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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.
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.
Laugh all you like - these people are in control of a major nuclear arsenal.
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?
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
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
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
...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
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'?
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.
Typical... When the masses won't let you change the bible anymore, you might as well try to change Science.
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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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
That would be The Handmaid's tale and it's by Margaret Atwood (a fellow Canadian, by the way), not Alice Walker.
...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.
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
I don't laugh at americans because most of the americans I talk to are on /. but I'm "kinda scared" when I see what's happening in the USA. I see boobs, cursing, making fun of religions or people smoking cigarettes on TV or in the street, things that would provoke riots in your streets.
There even was two years ago a "black humour" TV show at 8PM where women pubes where shown on a few occasions without real problems (the only requirement was: "we advise your children under 10 years old not to watch this show" but that was all).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
No, the nuclear arsenal is blessedly safe. The nuculer arsenal, however...
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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...
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.
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!?
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!
I don't understand what you mean by "in fairness" to these folks.
The theory of evolution is not "contradicted" by the fossil record, the theory does not predict a rate of evolution, it simply defines a general mechanism by which the characteristics of a species of organism can change in each generation through natural selection. The actual mechanisms by which this occurs are not all understood in detail.
It is certainly likely that the rate of evolution is determined by the environment and the interaction of the local flora and fauna. In steady-state evolution does not really occur as there is no drive to change. When the environment is dynamic or changed through events such as ice-ages, meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, new species evolving or moving in to area etc. stronger selection occurs (evolve or die) and therefore more rapid evolution occurs. One would guess that the bigger the change, the more rapidly evolution may occur as the selection environment is more harsh than usual.
The theories can only tell you so much, what you really need is experimental evidence. Given that we cant do long experiments we can only rely on the fossil record. And the transient events you refer to provide some evidence for punctuated evolution. Rather than contradicting the theory, the data helps to flesh it out.
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?
*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:
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.
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
#!
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.
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.
... 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
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?
Evolution is falsifiable. e.g. A chicken fossil in the pre-Cambrian era.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
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.
There has been lots of hypothesis testing. One thing evolution predicted was animals with similar traits would have common dna fingerprints - a hypothesis that was given way before we could analyse DNA.
There's been lots of hypotheses like that which should it is indeed falsiable.
... 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?
I am flaming you. You are a moron.
BTW, Law and Science are completely dissimilar, try to find examples that follow a similar 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
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.
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
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
>> 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!
The reason science doesn't concern itself with anything supernatural is because it is impossible, by definition, to observe scientifically what the supernatural is or is not doing. Science's insistance on natural explanations is hard-headed pragmatism, not an a priori declaration of philosophical naturalism.
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!?!'
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.
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!
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.
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
You don't know much about evolution, do you? Before you dismiss the entire field you should study it little more.
For example, evolution nicely explains the following:
If you want to see evolution in action, read up on the evolution of the AIDS virus. Just be cause you can't understand it, it does not mean it is wrong.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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?
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.
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
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...)
Science can't win as a supernatural investigations agent, because whatever they investigate is defined by non-scientists as "natural"; "supernature" is defined as anything not conducive to investigation. If a scientist actually detected a free-standing, self-perpetuating EM field that consists of the surviving personality of a dead man, it wouldn't be "supernatural" to the religionists. The Supernature crowd would redefine the term to not-include ghosts; it would merely be the physical remnant of the person, in a state prepatory to going to God at a later time. Infinite regression, as they have done so many times before. And the carnival would go on.
This isn't about truth, or logic. The Biblists believe their reading of the book, American Southern Fundie standard, IS THE TRUTH, and that is THAT. Everything they do is sophistry aimed at their ultimate goal of remaking science and society and politics into a Dominionist utopia. And ending the world, of course.
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!
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").
Ah, but would the process that allowed them to exceed their designed purpose (terraforming) and acquire sentience be evolution? because, if we didn't plan on them becoming more than little terraformers it can't be ID. It goes back to the most sacred of all evolutionary statments, "There was variation in the population." by chance, a trait changes. does the trait increase survivability? If Yes, then reinforce trait through successive generations. If no, then the trait dies out. For your terraformers to become intelligent doesn't mean we intended it.
this only reinforces my belief that ID should not be taught along side evolution. they are two different things. look, even if we were designed to be humans, it seems that there was a long and craggy road up from primate to proto-human to human, that the fossil record (or, hard evidence) supports. We became what we are from something else, and that process is called evolution. To believe that god, spacemen or magic put us here requires faith...because they left no facts...and faith is not science.
"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.
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"
The first thing you'll notice is that the dates show clearly that none of those accounts were made by those who would have been the contemporaries of jesus.
The second thing you should notice is that the accounts that are worth anything at all (meaning, those in the first century, at the very minimum) depend at the first level on reports made by Christians, and which are in many of the examples at the second level causing considerable irritation to the Romans and to the Greeks.
The conclusion one can draw is that Christians say that Christ existed (what, are they going to say he didn't exist?) and that the authorities of the day werre well and truly vexed by the activities of the Christians.
There are no accounts that say "Christus paid for 20 chickens today", or "We crucified Christus today" or "Christus the Carpenter delivered unto me a fabulous wood chair and door today."
Christ may indeed have existed. But nothing on that page in any way provides solid support for the idea.
History will record (and accurately so) that the Heaven's Gate cult were so convinced that aliens were talking to them (as in right now, as in personally, as in real) that they committed mass suicide. People 2000 years from now who take this to mean that aliens did talk to them would be mistaken. However, they'll have a 2000-year thick veil to peer through, and they may not get it right. Or, for reasons of their own, much like those Christans hold dear, they may not be interested in getting it right.
Another important perspective on this is to consider a Tom Clancy novel. In a Tom Clancy novel, you'll find the CIA (real), Russia, England, USA, China and the old Soviet Union, (all real) President Reagan (real), various ships of war (almost all real) and various interesting personalities that interact with all this bona-fide historical stuff.
2000 years from now, will they believe that John Patrick Ryan was a CIA agent? Will they believe that John Clark was a CIA asassin? Will they believe that the Red October was a Soviet ship of war?
Here we have a book with myriad verifiable historical facts scattered about; in no way, we know today, do they make the other characters and the situations in the book actually real, but they do make them feel more real. That's why authors use real situations and characters; it sets the stage and makes suspension of disbelief easier.
Look at the bible. Look at it hard. It was put (vaguely and inconsistantly) together hundreds of years after the alleged fact, and after a considerable amount of tussling amongst the Christians. The KJV only emerged after the Great Bible, the Geneva bible and the Bishop's bible. One thousand and six hundred years after the events reported in the collection. Even then, after the KJV was moving into prominence, Hugh Broughon (1549-1612, English theologian and Hebrew scholar, born in Owlbury) wrote: "Tell his majesty ( meaning King James I ) that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses, than any such translation by my consent be urged on poor churches."
The NT certainly contains historical references. It contains references to people we're pretty sure were real because we have contemporary accounts of their existance (Roman emperors, for instance.) It also contains accounts of people we can't find anywhere else, other than as after-the-fact mentions that we can't be certain didn't arise from the description in the various codexes that were called upon to create the various bibles. Codexes, by the way, that do not always agree with each other, and which were definitely "cherry picked" to create the work we see today, the KJV. There are over five thousand historical manuscript copies of the NT. But only three are generally used as a source:
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/
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?
I agree with you 100%. The idea of natural selection is so simple, yet very powerful. There is even a book on this by Dennet "Darwin's Dangerous Idea".
...richie - It is a good day to code.
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.
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
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.
What if God was the result of evolution?
This it the problem I have with the whole "intelligent design theory"... it doesn't answer the problem, it just moves it.
OK, you figured out where we came from... great... now, how 'bout that designer?
Not only that... but more questions arise:
- where is the designer now?
- how many others are there?
- do they have enemies?
- if we hook up with the enemies can we kick the designer's ass?
Pandora's Box if you ask me...
--Phillip
Can you say BIRTH TAX
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.
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.
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.
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...
Science is ridiculous, but it's the best our minds can come up with on their own.
Oh but it is relevant when discussing this from a monothiestic viewpoint. Take the bible for example, it equates liars, gossips, murderers and homosexuals. So, from a christian-monothiestic viewpoint you would have to agree what I said is relevant. If you look at it from a secular-societal viewpoint then yes you are correct, but I dont think thats what I was referring to.