Slashdot Mirror
20 Million Year Old Spider Found
evil agent writes "BBC News is reporting that Paleontologist Dr. David Penny has found a spider, and two droplets of blood, perfectly perserved in amber. He was able to extract the blood and determine its age: 20 million years old. Since it is thought to be the first time that spider blood has been found perserved in amber, it is hoped that DNA could be extracted."
Or does this sound like the intro narrative to a horror sci-fi flick...
God continues to fuck with us! First all those dinosaur bones and now this! Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old, they added up all the people's ages in the bible and proved it!
/. has been tricked by the atheist science lobby, again :)
Looks like
Oh boy I hope they clone it. 'Cause that's all we need is more spiders... :/
to Arachnid Park!
Jurassic Marvel Superheroes!
Goo goo g'joob.
As an arachnophobe, i really don't wanna think about this. -giant spiders attacking everyone!-
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
"He was able to extract the blood and determine its age: 20 million years old. "
I'm *assuming* that he was able to take into account any time-related changes that might throw off his results?
Michael Crichton creams his pants in cybercafe after reading this report.
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
I am worried that such specimen could be concealing deadly bacteria/viruses that man does not know how to handle. Mind you, there is a rumor that AIDS was a rogue virus that escaped from some American lab. Does the scientist know what he's dealing with? Why not just leave the creature alone?
I bow down to our ne dinosaur arachnid overlords (not those pissy googlel ants).
Peer pressure made me do it. I'm so sorry.
Okay... that's just fucking cool.
Arachnic Park!
So one day, thousands (millions?) of years from now some scientists will be looking at my pale, naked body inside a shell of delicious hardened maple syrup, in which I died doing what I loved.
Then they'd bring me to some scientific symposium, and present me up on stage.
"Here you can see an ancient human, most likely in the 'geek' class. You can tell by his white skin, lack of muscles, and raw skin on his penis from over-masturbation"
*Audience oooh's and aaah's*
I'm anxious for the day that strange human/animal chimeras suddenly appear in society.. Or maybe animals like gorillas genetically altered so their voice box/trachea/etc are able to produce a human like voice. Lets accelerate their inevitable evolution,. Or dogs/cats grown with human brains & eyes.. Maybe even pets with designer colours, exotic colours like those parrots in the congo. We could mix all this stuff up, create some something wicked, a unicorn ? Hell ya.. or some other mythological creature. A horse/rhino hybrid.
Only instead of biting, enwombing, and slowing digesting their victims, these spiders will kill by slowing sucking the live of victims with really boring, interminably long stories of the really, really, really good old days. And lots of whining about how young spiders are lazy web builders and have it so much easier with the flat screen TVs and the antibiotics and such.
How about one in the Tasman Sea?
"I am worried that such specimen could be concealing deadly bacteria/viruses that man does not know how to handle."
Any such bacteria/virus certainly wouldn't know how to handle us either. The ones that most affect us are those which have evolved to take advantage of our weaknesses. I'd say the risk is very low.
"Mind you, there is a rumor that AIDS was a rogue virus that escaped from some American lab."
There's also a rumor that man didn't land on the moon. My guess is that you believe that one too? With the distribution of aids cases and the fact that it's actually quite difficult to transmit, that's a pretty ridiculous rumor.
Since science articles are only 50% correct, it's 10 million years old.
BTW,it looks remarkably like spiders that are merely 20 days old.
Queue NOVA voice over: "20 million years ago, the Earth was a much different place...with much difference life forms!"
Kid: "Sir! What about this spider!?"
NOVA voice: "Okay! Okay! The spiders were all the same! But there were no humans to screw things up! GOT IT!"
Kid: "Sorry...."
If we bring back these creatures (a la Spielberg) and they get out of hand, we can just step on 'em.
I read
First all those dinosaur bones and now this!
;-)
While we both know you're kidding, I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Great! Let's open a theme park. :-D
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
That this story isn't already on this site
http://www.world-science.net/
All the wild science you ever needed....
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
edit your robots.txt
Well in that case, its definately 20 million years old. Because... uhm... we can carbon date stuff thats not dead yet. Thats how they figured out what the 'normal' amount of C-14 was.
Mod parent down! If he'd ever actually read the Bible he'd know it was closer to six thousand years. After all, there were far too many people who lived to be 200, 300, and 400 years old. And some were even 100 when they were busy begatting! I guess God must've liked people better back then, cos he certainly let them live a lot longer...
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
For some reason I am hearing the Jurassic Park sound track playing... wait, I am playing it.
:)
I think that this is awesome. I saw a special on the Discovery Channel called "Raising the Mammoth" where they went out into Siberia looking for a frozen Mammouth in the snow and such to get DNA and clone one using a Elephant from India as a Surrogate...
My only concern is... if we do get into cloning extinct animals and insects, what effect will it have on the ecosystem? Also is it possible to do at the present time?
But map that DNA
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...
that's right.. the odds of molecules turning into a fully formed human are the same as that of an explosiion in a junkyard yielding a fully assembled 747. HEHEHEHE
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Uh, so you're questioning decades of work by people smarter than you? Oh yeah, REAL humble there, champ!
"Dr Penney believes it was climbing up a tree 20 million years ago when it was hit on the head by fast flowing resin, became engulfed in the resin and died."
I think he's just taking this opportunity to make a story out of it. Come on, who can get that from a freakin' fossil?!
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
"Oh, look! It's an amazing discovery! I found these T. Rex bones! And look, it's an ancient spider preserved in amber! Wow - there's a wooly mammoth entrapped in tar! This is the richest archeological find ever! Oh, wait... I'm in a museum."
Jurrassic Terrarium?
I'm curious as to what oh-so-reliable dating method they used.
pfft. Why do you think I posted anon? Not even god knows who I am!
... overconfident.. guy...
I'm not an Anonymous Coward! I'm an Anonymous
Uh, so you're questioning decades of work by people smarter than you?
History is littered with the overturning of decades of work by smarter people...who were all wrong. Even when you accept the foundation of carbon dating, it is remarkable how repeated testing on the same object can yield many magnitudes of time differences.
Of course this really is all sort of funny - Many Christians believe in evolution, and the Vatican even released a statement saying that Darwin's observations were consistent with the bible. The whole "6000 year" thing is figment of a particular brand of Christianity in the US, owing to a particularly literal interpretation not shared elsewhere.
I thought Frodo killed that thing!
Well, give the situation a few billion years to develop, and maybe it'll happen.
Even better, give the situation a few billion years to develop in a few hojillion star systems and see what you come up with. Even insanely bad odds could still provide results.
Nothing is mentioned about using DNA (in fact i'm not even sure if it would be preserved for that amount of time). Also I don't know where the "two dropllets" of blood comes from - the scientist has been using "droplets" which could be any number larger than one... Picky aren't I? :)
The find is seriously cool though..
well i'll find my own 20 million year old spider..
...... wait.. that doesn't sound right.
with 20 million year old blackjack, and 20 million year old hookers.
on second thought forget the 20 million year old blackjack, and the 20 million year old spider..
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Carbon dating just checks how much of a sample of Carbon-14 has decayed. It's not as if they take some carbon from the organism and do some weird shit to it, like putting it next to a TV and then throwing it in boiling water to see what happens.
Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Very few details as to how he's proving it was 20million. Anybody got more info on that?
I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general.
Why? Something that you know about nuclear physics that I don't? Share.
The Earth is actually 5,000 years old and was created by the great Flying Spaghetti Monster. But in His infinite wisdom, he created it old.
I.E. He created a world that was millions of years old 5,000 years ago.
I would hope that even the Bible-believing Christians on here have enough maturity to be able to laugh at themselves every now and again! I fall under this category myself, and I thought the joke was funny :P
Welcome... to Arachnid Park!
Are you sure you got that right? Our new arachnoid overlords thought they were welcomed to Human Park.
Yeah for Bill Hicks!!!
Kinda like cockroaches, eh? And crocodiles. And extremophiles. Lotsa perfectly adapted designs... and yet we're only a few million (some argue a few tens of thousands, brain-wise). Stupid spiders, thinkin' they're so much better'n us. =p
1. Why is there no reference to how they know that the spider is that old?... and 2. Does the writer actually know that spiders have hemolymph instead of blood as us humans would look at it? Sigh...lazy science reporting strikes again.
Requiem
Spider 'is 20 million years old'
A scientist has described a spider that was trapped and preserved in amber 20 million years ago.
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen.
It is thought to be the first time spider blood has been found in amber and scientists hope to extract its DNA.
Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.
It is a new species from the Filistatidae family commonly found in South America and the Caribbean.
Dr Penney believes it was climbing up a tree 20 million years ago when it was hit on the head by fast flowing resin, became engulfed in the resin and died.
He claims the shape and position of the blood droplets revealed which direction the spider was travelling in and which of its legs broke first.
"It's amazing to think that a single piece of amber with a single spider in it can open up a window into what was going on 20 million years ago," he said.
"By analysing the position of the spider's body in relation to the droplets of blood in the amber we are able to determine how it died, which direction it was travelling in and even how fast it was moving."
He first saw the fossil during a visit to the Museo del Ambar Dominicano, in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.
Dr Penney reports his findings in the latest issue of the journal Palaeontology.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
Actually, no. Humans are very astoundingly simple things. We're just the same basic form repeated over and over again. You could remove probably 20% of our constituent parts at a rate proportional to their occurrence and we could survive. Try that with a 747.
A) 20 millions years isn't that old, its 100 times older than humans, big deal. Thats why the form hasn't changed that much, but it may also be because the design really is that well. Most spiders have few predators but quite a selection of prey.
B) Some animals did evolve to what is considered pretty optimal, some examples being sharks, crocidiles and squid. If you follow the genetic chains of living things you'll see that some tend to have fewer changes. Often times the case is that the animal has few or none predators.
Regards,
Steve
Dr David Penney didn't use carbon dating. Carbon dating only works to roughly 60,000 years ago. Beyond that, the radioactivity of the little C-14 that remains falls can't be told from background radiation.
I don't know what technique was used to date the spider; The article only says they used the blood in the spider to do it.
Maybe that old Slashdot troll was on to something when he started putting hot grits down his pants. Maybe he just wasn't advanced enough to realize that if he'd done it with tree sap, then he'd be naked and petrified with blood and DNA intact for at least 20 Million years, just like this spider!
I've been considering different ways I could preserve my body, and I think encasing myself in amber has shot to the top of the list, past deep freezing, and freeze drying.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
> I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated. ;-)
FYI, carbon dating is only good for the past 50,000 years.
Also, notice that TFA doesn't mention carbon dating.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I highly doubt that date. For one thing, does anybody believe that the blood really could have lasted that long no matter what it was preserved in? And not too long ago we had those millions of year old bones with blood in them.
From what I studied of the dating methods in College I put no trust in them.
This site has an in depth study of carbon dating. I know it's a biased site, but it does have good information.
> Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
TFA mentions that it's a new species. I.e., not identical to any known spider.
(Presumably "new species" means "newly discovered", since the specimen is rather old.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
*rolls eyes*
Well if you all haven't figured it out by now? "Religious jokes" are the new season replacement for the tired old "In Soviet Russia" joke. Expect to see plenty more.*
*Make a mental note that there will be no "evolution jokes" until we all have gotten tired of the "religious jokes" (which may be never. Atheists are like Duracell in that regard)
Or maybe it's just the demo that God presents at fairs to attract VC. I wonder if he sells licenses or subscriptions...
I think subscriptions. 20+ years ago when I actually went to church, I would always see them pass around a metal plate, and everyone was expected to put money in it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Well please let me know what science you've discovered that conflicts with all known, tested, and proven nuclear theory. Regardless, carbon dating is only good for up until about 60,000 years old. After that many other methods can be used, most of those methods are proven and extremely accurate. Please also keep in mind that scientists rarely, if ever, only use one method of dating something. By using two or more completely unrelated methods to date a specimen you can get its age to within extremely small margins of error.
Carbon dating, and similar methods, tend to often be most useful for mummies and humans or recent dead animals. Methods like those can't be used on dinosaur bones because most of the time the bone has been replaced with a different material (one example would be in southern south america, some major finds have been found but the bones were hard to move because they were nearly pure iron and bigger than a man.) You should read up on the science, its a very mature and well understood thing. The media does shitty research and doesn't check any facts that various religious groups tell them. Learn for yourself, you can probably take a class in it at your local college.
The intelligent design folk tend to be ignorant and ignoring facts. They can't accept the truth because they want more to their life, they want to believe that God designed people after himself (which in my eyes is a pretty conceited view, and also an insult to God considering how crappy and fragile we are designed, not to mention the numerous unused organs... I guess God just wanted to weigh us down.) I am a religious man, but some people associate evolution with meaning there is no heaven (not necessarily a true relation) and can't go through life not thinking that there is some higher meaning for them living. Its really all a case about people not being as important as they want to be. Its always been that way (hell, for centuries we claimed we were the center of the friggin Universe) and some people just need to wake up and accept the truth.
Regards,
Steve
Is to EVER hear my dog tell me what his own poop tastes like.
You are correct, especially about your second point. As a Biology teacher, I emphasize the point to my students that spiders (and all arthropods) do NOT have blood (that term is reserved for animals with a closed circulatory system). Spiders and other arthropods have a fluid called "hemolymph" (as you mentioned) which contains the equivalent of our blood plus lymphatic fluids (hense the name "hemo"=blood + "lymph").
Do you actually expect any more from BBC News, though?
I, for one, welcome our 20 million year-old arachnid overlords.
Did I misread the article?
It is a new species from the Filistatidae family commonly found in South America and the Caribbean.
I interpret this to mean that the 20-million-year-old spider species does not exist today.
That's the shit that feds me up
Ahh, but you were fooled again!! The DAY-VIL encased that spider in amber just to TEST YOUR FAITH! Just like all the dinosaur bones and all those gamma rays that supposedly come from that fictonal outer space! Yup all the DAY-VIL'S work!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! PRAAAYZZZ JEEEEBUS!!! [gurrgle] Blaaarrrgghhhannnnn! [froth] [epileptic fit]
Now, that's what I call a pet project.
Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic.
Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen.
Um, if he "found" it in a museum, doesn't that mean someone ELSE discovered it?
Just curious.
If you say that out loud it sounds like Iraqi Park - Where WMD's roam freely.
But then I'm from sweden AND i'm drunk, so my pronounciation is probably screwed up.
Time and time again I have found that in both Christian and secular worlds, those of us who are involved in the creation movement are characterized as 'young Earthers.' The supposed battle-line is thus drawn between the 'old Earthers' (this group consists of anti-God evolutionists as well as many 'conservative' Christians) who appeal to what they call 'science,' versus the 'young Earthers,' who are said to be ignoring the overwhelming supposed 'scientific' evidence for an old Earth.
I want to make it VERY clear that we don't want to be known primarily as 'young-Earth creationists.' AiG's main thrust is NOT 'young Earth' as such; our emphasis is on Biblical authority. Believing in a relatively 'young Earth' (i.e., only a few thousands of years old, which we accept) is a consequence of accepting the authority of the Word of God as an infallible revelation from our omniscient Creator.
Recently, one of our associates sat down with a highly respected world-class Hebrew scholar and asked him this question: 'If you started with the Bible alone, without considering any outside influences whatsoever, could you ever come up with millions or billions of years of history for the Earth and universe?' The answer from this scholar? 'Absolutely not!'
That is from http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1866.asp
Umm.. Evolutionists don't believe humans just poofed out of the ether. Evolutionary thoery states that much simpler forms of life preceeded humans.. Well, I'm not a biologist who can explain or understand this, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than a omnipotent God just willing all of the universe and humanity into existance because he commanded it so.
There is no such thing as 'creation science.'
Science is based on 3 fundamental assumptions: That the universe exists (is not a figment of my imagination), that it interacts with us in predictable ways (E=MC^2, PV=nRT, etc), and that the way it interacts with us does not change (E=MC^2 & PV=nRT today, they did yesterday, and they always will). If you believe that God exists and interacts with the universe, then you have to reject science because that invalidates the 3rd assumption as God could change the way the universe works (Hmm... I think I'll make E equal MC^1.5 for reasons that puny mortals cannot comprehend)
If you want to believe that God popped the universe into existance 6000 years ago, that's cool with me. Just don't try to pretend it's scientific, because it isn't. And don't try to sneak it into science classrooms, because it isn't science.
The baseline concentration of carbon 14 is from a 1950 measurement - C14 is atmospheric nitrogen bombarded by naturally occurring radiation, the C14 is incorporated metabolically into living organisms - but only as long as you're alive and respiring.
As to accuracy, there are calibration curves for it against other known counters - tree rings etc.
As to precision, there was also a recalculation of the half-life - but they were only off by a few percent.
They're not off by an integral factor, they're not off by an order of magnitude. But after ten or so half-lifes, the differences become too small to be practically useful.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Having had to kill too many big potentially poisonous ones lately (no shortage of insects and spiders this summer) after bumping into their webs, I could care less. Waste them all.
Linking to answersingenesis on Slashdot means you suck at life.
It was discovered by a scientist's wife, who demanded he come from the other side of the forest to squish it with his shoe...
(No, I'm not a sexit pig... just a married man with an aracnophobic wife...)
It's a testimony to the continuing influence of the US that people treat the 6000 year thing as a mainstream position.. it's a tiny minority outside the US (1% I'd guess.. seems to be near 100% of christians in the US.. didn't one state mandate teaching it as science? Scary stuff...).
The Flying Spagetti Monster has more credibility to it though (we *know* spagetti exists - what more proof do you need?)... IMO Christianity has a lot going for it, without the lunatic fringe screwing everything up.
Oooh .. Ahhh .. That's how it always starts. Then later there's running ... and screaming ... and bug spray ...
Abstract from the paper
Note that this was submitted and accepted more than a year ago. If you have a subsciption (most universities), you can get it at this url
Abstract: Two spiders (Filistatidae) in Miocene Dominican
Republic amber, one newly identified and only the second
known fossil of this family, have autospasized legs (detached
at a predetermined locus of weakness when restrained by a
non-self-induced source) at the patella-tibia joint. In both
specimens, droplets of haemolymph (blood) are preserved
exiting the patellae. The autospasized legs and the presence
of haemolymph suggests that both spiders were engulfed in
rapid-flowing resin seeps of relatively low viscosity, rather
than having wandered onto a sticky exudate, becoming stuck
and then covered by a subsequent resin flow. These are the
first reported incidences of such fossilized blood droplets, the
shape, size and position of which provide clues to preservational
taphonomy, an understanding of which is necessary
for reliable conclusions concerning fossil communities and
ecosystems. In addition, haemolymph droplets may serve as
reservoirs for fossil DNA.
Key words: Dominican Republic, spider, Araneae, Filistatidae,
haemolymph, autospasy.
Ignignokt: Did anyone see an eight-foot spider wearing a diaper in the parking lot anywhere?
Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future: I did see that spider, but when I was in that parking lot, it was about 375 thousand years ago....
It isn't anything near 100% in the USA. It is just those that belive the 6000 year 'theory' are very vocal when it comes to their beliefs.
The Bible makes no statements as to the age of the Earth.
Let me repeat that. The Bible makes no statements as to the age of the Earth.
Just because some count the number of generations in the Bible to 'prove' the age doesn't mean they are correct.
So if all the ages in the Bible add up to X years ago, all that would imply is that people were made then. Last time I checked in Genesis God waited to make people last and the common belief by most Christians is that "7 Days" could refer to millions of years (evolution for ya), because a biblical day has often meant more than what we now consider to be a 24-hour time period. So basically the spider could have been made on day "3" which is 20 million years ago, and day 4 may have been 10 million years ago etc all the way up to when humans were created. Also, the ages in the Bible may not be years as we determine years now either.
Just a thought..
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
They don't know that yet, do they? RTFA, they are HOPING to be able to extract DNA from this spider.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Here's some fuel for the fire.
e s_inaccurate_results
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Carbon_dating_giv
"It's not as if they take some carbon from the organism and do some weird shit to it, like putting it next to a TV and then throwing it in boiling water to see what happens."
Hey, don't disparage the proven techniques of Intelligent Design like that!
That GWB would screw that up as well.
I'm not sure what's funnier... an appropriate, and funny remark about our Lord, the Great Spaghetti Monster, or that you were modded as interesting?
Just to let you know that it's 'preserved'.
Obviously, He reached out and touched the moderators with His noodly appendage.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
You're a fucking moron try reading the fucking article why don't you.
1) they say they think its a new species which means it DOESNT exist today
2) they haven't done DNA tests on it yet.
So where are you getting your information from? God? Bahahahahahahahaha Santa Claus has a better chance of existing. It's mathematically impossible for god to exist in eternity. Heaven could not possibly exist. PERIOD!
I wonder why facts and discussion presently coherently was marked troll. How weird
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Next you'll be telling us there was a point singularity at which space and time itself were created out of nothing with no source and no existence beforehand ... pah! Pseudoscientific clap-trap!
The spider commented that it was cold, and that no one turns up the goddamned heat anymore. It went on to note that younger spiders ran all over his web yesterday, and left things quite untidy. "No sir, things ain't what they used to be 'tall."
Riiight, and I have 3 and 4 of something, not saying I have 7, just saying I have 3 and 4 of it...
Bah. I'm going to skip that amateur penny-ante stuff and go straight for the two-hundred-and-fifty-some. Sex is much more exciting when you need an HR department just to schedule it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
No. Those three fundamental assumptions do not exclude the possibility of an intelligent creator.
In my opinion, it seems to be implied.
You cannot say science cannot be practiced under the theory that the universe was created (by a creator)- it's a plausible theory, much like many of the others.
Mockery doesn't contribute to your argument.
And besides, it just pops the fundamental question up a level, from who made us... to who made Him?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Well, if anyone's studied the way the Bible was put together, they know that Moses (the ten commandments guy) wrote the book of Genesis - after he got the ten commandments from God. In the ten commandments, one of the commandments is about keeping the sabbath, which is the seventh day. So the theory is that God used the word DAY before Moses even wrote the book of Genesis. Moses used the same Hebrew root word as was used in the ten commandments concerning the sabbath day. Most people don't think that it says "120 million years shalt thou labor and do all thy work and on the 7th 20 million years, you take a sabbath 20 million years." Just another thought to counter the theory of "theistic evolution."
So the September 11th hijackers really are in heaven now, enjoying their 72 virgins and whatnot?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Maybe I'm just being an asshole, but I dream of a day when slashdot runs its stories through a spellchecker. Perserved? WTF?
it's a tiny minority outside the US (1% I'd guess.. seems to be near 100% of christians in the US.. didn't one state mandate teaching it as science? Scary stuff...).
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental (or even mainstream semi-educated) Islamic views on evolution? What about tribal Africa religious views? What about South American religious? What about fundamental Christians in Africa? I guarantee you that many, many people across the world have never heard of evolution, would think it's nonsense, and/or disbelieve it today. But that is neither here nor there.
Seems to be near 100% of Christians in the US? Well, something like 80-90% of Americans would identify themselves as Christians. Even non-observant ones. Not like in Europe. I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this. Anyways, long story short, there's NO WAY anywhere remotely near 100% of Christians believe the Earth was created 6000 years ago. I have no idea how many people actually believe that, but I can say I went through public schools in North Carolina (ie, Bible Belt!) and never met a fellow student who has believed that. Didn't one state mandate it? definitely not. Arguments have been made over whether religious views (ie, 6000 years, intelligent design, etc) are even ALLOWED to be taught in schools, not mandated.
I know as an American, I find almost every BBC article that touches on faith in the US as blatantly wrong. Hah, it's kind of like modern-orientalism. We can't really get past our biases and our own preconceptions and our own beliefs. It's easy to see the US as a seething hotbed of fundamentalism. Compared to Europe, maybe so. Compared to many parts of the world, definitely not.
And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own.
...But the real question is can they use it's DNA to create a spider with four asses?
FTA, it's Dr David Penney.
He may have also used nuclear magnetic resonance to date the specimen. I'm currently describing a new bug in amber and plan to use an NMR technique. All of the Dominican amber mines have been dated according to a paper that I don't have handy at the moment. Anyway in it, they describe the NMR resonance of the ambers from several Dominican mines. This manuscript is often referenced in Dominican amber dating as a relative reference to date a newly described specimen. Additionally, if he knows from what mine the amber was taken he may not need to date the specimen himself because some of the mines (e.g., the La Toca mines) have been dated several times by several techniques. To the fossil dating critics out there, you really need to read some of this research yourself before spouting of your thoughts. As is true for much as science, no one puts all of their wait on one technique to make a conclusion. There are a few ways to date amber and if they all point to approx. the same age they are probably about that age.
lol-putting it next to a TV... Awesome.
> Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old
Uhh..... biblically speaking it's closer to 6,000 actually. You were only out by 100%. Not a bad try though, thanks for playing.
20 million years? B.S! "Scientists" don't have any accurate way to date things ("hmm, this rock must be 10 million years old. The bones must be 10 million years old, because the rock is. How do we know that? Because the bones are. See, its simple")
A whole hearted "Fuck That Noise!" to your insightful post.
I can't be the only person getting bad vibes from the idea of scientists recovering some 20 million year old spider DNA from this thing. We all know that once scientists get hold of 20 million year old spider DNA they can't just study it and compare it to modern spider DNA. Oh hell no, they're going to have to make some brand new "vintage" 20 million year old spiders out of it. Then those spiders will escape and breed with our spiders and shortly after that we're going to learn about the little tiny kind of spider who was really responsible for the Dinosaurs going away.
I'm going to be so pissed off when I'm proven right on this.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Where from did the bing bang come from?
A new news site is coming, it will be way better than this.
,it happenned in '98.
If you have lynx installed, you be not the idiots.
BTW,
waists is the stupid crap I have to type in to post this.
slashdot has been bought by AOL
noticed the spam for viagra and rubber dolls escalating?
The theory of Creation clearly indicates a mature universe being brought into existence almost instantaneously (six days). When I say "mature", I mean that life forms were fully developed, and light from the stars had already reached earth. This created world appeared fully mature, in every way. Therefore, scientific dating methods are not a threat to this theory. If you believe in Creation, you should have no problem believing that God created fossils and what not to appear "old", just like he created everything else to have apparent age.
Ahh ... the marinara-ity deep within the Lord FSM, from which all noodles doth emanate
Now do you *REALLY* believe in the flying spaghetti monster? Or are you merely utilizing that legend to mock other peoples sincere beliefs that you don't happen to share?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Good to see everyone on /. hasn't lost their mind :) Thanks.
Regards,
Steve
Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said he had used the blood droplets to trace how, when and where the spider died.
Was there a question about how the spider died? I could have saved you some time and money. I could have made a good guess on the "where" also if you told me where you found him.
RP
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed.
First, carbon (C14) dating doesn't work past about 6000 years, so that wasn't the method. Why did you leap to the conclusion that it was?
Second, belief don't enter into it. If you have good reasons to believe well-established scientific procedures are wrong, state them. There's not a lot of intellectual oomph to just feeling like you'd rather not accept it. But if you have a good reason to criticize a method, let's hear it - that's how science is supposed to work.
Third, making patronizing comments about what scientists "believe" isn't very humble. Maybe you should find out what technique was used and learn how it works before you act as if scientists just pulled it out of someone's butt and decided randomly that it must work out of arrogance.
Sheesh.
I love it how a criticism of carbon dating is modded down as a 'troll', whereas this flamebait comment goes unnoticed.
Not flamebait, you say? Tell that to a Christian browsing Slashdot.
How can you use NMR to date objects?! You must mean ESR, electron spin resonance.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Parent is an on-topic, cogent argument, NOT a troll. Someone please correct this.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
I wonder the same thing about Christians sometimes.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Well there were only 3 "I for one welcome our new Amber Arachnid Overlords" posts. 4 if you coun't this one. Why it was only yesterday we had the Tool Using Gorilla Overlords and the Giant Squid Overlords. Someone suggested we have an Overlords Championship. And we can't leave out the Poison Dart Dolphin Overlords nor the Acetylene Lifeform Titan Overlords. It must be Overlord envy. I have yet to see one post welcoming our current Neocon Overlords. I mean they must really have their feelings hurt. When everyone else is welcoming a new overlord at least once a day. There couldn't be anyone more deserving of our sympathy than Scooter The Libby, Donald the Rumsfeld, Cheney The Dick, Turd Blossom Rove, and SpaceChimp Bush. Can you feel the love? I'm sure people must have as much love for them as they do for spiders.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
People will, after all, always make their observations fit their assumptions if they are frightened enough of the alternative that they don't wish to face it. The idea that God exists is by far a more terrifying proposition to people that do not believe in God than the notion that God does not exist is to people that do believe in God. So terrifying, in fact, that most people that do not believe in God will live in complete denial that there is anything to be afraid of in the first place, rather than admit to it. If there were no God, after all, people would simply cease to be when they die, and as frightening as this may be to some people, it is nowhere even in the same league as frightening as the notion that God exists, which implies that everyone has an immortal essence, and there are some very real eternal consequences for the choices that we make while we are alive.
You cannot say science cannot be practiced under the theory that the universe was created (by a creator)- it's a plausible theory, much like many of the others.
Indeed, most science can be practiced without fear of contradicting or confronting the "christian way" under that theory, however making arbitrary statements that contradict existing scientific evidence such as "the earth is around 6000 years old, it says so right here" (BTW I'd like to see where it does) is NOT scientific.
I would actually argue that the core philosophy of "science" is that a statement must be derived from evidence and logic; if that evidence and "logic" (aka doctrine) becomes complicated and contradicts other arbitrary and complicated doctrine from different sources (like other religions), then you really cannot say it is "science".
Saying that the earth is x years old because of an obscure reference in an abritrary 3rd-hand translation of genesis is about as scientific as saying Allah created man from the void...
Silly mortal. The big bang was God, snapping his fingers...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It's true, as evidenced by the dramatic drop in the number of pirates over the course of the past century!
In all seriousness though, people will take which facts and "facts" present themselves and support their position, regardless of how tenuous a manner, then bend them to their beliefs anyway. Anything which outright controverts their belief is either bent to fit their view or disregarded as propaganda. God, I hate zealots (pun intended ;) )
"In the end, there is simply no weapon more devastating than the truth, delivered in just the right way." - tnk1
Whatever, just make sure you get that sample to the test chamber on time. The Administrator was most insistent that we proceed on schedule. The chance of a resonance cascade scenario is surely remote...
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
...does it still taste like chicken?
Table-ized A.I.
> He may have also used nuclear magnetic resonance to date the specimen. I'm currently describing a new bug in amber and plan to use an NMR technique.
Do you think that technique could be applicable to bugs in programs?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"1) they say they think its a new species which means it DOESNT exist today"
So you're claiming that all spider species currently alive have been discovered?
Jackass.
Religious tolerance is allowing people to freely express their beliefs and supporting their rights to hold those beliefs .
.. the word was created by the invisible pink unicorn and that the Spaghetti monster is in fact the great Evil .
There is nothing wrong with parodying them and having a laugh about how silly they are .
Religion is something you choose and should be free to choose. It should also be something we are free to mock .
He sincerely believes that the spaghetti monster is a good parody , he sincerely believes that their religious ideas are a load of bunkum . Is there any difference ? Should he be disallowed from expressing those beliefs in this manner , especially with a crowed in which many share those beliefs .
Even though we all know its partially twaddle
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
The bible does NOT say that the earth is 3,000 years old.
What the bible actually says is...
that the earth is 6,009 years old.
i.e. 4004 years from Creation to the birth of Jesus (The first day of Creation was, of course, Sunday, October 23 4004 B.C.)
2005 years from the birth of Jesus to today.
Nevermind that the guy who first officially dated the birth of Jesus was six years off, give or take.
Why don't they try injecting some of that blood sample into a human. It may produce something like this
http://www.jeffgoldblumiswatchingyoupoop.com/pages /flyers.html
...because of course the "normal" amount of C-14 in a Spider is a universal constant, which could never change over 20 million or even 6,000 years.
He was able to extract the blood and determine its age: 20 million years old.
That's a lot of fucking candles on that birthday cake.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
How so? The third assumption is that the way the universe acts doesn't change. If a supernatural being creates the universe, then interacts with it in ways such as parting the red sea, then it must have changed the way the universe operates: Because of gravity, water will never naturally leave the lowest available height.
Any possible action is the result of the universe no longer working as predicted: A monopolar force came out of nothing, thin vortices of wind forced the water back, star-trek-style forcefields popped into existance. Since the universe would then demonstrably no longer necessarily act the same way from one moment to the next, science would become meaningless: Steam expanding would not do work on a cylinder if God willed otherwise.
On the other hand, if a supernatural being created the universe and then completely and forever ceased interacting with it, letting everything take it's natural course, I can see no reason why we should speculate about the being or why we would believe it exists at all.
Hmmm.... he 'discovered' this during a trip to a museum. Riiight.....
Sounds like someone else discovered it and put it in the museum of amber in the Dominican Republic and he came waltzing in and bought the thing.
Great 'discovery' dude, well done.
No we can't. Carbon dating tries to determine how long something has been dead from the ratio of radioactive versus stable carbon in its tissues; it is assumed that as long as the thing lived, it exchanged carbon freely with the surroundings (getting into its tissues tiny amounts of radioactive carbon produced in the upper atmosphere among the stable isotope), and when it died, this exchange stopped, leading to the radioactive isotope being depleted from those its tissues through radioactive decay.
In any case, Wikipedia claims that carbon dating can only be used to measure times some 60 000 years back, so this seems rather irrelevant for the discussion at hand.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I also love Bill Hicks. Good job, dude.
> I don't go to church, but I consider myself a Christian. It's a cultural thing. I think many Europeans don't understand this.
Uh, what makes you think that Europeans wouldn't understand?
In France only something like 10% (don't know the exact figure but it is low) of Christians goes to Church.
For the US/Europe comparison, well let's just say that Europe is not homogenoeous in this respect: Italy or Ireland (where women don't have the right to do an IVG because of religion) are very different from France, for example.
You know to us wastelanders it's pretty scary to see the intelligent design "theory" gaining momentum in the US, up to the point of being teached in school as an alternative scientific theory, up to the point as being kind of supported by your President. It sure doesn't make it sound as an epiphenomenon that only a small fraction of the population supports.
;)
I don't have numbers but those two facts sure don't make it look as irrelevant (socially speaking, that is
Well we all know where Alabama, Georgia and Texas stand on this issue.
What's your point?
Although our EU overlords may work hard on a worldwide marketing campaign to make it seem otherwise: there's no such thing as "a European" in a cultural sense. Views, both religious and political, differ strongly across national borders. So do the demographic makeups of European countries. Europe is an economic union and a judicial and political one in some ways.
Some European countries would qualify as more religious than the United States, in my experience, take Roman Catholic Italy for instance. While other countries like the Netherlands are counted amongst the most secular nations on the planet.
As "an American", I'd suggest not attributing opions or cultural attributes to "a European", unless you're very sure it actually hold across national borders. It's similar to calling Canadians and Mexicans Americans. I know from experience that isn't taken too well either.
Just thought I'd let you know.
And about Europeans not understanding that someone would call himself a Christian even if he stays out of church: in most European countries, churchgoing has seen a steady decline, while the same amount of people as about 20 years still calls themselves Christian. So, I think that most Europeans can identify perfectly well with that standpoint.
Actually, you're right. At the beginning of Genesis the earth is "formless and void". However, A literal reading of the Bible does come up with a date of somewhere around 4000 BC for the *six days of creation* (where God creates the sun, stars, plants, animals, man - but not the earth). The date of 4000 BC is based on the Genesis information of each person's age when they "begat" a particular descendent. Using historical and Biblical information gives dates around 4000 BC for the six days of creation, and 2350 BC for the global flood (which, BTW, conflicts with known history which shows Egyptian dynasties going back to around 3000 BC, and plenty of pyramids predating 2350 BC).
The "Great flood of 1656"? I guess you mean the flood of 2350 BC (based on a literal reading of Genesis would put it around 2350 BC - which is during the sixth Egyptian dynasty - which was, strangely enough, never interupted by a flood!) I suppose you're going to tell me that the spider was preserved in the amber because the world was actually flooded by amber rather than water, too?
"And getting either further off topic, the argument can be made that socialism and environmentalism are the new religions of Europe, with fundamentalisms and lunacies all their own."
Aw, first you make an exelent speech about how Americans view religion in comparison to the beliefs shown by Europe's media. And then you end with a sentence to make it plain that you've been completely indoctrinated by your own government & media. At most it can be said that the average European is slightly more worried about the current state of affairs (unfortunately).
Ladies and gentlemen
Ladies and gentlemen
Spider
He is our hero
Spider
Get rid of
Spider
Step on spider!!
Spider
We love you spider
I promise not to kill you
Spider
Spider
We love you spider
Spider
Get rid of
Spider
Must stop
Spider
He is our hero
The Bible never stated that a Day is 24 hours.
I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated. But probably not a "more knowledgable seed". Carbon dating wasn't used.
I list some points others may find interesting:
According to The Bible, the Earth is 6000+ years old.
Bible did talk about dinosaurs
Book of Job 40:15-24 behemoth,
Leviathan Job 41,Psalm 104:25,26 and Isaiah 27:1
http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/dinos.shtml
mapping between Bible names and current names
tanniyn -> dinosaur 1841 AD
behemoth -> brachiosaurus 1903 AD
Leviathan -> kronosaurus 1901 AD
Something interesting of similar nature happened in 1997 look up "The real Jurassic Park", Earth June 1997. Red blood cells and hemoglobin have been found in some unfossilized dinosaur bone. Please look up estimates how long red blood cells can last.
C14 method doesn't work for >50-60000 years due to the lack of C14 past that amount of time
General problem with isotopic ratios dating is that outside factors can influence amount of C14 found such as we don't know how much C14 was originally in the organism. Think of it as an hourglass where you have two containers, one initially full and another empty, if that wasn't so (some sand was at the bottom container) it would take less time to fill the bottom container. Also we do not know if the rates were constant, after all observations have only been made within last 100 years or so. Also we do not know whether the system has remained closed. Think of it as some sand being added in aforementioned example to one of the containers. Clearly, calculated ratios would be different.
Also there are known anomalities with using radioactive dating (for rocks at least)
*1986 dactite lava (solidified) at Mount St. Helens volcano has been dated (by K-Ar method) to be 0.3-0.4 million years old
*5 cases in Mt.Ngauruhoe in New Zealand. Lava flows occured 1 in 1949, 3 in 1954 and one in 1975 they were ranged from less than 0.27 to 3.5 million years old. Likely explaination for such huge range is retention of Ar40 during solidification ofthe rock. The excess appears to have come from the upper mantle so the argon had little time to escape; [A.A. Snelling, "The cause of anomalous Potassium-Argon 'Ages' for Recent Andesite Flows at Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand.............]
This is consistant with Bibles presentation of young age of the Earth. This brings up a question if such factors can cause large exaggerations for rocks of KNOWN age, then why should you trust the method for items of unknown age?
Another issue is conflict between methods of dating. Example from Australia of a piece of wood was burried by the basalt lava flow. The wood was dated by C14 method to be 45000 years old, basalt was dated by K-Ar method and was dated to be 45 million years old.
Also if C14 disintegrates within 50-60000 years how can a fossil wood from Upper Permian layers have been found with C14 still present. Commonly accepted age for the Upper Permian layers is around 250 million years old. Judge for yourself.
I recomend to all to read a book "Refuting Evolution" by Jonathan Sarfati. You may not agree with what he says, but it gives you good examples of what is commonly unquestionably accepted needs to be questioned.
Best regards,
~omi
Don't you belive in a 20 million year old spider? How do you explain the fact that my car is older?
In the Dominican Replublic ... spiders squash you !
You think I'm afraid of that prospect? I would revel in it if I could believe it were true. If I were held to account for my life and my actions, I would have things I would be ashamed of, but I would not be ashamed of my beliefs (or lack of faith).
As Thomas Jefferson said, "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
It sure beats an omnipotent, omnisentient judge with a poorly communicated sense of morals and a tendency to attribute unpleasantness to other entities of his design.
I can respect people's love of tradition, I can respect what the church has done in the past to assemble communities, but ultimately, I think a bunch of guys made up this whole God thing to use people's existentialist angst to steal their land and money.
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster. It will no doubt happen one day, but until then, it is a far less corrupt vision of the universe.
It is silly to make broad statements about people grouped only by not believing what you believe in because they may be a lot more diverse and intricate than what you expect. You cannot understand a person who believes other things if you express their thoughts in what you believe.
There have been over 2500 deities recorded in human history. Maybe you subscribe to the notion of the Christian God, but that means you are in denial of the thousands of others. There is no way you're not going to go to some hell according to some religion's teaching. My guess is that most Christians are not in the least fearful of Allah or Wodan... how much of a mental leap is it then to understand that people cannot be fearful of entities they don't believe exist?
I am not at all terrified by the concept of eternal happy life or absolute justice. What DOES terrify me is the idea that the most intelligent, logical and consistent being in the universe (and beyond) would require me to join a personality cult and accept that the worst sin possible is not rape or murder and so on, but to deny the validity of the religion. Remember that according to Christianity and Islam, even people who are the most loving, caring, law-abiding and humble will be punished, while unpleasant, bigoted and rude people supposedly get great rewards.
It really does seem that some people like yourself cannot grasp (terrified perhaps) that their views are regarded as little more than baseless mysticism and personality reverence.
see a Text Widget
... and would appreciate it if fewer such articles could be posted. Thanks.
-
sig sig sputnik
Hello Steve, few things to say in regards to your comment.
Please look up my previous post about inconsistancies of dating methods and other inaccuracies. There is nothing wrong with nuclear physics or mathematics involved and logic to produce justify how you go from measurement to the estimate of age. What is wrong is set of assumptions regarding the data. We assume the amount of C14 remained untouched after the animal died (except decay, but I'm stressing the issue of other possible sources of removal of C14 from the sample) as well as long long long ago the background level of radiation was the same as today (within 50 years or so), as well as other assumptions. This is entirely going on faith so please do not blast those who are faithful in other ways.
And we are designed very efficiently actually. Look no further than eye or liver. Human eye is far the best optical instrument in terms of range of detection. As well how optical nerves grow towards eachother and connect. Liver is amazing for being a chemical factory that can analyze and produce enzymes to break down foods within 10-12 second interval, so far humans are not likely to produce something that is even relatively close.
A while ago I heard that appendix which is rich in infection fighting lymphoid cells might play a role in immune system. So please do not rush to immediate conclusions.
I agree with you that there are a lot of folks who simply run around screaming ignorant things (many people who call themselves christians are not such or if they are - they must be very confused), but there are also those who do research and put forward reasonable questions.
Well who says that the truth is such as you perceive. Other people may have different oppinion then you, the beautiful thing about an oppinion is that it cannot be proven wrong.
The reason why it is either The Bible or Evolution is that books in the Bible (as claimed by Christians) were written under the influence of Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is God, and God is omnipotent, omnipresent and allknowing He cannot be wrong. If the Bible is wrong that implies that the Holy Spirit was wrong in providing information for those who wrote their accounts which contradicts the deffinition of God. If you accept different versions to be true at the same time then you need to do some reading and researching to clear up some major confusion.
Implications from Evolution are such that we were an accident, universe pulled a lottery and we evolved from lesser creatures. Which further implies that God did not create us. Since there is no authority higher then self, we can allow ourselves whatever we desire.
Implications from the Bible is that God created us and lesser creatures within short time. Bible teaches that humans were created to worship him. Worship is not just going to church on sundays or singing. Worship is a lifestyle (which is not understood. Since people never question their actions how can they).
You cannot mix and match the above.
Steve, please bother to read the history surrounding Galileo controversy. You might find that Catholic Church supported his efforts. Astronomers of the Jesuit Order, "the intellectual spearhead of the Catholic Church," even improved on them. Only 50 years later, they were teaching this theory in China. They also protected Jahannes Kepler , who discovered 3 Laws regarding heavenly bodies. Eventhe Pope, Paul V received Galileo in friendly audience. The leading Roman Catholic theologian ofthe day, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine said it was "excellent good sense" to claim that Galileo's model was mathematically simpler and " If there were a real proff that the Sun is the center of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and tat the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture hwich appear to teach the contrary, and we shoul rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opi
Whether or not the creator interacts with his creation is irrelevant. The Creator and his interaction are covered by the third assumption.
You're viewing a theory from the outside, so it wont make sense. All theories are first based on the premise that they are correct. (All interpretation is influenced by one or another theory)
Ideally, science is (just) based on observation of the natural order of the universe.
On the other hand, I think it's silly to say that the universe is 6000 years old. We definitely don't know that.
So you're claiming that all spider species currently alive have been discovered?
Jackass.
I'm pretty sure that's not what he was claiming. It's just generally accepted that in the absence of evidence that a species currently exists, we assume that it does not. Every now and then we're proven wrong when a species that was thought to be extinct turns up somewhere, but that doesn't happen all that often. Since this is a species that currently, as far as we know, only exists in a lump of amber, we assume that it is extinct. It's possible that we'll be proven wrong at some point, but it's not likely.
From the article: "Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic."
I've just discovered loads of egyptian sarcofags! In uhm.. British Museum!
What is this "spagetti" of which you speak ?
I need more proof
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster.
I did it for the pasta!
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
obviously some bible thumper with mod points, duh.
Awww - but I wanted DINOSAURS not freakin' SPIDERS !!!
3 times !
Everyone knows the earth is only 3,000 years old,
Your ignorance is showing. Usher puts creation at 4004 BC, making the earth 6010 years old. Approximately.
yes, but but in the Christian faith, you're hoping not to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.
hold on a second, bible believers actually think the earth is only 6000 years old?
You're not serious are you?
man, just when I thought I heard the stupidiest thing ever, something new like this comes along... amazing.
Its definatly more than a small fraction.
I am not sure of the percentage , however whatever fraction it is it sure is vocal about it.
So the September 11th hijackers really are in heaven now, enjoying their 72 virgins and whatnot?
"Thou shalt not murder." Centuries later, Jesus said "Love your neighbor," even the sinners. People should be converted through love, not through violence.
It's Satan who's fucking with us. Satan planted the scientific evidence. God just wrote a book that refutes it.
"Saying that the earth is x years old because of an obscure reference in an abritrary 3rd-hand translation of genesis is about as scientific as saying Allah created man from the void..."
The bible DOESN'T say how old the earth is. So I can only conclude that this 6000 years thing is Atheists trying to muddy the issue (Those christians said... Oops! No they didn't because I didn't actually read the damn book*)
*most atheists skim the book looking for stuff that supports their views, pulling things out of context.
~~~
As CRT's are weak generators of soft X-Rays...
I also went to public school in North Carolina, pretty far out in the country even. I have met one person that I know for sure believes in a "young earth" (though I would bet there are more) and scores upon scores that think evolution is bullshit. It is truely scary.
Does it strike anyone else as odd, that the scientist quoted in article mentions the DNA possibility almost in passing, but rambles on proudly, at length, about how he figure out how it died from being hit with "fast moving resin"? (wtf?) Nothing like breaking your leg from being hit by maple syrup.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I've always looked at it this way. You have to either believe in a God that was always there and willed the universe into existance. Or you have to believe that the stuff that the Universe was already there or just came into existance. Both require you to believe something you cant 100% prove. So believe what ya want and work towards what you think is right.
Mod parent up. Please. I actually scared the dog with my laughing.
Have you seen the arrow?
So which is it? I suggest you religious types get your act together and finally come up with some definitive morals. In the meanwhile, the rest of us will continue to go along our merry way practising the our pragrmatic agnostic general rule of "be nice to people".
Also note;
Even sub-optimal biological systems can not-change for a long time under these and other conditions;
- adaptions prevent or correct mutations
- long lifespan
- many breeding partners over a wide area
- no predators (like sharks)
- stable environment in the relevant parts (sharks that I know of do not specialize in foods for example)
- large population
So it isn't suprising that some animals don't change much over time.
ps. WTF is it with the ID people spreading from Fark to here... I figured that Slashdot had somewhat of a higher standard.
Hersay!
He created it el dente
Everybody knows that different shapes and parts took longer to be perfect.
The fact that everything el dente suited to its environment is PROOF in FSM's greatness!
Nobody's killed anyone in the name of the flying spagetti monster. It will no doubt happen one day, but until then, it is a far less corrupt vision of the universe.
Well, that solves my problem of what to do today. Thanks for the idea.
... that they named it after google. World does not need another google bug.
You win the blue ribbon. The article is pretty shallow, stating that he used the blood droplets to date the specimen. It then goes on to state he hopes to extract DNA. I don't see how the two are contradictory. My guess is it was dated by context.
plenty of countries deny a large section of their population a decent education. In many countries, the only education available to many is an ignorant and religious-based one.
But in both of these cases, hardly any science is taught at all.
The US is the only country on Earth that both teaches a modern scientific curriculum, and treats evolution specially (in a significant number of its schools) on religious grounds.
The US is unique in having schoolchildren taught modern maths, modern physics, modern chemistry, and modern biology in every respect except for evolution where a confused and religiously influenced nonsense is taught in some schools.
er to explain what the "IVG" acronym stands for for non-french speaking people, it's "interruption volontaire de grossesse" (voluntary interruption of pregnancy) = abortion.
mmmmmmm. soft and cuddly x-rays. yeah baby!
Ah, yes, the "Omphalos" argument--the name comes from the title of a 19th century book setting forth this theory, which argued that Adam even had a navel so as to maintain the consistency of the Universe. The Omphalos theory is generally ignored, though, as it can similarly be argued that the Universe was created with evidence of a full history 20,000 years ago. Or ten milliseconds ago, for that matter.
What most people have a difficult time grasping is that humans were not created with the intent of being independant from God. We can choose to ignore God, if we wish... but this is not because it is what we are supposed to really be doing, it is because we have a free will, and can choose to excercise it for Good or ill, as we desire. Part of God's ultimate purpose in creating us was that we have this choice.
It is worth noting that what many people (even many people that believe in God) have a hard time grasping is that going to hell isn't actually a "punishment", per se. It's actually the only thing God can justly do to sincerely respect the free choice one makes in life of rejecting him. If God simply accepted everyone into heaven regardless of whether or not they made a choice to follow him, how does that respect the choices that person may have made in life? How does that make our choices have any consequence? Sure, they may have consequence in this life, but if we are to exist eternally, what is the point of making any choices in this life at all if none of those choices will have any lasting consequences? The choices we make determine our character, the one thing we will take with us when we die, and God respects that character to an inconceivably high degree. God won't impose his will onto people, even to the point of letting our choices resulting in being eternally apart from him (which God doesn't want). This is in a very contrary manner to how most people (including most christians) would operate, where a so-called righteous human being might see the end (as being eternally with God) as more important than what we might want in the interim, and try to impose that we *HAVE* to follow God right now, believing that the ends justify the means. However, this is not God's way... the ends do not justify the means with God, but rather the means must justify themselves. God chooses to respect our choices, even if they are eternally damning. To do otherwise would be treating us like nothing more than little children that will never grow up, and ultimately would not be giving us the respect that is justly due, given that he saw fit to give us free will in the first place. God desperately desires for us to choose to follow him, but he will not ever force that desire upon anyone, even if that desire is ultimately for our own good, because again, it is paramount to God's purpose that we possess free will.
The choice, as always, is yours.
"I don't believe spiders ever existed." - Carl Everett
Hilarious! Good thing I wasn't sipping on the coffee - learned my lesson with my last laptop.
We use the same irrationality and absense of logic that Christians do when choosing our religion, I don't see anything wrong with that.
If anything, most of them are probably just jealous because we're more creative than the people who made up christianity 2000 years ago. Afterall, we have beer volcanoes and strippers.
The great Designer must have been Slartibartfast!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
-Nano.
Ok. Let me put it in words that'll be understood here.
"Unfortunately. Nobody can be told what the matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself".
Faith is like that. Everybody at some point in their life wants to believe in something that is higher than themselves. To extract some kind of meaning out of existance. We are all born hard-wired that way. It will happen regardless of how atheistic the individual's views are.
When that moment happens, we have a choice. We can either believe in something or choose not to believe in a higher power. To swallow the 'red pill ' or the 'blue pill' as it were. The truth is out there. It only matters if you'll have faith.
I have seen and heard of all types of religions. The ones that focus on teaching and not preaching are the ones to be part of - in my humble opinion. Put simply, the choice is our's. We merely have to swallow it.
-FlynnMP3
As I understand it, carbon dating gives wildly wrong dates for things that are still alive, and different dates for different parts of the same animal. And isn't accurate past a few tens of thousands of years. But maybe I am just partial because a pig that was supposed to be extinct for over 20 million years was found alive and kicking in my home country (Paraguay).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Even if the amount of C14 changed dramatically over 20 million years, it wouldn't matter much because it isn't used to date anything older than about 50,000. And during that time, we can be pretty confident that the amount of C14 in the atmosphere did stay relatively constant. Since C14 is formed by cosmic radiation interacting with the upper atmosphere, any significant increase in C14 concentration would probably also involve an increase in radiation bombardment leading to (another) global extinction event.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
People here at /. are funny in a funny way. While discussing Aragog's mum, people bash others for their misinformation about the origins of HIV. You're not an expert in the field, I hear the /. masses say, an so you're not even entitled to an fscking opinion. But people fail to realize that science is contraditory in its own nature.
For example, Duesberg simply denies that HIV even causes AIDS. He is a most respectable virologist, so I guess he is entitled to his opinion. People like Kary Mullis, Nobel prize winner, and a host of others, support him.
So the next time Joe-not-a-scientist says something, don't rule it out just because he is not en expert in the field, or just because there isn't "extreme evidence" available.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
"I don't know what technique was used to date the spider"
Well, my guess is that he got to know the spider a bit before he finally asked it out. Then it could be a nice dinner, some wine, and a walk on the beach. If it was a more "casual" date, it might have involved a movie or Putt-Putt.
We may never know.
Well, the point of my post was not to argue the validity of specific religions, but to point out that the claim that non-believers are "frightened" somehow is silly.
see a Text Widget
But who really need the FSM when there are already so many stories to choose from
Check out:
http://www.randi.org/jr/062405silly.html#2
Actually you should read the entire site, I'm sure you'll feel much better afterward
The church up the street expects people to pay 10-20% of their income to the church...
And did I not also say that they would live in denial of this? Thank you for illustrating my point so clearly.
What created God? What created God's God? What created God's God's God?
Tell that to a hypersensitive, Bible-thumping, utterly humorless and clueless Christian and I might agree, if you could even find such a person browsing Slashdot. All the Christians I know would find it as funny as the original poster intended.
My argument was not against the Christian faith, but against the notion that people who do not follow this faith are still somehow fearful of its hypothesized deity. My point still stands unrefuted as you even show open disinterest in how those people regard your faith and only focused on preaching.
I could even grant that the Christian deity exists in the exact way that you outlined and your point would still be invalid.
How terrified are you of Allah?
see a Text Widget
I think you're misreading or misunderstanding or both... ? You clearly said their choice was based on fear and that they are in denial of your deity's existence as a result of being terrified of it... that means they implicitly accept the deity's possible existence. This is a logical thing to think for someone who is entrenched in his own views.
see a Text Widget
No, I do mean NMR and its a relative dating technique. The NMR profiles of amber turn out to be unique to certain mines in the Dominican Repuplic. I'm sorry I don't know the details of the analysis, I'm not a physical scientist, but the work is published and does state that the proceedure was NMR. The dates of these mines have been surveyed using other techniques. So, if you have a specimen of Dominican amber and apply NMR analysis to it you can infer or confirm both its collection locality and date. Again, based on previous studies.
Is carbon the only radioactive chemical they can use to date biological material? I know they use an element with a much longer half-life to date rocks. My guess would be they used radioactive dating, just not carbon dating.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
Perhaps I did not make myself clear, because you do not really disagree with me. What I meant by the "normal amount" was the ratio that we are comparing the dead organisms' ratio to, the one that should be stable while it is alive because of the exchange you mention. My whole point was that the gp was saying that he thought it was perhaps 20 million years old relative to other things that were carbon dated, when radiocarbon dating (or any radioactive dating) is inherently relative; by using the ratio in living organisms and the ratio in dead organisms, the date calculated is relative to the present.
Hot maple syrup rub down until naked and petrified
sigs are for fools and trolls. no signature is *always* appropriate. you should turn them off in your preferences.
Wow, that is an air-tight argument if I've ever heard one! When will the scientific community realise that they have no clothes on when it comes to ancient history?
How can they know? Unless someone planted an artefact 60000 years ago (and dated it), how can they know these methods are proven and accurate (in the +60000 years range)?
If you have, say, ten methods for dating something, and all of them give you the same age back, I'd say that's fairly conclusive evidence.
Do you also ask "if someone hasn't walked to the sun, and counted every step that they took, how do we know that the sun is 8 million miles away"?
in the Qur'an, Jesus said: But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads.
This penalty is associated with a judgment by God, not a judgment by man.
Where do you get this stuff? A tiny minority outside the US? Do you happen to know fundamental...Islamic views on evolution?
Wow. Apparently the anti-evo's have mod points for this sort of nonsensical reply to be moderated up (while the parent and grandparent were moderated trolls or flamebait). You might have missed it, but we were talking specifically about Christianity, not about fundamentalist Islamist, or even Voodoo worshippers. Christianity. The reality, and let the anti-evo's feel comfortable moderating me down for saying the truth, is that the anti-evolution correlation with Christianity is almost an entirely US thing.
you all seem to forget his Holiness FSM ( Flying Spaghetti Monster ). There is an entire section in our mythos about his ability to change c14 dating, All this done with his holy Noodle Appendage. So Please see the reference http://www.venganza.org/
Onepoint
if you see me, smile and say hello.
I based my comment on http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches _quote05.html which at the very least is a quite interesting read.
I appreciate your comment. I will say that a certain part of my post was deliberate hypocrisy -- this is after all what we get when we make vast generalizations like "100% of Christians in America" and "in Europe..." Thanks for seeing my flaws :)
Though I would also argue that even in countries like Italy the numbers of people identifying themselves as Christians are falling.
No you missed the point. The point was the author claimed 100% of Christians in the US did not believe in evolution while 1% of anyone else outside the US agreed with them. I find that viewpoint silly. I would also be willing to bet a substantial sum of money that more than 1% of "Christians" in Europe do not believe in evolution.
The science is not something to be explained in a post on slashdot. It can be a pretty complex science, but the basis relies on the half-life of nuclear materials. The half-life can easily be measured and from that, you can come to many other conclusions. But let me repeat, there are plenty of other dating methods that have nothing to do with carbon dating or even nuclear phsyics at all. A simple example would be akin to counting the layers of certain tidal areas (or areas that were once tidal). Each cycle you can tell just from the way the rock formed, what the cycle of the moon was and other facts about the tide... the moon circles the earth on a pretty constant cycle and you can tell how long ago a certain layer of that tidal area is from. It is easy to determine if that layer has been tampered with or not, but if a fossile is in that layer and the surrounding sediments are consistent with typical tidal patterns than that fossil died during that period (Of course you would confirm your finding with a few other completely unrelated dating methods). Its just like counting rings on a tree, not only can you tell what rings are from which seasons but you get other information like how much rain was during that season.
Regards,
Steve
And as for how fearful one is of this "hypothesized" deity, consider that denial of the existence of whatever one might be afraid of is almost always an effective way to cope with a fear. If one does not feel the possibility exists of ever having to confront something, then there is no reason to live in fear of it.
But just because one is not living in fear of something (because they think its just make-believe), does not mean they are unafraid of it.
Ok, if we assume that a Creator is covered by the 3rd assumption, then wouldn't we have to assume that he/she/it always acts the same way under a given set of circumstances? Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to predict how things will necissarily work because the Creator and his/her/it's interactions would be unpredictable. Or would we be talking about something more like the ascended Ancients (if you're into Stargate)?
On the other hand, quantum uncertainty makes things more interesting. On the subatomic scale, at least, things are generally unpredictable anyway - A creator could very well interact on that scale and it would be impossible to know one way or the other. Any thoughts on this?
The reason many people dislike the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" has to do more with the fact that it is simply a poor piece of satire, and yet people who use it seem to think it's the most witty, ingenious thing since "Candide" or "A Modest Proposal." Come on, surely you can think of something a little more original and subtle than the "Flying Spaghetti Monster."
SFW, baby. SFW. Ask yourself why so many of us are in a mocking mood before you bust out your kneejerk petty moral outrage. Before you make such a pathetic show of your inability to comprehend why everybody seems to be so mean all of a sudden. You'll excuse my being frank with you here -- admittedly that's a bit unfair, as you're only the Nth million dittohead to utter the very same words you just used.
Tolerance can only go so far before being mystically transmuted into stupidity.
IDiots (Intelligent Design idiots) won't be saved by the nice, mindless and obedient "tolerance" espoused by people like you from the mocking they so richly have earned. Sorry -- them's the breaks in a grownup world. They should be thankful they are getting the REAL tolerance (no being killed in mass concentration camps; no being forced through torture to confess crimes they didn't commit, then burned at the stake, etc) that they have so often failed to display towards others throughout history.
nonsense.
the major world christian churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran and other Protestant denominations, and CofE) have all publicly accepted the evolution by natural selection of all modern species including mankind.
very few followers of these churches (which makes up nearly all European christians) believe otherwise.
almost all Europeans who don't believe in evolution are those who've taken up newer Christain doctrines emerging from the US, often by evangelical groups setting up churches, and TV networks.
just accept it, the US is, in this regard, unique. this doesn't make europeans any better or worse, or smarter or anything. just that this particular debate rages only in the USA.
Remember that according to Christianity and Islam, even people who are the most loving, caring, law-abiding and humble will be punished, while unpleasant, bigoted and rude people supposedly get great rewards.
I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get such misinformation about Christianity? (I refrain from mentioning Islam since I do not know enough about it.) The two commandments Jesus gave his followers were to love God above all else, and to love one's neighbor as oneself. Perhaps some Christian sects preach that only avowed believers can be saved, but you can rest assured that not all of them do. Also, being "law-abiding" has little to do with anything in this context.
if they have large stable populations and few prey, then I'd say they were optimal. at least in their environment, and if that stays stable then they stay optimal.
by what criteria are you labelling these stable species 'sub-optimal'? squid are too ugly?
That may be, but there are problems with saying that day = long period of time. First, you'll note that plants are created before the sun. Now it might be plausible to say that plants survived without the light of the sun for 24 hours, but if you start saying "one day = millions/billions of years", you run into trouble. Also, there's the heat issue. Without the sun, the temperature of the earth would be near absolute zero. (Although if you believed in literal 24 hours, you might get away with saying that God heated up the earth until the sun arrived 24 hours later.)
...
...
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, [and] herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.
Second, the sequence of creation is wrong when compared to evolutionary history. The Genesis story has sea creatures, whales, and birds created on the fourth day. It has land animals created on the fifth day. But, evolutionarily speaking, birds and whales are descendents of land animals - they should not appear until after the land animals.
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that [it was] good.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
In the end, I don't think you can get by saying that "day = millions/billions of years" because it does not resolve the differences between Genesis and evolution.
If you like this title, we also recommend...
The Battle of Brazil: A Video History (1996) (V)
I'm sorry, but where on earth did you get such misinformation about Christianity?
From the Bible. It outlines quite clearly that non-acceptance of the Christian deity equals going to hell, regardless of how nice or bad the person in question has been. I've spoken to various Christians over time and while they differ in many points of view and reasoning, they are without exception very clear about what happens to me if I don't accept the Christian deity as reality. Where I can be "saved" (i.e. joining the club) is not the issue.
Are you claiming that Christian heaven is open to atheists, Hindus, Moslims and so on? If so, then your views fall in the category of "some Christian sects".
see a Text Widget
But just because one is not living in fear of something (because they think its just make-believe), does not mean they are unafraid of it.
But here's the point: the common aspect of every major religion that ever existed is the denial of the unpleasant reality of death. You are the one who ducks the confrontation with death and thus require an afterlife to feel OK. You also indicate that you duck confrontations with other-believers because your life is hard (?), yet you make sweeping statements that attract their attention.
I on the other hand welcome an afterlife with enthusiasm. How can you say I am fearful of it? It's unfortunate that the claims are unplausible in my eyes, because I'm actually biased in favour of it.
You didn't answer my question on whether you fear Allah. As I understand, you are in denial of Allah's existence for some reason.
The difference is that my views on life and personal philosophies don't center around denying the existence of 2500 deities. Your views on the other hand depend for a great deal on the denial of death. In fact, one of the most celebrated and most important events in Christianity is the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
Fear seems to be more an inherent concept in Christianity as almost all Christians at some point mention Hell as the end-stop for me if I don't join the cult.
see a Text Widget
...on October 1, 2006, to celebrate its 20,000,001st birthday party!
Best Buy can have you arrested
Who knew we had DNA revision control that goes back that far!
Get rid of everything Micro and Soft: Buy Viagra and/or Linux
"What the bible actually says is...
that the earth is 6,009 years old. "
I searched through the whole thing and nowhere does it say anything about the age of the earth. And this goes without mentioning how a publication based on a foundation of faith is supposed to be used like an encyclopedia to determine a fact like the age of the earth. Use it to determine your faith if you want but leave the facts to the unbiased or at least those who can show hard proof instead of insisting that the earth is flat because of some obscure passage and then turning out to be wrong about it. The bible is not a manual of facts -- if anything in it is true it is because of your faith in it. If it were fact you would have to be able to prove (not merely express belief in) the existence of the spirit you claim created the earth. You can't prove that with uncontested evidence so forget about claiming that is a fact, OK?
That's "heresy" and "al dente". Our Lord, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is displeased.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
That was not the issue. The issue is hop you can _know_ something which you cannot really verify is true.
Actually, the problem with carbon dating is not with nuclear theory. Some fungi and bacteria can produce C14, and can throw off the calculations of decay. This link to the talk.origins newsgroup talks about it: http://tinyurl.com/bwwfk/
Some people say "know" when they mean "state with confidence."
Ok
20 million years ago this spider was trotting around the planet. I would love to see the evolutionary changes in the spider. That would be fantastic! Is noone else excited about this?
I am sure there are many changes in the old spider when examined, and compared, to today's spiders.
It would also give us a little more information about how long spiders have been around. When we look at how basic the spider was 20 million years ago, how natural selection has acted on the particular species of spider.
I would imagine this particular species would be ancestor to many other spider species.
It would also be fantastic if there are any of the spiders surroundings, at the time, were trapped in the hair of the spiders legs - if the spider infact had/needed hair on its legs 20 million years ago.
Also, I find "20 million years" a bit of a rough estimate. Could they not be more specific in regards to the dates? Maybe - twenty million seventeen hundered thousand years ago.
They could quite easily have been out a few million years.
---
"We merely have to swallow it."
As the Catholic priest said to the choirboy.....
Is this Shelob's mom? She waits.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
It's gotta have six asses!
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I have already displeased our Spaghetti Lord by teaching his concepts while NOT wearing full pirate regalia.
marinara ... bleuch!
surely you know he's bolonaissey
Arachno-Jurasic Park
Starring:
Laura Flynn-Boyle
Visit this park where instead of large dinosaurs spiders were cloned using giant tarantula dna. Nono this could even roll out into a sequel combining both Eight Legged Freaks and this one. Where the spiders grow even larger and jump at park attendees.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Some fungi and bacteria can do nuclear transmutation? Oh, joy, then perhaps the legend of the goose who laid the golden eggs is true after all!
Okay, I found the numbers : according to a survey from Harris in June 2005, 55% of the americans think that their kids should learn both "theories". Scary, indeed.
I've found competing numbers--but ultimately if we want to make this a discussion of numbers--check out Wikipedia. They have numbers and statistics from around the world--for instance creationism is MANDATORY in Pakistan and Turkey. Large percentage of germanspeakers believe in creationist theories as well. It's all in wikipedia.
you're getting OT there, I'm perfectly OK with creationism on its own, as a religious belief. It's just that some people in the US are trying to push a religious belief as a scientific alternative theory, in total discord with secularism, and to my knowledge that's the only place in the whole world where this is happening.
Sorry if I was unclear--it's illegal to teach evolution in Pakistan. In Turkey, evolution is not taught in schools, creationism is mandatory. I'm sure MANY other countries are similar to this. The belief in creationism is not limited to the US. Yes, some FEW people in the US are attempting to have Intelligent Design or other theories taught in addition to evolution. I think this is silly, but, it hasn't made much traction either, and judging from numbers, isn't too terribly popular. That's my point.
Forgot to mention in my other reply--it's mention on wikipedia also, but apparently there were movements afoot to pass a dutch law to allow teaching of ID.
Well you're just giving more weight to my point : Pakistan is an Islamic Republic! Islam is the state religion, there's no secularism there, so of course it is illegal to teach evolution over there. (see http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35519.htm) Turkey is supposed to support secularism, as church and state have been set appart since Ataturk, but lately there has been a religious pressure over there, and Turkey is well-known for its problems with human rights. I wouldn't say that you have chosen the best countries to compare with the United States of America...
At any rate, would you have found more recommandable countries in the same situation, it wouldn't change anything : as you said the whole thing is just silly. It's really worrysome that such a thing could happen, as we expect much better from the USA we know and love (I know this would never, ever happen here in France. This couldn't even be considered a single second. Evolution is even taught in religious private schools here, while the creation is only taught where it belongs : in religious education. And even there, it's only being depicted as a metaphor!)
I have met one person that I know for sure believes in a "young earth"
Doesn't sound very scary to me.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
If you look at things objectively, you'll see that science is its' own little religion.
Besides, it's not like the definitive answer of where we came from is all that important.
Better to be concerned about where we are *now* and where it will lead us in future.
It's too trivial a subject to even debate.
I think that saying such a thing is only a way to dismiss the seriousness of the situation. If you look at things in a specific way, and only at things that can confirm that point of view, yes, science can be seen as a religion. The thing is, science isn't just about theories. There are theorems, axioms, postulates, experiments, demonstrations, hypothesis, proofs, analysis, etc... Science isn't about faith. Theories themselves aren't about faith. They're probabilities, and are there to be challenged by the scientific community to be confirmed or invalidated. And theories never come out of the blue : according to what we currently know, they are more or less probable, and compatible with what we hold for scientific facts. Things are always at least double-checked. The evolution theory has been challenged just as well, and still stands today. It is backed by facts and evidences, and evolution in itself has been used practically to improve technology : robots move optimally thanks to generations of computer programs born randomly, breeded, and selected, just like in nature and according to Darwin's theory. The same applies for artificial life, see this for instance : http://www.spiderland.org/breve/
I know that in science sometimes what we held for true yesterday can be wrong tomorrow. For instance the earth was believed to be flat before... But by then science had nothing in common with today's science, and furthermore, that theory was based on faith, just like the intelligent design "theory" is nowadays... which is precisely why such theory is unworthy of our era. And I think that moving the subject onto science is just a spin.
So basically the intelligent design "theory" tells us that the earth is 6000 years old, and that all living things were created at once (well maybe not at once, I guess it should rather be in 6 days?...) What's next? Will they put the Earth back in the center of the universe, with all other celestial objects rotating around it?...
You know I'm perfectly OK with creationism as a religious belief. I just can't stand to see that some try to disguise that as a scientific theory. What facts led to the creation of such theory? What scientific mind wrote a thesis about it? Is there even one? And if there is, will those who support such a view ask the Nobel prize for him? Isn't it troubling to see that this theory has been written nearly word for word in the Bible even before the birth of science as we know it? Is there a scientific collegiate that supports this theory and is working on it? Why is it that those who support this so-called theory do it on a religious basis and not on actual scientific facts? Isn't it worrysome that secularism has to undego such heavy fire, when lobbies put the pressure on schools to make sure that something which has nothing to do there is being taught? Where's the respect for other beliefs? Where's the respect for those who do not believe in God?
Dammit Jim, he's dead-- I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker!
Now, making fun of somebody's beliefs is indeed protected free speech. And using deprecating humor (also known as satire) to make a serious point is a time-honored rhetorical device. But it's also a tad rude and offensive. Sometimes you have to be rude and offensive to make a point, but when you do, you shouldn't be suprised when the object of your mocking takes offense. Religious tolerance, or lack of it, has nothing to do with the conversation.