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Equal Time For Creationism
Brian Berns writes "Many news sources reported on
President Bush's recent semi-endorsement of 'intelligent
design', the politically correct version of
creationism that is currently in vogue among groups of conservative
Christians in the U.S.. While Mr. Bush was reportedly reluctant to make news on
this topic, he apparently felt it was an issue he could not duck. Most of those
same news sources, however, missed the
recent condemnation of Darwinian evolution by the Catholic cardinal
archbishop of Vienna. This NY Times op-ed appears to mark a deliberate attempt
to reverse the late Pope John Paul II's acceptance of evolution as 'more than
just a hypothesis'."
Oh, dear God...the Intelligent Design debate rears its ugly head once again. I predict a thousand comments on this story...easy.
OK...let's get the ball rolling, shall we?
Intelligent Design is not just unproven, it is inherently unprovable. Intelligent Design is not a science in any sense, but a theology, and as such, its place is in the church/mosque/synagogue/whatever, not in the classroom.
(Note: during these debates, the issue of my own faith is always raised, so let me address that now. I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ died so that we may be saved.)
HOWEVER , I do not believe that such matters of faith should be taught in schools. I know that my faith is inherently unprovable...that's pretty much the definition of 'faith'. Matters of unproven, unprovable faith belong in your chosen place of worship. Matters of proven, or at least provable fact belong in the secular classroom.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Sooo... a leader of the Catholic Church favors the teachings of the Bible over science? This isn't even news over at the 700 Club; it's certainly not 'news for nerds'. Guess Zonk just felt like fanning a religious flame war this morning.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
While I fully acknowledge that there are Creationists out there who quite literally believe the Bible's version of the creation of the Earth and our species, and indeed the universe, reject evolution out-of-hand, and ignorantly stand steadfastly against science, there is an actual place for philosophical debate about why we're here.
"Intelligent design", not in a form that has been co-opted by anti-evolution Creationists and people who think pi should be equal to exactly 3, has a place in this debate.
Does it have a place in a biology class? No.
Does it have a place in a philosophy class? Absolutely.
I rather liked this sequence from Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Patrick Stewart elegantly sums up my, and likely many others', thoughts on this matter.
DATA: I have a question, sir. What is death?
PICARD: Oh, is that all?
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.
It's unfortunate that rabid anti-science Creationists have bastardized this debate, so that we can't really have a frank discussion about the science and theory of evolution on a backdrop of philosophical questions about how and why we're here.
In my 7th grade biology class, I'll never forget a kid raising his hand during the section on evolution and asking, "What about the Bible?" After a pause, the teacher replied, quite simply, "Well, some might say the Bible tells what God did, and science explains how he did it." Whether or not you agree fundamentally with religion in any form, it was a concise, non-confrontational answer to an honest question.
I do find it interesting the links that the submitter chose. For instance, a link of a center attempting to discredit Darwinian evolution was picked for "Intelligent Design" (in an obvious attempt to elicit a certain reaction), while the Wikipedia link was picked for Creationism. Why not pick the Wikipedia link for Intelligent Design, too, which describes in a pretty unbiased fashion what it generally is? Intelligent Design might not be science, but it certainly has a place in philosophy. And further, Intelligent Design and Creationism are NOT the same thing. That some Creationists have co-opted the term is unfortunate, but still doesn't make Creationism equal to Intelligent Design.
And is it any surprise that an agent of the Catholic Church condemns evolution? I mean, come on, people...is this really news? Why don't we have a front page slashdot story about what the Muslim Brotherhood believes?
Intelligent Design, at its most basic level, asks that with all the beauty, wonder, and astounding perfection that make up the physical world around us, and indeed the science itself which proves it to be more and more elegant as time goes on, might there possibly be a force that surpasses our understanding that has allowed for, or caused, its, and our, creation? Is this provable? Nope. Is it
Dave Silverman, Communications Director for American Atheists: "Not all opinions are of equal value, and we need to teach science - not religion -- in our science classes. We wouldn't teach astrology in astronomy courses, or give flat-earth teachings 'equal time' in the geography class."
The churches have to fight science. Every time science helps uncloud a mind they lose one of their sheep.
And don't tell me about some scientists that are religious, real ones aren't. A scientist uses logic and methods throughout their entire lives. If you can take off the lab coat at 5:00, turn off your rational mind and believe in invisible spirits then you aren't a scientist, you're a part-time lab worker, part-time delusional kook.
Trolling is a art,
Really? The US president endorsing something like intelligent design isn't even newsworthy in your opinion?
That's scary.
Rest assured, for someone from Europe like me this whole debate looks really surreal and scary, but it's definately newsworthy.
Let the rehashed arguments begin. Let me summarize 90% of the forthcoming posts...
25%: Creationists are stupid idiots who are basically Luddite Talibans without the beards.
40%: Creationists are wrong for x y z reasons.
10%: Defending particular versions of creationism that are basically compatible with the non-metaphysical aspects of evolution.
15%: We went to Iraq for the oil. And people in Kansas are stupid.
So how about we just skip the posting on this article, and move on to the next? The repetitious was the Slashdot community deals with posts regarding evolution is boring.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In my beliefs I have a very short version of the relation between God and Science, especially in regards to the creation.
Let's put it like a question:
"If you should create mankind, and do it really smart. How would you do it?"
Answer:
"Snap you fingers! Make the big bang, set the fundamental laws in motion and wait a couple of billion years."
If you are God, time doesn't really matter, do it? Billions of years or some days would be the same.
In regards to the laws of energy, matter etc. everyone realize that the construction of the universe is brilliant. Today we even recognize physical laws by the way they look. If they are mathematically nice and simple, they are usually right.
But the one answer Science always fails is; What (or who) started it all? The creator is still a fully plausible explanation.
In my opinion, anyone who disregards the scientific laws, disregards the creation it self. If the laws that rules this world is brilliant, why settle for something less brilliant. Some ideas made by man. 7 days or whatever...
A lot of people believe that the bible is to be taken literal. I my opinion they could not be more wrong, for several reasons. It all comes down to the fact that the book I written by man! Some may argue that it was inspired by God (and I might even agree) but it's still a manmade text. The written language (in any form) will in my opinion always fail to explain the divine. The God I believe in is too big for letters and text. The creation he (or she?) made and the method he used to make it, is too big for any of us to fully understand, much less write down in text.
An other fundamental reason where the bible fails (still because it was written by man) is the fact that God, even if he dictated the words could not describe the fabric of space 2000 years ago. Humans simply could not understand it. We might have a better chance today (even thou some parts still eludes even the best scientists). Therefore God would describe only the parts that could be understood by man back then, and simplify the rest. Creation was simplified into a story about the 7 days. What else could God say to the poor human that should write it down? Should he start explaining about energies and matter? Even the words we use today are manmade. I bet God didn't call it a "proton" back when he made it. (Wonder what the divine word really is?)
So if God is brilliant, he made a brilliant world. Science shows us a brilliant world, the bible doesn't. The bible shows us a dictated world. A world that just is! Period! No arguing, no fanciness! But that is not the world I see. I see a world of possibilities... of brilliance. My God is a brilliant God.
-:) Oh no - not again.
www.rednebula.com
Newsworthy? Yes.
Should it be discussed somewhere? Yes.
Should that discussion take place on Slashdot? Hell no.
The submission is nothing but a troll...Everyone read this site knows it will amount to over 1,000 posters screaming at each other.
This debate when schools are not even able to effectively teach basic skills such as math and reading. Most kids will graduate without any real grasp on history, geography or science and their lives will not be really affected by which way they believe Man got to his present state.
Worst. Sig. Ever.
- Evolution is not "just a theory," because in scientific usage, "theory" does not mean "unproven guess" as it does in common usage; it means "hypothesis which has stood up to rigorous testing against the best available evidence." In this sense, evolution is "just a theory" the same way gravity is "just a theory."
- In a similar vein, "law" in a scientific sense means "theory which has stood up so well and so long that although it's possible to disprove it, that doesn't look likely to happen." Evolution in this sense is a "law" to the same degree as Newton's laws of motion (suitably modified by Einstein) or the laws of thermodynamics.
- Those who oppose teaching creationism in schools are not "afraid of teaching the controversy." There is no controversy among biologists about whether evolution happens, although there may well be controversy about the specific details, any more than there is controversy among historians over whether the Holocaust happened or controversy among geographers over whether the Earth is round or flat.
- If we are to include Judeo-Christian-Islamic creation myths (both "young Earth" and "Intelligent Design" varieties) in science classes, why stop there? Let's throw in the Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, Jainist, etc. creation myths too. "Teach the controversy," right?
- There is no inherent conflict between religious belief and the scientific method, unless believers make it so. Many scientists are religious. Scientists do not "hate religion" or "hate God." When religion makes specific, testable claims about the nature of reality, then it is putting itself into science's realm, and faces the same risks of disproof that any other set of demonstrably wrong ideas does. As long as it sticks to matters of morality and spirituality, it can go its merry way.
There you go, folks. Now, enjoy your regularly scheduled flamewar.The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The problem with the creationist side is this isn't always a battle of who is right, it's a battle of time. Do we really want schools to de-evolve (joke intended) into 7.5 hours of creation stories, 0.5 hours of math, reading, grammar, and so forth?
Equal time for Creationism == Equal time for religious nonsense.
The owls are not what they seem
Neither evolution and I.D. belong in the Science classroom. They're both historical hypothesis.
Given the historical powers of science and theology, however, theology has more potential for supporting historical claims. At least theoreticaly...
Science cannot demonstrate what happened in the past, but it can be used to demonstrate that certain hypothesis about what happened in the past are plausible, given the way the physics seems to work now.
Theology however has authoritative divine revelation - a direct expression of the genuine truth. So in theory, as long as you don't start out with the assumption that divine revelation is bunk, then it has the capacity for making claims about history with more certainty than science can ever make.
Well, perhaps it could be included in a philosophy clasroom as an example of modern day sophistry:
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Creationism is not a theory at all. At best it is a sloppy hypothesis. In order for something to be a theory, there must be evidence or logical arguments supporting it and it must be falsifiable (there must be some conditions that might conceivably be met that would prove the idea wrong). No theory is ever 100% proven. Evolution, however, is well over 99% proven. Creationism, on the other hand, is 0% proven. Creationism is not science, and never will be science. It is merely religion dressed up in scientific language. It therefore has no place in a science classroom.
Technoli
Sad but true.
You can talk to a christian who has faith and have a perfectly normal conversation. It's like talking to a gay guy...if you're not comfortable with your sexuality, its weird, but if you are, it's not. A christian who has solid faith is perfectly okay with saying, "I don't know" because they don't have to know. They don't have anything to prove.
But take someone who has no faith, and try and have a logical, rational discussion, and watch how fast they lose it. Because they have no faith, they need proof to shore up their belief, but since there is no proof, their arguments are weak and easily countered. They've built their whole lives on those "facts", so any attempt to reveal them as the figments they are is viewed as a personal attack, and responded to accordingly.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
you cannot Prove a theory. It drives me nuts how people seem to think this. A theory can only be Disproven. Hence it is a theory. Creatinism is not a theory, as it lacks another fundamental aspect of a theory, the ability to have a testable hypothesis. show me one testable hypothesis of creationism, please.
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Even if creationism could be considered as being the "easy way" to try and interpret things, instead of having a hard time experimentating to find the right answer, using the "it must have been created by some holy spirit" ideology truely seems to reveal a certain lazyness, one could consider creationism as futile, since it can be interpreted as not being the opposite of darwinism, but as a part of evolution itself: in order to oppose the arguments advanced by the intelligent designers, scientifics are forced to adapt their methods and technics, thus making science and human condition evolve...
Most of the people I know that are whole heartedly against evolution, haven't got the faintest idea how it works. They were never exposed to it and won't take the time to read anything about it. However, when I was in grade school, my science teacher would occasionally interject that intelligent design is a possibility that can't really be ruled out. Then he'd go right back into evolutionary theory. I believe he was doing it to keep certain people off his back. But, it didn't turn me into a right wing ultra conservative bible banger. It just taught me to keep an open mind. I still believe what I believe, but I do admit that I might be wrong.
Of course, the real problem they are going to run into is which intelligent design concepts they are going to teach. Even sticking within the Judeo-Christian dogma, there's quite a few different viewpoint on the subject. These are teachers after all, not theologians. But, that topic will only cause heated arguments amonst all the right wingers... which is always fun to watch.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
The word theory in sicence implies something totally different than it does in common usage. It's a conclusion that has undergone volumes of rigorous testing. ID is not a theory in the scientific sense.
Okay, which assertion is more ludicrous?
There is no way to provide support for it or to refute it and the concept does not affect a person's life outside of his/her religion.
Here's a hint - In science the word theory means something different than it's use in general parlance. A theory is the best explanation for the facts that we have. Just like the theory of grativity is the best explanation of gravity we have . Evolution happens. A theory in science isn't a guess. ID has no scientific components. It has no predictive value. It's theology.
Thalasar
I think you miss the point of evolution, it's not random dumb luck that it happened upon a fantastic design - evolution isn't random selection, it's natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, and probably other selection mechanisms we haven't discovered yet. Evolution is in a sense guided - there are demonstratable mechanisms at work selecting the very best variations in offspring and discarding the rest.
The universe does not appear to be infinite, nor does the time it has existing for. Evolution isn't an example of infinite monkeys on typewriters coming up with shakespear.
The place to teach "what's going on in the public square" is not science class. You want to teach Current Affairs -- teach Current Affairs, but don't call it science.
ID is not science.
ID is not philosophy.
ID is an attempt by a religious organization to counter the scientific method's encroachment on their domain.
With every scientific advance, their concept of "God" becomes less effective and more nebulous and this scares them.
Read up on set theory. Not all axioms are universally obvious.
To many people, God is obvious.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
I close friend of mine is a devout Catholic (I am an atheist who works in biotech), and he and I have spent a number of evenings talking about the whole evolution/creationism debate. In the end, we tend to agree.
At its very heart, evolution is a random process. Yes, evolution is guided by natural selection, but fundamentally the origin of genetic variation depends on random events, specifically random mutation events. DNA is a molecule and heredity is based upon how a single molecule of DNA behaves, and quite frankly you cannot predict the behavior of any single molecule. You can predict the behavior of populations, but any single molecule behaves randomly. (And yes, I know what I'm talking about, because I work with a technology that uses single DNA molecules.)
The upshot is that all science has to offer on the source of the mutations is that they are random and if they provide benefit for the organism, they will be selected for. Okay great, so here is where faith kicks in. You can either take the atheist/agnostic point of view and claim that these truly are random events, or you can take the faith-based view and see these events as the mechanism by which God has created the world.
If only the hard-core evolution advocates would allow for this role for God and if only the hard-core tub-thumping bible-bangers could accept the bible as metaphor, we might actually get somewhere.
(I hope this is clear - I'm at work and don't have time to fully polish this message)
I've been asking this question for years with no response. People widely accept evolution and reject creationism, but yield to stupidity and ignorance when it comes to accounting for how matter was first formed.
I'm a strong believer in God and creationism, but I've always accounted for evolution and other more plausible theories in my quest for understanding of life. But I cannot accept evolution because it simply does not account for the fact that matter has to form from something. Creationism steps up to the plate in this respect, but it's not provable.
Seriously people, wake up. The foundation of evolution is as much questionable and shaky as the foundation of creationism. Both require faith to believe, and both will remain scientifically unprovable. Hence, both should be taught.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
This is what happens when you want to put education under the leviathan of the federal government.
The inevitable consequence of putting education under political control (i.e. control by the government), is that education becomes politicized. Education inevitably becomes the place to promote political and social goals.
If schools were run privately, or strictly by local government, then there would not be an issue. Parents would have a choice what their children were taught.
People want the education system to be a federal dictatorship, and then cry when the dictator has opinions they don't like. Sorry, that is how dictatorships work. If you want to solve the problem, then allow parents to choose for their kids instead of government.
Just because they don't kill people doesn't mean they are peaceful. Live in the south as a non-christian and see how much "peace" you see on a daily basis. It is still a violent religion, it's just a matter of degrees.
Been there, done that, bought the shirt. I've lived in the South, I'm not Christian. I've had disagreements, I've been lectured to, I've been told I'm "going to hell", etc. But, I've NEVER felt in physical danger. And occasionally, I've had folks "agree to disagree". No worse than a roomful of Mac, Windows, and Linux advocates (in in many cases more polite).
[Insert pithy quote here]
First, the president is not making any sort of federal policy shift to cause Intelligent Design to be taught in schools.
What do you think policy is? Merely the rules written on paper? Amateur.
Look, Bin Laden uses video tapes to signal his cells in the field what to do next. So too does Bush send signals to his troops about what do pursue next. Should they work on anti-abortion? No-Safe-Sex? Drug abuse? No, the policy is set by the big guy: go after science.
If you don't believe this is setting policy then you don't understand what the bully pulpit is all about.
Finally, Bush does not say that only Intelligent Design should be taught; he advocates for contrasting ideas to be presented to school children on the subject of the origin of species.
That's a little misleading. Bush is advocating teaching ID, he's only justifying it by saying that the purpose is to expose students to multiple theories. The problem is that, depending on your standards, there is either one valid theory--evolution, which is valid because it is supported by evidence and science--or many, many valid theories, such as Scientology, which would be valid because someone believes in it and would be offended to be taught facts that contradicted their beliefs.
It's very deceptive for someone in Bush's position to say, "Teach the controversy!" There is no controversy. None. ID has nothing to do with legitimate science, and whatever controversy exists is the result of an intentional effort to deceive laypeople.
A science is a collection of observations, hypotheses, and models which serve to explain the observations in a coherent logical framework. Core to a science is the notion of falseafiability, that is, if one or the other hypotheses can be proven false (the only proof you can do in science is a contradiction), then you *must* discard the hypothesis, and replace it with a more correct one.
You cannot *ever* prove a hypothesis true (not true in mathematics, but the case in science).
Core to a belief system is the infalability of the belief system in the face of contradictory evidence. A belief system cannot by definition, be a science.
Creationism and its spawn are belief systems. They are not falsafiable. They are not open to re-interpretation. They should not be taught in science class-rooms. They should be taught in terms of socio-political terms as religious movements. And this includes the pig that is dressed up and named Intelligent design. It is still a pig (belief system), and it is not falsafiable. It is therefore not a science.
The problem occurs once the Creationists come up with a falsafiable belief system, and contradictory evidence arises. How are they going to handle an attack on their belief system? It isn't science (never was, never will be).
The last time Creationists were in charge, we were a backwards nation in terms of science. The last time the forefathers of Creationism were in control of knowledge, we had the dark ages.
Lets not go back there. Lest we decide that the earth really is flat, the center of the universe, and the Sun revolves around us. Yes, this is what they championed in the past. They demonstrated that they were not a force for advancing knowledge, but for consolidating their own power.
I think the main thing ID has going for it is that it is logical. You tell someone, "the world, the human body, the eye, its all too complex to come about through a natural process over thousands of generations. Something HAD to have been there to design it", and you know what, it makes sense. In our little human brains, it is very hard to fathom the idea of thousands of generations, and the mutations needed to evolve. Evolution is a tough thing to grasp at first. So I think thats what it has going for it, and why its gained so much traction across the country.
Then the ID people say something like, "what so we came from a monkey?" or some other garbage to dispute evolution. Then you see whats really going on. ID isnt a science, and its not provable. Its just religious people using it to win hearts and minds. Its a PR campaign. And if we have people not educated on biology, not educated on the sciences, and so forth, making these decisions, it is DISASTROUS because they will go by the PR campaign and put it in schools to teach students.
I also hear people saying, "just teach the controversey! Not even every scientist believes in evolution!". So what scientists dont? What respected biologists do not believe in evolution? Id love to see a list... I really would. Because you know, not everyone believes the earth is round.
ID is just a PR campaign.
There are different classes of thought that are sometimes called an opinion that lead to the confusion where some people think they should all be given equal standing.
One kind of opinion is simply a statement or observation, for example, of preference: "My favorite color is blue." versus "My favorite color is green."
This type of opinion is of equal interpretive value, yes.
But, a second common usage of the word opinion is the promotion of a personal theory (about anything).
In this case, the same standards apply as for any theory, and as such these 'opinions' are NOT entitled to the same neutral status of "different but equal" as, like in the above example, the simple expression of one's favorite color.
In the second type of opinion, the realm of theory, some are well founded, based upon fact and analysis, while others are crap, formed, or worse, simply borrowed, with no basis in fact, and no actual thought whatsoever.
The former is an opinion with a sound basis, and strong support. The latter is just so much line-noise.
They may both be opinions, but that's the sole extent of the similarity, and that does not put them on an equal footing.
An unsound opinion, even when held by a majority, is still unsound, and therefore NOT of equal value.
I honestly have to disagree based on my experience, but maybe you're right about some science teachers. When I was in public school, every science class began by teaching the scientific method. If the scientific method is taught correctly, it's obvious that this is not a method for discovering absolute truth, but an effort to describe the world based on what we're seeing. It also seems that most, if not all, science classes I had from public school through university had at least one point where the teacher said something to the effect of, "We used to believe A, because of a,b and c, but now due to the discovery of d which seems to disagree with A, we believe B which is consistent with a,b,c and d." This always left me open to the idea that e could come along to disprove B and force the scientific community to come up with C. I really think so long as the scientific method is taught well and some history is given on the evolution of scientific theories, the teacher shouldn't need to preface every concept with, "Now this is only a theory, but we believe that ..." I think that should be intuitively obvious.
One thing that frustrates the pro-ID folks is that evolution is still a *theory*, but is being taught as fact. That's not a surprising bias, considering that it explains an awful lot (but not all) about how life came to be as it is. And, it's an observable phenomenon. But, there are other theories, ID probably being the most prominent that other people believe.
Actually, ID/creationism gets the most press, but it isn't even remotely close to a viable alternative.
The problem is: how do you teach this? Evolution is an important enough phenomenon all by itself, even if it wasn't the sole mechanism behind life, to be taught in science (and maybe math, anthropology and social studies) class. Beyond that, anything that says "this is how life began" should be taught with a healthy amount of skepticism, because we just don't know for sure.
Nothing in science is known for sure except math. Math only gets that way because it is it's own system and is independant of reality. It's self consitant and needs no physical proof, although physical reality can renforce it, it's not nessacary. All biology/physics/chemistry is a collection of reasonable theories that have withstood the test of the scientific method, ad naseum.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Kids are smart enough to decide for themselves what makes sense
Not most kids. Perhaps the smart ones. The rest will beleive what ever someone in authority tells them.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."
I think, President Bush should immediately endorse the teaching of the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory of the universe, as well as the Turtles-all-the-way-down-theory of geology. Not to forget the Plutonium Atom Totality theory of particle physics.
A concerned citizen of Old Europe.I honestly cannot undestand why American students are not exposed to these refreshing and original thoughts in the classroom nor why President Bush is not using his influence to set this important matter right!
This is just another chapter in ingnorance in the US. Of course no prominent Christians will come out and say this should not be taught in school. The very fact that their Christians won't let then say that it's not ok to teach this. They're just a more civilized version of suicide bombers, totally blind and unreasonable all the same.
/.
Any parents out there: If your child ever mentions that the words intelligent design or creatonism were mentioned in school, sue the crap out of that school. Any lawyer will grab that one. That's the easiest case in the word in a legal sense. Here's your arguement: "What's the basis for creationism?" When the only answer is Bible, you win. End of story. Why this isn't being done, I don't know. My parents might sue the school district and they don't have kids in school anymore, they're Catholic and they're pissed that this is even a topic.
Whenever you hear one of these idiots preaching about Creationism, just tell them that they're awful Christians. Tell them that this is a monir issue compared to all of the people overseas that they let die every day from starvation and disease so they can live their lavish American lifestyle (by lavish I mean they can always FIND food). If they think you're being unreasonable, ask them why Jesus and the Apostles(sp) gave up everything to preach the word, why do they need a Land Rover. In fact any Christian that has any worldly possesions while people are starving in the world isn't a good Christian. They should be willing to give up everything to help others if they follow the Bible.
Fortunately I'm not a Christian, so this doesn't apply to me. Ha ha, that's what you get for following a 2000-year-old book but only as much as is convenient for your lifestyle. In your face.
Done venting. Thanks
Besides, you don't prove scientific theories, you attempt to use them to make predictions that can be falsified. The more and simpler falsifiable conditions that can be made for a theory, the more attempts are made at proving them false without succeeding, the surer we get that the theory is true.
As an example, if someone presented as a theory that Santa Claus really existed, and does come down the chimney of every house where a child lives every Christmas, a falsifiable prediction would be that he would come down a set of specific chimneys within a specific time interval. If he doesn't, then the theory can be discarded with relative ease.
Evolution has the support of the scientific community because a wide range of falsifiable predictions can be made from it, and a wide range of those predictions are within our ability to test, and have been tested with success.
Thats the fundamental difference between evolution and intelligent design: There is no coherent theory of intelligent design from which one can extract conditions with which to prove it false. It's not even attempting to be a scientific theory. Something that isn't specific enough that you can prove it false if it indeed is false is useless as a theory because you can only take it on faith.
At which point we might as well believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy - creationism has no more scientific basis than either of them.
Unless you can present a framework for creationism that can withstand even a tiny fraction of the scrutiny that the theory of evolution has withstood, creationism is nothing but an idea with no scientific basis, while evolution is well tested, well understood and supported by a barrage of experiments and observations that have supported predictions based on it.
An easy one is finding a bunny rabbit in 250 million year old sediments. Another one, ripped off from Creationist strawmen of evolution, is a dog naturally giving birth to a bird.
This is why scientific education is so important. You betray some ignorance of how science actually functions. Scientists, for instance, can't build UFOs, nor can they go back 13.5 billion years ago and replay the Big Bang. What has to be repeatable is the observation.
Odd, I've talked to molecular biologists and they insist that evolution did happen, that the genes of all extant organisms indicate that they fit into a nested hieararchy (as confirmation of what was already known from the fossil record). As this is a key piece of evidence for evolution, it makes me wonder just how many molecular biologists you have actually talked to at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The theory of evolution does not attempt to address the creation of life.
Evolution is a theory of how the diverse life forms arised over time.
Evolutionist really don't care about where life started.
Creationist try to twist the theory of evolution into an explanation fo rthe creation of life, which it is not, and does not pretend to be.
Sit down child, because you're going to get a lesson in politics. When someone, especially a high-level, powerful, and influential person says "advocates for contrasting ideas" in the context of a specific "contrasting idea", that's an endorsement with plausible-deniability. (e.g. "Oh crap! I'm getting flak. Well...um...I didn't actually SAY that.")
Things like "exposing them to different ideas" and "properly taught" are what's known as "code words." Words that appear to be about one thing, but actually about something else entirely. Here are two examples. One code word that shows up when discussing Supreme Court nominees, "Plessy-vs-Ferguson." Now why on Earth would the 1892 case that created the now discredited and defunct idea of "seperate but equal" have any bearing on cases today? Why would that be brought up? Why would "Dred Scott", the 1857 case that ruled that slaves were property have any bearing on anything today? I'll tell you.
They're code words for "Roe v Wade", the case that legalized abortion nationwide. Everyone "in the know" knows what Dred Scott == Roe v Wade, but if you challenge the politico on about abortion, he'll say "Well that's a different case," and technically he's right, but the message has already been sent loud and clear.
Now back to the presidential endorsement of ID. Bush advocates "both sides" to be taught. Sounds like a reasonable position right? Only if you don't realize THERE ISN'T ANOTHER SIDE! No one. -- let me repeat that -- no one in the scientific community has any problems with the theory of evolution. That means there's abosultely no scientific controversy.
No supporters of ID say: "But evolution is just a theory, and that's only a guess. Scientitst don't know! ID is simply another guess. Who's say who is right and who is not?" That logic is based on a fundamental misunderstanding on just what a scientific theory really is.
A scientific theory is not merely "a guess" as IDers would have you believe. It's an archetecture explaining a whole series of observations that has been supported by many experiments by many different scientits. A "guess" isn't even a hypothesis. A guess is saying "heads" on a coin flip. A hypothesis is a testable (i.e. "falifyable") educated prediction about a single event. ID isn't falsifyable, and so it not even a hypothesis, let alone a theory. Read this for a good description of law versus theory versus hypothesis versus guess.
ID is a biblical creation myth wrapped in pseudoscience. The conclusion that the universe was created by an intellegent entity in a manner consistent with judeo-christian mythology is the predetermined. Then "facts" are manipulated to give the illusion of support for that conclusion. That's not science. Science gathers observations then arrives at conclusions that can explain the observations. If an observation contradicts the conclusions, the conclusions are modified and or replaced. Creationists, which IDers are all the way, don't do that. If an observation contradicts their conclusion, it's ignored.
Teaching ID along with evolution is a completly intellectually bankrupt idea. It equates a well supported scientific archetecture with demonstrably untrue mumbo-jumbo. It's the equivalent of saying that the Earth is round needs to be "balanced" by the Earth is flat. Or that a geocentric universe should be taught in order to "balance" the heliocentric solar system.
Sorry, that's not part of the deal. Which is why all religions are inherently dangerous. If a person accepts something on faith, he has narrowed his view such that he becomes blind to reality, sometimes to painfully obvious things like the fossil record (I like Martin Gardner's tongue-in-cheek explanation of the fossil record: It was created on the 7th day, complete with clues to a non-existent far distant past, to test our faith).
The problem is, narrowed perspective notwithstanding, people keep doing pesky things like... oh, I don't know... voting. Electing Creationists to the School Board. Stuff like that.
So it's inescapable. "They" will never "leave you the frig alone." That's the whole frigging problem.
However, the magna carta mostly focused on protection of rights of nobles. Didn't do much for anyone else (at least not directly).
Additionally, I don't see how Athens was hardly democratic since it only allowed male citizens to vote, but the early US was democratic even though it only allowed non-indian, non-black, male, land-owning citizens to vote.
It looks like you may have rearranged the facts to fit your theory.
1. The conservatives that refuse to accept that we evolved from apes.
2. Everyone else who can clearly see all the evidence that evolution is far more than a simple theory. (aside: "If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" "For the same reason that there are 100 million different kinds of insects. Just because one mutation is successful doesn't mean that the original will die off.")
The idea behind ID is that there must have been intelligent intervention because the current system is too complicated to be explained any other way.
Why?
That's like saying that there must be intelligence involved when a hurricane forms. Anyone who throws out the catastrophic number of variables that determine how a storm forms could probably come to that conclusion.
The simple fact is so obvious. Time only move forward. And as it does so, all things within time become more chaotic. And as they become more chaotic, they will work off each other, and change as everything changes around them. In other words, everything evolves..
When it comes time to explain all of this to my children, I will explain that, yes, there is a debate about it. But, the people making the opposing argument are ignorant, closed minded, and foolish.
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For there to be a real debate, there have to be two sides. And that just isnt' the case here.
One one side you have Evolution: scientific studies, data, and observable fact, widely verified, and serving as the bedrock foundation for virtually all over biology, biochem, and supported by every other branch of science from geology to astrology.
On the other you have a group of people saying "Nuh-uh!" and sticking their fingers in their ears and saying "LA LA LA LA". In other words: ignorance and childish clinging to myths taught to them when they were young.
There simply aren't two sides. Evolution is a fact. It is science. ID is not science. It is not fact. It is not even theory. There is nothing put forth by ID that disproves Evolution or even calls evolution into question. ID is nothing more than religious dogma, part of an agenda to dress up Creationism and force secular public schools to indoctrinate children in a specific religion.
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
Yeah, that's just fucking loony. The notion that we need to quit poisoning the planet is just outrageous! I demand more lead and arsenic in our water supply!
Also, promoting a learning enviroment where one is exposed to people different than us so we learn some tolerance in our younger days is also just absolutely ridiculous.
And social justice? Don't even get me started on that! Those pinko commie bastards are out to ruin our children!
We must fight this scourge with all means at our disposal. We must explain to these people that the good Lord wanted us to rape the Earth (says so right in the Bible), didn't intend for us to mix, and indeed, that Jesus's message was all about amassing personal wealth. Once this message gets through to those god-hating commies, we'll all be able to rest easy in our perfect world.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
Ummm, don't you have the whole concept backwards? Surely it's up to IDists to explain why their theory better explains natural diversity than Evolution. You don't just switch over to a entirely new explanation just because the current theory doesn't seem to cover all the bases. Especially when the new theory doesn't seem to cover any.
As to "everyone agrees..." if you're saying that science doesn't explain the natural universe, then no, I'm guessing most don't agree with you. If you're saying science doesn't explain faith, then I'm sure you are right.
Science doesn't have limits - science is a process. Just because we don't understand something now, does not mean it is outside the perview of science to explain it.
So, perhaps ironically, we should teach in schools only stuff that's disprovable, in the hope that the pupils will grow to disprove all that stuff.
I believe the other word commonly used is falsifiable, in case this rings a bell.
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
Creationism is NOT science, it is religion wrapped in a layer of BS. (The "BS" being a disguise to make you think it's science) The only place where creationism should be taught is in private schools aligned with some branch of the church (or talmud).
The separtion of church and state demanded by the US constitution won't allow for it being any other way.
No public school where MY kids go to will even mention creationism, or I'll drag them into court.
If they hear about it in Sunday school, that's fine with me.
When done at the point of a gun, it's not ridiculous, it goes against the right of free association in the Bill of Rights. The amendment doesn't say "the right to freely assemble will only be abridged if there are insufficient numbers of ethnic or racial minority members in the assembly."
"Social justice" is one of those keywords that are used to mean "spread the guilt around to everyone not directly responsible". The idea that being judged a member of a group makes you personally responsible for the actions of everyone in that group, especially across generations and across geographical distances, is the basis of "social justice." Reparations for slavery, "affirmative action" hiring quotas, speech codes in universities, these are all means to hold people responsible for the actions of others, in the name of "social justice."
I have enough sins on my own hands, I refuse to be responsible for, and refuse to be punished for, the sins of anyone else.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
> Only faith can say one way or another at this time. This last statement will cause people to close their minds and begin shooting profanities at me.
I don't know about shouting profanities, but certainly pointing out that you are wrong. You see, despite how hard you may wish for something to be true, believing it so does not make it so. Faith can not say anything "one way or another!" It is only a personal belief with no basis in truth. If it happens to mirror truth, great! But don't try to tell me that the truth arose from the belief.
ID should not be taught in any class. It can be discussed, say in a psychology class to point out the gullibility and sheep-like behaviour of people but it should not be taught. Astrology shouldn't be taught either but it can be discussed in other context.
Heck, ID has a place in the science classroom. When teaching what the scientific method is it could be used as an example of something that isn't science.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Even leaving out what appear to be gross misuses of the terms "infinitessimal" and "missing", you now appear to be equating the universe with a single planet. The time and space that evolution on this planet have seen is clearly finite, so expecting every possible thing to have happened here recently is not approriate.
(And I can't resist dismissing this "missing link" nonsense. No matter how many links there are, how closely placed, there will always be some space between them in which someone can claim that there's another step that's missing.)
whose side is being dogmatic?
;)
Good question. The speculation that God or Aliens created life on Earth is an unreasonable conclusion to draw from the evidence at this time.
I don't care what you believe, I only care what you can prove. So please, supply this theory of Intelligent Design, if you even know what a scientific theory is. HINT: Its not a guess. Or properly reclassify it as theology, not biology.
because we KNOW we arised spontaneously.
Who's we, Pocahontas? The Homo Sapiens I know evolved over many many centuries of.. you guessed it.. evolution.
Did God/Aliens also create?
Homo Habilis
Homo Erectus
Homo Sapiens
Homo Sapiens Neandertalensis
Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Homo Floresensis
Why so many mistakes? Cognitive dissonance getting to ya?
Listen, what most people are saying is ID isn't even a theory, its not in the realm of biology. Its simply religion wrapped up in scientific sounding rhetoric. Nothing more. It is a waste of time for real scientists and educated people.
Sure we can think about how the universe was created by some old guy with a beard saying a word, really loud and slow. But that's about a provable as the God I saw on my LSD trip last week. So please, just keep it to yourself until you do the research.. in short, stop wasting our time.
Time is a limited resource, far more valuable than your opinion.
Voila, being an european, I've neven been bothered by this question.
.. design an so forth...
In total honestly I hope this article doesn't try to make this debate look as something that people outside of the USA cares. We don't give a fuck about your Intelligent
There is not debate here. This is as much interesting as wheter Jesus Christ went to the USA between 12 and 30... Come on.
To us the USA are the most scientific country in the world, and such a debate is so funny to us. We cannot even considerate it.
You don't have an good grasp of what "science" is if you think "Intelligent Design" is science. For the last time, people, OBSERVABLE PHENOMENA is what makes up science. Pulling something out of your ass and saying "Wow, this is complex, that surely means there was an intelligent designer." is NOT science. You can keep your ID in mythology classes where it belongs but don't try to con it off as science, because its not science and it never will be.
I can think of nothing more convincing than the evidence. Such as the nearly complete Turkana Boy skeleton, an example of Homo erectus from roughly 1.6 million years ago, as presented in this textbook on evolution. A few ribs my ass. Or how about this nice picture of a whole bunch of hominid skulls from 2.6 million years ago to the present? Teach it for real, and it doesn't take undergraduate level biochemistry. Show the kids pictures of the fossils. Tell the kids about human DNA: how our chromosome 2 is clearly the result of a fusion event between two mid-sized progenitor chromosomes, which are still seen in chimps, our closest relatives. Tell the kids that 200 years ago christian geologists went looking for evidence of the Biblical flood and instead found evidence that the Earth is ancient. While we're at it, we should show them the evidence for creationism and intelligent design, too: a deafening silence lasting 10 seconds should suffice.
You want to falsify evolution? Okay, find a bunny rabbit in the Precambrian. Sequence a mamalian genome and find out that it is more closely related to a banana than another mammal. Find a lizard that doesn't use the standard genetic code or a very close derivative of it. Find a bird with a different set of 20 amino acids. Find a chimera--for instance, a tree with 100% tree features, except that it's TCA cycle enzymes are identical to those found in mice, or if you don't want any biochemistry or genetics, find a goat with bird feathers--can't happen under evolution. Every day, more fossils are found. More genes are sequenced. More papers published, and more proteins are compared. Every day evolution is tested, as it makes specific predictions about how species are interrelated. As a result, evolution is the most thoroughly tested theory in science. Have a look at the evidence--a small portion of it is easily available for the general audience online at talkorigins . Creationism and intelligent design on the other hand are compatible with all evidence, as one can simply say "goddiditthatway" and you're good...unless you want to call it science. You want things taught in science class that are argeed on, fine. Teach evolution.
The actual possibility of God existing is actually 50%, not 0%.
Nonsense. A number of options do not mean each option gets equal weight.
for example, a meteor may crash into my house tonight. Or not. That doesn't mean the chances are 50% either way.
Trolling is a art,
He went to a hut in wich there was a witch-doctor and a woman bent over in pain. She had what looked like 6-8inch spikes coming out of her back. No, these were not implanted, they were more like part of her bone structure. He stated that he prayed for her and in the name of Jesus, cast the demon out and her back became normal again.) It is stuff like this that makes me come to this conclusion.
Occam's razor says your friend was hallucinating, probably from some local intoxicant. Seriously, which is more likely?
1) Friend sees a devil, even though hundreds of millions of Americans have never seen a devil and billions of people don't even believe in the devil.
2) Friend was wasted, perhaps accidentally, perhaps not.
So, go to a tribal person and say that any gods do not exist and he will call you a fool (since he sees the spiritual realm with his physical eyes way too often.
Religion is, by definition, an explanation for the unexplainable. You might want to read up on Cargo Cults to see how the uneducated can easily interpret the mundane as being supernatural.
Ok... yes I am a christian. However ID does not mean non-scientific.
Sorry bub, as long as there is no theoretical way to disprove ID, ID is not science. Falsibility is a mandatory component to the scientific method which defines science.
99% proven? Evolution has a basis so unprovable that it makes the existence of God a certainty in comparison. Nobody ever has or ever will experience, observe, test, etc. the basis of evolution which is this:
Some atoms happened to unite into molecules which happened to form substances that happened to be in close enough proximity at the right time, for a long enough time, in the perfect temperature, etc. to become SOMETHING that not only was a miracle in itself, but IT HAPPENED TO REPRODUCE BEFORE IT EXPIRED. AND THE PRODUCT OF THAT REPRODUCTION HAPPENED TO REPRODUCE AS WELL, ETC ETC ETC. AND THE WHOLE TIME THE ENVIRONMENT STAYED NOT ONLY HOSPITABLE BUT ENCOURAGED IT, etc.
Sorry, but I think that religious experience is far more common and believable.
Of course you can prove me wrong by rigging up a DeLorean into a time machine and hitting 80+ mph at the right time when a lighting bolt hits your local clock tower.
Read the book, you will understand where the other side is coming from. It is not a religious issue for everybody but a strictly philosophical and scientific one. The reason people are so angry against ID is because religious people have hijacked a perfectly legitimate scientific challenge to evolution.
No, ID is a transparent attempt to resurrect the failed Watchmaker argument. There are several immediately obvious problems with ID:
- "irreducability" suggests that the only way a structure can exist is by being "built up" from something less complex. In fact, structures can also exist through the reduction of other structures via the loss of characteristics. For example, the construction of an arch often involves a scaffolding, which after the arch is constructed is removed. The resultant arch, it could be argued, is irreducibly complex as you can't take one brick away and have a viable structure. However, removing one brick is not the only way to incrementally backtrack the construction of the structure, and in fact has no connection to how the structure was actually constructed. Further it is concievable that a "natural" arch could arise from a rock avalanche falling on a mound of dirt that is later eroded away-- no defying of physics is required.
- There's also a tacit assumption that the "intelligence" in "intelligent design" is necessarily self-aware. Intelligence can be defined as the accumulation and application of information. Certainly DNA has that capability, yet is not self-aware. It has the ability to accumulate modifications and "learn" from mistakes, without self-awareness. Consequently, the term "intelligent design" is a misnomer, as evolution itself can be said to be a) a design process and b) intelligent. The true difference between evolution as an intelligent design process and ID, is one characteristic the ID proponents always leave out of their arguments-- self awareness. Show me an ID proponent who will admit that the I in ID doesn't require self-awareness, then I'll show you someone who's theory doesn't contradict evolution. The real skeleton hiding in the ID camp is the belief that "intelligence must be self-aware." It is that skeleton that reveals the religious nature of ID.
- As has already been stated, evolution is an explanation for many many known facts in biology, genetics, geology and I'm sure several other sciences I'm too tired to think of at the moment. While like any scientific explanation, it doesn't answer every possible question that can be posed, any replacement for it will have to explain notably more. Evolution however, is as close to a unified theory in these areas than we've seen by a long shot, and mainstream scientists are well aware of that-- that is why ID proponents must take their argument to the high schools where the less science literate can be buffooned into the bogus "fair play" argument that ID should have equal time. An argument in reality no different from an argument that Jesus should have "equal time" with Einstein in science classes. Dress it up in more PC language and sell it to the science-ignorant and there you have it...
>Evolution, however, is well over 99% proven.
;)
Ooh! So you mean you've studied have half-evolved species (usually with half-developed organs, etc), and have seen spontaneous generation occur in a lab setting? You mean you have all the information on how immune systems evolved, and that you've witnessed the increase in complexity among consecute generations of organisms? You mean it's been proven that single-celled organisms evolved on their own with 600 protein molecules, something that has a mathematical probability of 1 in 10^450? Wow - I need to see this
-eventhorizon
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
Quit setting up a straw man. Intelligent Design says that the idea that chemical soup naturally turned into life is so unlikely that life must have been designed by an intelligent designer, rather in the same way an archeologist would argue that his artifact was made by an intelligent designer (a human). Yea, they make use of Occam's Razor. As a side note, Intelligent Design is pretty much impossible to prove true, but you can prove it false by showing that evolution and abiogenesis are true or possible.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The hereditary and speciation parts of evolution would seem to be beyond dispute, although people with an agenda seem to ignore this bit.
Spontaneous creation of the building blocks of life, and subsequent evolution into life as we know it, is probably impossible to actually prove or recreate due the probabilities involved, but if it is probable enough to happen somewhere, then it would at least be considered a possibility. I think it's perfectly reasonable to point out the possible shortcomings with this part of evolution, but it does at least seem to be a viable theory with relative few assumptions.
"Intelligent design" being taught as an equally probable event though? It doesn't really have anything to do with science. It's the god of the gaps problem - anything we don't understand gets attributed to gods or faries or space aliens. It doesn't teach or inform us of anything and makes no useful predictions.
So in short, I would be more than happy to have every shortcoming of evolutionary theory be taught in schools - we can't answer those questions unless everyone understands what they are. ID is a pretty obvious steath operation to get Christianity (not even ID) into classrooms, and it's a bad one at that, because it's not even a scientific topic.
Doubt, not faith, is the path to truth.
sig fault
> I'm not talking about what's in the book.
/. What am I thinking?!? )
But Christianity is defined by what's in "the book." Why wouldn't we talk about what's in "the book?" Any group that doesn't teach "the book" shouldn't call themselves "Christian." (If a compiler doesn't follow the C99 specs, it's not a C99 compiler. If a network card doesn't follow the 803.2 spec, it's not an Ethernet card. Why should a religion be any different?)
> There are surely lots of "opinions", but surely Christian morality is very well defined in terms of, say, torture.
> Not a single person responding in this thread has claimed that they heard a preacher teach how torture is a sin, earning a place in hell.
Possibly because the Bible doesn't teach that torture is a sin, earning a place in hell. (or, maybe it does... I won't debate you on that, and for the record, I believe that in most cases torture is morally wrong.) The whole point of Christianity is not that "X" is a sin that earns a place in hell. The point of Christianity is that every one of us has sinned and earned our place in hell. (Disobeying your parents is a sin earning a place in hell. Telling a "fib" is a sin earning a place in hell. Wanting something that belongs to your neighbor is a sin earning a place in hell. The point of all the "don't"s is to show us that we _can't_ be "good enough" on our own.) The only way out of that situation is to accept the free gift of God provided through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's the point of Christianity and any "priest" teaching otherwise is missing the point.
If you care to investigate what I'm saying here (and I encourage you to) may I suggest finding a modern translation (there's a whole nother debate I'll leave for another time) that you are comfortable with and reading the book of Romans. In the book of Romans (more correctly, Paul's letter to the Romans) Paul methodically and logically explains Christian doctrine to a group of people he has not yet met. His other letters to other groups seem to presume that those groups already understand the basics, but Romans doesn't make those assumptions.
The first time I sat down and read Romans was about 10 years ago. It really blew my mind and made me re-evaluate what I believed. I'm still re-evaluating.
(geez, I'm preaching on