Slashdot Mirror
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
By which the future me went back in time and ejaculated into the primordial ooze, spawning life somehow. The details don't matter. In fact, the details create a ton of contradictions and other impossibilities, but hey, who cares about silly things like "evidence" when you have faith in my theory.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
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,
TIME IS CUBIC, NOT LINEAR!
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.
The article said nothing about Bush supporting "Equal Time". Also, why lump Bush with other religious leaders who condemn evolution? This whole summary smacks of Slashdot sensationalism.
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.
Just like Phillip Johnson and his Intelligent Design Movement I support placing creationism over scientific theories in science classes. But I'm just being an agent provocateur.
If the trend continues, it will no doubt bring about the fall of reason in American culture, essentially the fall of Western(that's where it's derived from I guess, of course reason can be found in the cultures of various geographic locations, not just the West) culture in America. And then the fall of America itself, which is good in my provacative stance here. Maybe then the pendulum could swing back?
It seems now the American scene is populated only by orthodox Middle Eastern culturalists. A far cry from those triumphant moments of Western culture that ushered in the United States with a liberty-promising constitution. Evangelical Christians, political Zionists and political Islamists. All would-be revolutionaries trying to use the government to bring about the dominance of their values (with the implicit violence of the state). The same Abrahamic religions, the same fundamentalist mindset and, from that, the same theocracy-aiming politics. The Middle Eastern cultural movements like Christianity have great aspects, like all cultures. Their tendency to theonomic statism isn't one of the good ones, though.
Anyway, have fun with Sharia/Noahite/Whatever theonomy. Everyone deserves freedom, but, regardless of what you deserve, you won't get it if you can't, for the most part at least, accept enlightened culture and reject nihilistic culture. The concept of free-association is the greatest political development of Western and all culture. But the public seems to have eschewed enlightenment for they have bought the heavenly promises of the confidence game played by the Middle Eastern culturalists. Why wouldn't you take heaven? All you have to do is destroy this measly little finite world. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. No one has ever came back with a complaint though! We always deliver the goods upon death.
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.
In Kansas, we intelligently design all the time.
My favorite current theory is the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please note how it also explains global warming with the decline of the world's pirate population.
From the founder's open letter to the Kansas Board of Education, which is considering re-writing the state's science standards to have none: "I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."
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
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
You messed up one thing. Theories like evolution cannot become laws. A law governs something very precice and finite. A theory like evolution is a huge collection of laws, theories, and hypothesis, as well as a whole bunch of stuff that hasn't been discovered yet. Evolution as a whole is a theory that has withstood scientific scrutiny, but it cannot be a law because it covers too much scientific ground.
One more thing you forgot to mention. Intelligent design is the hypothesis that SOMETHING created all of this. Part of Intelligent Design is the possibility that we were all created by intelligent beings from another world. Fanatical Christians attempt to twist Intelligent Design to only include God as the possible creator, but that destroys it's standing as science. For it to be actual science and to even be able to compete with evolution, it HAS to take into account that aliens or some other type of intelligent being besides a Deity created earth and all of us. It does absolutely nothing to further their religious agenda, yet for some reason they cling to it like Jesus himself.
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.
I'm disappointed that more media sources haven't picked up on how clever the wording is when ID is discussed. Suggesting that we teach students "both sides of the controversy" sounds wonderfully reasonable, but it means you accept that there is a debate, and that there are two sides to discuss. Wonderful PR work.
A blunt anology is to holocaust denial; should we teach students in schools the version of history espoused by ring-wing neo-nazi groups? After all, we should show them both sides of the debate.
(Note that I don't think this kind of attack need lead to bad science in schools: you can have great fun accepting that neo-Darwinistic evolution is 'just a theory', as you can then discuss testability, predictions etc, and how it's doing against the evidence and what changes had to be made. Now do the same with ID - no testability, no predictions etc. Now pick the theory you want to use. For bonus points, discuss why ID is simply a stupid idea using Gould's separation of magisteria, or Fowler's mythos vs logos viewpoints.)
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
If Bush believes Intelligent Design, why aren't any of his goverment agencies providing any funding to study it?
I disagree. Evolution is a scientific theory which is based on evidence, an ever expanding amount of evidence. While it may never be 100% proven, all of our observations for 150 years have supported evolution.
Creationism is a belief system based on faith and traditional teachings which works in absense of evidence. They don't care for external evidence, in fact Intelligent Design is built upon the lack of evidence as proof.
They are fundamentally different in how they work. One is science based, one is faith based. One should be in a science class and the other in a philosophy class.
Was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I cremated Sam McGee...
"administrators"? ...
We'll have none of your heretical polytheism here, son. There is but one Administrator, and His name is
Say, there's a good topic for a survey....
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
The only thing I might disagree with is the statement that it does not belong in the classroom. It could very well belong in a philosophy classroom or a theology classroom but not in a biology class room.
I will go a little farther. I have been to some lectures on Intelligent Design. I found them deeply disturbing. They where full of at best bad science if not out right lies. I found them deeply disturbing on religious grounds. Part of my faith is a belief that lies do not serve God.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
MC Hawkins says:
Fuck the Creationists
Trash Talk
Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.
Check it!
Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.
Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.
Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.
Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
beause kicking there punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them whack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.
Chorus
Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
I went to a Christian high school, and they did the whole "competing theories" thing. Basically, they spent the first class talking about all the theories of how life got on earth. They talked about creationism and all of the varieties of it, and they talked about evolution and all the different ideas on how the first live organism got its start. The rest of the semester they taught factual science, i.e. referring to geologic age in millions of years, etc using regular science books. My point in mentioning this is, this was a Christian school that was allowed to teach however they wanted, and they only mentioned creationism in one class the whole semester and didn't bring up religion the rest of the time. They didn't even talk about their specific denomination during the discussion. If they do the same thing in all schools, who cares? Kids are smart enough to decide for themselves what makes sense. I'll complain if people start skewing science to match their beliefs, but I don't really care if they mention creationism briefly when discussing the origin of life.
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
1905.
CHRISTIANS: We should teach religion in schools.
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY: No, we should not teach religion in schools.
COURTS: Yeah, pretty much.
(Pause.)
1955.
CHRISTIANS: We should teach "creationism" in schools.
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY: Um, that's the exact same thing as before. You're just calling it "creationism" instead of "religion". And you shouldn't teach religion in schools.
COURTS: Yeah, pretty much.
(Pause.)
2005.
CHRISTIANS: We should teach "intelligent design" in schools.
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY: Um, that's still the exact same thing as before. You're just calling it "intelligent design" instead of "creationism". And you still shouldn't teach religion in schools.
COURTS: Yeah, pretty much.
(Pause.)
2055.
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY: We should teach science in schools.
COURTS: Citizen, you have committed an Error. Please stand by until an armed guard can escort you to a Free Speech Zone.
CHRISTIANS: Man, living in a hyperbolic hypothetical example rocks!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
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.
What may come as a surprise is that most Creationists and IDists agree that there is speciation and adaptation. It's evident that animals adapt. What is more the crux of conflict is whether species can adapt to become an entirely new and different specie.
What's more, Creationists and IDist don't like the fact that evolution doesn't have any real answer for the source for life. The "lightning zapped a glob of primordial ooze, thus forming the first proteins" idea is not only unnatural (life coming from non-life), but also unproven (why can't we reproduce this phenomena today?)
To say evolutionists have all the answers isn't true, is it? Considering we can't even explain with certainty how life started in the first place, it's naive to think evolution is the answer to everything; evolution may be what's happening to species now and in the past, but that doesn't explain where the species originated. I read recently in National Geographic a scientist who was quoted as saying that evolution is right, but as far as how life got here to evolve in the first place, we'll just "leave that up to priests and poets". Priests and poets!
What we're going to see in this Slashdot thread is a lot of "Creationists are stupid rednecks. Evolution is triumphant once again!". Lots of gloating and lots of mockery will be going on. No doubt, several ACs will reply to this post with personal insults because I disagree with their view of the world. All I can say is, don't assume anyone has all the answers, because no one, evolutionists or creationists, has the answers. And if we don't have all the answers, then analyzation and presentation of conflicting theories is both scientific and beneficial.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
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.
America broke off from Europe 200 some odd years ago. You need to accept that europe was so _awful_ back then that it was worth starting a new country and fighting a few wars, just to get away from you clowns.
You shouldn't exactly be surprised if Americans could care less what european news agencies think about them from time to time.
You go ahead and be concerned. We'll keep working long hours.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
- This is the first time that Bush has endorsed Intelligent Design as President, though he held the same position as governor of Texas.
- President Bush does not think that curriculum decision concerning Intelligent Design should be made at the federal level; they should be left up to local school districts.
- A quote from President Bush: "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about."
- Another quote: "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."
So here are some conclusions: First, the president is not making any sort of federal policy shift to cause Intelligent Design to be taught in schools. Second, despite that, the President knows that a high-level endorsement of Intelligent Design will be the difference-maker for some local school districts. 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.
I can't believe that I'd ever be defending Bush or intelligent design, but read that article more carefully and note the specific quotes attributed to Bush:
"Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. 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 have to agree with this. Children have to be taught that there's a debate going on, that some people believe in intelligent design. If no mention is made of ID in schools, then kids will be at the mercy of people who will teach it to them as religious ideology and they won't have the tools to evaluate it properly.
ID should be taught in social studies, *not* in science class, but I don't see Bush saying anything about putting it in science class.
The article says: Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories. THAT, I disagree with. Is this really what Bush was saying, or did the article jump to conclusions? Where can I find the official transcript of the session?
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.
Of course. Science can't make any claim regarding the existence of an Intelligent Creator. So... discussions about an Intelligent Creator don't belong in science class. Science classes also aren't the right place for discussing the existance of Pikachu or Scooby-Doo or Santa Claus.
First of all, let me say that I am a physicist. This Slashdot article is an unfair description of what the OpEd piece is about. The piece does not condemn Darwinism. It does question Neo-Darwinism, which strays beyond the theories of Darwinism. The realm of science is to describe the behavior or processes (i.e. develop theories or models) of the mechanisms underlying physical reality and test them againt their predictions. When scientific theories (confirmed or not) go beyond describing behavior, into speculating on the purpose (or lack thereof) behind the processes, those theories are no longer science, but philosophy. It is inappropriate for science to assume that a correct description of a mechanism implies purpose or reason for that mechanism. Neo-Darwinism is Darwinism plus untestable (i.e. non-scientific) philosophical theories about purpose.
Actually we have an incorrect idea of what a "Law" is. It is not a theory that has stood up to rigorous testing.
Theory vs. Law
Essentially, a law describes what happens. Theories attempt to explain why.
Then please add the following theory, too:
:-)
The earth was built by the mice to find the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything.
I really think that theory should be given equal class time!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
"People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education."
-- washington post 8/3/05
Unfortunately, the parent argument is flawed. I will not dispute that while small, there is a finite probability of an intelligent life form evolving. Thus, given an infinite universe and infinite time, intelligent life would occur. However, I believe that you have glossed over some assumptions:
a) The universe is infinite spacially...
This is just wrong and not worth discussing. You may get varying opinions about the rate of expansion/contraction of the universe from astronomers, but the scientific community has a pretty good idea of the size of the universe.
b) The universe is infinite in time...
The second law of thermodynamics seems to demand entropic death of the universe. I presume that the statistical probability of intelligent life evolving remains finite only so long as there remains sufficient free energy.
To overcome these objections, you would need to solve quantitatively, giving estimates of the lifetime and size of the universe and the probability of intelligent life evolving. Even then, you would only be able to state the probability of intelligent life evolving, but would not be able to claim that it would "have to happen."
However, there remains one glaring assumption that would remain unanswered, and would invalidate the whole on its own.
c) The universe exists...
Here is where I personally find some of the best evidence for the existence of God, the philosophical first cause argument, as well as the beauty and symmettry of the universe. (While theoretically, life might be possible with a radically different balancing of the strong, electo-weak, and gravitational forces, it is difficult for me to imagine.) This does not mean that once God created the universe, evolution may not have been the mechanism by which man was created (neglecting the addition of the immortal soul, said question lying outside the realm of scientific inquiry). I have no objection to either micro or macro-evolution, but cannot avoid seeing the hand of God in the overall process of going from pre-Big Bang to man.
Especially since we had an infinite amount of time for it to happen. It would be more confusing if it hadn't taken billions of years. The # of chemical interactions that happen in billions of years is tremendous.
w mentality so many people have about things like social change. many people believe that the U.S.'s system is the "end-product" of socio/economic models -- that if anything else could have worked better it would have happened already.
And I have to ask -- if ID is indeed true, then aren't single-cell organisms God's primary children? And who's to say we're the end product? It took such a long time to get humans from proto-humans -- maybe those proto-humans thought THEY were the end product. And then we came. So who's to say we're not like the proto-humans? Maybe 3 million years from now we'll go to some other planet and evolve in a way we haven't evolved yet and we'll consider our present day species as proto-whatever-we-call-ourselves.
And that makes me think -- maybe this abrahamistic we're-the-end-product explains the if-it-were-to-happen-it-would-have-happened-by-no
glad they weren't too caught up in that july 3rd, 1776...
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
Ahh, I see now. Bush is actually a progressive with a keen understanding of science.
He is abusing his power as President in a clever ploy to show how ridiculous policies such as his are. When he says that contrasting ideas on the origin of species should be taught, what he is really advocating is that schools teach just how unscientific Creationism is.
Bush's ultimate goal is to finally expose Christianity and all other religions for the fraud they are! His entire Iraq War is meant to be an instructive lesson on the dangers of religious fanatacism.
Brilliant! Fucking brilliant!
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)
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]
Intelligent design is not a hypothesis, because it's not falsifiable. There is nothing that an intelligent designer, (oh let's just admit it - God), couldn't do, thus no way to disprove His influence. Discoveries could be made, however, that would necessitate the theory, that the evolutionary process has influenced all life on Earth, to be changed or even abandoned.
Not the first time to endorse creationism. Disingenous rat.
The Washington Post, August 27, 1999:
Bush spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said, "He believes both creationism and evolution ought to be taught.... He believes it is a question for states and local school boards to decide but believes both ought to be taught."
The Kansas City Star, September 9, 1999:
"I think it's an interesting part of knowledge (to have) a theory of evolution and a theory of creationism. People should be exposed to different points of view. Should the people choose in my state (to adopt a rule similar to Kansas') I have no problem" with public schools teaching both creationism and evolution.
Reuters, November 4, 1999:
Bush supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public schools. Bush stated, "I have absolutely no problem with children learning different forms of how the world was formed." Bush believes decisions regarding curriculum should be made by local school districts.
Neither evolution and I.D. belong in the Science classroom. They're both historical hypothesis.
By that reasoning, neither do any of the historical sciences. And we should get rid of history classes too.
They are both historical hypotheses, but one has supporting evidence. The other has none, and is unfalsifiable to boot.
There are those of us who feel like TMM, but the minute anyone says anything that would be moderate or go against the ultra-conservative right, they are immediately ripped apart.
The most recent incident that comes to mind is Senator Frist's support of more federal funding for stem cell research. He has since been ripped up publicly by ultra-right groups such as James Dobson's (*shudder*) Focus on the Family.
I find it highly upsetting that not only must those kinds of fundamentalist Christians try to force their beliefs on the nation, but also that they must resort to attacking their fellow believers in public forums in order to further their cause. This, to me, is inherently non-Christian behavior, and it makes me sad to see my so-called brothers in Christ act this way. In the end, it only serves to hurt their agenda by making us all look like hypocrits.
--------
This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
Creationists can't handle the thought that mankind was a largely random accident. They have to feel important.
They commit the Sin of Pride, and insist that the Allmighty Creator of the Universe must think so much of them, that they had to be planned.
How's this for a theory of Intelligent Design?
God set the rules, created a Big Bang, and then sat back to watch the show.
After the initial fireworks, all kinds of incredibly complex stuff happened, and that included Mankind, Bacteria...
and Evolution.
The meaning of your Life is up to you. Mean well. -- Me, 9/11/2001
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.
No. It can be infinite and expanding. Infinity plus anything still equals infinity. Infinity minus anything still equals infinity. It can have boundaries and be infinite. For instance, a line can be infintely long but it still has boundaries. Infinity is a weird thing.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There *could* be an Easter Bunny, right? And who are we not to admit the possibility of Santa Claus, Bigfoot, and the Boogieman?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
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."
I went to Catholic school pretty much all my life. In high shcool, they had a class called "Theology" which you could take for 4 years. Freshman year was all old testament and you learned about creation.
We also had a class called "Biology" which only had 2 levels but in Biology, you learned about Evolution. Creation never came up in Biology. Why? Biology is a science class. In science class, you learn about science. In religion class, you learn about religion.
This was a pretty strict Catholic school for Calofornia. There were no uniforms but you had to dress nice. No jeans because they were believed to be a tool of satan.
Now it stands to reason that if the school dean thought Satan and Levis were involved in some kind of plot to ruin the education system, then you could pretty much call him a bible banging zealot. Even so, he obvisouly understood the value of keeping science in science class and religion in religion class where each topic can be explored to he full extent.
I believe public schools should have a theology elective where people interested in religion can go learn about all types of religion. This would give people the opportunity to really interpret and discuss old testament stories in a way thats not possible in science class. Then, just maybe, the children will learn that the old testament is not a history book.
I find this to be a much better solution since bringing up creation in science class lends it more credability than it deserves. Christians should face the fact that Genesis was written by a bunch of sheep herders who lived in the middle of the desert and had no other way to explain the creation of the universe.
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!
We wave goodbye at the good run we had in the US for so long. But now serious life science and the people who are serious about it are going to gradually leave for other countries with less theocratic almost Talibanist world views. Already cutting edge cloning is going on in Italy and South Korea for example.
And that's fine. America has staked out its position in the science world as only being interested in military spending. And as it leaves the field of life sciences, telcom, drug research, medicine and many other fields that have either been abandoned to the free market or been quasi criminalized outright we will start to see a slow degrade in the overall economic and scientific outlook for the US as a whole.
My children will live to see the day when America is niche player and it nowhere near the top five countries in the world in scientific research. We're already near the bottom of industrialized states for education and soon the foreign nationals who make up 40-50% of US graduate students in the hard sciences will stary home or go elsewhere.
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
The nutjobs preaching I.D., like Bush need to actually read their own bible.
Mathew 6
[5] And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. [6] But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
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.
The idea of Democratic Republics came from Rome and Greece before they were Christianized. These ideas were revived during the 17th/18th century Enlightment, first incorporated in the US government, then France and so on.
Pope Benedict XVI (current pope) has also made some indirect statements on the matter since his election too.
But to really undertand the beginnings of the modern Catholic "handling" of the issue, from the "top down" as it were, it is important for Catholics and non-Catholics/Christians alike to read Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Humani Generis, promulgated on August 12, 1950.
It is really worth one's time to read the whole thing, but allow me to post the relevant quote that is still considered binding Catholic teaching on the matter:
IC XC NIKA
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.
Get to know these things and use them in any Evolution v. ID debate! http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/thingscre ationistshate.htm
What is your penile percentile?
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.
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.
As evolution is not random, but directed by selection, why can't Intelligent Design be achived through evolution?
"why the Universe must be the way it is for life to exist"
I'm so tired of this anthropomorphism. We can only exist in the Universe as it is today. If there were a lot of different natural laws, or a slightly different unfolding in the first few seconds of the universe or something, other creatures would live there and say "wow, it looks like this universe was tailor made for us".
We are tailor made for our environment, not the other way around. And it's a pretty broad environment, including organisms living near hot springs deep underwater feeding on minerals, blind fish living in caves miles from sunlight, etc. Most of the individual things you'd think to point at as essential for life: sunlight, atmosphere, etc. we can find plenty of examples on earth of organisms that do not need those to live.
Then I want power drills placed next to aspirin in the drugstore. I've heard your fancy theories about constricting blood vessels in the brain and sinus pressure causing headaches, but I know for a fact that there are actually demons in my head that are causing the problems. And every right-thinking person knows that the only way to get rid of demons is to drill holes to let them out.
At the very least, people should know about both treatments so they can make an informed choice.
======
In X-Windows the client serves YOU!
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.
My site
My films
Eh, I have some issues with Star Trek's new-ageism and incoherent dualism. Bless you and your rant, Justin B Rye...
Still, that Patrick Stewart sure can deliver a line, can't he.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You're incorrect. The problem with ID is that the Intelligent Designer in question can potentially be omnipotent and omniscient. Indeed, most proponents of ID are Christians that believe that an all-powerful, all-seeing God created the Universe.
Now, a scientific theory must be falsifiable by observational evidence. With ID, because the Designer can be omnipotent and omniscient, any evidence can be faked, and therefore is no evidence at all. Indeed, with ID, the Universe could have been created a mere two seconds ago, and all of our memories mere fabrications.
Intelligent Design is, by definition, not scientific, because it places no limits on the capabilities of the Designer, and therefore cannot be proven false. Don't believe me? Then give me an example of evidence that would disprove ID.
Evolution, on the other hand, is falsifiable because, unlike ID, it is restricted by physical laws.
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.
Soooo, according to ID, we COULD have been created by an alien named "Xenu" trillions of years ago? Could it be that now we're infested with tortured alien souls known as "Thetans", and thats why we have mental illness? I hope not! I don't like tortured alien souls!
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
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?
I don't even understand why this is subject matter that is open to debate (well, I do: religious spokespeople are doing a better job of getting their voices heard than scientists by the media, but I digress).
Evolution and Intelligent Design cannot be compared. I say that not because one can be empirically supported or disproven, and the other cannot. I say it because they do not even address the same topic.
Change in species over time is well-documented. It is FACT. Whether the mechanism for change is evolution in the Darwinian model or some other mechanism, the Truth is that such change does happen. It is not disputable. An alternate theory to evolution, then, must address the issue of by what mechanism change in species occurs.
Intelligent Design does not propose any such alternate mechanism. It ignores the question completely and attempts to provide an origin story for life. That's all well and good, but there's nothing there capable of disproving Darwinian evolution. There's nothing worth bringing into a Science classroom.
The debate is comparing apples to baseballs. They're not even both fruits.
Sorry for the lack of paragraphs. I should've previewed as that was my first post. There seems to be no "edit" option? I'm a slashdot newbie :p Allow me to reformat (I know this is probably frowned upon too because it generates one more posting but this is the only time, I promise):
This is a little off-topic. Being a Buddhist, I want to point out that religions don't necessarily come with creation myths.
I think a religion's inclusion of creation myths is to better mind-control its faithfuls when there was no science to dispute it. It, along with belief that anyone believing in other religions are wrong, are self-serving properties a religion can have that gives it a better chance to gain popularity among people. In my opinion, this is applying "survival of the fittest" to religions. A religion armed with qualities to "survive" has gained popularity in the western society.
But I digress. My main point is that Buddhism doesn't have a creation myth. Buddhism doesn't try to interfere with Science at all; in fact, it doesn't even try to interfere or exclude other religions. Buddhas are not gods. They never claim to create life, or the World. Buddhas literally mean enlightened people, that believe in kindness towards all living beings, humans or inhuman. Buddhism also believes that any person can potentially become enlightened and ascend into Buddha-hood.
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.
It kinda makes coming from monkeys not seem so bad huh.
lol
Ok, I'm going to get modded down for this, but here it goes....
We as a race of humans have over-time developed a car. It started with the Model T (or something from that era) and now we have our modern cars. Is it evelution? YES. Is it ID? YES. Although in this country (and most modern thinking coultures) the beleif of a spiritual realm is something left to the mystics, however, I have spoken to eye-witness accounts of some very physical elements of the spiritual that cannot be explained scientifically. (for instance, a missionary to tribal peoples in south america told of an account that could only be explained by the spirit realm... 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. When we are told that we only 5 senses and leave the 6th unused, it becomes weak and unusable or barely usable and so we do not include this in the scienific realm because we don't use this part of ourselves and have concluded that it does not exist because our other sences say so.
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.
To take this to a way that the five sences can understand, if a person who is blind from conception (eyes never developed at all), how could he/she even understand what color is? You could describe it and compare it, but he will never understand what blue really is.
Ok... yes I am a christian. However ID does not mean non-scientific.
Life is to be experienced, not frowned upon. -Uknown
> 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.
What you are talking about is data that supports the theory. But data can never prove the theory correct; that is inherently impossible. Theories never become facts, they can only be disproved by facts or supported by facts. So that you and I are the result of an evolutionary process is a theory, albiet a theory well supported by the facts.
Animals do not have intellects or wills; they have no feelings or emotions.
My question to you is this: How can you be sure? An animal is not capable of love, devotion, or caring? How is it that we have heard of dogs that have risked their lives to save their owner or a child from danger? Is that instinct? Wouldn't instinct tell the uncaring dog to run away and save himself, would his survival be more important.
IMHO... animals, especialy larger ones, are capable of having feelings and to a limited extent intellect. But I think it is a little callous to assume that they do not possess any intelligence at all.
My personal experience is that the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians are that way. I was born in South Carolina and now live and work in North Carolina. I was raised in a fundamentalist home. (My parents were followers of a man named David Terrell, a self described prophet in the tradition of Ezekiel and Isaiha, specifically called by God to prophecy the coming of the End Times. You can google him if you're interested.) I've spent my whole life around fundamentalists. And yes, as a group, they ARE that way.
There are many Christians who aren't that way, but the vast majority of them don't classify themselves as fundamentalists. Being that way is pretty much part of the definition of what makes a fundamentalist.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
I don't go to church, so I don't know whether preachers speak out against violence executed in the name of religion. Like after someone shoots an abortion doctor in the name of "unborn children", or a gang beats a gay guy to death: do Christian preachers immediately denounce the perpetrators as perverted sinners, "taking the lord's name in vain" or somesuch? Do Christian priests teach their congregations that the killing in war is evil, that killers go to hell? When torture is in the news, do preachers make it their business to teach their followers that torture is evil, that god punishes torturers? Do they teach people that doing evil in god's name is even worse evil?
Or do they "go with the flow", hoping that "Christians will win", and lean back on "god works in mysterious ways"? Because that kind of passive, tacit approval of the terrible acts being committed by Christians and others, especially in the name of religion, is certainly how it looks to me. But then, without going to church, and without much coverage of such preaching in the media, I have no way of knowing how prevalent such righteousness actually is.
--
make install -not war
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.)
My favorite hypocrisy is seeing huge SUVs (with a single person in them) with one of those cheap magnetic ribbons saying "support our troops", mounted sideways like a fish to show that they're Christian. Not only have we got Christians "supporting out troops" by driving the giant cars that suck the oil that demands our troops kill and die in Mideastern meatgrinders. But these people act like Christianity is some kind of underground "oppressed minority" that has to signal cryptically that they're all over the roads. Maybe if they someday prevail, they'll eventually get a Christian into the White House. They're both Rome and the Christians, and would feed Democrats, "Liberals", anyone who opposes them, to the lions.
--
make install -not war
So, instead of wasting a lot of time trying to preach religion in the guise of science (intellegent design) we should just put disclaimers in front of all science textbooks.
;-pp
To the Junk filter:
Hey you! Yeah, you the fundie about to have a coniption fit. Science is a journey, not a destination. Nothing in this book is written in stone. I may well all be re-written tomorrow. It probably won't, but it CAN be.
So don't get your panties in a bunch just because a bunch of University professors have come up with ideas that happen to contradict some immutable truth you've been taught.
It's science. It could all change tomorrow.
If you want to find comfort in certainty and
appeals to authority, go to the religous
establishment of your choice. You will not
find it here.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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,
So in theory, as long as you don't start out with the assumption that divine revelation is bunk,
Translated means "as long as you assume devine revelation is true". That's the issue I have with most religionists - there is always an underlying assumption that something is true simply because it says it is.
Sheesh.
KeS
You do know lots of science looks at stuff in the past right? From the near past with things like forensic science to the begining of the universe with astrophysics.
Its quite possible to have a scientific hypothesis that says "if event X occured we should see evidence of it in the form of Y".
You also seem to be discounting current and recent experiments in evolution that observe it happening right now.
As for "Theology however has authoritative divine revelation" theology is the study of the nature religion, relgious truth and God. It certainly does not have authoritative divine revelation. Some people may beleive their religion has such a thing, but that is different.
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.
Therefore on your view, historical evolution is nor more of a hypothesis than I.D. is, because we lack the means to test it.
But we do have the means to determine whether proposed historical events were at least possible (or not) (and then likewise to see if that knowledge then allows us to make useful predictions).
As an example (if we go back in time a bit), one could hypothesise on, say, the mechanics of hybridisation in plants, derive tests for it, and prove that your hypothesis on the mechanics holds true. Then one can make predictions that have utilitarian value - e.g. "if this is true, we can make higher-yielding wheat by hybridising this and that and that". And we have in fact done these things, and virtually every single time you eat anything you are benefitting from known facts about these particular aspects of the mechanics of evolution.
This does not mean we can necessarily absolutely "prove" per se that any particular such events happened in the past - but we can prove that a particular explanation is at least possible, and eventually come to a conclusion that it's by far the most likely explanation for the past. And of course the ultimate test is when these theories demonstrate utility - e.g. building a better tomato plant. Such "proof" happens every day.
(Of course, at this point, there is still a lot of ongoing work where more is being learnt about the actual mechanics of the evolutionary process.)
Another example is selection - we may not be able to absolutely "prove", as such, that a particular species historically evolved along a particular path. But we can still hypothesise something called "selection", and derive tests to prove whether or not "selection" behaves as we think it does. And we did, and we proved it, and in fact our knowledge of selection has been used to create new vegetables, and to create "domestic dogs" from wolves and all the various kinds of domestic dogs. And EVERY SINGLE TIME anyone "tests" selection in a greenhouse, the theory's predictive value is again proved - it never fails. I have "faith" that I could show you selection in action, working as can be predicted from the theory, in a greenhouse or animal breeding facility - every time, without fail.
An analogy: We cannot "prove" that historically, before Newton existed, "f = ma" was really true*. But since Newton figured it out, we have definitely been able to use the knowledge to make useful predictions about e.g. whether structures that we build are going to hold up, and thus how to build structures that hold. And now everywhere you go in modern society, basically every building you use is built using "f = ma". It's proved its utility. Our entire society is built on it. * Yes I know f=ma is only an approximation that becomes less accurate as objects move closer to the speed of light --- I'm just oversimplifying for the sake of argument, it's close enough to still be useful in everyday society.
No, you've got it all wrong! Observation come before theory -- not the other way around!
The scientific method
(as stolen from:)
Required reading for internet skeptics
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...
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%20 1&version=31
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=is%204 5:12;&version=31;
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jo%203 8;&version=31;
>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 earth, and the universe it sits within, run by a set of rules, a subset of which we understand to some extent.
Whether the earth was created 6,000 years ago or 4.6bn years ago is immaterial because:
1.) If the earth was created 6,000 years ago, it has been made to look and behave as though it were 4.6bn years old. After all if you are a creationist and believe that god is clever enough to create the universe, god is surely clever enough to allow us to think that god didn't create it at all and this all came about through the processes we see ongoing today.
2.) Regardless of what you believe it doesn't change the processes that are running. And since the processes running in the past (or appearing to run in the past) are by and large ongoing, it's reasonable to expect they will continue running into the future.
3.) Someone's probably already posted this and I'm just too lazy to read every single post of this thread.
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
"Admittedly, the old testament specifically forbids killing
This statement shows one thing. Namely that you do not have the basic knowledge to speak about the Bible on this subject.
I am sorry if that sounds harsh, but it is quite simply true. The commandment that you are referring to says that MURDER, not killing is wrong. Grab a Hebrew Bible and a Hebrew dictionary sometime. Find the passage, match the letters, and read what it says specifically.
Killing in warfare is not wrong according to the Bible. Killing as punnishment for certain crimes (murder, rape, some others) is acceptable.
There is actually a firmly defined ethos for the taking of life in the Bible. Unfortunately hearing or reading one (mistranslated or misunderstood) line of one passage in one chapter is not gonna cut it. If you really want to understand it you might want to read a bit deeper.
As for Jesus, the fulfilling of the law brought many changes. However, even He told his Disciples to carry swords for protection from bandits and such.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Lets see where this is on the crackpot index
-5 starting
195 for capital letters
10 for evolution being a religion
50 for having no testable predictions
I make it to be about 250. That's pretty good for a short post.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.