's absurdity in it's purest form. Look at a map. Texas is halfway through the country from east-west (so it's not really west at all) and is pretty much as south as it gets.
You're confused by the name. "The South" is a cultural shorthand, not really a geographical region. "The South" isn't really the South at all, it's really more precisely in the Southeast.
Anyway, this cultural "south" seems to hold a great deal in common demographically with Kansas, and Texas.
As Mel Brooks put it,
"You've got to remember, that these are just simple farmers, these are people of the land. The common clay of the new west. You know . . . morons."
mu
second society
"What's even more ridiculous is the claim that the Theory of Evolution is the foundation of all science."
Where have you ever seen this claim made? Physics is the foundation of all other sciences.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
There are two groups in this battle. There is but one real difference between them.
The difference is that one group can be comfortable not knowing everything and the other can't.
Evolution is a theory not because it hasn't been proven but because theories are very complex interactions between a whole crapload of different things. You'll never completely understand any theory 100%. Plate tectonics is a theory. So is gravity and electromagnetism. Should we stop teaching those since they are merely "theories"? The argument to not teach evolution has no logic behind it, but since religion must always be devoid of logic to exist it makes sense.
The difference between the two sides is that one group of people can say "I don't know everything and I'm going to keep looking for as long as it takes." The other group can't accept the fact that they don't know everything and fill in the missing pieces with mythology.
So basically this whole fight is between people who are comfortable enough with themselves to accept that they don't know everything and people who's insecurity forces them to fill in the blanks with God.
It's just a damn repeat of grammar school!
You may not believe this, but don't critisize others when they follow their own beliefs.
When Christians follow their beliefs they tend to write and support amendments to state constitutions that prevent gay people from having "any benefits of marriage." As a gay, adoptive parent in a 9-year committed relationship, what does that mean for my family?
Does it invalidate my partner and mine's co-parent adoption of our adopted son? Will it render illegal the partner benefits that my partner and I receive from my company? It's sad to say, but many Christians would happily have both of those things taken from us because they view our relationship as counterfeit and abhorrent to their god, and many other Christians won't lift a finger to stop them since they have more important priorities than getting the gay-bashers out of their religion. The gay-bashing Christians are only following their beliefs, so why should I complain?
So, Christian, I respond to you: Agreeing to disagree is unacceptable because your people attack my family through the force of the state. I openly and unashamedly reject your evil religion and your evil god. Since you worship a baby-killing, abortionist god, you have no room whatsoever to criticize my morality. I will continue to criticize, mock, and reject your religion as long as Christians choose to use their religion as the excuse to criticize, mock, and reject me. Fair enough?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Why is the idea of Evolution so depramental aginst religion. If you suddenly beleave in Evolution and you just stop beleaving in God, Or your beleaf in God is based on the fact if Evolution is true or not. Then you have serious problems with your faith. Genisus also said the Earth and the Sky are in the middle of 2 great seas, Most people even the very fundmentalist don't beleave that Outer Space is a great sea filled with water. They learned to take this bit of Science that they learned Hundreds if not thousands of years ago and learned to view it as more of a medaphore. And I don't see with God being all powerful and Good why he wouldn't follow the rules of nature to make us. If Evalution wasn't the cast then I could be more worried about God, Because why would an All Powerfull and Good person will need to cheat at his own game, The answer is that it wont. Just because God could create us out of Dirt 6k years ago, by using some gross magic. When he could just use his own rules, and create us. So what if we were not made that same way that some guy 6000 years ago though that we were made and came up with a very good solution at the time.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I propose we change the definition of Kansas.
Kansas - 1. state central U.S. capital Topeka area 82,277 square miles (213,097 square kilometers), population 2,477,574, 2. wellspring of ignorance
At what point did we quit trying to find an answer to problems and start picking a good answer and just assuming it right? I though progress in science and progress in general was about finding answers. reading the arguments in the TFA and even reading the replies here it looks like we gave up on finding answers and just picked some and decided to work just enough to find some proof for those. I think we forgot something along the way...
Yeah, science has theories but the point of a theory is to make a mark in the sand until we can get far enough to make another mark.
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
... because, although the rational basis for science is correct, there is ultimately (or currently at least) no absolute proof of where all _this_ came from.
I could ramble on about a tv programme I saw once, which started off in space flying faster and faster through galaxies and solar systems, before eventually picking a planet and diving down into the atmosphere, then down down until we "flew"into a persons hand then plunged through the skin and into the blood and then into the cells.....
The visual similarity between galactic space and atoms and molecules was striking to me even then (around age 8 or 9 )
Anyway, I won't ramble too much on that. But here's a thought.
When, some time in the future, we create a self aware "being", AI, or whatever you call it, will that be a result of evolution, or of creation ?
And if it's the latter, why can't it have happened before ?
Is the earth flat?
Depends on your perspective, If I grew up in the middle of nebraska I would be hard pressed to say otherwise. (I use nebraska rather than kansas, because I've been there, I don't want to make statements about things about which I am completely uninformed.)
As far as my wish for a small tornado, it would only have to hit one building... I have nothing against the state of Kansas as a whole, or as a land mass, just that this would be an expedient way to temporarily end the argument, and cause a whole new one in the process.
(i.e. was the tornado a sign from above, or just a natural occurance of nature...(hey, redundancy!))
long way of saying "it was a joke"
And true, at one point, people thought the earth was flat, then we learned more. then it was round, but still the center of the universe. then we learned more. (though it was recently pointed out to me that given the nature of being in an expanding universe, every point is the point of origin. everything is expanding away from you.) then we were part of a solar system, then we were a part of a galaxy, then part of a universe.
the nice thing about science, is that it tends not to regress.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
You're operating under the misconception that evolution is fundamentally different than any other scientific theory. I think it's understable from an outsiders viewpoint, so let me try to illustrate why it's a misconception.
Evolution matches with much of what we know about the world. We can now study genetics in detail, and we can see natural selection at work directly in organisms with short reproductive cycles. Examination of fossil records have born out its predictions about the progression of species and common ancestors. The ideas upon which evolution is based, then, are strongly supported by our observations, which is why the scientific community has little significant debate about whether evolution is the correct explanation for, as Darwin put it, the origin of species.
As with practically any scientific theory, however, not all phenomena are understood and we are constantly revising our understanding of the details of evolution, though the general picture remains the same. Scientists certainly do disagree about some of the details of evolutionary mechanisms, and they are doing their best to figure out these puzzles. The vast majority are agreed that that solution clearly lies in an evolutionary theory, because of all the correct explanations it has given us so far.
Now, I've said this is no different than any other scientific theory. Let me choose something from my field of expertise, physics, to make the comparison. Electromagnetism is a theory, the one according to which all your electrical devices, including the computer you're using to read this, operate. Like evolution, it has had many predictive successes, and like evolution it has had many revisions as we learned more.
Physicists first thought that electricity was some sort of a fluid. This allowed them to explain much of how static charge behaves and electric circuits function, but there were some things they couldn't explain. Later, they revised the theory, because they learned that electricity was the movement of individual particles (usually electrons), not a perfect, continuous fluid. They thought they had things pretty well nailed down until they realized that with their understanding of electromagnetism and mechanics, atoms could not exist. More discoveries led to quantum mechanics and finally the formulation of another revision of electromagnetism, called Quantum Electrodynamics (QED for short). This is often claimed to make more accurate predictions than any other scientific theory, yet there are still phenomena involving electromagnetism like sonoluminescense that we don't understand, and we're fairly sure that something new happens at very high energies (e.g. grand unification).
The point here is that like evolution, scientists have revised electromagnetism many times, still debate some of the details (again, for example, GUTs), and there are still phenomena involving it we can't explain. But when we teach children electromagnetism in high school, we don't say "it's just a theory" or "electromagnetism is not fully proven fact". We hopefully teach them how the scientific method works, so that they know that science is an ever-growing understanding of the world and no theory is the final word. They should also know that just because electromagnetism is a theory doesn't mean they should doubt that their TV will still turn on tomorrow.
By singling out evolution and casting doubt on it, we would be deceiving children by pretending that it's different than any other scientific theory and even more so if we invite pseudoscience under the name of "Intelligent Design" into the classroom to masquerade as science. If I were a high school teacher, I would not debate alternative theories of electromagnetism in the classroom, because students don't have sufficient time or expertise for that, so they wouldn't really profit of it. I would teach the scientific consensus view point (even independant of my personal views) that experts agree upon. In a Biology class, the same logic holds for evo
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
The second definition of science does not require "natural" explanation, opening the door for "unnatural" ones. All the other words are there to hide that fact.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I have a little different take on apologetics. From what I've seen, at least in the sphere of Christian dogma, apologetics exist to try and explain away the MYRIAD of verses that CONTRADICT what has been proven by science or time. Hence, the apologist has to come up with all kinds of looney theories to explain the contradictions between a 6000 year old earth and a millions of year old Earth. The ID folks have dropped the 6000 year old Earth spiel (because science had too many proofs against it). I'm no bible scholar, but the Bible is full of things that 'need to be explained' against common sense and common experience. That's the job of the apologist. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
all those words are there to hide the fact that they took "natural" out of the properties of the explanation.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Sorry, I find it very difficult to get worked up by any of this anymore.
Any truely objective observer will note that the most vocal supporters of teaching evolution in schools also have an atheistic agenda. Is it any wonder that writers like Dawkins draw all of the Creationists with their theistic agendas out of the woodwork like cockroaches? There are crackpots on both sides, each with their own non-scientific agendas, and they tend to be the most vocal.
Truth be told, if textbooks were written with objective science in mind, neither side would be happy with the results.
If you're really worried about the science that your kids are exposed to in school, I recommend that you pick up an average middle school or high school textbook on natural sciences. Ignore everything to do with evolution. Instead, check out the sections on cosmology, genetics, biology, physics, environment,... Trust me, the theory of evolution is the least of your worries!
Yeah, and that same crazy guy decided to give us different COLORS of eye's, and different colors of HAIR?! What a weirdo... he even gave us different opinions, obviously, some kind of intelligent designer, would have made a perfect being, then just made 6 billion identical copies, because that's more fun.
To consider oneself as a rational human being one must consider what is demanded for the relationship between faith and observation. Faith in this sense is defined as a belief in the correctness of any explanatory theory or in the existence of any thing absent direct observational evidence at the exact present moment. For example, one may have faith that all atoms are composed of a nucleus and electrons even though one cannot perform a direct observation on any given atom at any instant in time to confirm this. I submit that to be a rational human being one must demand certain criterion from their faiths.
If a faith is concerned with the existence of some thing then that thing must be observable under at least some experimental condition in a repeatable fashion. In this way the thing can be said to exist in the observed form to within the accuracy of the experiment. If this were not demanded to be the case then one could have faith in the existence of entirely preposterous unobservable things and still be considered a fully rational human being. Examples include aliens bent on the destruction of Earth and humanity with advanced technology that renders them undetectable, ghosts of the dead that have come to haunt or relate with the living, and any number of gods that have been worshiped throughout human history.
Difficulties arise when the object of faith is not directly observable but the predicted consequences of its existence are observable under at least some experimental condition in a repeatable fashion. This is a fantastic concept and areas that encounter such a situation are typically at the forefront of science and innovation. Examples include quarks of the standard model of particle physics and the complex valued quantum mechanical wave function.
If a faith is concerned with the correctness of some explanatory theory then that theory must make accurate predictions of the outcome of an experiment under at least some experimental condition in a repeatable fashion. In this way the theory can be said to be correct to within the accuracy of the experiment. If this were not demanded to be the case then one could have faith in an explanation for some observed phenomenon without the burden of consistency with all other accepted theories.
Difficulties arise when the correctness of some explanatory theory cannot be tested at the present time under any experimental conditions due to constraints imposed by the phenomenon. Examples include the big bang model for the creation of the universe and the theory of evolution for the origin of species. In both of these cases there is a tremendous amount of observational evidence to indicate the correctness of the theories but it is presently impossible to carry out an experiment that can reproduce the observed phenomena because of the demands for large amounts of time, space, and energy that are beyond the capacity of humanity to produce.
These thoughts are really just a rough draft and probably in need of further consideration and revision.
All your attention are belong to my old internet meme.
See, god is actually playing an advanced future version of Sims version 42 or 616.
One of the fun parts of the game is figuring out what weird things you can make your Sims do (sleep with another of same sex or a pet), and what new way of torture can be inflicted on them that set them running around in flames.
Agreed, Besides, there are a few important things to think about, first off, God could have easily created us and put signs of something like evolution, or anything else really, if we could prove that we had been created by a God, then faith is pretty meaningless, if we ran out of other theory's, then again, it would be meaningless, it makes perfect sense (to me anyways) for God to give us something to debate, I don't know why so many people get so upset about the whole deal, except for when someone is forcing a belief on them.
One way I heard something put, and made a lot of sense to me, was regarding the age of the earth, who's to say God did not speak a 2 million year old mountain into existance? Why could he not say, "Let there be a 20 million year old rock... there.", in the same why, Why not, "Let a creature evolve into a human THERE", and do it in instant?
In the most absolute sense, nothing is proveable and everything relies on faith. How do I know that birds can fly? Because I see them flying? How can I believe what I am seeing is real? (Brains-in-the-jar, optical illusions, effects of various recreational drugs)
I don't call it faith, I call it a working hypothesis. I am perfectly aware that I don't know for certain that anything exists outside my own mind. But I choose to make the provisional assumption that there is an external reality. I don't do this out of faith, but out of practicality. The solipsistic assumption is a dead end. It leads to no further conclusions: "Maybe all of this is in my imagination...OK, now what?" All done with that line of thought, let's try the other one and see where it goes.
The "God did it" assumption is very similar. Since there are no constraints on God, who could presumably do things any way He chose, using God as an explanation for physical phenomena is a dead end for scientific investigation, at least until somebody figures out how to cut pieces off of Him and study them in a laboratory. I can't exclude it, but it leads nowhere of scientific interest, so let's follow the other line of thought and see where it leads.
So let's say that things evolved by natural selection. Well, now, that raises a lot of questions. For example:
There needs to be some way of generating novelty and passing changes down through the generations...how could that happen? That line of thought leads to the discovery of mutation and genes, generating an area of study that remains lively to this day.
There needs to be some way of making changes in existing proteins without losing the function of existing ones. That line of thought leads to the discovery of gene duplication and gene families.
There has to be some way that behaviors that appear to be altruistic ultimately increase propagation of the genes that support them. That line of thought leads to investigations of biological nepotism, reciprocal altruism, etc.
This is the real reason why Creationism and its bastard child Intelligent Design fell by the wayside. Sure, there is a lot more evidence to support evolution, but one can always construct a Creationist "scenario" ("theory" is a bit too generous) to fit the existing data. The real reason why Creationism died out as a scientific concept was that it turned out to be a scientific dead end. All of the important biological discoveries were made by the people who were pursuing the evolutionary theory. The Creationists never seemed to discover anything interesting. After a while, the scientists just lost interest. Eventually, people just give up on a dry hole. Faith? No, just practicality.
Since it wasn't 100%, I'd say that your ability to interpret statistics is a little lacking if you're in fact claiming that all Southerners are "uneducated, superstitious/religious, or inherently unintelligent." The two strongest states for support of Bush were western states -- Utah and Wyoming. In the good 'ol antebellum South, no state gave Kerry less than 36% of the vote, with most Southern states hovering at about 40%. By your own limited litmus test for "intelligence," around 40% of Southerners meet the criteria.
Your own state only gave Kerry 53%. (I assume you're from Washington by your nick.) In essence, only 12% more of your population is "intelligent" than people from Georgia, and roughly half of your population is just as "dumb."
Of course, all this stereotyping and bigotry only reveals your own narrow, uneducated worldview. There are plenty of dumb, uneducated Democrats (think inner-city demographics) just as there are plenty of educated Republicans (think most business leaders). There are plenty of religious people who are Democrats because of their desire to help the downtrodden, and there are plenty of atheist Republicans who care most about taxes and deregulation. There are many Democrats held their nose and voted for Bush, and there are many Republicans who held their nose and voted for Kerry.
Actually, people like you share a lot in common with people like Bush. You seem to think that a majority (even a slim one) complete defines the characteristics of a region. The minority matters too, so take your condescending attitude and shove it. Democrats live in the South too, and we're tired of being lumped into the same group as our most obnoxious citizens, and we're also tired of having many of our friends we don't agree with on politics lumped in with them too.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
When getting rid of a weed, 'tis best to focus on the roots...
That is all.
You've made some interesting points. And in an ideal world, it would be great if we could devote all of our preoccupation with religion to figuring out these important truths. The preoccupation, though, is a form of vigilence. Yes, it is a waste of resources, but the greatest discovery in mankind's history won't mean much if conditions are such that religious persecution is a real threat.
"He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door was the way to... to...
The Door was The Way.
Good.
Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to."
-- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
humans didn't evolve from apes, humans and apes came from the same ancestor.
Present day humans and present day apes split from this ancestor, we evolved to exploit different niches in the environment.
There is a wealth of hard, scientific, evidence for this, see Hominid Species for more.
many of the world's greatest scientists believe in a god of some sort.
However, none of them (at least the ones with backgrounds in biology) believe in intelligent design. Part of the reason being that we aren't designed particularly intelligently.
PS, a great computer scientist, for instance, probably knows less biology than your average nurse, so one has to make sure the opinions of the great scientists are actually based on their knowledge of the particular branch of science in question.
"I have the idea of God therefore God exists"
bit more complex - not much - and complete bollox
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
I think there should be a division between this "guns-as-sport" you people keep mentioning (shooting ranges, etc.), and discussions about guns overall.
i ation and the official
I'm all for a sport/entertainment like shooting clay pigeons or targets, and can see enormous value (social, psychological, etc) in it, but it should be regulated in such a way that the system is not abused by criminals and people with other intents, as it seems to be the case in the US.
I'm against guns as a safety measure, and what I heard about the NRA http://www.nra.org/, they not only condone the use of guns as a safety measure, they encourage it, and things like carrying a concealed gun which definitely has nothing to do with shooting clay pigeons. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Assoc
It's interesting to see that this is a hot issue, and pops up frequently along discussions that have to do with politics and right-wing Christians, such as this.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
God just is?
Or the universe just is?
Why does one need a creator while the other does not?
To say that all around us was designed by an intelligent 'creator' is just as valid a theory as saying it 'just happened'.
The problem is, nobody's saying it "just happened". They go for the more nuanced "We don't know how it happened" - which is far, far more likely than an intelligent creator.
You express certainty in an uncertain event. I express uncertainty. That is the difference.
Last post!
Time begins with the universe. There is no before. There is therefore no beginning. No eternity. No infinity. There is just what is, what has been and what will be. No beginning and no end because time doesn't need an end either. I know this seems confusing and threatening to some people, and it takes quite a lot of fundamental learning before you can understand why that is the case. But it is the case. And to gratuitously quote Wittgenstein, the world is all that is the case.
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
Here's a (rather bad) Big Bang joke I heard the other day:
Q: What caused the Big Bang?
A: God accidentally divided by zero.
#include ".signature"
I think this is backward. No theory is required to whip up answers to questions on demand, which is what you seem to be asking. Evolution would be falsified if one could show that a biological structure could not develop through incremental changes to the genome. The ID argument, specifically Behe's Irreducible Complexity argument, attempts to do this.
Erika Heikl, 16, one of 14 students from Bishop Seabury Academy, a Christian school in Lawrence, Kan., who attended the hearings, said she believed in evolution - and that the standards should be changed to include its detractors.
When people will start realizing that science has nothing to do with believing, can we switch to a more interesting debate and leave the people of Kansas in their miserable ignorance?
Please?
Well, since the prohibition on alcohol started in Kansas, it only makes sense that the prohibition on science would start there as well. Why is it that Kansas seems to think of themselves as the cornerstone of America's morality?
Doctor! It hurts when I hit myself with a hammer. What should I do?
Science will never present us with a peer-reviewed study proving once and for all that you should be good to your fellow man, and treat him like a brother.
You should look up: "iterated prisonner's dilemma".
Winning strategies look pretty much like someone nice, who however doesn't take it from a bully. Well, a normal person.
I propose a new theory... Intelligent Designer Design... which posits that the complexity of a supernatural creator of life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator of a supernatural creator.
I also propose Intelligent Designer Designer Design... which posits that the complexity of a supernatural creator of a super natural creator of life's complexity cannot be explained without a supernatural creator of a supernatual creator of a supernatural creator.
I also propose Intelligent Designer Designer Designer Design... which posits that the complexity of a supernatural creator of a supernatual creator of a supernatural creator of life's complexity cannot be explained without tomatoes.
That's all.
There was a remarkable consistency in who called in with problems. A subset of users with one thing in common. A resistance to the answer "sometimes it just does that". Those people who always want to know "why" without ever accepting, as any tech support person knows, that a network this large and complex, connected to all those PCs with so many different versions of so many complex pieces of software...etc... just complicated and sometimes does unexpected things. It is not always worth investigating every last detail. We see what you did. Rebooting fixed it. Get off the f***ing phone!!!
This set of people probably maps closely with creationists - better to know the wrong thing than not know something. The illusion of control.
"When no-one around you understands start your own revolution and cut out the middle man"
When debating about this issue, I like to compare it to chemistry:
If it's all right to teach Creationism alongside Evolutionism, then would it be all right to teach Alchemy alongside Chemistry?
Evolution is also falsifiable if you cannot show how a biological structure could develop through small, incremental, accidental changes to the genome. This is the heart of the ID argument. It proposes that evolution fails to show exactly that--complex, interdependant structures that show design, rather than accidental happenstance. It's not enough to invent a story that sorta-kinda explains it, you have to show biological evidence.
Er, uh, no. A theory essentially becomes a Theory under the preponderance of evidence rules of civil proceedure. Those who would refute the Theory must provide evidence that contradicts the Theory. Waving your arms and claiming that life is too complex for Evolution to explain is not providing evidence that refutes Evolution since Evolution can, in fact, explain that complexity.
Evolution pretends to be self-evident...
No, neither the theory nor the scientists who study it have any such delusions. The details of Evolutionary Theory are hard to grasp and take much study. But like fools who think that parroting the words "Supply and Demand" makes one an Economist, people with no training in Evolution believe that they know enough to debunk it.
In order to prove evolution you'll have to prove to me a stack of pre-conceived notions in as many disciplines.
It is not up to me to prove Evolution to you. It is up to you to describe and conduct an experiment whose results are inconsistent with the Theory. No one has done that to date.
FreeSpeech.org
they are being called idiots.
The thing is, the people calling them that are right.
Unless the field has progressed significantly since I last looked the best that "logic" could produce was that 1+1=2. If I'm not mistaken Bertrand Russell effectively had a nervous breakdown after developing a monstrous "proof" of this assertion. But I admit I haven't kept up with the field so it's possible logic has "proven" mathematics, which is the fundamental tool used to analyze the universe.
Secondly, while I almost didn't post my original, because I know that "mathematics"(and thus presumably logic) is more "fundamental" than Physics, I see both logic & mathematics as only "tools" to be used by scientists. In fact many pure mathematicians hate it when physicists "discover" a way to put a seemingly "useless" mathematical theory to good use to help explain the universe.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
I'm a Kansan, and graduate of a Kansan public school. I was a student when the first time this "Debate" flourished. The problem is that most people see the Board of Education as a political springboard into a more mainstream political body,such as Congress. There's no other reasons to hold a "hearing" when the members holding the hearing have all already made up their minds. What they typically don't realize is that making this into a national spectacle rouses the typical non-voters out of their complacency, who aren't quite that conservative. Notice, the average Kansan isn't very supportive of such things, but the average Kansan doesn't vote either.
The thing is, there is no controversy over evolution within biological sciences. Creationism (and that's what intelligent design is) was an okay starting point for scientific theories, but LeMarckian evolution has a far better scientific standing. Creationism doesn't publish in journals. It doesn't seek to examine how that intelligent designer worked. It simply exists to refute the evolutionary theory which generates so much ire in literal interpretations of the Bible.
The evidence for and against evolution are complex, and I pity the high schooler who may soon be forced to wade through it all. High school science is really just supposed to be a good approximation of the scientific theory. You don't solve waveform equations in chemistry, and the few students that choose to take physics rarely go through the calculatory rigor of special relativity. Even in college, it was mentioned that the formulas we were using for equalibrium calculations weren't exactly correct, that instead of concentration we should be using "activity" or something like that. I'm sure a slashdotter chemist can correct me on what I was told. Point is, Conservation of Mass is slightly flawed, but we don't go round telling our students that wine can transform into blood.
I welcome the next board of education elections, and I suspect that most of our citizens do as well.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
is that like "microgravity"?
If you know anything about biology, you know about DNA, right? DNA changes over time and through selection, that's evolution.
Terms like species, genera, family, etc. are just made up categories we place on degrees of differences in DNA between groups of organisms.
As there is no real difference between the principles that make an apple fall and the principles that make a planet orbit a sun, or a sun orbit a galaxy, there are no actual differences between the forces that cause "micro-evolution" and the forces that cause "macro-evolution".
More:
Antievolutionists argue that there has been no proof of macroevolutionary processes. However, synthesists claim that the same processes that cause within-species changes of the frequencies of alleles can be extrapolated to between species changes, so this argument fails unless some mechanism for preventing microevolution causing macroevolution is discovered. Since every step of the process has been demonstrated in genetics and the rest of biology, the argument against macroevolution fails.
Read the references for the "proof".
What irony, so-called scientists are supposedly smart enough to falsify the "theory of evolution"; yet they don't and they are to stupid to falsify things like irreducible design or irreducible complexity?
Wow, that is just mind boggling at how they can be "selectively intelligent" when it suits their purpose, sounds more like politics than science!!!
The difference between science and religion is that science is based on evidence. If evidence was uncovered to show that humans were created by a big purple dinosaur, then scientists and those who believe in science would accept the conclusion, and move away from evolution. Religious people however will never do this, and that is the inherent flaw of religion. Thank god (it's an expression) we don't live in the Middle Ages any more! Otherwise scientists would all be burned at the stake.
Another example of religious imotility: Back in the 16th century, before Galileo, one monk in Rome said that god was so powerful and magnificent that he would have created several other worlds throughout the [heavens]. The power obsessed clergy promptly had him burned at the stake for such "blasphemy". Again how primitive.
Worryingly, we seem to be moving more and more backwards in the way society thinks. People are slowly seeming to trust more in superstition than in visible fact, and that is dangerous. It was the same principle mechanism that led to the rise of the Nazis. I sincerely hope that children are taught to make conclusions based on observation and evidence rather than on fantastical stories. If not, we will end up far worse than the Middle Ages.
Let them do away with science in Kansas! But let them also do without it's benifits. Let them have their religion and let them live only with the things which religion has given them. We'll see how well evolution works when those silly creationists have to give up Medicine, Electricity, Plumbing, Pesticides and Fertilizers.
:)
Flamebait!
-- force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins ayn rand
I don't know if this has already been said (sorry, i dont have time to read 1500 posts), but people on the anti-evolution side of this debate completely misunderstand what a scientific theory is. In science, a theory is an explaination for some phenomnon. It is not at all the same as the conventional way in which people use it to explain something that is a very tentative explaination. After all, Einstein's theory of gravity is just that, a theory, but no one would doubt the existence of gravity. Despite what you want to believe, there is overwhelming evidence to support evolution which I don't have the time to go into. Also, why is the creationist view so much more realistic? Are we supposed to believe that life has evolved in an ordered and predictable way to favor certian traits over others, or should be believe that this mystical superhuman force just created everything? To me, evolution is much more reasonable than creationism once you know the facts.
Following the lead of Kansasians trying to get the teaching of evolution banned in schools, I warmly invite you all to my "ban the teaching of Divine Creation in churches" campaign.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Major Nucular Arsenal! Or so they claim...
[UID-HeinzIntel]
The thing that bothers me the most about what is happening is that the entire scheme for the propogation of knowledge is being subverted. I would tend to say that until some serious articles on a given new grand theory have pass peer review and been printed in the likes of Science or Nature then the theory has no business showing up in the highschool classroom.
Was quantum mechanics taught in highschool just as it was being initially developed? How about evolution? Was plate techtonics? NO! These topics survived brutal peer review and were accepted as valid explanitory theories by the scientific establishment first. THEN they made their way to the middle and high schools for the teachers to teach.
The argument quickly arrives that the scientific establishment is biased against new theories (Such as ID) and it would never accept them. MALARKY! Each of the above listed theories and others like them were also underdogs with establishment against them. But, they won out over the (at the time) current theories because they were good theories with overwhelming and crushing evidence to support them.
If something like ID really raised any serious questions for scientists involved in research on the origins of life you can bet that they will try to answer them since the scientist that did could be rewarded with immortality like the kind given to Einstein, Darwin, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, and others (not to mention a Nobel Prize).
The injection of unaccepted scientific theories into the school system for spongy minds to consume is just right out. Totally unacceptable.
All your attention are belong to my old internet meme.
LOOK PEOPLE.
There ain't no freaking GOD. In the past, there were believed to be MANY gods and somehow we think we are more advanced when we have only one upon which we thank for the "good" things and blame for the "bad" things.
But "we" don't seem to look at the situation objectively to see that the belief in one god and many gods isn't all that different. It boils down to "I don't understand it, therefore it's 'God(s)' doing." If you believe that crap, you're a complete dumbass. When you see how many times that line of thinking has been shot down by what we NOW know is the cause of the effects we observe, it should at least shake the foundation of the simple "god" explanation for everything else. And I think it's perfectly fine to say "I don't understand..." So try it.
But if I were to play your game, I'd hate god for pollen and cottonwood because my allergies are driving me nuts!! Fucking God... I hate you.
In order to prove evolution you'll have to prove to me a stack of pre-conceived notions in as many disciplines.
.02
That stack of pre-conceived notions is the result of centuries of logical argument; premise, evidence, conclusion.
If a and b, then c. If d and e then f.
Careers, lifetimes of work, many times all in dead ends. All to get to those "pre-concieved" notions. It pisses me off to no end to hear someone say "that's too complicated to believe, that it can't work that way, it MUST be ID"
In fact, the scientific process to get from complete ignorance of the entire world to the collective knowlege all humanity is an analog to evolution. Many lines of reasoning have been proven wrong, some remain to be proven wrong.
just my
great post.
i ng_link/
Another point is Fossil record is based on the opportunity of the find, it will never be complete. We have just a few tiny snapshots from the millions of generations that preceeded us.
Note the recently found Raptor caught in what is believed to be a transition between Carnivore and Herbivore:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/05/dino_miss
Evolution is easily falsifiable. Just find a dead human inside a tyrannosaurus and the Theory of Evolution will have been falsified since the theory says this can't happen.
Not true! As a matter of fact this is exactly the game that the creationist play. These three days in Topeka are full of "dead human inside a tyrannosaurus". Finding a human inside a tyrannosaurus would certainly change our current understanding of evolution, but it would _not_ prove it false. The basic mechanisms of evolution are not threatened by changes in the timeline.
Every mutation of a virus that grants it immunity to another antibiotic.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Trials are not Science. They are interpretations of Law. You could do the trial over and over (it is the Constitution that prevents this) and you could gauge how convincing the evidence and the prosecutor's and defence's interpretations are. If anyone wants to argue that trials are a philosphical/psycological/sociological experiment in action, I would bite. (And I agree that guilt cannot be proven to the same degree that you can prove water is H2O. Not unless you observed the crime very well, like with lots of cameras and police around. Then it be pretty certain. The OJ trial of course relied heavily (entirely?) on circumstantial evidence. That just means that its not very solid, so by itself doesn't really prove anything.)
No one is saying that you have to be able to repeat a historical event over and over. That is impossible. All you can do is make a judgment on how likely certain things are. History can be difficult because the writers are always biased. Historians do practice the scientific method, because they are often coming up with hypotheses and testing them, like when they say, I wonder if the Egyptians could have moved those big blocks by rolling them over huge logs, and then they go out and test its feasability. Sure they will never know for sure whether or not that is how it was definitely done (unless they time travel), but then again we will never know for sure (until we get to ask God) whether F=Gm1m2/r is 100% accurate all of the time. Sure it seems to work for everything, but there are people who doubt its perfection as well, and I don't think anyone here is going to say that physics is not science. You have to keep in mind that even Scientific Laws are not untouchable. They are just things that we are pretty damn sure of and that will take a lot of good evidence to convince us that we are wrong.
Let's go Hurricanes!!! 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!
I'm not confused by any such thing. I live in the South. I'm well aware than when capitalized like that, it refers to a cultural grouping which happens to have a strong correlation to a geographical region (which is, yes, primarily south and east - I can read a map just fine, thx).
Similarly, the "West" is a cultural grouping to which Texas belongs much more strongly than it does to the "South". This is distinct from the "West Coast", an entirely different grouping. I stand by my statement, complete with capitalizations, that Texas is more "West" than "South". There are similarities, yes. But by lumping them together as one you show your own confusion, sir.
Interestingly, Florida, which is as south and east as one gets in the US (nevermind the fact that Virginia is more east than Florida), is in many ways NOT a part of the South, as the influx of various flavors of retired Northerners has skewed both the attitudes and demographics - which can be seen in the closeness of the recent Presidential elections in that state.
By either definition, however, Kansas is neither in the south nor the South. You'll notice that this is very similar phrasing to the first time I made this point, suggesting that I was already aware of the difference prior to your oh-so-helpful comment about my confusion. In both places, Kansas and the South, the cultural trends to which you are objecting are based more on conservative Christians being numerous and being highly assertive en masse about their common superstitions than about the entire populace being ignorant and inherently stupid. Southerner != conservative Christian. New Orleans, e.g., is very Southern, but not very conservative Christian (which is a bit of an understatement). The two groupings have large segments of commonality, but are not congruent.
It's a common misconception perpetuated by ignorant people all over the country, Southerners and not. That's the real point of my message here: Southerner != stupid. You can't accurately characterize a population that large that simply, because there's too much variation. You could just as easily characterize all Americans as skateboarders, or all African-Americans as criminals, or all Germans as Jew-haters, or all Northerners as assholes, or all Texans as cowboys. The people who keep electing Bush, putting the Ten Commandments in the lobbies of gov't buildings, trying to insert Creationism into science curriculae, etc. etc. - those people are conservative Christians, not Southerners. The fact that many Southerners are also conservative Christians - disproportionately many, frankly - doesn't mean that Southerners are the people ruining this country. There are conservative Christians up North and on the West Coast, too.
All I'm saying is cast the blame where it belongs.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
While I agree with the rest of the post, Various theological systems cannot possibly provide the truth for anything at all. What specifically were you thinking of?
If I say I have a conversation with God, is that truth? If so, then we better amend the Bible and include half the population in the mental ward in Bellevue. If a group of people in the ancient world say someone was inspired by God or talked to God, how can we possibly prove it to be true? They had little science, mathematics or mental health diagnosis so we cannot take something that we have not been able to reproduce or we witness as a part of our human experience at face value.
I have a serious dislike for religion being based on the words of man describing things that no one seems to be able to prove or even experience and selling it as Truth.
Why wasn't the Greek Pantheon the Truth? Actually, that's an easy one: Constantine I made Xtianity the official religion. Woe be to they who do not follow the Official Roman Religion...
-- "You can lead a yak to water, but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke" - Opus
This is a victory for the fundamentalists because they aren't only making a change in the definition of science. They are also mandating the teaching of Intelligent Design "theory." The following quote from an LA Times article today explains a lot: Evolution is a great theory, but it is flawed," said Martin, 59, a retired science and elementary school teacher who is presiding over the hearings. "There are alternatives. Children need to hear them.... We can't ignore that our nation is based on Christianity -- not science." Our nation is based on Christianity, not science... I could have sworn that our country was founded on the idea of religious freedom. Weren't many of our founding fathers Deists or Unitarians? My fear is that is just part of an attack by the religious right on the foundations of science itself. If this attack is successful, we may have a generation of children who are scientific illiterates. If this happens, you can kiss American prosperity, and probably American democracy, goodbye.
I just read that book recently, and while I enjoyed most of it, I found the chapter on the theories about the emergence of DNA extremely "hand wavey". The clay mineral culture idea was only presented as one possibility, but it didn't sound very convincing. If anyone has pointers to more compelling theories, I would be interested in reading them.
I always hated biology / life science in school because most of it was name memorization, but at the molecular biology level, it all starts looking digital...
John Carmack
"Intelligent Design" (the weaselly pseudoscientific name for "creationism") is not falsifiable. Any test it could fail is easily trumped by invoking the (imaginary) "omnipotent designer", which put that contrary detail into the world to test our faith, like in so many stories out of "the" bible. Metaphysics isn't testable, because it's valued by different rules. Rules which modern people largely reject, except when threatened by priests who get to indoctrinate us early, then play their trump cards when threatened by their decreasing niche in an increasingly rational society.
All of which is a bad idea for religion. Faith is not like proof. Dressing up faith in science's clothes mocks faith, and destroys its power: to know things unavailable to science's methodical connection of necessary causality. Even though that way of knowing is much less reliable, and so usually wrong, it's a valuable way to sometimes know things that science can't tell us. But it's a terrible way to do science, and pretending that it is does religion more damage than even that done to science. Of course, for grabbing power without merit, it works pretty good, so it's increasingly popular.
--
make install -not war
"George Walker Bush
Born: 7/6/1946
Birthplace: New Haven, Conn.
George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Conn., the first child of future president George H. W. Bush. In 1948, the family moved to Odessa, Tex., where the senior Bush went to work in the oil business. George W. grew up mainly in Midland, Tex., and Houston, and later attended two of his father's alma maters, Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale."
Yes, he was born in New Haven. So what? He moved to Texas when he was two years old, and grew up in Midland and Houston. IMHO his first two years aren't as important as the 58 which have followed them. If you'd prefer to say that he's 3.3% Connectican and 96.7% Texan, that's fine with me.
I didn't realize that Kerry had grown up in Texas. You got documentation for that?
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Let's talk about what the fight is really about. It's about increasing the distance from learning logical or "rational" thought. People who learn to think rationally are much less desirable to a ruling class than those who are happy with a sound bite.
"Liberal" is the new codeword from the Religous Right in this country for "rational thinker". A rational thinker generally entertains and feels challenged by new ideas. Someone who is "out of practice" in rational thinking is not going to enjoy new ideas.
Let's face it: Mr. G. W. Bush would not be re-elected if his religious base required rational explanations for his actions. Education is inconvenient to the current ruling class, who happen to be Republicans.
If Kansas can push through ID as an option in science class, one of the only guaranteed exposures to "learning to think logically" is diluted and, by home-schooled children, perhaps eliminated altogether.
Actually, worse. With this statement.
To be a hypothesis an idea must be falsifiable - otherwise it's "just" a theory.
A "theory" in science is more certain than a hypothesis. An explanation must be falsifiable to be scientific. If it isn't falsifiable, it doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis, much less a theory. A theory is what happens when a hypothesis is subject to repeated testing, inquiry and revision until it is a broad-based explanation for observed phenomenon.
And this is the problem in Kansas. A bunch of morons who have no idea of what science actually is are trying to argue that evolution isn't scientific, or that "Intelligent Design" is.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I've seen loud proclamations of support for retaining the 'true definition of science', much head-scratching about why these fundies don't get it, and even more hand-wringing about where the world (and in particular, Kansas) is going, I've not seen any sign that anyone has understood either the motivation that drives these people or the means that they are using.
I'm not sure if this is because Slashdot readership is mostly American, or because the readership is completely geek. (sorry, couldn't resist that, no flames please).
Full disclosure: I'm an Indian in India, was born a Hindu, and have been mostly atheist/agnostic in my beliefs. However, while I don't believe in God in a flowing white beard (or the hundreds of other varieties in the Hindu pantheon), I also don't believe the universe can be explained by space, time, and a set of classical or probabilistic laws.
First, their motivation:
Imagine (I know it's hard, but try) that you believe passionately in the sacrifice of Christ and that the salvation of everyone lies in accepting him and in being forgiven for their sins. How painful must it be for you to see children in their formative years acquire a world view and emotional make-up which makes it impossible for you to get them to see your way of thinking? And there's no point in saying 'why can't they see evolution as God's way of making creation happen?' The reality is that it doesn't work that way. If the mechanism of creation is itself a few simple principles (variation/natural selection), then is there really a need for a Creator to have set them in motion at the beginning? You could take Him out of the picture, and the simple principles can still be there, and will still work. What makes people believe in a all-powerful, personalized God they can accept as saviour is a clear touchy-feely demonstration of sheer, raw power, and in this department, nothing beats creating the universe in 6 days. Get children to believe that, and you'll never have a shortage of souls getting in line to be saved.
Next, the means :
I hear a lot of people saying : 'what's wrong with their new definition, it seems to make things clearer'. This is nonsense. The old definition is :
seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us.
This is actually a very precise expression of attitude and intent, and this becomes clearer if it's changed slightly to read:
seeking natural explanations for everything we observe around us.
This is a frame of mind, and this is the true spirit of science. Through the ages, there has never been a shortage of explanations:
- Eclipses happen because we anger the Sun God.
- The invisible witch cut off his breathing (a popular explanation in India, not a long time ago, for deaths by tubercolosis)
The key attitude which separates science is that it says : 'I will look for non-supernatural principles and predictable rules for everything. It may be hard, but I'll keep trying. I think I'll find such an explanation if I keep trying'.
Read the new definition again. There a lot of fancy wording about experiments and hypotheses which seems to clarify, but is actually being used to hide the key change to the attitude. It doesn't say that science should try to explain everything anymore. In fact, with the bit about explanations being 'adequate', there's an logical next step: Why doesn't science restrict itself to things it is 'adequate' at, such as planetary motion and momentum conservation, and leave other things, like the creation of life, to other, more 'adequate ' explanations?.
On second thoughts, and at the risk of being flamed, I think the reason Slashdot isn't getting this is not because
Evolution is also falsifiable if you cannot show how a biological structure could develop through small, incremental, accidental changes to the genome.
False. Falsification is a positive process. Simply not knowing all the details doesn't falsify anything. The creationists like to posit a fossil that has not been found and then claim that it falsifies evolution. That doesn't prove anything other than the fact that we haven't found it yet and there will always be gaps in the fossil record.
Regarding Gould: I am a Christian evangelical. Gould was one of my favorite authors. Yes, he professed atheism but he was far from a rabid, media-whore blowhards with suspect ulterior motives. While he could be scathing in criticizing bad-science from whatever quarter, I never felt that he attacked my religious beliefs.
"It appears that the evolutionists in Kansas are either incapable of defending their beliefs, or unwilling to try."
No, they decided that the purpose of the meetings were more for political grandstanding than to have a true debate on the merits of each case. The ID folks have a very hard time talking merits so they are seeking to change the way merits are measured. For a long while, the rest of the world has measured the merits of any debate by the scientific method. And by any reasonable application of that method, evolution has more credibility than ID. So the ID folks figured, if you can't beat them --- then change the rules. And that was why the evolutionists boycotted the debates. It has nothing to do with an unwillingness or defense of beliefs.
And for the record....I wouldn't participate either
What irony, so-called scientists are supposedly smart enough to falsify the "theory of evolution"; yet they don't and they are to stupid to falsify things like irreducible design or irreducible complexity?
Biologists devise experiments to test Evolution all the time. Those experiments have helped refine the theory but have so far failed to provide any evidence that the theory is wrong.
This is how falsifiability works. A theory predicts that under conditions X, we should observe Y if we perturb the system by doing Z. If we do not observe Y after doing Z, then we had better provide an explanation. One explanation is that the theory is wrong. Hasn't happened yet with Evolution.
ID, OTOH, is not a scientific theory because it offers no repeatable experiments that can be used to test hypotheses about the consequences of its description of the world. ID is outside the domain of science but rather belongs in the domain of religious faith.
Wow, that is just mind boggling at how they can be "selectively intelligent" when it suits their purpose, sounds more like politics than science!!!
No, sounds more like you don't really understand how science works. Look, I don't go so far as Dawkins does in that that I regard ID as impossible. There are many folks who see no condradiction at all in believing in a Supreme Being and Evolution at the same time. I just don't believe that a system that requires a Supreme Being in order to explain the world is science and therefore should not be taught in science classes in public schools.
FreeSpeech.org
This says to me the following happened:
Not everyone on /. is a rational secular person. When I first posted, secualr people rated me up. After a while, as the day wore on, the bible thumpers and their fellow rtavellers arrived and started using mod points and gave me a flamebait value. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it wsa just ONE person with mod points who's a right wing creep and dislikes me and pounded my post into Flamebait with all of his points.
Brilliant. As I said folks - these asshats play to win. The modding of my post only proves it.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
There's an interesting novel based on this idea: Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer. Basic premise: A coalition of aliens land on modern day Earth, and say "Take me to your archiologist". They're on a search for God, and the basis of their search is the reasons given by the article. Paraphrased: "If you came across a stopwatch on a beach, would you ask 'How did this form naturally', or would you ask 'Who made this?'". They're out to scientifically prove the existence of God.
Of course, the counter argument is always this: If life requires a creator, who created the creator? =)
UTF-8: There and Back Again
What is this "something"? How did it cause the universe to exist? What properties have we observed that make it plausable that a) this "something" can exist or could have existed and b) this "something" had the ability to create universes?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I don't think 1+1 can be proven. Russell gave up trying to prove it.
So you ask who created God as an excuse not to face him yourself. This is a nice try but it will not help you as you are accountable to and will face YOUR CREATOR not your creator's creator. You might try to say you did what you want in life and ignored or even actively hated God because your creator also had a creator but that is not likely to help your case much. I see a lot of angry athiests on this topic. They do not like the idea of being accountable to a creator and find solace in the THEORY of evolution thinking that if everything was just a chance random accident then they are not accountable and are in essence their own God.
This is a moral issue for most. While some are really seeking answers and testing theorys most have made a moral decision to reject God and the related accountability being aware of His existence brings. Evidence for creation is all around and is readily available to all who would seek it. Sadly most on both sides of this issue do not want to know the whole truth so they hide behind what they call "science" or "christianity" but is really just a subset of facts adjusted to their already established rejection of a creator or evolution.
What is science is what we can see and reproduce such as variation within a kind or micro-evolution. What is theory is what we cannot see or reproduce such as one kind changing to another like a dog to a cat for instance or God making Adam from the dust.
Darwin expected tons of future evidence to support his claims but that evidence has not been found as he expected so todays evolutionists have created many excuses - just read up on puctuated equilibrium for a good laugh. With this theory/excuse they claim that one kind suddenly changes to another because the eveidence of that happening gradually as Darwin expected we would find does not exist. There is even a text book that shows a chicken hatching from a duck egg as an example. This theory takes a lot of faith to believe. Then you have the gene mutaion theory that attempts to solve the same issue by claiming mutations caused the sudden changes in kind. Since I was not there I have to say both theorys are possible but it seems more likely to me they are just desperate attempts to keep evolution credible and keep from being accountable to God.
It should be noted that Darwin became extremely angry at God for allowing his mother to die a horrible death of cancer. He could not understand how a loving God could let this happen so he rejected God and began to formulate his theorys.
Finally the Kansas definition is a good change because it challenges each theory to be fully exposed and explored. Students will be challenged to test each and come to their own conclusions instead of the theory police deciding one theory is to be excluded because they do not like it and claim it is "not science". I would also say that theory police should not limit thought or exposure to evolution in Christian schools either.
Finally, many great intelects have tried to disprove God exists only to find the evidence for Him overwhelming and finnaly becoming Christians. CS Lewis, Josh McDowell, and Ravi Zacharias (rzim.org) are good examples of this and who knows if this might happen to you too if you started thinking more clearly...
Just think clearly for a moment... If I said my theory of origin for my wristwatch was an accidental result of an explosion in an electronics factory what would you say about my theory? How about if we blow up a billion factorys that all have the right materials for my watch are you now more likely accept the theory that my watch is a pure accident and was formed with no intelligence input? While possbile this theory is weak in my opinion. So the fact that my watch can be formed by a designer plus the right materials is science because we can see it happen that way but that does not mean it is the only way it could happen. If we could not see it happen it is just a strong theory while the accidental cause is a weak theory.
My wrist is much more complex than my watch yet people will claim it is science that my wrist happened by accident while my watch required a designer and never see the contradiction.
Evolution, or natural selection, is not a 'theory' but an obvious phenomena that we observe around us every day of our lives, on everything from dog appearance to human hereditary conditions to software products. It is equally obvious (to me anyway, your opinion may differ) that the universe, our world, and all life was created by God. If people want to believe, however, that life arose from electric arcs in a primordial soup, that's their choice (given to them by God) and there's no reason to condemn them, punish them, threaten them, or torture them until they 'change' their minds. Faith cannot be instilled with fear, pain, legislation, or peer pressure, although that will never stop unbelievers from forcing other unbelievers to see things 'their' way.
Anyone who is afraid of *anything* that science may discover has no faith, to start with. Science and technology are, themselves, gifts from God that should be used to their fullest.
Dude, get over yourself. I was kidding around (well, only half joking). Voting for a president who lies (why did we go to war again?), takes away your freedom, AND more secretive than Nixon, to me, is a good an intelligence test as any that I can think of. And, YES, when the super majority of your state fails that test, I am going to lump all of you in the same boat. Is fair? No. Do I care? Fuck No. I am sick of this crap from the south (AND YES MIDWEST TOO) that makes me embarrased to be an American. Enough of this SHIT!!!
That's a great quote. And there's an interesting sentence just before:
"Do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.
(1 Thessalonians 5:20-21)
If you think about it, prophets have had new and radical messages to the people. It's important to be open to them. It is another exhortation to be open-minded and rational.
Throw that bible reference one out the next time you hear a hard religious line against open-minded thinking.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
The simpler definition was ok, it was obvious they were being more general. Now they try to include more of it, and they necessarily include things under the definition of science that are not science.
Pseudoscientists like psychics... they can all test hypothesese, make measurements, observations, build theories, and use logical arguments in support of their ideas. What separates them from scientists, is the nature of their theories, and the core methods they use. Physicists, Biologists, etc, use stronger criterion for building theories.
It is true that scientific study uses hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, and can incorporate logical argument, but having any one or even ALL of these are not sufficient for having science.
It is more important how they are used than that they are used.
The scientific method is most important.
more adequate explanations sounds like a subjective notion. It is not enough to build theories, they must always be theories that you can test: if you accept theories that you have no specific method to falsify if they are not true, then it is not science.
In an odd way I have to thank you, I wasn't entirely sure it was Bertrand Russell, it's been a while since I "knew" this. But I had thought that he had at least "proved" the 1+1 conjecture, because at the time I remember thinking "well he got the hard part", thinking of course that it was "downhill" from there, e.g. 1+1=2 => 1+2 = 3 should be "trivial". Guess my memory isn't as good as I thought.
Sure information wants to be free, but how much are you willing to pay for the packaging?
Second, congrats at being an Americasn {sic} who is good at math and science, but it also be nice if you could write a coherent sentence with real punctuation.
I'm an American and I love my country, but people like you--an antagonistic fuckwit who is too busy to bother being polite and articulate--embarrass this country and I'm sick of seeing posts like this.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Not at all, not at all. There's nothing in the theory of evolution that outlaws time travel, for example, or mass deception by an alien intelligence - or the genetic reconstruction of tyrannosaurs from fossils by mediaeval monks, for that matter. What the 'theory' says is this: that variation, inheritance and selection combine to produce adaptation. As such, it isn't actually a theory, in the accepted sense of the empirical sciences; it's a piece of mathematics. A slight generalisation of differential equations to (genetic) coding theory. It isn't falsifiable at all, because it's there in the maths for all to see - it couldn't be wrong if it tried. And to says that evolution is 'about' humans and dinosaurs is like saying that metallurgy is 'about' your Toyota. You might well disbelieve in its applicability to, say, the descent of man - assuming you don't believe in birth, or death, or that offspring take after their parents. This might be the world of the Matrix, after all, with a malevolent deity micromanaging 'causation' at every turn. But that's not Creationism, that's insanity - you have to posit a God who not only made everything, but got it all wrong, and to this day runs the whole Universe under a debugger.... But even then evolution would still be there in the maths, springing into play whenever God looked away. I have no idea why scientists are so namby-pamby in defense of evolution; it's one of the most secure pieces of reasoning we have about the structure of reality, far more so than, say, optics, which visibly relies on as yet uncertain ideas about the fine structure of space-time - and about which we still have little to say at the 'well, d'uh' level of obviousness of the Theorem (sic) of Evolution.
First, it assumes that somehow the theory of evolution, which has held up for 150+ years, is a tenuous set of ideas, especially in comparison to other parts of the scientific cannon. It gives evolution a position that makes it appear less valid than other scientific theories such as electromagnatism, gravity, and chemistry.
Second, it introduces doubt and confusion in students about not only evolution, but the scientific method entirely by confusing the meaning of the word theory.
Your argument continues to do what other Creation-Scientists, ID or whatever you're ilk are calling themselves, have done: you confuse theory and the scientific method with conjucture and supposition and, even religion.
If ID people really believed in their faith, they would persue the strict teaching of the scientific method and evolution allowing their kids to decide on what they want to believe.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
No test that is performable today has been proposed, should you call that 'crap' too?
if so I suspect a fair few physicists might get a little upset about that description.
Dorothy: Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
Toto: Thank freaking god.
Kansas will devolve into a state where new ideas are banned You got your tense wrong, s/b "has devolved"...
Dog is my co-pilot.
Supreme being? You'd end up calling the laws of physics that but the difference is that people jump to a bunch of other psychotic conclutions regarding unrelated propertis.
FRA: STFU GTFO
I thought I was safe from most of this stuff up here:
w s/1115386370756_110795570/?hub=TopStories
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNe
Ont. rubella outbreak described as 'God's will'
The outbreak started at the town's Rehoboth Christian School. Many students there belong to a religious denomination that doesn't endorse or objects to vaccinations.
while they may try to change the definition of "science", they appear to be simultaneously insuring that the definition of "moron" stays the same.
Mainstream? You put that woman on the cover of Time!
What is the meaning of all this "Bible"-this and "Bible"-that which I read?
America is only a small part of the world, and the Christian Bible is a still smaller part of the world's religious writings.
The Buddha is still contemplating...
The Devil is still laughing...
Ragnarok is approaching...
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Let me try to understand this poor reasoning... 1. anything very complex is unlikely to have occurred on its own 2. life is too complex to have occurred without the intervention of a creator 3. therefore a creator must have made life 4. but for a creator to create life, it msut be very complex 5. therefore a creator could not have simply 'occurred' but had to be created by a creator since it could not have crated itself 6. but that second creator, is complex and powerful and therefore it msut have been created by a third creator... 7. ad infinitum. ad absurdum
Given how flexible the theory is I doubt that any statistical method would prove that it is bogus (esp. since genetic adaption occures regardless of whether the entire theory of evolution is correct). I'm of the opinion that evolution and ID are both nearly impossible to disprove regardless of which one is correct. (mainly due to the lack of evidence over large time scales and inability to time travel to allow for direct observations)
i've actually got a degree in evolutionary bio...
From where?
Evolution is also falsifiable if you cannot show how a biological structure could develop through small, incremental, accidental changes to the genome.
Nope, this is a logical error known as "argument by incredulity." Evolution does not predict that you will be able to figure out retrospectively, the pathway by which something evolved.
It does, however, predict that species should have commonality in basic functions, with only minor variations. For example, finding even one species with a completely different genetic code would disprove evolution.
supernatural explanations are not part of science, by definition.
Science always seeks to find natural explanations for observations, whether it's physics (we don't say "God makes the sun go round"), engineering ("Sacrifice a chicken so God will keep the bridge from falling"), or biology.
Like with physics and other sciences, biology would be pretty useless if 'scientists' cam up with supernatural explanations for observations, then they wouldn't be scientists any more, they would be priests.
Other than it is true by definition, I don't know how you would prove it. But from that one axiom we can derive an amazing body of knowledge.
Also, didn't Godel prove that no system can be entirely provable? There has to be at least one undefined term from which things are built, eg. 1+1=2.
To the proponents of "Intelligent Design" tell me this, which particular diety is your "Intelligent Designer"?
Is it the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God, Buhda, one of the Hindhu gods(theres plenty to choose from there)?
Let me know when you have decided and then tell me why without referring to any sort of religious text.
I just read that book recently, and while I enjoyed most of it, I found the chapter on the theories about the emergence of DNA extremely "hand wavey". The clay mineral culture idea was only presented as one possibility, but it didn't sound very convincing. If anyone has pointers to more compelling theories, I would be interested in reading them.
Check out Stuart Kauffman's The Origins of Order. This is the best book I've seen. Kauffman is a "protein-first" guy. I think that is still somewhat the minority view, but he makes a good case.
For the clay theory from the horse's mouth, check out
Cairns-Smith . I think most biologists regard theory this as sort of a long-shot.
The most popular (at least that is my impression) theory is that a self-reproducing RNA-like molecule was the earliest form of life, but I don't know of a good book...
See, that's what I get for parroting stuff I'd read somewhere else. Didn't fact-check it. I stand corrected.
what a gem of a saying.
I've invited evangelical missionaries in to my home to argue before and I sure did feel dirty. It's a totally futile pursuit.
Having failed to come up with a testable theory of design, and convincing their scientific peers of the validity of their position, they are resorting to lobbying school boards (who are generally not very scientifically literate).
And now I find out that one of the guys testifying tomorrow (Mustafa Akyol) is a member of some crackpot Turkish organisation that has been involved in harassing and threatening Turkish scientists. And one of the pro-ID people (William Harris) thinks that is "great".
The only universal language is mathematics
....and it's rejected by Occam!
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
The day Aliens land on our planet and it's broadcast on the 5 o'clock news. I live for that day.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I just looked up Dr. Humphreys on Google. He's got some cool stuff out there. I'm going to get his book _Starlight and Time_. It's really interesting that his model of the Earth's magnetic field, supporting a young Earth, was extended to predict the strength of the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune before Voyager measured it. Not only did Voyager confirm Humphreys' prediction, but showed that the evolutionists' prediction was several orders of magnitude off. Good stuff. Thanks for the tip!
I also recently read _Refuting Evolution_ by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati. After reading that I was convinced that evolutionists really do have their backs to the wall.
-- Eric
You have only read up on the pro-evelution information, try doing a little research into the pro-creation side. Looking at one side of the arguent gives you very biased opinion, fortunatly the "fundies" have been doing the research the universities refuse to do and there is a lot of good material availabe now.
Dear Sir/Madam,
The Church Lady was a bit on Saturday Night Live featuring Dana Carvey.
But your reply seems genuinely sincere and well thought out!
Instead of looking in distant planets and galaxies, will science be able to find intelligent lifeforms in Kansas ???
Science is ridiculous, but it's the best our minds can come up with on their own.
...and if you look at my posting on the matter, you can see that the quote in question is a prime example of outright creationist dishonesty.
Why do we get nasty against creationists? Because creationists are liars and they deserve to be exposed as such.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
That's crazy talk!! We'd have to model pancakes on Colorado, which in turn would lead to mass suicides of truck-stop cooks. Truck drivers will starve, transport will grind to a halt and the rest of the economy will collapse as supply fails, prices skyrocket and inflation runs rampant destroying the value of the dollar and making savings worthless.
Please, think of the pancakes! Some things are more important than theology.
Blank until
Solution: build a cultural awareness class into the cirriculum. Teach the structure and essential values of all major world religions in a factual and documentary manner. Invite guest speakers. Then send the kids off to their science classes to learn the theories preached there. It's an easy solution, and we get to hire more teachers.
.
-shpoffo
Macroevolution theory is like a wiffle ball. People that pitch it get it to curve any way they want, but it's hollow, full of holes, and is useless for the real game. :)
-- Eric
You can only answer the exact same rhetoric so many times before you just start saying, "Look, you're a fucking moron. If you can't figure out what I've been saying for the past 15 years then sit down and shut the fuck up. Retard." I don't blame them.
Label it flamebait all you want. ID's backers are indeed unintelligent people, bar none.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
the US seems to be trying to develop a theocracy
At some point the pendulum should oscillate back and the US will calm down.
From your lips to gods ears.
Oh wait...
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
...you're bound to lose. The universe could have been created at Big Bang, like in the Bible or 5 minutes ago. Anything and everything could have some sort of divine purpose beyond what we humans can comprehend.
That is the real proof Creationism and such is not science. Whatever we appear to scientificly measure, it could be explained as the work of God. Some try to muddle the waters by saying atheism is also a religion.
This is a scientific theory: "The universe has been goverened by the same laws of nature since Big Bang." I.e. no miracles, no divine intervention. That is science. And then how Big Bang came into being, that is religion.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Finding a human inside a tyrannosaurus would certainly change our current understanding of evolution, but it would _not_ prove it false.
Certainly, the burden of proof would be on the community to make sure it wasn't a hoax, but a verified Tyrannosaurus with a verified Homo sapiens sapiens in its belly embedded in a Late Cretaceous stratum would threaten the theory.
It would be like standing somewhere on the Earth, holding out an apple, and having it go up. Sure, gravity may hold on the rest of the planet, but if you're going to have a global theory, then you're going to have to explain it, too.
We can't have our cake and eat it, too. We are willing to put our nads on the line here and say, "according to evolutionary theory, this can't happen".
Now if the fossil is lying instead in soft sandstone at the bottom of a lake, then the explanation is much, much more likely to be (A) pranksters or (B) living (or recently living) dinosaurs!
Or, if indeed the T. rex was real, and the human was real, and it was buried in a Late Cretaceous layer, but there was also something resembling an old British police box, then it wouldn't disprove evolutionary theory... it would prove time travel :)
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
where do the evolutionists think the duck-billed platypus came from? Or the echidna (spiny anteater), for that matter?
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
ID is falsifiable by showing how undirected, natural means can form a complex structure.For example, rapidly generate multiple generations of unflaggellated bacteria within an environmental pressure--a current--and see if the bacteria creates flaggella for itself.
Not-so-good logic, with a not-so-good example. Tell me, How on earth would you know that the bacterium strain (I'll assume you aren't making the ridiculous suggestion that one individual could just turn into a new species without reproducing) didn't already have flagellum capability in its DNA? After all, according to both ID and evolutionism, some variation in kinds of life forms is to be expected. Witness the incredible evolution of dogs, for example.
Oh, you wanted to sequence and decode the entire genome? And you wanted to be able to prove it was all decoded flawlessly? You wonder why such a test hasn't been done...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
God uses Lisp? Oh, Jeethuth Chritht.
Evolution can, in fact, explain that complexity.
;-)
Intelligent Design can explain it too, in fact, as well as the existence of its creator. Your point?
No, neither the theory nor the scientists who study it have any such delusions.
No, they just say, 'every intelligent person knows it to be a fact'.
It is not up to me to prove Evolution to you. It is up to you to describe and conduct an experiment whose results are inconsistent with the Theory.
So you're saying it--oh, 'scuse me--ahem, The Theory, is self-evident. There are enough truths in that (hard to grasp, takes much study) idea that some experiments will naturally fall within its boundaries. Doesn't mean it's all true. Anyone can attach some truth to a lie. For example:
1^2 = 1; (-1)^2 = 1; 1^2 = (-1)^2; 1 = -1
Yes, even the numbers can lie. Why not a bunch of elitists who think they know it all? And yes, I'm aware that the vast majority (all?) of the fundamentalists are exactly the same way. (They're one reason for the whole evolutionist movement anyway, but that's another story.) But that only demonstrates that evolutionism is just another religion. But it's not up to me to prove that to you. It's up to you to prove me wrong
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Just to be clear, I didn't say that "any deviation and the thing dies", I said that "any deviation that does not work dies". Some rare deviations do work, and in fact work better than before. This is where we get evolution.
But onto your point. You're basically asking "So where did DNA come from in the first place?" This is quite a good question, as DNA in its current form is highly complex in itself. To suggest that it just randomly came about is absurd.
However, it is quite possible that DNA as it exists today is itself a process of evolution from a more primitive form of replication.
So what is this most basic form of replication? Several ideas are presented in the book, none of which may necessarily be the correct answer. But they are all at least conceivably correct answers, so they serve to demonstrate that the first replicators could have come about without any intelligent design.
One of the several ideas (just to throw one out there) is that the very first form of replication may have been a form of crystaline structures. In the same way that crystals replicate themselves, perhaps a similar process (maybe with proteins filling in the cracks) took place and at some point resulted in a very primitive form of DNA.
There's more info on this in the thread above.
Keep in mind that none of this serves as some sort of proof that God does not exist. A belief in God really has nothing to do with this at all. All this argument says is that complex life forms do not prove that God does exist... you just have to take that on faith as always (if you're so inclined).
I find the use of "natural" to be pretty unclear and really limiting - for instance, what of the study of pollution on the environment? In no way is pollution natural, so the phrase hardly fits environmental science.
Or take the study of something like Bucky Balls, which are hardly natural (though I think I do remember reading they appear somewhere naturally in very rare cases).
Basically a lot of science is going way beyond studying "natural" things and so I find that definition kind of useless.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
On the flip side the reason I like getting rid of the old one is exactly becauase it drops "natural".
We are moving beyond the edges of what occurs "naturally" in science, to the point where some things we study are only theoretical mathematical constructs - these are not observed, they are deduced and are creations of our intellect until we can reach a point to test them. I like to see a definition that can expand to include them.
As Clarke said, any sufficently advanced technology is indistinquishable from magic. So in defining what science is if you want to allow exploration at the boundaries you also have to make room for a little "magic" as well.
As to ID specifically, can it not also fit a theory that we wer ebioenginered by off-planet species? I'd hate to dismiss the thought out of hand just because you could also use it for religious claims. In either case you look for proof. Sounds crazy I know but as long as the methods used in the search are sound I have a hard time condeming ANY path of exploration, no matter how crazy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
String theory is currently little more than wild speculation and blue-sky theorizing. There is credible expectation that it will lead to testable predictions, that it will either be scientificlly refuted or may then become established as a credible scientific theory.
Now if you were to point to a public highschool devoting curriculum to string theory then you might just have an interesting point to make. Untested blue-sky speculation without supporting evidence (whether it is string theory or ID) is not something that belongs in a public high school science curriculum.
Scientists are certainly welcome to work on string theory and on ID all they like hoping to produce some actual scientific research and a genuine testable scientific theory.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Personally, I would call it 'crap'. They've done a mighty job of playing with mathematics, but the only real-world prediction they've made of note, the expectation of supersymmetric partners or boson-fermion interconversions, has not come to pass. They've consumed a disproportionate number of mathematical bright sparks doing heavy 10 or 11-dimensional mathwankery for decades, with not much to show for it...
...and hardly any criteria by which we may judge it to be true or false.
It's not science at this point, it's art. The beauty of the equations, twisting elegantly as they grace the page, has become all-consuming.
So yeah, it counts.
:)
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
Something comes to mind - thinking - thinking....
BEDEVERE: What also floats in water?
VILLAGER #1: Bread!
VILLAGER #2: Apples!
VILLAGER #3: Very small rocks!
VILLAGER #1: Cider!
VILLAGER #2: Great gravy!
VILLAGER #1: Cherries!
VILLAGER #2: Mud!
VILLAGER #3: Churches -- churches!
VILLAGER #2: Lead -- lead!
ARTHUR: A duck.
CROWD: Oooh.
BEDEVERE: Exactly! So, logically...,
VILLAGER #1: If... she.. weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood.
I'm a bit puzzled why you list the Campus Christian Fellowship as a "keyword" on your webpage. Maybe theres an interesting story about this that you could share?
I'm happy to share. I'm a Christian apostate, or "ex-Christian," and CCF was the Christian group that I was a member of when I was in college. I had lots of friends there, friends that I lost when I abandoned Christianity. One of the benefits of being a Christian is the wonderful community of caring people that it gives you. It has to be judged as a good thing in its own right because it is. I've never been able to have back that community that I lost when I de-converted, no matter how I've tried. So I'm trying to make one of my own that's based on reason.
I enjoyed reading (and mostly agree with) your other posts.
What a wonderful compliment, I thank you! I'm glad that someone took notice because the things that I've been saying recently are things that I've never heard said to a Christian. I'm particularly talking about correctly condemning them as immoral for worshipping an evil god, and correctly stating that they have no right to criticize me for being gay or having gay sex. I tell you, it has a jarring effect on Christians. They don't know how to react to it, so they, in general, react poorly and thoughtlessly. The fact that I have an excellent working knowledge of scripture and common Christian beliefs really helps me and works to their disadvantage.
Usually I adopt a live-and-let-live attitude toward christianity, but it is enlightening to hear from someone who feels directly threatened by it.
Live-and-let-live is a key part of my philosophy. I believe in the non-initiation of force and the respect for other's life, liberty, and property. But Christians do not want to extend to me that same courtesy. I wouldn't feel so strongly about being on the offense if I wasn't a parent. I am preparing myself for the fateful day when a Christian decides to challenge me to my face about being a gay parent. I assure you, I will be prepared. My goal at that point will be to shame that Christian into self-doubt and have them walk away from me in confusion and sadness. That's the best outcome I can hope for, because I certainly don't want things to come to violence.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
In fact, the Hebrew/Christian story of Genesis has TWO (or more?) accounts of creation...
That is another thing people have to look at. Regardless whether you believe the bible or not, it is OLD! There are bound to be some trascription/translation errors made throughout it's history. Someone might have even changed (GASP!) parts to fit their ideology. If you do believe the Bible, then it is reasonable to say that you beileve that the story of Genisis is taken from Moses's account and that would make the story even older, and prone to even more mistakes.
One could argue that God would preserve His records in perfection, but that would also say that He would deny man the power of chioce, and I believe that is one of the reasons we were placed here. So He couldn't do that (writing by my beliefs here, I know someone will have a differing view). So He preserved what He could, giving us what is more than likely an incomplete Bible. There could have pure scientific fact written in there and it could have been lost due to time and replaced with "magic".
My other point I would like to say is that the people/prophets who wrote the Bible were not scientists. They could only explain what they saw in many instaces by saying things like "the sun stopped" and "the moon stood still" because of their point of view. The did not know scientific theory, so it was "Magic". Just because the Bible does not contain scientific knowledge, that does not mean that science is false, nor does it mean that the miracles performed involved no science. I believe that the creation did happen and that evolution was one method used during it (and yes, it continues now).
Or take the study of something like Bucky Balls, which are hardly natural (though I think I do remember reading they appear somewhere naturally in very rare cases).
Basically a lot of science is going way beyond studying "natural" things and so I find that definition kind of useless.
Sure, it's "kind of useless", but now you're just criticising the existing definition without even proposing anything else. Buckyballs and pollution may not be all that "natural", but is "adequate" any better as a description?
(In fact, I would argue that anthropogenic environmental change, just like e.g. emergent viral epidemiology, is covered by the remit of natural science. As for Buckyballs, and other eclectic synthetic chemistry projects, they might be closer to engineering than science, though the two are closely related.)
Frankly, there are as many definitions of science as there are interested parties. For example, the NIH talks in terms of medical utility, the NSF likes novelty, etc. Plenty of scientists still think in terms of the "natural world" and I don't think it's a bad working definition: let engineering take up the slack.
The point, anyway, is that the new Kansas tongue-twister is not an improvement. It's inelegant, obfuscated, over-specific and (consequently) incomplete, particularly in its serious omission of peer review.
So you're saying it--oh, 'scuse me--ahem, The Theory, is self-evident.
No, he's saying it hasn't been disproven and that you're welcome to try. Meanwhile ID-fanatics have developed an "idea" that has no testability. The only way to disprove the idea would be to travel back in time and observe the origin of life yourself. (Wouldn't it be disappointing if you did so, and found out the origin of life was from where you squatted over some rock and relieved yourself? I wonder if that would count as Intelligent Design)
No, they just say, 'every intelligent person knows it to be a fact'.
Then "they" are wrong. "Every intelligent person" (whatever thats supposed to mean) knows it to be a theory. A theory which can make predictions about our world that are actually observable, such as speciation due to geographic barriers.
1^2 = 1; (-1)^2 = 1; 1^2 = (-1)^2; 1 = -1
Yes, even the numbers can lie.
Only if you use them incorrectly. Claiming that if x^z=y^z, then x=y is incorrect, since the power operator is not defined to do this.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You are missing the point.
A majority of the people against this are not saying "ZOMG! There can be no God!"
They are saying that God's existance cannot be proven or disproven, and therefore God is not and can never be the subject of a scientific process. Not one of your researchers can do anything but find evidence that the theory of evolution as we know it is wrong, yet this does not prove the existance of God, it merely proves that the theory of evolution is not correct.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
but a verified Tyrannosaurus with a verified Homo sapiens sapiens in its belly embedded in a Late Cretaceous stratum would threaten the theory.
"according to evolutionary theory, this can't happen".
Why can't it happen? According to evolutionary theory things evolve. Good evolution wins, bad evolution loses. If nothing else, such a discovery would bolster evolutionary theory, as it would suggest two separate instances of the creation of a species, something that has dogged evolution science for a long time now (ie, if something evolved from something else, why hasn't it happened a second time?). The only thing better for the science would be someone discovering two komodo dragons that when mated produce chickens.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
First I would like to point out that ID is falsifiable just as Evolution is falsifiable; as a matter of fact they are opposites of each other, in other words, if you prove one you disprove the other, this has been stated by many atheists.
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Quote:
Evolutionist Quote of the Week
"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."
- G. Richard Bozarth, The Meaning of Evolution, American Atheist, p. 30, Sept. 20, 1979.
For all of you who have not taken the time to actually delve in to the finer points of irreducibly complex systems here is an article that might help:
Notice the credentials of the author:
Joseph W. Francis
Associate Professor of Biology
Cedarville College, Ohio
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od201/peeringdbb20 1.htm
I believe this man is no different than you or I in that he is in all security doing the best job he can and following the facts as he sees them.
Scientists speak about evolution:
"As by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion [of halfway species] instead of being, as we see them, well-defined species?"--*Charles Darwin
http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-evol1
More information about evolution the atheists don't want you to know:
http://evolution-facts.org/
More links:
http://www.icr.org/
http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_rh_03.asp
http://www.setterfield.org/simplified.html
http://www.origins.org/
http://www.trueorigin.org/
One of my favorites: "The Origin of Language and Communication"
http://www.trueorigin.org/language01.asp
I understand you will dismiss the authority of these scientists because the day they admit they are a Christian they all of a sudden become blabbering idiots. It reminds me of a friend of mine who teaches hand-to-hand combat to the special forces, he upset his teacher and his teacher demoted him from 7th degree black belt to white belt, like all of a sudden his knowledge was sucked out of him by magic, he is still one of the toughest guys I know, LOL.
BTW - Having a formal education in physics, and three engineering disciplines I was very skeptical when I came across this information. The problem was, as a scientist, I was curious and the more I studied the more I realized these other scientists weren't a bunch of crackpots. These scientists felt so strongly about what they had learned they sacrificed their careers in order to pursue alternate scientific postulations of the given data.
Given limited resources, they have driven discoveries in the field of science that the current university system has totally ignored because of the atheistic agenda. This is the very system that puts boundaries on scientific study based on personal beliefs and the ACLUs control by amending our constitution with Thomas Jefferson's unofficial letters to justify their atheistic position.
I think it is a sad state of affairs when an atheistic or
Only if you use them incorrectly.
;-)
Scientists have used the facts incorrectly, claiming that if little changes are possible within x kind of animal, and x is known to have come from something similar (say, tumbler pigeon from rock dove, for example), then Yay! It all reduces down to nothing and life brought ITSELF to life!!!1!
[the idea that life poofed itself into existence] hasn't been disproven
Then again, the idea that someone who knew what they were doing poofed life into existence hasn't been disproven either. As you say, The only way to disprove the idea would be to travel back in time and observe the origin of life yourself. If you believe in what the Bible calls the God of Good Luck, then you can easily have enough faith in him to convince yourself that the dice rolled 12, a billion billion billion times in a row. Or, you can have faith in what the Bible *really* says. You can thereby eliminate all the mess of what the Fundies claim (I for one welcome Genesis 2:4, where it says, "This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the day that [he] made earth and heaven", thus showing for a fact that the term day was symbolic), and the mess of how in heaven's name the universe spontaneously came to exist (which is no mean feat in itself) with *every* *single* *parameter* *perfect* for hosting life, and Earth itself *perfectly* suited to life. Not close, like Mars, Perfect. That's before we get to the good ones, like how do you form a membrane to protect the cell without the DNA instructions, and how do you stabilize DNA in this incredibly reactive primordeal soup (really, they have no clue what it was like because the eons have changed the earth so much the only evidence still around doesn't tell a lot about things soooo long ago) long enough to get it to form a membrane, and how to get around the astronomical odds of getting the DNA just right so it actually will *do* something.
I could go on about how proteins don't remain stable in such a soup long enough to form DNA, the incredible complexity of the transport systems of the simplest cell, how evolutionists have yet to come up with ANY kind of explanation for the sudden and unexpected appearance of complex plants in the fossil record, the glaring and conspicuous absence of intermediate species (what, do they expect us to believe we just JUMPED from ape to human in one step?!), but you probably don't have the patience
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Evolutionary theory is cumulative change over time. That scenario would damage evolutionary theory, because evolution works with what's given to it. There were no primates, and only loose ancestors of mammals at the time. Anything that looked even remotely human wouldn't have been anything like us.
Despite how creationists pooh-pooh 'macroevolution', their vision of it, especially the young-earthers, is that you must have had some day when a lizard hatched two or more birds. This is nothing like what evolutionary theory predicts. It takes time to produce later generations that look different (dogs have been with us for 100,000 years; most breeds have been developed over the past few hundred, using much more draconian selection than nature ever does), no longer interbreed, then drift apart in characteristics.
Evolutionary theory also does not set 'goals'. There's pressure on creatures to survive, not to become medium-sized, social tool users. There are many, many different compromises that are made in social interaction, development age, musculature and digestion that give certain advantages. We have extremely vulnerable babies, have to give up individual advantages for social ones, live in constant contact which can spread diseases through the population, and have specialized to the point where many of us cannot survive outside society, but we do well where the resources and/or our capacity to change local environments will support us and even, for the more adventurous of us, to take on living in more extreme conditions.
There are ecological niches in general for ground-diggers, herbivores, etc. and you'll find that creatures in isolated areas (islands are a great place to study them) will slide into roles where there's less competition. In Australia, there were major marsupials in roles for practically every major mammal in Europe or the Americas.
If they found that komodo dragon, that would set the scientific world completely on its side.
Mind you, evolution is about nature's economics. Genetically engineering a komodo dragon to produce chickens is something else entirely :)
-- Ritchie
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
As others have pointed out, lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. Maybe we're digging in the wrong places, why just the other day we discovered Hobbits (well, not really "Hobbits" but thats the name the news outlets gave to the skeletons). Maybe in 10, 20, 300 years we'll discover a skeleton with physiology somewhere between an ape and the earliest skeletons of Homo erectus.
But lets leave that aside: the theory of evolution cannot explain alone why we are here, today. It can, however, explain why salamanders become distinct new species as they spread out across a region (see Ring Species). It explains the various famous observations like the "pepper moth" observation. Using mutation to survive even explains sudden explosions of wildly variating plants and animals (the "Punctuated Equlibrium" theory, which even explains why we don't see reptiles' eggs hatching chicks these days). It even touches on genetic transfer as observed in modern times in polyploid plants (roughly half the modern flowering plants).
People attempting to use the "Theory of Evolution" as it currently stands in order to explain the source of life itself are using it incorrectly (much like a kid playing with a loaded gun), as most of the models posited (random molecules forming amino acids then proteins then replicating enzymes (which don't reproduce of themselves, but more accurately build models of themselves from components they find laying around)) are more of a chemistry problem than an evolutionary problem. Evolution doesn't really appear in the equation until there were a handful of things that converted energy from one form to another, and some thing appeared that found it easier to convert those things into energy. At that instant in time, those things would have been better off being something else, and evolution begins. But how to form amino acids in <insert nasty chemical soup here>? That's strictly chemistry.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I agree that the "adequate" part is the one thing that does really not fit. But change that to something else and it works - the basic definition I still think is better.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's not what Godel proved. You're talking about the need to start from some axioms, which is pretty obvious. Axioms aren't exactly undefined, they're just statements or rules that define the game we're playing, and we see what we can derive from those axioms.
...) and the operation of addition (and by implication, subtraction) isn't complex enough, but when you start talking about the rational numbers (anything that can be written as a fraction) along with multiplication and division on top of addition and multiplication, you create an inconsistent system.
Godel proved that any sufficiently complex system will contain either contradictions or undecidable (neither true nor false) statements. (I'm skimming on this next part; someone with mightier math feel free to pimp-slap me.) For instance, the mathematical system consisting of the whole numbers (..., -1, 0, 1, 2,
This put a lot of bees into a lot of bonnets when Godel came up with is, because people like their systems to be internally consistent, at the very least.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
There are plenty of non-self-evident things we teach in school. Plate tectonics, the circulation of blood, the germ theory of medicine and even the equations of motion (F=ma instead of F=mv) aren't readily apparent, and didn't occur to people for a very long time. I suppose the difference is that you can demonstrate them. (Though I'm curious as to how one replicates plate tectonics in the lab.)
Besides, Newton's big insight with gravity wasn't that (gasp) things fall down; it was that the force which makes the planets orbit in the heavens is the same force that makes the apple fall to the earth. Which isn't obvious.
And lastly, you're setting the bar unnaturally high by demanding that evolution be shown on a convenient timescale, in the lab. It's going to a hell of a lot to convince me that the Superhero From Outer Space theory of life on earth has any credence whatsoever.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Look at his userinfo page---he's averaging one, maybe two replies per post. Perhaps if he worked some sort of "M$" reference into his posts, he'd get a bigger bite.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
"Hobbits"? Very tiny people, that's all, assuming the fossils are real (see below). Look at the basketball players of today. Is it unreasonable to think that very small people came to exist? In our time, we have the pygmies in Africa. The Bible, incidentally, mentions a race of 9-foot-tall people in the city of Gath in ancient Philistia. And our good friend Gul Mohammed was measured to be 22.5 inches in 1990. The human species has an incredible amount of diversity capability preloaded into our own DNA. So finding a bunch of little people in a cave does not a 'missing link' make.
the theory of evolution cannot explain alone why we are here, today. It can, however, explain...
This is why many people on both sides of the debate make a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. They are two different things. The variety of different breeds of dog is an excellent example of microevolution. Macroevolution is tantamount to saying you can breed a dog into a cat or an ape or a snake or a bug or a plant if you try hard enough. Unfortunately, most (if not all) evolutionists like to equate the two, when in reality macroevolution has yet to be proven in a single case. A lot of the fundamentalists don't want to acknowledge that microevolution exists. And thus the flamewar continues...
Using mutation to survive even explains sudden explosions of wildly variating plants and animals
Well, no, it doesn't, because mutations can only result in a variation of a preexisting trait. It provides variety, but never anything new. A quote from The World Book Encyclopedia gives an example of a beneficial mutation: "A plant in a dry area might have a mutant gene that causes it to grow larger and stronger roots. The plant would have a better chance of survival than others of its species because its roots could absorb more water." But do we have anything new here? No, it's still the same plant. It's not evolving into something else; humans with mutant genes making them 7 feet tall are humans just as are humans with mutant genes making them 4 feet tall or 2 feet tall. And even the 'punctuated equilibrium' ideas posit at the very least many thousands of years of gradual changes, which must be documented in the fossil record if it happened, and it has not been seen, even with all the thousands of diggers, digging in tens of thousands of places, spending millions of hours and billions of dollars. Where is the evidence?
Don't even get me started on the fake fossils and the incredible amount of money being put into them. Suffice it to say that there's enough of a demand for them that there is at least one factory in China churning them out daily.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Next time I throw up, I'll remember that all that burning smelly stuff coming out is just water.
Quite right. I had forgotten about all that HCl, etc.
However, I'm afraid that doesn't change the fact--yes, fact--that "water in any case inhibits the growth of more complex molecules." -- The Neck of the Giraffe, by Francis Hitching
Chemist Richard E. Dickerson elaborates in Scientific American: "It is therefore hard to see how polymerization [linking smaller molecules to form bigger ones] could have proceeded in the aqueous environment of the primitive ocean, since the presence of water favors depolymerization [breaking up big molecules] rather than polymerization."
Remember, water is a solvent.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
I was a little brisk with my previous blasting, in part because I get annoyed when people try to claim that religious myths are actually some kind of 'evidence' that the events depicted in the myths actually occured.
Science deals with analysis of physical evidence. Someone telling me that thousands of years ago, the great green arkleseizure sneezed the universe into existence is not, itself, physical evidence. Even if that story has been passed down for generation after generation, it still is not physical evidence. Without physical evidence, there is no means for evaluating that statement as truthful. It might actually be true, but if there's nothing but the words of a bunch of people throughout the ages and nary a shred of physical observation that can be made for it, science cannot analyze it.
To claim that "Intelligent Design" is scientific because "people have believed it for thousands of years" is not only to fail to understand how science works, but it is also the fallacy of appealing to antiquity. The age or popularity of a statement has no bearing whatsoever on its truth value.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Science works by assuming that a theory is correct, and then verifying the hell out of it... until you hit something that the theory says should work but doesn't, no matter how hard you try.
The best theory we have is evolution. Debating it is useless. What advances the science, and possibly leads to an abandonment of evolution as the paradigmatic theory, is assuming that evolution is true and attempting to extract and verify predictions from it.
Go read your Kuhn.
I am an atheist. My views more line up with "Intelligent Influence" than intelligent design. These are my own views, and little to do with I.D.
"Intelligent Influence" meaning:
- Life appearing once in the universe dramatically increases the chances of life appearing in other parts of the universe.
- Intelligent life able to launch things into space increases the chances of life (and perhaps intelligent) being sent to other parts of the universe.
- Intelligent life able to create or modify life also increase chances of life being spread through the universe.
- Humans are examples of all of the above, but likely not the first.
- It is likely the we will spread some form of life to other parts of the universe, and we were a product of this process as well.
- At some point there must have been "base cases ", where life originated from random collections of compounds. This is the most unlikely case, though.
Evolutionary theorists are not free to say 'well, evolution is true in every case but this one'. ID proponents can. They can even back up and say that evolution applies to all creatures but (say) homo-sapiens. That makes it religion, not science.
It would still turn the scientific world on its ear. For one thing, it would raise the possibility that causality doesn't hold. There is more than one way to interpret that evidence, and time travel is actually more probable than a specific species evolving twice, separated by 60 million years.
You know, I have dear friends that veer towards creationism. That's fine, they're basically good people and they're free to believe whatever they want.
By in large, they think of themselves as being relatively tolerant and think that opening up science class to "alternative theories" is a reasonable thing to do. It's not.
Let science class be based on science and keep religion as part of religion (and away from politics, where the two tend to co-corrupt one another).
But here's the beef:
"Hey! It's just an alternative theory! People have a right to listen to alternative theories!"
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If science can proven something is true, can't religions and religious fundies simply accept these truthes not only of science, but as God's will. For example.. evolution is simply the method God used to create life here on earth. No conflict. No mess.
The Good Life
Well, if evolutionists *did* try to claim such a thing, it would be a weak argument indeed.
The fact is, your invention is exactly the opposite of the current state of affiars: we don't need such arguments to address what *appears* in the fossil record, but merely reasonable beliefs in what is, unfortunately, missing from the fossil record as we have observed it to date.
When you look, for instance, at the correlation between index fossils and radioactive dating in sequencing the geological column, the evidence is *very* strong that we have the layers in the right order and the organisms bracketed in the same way throughout the world.
We don't have that kind of dramatic discordance that would call our current understanding into question. That we have so much fossil evidence that continues to fill in the gaps, rather than call the basic structure into question, is what shows we are on the right track.
T Rex showing up 65 million years "out of place" is astronomically unlikely, and hasn't happened. The current understanding of the coelecanth got *further* support as more evidence was looked for and found.
A couple of theists tried to use this argument in a Philosophy of Religion course I took. I couldn't contain my laughter because the theists were all wearing glasses. 'Perfect eye, huh.'
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens. --Isaac Bashevis Singer
What is the real debate? Is it really "if you believe in God your and idiot" or is there a deeper debate under the surface? What are the "holes in evolution", what are the alternatives being discuss by today's scientists? As much fun as it is to go back and forth saying is/is not, I personally enjoy jumping into the fray and wallowing in the facts and theories.
:
The one thing I would ask is that you to do is keep and open mind, don't be like the current secular scientific community that rejects information before reviewing it just because someone has a different personal belief system than you do. If you do this you have literally taken yourself out of the game because you are not reviewing all possible outcomes of the information before you make a decision.
Let me give you and example:
Quote (from this article: http://www.khouse.org/articles/2002/423/ )
"Barry wrote another paper and submitted it to a standard physics journal in 1999. They did not send it to peer review but returned it immediately, saying it was not a timely subject, was of no current interest, and was not substantial enough. (It was over fifty pages long with about a hundred and fifty references to standard physics papers and texts.) So Barry resubmitted it to an astronomy journal. They sent it out to peer review and the report came back that the paper was really interesting but that it really belonged in a physics journal."
This is very common, once a technical journal learns you are pro-creation they reject papers without technical peer review, what are they afraid of? What is happening is more open minded scientist are exploring new areas and finding there is more than one way to explain the data, while the scientist that only accept material that is consistent with their own personal belief system are putting themselves in a box.
It is interesting that science is not standing still even though the time honored main stream scientific journals and universities are while the more open minded scientist are creating their own venue for the free exchange of new ideas. They are free to explore the possibility that evolution might never have happened and we might very well be living on a young earth.
Because the scientific community is truly split on the issues of the age of the earth and evolution verses creation the real issue is one of personal choice. Many atheists have stated it very clearly, if they can prove evolution then they can disprove ID and there is no reason for morality because there is no God or creator. Atheists have clearly stated that they are free to perform what Christians believe are immoral acts; for example, man has no law against lying, sexual promiscuity or homosexuality, to an atheist this is a type of freedom.
Atheists have clearly stated that they enjoy the freedoms they are given, not being accountable to a creator or the all mighty God. What is the impact of this freedom on scientific discovery? Let me give you some examples, an atheist scientist can lie to prove their point, look at the history of the theory of evolution because it is fraught with deception and lies. We still see the chart hung up on walls and in text books of the evolution of the chimpanzee evolving into a man, when every fossil that was used to create that chart was found to be either a fraud or human, one of them was even crated from a pig tooth!!!
If this is the foundation of the science of evolution then how do we know that today's atheist scientists are not following in the same foot steps as their fathers? You could argue that the scientists, that also happen to be Christens, claiming that there are not only holes in the theory of evolution, the evidence is becoming overwhelming from imperial data and probabilistic models against evolution are not sincere? The fact is there is disagreement between the two communities of equally educated scientists and some are being less than honest.
If you where in a situation where your life depended on a single stranger telling the truth and that stranger was offered one billion dollars to lie would you chose an atheist or a Christine?
Maybe you just need to think differently.
Take off your glasses and see with your real eyes. Glasses force you to see a limited section of reality.
Here are some of the problems I am having believing evolution and an expanding universe:
First evolution:
1. Bacterial cell division appears to be irreducibly complex. There is evidence to suggest that it involves multiple factors that are coordinated to interact precisely with one another. For instance, it appears that the complex processes of DNA replication, transcription, translation, cytokinesis, and chromosome partitioning are interdependent and precisely coordinated during cell division.
2. The FtsZ-dependent cytokinesis apparatus in E.coli fits the definition of an irreducibly complex system because it involves several co-dependent parts that work together like a machine. If any single part is eliminated, or its concentration altered, cell division ceases or is aberrant. Therefore, we can say that the gradual derivation of this system by natural selection acting on a simple protocell is unlikely.
3. Scientific evidence gathered from the study of several free-living bacteria suggest the existence of a common core cytokinesis system. The core system consists of a division ring protein, a protein that directs the division ring to the mid-cell septum, and a protein that helps bind the division ring to the mid-cell septum. In addition, we can speculate that a protein that partitions DNA strands may also be a part of this mechanism.
4. Genome analysis has revealed that some bacteria do not possess all the same proteins that are present in the FtsZ-dependent cytokinesis apparatus of E.coli. Therefore, a simpler, non-irreducibly complex apparatus may exist in these bacteria. Alternately, a complex apparatus may exist, because all the factors for cell division have yet to be discovered by functional analysis.
Second Hubble's theory of an expanding universe:
In Arizona, a respected astronomer named William Tifft found something strange going on with the redshift measurements of light from distant galaxies. It had been presumed that the shift toward the red end of the spectrum of light from these distant galaxies was due to a currently expanding universe, and the measurements should be seen as gradually but smoothly increasing as one went through space. That wasn't what Tifft was finding. The measurements weren't smooth. They jumped from one plateau to another. They were quantized, or came in quantities with distinct breaks in between them.
When Tifft published his findings, astronomers were incredulous and dismissive. In the early 1990s in Scotland, two other astronomers decided to prove him wrong once and for all. Guthrie and Napier collected their own data and studied it. They ended up deciding Tifft was right.
Third who do I believe?
The first article, entitled "Darwin Vindicated," was written by Dr. Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The professor asserts that "the genome reveals, indisputably and beyond any serious doubt, that Darwin was right - mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors. Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true. The response to all those who thump their Bible and say there is no proof, no test and no evidence in support of evolution is, 'The proof is right here, in our genes.'"
Or
On the same day, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article entitled, "Human Genome Map Has Scientists Talking About the Divine." It featured an interview with Gene Myers, who was the computer scientist at the Maryland headquarters of Celera Genomics, who actually worked out the genome mapping. Myers said, "We're deliciously complex at the molecular level...We don't understand ourselves yet, which is cool. There's still a metaphysical, magical element." He went on to say, "What really astounds me is the architecture of life...the system is extremely complex. It's like it was designed." As to whether this implicated a designer Myers said, "There's a huge intelligence there. I don't see tha
Hawaii beats the Galapagos Islands hands down for adaptive radiation. It's estimated that 1 species was introduced to the isolated archipelago every 10,000 years. One of these species was a honeycreeper, ancestor to the 60-70 species [1] known to populate the islands. Of these birds, a huge number have long specialized beaks and are the primary pollinators of many species of lobelia, a plant that in turn has specialized long tubular flowers. The Maui parrotbill looks like a parrot - complete with hooked beak, but it too is a honeycreeper.
The statebird - the Nene - used to live all over the islands, but due to habitat loss is now restricted to higher elevations. Since humans have been in Hawaii, the webbing of these birds' feet has receded, as the population barely persists and is forced to adapt to an alpine habitat.
So, how did these specialized traits arise?
Every time the ID people show up at my doorstep, I invite them in, I make them tea, and we sit out on the desk, and I tell them that when they can adequately explain to me the Maui parrotbill [2] and the Nene [3], that I might begin to take them more seriously. They thank me for the tea, give me some "literature" (that looks like childrens books), and leave. Sure, it was probably weird to be invited in and all, but nobody's going to argue that I didn't give them the chance.
(Personally, I like to think that if anything is to be attributed to a creator, it should be admiration for such a carefully chosen ruleset that has led to such amazing complexity, not just admiration for the complexity itself. In this case, I see the whole God vs evolution thing as rather missing the point.)
[1] - http://www.hawaii-forest.com/essays/9801.html
[2] - http://www.mauiforestbird.org/parrotbill.php
[3] - http://www.thewildones.org/Animals/nene.html
Not that I post on slashdot or anything.
Einstein's Gulf: Can Evolution cross it?
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_ volume_1/torrance.htm
http://www.christiscreator.com/evolutionclass101.
Einstein and God:
http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections
God bless you and keep you.
Sorry, but I forgot to address the issue of flocculation.
Sewage contains (from TA) "mineral, animal and vegetable matter in suspension, as well as...food, grease, cigarettes, leaves, faeces, and urine." Primary treatment is (again from TA) "to reduce oils, grease, fats, sand, grit, and coarse (settleable) solids."
Then, in secondary treatment, "bacteria and protozoa consume biodegradable soluble organic contaminants (e.g. sugars, fats, organic short-chain carbon molecules, etc.) and bind much of the less soluble fractions into floc particles." This is the stuff whose "particles become attached and form a fragile structure...because of attractions between negative face charges and positive edge charges." They do not form molecular bonds, they just attract loosely.
Further, the processes used, and the resulting products, hardly resemble the hypothesized primordial conditions or soup.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
Like I said before, I have no interest in changing your deeply held beliefs. If you're honest, you know as well as I do that nothing I could possibly say would change your mind.
This is false. If you give me sound evidence and sound reasoning, then I will change my mind.
Case in point: I used to maintain that AZT was a cause of AIDS symptoms. Then I examined the results of the "Concorde Trial," which is the one and only long-term mortality test of AZT. What did it show? Two things: First, that AZT did NOT decrease mortality in AIDS patients. Second, that AIDS patients in both camps had the same mortality. Because of this, I no longer maintain that AZT is a cause of AIDS.
The reason you claim that "nothing will change my mind" is because you want to paint me as closed-minded which makes it easier for you to dismiss me and thus excuse you from providing me with the evidence that I desire.
In a world where 90% of people believe in a god and almost as many believe in astrology and alien abductions, I can live with a couple half percent believing in a world-wide HIV-AIDS conspiracy that encompasses the medical profession, the governments, the drug companies and the insurance companies.
I have no interest whatsoever in conspiracy theories of any type, but I can see how you would want me to paint me as a conspiracy-theory peddler because it would make me easier to dismiss and thus excuse you from providing the evidence that I desire.
Though I find it a bit sad that, given your established half-education, you believe to be in a position to give important medical advice to your loved ones.
I already called you on this ad hominem and I can see you're pushing it again. It makes sense that you would want to paint me as deliberately ignorant or uneducated because it makes me easier to dismiss and thus excuse you from having to provide me with the evidence I desire.
Now, what did you accomplish with your most recent post, Axel?
Did you tell me how you know that HIV exists? No, of course not! Instead, you careened on a series of character attacks. Most telling, Axel. I claim that the reason you won't tell me how you know that HIV exists is because you take it on faith. You have no evidence to support your belief.
Did you tell me how you know that the HIV causes AIDS? No, of course not! Instead, you thought that you could weasel out of it by making this debate an issue of my character. Again, most telling Axel. I claim that the reason you won't tell me how HIV causes AIDS is because you take it on faith. You have no evidence to support your belief.
I also noticed that you made no effort to counter my claims that the HIV test is meaningless. Do you agree with this statement? If not, why not?
Why don't you try just answering my god damned questions and stop attacking me?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Frankly, I think it's funny that people feel so threatened by gays that they have to find ways to persecute them. Get a clue, gay guys don't want to marry you! You are in NO DANGER! Trust Me!
The state has no vested interest in who you spend your life with. The only reason to outlaw gay and lesbian marriage is as a way to try to impose your religion on others.
Is your faith in your religion and your God so low that you feel that coercion and persecution are the only ways in which you can spread your ideas?
I have friends who are gay and lesbian and I can see no reason why they should be prevented from being married. Frankly they get along better than a lot of married couples.
Who you chose to spend your life with. Who you make a part of your family. These kinds of decisions are about the most personal and important decisions that anyone can make. I can think of only a very few reasons why the state should get involved in such decisions and those reasons involve incest and abuse. In cases of adults who are mutually conscenting, the state should stay out of it.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Made you look.
Now that I am much calmer my objection is abiogenesis being taught as fact, I have no problem with the majority of biology, only teaches that say they need to teach this concept in order to teach biology properly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Teaching this tells our children there is no God and closes the door for belief based education for those of us that choose to extend our children's educate to include a belief system such as Biblical training. If you want to teach your children the Bible is not true or some other belief system, not a problem, and if you don't want the Bible taught to your children in school that is your right also.
I don't even have a problem with elective classes that explore the validity of different belief systems as long as they don't lead to hate classes, this forum being an example of a hate forum, just read some of the stuff we said to each other. To be honest, I learned a lot just following up on things people said and ideas I though I knew and didn't know as well as I thought I did, it is a great learning process.
I believe the only way to learn is to communicate and exchange ideas; please don't advocate closing that door. The only thing I ask is that we keep our school curriculum up-to-date, as accurate as possible and teach theory as theory, the problems theories must overcome and fact as fact.
God bless you and keep you.